19th SEPTEMBER 1965 CHINA DEVASTED PANDIT NEHRU BY ATTACK ON NORTH EAST FRONTIER LEADING TO INDO-CHINA WAR 1965

Sino-Indian War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Indo-Chinese War" redirects here. For the conflict in Indochina against the French, see First Indochina War.

Sino-Indian War

The Sino-Indian War was fought between India and China

Date	20 October^[1] – 21 November 1962
Location	Aksai Chin and North-East Frontier Agency
Result	Decisive Chinese victory
Territorial changes	Before the war, both countries had posts in Aksai Chin and patrolled there. Since the end of the war, Aksai Chin has been under Chinese control.

Belligerents

India

China

Commanders and leaders

Brij Mohan Kaul

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Jawaharlal Nehru

V. K. Krishna Menon

General Pran Nath Thapar

Luo Ruiqing (chief of PLA staff)^[2]

Zhang Guohua (field commander)^[3]

Mao Zedong

Liu Bocheng

Lin Biao

Zhou Enlai

Strength

10,000–12,000

80,000^[4]^[5]

Casualties and losses

1,383 killed^[6]
1,047 wounded^[6]
1,696 missing^[6]
3,968 captured^[6]

722 killed.^[6]
1,697 wounded^[6]^[7]

This article contains Chinese text.Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofChinese characters.

This article contains Indic text.Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Sino-Indian War (Hindi: भारत-चीन युद्ध Bhārat-Chīn Yuddh), also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict (simplified Chinese: 中印边境战争; traditional Chinese: 中印邊境戰爭; pinyin: Zhōng-Yìn Biānjìng Zhànzhēng), was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. India initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959.

Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the 3,225-kilometre-long Himalayan border,^[8] the Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962. Chinese troops advanced over Indian forces in both theatres, capturing Rezang la in Chushul in the western theatre, as well as Tawang in the eastern theatre. The war ended when the Chinese declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal from the disputed area.

The Sino-Indian War is notable for the harsh mountain conditions under which much of the fighting took place, entailing large-scale combat at altitudes of over 4,000 metres (14,000 feet).^[9] The Sino-Indian War was also noted for the non-deployment of the navy or air force by either the Chinese or Indian side.

Location

China and India shared a long border, sectioned into three stretches by Nepal, Sikkim (then an Indian protectorate), and Bhutan, which follows the Himalayas between Burma and what was then West Pakistan. A number of disputed regions lie along this border. At its western end is the Aksai Chin region, an area the size of Switzerland, that sits between the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang and Tibet (which China declared as an autonomous region in 1965). The eastern border, between Burma and Bhutan, comprises the present Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North East Frontier Agency). Both of these regions were overrun by China in the 1962 conflict.

Most combat took place at high altitudes. The Aksai Chin region is a desert of salt flats around 5,000 metres above sea level, and Arunachal Pradesh is mountainous with a number of peaks exceeding 7000 metres. The Chinese Army had possession of one of the highest ridges in the regions. The high altitude and freezing conditions also cause logistical and welfare difficulties; in past similar conflicts (such as the Italian Campaign of World War I) more casualties have been caused by the harsh conditions than enemy action. The Sino-Indian War was no different, with many troops on both sides dying in the freezing cold.^[10]

Background

Pre-Simla British map published in 1909 shows the so-called "Outer Line" as India's northern boundary

Main articles: Sino-Indian relations and Sino-Indian border dispute

The cause of the war was a dispute over the sovereignty of the widely separated Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions. Aksai Chin, claimed by India to belong to Kashmir and by China to be part of Xinjiang, contains an important road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. China's construction of this road was one of the triggers of the conflict.

Aksai Chin

The western portion of the disputed boundary.

The map given by Hung Ta-chen to the British consul at Kashgar in 1893. The boundary, marked with a thin dot-dashed line, matches the Macartney-MacDonald line.

Postal Map of China published by the Government of China in 1917

The McMahon Line

The McMahon Line is the red line marking the northern boundary of the disputed area.

Main articles: McMahon Line and Simla Accord (1914)

In 1826, British India gained a common border with China after the British wrested control of Manipur and Assam from the Burmese, following the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826. In 1847, Major J. Jenkins, agent for the North East Frontier, reported that the Tawang was part of Tibet. In 1872, four monastic officials from Tibet arrived in Tawang and supervised a boundary settlement with Major R. Graham,NEFA official, which included the Tawang Tract as part of Tibet. Thus, in the last half of the 19th century, it was clear that the British treated the Tawang Tract as part of Tibet. This boundary was confirmed in a 1 June 1912 note from the British General Staff in India, stating that the "present boundary (demarcated) is south of Tawang, running westwards along the foothills from near Ugalguri to the southern Bhutanese border."^[9] A 1908 map of The Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam prepared for the Foreign Department of the Government of India, showed the international boundary from Bhutan continuing to the Baroi River, following the Himalayas foothill alignment.^[9] In 1913, representatives of Great Britain, China and Tibet attended a conference in Simla regarding the borders between Tibet, China and British India. Whilst all three representatives initialed the agreement, Beijing later objected to the proposed boundary between the regions of Outer Tibet and Inner Tibet, and did not ratify it. The details of the Indo-Tibetan boundary was not revealed to China at the time.^[9] The foreign secretary of the British Indian government, Henry McMahon, who had drawn up the proposal, decided to bypass the Chinese (although instructed not to by his superiors) and settle the border bilaterally by negotiating directly with Tibet.^[21] According to later Indian claims, this border was intended to run through the highest ridges of the Himalayas, as the areas south of the Himalayas were traditionally Indian.^[23] However, the McMahon Line lay south of the boundary India claims.^[21] India's government held the view that the Himalayas were the ancient boundaries of the Indian subcontinent, and thus should be the modern boundaries of India,^[23] while it is the position of the Chinese government that the disputed area in the Himalayas have been geographically and culturally part of Tibet since ancient times.^[24]

Months after the Simla agreement, China set up boundary markers south of the McMahon Line. T. O'Callaghan, an official in the Eastern Sector of the North East Frontier, relocated all these markers to a location slightly south of the McMahon Line, and then visited Rima to confirm with Tibetan officials that there was no Chinese influence in the area.^[9] The British-run Government of India initially rejected the Simla Agreement as incompatible with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which stipulated that neither party was to negotiate with Tibet "except through the intermediary of the Chinese government".^[25] The British and Russians cancelled the 1907 agreement by joint consent in 1921.^[26] It was not until the late 1930s that the British started to use the McMahon Line on official maps of the region.

China took the position that the Tibetan government should not have been allowed to make a such a treaty, rejecting Tibet's claims of independent rule.^[21] For its part, Tibet did not object to any section of the McMahon Line excepting the demarcation of the trading town of Tawang, which the Line placed under British-Indian jurisdiction.^[21] However, up until World War II, Tibetan officials were allowed to administer Tawang with complete authority. Due to the increased threat of Japanese and Chinese expansion during this period, British Indian troops secured the town as part of the defence of India's eastern border.^[9]

In the 1950s, India began actively patrolling the region. It found that, at multiple locations, the highest ridges actually fell north of the McMahon Line.^[21] Given India's historic position that the original intent of the line was to separate the two nations by the highest mountains in the world, in these locations India extended its forward posts northward to the ridges, regarding this move as compliant with the original border proposal, although the Simla Convention did not explicitly state this intention.^[21]

Events leading up to war

Main article: Events leading to the Sino-Indian War

Tibet and the border dispute

The 1940s saw huge change in South Asia with the Partition of India in 1947 (resulting in the establishment of the two new states of India and Pakistan), and the establishment of the People's Republic of China(PRC) in 1949. One of the most basic policies for the new Indian government was that of maintaining cordial relations with China, reviving its ancient friendly ties. India was among the first nations to grant diplomatic recognition to the newly created PRC.^[27]

At the time, Chinese officials issued no condemnation of Nehru's claims or made any opposition to Nehru's open declarations of control over Aksai Chin. In 1956, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai stated that he had no claims over Indian-controlled territory.^[27] He later argued that Aksai Chin was already under Chinese jurisdiction and that the McCartney MacDonald Line was the line China could accept.^[19]^[21] Zhou later argued that as the boundary was undemarcated and had never been defined by treaty between any Chinese or Indian government, the Indian government could not unilaterally define Aksai Chin's borders.^[18]

In 1950, the Chinese People's Liberation Army annexed Tibet and later the Chinese extended their influence by building a road in 1956–67^[9] and placing border posts in Aksai Chin.^[13] India found out after the road was completed, protested against these moves and decided to look for a diplomatic solution to ensure a stable Sino-Indian border.^[13]^[27] To resolve any doubts about the Indian position, Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru declared in parliament that India regarded the McMahon Line as its official border.^[27] The Chinese expressed no concern at this statement,^[13]^[27] and in 1951 and 1952, the government of China asserted that there were no frontier issues to be taken up with India.^[27]

In 1954, Prime Minister Nehru wrote a memo calling for India's borders to be clearly defined and demarcated;^[14] in line with previous Indian philosophy, Indian maps showed a border that, in some places, lay north of the McMahon Line.^[28] Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, in November 1956, again repeated Chinese assurances that the People's Republic had no claims on Indian territory, although official Chinese maps showed 120,000 square kilometres (46,000 sq mi) of territory claimed by India as Chinese.^[27] CIA documents created at the time revealed that Nehru had ignored Burmese premier Ba Swe when he warned Nehru to be cautious when dealing with Zhou.^[29] They also allege that Zhou purposefully told Nehru that there were no border issues with India.^[29]

In 1954, China and India negotiated the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, by which the two nations agreed to abide in settling their disputes. India presented a frontier map which was accepted by China, and the slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) was popular then. However, Nehru in 1958, had privately told G. Parthasarathi, the Indian envoy to China not to trust the Chinese at all and send all communications directly to him, bypassing the Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon since his communist background clouded his thinking about China.^[30] According to Georgia Tech political analyst John W Garver, Nehru's policy on Tibet was to create a strong Sino-Indian partnership which would be catalysed through agreement and compromise on Tibet. Garver believes that Nehru's previous actions had given him confidence that China would be ready to form an "Asian Axis" with India.^[3]

This apparent progress in relations suffered a major setback when, in 1959, Nehru accommodated the Tibetan religious leader at the time, the 14th Dalai Lama, who fled Lhasa after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. The Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, was enraged and asked the Xinhua News Agency to produce reports on Indian expansionists operating in Tibet.^{[citation needed]}

Border incidents continued through this period. In August 1959, the People's Liberation Army took an Indian prisoner at Longju, which had an ambiguous position in the McMahon Line,^[9]^[13]^[28]^[31] and two months later in Aksai Chin, a clash led to the death of nine Indian frontier policemen.^[13]

On 2 October, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev defended Nehru in a meeting with Mao. This action reinforced China's impression that the Soviet Union, the United States and India all had expansionist designs on China. The People's Liberation Army went so far as to prepare a self-defence counterattack plan.^[3] Negotiations were restarted between the nations, but no progress was made.^[14]^[32]

As a consequence of their non-recognition of the McMahon Line, China's maps showed both the North East Frontier Area (NEFA) and Aksai Chin to be Chinese territory.^[23] In 1960, Zhou Enlai unofficially suggested that India drop its claims to Aksai Chin in return for a Chinese withdrawal of claims over NEFA. Adhering to his stated position, Nehru believed that China did not have a legitimate claim over either of these territories, and thus was not ready to concede them. This adamant stance was perceived in China as Indian opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet.^[3] Nehru declined to conduct any negotiations on the boundary until Chinese troops withdrew from Aksai Chin, a position supported by the international community.^[21] India produced numerous reports on the negotiations, and translated Chinese reports into English to help inform the international debate.^{[citation needed]} China believed that India was simply securing its claim lines in order to continue its "grand plans in Tibet".^[3] India's stance that China withdraw from Aksai Chin caused continual deterioration of the diplomatic situation to the point that internal forces were pressuring Nehru to take a military stance against China.

1960 meetings to resolve the boundary question

In 1960, based on an agreement between Nehru and Chou En-Lai, officials from India and China held discussions in order to settle the boundary dispute.^[20]^:91^[33] China and India disagreed on the major watershed that defined the boundary in the western sector.^[20]^:96 The Chinese statements with respect to their border claims often misrepresented the cited sources.^[20]^:99

The Forward Policy

At the beginning of 1961, Nehru appointed General B. M. Kaul as army Chief of General Staff,^[34] but he refused to increase military spending and prepare for a possible war.^[34] According to James Barnard Calvin of the U.S. Navy, in 1959, India started sending Indian troops and border patrols into disputed areas. This program created both skirmishes and deteriorating relations between India and China.^[9] The aim of this policy was to create outposts behind advancing Chinese troops to interdict their supplies, forcing them north of the disputed line.^[9]^[27]^[31]^[35] There were eventually 60 such outposts, including 43 north of the McMahon Line, to which India claimed sovereignty.^[9]^[14] China viewed this as further confirmation of Indian expansionist plans directed towards Tibet. According to the Indian official history, implementation of the Forward Policy was intended to provide evidence of Indian occupation in the previously unoccupied region through which Chinese troops had been advancing. Kaul was confident, through contact with Indian Intelligence and CIA information, that China would not react with force.^[21] Indeed, at first the PLA simply withdrew, but eventually Chinese forces began to counter-encircle the Indian positions which clearly encroached into the north of McMahon Line. This led to a tit-for-tat Indian reaction, with each force attempting to outmanoeuver the other. However, despite the escalating nature of the dispute, the two forces withheld from engaging each other directly.^[3]

Chinese attention was diverted for a time by the military activity of the Nationalists on Taiwan, but on 23 June the U.S. assured China that a Nationalist invasion would not be permitted.^[36] China's heavy artillery facing Taiwan could then be moved to Tibet.^[37] It took China six to eight months to gather the resources needed for the war, according to Anil Athale, author of the official Indian history.^[37] The Chinese sent a large quantity of non-military supplies to Tibet through the Indian port of Calcutta.^[37]

Early incidents

Various border conflicts and "military incidents" between India and China flared up throughout the summer and autumn of 1962. In May, the Indian Air Force was told not to plan for close air support, although it was assessed as being a feasible way to counter the unfavourable ratio of Chinese to Indian troops.^[38] In June, a skirmish caused the deaths of dozens of Chinese troops. The Indian Intelligence Bureau received information about a Chinese buildup along the border which could be a precursor to war.^[38]

During June–July 1962, Indian military planners began advocating "probing actions" against the Chinese, and accordingly, moved mountain troops forward to cut off Chinese supply lines. According to Patterson, the Indian motives were threefold:

Test Chinese resolve and intentions regarding India.
Test whether India would enjoy Soviet backing in the event of a Sino-Indian war.
Create sympathy for India within the U.S., with whom relations had deteriorated after the Indian annexation of Goa.^[22]^:279

