Thursday, 27 March 2014 |
The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report makes it clear that the 1962 debacle was a result of India’s military unpreparedness and also of the political leadership’s inability to recognise the danger
After the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report of the 1962 Sino-Indian war was ‘released’ by Mr Neville Maxwell, I wonder why nobody asked the Australian correspondent who wrote the famous book, India’s China War, in 1970, who gave him a copy of the top-secret report? A few decades ago, it was rumoured that a senior General or a Minister was the culprit. We will probably never know. Mr Maxwell, who had kept 126 pages of Part 1 of the report secret for the past 45 years, probably wanted to ‘clear’ his consciousness by posting it on his website.
In the meantime, the blind babus of the Ministry of Defence continued to affirm that the content of the report was of current operational value. Did they think for a second about all those who had died on the Namkha Chu or in Ladakh or about those who suffered as prisoners of war in Tibet, or even about a nation that was humiliated? No, it is not in their habit, though India is entitled to know what happened.
While reading the report, it clearly comes out that the author, Henderson Brooks, the Anglo-Indian General, was a professional, honest and courageous man. Often, he did not hesitate to point a finger at his superiors, without once directly mentioning the political leadership (it was not in the terms of reference of his work, limited to military operations).
However, the report strongly indicts others, like Lieutenant General BM Kaul, Prime Minister Nehru’s blue-eyed boy and Commander of 4 Corps. Lt Gen Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff in the Army Headquarters, before taking command of 4 Corps, is severely criticised time and again. But Nehru, who had promoted Lt Gen Kaul to positions that the general was unable to assume, was the real guilty man, though his name is never mentioned.
The report speaks, for example, of “the unbalanced posture of our forces in the Tawang sector on the eve of the Chinese offensive which “needs NO elaboration”. It adds: “[Tawang], which should have been the main centre of strength, lacked troops; the bulk having been inveigled to a flank in the Namkha Chu Valley, without adequate logistic support and in tactically unsound positions... The rout of 7 Infantry Brigade was a foregone conclusion.”
The HBR is a manual of what should not be done: “The NEFA [North-East Frontier Agency] battles were the concern of the [IV] Corps. It must, however, be made clear that this applied to only the tactical sphere. The overall defensive planning and the provision of logistic support must and always should be the concern of the Command [in Lucknow, Lieutenant General Sen] and the General Staff at Army Headquarters [in Delhi]. Unfortunately, the reverse happened. There was interference in the tactical level and the overall planning and provision of logistic support was conspicuous by its absence.”
The HBR constantly speaks of the lack of preparedness of the Indian Army, due the ad hoc policies of the ‘Headquarters’ which, under Nehru and his Defence Minister Krishna Menon, tried to bite more than they could chew.
Time and again, the myth that ‘the Chinese will not attack’ is reiterated, for which the intelligence agencies (under BM Mullick) are definitely to blame. The ‘Chinese will not attack’ mantra was still being recited on the morning of October 20, 1962, when thousands of Chinese descended the slopes of Thagla ridge and surrounded the Indian troops. On the title page, Henderson Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: “Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories”.
The report is clear about who is responsible for the debacle. It repeatedly says that the Army was “on a militarily unsound basis of not relying on our own strength, but rather on believed lack of reaction from the Chinese. We forgot the age old dictum of the ‘Art of War’.” It cites Field Marshal Lord Roberts, one of the most successful British commanders of the 19th century: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable”. Henderson Brooks’ conclusion is: “Militarily, it is unthinkable that the General Staff [Kaul] did not advise the Government on our weakness and inability to implement the Forward Policy.”
It is not that Lt Gen Kaul and his acolytes did not know the facts. A report prepared by the CGS in 1961-1962 pointed to “our deficiencies in equipment, manpower, and logistic support, which would seriously prejudice our position in the event of a Chinese attack on us.” But to please the political leadership, “Kaul as CGS and the DMO [Director of Military Operations], time and again, ordered in furtherance of the ‘Forward Policy’ the establishment of [new] posts, overruling protests made by Western Command.” That is the tragedy of 1962.
Henderson Brooks rightly comments: “There has 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.” Nothing of the sort was done. Despite several meetings in which all the actors involved in the drama participated, the mantra remained that the Chinese would not attack. Reading the report one has the impression that one is watching kids playing war games on a console. It was unfortunately not a game. There was no ‘Higher Direction of War’; meetings were not even minuted. Henderson Brooks strongly suggests: “This process of higher levels must be carried out in writing.” Further he says that when intelligence and operational appreciations are made, plans should be ‘compatible with the resources available’; this was never done.
Though the Military Intelligence Review of 1959-1960 had noted that the “Chinese build up in Tibet by end of 1960 had substantially increased”; it was not taken into account. Incidents in Ladakh and at the Dhola post in NEFA in the summer of 1962 showed the possibility of an armed clash; it was ignored. Even after the Chinese attacked the Indian troops, “if a coordinated plan had been made... there would not have been any question of plugging holes at the last moment”. The HBR concludes: “This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the CGS, his Deputy, the DMO, DMI [Military Intelligence], and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of forces.”
The ‘political’ appointees in Delhi were ruling supreme. One could cite hundreds of such examples from the 126 ‘declassified’ pages. A last question: Do the Indian babus understand China better today? Probably not.
One can only hope that the new Government will release other reports such as the Himmatsinghji report on India’s northern borders (1951). The Indian public is entitled to know and learn from it.
