China Henderson Brooks Report

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HENDERSON BROOKS REPORT: AN INTRODUCTION

Neville Maxwell

April14-20, 2001

A Defence Ministry Committee is reported to have recommended

releasing into the public domain, the official reports on India's wars

against Pakistan 1947, 1965 and 1971. Also the 1962 border war

against China, India's intervention in Sri Lanka and others. Reproduced

here is British author Neville Maxwell's summary of what he believes the

Henderson Brooks Report contains. This article first appeared in the

Economic & Political Weekly. Neville Maxwell is the author of India's

China War.

WHEN THE Army's report into its debacle in the border war wascompleted in 1963, the Indian government had good reason to keep it

Top Secret and give only the vaguest, and largely misleading,

indications of its contents. At that time the government's effort, ultimately

successful, to convince the political public that the Chinese, with a

sudden 'unprovoked aggression', had caught India unawares in a sort of

Himalayan Pearl Harbour was in its early stages and the report's cool

and detailed analysis, if made public, would have shown that to be

selfexculpatory mendacity.

But a series of studies, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into

the 1990s, 1 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 - a first draft of which


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this paper attempts to provide, drawing upon the writer's research in

India in the 1960s and material published later.

Two preambles are required, one briefly recalling the cause and course

of the border war, the second to describe the fault-line, which the border

dispute turned into a schism, within the Army's officer corps, which wasa key factor in the disaster - and of which the Henderson Brooks Report

can be seen as an expression.

Origins of Border Conflict: India at the time of independence can be said

have faced no external threats. True, it was born into a relationship of

permanent belligerency with its weaker Siamese twin Pakistan, left by

the British inseparably conjoined to India by the member of Kashmir,

vital to both new national organisms; but that may be seen as essentially

an internal dispute, an untreatable complication left by the crude, cruelsurgery of partition.

In 1947 China, wracked by civil war, was in what appeared to be death

throes and no conceivable threat to anyone. That changed with

astonishing speed and by 1950, when the newborn People's Republic

re-established in Tibet the central authority which had lapsed in 1911,

the Indian Government will have made its initial assessment of the

possibility and potential of a threat from China and found those to be

minimal, if not non-extent.First, there were geographic and topographical factors, the great

mountain chains which lay between the two neighbours and appeared to

make large-scale troop movements impractical. More important, the

leadership of the Indian Government - which is to say, Jawaharlal Nehru

- had for years proclaimed that the unshakable friendship between India

and China would be the key to both their futures and therefore Asia's,

even the world's. The new leaders in Beijing were more chary, viewing

India through their Marxist prism as a potentially hostile bourgeois state.

But in the Indian political perspective war with China was deemed

unthinkable and through the 1950s New Delhi's defence planning and

expenditure expressed that confidence.

By the early 1950s, however, the Indian government, which is to say

Nehru and his acolyte officials, had shaped and adopted a policy whose

implementation would make armed conflict with China not only


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'thinkable' but inevitable. From the first days of India's independence, it

was appreciated that the Sino-Indian borders had been left undefined by

the departing British and that territorial disputes with China were part of

India's inheritance. China's other neighbours faced similar problems and

over the succeeding decades of the century, almost all of those were to

settle their borders satisfactorily through the normal process of

diplomatic negotiation with Beijing.

The Nehru government decided upon the opposite approach. India

would through its own research determine the appropriate alignments of

the Sino-Indian borders, extend its administration to make those good on

the ground and then refuse to negotiate the result. Barring the

inconceivable - that Beijing would allow India to impose China's borders

unilaterally and annex territory at will - Nehru's policy thus willed conflict

without foreseeing it. Through the 1950s, that policy generated friction

along the borders and so bred and steadily increased distrust, growing

into hostility, between the neighbours. By 1958 Beijing was urgently

calling for a stand-still agreement to prevent patrol clashes and

negotiations to agree boundary alignments. India refused any standstill

agreement, since such would be an impediment to intended advances

and insisted that there was nothing to negotiate, the Sino-Indian borders

being already settled on the alignments claimed by India, through blind

historical process.

Then it began accusing China of committing 'aggression' by refusing to

surrender to Indian claims. From 1961 the Indian attempt to establish an

armed presence in all the territory it claimed and then extrude the

Chinese was being exerted by the Army and Beijing was warning that if

India did not desist from its expansionist thrust, Chinese forces would

have to hit back. On October 12, 1962 Nehru proclaimed India's

intention to drive the Chinese out of areas India claimed. That bravado

had by then been forced upon him by the public expectations which his

charges of 'Chinese aggression' had aroused, but Beijing took it as in

effect a declaration of war.

1. The unfortunate Indian troops on the front line, under orders to

sweep superior Chinese forces out of their impregnable, dominating

positions, instantly appreciated the implications: "If Nehru had declared


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his intention to attack, then the Chinese were not going to wait to be

attacked".

2. On October 20 the Chinese launched a pre-emptive offensive all

along the borders, overwhelming the feeble - but in this first instance

determined - resistance of the Indian troops and advancing somedistance in the eastern sector. On October 24 Beijing offered a ceasefire

and Chinese withdrawal on condition India agreed to open negotiations:

Nehru refused the offer even before the text was officially received. Both

sides built up over the next three weeks and the Indians launched a local

counterattack on November 15, arousing in India fresh expectations of

total victory.

3. The Chinese then renewed their offensive. Now many units of the

once crack Indian 4th Division dissolved into rout without giving battleand by November 20 there was no organised Indian resistance

anywhere in the disputed territories. On that day Beijing announced a

unilateral ceasefire and intention to withdraw its forces: Nehru this time

tacitly accepted.

4. Naturally the Indian political public demanded to know what had

brought about the shameful debacle suffered by their Army and on

December 14 a new Army Commander, Lt General J N Chaudhuri,

instituted an Operations Review for that purpose, assigning the task ofenquiry to Lt General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat.

Factionalisation of the Army: All colonial armies are liable to suffer from

the tugs of contradictory allegience and in the case of India's that fissure

was opened in the second world war by Japan's recruitment from

prisoners of war of the 'Indian National Army' to fight against their former

fellows. By the beginning of the 1950s two factions were emerging in the

officer corps, one patriotic but above all professional and apolitical and

orthodox in adherence to the regimental traditions established in the

century of the Raj; the other nationalist, ready to respond

unquestioningly to the political requirements of their civilian masters and

scorning their rivals as fuddy-duddies still aping the departed rulers and

suspected as being of doubtful loyalty to the new ones. The latter faction

soon took on eponymous identification from its leader, B M Kaul. At the


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time of independence Kaul appeared to be a failed officer, if not

disgraced.