On 10 July 1962, 350 Chinese troops surrounded an Indian occupied post in Chushul (north of the McMahon Line) but withdrew after a heated argument via loudspeaker.^[10] On 22 July, the Forward Policy was extended to allow Indian troops to push back Chinese troops already established in disputed territory.^[27] Whereas Indian troops were previously ordered to fire only in self-defence, all post commanders were now given discretion to open fire upon Chinese forces if threatened.^[27] In August, the Chinese military improved its combat readiness along the McMahon Line and began stockpiling ammunition, weapons and gasoline.^[9]

Given his foreknowledge of the coming Cuban Missile Crisis, Mao Zedong was able to persuade Nikita Khrushchev to reverse the Russian policy of backing India, at least temporarily.^[39] In mid-October, the Communist organ Pravda encouraged peace between India and China.^[39] When the Cuban Missile Crisis ended and Mao's rhetoric changed, however, Russia reversed course.^[39]

Confrontation at Thag La

In June 1962, Indian forces established an outpost at Dhola, on the southern slopes of the Thag La Ridge.^[9] Dhola lay north of the McMahon Line but south of the ridges along which India interpreted the McMahon Line to run.^[21]^[28]^[40] In August, China issued diplomatic protests and began occupying positions at the top of Thag La.^[3]^[9] On 8 September, a 60-strong PLA unit descended to the south side of the ridge and occupied positions that dominated one of the Indian posts at Dhola. Fire was not exchanged, but Nehru said to the media that the Indian Army had instructions to "free our territory" and the troops had been given discretion to use force.^[3] On 11 September, it was decided that "all forward posts and patrols were given permission to fire on any armed Chinese who entered Indian territory".^[27]

However, the operation to occupy Thag La was flawed in that Nehru's directives were unclear and it got underway very slowly because of this.^[9]^[21] In addition to this, each man had to carry 35 kilograms (77 lb) over the long trek and this severely slowed down the reaction.^[41] By the time the Indian battalion reached the point of conflict, Chinese units controlled both banks of the Namka Chu River.^[9] On 20 September, Chinese troops threw grenades at Indian troops and a firefight developed, triggering a long series of skirmishes for the rest of September.^[9]^[41]

Some Indian troops, including Brigadier Dalvi who commanded the forces at Thag La, were also concerned that the territory they were fighting for was not strictly territory that "we should have been convinced was ours".^[31] According to Neville Maxwell, even members of the Indian defence ministry were categorically concerned with the validity of the fighting in Thag La.^[21]

On 3 October, a week before the start of the war, Zhou Enlai visited Nehru in New Delhi promising there would be no war.^{[citation needed]} On 4 October, Kaul assigned some troops to secure regions south of the Thag La Ridge.^[9] Kaul decided to first secure Yumtso La, a strategically important position, before re-entering the lost Dhola post.^[27] Kaul had then realised that the attack would be desperate and the Indian government tried to stop an escalation into all-out war. Indian troops marching to Thag La had suffered in the previously unexperienced conditions; two Gurkha soldiers died of pulmonary edema.^[41]

On 10 October, an Indian Punjabi patrol of 50 troops to Yumtso La were met by an emplaced Chinese position of some 1,000 soldiers.^[9] Indian troops were in no position for battle, as Yumtso La was 16,000 feet (4,900 m) above sea level and Kaul did not plan on having artillery support for the troops.^[41] The Chinese troops opened fire on the Indians under their belief that they were north of the McMahon Line. The Indians were surrounded by Chinese positions which used mortar fire. However, they managed to hold off the first Chinese assault, inflicting heavy casualties.^[9]

At this point, the Indian troops were in a position to push the Chinese back with mortar and machine gun fire. However, Brigadier Dalvi opted not to fire, as it would mean decimating the Rajput who were still in the area of the Chinese regrouping. They helplessly watched the Chinese ready themselves for a second assault.^[41] In the second Chinese assault, the Indians began their retreat, realising the situation was hopeless. The Indian patrol suffered 25 casualties, and the Chinese 33. The Chinese troops held their fire as the Indians retreated, and then buried the Indian dead with military honours, as witnessed by the retreating soldiers. This was the first occurrence of heavy fighting in the war.^[9]

This attack had grave implications for India and Nehru tried to solve the issue, but by 18 October, it was clear that the Chinese were preparing for an attack on India, with massive troop buildups on the border.^[9] A long line of mules and porters had also been observed supporting the buildup and reinforcement of positions south of the Thag La Ridge.^[41]

Chinese and Indian preparations

Motives

Two of the major factors leading up to China's eventual conflicts with Indian troops were India's stance on the disputed borders and perceived Indian subversion in Tibet. There was "a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian efforts to undermine Chinese control of Tibet, Indian efforts which were perceived as having the objective of restoring the pre-1949 status quo ante of Tibet". The other was "a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian aggression against Chinese territory along the border". John W. Garver argues that the first perception was incorrect based on the state of the Indian military and polity in the 1960s. It was, nevertheless a major reason for China's going to war. However, he argues the Chinese perception of Indian aggression to be "substantially accurate".^[3]

The CIA's recently declassified POLO documents reveal contemporary American analysis of Chinese motives during the war. According to this document, "Chinese apparently were motivated to attack by one primary consideration — their determination to retain the ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying to take that ground". In general terms, they tried to show the Indians once and for all that China would not acquiesce in a military "reoccupation" policy. Secondary reasons for the attack were to damage Nehru's prestige by exposing Indian weakness and^[29] to expose as traitorous Khrushchev's policy of supporting Nehru against a Communist country.^[29]

Another factor which might have affected China's decision for war with India was a perceived need to stop a Soviet-U.S.-India encirclement and isolation of China.^[3] India's relations with the Soviet Union and United States were both strong at this time, but the Soviets (and Americans) were preoccupied by the Cuban Missile Crisis and would not interfere with the Sino-Indian War.^[9] P. B. Sinha suggests that China waited until October to attack because the timing of the war was exactly in parallel with American actions so as to avoid any chance of American or Soviet involvement. Although American buildup of forces around Cuba occurred on the same day as the first major clash at Dhola, and China's buildup between 10 and 20 October appeared to coincide exactly with the United States establishment of a blockade against Cuba which began 20 October, the Chinese probably prepared for this before they could anticipate what would happen in Cuba.^[27] Another explanation is that the confrontation in the Taiwan Strait had eased by then.

Garver argues that the Chinese correctly assessed Indian border policies, particularly the Forward Policy, as attempts for incremental seizure of Chinese-controlled territory. On Tibet, Garver argues that one of the major factors leading to China's decision for war with India was a common tendency of humans "to attribute others behavior to interior motivations, while attributing their own behavior to situational factors". Studies from China published in the 1990s confirmed that the root cause for China going to war with India was the perceived Indian aggression in Tibet, with the forward policy simply catalysing the Chinese reaction.^[3]

Neville Maxwell and Allen Whiting argue that the Chinese leadership believed they were defending territory that was legitimately Chinese, and which was already under de facto Chinese occupation prior to Indian advances, and regarded the Forward Policy as an Indian attempt at creeping annexation.^[3] Mao Zedong himself compared the Forward Policy to a strategic advance in Chinese chess:

Their [India's] continually pushing forward is like crossing the Chu Han boundary. What should we do? We can also set out a few pawns, on our side of the river. If they don't then cross over, that’s great. If they do cross, we'll eat them up [chess metaphor meaning to take the opponent's pieces]. Of course, we cannot blindly eat them. Lack of forbearance in small matters upsets great plans. We must pay attention to the situation.^[3]

India claims that the motive for the Forward Policy was to cut off the supply routes for Chinese troops posted in NEFA and Aksai Chin.^[9] According to the official Indian history, the forward policy was continued because of its initial success, as it claimed that Chinese troops withdrew when they encountered areas already occupied by Indian troops. It also claimed that the Forward Policy was having success in cutting out supply lines of Chinese troops who had advanced South of the McMahon Line, though there was no evidence of such advance before the 1962 war. However, the Forward Policy rested on the assumption that Chinese forces "were not likely to use force against any of our posts, even if they were in a position to do so". No serious re-appraisal of this policy took place even when Chinese forces ceased withdrawing.^[27] Nehru's confidence was probably justified given the difficulty for China to supply the area over the high altitude terrain over 5000 km from the more populated areas of China.

The Chinese leadership initially held a sympathetic view towards India as the latter had been ruled by British colonial masters for centuries. However, Nehru's forward policy convinced PRC leadership that the independent Indian leadership was a reincarnation of British imperialism. Mao Zedong stated: "Rather than being constantly accused of aggression, it's better to show the world what really happens when China indeed moves its muscles."

Chinese policy toward India, therefore, operated on two contradictory assumptions in the first half of 1961. On the one hand, the Chinese leaders continued to entertain a hope, although a shrinking one, that some opening for talks.would appear. On, the other hand, they read Indian statements and actions as clear signs that Nehru wanted to talk only about a Chinese withdrawal. Regarding the hope, they were willing to negotiate and tried to prod Nehru into a similar attitude. Regarding Indian intentions, they began to act politically and to build a rationale based on the assumption that Nehru already had become a lackey of imperialism; for this reason he opposed border talks.^[29]

Krishna Menon is reported to have said that when he arrived in Geneva on 6 June 1961 for an international conference in Laos, Chinese officials in Chen Yi's delegation indicated that Chen might be interested in discussing the border dispute with him. At several private meetings with Menon, Chen avoided any discussion of the dispute and Menon surmised that the Chinese wanted him to broach the matter first. He did not, as he was under instructions from Nehru to avoid taking the initiative, leaving the Chinese with the impression that Nehru was unwilling to show any flexibility.^[29]

In September, the Chinese took a step toward criticizing Nehru openly in their commentary. After citing Indonesian and Burmese press criticism of Nehru by name, the Chinese critiqued his moderate remarks on colonialism (People's Daily Editorial, 9 September) - Somebody at the Non-Aligned Nations Conference advanced the argument that the era of classical colonialism is gone and dead...contrary to facts." This was a distortion of Nehru's remarks but appeared close enough to be credible. On the same day, Chen Yi referred to Nehru by implication at the Bulgarian embassy reception: 'Those who attempted to' deny history, ignore reality, and distort the truth and who attempted to divert the Conference from its important object have failed to gain support and were isolated." On 10 September, they dropped all circumlocutions and criticized him by name in a China Youth article and NCNA report—the first time in almost two years that they had commented extensively on the Prime Minister.^[29]

By early 1962, the Chinese leadership began to believe that India's intentions were to launch a massive attack against Chinese troops, and that the Indian leadership wanted a war.^[3]^[9] In 1961, the Indian army had been sent into Goa, a small region without any other international borders apart from the Indian one, after Portugal refused to surrender the exclave colony to the Indian Union. Although this action met little to no international protest or opposition, China saw it as an example of India's expansionist nature, especially in light of heated rhetoric from Indian politicians. India's Home Minister declared, "If the Chinese will not vacate the areas occupied by it, India will have to repeat what it did in Goa. India will certainly drive out the Chinese forces",^[9] while another member of the Indian Congress Party pronounced, "India will take steps to end [Chinese] aggression on Indian soil just as it ended Portuguese aggression in Goa".^[22] By mid-1962, it was apparent to the Chinese leadership that negotiations had failed to make any progress, and the Forward Policy was increasingly perceived as a grave threat as Delhi increasingly sent probes deeper into border areas and cut off Chinese supply lines.^[22] Foreign Minister Marshal Chen Yicommented at one high-level meeting, "Nehru's forward policy is a knife. He wants to put it in our heart. We cannot close our eyes and await death."^[3] The Chinese leadership believed that their restraint on the issue was being perceived by India as weakness, leading to continued provocations, and that a major counterblow was needed to stop perceived Indian aggression.^[3]

Xu Yan, prominent Chinese military historian and professor at the PLA's National Defense University, gives an account of the Chinese leadership's decision to go to war. By late September 1962, the Chinese leadership had begun to reconsider their policy of "armed coexistence", which had failed to address their concerns with the forward policy and Tibet, and consider a large, decisive strike.^[3] On 22 September 1962, the People's Daily published an article which claimed that "the Chinese people were burning with 'great indignation' over the Indian actions on the border and that New Delhi could not 'now say that warning was not served in advance'."^[42]^[43]

Military planning

The Indian side was confident war would not be triggered and made little preparations. India had only two divisions of troops in the region of the conflict.^[44] In August 1962, Brigadier D. K. Palit claimed that a war with China in the near future could be ruled out.^[44] Even in September 1962, when Indian troops were ordered to "expel the Chinese" from Thag La, Maj. General J. S. Dhillon expressed the opinion that "experience in Ladakh had shown that a few rounds fired at the Chinese would cause them to run away."^[3]^[27] Because of this, the Indian army was completely unprepared when the attack at Yumtso La occurred.^[9]^[44]

Recently declassified CIA documents which were compiled at the time reveal that India's estimates of Chinese capabilities made them neglect their military in favour of economic growth.^[45] It is claimed that if a more military-minded man had been in place instead of Nehru, India would have been more likely to have been ready for the threat of a counter-attack from China.^[45]

On 6 October 1962, the Chinese leadership convened. Lin Biao reported that PLA intelligence units had determined that Indian units might assault Chinese positions at Thag La on 10 October (Operation Leghorn). The Chinese leadership and the Central Military Council decided upon war to launch a large-scale attack to punish perceived military aggression from India.^[3] In Beijing, a larger meeting of Chinese military was convened in order to plan for the coming conflict.^[3]

Mao and the Chinese leadership issued a directive laying out the objectives for the war. A main assault would be launched in the eastern sector, which would be coordinated with a smaller assault in the western sector. All Indian troops within China's claimed territories in the eastern sector would be expelled, and the war would be ended with a unilateral Chinese ceasefire and withdrawal to prewar positions, followed by a return to the negotiating table.^[3] India led the Non-Aligned Movement, Nehru enjoyed international prestige, and China, with a larger military, would be portrayed as an aggressor. However, he said that a well-fought war "will guarantee at least thirty years of peace" with India, and determined the benefits to offset the costs.^[3]

China also reportedly bought significant amount of Indian Rupee currency notes from Hong Kong, supposedly to distribute amongst its soldiers in preparation for the war.^[46]

On 8 October, additional veteran and elite divisions were ordered to prepare to move into Tibet from the Chengdu and Lanzhou military regions.^[3]

On 12 October, Nehru declared that he had ordered the Indian army to "clear Indian territory in the NEFA of Chinese invaders" and personally met with Kaul, issuing instructions to him.

