" The size of the forces of the Crown maintained by Great Britain is governed by various conditions peculiar to each service , and is not arrived at by any calculations of the requirements of foreign policy , nor is it possible that they should ever be calculated"
Extract from a paper on Imperial Defence dated June 22nd 1926
" Those who subscribe to the theory that the armed forces should be designed to implement the nation's chosen external policies should rid their minds of childish delusions; it is the size and shape of the armed forces , their recruiting rate, their equipment and their conditions of service which matter, and those charged with the formulation of foreign and defence policy had better order their affairs accordingly"
"The military heresy", review in the Times literary Supplement June 30, 1972
( The above quotes taken from Chapter 9 of the book "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence")
Preamble :
There have been a spate of books, papers, debates, lectures on and about the Chinese aggression of 1962. The authors of these ranged from junior officers of the Indian Army from the ranks of Majors to Generals, bureaucrats of the rank of Cabinet Secretary, junior journalist to eminent senior editors of highly acclaimed newspapers. Every one had their own view point to defend their actions or inaction which culminated in this debacle. However the book " India's Defence Problem", by SS Khera ,who was the Cabinet Secretary of takes the cake for defending both Jawharlal Nehru and the bureaucrats connected with India's defence, foreign and financial policies. The fact that he was one of the few people who could report on this crucial event with the authority of an 'insider' makes it more important for any analyst or critic to read between the lines and to do extensive research to rebut or accept his claims. I will be quoting extensively from this book to compare how Great Britain was equally unprepared in between the War Years ( between the First and Second world war). I will be quoting also from the book "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman Dixon.
Partition Council and India's Share
In June 1947, the British Government announced that the British India would be divided into two nations and granted independence on 15 August the same year. A partition Council under the Chairmanship of the Viceroy was set up to govern the division and reorganization of the Armed forces between them.. Till the two governments were in a position to administer their respective forces, the C-in-C in India will be in overall control. He was appointed Supreme Commander from 15 august 1947 until the division was completed. A secretariat came into being , headed by two Joint Secretaries representing the Defence Department of the two dominions.
The partition of the Armed Forces was effected in two stages. In the first stage the forces were divided roughly on a communal basis. The units where personnel were of Muslim majority were moved to Pakistan and those where the Hindus in majority were moved to India. In the next stage with in the unit a voluntary transfer was effected. If there are Hindus in such units as in Pakistan they can opt out to India and vice versa. However the Muslim belonging to Pakistan area was not given the option to join the forces of India. Muslim personnel from the rest of India and non-Muslim personnel from Pakistan were however free to opt to either of the dominion. However following the events of killings and arson many were reconsidering their intial option and later on permitted to change their options. All these were creating a lot of confusion and paper work more so when the troops themselves were heavily committed in Law and order, protection of refugees etc.
The Infantry regiments were divided between India and Pakistan in the ratio of 15 to 8 , though the population and land mass, the border abutting neighbours for India is much more than that of Pakistan. The Armoured Corps were divided fifty fifty. ( 12 Regiments to India and 6 to Pakistan) The Artillery units were in the ratio of 18 and half to eight and a half, and the engineers in the ratio of 61 to 34. Mind you these ratios were worked out by the Joint Secretaries of the Defence Departments of the two dominions.
By October 1947 , the division of the Air force and Navy was completed. More than a hundred special trains were allotted for the movement of troops aggravated as it was by the movement of refugees. The fact that the Armed forces personnel displayed utmost discipline and non partisan attitude nor swayed by religious compulsions to a large extent speaks for volumes for the command and control displayed by the Officers. By 30 November 1947, the Supreme Commander post of both the dominions was abolished. It is no coincidence that the Pakistan Army invaded Kashmir on 20 October 1947. Gen Lockhart was still the Supreme Commander of both the dominions. It is impossible to believe that he was not aware of the invasion for good about a week. Very rightly later on when things became clear that he had deliberately and purposely did not take any action or inform the Indian government made Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to insist that he be sacked as the C-in-C of India which Nehru reluctantly agreed to.
It is not my wish to elaborate on the 47-48 war with Pakistan. Suffice it to say when our Army was in the threshold of evicting last of the Pakistan army from Jammu and Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, ignoring the request of Thimayya, Cariappa and even some his political and cabinet colleagues took up the issue with the United Nations. This resulted in ceasefire and creation of PoK having a eastern border along the cease fire line. We are grappling with that problem today at enormous cost to the nation and enormous loss of life of the Armed Forces personnel and other para military forces.
