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Attachment 11113One wonders what could have been the outcome of the war had there been a different leadership team in place. The section mentioning thinly clad Indian soldier's, on erronous orders, shivvering in the Himalayan Cold waiting to be overwhelmed by superior number of Chinese soldiers was surely touching. Wanton sqandering of precious human asset, should I say.Remembering
a War.
1962 India China Conflict.
The Rediff Special/ Neville Maxwell
No account of the 1962 war would be complete without Neville Maxwell's authoritative analysis. Which is why we are reprinting this article which was run on rediff in June last year.
After the 1962 war, the Indian Army commissioned Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat to study the debacle. As is wont in India, their report was never made public and lies buried in the government archives. But some experts have managed to piece together the contents of the report. One such person is Neville Maxwell, who has studied the 1962 war in depth.
In the article that follows, Indians will be shocked to discover that, when China crushed India in 1962, the fault lay at India, or more specifically, at Jawaharlal Nehru and his clique's doorsteps. It was a hopelessly ill-prepared Indian Army that provoked China on orders emanating from Delhi, and paid the price for its misadventure in men, money and national humiliation.
When the Army's report into its debacle in the border war was completed in 1963, the Indian government had good reason to keep it Top Secret and give only the vaguest, and largely misleading, indications of its contents. At that time the government's effort, ultimately successful, to convince the political public that the Chinese, with a sudden 'unprovoked aggression,' had caught India unawares in a sort of Himalayan Pearl Harbor was in its early stages, and the Report's cool and detailed analysis, if made public, would have shown that to be self-exculpatory mendacity.
But a series of studies, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1990s, revealed to any serious enquirer the full story of how the Indian Army was ordered to challenge the Chinese military to a conflict it could only lose. So, by now, only bureaucratic inertia, combined with the natural fading of any public interest, can explain the continued non-publication -- the Report includes no surprises and its publication would be of little significance but for the fact that so many in India still cling to the soothing fantasy of a 1962 Chinese 'aggression.'
It seems likely now that the Report will never be released. Furthermore, if one day a stable, confident and relaxed government in New Delhi should, miraculously, appear and decide to clear out the cupboard and publish it, the text would be largely incomprehensible, the context, well known to the authors and therefore not spelled out, being now forgotten. The Report would need an Introduction and gloss -- a first draft of which this paper attempts to provide, drawing upon the writer's research in India in the 1960s and material published later.
Two Preambles are required, one briefly recalling the cause and course of the border war; the second to describe the fault-line, which the border dispute turned into a schism, within the Army's officer corps, which was a key factor in the disaster -- and of which the Henderson Brooks Report can be seen as an expression.
Part I: The genesis of the 1962 Sino-Indian War
Origins of the border conflict
India, at the time of Independence, can be said to have faced no external threats. True, it was born into a relationship of permanent belligerency with its weaker Siamese twin, Pakistan, left by the British inseparably conjoined to India by the chronically enflamed member of Kashmir, vital to both new national organisms; but that may be seen as essentially an internal dispute, an untreatable complication left by the crude, cruel surgery of Partition.
In 1947, China, wracked by civil war, was in what appeared to be death throes and no conceivable threat to anyone. That changed with astonishing speed, however, and, by 1950, when the new-born People's Republic re-established in Tibet the central authority which had lapsed in 1911, the Indian government will have made its initial assessment of the possibility and potential of a threat from China, and found those to be minimal, if not non-existent.
First, there were geographic and topographical factors, the great mountain chains which lay between the two neighbours and appeared to make large-scale troop movements impractical (few could then see in the German V2 rocket the embryo of the ICBM). More important, the leadership of the Indian government -- which is to say, Jawaharlal Nehru -- had for years proclaimed that the unshakable friendship between India and China would be the key to both their futures, and therefore Asia's, even the world's.
The new leaders in Beijing were more chary, viewing India through their Marxist prism as a potentially hostile bourgeois state. But, in the Indian political perspective, war with China was deemed unthinkable and, through the 1950s, New Delhi's defence planning and expenditure expressed that confidence.
By the early 1950s, however, the Indian government, which is to say Nehru and his acolyte officials, had shaped and adopted a policy whose implementation would make armed conflict with China not only "thinkable" but inevitable.
From the first days of India's Independence, it was appreciated that the Sino-Indian borders had been left undefined by the departing British and that territorial disputes with China were part of India's inheritance. China's other neighbours faced similar problems and, over the succeeding decades of the century, almost all of those were to settle their borders satisfactorily through the normal process of diplomatic negotiation with Beijing.
The Nehru government decided upon the opposite approach. India would, through its own research, determine the appropriate alignments of the Sino-Indian borders, extend its administration to make those good on the ground and then refuse to negotiate the result. Barring the inconceivable -- that Beijing would allow India to impose China's borders unilaterally and annex territory at will -- Nehru's policy thus willed conflict without foreseeing it.
Through the 1950s, that policy generated friction along the borders and so bred and steadily increased distrust, growing into hostility, between the neighbours. By 1958, Beijing was urgently calling for a standstill agreement to prevent patrol clashes and negotiations to agree on boundary alignments. India refused any standstill agreement, since it would be an impediment to intended advances and insisted that there was nothing to negotiate, the Sino-Indian borders being already settled on the alignments claimed by India, through blind historical process. Then it began accusing China of committing 'aggression' by refusing to surrender to Indian claims.
From 1961, the Indian attempt to establish an armed presence in all the territory it claimed and then extrude the Chinese was being exerted by the Army and Beijing was warning that if India did not desist from its expansionist thrust, the Chinese forces would have to hit back. On October 12, 1962, Nehru proclaimed India's intention to drive the Chinese out of areas India claimed. That bravado had by then been forced upon him by public expectations which his charges of 'Chinese aggression' had aroused, but Beijing took it as in effect a declaration of war. The unfortunate Indian troops on the frontline, under orders to sweep superior Chinese forces out of their impregnable, dominating positions, instantly appreciated the implications: 'If Nehru had declared his intention to attack, then the Chinese were not going to wait to be attacked.'
On October 20, the Chinese launched a pre-emptive offensive all along the borders, overwhelming the feeble -- but, in this first instance, determined -- resistance of the Indian troops and advancing some distance in the eastern sector. On October 24, Beijing offered a ceasefire and Chinese withdrawal on the condition that India agree to open negotiations: Nehru refused the offer even before the text was officially received. Both sides built up over the next three weeks, and the Indians launched a local counterattack on November 15, arousing in India fresh expectations of total victory.
