Ashdoc's account of the 1962 India-China war

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the India-China war I am copy/pasting an account of the war I had written on another forum earlier . The article that follows is originally written by myself .

How the war started---

it came about because the british and the chinese had left the frontier unmarked in the earlier stages of the colonial era.

actually arunachal pradesh was under tibetian influence for centuries.

at first the british accepted it.but in 1914 they unilaterally expanded into it by declaring the macmohan line as the frontier of india,bringing arunachal pradesh and the famous tibetian monastory of tawang into india.

this was not acceptable to both the tibetians or the chinese emperor who claimed suzarainity over tibet. when tibet was occupied by communist china they naturally claimed arunachal -calling it southern tibet.giving it up would have been a massive human rights tragedy , however as the population of arunachal detested china and felt safe in secular india.surely giving it up would have been throwing it to the chinese wolves.

matters became further complicated when china also claimed aksai chin a part of kashmir in the northeast tip of ladakh.the reason for this was that it wanted to build a highway through it linking tibet and sinkiang ,actually eastern turkestan ,another region perpetualy in revolt against china. this highway could not be built through the common border of the two provinces as the impassable kunlun mountains are on that border . so chinese built it through india!!!

the indian govt had never sent an expedition to uninhabited aksai chin, and did not know that china had occupied it at all.k m pannikar nehrus friend , ambassador to china and sinophile was happily singing hindi chini bhai bhai when this was happening.

india received a rude shock when a chinese magazine truimphantly proclaimed
completion of the highway and posted photoes of it calling it a engineering marvel in the high himalayas.

india now began to send expedition s in that region. this led to clashes with chinese troops. slowly the intensity of the clashes increased.

diplomatically , the chinese offered a solution- you give up aksai chin, we will give up arunachal - thus trading indian territory for indian territory.india refused.

the clashes on the border became more frequent. matters came to a head when indians started patrolling the macmohan line in arunachal which it had not earlier.the chinese govt decided to teach india a lesson it would never forget.

it overran arunachal in the war.but returned back to its original position giving arunachal back to india- offering the same 'magnanimous' solution- you give up aksai , we will give up our claim on arunachal.
secretly the indian govt was inclined to aceppt the solution as aksai was uninhabited and useless while the population of arunachal wanted desperately to remain in india.but the jana sangh promised to raised hell over it as it was national territory.

so the problem remains.......

according to colonel anil athlye the military supplies to chinese troops in tibet came through calcutta!!! tibet did not have any roads and was virtually impassable due to high mountains. the chinese govt had signed an agreement with india to route civilian supplies to tibet through calcutta which would come by sea from mainland china and then through calcutta to sikkim to tibet. once the agreement was signed nobody in india bothered to check if the supplies were military or civilian.the chiinese happily continued their military build up in tibet to attack india by passing supplies in carefully sealed boxes through calcatta and then through the nathu la pass in sikkim to tibet.

Actual fighting---

these details i have taken from neville maxwells -INDIAS CHINA WAR.
one word of caution though- dont read the book! neville is a british communist and and everything he writes is pro china. i almost got convinced of the chinese case myself!

once the reports started coming out of the newspapers of china having built a highway through indian territory in aksai chin,the indian govt was awoken from its dreamworld of india china bhai bhai.

jana sangh raised hell in parlament about the neglect of national security which had led to this lapse.

the nehru govt was compelled to send patrols in to aksai chin.initially they met with some success.

this was the pattern . some forty of our soldiers would establish a post inside chinese occupied territory.the chinese would confront it and an eyeball to eyeball confrontation would take place between the two forces. some time later the chinese would back down. the chinese had obviously not been given the order to attack our soildiers.this happened several times.

the nehru govt-fresh from its success in kicking out the portugese form goa felt it could achieve a similar success in kicking out the chinese . nehru felling a false sense of bravado talked in parlament of ''throwing them out back where they came from.''

as indians inched closer to the highway the confrontations led to actual clashes.

the govt took the decision to patrol the macmohan line in arunachal, what the chinese called the line of control.

the problem arose when indians decided to patrol thagla ridge at the western tip of arunachal . here the macmohan line itself was disputed as the chinese felt that the line passed through the namka chu river to the south of it.

the indians however decided to press their claim and deployed a brigade of troops under brigadier john dalvi onto the ridge.

this finally angered the chinese to teach india a lesson.

they attacked the indians on thagla ridge. the frontal assaults failed but the chinese had enormous numerical superiority.they captured the tsangle position on the flank which was less well defended and then attacked from the flank. soon the indians were forced to withdraw from the thagla ridge and retreat to the namka chu river.

