![]() The war ended when Beijing suddenly called a unilateral ceasefire and ordered its troops to retreat to their previous positions – all after dealing India its worst military drubbing.įor five decades India fighting the cheapest proxy war in history against Pakistan using Afghanistan as a platform, using Afghan and Russian lives and money to go with the destruction of Afghanistan Over thousand seeking refuge crossed over to (than) East Pakistan. India’s toll in that short war in the high Himalayas was 1,383 killed, 1,047 wounded and 1,696 missing. Over 4,000 were taken prisoner of war which saw an entire division of over 15,000 soldiers retreat ignominiously in the face of the Chinese onslaught in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA). Caused by a border dispute between India and China regarding the exact location of the Mac Mahon Line that served as border between the two states in the north-eastern Himalayan region, the ‘Forward Policy’ adopted in 1961 by PM Nehru of setting up new military outposts in disputed areas triggered the 1962 war between India and China which ended in a devastating defeat for India. The lack of transparency in India that is holding on until today is best illustrated by citing the example of the Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report that was written by two officers in the Indian Army: Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier General Premindra Singh Bhagat (Victoria Cross) as an “Operations Review” of the events leading up to the Sino-Indian War of 1962. But transparency and learning the lessons from mistakes made can help survival. ![]() Transparency has become a popular demand today but it is still not liked by most regimes. The reports produced by those commissions are mostly not made public so that the institutions and persons responsible don’t get public blame. Even when after a disaster a commission is installed to find out what went wrong and who was responsible there is a glaring lack of consequences for the people who made the mistakes and for the structures that lead up to the faults. ![]() Transparency and learning lessons from mistakes once made is no virtue of most countries.
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