The Chinese then renewed their offensive. Now many units of the once crack Indian 4th Division dissolved into rout without giving battle and, by November 20, there was no organised Indian resistance anywhere in the disputed territories. On that day, Beijing announced a unilateral ceasefire and intention to withdraw its forces: Nehru, this time, tacitly accepted.
Naturally the Indian political public demanded to know what had brought about the shameful debacle suffered by their Army. On December 14, a new Army commander, Lieutenant General J N Chaudhuri, instituted an Operations Review for that purpose, assigning the task of enquiry to Lieutenant-General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat.
Part II: How the East was Lost!
All colonial armies are liable to suffer from the tugs of contradictory allegiance and, in the case of India's, that fissure was opened in the Second World War by Japan's recruitment from prisoners of war of the Indian National Army to fight against their former fellows. By the beginning of the 1950s, two factions were emerging in the officer corps, one patriotic but above all professional and apolitical, and orthodox in adherence to the regimental traditions established in the century of the Raj; the other nationalist, ready to respond unquestioningly to the political requirements of their civilian masters and scorning their rivals as fuddy-duddies still aping the departed rulers, and suspected as being of doubtful loyalty to the new ones. The latter faction soon took on an eponymous identification from its leader, B M Kaul.
At the time of Independence, Kaul appeared to be a failed officer, if not one disgraced. Although Sandhurst-trained for infantry service, he had eased through the war without serving on any frontline and ended it in a humble and obscure post in public relations. But his courtier wiles, irrelevant or damning until then, were to serve him brilliantly in the new order that Independence brought, after he came to the notice of Nehru, a fellow Kashmiri Brahmin and, indeed, distant kinsman.
Boosted by the prime minister's steady favouritism, Kaul rocketed through the Army structure to emerge in 1961 at the very summit of the Army HQ. Not only did he hold the key appointment of chief of general staff but the army commander, Thapar, was, in effect, his client. Kaul had, of course, by then acquired a significant following, disparaged by the other side as 'Kaul boys' ('call-girls' had just entered usage), and his appointment as CGS opened a putsch in HQ, an eviction of the old guard, with his rivals, until then his superiors, being not only pushed out but often hounded thereafter with charges of disloyalty.
The struggle between those factions both fed on and fed into the strains placed on the Army by the government's contradictory and hypocritical policies -- on the one hand, proclaiming China an eternal friend against whom it was unnecessary to arm; on the other, exerting armed force to seize territory it knew China regarded as its own.
Through the early 1950s, Nehru's covertly expansionist policy had been implemented by armed border police under the Intelligence Bureau, whose director, N B Mullik, was another favourite and confidant of the prime minister. The Army high command, knowing its forces to be too weak to risk conflict with China, would have nothing to do with it. Indeed when the potential for Sino-Indian conflict inherent in Mullik's aggressive forward patrolling was demonstrated in the serious clash at the Kongka Pass in October 1959, Army HQ and the ministry of external affairs united to denounce him as a provocateur and insisted that control over all activities on the border be assumed by the Army, which thus could insulate China from Mullik's jabs.
The takeover by Kaul and his 'boys' at Army HQ in 1961 reversed that. Now, regular infantry would take over from Mullik's border police in implementing what was formally designated a 'forward policy,' one conceived to extrude the Chinese presence from all territory claimed by India. Field commanders receiving orders to move troops forward into territory the Chinese both held and regarded as their own warned that they had no resources or reserves to meet the forceful reaction they knew must be the ultimate outcome: they were told to keep quiet and obey orders.
That may suggest that those driving the forward policy saw it in kamikaze terms and were reconciled to its ending in gunfire and blood -- but the opposite was true. They were totally and unshakably convinced that it would end not with a bang but a whimper -- from Beijing. The psychological bedrock upon which the forward policy rested was the belief that, in the last resort, the Chinese military, snuffling from a bloody nose, would pack up and quit the territory India claimed.
The source of that faith was Mullik, who from beginning to end proclaimed as oracular truth that, whatever the Indians did, there need be no fear of a violent Chinese reaction. The record shows no one squarely challenging that mantra at higher levels than the field commanders who throughout knew it to be dangerous nonsense: there were civilian 'Kaul boys' in the ministries of external affairs and defence too and they basked happily in Mullik's fantasy. Perhaps the explanation for the credulousness lay in Nehru's dependent relationship with his IB chief: since the prime minister placed such faith in Mullik, it would be at the least lese majeste, and even heresy, to deny him a kind of papal infallibility.
If it be taken that Mullik was not just deluded, what other explanation could there be for the unwavering consistency with which he urged his country forward on a course which, in rational perception, could lead only to war with a greatly superior military power and, therefore, defeat? Another question arises: who, in those years, would most have welcomed the great falling-out which saw India shift in a few years from strong international support for the People's Republic of China to enmity and armed conflict with it? From founding and leading the Non-Aligned Movement to tacit enlistment in the hostile encirclement of China which was Washington's aim? Mullik maintained close links with the CIA station head in New Delhi, Harry Rossitsky. Answers may lie in the agency's archives.
China's stunning and humiliating victory brought about an immediate reversal of fortune between the Army factions. Out went Kaul, out went Thapar, out went many of their adherents -- but by no means all. General Chaudhuri, appointed to replace Thapar as Army chief, chose not to launch a counter-putsch. He and his colleagues of the restored old guard knew full well what had caused the debacle: political interference in promotions and appointments by the prime minister and Krishna Menon, defence minister, followed by clownish ineptitude in the Army HQ as 'Kaul boys' scurried to force the troops to carry out the mad tactics and strategy laid down by the government.
It was clear that the trail back from the broken remnants of the 4th Division limping onto the plains in the north-east, up through intermediate commands to the Army HQ in New Delhi and then, on to the source of political direction, would have ended at the prime minister's door -- a destination which, understandably, Chaudhuri had no desire to reach. (Mullik was anyway to tarnish him with the charge that he was plotting to overthrow the discredited civil order, but, in fact, Chaudhuri was a dedicated constitutionalist -- ironically, Kaul was the only one of the generals who harboured Caesarist ambitions.)
The Investigation
While the outraged humiliation of the political class left Chaudhuri with no choice but to order an enquiry into the Army's collapse, it was up to him to decide its range and focus, indeed its temper. The choice of Lieutenant-General Henderson Brooks to run an Operations Review (rather than a broader and more searching board of enquiry) was indicative of a wish not to make the already bubbling stew of recriminations boil over.
