Opinion Dark October,Black November

Secondly — and this was far more important as well as complicated — the selection of a corps commander was intertwined with a vital strategic problem. Some army leaders were having serious second thoughts about their earlier plan to make Tawang the base for Indian defence if Namkachu and surrounding areas were lost. Also the prevailing doctrine was never to withdraw from a position unless attacked and pushed back.

The administrative and political importance of Tawang was great. But,in the eyes of several experts,most notably the director of military operations,D.K. Palit,it had no tactical value. On the contrary,there were so many routes through forested mountains that the Chinese could easily bypass Tawang and box the Indian forces there.

Their plea therefore was that Indian defence line should be moved further south to the more defensible Sela Pass,with a back-up garrison at Bomdila 90 km to the rear. Those who opposed this idea were equally emphatic in arguing that the country wanted the army to defend every inch of its soil and never withdraw from anywhere out of fear that the Chinese would overrun it. Eventually,Nehru agreed that building up Sela and Bomdila was a better idea,especially because the army felt so.

At this stage,Thapar decided that he would announce all the changes in plans or personnel at Tezpur,and simultaneously directed Sen to temporarily take over command of IV Corps too. By the time the army chief,together with Palit and Intelligence Bureau Chief Mullik reached the IV Corps HQ,the situation had taken a strange new twist. Angered by Prasad’s vacation of the divisional HQ without the Eastern Army Commander’s permission,Sen had sacked him. Major-General Anand Singh Pathania was Prasad’s replacement.

It was in this confused and confusing state of affairs that New Delhi finally appointed Major-General (later Lieutenant-General) Harbaksh Singh the acting GOC of IV Corps,and he was at Tezpur immediately. There are far too many accounts of the 1962 war by a large number of participants and equally numerous others. Inevitably,these differ from one another,sometimes widely. But on one point there is striking unanimity. Harbaksh’s very presence,to say nothing of his brisk interaction with all formations under his command,boosted the sagging morale of the entire corps. (No wonder,this tall soldiers’ soldier was to be the unquestioned hero of the war with Pakistan three years later.) Sadly,this was too good to last.

For,on October 28,Kaul,declared fit by army doctors,returned to Tezpur and reclaimed his command. Again,all accounts agree that this did not go down well with either the men or younger officers. In any case,it had no impact on the ground situation because,having achieved their immediate objectives astonishingly fast,the Chinese had halted the first phase of their assault by the morning of October 25.

As is well known,China’s main purpose for this lull was to derive as much diplomatic and propaganda advantage as possible. On October 24,Zhou Enlai made a three-point cease-fire offer to Nehru that was totally unacceptable to this country. Beijing also issued an obviously pre-prepared note in which China told the world that on October 20,India had “started a massive offensive in both the eastern and western sectors of the Sino-Indian border. In these circumstances,the Chinese frontier guards had no choice but to strike back in self-defence”. According to Dorothy Woodman,an eminent British scholar of that time,this Chinese claim was “obviously nonsense”. In Nehru’s words,the Chinese “posed that they were meek lambs set upon by tigers” — and therefore they “were devouring Indian territory”. Ironically,China and its dutiful Western propagandists continue with the Chinese mythology to this date,but that is a separate story.

However,to go back to the lull in fighting,the Chinese also needed time for an operational design of theirs. Pursuing and ambushing the survivors of 7 Brigade at Namkachu,and outflanking Indian positions,they had arrived at Tawang by Octover 24. They had even blown up a vital bridge at a river crossing called Jang that Prasad was hoping to use to stop them,even if temporarily. Having done this,they immediately started constructing a road fit for the use of heavy trucks. Twelve years after the event,Mullik wrote in his book My Years With Nehru: The Chinese Betrayal that the Chinese built this road “with tremendous speed and completed it within two weeks,a really marvellous engineering feat,exhibiting a much superior road-building technique in this high plateau than that of our engineers”.

Much has doubtless changed since those dark days,to our advantage. But with great reluctance and much greater regret,one has to admit that the gap between the Chinese skills and techniques and ours in the construction of the state-of-the-art infrastructure on the India-China border is not yet bridged.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator