Much the same asymmetry developed in the Northeast. In May , the Eastern Command had submitted an Emergency Expansion Plan that involved raising five more divisions for different parts of the Himalayan frontier. But although it kept pressing New Delhi for more troops for the next two years, it got none. This was the grim imbalance in November when the government decided to adopt the Forward Policy.
But both the commands were asked to do this without a single additional soldier. In Ladakh, it increased the number of outposts to 60 and located most of them in positions that overlooked the Chinese road through Aksai Chin. This was a situation that Beijing was virtually guaranteed not to tolerate.
It demonstrated this by setting up its posts opposite the Indian posts and frequently surrounding Indian posts. This led to five armed confrontations. The most serious occurred on the Galwan river. When it was set up in July, it was immediately surrounded by, according to the H-B-B report 70 not, as now being maintained, to Chinese soldiers.
The Western Command advised against supplying the post through a land route and doing so only from the air, but New Delhi overruled it once more and ordered it to use the land route. The Chinese forced the supply columns back day after day for four days.
In all, the siege of the Galwan post lasted for 12 days. Nehru speaks to troops during the war. Credit: YouTube. This created a logistical nightmare and put the troops at risk of death through exposure, disease and starvation. The Chinese responded by setting up posts opposite the Indian posts.
This brought the troops into eyeball confrontation. By late summer , therefore, the entire border had become a powder keg. Although Brooks and Bhagat did their best not to pass value judgements, they found it impossible to do so.
Their conclusion was damning:. In the end, it was New Delhi that created the casus belli for the war. Unlike in other border zones where the Chinese whipped the Indians, China did not withdraw from its gains. China took almost 15, square miles of what had been India in Aksai Chin, and has kept it ever since.
It maintains claims to even more of Ladakh — hence the ongoing dispute. For decades, both sides have built up their transportation infrastructure to get troops and supplies to the Himalayan front line. A newly upgraded road, built by the Indians, appears to be at the center of the latest tension. Both India and China have highly nationalistic governments in office. Both are very sensitive to any perceived slight.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi now looks like the loser, not an image he is comfortable with. But he also knows that the Indian military is not ready to take on China. Just as in , India today is militarily weaker than China. The Indians were routed. President John F. Kennedy immediately ordered an airlift of weapons and supplies to India.
The Royal Air Force joined in the airlift to rush equipment to India. India was a fledgeling democracy, its ruling elite was a thin crust, almost like a silver foil over Indian piece sweets.
In when India became free, the senior-most Indian officer, Cariappa was a Brigadier. Similar story in civil services. Intelligence services, one can safely presume would not have been shared. In the armed forces, the situation was even worse. When partition took place, a big chunk went to Pakistan. Given the regimental nature of armed forces along ethnic lines and the policy of not having officers from the same ethnicity in the regiments, the mismatch in officers and soldiers would have been pervasive.
Fighting wars without this kinship would not have been easy. India had to fight a war with Pakistan over Kashmir in Sixty per cent of the Army was fighting against 40 per cent of itself.
There would not have been much surplus capability to fight the Chinese, who until were not even in the threat calculus of India. India knew China border was indefensible. It was not feasible to build logistics and fortifications when China attacked in It takes several weeks to condition soldiers to fight in depleted oxygen levels. China would have occupied the peaks by then since they had planned it in advance.
India anyway did not have the war equipment to resist. While the US was reaching Japan via island hopping spree. Soviets backed Mao in his fight with Nationalists and supplied him all the arms they brought to Manchuria and more, and withdrew. The friendship between two Communist giants blossomed into a full-fledged military alliance. They sought to expand Communist influence over the whole of Asia. India covers up History that does not fit its navel gazing narrative of being a perfect Country ruled by Gods, Goddesses and their demis.
Whatever happened to the Henderson-Brooks-Bhagat report? Modi is adept at repeating every policy that failed since Very surface treatment to an extremely complex issue. For example, saying that the war was caused by Chinese perception that India was interfering in Tibet is a wide broadbush. The piece appears to be an attempt at ticking a box with minimal effort. To the contrary, it was China who learnt a lesson from Nehru!
Despite Indian Army abandoning posts and running away, Jawaharlal Nehru stood like a man he was. China never claimed victory nor even acknowledges any war ever taking place. Even with year hindsight, all that Indians want to do is smear Nehru in the name of but fail to even get their story straight. The other theory is that Nehru was abrasive in challenging the borders and hence China came down and taught him a lesson.
Both these theories are mutually contradictory. If one is true, the other cannot be! So which is the truth?
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