The Unsung Heroes of the 1962 War

My article The Unsung Heroes of the 1962 War appeared in Rediff.com.

Here is the link...

The Chinese admitted that they had suffered the maximum casualties fighting in the first battle on October 20, 1962, and these casualties had been inflicted mostly by 2 Rajput.
Claude Arpi salutes Major B K Pant and his fighting force of 112 men, 82 of whom lost their lives in the Battle of Namkha Chu, and whose courage must never ever be forgotten by a grateful country for who they laid down their lives.

For the Indian nation, the 1962 conflict with China is one of the most traumatic post-Independence Indian events; for those who fought, for their families and for the Indian Army in general, the experience was extremely harrowing.
Contemporary China likes to speak of what they call their 1962 'counter-attack' in the North-East Frontier Agency and Ladakh, but uses it for different purpose: to project its present strength and threaten India, forgetting that India of 2022 is not the India of the 1950s or 1960s.
When today the Chinese military leadership speaks of a 'repeat of 1962' (If India would not behave), it seems to overlook the many battles where hundreds of Chinese PLA troops were killed by heroic Indian soldiers.
The Forgotten Heroes
Unfortunately, some of the heroes of 1962 have been neglected by history.
Though the official history of the war published by the ministry of defence records the prowess of several units, many individuals are not mentioned.
Take the 2 Rajput, for example, the official history says: 'Of the units deployed on the Namkha Chu [river], the Rajputs suffered the most. They were preparing for the morning 'stand to' routine practice in adopting defensive positions in battle order when they were caught between the frontal fire of the Chinese guns and the main attack from the rear.
'Their companies were widely dispersed and each fought its own battle, taking on wave after wave of the enemy as long as men remained standing. In many cases, entire platoons were wiped out.'
It is a fact the nearly all the company commanders were killed except the wounded Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel M S Rikh and the battalion's second-in-command, Major Gurdial Singh (who was eventually awarded a Mahavir Chakra); both were taken to Tibet; the former's role is hardly acknowledged today.

The Tale of Major BK Pant
One of the officers of the 2 Rajput who has not sufficiently been mentioned in the history of the battle of Namkha Chu is Major B K Pant.
In his memoirs (The Himalayan Blunder) Brigadier John Parshuram Dalvi, the commander of the ill-fated 7th Infantry Brigade ,called the young major's leadership and indomitable courage, a true epic: 'When the Chinese shelling commenced, Pant went round the locality bracing the men for the inevitable assault.
'He told the men that this was the day in which they would write a new chapter in the history of the battalion; and the time had come to show the Chinese the qualities which had made the name Rajput synonymous with courage and tenacity.'
Why this bravery was not recorded in the Official History is a mystery.
Brigadier Dalvi explained that Major Pant was wounded in the leg but continued to insist on exposing himself during the shelling 'to reassure his men who had never experienced artillery fire.'
The company held strong against three waves of Chinese attacks and suffered heavy casualties.
Soon, Major Pant was wounded in the stomach and both legs.
Realising that the major was responsible for their heavy casualties, the Chinese brought heavy machine-gun fire to neutralise him before launching their fourth attack; by then Major Pant's body was riddled with bullets.
Brigadier Dalvi writes that despite his agony the brave major continued to inspire his men who seeing 'the indomitable will of this man, rose to super-human heights and broke the fourth attack. Pant losing blood rapidly, was nearing his end but would not cry enough.
'He shouted to the men that Rajputs never give up and never die. His last stirring clarion call was to remind his jawans to fulfill their destiny and historical role as members of the martial clan from whom descend all other fighting men in India.'
Major Pant's last words were: 'Men of the Rajput Regiment, you were born but to die for your country. God has selected this small river for which you must die. Stand up and fight as true Rajputs.'
Brigadier Dalvi noted: 'The Chinese later admitted to one of our senior prisoners-of-war that they had suffered the maximum casualties of the NEFA fighting in the first battle -- and these casualties had been inflicted mostly by 2 Rajput.'
Major Pant's force of 112 men had 82 killed and wounded.
After retirement, Brigadier M S Rikh, the former commanding officer of the 2 Rajput, asserted: 'Where officers lead men will always follow. It is easy to command, but it is a different matter to lead. A leader has to show the way. A commander directs as to what is to be done.
'Doing and directing are two different things. In an infantry battalion there can only be leaders and no directors.
'It has been my privilege to have commanded 2 RAJPUT at a time when the unit had to carry out the most difficult task in its whole history.'
Brigadier Rikh admitted that 'the battalion did more than even I expected it to do. For no man can do more than give his life for a cause, however impossible the task may be.'
He recalled his experience while being interrogated by the Chinese interpreters in the PoW camp: 'They asked me on several occasions what were the characteristics of the Rajput Battalion as different from that of other troops in the Indian Army. I enquired of them the reason why they were asking me these questions.
'They finally told me that it was in the first battle on 20 Oct 1962, that the Chinese army had suffered the maximum casualties of all the fighting in NEFA.
'These casualties had been inflicted on them by the Battalion. I felt proud to have commanded such a unit.'
The former CO concluded: 'We must ensure that at a future date when the time to defend our country again comes, we are not found lacking.'
He then told young officers: 'Yours is the responsibility, lead the way with courage and perseverance, the men will not be far behind.'

Another Testimony
Major General (then a lieutenant colonel) K K Tewari, the commander of the 4 Infantry Division's Signals Regiment who spent seven months in Tibet with Lieutenant Colonel M S Rikh, also witnessed Major Pant's prowess.
General Tewari wrote: 'Major Pant had really inspired his men and they had killed a number of Chinese. We were told by many of our men in the PoW camp later that even after Pant was killed and his position overrun, the Chinese kept bayoneting his dead body repeatedly.
'They were perhaps angry because of the large number of casualties which Pant and his men inflicted on them.
'Otherwise, who would expect a regular army soldier to go on bayoneting a dead body in battle! This was also confirmed by a Chinese officer when we were in the PoW camp.'
General Tewari regretted: 'Major Pant should certainly have been honoured and given a high gallantry award posthumously. But such was the state of wrong in the Indian Army hierarchy at the time, that not only did he go unrecognised but others who had run away the quickest with least regard for their command responsibilities, were given gallantry awards.'

But it is not the end of the story
Though in December 1962, the Indian civil administration returned to Bomdila from where the administration progressively restarted functioning, it is only in 1986 that the Assam Regiment of the Indian Army went permanently in the forward areas after 1962.
In some places, the army found a large quantity of bodies.
The Assam Regiment was tasked to record in detail the names, locations, position of the bodies, etc of each jawan that they found.
They did this and even prepared maps of the locations.
On the mountain heights, the bodies were well preserved, but on the Namkha Chu only skeletons were found.
Unfortunately, the Assam Regiment was not allowed to bring back the bodies and later they were tasked to destroy all the records of what they found; orders had come 'from above' not to keep anything, says an officer who witnessed the incident; Delhi was probably too nervous of a Chinese reaction (the official argument was that it would disturb the families of the dead Indian jawans).
Incidentally, in 1986, the General Officer Commanding the 5 Division (responsible for the area) was Major General J M 'Jimmy' Singh, also from 2 Rajput. Unfortunately, he could not convince Delhi.
It has to be noted that no Indian officer's body was found.
What happened to the remains of the Indian officers killed on the Namkha Chu and other areas is still a mystery.
One can only assume that they were taken to Tibet and buried there.
Sixty years after these tragic events, the Chinese should be asked to clarify this, even though they probably prefer to forget some of the aspects of the Namkha Chu battle.

