Remembering a war 1962

[third eye]

Nehru completely mis read the neighborhood. Non alignment was the buzz word then. The IA was still equipped with WW II stuff.

The 62 debacle was an eye opener to him & the nation. By then Nehru had grown roots in the job and a sense of indispensability had come about.

Placing Kaul at the helm too was a poor move - a man completely unsuited for the job.His claim to fame being his being a Kashmiri & his proximity to Nehru.

A sad saga but the silver lining was what it did to the nation & the armed forces. The wake up call was at a price the nation could ill afford but luckily the nation took it well & events in 65 & 71 showed how quickly the nation & politicians can respond & change given the right impetus & direction.

The points made by Justin are well taken, but change is necessary. One man at the helm for too long creates sycophants around him coloring his vision and making him believe that like a dictator - he is right always. something Indira Gandhi learnt the hard way when she lost the elections after the emergency.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

The biggest lesson to be learnt from all that has been posted is strategic policies have to be continually evolving, at the same time should be driven by national priorities. Under no circumstances can they be personality-centric. In their time; leaders like Jinnah, Nehru, Patel and Gandhi were great- but now they may irrelevant in large measure. Even Indira Gandhi may be inadequate for some issues now. This does not detract from their achievements in any way, but can help to view things in perspective, rather than confine us in some time warp.

 

[Marxist]

I don't agree with you.

It was Nehru's work we are reaping the fruits.

Nobody is perfect, there are mistake on few occasions.

But look at other side.

All the Navratnas like BHEL, SAIL
Doordarshan, AIIMS,
IITs, IIMs,
ISRO, HAL, DRDO
Bhakra Nangal Dam reason for Punja/Haryana's prosperity & green revolutions.
ONGC, Nuclear power corp.
Bombay high
As of 2004, it supplied 14% of India's oil requirement and accounted for about 38% of all domestic production.

Nehru was one of the greatest leaders born on this planet till date.

We was not a war monger but the legend and visionary.

Who has invested in India's future.

Nehru had laid the foundation and later we build on it,but i suspect his socialistic mode of development was it good for our country (i think it was bad may be others have different opinion),his diplomatic stands towards our our hostile neighbors was also very bad,he signed panchaseela with china and accepted Tibet as part of China,Then what was the necessity of welcoming Dalai lama to India,which was the first breakage of panchaseela(i am not defending China or against welcoming of Lama)when provoking a country which is bigger than us he should have done preventive measures also,what was the requirement of signing of Indus water treaty with Pakistan Now it will be a burden for us in (future),about Kashmir Issue its still keep us on edge of a war (i think u know Nehru's Kashmir Policy and Promises).NAM it was also a failure when the most of nations aligned to two poles it was also a failure.his attitude towards Israel i think that was also bad diplomatic stand.Krishna menon (defense minister of India at that time) was equally responsible for our defeat,any way it helped us to improve our military strength till now (plz don claim it as Nehru's success)

Yes no one is perfect,but what about a man who made so many mistakes

 

[navtrek]

The Rediff Special/Dr Michael E Marti

"We are getting out of touch with realities in a modern world; we are living in our own creation and we have been shaken out of it."

These words spoken by Nehru in 1962 expressed his shock and disbelief at the Chinese invasion of India's northeastern border. Yet, on the 40th anniversary of the border clash, these words seem more prophetic than descriptive.

India is still smarting from the humiliation of its defeat. After more than a generation, public opinion, fanned by its leadership, still feels a need to reclaim its honour, its lost territory. For India, the issue has not been resolved as a matter of fact or policy.

But what India failed to recognize at the time and has yet to come to terms with is that 1962 was more than a territorial dispute; it signalled the beginning of a war for dominance in Asia.

Like many of the colonial states that gained their independence in the 20th century, China did not accept the "artificial" boundaries imposed by the Western imperialists, which in the case of India was the British Raj. With independence in 1949, China initiated territorial negotiations with all of its neighbours, and in south Asia this included Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, and India. Its purpose was not only to establish defensible orders, but to reclaim the "lost territories" of the empire.

