By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 22nd Mar 14
The truncated version of the Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks report (HBR) that was recently posted on the internet by Australian author and journalist, Neville Maxwell, constitutes the Indian Army’s sweeping enquiry into its only major military debacle, at the hands of China in 1962.
Since it was submitted to army chief, General JN Chaudhuri, in 1963, the report has been buried, still retaining its “top secret” classification. It is a tale of skewed civil-military relations and bumbling strategic direction, and of inconceivable military incompetence at higher levels of command.
Even so, the most telling account in the 144 pages of the HBR blogpost is that of the Namka Chu, the mountain torrent west of Tawang where the war began, and where India’s 7 Infantry Brigade was wiped out in hours, triggering a rout that ended a month later with the Chinese Army poised at the threshold of Assam.
7 Infantry Brigade was rushed to the Namka Chu as a consequence of the “Forward Policy”, which moved 56 Assam Rifles platoons to the McMahon Line to demonstrate Indian presence on the disputed border. Eastern Command issued instructions for the move on January 10, 1962.
One of these new posts was Dhola Post, which eventually triggered the war. In one of the HBR’s revelations, it emerges that Dhola was accidentally established on China’s side of the McMahon Line. For 52 years, India has held that by attacking Dhola Post, China committed aggression and started the war.
Before New Delhi ordered the “Forward Policy” in December 1961, the army moved carefully along the Sino-Indian border. According to the patrolling policy, “NO patrolling except defensive patrolling is to be permitted within two to three miles of the McMAHON Line (capitals in all quotes in original).”
This changed on February 24, 1962, when Tezpur-based XXXIII Corps, commanded by the respected Lt Gen Umrao Singh, ordered nine new border posts, included one between Tawang and Bhutan, at the Tri-Junction of Tibet, Bhutan and India. This post became famous as Dhola.
Discrepancies in the maps available then depicted an arbitrary border running due west from the border outpost of Khinzemane to Tri-Junction, rather than the watershed boundary that constituted the McMahon Line. Operating with those faulty maps, Captain Mahabir Prasad of 1 SIKH established Dhola Post on June 4, 1962, on what Henderson Brooks reveals was China’s side of the McMahon Line.
The HBR blogpost says that, in August 1962, XXXIII Corps admitted to Eastern Command that its post was wrongly sited, but not that it was on Chinese territory. Aware of the consequences, XXXIII Corps suggested that the army plays innocent. It wrote, “…to avoid alarm and queries from all concerned, it is proposed to continue using the present grid reference.”
Henderson Brookes is frank in his assessment: “This, in effect, meant that the post was actually NORTH of the McMAHON Line.”
The consequences were not long in coming. On September 8, Dhola Post was surrounded by some 600 Chinese soldiers. Instead of wriggling out from this uncomfortable position, the army chose an aggressive response. The HBR blogpost recounts that, on September 12, four days after Dhola was surrounded, the Eastern Command chief, Lt Gen LP Sen, told Lt Gen Umrao Singh, and GOC 4 Division, Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad that the “Government would not accept any intrusion of the Chinese into our territory. If they come in, they must be thrown out by force.”
Sen “clarified that the Government had always maintained that McMAHON Line was based on the watershed principle and, therefore, it ran along the THAGLA Ridge. Thus DHOLA was well inside the McMAHON Line.”
The countdown to war had begun. The day after Dhola Post was surrounded, the ill-fated 7 Infantry Brigade was ordered to the Namka Chu, while the Chinese too intensified their force build up. The HBR blogpost notes, “In fact, their build up behind the THAGLA Ridge was far greater than ours.” On September 20, the first exchanges of firing began in the Namka Chu valley.
On September 22, the government ordered army chief, General PN Thapar, in writing: “The Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out as soon as possible. The Chief of Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of the Chinese in Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA as soon as he is ready.”
Meanwhile, laughably given that India knew about China’s build up in the area, XXXIII Corps formulated a plan to evict the Chinese from the area of Dhola Post, using three infantry battalions to attack across the Namka Chu. This was to begin earliest by October 10.