National Security Concerns in the Nineteen Fifties:
Generally after a major war or a serious confrontation leading to major fights or even skirmishes result in various benefits for the victor and some times even for the vanquished. Lessons are learnt by the military from their own mistakes and those of the enemy , new tactical plans based on engagements can be evolved, the type and capabilities of the weapons used by the enemy would give an insight into what would be required to equip the forces for a future engagement. There would be an urgent requirement to replenish the military hardware lost/ destroyed/ rendered beyond repairs. Unfortunately , as we will presently see no such thought seem to have been given by the powers that be after the 1947-48 war with Pakistan.
SS Khera in his book ( mentioned elsewhere) , quotes the official standing orders which sets out the first function of the Ministry of Defence " Defence of India and every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution , and after its termination to effective demobilisation" . To ensure that the Armed forces Headquarters carry out the first function in the standing order, he further postulates what they are supposed to be doing. Quote " They must assess the shortfalls in the forces at their disposal , as well as in the other resources needed, acquaint themselves with the availabilities and limitations of the resources of the nation that could be allotted to defence; they must request the resources needed and available with in those limitations, and in good time . ..... The Military Chiefs cannot carry on in times of peace as if nothing will happen and as if there is nothing to be done. Yet this was the sort of thing that seemed to be happening most of the time as the Indian Army was concerned" . The book was basically written to decry the Indian Army and particularly the Officer corps and apportion the blame for the 1962 debacle entirely to them .To summarize he has to say these:
( I would hasten to add that this book by SS Khera was probably written primarily to save Jawaharlal Nehru from criticism, the political leaders who were Ministers in various Departments connected with equipping the Army, the bureaucrats of these departments whose duty it was to ensure that resources are allocated )
This book ' India's Defence Problem ' by SS Khera was published in 1968 with valuable help from very senior officers of that time including Gen.J N Choudhury and others in the National Defence College( as acknowledged by the author). I am surprised why no Officer of the Indian Armed Forces in general and from the Army in particular did not rebut many of his ill conceived conclusions. Was it because he was a very senior and powerful man in the bureaucracy? Or was it because that the book was so obviously written to exonerate Jawaharlal Nehru and cover the lapses of the MoD and its bureaucrats there was no need to do so? Or was it written to counter "The Himalayan Blunder" by Brig JP Dalvi published at that time? I have come across this book only now while I was in the process of writing this blog. I feel that it is my bounden duty to bring it to the knowledge of the public the factual background leading to the debacle in 1962. Many of my arguments will be based on the contents of the said book itself . One may read the following as a para wise comments.
1. It is to the credit of the Indian Armed Forces that they remained outside the political stream then, now and they will remain so for ever. The nation should be thankful that the Army remains apolitical and secular.Compare this. Even Jawaharlal Nehru often ridiculed the ICS for its support of British policies. He once said of the Indian Civil Service,"with which we are unfortunately still afflicted in this country ( even after Independence) , as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service”. The Armed Forces under the British, governed by Army Acts and Army Rules, were British Indian Army, Royal Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Force and they have to necessarily obey any lawful command of their superiors and the C-in-C of the British Indian Army.
2. It is equally true there were very few ICS Officers at the time Independence. Indian Civil Service (ICS), was the elite higher civil service in the period of the British Raj. Initially almost all the top 1000 officials were British. After Minto- Morley reforms, by 1914 about 5% of them were Indians. By 1947 there were 600 Indians and about equal number of the British. After Independence may about 200 of them left for Pakistan.
Most of them were in the Revenue departments as Collectors/ sub Collectors. Cariappa joined the first batch of KCIOs (King's Commissioned Indian Officers) in 1919. By 1947 he had put in 28 years of Military Service. The other Senior Officers in the Army would have been between 24 to 27 years. It is not the rank that counts for maturity but the experience. One may ask how much of service Mr. SS Khera put in by the time he reached the rank of Joint Secretary? Today 100% of IAS officers reach the rank of Joint Secretary in just about 16-18 years as compared to 1% of Army officers reaching the rank of Major General after 32 years.
3. The Army is a structured Organisation. There can be only one Major General in a Division and Only One Captain for a Platoon. Unless the organisation expands with additional new raisings , there are no slots for promotions. The fact that even a decorated officer of the British Indian Army like Cariappa was only a Brigadier after 28 years of service disproves the author's claim that there were rapid promotions due to Second World War. Mukerjee was Commissioned in the Royal Indian Air Force in 1932 as one of first six Indians to join flying training in England. It does not however mean that by 1947 , he would not know much about Air Force or the requirement of an Air Force. On the contrary of the bureaucrats in the MoD at that time may not have even flown even in a civil aircraft leave alone knowing the difference between a fighter and a bomber !
4. The Administrative Machinery under the British was mainly concerned with revenues, taxation, finance and law. The ICS officers were not involved even remotely regarding foreign policy, diplomacy, military matters, foreign trade ,procurement of armaments, military hardware, manufacturing , ordnance factories etc.as these were controlled and administered by the British Officers only. These are the areas that affect the defence and national security of the country and in these areas they had no experience to fall back upon. They also had no clue as to what was the nation's chosen foreign policy vis-a-vis China or Pakistan then . Unfortunately even today it is so!