On 14 October, an editorial on People's Daily issued China's final warning to India: "So it seems that Mr. Nehru has made up his mind to attack the Chinese frontier guards on an even bigger scale. ... It is high time to shout to Mr. Nehru that the heroic Chinese troops, with the glorious tradition of resisting foreign aggression, can never be cleared by anyone from their own territory ... If there are still some maniacs who are reckless enough to ignore our well-intentioned advice and insist on having another try, well, let them do so. History will pronounce its inexorable verdict ... At this critical moment ... we still want to appeal once more to Mr. Nehru: better rein in at the edge of the precipice and do not use the lives of Indian troops as stakes in your gamble."^[43]

Marshal Liu Bocheng headed a group to determine the strategy for the war. He concluded that the opposing Indian troops were among India's best, and to achieve victory would require deploying crack troops and relying on force concentration to achieve decisive victory. On 16 October, this war plan was approved, and on the 18th, the final approval was given by the Politburo for a "self-defensive counter-attack", scheduled for 20 October.^[3]

Chinese offensive

On 20 October 1962, the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched two attacks, 1000 kilometres apart. In the western theatre, the PLA sought to expel Indian forces from the Chip Chap valley in Aksai Chin while in the eastern theatre, the PLA sought to capture both banks of the Namka Chu river. Some skirmishes also took place at the Nathula Pass, which is in the Indian state of Sikkim (an Indian protectorate at that time). Gurkha rifles travelling north were targeted by Chinese artillery fire. After four days of fierce fighting, the three regiments of Chinese troops succeeded in securing a substantial portion of the disputed territory.^[9]

Eastern theatre

Chinese troops launched an attack on the southern banks of the Namka Chu River on 20 October.^[41] The Indian forces were undermanned, with only an understrength battalion to support them, while the Chinese troops had three regiments positioned on the north side of the river.^[41] The Indians expected Chinese forces to cross via one of five bridges over the river and defended those crossings.^[9] However, the PLA bypassed the defenders by crossing the shallow October river instead. They formed up into battalions on the Indian-held south side of the river under cover of darkness, with each battalion assigned against a separate group of Rajputs.^[41]

At 5:14 am, Chinese mortar fire began attacking the Indian positions. Simultaneously, the Chinese cut the Indian telephone lines, preventing the defenders from making contact with their headquarters. At about 6:30 am, the Chinese infantry launched a surprise attack from the rear and forced the Indians to leave their trenches.^[41]

The Chinese troops overwhelmed the Indians in a series of flanking manoeuvres south of the McMahon Line and prompted their withdrawal from Namka Chu.^[41] Fearful of continued losses, Indian troops escaped into Bhutan. Chinese forces respected the border and did not pursue.^[9] Chinese forces now held all of the territory that was under dispute at the time of the Thag La confrontation, but they continued to advance into the rest of NEFA.^[41]

On 22 October, at 12:15 am, PLA mortars fired on Walong, on the McMahon line.^[47] Flares launched by Indian troops the next day revealed numerous Chinese milling around the valley.^[47] The Indians tried to use their mortars against the Chinese but the PLA responded by lighting a bushfire, causing confusion amongst the Indians. Some 400 Chinese troops attacked the Indian position. The initial Chinese assault was halted by accurate Indian mortar fire. The Chinese were then reinforced and launched a second assault. The Indians managed to hold them back for four hours, but the Chinese used sheer weight of numbers to break through. Most Indian forces to withdraw to established positions in Walong, while a company supported by mortars and medium machine guns remained to cover the retreat.^[47]

On the morning 23 October, the Indians discovered a Chinese force gathered in a cramped pass and opened fire with mortars and machine guns, leading to heavy fighting. About 200 Chinese soldiers were killed and wounded in this action. Nine Indian soldiers were also killed. The fighting continued well into the afternoon, until the company was ordered to withdraw. Meanwhile, the 4th Sikhs made contact with the Chinese and subjected them to withering mortar and machine gun fire as the Chinese set off a brushfire and attempted to sneak forward. Sepoy Piara Singh tried to douse the fire while fighting the enemy, but died after he was wounded and refused to be evacuated.

Elsewhere, Chinese troops were launched a three-pronged attack on Tawang, which the Indians evacuated without any resistance.^[9]

Over the following days, there were clashes between Indian and Chinese patrols at Walong as the Chinese rushed in reinforcements. On 25 October, the Chinese made a probe, which was met with resistance from the 4th Sikhs. As some Chinese soldiers began to close in, Sepoy Kewal Singh charged them with his bayonet and killed a few of them in hand-to-hand combat, but he himself was killed. The following day, a patrol from the 4th Sikhs was encircled, and after being unable to break the encirclement, an Indian unit sneaked in and attacked the Chinese flank, allowing the Sikhs to break free.^[47]

Western theatre

The map shows the Indian and Chinese claims of the border in the Aksai Chin region, the Macartney-MacDonald line, the Foreign Office Line, as well as the progress of Chinese forces as they occupied areas during the Sino-Indian War.

On the Aksai Chin front, China already controlled most of the disputed territory. Chinese forces quickly swept the region of any remaining Indian troops.^[48] Late on 19 October, Chinese troops launched a number of attacks throughout the western theatre.^[10] By 22 October, all posts north of Chushul had been cleared.^[10]

On 20 October, the Chinese easily took the Chip Chap Valley, Galwan Valley, and Pangong Lake.^[49] Many outposts and garrisons along the Western front were unable to defend against the surrounding Chinese troops. Most Indian troops positioned in these posts offered resistance but were either killed or taken prisoner. Indian support for these outposts was not forthcoming, as evidenced by the Galwan post, which had been surrounded by enemy forces in August, but no attempt made to relieve the besieged garrison. Following the 20 October attack, nothing was heard from Galwan.^[9]

On 24 October, Indian forces fought hard hold the Rezang La Ridge, in order to prevent a nearby airstrip from falling to the Chinese.^[50]

After realising the magnitude of the attack, the Indian Western Command withdrew many of the isolated outposts to the south-east. Daulet Beg Oldi was also evacuated, but it was south of the Chinese claim line and was not approached by Chinese forces. Indian troops were withdrawn in order to consolidate and regroup in the event that China probed south of their claim line.^[9]

Lull in the fighting

By 24 October, the PLA had entered territory previously administered by India to give the PRC a diplomatically strong position over India. The majority of Chinese forces had advanced sixteen kilometres south of the control line prior to the conflict. Four days of fighting were followed by a three-week lull. Zhou ordered the troops to stop advancing as he attempted to negotiate with Nehru. The Indian forces had retreated into more heavily fortified positions around Se La and Bombdi La which would be difficult to assault.^[9] Zhou sent Nehru a letter, proposing

A negotiated settlement of the boundary
That both sides disengage and withdraw twenty kilometres from present lines of actual control
A Chinese withdrawal north in NEFA
That China and India not cross lines of present control in Aksai Chin.^[9]^[51]

Nehru's 27 October reply expressed interest in the restoration of peace and friendly relations and suggested a return to the "boundary prior to 8 September 1962". He was categorically concerned about a mutual twenty kilometre withdrawal after "40 or 60 kilometres of blatant military aggression". He wanted the creation of a larger immediate buffer zone and thus resist the possibility of a repeat offensive. Zhou's 4 November reply repeated his 1959 offer to return to the McMahon Line in NEFA and the Chinese traditionally claimed MacDonald Line in Aksai Chin. Facing Chinese forces maintaining themselves on Indian soil and trying to avoid political pressure, the Indian parliament announced a national emergency and passed a resolution which stated their intent to "drive out the aggressors from the sacred soil of India". The United States and the United Kingdom supported India's response. However, the Soviet Union was preoccupied with the Cuban Missile Crisis and did not offer the support it had provided in previous years. With the backing of other great powers, a 14 November letter by Nehru to Zhou once again rejected his proposal.^[9]

Neither side declared war, used their air force, or fully broke off diplomatic relations; however, the conflict is commonly referred to as a war. This war coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis and was viewed by the western nations at the time as another act of aggression by the Communist bloc.^[9]^[52] According to Calvin, the Chinese side evidently wanted a diplomatic resolution and discontinuation of the conflict.^[9]

Continuation of war

After Zhou received Nehru's letter (rejecting Zhou's proposal), the fighting resumed on the eastern theatre on 14 November (Nehru's birthday), with an Indian attack on Walong, claimed by China, launched from the defensive position of Se La and inflicting heavy casualties on the Chinese. The Chinese resumed military activity on Aksai Chin and NEFA hours after the Walong battle.^[9]

Eastern theatre

On the eastern theatre, the PLA attacked Indian forces near Se La and Bomdi La on 17 November. These positions were defended by the Indian 4th Infantry Division. Instead of attacking by road as expected, PLA forces approached via a mountain trail, and their attack cut off a main road and isolated 10,000 Indian troops.

Se La occupied high ground, and rather than assault this commanding position, the Chinese captured Thembang, which was a supply route to Se La.^[9]

Western theatre

The disputed areas in the western sector.

On the western theatre, PLA forces launched a heavy infantry attack on 18 November near Chushul. Their attack started at 4:35 am, despite a mist surrounding most of the areas in the region. At 5:45 the Chinese troops advanced to attack two platoons of Indian troops at Gurung Hill.

The Indians did not know what was happening, as communications were dead. As a patrol was sent, China attacked with greater numbers. Indian artillery could not hold off against superior Chinese forces. By 9:00 am, Chinese forces attacked Gurung Hill directly and Indian commanders withdrew from the area and also from the connecting Spangur Gap.^[10]

The Chinese had been simultaneously attacking Rezang La which was held by 123 Indian troops. At 5:05 am, Chinese troops launched their attack audaciously. Chinese medium machine gun fire pierced through the Indian tactical defences.^[10]

At 6:55 am the sun rose and the Chinese attack on the 8th platoon began in waves. Fighting continued for the next hour, until the Chinese signaled that they had destroyed the 7th platoon. Indians tried to use light machine guns on the medium machine guns from the Chinese but after 10 minutes the battle was over.^[10] Logistical inadequacy once again hurt the Indian troops.^[53] The Chinese gave the Indian troops a respectful military funeral.^[53] The battles also saw the death of Major Shaitan Singh of the Kumaon Regiment, who had been instrumental in the first battle of Rezang La.^[53] The Indian troops were forced to withdraw to high mountain positions. Indian sources believed that their troops were just coming to grips with the mountain combat and finally called for more troops. However, the Chinese declared a ceasefire, ending the bloodshed.^[10]

Indians suffered heavy casualties, with dead Indian troops' bodies being found in the ice, frozen with weapons in hand. Chinese forces also suffered heavy casualties, especially at Rezang La. This signalled the end of the war in Aksai Chin as China had reached their claim line – many Indian troops were ordered to withdraw from the area. China claimed that the Indian troops wanted to fight on until the bitter end. However, the war ended with their withdrawal, so as to limit the amount of casualties.^[9]

The PLA penetrated close to the outskirts of Tezpur, Assam, a major frontier town nearly fifty kilometres from the Assam-North-East Frontier Agency border.^[21] The local government ordered the evacuation of the civilians in Tezpur to the south of theBrahmaputra River, all prisons were thrown open, and government officials who stayed behind destroyed Tezpur's currency reserves in anticipation of a Chinese advance.^[27]

Ceasefire

China had reached its claim lines so the PLA did not advance farther, and on 19 November, it declared a unilateral cease-fire. Zhou Enlai declared a unilateral ceasefire to start on midnight, 21 November. Zhou's ceasefire declaration stated,

Beginning from 21 November 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will cease fire along the entire Sino-Indian border. Beginning from 1 December 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will withdraw to positions 20 kilometres behind the line of actual control which existed between China and India on 7 November 1959. In the eastern sector, although the Chinese frontier guards have so far been fighting on Chinese territory north of the traditional customary line, they are prepared to withdraw from their present positions to the north of the illegal McMahon Line, and to withdraw twenty kilometres back from that line. In the middle and western sectors, the Chinese frontier guards will withdraw twenty kilometres from the line of actual control.

Zhou had first given the ceasefire announcement to Indian chargé d'affaires on 19 November (before India's request for United States air support), but New Delhi did not receive it until 24 hours later. The aircraft carrier was ordered back after the ceasefire, and thus, American intervention on India's side in the war was avoided. Retreating Indian troops, who hadn't come into contact with anyone knowing of the ceasefire, and Chinese troops in NEFA and Aksai Chin, were involved in some minor battles,^[9] but for the most part, the ceasefire signalled an end to the fighting. The United States Air Force flew in supplies to India in November 1962, but neither side wished to continue hostilities.

Toward the end of the war India increased its support for Tibetan refugees and revolutionaries, some of them having settled in India, as they were fighting the same common enemy in the region. The Nehru administration ordered the raising of an elite Indian-trained "Tibetan Armed Force" composed of Tibetan refugees.^[54] The CIA had already begun operations in bringing about change in Tibet.^{[citation needed]}

World opinion

The Chinese military action has been viewed by the United States as part of the PRC's policy of making use of aggressive wars to settle its border disputes and to distract from its internal issues.^[55] According to James Calvin from the United States Marine Corps, western nations at the time viewed China as an aggressor during the China–India border war, and the war was part of a monolithic communist objective for a world dictatorship of the proletariat. This was further triggered by Mao Zedong's views that: "The way to world conquest lies through Havana, Accra, and Calcutta". Calvin believes that Chinese actions show a "pattern of conservative aims and limited objectives, rather than expansionism" and blames this particular conflict on India's provocations towards China. However, Calvin also expresses that China, in the past, has been adamant to gain control over regions to which it has a "traditional claim", which triggered the dispute over NEFA and Aksai Chin and indeed Tibet. Calvin's assumption, based on the history of the Cold War and the Domino Effect, assumed that China might ultimately try to regain control of everything that it considers as "traditionally Chinese" which in its view includes the entirety of South East Asia.^[9]

The Kennedy administration was disturbed by what they considered "blatant Chinese communist aggression against India". In a May 1963 National Security Council meeting, contingency planning on the part of the United States in the event of another Chinese attack on India was discussed. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor advised the president to use nuclear weapons should the Americans intervene in such a situation. McNamara stated "Before any substantial commitment to defend India against China is given, we should recognize that in order to carry out that commitment against any substantial Chinese attack, we would have to use nuclear weapons. Any large Chinese Communist attack on any part of that area would require the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S., and this is to be preferred over the introduction of large numbers of U.S. soldiers."^[56] After hearing this and listening to two other advisers, Kennedy stated "We should defend India, and therefore we will defend India."^[56]^[57] It remains unclear if his aides were trying to dissuade the President of considering any measure with regard to India by immediately raising the stakes to an unacceptable level, nor is it clear if Kennedy was thinking of conventional or nuclear means when he gave his reply.^[56] By 1964 China had developed its own nuclear weapon which would have likely caused any American nuclear policy in defense of India to be reviewed.^[56] The Johnson Administration considered and then rejected giving nuclear weapons technology to the Indians. However India developed its own nuclear weapon by 1974, within 10 years of the Chinese.^[58]

The non-aligned nations remained mostly uninvolved, and only the United Arab Republic openly supported India.^[59] Of the non-aligned nations, six, Egypt, Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Indonesia, met in Colombo on 10 December 1962.^[60]The proposals stipulated a Chinese withdrawal of 20 km from the customary lines without any reciprocal withdrawal on India's behalf.^[60] The failure of these six nations to unequivocally condemn China deeply disappointed India.^[59]

In 1972, Chinese Premier Zhou explained the Chinese point of view to President Nixon of the US. As for the causes of the war, Zhou asserted that China did not try to expel Indian troops from south of the McMahon line and that three open warning telegrams were sent to Nehru before the war. However, Indian patrols south of the McMahon line were expelled and suffered casualties in the Chinese attack.^[61] Zhou also told Nixon that Chairman Mao ordered the troops to return to show good faith.^[62] The Indian government maintains that the Chinese military could not advance further south due to logistical problems and the cut-off of resource supplies.