Although Sandhurst-trained for infantry service he had eased through

the war without serving on any front line and ended it in a humble and

obscure post in public relations. But his courtier wiles, irrelevant ordamning until then, were to serve him brilliantly in the new order that

independence brought, after he came to the notice of Nehru, a fellow

Kashmiri brahmin and indeed distant kinsman.

Boosted by the prime minister's steady favouritism, Kaul rocketed up

through the army structure to emerge in 1961 at the very summit of

Army HQ. Not only did he hold the key appointment of chief of the

general staff (CGS) but the Army Commander, Thapar, was in effect his

client.

Kaul had of course by then acquired a significant following, disparaged

by the other side as 'Kaul boys' ('call girls' had just entered usage) and

his appointment as CGS opened a putsch in HQ, an eviction of the old

guard, with his rivals, until then his superiors, being not only pushed out,

but often hounded thereafter with charges of disloyalty. The struggle

between those factions both fed on and fed into the strains placed on the

Army by the government's contradictory and hypocritical policies - on the

one hand proclaiming China an eternal friend against whom it wasunnecessary to arm, on the other using armed force to seize territory it

knew China regarded as its own.

Through the early 1950s, Nehru's covertly expansionist policy had been

implemented by armed border police under the Intelligence Bureau (IB),

whose director, N B Mullik, was another favourite and confidant of the

prime minister.

The Army high command, knowing its forces to be too weak to risk

conflict with China, would have nothing to do with it. Indeed when the

potential for SinoIndian conflict inherent in Mullik's aggressive forward

patrolling was demonstrated in the serious clash at the Kongka Pass in

October 1959, Army HQ and the Ministry of External Affairs united to

denounce him as a provocateur, insist that control over all activities on


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the border be assumed by the Army, which thus could insulate China

from Mullik's jabs.

5 The takeover by Kaul and his 'boys' at Army HQ in 1961 reversed

that. Now regular infantry would takeover from Mullik's border police in

implementing what was formally designated a 'forward policy', oneconceived to extrude the Chinese presence from all territory claimed by

India. Field commanders receiving orders to move troops forward into

territory the Chinese both held and regarded as their own, warned that

they had no resources or reserves to meet the forceful reaction they

knew must be the ultimate outcome: They were told to keep quiet and

obey orders. That may suggest that those driving the forward policy saw

it in kamikaze terms and were reconciled to its ending in gunfire and

blood - but the opposite was true. They were totally and unshakably

convinced that it would end not with a bang but a whimper - from Beijing.

The psychological bedrock upon which the forward policy rested was the

belief that in the last resort the Chinese military, snuffling from a bloody

nose, would pack up and quit the territory India claimed.

The source of that faith was Mullik, who from beginning to end

proclaimed as oracular truth that, whatever the Indians did, there need

be no fear of a violent Chinese reaction. The record shows no one

squarely challenging that mantra, at higher levels than the field

commanders who throughout knew it to be dangerous nonsense: Therewere civilian 'Kaul boys' in External Affairs and the Defence Ministry too,

and they basked happily in Mullik's fantasy. Perhaps the explanation for

the credulousness lay in Nehru's dependent relationship with his IB

chief: Since the prime minister placed such faith in Mullik, it would be at

the least lesemajesty and even heresy, to deny him a kind of papal

infallibility. If it be taken that Mullik was not just deluded, what other

explanation could there be for the unwavering consistency with which he

urged his country forward on a course which in rational perception could

lead only to war with a greatly superior military power and therefore

defeat?

Another question arises: Who, in those years, would most have

welcomed the great falling-out which saw India shift in a few years from

strong international support for the People's Republic of China to enmity

and armed conflict with it? From founding and leading the non-aligned


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movement to tacit enlistment in the hostile encirclement of China which

was Washington's aim? Mullik maintained close links with the CIA

station head in New Delhi, Harry Rossitsky. Answers may lie in the

agency's archives. China's stunning and humiliating victory brought

about an immediate reversal of fortune between the Army factions. Out

went Kaul, out went Thapar, out went many of their adherents - but by

no means all. General Chaudhuri, appointed to replace Thapar as Army

Chief, chose not to launch a counter-putsch. He and his colleagues of

the restored old guard knew full well what had caused the debacle:

Political interference in promotions and appointments by the prime

minister and Krishna Menon, defence minister, followed by clownish

ineptitude in Army HQ as the 'Kaul boys' scurried to force the troops to

carry out the mad tactics and strategy laid down by the government. It

was clear that the trail back from the broken remnants of 4 Divisionlimping onto the plains in the north-east, up through intermediate

commands to Army HQ in New Delhi and then on to the source of

political direction, would have ended at the prime minister's door - a

destination which, understandably, Chaudhuri had no desire to reach.

(Mullik was anyway to tarnish him with the charge that he was plotting to

overthrow the discredited civil order but in fact Chaudhuri was a

dedicated constitutionalist - ironically, Kaul was the only one of the

generals who harboured Caesarist ambitions.

6) The Investigation: While the outraged humiliation of the political

class left Chaudhuri with no choice but to order an enquiry into the

Army's collapse, it was up to him to decide its range and focus, indeed

its temper. The choice of Lt General Henderson Brooks to run an

Operations Review (rather than a broader and more searching board of

enquiry) was indicative of a wish not to reheat the already bubbling stew

of recriminations. Henderson Brooks (until then in command of a corps

facing Pakistan) was a steady, competent but not outstanding officer,

whose appointments and personality had kept him entirely outside the

broils stirred up by Kaul's rise and fall. That could be said too of the

officer Chaudhuri appointed to assist Henderson Brooks, Brigadier P S

Baghat (holder of a WWII Victoria Cross and commandant of the military

academy). But the latter complemented his senior by being a no-


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nonsense, fighting soldier, widely respected in the Army and the taut,

unforgiving analysis in the report bespeaks the asperity of his approach.

There is further evidence that Chaudhuri did not wish the enquiry to dig

too deep, range too widely, or excoriate those it faulted. These were the

terms of reference he set:

* Training

* Equipment

* System of command

* Physical fitness of troops

* Capacity of commanders at all levels to influence the men under

their command

The first four of those smacked of an enquiry into the sinking of the

Titanic looking into the management of the shipyard where it was built

and the health of the deck crew; only the last term has any immediacy

and there the wording was distinctly odd - commanders do not usually

'influence' those they command, they issue orders and expect instant

obedience. But Henderson Brooks and Baghat (henceforth HB/B) in

effect ignored the constraints of their terms of reference and kicked

against other limits Chaudhuri had laid upon their investigation,

especially his ruling that the functioning of Army HQ during the crisis lay

outside their purview.

"It would have been convenient and logical", they note, "to trace the

events [beginning with] Army HQ, and then move down to Commands

for more details, ...ending up with field formations for the battle itself ".

