Indian jawans patrolling the Pangong shore in Ladakh
The Sino-Indian War of 1962 is not a happy memory. It is remembered for the humiliation of India's total defeat, the betrayal of Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai and the devastating personal blow it dealt Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru. It left us minus large chunks of territory and an inability to admit this that has resulted in the ridiculous policy of having to stamp every book and magazine that does admit this with the assertion that they are incorrect.
From October 20 when the Chinese launched attacks in the west (Aksai Chin) and east (Northeast Frontier Agency, or Nefa, today's Arunachal Pradesh) till November 19 when Premier Zhou En-lai announced a unilateral ceasefire, the war lasted less than a month, yet ended an era.
The taint of 1962 has coloured all its retellings, which have tended to be dominated by vested interests: army generals seeking to exculpate themselves, anti-Nehruvians revelling in his discomfiture, leftists trying to square their dilemma by justifying the Chinese action. Yet 50 years later it is time to look at it again and see if, in fact, its effects were as calamitous as they seemed at that time.
Fractured Country
Early 1962 saw India's third general election, which the Congress won easily. Yet the election was unsettlingly divisive, with old Congress stalwarts like JB Kripalani and C Rajagopalachari turning against the party. Kripalani's battle, in North Bombay, was particularly bruising, since it pitted him against VK Krishna Menon, the defence minister, whose arrogance, apparently impregnable closeness to Nehru and violent anti-Americanism had made him much disliked and distrusted both abroad and in India, including by many Congress colleagues. But Nehru threw his weight behind Menon's campaign and he won a sweeping victory.
The election also brought to parliament the Akali Dal and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), new parties with troubling agendas. The Akalis wanted a Sikh majority state while the DMK wanted an even more ambitious Dravida Nadu to unite the southern states in some semblance of independence. Coming soon after the agitations that lead to linguistic states in 1956, and the division of Bombay into Gujarat and Maharashtra in 1960, and along with deep unrest in Nagaland, this raised the spectre of regional disintegration of India. The Congress response was to push the 16th Amendment which made it obligatory for public officials to swear allegiance to the Republic of India.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) came second in the elections, with 29 seats to the Congress' 361. This made them the lead Opposition party, but also bought their internal divisions to the fore. Under the moderate and nationalist SA Dange the CPI had occasionally supported Nehru, but this policy was now strongly challenged by a hard-left faction lead by younger leaders like Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet (ironically, both advocates of left moderation in later life). According to declassified CIA files on the CPI, another divisive issue was, prophetically, the Indo-China border, where the hard left voted to support the Chinese position.
Debates, and More Debates
This was at a meeting in 1961, which shows how one part of the mythology that has grown around the 1962 war, which is that it was a total surprise, is incorrect. In fact, the border dispute and the ongoing skirmishes linked to it had been the subject of much debate in the Indian parliament and media. Parties like the Jana Sangh, still in disrepute due to alleged links with the Hindu extremists who killed Gandhi, seized the nationalist card as a way to raise their profile — one ardent anti-China advocate was a young Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The media too, already charged by the Indian takeover of Goa in late 1961, was also inclined to be unyielding on the border.
Ramachandra Guha, in his history of independent India, quotes Steve Hoffman's work which suggests that the Indian government's policy of dealing with an issue by producing white papers for debate was a constraint: "Had the border dispute remained private the prime minister could have used the quieter back-channels of diplomatic compromise." With parliament and media in full cry Nehru would have found it hard to do this, though this wasn't something the Chinese were inclined to appreciate. But even when private talks between Nehru and Chou took place in 1960 there was a basic difference in attitude which may have prevented a solution.
The Chinese position all along was pragmatic: they wanted a route to Tibet through Aksai Chin and were not interested in whether the facts of history, in a region where this had always been unclear, supported them. Guha refers to secret records of the talks which show Chou stating, fairly clearly, that China would give up claims to Nefa in exchange for Aksai Chin. But Nehru insisted on defending the details of history, like the McMahon Line and historical texts that referred to the area. This may have been from consideration for public sentiment, or for the Dalai Lama who had taken refuge in India (another flashpoint for the Chinese), but it also possibly stemmed from his image of being a principled international statesman.