PoW in Tibet

PoWs in Tibet: Lt Col Ratan Singh, Lt Col Balwant Singh Aluwallia, Brig John Dalvi,
Lt Col Maha Singh Rikh, Lt Col KK Tewari in front of the Potala (April 1963)

Sixty years ago, China started an uncalled-for war against India.
On the occasion, I repost an old article which appeared on this blog in 2012; it is about a painful episode in the life of a soldier: on October 20, 1962, he was taken PoW in Tibet by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

I have added at the end some rare pictures of the area (courtesy: Michael Dalvi)

Here is my 2012 post:

Continuing with the 1962 War with China: 50 Years Later, here is the story of  Gen Tewari. 
He was commissioned in the British Indian Army in 1942. 
In 1962, he was Commander Signals of the 4 Infantry Division based in Tezpur, Assam. 
On October 20, 1962, as he was visiting his forward troops, the Chinese attacked India. He was taken prisoner and sent to Tibet where he stayed for nearly 7 months. 

In his book, Himalayan Blunder Brig. John Dalvi wrote: “Col. Tewari was a gentle, God-fearing man in addition to being a first rate signaler. He had worked against tremendous odds through the operations and had overcome difficulties which would have taxed an Army Signals Regiment. He is due much credit for providing communications with obsolete equipment and the distances involved. Instead of praise they came in for criticism for not being able to work miracles with out-dated sets and distances which were beyond the range of divisional signals”.
Brig. Dalvi added: “There was a sad sequel to Tewari’s visit [on the Namkha chu]. …When the Gorkhas were attacked, Tewari found himself in the midst of an infantry battle. He was taken prisoner after the Chinese had over run the position. Who has ever heard of a Commander Signals being sent to an infantry battalion on the night before a massive attack, if there was any anticipation of a battle? He would have been at Divisional HQ attending to the Division’s communications.” 

Maj. Gen. K.K. Tewari's story: 
As a result of the Chinese threat on our northern borders, sometime in 1959 the Headquarters of Eastern Command at Lucknow was given the operational responsibility for the defense of Sikkim and NEFA. I was at that time, the Commander Signals of the 4th (Red Eagle) Division Infantry Division located at Ambala. We were immediately ordered to move to Tezpur in Assam.
This Division, trained and equipped for fighting in the plains, had suddenly to be deployed to guard these high mountain regions. While a normal division occupies an area frontage of 30 to 40 km in the plains, we were assigned a front spreading on more than 1800 kilometers of mountainous terrain!
But worse! Before the Division could take its operational responsibilities to defend the border with Tibet, orders for the execution of an Operation Amar 2 were received from Lt Gen BM Kaul, then Quarter Master General in the Army HQ. We were suddenly supposed to build temporary basha (house with straw) accommodations for the Division.
Besides the fact that my regiment had to provide communications for the Division in an entirely new and undeveloped area, we had now to become engineers and builders! You have to understand that a Signal Regiment is a functional unit in war or peace which is supposed to cater 24 hours a day to the various types of communications for its formation.
So, immediately after arrival in Tezpur, the Regiment got involved in the mad rush of building: the Prime Minister was to inaugurate the newly built bashas.
My first four months in command were a real nightmare. We would certainly have preferred to rough it out in tents and spend the time developing a reasonable communications set-up, getting our equipment properly checked and maintained and getting the men used to working with the available equipment in the mountains.
It was a personal relief when, on 14 April 1960, the inauguration was over. Only then did we turn any serious attention and effort towards our operational responsibilities. Even our equipment was antiquated and unsuitable for mountainous terrain and the excessive ranges.
At that time, there were hardly any roads existing in any of the five frontier divisions (FD) of Arunachal Pradesh. The road into Kameng FD, the most vulnerable, finished at the Foothills just beyond Misamari [4 days walk from Tawang]
We were faced with shortages of every kind. It was during these early days in NEFA that one of the COs of an infantry battalion sent a note written on a chapatti. When asked for an explanation, he gave a classic reply: "Regret unorthodox stationary but atta (wheat flour) is the only commodity available for fighting, for feeding and for futile correspondence."
Sometime in 1962, orders came from Army HQ for Operation Onkar (the famous “Forward Policy”), which directed all Assam Rifles posts to move forward, right up to the border. Of course, we were to back them. The idea was to establish the right of possession on our territory and to deter the Chinese from moving forward and occupying it, as was claimed by them. This order was certainly not supported by resources.
At that time, our Division had done almost three years non-family station service and some of the units were already on their way out on turnover. Suddenly all moves out of the area were cancelled and orders reversed.
Brig John Dalvi, the Commander Infantry Brigade who was in Tawang was ordered to move his HQ on a man/mule pack basis to Namkha Chu River area. An ad hoc Brigade HQ was created for Tawang sector overnight with hardly any Signal resources.
At that time, I was the only field officer of Lt Col or higher rank who had the longest tenure at not only the divisional HQ but among all the divisional troops. I should have been posted out after a two-year tenure in a non-family station. But I had also a sort of premonition, and I recorded it in my diary, that a severe test was in the offing for me to assess my faith in the Divine. I certainly had no idea that I would be taken a prisoner of war.
On September 8, 1962, the Dhola post manned by the Assam Rifles on the McMahon line, was encircled by the Chinese. A few days later, we had a meeting of the senior commanders from the Army Commander downwards at Tezpur. A relief party had been ordered to relieve the besieged Dhola post. This linkup was expected by nightfall on the 14th of September: Everyone was tensely waiting for the news of the link-up. Naturally all eyes were on me; as the communications `chief’, to bring them the message. But there was no news until late in the evening.
After this incident, a new Corps HQ was created to take charge of operations in NEFA. Lt Gen B.M. Kaul was appointed as the Corps Commander. He arrived from Army HQ in a special aircraft at Tezpur in the late afternoon of 4 October. At about 10 pm, Lt Gen Kaul announced in his typical flamboyant style that he had taken over command of all troops in NEFA. It was all so dramatic!
Here was a new situation, normally a Corps HQ in those days would be served by a corps signal regiment and another communication zone signal regiment. These had yet to be raised.
To compound these difficulties, Lt Gen Kaul had his own way to send messages.
Normally, a signal message is supposed to be written in an abbreviated telegraphic language. But all messages from the new Corps Commander ran into a couple of typed sheets in prose language and were all marked Top Secret and Flash. They were not addressed to the next higher HQ but directly to Army HQ. You should understand that it required to stop all other traffic to clear FLASH messages.
In September 1962, the higher authorities had obviously assumed that it would be easy to beat the Chinese. Otherwise, one cannot imagine how such an order to engage the enemy could have been issued by Delhi to the ill-equipped, ill-clothed, ill-prepared, fatigued, disillusioned troops.
Do you realize that when Dalvi’s brigade arrived near the Namkha Chu river after forced marches, he was ordered to throw the Chinese out of the Thagla ridge.
I have to tell you a telling incident: arriving near the river, after an exhausting journey, the brigade signal officer discovered that the generating engine to charge the wireless batteries was not here. A porter had dropped the charging engine in a deep khud on the way. It could not be retrieved. I believe it was dropped deliberately, because some of these civilian porters were in the pay of the Chinese.
But I was in for a still bigger shock when it was discovered that almost all the secondary batteries had arrived without any acid. I presume that what had happened is that the porters must have found it lighter without liquid and they probably decided to lighten their loads by emptying out the acid from all the batteries.
How to establish communications when the batteries are dead and could not be recharged? Despite of our good relations with them, the Air Force helicopter boys refused to carry acid. There was no question, of course, of dropping sulphuric acid by air. What was I to do? Fate was also pushing me to my inevitable destiny.
We filled up a jar of acid and marked prominently it: `Rum for Troops' and on October 18, I flew from Tezpur to Zimithang where I met with the GOC, Maj. Gen. Niranjan Prasad. Later, I went to Tsangdhar near the Namkha chu in a two-seater Bell helicopter with just the pilot and with the `Rum' jar strapped onto my lap. I landed there in the late afternoon and I marched down to Brig Dalvi's brigade HQ.
As I arrived there, I could quite clearly see the massing of the Chinese troops on the forward slopes of Thagla ridge.
When I discovered that every unit on the front had numerous signals problems, I decided to extend my stay by a day. It is where fate caught up with me!