While Western nations did not view Chinese actions favourably because of fear of the Chinese and competitiveness,^[9] Pakistan, which had had a turbulent relationship with India ever since the Indian partition, improved its relations with China after the war.^[63] Prior to the war, Pakistan also shared a disputed boundary with China, and had proposed to India that the two countries adopt a common defence against "northern" enemies (i.e. China), which was rejected by India.^[27] However, China and Pakistan took steps to peacefully negotiate their shared boundaries, beginning on 13 October 1962, and concluding in December of that year.^[21] Pakistan also expressed fear that the huge amounts of western military aid directed to India would allow it to threaten Pakistan's security in future conflicts. Mohammed Ali, External Affairs Minister of Pakistan, declared that massive Western aid to India in the Sino-Indian dispute would be considered an unfriendly act towards Pakistan. As a result, Pakistan made efforts to improve its relations with China. The following year, China and Pakistan peacefully settled disputes on their shared border, and negotiated the China-Pakistan Border Treaty in 1963, as well as trade, commercial, and barter treaties.^[63]On 2 March 1963, Pakistan conceded its northern claim line in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir to China in favor of a more southerly boundary along the Karakoram Range.^[21]^[60]^[63] The border treaty largely set the border along the MacCartney-Macdonald Line.^[14] India's military failure against China would embolden Pakistan to initiate the Second Kashmir War with India. However, it effectively ended in a stalemate as Calvin states that the Sino-Indian War had caused the previously passive government to take a stand on actively modernising India's military.^[9] China offered diplomatic support to Pakistan in this war but did not offer military support.^[60] In January 1966, China condemned the Tashkent Agreement between India and Pakistan as a Soviet-US plot in the region.^[60] In the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Pakistan expected China to provide military support, but it was left alone as India successfully helped the rebels in East Pakistan to found the new nation-state ofBangladesh.^[64]

Involvement of other nations

During the conflict, Nehru wrote two desperate letters to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, requesting 12 squadrons of fighter jets and a modern radar system. These jets were seen as necessary to beef up Indian air strength so that air-to-air combat could be initiated safely from the Indian perspective (bombing troops was seen as unwise for fear of Chinese retaliatory action). Nehru also asked that these aircraft be manned by American pilots until Indian airmen were trained to replace them. These requests were rejected by the Kennedy Administration (which was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis during most of the Sino-Indian War). According to former Indian diplomat G Parthasarathy, "only after we got nothing from the US did arms supplies from the Soviet Union to India commence."^[65] In 1962, President of Pakistan Ayub Khan made clear to India that Indian troops could safely be transferred from the Pakistan frontier to the Himalayas.^[66]

Aftermath

China

According to the China's official military history, the war achieved China's policy objectives of securing borders in its western sector, as China retained de facto control of the Aksai Chin. After the war, India abandoned the Forward Policy, and the de facto borders stabilised along the Line of Actual Control.

According to James Calvin of Marine Corps Command and Staff College, even though China won a military victory it lost in terms of its international image.^[9] China's first nuclear weapon test in October 1964 and its support of Pakistan in the 1965 India Pakistan War tended to confirm the American view of communist world objectives, including Chinese influence over Pakistan.^[9]

Lora Saalman opined in a study of Chinese military publications, that while the war led to much blame, debates and ultimately acted as causation of military modernization of India but the war is now treated as basic reportage of facts with relatively diminished interest by Chinese analysts.^[67]

India

U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith and Prime Minister Nehru conferring at the time of the conflict. This photograph was taken by the United States Information Service (USIS) and sent to President John F. Kennedy with a letter from Galbraith dated November 9, 1962.

The aftermath of the war saw sweeping changes in the Indian military to prepare it for similar conflicts in the future, and placed pressure on Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was seen as responsible for failing to anticipate the Chinese attack on India. Indians reacted with a surge in patriotism and memorials were erected for many of the Indian troops who died in the war. Arguably, the main lesson India learned from the war was the need to strengthen its own defences and a shift from Nehru's foreign policy with China based on his stated concept of "brotherhood". Because of India's inability to anticipate Chinese aggression, Prime Minister Nehru faced harsh criticism from government officials, for having promoted pacifist relations with China.^[21] Indian President Radhakrishnan said that Nehru's government was naive and negligent about preparations, and Nehru admitted his failings.^[39] According to Inder Malhotra, a former editor of The Times of India and a commentator for The Indian Express, Indian politicians invested more effort in removing Defence Minister Krishna Menon than in actually waging war.^[39] Krishna Menon's favoritism weakened the Indian Army, and national morale dimmed.^[39] The public saw the war as political and military debacle.^[39] Under American advice (by American envoy John Kenneth Galbraith who made and ran American policy on the war as all other top policy makers in USA were absorbed in coincident Cuban Missile Crisis^[68]) Indians refrained, not according to the best choices available, from using the Indian air force to beat back the Chinese advances. The CIA later revealed that at that time the Chinese had neither the fuel nor runways long enough for using their air force effectively in Tibet.^[39] Indians in general became highly sceptical of China and its military. Many Indians view the war as a betrayal of India's attempts at establishing a long-standing peace with China and started to question the once popular "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai" (meaning "Indians and Chinese are brothers"). The war also put an end to Nehru's earlier hopes that India and China would form a strong Asian Axis to counteract the increasing influence of the Cold War bloc superpowers.^[3]

The unpreparedness of the army was blamed on Defence Minister Menon, who resigned his government post to allow for someone who might modernise India's military further. India's policy of weaponisation via indigenous sources and self-sufficiency was thus cemented. Sensing a weakened army, Pakistan, a close ally of China, began a policy of provocation against India by infiltrating Jammu and Kashmir and ultimately triggering the Second Kashmir War with India in 1965 and Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. The Attack of 1965 was successfully stopped and ceasefire was negotiated under international pressure.^[69] In theIndo-Pakistani war of 1971 India won a clear victory, resulting in liberation of Bangladesh (formerly East-Pakistan).^[70]^[71]

As a result of the war, the Indian government commissioned an investigation, resulting in the classified Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report on the causes of the war and the reasons for failure. India's performance in high-altitude combat in 1962 led to an overhaul of the Indian Army in terms of doctrine, training, organisation and equipment. Neville Maxwell claimed that the Indian role in international affairs after the border war was also greatly reduced after the war and India's standing in the non-aligned movement suffered.^[21] The Indian government has attempted to keep the Hendersen-Brooks-Bhagat Report secret for decades, although portions of it have recently been leaked by Neville Maxwell.^[72]

According to James Calvin, an analyst from the U.S. Navy, India gained many benefits from the 1962 conflict. This war united the country as never before. India got 32,000 square miles (8.3 million hectares, 83,000 km²) of disputed territory even if it felt that NEFA was hers all along. The new Indian republic had avoided international alignments; by asking for help during the war, India demonstrated its willingness to accept military aid from several sectors. And, finally, India recognised the serious weaknesses in its army. It would more than double its military manpower in the next two years and it would work hard to resolve the military's training and logistic problems to later become the third-largest army in the world. India's efforts to improve its military posture significantly enhanced its army's capabilities and preparedness.^[9] This played a role in subsequent wars against Pakistan.

Internment and deportation of Chinese Indians

Main article: Persecution of Chinese Indians

Soon after the end of the war, the Indian government passed the Defence of India Act in December 1962,^[73] permitting the "apprehension and detention in custody of any person [suspected] of being of hostile origin." The broad language of the act allowed for the arrest of any person simply for having a Chinese surname, Chinese ancestry or a Chinese spouse.^[74] The Indian government incarcerated thousands of Chinese-Indians in an internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, where they were held for years without trial. The last internees were not released until 1967. Thousands more Chinese-Indians were forcibly deported or coerced to leave India. Nearly all internees had their properties sold off or looted.^[73] Even after their release, the Chinese Indians faced many restrictions in their freedom. They could not travel freely until the mid-1990s.^[73]

Later conflicts

Main articles: Sino-Indian relations, Chola incident and 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish

India also reported some military conflicts with China after the 1962 war. In late 1967, there were two incidents in which both countries exchanged fire in Sikkim. The first one was dubbed the "Nathu La incident", and the other being "Chola incident" in which advancing Chinese forces were forced to withdraw from Sikkim, the then a protectorate of India and later a state of India after annexation in 1975. In 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish, both sides show military restraint and it was a bloodless conflict.

Diplomatic process

In 1993 and 1996, the two sides signed the Sino-Indian Bilateral Peace and Tranquility Accords, agreements to maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LoAC). Ten meetings of a Sino-Indian Joint Working Group (SIJWG) and five of an expert group have taken place to determine where the LoAC lies, but little progress has occurred.

On 20 November 2006 Indian politicians from Arunachal Pradesh expressed their concern over Chinese military modernization and appealed to parliament to take a harder stance on the PRC following a military buildup on the border similar to that in 1962.^[75] Additionally, China's military aid to Pakistan as well is a matter of concern to the Indian public,^[44] as the two sides have engaged in various wars.

On 6 July 2006, the historic Silk Road passing through this territory via the Nathu La pass was reopened. Both sides have agreed to resolve the issues by peaceful means.

In October 2011, it was stated that India and China will formulate a border mechanism to handle different perceptions as to the LAC and resume the bilateral army exercises between Indian and Chinese army from early 2012.^[76]^[77]

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

WHY INDIA LOST THE SINO INDIAN WAR OF 1962- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

INDIA CHINA WAR OF 1962, BURIED SECRETS EXHUMED, VK KRISHNA MENON DEFENCE MINISTER- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

India and China were never traditional enemies--like cobra and mongoose.

Since time immemorial these two countries had peaceful relations, based on culture , trade with Admiral Zheng He, and mutual respect which was at an all time high at the time of Bodhi Dharma.

There has never been two large neighbors on this planet with this type of excellent track record. In 1962 this equation changed drastically sowing seeds of suspicion and mistrust.

In 1962, a festering border dispute was the pretext of war. The Indo China border had never been properly defined and accepted by both countries-- as a signed accord, considering the rough, uninhabited and barren mountain terrain.

When the British left India in 1947, they put 2 Islamic buffers on either side of the Himalayas to prevent communist nuclear submarine access to the blue all weather Indian ocean. Communism and Islam are like oil and water, they can come together for a while, but after sometime they get polarized and drift apart naturally.

When the Muslims from India did NOT go to East and West Pakistan, Rothschild engineered Hindu Muslim riots. Even then most of the Muslims preferred to stay back in India, while the Hindus on the other side came running due to extreme Islamic religious intolerance.. Even today, there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. There are more Muslims in India, than the rest of the world put together if you leave aside, Indonesia.

However Rothchild knew that within 75 years India would be a superpower, and it was impossible for them to imagine India and China teaming up as a economic and military team . So the British deliberately left the Indo China border unmarked. East Pakistan ( Bangladesh ) was further buffered by a strip of Indian territory in the NE , by the name of Arunachal Pradesh. A sacred monastery of ancient Tibet was included in this state.

China did NOT have a problem with all this , till CIA played they dirty games using Nehru to provoke the Chinese. And Nehru was on a trip-- one telephone call to Edwina of Rothschild family, and he could have both the US President and UK Prime minister doing press ups as punishment in their offices or in murga position on their office desks. Once Edwina Mountbatten died this powerful lifeline also died with her.

Something about Edwina's husband :

Indian servant boys used to run away from the Viceroy's abode, never to come back -- people wondered why?

Now it is official--.

QUOTE: Homosexuality of Lord Mountbatten.--

HOW THE GAY LIFE KILLED MOUNTBATTEN: Encounters with youths exposed him to IRA. BY FRANK DOHERTY. First published in ‘NOW’ magazine , Volume 1 , No. 4 , October 1989 , page 37 .
‘Lord’ Mountbatten was particularly attracted to boys in their early teens ; it was this characteristic which made him especially vulnerable to the IRA , because he needed to slip away from his personal bodyguards to keep dates with such boys , some of whom came in contact with IRA men : UNQUOTE

To read more punch into Google search kincora child abuse mountbatten

It is alleged by armymen that generals in the Indian army like Cariappa, Thimayya, Maneskshaw, Thorat etc were all BR Ambedkar type British stooges. During British rule if these army officers were told to kill their own countrymen to break a patriotic freedom movement, they would do so without batting an eyelid. Most of the Indian Jawans joined the British army so that they could survive by securing a monthly salary, educate their children and feed their families.

Most affluent Parsis , being ex-Opium Bombay agents of Rothschild have always been on the side of the British , so Sam Manekshaw was no exception? Thorat belonged to the Mahar clan. BR Ambedkar his Mahar regiment and Mahar clan were always British stooges ?

BR Ambedkar was educated in Opium funded Columbia University by Rothschild. His father and grandfather were alleged British stooges, and they drove fissures into Hinduism.

In 1857, during the First War of Independence , the Mahar regiment were on the side of the British. And I challenge anybody to prove me wrong when I say that BR Ambedkar did NOT spend one single minute fighting for India’s Independence.

Ambedkar spent most of his time fighting for the right of the Dalit scavenger to drink from the same cup as a Brahman in a temple— never mind that the white Christian British will NOT drink from the same cup used by any highest caste Indian Brahman— leave alone a low caste dalit. Thimayya and Cariappa belonged to the fair Coorgi sect, who do NOT look like usual DNA Indians-- just like the Parsees.

Gen Thimayya was pro- USA and had been relentlessly after PM Nehru and Defence minister with his wish list of buying arms from USA and Britain, but NOT from Russia. Nehru was non-aligned , as he had enough, till his nostrils of Rothschild controlling him using Edwina and Churchill--even after India became a free country.

Nehru was totally dependent for sound advice on VK Krishna Menon, a man of extremely high intellect , perception and vision.

He was a colossus among thinkers and diplomats and he did NOT care for USA, CIA, Britain and Rothschild, having seen though their slimy devious ways in history. No media would print all this as it would invite immediate deadly retribution.

