Published in the ORF website
It is important to understand what the Henderson-Brooks
report is, and what it is not. It was essentially a review of the Army
operations in the Kameng Frontier division of NEFA where India faced the
biggest disaster to its arms in 1962 when IV Division collapsed without a fight
and the Chinese forces reached the foothills of Assam. The task of the two-man
committee was to look at issues of training, equipment, system of command,
ability of commanders and so on.
It was not a review of India’s China policy relating to the
Sino-Indian border. Indeed, it was not even a review of the functioning of the
Army HQ which conveniently ordered that it be excluded from the scope of the
Henderson-Brooks inquiry.
So, the inquiry officers, Lt Gen T B Henderson Brooks and Brigadier Prem Bhagat
had no access to the papers of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Defence
Ministry or the Army HQ. Whatever references they have made to these
institutions came through the papers of the available at the Eastern and
Western Command headquarters.
The essential conclusion of the HB report was that the
government initiated a Forward Policy to check Chinese incursions into Indian
territory in Ladakh at the end of 1961. Unfortunately, the Army HQ failed to
assess the situation and correlate it to
developments in NEFA. Had a proper assessment been made, perhaps “we would NOT
have precipitated matters till we were better prepared in both sectors.”
Instead Indian policies triggered a ferocious Chinese response catching the
Indian side completely off guard.
Unlike NEFA where the McMahon Line defined the border, there
was nothing in the West. India had a notional claim, China had a strategic
need. The maps attached to the White Paper on States published in 1948 and 1950
showed the border in the region from Karakoram Pass to the UP-Nepal-Tibet
trijunction as undefined.
There was no problem here till the Chinese consolidated
their authority in Tibet by the mid-1950s. As part of this, they built a
highway linking Xinjiang to Tibet which traversed the Aksai Chin plateau. This
road was very important for China as it was the only road that was open through
out the year and not affected by either weather, or the Khampa guerillas that
plagued the Sichuan route. Steven Hoffman also points out that the importance
of the region to India was for nationalistic and legalistic reasons since it
believed that Dogra records indicated that they were collecting revenue from
that area.
As Hoffman has shown, the decision to include Aksai Chin
firmly within India was only taken in 1953 when India rejected the British
policy of 1899 which had placed the boundary on the Karakoram mountains. This
McCartney-McDonald Line had placed most of the Aksai Chin region outside India.
India had been aware of Chinese road-building activity since
1951, but chose to look the other way because it had no means of enforcing its
authority in the region. But when Beijing announced the formal opening of the
road in 1957, it became difficult to do so. India sent an army patrol to the
northern part and a police party to the southern one to check out the alignment
of the road. The army patrol was intercepted and detained by the Chinese and later
deported, the police party returned and confirmed that the road crossed what
India considered was its territory. India protested, but the Chinese ignored
the protests. Nehru, through a letter of 14 December 1958 insisted that the
boundaries between the two countries were “well known and fixed,” and there could be no dispute about them.
Zhou Enlai replied on 23 January that there was no such thing as a customary
and traditional boundary between the two countries. Nehru replied on 22 March
reiterating the existence of a
traditional and customary boundary.
Till this point in time, the Chinese had stuck by what is
called the McCartney-McDonald Line, now they decided to expand their claims
westward towards the Shyok river in the north, and towards Chushul in the
south.
In 1959, Sino-Indian relations reached their turning point
there was a revolt against Chinese authority in Tibet that resulted in the
Dalai Lama escaping to India and being given asylum there. In September,
through a letter, Zhou also declared that the Chinese did not recognize the
McMahon Line and that in the Chinese
view, the entire border was subject to negotiation. India rejected all offers
of negotiation, saying that as a precondition for talks, the Chinese needed to
withdraw from the places they had occupied in Ladakh and NEFA. However, things
changed after the Kongka Pass incident of October 21, 1959 in where an Indian
police party was ambushed and 10 personnel killed.
This led to the decision of the government to hand the
responsibility of the entire border to the Indian Army.
Having sat back and allowed things to drift in the past
decade, the government now suddenly became energetic. In September 1959, the
Army prepared an assessment of the Chinese threat to the borders and stated
that it was unlikely that the Chinese could launch a major incursion but they
could create incidents unless they were threatened by retaliatory action. Based
on this the report made recommendations on deployments.
In November 1959, 4 Infantry Division was asked to move to
Assam and take up the responsibility of defending the border from Sikkim to
Burma, border road construction was taken up in earnest, in NEFA, under Op
Onkar, the Assam Rifles were beefed up and asked to man forward posts.
In Ladakh, new intelligence posts were opened and some
strengthened by sending Army personnel there. After the Army took over the
border there, a new brigade with 3 Jammu & Kashmir Militia battalions were
deployed there, in April 1961, 1/8 Gorkha Rifles were also sent in with some
additional forces. But this was a trifling number considering the border that
had to be policed and the enormous difficulties of communications.
