HOW NEHRU AND MENON LET DOWN INDIA IN 1962

Menon Humiliated the Army Chief Thimayya

The Sino-Indian Treaty on Relations between India and the Tibet Region of China was signed in 1954. India gave up its rights in Tibet without seeking a quid pro quo. The Panch Sheel was enunciated,which Jawaharlal Nehru presumed presupposed inviolate boundaries in an era of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai.

The young Dalai Lama ( then 26) came to India in 1956 to participate in the 2500th anniversary celebrations commemorating the Enlightenment of the Buddha but was reluctant to return home as he felt China had reneged from its promise of Tibetan autonomy. Chou En-lai visited India later that year and sought Nehru’s good offices to persuade the Dalai Lama to return to Lhasa on the assurance of implementation of the 17 Point Agreement by China in good faith.

Visiting China in 1954, Nehru drew Chou En-lai’s attention to the new political map of India which defined the McMahon Line and the J&K Johnson Line as firm borders (and not in dotted lines or vague colour wash as previously depicted) and expressed concern over corresponding Chinese maps that he found erroneous. Chou En-lai replied that the Chinese had not yet found time to correct its old maps but that this would be done “when the time is ripe”. Nehru assumed this implied tacit Chinese acceptance of India’s map alignments but referred to the same matter once again during Chou’s 1956 visit to India.

The Aksai Chin road had been constructed by China by 1956-57 but only came to notice in 1958 when somebody saw it depicted on a small map in a Chinese magazine. India protested. The very first note in the Sino-Indian White Papers, published later, declared Aksai Chin to be “indisputably” Indian territory ” and, thereafter, incredibly lamented the fact that Chinese personnel had wilfully trespassed into that area “without proper visas”.The misguided Nehru was even at that time prepared to be flexible and negotiate a peaceful settlement or an appropriate adjustment. Parliament and the public were, however, kept in the dark.

Menon and Nehru

Nehru had begun to reassess his position.The late G. Parthasarathi met Nehru on the evening of 18 March 1958, after all concerned had briefed him prior to his departure for Peking as the new Indian Ambassador to China. GP recorded what Nehru said:

“So G.P. what has the Foreign Office told you? Hindi-Chini bhai bhai? Don’t you believe it! I don’t trust the Chinese one bit. They are a deceitful opinionated, arrogant and hegemonistic lot. Eternal vigilance should be your watch word. You should send all your Ttelegrams only to me – not to the Foreign Office. Also, do not mention a word of this instruction of mine to Krishna ( Menon). He, you and I all share a common world view and ideological approach. However, Krishna believes – erroneously – that no Communist country can have bad relations with any Non-Aligned country like ours”.

Chinese incursions and incidents at Longju and Khizemane in Arunachal and the Kongka Pass, Galwan and Chip Chap Valleys in Ladakh followed through 1959. The Times of India broke many of these early stories.Vague whispers of “some trouble” further east were heard.On the way to Chushul, the air strip was still open,and beyond to the Pangong Lake unimpeded.

The Khampa rebellion in Tibet had erupted and the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 via Tawang where he received an emotional welcome. The Government of India granted him asylum along with his entourage and over 100,000 refugees that followed and he took up residence with his government-in-exile in Dharamsala. These events  disturbed the Chinese and marked a turning point in Sino-Indian relations. Their suspicions about India’s intentions were not improved by Delhi’s connivance in facilitating CIA-trained Tibetan refugee guerrillas to operate in Tibet and further permitting an American listening facility to be planted on the heights of Nanda Devi to monitor Chinese signals in Tibet.

China had by now commenced its westward cartographic-cum-military creep in Ladakh and southward creep in Arunachal.

The highly respected Chief of Army Staff, Gen.K.S. Thimayya began to envisage a new defence posture vis-à-vis China in terms of plans, training, logistics and equipment.Krishna Menon, aided by B.N. Mullick, the IB Chief , who also was close to Nehru, disagreed with this threat perception and insisted that attention should remain focussed on Pakistan and the “anti-Imperialist forces”. Growing interference by Krishna Menon, now Defence Minister, in Army postings and promotions and strategic perspectives so frustrated Thimayya that he tendered his resignation to Nehru in 1959. Fearing a major crisis, the PM persuaded Thimayya to withdraw his resignation, which he unfortunately did at the cost of his authority. Nothing changed. Mullick and Menon sowed in Nehru’s mind the notion that a powerful Chief might stage a coup (as Ayub had done). This myth was for long a factor in Government’s aversion to the idea of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff.

A coup had taken place the previous year in October 1958 in neighbouring Pakistan, and there was loose talk in the cocktail party circuit of whether India’s turn would be next. A naturally paranoid defence minister would have found all this sinister, even though the Times of India of 4 January 1959 carried this report:

No Possibility of Military ‘Coup’ in India

Ruling out the possibility of a military ‘coup’ in India, Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, Defence Minister, said here today that ‘whosoever attempted such a thing would come to grief . . .’ Mr. Menon said:

"We have a strong parliamentary system of Government. Our soldiers are well educated and disciplined. They do not meddle in politics.’ ‘In fact’, Mr. Menon added, ‘it is silly to think in terms of a military dictatorship’. ‘The people’, he said, ‘were conscious of their democratic rights and the prevailing social conditions widely varied from what led to military regime in other countries . . ."

Mountbatten had been pressing both Nehru and Krishna Menon to appoint a chief of defence staff (CDS) who would have overarching authority over the army, navy and air force, and had been suggesting Thimayya’s name for this post. Krishna Menon resented this lobbying and, in any case, was dead set against the idea of a CDS, thinking that it would give too much importance in policy to a single military man.

It was with pain and anguish  Gen Thimayya described to other senior officers, the relations of the Army HQs with the Defense Ministry; mainly his with the Defense Minister, VK Krishna Menon.

No wonder the Indian Army got the thrashing of its life from the Chinese, just three years later in 1962. And within two years of that Nehru died a broken and ravaged man. Here is how the story of General Thimayya’s resignation:

Menon called Thimayya and told him that he had no business to meet the Prime Minister without his specific approval. Thimayya reiterated that the Prime Minister desired to know about the preparedness and the state of morale of the Army and he had told him nothing that he had, over the period of 18 months or so, not discussed with the Minister.

Menon remained furious and said: “No, General. It’s downright disloyalty and amounts to impropriety.”

To this, Thimayya replied,: “I make no allegations. You can call the other Chiefs too. They will say the same that they and I have continuously said — that the Services are being neglected and that their morale is low. These are the facts that we have told you earlier and I told the Prime Minister now. I am reiterating that by speaking candidly I and other Chiefs are being loyal to you, the Government and to the Country. That’s what loyalty means to me.”

After another outburst from Menon, Thimayya saw no further point in carrying on the conversation. Deeply hurt at the Minister’s remarks, he got up and repeated: “I have never been disloyal to anyone, least of all to you, my country or the government.”

Menon shouted at the top of his voice. “You are disloyal to me and I have no place for disloyal generals”. 

After Thimaya  left, Menon met Nehru, who asked him not to rock the boat. He assured him that he would once again get the chiefs’ willing co-operation, provided Menon showed patience.

It was late when Thimayya reached home and told his wife, Nina to be ready to pack up and then murmured, “It’s time to pack up honorably.” He also talked to the other Chiefs, Air Chief Marshal Mukherjee and Admiral Katari and told them he was seriously contemplating putting in his papers the next day. Both repeated their vow to ‘follow him.

General Thimayya

Thimayya drafted his resignation letter the following morning and showed it to Mukherjee and Katari, both of whom confirmed their willingness to follow suit. “My conscience says wait” was Nina’ s advice.

