LESSONS LEARNT-62 WAR HENDERSON BROOKES REPORT

surcharged atmosphere of pre-general election politics, an over 100-page section of the first volume of the Henderson Brooks report (“the report”), which includes an exhaustive operational review of the 1962 India-China war over both western and eastern sectors, has been posted by Australian journalist Neville Maxwell on his website. The second volume and annexures, which contain damning correspondence between army commands and Delhi, remains undisclosed. The report, authored by then Lt Gen Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P.S. Bhagat, was commissioned by the Indian Army following the 1962 debacle against the Chinese. The mandate of the report itself was limited to an operational review, and not political decision making. Yet the government has refrained from releasing its findings and maintains as recently as a few days ago that the contents of the report are “extremely sensitive” and of “current operational value”. The report is particularly critical of the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Forward Policy, Lt Gen B.M. Kaul, and the then director Intelligence Bureau B.N. Mullick for the debacle. We acted, the report says, on a military unsound basis of not relying on our strength but rather on believed lack of reaction from the Chinese. Maxwell provided a strategic perspective to the entire conflict when he said that the Chinese were eager to settle on the McMahon Line. However, the issue was brought to a head by “an entirely irrational policy maintained (by India and Nehru) to the point of war”. Besides the much-analysed Henderson Brooks report there are some other valuable lessons regarding the Indian political-socio-military dynamics that can be gleaned from Maxwell’s comments on his blog and his candid and unfettered interview to Kai Friese in October 2012, published by the Outlook magazine. Maxwell’s comments in a blog post quite pointedly titled “My Henderson Brooks Albatross” details his dilemma on the subject and how it ultimately led him to post some parts of the report on his blog. Nation and the Truth Maxwell in his interview to Friese says he was astounded by the reception his book, based on the report (which he categorised as a whistle-blowing attempt), received in India which he saw as “ferocious personal hostility” towards him and “vicious attacks on the book as if it had been straight Xinhua (China’s official news agency), People’s Daily propaganda”. He was indicating the Indian government’s reluctance to disclose the facts to the country and achieve a closure on the conflict. He again makes a reference to this aspect in his blog, where he says he was told that if the report was leaked rather than released officially the attention of the nation would focus on the leak, and the ensuing furore over national security would result in little or no productive analysis of the text. The point here is that there is little in the report that the Indian Army does not know or for which it has not initiated corrective action over the years. A full disclosure of the report would possibly have only strengthened its case for the much needed reforms to the higher defence management structure in the country, and harmonised what is known about the 1962 war within the army to what is available in the public domain. Importance of Communication The report observed that “Militarily, it is unthinkable that the General Staff (army) did not advise the government on our weakness and inability to implement the Forward Policy”. The report stated that the defence ministry might have put pressure but it was the General Staff’s duty to point out the “unsoundness” of the Forward Policy without the means to implement it. These observations underscore the importance of clear and unambiguous channels of communication between the government and the military top brass – specifically during a crisis. In the Army, an officer from southern India commissioned into a Gurkha regiment will learn to speak Gurkhali, just as a Bengali IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer of Tamil Nadu cadre will speak Tamil. You cannot lead if you cannot communicate with the led. A prime minister and especially a defence minister must understand the language of the military and be able to communicate with them. In India the political establishment has abrogated this responsibility by interposing the bureaucracy to interpret for them and communicate with the military. A recipe for disaster, as recent events in the army and the navy have possibly indicated. Apolitical Army The political establishment and bureaucracy combine have taken the desirable attribute of an “apolitical” army to a new level by virtually isolating the military from government defence decision-making machinery. Even a pay commission for the defence is without a uniformed representative on it – in a we-know-what-is-best-for-you syndrome. The report again reminds the government that an apolitical army is one whose operational decision making is free from political interference. Commenting on former Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon in his interview, Maxwell says he didn’t like the military, though he was defence minister. And Krishna Menon’s weakness was that he liked to humiliate generals of the old school and was altogether too fond of and too open to persuasion by the generals, who were known as the ‘Kaul boys’ in those days. Discerning Media Another component of the society Maxwell brings focus on is the media. In his blog post he describes his efforts to put the report in public domain through a “direct approach” by making the text available to up to five editors of India’s leading publications. The editors, to his surprise, decided unanimously not to publish the report. One of the reasons offered was “the opposition parties would savage the government for laxity in allowing the report to get out, the government would turn in rage upon those who had published it.” It is understandable that one does not want the national media to do a Snowden on the government. In light of what is in the report and the fact that it had formed the basis of Maxwell’s book, a more judicious and forthright approach from the media would have been in order. Finally, a portion of the report is out, and true to its terms of reference it has focused on the army’s decision making and decision makers. And as Maxwell and so many others have foretold, the opposition has attacked the government over it and the government in response has declared that a 50-year-old report will not be taken seriously by anyone in the country and possibly the world. Unfortunately, the few lessons the Henderson Brooks report had to offer will have to be learnt again. This article appeared at South Asia Monitor and is reprinted with permission.