Henderson Brooks report
…the story still simmers while the skeletons have withered away in the cupboard.
In my opinion, it was not really a war. One Indian division had to cover a front of 500 miles. To have a section in position, it was necessary to use the remainder of the platoon to maintain them. The section was only flag flying. When the clash occurred, the unfortunate replacements were not properly clothed or armed and without supporting weapons. They were not acclimatised… On the other hand, the Chinese soldier was… attacking downhill.
Thus spake Lieutenant General T. Henderson Brooks, who presided over the 1962 Operations Review Committee, and whose report is still classified. [Indo-British Review, Madras : March 1989]
Rediff had earlier carried a special three-part report [Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3] on the genesis and conduct of the 1962 war by former Times of London correspondent Neville Maxwell. He is the only journalist to have had access to the secret Indian army report, undertaken by Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat to study the debacle. Maxwell is also the author of India’s China War (1970), which provides an insight into the debacle. Claude Arpi, author of The Fate Of Tibet explains the unrecorded history of the report in some detail.
An Anglo-Indian general called Henderson Brooks was requested to go through the official records and prepare a report on the war. Sometime in 1963, the general presented his study to Nehru and a couple of his ministers. The report was immediately classified ‘Top Secret’.
One can understand that at that time the prime minister did not want the report made to be public, as he may have had to take responsibility for the unpreparedness of the army and, most probably, resign.
The tragedy is not that the report was ‘classified’ in 1963, but that it continues to remain classified today. Forty years later, nobody has still seen the report. That is, except for one person: a British foreign correspondent named Neville Maxwell. The rumour is that a senior minister passed on the report to him.
Neville Maxwell’s summary of the background and related facts about the report places the conundrum in context–
But a series of studies, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1990s, revealed to any serious enquirer the full story of how the Indian Army was ordered to challenge the Chinese military to a conflict it could only lose. So by now only bureaucratic inertia, combined with the natural fading of any public interest, can explain the continued non-publication – the report includes no surprises and its publication would be of little significance but for the fact that so many in India still cling to the soothing fantasy of a 1962 Chinese ‘aggression’.
It seems likely now that the report will never be released. Furthermore, if one day a stable, confident and relaxed government in New Delhi should, miraculously, appear and decide to clear out the cupboard and publish it, the text would be largely incomprehensible, the context, well known to the authors and therefore not spelled out, being now forgotten. The report would need an introduction and gloss…
The Indian government’s view can be comprehended from the then Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan’s statement in the Lok Sabha on September 2, 1963 (almost a year after the war) regarding the Henderson Brooks Report.
I am sure the House would appreciate that by the very nature of the contents it would not be in the public interest to lay the report on the table of the House. Nor is it possible to attempt even an abridged or edited version of it, consistent with the consideration of security, that would not give an unbalanced or incomplete picture to you … The publication of this report which contains information about the strength and development of our forces and their locations would be of invaluable use to our enemies. It would not only endanger our security but affect the morale of those entrusted with safeguarding the security of our borders.[IE]
Veteran journalist Kuldeep Nayyar recounts his experiences while trying to unearth the report in the Parliament -
During my six-year stint in the Rajya Sabha, I requested the government many times to publish the Henderson-Brooks report on the 1962 India-China war. The refusal was firm and consistent. Once, in a reply to my question in Parliament, Defence Minister George Fernandes said that it was not in the ‘‘public interest’’ to disclose the contents of the report.
By keeping the report secret, every rule governing archives has been violated. Under the law, the government cannot withhold such documents beyond 35 years. In the case of the Henderson-Brooks report, as many as 40 years have gone by. Of course, the government can take the cover of ‘‘public interest’’ as it did while denying me information on the report. The excuse of public interest cannot be used as a pretext to hold back official reports.[IE]
The fate of the Henderson-Brooks report is eerily similar to the non-publication of India’s war histories. The political angle associated with the higher military directions of the 1962 war has compounded the problem further. A major part of the report or at least the allusions made in the report have been available in the public domain for some time.
Is Henderson-Brooks report then essentially a non-issue not worth wasting the breath over? Or the search for an official version of the ‘truth’ a sacrosanct quest by itself? Yes, it is. In this case, the process of getting the establishment to own up and act transparently is as important, if not more, than the sheer outcome – the details contained in the actual report. An official declassification of the report only can avert the national tragedy returning as a farce. Karl Marx prophesied it thus-
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
Maxwell seems to say it’s no big deal – almost incomprehensible? I wonder if Fernandes read it or was just parroting the army. JJ Singh seemed inclined to release a cleaned up version.
It’s time to release it. Everyone knows Nehru was failure in this instance. One would hope IA’s strategy and war plans have improved since then.