Thimaya called Major General S.P.P. Thorat, his preferred successor, who advised the same. So was the suggestion of Bogey Sen, his CGS and Wadalia, his Deputy Chief. General Cariappa who was in Delhi asked him to meet the prime minister again before he ‘bunged in’ his letter.

That night, Thimayya thought and re-thought about throwing away a fine career, the great honor the country had bestowed upon him and the trust his officers and men had reposed in him. It was one of the saddest nights of his life. In the morning Thimaya sent his letter to Nehru..

Nehru called Thimayya and put his arm around his shoulder and asked him why he hadn’t met him earlier, rather than sending in his resignation. “Please withdraw it straight away,” ordered a visibly annoyed Prime Minister. “I will see you again at 7 pm with your letter withdrawing your resignation. In the meanwhile, I am keeping your letter with me.” He then asked him to return at 7 pm.

Katari had informed Mukherjee, who was by now in London, that Thimayya had submitted his resignation and he was following suit. The period between 2.30 pm and 7 pm was used by Nehru to control the damage which the resignation of the chiefs would cause to the government, the services’ morale, and result in the joy of the enemy.

Nehru rang up Katari and told him that he had called Thimayya and he was withdrawing his resignation and he should not entertain any such proposal. (A similar message went to Mukherjee through the High Commission.) He told him that Thimayya would meet him again in the evening and he should meet him at 9.30 pm.

By the time Thimaya arrived at the Teen Murti residence of the prime minister at 7 pm through a carefully orchestrated game play, Nehru had distanced the other chiefs from Thimayya by talking them out of it. Menon too was asked to keep a draft of his resignation handy. An emergency meeting of the Cabinet Committee was also called.

When they met, Nehru began his effort to win over Timayya.Thimayya said that he had not changed his mind and instead urged the prime minister to accept his resignation. In his defense, he argued: “That’s the only honorable course left to me and the other chiefs. When professional advice and recommendations are flouted at the drop of a hat, the chief loses his place and importance.”

Nehru said: “We have sufficient problems. And at this moment of crisis, one should not do anything to encourage opponents and the enemy. Shouldn’t it be so, Timmy?"

Thimayya explained that it was indeed a “moment of crisis” and it was his loyalty to him and his sense of patriotism to the country that had moved him to sacrifice his job. He repeated that Menon as defense minister had “made it impossible” for him and the other chiefs to work as head of the services, and unless Menon was moved out of defense, there could be little progress. But he understood that as this obviously could not be agreed to by the prime minister, he — and the other chiefs — should step aside, and, therefore the submission of his resignation.

Nehru admitted that Menon was a “difficult man”, but he was simply “brilliant” and was doing service to defence which no one earlier had done. Thimaya agreed, but suggested that his methods of “man-management” were “outrageous” and his brilliance was that of an “Oxford professor of philosophy” rather than of a man dealing with the country’s defense forces which have to be prepared and motivated to fight enemies.

Finally, he told his prime minister: “With the present state of the army, I can hardly assure success. We are not prepared. All my efforts — as also of others — have failed for the past 24 to 30 months to make the armed forces a viable defense force. So let someone else do the job – I request my resignation be kindly accepted.”

Nehru then pleaded with Thimayya: “Timmy, I ask you to withdraw this resignation. I, as your elder and not necessarily your Prime Minister, am requesting you to do s o. I promise to restore dignity to you and the other Chief’s Offices. We have to fight an enemy. For my sake, withdraw it.”

At 9.30 pm Katari met Nehru who told him that they were “ganging up” against Menon and that “Thimayya had withdrawn his resignation” — both factually wrong. Katari, then decided to call off handing his letter of resignation without even checking with Thimayya.

Enormous damage was done to the Chiefs’ solid standing.

On the morning of 1 September, the Capital awoke alarmed to the disturbing disclosures in the Statesman about Thimayyas’ resignation (which had, by then, been withdrawn). J N Chaudhuri,a top army officer,who was the daily's confidential military commentator, had passed on the information.Chaudhuri would become Chief of the Army in November 1962.Chaudhuri would later admit in his autobiography to being the military correspondent of the Statesman from 1951 for a decade and confess that his ‘anonymity was very well kept’.

There was also considerable applause when the prime minister assured the House — and through it, the country — that “under our practice, the civil authority is, and must remain supreme” (while it should, however, pay due heed to expert advice). There was also applause when he referred to the army’s “fine mettle” and “excellent morale.”

It was (daughter) Mireille who wept bitterly at the public humiliation of her father in Parliament (where she sat alongside Indira Gandhi) by Pandit Nehru; tears welled up in her eyes. When she recalled the scene to her father, the tears returned.

She spoke of these things to her father on the telephone at Secunderabad where he had gone for the forth coming inauguration of the Joint Land Warfare School. “Daddy, you have been let down. Mummy was right in asking you not to withdraw your letter.”

Thimayya said nothing.

On his return to Delhi, he showed her the office copy of his letter of resignation that contained the gist of what had transpired between him and Nehru – besides the appeals from the prime minister to withdraw his letter.

“You’ll now on defend your father, I hope,” he said. 

“Always passionately, Daddy,” replied Mireille.

“If these are trivial, then I know of no other important issues,” he told Nina, who was furious at the withdrawal and asked him to “re-resign” without a second thought, and expose the duo.

He told her that he had accepted the advice and the assurances of his Prime Minister and had withdrawn his resignation.“For, in a democracy, a resignation is the only constitutional safeguard to a service chief against incompetent, unscrupulous or ambitious politicians” .

A month after the Thimayya resignation episode, the UK high commissioner in India, Malcolm Macdonald, met General Thimayya on 6 October 1959 and sent back a report of their long conversation, which was largely on the India–China border question. Towards the end, the topic of the minister of defence came up and Macdonald wrote:

"General Thimayya said one of the great difficulties in all this business had been Mr. Krishna Menon’s zeal in representing the Pakistanis as the true enemies of India. Mr. Menon played up and often publicized as extremely unfriendly every small frontier trouble between the Pakistanis and Indians, invariably blaming the Pakistanis. The General did not know why the Minister did this. Perhaps it was because Mr. Menon wished to strengthen the case he had made (with popular effect for himself in India) against Pakistan over the Kashmir issue. Anyway, whatever the reason, the Minister of Defence insisted that India’s armed forces should be disposed on the assumption that an attack on India would be launched from Pakistan."

That Thimayya opened up to Macdonald was highly unusual as, after all, the latter was the UK high commissioner, and the top army man was telling him every detail of what he had said to his Prime Minister and defence minister.

On his father's side, Thimayya belonged to the Kodendera clan of Kodagu to which India's first commander-in-chief General Cariappa also belonged (his uncle in fact).

General Thimayya had recommended Gen Thorat to succeed him as Gen Thorat had carried out a thorough recce and submitted a plan to Timmy in case of a war with China.

This was that since NO Roads had been made in the forward areas despite the urgings of Sardar Vallabhai Patel since 1950 and others thereafter, a classic Defensive Battle should be fought at the existing road heads so as to blunt the Chinese Offensive as then that would be from an extended advance over nebulous foot paths.

This recommendation was shelved and Gen Thapar was made Chief as a stop gap till Gen Kaul took over.