5. To rebut the fallacy floated by the author that the Officers were isolated from the economic, social and political developments, I quote what Lt. Gen. SK Sinha had written in an article. Quote "Two instances affecting the officers of my generation underscore their sense of loyalty and discipline. The first pertained to our emoluments and the second to the reckoning of the seniority of a certain category of officers. Our counterparts in the ICS and IPS were allowed to retain their higher emoluments that they were drawing in the British regime. In the case of the Army, the scales of pay of officers recruited before Independence were drastically reduced to the new scales formulated for post-Independence entrants. To highlight what this meant, I may quote specific figures. I was a Major on the staff drawing Rs 1,065 per month. Overnight my salary was reduced to Rs 700 per month. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel wrote on March 22, 1947, that this was very unfair to Army officers. The Finance Ministry maintained that whereas in the case of civilian officers, the numbers involved were small, they were very large in the Army. The Government could not bear the heavy financial burden.
The Ministry of Defence in the fifties :
The partition of the Armed Forces was effected in two stages. In the first stage the forces were divided roughly on a communal basis. The units where personnel were of Muslim majority were moved to Pakistan and those where the Hindus in majority were moved to India. In the next stage with in the unit a voluntary transfer was effected. If there are Hindus in such units as in Pakistan they can opt out to India and vice versa. However the Muslim belonging to Pakistan area was not given the option to join the forces of India. Muslim personnel from the rest of India and non-Muslim personnel from Pakistan were however free to opt to either of the dominion. However following the events of killings and arson many were reconsidering their intial option and later on permitted to change their options. All these were creating a lot of confusion and paper work more so when the troops themselves were heavily committed in Law and order, protection of refugees etc.
The Infantry regiments were divided between India and Pakistan in the ratio of 15 to 8 , though the population and land mass, the border abutting neighbours for India is much more than that of Pakistan. The Armoured Corps were divided fifty fifty. ( 12 Regiments to India and 6 to Pakistan) The Artillery units were in the ratio of 18 and half to eight and a half, and the engineers in the ratio of 61 to 34. Mind you these ratios were worked out by the Joint Secretaries of the Defence Departments of the two dominions.
By October 1947 , the division of the Air force and Navy was completed. More than a hundred special trains were allotted for the movement of troops aggravated as it was by the movement of refugees. The fact that the Armed forces personnel displayed utmost discipline and non partisan attitude nor swayed by religious compulsions to a large extent speaks for volumes for the command and control displayed by the Officers. By 30 November 1947, the Supreme Commander post of both the dominions was abolished. It is no coincidence that the Pakistan Army invaded Kashmir on 20 October 1947. Gen Lockhart was still the Supreme Commander of both the dominions. It is impossible to believe that he was not aware of the invasion for good about a week. Very rightly later on when things became clear that he had deliberately and purposely did not take any action or inform the Indian government made Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to insist that he be sacked as the C-in-C of India which Nehru reluctantly agreed to.
It is not my wish to elaborate on the 47-48 war with Pakistan. Suffice it to say when our Army was in the threshold of evicting last of the Pakistan army from Jammu and Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru, ignoring the request of Thimayya, Cariappa and even some his political and cabinet colleagues took up the issue with the United Nations. This resulted in ceasefire and creation of PoK having a eastern border along the cease fire line. We are grappling with that problem today at enormous cost to the nation and enormous loss of life of the Armed Forces personnel and other para military forces.
National Security Concerns in the Nineteen Fifties:
Generally after a major war or a serious confrontation leading to major fights or even skirmishes result in various benefits for the victor and some times even for the vanquished. Lessons are learnt by the military from their own mistakes and those of the enemy , new tactical plans based on engagements can be evolved, the type and capabilities of the weapons used by the enemy would give an insight into what would be required to equip the forces for a future engagement. There would be an urgent requirement to replenish the military hardware lost/ destroyed/ rendered beyond repairs. Unfortunately , as we will presently see no such thought seem to have been given by the powers that be after the 1947-48 war with Pakistan.
SS Khera in his book ( mentioned elsewhere) , quotes the official standing orders which sets out the first function of the Ministry of Defence " Defence of India and every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution , and after its termination to effective demobilisation" . To ensure that the Armed forces Headquarters carry out the first function in the standing order, he further postulates what they are supposed to be doing. Quote " They must assess the shortfalls in the forces at their disposal , as well as in the other resources needed, acquaint themselves with the availabilities and limitations of the resources of the nation that could be allotted to defence; they must request the resources needed and available with in those limitations, and in good time . ..... The Military Chiefs cannot carry on in times of peace as if nothing will happen and as if there is nothing to be done. Yet this was the sort of thing that seemed to be happening most of the time as the Indian Army was concerned" . The book was basically written to decry the Indian Army and particularly the Officer corps and apportion the blame for the 1962 debacle entirely to them .To summarize he has to say these:
- Until 1947, Indian Army had remained outside the main stream of political events as compared to the Civil establishment and civilian cadres ( read ICS cadres).