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Dear Sir,
The reason as to why the report is not being made public is on account of the fear of the DEMOLITION OF ICONONIC and MESSIAH type image of NEHRU and his clan. I have read “INDIA’s CHINA WAR” by Maxwell and also “HIMALYAN BLUNDER” by Brig Dalvi & “AN UNTOLD STORY” by disgraced General BM Kaul. All these books obliquely point a finger at NEHRU & Krishnamenon. The question is WHO STARTED THE WAR? India Or China? No doubts China had disputed the acquisition of NEFA since the SHIMLA agreement. However, in the wake of “HINDI-CHINI BHAI BHAI” diplomacy of Nehru in mid & late 50s and his bonhomie with CHOU-EN-Lai from BANDUNG conference in 1954 had given an exalted image of self to NEHRU–who considered himself more as a WORLD leader and less as an Indian Leader. He ignored nibbling acts by the CHINESE when reported by Indian army. He dismissed these reports. It carried on till he hit a road block on CHINESE admancy to refuse to vacate encroachments beyond Mc Mohan line. he foolishly thundered to his PLIABLE GENERALS–PN THAPAR – BM KAUL & co: “EVICT THE CHINESE”. When Thorat & LP sen refused such silly orders–BM KAUL–an ASC Officer–who had never commanded soldiers in combat–was sent TO EVICT THE CHINESE. This is what DALVI writes in his book. And these guys commenced their EVICTION ACT–and LO! CHINA STRUCK in a big way. So, who initiated the war WITHOUT PREPARATION? It was NEHRU and his defence Minister–krishnaMenon. when debacle hit us poor KRISHNAMENON became the scapegoat but NEHRU remained the ICON–he shouldn’t have been.
What HENDERSON BROOKE REPORT is all about is THE ILL PREPAREDNESS OF INDIAN ARMY vis-a-vis CHINESE ARMY and the role of INDIAN POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN PUSHING THE ARMY INTO THIS DEBACLE THROUGH THEIR HAND-PICKED INCOMPETENT GENERALS.
Finally, even today, INDIAN ARMY is swarmed by the likes of BM KAULS and THAPARS–you see them involved in corruption –from BRIGADIER to LT Generals and getting Court martialled. It is the GRESHAM LAW of Economics which has become applicable to INDIAN ARMY i.e.BAD MONEY(read Officers) driving out the GOOD MONEY(read Officers). Tragedy of 1962 is likely to be repeated as a FARCE. Yavesh Kushwaha
It hardly matters what the H-B report contains because there is an excellent official history of the 1962 war, edited by SN Prasad DPhil, which though “restricted” may be obtained from the BharatRakshak site. Maxwell was wrong yet had an enormous impact on Indian, US and Chinese thinking. My recent article ” in The Statesman, republished at http://www.independentindian.com China’s India Aggression”
may be of interest:
China’s India Aggression: German Historians Discover Logic Behind Communist Military Strategy
by
Subroto Roy
First published in The Statesman, November 5 2007, http://www.thestatesman.net
Republished http://www.independentindian.com
There are four main aspects to the China-Tibet-India problem over the
last century, some of which are only now becoming apparent. The first
is historical prior to the 1949 Communist takeover, in which the
British, Tibetans and Kuomintang were participants in background
discussion and events. The second is historical too, namely, the
appeasement by Nehru and his diplomats of the Mao-Zhou Communists and
betrayal of normal Tibetan and Indian interests in the period
1949-1959. The third is political, to do with reaction, confusion and
conflict among Indian Communists leading to the CPI/CPI-M split in
response to Communist attacks upon Tibet and India. The fourth is
military, to do with the 1962 war itself, the nature of the surprise
Chinese attack and Indian defeat.
Chinese claims
A 1954 Beijing publication not only claimed Tibet but alleged vast
areas of Asia to be Chinese: Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA
(Arunachal), Assam, the Andaman Islands, Burma (Myanmar), Malaya,
Singapore, Thailand, Indo-China, the Sulu Islands, the Ryukyus, Korea,
Formosa (Taiwan), the whole of East Turkestan (Sinkiang), Kazakhstan,
Siberia west of the Amur River, maritime provinces east of the Amur
down to Vladivostok, and Sakhalin (viz., Coral Bell in FS Northedge
(ed) Foreign Policies of the Powers, 1973).
America’s CIA reported in a secret 1962 analysis, declassified in May
2007, that the Left faction of India’s Communists had been repeating
what Mao Zedhong said to Ajoy Ghosh: “that Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, and
NEFA are provinces peopled by the same race, that China had a historic
right to these territories, that the McMahon line was not valid, and
that the Indian government’s raising of `the bogey of Chinese
aggression’ had resulted from its realisation that Nepal, Sikkim,
Bhutan and India would be deeply affected by the social and economic
revolution in Tibet” (CIA The Indian Communist Party and the
Sino-Soviet Dispute, Feb 1962, page 76). Referring to Chinese designs
on Mongolia, Kruschev’s USSR condemned its fellow-Communists: “… The
true schemes of the Chinese leaders (are) obvious. They are permeated
through and through with great-power chauvinism and hegemonism”,
Pravda 2 Sep 1964, quoted by Bell, op.cit.