DRAGONNADE AT NAMKA CHU-

the indians thought that the namka chu river position was safe as the chinese had accepted it as the line of control. the thagla ridge action had been a pure local action to remove them from disputed territory ,they thought.

they were in for a shocker when the chinese made a full scale frontal assault on the position.. this time they used human wave tactics- that is wave after wave of chinese soildiers would attack the indians.when one wave was exhausted the second and then the third would attack - sometimes without weapons and picking up the weapons of their dead comrades on the way.

the chinese obviously were carrying out a full scale invasion. certainly this was no impromptu decision and they had been preparing for war for years .
dalvi watched the slaughter of his men helplessly.certainly they killed many more than they lost-human wave tactics are costly in terms of lives-but the chinese thuoght their soldiers expendable and had far more to lose.

when all was lost dalvi tried to escape. he was caught and became among the first prisoners of war. he survived the war to write a highly emotional and personal account of the war-HIMALAYAN BLUNDER.

the news stunned the nation.the immediate effect was to abandon the famous monastory of tawang as resistance in this part was thought to be hopeless.

the experts advised to hold the position at bomdila-sound military advice as the position here was was far away from the chinese troops and by the time they came there the indians could have built massive supiriority. but that would mean abandoning a large part of arunachal to the invaders- politically inpossible to do.

so it was decided to hold the se la pass nearer to the chinese, also bomdila far behind it and darang dzong in between them.

the chinese decided not to carry out a frontal assault on se la. the instead found a route through the mountains called bailey trail- explored by britisher bailey a long time ago.

they defeated the weak troops defending the trail and came up behind the sela pass and in between that position and bomdila.

obviously sela had to be abandoned . but the senior officers began to pass the buck for taking this decision as it would mean the end of the carreer of the officer who ordered this retreat.

at night it was decided to remove part of the force and keep the rest.this news led to collapse of morale at sela as the troops felt abandoned to their fate.
the chinese quckly took advantage to capture it along with plenty prisoners.

now the position at darang dzong came in danger, so a force was detached to defend it thereby weakening the position at bomdila.
darang dzong was captured before the force could reach it and the force also was caught in the open on the road where they could shot at and was annihilated. the force at bomdila was too weak to defend its positon now and was defeated.

at the eastern tip of arunachal the chinese attacked the strongly defended airstrip of walong . they were completely defeated and driven out sustaining heavy losses.the indians were stupid enough to take advantage of this to attack the heavily defended chinese positions and failed-taking heavy losses themselves.the chinese quicking attcked to capture walong- now there was not a singli indian soldier in NEFA- as arunachal was called then.

in aksai chin the chinese drove out all the posts indians had established in the past few years.

nehru became the laughing stock of the world in the very non aligned summits where he once strode like a collosus. he wasnt caring anyway- he used to spend his time slumbering in thse summits after the war.

he was probably dreaming of the next world. his end was near........

The aftermath---

after their victory the chinese gave the whole of arunachal back to india.the reason is not clearly established.

maybe they just wanted to teach india a lesson and went back after proving their point.they had proved to the whole world who the power of asia was.

in any case they didnt want arunachal . the strategically important territory was aksai chin which contains their all important highway for ferrying troops to and fro from xingjiang to tibet - both in revolt against china.

maybe they really had a soft corner for nehru who had supported them to the hilt in every international forum and didnt want to see him humiliated any further.

having gobbled up most of tibet they were not particularly keen on aggravating the international dispute with india and stretching relations beyond breaking point and bringing on a kashmir like situation by taking in population keen on remaining in india- thus closing all doors of compromise with india.

having said that - the present chinese leadership certainly feels that the (actually) wise decision of the leadership at that time was a mistake.

it is pressing the claim on arunachal in right earnest promising sops to the population of arunachal. it is to the credit of the arunachalis that inspite of this they want to further integrate with india- they are the only nonhindi state to have accepted hindi as the state language by their own free will.

