1962: The War That Wasn't

by Shiv Kunal Verma

At the time of independence, India’s official position was that it recognized Tibet as an independent country while also recognizing the fact that it was under Chinese suzerainty. After the annexation of Sinkiang in 1949, Delhi started getting alarmed. Overnight, India had a common border with China in Ladakh. As the communists tightened their hold over China, Chairman Mao declared that henceforth Tibet should be regarded as a part of China. By early 1950 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had made it amply clear that it intended to annex Tibet. In a meeting held in Kalimpong, West Bengal, between the Tibetans and the Chinese, General Yuan Zhongxian, PRC’s ambassador to India, had submitted a three-point proposal that clearly said Tibet could either accept Chinese sovereignty peacefully or face the military might of the People’s Liberation Army.

By the mid-1950s, over 200,000 PLA troops were stationed in Tibet, resulting in famine conditions as the country’s delicate subsistence agricultural system was stretched beyond capacity. Ironically, the Panchsheel Treaty allowed the Chinese to import rice from India to tide over the problem.

The yearlong fighting in Kashmir notwithstanding, Nehru was never comfortable with the armed forces. He would make the right noises at the appropriate forums, but his political indoctrination had consciously or unconsciously instilled in him a desire to downgrade India’s officer cadre rather than tap their leadership potential and assimilate them into the machinery of government. This in turn created a vacuum in the decision-making chain, into which the civil servants stepped. They in turn, to protect their own newfound turf, played the game of isolating and dominating the military even further, taking important military decisions that they were not equipped to handle. At a personal level, Nehru was not impressed with most of senior officers and found them shallow, posturing caricatures, generally aping the British in their mannerisms and who had taken no interest in the freedom movement. To make matters worse, Nehru, along with other politicians, began to develop a deep-seated paranoia about the army. Many other countries that had become independent after World War II fell prey to military coups (the most pertinent example being Pakistan). In view of this, politicians and bureaucrats pushed through mindless measures that systematically downgraded the status and influence of the army.

With the collapse of Chinese authority over Tibet in 1912, the scenario was to undergo a major change. At the time, the thirteenth Dalai Lama was in exile in India and he immediately began to make preparations to return to Lhasa. The last of the Chinese still holding out were granted free passage and allowed to return home via Calcutta. After the Dalai Lama’s return to the Tibetan capital via Yatung in January 1913, he issued what the Tibetans regarded as an unambiguous declaration of independence. To further underline the Dalai Lama’s determination to fully separate from China, the Tibetans signed a treaty with Russian-dominated Mongolia that recognized each other’s independence. The Tibet-Mongol Treaty was one of the contemporary factors that indicated that the changing equation between the Tibetans and the Chinese required new international agreements. This resulted in the Simla Convention of 1914. However, at that stage, in keeping with past British policy, it was felt that for the convention to have any meaning, China had to be a party to it. There were primarily two objectives of the convention: the first was to settle the artificial concept of an ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer’ Tibet. The second, which did not involve China directly, would be the settlement boundary between British India and Tibet.

SIMLA CONVENTION, 1914, AND ITS AFTERMATH Strangely, the British government went to great lengths to keep the proceedings of the Simla Convention of 1914 under wraps. So much so that even the Assam government was kept in the dark as to what was decided as the final frontiers of India. The explanation perhaps lay in the earlier 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. The agreement with Russians had stipulated that both the British and the Russians acknowledge Chinese suzerainty over Tibet and that neither side could sign an independent treaty with the Tibetans. Article II of the section titled ‘Arrangement Concerning Thibet’ stipulated: ‘In conformity with the admitted principle of suzerainty of China over Thibet, Great Britain and Russia engage not to enter into negotiations with Thibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government.’

On the map, the lower thick line running east-west formed the McMahon Line between India and Tibet on the one hand and India and Burma on the other. A second north-south continuous line indicated the boundary between China and Tibet. The territory lying between the thick line and the dotted line was referred to as Inner Tibet. It is significant to note that when the Chinese later raised an objection to the Simla Convention, it was only regarding the position of Inner Tibet and had nothing to do with the demarcation of the McMahon Line. Interestingly, in the subsequent border agreement with Burma that was signed in Peking in October 1960, the Chinese government accepted the portion of the same McMahon Line—nearly 200 kilometres—that separated Tibet from Burma.

