1962: The War That Wasn't

by Shiv Kunal Verma

By the end of 1959, 4 Division was on the move from Punjab to the plains of Assam for deployment in NEFA. Structured, equipped and trained for warfare in the plains, its transport and artillery were not suitable for fighting in the mountains, just as its officers and men had no real idea of how to fight even tactical battles in completely different circumstances. Despite the fighting in Kashmir a decade ago, Indian infantry divisions were still designed to fight the Burma campaign in World War II. Already, neither the CGS, nor the Eastern Army Commander nor the COAS were in the decision-making loop—the defence minister preferring to use Bijji Kaul as the sole point of contact instead. Not surprising then, that compelling political pressure forced the deployment of the wrong troops at the wrong place at the wrong time.

4 Division was given the task of defending the entire McMahon Line, extending from Khenzemane near the Bhutan-Tibet-India tri-junction to Kibithu on the Burma border, a distance of more than 570 kilometres as the crow flies. There were no roads worth the name, and lateral communication was virtually impossible. There were no shelters and very little animal transport.

in the early stages of any war the attacker will always have the initial advantage over the defender because he can choose the time and place for the attack and can therefore apply all his strength at any given point. Therefore, he will get into the defender’s territory and make penetrations. If this happens the defender must not lose heart because he will have his say when he has located the main thrust and moves his reserves to meet it—very likely on ground of his choosing. There he will give battle, stabilize the situation, and then steadily push the enemy back. This process may take a long time, but there is no other answer to it when one is on the defensive. I make this statement pointedly because I realize that even small-scale penetrations will have great demoralizing effect on the country’s morale and may embarrass the government. We must therefore condition our minds to expect and accept these inevitable penetrations in the early stages of the war.

‘Even if I were to disperse my force on a “thin red line” all along the border, it will serve no useful purpose for I shall be weak everywhere and strong nowhere. Therefore, I do not propose to do so.

Thorat’s defensive line did not cut ice with anyone because once the Chinese had chased away our border outposts they could easily halt at the second tier of defence having captured their main objective. It amounted to surrendering our territory without firing a single shot. It was politically unpalatable and no one in India was willing to lose even one square inch of ground.

Thorat’s biggest blunder may have been to include Tawang in his defensive line.

Palit’s assessment, submitted to Army HQ around the time Thorat was beginning to articulate his views on the defensive line, was also faulty. The brigade commander had completely missed the Se-la feature that logically should have been the second line of defence in the sector.

Thorat, on the other hand, by recommending Tawang as the second-tier defensive line was violating his own principle of maintaining short communication lines. This allowed Thorat’s detractors to accuse the Eastern Army Commander of making grand plans based on theoretical knowledge.

In his usual dismissive and sarcastic style, the defence minister said that there would be no war between India and China, and in the most unlikely event of there being one, he was quite capable of fighting it himself on a diplomatic level.

Krishna Menon was more and more dependent on the QMG, Bijji Kaul, to get things done in Army HQ and would even bypass the Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General L. P. ‘Bogey’ Sen, on a regular basis.

Claiming that B. N. Mullik was the father of the Forward Policy, Maxwell would later say sarcastically that Mullik decided from ‘gazing into his crystal ball’ that India only had to push forces up to the Chinese pickets, and the latter would retreat.

Critics hold up the Kongka Pass as an example and say that by sending patrol parties into the area, the IB chief (who controlled the border police) acted in contravention of Nehru’s orders. This is a deliberate, or perhaps an ignorant assumption on two counts: (1) the incident happened in October 1959 and was perhaps the catalyst for the Forward Policy being put in place a year later, and (2) Kongka Pass, where the Indians were ambushed, was in the area east of Leh, not Aksai Chin, which was the northeastern corner of Jammu and Kashmir.

By throwing in a second ‘claim line’ the Chinese were only trying to keep the Indians off balance—a tactic which they adopted regularly with Nehru throughout the 1950s with great success.

Nehru, having publically committed himself to defend the Indian border after acknowledging the failure of the Panchsheel Treaty, was at a disadvantage. So long as he single-handedly continued to control Indian policy, the Chinese had a pretty good idea of how India would act. Mao was much too shrewd a campaigner and Chinese intelligence was extremely up-to-date—there was no way that the Forward Policy would be seen as a provocative act.

most Chinese analyses argue that India was planning to take an aggressive stance in Tibet. They have persevered with the theory that India’s objective was always to undermine Chinese attempts to rule Tibet so that India could turn it into a protectorate of its own. So long as this assumption continues to be put forth, and the issue is seen only from the Chinese point of view, the Forward Policy will continue to be labelled as India’s biggest folly. In reality, the Indians had been patrolling much further forward prior to the directives being issued for the implementation of the Forward Policy. Now they were more or less operating within the Indian border in the area between the two claim lines set down by the Chinese.

The hardening of China’s stance was more likely to be related to the fact that the Dalai Lama had not only been given political asylum, he had been welcomed with open arms.