India had not taken China seriously. Nehru could not believe that one fellow Socialist would attack another; and in any event, he felt secure behind the impregnable wall of ice that is the Himalayas.

Both proved to be tragic miscalculations of China's determination and military capabilities. Nehru tried to engage China in a prolonged strategy of diplomatic foot-dragging, while on the ground Indian troops moved to outflank Chinese positions.

Frustrated by India's duplicity, China took direct action.

China's aggression was encouraged by its perception of India as a "weak" target. After all, Nehru had taken no action in 1951 when China invaded and occupied Tibet, eliminating the traditional buffer between the two; and, except to grant asylum to the Dalai Lama, he, again, did nothing in 1959, when China ruthlessly put down the uprising in Tibet.

Then there was Nehru's doctrine of Panchshila (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence). The basis of the 1954 Sino-Indian treaty over Tibet, it was taken by the Chinese as a statement of Indian pacifism.

As conceived by Nehru, Panchshila was based upon mutual respect among nations, peaceful coexistence, and non-interference in the internal affairs of others. He had offered it to the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement and Non-Aligned Movement at the Bandung Conference in 1955 as the guiding philosophy for an emerging Third World power bloc, an alternative to Moscow and Washington.

It was also at this conference that Nehru introduced the newly independent Chinese leaders to the world. He assumed that as former colonies they shared a sense of solidarity, as expressed in the phrase 'Hindi-Chini bhai bhai' (Indians and Chinese are brothers).

But much to China's chagrin, Nehru and India, as heir apparent to the British Empire in Asia, assumed the mantle of leadership of the movement. Mao was infuriated. His sense of cultural superiority and unquestioned revolutionary credentials dictated that China was the rightful leader.

This made the subsequent border issue more than territorial; it was an opportunity to assert China's pre-eminence as an Asian power and to humiliate India.

Unfortunately, Nehru never understood this aspect of the equation. He was dedicated to the ideals of brotherhood and solidarity among Third World nations, while China was dedicated to a vision of itself as the hegemon of Asia.

In the intervening years, China has taken every opportunity to contain India. It supports Pakistan economically and militarily. Not only has India fought three wars with Pakistan since Partition, it also maintains one million men in arms on the border. All of which drains India's resources, politically and economically.

China has also encroached on India's traditional spheres of influence in Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma, by establishing trade and military relations; and China has increased its presence in the Indian Ocean with bases in Burma and Pakistan, challenging India in its own backyard.

Philosophically, economically, and politically, China has outpaced India because it has remained true to its goal of becoming a rich and powerful nation. It has been willing to sacrifice ideology and put aside or find a temporary fix to any problem that could interfere with that goal.

China has scrapped communist ideology and socialist economics in favour of nationalism and capitalism. It has put the issues of Taiwan and the South China Sea islands on the back burner, despite its hardline rhetoric. And it has been opportunistic about its alliances, siding with either Moscow or Washington as necessity dictated. All of which has been done in the name of economic development.

Ironically, China has even co-opted Nehru's Panchshila and resurrected the spirit of Bandung as the basis for its new world order in Asia.

The Five Principles, however, are now based on multi-lateralism, mutual co-operation, economic development, and security. This time the goal is to replace the bilateral alliances of the Cold War era with multilateral arrangements based on economic and security co-operation.

China is creating a new power bloc with itself as the head and India as the odd man out. India, on the other hand, has been "living in its own creation", a state defined by internal turmoil, external threats, and a stagnating economy. It has been unable or unwilling to make the hard choices that have characterized China's ascendancy.

It cannot find a way to either put off or come to terms with Pakistan. It has been unable to make a significant shift away from its socialist economy, despite various attempts since 1991. And even in the case of its border dispute with China, which has offered to exchange territory to settle the issue, India remains frozen in time, unable to accept anything that does not redeem its honour.

Of course, as a democracy, India must answer to the will of the people. But responsible leadership shapes, moulds, and educates public opinion to forge a consensus on national priorities. It does not pander to nationalist or communal emotionalism for its own benefit.

