From April onwards I represented to Division the lacuna in our current operational plans and gave my reasons. I also said that Assam Rifles posts could not be given timely help due to poor communications and difficulty of organising timely moves, over a widespread area. The command and control set-up between the Assam Rifles and the Army was defective. The roles of assisting the Assam Rifles and defending Towang were prima facie contradictory. To achieve the first I would
have to disperse my command; to achieve the second I would need to concentrate the whole Brigade at Towang.
There was no reaction from Division initially as Gen. Amrik Singh had been posted out and the new commander was due to arrive only in early May. The outgoing GOC had visited Towang, but was reluctant to discuss operations. He was obviously glad to be out of the mess with which he had had to deal for over two and a half years. He advised me to discuss my problems with the new GOC.
The new GOC, Major-General Niranjan Prasad, visited me in May. I put forward my doubts and asked for various clarifications especially with regard to the assessment of the Chinese threat on which we had based our plans. We did not really have any high level intelligence assessment of the Chinese capability, intentions or likely actions. The task of stopping further incursions is too vague for purposeful planning. He promised to go into the matter fully and then jointly formulate new plans, after he had had time to acquaint himself with operations.
Instead of getting any formal replies to my queries, I was ordered to “revise” the existing plans and issue a fresh operation order instead of an operation instruction, in spite of my representation that I could not carry out the existing plan. It should have been obvious that it is impossible to write an operation order with numerous imponderables such as time, enemy strength, direction of main thrust, warning period, staging arrangements, leave policy and a host of other administrative factors without which no precise orders can be issued. Instead of coming to grips with the real problem of defending the McMahon Line and Towang, in the light of the many difficulties we faced, we were playing a staff college game of writing paper plans, which were impracticable and based on fallacious reasoning. I doubt if any plans had been properly worked out at Army HQ, and accepted by Command and Corps. If Army HQ, are not clear about the tasks facing the Army then lower formations cannot function on a realistic basis.
We wasted more time in April and May 1962; planning to hold a full-scale exercise with troops, with the aim of “testing 7 Brigade’s operational plans”. Although there were no telephone communications, the exercise was to be held with wireless silence. I could not conceive of anything more foolish than this impractical idea. Any large-scale movement of troops on the border would surely attract Chinese attention and we would need clearance from Government. Political acceptance was essential as the Chinese might misunderstand our motives in swanning about a sensitive border area.
There were other practical difficulties in that we did not have sufficient rations^ porters, animal transport and so on. My troops had an active operational role, so they would need to be relieved of their responsibility during the exercise; and yet it was laid down that 7 Brigade would continue to be responsible for the border. Eventually the exercise was cancelled but not before much infructuous
correspondence and many acrimonious letters flew between Division and Brigade HQs and several futile reconnaissances carried out. A brigade cannot be tested without a minimum period of three months’ collective training, the test exercise being the climax to a proper training season. Units had not even carried out individual training; nor had the Brigade practised the units before submitting to a Divisional test exercise.
In those days the Indian Army had developed a flair for stage-managing training exercises. There would have been many well-got-up files passed around. The area would have been swarming with umpires, ‘observers’ and VIPs. The main aim would have been buried in the spate of opening and closing addresses, comments from the Chief Guest and so on. A note would be made in the dossier of the General ‘conducting’ the exercise and everybody would go back happy that the Army was being trained and gingered up.
Operational plans were ‘reviewed’ and ‘discussed’ between May and August 1962, after General Prasad took over and after Operation Onkar had been launched. Eventually an operational conference was held in Tezpur, to tie up final details, in July 1962. Meanwhile matters continued to drift and we were still on the old plans. The monsoon set in by the first week of June and air-supply was reduced to a mere trickle, due to poor flying conditions. The ration was now extremely poor; the only vegetables provided were tinned carrots and peas. Local purchase was not possible (nor desirable) as there was little to spare in the villages. The troops were on a restricted diet.
By August 1962 some sort of plan was finalised. The Director of Military Operations from Army HQ, had visited Divisional HQ and had given the latest appreciation of the Government and Army HQ. He is reported to have confirmed that there was no question of a ‘hot war’ for the next few
years. In any case the Chinese were incapable of mounting any serious offensive till the railway line
to Lhasa was completed, sometime in 1964.
The DMO works directly under the Chief of the General Staff and is the Director who lays down the Army’s overall operational policy. Normally he would not make such a categorical assertion without the tacit approval of the CGS. The CGS, General Kaul, apparently did not share the views of DMO. He has written about a meeting he had with Mr. Chester Bowles (the present U.S. Ambassador to India) who visited India as the Special Representative of U.S. President Kennedy, in March 1962.