Forbidden that approach, they would, nevertheless, try to discern what

had happened at Army HQ from documents found at lower levels,

although those could not throw any light on one crucial aspect of the

story - the political directions given to the Army by the civil authorities.

As HB/B began their enquiry they immediately discovered that the short

rein kept upon them by the Army Chief was by no means their least

handicap. They found themselves facing determined obstruction in Army

HQ, where one of the leading lights of the Kaul faction had survived in

the key post of Director of Military Operations (DMO) - Brigadier D K


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Palit. Kaul had exerted his powers to have Palit made DMO in 1961

although others senior to him were listed for the post and Palit, as he

was himself to admit, was "one of the least qualified among [his]

contemporaries for this crucial General Staff appointment"7 Palit had

thereafter acted as enforcer for Kaul and the civilian protagonists of the

'forward policy', Mullik foremost among the latter, issuing the orders and

deflecting or overruling the protests of field commanders who reported

up their strategic imbecility or operational impossibility.

Why Chaudhuri left Palit in this post is puzzling: The Henderson Brooks

Report was to make quite clear what a prominent and destructive role he

had played throughout the Army high command's politicisation and

through inappropriate meddling in command decisions, even in bringing

about the debacle in the Northeast. Palit, though, would immediately

have recognised that the HB/B enquiry posed a grave threat to his

career, and so did all that he could undermine and obstruct it. After

consultation with Mullik, Palit took it upon himself to rule that HB/B

should not have access to any documents emanating from the civil side -

in other words, he blindfolded the enquiry, as far as he could, as to the

nexus between the civil and military.

As Palit smugly recounts his story, in an autobiography published in

1991, he personally faced down both Henderson Brooks and Baghat,

rode out their formal complaints about his obstructionism and preventedthem from prying into the "high level policies and decsions" which he

maintained were none of their business.8 In fact, however, the last word

lies with HB/B - or will do if their report is ever published. In spite of

Palit's efforts, they discovered a great deal that the Kaul camp and the

government would have preferred to keep hidden and their report shows

that Palit's self-admiring and mock-modest autobiography grossly

misrepresents the role he played. The Henderson Brooks Report is long

(its main section, excluding recommendations and many annexures,

covers nearly 200 foolscap pages), detailed and far-ranging. This

introduction will touch only upon some salient points, to give the flavour

of the whole (a full account of the subject they covered is in the writer's

1970 study, India's China War).

The Forward Policy: This was born and named at a meeting chaired by

Nehru on November 2, 1961, but had been alive and kicking in the


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womb for years before that - indeed its conception dated back to 1954,

when Nehru issued an instruction for posts to be set up all along India's

claim lines, "especially in such places as might be disputed". What

happened at this 1961 meeting was that the freeze on provocative

forward patrolling, instituted at the Army's insistence after Mullik had

engineered the Kongka Pass clash, was ended - with the Army, now

under the courtier leadership of Thapar and Kaul, eagerly assuming the

task which Mullik's armed border police had carried out until the Army

stopped them. HB/B note that no minutes of this meeting had been

obtained, but were able to quote Mullik as saying that "the Chinese

would not react to our establishing 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" (HB/B's emphasis).

That opinion contradicted the conclusion Army Intelligence had reached

12 months before: That the Chinese would resist by force any attempts

to take back territory held by them. HB/B then trace a contradictory duet

between Army HQ and Western Army Command, with HQ ordering the

establishment of 'pennypacket' forward posts in Ladakh, specifying their

location and strength and Western Command protesting that it lacked

the forces to carry out the allotted task, still less to face the grimly

foreseeable consequences. Kaul and Palit "time and again ordered in

furtherance of the 'forward policy' the establishment of individual posts,

overruling protests made by Western Command". By August 1962 about

60 posts had been set up, most manned with less than a dozen soldiers,

all under close threat by overwhelmingly superior Chinese forces.

Western Command submitted another request for heavy reinforcements,

accompanying it with this admonition: [I]t is imperative that political

direction is based on military means. If the two are not co-related there is

a danger of creating a situation where we may lose both in the material

and moral sense much more than we already have. Thus, there is no

short cut to military preparedness to enable us to pursue effectively ourpresent policy...

That warning was ignored, reinforcements were denied, orders were

affirmed and although the Chinese were making every effort, diplomatic,

political and military, to prove their determination to resist by force, again

it was asserted that no forceful reaction by the Chinese was to be


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expected. HB/B quote Field Marshall Roberts: "The art of war teaches us

to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but in our own

readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but

rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable".

But in this instance troops were being put in dire jeopardy in pursuit of astrategy based upon an assumption - that the Chinese would not resist

with force - which the strategy would itself inevitably prove wrong.

HB/B note that from the beginning of 1961, when the Kaulist putsch

reshaped Army HQ, crucial professional military practice was

abandoned: This lapse in Staff Duties on the part of the CGS [Kaul], his

deputy, the DMO [Palit] and other Staff Directors is inexcusable. From

this stemmed the unpreparedness and the unbalance of our forces.

These appointments in General Staff are key appointments and officerswere hand-picked by General Kaul to fill them. There was therefore no

question of clash of personalities. General Staff appointments are

stepping stones to high command and correspondingly carry heavy

responsibility. When, however, these appointments are looked upon as

adjuncts to a successful career and the responsibility is not taken

seriously, the results, as is only too clear, are disastrous. This should

never be allowed to be repeated and the Staff as of old must be made to

bear the consequences of their lapses and mistakes.

Comparatively, the mistakes and lapses of the Staff sitting in Delhi

without the stress and strain of battle are more heinous than the errors

made by commanders in the field of battle. War and Debacle: While the

main thrust of the Forward Policy was exerted in the western sector it

was applied also in the east from December 1961. There the Army was

ordered to set up new posts along the McMahon Line (which China

treated - and treats - as the de facto boundary) and, in some sectors,

beyond it.

One of these trans-Line posts named Dhola Post, was invested by a

superior Chinese force on September 8, 1962, the Chinese thus reacting

there exactly as they had been doing for a year in the western sector. In

this instance, however, and although Dhola Post was known to be north

of the McMahon Line, the Indian Government reacted aggressively,


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deciding that the Chinese force threatening Dhola must be attacked

forthwith and thrown back.

Now again the duet of contradiction began, Army HQ and, in this case,Eastern Command (headed by Lt General L P Sen) united against the

commands below: XXXIII Corps (Lt General Umrao Singh), 4 Division

(Major General Niranjan Prasad) and 7 Brigade (Brigadier John Dalvi).

The latter three stood together in reporting that the 'attack and evict'

order was militarily impossible to execute.