On October 4, Army HQ announced the formation of IV Corps, bringing Lt Gen BM Kaul in direct command of the operations. The HBR blogpost recounts how Kaul personally moved from headquarters to posts, railroading 7 Brigade to the tactically and logistically unviable Namka Chu positions, with just 50 rounds of ammunition per man, one blanket, no winter clothing, and without even minor medical supplies.
Says Henderson Brooks evocatively, “The retribution was to come.” He quotes Sir Alfred Tennyson’s immortal lines from Charge of the Light Brigade, “Their’s not to reason why; Their’s not to make reply; Their’s but to do and die.”
Astonishingly, Kaul seemed oblivious of the possibility that the Chinese would actually attack. The HBR blogpost says, “On 14 and 15 October, the Corps Commander had discussions with the Divisional Commander. The theme of the discussions was how and when and with what more preparation could we attack THAGLA Ridge (across the Namka Chu). Curiously, in these discussions the possibility of the Chinese attacking us SOUTH of the NAMKA CHU was never considered.”
This surreal form of command continued till October 17, when Kaul took ill and a special plane from New Delhi, with medical specialist on board, flew him back to the capital.
The commander of 7 Infantry Brigade, Brigadier John Dalvi, who recounted events in his seminal “Himalayan Blunder”, found Kaul commanding IV Corps from a sickbed in Delhi. On October 19, the evening before the Chinese attacked across the Namka Chu and swept away his brigade, Dalvi is recounted as telling his divisional commander, “I am NOT prepared to stand by and watch my troops massacred. It is time someone took a firm stand. If the higher authorities want a scapegoat, I am prepared to offer myself and put in my papers on this issue.”
Henderson Brooks writes, “The Brigade Commander had represented almost daily before this, but, by 19 October, he had reached the end of his tether. It is apparent so had the Chinese. They struck the next morning.”
Friday, 21 March 2014
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 21st March 14
The recent internet posting of what Australian author and journalist, Neville Maxwell, claims to be the “top secret” Henderson Brooks Report --- the army’s long suppressed inquiry into the military defeat by China in 1962 --- has become an opportunity for many.
For Maxwell himself, it has --- unwittingly or by design --- created a swell of free publicity for a new edition of “India’s China War”, Maxwell’s controversial book, which has recently been re-published in India. Dismissed by some scholars as pro-China propaganda and acclaimed by others, Maxwell’s book is now squarely in the spotlight.
Meanwhile, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has seized the opportunity to attack the Congress Party. On the BJP website, senior party leader Arun Jaitley demands the entire Henderson Brooks report be released, and speculates whether some parts still remains secret “because these pages contain some material which can be embarrassing to those in power in 1962?”
Jaitley does not clarify why the BJP did not declassify and release the report whilst it governed India from 1998-2004.
Finally, the UPA government has cited “national security” to avoid comment. The defence ministry has termed the report “extremely sensitive” and claimed that its contents are of “current operational value”, echoing what Defence Minister Antony told parliament on April 19, 2010 to justify keeping the report secret.
Numerous army generals have flatly rejected the notion that the events leading to 1962 have “current operational value”. Former northern army commander Lt Gen Rostum Nanavatty says, “I can’t see how declassifying the Henderson Brooks report would, in any way, affect current operations.”
For Lt Gen TB Henderson Brooks, identifying lessons from the 1962 debacle for the army and the country to benefit from was one of his key objectives after being appointed by army chief Gen JN Choudhuri on December 14, 1962, to probe into the operations.
Yet, even today, the absence of a measured discussion continues to ensure that important lessons from the run up to 1962 remain unlearnt.
The HBR weblog posted by Maxwell has two parts --- the second part listing out “detailed lessons” relating to training, equipment, physical fitness and the quality of command. These, says the HBR blogpost, are “largely in the tactical sphere and are meant for more general distribution (within the army).”
With a jittery political leadership sweeping the HBR under the carpet, those lessons never reached the army’s rank and file. The only two copies of the report in India remained locked in safes --- one in the army, the other in the MoD.
