Military & Aerospace

Exorcise the Ghosts of 1962
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Issue Vol. 29.3 Jul-Sep 2014 | Date : 14 Nov , 2014

A name that does not feature much is that of the Defence Minister, Krishna Menon. In an interview published in the Outlook (22 October 2012), Neville Maxwell has described Krishna Menon as a very westernised Indian who did not like the military, especially the soldiers of the old guard and was inclined to be abrasive towards them at every available opportunity. Notwithstanding him being dismissive of the advice by the top brass of the Army, he was favourably inclined towards the likes of Lt. Gen. Kaul, who were emerging as the ‘good boys’. As Defence Minister, he bore the major responsibility for the military’s state of preparedness or the lack thereof, but also continuously interfered in military matters. Yet some analysts do not place the entire blame of the debacle on him.

The Report severely censures the Army leadership for its total failure of command and control…

The last issue that needs to be understood concerns the national psyche of that time and how the events and questions leading to the conflict affected the decision-making. The Sino-Indian border is actually a Line of Actual Control (LAC) and is notional and not demarcated on any map. This has led to both China and India making claims and counter-claims on Aksai-Chin, in Ladakh. In the East, China rejected the McMahon Line, a stand that it maintains until today. India claims that China has occupied about 30,000 sq km in Ladakh whereas China lays claim to the entire Arunachal Pradesh, the erstwhile NEFA (about 90,000 sq km. It, therefore, could be considered flippant to claim that the Prime Minister was forced into the Forward Policy by a clamouring media and nationalist politicians. On the other hand, does it speak well of a Prime Minister who succumbs to such pressures, and despatches his Army on an adventure without adequate preparation, both in terms of infrastructure and equipment, ignoring professional military advice?

India tried to establish good relations with China from 1950 onwards through a series of favourable actions. It advocated for its membership to the United Nations (UN), and opposed the UN resolution on the Korea War. India accepted China’s claim over Tibet and Taiwan. After the visit of the Chinese Premier, Chou en Lai, to India in 1954, the slogan “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai”, consequent to the signing of the Panchsheel Agreement, picked up and it was thought that all would be well with China on the Northern and Eastern frontiers.

Subsequent events between 1954 and 1962 moved at a rapid pace. China started showing parts of NEFA and Ladakh as its territory, ignoring India’s objections. The Dalai Lama was given political asylum in India in 1959, much to the annoyance of China. Chou en Lai officially claimed 40,000 sq. km. of Indian territory and refused to accept the McMahon Line, which it does till today. Despite talks at various levels, the tension continued to build and incursions and firing upon Indian troops increased with aggressive border patrols by both sides until Sept 1962. The rest, as they say, is history. The war continues as a prolonged embarrassment and dishonour and China remains as a constant adversary.

The glaring intelligence failures of 1962 had led to many changes in the security establishment…

The brutal truth continues to be hidden in the corridors of South Block in the two copies of the Brooks Report submitted in April 1963 and classified as “TOP SECRET”. On September 02, 1963, Y B Chavan, who took over as the Defence Minister from the disgraced Krishna Menon told the Indian Parliament that the defeat was due to poor military leadership and high-level interference in tactical operations. Other reasons listed by him were the Army’s lack of preparedness for mountain warfare and unfamiliarity with Chinese tactics, shortage of equipment during training and combat and inadequate military intelligence. It seems from the statement that Chavan’s dilemma was to defend the Government while ensuring that the morale of the Armed Forces was not further adversely affected. The Report, as per its mandate, severely censures the Army leadership for its total failure of command and control, lack of credible intelligence and deficiency in preparedness but does not mention anything about the political leadership. However, a “TOP SECRET” note written by the then COAS, General Chaudhuri, reportedly running into 40-odd pages, is severely critical of the political leadership of that time highlighting Krishna Menon’s rejection of military advice and continuous meddling in military matters.

While the Army HQ does not want its humiliation to be revealed, the political leadership also wants to keep its inadequacies from being known to all and sundry. It is no small wonder then that the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report continues to be classified.