Rothschild and USA were afraid that VK Krishna Menon would take over as India’s PM once Nehru dies —and Nehru had a secret illness, which CIA and Rothchild knew about.

VK Krishna Menon was NOT a person who would suffer fools gladly. For him a donkey on a throne was still a donkey and Nehru admired him for his bluntness. Though they never disagreed in public, VK Krishna Menon used to chew up Nehru and his “not so bright” sister in private.

VK Krishna Menon was loathed by USA and UK because they could never upstage him in an public debate or a news conference or a private argument— they were literally in awe of him. Once in UN, VK Krishna Menon ( who is from my hometown Calicut ) gave a 8 hour speech. The transcript is available on the Internet and you can check out his mental acuity and knowledge of world affairs.

Krishna Menon was NOT the type who would offer a chair and a cup of tea, to a time bandit opposite his deck. He was a very busy man, extremely hard working and he had NO time for petty YAAR SHAAR small chat. The Western press controlled by Rothschild ran him down at every opportunity.

So when India lost the 1962 war with China, and when VK Krishna Menon resigned and kept a deliberate silence till he died, all were quick to exonerate themselves and put all the entire blame on him.

It is amazing that even after 50 years of this Indo-China war, nobody in India has been able to figure out what went on. Yes! —all cried PM Jawaharlal Nehru, Gen Kaul and Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon were responsible.

Nobody nobody has the brains or the perception to figure out, why all this transpired. All were quick to point out that Gen Kaul was related by blood to Nehru, and hence was shown partiality in promotions.

At least Nehru was cock sure that Kaul was loyal to him and NOT to CIA or USA or Rothschild . At that time the Indian Finance minister was Morarji Desai ( after TT Krishnamachari was set up and shown the door due to the Mundhra LIC scam ), and PM Nehru , the IB chief Mullick and VK Krishna Menon knew that Morarji Desai was close to CIA and the Rothschild banking cartel.

The fact that VK Krishna Menon wanted India to be self reliant in military hardware did NOT go well with Gen Thimayya and Moraji Desai, who stone walled him at every step. General Kodandera Subayya Thimmaya assumed charge of the Indian Army, as the 6th Chief of Army Staff, on 7 May 1957.

Thimayya briefly resigned his post in 1959 over a dispute with V. K. Krishna Menon, then minister for defense. He made a great deal of himself being a man of high integrity, tom tommed by the Western press. He retired from the army in 1961, almost 15 months before the Chinese invasion of India in November 1962.

In 1959, he handed his resignation in protest to Prime Minister Nehru ostensibly due to Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon's refusal to consider his procurement plans from USA for preparing for a imminent war with China. Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru refused to accept Thimayya’s arm twisting resignation letter forcing him to withdraw his resignation.

Thimayya with CIA prodding had even managed to enlist the support of the Naval and Air Force Chiefs, which was a disgrace to the entire nation. But this plan fell apart as they developed cold feet on being quizzed by VK Krishna Menon.

The Indian Parliament was informed by Nehru that the principle of civilian control over the military was sacrosanct and that the General Thimayya had jumped the gun and acted irresponsibly. This shameful episode had the effect of lowering the influence of the Indian Army in future decision-making processes.

A lot was made out after the war, that the Indian army was told to fight a losing battle. If this is the case Pakistan army should refuse to fight with India. Are we to say that the Indian armed forces exist only to take on very weaker enemy forces like the feeble Portuguese in Goa?

Are they to wear starched ceremonial uniform, do regiment wise Republic day march pasts to a band , wear corny medals , draw good salary , procure stuff from the army canteens at throwaway prices , put their children in the best schools, attend parties , booze , slap each other’s backs, guffaw at non-veg jokes and be merry?

If so please do India a favour— do NOT join our army.

Nowadays CRPF loses more lives than the army--and they do NOT have any of the army privileges.

Gen Thimmayya's continued as the Army Chief till his retirement on 7 May 1961, completing 35 years of military service. But the truth is that Rothschild wanted his services for a hefty pay, in their Cyprus base, heading the UN forces (UNFICYP) , taking care of the security of Israel, as a pro-Israel “ neutral third party” .

A grateful Rothschild named a street in Larnaca after him. I have been to this street.

Lt Gen B.M. Kaul, openly flaunted his proximity and personal equation with Nehru and nobody dared take him on, even when he regularly bypassed the sacrosanct chain of command. This had an effect of crushing the army morale. May such things never ever happen to our army .

VK Krishna Menon was friendly towards Russia and China. The Americans did NOT want India, though non-aligned , to tilt towards the Communists who had broken free from Rothschild brand of Communism.

Rothschild used CIA to provoke the sleeping giant China in a dirty manner and put the blame on India. The CIA financed and armed a major resistance movement inside Tibet during the 1950's. China had long suspected that India was an active but covert party to this movement.

This subtle declaration of war against China was the culmination of a policy that Nehru had been pursuing since as early as April 1947 when India was still a British colony. On 25 April 1947, the external affairs department of the government of India, of which Nehru was in charge as a member of the viceroy’s ‘interim government’, informed the British secretary of state for India.

QUOTE “Government of India now wish to be represented in Tibet ( as per Edwina’s advise to Nehru ) ... and should be grateful to know whether His Majesty’s Government desire to retain separate Mission there in future. If they do not, it would seem feasible to arrange transition from ‘British Mission’ to ‘Indian Mission’ without publicity and without drawing too much attention to change, to avoid if possible any constitutional issue being raised by China.” UNQUOTE .

This was at a time when a full blown civil war was going on in China. On 15 August 1947, the day India became independent , the British mission in Lhasa (Tibet’s capital) formally became the Indian mission in a shady manner. The last British representative in Lhasa, H.E. Richardson, became the first Indian representative there.

Richardson wrote later “The transition was almost imperceptible, the existing staff was retained in its entirety and the only obvious change was the quiet change in the flag, without the Chinese getting even a whiff.

In the case of Sikkim, India in 1949 seized the opportunity of a local uprising against the ruler to send in troops and bring the state into closer dependence as a protectorate than it had formally been under the British. In 1974 PM Indira Gandhi marched Indian troops into Sikkim and annexed it into India— so China had a valid point there , as history always repeats itself.

In the same year in 1949, India signed a treaty with Bhutan, in which we took over Britain’s right to guide Bhutan in foreign affairs. New Delhi’s influence in Nepal continued to be paramount, and was increased in 1950 when the Indian Government helped the King of Nepal to break the century-old rule of the Rana clan.

In October 1950, China woke up and the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) vanquished a feeble Tibetan opposition in the Battle of Chamdo and thus put an end to all ongoing diplomatic negotiations on the status of Tibet.

The Indian delegation in the United Nations blocked a proposal to censure China when the Chinese forces were on their way to Lhasa. India allowed Chinese food material for its troops located near Yatung to go through Calcutta and Gangtok. Later, the Indian Government agreed to withdraw its military-cum-diplomatic missions in Tibet without any fuss.

The historic Sino-Indian Treaty on relations between India and the Tibet Region of China was signed in 1954. India gave up its rights in Tibet without seeking a quid pro quo. The Panch Shila was enunciated, which naïve Nehru presumed and took for granted iron clad boundaries in an era of Hindi-Chini- bhai- bhai.

When Nehru visited China in 1954, he showed Chou En-lai’s the new political map of India, which defined the McMahon Line and the J&K Johnson Line as firm borders (and not in dotted lines ) and expressed concern over corresponding Chinese maps that he found erroneous.

Chou En-lai replied that the Chinese had not yet found time to correct their old maps but that this would be done “when the time is ripe”. Relations were hunky dory or kissing terms . Nehru assumed this implied tacit Chinese acceptance of India’s map alignments but referred to the same matter once again during Chou’s 1956 visit to India.

Above : The war aftermath places the Kongka La UFO area ( circled in blue --top LH corner ) plumb on the Indo-China border??.

The young Dalai Lama came to India in 1956 to participate in the 2,500th anniversary celebrations commemorating the Enlightenment of the Buddha but was reluctant to return home as he felt China had reneged from its promise of Tibetan autonomy.

Chou En-lai visited India later that year and sought Nehru’s good offices to persuade the Dalai Lama to return to Lhasa on the assurance of implementation of the 17-Point Agreement by China in good faith.

In March, 1959, the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet for good . Following the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama sought refuge in India. Nehru, allowed in the Dalai Lama and his coterie of Tibetan government officials. The Dalai Lama has since lived in exile in Dharamshala, in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India, where the Central Tibetan Administration is also established.

The Government of India granted Dalai Lama asylum, along with his entourage and over 100,000 refugees that followed. These events greatly disturbed the Chinese who saw this as a great Indian betrayal. This event marked a turning point in Sino-Indian relations for the worse. Indian troops crossed over into Tibet to escort the Dalai Lama and party into India across the McMahon line.

They came with their men and mules heavily laden with gold. While granting ‘political asylum’ to the Dalai Lama, the Indian government assured Peking that he would not be allowed to carry on political activities from the soil of India. As usual, this assurance proved to be a false one. The Chinese knew from the wordings and tone, that the Dalai Lama’s first statement issued from India was drawn up by Indian officials .

Their suspicions about India’s intentions were fuelled by Nehru’s connivance in facilitating CIA trained Tibetan refugee guerrillas to operate in Tibet and further permitting an American listening spy facility to be planted on the heights of Nanda Devi to monitor Chinese radio signals in Tibet.

China now suspected that India was all the while helping the Khampa rebellion and had assisted the Dalai Lama to escape to India. The disputed border and hardening of attitudes on both sides led to several skirmishes on several border posts. The Government of India adopted a strategically flawed ‘Forward Policy’ of erecting isolated check posts on the border without improving infrastructure or the armed forces’ capabilities.

Towards the end of 1961, Mao said enough is enough, and convened a meeting of China’s Central Military Commission and took personal charge of the ‘struggle with India’.

Five years later, China started the construction of the 179-km long western Tibet-Sinkiang road passing through Aksai Chin, part of J&K and claimed by India. The Government of India took two and a half years to confirm this information.

CIA could have given this information to India, but they chose not to. The whole idea was to make India and China bitter enemies, and provoke them to fight a war to sow permanent seeds of mistrust.

Aksai Chin a barren stretch of land ( area 37,000 square km ) of high-altitude desert with no human habitation, was a part of the Ladakh region, which China claims it to be part of its Xinjiang autonomous region. The MaCartney-MacDonald line clearly puts Aksai Chin within Chinese territory. China invested money and effort to make the highway there.

This new road was disclosed to the Indian Parliament on August 31, 1959, causing a huge uproar, the way only Indian MPs are capable of. Nehru’s remark that ‘not a blade of grass grows there’ did not cut ice with the much agitated Opposition in Parliament, who cried that if there is no grass in your dang back yard , will you gift it away?.

Nehru's thus became adamant that China must withdraw from Aksai Chin and in the process abandon the highway China made was seen by Mao as further Indian attempts to undermine China's claim to Tibet.

The border between India and Tibet had remained undefined and undemarcated when the direct rule of India by the British ended in 1947.

Vast areas in the north-east, mountainous and sparsely populated by tribes, and in the north-west, mountainous, icy and desolate, were never ever under the administration of India.

“The great cartographic forgery,” as Sourin Roy, a former deputy director, National Archives of India, pointed out, was initiated by Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe , Governor of NWFP , and was completed under Nehru in 1954, as per Edwina’s advise to Nehru, of a Forward policy .

“The frontier from Bhutan eastwards has been clearly defined by the McMahon line which was fixed by the Simla Convention of 1914.... Our maps show that the McMahon line is our boundary and that is our boundary — map or no map.” . Since 1938, however, the Survey of India maps were surreptitiously altered, showing the McMahon Line, with the word ‘Undemarcated’ imprinted on it.

The McMahon Line drawn in Shimla convention of 1914 between British Empire and Tibet was rejected by China. China officially claims the entire Arunachal Pradesh as its territory based on its traditional boundaries from the imperial past.

The CIA collaborated with India and Nepal in training Tibetan exiles to fight Chinese troops. Between the late 1950’s and mid-1960’s the US government flew hundreds of Tibetan exiles to far-flung bases in Okinawa, Guam and Colorado.

There they were trained as guerrillas to wage war against the Chinese. The Tibetans, many of whom were recruited from the Khamba tribe, were parachuted back into Tibet at night with sub-machine guns. According to the report, Darjeeling was chosen as the headquarters of the rebels.

WE DO NOT FORGET -- NEVER !

Nawang Gayltsen, who was among the first Tibetans trained by the CIA, disclosed that he had helped monitor struggling guerrilla cells in Tibet from a joint CIA-Indian command centre in New Delhi.

What India does NOT know even today is, that some of our politicians are under Rothschild’s and CIA’s payroll. It is better to abolish the Rajya Sabha.

Punch into Google search-

ABOLISH THE RAJYA SABHA VADAKAYIL

Confident in the belief that the Chinese would not react, for fear of being attacked from USA from Taiwan ( a prospective Guantanamo base of Cuba in the making ) , while in a war with India, the India government continued to pursue the ‘forward policy’ both in the eastern and in the western sector.

China’s diplomatic notes warning that she “would react and most forcefully” were ignored by Nehru, with USA backing—the same way they backed Saddam Hussain when he caught Kuwait slant drilling and stealing Iraqi oil

There was NO need for Nehru to unnecessarily provoke the Chinese by eating into their barren territory. When VK Krishna Menon tried to stop it, he was called a communist derisively by USA and the West.

Nehru initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959.

Nehru's going ahead with this encroaching policy was based on grandiose assumptions. He was of the belief that China would not oppose Indian patrols and border outposts out of fear of an India backed by both the super powers, United States of America and Soviet Union.

China was very tolerant as they were almost sure that USA would attack from Taiwan—and China could ill afford to fight in two sectors far way from each other.

In a letter of 7 November 1959 to Nehru Chou En-lai proposed to Nehru that the two prime ministers should meet and try to settle the boundary problem in the interest of both countries. Chou En-lai also proposed that the armed forces of the two countries should withdraw 20 kilometres at once from the McMahon line in the east and from the line upto which each side exercised actual control , in the west.

In 1960 Nehru agreed to Chou En-lai’s proposal to meet. So, the Chinese prime minister, accompanied by Chen Yi, his foreign minister, came to India in April 1960 to negotiate a peaceful settlement. But the Nehru with US backing was not willing to play ball. Nehru flatly rejected Zhou En Lai's boundary settlement proposal. Now, Mao was convinced India was working with the US and USSR against China.

Chou En-lal agreed to concede India’s claim in the eastern sector, which meant a large chunk of territory which was inhabited by tribes and parts of which like the Towang tract, which were under Tibetan administration.