- There were very few Officers of Indian nationality mostly in junior ranks.
- Even after the Second World war which saw rapid promotions , there was not even a Indian Junior Major General ( Cariappa was a Brigadier in 1947, Mukerjee was an Air Commodore, Katari was a Commander - quoted from the book).
- The administrative machine of the country run by Indian ICS officers was highly experienced and made India as a viable going concern as a nation after Independence.
- During the fifties , the senior ranking commanders appear to have become more increasingly isolated from the main stream of the new economic, social and political developments than they had been , while serving as comparatively junior officers under the British.
- They were used only for receiving and carrying out orders from the British , concerned in the main with comparatively small bodies of men, and tiny parts of an overall campaign.
- Thy simply did not know and had no experience of, the working relationships within the total matrix of which now they formed a part within the perimeters of a parliamentary democracy. He concludes that with the above handicaps of the Indian top commanders in mind it is perhaps easier to understand their part in the general failure of the Indian Army in NEFA 1962.
( I would hasten to add that this book by SS Khera was probably written primarily to save Jawaharlal Nehru from criticism, the political leaders who were Ministers in various Departments connected with equipping the Army, the bureaucrats of these departments whose duty it was to ensure that resources are allocated )
This book ' India's Defence Problem ' by SS Khera was published in 1968 with valuable help from very senior officers of that time including Gen.J N Choudhury and others in the National Defence College( as acknowledged by the author). I am surprised why no Officer of the Indian Armed Forces in general and from the Army in particular did not rebut many of his ill conceived conclusions. Was it because he was a very senior and powerful man in the bureaucracy? Or was it because that the book was so obviously written to exonerate Jawaharlal Nehru and cover the lapses of the MoD and its bureaucrats there was no need to do so? Or was it written to counter "The Himalayan Blunder" by Brig JP Dalvi published at that time? I have come across this book only now while I was in the process of writing this blog. I feel that it is my bounden duty to bring it to the knowledge of the public the factual background leading to the debacle in 1962. Many of my arguments will be based on the contents of the said book itself . One may read the following as a para wise comments.
1. It is to the credit of the Indian Armed Forces that they remained outside the political stream then, now and they will remain so for ever. The nation should be thankful that the Army remains apolitical and secular.Compare this. Even Jawaharlal Nehru often ridiculed the ICS for its support of British policies. He once said of the Indian Civil Service,"with which we are unfortunately still afflicted in this country ( even after Independence) , as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service”. The Armed Forces under the British, governed by Army Acts and Army Rules, were British Indian Army, Royal Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Force and they have to necessarily obey any lawful command of their superiors and the C-in-C of the British Indian Army.
2. It is equally true there were very few ICS Officers at the time Independence. Indian Civil Service (ICS), was the elite higher civil service in the period of the British Raj. Initially almost all the top 1000 officials were British. After Minto- Morley reforms, by 1914 about 5% of them were Indians. By 1947 there were 600 Indians and about equal number of the British. After Independence may about 200 of them left for Pakistan.
Most of them were in the Revenue departments as Collectors/ sub Collectors. Cariappa joined the first batch of KCIOs (King's Commissioned Indian Officers) in 1919. By 1947 he had put in 28 years of Military Service. The other Senior Officers in the Army would have been between 24 to 27 years. It is not the rank that counts for maturity but the experience. One may ask how much of service Mr. SS Khera put in by the time he reached the rank of Joint Secretary? Today 100% of IAS officers reach the rank of Joint Secretary in just about 16-18 years as compared to 1% of Army officers reaching the rank of Major General after 32 years.
3. The Army is a structured Organisation. There can be only one Major General in a Division and Only One Captain for a Platoon. Unless the organisation expands with additional new raisings , there are no slots for promotions. The fact that even a decorated officer of the British Indian Army like Cariappa was only a Brigadier after 28 years of service disproves the author's claim that there were rapid promotions due to Second World War. Mukerjee was Commissioned in the Royal Indian Air Force in 1932 as one of first six Indians to join flying training in England. It does not however mean that by 1947 , he would not know much about Air Force or the requirement of an Air Force. On the contrary of the bureaucrats in the MoD at that time may not have even flown even in a civil aircraft leave alone knowing the difference between a fighter and a bomber !