Henderson Brooks (until then in command of a corps facing Pakistan) was a steady, competent but not outstanding officer, whose appointments and personality had kept him entirely outside the broils stirred up by Kaul's rise and fall. That could be said too of the officer Chaudhuri appointed to assist Henderson Brooks, Brigadier P S Bhagat (holder of a WWII Victoria Cross and commandant of the military academy). But the latter complemented his senior by being a no-nonsense, fighting soldier, widely respected in the Army, and the taut, unforgiving analysis in the Report bespeaks the asperity of his approach.
There is further evidence that Chaudhuri did not wish the enquiry to dig too deep, range too widely, or excoriate those it faulted. The following were the terms of reference he set: Training; Equipment; System of command; Physical fitness of troops; Capacity of commanders at all levels to influence the men under their command. The first four of those smacked of an enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic briefed to concentrate on the management of the shipyard where it was built and the health of the deck crew; only the last term has any immediacy, and there the wording was distinctly odd -- commanders do not usually 'influence' those they command, they issue orders and expect instant obedience.
But Henderson Brooks and Bhagat (henceforth HB/B) in effect ignored the constraints of their terms of reference and kicked against other limits Chaudhuri had laid upon their investigation, especially his ruling that the functioning of Army HQ during the crisis lay outside their purview. 'It would have been convenient and logical', they note, 'to trace the events [beginning with] Army HQ, and then move down to the Commands for more details... ending up with field formations for the battle itself'. Forbidden that approach, they would, nevertheless, try to discern what had happened at Army HQ from documents found at lower levels, although those could not throw any light on one crucial aspect of the story -- the political directions given to the Army by the civil authorities.
As HB/B began their enquiry, they immediately discovered that the short rein kept upon them by the Army chief was by no means the least of their handicaps. They found themselves facing determined obstruction in Army HQ, where one of the leading lights of the Kaul faction had survived in the key post of director of military operations -- Brigadier D K Palit.
Kaul had exerted his power of patronage to have Palit made DMO although others senior to him were listed for the post, and Palit, as he was himself to admit, was 'one of the least qualified among [his] contemporaries for this crucial General Staff appointment.' Palit had thereafter acted as enforcer for Kaul and the civilian protagonists of the 'forward policy,' Mullik foremost among the latter, issuing the orders and deflecting or over-ruling the protests of field commanders who reported up their strategic imbecility or operational impossibility.
Why Chaudhuri left Palit in this post is puzzling: the Henderson Brooks Report was to make quite clear what a prominent and destructive role he had played throughout the Army high command's politicisation, and, through inappropriate meddling in command decisions, even in bringing about the debacle in the north-east. Palit, though, would immediately have recognised that the HB/B enquiry posed a grave threat to his career and so did all that he could to undermine and obstruct it.
After consultation with Mullik, Palit took it upon himself to rule that HB/B should not have access to any documents emanating from the civil side -- in other words, he blindfolded the enquiry, so far as he could, as to the nexus between the civil and military. As Palit smugly recounts his story, in an autobiography published in 1991, he personally faced down both Henderson Brooks and Bhagat, rode out their formal complaints about his obstructionism, and prevented them from prying into the 'high level policies and decisions' which he maintained were none of their business.
In fact, however, the last word lies with HB/B -- or will do if their report is ever published. In spite of Palit's efforts, they discovered a great deal that the Kaul camp and the government would have preferred to keep hidden; and their report shows that Palit's self-admiring and mock-modest autobiography grossly misrepresents the role he played.
The Henderson Brooks Report is long (its main section, excluding recommendations and many annexes, covers nearly 200 typed foolscap pages), detailed and, as far as the restrictions placed upon its authors allowed, far-ranging. This introduction will touch only upon some salient points, to give the flavour of the whole (a full account of the subject they covered is in the writer's 1970 study, India's China War).
Part III: India's shameful debacle!
The Forward Policy
This was born and named at a meeting chaired by Nehru on November 2, 1961, but it had been alive and kicking in the womb for years before that -- indeed its conception dated back to 1954, when Nehru issued an instruction for posts to be set up all along India's claim lines, 'especially in such places as might be disputed.' What happened at this 1961 meeting was that the freeze on provocative forward patrolling, instituted at the Army's insistence after Mullik had engineered the Kongka Pass clash, was ended -- with the Army, now under the courtier leadership of Thapar and Kaul, eagerly assuming the task which Mullik's armed border police had carried out until the Army stopped them.
HB/B note that no minutes of this meeting had been obtained, but were able to quote Mullik as saying that 'the Chinese would not react to our establishing new posts and that they were not likely to use force against any of our posts even if they were in a position to do so.' That opinion contradicted the conclusion Army Intelligence had reached 12 months before: that the Chinese would resist by force any attempts to take back territory held by them.
HB/B then trace a contradictory duet between the Army HQ and the Western Army Command, with HQ ordering the establishment of 'penny-packet' forward posts in Ladakh, specifying their location and strength, and the Western Command protesting that it lacked the forces to carry out the allotted task, still less to face the grimly foreseeable consequences. Kaul and Palit 'time and again ordered, in furtherance of the "forward policy," the establishment of individual posts, overruling protests made by the Western Command'. By August 1962 about 60 posts had been set up, most manned with less than a dozen soldiers, all under close threat by overwhelmingly superior Chinese forces. The Western Command submitted another request for heavy reinforcements, accompanying it with this admonition:
'[I]t is imperative that political direction is based on military means. If the two are not correlated, there is a danger of creating a situation where we may lose both in the material and moral sense much more than we already have. Thus, there is no short cut to military preparedness to enable us to pursue effectively our present policy...'
That warning was ignored, reinforcements were denied, orders were affirmed and, although the Chinese were making every effort, diplomatic, political and military, to prove their determination to resist by force, again it was asserted that no forceful reaction by the Chinese was to be expected. HB/B quote Field Marshall Roberts: 'The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable' But, in this instance, troops were being put in dire jeopardy in pursuit of a strategy based upon an assumption -- that the Chinese would not resist with force -- which the strategy would itself inevitably prove wrong. HB/B note that from the beginning of 1961, when the Kaulist putsch reshaped Army HQ, crucial professional military practice was abandoned:
This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the CGS [Kaul], his deputy, the DMO [Palit] and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of our forces. These appointments in General Staff are key appointments and officers were handpicked by General Kaul to fill them. There was therefore no question of clash of personalities. General Staff appointments are stepping stones to high command, and correspondingly carry heavy responsibility. When, however, these appointments are looked upon as adjuncts to a successful career and the responsibility is not taken seriously, the results, as is only too clear, are disastrous. This should never be allowed to be repeated and the Staff as of old must be made to bear the consequences of their lapses and mistakes. Comparatively, the mistakes and lapses of the Staff sitting in Delhi without the stress and strain of battle are more heinous than the errors made by the commanders in the field of battle.