He just wanted India to recognize China’s claim to the Aksai Chin area in the western sector, a ‘desert of white stones’, “17,000 ft. above sea level, where nothing grows and no one lives, lying between the towering ranges of Karakoram and the Kuen Lun”. Across it ran an ancient trade route between Sinkiang and Tibet, which was used by the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s.

The highway across Aksai Chin built by China, was a major engineering feat, which China showcased and was proud of. Aksai Chin, uninhabited and desolate and so far away from the nearest area administered by India, was useless to us while it was of great importance to China.

Nehru hijacked by USA, rejected the Chinese premier’s proposal and claimed Aksai Chin as India’s inalienable part. VK Krishna Menon objected to this American conspiracy bitterly. Nehru was by now convinced that VK Krishna Menon was a communist at heart, and he allowed himself to be swayed by his pro-USA Generals and the IB chief, who was on his own trip.

The Chinese proposal of ‘reciprocal acceptance of present actualities in both sectors and constitution of a boundary commission’ was summarily rejected. Aksai Chin was a critical alternate route for China to Tibet. India's stand meant that China was being cut off from Tibet, they saw it as an attempt to undermine their authority in Tibet.

Nehru also refused to agree to Chou’s proposal that both sides should refrain from patrolling along all sectors of the boundary in order to avert knee jerk ego clashes and “ensure tranquility on the borders so as to facilitate the discussions.” The summit was a total failure due to hard posturing by Nehru —a golden opportunity to co-exist in peace was kicked away. USA and Rothschild were so happy.

In the meantime China hastily concluded boundary agreements with Burma, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Mongolia — all neighboring countries, except India and the U.S.S.R. (which too preferred to determine its borders with China unilaterally).

The biggest failure was when India refused China's proposal for talks to extend Panchsheel which was to lapse on June 2, 1962, on being prodded by USA. This was a chance for India to negotiate, reverse aggressive policies and restore a climate based on the Panchsheel with a powerful neighbour. The agreement lapsed, India and China wound up the trade marts on both sides.

Home Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri meanwhile put a chappal-less foot in his mouth and made an unnecessary declaration on February 4, 1962 that "If the Chinese will not vacate the areas occupied by her, India will have to repeat what she did in Goa. We will certainly drive out the Chinese forces." Internal Home Minister Shastri had NO right to talk in this manner.

All this while Nehru was actively promoting the slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers). The Chinese used to send non-military supplies to Tibet through the port of Calcutta.

The Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, got pissed off and asked the Xinhua News Agency to produce reports on Indian expansionists operating in Tibet. In August 1961, the Chinese military improved its combat readiness along the McMahon Line and began stockpiling ammunition, weapons and gasoline.

Mao asserted that the objective was not a local victory but to give Nehru a bloody nose so that he could be ‘knocked back to the negotiating table’. By September 1962, China was fully prepared (this is evident from the video recordings of that war released by China recently) and warned that if India ‘played with fire; it would be consumed by fire’.

On September 8, 1962, more than 800 Chinese soldiers surrounded the Indian post at Dhola. Neither side opened fire for 12 days. The dice was cast for a showdown. China had conveyed its intention. While India thought that it was bluffing. Nehru did NOT know that a deadly crisis was brewing in Cuba, which would make both USA and USSR , his trump cards --ignore him..

Before China attacked, India’s leadership was tied up on business as usual elsewhere. Such was the lack of our military intelligence , and the way USSR and USA made as$holes out of us. Krishna Menon left for New York on 17 September 1962 to attend the UN General Assembly and returned to India only on 30 September 1962.

Nehru left Delhi on 8 September 1962 to attend the Commonwealth PM’s conference and after visiting Paris, Lagos and Accra returned only on 2 October 1962, but left again on 12 October 1962 for Colombo and returned to Delhi only on 16 October 1962.

Two of the most important officials at Army Headquarters were also away from Delhi: Lt. Gen. Kaul, the Chief of General Staff, was on sweet holiday in Kashmir till 2 October 1962, while the Director of Military Operations [DMO] was on a cruise on the aircraft carrier Vikrant.

Nehru gave a uncharacteristic and immature statement on October 12, 1962, on his way to Sri Lanka that he had "ordered the Indian Army to throw the Chinese out."

The next day Rothschild controlled New York Herald Tribune carried a provocative editorial titled “India declares war on China”, and they made sure the Chinese Ambassador in USA read it.

This crude mafia type statement by a head of state of great stature , got Chairman Mao’s knickers in a twist.

A furious Mao declared “…Since Nehru insists on us fighting him, for us not to fight with him would not be proper. Courtesy emphasizes reciprocity.”

Everybody including the then army chief and VK Krishna Menon knew that PM is wrong but such was Nehru’s clout with USA and Rothschild , that nobody dared to tell Nehru that the emperor is NOT wearing clothes , at that time.

Driving out the superior Chinese forces was an optimistic declaration by the political leadership but the ground situation was different. Indian Army was logistically weak and ill-prepared to take on the Chinese forces that were well trained in freezing mountain warfare.

In 1962, a Joint Secretary verbally conveyed the Indian government's orders to General Thapar, the then Army Chief ( our Karan Thapar father ) , to evict the Chinese from the intruded territory. He asked for this in writing because he had not been in the decision-making loop. How do you like that?

Meanwhile Mao wanted to double check political polarisations and alliances. The Chinese Ambassador to Warsaw, Wang Bingnan, was recalled from leave and hastily dispatched to Warsaw with instructions to meet his US counterpart forthwith.

On 23 June 1962, Wang Bingnan met US Ambassador Cabot at Warsaw. Ambassador Wang claimed that Beijing had noted US preparations in Taiwan for a landing on the mainland.

Ambassador Cabot, who was unaware of any such preparations, based on his brief from the State Department, conveyed to his Chinese interlocutor that he had been authorized to state that the US government had no intention of supporting the proposed GRC [Taiwan] attack on the mainland in 1962.

The Chinese breathed a huge sigh of relief for they were anticipating trouble on two widely separated fronts.

On 8 October 1962, Chinese leaders informed the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing that ‘China knows that Indian forces are planning to launch a large scale attack in Sino-Indian frontier regions and if India launches an attack than we will resolutely carry out self-defence.’

Further, Ambassador Liu secured from Khrushchev ‘guarantees’ that if China was attacked and a China-India War ensued, the Soviets would ‘stand together with China’ .

With the Cuba crisis in his mind and wanting China as an ally in case of a nuclear missile war with USA, in a 20 October 1962 letter, Khrushchev rebuked Nehru for failing to show ‘due urge for reconciliation’ and urged him ‘to agree to Chinese proposals’.

This new tough line was confirmed when MJ Desai [then Secretary General, MEA] told US Ambassador Galbraith in a meeting on 23 October 1962 that ‘in the past few days the Soviets have taken a tough line with the Indians— including advice to settle on Chinese terms.’

The friends of VK Krishna Menon, the Soviets really had had no option as they were engrossed in a serious confrontation with the US over Cuba and badly needed Chinese support, in case of a full scale nuclear missile war with USA and UK. Support for India was expendable, at this hour.

This is the reason why every nation should have its own security, instead of hanging on and hiding under somebody else’s stinkin' petticoat.

In its issue of 14 October 1962, the Chinese People’s Daily again warned Nehru : “Pull back from the brink of the precipice and don’t use the lives of Indian troops as stakes in your gamble.” The advice was ignored.

It must be noted here that VK Krishna Menon was never privy to false promises and constant meddling by CIA. CIA , Rothschild and the US president hated Menon’s guts. So any man with average intelligence can make out that he was not privy to the China territory nibbling process and Tibet provocations done by Nehru and IB chief Mullick.

On 14 October 1962, an editorial on People's Daily issued China's the last and final warning to India: QUOTE "So it seems that Mr. Nehru has made up his mind to attack the Chinese frontier guards on an even bigger scale....It is high time to shout to Mr. Nehru that the heroic Chinese troops, with the glorious tradition of resisting foreign aggression, can never be cleared by anyone from their own territory... If there are still some maniacs who are reckless enough to ignore our well-intentioned advice and insist on having another try, well, let them do so. History will pronounce its inexorable verdict... At this critical moment...we still want to appeal once more to Mr. Nehru: better rein in at the edge of the precipice and do not use the lives of Indian troops as stakes in your gamble."UNQUOTE

The Chinese insisted that it was India that started the conflict by following the so-called ‘forward policy’ and ‘nibbling’ at China’s frontiers, and hence it was only a ‘counter-attack’ and in ‘self-defence’ to throw out Indian ‘aggressors’ from Chinese territory. In other words, it was an action designed to reclaim Chinese territory wrongly usurped by India – with American connivance , aimed to draw away Chinese forces from the sensitive Taiwan area.

On 16 October 1962, this war plan was approved, and on the 18th, the final approval was given by the Politburo for a "self-defensive counter-attack", scheduled for 20 October.

On 20 October 1962, at 5 AM IST, the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched two massive onslaughts , 1000 kilometres apart. Three Chinese Regiments, 154, 155 and 157 [equivalent to Indian Brigades], all battle-hardened veterans of the Korean War transferred from across the Taiwan Straits since June 1962, attacked Indian positions across the Namka Chu defended by a single brigade and overran them.

Similar attacks were launched simultaneously on all Indian positions both in the Western and Eastern sectors with overwhelming force.

This attack was a well planned move and it coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which made sure that USA and Russians will NOT bother to intervene—or even give a patient ear.

The Cuban missile crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other. The crisis occurred in October 1962, during the Cold War from October 16–28, 1962 (naval blockade of Cuba ended November 20, 1962) .

The Soviet government secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. In addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional codes or commands from Moscow.

The U.S. air strike and invasion that were scheduled for the third week of the confrontation would likely have triggered a nuclear response against American ships and troops, and perhaps even Miami. The resulting war might have led to the deaths of 100 million Americans, and a deadly retaliation by USA .

In the western theatre, the Chinese PLA sought to expel Indian forces from the Chip Chap valley in Aksai China while in the eastern theatre, the PLA sought to capture both banks of the Namka Chu river. The Chinese cut the Indian telephone lines, preventing the Indian defenders from making contact with their headquarters. To be frank these are all basics.

The Chinese troops launched a three-pronged attack on Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh which the Indians evacuated without any resistance. The entire NEFA (North East Frontier Agency), now called Arunachal Pradesh was Gen Kaul's domain. On his first day of assignment, Gen Kaul flew to Lumpu in great style and then trekked like a commando to Namkachu valley.

He was the first General officer to visit the valley. Gen Kaul “reportedly” fell ill during the assignment and was deported to New Delhi and the IV Corps was wiped out when a strong enemy force raided the camp. The battle with China in 1962, in the NEFA, is also known as the Battle of Namkachu.

There is ample evidence today from doctors that Nehru’s relative and blue eyed boy Gen Kaul was not as sick as he said. Gen Kaul’s famous last words before he came back to Delhi was to tell the brigade commander before leaving: “Its your battle now”.

When General Kaul reached 7th Brigade at Tawang, he wanted to inspect the front lines himself. Because of the altitude, he was already exhausted. No 4 legged pack animals were available. So a two legged local porter manfully carried our dear Gen Kaul off to the front like a sack of potatoes. Needless to say all onlookers were amused.

Vidi Vini Vizi, or was it so?

It could be-- I came, I spied ( with mE little eye ) , I scooted ( by piggy back ride ).

Indian Army was not ready to take on the Chinese. Very few Indian soldiers had operated on freezing mountain areas. The troops were using obsolete weapons unsuitable for mountain warfare and bullets were in short supply. Most of the time the Chinese were outside Indian rifle range.

The Chinese were well supplied as they had stocked supplies in Tibet and their soldiers were well acquainted with mountain warfare. The Indian soldiers, did not even have enough winter clothing and shoes. There was no road network. The supplies and reinforcements for the troops were sent most by air. The Indian troops were short on artillery and ammunition and the artillery pieces they had was very often immobile in the mountains.

Lieutenant General B M Kaul, had never commanded an active fighting outfit in his entire life and he was to command one now.

The majority of Chinese forces had advanced to sixteen kilometres south of the control line prior to the conflict. Four days of fighting were followed by a three-week lull. Zhou ordered the troops to stop advancing as he attempted to negotiate with Nehru a last time .

On October 24 1962, Beijing offered a ceasefire and Chinese withdrawal on the express condition that India agreed to open negotiations. Nehru refused the offer even before the text was officially received. Both sides built up over the next three weeks and the Indians launched a local counterattack on November 15, arousing in India fresh expectations of total victory, what with our newspapers giving rosy accounts of Indian bravery and relentless assaults.

Zhou had sent Nehru a letter, proposing a negotiated settlement of the boundary, that both sides disengage and withdraw twenty kilometres from present lines of actual control. After Zhou received Nehru's letter (rejecting Zhou's proposal), the fighting resumed on the eastern theatre on 14 November 1962 (Nehru's birthday).

On 17 November 1962, the Chinese troops in this second campaign reached the borders of Assam, occupied the entire disputed territory of the NEFA and again halted. The Indian government was seized with panic, almost wrote off Assam as lost.

Mao in a master stroke declared unilateral ceasefire on November 20, 1962, immediately after the resolution of crisis in the Cuba. Many units of the once crack Indian 4th Division dissolved into rout without giving battle and by November 20 1962, there was no organised Indian resistance anywhere in the disputed territories. This time a shaken up Nehru tacitly accepted.

Zhou's ceasefire declaration stated,

QUOTE “Beginning from 21 November 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will cease fire along the entire Sino-Indian border. Beginning from 1 December 1962, the Chinese frontier guards will withdraw to positions 20 kilometres behind the line of actual control which existed between China and India on 7 November 1959. In the eastern sector, although the Chinese frontier guards have so far been fighting on Chinese territory north of the traditional customary line, they are prepared to withdraw from their present positions to the north of the illegal McMahon Line, and to withdraw twenty kilometres back from that line. In the middle and western sectors, the Chinese frontier guards will withdraw twenty kilometres from the line of actual control.”UNQUOTE

The Chinese withdrew twelve miles north of the McMahon line and returned captured Indian soldiers whom they had treated well with their small arms.

In the meantime the Indian army chief, General Thapar, resigned. The defence minister, Krishna Menon (Nehru’s close friend ), was made a scapegoat by all those who hated him.

VK Krishna Menon, the “terror from the East” who gave the white man a massive inferiority complex, was forced to resign by USA as a pre-condition for military aid and by Rothschild for financial aid.

This was their way of getting even with all the mental lashes and intellectual bleeding they had to lump. There was NOT a single English speaking white man on this planet, who could better VK Krishna Menon in a debate on any political subject.

After his famous nine-hour speech on Kashmir at the UN Security Council in 1957, during which he lambasted both the US and Britain, the British delegate, Sir Pierson Dixon, laughingly told him, “No hard feelings, Krishna, we have a very thick skin.” “I know, Pierson,” retorted Menon, “that’s why you Britons made the best boots in the world”.