There are further lessons listed in the first part of the HBR blogpost, many of them as valid today as they were in 1962.
The HBR notes that the terrain in Ladakh will always militarily favour China over India (since Chinese troops can move quickly over the relatively flat Tibetan plateau). India, in contrast, can manoeuvre only near Chushul and in the Indus valley. The report notes, “Our roads, even when fully developed, will not have the capacity to sustain major operations… Accessibility to DAULAT BEG OLDI and HOT SPRING Sectors in the KARAKORAM Mountains will always be difficult.”
This observation rings startlingly true even today. When the Chinese army intruded into Daulat Beg Oldi last year, India’s reaction and troop movement was severely constrained since the road to that sector is incomplete even today.
China too faced difficulties in moving troops and supplies from mainland China to the Tibetan plateau, notes the HBR blogpost. “Once there, however, all Sectors are easily accessible from their side. Thus their capacity for manoeuvre is much greater than ours.”
China has certainly learnt its lessons, overcoming the challenge of accessing the Tibetan plateau. In 2006, the 1,956-kilometre Qinghai-Tibet railway was completed; which supplemented three road highways leading into Tibet from Qinghai, Chengdu and Xinjiang, which were built in the 1950s. Currently, work is under way on another railway line from Chengdu to Lhasa.
India’s difficulties in defending Ladakh in 1962, Henderson Brooks concluded, stemmed from the fact that we did not have a strong defensive line. The army tried to defend “cold war” outposts all along the border, established by troops that moved forward in accordance with the Forward Policy. Instead of that, says the HBR blogpost, “In LADAKH we should limit our commitments in war to the holding of LADAKH Range at the few focal points that give access to Leh.”
This military willingness to vacate large tracts of territory without a fight (ahead of the Ladakh Range), in order to give battle to China from tactically favourable terrain (like the Ladakh Range), contrasted starkly with the political leadership’s insistence on occupying and defending all the territory claimed by India.
On similar lines, the HBR blogpost terms a “fundamental error” the army’s decision to occupy a defence line on the Sela Ridge after withdrawing from Towang. Admitting that Sela --- a dominating natural obstacle just south of Towang --- was “a strong natural tactical position”, Henderson Brooks believes that Sela should have been ignored and the next stand made at Bomdila, even though that meant withdrawing 70 kilometres and leaving that territory to the Chinese. The HBR blogpost concludes that defeat “would have been averted had a clean break been made at TOWANG and the withdrawal to BOMDILA had been carried out as planned.”
There was, evidently, a major disconnect between a political leadership on the one hand that wanted every inch of Indian territory defended, even without the military and material resources to do so; and, on the other hand, an army steeped in the World War II experience of deep withdrawals and long advances, many of which were in other countries, without the emotional baggage of defending ones own territory. Like most generals of that time, Henderson Brooks appears unable to notice, far less bridge, this divide.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 20th Mar 14
Lieutenant General TB Henderson Brooks was clearly worried that his inquiry into the army’s 1962 defeat at the hands of the Chinese might be made into a whitewash job that confined itself to minor tactical questions, while ignoring the bigger issues --- questions of higher defence management --- that had actually led to national humiliation.
That worry is evident from the very start of the “top secret” Henderson Brooks Report (HBR), large chunks of which have been posted on the internet by former journalist and author, Neville Maxwell, now settled in Australia.
Despite those apprehensions, or perhaps because of them, Henderson Brooks and his co-author, the iconic, Victoria Cross winning Brigadier PS Bhagat, boldly stretched their mandate to investigate and point out flaws in the political and top military handling of the run-up to and conduct of war.
In the very first page of his report, Henderson Brooks makes the startling disclosure that the army chief --- General JN Chaudhuri, who was appointed after the 1962 debacle led to the resignation of his predecessor, General PN Thapar --- advised him not to review the functioning of Army Headquarters (AHQ) while carrying out his inquiry.
