1962 war: history
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1962: Revisiting the Indo-Chinese war
The Himalayan Blunder
By Anon, The Times of India
Any reading of the Sino-Indian war of 1962 does not look good for India. Whether it was Jawaharlal Nehru's misreading of Chinese intentions in the wake of his support to Tibet's rebellion, India's "forward policy" that meant different things to different people, Mao Zedong's desire to teach India a "lesson" or the subsequent national security paranoia that it bred in the Indian political and security systems ...1962 evokes mixed feelings in India even after half a century.
But for India to grow out of the morass of humiliation, it's necessary to revisit that war, and perhaps admit to major blunders committed at every level, not least at the very top.
In 1951, China began its occupation of Tibet, which, by 1959, became a full-throated conquest. Until 1959, India tried to diplomatically persuade Beijing to give some kind of autonomy to Tibet along with providing covert arms shipments to the Tibetan rebellion.
India's discomfort stemmed from the fact that it believed the loss of Tibetan independence robbed New Delhi off an important buffer in the Himalayas. But Beijing viewed India's actions as interference in its internal affairs, and Mao ordered "harder approach" to India's meddling.
In India, Nehru maintained the romance of Hindi-Chini friendship. A more realistic Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel proposed better border development, strengthening of the military presence etc and to better integrate the north-eastern states. John Garver, in Protracted Contest, writes, "Patel saw clearly the linkage between Tibet and what would become the crux of the border/territorial issue."
Nehru looked at the inhospitable Tibetan terrain and decided first, not to push the Chinese too far, second that they would not be able to maintain troops in distant Tibetan plateau, and third that China would not engage in any major attack against India. However, he completely missed the technology argument, which China could and did.
By 1959, a huge change came over Indian public opinion at China's open repression in Tibet, which led the Dalai Lama to flee to India in 1959. In April, 1960, Nehru reject Zhou Enlai's boundary settlement proposal. Mao was convinced India was working with the US and USSR against China. Contemporary Chinese thinking believed that India's desire to keep Tibet was the cause of the 1962 war. India has refused to declassify documents of that era.
Nehru's forward policy, his demand that China vacate "all Indian territory" and his support of the Tibetan rebellion were all part of these classified docements. China had been active in Aksai Chin for over a decade before 1962. India was aware of Chinese activity there from 1951. But in 1953, Nehru decided to redraw the boundary that included Aksai Chin within India, as opposed to British policy of 1899, which kept Aksai Chin out of India. In 1957, Beijing's road building activities could not be ignored any longer, and India sent patrols to the area. It would be the beginning of the India-China conflict that would culminate in 1962.
By 1961, Nehru's forward policy had taken shape, creating 60 forward posts, 43 of them north of the McMahon Line. Meanwhile, China, too, had been preparing for war with India because Mao wanted to teach India "a lesson".
Indian units reported increased Chinese aggression, but the Nehru government did not read the tea leaves. China prepared for war, while India missed the clues. After intermittent clashes in the preceding days, when on October 20, 1962, China launched massive strikes in the north-east and Ladakh, India was completely caught off guard.
The Himalayan war ended in a rout of Indian forces. Chinese then withdrew although their victory was not without cost. The defeat, however, changed India's view of China forever. India claims the moral high ground, blaming China for a stealthy strike but it completely misread its giant neighbour. Mao, who saw Nehru as a conniving and pretentious leader, began and ended the war on his own terms.
In between, Indian troops suffered successive reverses. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) overran Indian positions south of the Mcmahon line. Chinese troops overwhelmed Indian defences by the sheer weight of numbers and Tawang was soon under attack.
In the north-east, confusion and courage, foolhardiness and daredevilry were all playing out as a dazed military leadership dithered about its response. Major General A S Pathania, commanding the fourth division in Kameng in Arunachal Pradesh, ordered his troops to withdraw in humiliation.
On October 24, 1962, Zhou offered Nehru a settlement that was rejected. Parliament passed a resolution resolving to "drive out aggressors" from Indian soil. Hostilities resumed with Chinese attacks on Sela and Bomdila. PLA was close to Tezpur, when China declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew 20km from the Line of Actual Control. According to Henry Kissinger, Mao did not see India as a perpetual foe, but famously remarked that force will "knock Nehru back to the negotiating table".
Mao ordered 1962 war to regain CPC control
Mao ordered 1962 war to regain CPC control, reveals Chinese strategist
PTI | Oct 17, 2012,
From the archives of the Press Trust of India: 2012
BEIJING: China's late strongman Mao Zedong had launched the 1962 war with India to regain control of the ruling Communist Party after the debacle of his 'Great Leap Forward' movement in which millions had perished.
This was stated by top Chinese strategist Wang Jisi, adding a new dimension to the conflict ahead of the 50th anniversary of the war on Saturday.
"The war was a tragedy. It was not necessary," Wang, Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told PTI here.
Wang said he differed with the perception of many Chinese political and strategic analysts that the Chinese victory ended India's claims on the border and brought about long-term peace.
"I think we need to do some research. One anecdotal story I heard was because of Mao's own fear of his position in China in 1962 that he launched a war," said Wang, who according to senior Indian diplomats was often consulted by the Chinese leadership.
"In 1962, three years after the Great Leap Forward (GLF), Mao lost power and authority. He was no longer the head of the state and he went back to the so-called second line. The explanation given to us at that time was that he was more interested in ... revolution and so on," he said ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Sino-India conflict on October 20.
GLF was a mass campaign launched by Mao to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy to a modern Communist society.
The movement turned out to be a catastrophe for China as millions of people perished in violent purges weakening Mao's position as supreme leader of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and he was sidelined.