B M Kaul

President Ayub Khan of Pakistan had on a brief stopover meeting with Nehru in Delhi en route to Dhaka in 1959 had proposed “joint defence”. Joint defence against whom, was Nehru’s scornful and unthinking retort. Nehru was not unconscious of a potential threat from the north as he had from the early 1950s repeatedly told Parliament that the Himalayan rampart was India’s defence and defence line. He had somewhat grandiloquently and tactlessly proclaimed that though Nepal was indeed a sovereign nation, when it came to India’s security, India’s defence lay along the Kingdom’s northern border, Nepal’s independence notwithstanding! He had been remarkably lax in preparing to defend that not-quite-so-impenetrable a rampart  or even countenance his own military from doing so.

Almost a decade later, Himalayan border road construction commenced under the Border Roads Organisation and forward positions were established. This Forward Policy, though opposed by Lt Gen.Daulat Singh, GOC-in-C Western Command, was pushed by Krishna Menon,de facto Foreign Minister, and equally by B.N Mullick, who played a determining role in these events, being present in all inner councils.

Many of the 43 new posts established in Ladakh were penny packets with little capability and support or military significance. The objective appeared more political, in fulfilment of an utterly fatuous slogan Nehru kept uttering in Parliament and elsewhere, that “not an inch of territory” would be left undefended though he had earlier played down the Aksai Chin incursion as located in a cold, unpopulated, elevated desert “where not a blade of grass grows”. In August Nehru announced that Indian forces had regained 2500 square miles of the 12,000 square miles occupied by the Chinese in Ladakh.

Backseat driving of defence policy continued to the end of Thimayya’s tenure when General P.N.Thapar was appointed COAS in preference to Thimayya’s choice of Lt. Gen S.P.P Thorat, Eastern Army Commander. Thorat had produced a paper in the prevailing circumstances advocating that while the Himalayan heights might be prepared as a trip-wire defence, NEFA should essentially be defended lower down at its waistwhich, among other things, would ease the Indian Army’s logistical and acclimatisation problems and correspondingly aggravate those of the Chinese. The Thorat plan, “The China Threat and How to Meet It”, got short shrift.

The Goa operation at the end of 1960 witnessed two strange events. The new Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt. Gen. Brij Mohan Kaul marched alongside one of the columns of the 17th Division under Gen Kunhiraman Palat Candeth,( a Keralite like Menon), that was tasked to enter Goa. Thereafter he and, separately, the Defence Minister, Krishna Menon, declared “war” or the commencement of operations at two different times: one at midnight and the other at first light the next morning. In any other situation such flamboyant showmanship could have been disastrous.Goa was a cake walk and evoked the mistaken impression among gifted amateurs in high places that an unprepared Indian Army could take on China.

Kaul’s promotion to the rank of Lt. Gen and then to key post of CGS had stirred controversy,since he was a relative of Nehru. He was politically well connected and had held staff and PR appointments but was without command experience. The top brass was divided and the air thick with intrigue and suspicion. Kaul had inquiries made into the conduct of senior colleagues like Thorat, S.D Verma and then Maj.Gen. Sam Manekshaw, Commandant of the Staff College in Wellington.

Even as the exchange of Sino-Indian notes continued, Nehru on 12  October 1962 said he had ordered the Indian Army “to throw the Chinese out”, something casually revealed to the media at Palam airport before departing on a visit to Colombo.

A new 4 Corps was created on 8 October 1962 with headquarters at Tezpur to reinforce the defence of the Northeast. Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh was named GOC but was soon moved to take over 33 Corps at Siliguri and then moved again to the Western Command. Kaul took charge of 4 Corps but appeared to have assumed a superior jurisdiction because of his direct political line to Delhi. Command controversies were further compounded as at times it seemed that both everybody and nobody was in charge. Thapar himself and Gen L.P. Sen,  at Eastern Command, also went to recce and reorder defence plans along the Bomdila-Se La sector. At the political level and at the External Affairs Ministry the adage was “Panditji knows best”.

Kaul was here, there and everywhere, exposing himself in high altitudes without acclimatisation.He fell ill and was evacuated to Delhi on 18 October only to return five days later.

Following Nehru’s “throw them out” order, and against saner military advice and an assessment of ground realities, a Brigade under John Dalvi was positioned on the Namka Chu River below the Thagla Ridge that the Chinese claimed lay even beyond the McMohan Line. It was a self -made trap. It was but to do or die. The Brigade retreated in disorder after a gallant action, while the Chinese rolled down to Tawang which they reached on 25 October.

The Economist parodied Rudyard Kipling. A text of a pithy editorial titled “Plain Tales from the Hills” read, “When the fog cleared, The Chinese were there”.

A new defence line was hurriedly established at Se La. Nehru was by now convinced that the Chinese were determined to sweep down to the plains. The national mood was one despondency, anger, foreboding. The Times of India editor, N.J.Nanporia, who sadly just passed away a few weeks ago, got it right.

In an edit page article he argued that the Chinese favoured negotiation and a peaceful settlement, not invasion, and India must talk. At worst the Chinese would teach India a lesson and go back. Critics scoffed at Nanporia. A week or 10 days later, in response to his critics, he
reprinted the very same article down to the last comma and full-stop. Events proved him absolutely right.

On 24 October, Chou En-lai proposed a 20 kilometre withdrawal by either side. Three days later Nehru sought the enlargement of this buffer to 40-60 km. On 4 November, Chou offered to accept the McMahon Line provided India accepted the Macdonald Line in Ladakh approximating the Chinese claim line (giving up the more northerly Johnson Line favoured by Delhi).

The Army arranged for the press to visit the NEFA front. On 15-17 November 15-17 all drove up to Se La (15,000 feet) and down to Dirang Dzong in the valley beyond before the climb to Bomdila.

Reporters saw Jawans in cottons and perhaps a light sweater and canvas shoes were manhandling ancient 25-pounders into position at various vantage points.They had seen and heard Brij Mohan Kaul’s theatrics and bravado at 4 Corps Headquarters a day earlier and were shocked to see the reality: ill-equipped, unprepared but cheerful officers and men digging in to hold back the enemy under the command of a very gallant officer, Brig Hoshiar Singh.

Dalai Lama,Nehru,Zhou En Lai

The press had barely returned to Tezpur on 17 November,when they learnt that the Chinese had mounted an attack on Se La and outflanked it as well. 

Even as battle was joined, Kaul, disappeared from Tezpur to be with his men, throwing the chain of command into disarray. The saving grace was the valiant action fought at Walong in the Lohit Valley. Much gallantry was also displayed in Ladakh against heavy odds.

The use of the air force had been considered. Some thought that the IAF had the edge as its aircraft would be operating with full loads from low altitude air strips in Assam unlike the Chinese operating from the Tibetan plateau at base altitudes of 11,000-12,000 feet.The decision was to avoid use of offensive air power to prevent escalation.

On 18 November, word came that the Chinese had enveloped Se La, which
finally fell without much of a fight in view of conflicting orders. A day later the enemy had broken through to Foothills along the Kameng axis. Confusion reigned supreme. Kaul or somebody ordered the 4th Corps to pull back to Gauwahati on 19 November and, as military convoys streamed west, somebody else ordered that Tezpur and the North Bank be evacuated.

A “scorched earth” policy was ordered by somebody else again and the Nunmati refinery was all but blown up. The DM deserted his post. Rana KDN Singh, was directed to take charge of a tottering administration. He supervised the Joint Steamer Companies, mostly manned by East Pakistan lascars, as they ferried a frightened and abandoned civil population to the South Bank. The other modes of exodus were by bus and truck, car, cart, cycle and on foot. The last ferry crossing was made at 6 pm. Those who remained or reached the jetty late, melted into the tea gardens and forest.

The Indian Press had ingloriously departed the previous day, preferring safety to real news coverage, – as happened again in Kashmir in 1990, when at least women journalists subsequently redeemed the profession. Alongwith the two Indians remained in Tezpur, wandering around like lost souls, were some 10-15 patients who had been released from the local mental hospital.