Verbal Volleys
Almost every account of modern international diplomacy admits to one feeling about Indian leaders: exasperation at how much they lectured the rest of the world. Nehru's high reputation meant that he was always listened to with real respect, but this was wearing thin, and his peremptory action in Goa raised charges of hypocrisy that were hard to duck. Even more, Menon's diatribes had annoyed people like the Americans beyond endurance
From October 20 when the Chinese launched attacks in the west (Aksai Chin) and east (Northeast Frontier Agency, or Nefa, today's Arunachal Pradesh) till November 19 when Premier Zhou En-lai announced a unilateral ceasefire, the war lasted less than a month, yet ended an era.
The taint of 1962 has coloured all its retellings, which have tended to be dominated by vested interests: army generals seeking to exculpate themselves, anti-Nehruvians revelling in his discomfiture, leftists trying to square their dilemma by justifying the Chinese action. Yet 50 years later it is time to look at it again and see if, in fact, its effects were as calamitous as they seemed at that time.
Fractured Country
Early 1962 saw India's third general election, which the Congress won easily. Yet the election was unsettlingly divisive, with old Congress stalwarts like JB Kripalani and C Rajagopalachari turning against the party. Kripalani's battle, in North Bombay, was particularly bruising, since it pitted him against VK Krishna Menon, the defence minister, whose arrogance, apparently impregnable closeness to Nehru and violent anti-Americanism had made him much disliked and distrusted both abroad and in India, including by many Congress colleagues. But Nehru threw his weight behind Menon's campaign and he won a sweeping victory.
The election also brought to parliament the Akali Dal and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), new parties with troubling agendas. The Akalis wanted a Sikh majority state while the DMK wanted an even more ambitious Dravida Nadu to unite the southern states in some semblance of independence. Coming soon after the agitations that lead to linguistic states in 1956, and the division of Bombay into Gujarat and Maharashtra in 1960, and along with deep unrest in Nagaland, this raised the spectre of regional disintegration of India. The Congress response was to push the 16th Amendment which made it obligatory for public officials to swear allegiance to the Republic of India.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) came second in the elections, with 29 seats to the Congress' 361. This made them the lead Opposition party, but also bought their internal divisions to the fore. Under the moderate and nationalist SA Dange the CPI had occasionally supported Nehru, but this policy was now strongly challenged by a hard-left faction lead by younger leaders like Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet (ironically, both advocates of left moderation in later life). According to declassified CIA files on the CPI, another divisive issue was, prophetically, the Indo-China border, where the hard left voted to support the Chinese position.
Debates, and More Debates
This was at a meeting in 1961, which shows how one part of the mythology that has grown around the 1962 war, which is that it was a total surprise, is incorrect. In fact, the border dispute and the ongoing skirmishes linked to it had been the subject of much debate in the Indian parliament and media. Parties like the Jana Sangh, still in disrepute due to alleged links with the Hindu extremists who killed Gandhi, seized the nationalist card as a way to raise their profile — one ardent anti-China advocate was a young Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The media too, already charged by the Indian takeover of Goa in late 1961, was also inclined to be unyielding on the border.
Ramachandra Guha, in his history of independent India, quotes Steve Hoffman's work which suggests that the Indian government's policy of dealing with an issue by producing white papers for debate was a constraint: "Had the border dispute remained private the prime minister could have used the quieter back-channels of diplomatic compromise." With parliament and media in full cry Nehru would have found it hard to do this, though this wasn't something the Chinese were inclined to appreciate. But even when private talks between Nehru and Chou took place in 1960 there was a basic difference in attitude which may have prevented a solution.
The Chinese position all along was pragmatic: they wanted a route to Tibet through Aksai Chin and were not interested in whether the facts of history, in a region where this had always been unclear, supported them. Guha refers to secret records of the talks which show Chou stating, fairly clearly, that China would give up claims to Nefa in exchange for Aksai Chin. But Nehru insisted on defending the details of history, like the McMahon Line and historical texts that referred to the area. This may have been from consideration for public sentiment, or for the Dalai Lama who had taken refuge in India (another flashpoint for the Chinese), but it also possibly stemmed from his image of being a principled international statesman.
Verbal Volleys
Almost every account of modern international diplomacy admits to one feeling about Indian leaders: exasperation at how much they lectured the rest of the world. Nehru's high reputation meant that he was always listened to with real respect, but this was wearing thin, and his peremptory action in Goa raised charges of hypocrisy that were hard to duck. Even more, Menon's diatribes had annoyed people like the Americans beyond endurance
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