By Vijay  Phanshikar :
 
l “Our civilian and military junta’s game of bluff had perhaps reached its climax ! The joint civil and military set up in New Delhi was living in a fool’s paradise and the Indian and foreign press were still being briefed that there was no likelihood of a war with China!”
- General Daulet Singh.
l “Ultimately, our deployment (in the Himalayas as per India’s Forward Policy) became a ‘chequer board’ of posts (between Chinese posts), all of which had to be supplied by air. The supply system was most unsatisfactory as quite often the air drops landed near the Chinese posts ... Our posts were in precarious and tactically unsound positions at the mercy of Chinese encirclement, particularly in the Chip Chap Valley and the Spanggur gap.
- Maj. Gen. Joginder Singh 
in his book 
‘Behind the Scene’ 

SUCH derogatory references can be available in innumerable books and records of the top Indian military commanders about the Chinese invasion of 1962. Each of those high-ranking officers made sincere efforts to approach the political leadership of that time -- Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister Mr. Krishna Menon plus others -- to convince them to draw up a considered strategic and security policy and act accordingly. But all those approaches went unheard, and what actually happen ed was a terribly chaotic handling of the situation. There are reasons to believe strongly that a good number of Indian military leaders had a fairly detailed idea of what the Chinese were up to and what ordeal India would have to face if a serious confrontation took place at whatever juncture.

 

When the Chinese troops started a clear ingress into the Indian territory attacking forward posts, in sort of an undeclared war, the condition of the Indian posts was shocking. In post after post, the Indian numbers were pathetically small -- five, seven, 12, 19, 45, 60. And the Chinese were in massive strength -- outnumbering the Indian deployment by 10 to 1. A majority of the Indian soldiers and officers did not have even winter gear in the hostile Himalayan terrain and weather. In fact, accounts are also available describing shocked Chinese troops to see the bravery and grit of the Indian soldiers with actually nothing to fall back up -- including basic supplies of ammunition and ration (for days on end). The accounts of the first two days of battling -- November 20 and 21, 1962 -- can make any Indian heart stop in shock and horror (sixty-three years later today).

 

Yet they fought back the hardest, refusing to withdraw until the last moment. Countless numbers of people laid down their lives -- young men of merit and mettle, making the Chinese gasp and wonder what could have happened if the Indians had a little bigger manpower and a little better stock of ammunition and ration. And that is where the needle of blame turns back to the national leadership of that time. Time and again, the Indian military leadership cautioned against slackness, and time and again the political leadership chose to continue living in fool’s paradise. Looking back, the universal conclusion is that had India responded quickly and professionally to the changing geopolitical environment, had its leadership woken up to the reality of Chinese deception, India could have repulsed the Chinese effectively and saved the country of the terribly ignominy.

 

he worst part of the political leadership of that time was that it entertained only who those who said that it wished to hear -- the courtiers and court jesters. In the process, the political leadership left many 4-star Generals frustrated as their words of wisdom and experience did not have even deaf to fall upon. Two celebrated Army leaders -- General S.P.P. Thorat and General P.N. Thapar -- carried out two perceptive exercises on India-China military situation -- and tried to impress upon Prime Minister Mr. Nehru to consider the details. General Thorat’s ‘Exercise Lal Qila’ and General Thapar’s ‘Exercise Sheel’ could have become foundations of a smart military response. However, as some records of those days suggest, Defence Minister Mr. Krishna Menon did not allow those reports reach the Prime Minister’s table. The report of Exercise Lal Qila reached the Prime Minister just as the war was nearing its end. It was then that Mr. Nehru got General Thorat called to New Delhi by a special aircraft to discuss the detail.

 

Hearing those, the Prime Minister asked the General indignantly, in effect, “Why did you not bring this to my notice earlier?” General Thorat said, in effect, that he had given the report to the Defence Minister Menon who seemed to have held it from the Prime Minister. Hearing this, Pandit Nehru reportedly exploded, “Menon, Menon, Menon ! You are biased about Menon. You do not know what a great intellectual he is”. To this, General Thorat is reported to have retorted, “He may be so, Sir, but we have no evidence of it”. The conversation ended, and added only a paradoxical tinge to India’s ignominy at the hands of the Chinese. The details of the two exercises reveal the terrible leadership fault-line.