War and Debacle
While the main thrust of the Forward Policy was exerted in the western sector of the border, it was also applied in the east from December 1961. There the Army was ordered to set up new posts along the McMahon Line (which China treated -- and treats -- as the de facto boundary), and, in some sectors, beyond it. One of these trans-Line posts, named Dhola Post, was invested by a superior Chinese force on September 8, 1962, the Chinese thus reacting there exactly as they had been doing for a year in the western sector. In this instance, however, and although Dhola Post was known to be north of the McMahon Line, the Indian government reacted aggressively, deciding that the Chinese force threatening Dhola must be attacked forthwith, and thrown back.
Now, again, the duet of contradiction began, the Army HQ and, in this case, Eastern Command (headed by Lieutenant-General L P Sen) united against the commands below: XXXIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Umrao Singh), 4th Division (Major General Niranjan Prasad) and 7th Brigade (Brigadier John Dalvi). The latter three stood together in reporting that the 'attack and evict' order was militarily impossible to execute.
The point of confrontation, below Thagla ridge at the western extremity of the McMahon Line, presented immense logistical difficulties to the Indian side and none to the Chinese, so whatever concentration of troops could painfully be mustered by the Indians could instantly be outnumbered and outweighed in weaponry. Tactically, again the irreversible advantage lay with the Chinese, who held well-supplied, fortified positions on a commanding ridge feature.
The demand for military action and the victory it was expected to bring was political, generated at top level meetings in Delhi. 'The Defence Minister [Krishna Menon] categorically stated that in view of the top secret nature of conferences no minutes would be kept [and] this practice was followed at all the conferences that were held by the Defence Minister in connection with these operations'. HB/B commented: 'This is a surprising decision and one which could and did lead to grave consequences. It absolved in the ultimate analysis anyone of the responsibility for any major decision. Thus it could and did lead to decisions being taken without careful and considered thought on the consequences of those decisions.'
Army HQ by no means restricted itself to the big picture. In mid-September it issued an order to troops beneath Thagla ridge to '(a) capture a Chinese post 1,000 yards northeast of Dhola Post; (b) contain the Chinese concentration south of Thagla.' HB/B comment: 'The General Staff, sitting in Delhi, ordering an action against a position 1,000 yards north east of Dhola Post is astounding. The country was not known, the enemy situation vague, and for all that there may have been a ravine in between [the troops and their objective], but yet the order was given. This order could go down in the annals of History as being as incredible as the order for "the Charge of the Light Brigade."'
Worse was to follow.
Underlying all the meetings in Delhi was still the conviction or by now, perhaps, prayer, that even when frontally attacked the Chinese would put up no serious resistance, still less react aggressively elsewhere. Thus it came to be believed that the problem lay in weakness, even cowardice, at lower levels of command. General Umrao Singh (XXXIII Corps) was seen as the nub of the problem, since he was backing his divisional and brigade commanders in their insistence that the eviction operation was impossible.
'It was obvious that Lieutenant-General Umrao Singh would not be hustled into an operation, without proper planning and logistical support. The Defence Ministry and, for that matter, the General Staff and Eastern Command were prepared for a gamble on the basis of the Chinese not reacting to any great extent.' So the political leadership and Army HQ decided that if Umrao Singh could be replaced by a commander with fire in his belly all would come right, and victory be assured.
Such a commander was available -- General Kaul. A straight switch, with Kaul relinquishing the CGS post to replace Umrao Singh, would have raised too many questions, so it was decided instead that Umrao Singh would simply be moved aside, retaining his corps command but no longer being concerned with the situation on the border. That would become the responsibility of a new formation, IV Corps, whose sole task would be to attack and drive the Chinese off Thagla ridge. General Kaul would command the new corps.
HB/B noted how even the most secret of government's decisions were swiftly reported in the press, and called for a thorough probe into the sources of the leaks.
Many years later Palit, in his autobiography, described the transmission procedure. Palit had hurried to see Kaul on learning of the latter's appointment to command the notional new Corps: 'I found him in the little bedsitter den where he usually worked when at home. I was startled to see, sitting beside him on the divan, Prem Bhatia, editor of The Times Of India, looking like the proverbial cat who has just swallowed a large yellow songbird. He got up as I arrived, wished [Kaul] good luck and left, still with a greatly pleased smirk on his face.'
Bhatia's scoop led his paper next morning. The 'spin' therein was the suggestion that whereas, in the western sector, Indian troops faced extreme logistical problems, in the east that situation was reversed and, therefore, with the dashing Kaul in command of a fresh 'task force,' victory was imminent. The truth was exactly the contrary, those in the North-East Frontier Agency faced even worse difficulties than their fellows in the west, and victory was a chimera.
Those difficulties were compounded by persistent interference from the Army HQ. On orders from Delhi, 'troops of [the entire 7th Brigade] were dispersed to outposts that were militarily unsound and logistically unsupportable.' Once Kaul took over as Corps commander, the troops were driven forward to their fate in what HB/B called 'wanton disregard of the elementary principles of war.'
Even in the dry, numbered paragraphs of their report, HB/B's account of the moves that preceded the final Chinese assault is dramatic and riveting, with the scene of action shifting from the banks of the Namka Chu, the fierce little river beneath the menacing loom of Thagla ridge along which the under-clad Indian troops shivered and waited to be overwhelmed, to Nehru's house in Delhi -- whither Kaul rushed back to report when a rash foray he had ordered was crushed by a fierce Chinese reaction on October 10. To follow those events, and on into the greater drama of the ensuing debacle is tempting but would add only greater detail to the account already published.
Given the nature of the dramatic events they were investigating, it is not surprising that HB/B's cast of characters consisted in the main of fools and/or knaves on the one hand, their victims on the other. But they singled out a few heroes too, especially the jawans, who fought whenever their commanders gave them the necessary leadership, and suffered miserably from the latter's often gross incompetence. As for the debacle itself, 'Efforts of a few officers, particularly those of Captain N N Rawat' to organise a fighting retreat, 'could not replace a disintegrated command;' nor could the cool-headed Brigadier Gurbax Singh do more than keep his 48th Brigade in action as a cohesive combat unit until it was liquidated by the joint efforts of higher command and the Chinese.
