In all the
clamour about the Henderson-Brooks report on the Indian defeat in the 1962 war
with China, one detail seems to have gone down the memory hole: then defence
minister Y B Chavan had revealed a year after the war that the committee was
not tasked to look into the role of the government in the debacle.
The
committee, comprising Lt Gen T Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat, was set
up on December 14, 1962 by then Army Chief General JN Chaudhary for an
“Operations Review” of the military humiliation.
According
to a statement made by Chavan in the House on September 2, 1963, the committee
set up by the then Army Chief was asked to find out what was wrong with “our
training, our equipment, our system of command, the physical fitness of our
troops and the capacity of our commanders at all levels to influence the men
under them”, as only 24,000 Indian soldiers took on far greater number of
Chinese troops.
Despite its
circumscribed mandate, the committee reviewed the “higher direction of
operations”, Chavan had said, stressing that the report points out that
“the largest and the best equipped of Armies need to be given proper policy guidance
and major directives by the government, whose instrument it is”.
Chavan made
it amply clear that the report–now in a safe in the defence secretary's office
- could not have been released either completely or in parts as it contains
“information about the strength and deployment of our forces and their
locations would be invaluable use to our enemies”.
According to Chavan, the
report that was submitted on July 2, 1963 to the defence ministry revealed that
while the “basic training” of the soldiers was sound, what led to the
ignominious defeat was the that “our training of the troops did not have a
slant for a war being launched by China”. “Our troops had no knowledge of the
Chinese tactics, and ways of war, their weapons, equipment and capabilities,” admitted
Chavan, saying that report spoke of “an overall shortage of equipment both for
training and during operations”. Chavan added: “This situation was aggravated
and made worse because of overall shortage as far as vehicles were concerned
and as our fleet was too old and its efficiency not adequate for operating on
steep gradients and mountain terrain.”
On the
question of the system of command within the armed forces, the report said
while the system does not have any problems the departures from accepted chain
of command due to “haste and lack of adequate prior planning” and the “higher
formations interfering tactical specified tasks” led to a poorly led force. The
physical fitness of the soldiers also came under scanner as rapidly inducted
troops did not acclimatize adequately to the terrain. “Among some
middle-age-group officers, there had been deterioration in standards of
physical fitness… The physical fitness among junior officers was good and is
now even better,” Chavan told the House.
According
to the then defence minister, the report was hard on senior commanders for
their inability to influence the men under their command. “The general standard
amongst the junior officers was fair. At unit level there were good and
mediocre Commanding Officers .... It was at higher levels that shortcomings
became more apparent,” said Chavan in his summary of the report.
The
month-long war that erupted on October 20, 1962 cost 4,000 soldiers lost their
lives. The 4th Division that earned laurels in World War II had to surrender in
the then North Eastern Frontier Agency. China declared a unilateral ceasefire
on November 21, 1962.
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