When you look at the map below, the basis of the “Forward
Policy” becomes obvious. Having built a road through a region India considered
its territory, the Chinese systematically moved westward to provide it defence
in depth. Initially inclined to maintain themselves at the watershed of the
Karakoram range, they subsequently went beyond it and moved towards occupying a
line along the Shyok.
If the Indian case for the Aksai Chin was weak, the Chinese
one was weaker. But because it the region was vital for them, the Chinese
backed up their claim by occupation at a time when India was still fumbling for
a policy. And when India sought to restrict the Chinese advance, a clash became
inevitable.
The Chinese claim line kept varying. It was in these
circumstances that India launched the Forward Policy to block the further
movement of the Chinese to the west. Unfortunately, as the Henderson-Brooks
report shows, the policy was shoddily conceived and executed and the primary
blame for this rested on the Army Headquarters and the Intelligence Bureau, not
Nehru and Krishna Menon. Though, by promoting the incompetent B.M. Kaul as the
Chief of General Staff and then allowing him to lead his own expedition as IV
Corps Commander to “throw” the Chinese out of the Thagla ridge, Nehru and Menon
catalyzed the situation.
Forward Policy in the
West
The HB report begins from the meeting of 2 Nov 1961 at PMO with the Defence
Minister, Foreign Secretary, Chief of Army Staff, Director Intelligence Bureau.
It does not specifically mention whether the Prime Minister was there, but the
Official History, which bases itself on Neville Maxwell’s India’s China War,
does. It says, “Nehru decided that Indian forces should remain in effective
occupation of the whole frontier from NEFA to Ladakh and they should cover all
gaps by setting up posts or by means of effective patrolling.” The DIB B.N. Mullik put forward his considered
view “the Chinese would not react to our establishing new posts and they were
not likely to use force against any of our posts even if they were in a
position to do so. “ (p 8)
This was contrary to the appreciation Military Intelligence
which in its annual review for 1959-
1960 had clearly indicated that the Chinese would resist by force any attempt
to take back territory held by them.
Despite this the meeting laid down three operational directives which was, 1) insofar as Ladakh
was concerned, we were to patrol as far forward as possible from our present
position towards what India considered was the international border. 2) as far
as UP and other northern areas were concerned, given the lesser logistical
difficulties we were to go forward and effectively occupied the whole
frontier. 3) in view of the numerous
operational and administrative difficulties efforts should be made to position
major concentration of forces along our borders behind forward posts which
could be be maintained and supported
logistically. (p. 8)
However when the Army HQ transmitted the decision, they
accurately relayed the first two decisions but they papered over the specific
instruction that the Indian posts should be backed by significant
concentrations of forces which were based in positions which were effectively logistically maintained.
But in Ladakh there were barely any forces for the forward posts,
leave alone places you could concentrate them or roads and means of supplying
them.
But the Henderson-Brooks
report says that while it was understandable that the government was
politically keen to recover territory and had advocated a cautious policy, Army HQ dictated a policy which was clearly militarily
unsound. Indeed, the report says, “ there is… no doubt that the implementation
of the “Forward Policy”, in the manner it was done, was carried out deliberately
by the Army Headquarters without the necessary backing, as laid down by the
government.” (p. 10)
So, the army was ordered forward in a line from Daulat Beg
Oldi to Chusul and Demchok, but not through a single order, “but a series of
orders, both written and verbal… were given out, from time to time, by Army
headquarters.”
In the period November 1961 to April-May 1962, some 36 posts
had been established some with as few as 12 men. But the result was that “this
further dispersed our meager resources and depleted our strength in the vital
bases.” (p. 13)
Of course, the Chinese reacted strongly and with their
greater resources and easier communications they set up stronger posts adjacent
to the Indian ones. Tensions arose and there were instances of firing at Indian
posts and patrols and finally in July 1962, the Army HQ gave the forces
permitted the soldiers to fire back if they were fired upon.
The August 1962 reappraisal by the Western Command outlined
just how badly the Indian forces were outnumbered, it noted: “it is imperative
that political direction is based on military means. If the two are not
correlated, there is danger of creating a situation where we may lose both in
the material and moral sense much more than we already have. There is no short
cut to military preparedness to enable us to pursue effectively our present
policy aimed at refuting the illegal Chinese claim over our territory.” (p.16)
The reappraisal recommended that as long as “the prevailing military situation in
Ladakh was unfavourable, it was vital that we did not provoke the Chinese into
an armed clash.” It said that for this reason , “the Forward Policy should be
held in abeyance.”
But the Army HQ ignored these warning persisting in their
belief that a major Chinese riposte was unlikely. Whether or not this important
document was conveyed to the
government is not clear.