The point of confrontation, below Thagla Ridge at the western extremity

of the McMahon Line, presented immense logistical difficulties to the

Indian side and none to the Chinese, so whatever concentration of

troops could painfully be mustered by the Indians could instantly be

outnumbered and outweighed in weaponry. Tacticly, again the

irreversible advantage lay with the Chinese, who held well-supplied,

fortified positions on a commanding ridge feature. The demand for

military action, and victory, was political, generated at top level meetings

in Delhi. "The Defence Minister [Krishna Menon] categorically stated that

in view of the top secret nature of conferences no minutes would be kept

[and] this practice was followed at all the conferences that were held by

the defence minister in connection with these operations". HB/Bcommented: "This is a surprising decision and one which could and did

lead to grave consequences. It absolved in the ultimate analysis anyone

of the responsibility for any major decision. Thus it could and did lead to

decisions being taken without careful and considered thought on the

consequences of those decisions".

Army HQ by no means restricted itself to the big picture. In mid-

September it issued an order to troops beneath Thagla Ridge to "(a)

capture a Chinese post 1,000 yards north-east of Dhola Post; (b) contain

the Chinese concentration south of Thagla." HB/B comment: "The

General Staff, sitting in Delhi, ordering an action against a position 1,000

yards north-east of Dhola Post is astounding. The country was not

known, the enemy situation vague and for all that there may have been

a ravine in between [the troops and their objective], but yet the order

was given. This order could go down in the annals of history as being as


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incredible as the order for 'the Charge of the Light Brigade' ". Worse

was to follow. Underlying all the meetings in Delhi was still the

conviction, or by now perhaps prayer, that even when frontally attacked

the Chinese would put up no serious resistance, still less react

aggressively elsewhere. Thus it came to be believed that the problem

lay in weakness, even cowardice, at lower levels of command.

General Umrao Singh (XXXIII Corps) was seen as the nub of the

problem, since he was backing his divisional and brigade commanders

in their insistence that the eviction operation was impossible. "It was

obvious that Lt General Umrao Singh would not be hustled into an

operation, without proper planning and logistical support. The defence

ministry and, for that matter, the general staff and Eastern Command

were prepared for a gamble on the basis of the Chinese not reacting to

any great extent". So the political leadership and Army HQ decided that

if Umrao Singh could be replaced by a commander with fire in his belly,

all would come right and victory be assured. Such a commander was

available - General Kaul. A straight switch, Kaul relinquishing the CGS

post to takeover from Umrao Singh would have raised too many

questions, so it was decided instead that Umrao Singh would simply be

moved aside, retaining his corps command but no longer having

anything to do with the eviction operation. That would become the

responsibility of a new formation, IV Corps, whose sole task would be to

attack and drive the Chinese off Thagla Ridge. General Kaul would

command the new corps.

HB/B noted how even the most secret of government's decisions were

swiftly reported in the press and called for a thorough probe into the

sources of the leaks. Many years later Palit, in his autobiography,

described the transmission procedure. Palit had hurried to see Kaul on

learning of the latter's appointment to command the notional new corps:

"I found him in the little bedsitter den where he usually worked when at

home. I was startled to see, sitting beside him on the divan, Prem Bhatia

editor of The Times of India, looking like the proverbial cat who has just

swallowed a large yellow songbird. He got up as I arrived, wished [Kaul]

good luck and left, still with a greatly pleased smirk on his face".9

Bhatia's scoop led his paper next morning. The 'spin' therein was the

suggestion that whereas in the western sector Indian troops faced


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extreme logistical problems, in the east that situation was reversed and

therefore, with the dashing Kaul in command of a fresh 'task force',

victory was imminent.

The truth was exactly the contrary, those in the North-East Frontier

Agency (NEFA) faced even worse difficulties than their fellows in thewest and victory was a chimera. Those difficulties were compounded by

persistent interference from Army HQ. On orders from Delhi, "troops of

[the entire 7 Brigade] were dispersed to outposts that were militarily

unsound and logistically unsupportable". Once Kaul took over as corps

commander the troops were driven forward to their fate in what HB/B

called "wanton disregard of the elementary principles of war". Even in

the dry, numbered paragraphs of their report, HB/B's account of the

moves that preceded the final Chinese assault is dramatic and riveting,

with the scene of action shifting from the banks of the Namka Chu,

beneath the menacing loom of Thagla Ridge, to Nehru's house in Delhi -

whither Kaul rushed back to report when a rash foray he had ordered

was crushed by a fierce Chinese reaction on October 10.

To follow those events, and on into the greater drama of the ensuing

debacle is tempting, but would add only greater detail to the account

already published. Given the nature of the dramatic events they were

investigating, it is not surprising that HB/B's cast of characters consisted

in the main of fools and/or knaves on the one hand, their victims on theother. But they singled out a few heroes too, especially the jawans, who

fought whenever their senior commanders gave them the necessary

leadership, and suffered miserably from the latter's often gross

incompetence. As for the debacle itself, "Efforts of a few officers,

particularly those of Capt N N Rawat" to organise a fighting retreat,

"could not replace a disintegrated command", nor could the cool-headed

Brigadier Gurbax Singh do more than keep his 48 Brigade in action as a

cohesive combat unit until it was liquidated by the joint efforts of higher

command and the Chinese. HB/B place the immediate cause of the

collapse of resistance in NEFA in the panicky, fumbling and

contradictory orders issued from corps HQ in Tezpur by a 'triumvirate' of

officers they judge to be grossly culpable: General Sen, General Kaul

and Brigadier Palit. Those were, however, only the immediate agents of

disaster: Its responsible planners and architects were another


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triumvirate, comprised of Nehru, Mullik and again, Kaul, together with all

those who confronted and overcome through guile and puny force.

Notes:

1 The series began with Himalayan Blunder, Brigadier John Dalvi'saccount of the sacrifice of his 7 Brigade on the Namka Chu, a classic of

military literature, continuing with the relatively worthless Untold Story by

General Kaul. In 1970 this writer's India's China War told the full military

story in political and diplomatic context. In 1979 Colonel Saigal

published a well-researched account of the collapse of 4 Division in the

North-East Frontier Agency. Two years later General Niranjan Prasad

complemented Dalvi's study with his own fine account of The Fall of

Towang 1962 and In 1991 General Palit, who as a brigadier had been

director of military operations in 1962, followed up with War in HighHimalaya - like Kaul's book self-exculpatory, but much more successfully

so because by then very few were left with the knowledge that could

challenge Palit's version of events and his role in them.

2. Major General Niranjan Prasad, The Fall of Towang, Palit and Palit,

New Delhi, 1981, p 69

3. With near-criminal disregard for military considerations, this attack

was launched, near Walong in the eastern sector, to obtain a 'birthday'

victory for Nehru! It failed.