Prime Minister Nehru, having kept his countrymen in the dark over the differences with China for almost half a decade, now found himself manoeuvring through a political minefield of his own making; both in Parliament and with the media he was no longer the man with an unquestioned vision.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that at that time the Chinese claim over Aksai Chin was precisely that—there were no Indian checkposts at Aksai Chin to suggest that the territory belonged to India. The fact that there were no Chinese or Tibetan or Sinkiang checkposts either did not seem to matter to them.

Nehru’s tendency to make grandiose statements in Parliament or elsewhere seemed to be aimed at his critics within India and the media, who had started asking uncomfortable questions. Nehru had demonstrated time and again his tendency to announce policy decisions that would leave the concerned establishment running to catch up.

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Had Nehru paused long enough to understand the implications of Exercise Lal Qila and the common sense behind Thorat’s defensive line, he may well have still adopted the Forward Policy, but left its implementation to the Assam Rifles in NEFA and Sikkim and the Border Police in Ladakh. These lightly held positions would have, as envisaged in Thorat’s plan, fallen back to where the army was waiting for the Chinese. Instead, Nehru brought in the army with the intention of holding ground, in the process forgetting that armies are meant to fight and not just hold ground.

Even though General Thorat, the Eastern Army Commander had clearly indicated that for the defence of the Kameng Frontier Division, the Bomdila–Manda-la ridge should be the vital ground, Division HQ kept pushing troops forward although there was little logistical support available.

Major General Amrik Singh, GOC 4 Division, had attended the Lucknow conference where Exercise Lal Qila was held. He had returned to Tezpur echoing the sentiment prevalent in Delhi rather than Lucknow. He let it be known that, in his opinion, the Eastern Army Commander had been rather ‘vague’ as he did not have any first-hand knowledge of the ground, having ‘prepared his assessment off a map’.

Even though General Thimayya still had a year to go as COAS, Amrik Singh’s stance as the GOC of a division was most revealing. Not only was the ‘Menon-Kaul duo ruling the roost in Delhi, Mullik had emerged as the third, perhaps even more important centre of power. All said and done, Kaul was still only the QMG while Bogey Sen was the CGS, who should have been responsible for all tactical decisions and their implementation. Sen, however, chose to maintain a passive stance and watched wryly as Kaul virtually usurped his role. With Sen refusing to take responsibility, Mullik stepped into the void and became the de facto CGS/DMO.

After Exercise Lal Qila and the failed attempt by Thorat to win the defence minister over, Thimayya and Thorat seem to have washed their hands off the actual deployment of troops in the Kameng Sector.

the last few months in 1960 proved to be anti-climactic. The border remained quiet; there were no infringements. The alarms that had been raised in Parliament and the high drama around the Dalai Lama’s escape had begun to fade from public memory. The general belief, among both the civil and the military officers posted in NEFA at the time, was that the events of the past year were all a ploy to give China the bargaining chips it needed to get India to yield to its claim on Aksai Chin. In messes and clubs, people argued that after all Peking had accepted the demarcation of the watershed to delineate the boundaries with Burma, Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim.

Palit noted the vulnerability of both the Assam Rifles posts at Chutangmu and Khenzemane for they were located at the bottom of deep valleys that were completely dominated by the heights around them.

The head lama confirmed that a party of five Chinese had indeed forced their way in a few days ago. Palit found out that the Chinese had crossed the boundary at a place that he had previously believed to be inaccessible. Now that he realized that there was access via many game trails, he came away convinced that Bum-la, and even Tawang situated further below, were not suitable defensive positions.

Having mentally downgraded the military potential of Bum-la-Tawang Palit decided that the answer lay in fortifying Se-la as a defensive position. The sheer imposing look of Se-la beguiled him into believing that Thorat’s defensive line needed to be pushed up from Bomdila–Manda-la to Se-la. Needing a lot more information, Palit immediately dispatched his DQ, Major Raja Fulay, to reconnoitre Se-la’s surroundings. Before Fulay could report back, however, Palit was posted to Army HQ ‘with immediate effect’. This meant that Palit, the only senior officer who knew the Kameng Frontier Division first-hand, was no longer in NEFA.

General Thimayya retired on 7 May 1961, handing over to G...

The constant eroding of his authority by the Menon-Kaul partnership saw him hang up his boots ‘a sad and disillusioned man; his advice regarding China ignored and the Army in the same state of unreadiness for its ordained tasks’. On one of his last visits to some of the formations, he is reported to have said: ‘I hope that I am not leaving you as cannon-fodder for the Chinese. God bless you all.’

With Thimayya went Thorat, the Eastern Army Commander. Despite being on the wrong side of the Nehru-Menon clique, many officers still expected Thorat to make the cut on the basis of sheer merit. With the departure of the two most respected officers in the Indian Army, a mass clearing of the stables was undertaken.

Bogey Sen moved to Lucknow to take over command from Thorat, while Lieutenant General Daulet Singh was chosen to replace Pran Thapar as the Western Army Commander. In Army HQ, almost all key appointments—including the Director, Military Operations and Director, Military Intelligence—were to be staffed by officers who were handpicked by Kaul himself.

