Tibet - The Collective Failure of the Global Community

Sixty-five years have gone by since His Holiness the Dalai Lama, after having fled Tibet, took residence in the small hill town of McLeodganj in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh.

- MAJ. VIJAI SINGH MANKOTIA

Ten years earlier, in 1951, the world had witnessed in silence the People's Liberation Army of Mao Zedong's China carry out its naked aggression and annexation of Tibet. A peace-loving people, pursuing their religious activities and preserving their rich culture were invaded and forced into subjugation.

That silence continues, but for a few resolutions and photo ops with the Dalai Lama, many times with US congressional leaders, parliamentary and Tibetan support groups and organizations espousing the cause of freedom and democracy.

My own memory takes me back to the autumn and winter of 1962. The unfamiliar and inhospitable terrain of the North East Frontier (NEFA and present-day Arunachal Pradesh) looms large before my eyes. The Gorkha Battalion in which I had been commissioned just a few months earlier had been stationed in Delhi after its tenure in the Naushehra region of J&K. As news of hostilities breaking out with China started spreading, our unit was put on notice for induction into the war zone. A few days later, we were airlifted to the North East Frontier region.

At that young age, we had certain romantic notions of battles and wars, but soon the ugliness and the terror of war hit us. Our own unpreparedness, the adventurism of Lt. General BM Kaul, the blue-eyed boy and reported relative of Prime Minister Nehru, the miscalculations of Defense Minister VK Krishna Menon and his coterie all led to a most shameful debacle of our army, appropriately termed by Brigadier JP Dalvi as 'the Himalayan Blunder'.