4. He might well have aspired to another act of Churchillian defiance but

the American ambassador, J K Galbraith, up betimes, got to the prime

minister in time to persuade him that discretion would serve India better

than a hollow show of valour. Thirty years later the Chinese expressed

their appreciation with a banquet in Galbraith's honour in Beijing.

5. The government misrepresented the Army's takeover as evidence of

the seriousness of the 'Chinese threat'. In fact it was a measure to try to

insulate China from the steady pinprick provocations Mullik had been

organising. The truth emerged only years later, in Mullik's autobiography,

My Years with Nehru: The Chinese Betrayal, Allied Publishers, New

Delhi, 1971, pp 243-45.

6. Welles Hangen, After Nehru, Who?, Harte-Davis, London, 1963, p

272.


16/36

7. D K Palit, War in High Himalaya: The Indian Army in Crisis,1962,

Hurst and Co, London, 1991, p 71.

8. Ibid, pp 390-92.

9. Ibid, p 220.Copyright: Economic & Political Weekly April14-20, 2001 (www.epw.org)

Your last couple of sentences "Did India provoke China by trying to

nibble at a few odd bare hills here and there? Why did China withdraw

after the war?" indicate that you are fully aware of the background

behind the 1962 war. Have you read Neville Maxwell's China's IndiaWar? While he looks at the war from a Chinese perspective, it is also

widely believed that he had access to the Henderson Brooks report and

that he had widely used it for background information.

The report (assuming that Neville Maxwell indeed had access to it) is not

pretty reading and paints Jawaharlal Nehru as a dilettante in

International Affairs. He had no concept of strategic thinking and real-

politic. He believed in his own propaganda and was overly concerned

about his image in the west. He wasn't aware that his grandiosegestures like introducing Chou En Lai to the Asian and African Leaders

in Bandung, proposing and supporting China's entry to the United

Nations etc and making uplifting statements about Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai

were no substitute for a fully fleshed out strategy to deal with a new and

powerful neighbour in the north. I wonder if he ever thought how the

Communist Party in China become the overlord of a fifth of humanity.

Surely not by being shrinking violets and being grateful for social

acceptance?

Now, after eons of separation via a wide and impassable border

marches, technology had brought our two large civilisations next to each

other. I am not aware whether the Indian State has a strategic vision

about how to handle this proximity and to tackle the border disputes. If

there is a grand plan, you might be better placed to see it for I only see


17/36

more the the Narasimha Rao / Manmohan Singh tactic; keep quiet,

ignore it and maybe the problem will go away.

There was an articulation about a grand plan during the BJP government

when Brajesh Misra dealt with some of these thorny issues. I thought the

position of letting settled populations stay as they are had promise, as itimplied some give and take. But with Tibet now heating up, China wants

a symbolic victory with Tawang, so that formulation atleast does not

seem to find favour with China now.

Anyway, I attach a 2011 article by Neville Maxwell about the 1962 war.

As again, this gives the Chinese perspective, so it is very illuminating on

how the leadership from across the border saw it.


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CHINAS INDIA WAR

How the Chinese Saw the Conflict

By Neville Maxwell (May 2011)

The Chinese leadership was slow to recognise the seriousness of the

problems presented to it by the Nehru governments border policy. Soon

after the establishment of the Peoples Republic in 1949 its government

had recognised border settlement as a problem involving all its

numerous neighbours, and had evolved a strategy to deal with it:

forswearing irredentist attempts to regain lost lands, China would

accept the border alignments with which history had left it, and negotiate

where necessary to formalise and confirm them, in the spirit of Mutualunderstanding and mutual accommodation. In the case of India, this

meant that India should retain the territory, up to what they called the

McMahon Line, which the British imperialists had seized in their final

expansionist foray. Zhou Enlai gave assurances to that effect in his

several meetings and exchanges with Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s,

and Beijing foresaw no territorial dispute with India.

Their first inkling of troubles ahead came in 1958 when Beijing found

itself accused of aggression (an extreme and loaded term in diplomaticparlance) when Indian border guards found a Tibetan/Chinese presence

in small tracts claimed by India in what became known as the middle

sector of the border. Then an Indian patrol was detected and detained

in Chinese-claimed and -occupied territory in the western sector. And in

August 1959 an armed clash at a point called Longju on the cMahon

Line, in which an Indian border guard was killed, set off an outburst of

public and official suspicion and anger against China, not only in India

but in the West generally and, critically, in Moscow. So in October that

year the Chinese leadership found itself being reprimanded over theLongju incident by the visiting Nikita Krushchev.

1 Why did you have to kill people on your border with India? he

demanded to know. Mao Zedung replied, defensively, They attacked

us first, crossed the border and continued firing for twelve hours.


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Krushchev retorted, Nobody was killed among the Chinese, only among

the Indians. Zhou Enlai came in: What are we supposed to do if they

attack us first? We cannot [just] fire in the air! The Indians even

crossed the McMahon Line. Besides, very soon Vice President

Radhakrishnan is coming to China that shows that we are undertaking

measures to resolve the issues peacefully by negotiations. Mao

summed up the Chinese position: The border conflict with India is only a

marginal issue, not a clash between the two governments. Nehru

himself is not aware of what happened [at Longju]. As we found out,

their patrols crossed the McMahon Line. We learned about it much later,

after the incident took place. All this was known neither to Nehru nor

even to our military district in Tibet. When Nehru learned that their

patrols had crossed the McMahon Line he issued orders for them to

withdraw. We also worked towards peaceful restoration of the issue.Neville Maxwell Zhou continued with those reassurances: You will see

for yourself later that the McMahon Line with India will be maintained

and the border conflict will end. Mao underlined that prediction: The

border issue with India will be decided through negotiations. So it can

be seen that at that stage the Chinese had failed to grasp the truth

behind the border friction and beneath the careful wording in the Indian

governments diplomatic communications. Nehru had decided, well

before this and irrevocably as it turned out, that India would never agree

to negotiate its borders. And the Longju clash was not accidental butreflected the Indian approach to borders that was later to be named,

from the British imperial vocabulary, the forward policy, involving here

the unilateral amendment of McMahons alignment in accordance with

Indian convenience. India was treating the territory it claimed as ipso

facto (by reason of that claim) Indian territory. The more serious clash in

October 1959 at the Kongka Pass on the Kashmir/ Xiangkiang border,

with killed on both sides, had a galvanic effect on Indian public opinion

and jolted the Chinese leadership into alarmed attention. Convening

again to discuss the border with India, with Army commanders in

attendance, they learned that Chinese border guards were experiencing

frequent challenges from Indian patrols, and were chafing at orders that

denied them the right to rebuff them. Mao, perhaps rankling still from

Krushchevs dressing down and certainly recognising that further

clashes resulting in Indian casualties would add to the international


20/36

opprobrium on China, decided that only disengagement of the two sides

forces would prevent them. He ordered a 20 kilometre withdrawal of

Chinese guards all along the border, with a request to be made to India

for reciprocation. That request was refused but the proposed withdrawal

was implemented by Chinese forces.