Henderson Brooks believed that excluding AHQ from his investigation would mask crucial events and paint an incomplete picture. He says it would have been “convenient and logical” to begin tracing events from AHQ, through command headquarters, to the field formations that actually did the fighting.
According to the posted HBR, General JN Chaudhuri’s order to exclude AHQ from the enquiry meant, “The relationship between Defence Ministry and Army Headquarters and the directions given by the former to the latter could, therefore, also not be examined.”
Henderson Brooks remained determined not to let that happen. He doggedly scrutinised AHQ decisions, if not through AHQ documents, then through written orders, instructions and minutes that AHQ issued to Headquarters Western Command (HQ WC) and Eastern Command (HQ EC).
The posted HBR notes that, “the actions and developments at Army Headquarters have had to be traced from documents available at Command Headquarters. In this process, a number of loose ends concerning Army Headquarters could not be verified and have been left unanswered.””
It remains unclear why General JN Chaudhuri restricted the scope of Henderson Brooks’ “operations review”, as the inquiry ordered by the army chief on December 14, 1962, was termed. Not only was AHQ placed off limits for Henderson Brooks, his mandate was skewed towards just one part of the war --- the Kameng sector, around Tawang.
According to the HBR blogpost, Henderson Brooks was ordered, “to go into the reverses suffered by the Army, particularly in the KAMENG Frontier Division of NEFA”, i.e. the Tawang sector of the North East Frontier Agency. He was to enquire into tactical issues --- specifically what went wrong with training, equipment, system of command, physical fitness of troops, and the capacity of commanders at all levels to influence the men under their command.
Eventually, Henderson Brooks framed his own expansive mandate. Besides scrutinising AHQ wherever possible, and commenting on MoD and Intelligence Bureau (IB) functioning, the enquiry also focused on Ladakh (i.e. the Western Command) as intently as on Kameng. The posted report notes, “It is also obvious that the developments in NEFA were closely correlated to those in LADAKH, and, thus, any study of NEFA operations must be carried out in conjunction with… the Western Theatre.”
Henderson Brooks consciously viewed the big picture, choosing to examine “developments and events prior to hostilities as also the balance, posture and strength of the Army at the outbreak of hostilities.”
It is perhaps for this reason --- and for the occasionally blistering comments on political and civilian agencies --- that successive governments in New Delhi have chosen to keep the Henderson Brooks report “top secret.”
For example, the posted report is scathing about Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon’s fetish for keeping meetings unrecorded. The posted report notes “The Army Commander (Lt Gen LP Sen) in his report… has brought out that the Defence Minister categorically stated that in view of the TOP SECRET nature of the conference, NO minutes would be kept. This practice, it appears, was followed at all conferences that were held by the Defence Minister in connection with these operations. This is a surprising decision and one which could and did lead to grave consequences. It absolved in the ultimate analysis anyone of the responsibility of any major decision. This, it could and did lead to decisions being taken without careful and considered thought on the consequences of those decisions.”
Pointing out “military decisions must only be taken by those who are in the full knowledge of the military situation and can appreciate the tactical implications,” the posted HBR is withering about the deeply flawed evaluations of BN Mullick, the Director IB (DIB). Other than Mullick’s calamitous opinion that the Chinese would not use force against Indian troops that were pushing forward into contested territory, the HBR blogpost also terms “militarily unsound” the DIB’s opinion that scarce forces should be diverted to hold areas like Taksing, Mechuka and Tuting in NEFA, which the report termed the “frittering away of forces.”
The posted HBR also slams Foreign Secretary MJ Desai’s gung-ho suggestions at a time when Sino-Indian tensions were boiling over after Indian jawans moved to the disputed Thagla Ridge. Says the HBR acerbically, “The Foreign Secretary’s suggestion of establishing a post on THAGLA Ridge alongside the Chinese, viewed against the happenings in LADAKH, seems incredible.”
