The Role of the Indian General Staff in the Debacle Against China(1962) * 62

Indian soldiers  in Ladakh

 I am reminded of attending a seminar on Nehru and China, where a speaker castigated Nehru for not having strategic vision.   In my question answer session I raised a few points which the speaker agreed.

I pointed out that Nehru was indeed culpable of neglect of the Northern borders, but the Indian General staff is equally culpable in this matter. General Cariappa who took over as the first Indian Army Chief had no knowledge of the topography of the Northern border including Aksai Chin and NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) now called Arunachal Pradesh. It is on record that he never visited Aksai Chin nor did he alert the Government of India to any possible threat from China. No note or service paper was annotated by him on this matter to the Ministry of Defense (MOD) or to Nehru himself.  Cariappa himself had no explanation for it. This is one of the tragedies of Indian Army  history.

The IAF was no better as the Air staff projected a requirement of a force level of just 15 squadrons of in 1954. This was enough for Pakistan but took no account of the threat from China. Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, the then Chief of Air Staff  erred grievously in not anticipating a threat from China

This state of affair continued and army Chiefs like General Thimmaya and Thapar just had no comprehension of the Chinese threat. They sadly lacked strategic vision and just played along with Nehru’s policy, instead of advising him to beef the northern border and strengthen the IAF and the Army to counter China. This is a grave lapse in history and points to a complacency that is hard to explain. The armed forces had their strategy only to counter Pakistan. This shows that the man who led the Indian army was men without a strategic concept and thus lacked the hallmark of great soldiers.

It is fashionable to blame Nehru for the China debacle, but the role of the General Staff also must stand scrutiny. Only if these men who led the Indian army had shone some mettle and acumen, India would not have been in the sorry state of affairs it was, against the Chinese army in 1962.