On the 19th, Brig Dalvi informed over the telephone the GOC at Zimithang. He pleaded with his boss to let him move out of the `death trap', up to a tactically sound defensive position. Brig. Dalvi was told not to flap but to obey orders and stay put. He was extremely upset and passed the telephone to me saying, "You won't believe me, Sir, but talk to your `bloody' Commander Signals and he will tell you what all he can see with his naked eyes in front."
I spoke to the GOC equally strongly saying that one could see the Chinese moving down the Thagla Ridge like ants and also see at least half a dozen mortars which were not even camouflaged. I added that the Chinese could not be there for a picnic. I was also told to concentrate on my work and not to worry.
I stayed on with the 1/9 Gorkhas during the night of 19th October. Early on the 20th morning, I was woken up from a deep sleep by the noise of an intense bombardment. There was utter confusion in the pre-dawn darkness, shouting and yelling and running around in the midst of these exploding shells. I came out of the bunker and somehow found my way to the Signals bunker with two of my signalmen.
I looked out of the bunker. It was mystifying to see no visible movement outside. There was no one in sight. I peeped out of the bunker again. I saw a line of khaki clad soldiers with a prominent red star on their uniforms advancing towards our bunker. I had never seen a Chinese soldier till then at such close range.
I used to carry a 9 mm Browning automatic pistol in those days with one loaded clip.
The thought immediately was that one's dead body should not be found with an unfired pistol; it must be used, however hopeless our situation. So, when a couple of Chinese soldiers approached our bunker, I let go the full clip at them. And suddenly hell was let loose with the Chinese yelling and firing and a number of them converging onto our bunker. My two assistants were killed and I was alive, but a PoW.

On the road to Tibet
On October 20, 1962, the Indian prisoners were marched along a narrow track across the Namkha chu (river); later we went up to the Thagla pass (about 15,000 feet). On our way, we passed huge stocks of unfired mortar shells by the sides of our mortar positions, while on the northern side of the ridge, Chinese parties were still bringing up 120 mm mortars on a man pack basis.
After 3 days walk, we reached a place called Marmang in Tibet. From there we were taken in covered vehicles at night. During the journey, the Chinese tried to demoralize us; they would make fun of our army: "You do not even have cutting tools for felling trees. You use shovels to cut down trees." It was true; they had seen our troops preparing their defensive positions near the Namkha chu. There were other remarks such as, "You people have strange tactics. You sit right at the bottom of the valley to defend your territory instead of sitting on a high ground."
We arrived at the PoW camp located at Chongye [in Central Tibet] on 26 October and were accommodated in Lama houses which were all deserted although we could see some activity in the monastery above these houses on the side of a hill. 
We were to spend over five months in this camp, located south west of Tsetang, off the main highway to Lhasa. The prisoners were segregated into four companies: No. 1 Company was all officers, JCOs and NCOs. Majors and Lt Colonels were also separated from the JCOs and men. No. 2 and 3 Companies were jawans of various units. No. 4 Company, consisted only of Gorkhas and was given special privileges, for obvious political reasons. Each company had its own cookhouse where the Indian soldiers selected by the Chinese were made to cook.
In our house, we were four Lt Colonels (Maha Singh Rikh of the 2 Rajputs, Balwant Singh Ahluwalia of the Gorkhas, Rattan Singh of 5 Assam Rifles and myself), while John Dalvi was kept in confinement in Tsetang, a few km away from Chongye.
When we made representations to the Chinese that under the Geneva Convention on PoWs, officers had the right to be with their men, we were told quite bluntly that all these were nothing but imperialist conventions.
I shivered through the first couple of nights but then had a brain wave. I had noticed a pile of husk outside. We asked the Chinese if we could use it. Luckily, they accepted, and we could use the stuff as a mattress as well as a quilt.
For almost a month after our arrival, we were not let out of the room. Each of these lama houses had its own latrine in one corner with an open but very effective system of soil disposal. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the `disposal squad' of pigs had itself been disposed off by the Chinese.
There was an English speaking Chinese officer, Lt. Tong who was with us almost throughout our stay in the POW camp. He would come daily and talk to us individually or together. The theme of his talk with the POWs was monotonously the same: the Chinese wanted to be friends and it was only the reactionary government of Nehru, who was a lackey of American imperialism that wanted to break this friendship. "Then why did you attack us on 20 October?" They would try to explain that India attacked first and the Chinese attacked only in self-defense.
On 5 December, we were given for the first time some books and magazines to read. This consisted of Mao's Red Book, some literature on the India-China boundary question and a few Red Army journals. But whatever they were, they were most welcome for me at least. There was something to do at last to occupy the mind. I took notes from the Red Book. It is a pity that our government did not read some of the Mao’s thoughts. I noted them down at that time: "Fight no battle unprepared, fight no battle you are not sure of winning" or "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy halts, we harass, the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."
Towards the end of December 1962, the Red Cross sent us one parcel each with two packets in it. One packet had warm clothes, a German battle dress, a pair of long johns, warm vest, muffler, cap, jersey, warm shirt, boots and a towel. The second packet contained foodstuff including a bar of Sathe chocolate, tins of milk, jam, butter, fish, packets of sugar, atta (wheat flour), dal (pulses), dried peas, salt, tea, biscuits, condiments, cigarettes and vitamin pills. It certainly was a very well thought-out list of items.
Perhaps to demoralize us, the Chinese would often play Indian music on the public address system in the camp. One of the songs which was played repeatedly was Lata Mangeshkar's "Aa Ja Re-Main to kab se Khari Is par...." [Come, I have been waiting for so long] This would make us feel homesick.
With my habit of writing a diary, I kept notes as a POW also. In the first week or so, the only available paper to write on, were some sheets of toilet paper in my para jacket pocket. The question was how to keep these papers from being discovered by the Chinese. What I had done was to open the stitching on the ‘belt’ part of the trousers and then slide the folded papers inside. This was how my diary notes on toilet paper could be brought out to India.
One other episode of our stay in the camp is worth recording. One day, towards the end of our stay, at our request we were taken to see the palace and the monastery. It was a shock to see the palace with all the beautiful Buddha statues of all sizes and fabulous scrolls (tankhas) lying broken, defiled and torn and trampled on the ground.
On 25 December, we, the seven field officers were taken in one of the captured Indian Nissan trucks to spend the Christmas morning with Brig. John Dalvi at Tsetang. He was kept all alone and was comfortably accommodated. We had breakfast and lunch with him and were shown a movie. Dalvi had suffered a great deal mentally — being all by himself. He was now better.
The first letters we received from home came only in the third week of February 1963. Some of us, including myself, received parcels of sweets too.
On March 26, we were informed that we would soon be released and taken for a conducted tour of the mainland China. Suddenly we became VIPs, though still held as prisoners. We were given various comforts and given new clothes and shoes.
Before leaving the PoW camp, we asked the Chinese to take us to the graves of our soldiers who had died in our camp. There were seven of them including Subedar Joginder Singh, who had been awarded a PVC. We were told by the Chinese that he had refused to have his toes, which were affected by frost-bite, amputated. According to the Chinese, he had told them that his chances of promotion to Subedar Major would be adversely effected if his toes were amputated. We were told that he died of gangrene.
On 28 March, we left the camp, ironically in an Indian captured vehicle and were driven to Tsetang to pick up Brig John Dalvi and three other Lt. Colonels and five Majors. On 29th March, we were all driven in a bus to Lhasa. On 5 April, we were flown in two IL 14 aircrafts to Xining [Qinghai Province]. After a long tour of China, during which we were shown China’s ‘progress’ after the Communist revolution, we were informed on 27 April that we shall be handed over to India at Kunming on 4 May.
At the handing over ceremony, we witnessed a last surprise performance by the Chinese. Throughout our tour of China, an immaculately dressed Chinese had accompanied us. He was not dressed in cotton padded clothes like all the others. He commanded a lot of respect from the other Chinese. We used to refer to him as the ‘General’. He had a chap trailing around behind him always, helping him with things, offering a chair, a cup of tea, etc. We used to refer to that fellow as the orderly to the General. At the handing over ceremony, however, the person who sat down and signed on behalf of China was the ‘orderly’ and the one who stood behind to pass him the pen to sign was the ‘general’! Such are the Chinese ways!
On May 5, we took off at 9.10 a.m. from Kunming and were scheduled to land at Calcutta at 1.20 p.m. Before reaching Calcutta, the pilot announced that there was some problem with the under carriage not opening and that we might have to crash land, finally we landed ultimately at 2.30 p.m. at Dum Dum with all the fire tenders lined up. It would have been such an irony of fate if we had been killed in a crash landing in India!
In my opinion, the Chinese had prepared their attack for at least 2 or 3 years. I can give you few examples: one day a Chinese woman came and recited some of Bahadur Shah Zafar's poems, much to our delight. The Chinese had certainly prepared for this war most diligently because they had interpreters for every Indian language right in the front line. This Urdu-speaking woman must have lived in Lucknow for a long time. Same thing for one of our guards, though he had not said a single word for 5 months (we used to call him Poker Face), we discovered that he could speak perfect Punjabi when he left us in Kunming.
Their constant brainwashing was to make us accept that we had attacked them.