4. The Administrative Machinery under the British was mainly concerned with revenues, taxation, finance and law. The ICS officers were not involved even remotely regarding foreign policy, diplomacy, military matters, foreign trade ,procurement of armaments, military hardware, manufacturing , ordnance factories etc.as these were controlled and administered by the British Officers only. These are the areas that affect the defence and national security of the country and in these areas they had no experience to fall back upon. They also had no clue as to what was the nation's chosen foreign policy vis-a-vis China or Pakistan then . Unfortunately even today it is so!
5. To rebut the fallacy floated by the author that the Officers were isolated from the economic, social and political developments, I quote what Lt. Gen. SK Sinha had written in an article. Quote "Two instances affecting the officers of my generation underscore their sense of loyalty and discipline. The first pertained to our emoluments and the second to the reckoning of the seniority of a certain category of officers. Our counterparts in the ICS and IPS were allowed to retain their higher emoluments that they were drawing in the British regime. In the case of the Army, the scales of pay of officers recruited before Independence were drastically reduced to the new scales formulated for post-Independence entrants. To highlight what this meant, I may quote specific figures. I was a Major on the staff drawing Rs 1,065 per month. Overnight my salary was reduced to Rs 700 per month. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel wrote on March 22, 1947, that this was very unfair to Army officers. The Finance Ministry maintained that whereas in the case of civilian officers, the numbers involved were small, they were very large in the Army. The Government could not bear the heavy financial burden.
The second issue
pertained to officers commissioned below the age of 21. During World
War II, the minimum age of recruitment had been reduced to 18. It was
arbitrarily decided that officers commissioned below 21 will have to
forfeit nine months of seniority and pension. The reason given was
that during the War, the period of cadet training for officers had
been reduced by nine months. This was unconvincing. All officers,
irrespective of age, had done the same duration of cadet training
during the War. If any of us had gone to court on these two issues,
these unfair orders would have been struck down. No one took recourse
to legal action because that was against the culture of the Army. We
accepted these Government decisions with a stiff upper lip." Unquote
6. The British Indian Officers had taken part in every campaign during World War I and World War II. There was hardly a single officer left out of battle. Even if you are a Battalion Commander attacking a Company, you are trained in the Army to be prepared to take on the job of a Brigade Commander. Cariappa , Thimayya etc had commanded Brigades in battle and given a chance would have Commanded a Division as well. A Brigade size engagement can not be termed as a tiny part of a campaign. More importantly, the Army Organization is highly structured where even a safety pin is accounted for. To arrive at the requirement of a Corps or Command, it does not require the intelligence of Albert Einstein to extrapolate.
But the problem these Chiefs faced in the fifties was one of total negligence by an uncaring government and its bureaucracy in various departments responsible to specify the Nation's policy on defence, policy with regard to countries on our borders. The politicians who have become prominent due to the freedom struggle
came to occupy powerful ministerial berths in the Cabinet for which many of them were most unsuitable. The ICS and later IAS lobby could take full advantage of the lack of knowledge and experience of these rabble rousers and establish their supremacy in every facet of governance.
The Ministry of Defence in the fifties :
Sardar Baldev Singh Singh became India's first Minister of Defence in August 1947. He was born on July 11, 1902 in the Rupar district of
Punjab to an aristocratic family. Singh was educated at the Khalsa
College in Amritsar, and began working in his father's firm in the
steel industry. He won an election to the Punjab provincial
assembly under the Government of India Act 1935 in 1937, as a
candidate of the Panthic party. He became closely linked with Master
Tara Singh and the Shiromani Akali Dal.While the Congress Party
launched the Quit India Movement, Baldev Singh and other Sikh
leaders did not support it. Singh negotiated an agreement
with Sikander Hyat Khan, the leader of the Unionist Muslim
League to form a government in Punjab, and became the provincial
Development Minister for a brief time in the summer of 1942.
Though
he was a man of considerable personal charm, he left all decisions
concerning the Ministry of Defence to his Personal Secretary. The MoD
was more or less run by his Personal Secretary Mr. Sarin. That the
department was being run by his personal secretary and not even the
Defence secretary at that time speaks volumes for the importance given to Defence in a
new independent nation with sworn enemies on its Western and Eastern
borders and a threatening neighbour in the Northern borders. Nehru,
as the Prime Minister had Utopian ideas of China – India relations,
their great civilizations going back 2000 years, Panch Sheel and Non Alignment all to the detriment of national security as events unfolded.
The first five-year plan( 1951 to 1956)
plan addressed, mainly, the agrarian sector, including investments in
dams and irrigation. The agricultural sector was hit hardest by the
partition of India and needed urgent attention. The total planned
budget of 2069 Crore was allocated to seven broad areas: irrigation
and energy (27.2 percent), agriculture and community development
(17.4 percent), transport and communications (24 percent), industry
(8.4 percent), social services (16.64 percent), land rehabilitation
(4.1 percent), and for all other sectors and services (2.5 percent). The
allocation for defence was included in other sectors and services and
there was virtually no plan for defence procurement or up gradation
or making up for the short falls. The outlay was just sufficient for
the pay and pension of the defence forces. This sorry state of
affairs continued in the next plan as well.
