1908 Map of India
A self
proclaimed expert on India-China relationship of 1960's, Australian
journalist Neville Maxwell, is at it again. Few weeks ago, he tried
to create a diplomatic storm by publishing few pages from the
Henderson Brooks Report about 1962 India-China war, which he managed
to obtain clandestinely as it still remains classified in India. In
an earlier blogpost
I have already tried to explain, why there is nothing new in
Maxwell's so called revelations that ordinary people of India do not
know, may be except for few operational details, which in any case,
are really the concerns of the army only.
Totally
unsatisfied with the lukewarm response he received from media to his
so called great revelations, he has now given an interview to Times
of India, which at the most, can be called as stating the obvious but
after colouring it black. The facts, as stated by him are all parts
of history now and no one would ever deny it. But the inferences
drawn by him are just-in plain English- Rubbish!
First,
let me touch upon few events in history to make things easy to
understand. I would restrict myself here mainly to events in Ladakh
as there was never a real dispute about border in Arunachal Pradesh,
though Chinese came up with a dispute much later as a negotiating
table counter point.
A
tripartite meeting of the British administration in India and
representatives of Tibet and China was held in 1913 at Shimla in
India. A draft treaty was agreed upon during this meeting. This
agreement is known as Shimla treaty. According to the terms of this
treaty, the relationships and borders between these three countries,
namely India, Tibet and China, were fixed and agreed upon. However,
even though the Chinese representative attending the meeting, Mr.
Ivan Chen had initialed the draft treaty, he refused to put his
country's official seal on the paper. Subsequently, the Government in
Beijing declared that this treaty was unacceptable to China.
According to representatives of India and Tibet, since the treaty was
mainly about the relationships and the borders between two sovereign
countries, India and Tibet, they believed that the Chinese
representative had merely attended the meeting as an observer and his
approval or disapproval had no bearing on the proceedings of the
treaty. Eventually another meeting was held in July 1914 between
representatives of India and Tibet and the draft treaty was finally
approved, initialed and sealed.
India-Tibet Border agreement of 1914
In
this accord, it was agreed that a region spread over 14380 square
miles and known as Aksaichin: located east of Ladakh, between
Karakoram mountain range and Kun Lun mountain ranges, would be part
of British India. The region of Ladakh in those days, was part of the
princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, old references show
interestingly that the state administration used to have a small
police outpost at Shahidulla( Located on present Tibet- Xinjiang
road) far beyond the Aksaichin area and deep inside Tibet on the old
trade route.
It
should be clear that India's borders with Tibet were negotiated and
settled by the British with Tibet. No Government of Independent India
was party to that agreement. After India became independent, the
Indian Government of the newly formed Democratic Socialistic Republic
of India, was handed over the country's borders as a historic legacy
and obviously it was the responsibility and duty of the newly elected
Government of India to control and defend country's borders by using
all means available to it.
Totally
disregarding these historic facts, Maxwell comes out with a strange
argument;
“Then
in 1954 he (Nehru) compounded that mistake by laying cartographic
claim to a swathe of territory in the north-west, the Aksai Chin, a
claim which was beyond anything the British had ever claimed and on
an area which Chinese governments had treated as their own for at
least a hundred years. To make matters worse, he ruled that there
should be no negotiation over that claim either! So Indian policy had
created a border dispute and also ruled out the only way it could
peacefully be settled, through diplomatic negotiation.”
Nothing
can be further from the truth! Only error committed by Government of
India- led by Nehru- perhaps was to trust Chinese leadership and the
job of maintaining the border was assigned to CRPF or Central
reserve police force instead of regular units of the army. Since the
region became quite inaccessible during winter months, only
occasional patrols were run to Aksaichin by the CRPF and that too
only during summer time. Chinese took advantage of this lax and
token control regime to annexe this region.
Regarding
Nehru's forward policy, Maxwell completely distorts the facts when he
says:
“ By
September 1962 the Indian "forward policy" of trying to
force the Chinese out of territory India claimed had built up great
tension in the Western (Ladakh) sector of the border, with the
Chinese army just blocking it. Then the Nehru government applied the
forward policy to the McMahon Line eastern sector and when the
Chinese blocked that too India in effect declared war with Nehru's
announcement on October 11 that the Army had been ordered to "free
our territory", which meant to attack the Chinese and drive them
back.”
Let us
look at the course of events in 1950's. As I have mentioned above,
Chinese had started their illegal activities in Aksaichin area in
1950's itself. Before we proceed further, it is important to note,
why such an inhospitable and remote region was and is so important
for China as well as India. For India, it was country's only gateway
to central Asia after the partition in 1947. For China, the remote
western provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang were effectively separated by
Indian possession of Aksaichin and prevented it from movement of
armed forces from Tibet to Xinjiang and vice-versa, regions where
there was considerable unrest. Trouble really started sometime in the
decade of 1950's, when Chinese decided to construct a road joining
Tibet and Xinjiang illegally, in the Indian territory.