Jawaharlal motilal nehru died in 1964 with all his shattered dreams. many say he didnt die due to the war but due to his lifelong passion for women.
the immediate cause of his death is said to be aortic aneurysm- that is ballooning of the aorta, the main blood vessel coming out from the heart because the walls of it have become weak and cant resist the pressure of the beats of the heart which cause the blood to flow in tremendous force.the walls become weak in a disease called syphlis - a sexually transmitted disease.eventually the walls burst and the blood explodes out. dont ask me if this is true .many people have told me so.

the indian army reoccupied tawang in 1986. the chinese retaliated by occupying somdurong chu in arunachal.this time india prepared for full scale war buliding up its troops in full view of the chinese. the chinese chickened out and went back.

today you can visit the beautiful monastory town of tawang situated in the high himalayas as a tourist.

the chinese are building a railway to the border so that they can push troops rapidly to the border.

so the tide of history goes on to which we are mere spectators......

A legend of romance from the war to cool your heart.....---

where there is war there is legend

and where there are the misty mountains there is romance.

time to take off from the real issues of life to tell a story of bravery and romance......

there was a handsome soldier of the indian army(they are always handsome in these stories) belonging to the rajputana rifles.his name was jaswant singh. he was posted in arunachal along with his battalion.

two beautiful damsels with cheeks like roses (they are always beautiful in these stories), and who were sisters, set their lovely eyes on him one fine morning.they were arunachali girls and their names were sheila and noorie. they fell in love with him instantly!

next day they proposed to him.''but young ladies'', he said in all modesty,'' i am a married man.''

'' dont worry '' said the beauties '' we are ready to become your second and third wives.we will serve your wife like a elder sister.''

the jawan however was not convinced.

but the two decided to wean their way into his heart. every day they used to bring roti and sabzi, the jawans favourite food, for they had heard that the best way to a mans heart is through his stomach.

and slowly but surely the jawan fell in love with both of them.every evening he used to spend time with them along the bank of the stream that flowed through the village.

one day while he was doing this he saw all the men in his battalion running away for their lives. he and the sisters could not know why. all his comrades ran away.

and then he saw hundreds of chinese soldiers coming. he immediately readied his rifle and took cover. the sisters followed him with the ammunition.

with the sisters filling his magazine again and again he kept on firing from a concealed position. he killed 56 chinese this way.

the chinese commander sent 12 men on a detour behind him and they succeeded capturing him alive. he was hanged by telephone wires and the two sisters tortured to death.his head was cut off after he died.

after the war he was found missing and the army decided to intiate a court martial against him.the general who was incharge of the trail however saw jaswant in a dream at night. he was in full military regalia. he directed him to ask the truth to the chinese.

the general enquired to the chinese side and sure enough- the true story came out.

ever since then he is known as baba jaswant singh.a temple has been built in his honour.he is given posthumous promotions every few years. last heard this simple rifleman was a leutenant general of the indian army.

every army man going to duty in the high mountains pays homage to the baba before going into the high mountains, by praying in his temple. even muslim soldiers of the indian army dont dare go forward without offering namaaz in the temple.

few years ago a major general scoffed at this as superstitions and went ahead without praying at the babas temple. his helicopter crashed to death in the high himalayas....

people belive that the baba goes every night on patrol in the mountains.
every night new clothes are ironed and kept in the babas temple bfore the doors are closed. next day they are crumpled! the baba has worn them on his patrol in the mountains.soldiers of the army who are sleeping are liable to be whacked into alertness by the big stick the baba reportedly carries.

the temple has become a major center for piligrimage for the common people of arunachal. as well as a major tourisr attraction.

the common people belive that the next time the chinese army attacks them, the baba will swoop down the mountains to to mow down the enemy.

that if the indian army ever abandons them , the baba never will.
he is their ultimate defence against the almighty power of china, the hordes of the middle kingdom and the firepower of the dragon.

hopeful stories maybe...

but where there is hope there is life .

nice to know that the arunachalis still have hope in an indian!