The guilty men of 1962
A file photo of former Defence Minister Krishna Menon.
For over a half-century, the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report has remained a state secret. The only two copies of the 1963 report that clinically analysed independent India’s worst military defeat, at the hands of the PLA in 1962, lay buried in the vaults of the defence ministry and army headquarters. Successive governments stubbornly refused to release it.
On Thursday, a 190-page document surfaced, ghost-like, from the past. Australian author and journalist Neville Maxwell uploaded a portion of the Henderson Brooks report on the internet. Maxwell was the India correspondent of the Times, London, in New Delhi during the war. Government officials who had read the Henderson Brooks report instantly recognised its distinctive outlines in Maxwell’s racy account
India’s China War released in 1970.
On March 17, Maxwell ended speculation about whether he actually owned a copy of the report. His report, only a portion of the Henderson Brooks report, triggered a nation-wide download frenzy among the security establishment and journalists. Marked ‘Top Secret’ the pages are the most severe indictment of independent India’s political and military leadership ever. Over 2,000 Indian soldiers died in the month-long war which began in October 21, 1962. Over 4,000 were taken prisioners of war which saw an entire division of over 15,000 soldiers retreat ignominously in the face of the Chinese onslaught in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA).
The defence ministry refused to comment and responded with a terse statement stating the “extremely sensitive nature of the contents of the Report, which are of current operational value” as being reason for it to be Top Secret still. As the frayed typewritten pages now tell us, General Henderson Brooks held practically the entire civil and military leadership responsible for plunging India into a war it was not prepared for.
1)
Krishna Menon,Defence Minister: Brooks mentions as ‘surprising’ the defence minister’s decision not to keep minutes to be taken of all the meetings he had with the military leadership ahead of the 1962 War. It led to ‘grave consequences’ he said, because it absolved anyone in the ultimate analysis of the responsibility of any major decision. Thus it could, and did, lead to decisions being taken without careful and considered thought on the consequences of those decisions.’
2)
BM Mullick, Director Intelligence Bureau: Brooks is scathing in his indictment of Mullick and the Intelligence Bureau for intelligence which was ‘haphazardly collected, badly processed, unimaginatively put across and inefficiently disseminated.’ ‘It appears that the DIB was of the opinion that the ‘Chinese would not react to our establishing of new posts and that they were not likely to use force against any of our posts even if they were in a position to do so.’ The IB slept through Chinese preparedness on the border. ‘No notice was taken of the carefully assessed build up brought out in 1960 and 1961, but reliance was placed on verbal interpretation by the Director of Intelligence Bureau of his assessment based on isolated cases.’ Mullick, Brooks says, even advised on tactical military matters.
3)
Lt General BM Kaul, Chief of General Staff and later Commander 4 Corps: Brooks reserves his anger for Kaul who he indirectly blames for the Indian army’s complete rout in the eastern sector. ‘So far effort has been made to keep individual personalities out of the review. General Kaul, however, must be made an exception, as, from now on, he becomes the central figure in the operations.’ Brooks castigates Kaul, who as Chief of General Staff set up impossible targets for the troops on the ground. As the CGS, General Kaul also bought into the government’s myth that the Chinese would not react to the forward policy. Kaul took over the reins of a newly constituted 4 Corps in NEFA (present Arunachal Pradesh) leaving the post of CGS vacant. The reason behind forming the 4 Corps was to enable General Kaul and his key staff officers to direct a quick operation. ‘No one with any military knowledge would have form or accept a Corps to direct a major operation on the day of its inception.’
4)
MJ Desai, Foreign Secretary: At a meeting in the defence minister’s room on September 22, 1962, Desai said that the Chinese would not react to the Indian forward policy but would perhaps, capture ‘one or two posts.’
5)
Brigadier DK Palit, Director Military Operations: ‘The Director of Military Operations as late as August 1962 openly declared at headquarters 4 Infantry Division that the Chinese would not react and were not in a position to fight.’
The missing PM and Army Chief
The report is silent on the role played by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and army chief General VM Thapar. Partly because, the brief before the Henderson Brooks committee was to examine the military aspects of the operation. Nehru and Thapar, were, ironically, the ones who suffered the most from the debacle. General Thapar resigned as army chief on November 22, 1962, a day after the Chinese announced a ceasefire. Nehru whose forward policy was a strategic blunder, died a broken man two years after the defeat.
Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru
1)
Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister: The report is silent on the PM’s role but it questions Nehru’s ‘Forward Policy’ by which the Indian army would move ahead of the 3000 km MacMohan Line, separating India and China. Brooks says he does not know the background of the government’s decision because he does not have the minutes of the meeting where the forward policy was laid out.
A file photo of General V M Thapar.
2)
General VM Thapar, Chief of Army Staff: The army chief is mentioned only in one place in the report where he is part of a meeting in Krishna Menon’s office. General Thapar says that the Chinese could retaliate to the forward policy in Ladakh and capture an army post in the Galwan valley and reach their 1960 claim line.
The guilty men of 1962 | idrw.org