China’s 1962 India war was rationally consistent with carrying out
precisely such an expansionist policy in Sinkiang and Tibet. As the
German historians Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund have stated
most succinctly, the NEFA conflict was merely a deliberate
diversionary tactic which has worked brilliantly for decades:
“The consolidation of the Chinese hold on Tibet, as well as on other
areas of Central Asia… (required military infrastructure) to maintain
it and a ring road was constructed which led from China to Tibet and
from there via the Karakorum Range to Sinkiang and Mongolia and then
back to China. At a crucial point some Indian territory (Aksai Chin)
obstructed this connection. Beyond Aksai Chin was the terrible desert,
Takla Makan, which was a major obstacle. Faced with the dilemma of
violating Indian territory or getting stuck in the desert, the Chinese
opted for the first course and quietly built a road through Aksai
Chin. In the meantime, they provoked incidents on the northeastern
border so as to divert attention from their real aims. They also
published maps which showed the border in Assam at the foot of the
mountains rather than on the watershed. The watershed line had been
settled by the McMahon border commission, which had also included a
Chinese delegate who initialled the protocol, although it was not
subsequently ratified by the Chinese government. Actually, there was
no disagreement about the watershed line at that time when debate was
focused on a different line, supposed to divide Tibet into an Inner
and Outer Tibet on the same pattern as Inner and Outer Mongolia. Inner
Tibet was to be under Chinese influence and Outer Tibet under British
influence. But Communist China made use of the fact that the agreement
had not been ratiied and accused India of clinging to the imperialist
heritage with regard to the Himalayan boundary. This harping on the
legal position in the northeast was a tactical move made in order to
build up a bargaining position with regard to Aksai Chin where the
Chinese could not raise similar claims… Finally, a border war broke
out in October 1962. It was a typical demonstration war conducted with
great finesse by the Chinese. They completely perplexed the Indian
generals by pushing a whole division through the mountains down to the
valley of Assam and withdrawing it again as quickly as it had come.
The Indian strategic concept of defending the Himalayan boundary by
cutting off the supply lines of the enemy if it ventured too far
beyond the border could not be put into operation: the Chinese were
gone before the supply lines could be cut. But why did they do this?
They wanted to divert attention from their moves in the northwest,
where they did reach the Karakorum Pass in a swift offensive and did
not withdraw as they had done in the east.” (History of India, 1998,
pp 321-322).
Chinese casualties were some 1,460 dead, 1,697 wounded, Indian
casualties some 3,128 dead, 3,968 captured, 548 wounded, each as
reported by itself. JK Galbraith, the friendliest and fairest observer
India may have hoped for, found our Army populated by “tragically
old-fashioned” peacetime generals full of bluster, while brave
soldiers under them remained woefully ill-equipped and came to be
outgunned and out-manoeuvred.
Mao Zedhong’s racist reference to the people populating NEFA being of
Chinese origin was misguided, even nonsensical. On such a basis, China
might claim Japan or Korea next, as might West Africa claim
sovereignty over North and South American blacks or Mongolia over
Turks and Afghans. NEFA’s five administrative divisions ~ Kameng,
Subansiri, Siang, Lohit and Tirap ~ are populated by indigenous
animistic tribes including the Momba, Mishmi, Abor, Miri, Dafla and
Aka, each with defined areas. The 1883 Survey of India showed these
areas administered de facto by British India from Assam. The 1908
Edinburgh Geographical Institute’s map by JG Bartholomew showed most
of the same to be part of Bhutan, a British Indian protectorate, as
did earlier 18th Century maps.
Less than legitimate
Communist China’s claims of sovereignty over NEFA (Arunachal) in any
case derive from its claims of sovereignty over Tibet. Britain, India
and other nations guided by international law have allowed that Lhasa,
though long independent, may acknowledge Chinese suzerainty ~ but only
subject to the condition of traditional autonomy. The 1907
Anglo-Russian Treaty stipulated Tibet would be dealt with officially
through China, leading to the Henry McMahon Commission of 1914 which
followed the normal international cartographic practise of the
watershed defining the boundary in NEFA. That came to be generally
followed by British and Indian maps of NEFA since. The CIA’s official
1959 map of the region concurred and the United States Government
explicitly instructed Galbraith, its New Delhi Ambassador during the
1962 war, that the American position was the same as the British and
Indian. There appears to be no record of any serious Chinese
cartography of the region ever ~ Chinese maps prior to 1935 agreeing
with the British Indian position but disputing it afterwards, placing
Tibet’s boundary along the margin of the Assam plain. China was
ravaged by war, civil war and revolutionary excesses during much of
the 20th Century and hardly had well-preserved national archives at a
time when its own capital and central government was changing several
times.
China’s Communists, being themselves in political power for decades
somewhat less than legitimately as a one-party dictatorship, have been
loath to admit all such inconvenient facts, and instead continue in
their hegemonic mode. A new liberal democratic China guided by law on
the Taiwan pattern may have to be awaited before this conflict comes
to be resolved.
Thanks a lot, Dr. Roy. I’ll respond to your views soon.