Mao’s strategy, not Nehru’s, led to war: Lintner
Indrani Bagchi, December 12, 2017: The Times of India
It wasn’t Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Forward Policy’ of 1961 that caused the war with China in 1962. Instead, fresh documents, evidence and insight make it clear that China was planning to attack India since 1959.
For over half a century, India has tortured itself over the disastrous loss to China in 1962, and many internalised British author Neville Maxwell’s criticism in his book India’s China War that argued that India, instead of being the victim of Chinese aggression, was in fact responsible for the war.
Swedish journalist and strategic consultant, Bertil Lintner, in a reversal of Maxwell’s theory shows in a new book, China’s India War, that the boot had always been on the other foot, casting more light on Henry Kissinger’s mention in On China of Mao’s determination to give India a bloody nose.
In an exclusive chat with TOI, Lintner said, “Nehru’s Forward Policy was conceived and put forward in November 1961. You cannot possibly imagine that in less than a year China would be able to mobilise tens of thousands of troops, heavy equipment, and move them over the most difficult terrain in the world.” His comments echo late B Raman’s account of RAW when he pointed out the intelligence failure in piecing together months of Chinese movements, including mule trails, ahead of the war.
Why did China want to go after India? Lintner points to two reasons. “Mao Zedong had launched the Great Leap Forward, and it was a tremendous failure. A huge famine started, maybe 30-40 million people died, there was cannibalism. Mao’s own position was probably at its weakest since the start of the Communist rule in China. No country in the world would go to war over a border issue at a time like that. But China did. Mao wanted to reconsolidate his grip on power. The best way to do that is to find an outside enemy. India was the perfect outside enemy.” The other reason which fed into the first was the Tibet question and the flight of the Dalai Lama to India in 1959. “Suddenly after 1959 the border issue becomes no. 1 on the Chinese agenda. The decision was taken in 1959 to “teach India a lesson” in Deng Xiaoping’s words.”
Interestingly, Lintner’s thesis was supported by a Chinese researcher, Jianglin Li in a paper last week. Writing in a website War on Tibet, she says, “the PLA’s ‘suppression of Tibetan rebellion’ was an important causal link in the outbreak of war in 1962.”
It is no surprise, she says, that the PLA won the border war, because its commanders were in charge of “a battle-hardened army that had been trained in live combat in Tibet for three years”.
Newspaper coverage of the war
The Times of India
Vaibhav Purandare, June 27, 2020: The Times of India
From: Vaibhav Purandare, June 27, 2020: The Times of India
From: Vaibhav Purandare, June 27, 2020: The Times of India
From: Vaibhav Purandare, June 27, 2020: The Times of India
Before 2020, there was 1962, which is back in the spotlight in the wake of the India-China clash in Galwan Valley and the standoff at Pangong lake. TOI reported extensively on the state of the conflict and the situation on the border, along with perspective on the policies of the then Nehru-led Indian government, India’s determination to push back, and China’s designs and the blowback they met with.
Even before China’s socalled ‘surprise’ invasion began on October 20, 1962, TOI had, in the months leading up to the war, reported how the Chinese had encircled key Indian posts in Galwan Valley and in July opened fire on Indian patrols in the Pangong lake area and Chip Chap river region of Ladakh.
When the October invasion happened, TOI reported that Chinese troops had come in “in all sectors of the Sino-Indian border” and had “shouted HindiChini bhai-bhai slogans in the wilderness of Thagla ridge… in the Namka Chu valley” hours before they’d intruded. The paper said that in four days, Chinese forces had advanced into Indian territory across the McMahon line “to a depth of 6 to 8 miles” and taken control of “the entire sector from the Bhutan border to the Bum La pass, a distance of 40 miles.” But “both on the Ladakh and NEFA fronts, Indian troops” were continuing, the paper stated, “to fight heroically in the face of overwhelming odds,” having been “heavily outnumbered” and facing an “overwhelming superiority in fire power.”
As setbacks for India grew bigger, with the Tawang valley and many key posts falling and Peking simultaneously inviting PM Nehru for negotiations, TOI headlined the Indian government’s resolve that talks would happen only “if China vacates latest aggression” and “not under the threat of Chinese military force.” The paper reported on what Nehru called the “emotional upheavals” in India and also global reactions as students volunteered to join the armed forces, the opposition — except for the CPI — roundly condemned China, various groups held protests and most democracies, including the UK and US, backed the Nehru government.
But, as November turned out no better for India on the borders, TOI was soon informing Indians about how pressure from the opposition had forced Nehru to seek defence minister V K Krishna Menon’s resignation and how the economic fallout too had begun (as it has today), with RBI cancelling the licence of Bank of China to carry on business. The paper wrote that Nehru had told Parliament that China’s intrusion was “pre-meditated,” and it recorded the increasingly robust counter-attacks of the Indian forces despite all odds and their heroic sacrifices, after which some posts were recovered and some ground yielded “only after inflicting heavy casualties” on the intruders. China finally unilaterally called for a ceasefire and withdrew its troops from November 21, having had an advantage all through. It proved right what TOI had said in its editorial on October 25, five days after the invasion: China wanted to subject New Delhi’s determination “to an extremely searching test” and bring about “a compromise settlement in which the Chinese will be the beneficiaries.” The paper had commented that “Chinese reasonableness, if it is possible to conceive of such a thing, will be made evident not by talking of peace but by resolute action…. That is the kind of language which Peking will readily understand.” And TOI had severely criticised Krishna Menon as well, saying his “activities and comments” were “a source of bewilderment and dismay to his fellow citizens.” We look at some of the headlines from then.
