Lessons from 1962

Ever since the skirmish in June 2020 between the Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley of India’s Ladakh region, discussions on the 1962 war have continued to be in the headlines (it dominated even the proceedings in the just Parliamentary session in India), given the recent border clash in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh on December 9. In any case, drawing the right lessons from 1962 is always a worthy exercise. .

In 1962, China was not a great military power as it is today. But it still went for a war against India because of three principal reasons. First, there was that tremendous sense of Chinese insecurity in Tibet, particularly after the Dalai Lama crossed over to India and established the government-in-exile to internationalise the issue of China’s illegal occupation of his land and be a rallying force for Tibetans’ resistance against Beijing’s rule inside Tibet. Obviously, China saw (and it continues to see) India as a troublesome factor behind the Tibetan unrest.

Secondly, the war against India was a diversionary strategy on the part of the then Chinese supremo Mao Zedong, whose politico-economic policy of “The Great Leap Forward” was proving to be a disaster for the Chinese people, thus strengthening his opponents in the Chinese Communists Party such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Wars, after all, unite the countrymen like nothing else and if the country comes out victorious, then it strengthens the position of the leader like never before.

Thirdly, despite China being a communist country, Mao (and all his successors so far) never gave up the country’s past culture in which the concept of “Middle Kingdom” (that China is the centre of global civilization and all the nations must acknowledge its political and cultural supremacy by paying tributes) is deeply ingrained. That means China will not allow any other nation, at least in Asia, to be as important as it is. Obviously, Mao did not like the global attention and importance that India’s then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was drawing at that time. He had to show Nehru that China was a great power and, for this reason, had to ‘punish’ India once”.

What about India’s defeat? In my humble opinion, there were four main reasons. First and foremost was the fact that there was at that time a sense of great ideological arrogance on the part of the Indian leadership, which was highly idealistic, devoid of any sense of ground realities. If Mao believed in the concept of the Middle Kingdom, Nehru thought of a world where the militaries should be disbanded. Nehru was supremely confident that his policy of nonalignment would prove very effective in getting support from both the United States and the then Soviet Union, thus deterring China from planning any major attack on India. But, as subsequent events proved, Nehru’s was a too utopian worldview.

Secondly, there was a monumental failure of Indian intelligence in assessing that China was planning a major attack on the country. According to the 1992 Ministry of Defence’s Official History, Military Intelligence’s assessment in 1959 was that a “major incursion” by the Chinese was unlikely, given the fact that at that time India’s pace of industrialization was much better than that of China and that Chinese military was not capable enough “to sustain any major drive across the ‘great land barrier”. The assumption of Chinese in-action in event of crisis was also firmly supported by the then Intelligence Bureau Director BN Mullick, who, many argue, was totally incompetent for the job, which he got for his proximity to Krishna Menon.

Thirdly, as Defence Minister, Krishna Menon repeatedly ignored the pleas of the Army for funds so as to improve the manpower and weapon systems. In the years 1959-1960, Lt General S P Thorat, GOC-in-C Eastern Command, had made an appreciation about the magnitude of Chinese threat to Indian borders in the Eastern Sector and had made projections about his requirements to meet that threat. But the Army HQ as well as the Defence Minister paid little heed to Gen Thorat’s appreciation. It was not even brought to the notice of the Prime Minister.

It has been argued by experts that in 1962, “the Indian Army of 280,000 was short by 60,000 files, 700 anti-tank guns, 5,000 radio field sets, thousands of miles of field cable, 36,000 wireless batteries, 10,000 one-ton trucks and 10,000 three-ton trucks! Two regiments of tanks were not operational due to lack of spares. Indian troops were using .303 rifles which had seen action even before World War I (not II). In contrast, Chinese troops were equipped with machine guns/ heavy mortars/ automatic rifles.

What was worse was that Menon to a greater extent and Nehru to a lesser degree politicised the then Army hierarchy. The then Army Chief, General P N Thapar was a great acolyte of Menon and simply rejected every request for better arms and strategies coming from below. Officers with sound military advice were replaced with those who were submissive and carried out the orders. For instance, the command of the newly formed IV Corps was given to Lieutenant General B M Kaul, who had never commanded an active fighting outfit! His military strategies were highly flawed. He also frequently ignored the chain of command; he directly approached the Chief of Army Staff, bypassing the GOC-in-C and also gave orders directly to junior officers, bypassing a chain of middle officers. In fact, the politicisation of the Army was a key factor behind the 1962 debacle.

Fourthly, another important factor, which many analysts and defence experts believe could have altered the outcome of war, was India’s decision to not use the air force. The Indian Air Force (IAF) was not deployed for any offensive action and was only confined to air dropping supplies to the troops.

Viewed thus, the best lesson that we can learn from our 1962 debacle is that India must never lower its guard and must deploy sufficient military and logistics capabilities to respond to any surprise from the Chinese side. This is particularly so when China is rapidly upgrading its own capabilities and logistics in Tibet. Of course, 1962 is not 2022. Out military strength and the infrastructures we are building near the Line of Actual Control may not be at the desired levels, but these are too considerable for China to ignore. But then war preparedness can never remain static in this age of fast-changing technologies. It is a constant process, which we can ignore only at our peril. And for determining this process, we must give our military the necessary freedom, something that was denied in 1962, leading to disaster.