pulling onto a different track here, are we now ? .... I suppose
you have now realized how your initial comments looked, especially
now you're implying that you're privy and part of your country's
military establishment ....
so which part of it was hubris ? .... your non-sequitur examples
about India "suffering from China Aggression", or me pointing out
that India got trashed by China in that conflict ? ... I believe
the only undisputable truth is the latter, unless, of course, you
have something different to say about that as well ? and if you are
representative of the thinking of your country's defense
establishment, based on your initial comments, then I loathe the
idea of you guys having nuclear weapons very much indeed. Any group
of people filled with too much hot air should never be allowed
to.
My response - quoting from a
man whom i respect
"Looking back on our
humiliation at the hands of the Chinese 40 years ago, my eyes go
moist, the throat goes dry and a heavy, insane rage begins to build
within me against those who caused it. And it was not the
chinese.
It saddens me, however, to notice the general lack of knowledge
among the public, the distorted facts being presented by eminent
writers and experts, and the misinformation/disinformation
campaigns still being carried out by vested interests on this
subject.
To begin with, there is a generally held view that in the 1962
India-China War, India's military was vanquished by the People's
Liberation Army. It is not true. The nation was convulsed by fear,
yes, because our top political leadership panicked, but our army
was far from vanquished. Our deployed force level in 1962 against
China was as follows:
A little more than one brigade force guarded our border
against the Chinese in Ladakh, where our forces were scattered even
more, and practically all the posts were in isolation of that
inhospitable terrain. Thus, only 24,000 troops out of a total of
the 4,00,000-strong Indian army of those days fought the Chinese in
1962. That amounts to less than 1/16th of our army's strength at
that time.
Hence, even though our
troops suffered a defeat, it can't be said that our army was
vanquished. For that matter the entire army in the Northeast didn't
suffer defeat either.
The Eastern Army HQ was at Lucknow and IV Corps, which
suffered the defeat, was only one of its elements, and a weak one
at that (hardly one division strong at that time). We couldn't have
moved our forces from the Pakistan borders without endangering our
defences there, while another division was locked against the Naga
insurgency, which was also quite serious those days.
Besides, China didn't figure in the government's defence
planning for the country. As per its written directive to the army,
the latter's task was defence against Pakistan. In fact, the
government had rebuffed the army every time this aspect was brought
up for discussion.
Thus, we had no roads to take the army, its equipment, heavy
guns, and supplies up to the border. There was no way we could have
positioned and maintained a large army at the border in a short
time.
Frankly, the 1962 war can't even be called a war in the real
sense of the word, though everyone refers to it as such. It was at
the most three or four battles in which we suffered a defeat in the
Northeast.
A war is generally a long-drawn affair and demands almost the
entire resources of a nation and commitment of most of its forces
and goes far beyond a few battles. Our political leadership
combined with a few inept/pliant generals of those days forced our
army to conduct insane battles at ultra-high altitudes without
acclimatising to the rarefied atmosphere and sub-zero
temperatures.
On difficult terrain, in tactically disadvantageous battle
positions, without reserves for reinforcements, under conditions
such as non-existent supply lines (troops were required to be
entirely air-maintained in terrain unsuitable for air-dropping),
without suitable/matching arms, criminally insufficient ammunition
(only 50 rounds of .303 bullets per jawan in NEFA), insufficient
food and clothing.
The Chinese, to their surprise, found the going very easy and
reached the foothills of Assam within a couple of days. At this
stage our cowardly leadership (both political and military) denied
our forces a God-given chance to redeem their honour. We could
have, entirely on our own, turned the tide at the Assam foothills,
where the temperatures were tolerable, and used our air force to
literally massacre the Chinese.
The Chinese knew well what our forces could have done
after recovering from the initial shock, and that is why they
withdrew, returning all the land they had conquered (including
Tawang) irrespective of their much publicised claims praised as
just and fair by authors like Neville Maxwell, Dr Gregory Clark,
the Communists, et al.