Once when Krishna Menon was in USA, he was expected to be pulverized for his views and the Indian embassy specifically advised him against appearing on a live radio program. He would be ambushed—nay—bushwacked by a very sharp and aggressive host, who chewed iron nails for breakfast.

Menon, typically, rejected the advice. He was given a lecture by the aggressive host and asked if it was indeed true that Menon was a communist.

Without batting an eyelid, Menon returned the lecture and concluded it with a question to the host: “ But tell me, is it true that you are a bastard??”

Totally crushed in public for the first time in his life , the arrogant and slimy radio host was silenced--and he lost all his aggro and "cats whiskers" cockiness after this incident.

On Oct 25th 1962 , Ambassador Galbraith wrote to President Kennedy predicting that Nehru will soon ask for military aid – “Does important American assistance require his (Menon’s) effective elimination from the Indian defense and UN scene? “

The CIA assisted US presidential answer was , there can be no US aid to India , unless the Rasputin of Nehru, "the anti-Rothschild Commie" VK Krishna Menon was shoved off.

On 20 November 1962 YB Chavan, Bombay’s chief minister, ( CIA and Rothschild approved ) , became India’s new defence minister, to make sure India does NOT drift to the Soviet camp.

China again offered to negotiate a settlement of the border problem. But Nehru , without the reassuring presence of VK Krishna Menon at his side, would not negotiate.. Though there was no mutual agreement, China presented the NEFA region (now Arunachal Pradesh) to India and retained what was of vital importance to her in the western sector.

The border has remained where China proposed in 1960. The shrewd US strategy of keeping China under constant threat from the South, was successful. It may be noted that, unlike the USA, China had no military base in any foreign country nor did she conduct military aggression or intervention in the affairs of any country.

‘Containing China’ was a euphemism for encircling China from all sides and liquidating her. And China’s bitter memories of the dirty and painful Rothschilds Opium wars and the Rape on Nanking by the Japs were still fresh.

Soon after the hostilities were over, the then Chinese President Liu Shaoqi told the Sri Lankan leader Felix Bandaranaike that the 1962 conflict was ‘to demolish Nehru’s arrogance and delusions of grandeur. China had taught India a severe lesson and would do so again and again!’

Liu repeated the same to the Swedish Ambassador too. The master stroke of a declaration of cease-fire by Mao was a serious blow for anti-China Taiwan plan of America and Soviet Union and their strategic design in Asia. Later, in 1973, Zhou Enlai was to tell Kissinger that the conflict took place because Nehru was getting ‘cocky’ with his “personal” connections with US and UK , to be read as the Edwina Rothschild connection.

More than 3,000 Indian soldiers laid down their lives during the 1962 Sino Indian war. Out of this most of them had died due to exposure to cold and NOT by bullet wounds.

Several hundred frozen bodies were found , just a sweater and canvas shoes, with rifles clenched in their hands, no body wounds ,and no bullets in the pouch. All of them could NOT have lost their bullets , right?

The 1962 War has left gaping wound in the Indian psyche. The political and military leadership sacrificed officers and soldiers under them despite knowing that the army was not prepared to take on the Chinese forces in a terrain where we were logistically weak and did not have proper supply lines.

At the same time, I would call this war as a blessing in disguise. India gained many benefits from the 1962 conflict. This war united the various religions and castes of India as never before. India got on a golden platter, more than 83,000 sq.km. of disputed territory , even if she felt that NEFA was hers all along.

The great Himalayan debacle cut Nehru down to size. The Edwina inflated self-image of prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru — ‘an intrepid fighter for the establishment of peace and justice on earth’, ‘the architect of non-alignment’, a “peace-maker and go-between in the company of the superpowers” — was shattered.

Below: Nehru was never the same after the SUNK incident below.

He had a heart-attack in January 1964 and passed away in May. Edwina Mountbatten died on 21st February 1960 , with Nehru's love letters by her bedside-- kept deliberately .

Nehru matched her in equal measure -- he sent an Indian Navy frigate INS Trishul to attend her “sea burial “ funeral and cast a marigold wreath into the waters.

With her death Nehru did NOT have the power of backdoor negotiations via Rothschild with the US president and UK Prime Minister—and he could NOT foresee any more coming shadows. More important he lost the elegant solutions creating brains of VK Krishna Menon.

The single biggest factor of Indian defeat was that the Indian intelligence apparatus in the Himalayas was lacking under Mullick. CIA deliberately kept Nehru in the dark about Chinese strength, mobility and tactics.

Very few Indian soldiers had operated in freezing mountain areas, which causes pulmonary odema ( liquid in lungs ) . The few Indian troops were using single fire manual obsolete rifles, which jammed in cold weather and was unsuitable for mountain warfare . They had very few bullets.

The Chinese , superior in numbers , were well supplied as they had stocked supplies in Tibet and their soldiers with AK 47 automatic guns were well acquainted with high mountain warfare.

The morale of the armed forces was at its lowest ebb, with the false propaganda done by CIA’s payroll MP stooges in Indian Parliament over Gen Thimayya’s resignation. . The decision making in the army was totally ad-hoc.

An entire division comprising over 15,000 soldiers, the 4th Infantry Division, collapsed in disarray and retreated from its headquarters at Tawang; an infantry Brigade of over 3000 soldiers was overrun by the Chinese and the Brigadier and several officers taken prisoner in NEFA.

After the humiliating defeat, the new pro-USA defence minister, YB Chavan under CIA pressure entrusted Lieutenant-General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat (holder of a WWII Victoria Cross and commandant of the military academy) to inquire into the debacle.

This report will keep dirty CIA tricks totally off record. Gen Chaudhuri who took over from Gen Kaul, received the report in April 1963, from Lt Gen Brooks who was GOC 11 Corps in Jalandhar and had not participated in the operations.

The Henderson-Brooks report, submitted in mid-1963, is yet to be made public. An application was filed some two years back seeking its disclosure under the Right to Information Act. It was rejected by the Defence Minister claiming that an internal study had confirmed that the contents of the Henderson Brooks Report "are not only extremely sensitive but are of current operational value."

Probably the report shows the count of Indian soldiers who were frozen to death without bullets. Chinese policymakers and analysts believe even today that India is colluding with the US and Russia to detach Tibet from China—with the Tibetans under Dalai Lama constantly giving pin pricks and even doing self immolations from Indian soil.

Today China knows for sure that CIA financed and armed a major resistance movement inside Tibet during the 1950′s . China suspected that Nehru was an active party to this covert movement.

Then Director of Intelligence Bureau, B N Mullick, acknowledged CIA’s activities in Tibet during that time in his book “The Chinese Betrayal” (1971). CIA obviously cannot do anything without India’s help. China believed India played an active role at that time, and it was one of the reasons for which they decided to punish India.

There has also been dispute about Sikkim, which formally became part of India in 1975. Chinese dismissed this annexation and continued to claim dispute over the tiny state, too. However, in 2003 under an agreement between the two sides, Chinese have formally recognized Sikkim as an integral part of India. The border between Sikkim and China, though, is still not fully demarcated.

China had been active in Aksai Chin for over a decade before 1962. India was aware of Chinese activity there from 1951. But in 1953, Nehru decided to redraw the boundary that included Aksai Chin within India, as opposed to British policy of 1899, which kept Aksai Chin out of India. In 1957, Beijing's road building activities could not be ignored any longer, and India sent patrols to the area. It would be the beginning of the India-China conflict that would culminate in 1962.

Gen Kaul although Sandhurst-trained for infantry service , he pussy footed his army career using his Nehru connections, without serving on any front line and ended it in a humble and obscure post in public relations, but all the time enjoying ZE good life.

Boosted by the Nehrus’s pull, Kaul rocketed up through the army structure to emerge in 1961 at the very summit of Army HQ. But the fact remains that he did NOT fully comprehend the art of war.

Not only did he hold the key appointment of chief of the general staff (CGS) but the Army Commander, Thapar, was in effect his client.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB), whose director, N B Mullik, was another favourite and confidant of Nehru. VKK Gen. Thimayya recommended Lt. Gen. Thorat to succeed him and Lt. Gen. Verma appointed as CGS. Gen Kaul ensured this was not accepted. Gen Thapar became the Army Chief and Gen Kaul took over as CGS .

Gen Kaul had a court of inquiry organised against Sam Manekshaw for anti-national activities. The inquiry exonerated Gen Manekshaw.

The Goa operation at the end of 1960 witnessed two strange events. The new Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt Gen BM Kaul, marched alongside one of the columns of the 17th Division under Gen KP Candeth that was tasked to enter Goa.

Thereafter Gen Kaul and, separately, the Defence Minister, Krishna Menon, declared “war” or the commencement of operations at two different times — one at midnight and the other at first light the next morning. Gen Kaul safe from censure due to his relationship with Nehru, had the guts to do this to defence VK Krishna Menon.

Today the shallow thinking Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne ( pro-USA Anglo Indian --all the way ) says that India would have won the way if the IAF was involved. This is pure NONSENSE , as China had 2600 superior aircraft, and would have caused thousands of Indian deaths , and war would have escalated.

If we peruse the tripartite Simla Convention of 1914 to which the Government of India, Tibet and China were party and drew the McMahon Line. The Chinese representative just initialled the agreement but did not sign it on account of differences over the definitions of Inner and Outer Tibet.

To the Rothschild controlled West, the disappearance of fear of Chinese from the Indian minds and the growing Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai chants did not portend well. The two most populous countries could not be allowed to form a third pole on the global stage. Americans played a dirty wedge driving game in India to ensure that the two Asian nations remain distant from each other, always .

The Chinese assault as you can see was NOT a sudden 'unprovoked aggression,' that had caught India with her pants down in a sort of “fallen from the sky Himalayan Pearl Harbor , by any stretch of imagination.

The Indian army was forced to defend India . They were pitted against experts at attack by infiltration, having been Mao's guerrillas. They were not only outnumbered, but outmatched with the attack by infiltration tactics.

Indeed, the PLA was not just an army - it was an ideologically committed , highly passionate and trained movement that was synonomous with the then newly created Communist China.

The poor Indian jawans with chattering teeth , numb fingers and Pulmonary Odema secreted liquid in lungs, were under orders to sweep superior Chinese forces wielding AK47s, capable of 700 bullets in one minute, using bayonets and single bullet firing short range obsolete rifles, out of their impregnable, dominating positions.

Jawans went into battle straight from the plains, pushed so hard across the unaccustomed high mountain terrain that many died of altitude sickness before they reached the front line. They wore their cotton uniforms with a thin sweater, and they had a single blanket for the freezing nights. Often even that one blanket had to be shared.

"Hard rations" was a euphemism for no tea, sugar, or salt, indeed, for such limited quantities of any food that the already weakened men weakened more. Air drops went awry, less than 1 in 3 reached the men when dropped by the C-119 Packet, which could not slow sufficiently to make accurate drops.

To save money, the Indian Army had been recovering and repacking supply parachutes, many were so worn they broke. After a load was successfully dropped, the men had to haul it over distances of several kilometers and elevations of thousands of vertical feet with liquid in their lungs.

Even today is there a single Armed Forces Veteran in the Rajya Sabha? - who can be the voice of the over one crore ex-servicemen and their families.

We are more interested in Sachin Tendulkar mouthing PR nonsense in a squeaky AAIGA voice.

We love to see a moth eaten Rekha (whose husband Mukesh Agarwal committed suicide ), upstaging—nay— fingering a hissing Jaya Bachchan. These are our fuc#in’ icons , right? Do we deserve anything better when this is the lousy way we treat our armed forces?

It is a great irony that 1.11 lakh Indian soldiers were killed in WW1 and 2.43 lakhs Indian soldiers were killed in WW2. There was NO hue and cry for those unfortunate souls sacrificed by Rothschild stooge Gandhi who called for mass recruitment.

Gandhi's non-violence principle said it is OK to kill Germans, but it is VERY BAD violence to kill the white invader the British. Today we worship a stooge Gandhi and condemn a great patriot like VK Krishna Menon.

During the war, everyone from General to Jawan to officials and the media was tuned into Radio Peking to find out what was going on in our own country.

An upset President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan said it all when he indicted the government for its “credulity and negligence" .

Nehru himself confessed, artfully using the plural, “WE were getting out of touch with reality… and WE are living in an artificial world of our own creation” . Till then it was I, ME, I ME all the way.

UPA and Sonia Gandhi are reluctant to hurt themselves and their icon Nehru, by disclosing the Henderson Brooks report. Truth, consequently, has perforce to wear a mask. For them the Nehru dynasty is more important than India or Indians.

Gen Kaul and GenThimmaya wrote books for posterity, which made them smell of roses.

Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon did NOT write a book, or break his silence till he died on 6^th Oct 1974.

He could have taken Nehru to the cleaners if he wished, but he chose to keep quiet and honour his friend. Gratitude and character came through.

Gen Cariappa tried a hand in politics by standing for elections-- and he lost his deposit. I am sure CIA would have been overjoyed if he had won.

But you see today we have a Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has been shoved in via the back door ( via Rajya Sabha ) --thanks to the Italian queen bee. Manmohan Singh was made a Finance minister in 1991 also via the back door. Manmohan Singh worked for a Rothschild financial concern before he became India's Finance Minister, as a part of re-orientation. He was the Secretary General of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Rothschild banking cartel’s home turf Geneva, Switzerland from 1987 to 1990.

China and Russia leaning Krishna Menon was a rising star in Indian politics. He won his elections from Mumbai with facile margins. His growing mass appeal both within and outside the country was causing great consternation in Washington.

VK Krishna Menon could not stomach the Rothschild stooge likes of Field Marshal Cariappa, General K.S. Thimayya and Gen Thorat whom he saw representing a particular class and Zionist banking cartel interest group rather than the mother land . He also did NOT approve of Nehru dancing to Edwina’s tune. Edwina was a Rothschild, like Winston Churchill.

Krishna Menon was least affected by the arm twisting money crunch exerted by Rothschild in India, and continued to follow his anti-American agenda. Washington was palpably worried, as Menon’s political boat began gathering wind, the Americans knew, it was time to pull back. By now, it appears that Nehru too was beginning to understand the game. The process of purging began with easing of Finance Minister CD Deshmukh and replacing him with T.T. Krishnamachari (TTK). Krishnamachari ensured that Benegal Rama Rau too was removed from the RBI.

Soon after Rama Rao’s exit a Calcutta-based Marwari businessman named Haridas Mundhra’s dubious share transactions with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) amounting to Rs. 1.25 crores were revealed by the media. Feroze Gandhi, Nehru’s son-in-law added fuel to the fire by disclosing the confidential correspondence between the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari and his principal finance secretary, and raised a question in Parliament on the sale of ‘fraudulent’ shares to LIC. Haridas Mundhra . Mundhra was Calcutta-based industrialist and stock speculator who was found guilty and imprisoned in the first big financial scandal of free India in the 1950s.