The second five-year plan ( 1956-61)
focused on industry, especially heavy industry. Unlike the First
plan, which focused mainly on agriculture, domestic production of
industrial products was encouraged in the Second plan, particularly
in the development of the public sector.The total amount allocated
under the second five year plan in India was Rs. 4,600 crore. This
amount was allocated mainly to Power and irrigation,Social
services,Communications and transport. The defence expenditure in
1960-61 touched a figure of about Rs. 280 Crores as compared to Rs.200 crores in 1955-56.
The Chiefs of Army, Navy or Air Staffs
had no say what so ever to impress the powers that be for enhancing
their fighting potential . The hardware with the Indian Armed Forces
were of the first and second world war vintage having seen extensive
usage during the war and for training during peace. Any proposals for
procurement of current military equipment by the Chiefs was decried
that they wanted the latest 'toys' . They were advised to put into
practice latest management techniques like Operation research etc. so as to make the best use of their available resources rather than clamouring for latest 'toys', which the nation can ill afford. (Though many of the bureaucrats in most of the departments at that time were only
aware of the subject tittles of these techniques, the Armed Forces
had already included these in their training curricula and put into
practice in their day to day running.) Any projection of likely threat from China from the North East and the requirement of the forces and equipment to meet the same was derided. As the Prime Minister himself had assured the Nation in the parliament that there was no threat from Chinese, any one casting aspersion against China, be they Armed Forces Commanders or politicians were decried as rightist and capitalists. The Communist party in India was vehemently supportive of this argument.
Neither the Defence Minister as advised
by his Personal Secretary nor the Finance Ministry had the foresight
for resource allocation for military hardware procurement for the
security of the nation in spite of the tremendous amount of hardware
poring into Pakistan from the United States of America and the United
Kingdom of whom they had become an ally as a member of CENTO and
SEATO . During the 1950s, the People's Republic of China built a
1,200 km (750 mi) road connecting Xinjiang and western Tibet. This
was in connivance with the Government of Pakistan. In return China
also started helping Pakistan in its military build up.
The next Defence Minister was
Gopalswami Ayyangar,(who as the author SS Khera puts it in his book)
had no enthusiasm and was a tired old man. He died a few months after
he took over as Defence Minister. The next in line was Dr. KN Katju who
was basically a political stalwart of the Congress from UP. He had
no clue about the Armed Forces and did not even know the differences
between the three wings of the services. Added to that was his
physical disability of deafness and it became a guessing game whether
or not he was actually hearing what had been spoken to him. Here
again, he became totally depended on the bureaucrats in his
Ministry. By now the bureaucrats started calling the shots in full
measure. Starting with re designating the title of Heads of Armed
Forces, to down grading their warrant of Precedence, to raising the
bogey of Military Coups at various intervals to create confusion in the minds
of the people, they did all they could ,to gain supremacy and to ride
rough shod over the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Staff. ( I will
write about the passive reaction of the then Chiefs regarding these
issues in a separate post). Like the MoD , nearly almost all other
departments more or less were run by the bureaucrats.
After Katju , Jawaharlal Nehru himself
took over the portfolio of Defence Minister and appointed a maverick politician Mahavir Tyagi as Minister of State of Defence
Organization under him. Of Tyagi, the less said the better. He was
variously called as a “ bull in the China shop”, ' an unguided missile”
etc. It was therefore not uncommon for the Service Chiefs to avoid
him as much as possible. Again the bureaucrats in the MoD had their
last word in matters pertaining to National Security and Defence.
Then came VK Krishna Menon who was not
a darling either to his party colleagues, bureaucrats or to the
Chiefs except for his sycophants. Initially, there was a sigh of
relief among the military top brass that at last an educated ,
intelligent and a hard working man had assumed the office of the
Defence Minister. But soon they realised that he trusted no one and
in turn he could not be trusted either. He promoted his own “favourites
and confidants” in the military hierarchy on whom he could depend
up on. He would not agree to Thimayya's proposals for strengthening
the defences in the NEFA sector in spite of China's open belligerent
attitude on the border question and the sanctity of McMohan line. On the controversy of promoting Kaul, Gen. Thimayya even handed in his resignation.