2. Still, and for at least a year thereafter, the Chinese leadership failed to

appreciate the severity of the problem with which Indias assertive and

unyielding approach to the border dispute confronted them, apparently

expecting that their repeated diplomatic calls for negotiation, and for

agreed short-term measures to tranquillise the borders, would ultimately

be accepted. By mid-1961, however, the newly named forward policy of

using force, non-violently, to extrude the Chinese from the tracts ofterritory claimed by India, was beginning to bite in the Western border

sector. Indian patrols, conducted now by the Army rather than armed

police, were challenging Chinese posts and probing for positions from

which to dominate and sever their lines of communication. The

unyielding granite in Indias diplomatic refusal to negotiate had been

personally felt by Zhou in his abortive summit meeting with Nehru in

April 1960. It now began to occur to the Chinese leadership that India

might deliberately be making itself an enemy of China and even be

bent on provoking hostilities.

Neville Maxwell While noting Nehrus long-standing declarations of

friendship towards China and welcoming his support for their claims to

UN representation, as Marxists the Chinese had always harboured a

reserve of distrust of Nehru as a national bourgeois politician. As such

he was unreliable, and might at any time, for domestic political reasons

or to curry favour with Chinas implacable counter-revolutionary foe, the

USA, turn towards enmity. To the Chinese, that seemed to be the only

possible explanation for Indias aggressive policy and Nehrus bellicose

utterances, since conflict with China could not be seen as being of

benefit for India.

Toward the end of 1961 a meeting of the Central Military Commission

(CMC) was convened to consider the response to Indias forward


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probing. Mao, in the chair, compared those to chess moves. What

should we do?, he asked. We can also set out a few pawns. If they

then [stop advancing] thats great. If they dont, well eat them up. Of

course we cant just blindly eat them. Lack of forbearance in small

matters upsets great plans [as the saying goes]. We must pay attention

to the situation. Orders were issued for Chinese forces to reverse their

previous unilateral withdrawal, and for road construction to forward

areas all along the border to be accelerated. Mao took the struggle with

India under his personal control, ordering that no shot be fired from the

Chinese side without his prior approval.In March 1962 the CMC met

again to reconsider the border situation. Indian troops were continuing

to press forward in the Western sector, attempting to cut off Chinese

posts and sometimes opening harassing fire upon them. On the

diplomatic front India was meeting every Chinese appeal for a mutualmilitary standstill and negotiations with demands for unilateral Chinese

withdrawal from all territory claimed by India. It was decided there

should be no retreat under Indian pressure. When Indian troops

established positions threatening Chinese posts in the western sector,

additional Chinese forces should simply use their great advantage in

manoeuvrability and numbers to outflank and dominate them in turn.

Thus the two sides would be confronting each other in interlocking,

mutually threatening positions. Chinese forces would still be forbidden

to fire without permission from the central political authority. Since Indiawas rejecting Chinas calls for peaceful coexistence, Mao quipped, it

should be confronted with armed coexistence.

The summer of 1962 saw only intensification of that situation. Beijing

increased the minatory tone and heat of its diplomatic warnings and

made its threats of counterforce more open. Delhis replies continued to

be insouciant and intransigent, Nehru being confident in the assurances

from his Intelligence chief and courtier generals that the Chinese were

bluffing and would never dare hit back at India. For their part too theChinese were uncertain about Indias motives and ultimate intention.

Could it really be true that India, so obviously weaker militarily and at

every logistical and tactical disadvantage along the border, would press

on to the point of war?


22/36

Zhou Enlai directed Chen Yi, now foreign minister, to meet privately with

the Indian defence minister, Krishna Menon, when they were in Geneva

at an international conference, and sound him out about Indias real

intentions. Chen reported that Neville Maxwell Menon had simply re-

stated his governments position: Beijings complaints were groundless

since Indian troops were doing nothing more than advancing into their

own territory; the international borders were clearly marked on Indias

maps and were fixed and final therefore there was nothing to

negotiate. Menons tone was arrogant, Chen added. Zhou concluded,

It seems as though Nehru truly wants a war with us.

Meanwhile the forward policy had begun to be implemented in miniature

in the northeast, with Indian forces advancing across the McMahon Line

in such places as the Indians thought it necessary to correct McMahons

cartographic deficiencies. Their reoccupation of Longju in May

prompted Beijing to warn that it would not stand idly by under such

provocation only to see another Indian post established across the

McMahon Line near the trijunction with Bhutan. The Indians named it

Dhola post, But Mao was still not ready to admit that his policy of armed

coexistence was failing to deter India. In July the CMC reasserted his

orders: the Chinese Army must absolutely not give ground, strive

resolutely to avoid bloodshed, interlock [with Indian positions] in a zigzag

pattern, and undertake a long period of armed coexistence. That

cautious patience was understandable. Chinas international position

was parlous: the Americans were warring in Vietnam, Chiang Kai-shek

was threatening to invade the mainland from Taiwan, the Soviet Union

was turning hostile. All rational considerations pointed to avoidance of

hostilities with India if possible.

On 8 September the Chinese extended their tactic of containment

through armed coexistence to the recently established Dhola post

north of the McMahon Line at its western extremity. An outnumbering

force (about 60 troops) was ordered to invest the little Indian post, use

threats to induce its withdrawal if possible, and anyway to block further

advance. This move was likely to have been made by the sectoral

command without consultation with Beijing since it did no more than

implement the orders already in effect.


23/36

Misreading that move as a deliberate incursion into Indian territory

(although the Indian government was aware, of course, that the

threatened Indian post was well to the north of the map-marked

McMahon Line), Nehru gave orders that the Chinese must be repelled.

The Indian Army was given orders to attack the Chinese

troopsthreatening Dhola post and drive them off all the territory there

claimed by India.

Moreover Nehru publicly proclaimed his order as soon as he issued it,

The Chinese would have recognised instantly that Nehrus announced

order meant a radical escalation in the Indian policy which they had

been passively containing. Although the Chinese had begun to suffer

casualties in clashes in the Western sector there had been no Indian

attacks on Chinese positions there; but now Nehru had declared that a

determined assault in force was to be launched on Chinese troops

positioned on their own side of the McMahon Line. There was no doubt

that any such attack could be thrown back, even wiped out. Controlling

the high ground on Thagla Ridge, dominating Dhola post, the Chinese

troops could swiftly fortify their Neville Maxwell position to make it

impregnable. However many troops India put into their attack the

Chinese could effortlessly outnumber them. But would such a local

victory do China any good?

