The Sino-Indian border conflict leading to the 1962 war is viewed in isolation from the world scene and the overall relations between the two countries. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that it was primarily the result of a power imbalance. While India’s case is much stronger on legal and historical grounds, China’s has been reinforced as a result of its occupation of the Tibetan plateau. India could have reduced the power disparity in the ‘fifties when it still had the time; but it failed to do so. Those who were in control of the Defence Ministry and the military establishment then have to share some of the blame for the debacle in 1962. It cannot be passed on wholly to those who inherited an impossible situation.
Effective
Mr. Neville Maxwell comes fairly close to recognising the point regarding India’s claims in his book. He admits that in respect of the western sector “the Indian argument was most effective in countering the Chinese version of the ‘traditional and customary border line.’ In detail, the Chinese case for the line shown on their maps was weak and the Indians were able to cite much evidence to indicate that the Chinese claim was too far to the west.’’
But he then backs away from this conclusion and goes on to add: “If the Chinese case for their version of the traditional and customary boundary was not strong (mark the change in emphasis), however, the Indian evidence to substantiate their own claim that a fully determined international boundary existed along their claim line was also weak. They could adduce evidence that at various times the Kuen Lun mountains had marked the southern limits of the Chinese territory in this area; but they could adduce none to show that effective Indian or British administration had been exercised up to the Kuen Lun.’’ (Mark the difference in standards by which the two countries are judged.)
Mr. Maxwell’s last observation is contradicted by the report on the Sino-Indian talks in 1960 at the official level. In fact he himself has noted in an earlier chapter that the Maharaja of Kashmir had built a fort at Shahidulla in the 19th century, that various British officials had surveyed it and that they could draw the line wherever they liked. If the area was truly a no-man’s land, as Mr. Maxwell contends, the question of a traditional and customary line running through Aksaichin would not have arisen at all.
As far as the soundness of the Indian case is concerned, the issue should have been settled by the report of the officials. Two well-known scholars of international repute, Dr. Margaret W. Fisher and Dr. Leo E. Gose, summed up the result when they wrote: “The case presented by the Peking authorities was so self-contradictory and disingenuous that it can only be interpreted as a demonstration of complete disdain for documentary justification of Chinese claims. India, on the contrary, carefully prepared an impressive case drawing upon the extensive and varied documentation. The conclusion could not but be embarrassing to China, and Peking’s exhibition of rage and pain when New Delhi published the complete text of the two reports is understandable.”
It can legitimately be argued that however strong the Indian case, Mr. Nehru should have sought an acceptance of his country’s borders by China at the time of the 1954 agreement over Tibet whereby New Delhi recognised Chinese sovereignty over that land and renounced the privileges it had enjoyed there since 1904.
In the light of what happened it is easy to agree with Mr. Girja Sankar Bajpai who advised Mr. Nehru to inform the Chinese officially that India regarded the McMahon line as its frontier and to disagree with Mr. Panikkar who opposed this suggestion. But even so it is difficult to see what useful purpose would have been served by such a statement because it is certain that the Chinese would have rejected it and at best ignored it.
Dilemma
This would have revived the dilemma which Mr. Nehru faced at the time of the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950-51. He would have had to decide whether he should ignore the rebuff and persist in the friendly policy or whether he should take it for granted that the Chinese had designs on Indian territory and prepare for it. In any case it is pertinent to remember that the Sino-Indian conflict and the war in 1962 were the result of disagreement not over the McMahon line but over Aksaichin.
There is enough circumstantial evidence to show that Mr. Nehru and his advisers did not realise the importance of Aksaichin till some time in 1958, that is after the Chinese had already built the road. This is as true of Mr. Bajpai as of Mr. Panikkar. There is nothing to suggest that even military commanders serving in Kashmir realised the importance of Aksaichin. Until 1958 no one in this country anticipated that this would become the real bone of contention.
The discovery that the Chinese had cut a road through Indian territory placed New Delhi in a quandary because it was not in a position to move into the remaining part even then. As Mr. Maxwell shows it was not until the end of 1961 that an effort was made to implement the so-called forward policy. This means that effective steps were not taken to sustain Indian claims even after Mr. Chou En-lai had challenged them in his letter of September 8, 1959, to Mr. Nehru. It was by no means the much-maligned Thapar-Kaul team which was in charge of the military establishment then.
Mr. Maxwell argues that since India had no claim to the area, it had no business to try to occupy even part of it in 1961. The first part of the statement is plainly absurd. Its operative part cannot, however, be dismissed lightly even though it needs to be qualified.
Worthwhile
If an agreement, whenever feasible, had to be reached on the basis of the status quo as Mr. Chou En-lai hinted in respect of the McMahon line repeatedly, it was surely worthwhile for India after having waited for a decade, to stop China’s creeping advance and draw the line as far into Aksaichin as possible. The observation which Sir John Ardagh, Director of British Military Intelligence, made in 1897 was still valid. There can be no question that India’s military presence in Aksaichin would have been useful from the point of view of intelligence.
But this argument would not hold if it was assumed that the Chinese would wipe out by force small posts which was all that India could establish in the absence of a strong base in Ladakh and in view of the impossible terrain and logistical difficulties. As Mr. Maxwell has demonstrated on the basis of access to secret document, opinion in India was seriously divided on this question. While some senior Generals regarded the risk of Chinese retaliation as grave, the political leadership and officials of the Ministry of External Affairs apparently did not share their fears. Gen. Kaul, Chief of Staff in 1961, was inclined to agree with the latter. The fact that Peking did not use force in Aksaichin clearly encouraged a similar move forward in NEFA.
