1962 War: Moving on from our created China myths - The Economic Times
1962 War: Moving on from our created China myths
By Debasish Roy Chowdhury
"So my dilemma continued — although with the albatross hung, so to speak, on Indian necks as well as my own," says Neville Maxwell in his blog, of the predicament of a journalist nursing a national secret for over 50 years. But having finally put online much of the Henderson Brooks-P S Bhagat Report on the 1962 war, he has created an opportunity for us to shed our own albatross — the fear of China —that weighs on India's most important relationship this century.
Maxwell's India's China War (1971) was a paradigm-altering book that challenged the prevailing notion of an unsuspecting India taken in by unprovoked Chinese aggression. Maxwell countered it was India that kept provoking China — thinking it was too bogged down on other fronts to take notice, or protest — but finally an underprepared army crumbled facing a superior Chinese counterattack.
That book's main contention, of a bullying and bumbling India, has never sat well with the carefully spun myth of unilateral Chinese invasion.
The state narrative has worked for everybody: the political class, for it absolves it of adventurism; the top brass of the armed forces, for whom the perpetuation of China fear ensures a steady stream of billion-dollar defence deals; and the strategic community, for whom the external threat ensures funding and media attention.
We have so far dismissed Maxwell's thesis by branding him a commie sympathiser, India-basher or a China apologist. His outing of the report makes that a tad difficult because it upholds his analysis, which was largely based on the report to begin with as he had it at the time of writing the book.
The report — despite its limited terms of reference that reduced its scope of becoming anything more than a dry army operations review — still gives the lie to many of the myths we built around the war. It makes clear the Nehru government pushed the "Forward Policy" — euphemism for our own aggression — under which soldiers were ordered to go "as far as possible", even into Chinese territory.
The report details how India, to implement this suicidal policy, started a military build-up as early as May 1960 (the war broke out on October 20, 1962).
"The 'Forward Policy' was primarily for Ladakh. But in its wake, there had to be a probe forward in Nefa (now Arunachal Pradesh)... Once we disturbed the status quo in one theatre (western sector), we should have been militarily prepared in both to back up our policy," the report says, laying blame on India for provoking a retaliation. Though the report makes it clear the Chinese attack was neither predatory nor unexpected, that's just how we have remembered the war, our paranoia kept fresh by doses of China-bashing from a TRP-happy media.
This climate of fear and loathing has compromised our ability to do business with the one country that everyone wants to be in business with. In China's rise, we can only see threat, blinded to the opportunity it also brings. So, while Britain lobbies Beijing for Chinese investment in its utilities, we won't have the Chinese anywhere near our "strategic assets". From telecom to infrastructure, security fears hobble potential Chinese investments at every step.
Our giant neighbour today offers a unique complementarity. After decades of a one-child policy, China's labour force is on the wane while India's is rising. With a median age of 28, India's population is younger than a rapidly ageing China, with a median age of 37.
But slow growth and a weak manufacturing sector, which accounts for just 14% of India's economy, compared with 30% in China, means we fail to engage our young productively.
China, on the other hand, is looking to ship out many manufacturing jobs as it can neither provide enough workers nor does it want to keep making toys and flip-flops. A government-mandated double-digit annual pay rise in coastal provinces like Guangdong is forcing out factories desperately looking for an alternative habitat close by.
We could seize this opportunity and draw in Chinese businesses if we started looking at China beyond the betrayal frame, if we stopped being trapped in the past. By forcing us to revisit the war more objectively, can Maxwell free us from the albatross and make our economy fly?
The writer is the Business News Editor of the 'South China Morning Post' in Hong Kong
1962 War: Moving on from our created China myths
By Debasish Roy Chowdhury
"So my dilemma continued — although with the albatross hung, so to speak, on Indian necks as well as my own," says Neville Maxwell in his blog, of the predicament of a journalist nursing a national secret for over 50 years. But having finally put online much of the Henderson Brooks-P S Bhagat Report on the 1962 war, he has created an opportunity for us to shed our own albatross — the fear of China —that weighs on India's most important relationship this century.
Maxwell's India's China War (1971) was a paradigm-altering book that challenged the prevailing notion of an unsuspecting India taken in by unprovoked Chinese aggression. Maxwell countered it was India that kept provoking China — thinking it was too bogged down on other fronts to take notice, or protest — but finally an underprepared army crumbled facing a superior Chinese counterattack.
That book's main contention, of a bullying and bumbling India, has never sat well with the carefully spun myth of unilateral Chinese invasion.
The state narrative has worked for everybody: the political class, for it absolves it of adventurism; the top brass of the armed forces, for whom the perpetuation of China fear ensures a steady stream of billion-dollar defence deals; and the strategic community, for whom the external threat ensures funding and media attention.
We have so far dismissed Maxwell's thesis by branding him a commie sympathiser, India-basher or a China apologist. His outing of the report makes that a tad difficult because it upholds his analysis, which was largely based on the report to begin with as he had it at the time of writing the book.
The report — despite its limited terms of reference that reduced its scope of becoming anything more than a dry army operations review — still gives the lie to many of the myths we built around the war. It makes clear the Nehru government pushed the "Forward Policy" — euphemism for our own aggression — under which soldiers were ordered to go "as far as possible", even into Chinese territory.
The report details how India, to implement this suicidal policy, started a military build-up as early as May 1960 (the war broke out on October 20, 1962).
"The 'Forward Policy' was primarily for Ladakh. But in its wake, there had to be a probe forward in Nefa (now Arunachal Pradesh)... Once we disturbed the status quo in one theatre (western sector), we should have been militarily prepared in both to back up our policy," the report says, laying blame on India for provoking a retaliation. Though the report makes it clear the Chinese attack was neither predatory nor unexpected, that's just how we have remembered the war, our paranoia kept fresh by doses of China-bashing from a TRP-happy media.
This climate of fear and loathing has compromised our ability to do business with the one country that everyone wants to be in business with. In China's rise, we can only see threat, blinded to the opportunity it also brings. So, while Britain lobbies Beijing for Chinese investment in its utilities, we won't have the Chinese anywhere near our "strategic assets". From telecom to infrastructure, security fears hobble potential Chinese investments at every step.
Our giant neighbour today offers a unique complementarity. After decades of a one-child policy, China's labour force is on the wane while India's is rising. With a median age of 28, India's population is younger than a rapidly ageing China, with a median age of 37.
But slow growth and a weak manufacturing sector, which accounts for just 14% of India's economy, compared with 30% in China, means we fail to engage our young productively.
China, on the other hand, is looking to ship out many manufacturing jobs as it can neither provide enough workers nor does it want to keep making toys and flip-flops. A government-mandated double-digit annual pay rise in coastal provinces like Guangdong is forcing out factories desperately looking for an alternative habitat close by.
We could seize this opportunity and draw in Chinese businesses if we started looking at China beyond the betrayal frame, if we stopped being trapped in the past. By forcing us to revisit the war more objectively, can Maxwell free us from the albatross and make our economy fly?
The writer is the Business News Editor of the 'South China Morning Post' in Hong Kong