When
news of such Chinese activities started circulating in Ladakh, Indian
army decided to send an observation patrol to the region. In the
summer of 1952, two officers: Captain R. Nath of Kumaon Regiment and
Captain Suri of Ladakh Militia were sent by the army to Aksaichin
region with a team. This team entered Aksaichin through Kongka pass
mentioned above and travelled up to Kanak pass. During observations
they came to know from local shepherds about Chinese surveyors
carrying out survey of this region for building a road in Aksaichin.
There were no PLA army units in that area then. Both these officers
were felicitated and praised for their good work but their report was
just kept under wraps. Just imagine that if India had sent army units
to Aksaichin then and had prevented Chinese for carrying out the road
building work, the entire border dispute, which developed later would
have been nipped in the bud. By 1955, Chinese had well established
themselves west of Kanak pass. In 1957, they announced that Aksaichin
was part of China and the road joining Tibet and Xinjiang was ready.
Chief of army staff, General Thimayya wanted to start an army
operation in Aksaichin but was prevented by the then defense minister
Krishna Menon, who claimed that China was India's true friend.
In
1958, two other Indian patrols in Aksaichin were made to surrender by
PLA and then later released. Unfortunately, all these developments
were completely hidden from Indian people by then Prime minister of
India, Jawaharalal Nehru, who still thought that China was the
greatest friend of India and would never take any steps against
India. For China, Nehru's policy of keeping China border activity
under wraps was a great boon, as they developed massive
infrastructure along the Ladakh borders and built a well planned
offensive capability there. Nehru was forced within an year to change
his China perspective, as two major incidences took place. The first
incidence out of these two, was the uprising in Tibet against Chinese
rule and subsequent asylum asked by Tibetan head of state, Dalai Lama
in India. This had major repercussions on Nehru's China policy. Many
in India started criticizing Nehru for his soft attitude towards
China and wanted India to take strong steps to counter Chinese
menace.
The
second incidence is known as “Kongka pass incident” and was
essentially caused by complete lack of co-ordination in Delhi between
Home ministry controlling CRPF, and defense ministry with Krishna
Menon in charge as a minister. By September 1959, Chinese had
encroached upon Indian areas outside Aksaichin and their army units
had started even arresting the Indian border police on routine
patrol. Indian Government was still not ready to take any action and
on the contrary asked the home ministry to stop border patrols.
India's home ministry, controlling the border police, probably were
unaware of Chinese build up in Ladakh and what was happening inside
Aksichin, and decided to take counter action on its own against
Chinese.
Home
ministry ordered Deputy Superintendent of Police or DSP Karam Singh
to take a team of 40 policemen and establish police outposts In
Kongka pass area with the first post to be established at Hot
Springs. DSP Karam Singh reached Hot Springs on 20h October 2012 and
then started surveying the area for further action. He was not aware
at all about the fully equipped PLA soldiers entrenched in that area.
DSP Karam Singh's troupe was quickly surrounded by the PLA soldiers
and was asked by them to leave.
In an
extremely defiant gesture, DSP Karam Singh bent down, picked up an
handful of dust and touched it to his heart, indicating that the land
belongs to India. When Indian media came to know about this, DSP
Karam Singh and his team became national heroes overnight. But that
was too late. At Kongka pass DSP Karm Singh's team faced complete
massacre. They just could not defend themselves with their WW II .303
bolt rifles against Chinese soldiers equipped with semi automatic
rifles, machine guns and mortars. Within few hour, 10 policemen from
DSP Karam Singh's team were lost. Realizing that they can not defend
themselves, Indians finally surrendered. They were released by the
Chinese after 12 days with much torture and only handful unarmed
Indian police were allowed to take back the bodies.
Nehru
Government, in fact, tried its best to hide all these happening from
the general public. However when the gravity of the problem reached
the crisis level, finally finally a decision was taken that all CRPF
personnel from Ladakh would be replaced by army units. As news of
China's aggression and illegal occupation of Ladakh slowly leaked in
Indian media, Prime Minister Nehru faced heavy fire for his China
policies both within Congress party and the nation's parliament.
Finally buckling under tremendous public pressure, he announced the
so called “ Forward policy” under which, Army would establish
forward posts in the areas where Chinese had established control
during last few years. Those who knew the current situation, realized
the ineffectiveness of this announcement. However, general public in
India thought that China would now be paid in its own coins.
I was
a young man of 19, when China-India war broke out. I have witnessed
the tremendous upheaval through which all of us went through those
eventful days. What remains as memory is the unbelievable defeat of
Indian Army and later as things became clear, the follies of Nehru
Government in neglecting the armed forces and a almost child like
trust shown by the Nehru government to deceitful China ruled by Mao.
Prime
minister Nehru can be blamed only to this extent and not for anything
else. He was a total pacifist and would have never ordered military
aggression on another country. He declared his forward policy against
China most reluctantly under great public pressure. What Maxwell-
who is known as an apologist for China - is saying in his interview,
is obviously the Chinese official version of the episode and should
be left at that. In the end, it appears to me that Maxwell has some
old personal scores to settle with Government of India and is
probably trying in vain to rake up some old issues and in process
trying to blame Nehru for the things he never did.
3rd
April 2014
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