Bunker near Namkha chu

Bunker Bunker near Namkha chu

Bunker near Namkha chu

Namjiang chu with Thagla ridge in the background

Namkha chu (river). Thagla ridge was held by the Chinese.

Tsangdhar dropping zone

Radio set found on the battle field  near the Namkha chu

1963: Indian PoWs in Beijing

Some Indian PoWs in Tibet in 1962-63 with their Chinese guards
(first row left, Lt Col Gurdial Singh, 3 J&K)

I recently came across an interesting book, My Peking Memoirs of the Chinese Invasion of India by Dr Purnendu Kumar Banerjee, the Indian Chargé d’Affaires in Beijing during the Sino-Indian War.
In the chapter reproduced below, he mentioned the reception given to the senior Indian officers who had spent more than six months as prisoner of war in Tibet, in extremely dramatic conditions.
Against their will, the officers were taken on a propaganda tour of 'New China'.
The Communuist leadership had planned to 'parade' these officers on the Tiananment Sqaure on May 1 on the occasion of the Labour Day.
Brig John Dalvi strongly opposed this final humiliation for his men.
The Chinese had not choice, but to drop their plans.
It is in these circumstances that they were 'allowed' to visit the Indian Embassy in Beijing (it was certainly part of Beijing's propaganda efforts, to show how 'liberal' was China).
Before going into PK Banerjee's memoirs, here is the account of Maj Gen (then Lt Col) KK Tewari, one of the Commanding Officers who spent seven months in captivity.

If you are interested, you can read this old post, POW in Tibet (Gen Krishna Tewari's book, A SOLDIER’S VOYAGE OF SELF DISCOVERY is also downloaded from here).

Extracts:
One day a couple of us even had a walk from the hotel to the Tiananmen Square, which was in the news recently due to the student unrest in China. On 30th April, we were taken to the Great Wall of China which is supposedly the only man-made structure in the world visible from space. Built in 300 B.C. by the Chou Dynasty, it is 3,000 miles long (1,700 miles of it in the plains and the rest in the mountainous area), it took 300,000 men ten years to complete it, used enough material to build a wall 8 feet high and 3 feet thick around the world, has an average height of 28 feet 8 inches with a base width of 24 feet and a top width of 18 feet. We were also shown the famous Ming tombs.
On 1st May, we saw the fire-works from the roof of the hotel to celebrate May Day.
On 2nd May evening we were entertained to tea at the Indian Embassy and a warm reception by Dr. PK Banerjee, who embraced each one of us at the entrance. The Chinese guards, of course, were left outside and it was a lovely feeling to step into the ‘little India’ in Peking. However, all the time our thoughts were on our return to our homeland.
It was on 3 May that we left Peking for our journey home.
On our last night in Peking, we were taken to a musical show put on by an oriental troupe who performed Indian, Pakistani and Ceylonese dances and songs. It was an enjoyable treat. We had to
be up early for the 45 mile drive to the airport and after a lot of photographs, we took off at 5:20 a.m. from Peking in two IL 14 aircraft. We landed at Sian for refuelling at 8:45 a.m., were given, surprisingly enough, a very poor breakfast after all the excellent service we had been given till then and took off again at 10:20 a.m. We had another brief landing at Chengdu at 12:45 to pick up Rattan who had been left behind earlier due to his illness, took off at 13:25 and landed at Kunming at 15:45.

