Total recall needed to avoid same old mistakes

This year has been marked by celebratory recall with India@75 being the central theme. While the many successes and accomplishments of a nascent state that had shed the colonial yoke in August 1947 and was making its own distinctive ‘tryst with destiny’ were remembered with justifiable pride, this is also a year that marks the 60th anniversary of October 20, 1962, and the national humiliation that followed. The event seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the larger national consciousness and perhaps only the families who lost their loved ones in that brief, but ill-fated, war in the high Himalayas would recall that traumatic period.

This bleak chapter in Indian history when China under Chairman Mao Zedong dealt a surprise blow to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and forced him to acknowledge the military asymmetry between the two Asian giants has now been relegated to relative obscurity in India, though the trauma of that national debacle remains deeply embedded in the national psyche.

Sixty years later, what is the relevance of October 1962 and what are the lessons that ought to have been hoisted by those entrusted to manage and safeguard national security and sovereignty? The Galwan encounter of mid-2020 that saw military personnel on both sides being killed in violent scuffles marked a sharp dip in bilateral relations and dramatically distorted the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that has been largely tranquil since a 1993 agreement.

A brief review of the India-China bilateral from 1960 to 1962 and more recent developments of 2020 to 2022 reveal a correspondence — reiterating the adage that history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme more often than not. Some strands from the 1962 episode have an eerie correspondence with the post-Galwan developments.

In the run-up to October 1962, then PM Nehru was convinced that China posed no military threat; that the unresolved border issue was part of the legacy of colonial history; and that both Asian nations with their civilisational pedigree would arrive at a consensual modus vivendi. Misplaced certitude about his ability to deal with the challenge posed by Mao became part of Nehru’s disastrous China policy and the inability to accept dissenting views of Army Chief General KS Thimayya and others led to the ignominy of October 1962.

The Henderson Brooks report, which was submitted to identify the military inadequacies resulting in the debacle, remains firmly under lock and key despite its contents being available in the public domain. It was hoped that a non-Congress government would release this report, but this didn’t happen on Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s watch or that of PM Narendra Modi.

Fast-forward to 2022 and the Galwan episode of June 2020 remains as opaque in the public record. At the time, PM Modi asserted that “no one has intruded into our territory” and despite later clarifications, this has become the template for subsequent interpretation of Galwan. This grave challenge has not been discussed in any detail in Parliament and nor has any white paper been issued.

Furthermore, there has been no attempt to carry out an objective review of the causes that led to this ‘surprise’ attack by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the subsequent tactical setback, wherein India has had to forfeit the right to patrol up to the points that it did in some parts of the Galwan region pre-June 2020. While 1962 led to the Henderson Brooks report and the 1999 Kargil war resulted in the Kargil Committee Report (under the chairmanship of K Subrahmanyam) — Galwan has not been reviewed in a similar manner.

Was October 1962 an intelligence lapse? A failure of the top military leadership that endorsed the appointment of an Army Service Corps General (Lt Gen BM Kaul) as a corps commander at a crucial juncture? A colossal political blunder by the Nehru-Krishna Menon combine or a combination of all these elements? Alas, these questions have not been addressed in an objective manner by releasing the relevant documents and this pattern is discernible in relation to the current state of play in the India-China relationship.

Was Galwan an intelligence lapse? If so, have the relevant agencies, including the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), formed 18 years ago, been audited by a professional body? Could the Covid constraint have been addressed differently by the higher defence management of the country? Paradoxically, these issues could have been addressed by the then newly appointed CDS — late General Bipin Rawat — who was the Army Chief till the end of 2019 and the Eastern Army Commander prior to that period.

It would be instructive to ascertain how the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) and COSC (Chiefs of Staff Committee), with the CDS as the Chairman, addressed the Galwan crisis and what their assessment was of the whole matter. But given that the 1962 Henderson Brooks report is still under wraps, the probability that the relevant Galwan papers of 2020 and beyond will be placed in Parliament seems very remote.

The much-vilified Nehru conceded after the enormity of October 1962 hit him that, “We were getting out of touch with reality and living in an artificial world of our own creation.”

The correspondence with current developments related to China rhymes with 1962 in a disturbing manner. At the time, it was expected that skilful political negotiations and robust diplomacy would enable India to realise its objectives with an inscrutable neighbour. However, this was not buttressed by adequate military power or an informed strategic appreciation of geography, history and the interlocutor. Instead, an ‘artificial world’ was created. India’s current China policy should not get trapped in a simulacrum with 2022 characteristics.