Fifty years later - the Sino-Indian war of 1962 by BG Verghese

THE 1962 Sino-Indian conflict is half a century old, but to understand what happened, one needs to go further back to Indian independence, the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its eventual occupation of Tibet. Perhaps one should go back even earlier to the tripartite Simla Convention of 1914 to which the Government of India, Tibet and China were party and drew the McMahon Line. The Chinese representative initialled the agreement but did not sign it on account of differences over the definitions of Inner and Outer Tibet.

Fast forward to March 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru’s Interim Government hosted an Asian Relations Conference in Delhi to which Tibet and China (then represented by the KMT—Kuomintang Party) were invited. India recognised the PRC as soon as it was established in 1949 and adopted a One-China policy thereafter. In 1951, China moved into Tibet. A 17-Point Agreement granted it autonomy under Chinese sovereignty. This converted what until then was a quiet Indo-Tibet boundary into a problematic Sino-Indian frontier, with China adopting all prior Tibetan claims.

The historic 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 Shila was enunciated, which Nehru presumed presupposed inviolate boundaries in an era of Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai. The young Dalai Lama came to India in 1956 to participate in the 2,500th 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 colourwash 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 their 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 matter was, however, not pressed. Nehru had in a statement about that time referred to the words of a wise Swedish diplomat to the effect that though a revolutionary power, China would take 20-30 years to fight poverty and acquire the muscle to assert its hegemony. Therefore, it should meanwhile be cultivated and not be isolated and made to feel under siege as the Bolsheviks were in 1917. This postulate was, however, reversed in 1960-62 when Nehru interpreted the same wise Swedish diplomat to mean it was the first 20-30 years after its revolution that were China’s dangerous decades; thereafter the PRC would mature and mellow. This suggests a somewhat fickle understanding of China on Nehru’s part.

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 best construction that can put on this language is that 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...

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. The Chinese, he said, 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. One does not know what inputs went into drafting Nehru’s letter to Kennedy. Non-alignment was certainly in tatters.

Gen JN 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 West and the US had been sympathetic to India and its Ambassador, John Kenneth Galbraith, had a direct line to Kennedy. However, 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 Chaudhuri ordered an internal inquiry into the debacle by Maj Gen Henderson Brooks and Brigadier PS 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 Times’ London 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 theHenderson-Brooks Report; only political and military ego and folly to hide. But unless the country knows, the appropriate lessons will not be learnt. Read more:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne131012Coverstory.asp
See also The Cuban Missile Crisis: October 16-28, 1962