The most significant factor that needs to be understood is that the Simla Convention of 1914 merely formalized what had in effect been the traditional boundary between the territories of India and Tibet (other than Tawang). It was a recognized and long-established boundary that was not ‘created’, but only confirmed by treaty. If anything, Captain Morshead had provided the scientific data while Captain Bailey had provided the cultural and demographic information to support the validity of the established frontier. The local authorities and inhabitants of the area as well as the governments of the two sides had for centuries recognized the validity of this boundary alignment, and even the People’s Government of China, after they established their control in Tibet, proceeded on the basis that this was indeed the boundary. The same watershed boundary represented by the McMahon Line of 1914 also held good for Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Kumaon, Garhwal and Kinnaur extending up to the Sutlej River. The frontier beyond the Sutlej was also reasonably well established at the time: Lahaul, Ladakh and the Aksai Chin extending up to the Karakorams.

The Chinese attack on Eastern Tibet even while the Simla Convention was in effect may have had a major role to play in the Tibetans agreeing to give up certain areas that were under their control. In the exchange of notes attached to the convention, Tawang was made a part of India. Though not formerly acknowledged, the British negotiators did not want to make any direct payment for Tawang, for it would ‘make us a party to interference with the integrity of Tibet’. In the agreement with Lonchen Shatra, it was agreed that money would be paid later, ‘for some supposedly unconnected purpose’. In the event, a month after the convention was signed and Tawang ceded to British India, the Tibetans were given 5,000 Lee Enfield rifles and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. The annexation of the Chumbi region into British India did not happen only because at the time it did not have a border with India, flanked as it was to the southwest by Sikkim, and the southeast by Bhutan. The handing over of Tawang to the British did not go down particularly well with the Loseling College of Drepung Monastery which had lost a major source of income. To further complicate matters, London was adamant about the strict adherence to the 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty. By the time this policy was changed, with fighting breaking out between the Tibetans and the Chinese in 1917, British officers in India had already taken the decision to keep the 1914 Simla Convention under wraps. The Simla Convention was badly ha...

THE 1940S (THE TIBETANS COME CALLING) Far more dramatic events then took centre stage. The thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, died on 17 December 1933 and the long process to find and anoint a successor began. This period coincided with the outbreak of World War II and, suddenly, in the geopolitical scenario, China found itself on the side of Great Britain and the United States of America. The Americans, far removed from the ground realities of Sino-Tibetan relations, began to prod the British at the behest of Chiang Kai-shek to recognize Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. Unable to stand up to US pressure, in the Eden Memorandum of August 1943, the British gave in but threw in a face-saving caveat—that Tibet was to be regarded as ‘autonomous’. What the Chinese understood of that word, the world will probably never know.

DHOLA INCIDENT In early September 1962, a Chinese patrol came down the Thagla Ridge to Bridge 3 at the Nam Ka Chu and asked the men at the Assam Rifles post at Dhola to withdraw. According to the Chinese, the post was on their side of the border. The post commander held his ground, and the Chinese retreated. On 8 September, at 8 in the morning, a second patrol of sixty Chinese soldiers, armed with AK-47 rifles, came down the same route. Thinking that the Chinese had returned with intent, the JCO panicked and radioed Lumpu and Lum-la that a force of 600 soldiers was closing in on his position at Dhola. The JCO’s exaggerated reaction set in motion events that would eventually culminate in a full-scale attack by the Chinese. A force of 600 men roughly translates into a full-strength infantry battalion, and therefore it was not surprising that alarm bells started ringing, not just in Tezpur, but in Lucknow and New Delhi as well. The JCO’s word was not questioned or further verified and even though the Chinese remained on the north bank of the Nam Ka Chu, the damage had been done. 7 Brigade ordered the post to hold its position, while additional Assam Rifles troops from Lumpu and Lum-la were told to move immediately to Dhola.

Meanwhile, Brigadier John Dalvi and his Brigade HQ were getting first-hand experience of the ground conditions in and around Lumpu, which was entirely reliant on air drops for maintenance. ‘I watched air drops at Lumpu and found to my chagrin, but not surprise, that 30 to 40 per cent of the parachutes were not opening out and the drops were total losses. The reason for this waste of air effort was due to our policy of retrieving and re-using old parachutes. For years we had been wasting energy and resources on collecting used parachutes from forward posts.’