In keeping with the rest of his thesis, Mr. Maxwell takes the view that Mr. Nehru was not interested in a negotiated settlement. This is blatantly unfair to the former Indian Prime Minister. As a matter of fact Mr. Nehru even concealed information from Parliament up to 1959 in the interest of amicable relations with China. His task was later greatly complicated by the pressure of an uninformed public opinion and Parliament, the widespread distrust of Mr. Menon in his own party and the decline in his own moral authority as a result of the failure of his China policy by which he had set so much store. But his statements, which Mr. Maxwell quotes, show that he was by no means inflexible. He had to speak in two languages – one to pacify opinion at home and the other to signal to the Chinese that a negotiated settlement was still possible. Even after blood had been shed and India had launched the so-called forward policy, Mr. Nehru did not give up hope. The distinction he drew between negotiations and talks more than once in 1961 was obviously intended to keep the door open for talks. He wanted to negotiate. The problem was: on what basis?
The Chinese reply was that negotiations should be on the basis of the status quo. The status quo was easy to define in the eastern sector but not in Aksaichin. After 1958 the Chinese were moving forward in the area all the time. They equated the line of actual control with the claim line along the Karakoram range though the unopposed entry of Indian troops as late as the end of 1961 and the establishment of posts, however small, disproved their contention.
Mr Chou En-lai’s proposal regarding a 20-kilometre withdrawal by both sides from the actual line of control was unacceptable to India for the same reason, for in that case it would have had to withdraw 20 kilometres from the Karakoram range and China from nowhere because it had not yet moved in to its claim line.
Contrary to the inference which Mr. Maxwell draws, his own narration makes it clear that the door to negotiations was kept open by India even up to September 8, 1962, when the Chinese suddenly moved troops near the Thagla ridge in the eastern sector. In conformity with its general attitude on all disputes New Delhi proposed that the talks should aim at reduction of tension so that a proper atmosphere could be created for substantive talks. Peking wanted substantive issues to be discussed straightaway along with the officials’ report. It is indeed possible that like the Indians, the Chinese too had not ruled out negotiations and that their decision to move troops in the eastern sector was intended to strengthen their bargaining position. They apparently took some quick decisions when the Cuban crisis overshadowed every other dispute in the world. They moved with lightning speed and consolidated their hold in Aksaichin.
Mr. Maxwell and other critics can sustain the charge of intransigence against Mr. Nehru only on the basis of the unfounded assumption that Tibet and Sinkiang have been part of China for centuries and that territories claimed by the two at some point also legitimately belong to Peking. So far as Aksaichin is concerned, even if it is conceded that it was a no-man’s land, India has had as much right to move into it as China and to draw the line somewhere on the plateau. One can almost be certain that this is precisely what Mr. Nehru intended to do and the Chinese would have accepted it if the Indian military position was not so weak. Peking, of course, needs the road but that covers only 7,000 square miles out of an area of 15,000 square miles.
Facetious
It is facetious of Mr. Maxwell to cite the examples of China’s settlements with Burma, Nepal and Pakistan to make the point that India too could have reached an agreement if it was interested. In the other cases the territories involved were small and of little strategic interest to China. There was no question of other countries influencing the policies of the super-powers or otherwise projecting themselves as China’s rivals. While the settlements with Pakistan and Nepal were inspired by the desire to embarrass India’s relations with them, no one can say that Peking has stopped interfering in Burma’s internal affairs after the border agreement.
It is pointless to go into the rivalries among Indian Army Generals which Mr. Maxwell discusses at great length. But it is pertinent to point out that such jealousies are not unknown in other armies and that since Mr. Maxwell is openly partial to those who were opposed to the forward policy, his account cannot be accepted as being fair to the others. If Mr. Nehru ignored the advice of the Army commanders, he was neither the first nor the last political leader to do so. It is a Prime Minister’s or a President’s prerogative, indeed duty, to make up his own mind on such expert advice as he receives.
All the same it is shocking that the Defence Sub-Committee of the Cabinet was ignored during the crisis, that it did not meet even during Mr. Nehru’s absence in London, that the Defence Minister went away to New York just when tension was growing on the borders, that vital orders were often given orally and that when the Chief of Staff insisted on written orders, these were signed by a Joint Secretary in the Defence Ministry. These are not new disclosures but one cannot but be shocked every time one is reminded of the state of affairs at the time.
Mr. Maxwell’s book is full of contradictions and inaccuracies; it tears statements out of context. It juxtaposes secret Indian documents with public statements by Chinese leaders which is patently unfair. After this, it is a pleasant surprise that Mr. Maxwell has the honesty to bring it out clearly that India was not planning to attack China in October 1962. He justifies the Chinese invasion on the plea that it was pre-emptive. But at least he nails a lie which Peking has taken great pains to propagate.
It is about time that the limited war of 1962 is seen in a proper perspective. It served a useful purpose in impressing on the Indian public mind the importance of military strength. It was not a great disaster and it did not prove that the Chinese were planning a major aggression against this country. India would have gained some advantage if it could hold on to some parts of Aksaichin. But for defence purposes the Karakoram range is quite adequate.
(Concluded)
The Times of India 7 October 1970