JFK's Forgotten Crisis by Bruce Riedel

Author:Bruce Riedel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

BUILDING UP TO WAR

India's implementation of the Forward Policy served as a major provocation to China in September 1962. India's Fourth Division was stationed near the juncture of the western end of the McMahon Line with the small kingdom of Bhutan. As in many other parts of the border, the exact demarcation of the McMahon Line was unclear here; the British had never traced it out on the ground in detail. In principle the border was supposed to run along the ridgeline separating the Himalayas from the descent into Assam, but in this area the McMahon Line did not align with the ridgeline, but ran south of it. In keeping with the Forward Policy, the Fourth Division was ordered to move forward to the Thag La ridge (also called Thagla) in territory the Chinese regarded as theirs.

Brigadier John P. Dalvi commanded the Seventh Brigade of the Fourth Division that was instructed to move to the Thag La ridge. He reported to New Delhi that his forces were outnumbered and poorly supplied. While the Chinese soldiers had winter clothing and a supply depot immediately behind their front lines, the Indian troops were dressed in summer uniforms and depended on air drops to get needed food and ammunition. He urged caution.

Instead Nehru and Defense Minister Krishna Menon decided to press the Indian claim and ordered the army high command on September 9, 1962, to carry out Operation Leghorn to take control of Thag La ridge. “This order was typical of the approach that the Army HQ was to take throughout the war. It responded dutifully to the political requirements of the government, but disregarded elementary military considerations.”3 Dalvi, who was a veteran of World War II battles in Burma against the Japanese, initially resisted the order, but was instructed to carry out the plan regardless of the reality on the ground. The Chinese could see the Indians reinforcing their positions and consequently further strengthened their own, thereby outnumbering the Indian forces even more. A senior Indian general, B. M. Kaul, was given overall command in NEFA and came to the ridge front to oversee Dalvi's Seventh Brigade. Kaul was a cousin of Nehru and was not highly regarded by his fellow officers, who regarded him as a political appointee without serious military experience.

Mao probably finalized the decision to go to war in a meeting in Beijing on October 6 with his senior generals. Mao told them that China had defeated Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, Imperial Japan, and the United States in Korea. Now “Nehru sticks his head out and insists on us fighting him; for us not to fight with him would not be friendly enough. Courtesy demands reciprocity.”4 The People's Liberation Army was ordered to impose a “fierce and painful” blow on India and expel India from the territory China claimed in Kashmir west of the Johnson Line and in NEFA south of the McMahon Line.5 On October 8 the Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Soviet ambassador in Beijing that a massive attack by China was imminent.

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