The frenetic pace with which preparations for Operation Leghorn were being carried out in Army and Air HQs gave the impression that everything that could be done to equip Dalvi’s brigade for the impending task was being done. The fact that almost half of the drops were ending in disaster because of faulty parachutes was not known at the time. Even when the parachutes did successfully deploy, loads would waft over the ridge at Lumpu and end up in the steep valleys below. The absence of worthwhile maps also meant that no one at Army HQ, including the DMO, Palit, had any idea of the ground conditions.

Tsangdhar had an area that was 110 metres by 36 metres on which Mishra felt the IAF could attempt dropping supplies, as this would cut short the long haul from Lumpu. This flat area was also ideally suited for the deployment of heavy mortars and artillery. The request for an ad hoc DZ (drop zone) to be set up at Tsangdhar was sent back up the chain of command and it went through to the highest echelons at record speed. Within twenty-four hours, this thin strip of land at Tsangdhar was designated as a forward DZ and the IAF was told to start using it immediately. If retrievals at Lumpu were pathetic, the recovery of drops at Tsangdhar was even worse, as most of the loads dumped by the Dakotas and Fairchild Packets fell into the ravines and were not recoverable.

‘The Dhola area was unsuitable as a forming-up place for mounting any form of attack against the intruding Chinese. I could see the three tiers of Chinese defence positions, the first was on the river bank opposite our own troops; the second half way up the Thagla slopes on Paitsai Spur and the third on the crest of the ridge.’ To have any chance against the network of machine guns deployed on the forward slopes and the mortars on the reverse slopes, 7 Brigade would need massive artillery support. At the present time, never mind artillery guns, the brigade did not even have heavy mortars.

NEHRU’S MAO SHADOW Chairman Mao pulled off many a miracle in his lifetime and was one of the most if not the most influential personalities of the twentieth century. Where India was concerned, he repeatedly displayed the uncanny ability to second-guess Prime Minister Nehru, so much so, that when one looks back at the events, it’s almost as if the Chinese knew how the Indians would react to each and every move of theirs. As we have seen, after coming back from the dead, Mao’s Communist Chinese defeated the larger and vastly better equipped army of the Kuomintang. Realizing that the West was both physically and emotionally drained from World War II, and fully preoccupied with containing the Soviets, Mao pulled off what was perhaps the biggest post-War real estate coup by bringing both Sinkiang and Tibet into the Chinese fold. India, which was directly affected by this blatant Chinese expansionism, was the unknown entity in Mao’s scheme of things. Yet somehow, not only did the Indians quietly go along with the Chinese moves in Tibet, Mao even managed to get Nehru to endorse the Chinese takeover. The next logical step was to force the Indians onto the back foot, for the threat of the United States jumping into the fray was always a real one. Therefore, to keep the Indians off balance, Mao created a border dispute with India where previously none existed. With Nehru walking into the Chinese trap despite all the warnings (Sardar Patel died exactly thirty-eight days after writing...

THE HOLY GRAIL OF THE FORWARD POLICY Much has been made of the McMahon Line, with some commentators even mentioning the thickness of the pencil used to demarcate the area west of Khenzemane extending up to the tri-junction with Bhutan, thereby implying that the Nam Ka Chu Valley was indeed on the Tibetan/Chinese side. Also, the fact that the Nam Ka Chu is erroneously marked as flowing north to south on the Morshead-Bailey map has little to do with the alignment of the boundary. These are ridiculous arguments, for they ignore the undisputed boundary line that extends eastwards from the Namgyan Chu towards Bum-la. Geographically, it is the Thagla Ridge that is contiguous and not the Tsangdhar Ridge, as claimed by the Chinese. To also dismiss the McMahon Line as some sort of arbitrary demarcation by the British shows a complete lack of understanding of the watershed principle. The Morshead-Bailey survey was extensive and apart from surveying and mapping the geographical features, the recommendation for the boundary line also took into account all the demographic factors. Tibet’s representative, Lonchen Shatra, had arrived in India for the Simla Conference in 1914 armed with every minute detail pertaining to the Assam-Tibet frontier. As a negotiator, he was no pushover. Furthermore, the British were extremely cautious in their dealing with the Tibetans, as they were with the Chinese. There is little doubt that Tawang was indeed the subject of intense discussion. Eventually, in...