Inder Malhotra's series on 1962 war

[ramana]

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Shastri gets his way on nuclear policy: Inder Malhotra

But before going to foreign powers for a security guarantee, the PM had to consolidate domestic support

WELL before the All India Congress Committee (AICC) could meet to pronounce its verdict on the raging controversy over whether or not to make the atom bomb to meet the Chinese nuclear threat, Lal Bahadur Shastri had made up his mind not to go for nuclear weapons. Instead, he had resolved to rely on international nuclear security guarantees, particularly from the United States and the Soviet Union. How this was to be achieved was far from clear; indeed, the whole idea seemed tentative and half-baked. In any case, before approaching foreign powers, the prime minister had to consolidate domestic support for his nuclear policy and, for this, endorsement by the AICC was a must.

Therefore, he and the Congress leadership were taken by surprise when the AICC met at Durgapur in West Bengal on November 7. A petition signed by more than 100 members demanded a closed-door session so that the petitioners could pursue their demand that India acquire “an independent nuclear deterrent to protect herself against any possible threat from China”. Strangely, even before the meeting had begun, Mehr Chand Khanna, a senior cabinet minister who had earlier served in the Nehru cabinet, articulated publicly that an Indian bomb should be made without further ado.

According to H.K. Dua, then a young reporter on the spot, he asked Shastri whether Khanna had taken his permission before making such a statement. The answer was “no”. When asked further why he hadn’t repudiated the erring minister, the PM had replied: “So many people are saying so many things; how can I correct them all?”

As almost all newspapers reported, the “majority of speakers at the AICC came out frankly and strongly in favour of making atom bombs”. Two young members who later rose to high positions in the government, K.C. Pant and Krishan Kant, were among them. There was also a suggestion for the appointment of a committee to assess the Chinese menace. Faced with this onslaught, Shastri decided to counterattack, which succeeded because other top party leaders, principally Morarji Desai and Krishna Menon — an odd couple, considering their intense mutual dislike — rallied to the PM’s support. They fully endorsed his moral and economic arguments for sticking to “the Mahatma’s teachings and Nehru’s legacy” and using atomic energy for peaceful purposes only. The high cost of nuclear weapons (Shastri questioned Homi Bhabha’s estimates and the AEC chairman later agreed that he had understated them) also helped the PM’s argument. Desai buttressed it by adding that the Rs 1,000 crore defence budget was already causing great hardship to the people. The huge additional cost of nuclear weapons would be “crushing”.

Eventually, the AICC passed the official resolution to the effect that India “would continue to utilise nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and that India would not enter into a nuclear arms race”. For his part, Shastri made a last-minute concession to his critics by declaring: “We cannot at present think in terms of making atomic bombs in India. We must try to eliminate the atomic bombs in the world”. (Emphasis added). The press called this outcome Shastri’s “triumph”, the Hindustan Times going so far as to hail it as “nothing short of a miracle”. This, however, was not the end of the journey. There were other big hurdles to cross.

Twelve days later Parliament met, ostensibly to discuss foreign policy. But, as everybody knew, the Chinese bomb was the real subject on the agenda. The parliamentary debate was even stormier than that at the AICC. Nath Pai, an eloquent general secretary of the briefly reunited two major socialist groups, set the tone. “Instead of making a dispassionate and calm assessment of the Chinese possession of this dangerous, deadly weapon,” he said, “we have been indulging once again in sentimental platitudes, confusing the whole issue and dragging (into the debate) Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and, for good measure, Lord Buddha and Samrat Ashoka also.”

Most of the speeches that followed were even more critical of the government policy, but Shastri got some support, mainly from Minoo Masani, leader of the Swatantra Party, the highly conservative big business party, now defunct. Paradoxically, tacit support for the PM came also from the other side of the fence: the two communist parties that had split recently but were also reluctant to see the country go nuclear, especially the CPM, generally considered pro-China, as against the pro-Moscow CPI.

However, the comfort that Shastri drew from this turned out to be short-lived. For, on the second and last day of the debate, the Jana Sangh (forerunner of today’s BJP) introduced a resolution explicitly demanding production of atomic bombs. Since the division within the Congress was manifest and looked enduring, the government was very worried. In the end, however, it managed to defeat the resolution by voice vote, partly because many advocates of building nuclear weapons did not want to be counted on the side of the JS because they considered it then, as they consider the BJP now, “communal”.

Even this did not end the PM’s woes. A shrewd judge of his own party’s mood, he realised that he had to mobilise its support and felt this could be best done through the executive committee of the Congress Parliamentary Party that had become very conscious of its power after virtually forcing Nehru to sack Krishna Menon. Under Shastri, it had become even more assertive. He chose to mollify it by announcing that Bhabha had assured him that nuclear explosives could be used both “destructively as well as constructively”. For instance, an underground nuclear explosion could “drill a tunnel across a mountain or construct a canal for people’s welfare”. So he was authorising a Subterranean Nuclear Explosion Project (SNEP).

Unfortunately, soon afterwards erupted the virulent language crisis, followed by the Kutch conflict and the 1965 war with Pakistan. On January 11, 1966, Shastri died at Tashkent. A fortnight later, Bhabha was killed in a plane crash near Mont Blanc that may not have been an accident. For a long while interest was diverted from SNEP and the Chinese bomb.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator

Does anyone think these are unrelated?

[ramana]

One thing is clear both PRC aggression in 1962 and TSP perfidy in 1965 and 1999 are tactical surprises and not strategic surprises for India.

[rohitvats]

Ramana, the more I read about geo political scenario in 40s, 50s and 60s, the more I realise how periliously placef India was. The machinations of the British and then the usa have tried to harm India all the way....I think it reached a crescendo with battering we got in UN for 1971...and again in early 90s with eruption of insurgency in Kashmir. God, how we have managed to save the country against waiting to rip it to shreds....INDIA has been conspired against fron day of its independence.....and IMO, Brits led the pack or acted as the guide

[prashanth]

Rohit saar, very true.
Sometimes, their machinations were subtle. Recall parthenium.
I think we are too harsh on our politicians and babus of the old, at times. They deserve credit for fighting against severe odds and keeping the country united.

[pentaiah]

That is why I believe in the divine Hand that took care of India

[ramana]

Another anniversary went by without anyone but Sandhya Jain noting it!

Nehru sat unmoved as Pakistan took Gilgit

by Sandhya Jain

Indian intellectuals are having difficulty facing two overlapping anniversaries — October 27, when Lord Louis Mountbatten accepted the hurried accession by Maharaja Hari Singh after Pakistan’s invasion of Jammu and Kashmir, and the fiftieth anniversary of the 1962 Sino-Indian war. Having battened on State patronage for decades, our Left-oriented intellectuals cannot cope with the criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru that is central to any honest appraisal of both military encounters in which India took a bloody nose.

This article highlights some deliberately ignored truths about the J&K invasion despite their having trickled into the public domain. Why, for instance, did New Delhi ignore a direct warning by Major Onkar Singh Kalkat about the impending attack planned by General Frank Messervy, British chief of the Pakistan Army, within days of the creation of Pakistan? Kalkat accidentally stumbled on the conspiracy and was placed under house arrest, but made a daring escape and reached Delhi on 18 October 1947. Pakistan had already imposed an economic blockade on J&K. Yet, instead of rushing arms in anticipation of trouble, Nehru and the geo-strategically savvy Mountbatten sat unmoved even after Kalkat’s warning, and enforced further delay by insisting that Hari Singh first sign the Instrument of Accession before sending the Army.

Academics are slowly waking up to the UN’s dubious role in depriving India of Gilgit, coveted by the British to oversee Russia. In fact, Britain had leased Gilgit from the Maharaja for 60 years and integrated Gilgit Agency with the North West Frontier Province. When Gilgit was returned in August 1947, Brigadier Ghansara Singh, General Staff Officer of J&K State Forces, was appointed Governor. He was arrested on midnight of October 31, 1947, by Major Brown of the Gilgit Scouts and the Gilgit Government was handed over to Pakistan soon after.

Brigadier Ghansara Singh wrote a prison diary which exposes the blunders made by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in allowing such a strategic area to fall to the enemy. Singh reveals that prior to taking up his assignment, he met J&K Prime Minister Ram Chandra Kak and objected to the retention of British Officers in Gilgit Scouts as he was sure this would create problems. And even before he left Srinagar he learnt from the State Political Department that all officers of the British Government had opted to serve Pakistan! Yet he was virtually sent alone to take charge of the whole Gilgit administration.

The Political Agent then was Lieutenant Colonel Bacon who did not like the changeover, as a result of which he encountered many problems at every step of the way. The British had even emptied all stores and supplies before his arrival.