Yet, ultimately, the HBR reserves most of its disapproval for AHQ, which neither insulated the field formations from powerful, interfering civilians, nor allowed the units to plan and execute their battle. The posted report notes: “(F)or proper planning and orderly progress, it is essential that lower formations are left to execute orders without interference and undue pressure from Army Headquarters, who neither know the local conditions nor details of execution…”
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 19th Mar 14
More than half a century has elapsed since an army commission, headed by Lieutenant General TB Henderson Brooks, enquired into India’s crushing military defeat at the hands of China in 1962. So controversial have successive governments deemed the report that it remains “Top Secret” even today. Only two copies of the report were believed to exist, one with army headquarters and the other with the defence secretary.
Now a third copy of the Henderson Brooks Report (HBR) has emerged, posted on the internet by Neville Maxwell, the former India correspondent for the British newspaper “The Times”. Maxwell’s controversial book, “India’s China War”, is acclaimed by many as a well researched indictment of India’s politico-military planning; and dismissed by others as a communist sympathiser’s justification for China’s aggression. Maxwell has often suggested that he had a copy of the HBR.
Lt Gen Henderson Brooks migrated to Australia after his retirement in the early 1960s. Maxwell joined him there, also choosing --- perhaps coincidentally --- to settle in Australia. Maxwell has insisted on keeping his source anonymous.
In his blogpost, Maxwell says that he offered the HBR to five unnamed editors of Indian newspapers, but none were willing to publish it.
While Maxwell’s website, “Neville Maxwell’s Albatross”, now appears blocked for Indian users, Business Standard possesses a copy of the blog post that purports to be the HBR. Maxwell has confirmed, through a third party, that the 190-page document in this newspaper’s possession is the genuine report.
Acknowledging the publication, the defence ministry today stated: "Given the extremely sensitive nature of the contents of the Report, which are of current operational value, it is reiterated that the Government of India has classified this Report as a Top Secret document and, as such, it would not be appropriate to comment on the contents uploaded by Neville Maxwell on the Web (sic)".
Critics of the Congress Party have accused it of keeping the HBR secret because it allegedly blames political miscalculation by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for triggering a war with China. That is not the case; while Maxwell’s HBR blogpost notes bureaucratic interference in decision-making, especially the miscalculations of Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB) BN Mullick, it apportions blame primarily to the army.
The key army villain turns out to be Gen BM Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff (CGS) --- a key operational post in Army Headquarters (AHQ) --- before being appointed on the eve of war to command 4 Corps, which failed miserably in defending NEFA (North East Frontier Agency), as Arunachal Pradesh was called.
The most hotly-debated question about 1962 has been: did the political leadership provoke China into war by ordering the army --- against the advice of the generals --- to implement a “Forward Policy”? This involved sending small groups of Indian soldiers, without adequate combat capability, support or backup, to occupy disputed areas in Ladakh, claiming them as Indian territory.
The HBR blogpost reveals that the government wanted a Forward Policy, but left the implementation to the generals. Yet a supine AHQ, under a weak army chief, General Thapar, and pressured by a gung-ho General Kaul, overruled valid cautions presented by HQ Western Command (HQ WC), which insisted that a forward move must have adequate troop numbers, combat support and logistics.
The belief that pushing forward would not encounter Chinese resistance came from the Intelligence Bureau, but was accepted by AHQ. The HBR blogpost cites a meeting held in the PM’s office on November 2, 1961, attended by the defence minister (KV Krishna Menon), the foreign secretary (MJ Desai), the army chief (General PN Thapar) and the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB), Mullick, when the decision to push forward troops into contact with the Chinese was taken. Countering the army’s earlier stated view that “the Chinese would resist by force any attempts to take back territory held by them,” Mullick argued that “the Chinese would not react to our establishing new posts and that they were NOT LIKELY TO USE FORCE AGAINST ANY OF OUR POSTS EVEN IF THEY WERE IN A POSITION TO DO SO” (capitals in original).