International public sympathy was with India, whose charge that it wasChina which had embarked on a program of aggressive expansion and

was refusing to negotiate its territorial claims was almost universally

accepted -- Standing truth on its head as

Beijing ruefully described it. A local Indian defeat, with many casualties

suffered, would be taken as another demonstration of brutal Chinese

aggressiveness; and the Indians, with plentiful American and British

support, would only build up for a much stronger attack and a wider war.

On 3 October Beijing sent its final diplomatic warning and plea for

immediate, unconditional negotiations: India instantly rejected it. After

listening to a situation report of intensifying skirmishing in the west and

Indian troop concentrations around Dhola post Mao conceded: It seems

armed coexistence wont work. Nehru really wants to use force: he


24/36

has always wanted to seize Aksai Chin [in the western sector] and

Thagla Ridge. He thinks he can get anything he desires.

Like a war-horse hearing bugles, he reminisced: We fought a war with

old Chiang Kai-shek. We fought a war with Japan, and with America.

With none of those did we fear. And in each case we won. Now theIndians want to fight a war with us.

Naturally we dont have to fear. We cannot give ground, once we give

ground it would be tantamount to letting them seize a big piece of land

equivalent to Fujian province. Since Nehru sticks his head out and

insists on us fighting him, for us not to fight with him would be unfriendly

courtesy emphasises reciprocity.

Zhou Enlai followed up: We dont want a war with India. We have

always striven to avoid war. We wanted India to be like Nepal, Burma or

Mongolia, and solve [border] problems with us in a friendly fashion. But

Nehru has closed all roads. This leaves us only with war. As I see it, to

fight a bit would have advantages. It would make some people

understand us better.

Right, Mao concluded: If someone doesnt attack me, I wont attack

him. If someone attacks me, I will certainly attack him! Thus the

Chinese leadership decided to take up Indias challenge to war. But how

to fight and win that war?

What should be our method? What should the war look like?, Mao

asked at a subsequent meeting.

What China needed was not a local victory but to inflict a defeat so

crushing that India might be knocked back to the negotiating table,

Mao said, or at least taught a lesson that might last thirty years. To that

end, China must keep the initiative throughout, deciding when toterminate hostilities as well as when to open them.

Crack troops of the Peoples Liberation Army should be deployed, with

orders to achieve swift victory regardless of casualties, keeping always

within the disputed areas. When all Indian forces in the disputed areas

had been destroyed a unilateral Neville Maxwell ceasefire would be


25/36

declared and then PLA forces would withdraw from all territory occupied

in the campaign. On 18 October an expanded Politburo meeting

approved the PLAs operational plans and set 20 October as the day for

action. In terms of international law Beijing could argue that in the

circumstances, with Nehru having declared his belligerent intentions and

the Indian army having, on 10 October, made its first offensive move in

the Dhola area and being steadily reinforced there, China was fully

justified in acting in anticipatory self-defence.

The Chinese campaign went precisely as planned. Mao had over-

estimated the prowess of the Indians when he warned the PLA to expect

strong resistance from experienced Indian troops. In the event

incompetent commanders on the Indian side, obeying politically

motivated and tactically foolish directives from Delhi, quickly brought

their own troops to defeat and rout. Having achieved total victory in a

twophase campaign Beijing declared its pre-planned ceasefire on 21

November and all Chinese forces withdrew a few weeks later..

The political aims of the counter-attack in self-defence were not

fulfilled, however. There was no change in the Indian approach, and

nearly 50 years later India still refuses to negotiate, while Maos

expectation of a 30 year lull on the borders fell short by five years: in

1987 after a minor confrontation at Sumdurong Chu, not far from Dhola,

India again moved troops across the McMahon Line in calculatedchallenge, and war was narrowly averted. Still today there is no agreed

line of actual control, friction on the borders is constant, the danger of

renewed conflict ever-present. Indias refusal to negotiate has left it

isolated in this regard; every one of Chinas other contiguous neighbours

(except Bhutan) has amicably negotiated a boundary settlement.

Nevil le Maxwell Nevil le Maxwell


26/36


27/36

was not initiated before identifying the anomalies which required

immediate examination. Ideally, the stake-holders should have been a

part of the process.

Howsoever we may view the development, many important issues such

as Non-Functional Upgradation, enhancement of pensions of widows,One Rank One Pension, enhancement of Grade Pay of Lt Cols / Cols /

Brigs, universalisation of scales, grant of HAG+ to all Lt Gens, removal

of pay anomalies of other ranks etc have been listed in the charter of the

committee.

It is however surprising that while the PM had directed that the

constitution of the committee may be publically announced, the same

has not been done by the staff at MoD till date despite the fact that the

directions were conveyed by special courier (by hand) to the MoD forimmediate action by the PMO.

ADOPT A TERRORIST!!

A Canadian female libertarian wrote a lot of letters to the Canadian

government, complaining about the treatment of captive insurgents

(terrorists) being held in Afghanistan National Correctional System

facilities. She demanded a response to her letter. She received back the

following reply:

National Defense Headquarters

Major General Gen George R. Pearkes Bldg., 15 NT

101 Colonel By Drive

Ottawa , ON K1A 0K2

Canada

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for your recent letter expressing your profound concern of

treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists captured by Canadian


28/36

Forces, who were subsequently transferred to the Afghanistan

Government and are currently being held by Afghan officials in

Afghanistan National Correctional System facilities.

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinions

were heard loud and clear here in Ottawa. You will be pleased to learn,thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new

department here at the Department of National Defense, to be called

'Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers' program, or L.A.R.K. for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have

decided, on a trial basis, to divert several terrorists and place them in

homes of concerned citizens such as yourself, around the country, under

those citizens personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected

and is scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to yourresidence in Toronto next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is your detainee, and is to be cared

for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of

complaint. You will be pleased to know that we will conduct weekly

inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are

commensurate with your recommendations.

Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that

your sensitivity to what you described as his 'attitudinal problem' will help

him overcome those character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in

describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand

that you plan to offer counselling and home schooling, however, we

strongly recommend that you hire some assistant caretakers.

Please advise any Jewish friends, neighbours or relatives about your

house guest, as he might get agitated or even violent, but we are sure

you can reason with him. He is also expert at making a wide variety of

explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish

to keep those items locked up, unless in your opinion, this might offend

him. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand

combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil

or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these


29/36


30/36


31/36

haveheard. When the audience cared about the heroines figure and the

heros punchmore than the narrative, the makers cared little about

writers. A story andscreenwriter were engaged like a bare minimum and

thus few shined in thedepartment.