Extracts:
My Peking Memoirs of the Chinese Invasion of India (Clairon Books, New Delhi) by Purnendu Kumar Banerjee (Indian Chargé d’Affaires in Beijing)
Chapter 30

INDIAN PRISONERS OF WAR
I mentioned earlier our attempts to have the International Red Cross in Switzerland assist in the disposal of dead bodies and. the release of Indian troops and officers. As the Chinese refused to deal with the International Red Cross, the matter remained confused and a solution to the problem was delayed. At the same-time the Chinese exploited the situation to their benefit in various ways. Since the invasion and even long after the ceasefire, they played up their propaganda. For example, they maintained that Nehru, as an agent of the imperialists, had forced the Indian troops to attack a friendly neighbour, China; that the Indian troops had never been properly looked after and cared for; that the Indian Government showed no interest in the disposal of the dead bodies and the release of prisoners; that 'due to the goodwill and- friendship of the Chinese troops', the Indian troops were being taken good care of and were being sent home to be reunited with their families despite the Indian government's reluctance to help or assist in the matter; and that the departing troops had been expressing their thanks and gratitude to .China for her "magnanimous" attitude and treatment. Such propaganda was evident in the daily broadcasts on Peking radio, not only in Chinese - but also in Indian languages.
Another matter was concerned with the repatriation of about two thousand Chinese from India which was agreed to by India. Consequently, efforts were made for their transport mainly by boat, but the Chinese turned on their propaganda and compared the situation to Nazi concentration camps. Meanwhile, other attacks on India's news media continued and so did the protest notes.
By early spring in 1963, it was clear the three thousand nine hundred persons belonging to the Indian armed forces were prisoners in Chinese hands. Though a large number of our troops were eventually released after considerable effort by the Chinese to brainwash them with propaganda, an equally large number remained unaccounted for. In the last category were twenty-seven officers and I requested the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for information about them. This request was turned down and I was told that the Indian Red Cross should approach the Chinese Red Cross in the matter. While this was still pending, I was having dinner one evening at an East European embassy, when a newspaper reporter from another East European country, whom I knew well, asked me in private if I had heard about the captive Indian officers? I told him that I had no news and that my legitimate request for such information had been rejected by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. He then told me, in confidence, that according to the latest information, one of his colleagues had seen the Indian officers in Nanking and that they were being taken by bus and train to many large cities and, possibly, would soon be brought to Peking.
I thanked him sincerely.
The same evening I requested to see the Foreign Minister, Chen Yi.
The next day, I was given an appointment to see the Vice-Foreign Minister as Chen Yi was out of town, which in other words meant that the latter was not prepared to see me. When I met the Vice-Foreign Minister, I opened fire. I told him that the Chinese were continuing to violate international law and conventions such as the Geneva Convention, and this was unacceptable and regrettable. First the Chinese had refused to deal with the International Red Cross in matters of the dead and the release of Indian troops resulting in delay, harassment, humiliation and more suffering. At the•same time, the Chinese were engaged in constant and cheap propaganda about Indian troops being happy to be in Chinese prisons where they were loved. The Vice-Foreign Minister tried to interrupt me because the language and the tone I was using were not often applied in "diplomatic dialogue". He could•not stop me. I continued. I said I had information that the Indian officers in captivity had been separated from their troops. and were being paraded in public, in blatant violation of international law, international practice and international conventions, in particular the Geneva Convention, even though China was a signatory to these conventions. I demanded that this cruel circus must stop, that this kind of thing was unknown in the civilized world; and that the prisoners must be released.
The Vice-Foreign Minister was perspiring profusely and was visibly shaken. His•aide and interpreter fumbled while translating. Though my words were somewhat harsh, I kept my expression calm. I knew with conviction that the Chinese had made a serious blunder. He wanted to know my source of information. I told him that I was not prepared to disclose this but I was prepared to accept his assurance that the Indian officers were not being taken from city to city, in public places and in public view. He tried to avoid the tight corner I had placed him in by saying that they were not prisoners and were not being treated as such. They were visitors to a friendly country and had expressed their wish to see China before going home, which would hopefully be soon. Then I opened my second round of fire. I told him that I would enjoy Chinese fairy tales in other circumstances but not in such a serious matter.
Were they captives of the Chinese or not? If they had been captured, were they not prisoners? Then shouldn't they be governed by the Geneva Convention? If they were not prisoners, why had they been kept under guard for more than six months away from their homes, families and friends? I repeated my two demands, but I added that in case the Chinese failed to respond positively in the matter, India would be compelled to inform the world, in particular the Asian and African countries and the other one hundred signatories of the Geneva Convention, about China's flagrant violations. I thanked him for receiving me and got up to go. He was still shaken when I left.
I informed my Ministry about the latest developments and what action I had taken. When I told my colleagues in the embassy about my talk, they were rather pessimistic about the Chinese response. A few days later, our number two in the embassy, Damodaran, informed me that he had received a message from the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the Indian army officers were in Peking and that facilities would be given to me if I wanted to visit them. I called a meeting immediately of all our officers and placed the facts before them for their views. After some discussion, it was evident that they wanted me to visit them. I disagreed, I told them the officers were prisoners of the Chinese and were obviously kept under strict security.
Therefore they were in a Chinese prison, in law and-in fact. How could the Indian envoy visit a Chinese prison to see the Indian officers? My visit, at the Chinese behest, would legitimise the whole illegal and uncivilised Chinese policy in this regard. My colleagues pointed out that, in principle, I was right. But if the information leaked out that I had refused to visit the Chinese prisons or detention camps to see the Indian officers, there would be severe criticism in the Indian press and in Parliament. They were right. I decided on a compromise solution. Damodaran [No 2 in the embassy] would call back the Chinese official dealing with this matter and say that it would be inappropriate for the Indian envoy to visit the Indian officers. But if they were free and willing, they were invited to visit their own embassy and call on the envoy. If this proposal was not acceptable, we would fly out a representative of the Indian Red Cross to visit the Indian officers. This was communicated in due course. After a three days' wait, we received a message that the Indian officers - would visit the embassy.
The date and time were worked out on the clear understanding that no armed or unarmed guards would be permitted inside the embassy compound during the visit of the Indian officers. We were more than delighted that our gamble had won.

Captured Indian army officers visit the embassy
All the members of the embassy joined together and with great enthusiasm produced enormous quantities of excellent and varied food, delicacies from almost all parts of India. Rosha, one of our first secretaries, a dear friend and a fine officer, looked after the arrangements. The drinks included lassi (buttermilk), different fruit juices, tea, coffee and of course champagne, wines, scotch and cognac. The reception rooms were decorated with flowers and Indian flags. I called a meeting with all members of our embassy, both diplomatic and non-diplomatic. I explained to them that our officers had a very hard time as prisoners for almost six months, completely cut off from their families, friends and home, and even news from India. The Chinese had attempted to brainwash them. They inevitably had feelings of loss, defeat and humiliation, all for no fault of theirs. We then agreed on the following programme and arrangements:

1. On their arrival, we would garland each officer;
2. The national anthem would be played;
3. I would say a few words of welcome, telling them how India was proud of them, of their courage and dedication, and that a great and warm welcome would await them in India;
4. We would then take them inside and show them their places in six separate groups;
5. Each group would have at least two members of the embassy as hosts, looking after them with warmth and affection, and helping them with food and drinks;
6. It was expected that these groups would break up and regroup according to the inclinations of our guests;
7. The military attaché Lt.-Colonel Khera and I would move freely from one group to another;
8. While the embassy staff were playing host, they were not to show any curiosity and ask questions, but would reply if the officers asked them a question;
9. Whatever was heard or whatever impressions were formed by the hosts would carefully be remembered, and reported to me later, after the officers’ departure.