HB/B place the immediate cause of the collapse of resistance in NEFA in the panicky, fumbling and contradictory orders issued from Corps HQ in Tezpur by a 'triumvirate' of officers they judge to be grossly culpable: General Sen, General Kaul, and Brigadier Palit. Those were, however, only the immediate agents of disaster: its responsible planners and architects were another triumvirate, comprised of Nehru, Mullik and, again, Kaul, together with all those who accompanied them into the fantasy that a much stronger neighbour could be confronted and overcome through guile and puny force.
Neville Maxwell is the author of India's China War.
rediff.com: rediff.com Special: Who was to blame for the 1962 war? Was it India or China who initiated the conflict?
Last edited by Deltacamelately; 12 Jul 08, at 11:57.
And on the sixth day, God created the Field Artillery...
Colonel,
Comments requested!
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
If this article is reliable....then this was a very informative read...never knew all this.
Thank you sir.
" THe SiLEnt KNighT.
You are welcome. There's still a lot of hush hush material below the carpet.Originally Posted by sohamsri
A very good article Delta. Appalling in its revelation of favouritism and bureaucratic stupidity. I simply cannot fathom what went through Nehru's brain.
How after looking at what the PLA did in Korea, could he even in his wildest dreams imagine that they would roll over?
If he wanted to pursue expansionist policies, then why emaciate the army in the previous decade?
More so why on earth alienate the professionals of the Indian Army and push sycophantic buffoons through?
The sheer idiocy of the whole enterprise boggles the mind.
One should not get too carried away by the article or by Neville Maxwell.
India by not making the Henderson Brooks' Report public is adding to the mystery and has allowed self styled soothsayers to state their own theories. In this genre is also the book, After Nehru, Who by Welles Hagnen, which too was a popular book in those time, but since the persona were real life, it was feasible to analyse and realise how the predictions were not right. He opined the following would succeed Nehru as Head Morarji Desai, V.K. Krishna Menon, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Y.B. Chavan, Indira Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, S.K. Patil, and Brij Mohan Kaul. Was impressive at that time with the usual mirch masala. I read it when it was published.
1962 had many reasons. It was Nehru's philosophy that he wanted to project as a great humanist and a statesman,which is the basic cause. His close advisors were Krishna Menon (a Communist actually and who was China leaning), B N Mullick, the doyen of Nehru-era Indian intelligence, who was a person who made himself larger than life and even had lied to the Khosla Commission on the Bose mystery and who also wrote a book, China's Betrayal and surprisingly, Brij Mohan Kaul who was an Army Service Corps officer i.e. non combat arms General. PN Thapar (father of Karan Thapar) was the Chief.
In those days, there was not the professionalism that is there todayand the Army was more of a Ceremonial Army. The McMohan Line was not defended. There were some Special Branch outposts. Obviously, there was no Threat Analysis that encompassed China, more so, since it was the heady days of Bandung Conference, where Nehru toasted Chou en Lai and the slogan of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai was resonating.
China in the meantime, completed the occupation of Aksai Chin and made the strategic roads. It is at this time the govt realised something was amiss. It is to the credit of Nehru that this was mentioned in Parliament and made his infamous statement of ''an area where not a blade of grass grew"'. Given the mood in the country Nehru had no option but to order the Army ''to throw the Chinese out". Easier said than done. The Chinese had been in Tibet from 1950 and they were acclimatised and they also had been in a modern war in Korea while India was the WWII veterans and Kashmir, which was not High Altitude.
It was obvious that China would react, which they did. To their advantage, they were also experts at attack by infiltration, having been Mao's guerrillas.
Since there was no operational plans, hurriedly Indian troops were despatched into the unknown since none had been in these areas before. They were ill clad and ill equipped with WWII weaponry. What was worse that there was no intelligence. They went and took up positions as best they could. Those who have been to these areas are aware that it is not easy to dig defences in this area and it takes way longer than in the plains. The result was the obvious inspite of heroic stands by the Indian Army. They were not only outnumbered, but outmatched with the attack by infiltration tactics.
The failure is the total aggregate of political ineptitude, poor intelligence caused by the political and self seeking BN Mullick and the overpowering Nehru's image that cowed the Army to obey him without informing of the reality. It could also be that the Army obeyed as it was the ethos of obeying without argument. Brij Kaul's appointment as the Corps Commander who had no combat experience was the worst thing that happened. The Army apparently abdicated its space to political leadership and dictates of the political overlords and more so, the Communist Krishna Menon.
The fact that the Henderson Brooks Report has not been made public leads one to believe that it would be a damnation to the stature of Nehru, who after all, was a great leader in his own way and the Congress Party was still the monolith that was ruling without interruption, as also damn those who were monoliths in the regime like BN Mullick, who was a king of intrigues.
Last edited by Ray; 12 Jul 08, at 17:12.
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
Sir,
Maxwell has been thoroughly discussed in the flame wars between BR and CMF. Suffice to say that the Chinese were not completely innocent in the matter. They've kept the military option open even when they promised peace. Whether they were justified or not is the subject of this debate.
However, Sir, I take issue that Indian soldiers were not adequately prepared. That was the fault of the commanders and not the Chinese. More specifically, the issue of WWII weapons. The Chinese were armed with the same. That cannot be the excuse. The Wehrmacht was a much better armed army than the Chinese in 1962 and the British Indian Army met the Wehrmacht head on.
Further to Chinese reports, while there were determined resistance, there were also reports of Chinese soldiers finding Indian soldiers in their sleeping bags. Sir, given the number of Indian PoWs, it was certain not all fought to the death.
I do not mean to insult the Indian soldier, Sir. The point I want to make is that the disillusionment from the top has gone all the way to the bottom. If the freaking corps commander don't care that I can't defend this spot, why should I?
Further more, I am convinced the 1962 War formed the basis of modern PLA doctrine. It was a political victory backed by military success even though it was a military disaster - the Chinese had collapsed their own lines of communications - the 2nd time that they've done this (the 1st being the Korean War) and it would seemed that success did not force them to learn this vital lesson in that they've repeated this mistake in the 1979 1st Sino-Vietnam War.