What Next?

Former Defence Minister AK Antony, answering a question on the Henderson Report in Parliament in 2010, said that it could not be made public as an internal study by the Army had established that the contents of the Report, “are not only extremely sensitive, but are of current operational value”. Several army Chiefs, however, have contradicted this. To claim that the contents of a 51-year old report are of operational value defies common sense!

Lack of coordination between intelligence and security agencies, credibility of resources, inconsistency are among the key issues…

Selective leaks of the Report over the years raise some serious questions about the conduct of the political and military leadership, some of which continue to be of relevance even today. Three exceptionally disquieting trends demand a national debate to prevent a recurrence of 1962. The issues relate to the continuing civil-military disconnect, serious gaps in training and provisioning of equipment, and inadequate or faulty intelligence, leading to curious decisions.

The glaring intelligence failures of 1962 had led to many changes in the security establishment including the creation of an exclusive agency to gather foreign intelligence, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The deficiencies highlighted by Brooks in his report, however, bear striking similarity to the challenges being faced by the security establishment even today. Lack of coordination between intelligence and security agencies, credibility of resources, inconsistency are among the key issues and the story is not very different even today, as can be seen from the 1999 Kargil conflict, or the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai.

Declassifying the Brooks Report will allow the military and political leadership to learn from the errors of the past and correct deficiencies that keep being exposed at regular intervals on the Chinese flank. The Government gets hyperactive with every instance of an incursion, a visa-issue or any other such happenings, but remains in a passive mode otherwise. Making public the Report will present an opportunity to the Government to revisit its China policy, shedding rigidity of the past and following a more flexible and pragmatic approach. Through political consensus, and not parochial ‘one-up-man-ship’, India needs to shed its unbending stand on the border delineation on the maps and settle the dispute once and forever by going in for an exchange of territory, as China has been offering all along.

It is time to move ahead rather than continue to be haunted by the ghosts of 1962…

The ever-widening chasm of mistrust between the military and political leadership, as highlighted by Henderson Brooks in his report, later in the K Subrahmaniam Report after the Kargil conflict, and then in the Naresh Chandra Report in 2012, needs to be bridged urgently. The culture of suspicion in civil-military relations has to be banished through proper integration of the military and civil bureaucracy in the security decision-making process.

China realises that the India of today is not the India of 1962. In a ‘glocal’ world, as compared to global, trade between the two nations is touching $100 billion. Due to fast changing scenarios in the world and the continuously evolving regional geo-political situation, India and China cooperate with each other in many forums. Both nations stand to gain from cooperation rather than confrontation.

While India should not ever lower its guard, it is time to move ahead rather than continue to be haunted by the ghosts of 1962. It is time to exorcise the ghosts.

References

  1. Outlook, The Weekly Newsmagazine, 22 October 2012.
  2. “India and China- Unsettled for a Long Time Yet”, The Economist, 20 October 2012.
  3. Brahma Chellaney, “How Beijing Fights”, Newsweek, 05 November 2012.
  4. Dhiraj Kukreja, “India-China War: Lessons to Learn”, Defence Watch, December 2012.
  5. Shishir Gupta, “50 Years of India China War”, Sunday Hindustan Times, 07 October 2012.
  6. “Brooks No Secrecy”, Editorial, The Times of India, 19 March 2014.
  7. Rajat Pandit, “When Nehru Stepped on the Dragon’s Tail”, The Times of India, 19 March 2014.
  8. Ashok Malik, “Phantoms of the Mind”, The Times of India, 20 March 2014.
  9. “We Have Learnt No Lessons From 1962”, Times News Network, www.timesofindia.com, accessed on 20 March 2014.
  10. Hardeep S Puri, “So That 1962 is History”, The New Indian Express, 21 March 2014.
  11. Notes taken by the author during a Seminar, “China’s India War 1962: A Looking Back to see the Future”, conducted by Centre for Air Power Studies, 28-29 December 2012.
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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja

former Air Officer Commanding in Chief of Training Command.

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