The army officers duly arrived in buses, at the time fixed earlier. There were no Chinese guards either with them or outside in the street where the buses were parked. The officers cried and so did we, as we embraced them; the atmosphere was charged with emotion and affection. Some of the officers were in their military uniforms; they explained that this was because they were officially visiting their embassy. We took them inside to their seats, but very soon they started to regroup.
Food and drinks were offered. They were delighted to have such a variety of Indian delicacies after such a long time. They showed their appreciation by consuming large quantities of the food. It was wonderful to have them with us. The conversation in the different groups continued. We soon learned that because of the unrelenting Chinese propaganda which was based on distortion of statements, mainly made by the opposition parties in India, the officers were deeply worried about the future after their return to India. I kept assuring that they would be given the warmest welcome, a hero's welcome. Brigadier Dalvi however, was most worried; he was depressed, dejected and disappointed. He had a distinguished career behind him and he impressed me as an intelligent person. He had legitimate and serious complaints against the planning and implementation of India's defence policy. In his book Himalayan Blunder, he did not refer to his time in China or the visit to the Indian embassy in Peking. It is understandable, considering the unavoidable tensions and dissensions endured by these officers during the previous six months.
One of the most joyous moments of that reception was when Lt Colonel Khera called me to a corner and quietly pointed out an officer who had been declared dead in combat and whose wife had received from the President• of India a high decoration awarded posthumously, We had another round of champagne to celebrate.
The time came for them to leave. We did not know then where and when they would be released, nor did they.
After the army officers left, we sat down together to draft reports on our conversations and impressions. In the meantime, I also sent a top secret and most urgent telegram in code addressed to the Secretary-General of our Ministry, in which I described briefly the visit of the officers, their main worries and my assurances, and indicated that a detailed report on the information obtained and our impressions during three 'hours of conversation was being sent by special courier to New Deihi. 
I also suggested. that pending a serious study of my report, the government and if possible the opposition should desist from discussing matters relating to these twenty-seven officers;• that all of them should be given a hero's welcome but if later on, after careful and discreet observation, "bad eggs" were discovered, they should be removed without publicity because otherwise we would be strengthening China's pernicious propaganda about the Indian armed forces; and that we had as yet no information about when •or where the officers would be released. I also gave information about the officer who was presumed dead but was alive. By the time all the reports were coordinated, written or dictated and finally typed, it was well past midnight. Everyone was happy and we were teasing each other. My colleagues teased me too, saying that I was at my best after midnight because of my association with Chou En-lai. I will always remember with gratitude the warmth and affection of these colleagues during my time in China.

Return of Indian prisoners
In diplomatic circles in Peking, everyone soon came to know about the visit of our officers to our embassy. After a few days, Terence Garvey (later Sir Terence Garvey), my opposite number from the British Embassy came to see and tell me in confidence that, according to information he received from Hong Kong, the Chinese were planning to release our officers from the-border of China and Hong Kong. I told him that this could be to draw the attention of the international press; TV and radio representatives who would witness the release and handing over of the officers as a gesture of peace and magnanimity by the Chinese. I thanked him for this information and for being such a good friend. I reported to New Delhi immediately and requested them not to inform the press. I sought an interview with Marshal Chen Yi urgently. This time Chen Yi received me himself.' He asked me whether I was satisfied and happy to have seen and spent some time with our officers in our embassy. I had a feeling that both Chen Yi and Chou had received a report from their Vice-Minister about our "warm" discussions previously in this regard, Chen Yi said that the officers had, as they desired, seen a good part of China and her achievements, and that soon they would be going home. I referred• to my earlier discussions with his Vice-Minister and strongly affirmed our-view-that China had violated and continued to violate the Geneva Convention by parading them publicly.
Our officers were no more and no less than prisoners in Chinese hands. If China had any respect for international law and respect for humanitarian considerations, the officers should have been released months ago and reunited with their families.
Chen Yi got angry. He said he forthwith rejected my false and fabricated allegations against China. I should have been grateful and pleased that I had been I given the opportunity to see the officers. I said I was sorry to upset him but I had to tell him: the truth as warranted by the facts. I added that I had come to see him about another very serious aspect of the matter. I told him that according to my information, China was planning to release the officers on the border of China and Hong Kong. Chen Yi cut me short and asked me my source of information. I said I was- not prepared to disclose my source since it was not relevant. What was relevant was that if my information was wrong, I would withdraw it and offer my profound regrets, but if it were true, I would lodge a most serious protest in the strongest terms. Chen Yi was boiling in anger and I was enjoying it in calm satisfaction. He said that China was not answerable to anyone as to where and when the officers would be returned. I told him they were our officers, prisoners of war' who had to be returned to us, and therefore we would need advance information about the date, time and place of their release. If the Chinese authorities had decided to release them on the border of China and Hong Kong, a colonial territory, we would not need advance intimation of time and date as there would be no representative from India to take them over from the Chinese representative. Of course the Chinese representative could hand them over to the colonial representative of Hong Kong and might get an extra mileage of propaganda. Chen Yi was so upset he had to make an effort to calm himself before he could speak; but before he could do that I got up and thanked him for receiving me and said that I would leave him with my earnest request because the decision- was his in the matter. I returned to our embassy, informed New Delhi and briefed my colleagues. We were not very optimistic about the outcome from this last gambit.
At a National Day reception the next day, I saw Chou En-lai when he came to our table to clink glasses in a toast. I asked his permission to mention a matter of utmost urgency, He signalled me to continue. I told him very briefly that I had information that China was considering releasing our officers on the border of China and British colonial Hong-Kong. When China and India had two thousand miles of common frontier and a history of hundreds of years of friendship and cultural ties, why not release them anywhere on our common border or inside China? Why on colonial soil?
Despite the recent unfortunate relations between our two countries, both India and China had fought against colonial rule. So why now involve Hong Kong? Before I could continue, Chou looked at me and said in English, "I don't know anything about it and have nothing to do with it." He turned round and left for the next table. I felt at that moment that it was not much of a diplomatic success for me.
I reported my talk with Chou En-lai to New Delhi. Three days later, in the morning, Lt-Colonel Khera rushed into my room bubbling with excitement and radiant like a child, holding a piece of paper in his hand. He said, “We got it, we made it, it worked." I asked him if it was my transfer orders! He became serious. He said he had an urgent message from the Chinese Defence Ministry giving the date, time and place where the Indian officers would be handed over, and requesting the time, date and identification of the Indian aircraft which would fly the officers back to India. We were so relieved and happy. I informed New Delhi accordingly.
A few days later, I received a letter from General Chaudhuri, Chief of Staff of the armed forces of India. It said, "I join the armed forces in saluting you." His generous comment, obviously, was related to my recent telegrams and special report on our officers' visit to our embassy. I knew General Chaudhuri because for three generations our families had had connections: our grandfathers were friends, our fathers were colleagues and, much later, I had more occasions to see him.
The tensions continued on the border: The Colombo proposals had buried by the Chinese. The atmosphere was one of stalemate and uneasy calm. The protest notes continued to be fired by each side with regularity and rapidity. Having completed two years of my two-year assignment, I wrote MJ a personal letter, requesting a change to a calm, pleasant and easy capital. He wrote back that a change was not possible because the normal rules did not apply to me, and that he had obtained the approval of the Prime Minister in the matter. In fact, it was the Prime Minister's wish that I should continue for longer.

Lord Bertrand Russell's representatives in Peking
A few days later, in early July, a peculiar if not ominous event happened. -I was told by a friend in a foreign news agency that two men from Britain, representing Lord Bertrand Russell, were in Peking. They had brought a new offer from Mr. Nehru for Chou En-lai, Their names were Schoenman and Pottle. I was surprised that I had not even been informed by New Delhi about this. I consulted my British colleague, Terence Garvey, and he, knew nothing except that the two men were in Peking.
I sent a telegram to New Delhi asking for information and guidance. In the meantime, I was told in Peking that Mr. Nehru had made an offer to Chou En-lai that if China accepted twenty kilometers along the Western Sector of withdrawal as "no man's land", he would start negotiations with Chou En-lai without any other preconditions. I reported this to New Delhi and received a reply stating that

1. Mr. Nehru had never made any such offer or proposals, and 
2. The two men had come initially to discuss, on behalf of the Russell Peace Foundation, some matters with the Gandhi Peace Foundation. 