Six weeks into his tenure as Governor, Ghansara Singh realised the gravity of the situation on Gilgit given the attitude of the Scouts, 6th Kashmir Infantry, civilian local employees, and the local notables. Shockingly however, he never got a response to any of his appeals from either Ram Chandra Kak, his successor General Janak Singh, and RL Batra, the then Deputy Prime Minister, a grave dereliction of duty on the part of each gentleman, unless historians establish that the missives were intercepted en route.

Barely ten days before the uprising, Ghansara Singh went to Bunji to ascertain the strength available to him in the event of an emergency. He learnt from Lt. Colonel Abdul Majid Khan that there was only one Mohammedan Coy of Captain Hussain Khan which was fit for operations as the Sikh Coy consisted of raw recruits. While here, he learnt of the defection of the Muslim Infantry to Pakistan side and that raiders had taken Muzaffarabad and were marching towards Baramulla.

With a sense of foreboding, Ghansara Singh returned to Gilgit and prepared to die in the line of duty as rumours swirled about an invasion of the Agency via Swat and Chitral. He contacted the Mirs and Governors — who assured him of their loyalty — and called the Raja of Punial. The Raja arrived the same evening that Ghansara was arrested (October 31 – November 1) and was not allowed to meet him.

Singh was surrounded by about 100 Gilgit Scouts led by Major Brown, Lieutenant Haider Khan and Subedar Maj Babur Khan and arrested after an exchange of gunfire. The next morning, he was given an ultimatum to surrender or all non-Muslims would be shot dead. Local eminences like Raja Noor Ali Khan and Tehsildar Sehdev Singh urged him to accept and the Governor, who had no choice, agreed.

In the troubled times that followed, officers and civilians suffered greatly. Hindu and Sikh rank and file were shot on minor pretexts while there was much forcible conversion. Major Brown sent wireless messages to Peshawar asking authorities to recognise Gilgit as part of Pakistan. On November 3, 1947, the Pakistan flag was hoisted at Gilgit. Ghansara Singh was forced to sign a telegram of surrender or all non-Muslims would be shot dead. A fortnight later, Sardar Mohammed Alam from Peshawar took over as Political Agent in Gilgit and the regular Pakistan Army poured into the Agency; Major Brown and Captain Matheson were shunted off to Peshawar.

Ghansara Singh was finally released on January 15, 1949 at Suchetgarh. He assessed the main causes of the fall of Gilgit Agency as inadequate deployment of the army, half of which comprised raw recruits who had not even undergone arms training; the trained Mohammedan coy sided with Pakistan at the instigation of the two British officers who played an active role in the revolution. The Mirs of Hunza and Nagir, who were state guests in Srinagar, had openly told the authorities that they would opt for Pakistan in Gilgit if J&K opted for India.

All in all, the 1947 war is a grim saga of failure of the Government in Delhi and of subsequent generations of historians and intellectuals who had nott dared speak the truth about Gilgit-Baltistan. Interestingly, the Supreme Court of PoK held in a famous petition of Amanullah Khan that Gilgit-Baltistan was an integral part of J&K.

Getting tactical surprises is expected. But when it happens all the time there is a major problem.

[abhishek_sharma]

The battle of Rezang La

[ramana]

The battle of Rezang La

The battle of Rezang La was the only bright spot for India in the 1962 war with China. In this Walk the Talk with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7, Ramchander Yadav and Nihal Singh, two of the six soldiers who survived that battle, look back at the events of that icy November morning 50 years ago

It’s sad that any time we talk about the India-China war of 1962, horrible words like debacle, disgrace, disaster come to our minds. This is the 50th anniversary of that war. It’s a war that this country ideally would love to forget but cannot because it’s etched in our memories as one of the saddest chapters of our independent history. And it’s sadder still that because of that overwhelming sense of failure in that war, we tend to sometimes almost deliberately ignore the one chapter that I think is without parallel in modern post Second World War military history, the battle of Rezang La on November 18, 1962. I will give you a brief history. Charlie Company of a battalion called 13 Kumaon was divided in several platoons on one ridge of two kilometres, protecting the airfield of Chushul which was vital if India was to hold Ladakh. It was attacked on the morning of November 18 by maybe 5,000-6,000 Chinese with heavy artillery support. A crest behind this ridge prevented Indian artillery from being able to support these jawans. And what did these jawans do? They fought to last man, last round. That’s an expression you hear in movies and read in war comics, but that is something that actually happened in the battle of Rezang La. Of the 120 men and officers of this Company, 114 died, five were taken prisoners as wounded—they all escaped—and one was sent back to tell the story of the battle to the rest of the world. And who sent him back? This Company’s most remarkable commander, Major Shaitan Singh, who got a Param Vir Chakra for leading this battle. I am today in Rewari, the area from where these jawans came... It was a Kumaon battalion but this was an Ahir Company from Rewari in Haryana. With me are two of those six survivors—in fact, only four remain with us now—Honorary captain Ramchander Yadav and Havaldar Nihal Singh. So both of you were with Major Shaitan Singh?

Yadav: I was his radio man.

Singh: And I was his personal guard with the light machine gun (LMG).

And you saw the whole war?

Singh: I cannot sleep when those scenes come to my mind. It has been 50 years, yet it seems the war has just taken place.

You were handling LMG for the company commander’s protection. After you were hit by bullets, did you stop firing?

Singh: I disassembled the LMG and threw it so that the enemy could not use it. I was in terrible pain. My body was still. After some time, they pulled me out from the bunker. They asked my name in English. They asked for the names of my Commanding Officer and Brigade Commander. I said no. And then they asked me to go for first aid by communicating in sign language.

You were at 18,000 ft and there was snowfall?

Yadav and Singh: Yes, and the wind was very cold.

Singh: They took me to their post around 5 p.m. I could see their artillery on the other side of the ditch. I thought of running but waited.

How did you escape from their custody?

Singh: The soldiers who took me in custody were walking around and talking. By then it became dark and it occurred to me that I should run. I slowly sneaked out from there. When I walked almost 500 metres, they fired three shots in the air.

You went back to the headquarters?

Singh: Yes, on November 19, around 1 p.m., I reached the headquarters. On November 22, we were admitted to a hospital in Jammu where we were treated.

Yadav saab, you were specially sent back so that others may know the story of the war.

Yadav: Yes, that was the motive of Major saab.

Major Shaitan Singh was not from Rewari. He was from Rajasthan.

Yadav: He was from Rajasthan. He was a Rajput. His name was Shaitan Singh but he was god.

Please describe the scene of that day. The attack started at 3:30 a.m.?

Yadav: I was a sepoy in Charlie Company of 13 Kumaon Regiment and was with the Major at Rezang La post. At 3:30 am, firing took place at the section of Naik Gulab Singh, who later got the Vir Chakra.

This one Company had one Param Vir Chakra, five Vir Chakras, and four Sena medals, including you. Medals were rarely awarded those days, still so many were given. What happened after that?

Yadav: We got alerts. When my officer asked, I said Platoon No 8 had informed that the enemy had attacked. The enemy was trying to climb but the LMG of Hukam Chand (Vir Chakra) killed four. After 10 minutes, Platoon 7 informed me about the attack on them. I asked Surja Ram (Vir Chakra) how things were. He said they had taken their positions and that 400 people were trying to climb from 14,000 ft to 18,000 ft.

All the names of your comrades are written on the memorial here in Rewari. The list here says that 114 jawans killed 1,300 Chinese enemies that day.

Yadav: I saw that with my own eyes. Bodies were lying all around.

So when you knew that thousands of Chinese were coming, that they had artillery support while your artillery wouldn’t reach you because of the huge mountain behind you, was it evident that you had to stay put?

Yadav: Yes, there was no going back then.

Did anyone think of saving their own lives, withdrawing? What did the Major tell you?

Yadav: The Major said if we have to withdraw, then do it. But the jawans and the JCOs said we will not leave Rezang La. We have the blessings of Lord Krishna. The Major said I am with you and I am a Yadav too, so what if my name is Bhati?

What happened next? Where were you and the Major when the fire came?

Yadav: I was at the command post with platoons on either side on the two-kilometre ridge. I was with the Major. After a while, a message came from Platoon No 8. Hari Ram (Vir Chakra) said the enemy was coming through the ridge, but we would kill them once they are in range. They repulsed that attack.

Many Chinese died. Did you see their bodies?

Yadav: Yes. They were lying scattered like berries in a market. They kept climbing up, and we were at our post. Two attacks were repulsed. Then, Platoon 7 was attacked. They didn’t attack Platoon 9 even though it was at the front. Their plan was to isolate Platoon 9. But they didn’t know that our commander had made arrangements so that no one could climb up.

So you had made a killing ground?

Yadav: Yes, the third and fourth attacks on Platoon 8 were also repulsed. Then they attacked with full force. That’s when Surja Ram declared, Ramchander, now is the time when we will all fight out of our posts in the name of hand-to-hand combat. My communication with Platoon 7 stopped. Communication started with Platoon 8 when 14-15 yaks and around 700 Chinese took position on the ridge in between us and Platoon 8.