The second reason is a unique aspectof Indian culture, which is theexploitation and abuse of power, by those whocan. It is considered

acceptable in our value system that the more powerfulwill get a bigger

share, irrespective of whether they deserve it or not. From atraffic cop to

a minister, we have seen examples of people exploiting theirposition to

gain an unfair advantage. So if a writer deserved a slice of thepizza, but

the producer distributed it, the writer had to do with scraps. Thisis how it

happens in Bollywood, was drilled down peoples throats. Writers

became used to less money. However, the few times their work was

noted,producers and directors pounced on another thing credit.

Whatever was good inthe story, the producers and directors thumped

their chests and took credit forit. Why? Because they could. They had

power and thus they did it. In the end,the film writer could never make a

brand for himself,. He had no one to appealto and had no choice but to

lump it.

Hence, a manifestation of sometypically Indian habits, audience

indifference and power exploitation, foundits way in Bollywood, and hurt

the writers. But we know all this. The question is how do we changeit.How do we change audience preferences, and the power order

established overgenerations. Well, I have always believed, people

change when they want tochange. People change when they believe

change will do them some good, makethem a better person or give them

a better life. Well, good stories doenrich our lives. Stories that touch us

do make us feel happy and alive. Andslowly, the audience is realizing

this.

The audience today is cluttered withcontent. 200 TV channels, noisysocial networks, the Internet, smartphones,print media, radio everyone

is being bombarded in every direction by content.It is natural that people

will develop a certain numbness to it. A fashionableactress was a big

draw earlier, but if I see pictures of ten of them in a day,it is difficult to be

so excited about it. More than anything, so much contentmeans the

content isnt created with much thought. Recycling, clichs, formulasare


32/36

being tried everywhere from fashion weeks to reality TVs to even

movies.The audience is in stupor. The easy ways to catch attention a

strikingvisual, a catchy beat doesnt seem to work as well. People now

want more.They want entertainers to touch their core one of the few

things that cantouch your core is a good story. Films that have worked

Zindagi NaMilegi Dobara, Dirty Picture, and currently Kahani show that

the audience likescontent too. Yes they were star vehicles, but content

is inching ahead. LSD, Shor in the city, Stanley ka Dabba are some

recent pure contentsuccesses. The day is not far where people wont

pay for movies withoutcontent. Just as more and more Indians are

asking for more accountablepoliticians, similarly, we are going to see a

demand for content. This meanswriters will have to be brought on the

boardroom table.

The second part, changing the powerequation is a little harder. Of

course, as a few writers deliver consistenthits, their power will rise. Then

they too can demand their fair share. This isthe argument many would

make. However, this is not how a fair community isorganized. Whether a

writer is powerful or not, he or she should get his or herdue. In fact,everyone in the unit should. A set of values, ethics has to cometo our

film industry. If it doesnt, a lot of talent will shy away. Onlyestablished

guys and their protgs will function, and while they may grow the

industry as a whole will grow much slower than it could in a true and

fairmeritocracy. In Hollywood, they faced this same problem in the

1950s, issue ofcredit used to cause a lot of concern there. Soon,

norms were set. For example,they would stipulate, credit number 4 will

belong to the writer, in the samefont and size as that of the director. It

isnt up to the whim of the producer.The author of the story cannot be

changed it is the fundamental copyrightlaw. You can buy a painting.

You cannot say you painted it. The produceror director cannot put their

name on a story they havent written, even if theyhave paid for it. Such

norms have helped reduce conflict in Hollywood, ensuredfair play and

brought them a whole bunch of content.


33/36


34/36

When initial calls for the overhaul of INSAS emerged two yrs ago,

some senior offrs criticised the decision to issue a global tender for its

replacement, claiming that mods had already transformed it into a good

wpn.

However, there have also been criticisms of the rifles apparent lack ofstopping power, with one reported def of the sys attempting to explain

instant lethality as a less preferable option to serious injury. In this

scenario, it was theorised that more tps are forced to leave the battlefield

in their efforts to evac the injured.

On top of this, use of the wpn during the 1999 Kargil conflict

revealed other early-ph manufacturing flaws, such as the polymer mags

cracking and jamming in cold weather, and accts of the three-round

burst function not working. Reportedly, the rifle was so unreliable thatthe Army imported 100,000 AK-47s to cope under high altitude

conditions.

Detls of the rifles record may come as a frustration to the Royal

Army of Oman, who confirmed orders for the INSAS last yr as part of the

India-Oman 2003 def agreement. The exact No of wpns on order has

not been revealed, but Bhutan and Nepal both use the wpn, the latter

holding 23,000 in its stks.

So, Whats New?

Failings of the INSAS wpns will be remedied within the Futuristic

Indian Soldier as a System (F-INSAS) pgme, and given its status as the

first obj of the entire modernisation effort, will begin to see real prog in

2012.

The aim is to acquire modular, multi-calibre wpns, consisting of a

rifle able to fire 5.56mm, 7.62mm and 6.8mm rounds, with potential for

an Underbarrel Gren Lr (UGBL).

It had been thought by some analysts that the Indian Govts

reluctance to offer pvt tender and instead rely on its own DRDO had

slowed the process for modernisation considerably, and fears of losing

local industry opportunities have arguably hampered innovative

competition.


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There has been conflicting opinion since the end of 2011 on

whether the indigenous apch will still be undertaken, as it had been

reported in Indias national press that the govt had issued global tenders

for its F-INSAS rifles and CQB carbs, while previous reports had already

suggested that the DRDO had devp a new carbine called Milap set to

begin fd trials and presumably intended for Indian inf.

That which is known for certain is what India believes its rifles

should exhibit as future weaponry given the publically accessible RFI

docus released in the past few yrs.

Among these were the hopes to entice bidders to devp a

multipurpose and rugged gen purpose machine gun for Indian SF, as

well as a rifle with the capb to shoot around corners. Def IQ confirmed in

an interview with Amos Golan, the inventor of the Israeli CornerShotrifle, that the co is indeed providing this capb to Indian Forces and holds

the international patent on the core concept. CornerShot has already

been supplied to Indias NSG.

Both the new 7.62mm and assault rifle are planned to incl thermal

imaging and digital video relay, with the assault rifle also exhibiting a

Passive Ni Sight (PNS). Desired op temps sit between -10C to +45C,

while every new wpn is expected to be lighter than previous versions,

and with longer rg.It has been estimated that each advanced INSAS rifle will cost

approx 50,000 INR (570 640) per unit.

Beyond std soldier rifles, a new RFI has been rel for devp of a

Sniper Rifle under the F-INSAS designation, but within its gen

specifications does not reveal much in the way of special

advancements.

In further intriguing devps, Indias inf and WE dtes have issued far

more specific call outs for inf on recoverable tp-launched Mini UAVs, for

use in real-time svl and recce, detection of en mov, tgt detection,

recognition, identification and acqn, and PSDA.

Learning from Allies


36/36

China Henderson Brooks Report

Documents

Transcript of China Henderson Brooks Report