Chester Bowles had asked Kaul how serious in Kaul’s opinion China was in its dispute with India. Kaul replied, “I had thought at first that the Chinese incursions into our territory had only a political significance and that our relations with China could perhaps be normalised by negotiation, but was now convinced by their pattern of behaviour recently, specially in Ladakh, that they seemed determined to establish their claims on some of our territory, if necessary by force”.
clash with us in the summer or autumn of 1962 and this raised many problems for us”.
This disclosure makes very sad reading indeed. There is no reason to doubt the credibility of this conversation, but it condemns Kaul. If tills was his belief, then why were his actions in 1962 based on the diametrically opposite view?
The following questions are pertinent:
(a) Why did he allow the sensitive area of Dhola to be disturbed? (b) Why did he not back-pedal on the Forward Policy?
(c) Why did he proceed on leave in the autumn of 1962, if he forecast that the Chinese would provoke a clash at this time?
(d) Why did he not alert the Army, particularly forward formation commanders, by sending his gloomy forecast as an Intelligence appreciation ?
(e) Why did he not even brief his own Directors, one of whom mouthed exactly the opposite view of Chinese intentions, to GOC 4 Division ?
(f) Why did he in October 1962 lightly accept the Thagla commitment?
(g) Why did he not make strategic dispositions or locate reserves, both as CGS and as Commander?
In August 1962, 4 Division issued orders for the implementation of a limited policy of re-siting of regular troops locations, and the establishment of addition al company localities forward of Towang. The aim was to locate them nearer the McMahon Line to be more readily at hand to assist Assam Rifles posts. There was no plan to counter a full-scale invasion. As there was no immediate threat, and for various administrative reasons, this re-deployment was to be phased over two working seasons; the first phase to be completed by 30th November 1962, and the second during 1963. It now seems incredible that this was our operational thinking as late as August 1962, barely a fortnight before the Chinese incursion. At that time we were still indulging in the inexcusable game of guessing China’s intentions and capability, while she was massing a huge army only a few miles from our border.
On 8th September, both 1 Sikh (who had relieved 1/9 Gorkhas) and 9 Punjab were in the process of establishing these new localities. This was fortuitous as detachments of 9 Punjab were in Lumpu and Shakti and were available for making early contact with Dhola Post.
The July operational conference did discuss the points that I had represented earlier. My anxieties with regard to the manning of the Line of Communication were met by the promise that Division would make the necessary arrangements to Towang, but that I would be responsible forward of this place. The problems of stocking reserves in Towang and the question of acclimatisation were accepted but conveniently brushed under the carpet, as there was no immediate threat.
7 Brigade continued to be responsible for the operational tasks of 11 Infantry Brigade, East of Sela Pass, as this formation was still in Nagaland. This role was in addition to the existing tasks of the Brigade and the new deployment arrangements that had been freshly ordered. As no additional administrative cover or troops could be given to me it was a mere “paper” responsibility. Its only use was to ensure that each corner of Kameng Frontier Division was “under” somebody, even if he could not exercise effective command. It also had the advantage of covering some senior HQ. In those days it had become the fashion to allot geographical responsibility, on the lines of the police practice. It was impossible to carry out all the tasks given to 7 Brigade concurrently. The absence of II Brigade proved disastrous. 4 Division had no depth and no balance. The vacuum was met by rushing in fresh troops who did not know the area.
Had 11 Brigade been in Bomdilla they would have studied the routes and vital features and Bomdilla would not have fallen so easily if 11 Brigade was where it should have been. Why was this Brigade not given to 4 Division as soon as the Chinese entered our territory? Why was it later employed in Walong? The answer is the same. There was “no danger of a hot war” and thus there was no need for any strategic deployment.
The time and space factor was thoroughly thrashed out and the need for a warning period accepted. Unfortunately, only a few days later this was forgotten under pressure from Delhi and Lucknow. Once the political clarion call was given, the slogan was “On to the Namka Chu”. The Army Commander ordered the move of 7 Brigade having made the rash promise of “concentrating a brigade in the requisite area”.
Thus ended the process of operational planning for the year 1962. We were all exhorted to prepare our “revised” operation orders in time. We were also given a preview of the manner in which it was hoped to celebrate Sidi Barrani Day which commemorates the great battle victory in the desert war of 1940 in which 4 Division achieved international fame.
The leave programme of the senior commanders was discussed and I was granted leave from the first week of September, provided I had issued my new orders and had re-deployed my infantry companies.