Cleverly and hurriedly, the Chinese returned without giving us a
chance to collect our wits and hit back, before the possible and
likely foreign help, mainly from the US and its anti-communist
allies, arrived and, of course, before the snowbound passes
closed.
The logistical lines of the Chinese were stretched beyond limits
and they couldn't have sustained warfare for long so far away from
their homeland. They had practically no air force and only one or
two usable airfields in Tibet at that time and were not prepared
for the technical problems of operating aircraft at those heights
and temperatures.
The Chinese hardly had any anti-aircraft guns. Their aircraft
were inferior to ours. It was their weakest point, but we did not
take advantage of it.
We could have used our superior armour against the Chinese
infantry, which only had limited recoilless guns. Our infantry was
well poised in the foothills of Assam to use the hook tactics,
which the Chinese had used with telling effect in the higher
reaches. While our troops were strangers to the high altitude
terrain in the Thagla ridge area, here they were somewhat on home
ground and the Chinese would have found themselves in foreign
surroundings. It would have been easier for us to regroup for
flexibility in tactics here, while for the Chinese it would have
been impossible under pressure of our attacks from all unexpected
directions.
We could have prevented and/or countered their every move,
especially with the benefit of constant air surveillance, an
advantage they lacked. Similarly, getting reinforcements would have
been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them on account of
the distances, lack of road network, the approaching winter with
the consequent closing of the snowbound passes, and, above all,
our airforce causing havoc from above.
Had they not decided to withdraw, we could have caused them to
suffer unacceptable casualties. Their retreat would have been
uphill and we could have literally played hell into them in
pursuit, especially with the IAF raining fire from the skies. We
could have blown their supply lines in Tibet to smithereens as the
Tibetan plateau hardly provides any cover or natural
camouflage.
In fact, eyewitnesses of those days recall seeing heaps of
military stores, mortars, ammunition, and other supplies lying by
the roadside all along in depot-like stores in the open near the
border on the Tibetan side. These would have been ready fodder for
our Hunters, Mysteres, Gnats, Vampires and Toofanis for strafing
runs with front gun cannons and rockets. Major enemy concentrations
would have proved excellent targets for carpet-bombing by our
Liberators. Our Canberras were ultra-modern bombers then and could
have caused havoc.
But that was not to be. Future generations will only read about
the 'crushing defeat' of the Indian Army at the hands of the
Chinese forces.
The 1962 India-China conflict was, in all probability,
avoidable. It came about because of many a factor. The internal
factors were our lack of understanding of the concept of
sovereignty, made worse by political bungling, diplomatic blunders,
personal arrogance of our top leader and his short-sightedness,
intelligence failure, incorrect information dissemination by the
government to Parliament and the media leading to the thoughtlessly
jingoistic reaction by all concerned and the demand: 'not even an
inch to the enemy'.
For the ignominious defeat that we suffered, we have to add
'politicisation of the army resulting in cowardly as well as stupid
generalship' to the above factors.
Yet careful analysis of the situation indicates that it was
possible to have come to a mutually satisfactory understanding with
China on the border adjustments, avoided active hostilities, and
continued our then blossoming friendship with Beijing, which had
tremendous potential for mutual benefit. That would have also
discouraged the Pakistan-China friendship, which developed as an
offshoot of the Sino-Indian conflict, and the eventual
nuclearisation of Pakistan.
Wing Commander R V Parasnis is probably the only air force
pilot to have flown extensively as well as moved on foot in the
NEFA area. He particularly remembers an exercise where he marched
for 24 days in the Bomdila region on a man-pack basis with General
(then brigadier) K Sundarji, whose unforgettable briefings and
brilliant strategic theories at night revived the bitter memories
of the 1962 war among the young officers
Just one other view of it - but helps not to get carried away. I
do not know enough of the war of 1962, in all honesty as i was not
born then. my uncle was mobilized for that so called war and was a
Lt.in the artillery, which never went into battle. it was not i but
you who brought the sino indo war of 1962 into the picture. please
refer to your previous posts, before i even stepped in.