They were given an opportunity to meet Mr. Nehru when they discussed the possibility of starting a dialogue between China and India.
After a couple of days, the Chinese came out with a statement in the press concerning the discussions with the two representatives of Lord Russell, which made it clear that Mr. Nehru never made the proposals; the two Britishers had mentioned to Mr. Nehru that when in Peking they would make the proposals to the Chinese leaders, and Mr. Nehru raised no objection. What a fiasco, what a farce!
Later, when I inquired privately as to why Mr. Nehru had decided to see the two men and discuss matters of such vital national importance,-which ended in futile, unproductive and immature manoeuvring, I was told that Krishna Menon who was sometimes a visitor with Mr. Nehru, had recommended that Mr. Nehru should see them. No wonder, the whole episode reminded me of my earlier experiences during Krishna Menon's reign. He had been vanquished but had not yet vanished!

The arrogant men of 1962

The 1962 debacle against China is a story of arrogance.
Defence Minister Krishna Menon was undoubtedly the most arrogant man of the subcontinent, but there are many other arrogant personae in the saga of 1962. One was B.N. Mullik, the Intelligence Chief (IB Director) who kept repeating at nauseam: ‘The Chinese will not attack’; then Lt. Gen. B.M. Kaul who announced to the world that a new Corps (4 Corps), composed of himself and a couple of staff officers would have no problem to get the Chinese out.
And of course the Prime Minister himself who, at Palam airport on his way to Colombo, told the waiting journalists that he had ordered the Indian Army “to throw the Chinese out”. He generously left the time to the discretion of the Army. It was on October 12, 1962, just 8 days before the fateful day.
But throw the Chinese out from where?
Nobody knew exactly where the border was.
When a young Captain, Mahabir Prasad of the 1 Sikhs established the Dhola Post near the Namkha chu (river) at the end of July, he was told by a local officer that the Thagla ridge, north of the river was the border (incidentally Prasad was killed on October 20). Niranjan Prasad, the GOC of the 4 Infantry Division manning the border wrote in his memoirs: “Since Captain Prasad’s maps showed the McMahon Line as passing to the south of Thagla, he did not act on the information. Instead, on return to base, he referred the matter Divisional HQs. We, in turn reported to Corps, Command and Army HQ (in Delhi).”
One does not need to be Inspector Jacques Clouseau to discover why the famous Henderson-Brooks report has been kept out of the eyes of the Indian public for fifty years. Simple, the bosses in Delhi were unable to tell the local commanders where the border was.
A few months after the debacle, the Indian Government requested Lt. Gen. Henderson-Brooks to prepare a report of the events which led to the fiasco. Although extracts were read out in the Parliament by Y.B. Chavan, the Defence Minister in 1963, the gist of the report remains missing in action.
In 2008, answering a question on the Report, Defence Minister A.K. Antony told the Indian Parliament that the report could not be made public because its contents “are not only extremely sensitive, but are of current operational value.”
Nobody will believe that a 49 year-old report is still of ‘operational value’.
In 2005, veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar had requested, under the RTI, the Ministry of Defence a copy of the Report.
During the hearings of the Commission in March 2009, the Defence Ministry articulated the official stand: “Disclosure of this information …has a direct bearing on the question of the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control between India and China, a live issue under examination between the two countries at present.”
On March 19, 2010, in a ‘decision notice’, the Central Information Commission states: “no part of the report might at this stage be disclosed.”
On October 6, Mao had told his Party’s colleagues: “Nehru really wants to use force. This isn't strange. He has always wanted to seize Aksai Chin and Thagla ridge. He thinks he can get everything he desires.”
Though there was no question of the Indian Army ‘attacking China’ with no food, no warm clothes, no armament or ammunition supply, the Chinese seemed to have perceived the situation differently.
Was Mao looking for a pretext?
In his memoirs, Niranjan Prasad describes the setting: “The McMahon Line as drawn by Sir Henry McMahon in 1914 on an unsurveyed map, was not an accurate projection of the Himalayan watershed line. …In this process the position of Thagla ridge was, to say the least, left ambiguous.”
The survey had been completed in 1913 by Captains Bailey and Morshead, but it was rather sketchy (1 inch to 8 miles).
If one follows the watershed principle, the Thagla ridge was the logical border, but the fact remains that the old map which was the reference for India’s position on the location of the McMahon Line, showed the Thagla ridge and the Namkha Chu, north of the Red Line. Further surveys were unfortunately not conducted after India’s independence.
On 14 August, 1962, Brigadier D.K. Palit, Director of Military Operations was told about the issue; he later recalled that he referred the Thagla dilemma to the Director of Military Survey who “commented that the existing maps of the area were 'sketchy and inaccurate, having been compiled from unreliable sources.”
By then, it was already too late to go back; the arrogant main actors in Delhi had taken over.
The fact that the Chinese attack occurred simultaneously in all sectors (Tawang, Walong in NEFA and Ladakh) is proof that the operations had been prepared well in advance by the Communist regime in Beijing, which did not really need a pretext.

Prisoner of War in Tibet

Indian POWs in front of the Potala after their release (April 1963)
Lt. Col. Rattan Singh, Lt. Col. Balwant S. Alhuwalia, Brig. John Dalvi,
Lt. Col. Maha Singh Rikh, Lt. Col. K.K. Tewari

This is the continuation of yesterday's article The Death Trap of the Namkha Chu recounting the story Maj. Gen. K.K. Tewari (Retd.), Commander Signals of the 4 Infantry Division during the 1962 War.