Tezpur was a ghost town. The State Bank had burned its currency chest and a few charred notes kept blowing in the wind as curious mental patients kept prodding the dying embers. Some stray dogs and alley cats were the only other companions.

Around midnight, a transistor  crackled to life as Peking Radio announced a unilateral ceasefire and pull back to the pre-October “line of actual control”, provided the Indian Army did not move forward. 

Next morning, all the world carried the news, but AIR still had brave jawans gamely fighting the enemy as none had had the gumption to awaken Nehru and take his orders as the news was too big to handle otherwise.During the preceding days, everyone was tuned into Radio Peking to find out what was going on in our own country. 

The Chinese officially admit to 2,419 casualties (722 dead and 1,697 wounded),if it is a solace for India.The figure is quite stunning, given the situation in which each Indian position was asked to fight.According to Chinese records, at no stage had there been any action that pitted more than an Indian infantry company against at least four to five times the number of Chinese troops. 

1962 was a Nehru-Menon directed military disaster. President Radhakrishnan indicted the Government for its “credulity and negligence”. Nehru himself confessed, artfully using the plural, “We were getting out of touch with reality … and living in an artificial world of our own creation”.

He was reluctant to get rid of Krishna Menon, (making him, first, Minister for Defence Production and then Minister without Portfolio, in which capacity he brazenly carried on much as before). Public anger finally compelled the PM to drop him altogether or risk losing his own job.

Sam Maneckshaw

Nehru was broken and bewildered. His letter to John F Kennedy seeking US military assistance after the fall of Bomdila was abject and pathetic. He feared that unless the tide was stemmed the Chinese would overrun the entire Northeast. He said they were massing troops in the Chumbi Valley and he apprehended another “invasion” from there. If Chushul was overrun, there was nothing to stop the Chinese before Leh.

The IAF had not been used as India lacked air defence for its population centres. He therefore requested immediate air support by 12 squadrons of all-weather supersonic fighters with radar cover, all operated by US personnel. But US aircraft were not to intrude into Chinese air space.

On 21 November, Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Home Minister, paid a flying visit on a mission of inquiry and reassurance. He was followed the next day by Indira Gandhi.

Nehru had meanwhile broadcast to the nation, and more particularly to “the people of Assam “to whom his “heart went out” at this terrible hour of trial. He promised the struggle would continue and none should doubt its outcome. 

The administration returned to Bomdila only after a month. This it did under the Political Officer Maj K.C. Johorey just before Christmas.The people of NEFA had stood solidly with India and Johorey received a warm welcome.

Thapar had been removed and Gen J.N Chaudhuri appointed COAS. Kaul went into limbo. The Naga underground took no advantage of India’s plight. Pakistan had been urged by Iran and the US not to use India’s predicament to further its own cause and kept its word. But it developed a new relationship with China thereafter.

The US and the West had been sympathetic to India and its Ambassador, John Kenneth Galbraith, had a direct line to Kennedy.The US was also preoccupied with growing Sino-Soviet divide and the major Cuban missile crisis that boiled over in October 1962.

The COAS, Gen Choudhury ordered an internal inquiry into the debacle by Maj. Gen Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P.S Bhagat. The Henderson Brooks Report remains a top-secret classified document though its substance was leaked and published by Neville Maxwell who served as the London Times correspondent in India in the 1960s, became a Sinophile and wrote a critical book titled “India’s China War”. The Report brings out the political and military naiveté, muddle, contradictions and in-fighting that prevailed and failures of planning and command. There is no military secret to protect in the Henderson Brooks Report; only political and military ego and folly to hide. 

In 1968, Brigadier John Dalvi, the former commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Brigade that participated in the 1962 Sino-Indian War authored a book named Himalayan Blunder, where he gave his first hand accounts and perceptions of the causes for India's defeat in the war. He was critical of Lt General B.M. Kaul and attributed the loss in 1962 war partly to him. Excerpt from the book: "He managed to keep himself away from hardship and learning the nuances of a military commander as a junior officer and later in service, managed to grab important Army senior command appointments due to his "pull". His involvement with Jawaharlal Nehru later turned out to be a major reason for shameful loss and massacre of Indian troops at the hands of the Chinese".

In 1991, K. Satchidananda Murty wrote a biographical book about the second President of India, S  Radhakrishnan, named Radhakrishnan: His Life and Ideas. In the book, he quoted the former President as having expressed doubts over the capability of Lt General B.M. Kaul. Excerpt from the book: "The General Officer was well known in the Army and Political Circles to be a "personal favourite" of Jawaharlal Nehru since his junior officer days. He reportedly received a number of undue professional favours throughout his career due to this personal connection and he made full use of this opportunity with utter disregard to the Army organisation".

In the book The Unfought War of 1962: An Appraisal, by Raghav Sharan Sharma, he has mentioned that Lt General B.M. Kaul was a distant relation of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As a result,Krishna Menon who was the then Defence Minister and Jawaharlal Nehru's close aide, appointed Lt General B.M. Kaul as Chief of General Staff, against the recommendation of the outgoing Chief of Army Staff, General K.S.Thimayya and in spite of the fact that he was an Army Supply Corps officer, with no prior combat experience and having never commanded a fighting unit earlier.

Lt General Kaul also authored a book named The Untold Story, where he gave his version of reasons for the loss in the 1962 war.

As long as Congress was in power,India did not learn the lesson that borders are more important than boundaries and continued to neglect the development of Arunachal and North Assam lest China roll down the hill again.But at present, given the prevailing global and regional strategic environment and India’scurrent military preparedness, the debacle of 1962 will not be repeated.

After a quarter century later,after he laid down the office,during the Question Answer session at the end of Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw's lecture at the Staff College given on Armistice Day, a question was asked:In the 1962 war, what was your appointment, were you in a position to do something about the situation?

Maneckshaw:In the 1962 war, I was in disgrace.

"I was Commandant of this Institution.Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister, disliked me intensely. General Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff at the time, and the budding man for the next higher appointment, disliked me intensely. So, I was in disgrace at the Staff College. There were charges against me – I will enumerate some of them – all engineered by Krishna Menon.

"I do not know if you remember that in 1961 or 1960, General Thimayya was the Army Chief. He had fallen out with Krishna Menon and had sent his resignation. The Prime Minister, Nehru, persuaded General Thimayya to withdraw his resignation. The members of Parliament disliked Krishna Menon and they went hammer and tongs for the Prime Minister in Parliament.

"The Prime Minister made the statement, “I cannot understand why General Thimayya is saying that the Defence Ministry interferes with the working of the Army. Take the case of General Manekshaw. The Selection Board has approved his promotion to Lieutenant General, over the heads of 23 other officers. The Government has accepted that.”

"I was the Commandant of the Staff College. I had been approved for promotion to Lieutenant General. Instead of making me a Lieutenant General, Krishna Menon levied charges against me.

There were ten charges, I will enumerate only one or two of them – that I am more loyal to the Queen of England than to the President of India, that I am more British than Indian. That I have been alleged to have said that I will have no instructor in the Staff College whose wife looks like an ayah. These were the sort of charges against me.

"For eighteen months my promotion was held back. An enquiry was made. Three Lieutenant Generals, including an Army Commander, sat at the inquiry. I was exonerated on every charge. The file went up to the Prime Minister who sent it up to the Cabinet Secretary, who wrote on the file, ‘if anything happens to General Manekshaw, this case will go will down as the Dreyfus case.’