He brought in Thapar as
Second-in-Command to Gen. Thimayya in addition to continue being the
GOC-in-C Western Command a few months before Gen. Thimayya was to retire and got Lt.Gen. BM Kaul as Chief of General Staff. They two were considered close to Menon and that they would report to him on the happenings in the Service Headquarters of which many were baseless rumours. One such was that Gen. Thimayya was planning a coup and it was to be executed on 30 Jan 1961, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Kaul who was the Quarter Master General was asked to ascertain the move of a Division from Ambala to Delhi and an Armoured Brigade from Mathura. It is a moot point why the Defence Minister should ask Kaul rather than confront Thimayya directly. Kaul reported to Menon that the orders for thse moves were not known to any of the Principal Staff Officers at the Army Headquarters. Later on it turned out that they were part of a routine military exercise and Kaul wanted to pay back Thimayya in kind for opposing his promotion and placement as Chief of General Staff. ( Compare this with the rumour floated in 2012, when some Mechanise units moved from Ambala to Hissar , that Gen. VK Singh was planning a coup!).
GOC-in-C Western Command a few months before Gen. Thimayya was to retire and got Lt.Gen. BM Kaul as Chief of General Staff. They two were considered close to Menon and that they would report to him on the happenings in the Service Headquarters of which many were baseless rumours. One such was that Gen. Thimayya was planning a coup and it was to be executed on 30 Jan 1961, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Kaul who was the Quarter Master General was asked to ascertain the move of a Division from Ambala to Delhi and an Armoured Brigade from Mathura. It is a moot point why the Defence Minister should ask Kaul rather than confront Thimayya directly. Kaul reported to Menon that the orders for thse moves were not known to any of the Principal Staff Officers at the Army Headquarters. Later on it turned out that they were part of a routine military exercise and Kaul wanted to pay back Thimayya in kind for opposing his promotion and placement as Chief of General Staff. ( Compare this with the rumour floated in 2012, when some Mechanise units moved from Ambala to Hissar , that Gen. VK Singh was planning a coup!).
Krishna Menon also had the unique
distinction especially in the initial years to dealing with the
Service Chiefs directly to the consternation of the bureaucrats in
the MoD who were used to the habit of riding rough shod over them in
the past . This alarmed them greatly but they could not do much as
Menon was very close to Nehru and enjoyed his confidence and support.
Ultimately he lost the support of his own party men and even his
civilian staff in the MoD.
On our Western front :
Pakistan joined the US-led military
alliances SEATO and CENTO. In 1954 the United States signed a Mutual
Defense Assistance Agreement with Pakistan. Under Ayub Khan, Pakistan
enjoyed a strong and healthy relationship with the United States. In 1954, Ayub Khan had famously told Brigadier-General Henry A.
Byroade and the United States that "I didn’t come here to look
at barracks. Our army can be your army if you want us.” Large-scale interaction between U.S. and
Pakistani military started, with hundreds of officers began to sent
to U.S. on routine and regular basis, getting trained
shoulder-to-shoulders with U.S. Military.
From 1954 to 1956, the US gave Pakistan
about $1400 million in military aid, helping an ill-equipped Pakistan
Army develop infrastructure, mobility and firepower, and improve
command, control, communication and intelligence capabilities for its
newly raised divisions. Also in 1954, Pakistan began to receive more
than 100 Sabre F-86F aircraft that made the core of its air force.
Armed with Sidewinder missiles, these fighter planes gave the
Pakistani air force a decisive edge over the Indian one. Pakistan had
also received several hundred M47 and M48 Patton tanks and artillery
equipment that gave it tangible superiority over India.
(In the 1980s, after Pakistan rejected a
$400 million aid package as peanuts, more than $6 billion flew into
the country along with weapons that included about a thousand Stinger
missiles, as it fought a perceived Soviet threat in Afghanistan and
developed a ‘strategic depth’. Since 9/11 (blamed on the
‘strategic assets’ that Pakistan developed in Afghanistan), we
received more than $14 billion in military aid and reimbursements, 17
F-16 aircraft and artillery equipment despite substantial doubts on
its commitment to the war on terror. Pakistan Navy received the PNS
Alamgir frigate, boats, helicopters and two P-3C Orion surveillance
and anti-submarine aircraft (with six in the pipeline) and assigned a
key role in the Arabian Sea.)
The warning signals:
In his speech in Asian Relations
Conference, held in New Delhi in March-April 1947, Nehru called China
as “ that great country to which Asia owes so much and from which
so much is expected”. The Indian Ambassador to China after
Independence, K. M. Panikkar, was greatly impressed by the
Mao Zedong and compared Nehru with him
that “both are men of action with dreamy, idealistic temperaments
both humanists in the broadest sense of the term.”
When China invaded Tibet in October
1950, Patel warned Nehru that Chinese
ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our
side but also include important parts of Assam”.