As told by General Tewari:
On the road to Tibet
On October 20, 1962, the Indian prisoners were marched along a narrow track across the Namkha chu (river); later we went up to the Thagla pass (about 15,000 feet). On our way, we passed huge stocks of unfired mortar shells by the sides of our mortar positions, while on the northern side of the ridge, Chinese parties were still bringing up 120 mm mortars on a man pack basis.
After 3 days walk, we reached a place called Marmang in Tibet. From there we were taken in covered vehicles at night. During the journey, the Chinese tried to demoralize us; they would make fun of our army: "You do not even have cutting tools for felling trees. You use shovels to cut down trees." It was true; they had seen our troops preparing their defensive positions near the Namkha chu. There were other remarks such as, "You people have strange tactics. You sit right at the bottom of the valley to defend your territory instead of sitting on a high ground."
We arrived at the PoW camp located at Chongye [in Central Tibet] on 26 October and were accommodated in Lama houses which were all deserted although we could see some activity in the monastery above these houses on the side of a hill. 
We were to spend over five months in this camp, located south west of Tsetang, off the main highway to Lhasa. The prisoners were segregated into four companies: No. 1 Company was all officers, JCOs and NCOs. Majors and Lt Colonels were also separated from the JCOs and men. No. 2 and 3 Companies were jawans of various units. No. 4 Company, consisted only of Gorkhas and was given special privileges, for obvious political reasons. Each company had its own cookhouse where the Indian soldiers selected by the Chinese were made to cook.
In our house, we were four Lt Colonels (Maha Singh Rikh of the 2 Rajputs, Balwant Singh Ahluwalia of the Gorkhas, Rattan Singh of 5 Assam Rifles and myself), while John Dalvi was kept in confinement in Tsetang, a few km away from Chongye.
When we made representations to the Chinese that under the Geneva Convention on PoWs, officers had the right to be with their men, we were told quite bluntly that all these were nothing but imperialist conventions.
I shivered through the first couple of nights but then had a brain wave. I had noticed a pile of husk outside. We asked the Chinese if we could use it. Luckily, they accepted, and we could use the stuff as a mattress as well as a quilt.
For almost a month after our arrival, we were not let out of the room. Each of these lama houses had its own latrine in one corner with an open but very effective system of soil disposal. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the `disposal squad' of pigs had itself been disposed off by the Chinese.
There was an English speaking Chinese officer, Lt. Tong who was with us almost throughout our stay in the POW camp. He would come daily and talk to us individually or together. The theme of his talk with the POWs was monotonously the same: the Chinese wanted to be friends and it was only the reactionary government of Nehru, who was a lackey of American imperialism that wanted to break this friendship. "Then why did you attack us on 20 October?" They would try to explain that India attacked first and the Chinese attacked only in self-defense.
On 5 December, we were given for the first time some books and magazines to read. This consisted of Mao's Red Book, some literature on the India-China boundary question and a few Red Army journals. But whatever they were, they were most welcome for me at least. There was something to do at last to occupy the mind. I took notes from the Red Book. It is a pity that our government did not read some of the Mao’s thoughts. I noted them down at that time: "Fight no battle unprepared, fight no battle you are not sure of winning" or "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy halts, we harass, the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."
Towards the end of December 1962, the Red Cross sent us one parcel each with two packets in it. One packet had warm clothes, a German battle dress, a pair of long johns, warm vest, muffler, cap, jersey, warm shirt, boots and a towel. The second packet contained foodstuff including a bar of Sathe chocolate, tins of milk, jam, butter, fish, packets of sugar, atta (wheat flour), dal (pulses), dried peas, salt, tea, biscuits, condiments, cigarettes and vitamin pills. It certainly was a very well thought-out list of items.
Perhaps to demoralize us, the Chinese would often play Indian music on the public address system in the camp. One of the songs which was played repeatedly was Lata Mangeshkar's "Aa Ja Re-Main to kab se Khari Is par...." [Come, I have been waiting for so long] This would make us feel homesick.
With my habit of writing a diary, I kept notes as a POW also. In the first week or so, the only available paper to write on, were some sheets of toilet paper in my para jacket pocket. The question was how to keep these papers from being discovered by the Chinese. What I had done was to open the stitching on the ‘belt’ part of the trousers and then slide the folded papers inside. This was how my diary notes on toilet paper could be brought out to India.
One other episode of our stay in the camp is worth recording. One day, towards the end of our stay, at our request we were taken to see the palace and the monastery. It was a shock to see the palace with all the beautiful Buddha statues of all sizes and fabulous scrolls (tankhas) lying broken, defiled and torn and trampled on the ground.
On 25 December, we, the seven field officers were taken in one of the captured Indian Nissan trucks to spend the Christmas morning with Brig. John Dalvi at Tsetang. He was kept all alone and was comfortably accommodated. We had breakfast and lunch with him and were shown a movie. Dalvi had suffered a great deal mentally — being all by himself. He was now better.
The first letters we received from home came only in the third week of February 1963. Some of us, including myself, received parcels of sweets too.
On March 26, we were informed that we would soon be released and taken for a conducted tour of the mainland China. Suddenly we became VIPs, though still held as prisoners. We were given various comforts and given new clothes and shoes.
Before leaving the PoW camp, we asked the Chinese to take us to the graves of our soldiers who had died in our camp. There were seven of them including Subedar Joginder Singh, who had been awarded a PVC. We were told by the Chinese that he had refused to have his toes, which were affected by frost-bite, amputated. According to the Chinese, he had told them that his chances of promotion to Subedar Major would be adversely effected if his toes were amputated. We were told that he died of gangrene.
On 28 March, we left the camp, ironically in an Indian captured vehicle and were driven to Tsetang to pick up Brig John Dalvi and three other Lt. Colonels and five Majors. On 29th March, we were all driven in a bus to Lhasa. On 5 April, we were flown in two IL 14 aircrafts to Xining [Qinghai Province]. After a long tour of China, during which we were shown China’s ‘progress’ after the Communist revolution, we were informed on 27 April that we shall be handed over to India at Kunming on 4 May.
At the handing over ceremony, we witnessed a last surprise performance by the Chinese. Throughout our tour of China, an immaculately dressed Chinese had accompanied us. He was not dressed in cotton padded clothes like all the others. He commanded a lot of respect from the other Chinese. We used to refer to him as the ‘General’. He had a chap trailing around behind him always, helping him with things, offering a chair, a cup of tea, etc. We used to refer to that fellow as the orderly to the General. At the handing over ceremony, however, the person who sat down and signed on behalf of China was the ‘orderly’ and the one who stood behind to pass him the pen to sign was the ‘general’! Such are the Chinese ways!
On May 5, we took off at 9.10 a.m. from Kunming and were scheduled to land at Calcutta at 1.20 p.m. Before reaching Calcutta, the pilot announced that there was some problem with the under carriage not opening and that we might have to crash land, finally we landed ultimately at 2.30 p.m. at Dum Dum with all the fire tenders lined up. It would have been such an irony of fate if we had been killed in a crash landing in India!
In my opinion, the Chinese had prepared their attack for at least 2 or 3 years. I can give you few examples: one day a Chinese woman came and recited some of Bahadur Shah Zafar's poems, much to our delight. The Chinese had certainly prepared for this war most diligently because they had interpreters for every Indian language right in the front line. This Urdu-speaking woman must have lived in Lucknow for a long time. Same thing for one of our guards, though he had not said a single word for 5 months (we used to call him Poker Face), we discovered that he could speak perfect Punjabi when he left us in Kunming.
Their constant brainwashing was to make us accept that we had attacked them.

China's Self-Defence War against India?

In continuation with my yesterday's posting about the Sleeping Burgerade, I am today posting five links to Chinese propaganda videos showing Beijing's version of the War.

Most of these videos are titled "self-defence against India", arguing that India attacked China in October 1962.
The two first ones (shorter) are in English (and also available on YouTube).
They mentioned the setting of the Dhola Post on the Namkha chu (river) on September 8, 1962 as the first Indian attack.
Some vivid images of the PoWs are shown, particularly Brig. John Dalvi (7 Infantry Brigade Commander) and Lt. Col. Maha Singh Rikh, the Commanding Officer (CO) of the 2 Rajput.
The fact that India has not a single photo or footage of the operations in Zimingthang, Walong and Ladakh sectors, while China seems to have hours of footage, shows that it was a premeditated and well-prepared attack from the part of China.

Video: 1962 self-defense war against India (part 1)
8 minutes in English
Also available on YouTube with a different title.

Video: 1962 self-defense war against India (in English part2)
8 minutes in English
Also available on YouTube with a different title.

Video: 1962 Sino-Indian war (in Chinese)
100 minutes in Chinese 

Video: full playback Chinese self-defense war against India
18 minutes in Chinese

Video: China to India's self-defense war
48 minutes in Chinese