"So the file came back to the Prime Minister. He wrote on it, “Orders may now issue”, meaning I will now become a Lieutenant General. Instead of that, Ladies and Gentleman, I received a letter from the Adjutant General saying that the Defence Minister, Krishna Menon, has sent his severe displeasure to General Manekshaw, to be recorded.

"I had it in the office where the Commandant now sits. I sent that letter back to the Adjutant General saying what Krishna Menon could do with his displeasure – very vulgarly stated. It is still in my dossier.

"Then the Chinese came to my help. Krishna Menon was sacked, Kaul was sacked and Nehru sent for me. He said, “General, I have a vigorous enemy. I find that you are a vigorous General. Will you go and take over?” I said, “I have been waiting eighteen months for this opportunity,” and I went and took over.

"So, your question was 1962, and what part did I play -, none whatsoever, none whatsoever. I was here for eighteen months, persecuted, inquisitions against me but we survive …."

Another sordid story which began when Gen Thimayya was Chief and Nehru’s blue eyed Defence Minister – Krishna Menon began to under cut and humiliate the Chief in order to pave the way for the rise of the Kashmiri ASC Gen BM Kaul – a distant cousin of the PM:

The Story starts when the Defence Minister visits Maj Gen Sam Manekshaw who was GOC 26 Division and tries to enlist him against his own Chief – Gen Thimayya. Sam of course refuses point blank and thereby begins to dig his own grave.

This is the cause de terre for the enquiry which was initiated against Sam a year or so later when he was Commandant of the Staff College.

The principle witness against Sam in the enquiry against him was a close colleague and friend – then Colonel,later Brigadier – Kim Yadav. Kim was, indeed, an outstanding officer, who was for a while, ADC to Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Years later when Sam took over Western Command where Brig Kim Yadav was Commanding a Brigade, Sam heard some officers in the Mess, in hushed tones belittling Brig Yadav. Turning to them he says, “Gentlemen, Brig Kim Yadav professionally is head and shoulders above most of you – all he lacks is character”.

At the end of the 1971 war, Kim Yadav sent a telegram to Sam, ‘You seem to have won the war all by yourself – without any help from me! My Congratulations’.

POST SCRIPT:

What we saw was a Prime Minister commanded by Mountbatten,even in 1959.He suggested Thimayya for the supreme post;Thimayya briefed everything to the British High Commissioner.An army Chief and an army General leaked secrets.Thus the army was in disarray and Nehru was the last British PM of India!

_____________________________

Reference:

1.A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon/Jairam Ramesh

2.1962: The War That Wasn't/ Shiv Kunal Verma

3.Dalvi, Brig. J.P.,Himalayan blunder – the curtain raiser to the Sino-Indian war of 1962
4.Kaul, Lt. Gen. B.M., "The untold story" 
5.Maxwell, Neville, "India's China War" 

© Ramachandran 

INDIA'S FIGHT WITH CHINA IN 1967

400 Chinese Soldiers Killed

The Sino-India war of 1962 resulted in China redrawing the border as the Line of Actual Control in its own favour,but in 1967 the second Sino-India war of 1967 saw India push China back.The clash between India and China in 1967 is often remembered as the last shot fired on the India-China border.

That clash in Sikkim, where India got the better of China just five years after defeat in the 1962 war, saw more than 80 Indian soldiers killed while estimates say 400 Chinese soldiers may have been killed.

In 1967, India fought a battle against China to  protect its land and won, according to a book. The 1967 battles of Nathu La and Cho La pass changed the Indo-China political dynamics forever. But no one speaks about this resounding victory.

In his book, ‘Watershed 1967: India’s forgotten victory over China’, army veteran Probal DasGupta explores the mystery.

“When you look at 1971, China didn’t interfere in the India-Pakistan war. Not many have asked that question as to why, but there are many reasons why 1967 is an important yet underrated reason why China did not go down the Siliguri corridor and cut India out. Thereafter, at various stand-offs, whether it is Daulat Beg Oldi or Doklam in 2017, India has always used that template and obtained a dominating position in stand-offs against China.”,he points out. “I think that has set the template and has also ensured, what I’ve maintained – that peace is obtained when you achieve parity. Hence, there was a parity that was obtained in 1967, which got back India’s pride and was also responsible in conveying to China that they’re militarily a bigger power and that they could not overrun India anymore,” adds Das Gupta.

Tensions during a standoff at the Sikkim border in 1967

Relations between India and China were already tense in 1967 but matters came to a head in August 1967. Irked by India’s decision to erect iron pickets along the border from NathuLa to Sebu La, the Chinese began to heckle Indian soldiers. What followed soon was a full blown clash with the Chinese attempting to wrest control over the Nathu La pass from India. A daring decision by the commanding officer, Lt General Sagat Singh stopped their plans from succeeding.

“As India was going up against Pakistan on the Western front, Chinese troops had amassed across the border near Sikkim, and that was the time when it was expected that Indian troops would pull back from Nathu-La. But General Sagat refused to do so because that would give the Chinese easy access to the Siliguri corridor down the Sikkim axis. Therefore, he disagreed with his superiors and stuck to his decision,” says Das Gupta.

Had General Sagat Singh not stood his ground, Chinese troops stationed at Nathu La would have captured the pass. This would give them easy access to the Siliguri corridor during the 1971 war. The outcome of the 1971 India-Pakistan could have then been very different.

“Psychologically, the political leadership was rattled and was even quite demoralised in 1962 as far as China was concerned. We had achieved some success against Pakistan in 1965. However, the overall attitude towards China was still very much different and defensive. Going against the grain of leadership was extremely creditable of General Sagat at that point of time,” Das Gupta records.

In the weeks and months ahead of the clash, the Indian side had decided to fence the border with three layers of barbed wire. Work started on August 20, 1967.

On August 23, about 75 Chinese in battle dress, carrying rifles fitted with bayonets, advanced slowly towards Nathu La in an extended line, and stopped at the border. The Political Commissar — identifiable by a red patch on his cap, and the only one who could speak some English — read out slogans from a red book, which the rest of the party shouted after him.

The Indian troops were “standing to”, watching and waiting. After about an hour, the Chinese withdrew. But they returned later, and continued their protests.

On September 5, as the barbed wire fence was being upgraded to a concertina coil, the Political Commissar had an argument with the Commanding Officer of the local infantry battalion, Lt Colonel Rai Singh. Thereafter, work stopped.

Work was, however, resumed on September 7. This provoked about 100 Chinese soldiers to rush up, and a scuffle ensued. Beaten down by the Jats, the Chinese resorted to stone-pelting, and the Indians responded in kind.

On September 10, the Chinese sent across a warning through the Indian embassy: “The Chinese Government sternly warns the Indian Government: the Chinese Border Defence Troops are closely watching the development of the situation along the China-Sikkim boundary. Should the Indian troops continue to make provocative intrusions, the Indian Government must be held responsible for all the grave consequences.”

The corps commander had ordered the fence to be completed on September 11. That day, as work started, the Chinese came to protest, led by the Political Commissar. Lt Col Rai Singh went out to talk to them.

Suddenly, the Chinese opened fire, and Singh fell to the ground, injured.

Seeing their CO hit, the infantry battalion attacked the Chinese post. But they suffered heavy casualties, including two officers, who were both given gallantry awards. Soldiers in the open were mowed down by Chinese machine gun fire.

Taken aback by the strong Indian response, the Chinese threatened to bring in warplanes. When the Indians refused to back off, the Chinese news agency Xinhua denied these plans.

Having sent its message militarily, India, on September 12, delivered a note to the Chinese, offering an unconditional ceasefire across the Sikkim-Tibet border beginning 5.30 am on September 13. This was rejected, but the situation remained largely peaceful until the 14th.

