SarthakGanguly
BANNED
- Joined
- May 10, 2013
- Messages
- 18,416
- Reaction score
- 7
- Country
- Location
I will suggest you to read the AARs of Indian actions in Goa for example. The Army was so pathetically equipped that, forget proper weapons(they used WW2 vintage), a couple of battalions at least had to be fitted with cheap canvas shoes, instead of standard issue Army boots!Nehru should have had more troops with better equipment on China border to begin with, presence of credible deterrence on the border would have discouraged China to go for a war, our generals were constantly advising Nehru about it, but Nehru ignored them, he had a strange apathy for military establishment, I think he saw them as a threat to democracy of India in those initial days.
China was locked in 1961 with a confrontation with Taiwan. Chiang was barking (actually) that he will land and retake the mainland and aligned forces. PRC also had it's entire artillery there. Only when the Cuban crisis began, the American fleets went home to deal with the Russian threat closer home. Taiwan became an orphan and the threats became hollow. Then PRC moved its artillery to the Indian frontier.
Meanwhile Indian forces remained along the McMahon line and except for a few handful occasions never really crossed it. Brigadier Dalvi does mention a couple of instances when he was not sure if they had crossed the line, but we must understand that we are talking about a time when there were no geostationary sats to inform troops on the ground coordinates.
While India hoped, China, preoccupied with Taiwan would discuss openly and do a more give and take thing, China delayed all discussion. They even sent Zhou en Lai to meet Nehru. Nehru was impressed and thought China is cool and ordered the posts to stay put. China meanwhile shrewdly mobilized their forces and with the artillery moved from South China initiated hostilities.
Even when Dalvi informed Kaul about the shameless Chinese mobilization, he was given orders to observe, with the remarks that they were feints to force India to abandon her positions!
Bottomline is this - Regardless of Chinese claims, India never had the intention to invade and occupy Chinese territory. Only wanted China to discuss on equal terms. China was not interested in any of that. Plus they were in the midst of a famine and internal disturbance. They needed a military victory after being denied one against Taiwan. India was the weakest force and yet had a name in the world.(Invading Myanmar would have had no effect on morale) Hence India.