The guilty military of 1962

On October 20, 1962, the Chinese launched a pre-emptive counterattack to the threat held out to them by the Indian prime minister eight days earlier that he had ordered the Army to “throw the Chinese out” of the Thagla Ridge. Within a month, they had conquered all of NEFA; then, as their troops stood poised on the edge of the Brahmaputra Valley, the Chinese suddenly undertook a unilateral withdrawal from the territories they had conquered, including even Tawang.

- MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

Who was responsible for this humiliating disaster? Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon have been flayed for mistaken political assessments that led to the catastrophe. Air Vice Marshal (retd) Manmohan Bahadur raises the pertinent question: “Why was it that the Army top brass was not strong enough to stand up to the political interference in affairs that were purely military?”