The AHQ operated in the lead up to war on a flawed army assessment of Chinese strength --- an outdated 1960 operational instruction, never updated, that said the Chinese could scrape together a “regiment plus” (about 4000-5000 soldiers) against Ladakh. Yet Lt Gen Daulet Singh, who headed WC, was far more realistic. On August 17, 1962, it wrote to AHQ that the Chinese had a “well equipped division (15,000 soldiers) with supporting arms deployed against LADAKH. Further, the Chinese had developed roads to all the important areas they held and thus could concentrate large forces at any given place. As against this, we were thinly spread out, with no supporting arms (i.e. artillery, engineers, etc) worth the name and with poor communications between the various sectors. Thus, in case of hostilities, we would be defeated in detail.”
With war clouds gathering, HQ WC pointed out that “it is imperative that political direction is based on military means”, asked for a “four brigade division with adequate supporting arms”. Declaring it “vital that we did not provoke the Chinese into an armed clash, Lt Gen Daulet Singh recommended that the “Forward Policy” should be held in abeyance.
A week later, Lt Gen Daulet Singh further pressed this view in discussions with top AHQ generals. Whether army chief, General Thapar, conveyed the HQ WC assessment to the government remains unknown. On September 5, AHQ reiterated the Forward Policy, telling HQ WC that it “did not consider it likely that the Chinese would resort to any large scale hostilities in LADAKH.”
The HBR blogpost recounts that eastern army commander, Lt Gen LP Sen, was told by a senior AHQ officer in September 1962 that “experience in LADAKH had shown that a few rounds fired at the Chinese would cause them to run away.”
Simultaneously, tensions were rising in NEFA, where Indian troops established the Dhola Post across the Namka Chu River. The Chinese surrounded Dhola on September 8, and firing began daily. This situation was reviewed on September 22, by Defence Minister Krishna Menon. While General Thapar warned that action at Dhola would invite Chinese retaliation in Ladakh, Foreign Secretary MJ Desai felt “that the Chinese would not react very strongly against us in Ladakh. He considered that operations for eviction of the Chinese from NEFA should be carried out, even at the expense of losing some territory in LADAKH.”
The AHQ seems to have accepted this military assessment from a diplomat. The HBR blogpost says, “Defence Ministry then, on the request of the Chief of Army Staff, issued the following instructions:-… Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out, as soon as possible. The Chief of the Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action for the eviction of the Chinese from… NEFA, as soon as he is ready.”
With the government ready to accept some loss of territory in Ladakh, AHQ told HQ WC that “Chinese may attack some of our forward posts… (which) will fight it out and inflict maximum casualties on the Chinese.”
Criticising these “unrealistic” orders to “far-flung, tactically unsound and uncoordinated small posts”, the HBR blogpost damningly wonders, “Whether General Staff Branch Army Headquarters were in touch with the realities of the situation. It appears that events controlled actions rather than actions events.”
Slamming the Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt Gen BM Kaul, for not advising the government on “our weakness and inability to implement the ‘Forward Policy’”, the HBR blogpost notes: “There might have been pressure put on by the Defence Ministry, but it was the duty of the General Staff to have pointed out the unsoundness of the ‘Forward Policy’ without the means to implement it… Apparently, however, the General Staff at NO stage submitted to the Government an appraisal on the consequences of the ‘Forward Policy’ or the basic requirement of troops and resources required before it should have been implemented.”
Hinting at General BM Kaul’s absence of military qualifications, and his cultivation of a clique within the officer cadre, the HBR blogpost states: “The General Staff, particularly the CGS (Gen Kaul), Deputy CGS (Maj Gen JS Dhillon) and the DMO (Brig Monty Palit) went a step further and permeated this belief into the Army, with the disastrous result that even field formations were infected with a sense of complacency.”
Recognizing perhaps that Lt Gen BM Kaul, with his proximity to Nehru, had superseded the army’s command, the HBR blogpost exempts Gen Thapar, and the eastern army commander, Lt Gen LP Sen, from his sharpest criticisms. Frontally attacking Lt Gen BM Kaul, the document notes: “This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the Chief of the General Staff, his Deputy, the DMO, DMI, and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of our forces. These… are key appointments and officers were hand-picked by General KAUL to fill them (sic).”
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