1962 conflict - 50 years have passed

Natwar Singh

The time has come to reveal all about the India-China War

When Neville Maxwell's book, India's China War appeared in 1970, I was working in Indira Gandhi's secretariat (it became the Prime Minister's Office under Morarji Desai). The ministries of external affairs, home and law had suggested that the book be banned. I was instructed to read it.

After mature consideration I concluded that it was neither desirable nor necessary to ban India's China War. Maxwell would be praying hard for a ban. That would draw immediate attention to the book and ensure good sales.

What was needed was to find out how the author obtained top secret documents. This was clearly a breach of law. No one was hauled up. The names were not a secret. As far as I remember, the book was not banned. I may be wrong.

Jawaharlal Nehru's China policy was flawed. He had invested too much faith in Mao Tse-tung and that wily and masterly diplomat Chou En-lai. Even S. Gopal, in Volume III of his adulatory biography of Nehru writes, "… Once again, as in 1954, it would have been more prudent to have committed Zhou in writing in a joint communiqué; but Nehru still had faith in Zhou's word and trust in Zhou's friendship. He did not realise as yet that such trust and faith were heavily one-sided… Nehru was insufficiently alert to possible Chinese encroachment on a major scale."

On April 19, 1960, Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-lai and Foreign Minister Marshal Chen Yi arrived in Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Nehru. I was appointed Liaison Officer to the Chinese Prime Minister. The airport reception for Chou En-lai was correct. Both prime ministers made brief speeches. Nehru said relations between the two countries had been imperiled, confidence was shaken. It would be a difficult task to recover feelings of good faith and friendship.

Chou began his speech thus: "Your Excellency, respected and dear Prime Minister Nehru." He mentioned Panchsheel. He had come with a sincere desire to settle all problems. By this time Parliament was agitated for being kept in the dark. Nehru had lost his flexibility in both Houses.

At the Rashrapati Bhawan banquet given by Nehru the same evening, dejection was all too visible. The next day the two prime ministers got down to business. The meeting was held at Teen Murti House. No aides were present; only the interpreters.

Jawaharlal Nehru informed Chou En-lai that some of Cabinet colleagues would call on him. The Chinese leaders would have none of it. He insisted that he would call on them! Protocol was put aside. I accompanied Chou En-lai on his calls on Vice-President S. Radhakrishnan, Pandit Gobind Ballabh Pant, Finance Minister Morarji Desai.

Our Ambassador to China, G. Parthasarthi, and Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs Jagat Mehta were present at all these meetings. The vice-president was didactic in an avuncular way. He invoked the names of the Buddha and Gandhiji; the border problem should be solved in Nehru's lifetime. This the Chinese leaders found incomprehensible.

The vice-president made the mistake of going into details. He was no match for the Chinese prime minister. Radhakrishnan asked what were a few thousand square miles of territory compared to the friendship of four hundred million Indians. Marshal Chen Yi's robust response was, "What are a few thousand miles of territory compared to the friendship of six hundred million Chinese?"

A meeting between Indian and Chinese leaders in 1957

When he arrived at Pandit Pant's residence, Chou saw a crowd of several hundred people loitering about. He asked if we had come to the right place. "Yes sir, it is the home minister's house. This is Indian democracy at its best. People can come anytime they chose to put their problems before the minister."

Pantji had done his homework. He did not make fog-making observations.

Jawaharial Nehru's China policy was flawed

The Chinese leader was impressed by Pantji's personality and statesman-like presentation. "We continue to desire cordial relations with China in spite of the recent unfortunate events on the border," the old man said. The Chou-Desai meeting was a disaster. Discordance appeared at the very beginning. Chou En-lai said the boundary problem was a legacy of history and would be solved. Desai disagreed. History could not be blamed for the dispute. The trouble had started in the last three or four years. He said this in a authoritarian tone. CHOU emphasised that China did not recognise the McMahon line or the Simla Convention of 1913-14. Chou went red in the face when Desai announced that Kalimpong was full of Chinese spies.

Worse was to come. An exasperated Chou said to Desai: "You have said enough." Morarji's boorish rejoinder was, "You have said more than enough." I wondered why Nehru inflicted the likes of Desai on Chou En-lai. No doubt, he had his compulsions, for both Pant and Morarji were conservate rightists in the Congress. In the car, Chou En-lai said to me, "Why am I being lectured by these ministers? I am talking to your Prime Minister on the border. These are courtesy calls."

The next day he was livid when he saw the cartoon on the front page of the Indian Express. He was shown as a cobra. "How do you allow such things?" I said even Nehru was not spared. He found that bizarre. In November 1961, Nehru took the decision to adopt a "forward policy". In hindsight it becomes clear that this momentous decision was taken without considering the consequences.

Nehru was influenced by Intelligence Bureau Director B.N. Mullick, who convinced him that China would not retaliate. In his unreadable book, My Years with Nehru, he gives five pages to China's invasion. He was an I.P.S officer whom Nehru made his spymaster. Mullick was totally unsuitable for the job.

He had close relations with Britain's MI6; some of his trips to London were not known even to Nehru. The prime minister's close China advisers included V.K. Krishna Menon, K.M. Pannikkar, Vice-President Radhakrishnan.

On military side it was the erratic General B.M. Kaul. Nehru had no idea of what the Chinese were up to. Our intelligence was dismal, and our military preparedness woefully inadequate, thanks to the "whining" Krishna Menon.

In late September 1962 Nehru went to London to attend the Commonwealth Summit! In the middle of October he stopped in Madras on his way to Ceylon. When asked about Chinese encroachments on the border he said he had asked the Army to push the Chinese back! Krishna Menon was in New York. His pet theory was that Pakistan, not China, was the enemy. When war came, Jawaharlal Nehru for the first time in his life faced a situation he could not handle. His letters to Kennedy are, in the words of B.K. Nehru, "pathetic".

He could hardly contain his sorrow or shame. The next "telegram was so humiliating that I found it difficult to prevent myself from weeping."

Jawaharlal Nehru was a great and good man, a hero of the freedom struggle, but he was below par as foreign minister. If he had only heeded Sardar Patel's advice given in his letter of 7.11.1950, the history of India would have been different. Finally, why is the government sitting on the Henderson Brooks report? Fifty years have passed.

We like the US, UK and China open secret files after 25 to 30 years. Why not declassify the report, which is leaking like a sieve?

Courtesy : Mail Online India