The Holy Cow of KM Cariappa: His China Blunder

Field Marshal KM Cariappa died  at Bangalore in 1994. He was the first chief of the Indian Army  after Independence who was an Indian. Cariappa was selected for the British Indian army during the days of the Raj and had a  reasonable career. But he was made  the Cin C of the Indian army by Nehru bypassing his senior Lt  general Kulwant Singh.

 Cariappa however as the head of the Indian army  did not live up to the expactation of the nation. He just basked in the limelight as the army chief but it appears his strategic vision was limited. Historians now fault him for his lack of strategic cocept   in regard to China and Tibet. One fails to understand how Cariappa,  a Sandhurst graduate never appreciated the vulnerability of India's northern borders.

 There is not a single service paper or write up on the northern border with China . In particular he just sat smug in the Office at Delhi while the Chinese  began their built up in Tibet and invaded it in 1950. Cariappa  could not visualize that China would be a threat to India and for this one need not be apologetic about Cariappa. Cariappa's  horizon was limited to Pakistan and that too West Pakistan only. The vast areas in Assam were hardly beefed up under him.

Now 60 years later we can see that Cariappa was just a man who put on his Generals stars without living up to them. He let the Indian nation down badly by not alerting Nehru to the danger from the North. There is no excuse for that. The history of India's conflict with  China would have been different in case Cariappa had repeatedly pressurized Nehru on the danger from China. He  never did.