They came from behind?

Yadav: Yes, first we thought it was our battalion’s Alpha Company that had come to help us. We thought the CO might have sent them for our help but when they started positioning their yaks and machine guns, then Havaldar Major Harphool Singh said this is the enemy. After that, the Major ordered for nine platoons to be sent from the headquarters. Since the enemy was going to attack Platoon 8, we would attack them from behind and they would be trapped between Platoon 8 and us and we would finish them.

So you saw many of your colleagues being martyred before your eyes, bayonets in hand, in hand-to-hand combat?

Yadav: Yes, I saw some like (Naik) Singh Ram (Vir Chakra) catching hold of their heads and smashing them together. What he did to the Chinese earned him their respect. Before the Chinese left, they sank a bayonet in the ground near his head, and put a helmet on top. They gave him izzat, samman, they kept a note there. We have seen that note.

Singh: If Major saab (Maj Shaitan Singh) had been around, they would have thought ye morcha kahaan chalaa gayaa...

The Chinese took out Major saab’s morcha first. They were able to see everything (about the Indian position). So, Singh Ram and the others, they were fighting with bayonets?

Yadav: Yes, but sometimes the bayonets wouldn’t work. The Chinese were wearing thick parkas, and the bayonets couldn’t penetrate them. I saw our men, stabbing repeatedly with their bayonets, and the blade would not go through. So Singh Ram just grabbed them by their necks and smashed their heads together and against rocks.

He was a wrestler...

Yadav: Bahut tagda pehelwaan tha.He could catch people like me by the scruff of our necks and say, ‘C’mon, heat the milk’. I was his boxer.

Nihal saab, you have narrated the story of how you escaped. Did anyone else manage to get away as well?

Singh: No one with me.

Yadav: Oh yes, one more, Ram Pal escaped. The next day.

Ramchanderji, tell me, what did you do?

Yadav: When we were overrun—my saab was lying motionless, and I was wounded—I remembered what (Company Havaldar Major) Harphool (Singh) had said, ‘Do not let the Chinese get their hands on Major saab’s body.’ So I opened the sling of the rifle and tied Major saab to myself with the belt, joining our bodies together at the waist. And then, slowly, I started to roll.

The Major was still alive?

Yadav: There was very little life left in him. After about 10 yards, there was gravelly ground, and I started rolling down faster. I rolled for 400 yards, and then there was a nullah, after that boulders again. After rolling for 400 yards, I stopped near a boulder to catch my breath. I was thinking that the Company headquarters are below, so I should try to somehow get a couple of people from there to help me, so I can take saab down. But when it was 8.15 by his watch, I noticed that the Major saab was no longer alive. Because Major saab’s watch ran by his pulse, and when the pulse stopped, the watch stopped as well. I took off the Major’s gloves, and slid his body between boulders to hide it, so that it remained safe until someone could come to fetch it. Then I made my way down. I came down about a kilometre, to the point from where our rations were supplied. I saw that the quarter master’s depot was in flames.

The few people who were there had left after setting the depot on fire...

Singh: Haan, Company to khatm ho hi gayi thi...

Yadav: Yes, the commander had called them back. I wondered what to do. And then I saw one of our jeeps, with the occupants signalling to me. I moved towards them.

You were the only one who returned alive from that battle... So, when you narrated that story, did your commanders believe you?

Yadav: Only one commander believed me. D D Shukla, who was the adjutant... He said every word of what he is saying is true. Then Dhingra saab also believed this, and the brigade commander, he too accepted the real story...

But when you came to Delhi, and your debriefing took place, did people believe you?

Yadav: The atmosphere in Delhi was such that I did not even feel like having food. Because, if I give a statement, and that statement is contradicted immediately by my commander...

Why did your commander contradict your statement?

Yadav: He said I had gone crazy, he warned me I could be court-martialled, he said we could not have killed so many Chinese.

So they were saying you were so few people, you could not have killed so many Chinese?

Yadav: Right. So I said, saab, ek baat hai, aap haalaat ko dekhiye (Sir, please see the circumstances). You come there and I will tell you how we killed so many. I said, you note down these three points: Major saab’s body, his gloves with his blood; in the Company, you will find every jawan with bullet wounds on his chest, you will not get wounds on their backs; nursing assistant Dharam Pal, he put bandages on 32 wounded soldiers, and he died while bandaging his comrades.

So, tell me more.

Yadav: The jawan, he is holding the light machine gun, and he has bullets in his chest, and is dead...But the machine gun hasn’t fallen from his hands even when he is dead, he is clasping the machine gun. And the jawan throwing the grenade, dead, with the grenade still in his hands, the Chinese couldn’t take the grenade off his hand.

And many were found with their bayonets too?

Yadav: Yes, with their bayonets in their hands, in a crouching position, bullets in their chest, dead, holding the naked bayonet in a fighting stance.

Their bodies had frozen.

Yadav: Yes, the bodies were all frozen. Our commander saab (Brigadier Raina, who later became the Army Chief) became so emotional that his artificial eye moved from its position. He burst into tears. He was told, ‘Sir, have courage, calm down, this is war, the jawans have done their very best...’ Those who came from Delhi were told, ‘Come with us to the quarter master’s.’ They said, ‘No, this is enough. We have seen what we had to see. Whatever you had said was actually an understatement. Each one of you killed 10 Chinese, and then you died.’ So, this was the battle of Rezang La.

That is what Lata Mangeshkar sang, didn’t she, dus dus ko ek ne maara... And even the Chinese accepted it. When you hear repeatedly that in 1962, the Indian Army lost, the Indian Army did not fight, does it hurt you?

Yadav, Singh: It happened. In Bomdila, in NEFA.

{A real soldier who admits things as they are doesnt make up stuff. My contact treated Maj Shaitan Singh after he was brought from Rezang La}

Why did it happen?

Yadav: That was the fault of our commanders. When the general himself goes away to Delhi, then who will fight the war? We gave our everything.

So what would you like to tell today’s jawans and officers? What lesson should they learn from the battle of Rezang La?

Yadav: You see, my battalion got another chance after Rezang La, near Jaisalmer....

Singh: In 1971.

Yadav: Everyone has to die one day, but let us do something before we die. My son is also in 13 Kumaon. In the 1999 war, he was hit by a shell on his chest, and the doctor called me to the hospital. He said, ‘We suggest that you let the splinter be, trying to take it out might create problems...’ So my son is there, living with it.

Have the two of you seen the film Haqeeqat, because it has been made on the battle of Rezang La? Kar chale hum fida jaanon tan saathiyon, ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon...

Yadav: But we have not been acknowledged in the film. I left the hall midway and walked out.

Why? Because it said Punjab?

Yadav: Yes. We fought the war, it should have been Kumaon. There are so many battalions—Kumaon, Rajput, Jat, Sikh—so why is there no battalion for us? Why don’t they give us an Ahir battalion as well?

The battle that was shown (in Haqeeqat), was that okay?

Yadav: It was okay, but I left midway when I saw what was written on the shoulder.

And what lovely lyrics. Zinda rehne ke mausam bahut hain magar... jaan dene ki rut roz aati nahin...

Yadav: This is what I tell my child, arey baawla, khali haath aaya hai, khaali haath jaana hai (you have come into this world with nothing, and you will leave with nothing). Do something while you are alive. Your father fought a war and you are in the same unit.

The battle that you fought changed the course of the war of 1962. Because, if you had not fought off the Chinese, they would have captured Chushul that very day. But because you fought so bravely, the others got some time, and could withdraw, and some others were able to fortify defences. And the Chinese also suffered so much.

Yadav: Yes, they could not sustain it after Rezang La. They had to declare a ceasefire. It is here that they got the big blow, not in Bomdila, not in NEFA... This is where we held on, and fought them back.

Just to explain the significance of this battle. This wasn’t just the charge of the light brigade, a brave but foolhardy charge. It actually brought about a strategic turnaround in the war of 1962, because it broke the Chinese advance, the Chinese momentum. It is our good fortune that people like these survived, just a handful of them, to tell us the story.

Transcribed by Sonam Chauhan

[brihaspati]

Ramana, the more I read about geo political scenario in 40s, 50s and 60s, the more I realise how periliously placef India was. The machinations of the British and then the usa have tried to harm India all the way....I think it reached a crescendo with battering we got in UN for 1971...and again in early 90s with eruption of insurgency in Kashmir. God, how we have managed to save the country against waiting to rip it to shreds....INDIA has been conspired against fron day of its independence.....and IMO, Brits led the pack or acted as the guide

It was meant to be perilous, but only a tremendously dumb mind would expect the Brits not to do everything possible to get their revenge - and the slightest of study of British state mindset over history should have warned any brain claiming to lead India as to what level of perfidy and sadism the British state could sink to, if it felt humiliated.