In 1951, as Home Minister in Nehru's
cabinet, Rajaji warned the Prime Minister of the expansionist designs
of Communist China. He wrote to Nehru that he felt "hurt
whenever Pannikar tells us with extreme satisfaction that China is
very friendly to us yet has no territorial ambitions. We do not want
any patrons now, do we?" ( Eleven years later India was
invaded by China.)
In June 1954, Zhou-en-lai visited New
Delhi. In a letter to his Chief Ministers written immediately
afterwards, Nehru reported that the
Chinese Prime Minister „was particularly anxious, of course, for
the friendship and co-operation of India….Nehru‟s made a return
visit to China in October
1954.
The reception he received was to flatter Nehru and to make him
believe that they truly believed in their relationship with India.
Towards the end of 1956, Zhou-en-Lai
visited India again along with the Dalai Lama in his party. The
Dalai Lama told Nehru that conditions were so harsh in his country
that he wished to flee to India. But Nehru advised him to return so
as not to hurt the Chinese. “Hindi-Chini bhai bahai “ was still
in cresendo. But when Nehru requested for a visit to Tibet in 1958,
he was refused permission by his so
called “bhai”.
In July 1958, the Chines printed a map
which showed large parts of India as Chinese territory. It was also
revealed that the Chinese had built a road linking Xinjiang to Tibet,
which passed through an uninhabited, and scarcely visited stretch of
the Indian district of Ladakh.
There was diplomatic protest from New Delhi. Zhou-en-Lai in his
reply wrote saying that the McMahon Line, marking the border between
India and China, was a legacy of British imperialism and hence not
legal. Even now neither Nehru, nor Krishna Menon would do anything to
shore up the defences in NEFA. Gen. Thimayya , when asked for
resources for the Army was not only turned down but ridiculed. Even
the highly educated, enlightened and experienced higher echelons in
the bureaucracy failed to voice their concern.
In March 1959 the Dalai Lama fled into
India when China invaded Tibet to put down the revlt. He he was given
refuge. This enraged the Chinese. Sporadic clashes between Indian and
Chinese troops on the border erupted in the autumn of 1959.
When
the first clashes broke out on the border in September 1959, Upadhaya
of Jan Sangh said that “the present situation is the result of
complacency on the part of the Prime Minister. It seems that he was
reluctant to take any action till the situation became really grave.
He has more faith in his Panch Sheel perorations than in preparation
and performance”. Comparing him to the notoriously effete and
incompetent 19th
century ruler of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, he said ‟Only he [Nehru]
knows when a crisis is not a crisis and how to emit smoke without
fire and how to arrest a conflagration in a Niagara of verbiage!‟
Responding to the border clashes in the
second half of 1959, C. Rajagopalachari wrote several essays urging
Nehru to abandon his long held and deeply cherished policy of
non-alignment.
“The path of peace is not always
smooth. China has incontinently betrayed India and Nehru. He dare not
resist Indian public resentment over China's aggression and
her attempt to sabotage India's position in the Himalayan frontier.
Whatever be China's objective, this aggression and show of power have
put an end to any meaning in non-alignment”.
Still in
October 1959, Nehru wrote to all his Chief Ministers ( all the States
were Congress ruled states) that “ the tension that has arisen
between India and China is, of course, of great concern to us. That
does not mean that we should get alarmed in the present or fear any
serious consequences”. Can any one be so naïve even at that stage!
In 1960, Zhou-en-Lai came to New Delhi
in an attempt to find a settlement. India's case was stronger in the
Western sector, where Chinese interests were greater. Here lay the
access road linking the two troublesome provinces of Tibet and
Xinjiang, a road that passed through territory claimed by India. On
the other hand, in the Eastern sector, where Chinese claims were more robust, their strategic interests
were not high. Zhou offered a quid pro quo. The Chinese would not
challenge Indian control of the eastern sector, so long as the
Indians in turn winked at their incursions in the west. Nehru himself
was open to considering it favourably. But by this time knowledge of
the road in Ladakh had become public, and there was an outcry in
Parliament and the press. The border clashes and the flight of the
Dalai Lama had further inflamed public opinion.
Even by 1960, the mandarins in MoD
would not take any action to build up the needed material and
resources or at least raise their concerns with the Government. The
Prime Minister and the Defence Minister were firm in their belief
that no attack was possible in NEFA.
Jawaharlal Nehru , soon after
the cease fire , in a letter written to his Chief Ministers on 22nd
December 1962 admitted the lack of
preparedness of the Indian army and the lack of foresight of the
political leadership in not building roads up to the border to carry
supplies and ammunition whereas on the other side, the invasion of Tibet
and the Korean war had made the Chinese primed and ready for battle.
( Some portions of the above have been extracted from an essay by Ramachandra Guha)
Now, one can compare the conclusion arrived at by Mr. SS Khera in his book to cover up Nehru and the bureaucracy from any sort of accountability for the 1962 debacle.
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