Singapore's
nonagenarian
leader, Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to as the founding father of
Singapore, was also the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing
it for three decades. He is well known for the frank and outspoken
way in which he expresses his views. In the year 1976, Lee Kuan Yew
paid an official visit to China. During this visit, Chinese Premier
Hua Guofeng, tried to gift him a so called history book about the
1962 India-China conflict, written by a retired Australian journalist
Neville Maxwell. The well informed Singaporean leader simply refused
to accept the "revisionist, pro-China history" book and
instantly reacted by saying “Mr. Prime Minister, this is your
version of the war. There is another version, the Indian version. And
in any case, I am from South-East Asia — it’s nothing to do with
us.”
Who
was this Neville Maxwell, whose writing was so dear to the Chinese
premier? In the 1960's he was the New Delhi-based correspondent of a
British newspaper, The Times of London. From having anti communist
leanings in the beginning, Maxwell later became an ardent and frank
admirer of Maoist China. He also had a deep-seated prejudice against
India and repeatedly predicted an early collapse of Indian
democracy and the break-up of India. He was known as an apologist for
China. It is no wonder that Maxwell presented a pessimistic portrayal
of India in the 1960s, even predicting repeatedly, the early collapse
of Indian democracy and the break-up of India.
In
1970, Maxwell authored a book titled as ‘India’s China War’ in
which he came out with a a strange and twisted claim that though
China had attacked India in 1962, it was provoked into attacking
India to defend its honour and dignity. Maxwell quoted in his book,
classified references that highlighted the flawed decision-making of
India's political and military leaders that led to defeat at the
hands of the Chinese.
Three
years before Maxwell's controversial book, a renowned Harvard
scholar, named Roderick MacFarquhar, had come out with a book titled
as “The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Volume 3: The Coming
of the Cataclysm 1961-1966” in which he had come to conclusion that
Mao Zedong had planned the attack on India systematically to achieve
a swift, decisive victory and to teach India a lesson. MacFarquhar's
study, recorded in this book, about the 1962 war is called as "Mao’s
India War" directly discredited Maxwell's thesis, though written
almost three years before Maxwell published his book. It is
generally believed that Maxwell's gloom-and-doom journalistic
dispatches from New Delhi as well as his interpretation of the 1962
events, are the results of his deep routed grudge and prejudice
against India and that is why he should be just left alone.
Surprisingly,
Maxwell is back in the media limelight once again. He has now
published on his web site, papers, which he claims are a large
section of the still classified Henderson Brooks Report, on India’s
military debacle in 1962.
Immediately
after the 1962 war ,India's then new army chief, Lt General J N
Chaudhuri, had commissioned Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and
Brigadier P S Bhagat, then commandant of the Indian Military Academy,
to go into the details and causes of the debacle. The Henderson
Brooks Report authored by these two officers is a most exhaustive
operational review of the India-China war over both western and
eastern sectors written soon after the war.
This
report has never been declassified by the Government of India and
still continues to considered it as classified information. In fact
as late as April 2010, India's defence minister had told the
Parliament that the contents of the report are "not only
extremely sensitive but are of current operational value."
Even though Henderson Brooks report never saw the light of the day, in 1992, History division of the Ministry of defence, Government of India, published an exhaustive account of the 1962 war titled as “History of War with China, 1962.” This report authored by Dr. P.B.Sinha and Col. A.A.Athale is in public domain and is available on net. The authors write in the preface to this report:
“ This
history is based on the voluminous records of the army, the air force
and the ministry of defence, including the top secret Henderson
Brooks report made available to the author for the first time ever.
Foot-notes giving the references to original sources and particular
files have been deleted under instructions of the Government but they
are available in the master copy available with the ministry of
defence. …. The study is focused on the military operations, and
political developments are briefly mentioned only to provide the
background to the conflict. Our effort has been to present a
meticulously researched, balanced and objective account of these
highly emotive and controversial events, without getting concerned
with individual reputations.”
I
wrote a series of articles on this subject and the readers can see
them hereon these links, if they desire.
Study
of this report mentioned above as well as other books written on this
subject, very well bring out the disconnect between the political
leadership and the army at that time, how unequipped and unprepared
the army was, when they were sent to fight the Chinese in 1962.
Indians are well aware of the the blunders committed by India's
inexperienced leadership of those years, in formulating India's China
policy and how they were tricked and fooled by Mao's China.
The
pages, which Maxwell claims to be part I of this report, also give a
fairly exhaustive account of what had happened in 1962, however,
there is nothing much new therein, when compared to Sinha- Athale
report mentioned above, except for the fact that it gives a far more
detailed account of the course of events. Maxwell's says that the
Henderson Brooks report indicts the highest levels of the government
— from the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's own office and
the Defence Ministry — particularly for its Forward Policy, despite
considerable concerns and objections from on-the-ground military
commands that lacked resources and underlines the deep disconnect
between Delhi and Army commands on assessing how China would react to
the Forward Policy. But all these facts are in public domain for long
and I do not find anything new here also.
Frankly
speaking, there is nothing in these pages that could be called as path breaking in this. All this information is well documented
in books written by many retired Indian Army Generals and also in the Sinha-
Athale report that I have mentioned above. According to me, Maxwell's
so called revelations can not even be described as old wine in new
bottle. It is at the most, old wine in an old bottle only and should
be just left, where it belongs; history shelf.
p.s
For
those readers, who want to see Neville Maxwell's web pages in
original. Here are the links. Though, I was not able to open any one
of them for unknown reasons. Either there was too much traffic or
someone has blocked the web site for viewers located in India. Those
viewers, who are located outside India, might be able open the web
site; but I do not know.
19th
March 2014
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