The criminality lies in
(1) denying and suppressing every possible information, voice, and force that opposed/exposed the Chinese moves, while being constantly warned of the same right from 1950 onwards,
(2) strengthening the hands of China internationally, politically and militarily - while ranting against Chinese motivationa sin the very same areas, privately - all the way from 1950-54-59,
(3) not having the personal integrity to own up to the personal, almost singlehanded responsibility in appeasing the Chinese and obstructing anti-Chinese forces within India as well as abroad - but passing it on as a "collective" responsibility of the "we" and some "scapegoats".

The supreme importance given to preserving personal image of infallibility over and above that of the nation, played no small role in the whole sequence of dumb moves including appeasement that facilitated 1962.

PS: that is why it is so crucial to encourage people to acknowledge their errors personally, and make this a socially lauded and desired habit. People who persistently refuse to acknowledge their errors, lies, or trip-ups belong to the same class of criminals who managed to worm into state power and persistently damaged India's interests out of their personal pride and megalomania of preserving their image. Refusing to acknowledge erros leads to stubborn refusal to make course corrections in time - and do things later, when it is already too little, too late.

[rohitvats]

BTW, how many of us knew about this:

The first officer to be bestowed the prestigious Param Vashist Seva Medal was Gen BM Kaul, a distant kin of Nehru. The citation read – ” For successfully completing the project ‘Amar’ which entailed the construction of 1,450 quarters for troops in Ambala. This was the first project of its kind and was completed through hot weather and the monsoons in the face of numerous problems. Lt.-Gen. Kaul overcame these difficulties by dint of hard work and initiative of the highest order. He displayed organising ability, drive, and resourcefulness. It was by his determination, leadership and personal example that the task was completed by due date.”

[rohitvats]

A very detailed description of the battle of Walong:

http://improveacrati.wordpress.com/2010 ... 17th-1962/

Excerpt:

Out of a total Indian garrisson strength of 2191, the killed were 17%,wounded 13% and 16% were taken POW – making a total casualty figure of 46% – which is pretty awesome.

The gallantry awards were one Maha Vir Chakra and nine Vir Chakras.

As for the Chinese, the three large grave yards at Bathithwang, Tithong and Chikhong, are ample testimony to their war dead.

In the final analysis, the units at Walong, even in defeat, upheld the name and honor of the Indian Army and made the nation proud.

[ramana]

Hindu, KS Bajpai

The unlearned lesson of 1962

The unlearned lesson of 1962
K. Shankar Bajpai


We lacked statecraft 50 years ago. But we are no better today, as our bad habits persist while the vitiating pressures have become even more alarming

Our extensive retrospection on the drubbing we contrived to suffer in October-November 1962, ought to be as salutary as it is necessary, but the right questions must be asked — and by the right people. What went wrong, who were the villains, can there be a repeat, are we better prepared — all these carry many lessons but the comprehensiveness of our failures points to an equally comprehensive weakness: we could not behave as a state capable of looking after its affairs. Beyond material strengths, it is how one functions that counts. Without underestimating all that we have since achieved, we must realise that our bad habits have not improved while the vitiating pressures have become even more alarming.

Assess challenges

Any state expecting to be taken seriously must first organise itself to behave seriously. Assess the challenges you may face, distinguish between the imminent and contingent, inform yourself as fully as possible on relevant data, with specific intelligence on what the sources of challenge might be up to, assess the capabilities — of yourself and others — calculate whether you have or can develop those capabilities up to required levels, whether you need to temporise or seek external balancing arrangements, not least consider how the global situation might affect your interest; then plan, prepare, implement. These elements of statecraft are so rudimentary, they shouldn’t need enumeration, but statecraft is precisely what we have lacked: 1962 was the culmination of many years of what might most politely be called amateurishness in all these respects.

Just how badly we lacked the two essentials of statecraft — careful judgment and appropriate action — were underlined by two different authors of our debacle. Jawaharlal Nehru himself confessed to the first, telling Parliament on October 25: “We were getting out of touch with reality in the modern world, and were living in an artificial atmosphere of our own creation.” Today’s realities are no less compelling, but no less lost in “the artificial atmosphere” we persist in creating for ourselves. Is there any part of our political spectrum in the least interested in learning from any aspect of 1962?

On our second failure, just how unbelievably we acted is brought out vividly, if unintentionally, in B.N. Mullik’s Chinese Betrayal. The title itself ‘betrays’ a fault: the shocked, hurt, accusatory blaming of others, blind to one’s own responsibility. What did the Chinese ‘betray’, except our folly? They behaved as states do and we did not: work with care and calculation towards chosen ends. In that process, they made fools of us but whether that reflects their duplicity or our ineptitude is quite a question.

{More than that the Indian leaders betrayed the Indina people who tursted them to the right thing. The DIEnasty sychophants think they owe nothing to the people and have still classified the Henderson-Brooks report as a way to prserve this false honor and dignity of failed leaders. In addition to the nummeorus causalties we also lost our land to China which despite no grass is still our land.}

Still apparently revered in our intelligence ranks, Mullik, virtually the first Indian head of the Intelligence Bureau, depicts a handful of courtiers milling around as though trying to anticipate what a Shahinshah would like. As in a court, a mere handful of favourites appear to run everything — Defence Minister Krishna Menon, Foreign Secretary M.J. Desai, Defence Joint Secretary Harish Sarin (a fine officer caught in a quandary) and, of course, our ubiquitous author, with the Army Chief and some others periodically roped in. The Cabinet hardly mattered, the Secretary General, External Affairs, and the Defence Secretary had no role, no structured, systematic decision-making process was ever attempted — the Defence Minister’s daily meetings, triggered by September 8, seem to have been occasions primarily for Mr. Mullik to poke his nose into Army affairs.

Mullik records innumerable examples of egregiousness. “By August 1962 [Lt. Gen. B.K.] Kaul and Krishna Menon were practically not on speaking terms.” On September 17, KM accordingly rejects Mullik’s urgings to call Kaul back from leave as CGS. But on October 1, he somersaults, appointing Kaul Corps Commander against Mullik’s professed objections. The only reason — the Minister thought it would please Nehru to see a fellow Kashmiri appointed. Then comes surely the most bizarre conduct of battles in history: the front Commander evacuated from the front, issuing orders to it from his sick-bed 1000 km away in Delhi, with the Defence Minister, the Army Chief and the great IB Director in nightly attendance.

Confusion in Assam

The episode that would be most farcical of all, were it not the most heartbreaking, was the withdrawal of civil administration from northern Assam. Mullik recalls the Cabinet ordering the civil administration to remain in place. He arrives with Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tezpur to learn that, instead, it has been ordered out of all the north. Rushing back to Delhi, he discovers the Assam Governor persuaded Cabinet Ministers to change their original orders — but the Prime Minister has no idea how the change was made! To cap it all, our hero decides to leave the IB and return to Assam to organise guerrilla resistance when the Chinese moved in — apparently forgetting that a ceasefire and withdrawal had been proclaimed three days earlier.

One day he is recommending various Army appointments, even a new Army Chief, another he is flying off to the front to have his say on operations, shuttling back and forth thrice in the crucial week. As late as two weeks before the Chinese attack of October 20, he is insisting that the only real danger is Pakistan, where “Ayub was on the prowl”; seven years after being proved wrong, he still insists he was right. That he had no business being involved in any of these things, but sticking to providing intelligence, never enters his mind.

{Finally the falacy of intelligence making policy is revealed. Also, I long ago commented that the police background of IB makes it unsuitable to look at foregin intelligence and was harangued about it all these long years!}

Let us not just blame individuals: the whole system, if one can call it that, was sheer Alice-in-Wonderland. Every leader specially trusts someone, consulting him/her even on extraneous matters, but such wholesale meddling, or Krishna Menon’s manipulations and prejudices, which most of all undermined the Army morale and efficiency and corrupted policy, are the hallmarks of old, personalised, court-style government. Lately, the fashion has grown to criticise Panditji for everything that went, or is, wrong with us. Given his surpassing command of the country he cannot, of course, be spared: even allowing for the still underestimated intrigues to misuse the China crisis to unseat him (with no little encouragement from external sources), his responsibility for mishandling is undeniable. He was so great, we owe him so much, and need his kind of approach to building up India so badly, noting his faults is no diminution of his stature, but that is not our Indian way: our heroes are faultless, our villains wholly evil. Such attitudes leave no scope for objective, dispassionate, impersonal thinking.

