The shipping industry is inured to charts where blue patches and random rocks have different names. In Shanghai or Dalian, it’s the “Diaoyu islands”; it’s “Senkaku” in Yokohama. It’s the East Sea in Inchon, and the Sea of Japan in Nagasaki.
When it comes to land borders, maps published in India, Pakistan and China also have conflicting claims and names. The differences would be farcical except that several wars have been fought in attempts to shift those lines around.
The Indo-Chinese disputes date back to the Simla Accord of 1914 when Sir Henry McMahon drew a line across the eastern Himalayas and the Tibetans accepted it. The Chinese claim Tibet was not independent in 1914.
There are two major regions claimed by China. Both were culturally part of Tibet. In the east, the Chinese claim roughly the whole of Arunachal Pradesh. In the west, they hold Aksai Chin and claim some more bits of Ladakh. Some areas in the west were ceded by Pakistan, but the People’s Liberation Army won the bulk of it by force of arms in 1962.
If it hadn’t been for the 120 men of C Company, 13 Kumaon, India would be in no position to dispute China’s claims in the west. On November 18, 1962, Charlie Company held the 5,000- metre high Rezang La pass against an attack at over battalion strength, facing odds of 12 to 1.
If the Chinese had broken through, they would have taken the all-weather airstrip at Chushul on the Indian side of the pass. Led by Major Shaitan Singh, who received a posthumous Param Vir Chakra, C Company suffered 114 dead and every survivor wounded, in what is described as a “last man, last round” action. The dead were left in the frozen wastes for months. Haqeeqat, India’s first and best war film, commemorates the sacrifice of C Company, and CNN-IBN decided this year to honour those men.
It’s still unclear why 1962 happened and who was responsible for a definitive defeat. The Indian army commissioned retired Lt General Henderson Brooks and then-Brigadier P S Bhagat to analyse the war. The Henderson Brooks report was submitted in 1963 and has remained buried since, under layers of secrecy.
The secrecy was understandable, if inexcusable, in the 1960s, when the people responsible held high positions in government. Lt Gen Bhagat risked his career when he later carried out a war game where “Blue Army” faced off simultaneously against “Red Army” and “Green Army”. Bhagat was bypassed as chief as a result of that unsubtly named simulation. But the learnings were utilised in 1971, when India waited till winter to invade Bangladesh, so as to deploy mountain troops normally facing “Red Army” formations into Meghalaya and Sylhet.
By the 2000s, every senior officer and politician involved in 1962 decision making had died. One would have thought the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had no interest in protecting the posthumous reputations of Nehru, Menon, Kaul and co. Yet, NDA Defence Minister George Fernandes refused to release the report and, of course, the United Progressive Alliance has since turned down requests to declassify it.
Apparently, the report still has security implications and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to reveal who screwed up. Really? If it does have unaddressed security implications, that implies inefficiency of truly epic levels over 50 years. If India did make stupid diplomatic errors five decades ago, it should surely have matured enough as a nation to admit it.
The spiritual descendants of the men who defended Rezang La now patrol the moonscapes of the high Himalayas. They deserve better than the lip service they receive from a political establishment more interested in protecting the reputations of long-dead incompetents. It is high time the Henderson Brooks report was released, both to seek closure for India’s worst military defeat and to ensure that 1962 is never repeated.
