Who were the guilty men
of India’s China war? This year, for the first time, the Defence Ministry paid
homage to the soldiers who perished in that horror 50 years ago. But official reluctance to face facts continues. The Henderson-Brooks inquiry
report is still deemed secret although it leaked to Neville Maxwell, the
Englishman who wrote the most anti-India account of the war. Even China has
declassified its documents till 1965.
Generals who took part in
the action like D.K.Palit (War in the
Himalayas) and especially J.P.Dalvi (Himalayan
Blunder) provided valuable perspectives. There were studies by western
scholars as well. A real surprise however is a new book, Dividing Lines: Contours of India-China Conflict. Surprise not only because the writer examines
the colonial background with the authority of a historian, the politics of the
conflict with the expertise of an academic and the nitty-gritty of military
manoeuvres with the mastery of a field
commander - and yet author K.N.Raghavan is neither a
historian, nor a professor, nor a military man; he is Commissioner of Customs who doubles as a
cricket umpire for BCCI. The book is surprising also for its dispassionate
tone. While not hiding his sympathy for India and admiration for Jawaharlal Nehru, he has no hesitation in
dissecting Delhi’s blunderers, including Nehru.
Raghavan exposes
officials who mistook their egos for the national interest, politicians nursing
personal enmities and army leaders who were now incompetent, now irresponsible.
Two men top the list, though Raghavan does not say it in so many words.
B.N.Mullick, chief of intelligence, interpreted Nehru’s instructions to suit
his own line of thinking and sent armed patrols to challenge the Chinese. At
one point, he sent policemen on patrol. They were wiped out.
No less provocative was
the bravado of B.M.Kaul who, despite zero combat experience, was put in charge
of the war. He quickly developed
mountain sickness and spent the days of action in bed in Delhi. After the
initial defeats, Kaul was relieved of his command, only to be reappointed
soon; Nehru wanted him to have an
opportunity to redeem his reputation. The man blundered again. Disgraced, he
wrote The Untold Story which took his story from the
ridiculous to the absurd. Nehru still wanted to rehabilitate
him with a political
post, but gave up when informed about people’s anger against Kaul.
Mullick and Kaul got away
with unforgivable mistakes because they were favourites Nehru encouraged.
Doesn’t that make Nehru just as culpable?
And when Nehru is guilty, can Krishna Menon be far behind? Menon backed
the blundering Kaul because Nehru backed him. Menon’s strong likes and dislikes
had a disruptive effect on the army brass. “Brusque and impertinent behaviour”
and “cavalier manner” and “brazen” are terms applied to Menon in this book.
Raghavan’s criticism of
Menon is severe. Some related factors he mentions should have softened the
attack. India had never taken Defence seriously, giving the Ministry to
lightweights like Baldev Singh. When Kailasnath Katju was transferred from Home
to Defence, he took it as a demotion. At another level, Finance Minister
Morarji Desai denied to Defence every
rupee he could just because he detested Krishna Menon. At the same time, opposition leaders like
Acharya Kripalani disapproved of military spending by nonviolent India which,
he said, “would disturb the soul of the Father of the Nation.” The generals in
China must have noted all these details and rejoiced.
So, what happened in the
Himalayas in 1962 stands clear. On the one side were quarrelling politicians
and quarrelling generals under a prime minister blind to his blue-eyed boys and
a defence minister who delighted in making enemies. On the other side were a
recognized military genius like Mao Zedong and a prime minister like Chou
Enlai, perhaps the finest strategist of his generation, with no parliamentary
or media pressure to divert their attention. It was a textbook war of the
prepared out-generalling the unprepared. The real tragedy is that 50 years
later, the quarrelling and the unprepared still remain quarrelling and
unprepared.