On September 15, the Chinese handed over the bodies of Indian soldiers with arms and ammunition, saying they were acting in the interest of “preserving Sino-Indian friendship”.

On October 1, another skirmish erupted at Cho La, but the Indians again repulsed the Chinese.

On September 13, 1967, Indian deputy prime minister Morarji Desai, who was visiting the U.S., appeared on the “Today” show. The first five questions he was asked were about the “fighting up in Sikkim” – the reference was to the clashes that had taken place from September 11 at Nathu La and would continue till September 14.

During the 1965 India-Pakistan war, there had been Chinese pressure on India, but the Nathu La fighting was seen as the first major clash between China and India since the 1962 war. And that war shaped how the Sikkim clashes were seen within and outside government in the U.S. In particular, it meant a focus on two aspects of the clashes – first, the likelihood of escalation and, second, Indian preparation and performance.

Asked about heightened Chinese rhetoric and warnings, Desai assessed, “They are mainly angry about the fact that we are not submitting to their pressures and their bullying…They would like us to fall in line with their strategy or their policy of dominating Asia and, ultimately, the world, as I see it.”

The U.S. in 1967 shared this Indian concern about China and its desire to dominate Asia. The Sikkim clashes came even as American troops were fighting in Vietnam, in the midst of Chairman Mao’s unfolding Cultural Revolution, and a few months after China had conducted its first hydrogen bomb test. Since a decade before, American administrations had seen India as part of their China strategy – as a potential counter-weight and democratic contrast to communist China. Indian success, therefore, was seen to be in American interest and a way of addressing the China challenge.

The 1962 war had been a major setback – in both geopolitical and psychological terms – to this strategy, as well as to how India was seen globally, regionally and within the U.S. That war, and setbacks related to Indian economic development and food supply, had shifted the American emphasis from the need to build up India to the need to prevent it from falling. Given this objective, any escalation on the China-India front was seen as potentially having consequences for Indian security and economic development – including by leading to even greater defense spending at the expense of development – and, potentially, requiring greater American involvement.

Thus, the U.S. government kept a close eye on the Sikkim clashes. American intelligence assessments had observed a deterioration of the China-India relationship, with a worsening of Chinese actions and words vis-à-vis India throughout 1967 amid the Cultural Revolution. Along with attacks on and expulsions of Indian diplomats, there had been numerous articles in People’s Daily in praise of the Naxalites, and Naga and Mizo insurgents, and calling for revolution in India. There had also been Chinese military probes into Bhutanese territory that summer. The Central Intelligence Agency indeed later saw the September clashes as “military expressions of intensified political relations.”

During the Nathu La clashes, American officials received updates through various means, including discussions with Indian officials. American and Indian military and diplomatic officials exchanged assessments in Delhi, Washington and Calcutta, including perplexity about Chinese motivations. Indian officials stated that they believed Chinese actions were localized, but deliberate.

The CIA director asked his staff for better reporting on the Sino-Indian border situation. Updates on the clashes made President Johnson’s daily brief each day between September 12 and 15, and then again after a clash took place at Cho La on October 1.

Officials particularly watched the scale of the clashes, the anti-India protests and propaganda campaign coming from China, whether Chinese logistical capabilities had been increased in the area, and Chinese troop dispositions not just at the point of the clashes, but also all along the border.

When the clashes ended, American Embassy officials reported back that “Indians confident they had the best of the incident.” There was a sense of relief within the U.S. government and outside – not just that the clashes had remained limited, but also with regard to how India performed both militarily and diplomatically. Noting that, unlike 1962, Delhi had not engaged in a war of words, The New York Times had indeed approvingly commented on Delhi’s demonstration of “firmness and restraint.” Press reporting on the incident had noted assessments that the clashes would remain limited, but there had simultaneously been concern that the 1962 war had been preceded by just such incidents and also that major Chinese offensives had followed lulls.

There was also an acknowledgement in the media, however, that India was better prepared than five years before. Finally, there was speculation about China’s motives, but also assessments that, whatever they were, they would have the consequences of weakening any voices in India calling for improved relations with China, “speed[ing] India’s movement toward cooperation with other nations of Asia in some kind of anti-Chinese front,” and strengthening those calling for India to develop nuclear weapons.

Pak surrender 1971;Standing third is Sagat Singh

This wasn’t just the assessment of external analysts. Intelligence briefings to members of Congress noted that Sino-Indian border incidents would be ongoing and “could flare up at any time.” There was a sense, however, that China was unlikely to attack in a major way at that time and more confidence in India’s capabilities. But there was also a concluding assessment: that the clashes would do nothing to ease Indian concerns about China and, in particular, “growing Indian fear of Chinese nuclear capabilities could eventually force India to build its own bomb.”

In his answers to the Today show interviewer, Desai tried to reassure the audience on both these fronts. He noted that Chinese behaviour could not be predicted, but said he expected the fighting would remain localized. Noting that India had been preparing and could defend itself, he asserted that India would not succumb to pressure.

In October 1967, another clash at Cho La ended in a similar manner as the one in Nathu La. Gorkhas and Grenadier troops of Indian Army demolished Chinese PLA forces in these battles. At least 88 Indian soldiers and over 340 Chinese troops lost their life in the battles and over a thousand were injured.

DasGupta believes that it was the right kind of political and military leadership of officers like General Sam Manekshaw and General Sagat that made the difference in the battles of 1967.

Probal DasGupta attributes multiple reasons why the battles of 1967 were forgotten.

“It was an era when India had suffered reverses a few years before that. Five years before that, in the 1962 India-China war, India had suffered a heavy setback. So, when this happened, it wasn’t covered as much in the media and people couldn’t really come to terms with what had happened there.”

Secondly, it was also because India and China had kind of not wanted to play it up as much. So, I think tacitly it was agreed to not play it up in the international fora. Thirdly, the most important reason was in 1971 when India had registered a resounding victory which whitewashed a lot of things that had happened in the past.”

Pointing that history shapes a narrative, DasGupta said, “The history of 1962 was written by Brigadier John Dalvi, who was the commander of the 7th Brigade, one of the first Indian brigades to be defeated by Chinese forces. Brigadier Dalvi was taken prisoner and he was kept in China for some time. After he came back, he wrote a book. It was bitter and explosive, but we banned the book.”

“Thereafter, Neville Maxwell wrote a book on India and China; it was sympathetic to China. What happened with that is when Henry Kissinger went to China in 1970-71, he visited Beijing and he met Zhou Enlai, and Zhou Enlai gave him that book as a gift. Henry Kissinger’s drift on China and his entire anti-India narrative was based heavily from his learnings from the book, which he found to be extremely impressive. So this is what history does. History does shape a narrative,” he added.

If it is true that 1967 marked the last major fighting that saw casualties on both sides, it was not, however, the last incident of a shot being fired on the contested boundary.

That would happen eight years later, when a patrol of Assam Rifles jawans was ambushed by the Chinese at Tulung La in Arunachal Pradesh. Four were killed.

The Indian government maintained that the Chinese had crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and ambushed the patrol on October 20, 1975. The Chinese denied this and blamed India for the incident.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing accused the patrol of crossing the LAC and firing at a Chinese post. The Ministry handed a protest note on October 22 to the Charge d’Affaires of the Indian embassy in Beijing describing China’s actions as “a self defence response”, according to a November 3 report in the French newspaper Le Monde.The report said India recovered their bodies a week later on October 28.