The border war of 1962 was more than a loss of territory for India. It marked the beginning of an undeclared war for pre-eminence in Asia; and India is losing. Asia, and the West, needs a strong and democratic India to be the alternative to an authoritarian, expansionist China. But to fulfil that role, India must "get in touch with the realities in a modern world and shake itself out of the world of its own creation".

rediff.com Special Series: 40 years after the 1962 Sino-Indian war

 

[Sanchez]

Indo-China War of 1962
India - War with China

The Chinese have two major claims on what India deems its own territory. One claim, in the western sector, is on Aksai Chin in the northeastern section of Ladakh District in Jammu and Kashmir. The other claim is in the eastern sector over a region included in the British-designated North-East Frontier Agency, the disputed part of which India renamed Arunachal Pradesh and made a state. In the fight over these areas, the well-trained and well-armed troops of the Chinese People's Liberation Army overpowered the ill-equipped Indian troops, who had not been properly acclimatized to fighting at high altitudes.

After its independence in 1947, India not only inherited Britain's occupation of parts of Chinese territories, but also further encroached northward and pushed its borderline to the McMahon Line in 1953, as a result, invaded and occupied 90,000 square kms of Chinese territories. At western sector, in 1959, India voiced its claim to the Aksai Chin areas, counted 33,000 s.kms, of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. In April 1960, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai went to New Delhi to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Nehru, no agreements were reached due to India's insistence on its unreasonable stand. The ensuing meetings between the officials of the two countries also produced no results.

Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the 3,225-kilometer-long Himalayan border, the Chinese attacked India on October 20, 1962. At the time, nine divisions from the eastern and western commands were deployed along the Himalayan border with China. None of these divisions was up to its full troop strength, and all were short of artillery, tanks, equipment, and even adequate articles of clothing.

Indian decisions taken at that time were not grounded in adequate, up-to-date, knowledge of what was transpiring within China or the motivations of China’s then key decision-makers. Stated briefly, New Delhi failed to decipher the “Chinese calculus of deterrence” and India suffered disproportionately.

In Ladakh the Chinese attacked south of the Karakoram Pass at the northwest end of the Aksai Chin Plateau and in the Pangong Lake area about 160 kilometers to the southeast. The defending Indian forces were easily ejected from their posts in the area of the Karakoram Pass and from most posts near Pangong Lake. However, they put up spirited resistance at the key posts of Daulat Beg Oldi (near the entrance to the pass) and Chushul (located immediately south of Pangong Lake and at the head of the vital supply road to Leh, a major town and location of an air force base in Ladakh). Other Chinese forces attacked near Demchok (about 160 kilometers southeast of Chusul) and rapidly overran the Demchok and the Jara La posts.

In the eastern sector, in Assam, the Chinese forces advanced easily despite Indian efforts at resistance. On the first day of the fighting, Indian forces stationed at the Tsang Le post on the northern side of the Namka Chu, the Khinzemane post, and near Dhola were overrun. On the western side of the North-East Frontier Agency, Tsang Dar fell on October 22, Bum La on October 23, and Tawang, the headquarters of the Seventh Infantry Brigade, on October 24. The Chinese made an offer to negotiate on October 24. The Indian government promptly rejected this offer.

With a lull in the fighting, the Indian military desperately sought to regroup its forces. Specifically, the army attempted to strengthen its defensive positions in the North-East Frontier Agency and Ladakh and to prepare against possible Chinese attacks through Sikkim and Bhutan. Army units were moved from Calcutta, Bihar, Nagaland, and Punjab to guard the northern frontiers of West Bengal and Assam. Three brigades were hastily positioned in the western part of the North-East Frontier Agency, and two other brigades were moved into Sikkim and near the West Bengal border with Bhutan to face the Chinese. Light Stuart tanks were drawn from the Eastern Command headquarters at Calcutta to bolster these deployments.

