India was in desperate need of a Sardar Patel to drive its strategic thinking. Nehru, by stating on 1 November 1950 in an interview to the Unites Press that “India has neither the resources nor the inclination to send armed assistance to Tibet”{Arpi/374} and that “We can’t save Tibet” seemed to wash his hands off the whole affair so critical to India’s security, and seemed to suggest that other than armed intervention, which India didn’t wish to undertake, there was nothing India could do—when there was much that India could have very well done, other than its own armed intervention!