A U.S. State Department cable from 1975 noted India’s view that the “Chinese ambush was sprung 500 metres south of Tulung La” and took place on Indian territory. It quoted a senior Indian military intelligence officer as saying on November 5 the border there was very clear, marked by a distinctive shale cliff. He said China had moved up a company to the pass and detached a platoon which erected stone walls on India’s side of the pass, and from there fired several hundred rounds at the patrol. Four of the patrol had gone into a leading position, while two others, who escaped, had stayed behind. The officer said the patrol was routine and had been in the area several times before.

John Dalvi

The cable noted that Tulung La was among the more remote passes in the region, a few dozen kilometres from Bum La and Tawang. It noted China had used the pass during the 1962 war as a channel to send its troops down to Bomdi La, to defeat the Indian resistance there to their offensive.

“Although the Chinese appear to be following their policy of enforcing the status quo with respect to the LAC pending negotiations,” the cable concluded, “they apparently still lay claim to Arunachal Pradesh down to the
foothills”.

The Hero of 1962

Lt General Sagat Singh, ( 1918 –  2001) was a General Officer in the Indian Army notable for his participation in invasion of Goa and later in Bangladesh. He held many prestigious command and staff appointments throughout his military career.

Singh was born in the village of Kusumdesar (Moda) in Churu district of Rajasthan.He joined Dungar College at Bikaner but was enrolled as a Naik in Bikaner Ganga Risala after his intermediate exam in 1938. Later, he was promoted to Jemadar (now called Naib Subedar) and commissioned as a Second lieutenant in Bikaner Ganga Risala which was sent to Sind in 1941 to deal with the Hoor rebellion. Later it was sent to Jubair in Iraq and Ahwaz in Iran during the war. He was selected for the 12th War Staff course at Quetta from May to November 1945.

On amalgamation of the State Forces in 1950, he joined Third Gorkha Rifles. He commanded the Second and Third Battalions of the Third Gorkha Rifles. In September 1961, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier and posted as the brigade commander of India's only parachute brigade, the 50th Parachute Brigade. The parachute brigade led by him played a prominent part in liberation of Goa, and his men were the first to enter Panjim on 19 December 1961.

Sagat Singh

As a Major General, he was the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 17 Mountain Division and later a communication zone. While he was the GOC of the mountain division, the Nathu La and Cho La clashes took place, where 17 Mountain Division achieved "decisive tactical advantage" and defeated the Chinese forces in these clashes.

He also played a pivotal role in counter-insurgency operations in Mizoram. For his distinguished services, the general officer was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal . In December 1970, he took over the command of HQ IV Corps as a lieutenant general. The corps made the famous advance to Dhaka over the River Meghna during Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. He witnessed in Dhaka the signing of the surrender instrument by General Niazi.

For his leadership and command for the race to Dhaka, the Government of India honored Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh with the third highest civilian award of Padma Bhushan. Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh is the only other Corps commander besides Lt. Gen. (later Gen. and COAS) T N Raina and Lt. Gen. Sartaj Singh to be so awarded in 1971.

Sagat Singh died at the Army Hospital Research & Referral, New Delhi on 26 September 2001.Lt Gen Sagat Singh's character was played by Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff in the 2018 Indian Hindi-language film Paltan.

Dalvi's Book, Himalayan Blunder

Himalayan Blunder was an extremely controversial war memoir penned by Brigadier John Dalvi. It dealt with the causes, consequences and aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962, that ended in Chinese People's Liberation Army inflicting a defeat on India.

The title seems to allude to the "Himalayan miscalculation" that Gandhi discusses in his autobiographical article for 14 April 1919, and which retained this title as Chapter 33 in Gandhi's autobiography.He had used the expression first at Nadiad.

Brigadier Dalvi served in the Indian Army and gives a first-person account of the war. The book was banned by the Indian Government after its publication.

Because of the book, the term "Himalayan blunder" came to be used as a synonym for colossal failure in the context of Indian politics.

The book begins with the narration of Brig. Dalvi's days in the DSSC, Wellington. He narrates an incident where a guest faculty, a retired British official, after hearing that Nehru had signed Panchsheel agreement with China in April 1954 and had decided to give up the post in Tibet that the British had maintained in Tibet to check Chinese advance, interrupted his class and warned that India and China would soon be at war and people in this class would be fighting it. Brig. Dalvi remembers that he was very angry with the gentleman questioning the authority of the gentleman to criticise the leader of his country.

Brig. Dalvi also examines the position of Tibet vis-a-vis India and China. The British, he says, had insight into China's imperial ambitions. They had therefore cultivated Tibet as a buffer state. Expectedly, the Chinese attacked Tibet in 1950 and captured it. India did not protest the attack owing to Nehru's China-friendly policy. The Chinese began constructing roads from Tibet leading to Aksai Chin near Ladakh. The Chinese had two major claims with respect to Indian territories -

1.Aksai Chin in the northeastern section of Ladakh District in Jammu and Kashmir.

2. British-designated North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), which is the present-day state of Arunachal Pradesh.

When the war broke out on 8 September 1962, Nehru was away from India. The Chinese attacked simultaneously on the Ladakh area and NEFA. They managed to capture 11,000 km² of area in Aksai Chin and substantial area in NEFA. The commander of IV Corps, Nehru's relative,General Brij Mphan Kaul was not on the front lines and was in Military Hospital, Delhi, recovering from an illness. Dalvi further alleges that B.M. Kaul was promoted to the position of General supplanting more capable, and senior officers because he was personally close to Nehru.

According to Dalvi, the Indian Army lacked leadership, equipment for mountain warfare, weaponry, and basic essentials like warm clothing, snow boots, and glasses. Brg Dalvi lavishes praise on his brigade's courage, bravery, and grit in face of superior opposition. Despite gaining territory, the Chinese army declared a unilateral ceasefire, while still maintaining the status quo. Brig. Dalvi was taken as prisoner of war along with the soldiers of his brigade. He was subsequently imprisoned for six months. Dalvi also records how China had meticulously planned the attack while officially it maintained a different posture.

Dalvi also examines the aftermath of the war. The detractors of Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru held Defence Minister Krishna Menon and General B M Kaul responsible for the debacle and both of them resigned.

Brigadier John Parashuram Dalvi (1920 – 1980),during the Sino-Indian War of 1962,  was the commander of the Indian 7th Brigade, which was destroyed, leading Dalvi to be captured by the People's Liberation Army on 22 October 1962.

Dalvi was born on 3 July 1920 in Basra, Iraq where his father was serving with the British administration. He returned to India in 1923 and studied at St. Mary's High School, Bombay. He graduated and joined to study under the Jesuits at St. Xavier's College, Bombay. In 1940 with the outbreak of World War II he joined Indian Army.

Dalvi was commissioned into the Baluch Regiment. To the end of World War II he served with the regiment's 5th Battalion. He took part in Field Marshal Sir William Slim's pursuit of Japanese Army. From October 1944 to March 1945 he saw fighting with 19th Indian Division notably at the Crossing of the Irrawaddy. 

In 1945 he was selected to join the staff of General Sir Montagu Stopford, GOC XXXIII Corps and later GOC-in-C of 12th Army Burma.

In 1947 he was posted as instructor to Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. He was then moved to 5 Gorkha Rifles as 2nd in command. In 1949 Dalvi was attached with Brigade of the Guards. In 1950, he was selected for Staff College, which he graduated in 1951. He then commanded the 4th Battalion, Brigade of the Guards and later 2nd Guards.

In October 1960 he was given an accelerated promotion to be appointed as Brigadier Administration to XV Corps. In January 1962, he was given the Command on 7th Infantry Brigade in NEFA and fought in the Sino-Indian War. He was taken Prisoner of War on 22 October 1962 and was repatriated in May 1963.