Chimo
I think there is general consensus that the PRC has used the military option deliberately, knowing all the time that real peace proceedings would greatly affect its policies in Tibet. Example, the PRC at first put restrictions on Han migration to Tibet. Later after subjugating India, it removed the restrictions leading to more than 50% dilution of ethenic Tibetans.
I really doubt that. The Indian forces were using the arms inherited from the British Indian army and look...15 years have elapsed with no standardisation or quality overhaul. Further the PLA just came out out from the Korean war, war tested and war trained.However, Sir, I take issue that Indian soldiers were not adequately prepared. That was the fault of the commanders and not the Chinese. More specifically, the issue of WWII weapons. The Chinese were armed with the same. That cannot be the excuse. The Wehrmacht was a much better armed army than the Chinese in 1962 and the British Indian Army met the Wehrmacht head on.
Should I take it as a vindication that the Indian Army was caught unaware...sleeping and thus Not the Aggressor?Further to Chinese reports, while there were determined resistance, there were also reports of Chinese soldiers finding Indian soldiers in their sleeping bags. Sir, given the number of Indian PoWs, it was certain not all fought to the death.
Because the contrary would suggest heroic efforts with scanty resources, ill conceived leadership, faulty weapons in face of superior numbers and resources.
Sir, not withstanding how much you, me or any tom, dick or harry wants to insult the 1962 Indian soldiers, history will reclaim their heroic efforts in a war that they fought without knowing why they fought with meagre resources against an acclaimitised force....sometimes picked up from the Deccan pleateau 12 hour before.I do not mean to insult the Indian soldier, Sir. The point I want to make is that the disillusionment from the top has gone all the way to the bottom. If the freaking corps commander don't care that I can't defend this spot, why should I?
To answer this here is another article.Further more, I am convinced the 1962 War formed the basis of modern PLA doctrine. It was a political victory backed by military success even though it was a military disaster - the Chinese had collapsed their own lines of communications - the 2nd time that they've done this (the 1st being the Korean War) and it would seemed that success did not force them to learn this vital lesson in that they've repeated this mistake in the 1979 1st Sino-Vietnam War.
This greatly explains PRC's reluctance to bilaterally resolve the border issue.Could It Happen Again?
The Rediff Special/Dr John W Garver
The probability of another war between China and India is not great. But it does exist.
Armed conflict on the scale of 1962, possibly greater, might arise out of three situations, singularly or in combination: Chinese intervention in an Indian-Pakistan war, a major uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, and the unresolved border dispute.
Chinese intervention in an India-Pakistan war is perhaps the most likely scenario. Since the early 1960s, a fundamental goal of Chinese policy in South Asia has been to maintain a balance of power between India and Pakistan --- to keep Pakistan strong enough to be willing and able to challenge India's ambitions in the South Asian region and beyond.
A Pakistan strong enough to challenge India will, perforce, prevent any Indian government from concentrating its diplomatic energies and/or its military forces against China.
A strong and anti-India Pakistan compels Indian defence planners to keep the better part of Indian forces on guard in India's west and away from China's borders. Indian preoccupation with South Asian challenges also greatly hinders India's ambition of acting as an Asian or global equal to China; it keeps India chained to the subcontinent.
Internecine conflict between India and Pakistan forces world capitals to view both those states in a regional context, leaving China alone on a higher global plane, as the only truly Asian power. Finally, the realities of the existing distribution of subcontinental power keep India cautious when dealing with problems relating to "China's Tibet".
China did not create the animosity between India and Pakistan. But China's strategists recognize the enduring reality of that enmity and use it to China's advantage.
China's strategic interest in a strong and self-confident Pakistan explains its robust assistance to Pakistan's military-industrial development efforts over the years. It explains Beijing's long record of assistance to Pakistan's missile and nuclear development efforts. It explains Beijing's insistence that China's various sorts of military co-operation with Pakistan will continue independent of improvements in Sino-Indian relations. It probably explains, too, China's decision, circa 1974, to covertly assist Pakistan's nuclear weapons effort.
At that point, the "great nuclear equalizer" probably seemed the last best chance for sustaining Pakistan's ability to resist Indian domination and thus sustain the existing South Asian balance of power.
Would China, then, intervene in an India-Pakistan war? Almost certainly not, unless it seemed that India were about to decisively subordinate Pakistan. Short of that point, Beijing would probably render Pakistan various sorts of material and political support, while pressuring Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Tokyo and other capitals to pressure New Delhi to cease operations against Pakistan and restore the status quo ante.
What if those measures didn't work? What if India pushed ahead with a determination to settle its Pakistan problem once and for all? What if India persisted, perhaps in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange, in a drive to decisively resolve India's Pakistan problem?
Beijing would probably then undertake measures moving up the escalation ladder threatening intervention --- making increasingly ominous declarations, undertaking various troop movements and manoeuvres, taking punitive measures to downgrade Sino-Indian diplomatic relations, creating incidents along the Sino-Indian border in an area distant from Pakistan, and so on.
But what if India still did not cease and desist? Would China then actually enter the war in the hopes of preventing Pakistan's decisive subordination, thereby rescuing the existing South Asian balance of power?
Throughout history nations have often gone to war to prevent the overturning of a particular balance of power favourable to them. That observation aside, it is probably safe to say that China's leaders themselves could not now answer this question.
China's response would probably depend very much on the circumstances at the time. Like, what the battlefield balance between India and Pakistan is and how effective Chinese intervention would be. And what the military balance between the People's Liberation Army and the Indian armed forces is at that point.
One extremely important factor would be the attitude of the United States and its allies. If Washington could be persuaded to adopt an understanding attitude towards Chinese intervention, or to agree to remain neutral, Beijing would be much more likely to intervene.
On the other hand, US and Western disapproval of Chinese intervention would greatly raise the costs for Beijing of Chinese intervention. Chinese diplomacy would probably go all out to secure Western understanding. A great deal would depend on the skill of Indian diplomacy.
Turning to Tibet, Beijing rules there over a people ethnically quite distinct from the Han (the Chinese-speaking, Chinese-culture people constituting 90 per cent of China's population). Moreover, a very large number of Tibetans are dismayed by what they view as a Chinese takeover of their homeland.
Since the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, Beijing has lifted earlier restrictions on Han migration into Tibet. The result has been a flood of Chinese into Tibet. Already, perhaps close to half the population of Tibet is Han (this is the estimate of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in India) and that proportion will almost certainly continue to grow as new roads and rail-lines are built into Tibet.