Of course individuals matter — in India far more than in countries where institutions and methodical processes minimise the idiosyncratic — but to let them take over or bypass institutions and run things by whim is to sink back into medieval ways. In that respect, how different is today from then? Despite our successes in consolidating democracy, we have still not accepted the concept of the state as an entity intended to serve all of society and demanding the loyalty of all citizens above all their other affiliations. For us, the state is the ruler, which readily leads into the habits of the Mughal court habits so prevalent by 1962, that they more than anything else led to our humiliation — much as at Plassey. They are now rampant.

Contrast in attitude

There is a lesson even in the contrast between our commemoration of what happened 50 years ago and China’s studied silence. We are spared the mortification of her celebrating a victory, not because what weighs so heavily on us was a minor episode to the Chinese: enough has come out to indicate how purposefully they planned their major enterprise (though misreading us too). The current show of indifference represents the calculated pursuit of national ends, as against our excitable, ad hoc ways.

From misreadings of what might happen, to the north-eastern chaos following defeat, how we handled affairs then displays a state simply not organised to cope with major challenges. Doubtless, we now have more professionalism in many ways. The NSA and the NSC apparatus constitute a vast improvement; there is also an incipient strategic community to guide public opinion. But public opinion has become less open to guidance, political circles have become even more impervious to facts, reality or sense, and our politico-administrative complex is more cumbersome, unproductive and parochial. Whether our military are better equipped, or have the required infrastructure or intelligence inputs, etc., are vital questions but secondary to our overriding concern: how mature is the Indian state now?

One only has to ask to start worrying.

(K. Shankar Bajpai is former Ambassador to Pakistan, China & the U.S., and Secretary, External Affairs Ministry)

Looks like retirement and the 1962 anniversary has opened his tongue. Maybe death of Brajesh Mishra also might have forced him to talk as the last ot he titans is no more.

[Virupaksha]

The unlearned lesson of 1962
K. Shankar Bajpai


One day he is recommending various Army appointments, even a new Army Chief, another he is flying off to the front to have his say on operations, shuttling back and forth thrice in the crucial week. As late as two weeks before the Chinese attack of October 20, he is insisting that the only real danger is Pakistan, where “Ayub was on the prowl”; seven years after being proved wrong, he still insists he was right. That he had no business being involved in any of these things, but sticking to providing intelligence, never enters his mind.

{Finally the falacy of intelligence making policy is revealed. Also, I long ago commented that the police background of IB makes it unsuitable to look at foregin intelligence and was harangued about it all these long years!}

(K. Shankar Bajpai is former Ambassador to Pakistan, China & the U.S., and Secretary, External Affairs Ministry)

Looks like retirement and the 1962 anniversary has opened his tongue. Maybe death of Brajesh Mishra also might have forced him to talk as the last ot he titans is no more.

The reason why RAW was established is clear from this. From the political (Nehru/Gandhi court) perspective, it IS the duty of IB to meddle into these.

[ramana]

No RAW was estabilshed by Mrs IG in 1968.

In 1965 IB again was not able to discern the TSP raising an armored division nor an appreciation of TSP war reserves. All this despite TSP being more important threat than China per their bosses.

[Virupaksha]

I would say that both are true. It was the time which they system took to sink in the lesson after the horrible Nehruvian ruins where there was absolutely no foreign policy with Indian interests at heart and the foreign policy being treated completely either as an utopia or as an extension of internal policy (Nehru's chamchagiri).

As usual Nehru wasnt one who could learn any lesson, if it was staring right infront of him. So after Nehru's death, LBS introduced the post of foreign affairs minister after an initial delay. Indira continued the ministers for a short while and when she took back the ministry, it was then that RAW was established and then the minister of external affairs becomes an almost permanent feature in our cabinet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_o ... rs_(India)

Of course it doesnt mean that the lesson has been completely learnt. What they learnt that there has to be atleast some amount of Indian interests has to be a feature in our diplomacy, which could be different from ruling interests.

[pentaiah]

Defence Joint Secretary Harish Sarin (a fine officer caught in a quandary)

from ramana jis post


http://www.himalayanclub.org/journal/in-memoriam-8/

HARISH CHANDRA SARIN (1914-1997)

Harish Chandra Sarin, who died in New Delhi on 27 January, 1997, will be remembered for playing the most significant role in the development and growth of mountaineering in India. His contribution to Indian mountaineering will undoubtedly remain unique and outstanding. He looked after the administration of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling for 27 long years and remained President of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation for 23 years. He was associated with all the Mountaineering Institutes in India since their inception.

Harish Sarin was born in Deoria (UP) on 27 May 1914. A wrangler from Cambridge University, he joined the Indian Civil Service in 1938. During his 48 years of distinguished career, he held the posts of Defence Secretary for 6 years, Adviser to the Governors of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, Principal Adviser to the Governor of Assam, Chairman, Committee on Telecommunications, Chairman, Railway Reforms Committee and Ambassador of India to Nepal in the Honorary Rank of Minister of State. In 1942 he married Pushpa, daughter of Ganpat Rai of Lahore.

In the field of adventure, as a young student, he cycled 3000 km in Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 1937 and did rock climbing in the Lake District of U.K. He youth-hostelled in many parts of Britain and was the oldest Member of Sir Edmund Hillary’s From the Ocean to the Sky Expedition in 1977. Sarin was an Honorary Member of the Himalayan Club, Bombay, the Alpine Club, London and the Japanese Alpine Club, Tokyo. He was elected vice President of the World Body of Mountaineering (UIAA) for 3 years from 1989. For his distinguished services to the country, he was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 1974. For his unique and distinguished contribution to the cause of mountaineering in India and to the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, he was awarded the First Special I.M.F. Award in 1993.

Please recall that he was the Advisor to Governor of AP in 1973 after the fall of PVNR rule due to separate Andhra agitation (PVNR was from Telegana Karimnagar) hence Andhra Kamma's did not like it. (My assumption)

By the way the joke is BM Kaul was from ASC and worst we had no supply logistics

[pentaiah]

Ok I was scared to read about BM Kaul param visisht seva medal. because VK Menon ordered OFPs make kerosene wick stoves for civilian market and Lt. Gen BM Kaul executed it to perfection.

[ramana]

However VK Krishna Menon did make sure that permanent quarters are provided for the Army personnel all over the country. Prior to that it was all at the mercy of the local building owners.

Meanwhile book report in Pioneer

The Classified Report

1962 and the McMahon line Saga

Author: Claude Arpi

Publisher: Lancer Books, Rs895

Details of the Sino-Indian war, closely examined in the 1963 Henderson-Brooks Report, remain obsessively guarded by the Government of India. Claude Arpi’s latest book tells us why. Excerpts

Fifty years have passed since China entered NEFA and Ladakh. This event has so deeply traumatised India that the Sino-Indian conflict has remained a scar in the nation’s psyche, partly because we do not know what exactly happened.

While it is today possible to get some hints of what took place from Indian official sources (the Official History of the 1962 War prepared by the Ministry of Defence and a number of White Papers published by the Ministry of External Affairs), but also from memoirs written by the main actors like Brig John Dalvi, Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad, Maj Gen DK Palit or Lt Gen BM Kaul as well as CIA, Russian and Chinese sources, but the main Indian report prepared by Lt Gen Henderson-Brooks and Brig Prem Bhagat is unfortunately still the most secret document of the Indian Republic.

Having lost hope that the famous document will one day be declassified, I have tried to guess: “What on earth has stopped the Government to declassify the report?”

Though portions of it were read out in Parliament by then Defence Minister YB Chavan in 1963, the gist seems to be missing.

A book helps us to understand the background of the Henderson-Brooks Report. Between 1962 and 1965, RD Pradhan was the Private Secretary of YB Chavan, who took over as Defence Minister from the disgraced VK Krishna Menon after the debacle of October 1962. Pradhan’s memoirs give great insights on the reasoning of the then Defence Minister who ordered the report: “For Chavan the main challenge in the first years was to establish relationship of trust between himself and the Prime Minister. He succeeded in doing so by his deft-handling of the Henderson-Brooks Report of Inquiry into the NEFA reverses.”

The Private Secretary elaborated on the Defence Minister’s sentiments during the following months: “During the conduct of the enquiry, Chavan was apprehensive that the committee may cast aspersions on the role of the Prime Minister or the Defence Minister.” Pradhan adds: “His (Chavan’s) main worry was to find ways to defend the Government and at the same time to ensure that the morale of the armed forces was not further adversely affected. For that he repeatedly emphasised in Parliament that the enquiry was a fact-finding one and to ‘learn lessons’ for the future and it was not a ‘witch-hunt’ to identify and to punish the officers responsible for the debacle.”

It is clear that the main objective of Chavan was to defend the Government, in other words, ‘defend Nehru’ and the political coterie around him who were responsible for the death of nearly 2,000 Indian officers and jawans.

Chavan’s Secretary concludes: “It was a tribute to his sagacity and political maturity that he performed his role to the full satisfaction of Parliament and also earned the gratitude of the Prime Minister.” He obviously earned Nehru’s gratitude because he managed to absolve him of any wrong even though the Prime Minister was the main culprit.