The Mundhra scandal exposed the rifts between the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his son-in-law Feroze Gandhi, and also led to the resignation of India's then finance minister T. T. Krishnamachari . Born into a trading family, Mundhra started life as a light-bulb salesman, and pyramided his holdings by "fast deals and stock juggling"into a Rs. 4 crore (USD 10 million) empire. However, by the mid-50s, his business empire was unravelling, and he came to be known for his somewhat questionable ethics. In 1956, he was indicted by the Bombay Stock Exchange for selling forged shares.

The second big corruption scandal of independent India that was christened ‘Mundhra scandal’ ended with the scalp of TT Krishnamachari, who was replaced as finance minister by Rothschild favourite Moraji Desai. Seymour Myron Hersh’s disclosures about Morarji’s CIA connections has revealed that Morarji Desai was under Rothschild and CIA mentoring as early as 1950.

Menon’s unflinching faith in Non-Aligned Movement - his deep understanding of the ongoing imperial mechanizations in the post-colonial era had made his opponents brand him as ‘crypto communist’. Menon was steering a dangerous course.

For a leader of a newly independent, cash strapped nation with miniscule military muscle - to openly take on - a diehard anti-communist like John Foster Dulles, the US secretary of state - was asking for direct access into the CIA’s hit list. He could have been easily eliminated by a golden bullet, but that could have led to the surge in strength of the forces that the USA wanted to curtail. Therefore, Menon was given the proverbial ‘long rope to hang’.

The crushing defeat in a war with communist China not only nipped Menon in the bud but also ensured that in Indian perception the communists became traitors. Perhaps, it is the realization of this objective that made Rothschild man YB Chavan see victory in defeat, when he said “The first casualties of the unashamed aggression of the Chinese on India are Marxism and Leninism.”

Chavan was correct because the Chinese war decimated not only Nehru but also politically eliminated Krishna Menon who was considered more dangerous than Nehru to the continuation of capitalism and Rothschild banking in India.

In December 1961, Menon once again thwarted Western designs by making sure that the Portuguese were driven out of Goa. This enhanced his reputation further making him a natural successor to Nehru. This was neither good news for free market followers in India nor for American foreign policy.

The arrival of 1962 general elections and Krishna Menon’s resounding victory against Acharya JB Kripalani from North Bombay constituency had convinced Nehru’s detractors that Krishna Menon had to be nipped in the bud. These elections were hyped up as a clash between “socialism and reaction” by the left and according to Kripalani as the fight between “Gandhism and Marxism”.

The Rothschild controlled Indian press all other mainstream newspapers launched a scathing attack on Menon. The elections had acquired international dimensions with the Time magazine putting Menon on its cover page, openly declaring that “America have an important stake in this outside elections”.

VK Krishna Menon must not be denied credit for the good work that he did as defence minister. He gave a big boost to self-reliance in indigenous defence production and brought about some economies in defence expenditure.

The Rothschild controlled press did their best in driving wedges between whoever VK Krishna Menon dealt with. There was this Khadi versus Khaki blitzkrieg, to show CIA favourite Gen Thimayya smelling of roses against VK Krishna Menon.

But Nehru, backed Menon all the way.

Probably Zionist encyclopedia , Wikipedia has been kinder to Hitler and Saddam Hussain than VK Krishna Menon. They described him as boorish, vitriolic, intolerant, arrogant, impatient,exigent, evil, Rasputin —but one thing they could not accuse him of was being daft or being a traitor.

When VK Krishna Menon resigned there was an unofficial party at the Pentagon.

CIA had used his enemies in India to implicate him in a Jeep scam. VK Krishna Menon said often – “controversy chases me and I always meet it halfway”.

V.K.Krishna Menon became Defence Minister in 1957 bringing with him a fresh breath of air into a ministry that had been ignored for eight years. Menon fought for his men, improved their pay scales, introduced welfare programs and so on.

Being a visionary , Menon was a driven soul.. He could see things that others do not see , and would immediately march to a different drummer and play by new rules.. and Nehru loved it.

World leaders even from USA and UK sought VK Krishna Menon’s advise on world conflict matters which did NOT concern India, as he consistently made superior evaluations and so could anticipate better than others.

He believed that those who are not lighting any candles should not bitch about the dark. He did NOT care for consensus from mediocre people , and did not have any fear of conflict with babus or the illiterate MPs in the Parliament..

He believed that a person who suffers a incompetent subordinate is himself incompetent. He rewarded extraordinary efforts and liked people who did the extra mile beyond the call of duty.

When Krishna Menon saw the ill equipped condition of the 3.5 million strong army, especially their use of Lee Enfield 0.303 bolt action rifles, World War 1 vintage, he was apalled. He pressed for automatic SLR’s and other defense expenditures to modernize the armed forces. But his detractors would not allow it.

Menon again proposed doubling of the officer strength in the army and manufacture of automatic weapons but the proposal was shot down by Gen Thimayya who wanted to buy from USA. Menon was forced to start a longer gestating program of indigenous manufacture with Ordnance factories.

The grave situation was made even worse by constant stone walling by the Rothschild man Finance Minister Morarji Desai, who would NOT allow the release of essential foreign exchange to buy what little equipment that had been sanctioned.

Menon had a purpose; he wanted young India to be viewed in the right light and on par with all others, not as a country of snake charmers and beggars. He was a master in tearing asunder the mask of hypocrisy and laying bare the naked truth. He was harsh because he could not suffer fools.

Intellectually he was a giant and had the best in an argument always , and it is the habit of the world to compensate the loss with abuse. “What his critics in India and United States had failed to accomplish, his Chinese “friends” brought about with amazing suddeness.” And the rest, as they say is history.

Krishna Menon who was one of the first Indians to be on the cover of Time magazine, told in confidence many years later that nobody in India appreciated the fact that India 'encroached on 4,000 sqm of territory belonging to China'—and that when he became defence minister there was no army worth the name and no equipment worth the mention.

Above -- see Rothschild's TIME magazine showing VK Krishna Menon as a snake charmer, with Cobra and flute -- and there was nobody in the Western world who could match this man's amazing intellect.

Menon’s strategy was to fight the Chinese on the low warm grounds , with more men , as we were not really equipped for high altitude warfare, he was quickly branded a traitor for trying to let the enemy in, resulted in our taking on the enemy at the heights with 303 rifles and a handful of ammunition – and the loss..

Half a world away in Washington, the Kennedy administration who allowed the war to happen , saw India’s crisis as an ideal diplomatic opportunity. If the US played its cards correctly, military aid to India had the potential of drawing India into the American orbit and driving a wedge between China and the Soviet Union, and this they did .

Have you notices the Obama Mitt Romney debate part 3 today? —how well they plan into the future and that too on TV.

China recognizes McMahon Line as its boundary with Myanmar, but not with India. Till date, it has not revealed its perception of the LAC which might prevent a major war in future.

Amongst the guilty, next to Nehru, and the military leaders, was the low perception , gullible and boorish opposition in the Parliament . They were largely responsible for pushing Nehru into a corner and forcing him to fight the Chinese at the wrong time and place. Nor can they escape responsibility for ignoring the defense needs after 1959.

The Gold Control Act was legislation enacted in India in 1962. After the Indo-China War in 1962, due to loss of foreign exchange reserves, the government of India enacted the Gold Control Act., 1962, prohibiting the citizens from holding pure gold bars and coins. The gold holdings in pure gold had to be compulsorily converted into jewelry and that had to be declared. Only licensed dealers were allowed to deal in pure gold bars and coins. New gold jewelry purchases were either recycled or smuggled gold. This legislation killed the official gold market and a large unofficial market sprung up dealing in cash only. The gold was smuggled in and sold through the unofficial channel wherein, many jewelers and bullion traders traded in smuggled gold. A huge black market developed for gold.

In 1990, India had a major foreign exchange problems and was on verge of default on external liabilities. The Indian economy was very stable. But Rothschild tweaked the rating agencies and their empirical computer formulas, to put Indian economy in very bad shape.

Meanwhile Rothschild mentored a person by the name of Manmohan Singh .

He was made the Secretary General of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Rothschild banking cartel’s home turf Geneva, Switzerland from 1987 to 1990.

The Indian Govt. driven to despair, under PM Chandrasekhar pledged 40 tons gold from their reserves with Rothschild’s Bank of England and “saved the day”.

Rothschild controlled World Bank and IMF would NOT give a loan unless Manmohan Singh was made Finance Minister of India .

Subsequently, India embarked upon the path of economic liberalization. And later Italian WTE ( waitress turned empress ) would NOT have anyone else except "unelected" Manmohan Singh as our PM-- going against the Indian Constitution for a democracy.

It is high time India has some patriotic and perceptive souls as advisors to the Finance and Defence ministries.

It is in India’s interest to settle its border disputes with China, and NOT allow it fester, the way Pakistan, USA and Russia wants. The principle will be --give some take some.

TRUTH WAS THE BIGGEST CASUALITY OF THE SINO INDIAN WAR IN 1962.

THIS POST EXHUMES THE NAKED TRUTH.

Grace and peace!

CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

In popular culture

Vidyadhar Shastri wrote a Sanskrit poem Himadri Mahtyam to exhort Indians to defend the Himalaya
Australian author Jon Cleary wrote a novel set at the time of the conflict, The Pulse of Danger (1966).
A Hindi movie Haqeeqat (1964) and a Tamil movie Ratha Thilagam (1963) were based on events of the Sino-Indian war.
On June 27, 1963, against the backdrop of the Sino-Indian War, Lata Mangeshkar sang the patriotic song Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon (literally, "Oh, the People of My Country") in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India. The song, composed by C. Ramchandra and written by Pradeep, is said to have brought the Prime Minister to tears.^[78]^[79]

Search Results

Sino-Indian War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War

For the conflict in Indochina against the French, see First Indochina War. ... The Sino-Indian War was fought between India and China ... Jawaharlal Nehru ... region of Xinjiang and Tibet (which China declared as an autonomous region in 1965). .... In 1847, Major J. Jenkins, agent for the North East Frontier, reported that the ...

Missing: ~~devasted~~

You visited this page on 20/9/15.

Why did China invade India in 1962? - Quora

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-China-invade-India-in-1962

Sino Indian War = Mapping error + Clueless, old Indian leadership + belligerent China... could have put the Chinese troops in major disadvantage facing India's air attack. ... This region became the part of North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and .... The statement was made by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in ...

Missing: ~~devasted~~

Ajit Vadakayil: WHY INDIA LOST THE SINO INDIAN WAR ...

ajitvadakayil.blogspot.com/.../why-india-lost-sino-indian-war-of-1962.ht...

Oct 24, 2012 - The Indo China border had never been properly defined and .... So whenIndia lost the 1962 war with China, and when VK Krishna Menon ... —all cried PMJawaharlal Nehru, Gen Kaul and Defence Minister VK ..... Nehru has made up his mind to attack the Chinese frontier guards on an even bigger scale.

1962 war debacle—the errors Jawaharlal Nehru made ...

www.livemint.com › Opinion › Online Views

Mar 19, 2014 - Right upto the point when China attacked Indian positions in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA, as Arunachal Pradesh was called then), ...

Missing: ~~devasted~~ ‎~~1965~~

3) "The 1965 war banished the ghosts of 1962, and was a ...

www.insightsonindia.com/.../3-the-1965-war-banished-the-ghosts-of-19...

Sep 3, 2015 - off-war : pressure frm superpowers leads to cease fire , another ... After 1962 Indo-China war, India was devastated both economically ... Pakistan considered this as an ideal time to attack India and cut off .... India was still recovering from the scars of 1962, death of Jawaharlal Nehru and acute food crisis.

50 years since India declares War on China - Himalayan ...

democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/.../50-years-since-india-declares...

Oct 20, 2012 - We would quote here from Neville Maxwell's India's China War: .... department of the government of India under Jawaharlal Nehru expressed the resolve ... the entire North-East Frontier Agency and Aksai Chin as part of China. .... [withChina on Tibet], in 1954, did not lead Nehru to discontinue the policy of ...

The Himalayan Adventure - Part 2

https://www.marxists.org/subject/india/ghosh/2002/himalayan.../ch02.ht...

Nehru went to war with China more for ideological and political reasons than for ... Rather, she was engaged immediately in rebuilding her devastated economy. .... ofattack against Red China, led by Formosa and other Far Eastern Groups, and .... the man who determines India's policy — Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

१९ सप्टेंबर दिनविशेष - Events

ve65.blogspot.com/.../19th-september-today-in-histor... Translate this page

22 hours ago - 19-September-1962, Jawaharlal Nehru was devastated when Chinabegan attacks on India's northern frontier leading to Indo-China War. 19-September-1965, Government extends ultimatum to India to dismantle forts within four days ..... 7th SEPTEMBER 1943 GERMANY RETREATS DUE TO EASTERN.

republic Archives - The AryanThe Aryan

thearyan.com/tag/republic/

Nationalist leader Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India and ... Today, India is a major world power with a prominent voice in global affairs and is .... In the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 India attacked Pakistan on all fronts after ... is toChina South Tibet, and to India part of the North-East Frontier Agency that ...

[PDF]China, India, and the Emerging Global Order - Carnegie ...

carnegieendowment.org/files/crux_of_asia.pdf

The rise of China and India as major world powers promises to test the established ... of capabilities from West to East ever since the end of World War II, this ...... unstable states to terrorism to the volatile Indo-Pakistani relationship. ..... “unfair and unrealistic” to ask states to take responsibility for any attack that originates in-.

Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra - From your Internet address - Use precise location

- Learn more

Help Send feedback Privacy Terms

Sunday, 20 September 2015

19th SEPTEMBER 1965 CHINA DEVASTED PANDIT NEHRU BY ATTACK ON NORTH EAST FRONTIER LEADING TO INDO-CHINA WAR 1965

Sino-Indian War

Contents

Location

Background

Aksai Chin

The McMahon Line

Events leading up to war

Tibet and the border dispute

1960 meetings to resolve the boundary question

The Forward Policy

Early incidents

Confrontation at Thag La

Chinese and Indian preparations

Motives

Military planning

Chinese offensive

Eastern theatre

Western theatre

Lull in the fighting

Continuation of war

Eastern theatre

Western theatre

Ceasefire

World opinion

Involvement of other nations

Aftermath

China

India

Internment and deportation of Chinese Indians

Later conflicts

Diplomatic process

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

WHY INDIA LOST THE SINO INDIAN WAR OF 1962- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

In popular culture

See also

Further reading

Search Results

[PDF]China, India, and the Emerging Global Order - Carnegie ...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Total Pageviews

Pages

My Blog List

My Blog List

My Blog List

Popular Posts

Translate