In several decades Tibetans will probably constitute a small minority of the inhabitants of their ancestral homeland. This process of demographic inundation creates a strong sense among Tibetans that time is running out for Tibet. The possibility of Tibetan resistance movements against Chinese rule --- perhaps armed, but more likely using non-violent Gandhian tactics --- is significant.
Beijing's usual response is draconian repression. But this approach ultimately didn't work in the USSR. It can be safely assumed that Beijing will blame on foreign powers any organized, large-scale Tibetan resistance to its rule. What is at work here is a tendency to project on to hostile foreign forces responsibility for domestic opposition that arises, in fact out of disapproval of the policies of the Chinese Communist Party.
Thus opposition to the CCP's efforts to clamp Leninist controls on China in the early 1950s was blamed on "US imperialism", Tibetan opposition to Beijing's policies of the late 1950s was blamed on India, and demonstrations by students in Beijing in 1989 was blamed on US schemes of "peaceful evolution".
This tendency to project on to foreign powers responsibility for domestic opposition is an extremely deep-rooted cultural construction. It has two taproots: one, the belief that China has been victimized by foreign powers for a century past; the other, a belief in the absolute moral superiority and wisdom of the CCP.
In any case, it is almost certain that organized, large-scale Tibetan resistance to Beijing's rule will be blamed on foreign powers. The only question is whether the power assigned responsibility by Beijing will be India or the United States.
India's first inclination will probably be to dissociate itself from Tibetan resistance. The parameters of Indian domestic politics may make it impossible, however, for India to satisfy Beijing's demands. It might be hard for Indian opinion to stomach Indian co-operation with the suppression of a non-violent Tibetan resistance movement employing the tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and appealing to the example of Indian federalism and democracy.
Domestic Indian revulsion at Chinese repression would make it impossible for New Delhi to take more than half-measures placating Beijing, while Beijing would find such half-measures mere camouflage for more sinister Indian purposes.
This, in a nutshell, is what happened in 1959.
Beijing's nightmare is US intervention in Tibet in support of widespread Tibetan resistance, perhaps with the co-operation of India. Unlikely as such a scenario seems it is possible to identify circumstances in which it might occur. Perhaps the most likely would be in the context of a severe deterioration of US-PRC relations, perhaps as a result of a war over Taiwan that became protracted.
Confronted with the difficulty of forcing peace terms on a China defeated in air and naval battles around Taiwan, but still belligerent and ensconced on the continent, Washington might turn to Tibet. Would the moves of the Indian government to dissociate itself from a US effort in Tibet then be adequate to satisfy Beijing? Might there be a government in New Delhi that concluded it would serve Indian interests to co-operate with the US in an effort to restore a measure of genuine Tibetan autonomy, say, as existed prior to 1959?
Beijing might be willing to pay New Delhi a high price for Indian dissociation from the United States at such a juncture. On the other hand, some Indian strategists might conclude that it is unwise to take Beijing's smaller concessions rather than trying to guarantee the continued existence of an ethnically Tibetan Tibet.
It is impossible to predict how these factors might evolve. But it does seem that events might possibly come together in such a way as to produce a second Sino-Indian war.
Regarding the border, Chinese publications and government statements since the late 1950s have convinced Chinese opinion that the southern slope of the eastern Himalayas, roughly corresponding to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, is rightfully Chinese territory.
Indian possession of this piece of land constitutes aggression against China. It behoves Chinese diplomacy not to belabour this point publicly, but the underlying belief remains intact. The possibility of China undertaking a war to recover this lost territory is extremely small.
On the other hand, the intensity of nationalism in post-1989 China combined with the increasing role of nationalism in legitimizing the CCP's domination of the State makes it very difficult for any Chinese leader to "relinquish" large tracts of land that are "rightfully China's".
India too maintains its claim to Aksai Chin. Although the road across that desolate plateau is no longer as important to PLA control of Tibet as it was in the 1950s, abandoning it would diminish PLA capabilities in western Tibet. This would probably be acceptable only if China received major compensation in the eastern sector.
But Indian concessions in the vicinity of Tawang, where the historical evidence of traditional Tibetan administration is strongest, would sandwich Bhutan between Chinese salients in Chumbi and Tawang, greatly complicating the ability of Indian forces to defend the Himalayan kingdom should that need arise.
All this means that the border issue will probably remain unresolved for some time.
Miscalculations by border forces of both sides have become less likely since the implementation of confidence-building measures after 1996. Even if border incidents (due, perhaps, to patrols misreading maps or losing their way) do occur, they are unlikely to lead to war. The governments of the two sides will probably pull back as they did in 1987 over Sumdurong Chu.
But the unresolved territorial dispute involving very substantial blocks of land does add a significant element of suspicion and unpredictability to the New Delhi-Beijing relation. For New Delhi, it means that any prospect of war with China immediately raises the possibility of losing India's geographic defensive shield in the eastern Himalayas, thereby rendering the entire Northeast virtually indefensible.
For Beijing, an unresolved territorial dispute with India provides an effective way of putting pressure on India. If Beijing wishes to demonstrate solidarity with Pakistan, or express anger over Indian policies towards Tibet, PLA moves threatening Arunachal Pradesh could be very effective.
In effect, the unresolved nature of the territorial dispute --- China's standing claim to the area of Arunachal Pradesh --- multiplies the effect of China's coercive threats.
Just as the existence of a strong, anti-Indian Pakistan siphons Indian forces from India's frontiers with China, so the existence of the unresolved dispute over the eastern Himalayas siphons Indian forces away from India's frontiers with Pakistan.
There could well be a meeting of Chinese and Pakistani minds in this regard.
(Dr John W Garver, author of Protracted Contest; Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century and other books, is a professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.)
rediff.com Special Series: 40 years after the Sino-Indian 1962 war
For it, the dispute itself is a major power lever in containing India in its own backyard and not letting it nudge the Tibetan ambitions for greater autonomy or even complete freedom.
Last edited by Deltacamelately; 15 Jul 08, at 09:31.
Major,
I fail to see what has this to do with the 1962 War?
Major, your army was in the Korean War with us. In fact, we've served in the same Commonwealth Division. We took the Chinese head on. You cannot use the excuse that the Chinese were better because of the Korean War.
Major, what are you getting at? Indian tactical deficiencies were well defined and no matter how heroic the stand, the Indian Army was not capable of the task assigned.
Major, you were the one who posted this article and you did not challenged it. If you have issues, then please let us know your stand instead of posting things without context and allowing us to assume that you agree with the article.