Developments in the
East
The forward policy was meant to check Chinese incursion in
Ladakh, but no thought was given to its consequences in NEFA. As the HB report
says: “Once we disturbed the status quo in one theatre, we should have been
militarily prepared in both to back up our policy.” (p 54)
Because parallel to the forward policy, the government was moving to evict the Chinese
from the Thagla Ridge area in the Kameng division of NEFA. The Dhola post had
been established on the Namka Chu river which
divided the Thagla ridge and the Indian positions were south of the river on
the slopes of Tsangdhar and Hathungla ridges. The Indians, of course, had been
ordered to clear the Chinese from the Thagla Ridge and the build up of posts
along Namka Chu
According to the HB report, the Dhola post was
established in June 1962, but it was,
according to maps of the army prior to October/November 1962, “North of the
McMahon Line” viz on the Chinese side.
In extenuation, as it were, the report claims, “ It is
believed that the old edition was given
to the Chinese by our External Affairs Ministry to indicate the McMahon Line.
It is also learnt that we tried to clarify the error on our maps, but the
Chinese did not accept our contention.”
In other words, the Army was told to occupy posts and clear
the Chinese from positions which an “old edition” map given to the Chinese by
the MEA indicated were on the Chinese side !
On Sep 8, 1962, the Chinese reacted by surrounded the Dhola
post. A meeting in the Defence Minister’s room on September 22, the Army
chief’s assessment was that the Chinese would reinforce their position in Dhola
or retaliate in Ladakh. The Foreign Secretary felt that they would not
retaliate and that the NEFA operation should take place, even if it led to loss
of territory in Ladakh.
At this meeting, the decision was taken to press on with the
operations and the Army chief asked for written orders. Thereafter the
following orders were given:
“The decision throughout has been, as discussed at previous
meetings, that the Army should prepare and throw the Chinese out, as soon as
possible. The Chief of the Army Staff was accordingly directed to take action
for the eviction of the Chinese from the KAMENG Frontier Division in NEFA, as
soon as he is ready.” p.18
Given the seriousness of the situation, the HB report says
that the Army Hq should have presented the political authorities a written
appreciation of the situation and leaving them to make the political decision.
“To base major military actions on a doubtful intelligence (that the Chinese
will not react) is breaking all precepts of war and inviting sure disaster.”
Further, knowing that action in NEFA would lead to reaction
in Ladakh, the Army HQ did little to prepare the Western Command. In Ladakh,
the HB report says, “the Army was not
even prepared to meet a limited operation… no army should be placed at the
mercy of the enemy on the off-chancer that the latter would not react.” Page 18
But all Army HQ did
was to tell them to strengthen their posts and “to fight it out and inflict
maximum casualties on the Chinese.” (p 18) As the HB report noted, ordering
“these far flung, tactically unsound and uncoordinated small posts (to fight it
out) brings out vividly how unrealistic these orders were.” Especially since,
no effort was made to address the severe shortcomings of the forces there.
Army HQ
Running like a thread through the narrative are the actions
of Lt Gen B M Kaul who was first promoted as the Chief of General Staff, the
second most important officer in the Army hierarchy, and subsequently sent as
Corps Commander of the newly formed IV Corps charged with the mission of
evicting the Chinese from Indian territory in NEFA.
Through the narrative, it is clear that the principal
villain in the drama is the CGS. On the other hand, by the very fact that it
refused to permit Henderson Brooks and Bhagat to examine Army HQ documents the
Chief of Army Staff and his associates have been less than fair to the inquiry.
Indeed, in view of the restrictions that were placed, it
would be fair to argue that there should be a fresh inquiry that looks not only
at all the relevant documents in the Army system, but those of other
departments of the government as well.
The report has noted that it was the Army HQ which diluted the
2 November 1961 third operational directive which called on the army to “position
major concentrations of forces along our borders in places conveniently
situated behind the forward posts from where they could be maintained
logistically and from where they can restore a border situation at short
notice.”
The Army HQ directive of December 5, 1961, asked the troops
to “patrol as far forward as possible” from their present positions with a view
of establishing new posts to prevent Chinese incursions “and to dominate any
Chinese posts already established in our territory.” But, it merely asked the various commands to make a
fresh appraisal of their task in view of the new directives and “with regard to
the logistical effort involved.” The November 2 directive was quite specific—that
posts be established ahead of significant troop concentrations along axes that
could be logistically maintained. The Army HQ directive was saying something
quite different.
As the HB report notes, “the government who politically must
have been keen to recover territory, advocated a cautious policy; whilst Army Headquarters dictated a policy that was
clearly militarily unsound.” (p.9)
The report also brings out that besides the directives, Army
HQ involved itself in micromanaging the situation. It was Army HQ which ordered
the establishment of posts at Daulat Beg
Oldi and its environs on 9 November 1961. When Western Command said that there should be no post near
Samzungling on the Galwan river for fear of adverse Chinese reactions, they were
over-ruled by the Army HQ in May 1962 and
after the post was established on July 5 , on July 10, the Chinese surrounded
it. Likewise, it was the Army Chief who personally ordered the establishment of
a post on Rezangla in December 1961 during an inspection to the area.
The HB report notes, “militarily, it was unthinkable that
the General Staff did not advise the Government on the weaknesses and inability
to implement the “Forward Policy.”