After the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report of the 1962 Sino-Indian war was ‘released’ by Mr Neville Maxwell, I wonder why nobody asked the Australian correspondent who wrote the famous book, India’s China War, in 1970, who gave him a copy of the top-secret report? A few decades ago, it was rumoured that a senior General or a Minister was the culprit. We will probably never know. Mr Maxwell, who had kept 126 pages of Part 1 of the report secret for the past 45 years, probably wanted to ‘clear’ his consciousness by posting it on his website.
In the meantime, the blind babus of the Ministry of Defence continued to affirm that the content of the report was of current operational value. Did they think for a second about all those who had died on the Namkha Chu or in Ladakh or about those who suffered as prisoners of war in Tibet, or even about a nation that was humiliated? No, it is not in their habit, though India is entitled to know what happened.
While reading the report, it clearly comes out that the author, Henderson Brooks, the Anglo-Indian General, was a professional, honest and courageous man. Often, he did not hesitate to point a finger at his superiors, without once directly mentioning the political leadership (it was not in the terms of reference of his work, limited to military operations).
However, the report strongly indicts others, like Lieutenant General BM Kaul, Prime Minister Nehru’s blue-eyed boy and Commander of 4 Corps. Lt Gen Kaul, who was Chief of General Staff in the Army Headquarters, before taking command of 4 Corps, is severely criticised time and again. But Nehru, who had promoted Lt Gen Kaul to positions that the general was unable to assume, was the real guilty man, though his name is never mentioned.
The report speaks, for example, of “the unbalanced posture of our forces in the Tawang sector on the eve of the Chinese offensive which “needs NO elaboration”. It adds: “[Tawang], which should have been the main centre of strength, lacked troops; the bulk having been inveigled to a flank in the Namkha Chu Valley, without adequate logistic support and in tactically unsound positions... The rout of 7 Infantry Brigade was a foregone conclusion.”
The HBR is a manual of what should not be done: “The NEFA [North-East Frontier Agency] battles were the concern of the [IV] Corps. It must, however, be made clear that this applied to only the tactical sphere. The overall defensive planning and the provision of logistic support must and always should be the concern of the Command [in Lucknow, Lieutenant General Sen] and the General Staff at Army Headquarters [in Delhi]. Unfortunately, the reverse happened. There was interference in the tactical level and the overall planning and provision of logistic support was conspicuous by its absence.”
The HBR constantly speaks of the lack of preparedness of the Indian Army, due the ad hoc policies of the ‘Headquarters’ which, under Nehru and his Defence Minister Krishna Menon, tried to bite more than they could chew.
Time and again, the myth that ‘the Chinese will not attack’ is reiterated, for which the intelligence agencies (under BM Mullick) are definitely to blame. The ‘Chinese will not attack’ mantra was still being recited on the morning of October 20, 1962, when thousands of Chinese descended the slopes of Thagla ridge and surrounded the Indian troops. On the title page, Henderson Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: “Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories”.
The report is clear about who is responsible for the debacle. It repeatedly says that the Army was “on a militarily unsound basis of not relying on our own strength, but rather on believed lack of reaction from the Chinese. We forgot the age old dictum of the ‘Art of War’.” It cites Field Marshal Lord Roberts, one of the most successful British commanders of the 19th century: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable”. Henderson Brooks’ conclusion is: “Militarily, it is unthinkable that the General Staff [Kaul] did not advise the Government on our weakness and inability to implement the Forward Policy.”
It is not that Lt Gen Kaul and his acolytes did not know the facts. A report prepared by the CGS in 1961-1962 pointed to “our deficiencies in equipment, manpower, and logistic support, which would seriously prejudice our position in the event of a Chinese attack on us.” But to please the political leadership, “Kaul as CGS and the DMO [Director of Military Operations], time and again, ordered in furtherance of the ‘Forward Policy’ the establishment of [new] posts, overruling protests made by Western Command.” That is the tragedy of 1962.
Henderson Brooks rightly comments: “There has 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.” Nothing of the sort was done. Despite several meetings in which all the actors involved in the drama participated, the mantra remained that the Chinese would not attack. Reading the report one has the impression that one is watching kids playing war games on a console. It was unfortunately not a game. There was no ‘Higher Direction of War’; meetings were not even minuted. Henderson Brooks strongly suggests: “This process of higher levels must be carried out in writing.” Further he says that when intelligence and operational appreciations are made, plans should be ‘compatible with the resources available’; this was never done.
Though the Military Intelligence Review of 1959-1960 had noted that the “Chinese build up in Tibet by end of 1960 had substantially increased”; it was not taken into account. Incidents in Ladakh and at the Dhola post in NEFA in the summer of 1962 showed the possibility of an armed clash; it was ignored. Even after the Chinese attacked the Indian troops, “if a coordinated plan had been made... there would not have been any question of plugging holes at the last moment”. The HBR concludes: “This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the CGS, his Deputy, the DMO, DMI [Military Intelligence], and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of forces.”
The ‘political’ appointees in Delhi were ruling supreme. One could cite hundreds of such examples from the 126 ‘declassified’ pages. A last question: Do the Indian babus understand China better today? Probably not.
One can only hope that the new Government will release other reports such as the Himmatsinghji report on India’s northern borders (1951). The Indian public is entitled to know and learn from it.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/in-war-know-yourself-know-your-enemy.html
No comments:
Post a Comment