On his return to India, he authored the book about the 1962 war, titled The Himalayan Blunder: The curtain raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962.The book was banned in Indian almost immediately on its release, but this ban was later lifted.His book is in direct contradiction with the book authored by his erstwhile commanding officer, Brij Mohan Kaul.In his book Brig. Dalvi bitterly described about his return to India:

We landed in Dum Dum airport in Calcutta on May 4, 1963. We were received cordially, appropriately. But the silence there was disquieting. I realized later. We had to prove we weren't brainwashed by Chinese ideology. We had to prove we were still loyal to India. My own army maintained a suspicious distance. The irony cannot be harsher: this treatment from a country, which for more than a decade had brainwashed itself into holding the Chinese baton wherever it went.

He died of cancer in 1980.

Military historian and film maker Shiv Kunal Verma's book,1962:The War That Wasn't speaks about a character called Bogey Singh.

Bogey Sen’s presence in Tawang between 22 and 23 October only added to the confusion. Before landing at Tawang, the army commander had flown towards Zimithang to get an idea of the terrain which he was not familiar with at all. Once in Tawang, as we have seen, Sen did nothing to bolster the confidence of the garrison. The meeting with [Lt Gen Niranjan] Prasad later in the evening focused on two issues: the Nam Ka Chu rout of 7 Brigade and the immediate withdrawal from Tawang. Bogey Sen opposing a withdrawal only amounted to theatrics, for had he wished, as the army commander, he had the authority to overrule Prasad.

Both officers at the time were unaware that Army HQ, now represented by Monty Palit, was pushing for the same decision. There was a critical difference though—Prasad was planning on falling back on Bomdila with Se-la only playing the part of a delaying obstacle. Palit, on the other hand, based on the one incomplete reconnaissance made almost two years ago, had made up his mind to dig in at Se-la. [Army chief Pran Nath] Thapar having gone along with his DMO, who now had the tacit approval of Nehru, was relegated to the role of a spectator. The Thorat Plan, even though it hadn’t been implemented, at least had had some discussions around it and plans had been drawn up. Just as Tawang was abandoned on a whim, Se-la was seemingly chosen arbitrarily by Monty Palit who played the ‘cleared by the cabinet’ card to ride roughshod over any opposition.

In the coming days, the Indian military high command would take decisions that lacked even the most basic common sense. Even as Palit was coming out of the defence minister’s room with Nehru’s ‘the military must decide where to fight’ mandate, Bogey Sen had decided to sack Niranjan Prasad as GOC 4 Division. Less than three hours previously, as he was leaving Tawang, Sen had eventually endorsed Prasad’s decision to pull back from Bum-la and evacuate Tawang. Surely, having seen for himself the effect of the headlong retreat from Zimithang on Prasad and other senior officers, Sen was experienced enough to know that to pull back any further would result in losing not just all the supplies and material that had so painstakingly been put together, but a withdrawal without a fight would further sap the morale of the men and officers. So far, after the first couple of hours of fighting on the Nam Ka Chu, Tsangdhar, Khenzemane, and Bum-la, all Indian units that had come into contact with the Chinese were only fighting in penny packets or withdrawing. Had it been decided that Tawang was to be held at all costs, it would have made perfect sense to replace Prasad as the GOC since the army commander felt he had lost the will to fight. But to institute this change after the withdrawal order was given was to add considerably to the existing chaos.

On the evening of 23 October neither Delhi, Lucknow nor Tezpur had any idea where the next defensive line was supposed to be; the only orders given until then were to abandon Tawang and Bum-la and fall back on Jang. When Palit took the draft of the order to hold Se-la to the chief, it was decided that Thapar, Palit and the IB chief, [B.N.] Mullik, would fly immediately to Tezpur and discuss the matter with Bogey Sen in person. From all indications,Thapar was still not fully convinced about the decision to hold Se-la. On his own initiative, Palit put into place steps for the stocking of supplies for Se-la, working on the assumption that five battalions would be required to hold the feature.

Who was Bogey Sen?

Lt General Lionel Protip "Bogey" Sen ( 1910 – 1981) commanded the Eastern Command during the Sino-Indian War of 1962. After the conflict, Sen was appointed GOC-in-C, Southern Command, on 10 May 1963.

Sen too wrote a book,Slender was the Thread:Kashmir Confrontation 1947-48.It has nothing on 1962.

Sen was from the exalted, Anglicised generation of Sandhurst-trained, pre-Partition, King’s Commissioned Indian Officers.The high point of his service was his sudden airlift to Srinagar on 5 November 1947 during the Kashmir confrontation, when Pakistani raiders were about to reach the airfield and the capital city, after having sacked, pillaged, burnt, looted and raped in Muzaffarabad, Uri and Baramulla.

A panicky Maharaja Hari Singh abandoned his efforts to somehow become independent, signed the Instrument of Accession to India, and the Army was ordered to save Srinagar and then evict the invaders.

India had very few troops in Kashmir then. The Maharaja’s state army had more or less collapsed. Its British chief left, the next in line killed by raiders close to Baramulla, Muslim troops defected and thousands of others just hid in fright.

Bogey Sen

India and Pakistan both had British army chiefs then as well as a large sprinkling of British officers. As war became inevitable between the two new nations, just 11 weeks old, the British decided none of their officers or personnel would fight. Yet, the British chiefs remained in control.

There was a need to airlift troops to save Srinagar from falling. It had only a dirt airstrip. A brave airlift was set up with Dakotas filled with troops and equipment raising an incredible air-bridge between Delhi and Srinagar. The first brigade commander sent there, Brigadier J.C. Katoch, was wounded in the leg and had to be evacuated. A new Indian brigadier had to be found right away.

L.P. Sen, then a mere colonel, was the No. 2 in the Directorate of Military Intelligence under Brigadier P.N. Thapar (later Army chief in the 1962 war). General Sir Rob Lockhart, then India’s Chief of Army Staff, summoned Sen and ordered him to take over the defence of Srinagar and the Valley at once. Because he was still a colonel, he “promoted” him to brigadier temporarily, until Katoch recovered, “in 10 days or so”.

That was not to happen. Sen continued there for almost two years, defending Srinagar, liberating Baramulla, Uri, even Haji Pir Pass and linking it up with Poonch.He wrote his story in graphic detail in the first real military memoir by an Indian soldier post-Independence. There are controversies and questions about his claims.Sen claims in the book:

"As I was leaving General Russell’s house, I received a message to the effect that Brigadier Thapar would be waiting for me at the southern entrance to South Block of the Secretariat. When I arrived he informed me that Mahatma Gandhi wished to see me and be given an intelligence briefing. We drove to his residence and I told him everything that was known to us. He listened most intently and when I finished and asked whether he has any questions he would like answered, he replied “No, no questions.”

"After a few seconds of silence he continued, “Wars are a curse to humanity. They are so utterly senseless. They bring nothing but suffering and destruction.” As a soldier, and one about to be engaged in battle in a matter of hours, I was at a loss to know what to say, and eventually asked him: “What do I do in Kashmir?” Mahatma Gandhi smiled and said: “You’re going in to protect innocent people, and to save them from suffering and their property from destruction. To achieve that you must naturally make full use of every means at your disposal.” It was the last time I was to see him alive."

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Photo ( top) Courtesy: Probal DasGupta

Reference:

1.Dalvi, Brig. J.P., "Himalayan blunder – The Curtain Raiser to the Sino-Indian war of 1962
2.Kaul, Lt. Gen. B.M/The untold story
3.Maxwell, Neville, India's China War

4.Shiv Kunal Verma/1962:The War That Wasn't

© Ramachandran