Insult, Major? We're speaking of history and you as an Officer should know above all else. Heroics are for losers. If you're not cheating, you're losing.
Major, if you know how the CCP politburo thinks, I have a 200K+ a year job for you.
Chimo
The Chinese internet users often say 'China could have captured New Delhi'. This comment seems true.
Sir,
what seems is that the PRC was determined to do the cleansing even before 1959. However they did put in the restrictions knowing that the India had presence in Tibet, something that they inherited from the British. They went for the settlements after 62, knowing and confident that the InA didn't have the stomach nor the tooth anymore to resist the Tibetan dilution.
I fully agree with your Sir.Major, what are you getting at? Indian tactical deficiencies were well defined and no matter how heroic the stand, the Indian Army was not capable of the task assigned.
Without context Sir? I raised the "Heroic" only to counter your assertion that the Indian soldier didn't fight till the last man. I don't solicit to the article, rather I posted this seeking your comments. There's a lot written here that I will deem gibberish unless someone can prove that this article has anything in content that bears with the Henderson Report.Major, you were the one who posted this article and you did not challenged it. If you have issues, then please let us know your stand instead of posting things without context and allowing us to assume that you agree with the article.
Sir, you didn't get my point. I didn't say you insulted, what I did say is that history will stand witness to the valour of the average soldier who for ones, wasn't prepared, wasn't acclimitised, wan't educated about the mission, wasn't even properly clad and wasn't offered able leadership.Insult, Major? We're speaking of history and you as an Officer should know above all else. Heroics are for losers. If you're not cheating, you're losing.
Sir, when should I send the resume?Major, if you know how the CCP politburo thinks, I have a 200K+ a year job for you.)
Last edited by Deltacamelately; 15 Jul 08, at 10:01.
[QUOTE=Officer of Engineers;515852]Sir,
Fine.Maxwell has been thoroughly discussed in the flame wars between BR and CMF. Suffice to say that the Chinese were not completely innocent in the matter. They've kept the military option open even when they promised peace. Whether they were justified or not is the subject of this debate.
The Germans were not any better equipped than the British Army or the British Indian Army, except in armour but that gap was reduced and overtaken.However, Sir, I take issue that Indian soldiers were not adequately prepared. That was the fault of the commanders and not the Chinese. More specifically, the issue of WWII weapons. The Chinese were armed with the same. That cannot be the excuse. The Wehrmacht was a much better armed army than the Chinese in 1962 and the British Indian Army met the Wehrmacht head on.
The Chinese were battle hardened from their experience in Korea against the world's most modern army i.e. the US Army. They were in Tibet for a long time and so they were acclimatised. A great advantage. Ask me the hassles of moving into HAA without acclimatisation. I moved from Calcutta right to the heights of Kargil in one day by air, road and foot. The next day the new Commander was to visit us. I had a tough time with breathing. Since the Commander it turned out was a person who had done a course with me, we laughed it off that I had not changed to do crazy things like come up to the posts in one day from sea level! Acclimatisation is absolutely essential and if not done, one's efficiency is nearly zero, apart from getting a whole lot of High Altitude Ailments.
The ballistics change in High Altitude, of all weapons, be it infantry or combat support weapons. The IA had no idea of this and so they went through a whole lot of hassle and it was trail and error.
Therefore, they were disadvantaged compared to the Chinese.
The Commanders also had no clue of High Altitude Warfare. It maybe pertinent to point out that even sophisticated Armies like the US, British and others are or have trained with the Indian Army in Ladakh.
Therefore, an unsophisticated army of 1962 was a babe in the wood.
Further, you can't apply WWII tactics in High Altitude Warfare. It is a different ballgame. So, one can't blame the Commanders. They had no clue of combating attack by infiltration, adopted by the Chinese.
FWhen ammunition runs out, what do you do, even after CQB? Logistics was a shamble. In High Altitude and on trails where it was all manpack and mulepack, how much of ammunition could go up before the Chinese launched themselves! Therefore, the PsW.urther to Chinese reports, while there were determined resistance, there were also reports of Chinese soldiers finding Indian soldiers in their sleeping bags. Sir, given the number of Indian PoWs, it was certain not all fought to the death.
There was no disillusionment amongst anyone. Don't go by the books by Dalvi and others. They are all CYA and J'Accuse. I would not blame anyone including Corps Commanders or the Army Commander since none were aware of the techniques of High Altitude Warfare.I do not mean to insult the Indian soldier, Sir. The point I want to make is that the disillusionment from the top has gone all the way to the bottom. If the freaking corps commander don't care that I can't defend this spot, why should I?
The were in a tactical void.
The 1962 soldier was far tougher, motivated and with great stoic than today's soldier. Yet, if someone wants to repeat 1962, they will get a bloody nose and would be in a rout!
To give you an example, if the Indian Army were to be inducted into the Arctic for a War that was ensuing, 1962 would be repeated., even though they are better trained and better equipped than 1962.
That is true I think.Further more, I am convinced the 1962 War formed the basis of modern PLA doctrine. It was a political victory backed by military success even though it was a military disaster - the Chinese had collapsed their own lines of communications - the 2nd time that they've done this (the 1st being the Korean War) and it would seemed that success did not force them to learn this vital lesson in that they've repeated this mistake in the 1979 1st Sino-Vietnam War.
The Chinese quit NEFA since they had no LoC to sustain them and so they withdrew in a high moral stand. They did not do so in Ladakh since there was no problem of having a sustained Logistic support!
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
Sir,
Your post answers the basic questions regarding Maxwell's assertion about the failure of the IA in manning the forward posts. They were simply not acclimatised to perform at the optimal level.
Col Sir,
I would suggest you to read about the battle of Rezangla and C Coy Paramvir Major Shaitan Singh. It shows that last man-last bullet battles happened during the 1962 debacle.
Sir, India was in the Korean War as well.
Sir, Indian soldiers assaulted the peaks of Monte Casino in Italy.
Sir, fair enough.
They were and still are, Sir. Did anyone even identify the Chinese regiments? To this date, I have not read an English account that even know which PLA regiments did the attacks.
I find such lack of info disturbing.
Major, same question. Which Chinese regiment did the attack?
Chimo
ray,
i'm interested from another standpoint.
maxwell said that in the run-up to the 62 war, there was a major division within the IA between the old-school professionals and the nationalists. did you see any evidence of that by the time you signed up?
The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"
-Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
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