In the western sector, a divisional organization was established in Leh; several battalions of infantry, a battery of twenty-five-pounder guns, and two troops of AMX light tanks were airlifted into the Chushul area from Punjab. On November 4, the Indian military decided that the post at Daulat Beg Oldi was untenable, and its defenders were withdrawn over the 5,300-meter-high Sasar Brangsa Pass to a more defensible position.

The reinforcements and redeployments in Ladakh proved sufficient to defend the Chushul perimeter despite repeated Chinese attacks. However, the more remote posts at Rezang La and Gurung Hill and the four posts at Spanggur Lake area fell to the Chinese.

In the North-East Frontier Agency, the situation proved to be quite different. Indian forces counterattacked on November 13 and captured a hill northwest of the town of Walong. Concerted Chinese attacks dislodged them from this hard-won position, and the nearby garrison had to retreat down the Lohit Valley.

In another important section of the eastern sector, the Kameng Frontier Division, six Chinese brigades attacked across the Tawang Chu near Jang and advanced some sixteen kilometers to the southeast to attack Indian positions at Nurang, near Se La, on November 17. Despite the Indian attempt to regroup their forces at Se La, the Chinese continued their onslaught, wiping out virtually all Indian resistance in Kameng. By November 18, the Chinese had penetrated close to the outskirts of Tezpur, Assam, a major frontier town nearly fifty kilometers from the Assam-North-East Frontier Agency border.

The Chinese did not advance farther and on November 21 declared a unilateral cease-fire. They had accomplished all of their territorial objectives, and any attempt to press farther into the plains of Assam would have stretched their logistical capabilities and their lines of communication to a breaking point. By the time the fighting stopped, each side had lost 500 troops.

After administering a blistering defeat in 1962, the Chinese forces withdrew 20 km behind the McMahon Line, which China called “the 1959 line of actual control” in the Eastern Sector, and 20 km behind the line of its latest position in Ladakh, which was further identified with the “1959 line of actual control” in the Western Sector.

 

[Honor]

I hope Indian will learn from their lesson. Never pick a fight with Chinese.

 

[third eye]

I hope Indian will learn from their lesson. Never pick a fight with Chinese.

India has learnt relevant lessons over the years.

Do not see reason for smart alec responses. Should the need arise, all options are open.

 

[navtrek]

Indo-China War of 1962
India - War with China

The Chinese have two major claims on what India deems its own territory. One claim, in the western sector, is on Aksai Chin in the northeastern section of Ladakh District in Jammu and Kashmir. The other claim is in the eastern sector over a region included in the British-designated North-East Frontier Agency, the disputed part of which India renamed Arunachal Pradesh and made a state. In the fight over these areas, the well-trained and well-armed troops of the Chinese People's Liberation Army overpowered the ill-equipped Indian troops, who had not been properly acclimatized to fighting at high altitudes.

my friend there is a thread called "India's land is Chinese land" in which non of the Chinese members were unable to justify why AP belongs to China. So with that point in view the claim for war itself becomes unjustified.

 

[navtrek]

The Chinese did not advance farther and on November 21 declared a unilateral cease-fire. They had accomplished all of their territorial objectives, and any attempt to press farther into the plains of Assam would have stretched their logistical capabilities and their lines of communication to a breaking point. By the time the fighting stopped, each side had lost 500 troops.

Ill tell u the real story of why China withdrew

1. The Cuban missile crisis had reached its conclusion there was a lot of help arriving from the west.

2.

Had we fought the Chinese at the foothills of Assam, we could have enforced a crushing defeat on the People's Liberation Army. Our army could have fought them on somewhat equal footing here, where high altitude problems are non-existent and temperatures are tolerable. Though the Chinese had the upper hand in their small arms, we could have brought our heavy weapon superiority into effect.

We could have used our superior armour against the Chinese infantry, which only had limited recoilless guns. Our infantry was well poised in the foothills of Assam to use the hook tactics, which the Chinese had used with telling effect in the higher reaches. While our troops were strangers to the high altitude terrain in the Thagla ridge area, here they were somewhat on home ground and the Chinese would have found themselves in foreign surroundings. It would have been easier for us to regroup for flexibility in tactics here, while for the Chinese it would have been impossible under pressure of our attacks from all unexpected directions.