In 2008, answering a question on the report, Defence Minister AK Antony told Parliament that the Henderson-Brooks Report could not be made public because an internal study by the Indian Army had established that its contents “are not only extremely sensitive but also of current operational value”.

At first sight it seems strange that this 49-year-old report is still of ‘operational value’. Does the Minister mean reverse operational value? It is probably a manual of what should not be done in case of a conflict with China or any other country. All the more reason to study it!

Were the officials who drafted the Minister’s reply aware of another report, Official History of the Conflict with China (1962), prepared by the same Defence Ministry, detailing the famous ‘operations’ in 474 foolscap pages?

Under the Right to Information Act, veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar applied to the Ministry of Defence on December 7, 2005, seeking the following information: “May I request you to make me available a copy of the report by the retired Lt-Gen Henderson-Brooks on the China-India War in 1962. This is now 43-year-old and should have been formally available in the Archives of India, some 30 years after it was submitted to the Government of India.”

The respondent, the Ministry of Defence, dragged its feet for months and tried to take refuge behind the Section 8(1). The stand of the Defence Ministry was explicitly given during a hearing of the Commission on March 7, 2009: “It was submitted by Col Raj Shukla that the report prepared by Lt-Gen Henderson-Brooks and Brig Prem Bhagat was a part of internal review conducted on the orders of the then Chief of the Army Staff, Gen (JN) Choudhary. Reports of internal review are not even submitted to the Government, let alone placed in the public domain. Disclosure of this information will amount to disclosure of the Army’s operational strategy in the Northeast and the discussion on deployments has a direct bearing on the question of the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control between India and China, a live issue under examination between the two countries at present.”

The fact that “reports of internal review are not even submitted to Government, let alone placed in the public domain”, is absolutely untrue, as long extracts were read in Parliament by the Defence Minister. But it has a “direct bearing on the question of the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control” may give us a hint in which direction to look for an answer to our query.

In a ‘decision notice’ dated March 19, 2010, the Central Information Commission said: “We have examined the report specifically in terms of its bearing on present national security. There is no doubt that the issue of the India-China border, particularly along the Northeast parts of India, is still a live issue with ongoing negotiations between the two countries on this matter. The disclosure of information, of which the Henderson Brooks report carries considerable detail on what precipitated the war of 1962 between India and China, will seriously compromise both security and the relationship between India and China, thus having a bearing both on internal and external security. We have examined the report from the point of view of severability u/s 10(1). For reasons that we consider unwise to discuss in this Decision Notice, this Division Bench agrees that no part of the report might at this stage be disclosed.”

It seems a nonsense as large parts had already been disclosed by the Defence Minister himself as well as by Neville Maxwell, the author of India’s China War, who had the ‘privilege’ to access a copy of the report from which he abundantly quoted in his book.

Looking for hints why the Henderson-Brooks report has never been released, the following sentence gives some indications: “There is no doubt that the issue of the India-China border, particularly along the Northeast parts of India, is still a live issue with ongoing negotiations between the two countries on this matter.”

It is where one needs to look.

Operation Onkar

It is necessary to return two years earlier in history to understand the situation on the eve of the tragedy. The Government of India had mooted a new policy; to quote the Official Report of the Ministry of Defence: “In NEFA, ‘Operation Onkar’ was launched in 1960. According to this plan, there was to be a large expansion of the Assam Riffles, and units were to be posted all along the frontier and also in the areas not occupied till then. Those posts were to be manned by Assam Riffles personnel but were to be established under Army supervision. The siting of these posts and their exact locations were, however, decided mainly by the Intelligence Bureau and not the Army, although the Army Headquarters, on being consulted in this respect, had authorised the Eastern Command to site those posts as they deemed it fit.”

It became the famous ‘Forward Policy.’ It was the brainchild of Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister, with the full support of the Prime Minister who had however said that posts should not be established in ‘disputed areas.’

The Official Report continues: “In the wake of this order, efforts were further intensified. In the Eastern Sector some Assam Rifles platoons were placed under 4 Inf Div in May 1962 which speeded up the establishment of forward posts “as close to the border as possible” under ‘Op Onkar.’ By July 20, 1962, a total number of 34 posts (eight in Kameng, eight in Subansari, seven in Siang and 11 in Lohit Frontier Divisions) were established in NEFA along the border with Tibet. Those posts included one at Dhola, established a little south of the Namkha Chu on June 4, 1962 under the guidance of Captain Mahavir Prasad of 1 Sikh who accompanied the Assam Rifles party. In June 1962 the HQ 4 Inf Div (Infantry Division) designated Tawang as the Divisional Vital Grounds, and consequently, 5 Inf Bde (Infantry Brigade) was moved to Tawang to strengthen the defences of the town. As regards of the availability of troops, a total of 3 Inf Bde and 54 platoons of Assam Rifles stood deployed for the security of a long border along very difficult terrain.”

The local Commanders (Corps, Division and Brigade) were not happy and they made it known, but nothing could stop the folly of the ‘authorities’ in Delhi.

As the GOC, Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad noted, the local officers had no choice; they could perhaps have resigned, but in an almost war situation, it was not an easy decision to take.

As mentioned, Captain Prasad established a post at a place known as Tse Dong (Chinese, Che Dong), at the bottom of Dhola peak, on the southern bank of the Namka Chu. The post later entered in history as the ‘Dhola Post.’ Though Captain Prasad’s maps showed the McMahon Line as passing to the south of the Thagla ridge, the political representative present in his party, assured him that the ridge was part of the Indian territory; however, when the young Captain came back to his base after setting up the post, he reported the matter to Divisional Headquarters, which in turn cabled the Corps and Army Headquarters. By then, it was July 20.

General Prasad extensively debriefed Captain Prasad and “became convinced that the Thagla ridge was indeed the main watershed.”

The Divisional Commander thought that the wisest strategy was for India to immediately occupy Thagla Ridge; he later wrote: “Had that permission been granted to me promptly, this story may never have had to be written.”

Brigadier Dalvi writes that the setting up of the Dhola Post was one crucial factor for the subsequent conflict. In his Himalayan Blunder, Dalvi questions how the Dhola Post came into existence: “We seemed to have ventured most casually into a potentially explosive commitment. Instead of working in water-tight compartments, we should have alerted the whole Army and prepared for a clash. Once the decision to locate a post in a disputed area was taken by the Civil Authority, then the necessary force should have been positioned within striking distance. Civil Supremacy cannot be invoked after 40,000 Chinamen appear on the scene to challenge the presence of 40 ill-armed men, in an area of disagreement.”

Who was informing the ‘civil supremacy’? The Intelligence Bureau and its Director had probably no clue about the Chinese preparations and even less about the political upheavals going on in Beijing...

Brig Dalvi put it rather bluntly: “It is known that many generals, including General Umrao Singh, opposed the indiscriminate opening up of more posts. Who forced him to open Dhola? Surely, India was not landed in the straits of 1962 by an unplanned and thoughtless drift into a disputed area because of an archaic map? The opening up of posts in undisputed areas cannot be questioned. The setting up of posts in disputed territory is a different matter. It is an act of rashness, whoever decreed it and with whatever authority; unless we had the means to settle the resultant dispute on the battlefield.”

The Henderson-Brooks Report probably shed some light on some of these issues. This could explain why it is still kept secret nearly 50 years after its publication. The names of the culprits are known but will probably remain a state secret for the years to come.

[narmad]

one of the reasons Why Air Force was not used in 1962

Indian Air Force was ill-prepared for a war with China Posting in Part
Can you fight an Air War without any powerful Ground interception Radar and other supporting modern communication links? ( Today’s Fighter Pilots will laugh at such suggestions.)
We did not have any GCI radar with MTI capability that could detect targets under heavy clutter (mountainous terrain) either in the Western Sector or the Eastern sector. We had poor communication facilities.
The only Radar at that time available in Air Force that had a moving Target Indication under heavy clutter was an Early Warning one of American origin but produced in Italy. Obviously, this being an early warning one without height information could not be used for interception.

[Sanku]

one of the reasons Why Air Force was not used in 1962

And everything changed by 65?


Excuses.

[member_23629]

one of the reasons Why Air Force was not used in 1962

Indian Air Force was ill-prepared for a war with China Posting in Part
We did not have any GCI radar with MTI capability that could detect targets under heavy clutter (mountainous terrain) either in the Western Sector or the Eastern sector. We had poor communication facilities.
The only Radar at that time available in Air Force that had a moving Target Indication under heavy clutter was an Early Warning one of American origin but produced in Italy. Obviously, this being an early warning one without height information could not be used for interception.

