Checking the Chinese

November 20, 1962 was a black day in the history of India. That was the day we accepted a humiliating unilateral ceasefire declared by the Chinese. The nation’s faith in the infallibility of its foreign policy, the invincibility of its Army and the impregnability of the Himalayas lay shattered.
The ailing Sardar, less than a month before he passed away, wrote a letter to Nehru on November 17, 1950 warning him about what he called “Chinese diplomacy or malevolence”. A perusal of this long letter shows his remarkable vision and foresight. Extracts from this letter are reproduced, “We regard ourselves as friends of China but the Chinese do not regard us as their friends... it continues to regard us with suspicion and the whole psychology is one, at least outwardly, of scepticism mixed with a little hostility. It looks as though it is not a friend speaking in that language but a potential enemy. Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include the important part of Assam (present-day Arunachal). In my judgment the situation is one (on) which we cannot afford either to be complacent or vacillating.” He recommended military preparedness and building infrastructure in the Himalayas. Nehru ignored his sage advice. The rest is history.
From my student days I was a great admirer of Nehru. He was our icon. His sacrifice and contribution to India’s independence was tremendous. After 1947, he established a democratic polity and put India on the path of advancement. We felt proud when he was hailed as an international statesman. But the failure of his Chinese policy, culminating in the disaster of 1962, was a stunning and shattering blow. Nehru became a god who failed. The debacles, first at Thagla, then the collapse at Se-la followed by the unilateral ceasefire, came in quick succession. At Rezeng-la Indian troops under Major Shaitan Singh fought to the last man and last round, inflicting heavy casualties on waves of Chinese attackers. Surprisingly, at Se-la, the famous 4 Division, considered one of the best fighting divisions of the Allied armies during the Second World War, could not put up a fight. It was being commanded by a seasoned commander who had won a coveted gallantry award in North Africa and a Mahavir Chakra in the famous battle of Zoji-la in Kashmir. The decision to pull out from the Se-la defences was disastrous. It led to the division getting decimated. A British friend from the UK wrote a letter to me expressing his sympathy, recalling that they had been through a similar disaster at Dunkirk in 1940. He had served in Africa with 4 Division during the Second World War, when all commanders at the unit, brigade and levels were British. The majority of junior officers in the units were also British. He inquired if it was the failure of the Indian military leadership that had led to the debacle. Our military leadership, despite much less experience, had worked splendidly during the 1947-48 war in Kashmir. However, there was no getting away from the fact that our military leaders did not measure to the challenge in 1962. Of course, the primary blame lay with the political leadership. Despite their being much opposed to each other, there was much in common between Nehru and Churchill. Both were sons of very eminent fathers, had gone to the same school at Harrow, wrote good English prose and could rise to the occasion with their oration. Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny speech, and “The light has gone out of our lives” after Gandhi’s assassination, were classics, like Churchill’s after Dunkirk and his Victory Day speech. However, Churchill was a great war leader while Nehru failed India in that respect. In 1940, Churchill had all the odds against him. The British Army had suffered a disaster in France and had lost its fighting capability. That took time to rebuild. Britain had no allies; the US had not joined the war then and the Soviet Union was at that time an ally of Germany. Yet Churchill thundered, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” From that desperate situation, he led his country to a great victory. Nehru was in a much stronger position in November 1962 than Churchill in 1940. Only a small portion of the Indian Army had been vanquished, the bulk was intact. With approaching winter, the Himalayan passes would be closed by snow and the Chinese Army would have found it difficult to sustain itself across the passes. The Chinese had no heavy guns or armour and would not have been able to fight the Indian Army on the plains of Assam. We had several friends with the West rallying to our support. Differences were emerging between Soviet Russia and China. Yet Nehru lost his nerve and sent an SOS to Kennedy desperately requesting help, including US air cover. The following day he accepted the humiliating Chinese ceasefire. His broadcast saying that his heart went out to the people of Assam was in sharp contrast to Churchill’s defiant speech in 1940. His daughter Indira Gandhi, despite her faults of strangulating democracy, proved to be a great war leader in 1971. Her handling of the Sikkim crisis in 1975 showed strategic vision.
Dark clouds have been gathering in the North for some time. While the Chinese were feverishly building their military capability in Tibet, in terms of both infrastructure and military strength, we remained unconcerned till 2008. It is only when the Chinese started becoming assertive that we woke up. All this while, our defence budget, at 2.5 per cent of GDP, has been among the world’s lowest, even when we face serious multi-dimensional security threats. Year after year, we have been surrendering thousands of crores of our defence budget. Only now are additional formations being raised, modern military hardware acquired and infrastructure developed. However, we continue to have the most irrational higher defence organisation strangulated by stifling bureaucratic control. Cosmetic changes, like an integrated defence staff without a CDS and a sham integration of the defence ministry with services HQ, are of no consequence. The Chinese had a two-decade lead over India in liberalising their economy and a more than two-decade lead over us in military preparedness in the Himalayas. We do not have to compete in an arms race with them but we must have the required deterrence. Posterity will not forgive us if we allow a repeat of 1962.

The author, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.