We could have prevented and/or countered their every move, especially with the benefit of constant air surveillance, an advantage they lacked. Similarly, getting reinforcements would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them on account of the distances, lack of road network, the approaching winter with the consequent closing of the snowbound passes, and, above all, our marauding knights of the skies causing havoc from above.

Had they not decided to withdraw, we could have caused them to suffer unacceptable casualties. Their retreat would have been uphill and we could have literally played hell into them in pursuit, especially with the IAF raining fire from the skies. We could have blown their supply lines in Tibet to smithereens as the Tibetan plateau hardly provides any cover or natural camouflage.

In fact, eyewitnesses of those days recall seeing heaps of military stores, mortars, ammunition, and other supplies lying by the roadside all along in depot-like stores in the open near the border on the Tibetan side. These would have been ready fodder for our Hunters, Mysteres, Gnats, Vampires and Toofanis for strafing runs with front gun cannons and rockets. Major enemy concentrations would have proved excellent targets for carpet-bombing by our Liberators. Our Canberras were ultra-modern bombers then and could have caused havoc.

But that was not to be. Future generations will only read about the 'crushing defeat' of the Indian Army at the hands of the Chinese forces.

rediff.com Special Series: 40 years after the Sino-Indian 1962 war

 

[navtrek]

India lost the war mainly because of the lack of political will & Intelligence abt the Chinese intentions.

The Chinese blame India's forward policy to be the root cause of 1962 but a thorough analysis makes u think otherwise.

A combination of military& political Debacles and we lost only because of our political class.

But a lot of things have changed since then. Including the Indian Polity.

---------- Post added at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:01 PM ----------

I hope Indian will learn from their lesson. Never pick a fight with Chinese.

Yup we have

 

[Kinetic]

The next article is also a must read gives a 100 reasons to hate Nehru

+100.

He was a good man but his love for 'truth' and 'peacefulness' led India to today's position.

 

[Kinetic]

I hope Indian will learn from their lesson. Never pick a fight with Chinese.

That was not a war but a back stabbing. You got a lesson after 1962 in border conflicts.

 

[Honor]

That was not a war but a back stabbing. You got a lesson after 1962 in border conflicts.

I have mentioned it before? How could back stabbing helps China won the war?

Please use logic to defend your point.

To me, China won the war by better planning.

 

[Honor]

India lost the war mainly because of the lack of political will & Intelligence abt the Chinese intentions.

The Chinese blame India's forward policy to be the root cause of 1962 but a thorough analysis makes u think otherwise.

A combination of military& political Debacles and we lost only because of our political class.

But a lot of things have changed since then. Including the Indian Polity.

---------- Post added at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:01 PM ----------



Yup we have

Why would China attack India if it is not for the forward policy by Indian! Why must India push foward their line of control beyond LOC?

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

Why would China attack India if it is not for the forward policy by Indian! Why must India push foward their line of control beyond LOC?

They continuously demonstrated they are pathological liars by their repeated habit of making up stories, distorting the truth, back-tracking when confronted, and over-exaggeration. Their reputation is known throughout the world. Possible reasons for this is the environment they grew up in. In an over-population, corrupted and ***** infested, with every back-stabbing each other (hence they don't trust others easily), it is understandable.

Sixty years ago Akhand Bharat embarked on stealing it's neighbors lands. Sixty years later it still has this ambition to steal land.

If you pay attention to recent events, you would know of the WNB (a White Supremacy Militant Movment) in South Africa that is claiming S.Africa exclusively for whites. It is ridiculous, especially considering their long oppressive apartheid history and the fact they still enjoy preferential lifestyle, to claim land native to the Africans as theirs. Likewise, Indians are doing the same with land native to Chinese. One is a group of White Aryan Supremacists, the other a group of Brown "Aryan"-wannabe Supremacists. Same sh1t, same smell.