With the exit of Thimayya and Thorat, Lieutenant General S. D. Verma, GOC of XV Corps that was looking after Kashmir and Ladakh, also put in his papers.

Just before Thimayya’s formal retirement, the Menon-Kaul duo even went so far as to institute an enquiry on the charge of treason against the outgoing army chief on frivolous grounds. The charge of ‘treason’ instituted against Thimayya was symptomatic of the times. The highly respected Verma, who had been expected to take over Western Command, eventually left India to seek refuge in London in order to get away from the vindictiveness of the powers that be. Another officer caught in the crossfire of vendetta was Major General Sam Manekshaw, the then commandant of the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington.

After May 1961, with the new command set-up in place—with Thapar as chief and Kaul as the CGS—there was a shift in the pattern of protests as the stakes were raised by the highly publicized Forward Policy. Though there was no major clash in the remaining months of 1961, there was enough activity in both Ladakh and NEFA for the Chinese to give a grim warning in their note of 30 November ‘that they would have every reason to send troops across the McMahon Line and enter the vast area between the crest of the Himalayas and the southern foot’.

The state of affairs at the time was that while it appeared as though India had adopted a tough and non-compromising stand with China, in reality, with the few competent senior officers sidelined to make way for those who were rather despairingly referred to in army and governmental circles as the ‘Kaul boys’, the situation was very shaky.

Palit’s successor in 7 Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Ranbir Singh, developed acute asthma that necessitated his immediate removal from Tawang. This created a problem for the MS, Major General Moti Sagar, who had to find an officer best suited to replace Ranbir Singh.

Moti Sagar asked Dalvi if he would consider taking on the responsibility.

Though Lieutenant General Bikram Singh, the XV Corps Commander, protested vigorously, Dalvi found himself on the train to Rangiya towards the end of February.

1/9 Gorkha Rifles (GR), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel B. S. Ahluwalia, was stationed at Tawang while 1 Sikh, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel B. M. ‘Baij’ Mehta, was at Dirang Dzong.

The third battalion that made up 7 Infantry Brigade was 9 Punjab under the command of Lieut...

Dalvi was taken aback at the complete lack of any real infrastructure despite the fact that 4 Infantry Division had been in the area for two years. The condition of the troops at the ‘rear’ in Rangiya and Missamari did not inspire too much confidence about the facilities further in the hills.

Prime Minister’s directive of 2 November 1960 had said ‘that Indian forces should remain in effective occupation of the whole frontier from NEFA to Ladakh and they should cover all gaps by effective patrolling. No longer should the Chinese be allowed to encroach surreptitiously into our territories not occupied by Indian troops or police’.

The file was sent to the Ministry of External Affairs who sent it back to MO with the noting: ‘We may permit the Army to extend the jurisdiction, if they have not already done so, up to the line suggested by them.’ This was good enough for the CGS, who was getting more and more impatient with what he considered to be stalling tactics on the part of the local commanders. Accordingly, Eastern Command, XXXIII Corps, 4 Infantry Division and finally 7 Brigade were told to go ahead and set up the post anyway.

In Army HQ, no one seemed to have done an appreciation of how the Chinese were viewing the developments. By this time, Kaul had complete and absolute control of operations, logistics and intelligence. Having weeded out all those who could or would point out the obvious drawbacks in what was essentially a politically inspired military policy, not one of the yes men in Army HQ were likely to point out that the Indian moves were likely to provoke a reaction.

The DMO put this down in the form of a note to HQ Eastern Command and sent it off and, amazingly, did nothing more about it even after the situation escalated dramatically in the next few days. Later, somewhat meekly defending his inaction on this critical bit of information, Palit was to say, ‘Dr Gopal never told me the Chinese did not accept our argument in 1954 and had, in fact, claimed the Thagla and Khenzemane to be on the northern side of the McMahon Line.’

The border with China even today is an unresolved problem. Unlike the settlement and demarcation of frontiers between Nepal, Bhutan and Burma which also followed the Himalayan watershed principle, Mao Tse-tung did not want the boundary settled with India for the simple reason that with the passage of time, Chinese claims based on—what it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call—the whims of its leader then would develop a legitimacy of their own. It is, therefore, even more vital for India’s future generations to truly understand the genesis and complexities of our conflict with China—across the mountain border as well as on our side. The country would do well to heed the age-old saying that nations which do not learn from history are doomed to make the same mistakes again.

In the 1950s and 1960s, India not only had a leadership that was fairly clueless about geopolitical affairs, its armed forces, which it had inherited from the British, were also in a state of limbo. During World War II, various regiments of the Indian Army had earned their spurs in modern warfare and emerged with enhanced reputations. However, even though the Indianization of the armed forces had begun, the seniormost officers at the time had hardly even commanded infantry battalions, with just one or two having made brigadier by the time the war ended.

As events unfolded over the next decade, they failed to understand not only China’s long-term geopolitical ambitions, which were blatantly expansionist, they also severely underestimated China’s operational capabilities.

Nehru’s own insecurities vis-à-vis the generals, combined with the absurd posturing that a non-violent nation did not really need an army, created a situation where the Indian Army was almost leaderless and rudderless.