He is tilting at a strawman. The Indian air force was not being asked to intercept Chinese fighters headed to bomb India. They were instead expected to bomb the Chinese positions in our territory in the Himalayas as well as hit their supply lines. No radar was needed for this.

[ramana]

As I said before ACM Mehra did tell a group of us in Bay Area that some planes (Hunters) were loaded up but the orders never came.

[brihaspati]

The whole preparation for any war with China - was completely absent on the ground. From the PM'a various chats/converstaions/private and public commentary - he could not have been completely deaf to the spectre of war with China, later than 1954. If there was any escape route of "confusion", "lack of clarity", "lack of information" from where not even grass grows, - those escape routes and excuses cannot be given after 1959.

The IB tasked with coordinating the locating of future forward "posts", or civilian admin tasked with doing it - even if there were warnings from the military about the potential scenario, [how many times are we going to have to listen to hagiographers trying to claim every possible lack of knowledge, lack of prior information, everyone else to blame - like IB fails, Russia fails, west fails, pakis do perfidy, army fails, Menon fails - just to save the reputation of one single man? we twist and destroy the very framework to learn from past blunders just to protect the halo of one single leader?] - makes sense in only scenario:

The gov was trying to prevent infiltration by small but deemed significantly subversive groups - moreover a group whose infiltration prevention was not to be trusted on the army.

Only in such a scenario, no proper defence inside the borders will be built - and troop concentration in the area will be avoided. IB - whose early top bosses are now revealed to have been close "friends" with and worked in collaboration with Britiish intel, would be tasked - and more so tasked to do it thorigh the civilian part and avoid the army - if the hypothesized groups would be deemed a common Brit+Indian gov enemy, but IA sympathy for which could not be ruled out.

[devesh]

if the goal was to prevent infiltration by "groups" into the IA, then there might still be better ways to achieve that than discredit the IA via a defeat at the hands of foreign powers? the drastic step effects the entire nation on the world scene, not just the IA. seems really drastic.

[ramana]

Bji, Fear of INA leadership remanants coming back through that route?

[brihaspati]

devesh ji,
they thought there would be no large scale real war : foreign sources probably managed to create a false sense of security.

ramanaji,
could be fear of INA remnant [and likely to raise irrational reactions in certain quarters] but could alsoe be a general fear from reports of the so-called "Asian liberation front/army". A mysterious and un-pinpointable entity that crops up in documents yet to see the public light. Just one malicious double has to drop dark hints of the possibility of INA remnant being part of it - and bingo.

[ramana]

Sorry Bji. I havent heard of that one. I have heard of Imperial Japan sponsoring liberation/anti-colonial fronts during WWII but not this one sponsored by PRC. PRC did sponsor a lot of liberation movements all over the world including Africa.

BTW you owe me a reading on some email I sent you long time back.

[brihaspati]

sorry about that! going through a very rough work and personal load stretch. forgot. The ALF seems to have been a combined PRC/Russian thing. IT was at that time and later on [after the China -Vietnam spat] also strongly associated with Vietnam. All of which points to it being easily dubbed with the INA remnant brush.

[ramana]

Ok. Will get some folks working on ALF unearthing.

[shiv]

In 1962 China had not yet tested an atomic bomb, so there was no specific need for fearing the thought that Chinese armed forces would be backed by nuclear bombs. I recall reading laments (newspaper editorial) in the 70s or 80s about how Indian armed forces faced an adversary in China without the comfort that a nuke could be used on them if they used one on our forces.

Clearly 1962 was a bad botch up. Nehru had a "forward policy" with nothing to show what was forward. IIRC China had already gone ahead and built a road via Aksai Chin - (someone correct me if I am wrong). The air force was not used where it could have been used. Mao had rightly estimated that the Indian army would be a tough opponent and had factored in a Chinese five to one superiority in numbers.

The political and administrative faults of 1962, like Pakistani errors committed in 1971 were covered up since the same administration continued after the war under a "respected" PM "chacha" Nehru who like supreme leaders anywhere else had been PM since 1947. It now occurs to me that Nehru's tearful act was on par with Yediyurappa's repeated melt-downs into tears as he made billions in mining kickbacks. The fault was not Nehru's or of the administration, or of the armed forces. It was China's fault. Chinese perfidy, Chinese strength, Chinese brutality. Poor poor India.


This myth of Orc like Chinese ruthlessness was potentiated after 1964 when they tested a nuke and Nehru conveniently died. So we felt more sorry for ourselves and more worried about China. So now, even after 50 years when India's administrative and leadership errors are publicly discussed, we still have a mental undercurrent of anxiety and fear of ruthless China. We still seem to mix up the two issues and we seem unable to discuss Chinese strength or weakness separate from Indian errors. I put it to you that the stories of Chinese superiority and ruthless efficiency were fluffed up by an Indian administration bent on avoiding taking the responsibility for India's pathetic defeat and China's kick ass victory. Even today, on BRF we are unable to discuss China as a separate subject without worrying that they are too strong and that our own weaknesses will lead to our defeat.

We simply must separate our mistakes and errors from the separate subject of objectively assessing China minus the fake emotional connection created in 1962. Will cross post in China mil thread.

[Sanku]

It now occurs to me that Nehru's tearful act was on par with Yediyurappa's repeated melt-downs into tears as he made billions in mining kickbacks. .

[ramana]

I was watching a rerun of the 1954 hollywood movies Kim and saw the antics of Russian and British spies in the Great Game.

It struck me that what happened in 1962 in Indian mind was a rerun of the Great Game but played in the Himalayas. The Indian side thought it was a just spies and police actions. Only the Chinese side was playing with real armies to back their covert road building over the years.

Bji, I made this post on 13 October this year.....

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 8#p1351348


Let suppose rational choice theory applies here. Nehru is well read man who was second in command to Mahatma Gandhi. Assuming that his policy was rational what type of threat did he envision from PRC in the northern borders? Can we deduce that from the Forward Posts policy?
I said somewhere he brought a knife to a gunfight.
Why did that happen?
What made him think its a knife fight?

[chetak]

Dumped by friends, bullied by others

Author: Claude Arpi


Following the Chinese attack in 1962, India asked the Soviet Union for support. But the Soviets backed Beijing on the McMahon Line. The US promised to help only if New Delhi compromised on Kashmir

Despite the comprehensive coverage of the 1962 conflict in the Indian media, one angle has not been analysed: The views from Moscow. In the 1950s already, Beijing’s and Moscow’s outlook on the world had started diverging; Khrushchev dared speaking of the possibility of ‘peaceful coexistence with the West’, while Mao Zedong believed in an ideological war with the ‘class enemies’. For Beijing, the Soviet Union’s attitude was ‘Marxist revisionism’.

When the first Sino-Indian border clash occurred in a place called Longju on the McMahon Line in August 1959, the misunderstanding between the People’s Republic of China and the USSR became deeper. When the Dalai Lama escaped Tibet in March 1959, following an uprising of the Tibetan population of Lhasa against the Chinese invaders, Moscow supported Beijing, but five months later, the Soviet stand changed.

Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, refused to unequivocally support China.

Using new documents from the Soviet Archives, MY Prozumenschikov, a Soviet scholar, wrote a paper on the Sino-Indian Conflict and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was published by the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Prozumenschikov asserted: “Soviet leaders believed that in many ways the flare-up was provoked by the Chinese themselves, in order to demonstrate in practice their refusal to accept the McMahon line (a 1914 boundary agreed on by British and Tibetan officials and which Indian accepted as the correct Sino-Indian frontier) as the state border between the PRC and India.”

A month after the Longju incident, TASS News Agency issued a statement calling on both the warring sides to resolve the conflict by peaceful means. The fact that Moscow refused to take a clear ‘class’ stand in a conflict between a Socialist state and a Bourgeois state, deeply upset China. On September 13, 1959, the Chinese Communist Party accused the Soviet regime of “compromise”.

Beijing pointed out: “The TASS statement showed to the whole world the different positions of China and the Soviet Union in regard to the incident on the Indian-Chinese border, which causes a virtual glee and jubilation among the Indian bourgeoisie and the American and the English imperialists.”

When Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon decided to ‘throw out the Chinese’ from the Thagla Ridge in early October 1962, they were probably under the impression that they would get the tacit support of the Soviets, or that at least that Moscow would remain neutral. That was not to be the case as, by that time, Khrushchev had got entangled in the traumatic and volatile Cuban missile crisis.

The notes taken by Vladimir Malin, the Chief of the General Department of the Party’s Central Committee, bring some light on the Soviet change of heart. Malin recorded all the discussions of the top party officials of the Politburo.

On October 14, 1962, six days before the Chinese attacked India, the comrades in Moscow mentioned the forthcoming ‘Indian attack’ on the Chinese forces.

