The origins of 1962 Sino-Indian conflict lay in Chinese expansionism and occupation of Tibet

Mumbai

Col. A A Athale in his report quotes Carl Von Clauswitz, (1792-1831) Prussian general and military theorists “woe to the government, which relying on half-hearted politics and shackled military policy meets a foe, who like the untamed mighty forces of nature, knows no law other than his own power”. It pretty much sums up the way our political and military leadership behaved and reacted to the well planned Chinese aggression of 1962.

It is aptly put in the report that the origins of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict lay in the expansionism and occupation of Tibet. Much before the 1962 aggression, there was a bloody invasion of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on October 7, 1950.

After forcibly occupying Tibet and in order to win allegiance of the tribes inhabiting the bordering areas, telling them that they belonged to the same stock and that they would free them from India. Despite all this, India signed the Panchsheel Agreement in 1954 relinquishing all extra territorial rights over Tibet to China.

China took full advantage of the situation. Preliminary survey work on the Tibet-Sinkiang (now Xinjiang) highway was done in mid-1950. Construction work on the highway started in summer of 1955. What was worse is that nearly 160 Kms of the road passed through Aksai Chin which was Indian territory, north-east of Ladakh.

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The project involved linking Tibetan capital Lhasa with Beijing. A road connectivity between western Tibet and Sinkiang was the most plausible alternative. The road building activity went unnoticed as the Aksai Chin plateau was totally uninhabited. The construction work of the highway was completed in 1957. On October 6, 1957 Sinkiang-Tibet road was thrown open for traffic.

The Chinese had laid radial roads to the frontiers of India, Nepal and Bhutan, thereby facilitating complete control of Tibet by China. “China no longer felt obliged to pursue its expansionist goals under cover. It could come out with territorial claims against India openly.”

Government of India was posted of the road building activity, but did not attach much importance to it. Government of India took serious note of it after Chinese press announced its completion. “Part of the highway from – Haji Langer in the north to Amtoger in the south was in Indian territory”, states the report.

Government of India lodged official complaint to China on October 18, 1958 over the issue. And guess what the Chinese reply was? On November 3, 1958, China replied that Indian troops had unlawfully intruded into Chinese territory.

All this time, then Prime Minister Nehru had kept back all the information about the intrusions from the parliament and the people of India. He felt that the problem with China could still be resolved amicably, and so political passions should not be allowed to get aroused, restricting the government’s freedom of action.

But the lid was finally blown off on October 20, 1959 with the arrest of Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBF) deputy superintendent Karam Singh and his party of about 20 men on October 21, 1959. The ITBF party had gone to the Aksai Chin area on a routine patrol mission only to be apprehended by the Chinese. The tales of brutal, barbaric and inhuman torture, interrogation and brainwashing of the surviving ITBF personnel who were later released, only inflamed the passions all across India.

Chinese Premier Chou En-lai brazened it out and charged that “the tense situation recently arising on the Sino-Indian border was all caused by trespassing and provocations by Indian troops”. In a letter written to Prime Minister Nehru, he went on to add “maintain existing status-quo of the border, and not seek to change it by unilateral action, even less by force.”

Much later, then Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), B N Mullik in his book ‘The Chinese Betrayal’ claimed that he had been reporting about the road building activity of the Chinese in the area since as early as November 1952.

The then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had in two letters dated November 3 and November 7, 1950 addressed to Prime Minister Nehru on the issue ‘New Problems of Internal Security’ had visualized Chinese forcible occupation of Tibet, the serious security threat it posed to India and suggested a number of measures which India needs to adopt without delay in meeting the military threat from China.

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In response, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his reply on November 18, 1950 to Sardar Patel opined “it is exceedingly unlikely that we may have to face any real military invasion from Chinese side, whether in peace or war, in the foreseeable future.”

In view of world configuration and presence of countries hostile to China to the East and the South, Prime Minister Nehru held that it was “inconceivable that it (China) should divert its forces and its strength across the inhospitable terrain of Tibet and undertake a wild venture across the Himalayas. Any such attempt will greatly weaken its capacity to meet its real enemies on other fronts. Thus I rule out any major attack on India by China.”

If that was not enough, the Himatsinghji committee report and the Thorat committee report of 1951 had made several recommendations to the government. The Himatsinghji committee had even galled at the absence of a sense of urgency. One of its recommendations made then was to set up the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). It was set up in 1960, nine years later after the committee had made its recommendations. By then the Chinese had already constructed access roads to its posts along its border with India!

Worst still, in the case of Ladakh, the government through the IB raised the ITBF in August 1954. Far worse was the fact that the National Defence Council (NDC) was set up and held its first meeting on November 25, 1962, four days after the war ended.