“Previously, the only real threat against India which merited consideration was from Pakistan. To this now has been added the threat from China. …This is primarily due to the claim made by China upon large territories which are clearly ours. … (China) has also refused to recognise the McMahon Line as the international boundary and has made deliberate incursions into our territory in Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and NEFA (North- East Frontier Agency.” - Introduction to the report to Defence Minister Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon filed by Lt. General S.P.P. Thorat, In-Charge of the Army Eastern Command, on October 8, 1959 (full three years ahead of the Chinese invasion of India in October 1962). THIS report is based on Lt. General Thorat’s assessment of how the Chinese would behave not just politically but also militarily.

 

The Defence Minister did not pay attention to the report and kept it out of sight from Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Then, March 17, 1960, Lt Gen Thorat conducted a military exercise called “Exercise Lal Qila” that accurately predicted the timing and nature “of a possible Chinese attack”. The exercise was a comprehensive study/assessment of the Himalayan terrain, Himalayan weather, Himalayan wind-tunnels (so to say), Himalayan glaciers -- to show definitively which Himalayan routes the Chinese would take to pounce upon isolated Indian posts positioned haphazardly as a terribly flawed Forward Policy on the long Himalayan border area. Major General V.K. Singh, a biographer of Lt. Gen. Thorat, has words of high praise for the foresight of the great Army leader: Lt. General Thorat “clearly brought out that with the troops, weapons and equipment available at that time, a Chinese attack could not be contained or defeated, and the ‘forward policy’, being advocated by Menon and General B.M. Kaul (General Officer Commanding North-East) was not practicable.

 

Thorat also provided a time table showing ‘how the defences would fall day by day’ in case the Chinese attacked.” General Thorat, therefore, recommended use of the Indian Air Force to counter the possible Chinese aggression. In hindsight, we may now say that in those days, the Indian leadership was haunted by ghosts of inaction and negativism. For, Defence Minister Mr. Menon was understood to have developed sort of hatred or dislike for Lt. General Thorat whom he even described as “an alarmist and a war-monger”. But the fact of Exercise Lal Qila could not be erased so easily just because Mr. Krishna Menon wished so. The exercise was truly detailed and was attended by all Principal Staff Officers of the Army Head Quarters. Lt. General Kaul did not share Lt. General Thorat’s view. So blinded had the Indian establishment in New Delhi become at that time by its affection for the Chinese that it chose to ignore the very serious and very accurate prediction by Lt. General Thorat -- so much so that Mr. B.N. Mullick, the high-profile Director of Intelligence (who was known to have close links with United States Central Intelligence Agency -- CIA) never felt that the Chinese would ever attack India.

 

This blindsiding of a stark reality had two angles -- one, the insane belief Prime Minister Pandit Nehru had on the Chinese goodness and goodwill; and two, none in the high places of leadership knew how to do a correct assessment of ground reality. So, the Indian leadership -- individual or collective -- chose to ignore the outcome of Exercise Sheel and Exercise Lal Qila. Those who had a fair assessment of the Chinese strength and weaknesses knew that the Chinese were only marginally better in military matters than the Indians, but were truly sharp in planning ahead of time and acting decisively on those. That the Chinese were of that variety was out bounds for the imagination and intelligence of the Indian leadership of that time. Yet, the men who occupied high positions in the Indian military machine in those days knew very well that if India had taken right and firm steps in right time to position its forces in forward areas well in time, the Chinese would never have dared to offend India of those days. That did not happen. Or, in other words, the Chinese ensured that it would not happen.

 

For that to get shaped as per their wish and plan, the Chinese indulged Indian leadership in a web of silk-smooth diplomacy talking honey and sugar -- so that the Indians were blinded by the display of affection. In the parallel, the Chinese kept consolidating their military position/s in the Himalayas slowly but surely -- before the Indians ever sensed. So, “war-monger and alarmist” people like Lt. General Thorat or Lt. General P.N. Thapar (who pushed Exercise Sheel) were almost ill-treated by the establishment in New Delhi -- of course much to the peril of India. On the other hand, diplomats and members of Indian delegations mandated to deal with the Chinese at the negotiation table felt “hemmed in by political constraints” and could not suggest corrections to wrong approaches and policies. As a result, India suffered -- that scar still hurts.