According to Malin, “Decision was taken: 1. Delay the shipment to India of MiG-21 aircrafts; 2. On instructions to the Soviet Ambassador in India, Cde. [comrade] [Ivan] Benediktov. Say to [Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal] Nehru: ‘We are disappointed.’ Are they [India] thinking about how this conflict will end?”

The McMahon Line was then questioned: “By whom was the McMahon Line created? By whom was it recognised? When was it introduced?” For the Soviet Politburo, the PRC’s “proposals for troop withdrawals spanning 20 km are reasonable.” The conclusion was: “We are in favour of eliminating the conflict; ...India is hardly going to gain anything from the conflict.” Nehru had clearly lost a friend in the Socialist world; Moscow was now parroting Beijing’s stand: India was about to attack China.

Three days after the Chinese attack (on October 20), a Romanian delegation led by Foreign Minister Corneliu Manescu stopped over in Moscow after visiting Indonesia, India and Burma. They were invited for dinner by Khrushchev Manescu later reported: “Comrade NS Khrushchev insisted [to know] more on the attitude of Nehru and the Sino-India problem. In this context, comrade Khrushchev generally mentioned that Nehru had oscillated between the line of imperialist countries, neutrality and the socialist countries. Lately, [being] under the influence of the ruling party, of the reactionary forces, Nehru seems to be closer to the line of imperialist countries.”

Again, there was a mention of the Chinese proposal: “Also under the pressure of the reactionary forces, the Indian side rejected this proposal on the grounds that the border should remain the McMahon line.” Khrushchev commented that this was not fair because “the McMahon line was established by the British in 1912 [1914], when India was a British colony and, of course, the British had every incentive to take as much Chinese territory as possible.”

Khrushchev was, however, disturbed by the fact that then CPI general secretary EMS Namboodiripad was “in a wrong position this time” as he supported Nehru”s view on the conflict. “This is dangerous because it can lead to divisions among the party”, he commented.

A few days later, Benediktov, the Soviet Ambassador to India met Namboodiripad. By that time, Moscow had made official its change of stand (in an article in the Pravda on October 25); this was mainly triggered by the difficult Soviet position in the Cuban missile crisis. The CPI leader told Benediktov that the CPI believed “this publication in all probability will inaugurate a new period of anti-Soviet hysteria in India.” This document shows the servile attitude of the Indian comrades.

Namboodiripad was happy by the new Soviet stand: “The publication of this article …truly will help our party get out of the extremely difficult position it is now in. Before this [help] there were moments when we felt ourselves to be simply helpless, but now the party will be able to remedy this situation.” The CPI leader pleaded with the Soviets to push China to resolve the border dispute “without damage to the prestige of India and of Nehru himself. On November 19, Nehru began panicking. He shot two secret letters to President Kennedy. India’s non-alignment position had gone for a toss.

As a result of Nehru’s letter, Averell Harriman, then US Assistant Secretary of State visited India on November 22. The visit, on the day China declared a unilateral ceasefire, supposedly was to assess India’s needs to resist Communist China; but the US envoy (and his British counterpart) “made clear their Governments’ willingness to provide military assistance to India, but pointed out the related need for negotiations to resolve the Kashmir dispute.”

A clear signal to India, which had not recovered from the blackest month of its history: Compromise on Kashmir.

[ramana]

All these articles in the aftermath of the 50th anniversary are blame the others. I would like some of these people to put themselves in Nehru's shoes and think what was he thinking putting little posts when he eventually faced the PLA.

[SSridhar]

Krishna Menon Quits - The Hindu Archives

Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon’s resignation from the Central Cabinet has been accepted. Mr. Nehru made this announcement at an unprecedentedly well-attended meeting of the Central Congress Parliamentary Party on November 7. Mr. Nehru praised the services of Mr. Menon to the country and said he was a talented and intelligent person and had devoted all his energies to modernise the armed forces, which the country had inherited from the British, along scientific lines and according to the needs of free India. He also praised Mr. Menon’s efforts to step up defence production. Earlier in the day when the Party Executive discussed the subject, 21 members out of 34, solidly demanded Mr. Menon’s removal from the Cabinet. Mr. Nehru argued that along with Mr. Menon he himself could not escape the responsibility for whatever might have happened. {He could say that and assume a high pedestal because he knew that nobody had the guts to ask him to go as well}

[SSridhar]

Ceylon’s mediation offer - The Hindu Archives

The Ceylon Government considers that the present armed conflict between India and China “is a tragedy both for Asia and the world” and, therefore, it is anxious that early action should be taken at least to put an end to the present fighting. With this in view, the Prime Minister of Ceylon, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, has been in communication with the Prime Ministers of India and China to whom she has offered her good offices to seek an end to the armed conflict.

[Rony]

Apologies if posted before

Special Issue on Sino-Indian War of 1962 - Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2012

[brihaspati]

ramana ji,
rational choice is criticized heavily. It could be bounded rationality - which most defenders of his reoutation try to imply. He did not know that the PRC/Maoists were "deceptive". If he really did not "know" then he "cannot be blamed" for what he chose to do. His rationality was bounded by bounded and incomplete knowledge.

There are two problems with this line. We have to show that he "really did not know about the true nature of PRC/communists/Maoists". Its immensely more difficult to show someone who had monopolized all foreign affairs communications/diplomatic dispatches - as not "knowing" about the true nature of Maoists. The defense is helped by the Indian admin's dutiful presiding over of vanishing documents, and the existence of a miraculously intelligent and literate band of white ants - perhaps a specially gifted species unique to India onlee, that intelligently reads up state's dangerous documents and selectively eats only those documents up that could potentially apportion blame to selected icons. But the defense remains riddled with holes, becauase of not only of memoirs of individuals - but also because of concrete steps he undertook on ground, showing that he could not have been unaware of the Chinese intent.

His profile shows that he had a habit of claiming that he could not foresee/anticipate that XYZ would turn out to be so violent/perfidious etc., after the outrage had already taken place. He claimed exactly the same about Islamists when faced with the fait-accompli of Bengal and Punjab partition violence - even though there are scattered references from him, as well as his close colleagues long before the Partition as to what exactly they expected the Islamists to do.

The second problem - is, even if you are not told that XYZ were planning to be perfidious/violent, as the leader of a government with all possible concentration of information gathering and decisionmaking related to foreign nations - incombination with all effective powers to decide on military appointments and military buildup, it is the task and typical characteristic of a "rational leader" to try and model and anticipate behaviour of other states, based on prior experiences not only from self, but also observing interactions with third powers. Rationalists are modelers.

Communist powers had shown sufficient evidence of what their mindset was - where leftist imperialism was concerned. He himself had some pretty cautious remarks on the "communist" method long before independence. He had dished out his characteristic ruthlessness on both Telengana communists and Kerala "parliamentary" communists way before 1962. He had also observed the interwar behaviour of the bolshevik party and the stalinist neo-imperialist communism, and saw the Korean war itself. He could not have avoided knowing what was Maoist strategy - from many different sources, including both "nationalist Chinese" contacts with India and Indian individual experiences in revolutionary China. His friend and advisor, Dickie Birdie was an enthusiastic China watcher - and the latter had reasons to "know" - he was one of the key planners of the Brit counterattack on SEAsia, and involved in planning/pushing for the mission to supply the nationalist forces from Burma.

He had repeatedly been warned of Chinese intent too.

Combing, if he was rational - he was acting on perceptions that go beyond the rational or the realistic ground situation. He must then have been acting on information/clues/perceptions that were not related to the ground conditions/balance of forces/knowledge about enemy intentions - but something else, that was not connected to military aggression or defense of the frontier against communist imperialism.

[SSridhar]

From the archives of The Hindu - Nov. 14, 1962

All possible aid to India

A draft recommendation urging the Western Powers to help India in her struggle against China’s border attack was tabled by a Belgian socialist member of Parliament at the 15-nation North Atlantic Alliance meeting in Paris on November 13. The recommendation was tabled in the Political Committee by M. Lucien Radoux, who told the NATO Parliamentarians that when a free country anywhere in the world was attacked, it should be the concern of all free nations. He proposed that help be extended to India by any means possible.

Pledge not to relax

Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, Home Minister, declared in the Rajya Sabha on November 13 that in the existing situation, “our leader, the Prime Minister and Government can only promise the people toil and sweat until final victory is won.” He added: ‘Let us pledge, let us resolve, that we shall not relax, that we shall not rest.” He was replying to the debate in the House on the national emergency. The House affirmed the resolve of the Indian people to drive out the Chinese aggressor “however long and hard the struggle may be.” The House also adopted the Government motion with acclamation and unanimously approved the proclamation of emergency in the country.

[Varoon Shekhar]

A Noorani on one of his favourite subjects- Indian culpability for 1962, and China's reasonableness. Of course, hardly a word about the Tibetans, and their view of the war. Nothing about the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees.

http://flonnet.com/stories/20121130292300400.htm