Where is the Himmatsinghji Committee’s Report?

I am republishing here an article posted 2 years ago on this blog.
After the 'release' of the Henderson-Brooks-Bhagat Report, one should not forget that there are many more hidden reports in the almirahs of the South Block (both MEA and MoD).


As the 50th anniversary of the debacle of 1962 approaches, it is necessary to have a fresh look into some of the events which led to the Himalayan Blunder.
The Sino-Indian conflict is usually associated with the Henderson-Brooks Report (HBR) prepared in 1963 by Lt. Gen. Henderson-Brooks and Brig. Prem Bhagat. Today, this file is the most secret of the Indian Republic.
In 2008, the Indian Defense Minister told the Parliament that the Henderson-Brooks could not be declassified after a MoD internal audit “had established that its contents are not only extremely sensitive but are of current operational value.”
But R.D. Pradhan, the Private Secretary of Y.B. Chavan, who replaced Krishna Menon as Defence Minister after the 1962 War, wrote in his memoirs: “In 1965, it was considered too sensitive to be made public and although outdated today, the report unfortunately remains secret.”
Whom to believe?
Pradhan says that he is the only person alive who had examined the report (Neville Maxell, the author of India’s China War probably saw portions of it).
There is another report, 12 years older than the HBR which is also missing in action. It is the Himmatsinghji report, prepared after China’s invasion of Tibet in October 1950. It seems to have been misplaced in some North Block almirah.
In November 2011, under the Right to Information Act, a petitioner applied to have a look at the Himmasinghji Report (as well as 5 other historic reports prepared by the MoD).
In its order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) noted that on October 12, 2011, the Director (Vigilance) in the Ministry of Defence had informed the CIC that only one report could be found: “none of the remaining five, (i) PMS Blackett Report 1948; (ii) Himmatsinghji Committee Report, 1951; (iii) HM Patel Committee report on functioning of the Ministry of Defence(MOD), 1952; (V) Sharda Mukherjee Committee report on restructuring of MoD, 1967 and (v) Committee on Defence expenditure report, 1990 are available in the MoD.”
The officer had been authorized to make this statement by the Defence Secretary: “It is, thus, clear that the reports …of the RTI application are not available with the MoD and the question of supplying them to the appellant does not arise.”
Can you believe it?
Does it mean that the Himmatsinghji Committee Report is lost forever?
The CIC’s conclusion was: “The MoD has not denied existence of these Reports; it has simply indicated their non-availability. …In the premises, it is ordered that a copy of this order be sent to the Defence Secretary for information and appropriate action at his end.”
The ministry’s babus will probably sit on this order till their retirement and the CIC will forget about it; the Himmatsinghji Report will never be available to the Indian Public. In any case most babus believe that military and strategic affairs are not the business of ‘common men’.
Why is the Himmatsinghji Committee’s report important?
Intelligence Chief, B.N. Mullik wrote in his memoirs that the decision to form a Committee followed a note ‘New Problems of Internal Security’ sent by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in November 1950 …as well as the letter of Sardar Patel to Nehru on Tibet.
Mullik takes too much credit for the IB, as it is undoubtedly Patel’s letter to Nehru (and an earlier one to Sir GS Bajpai) which started the ball rolling. Patel wrote to Bajpai: “The Chinese advance into Tibet upsets all our security calculations. Hitherto, the danger to India on its land frontiers has always come from the North-West. ...For the first time, a serious danger is now developing on the North and North-East side.”
On December 1, a Committee was formed with Major-General Himmatsinghji, Deputy Minister of Defence as a Chairman.
Two main decisions were taken: “(1) A small committee of military experts with a representative of the IB in Shillong would visit the NEFA agencies and propose the places near the frontier at which the Assam Rifles units should be posted. (2) A high-powered committee presided over by the Deputy Minister of Defence, Major-General Himmatsinghji, with representatives of Defence, Communication, Home, External Affairs and the IB would be formed to study the problems created by the Chinese aggression in Tibet and to make recommendations about the measures that should be taken to improve administration, defence, communication, etc. of all the frontier areas.”
Mullik informs us further: “The Himmatsinghji Committee also had before it the recommendations which had been made by a smaller Committee formed in Assam to assess the dangers in NEFA.”
This Committee would have suggested that in the sectors where the boundary was undefined, India should decide its claims. Having decided on its claim line, effective steps should be taken to prevent unilateral occupation of these areas by Chinese or Tibetans.
It is probably this ‘smaller’ Committee which decided to immediately march towards Tawang.
The Committee also recommended the reorganization of the administrative divisions of NEFA, the opening of new districts, and increase in the staff manning new posts, the extension of these administrative centres further towards the McMahon Line and the formation of a Frontier Service cadre for service in the frontier areas. An important increase of the Assam Rifles and the Civil Armed Police at strategic points was also sanctioned.
The Committee suggested the construction of new roads and the improvement of existing ones to link the Assam Rifles posts with headquarters (it was in 1951!).
At that time, the entire area down to Dirang (south of the Sela Pass in Tawang district) was still under some vague Tibetan administration, with a Tibetan Dzongpon (district commissioner) still collecting 'monastic' taxes from time to time in and around Tawang.
It is then that Major Bob Khathing, a Manipuri officer who served in the Assam Rifles, entered the stage. In January 1951, just as he had been posted as an Assistant Political Officer (APO) in Bomdila, Khathing was summoned by the Assam Governor, Jairamdas Daulatram who asked him to go and administer Tawang.
On 17 January 1951, Khathing, accompanied by 200 troops, left for Tawang, south of the McMahon Line. The party was later joined by a 600-strong team of porters.
The Assam Rifles of Bob Khathing reached Tawang on February 7.
Was it Bajpai's last homage to Sardar Patel who had passed away on December 15 and who had understood the importance of integrating all territories belonging to the Union of India?
As he arrived in Tawang, Khathing was warmly welcomed by representatives of the Tawang monastery, the local headmen and leaders.
Nari Rustomji, the Advisor to the Governor of Assam, till then responsible for the border areas, was soon after transferred to Sikkim; he recalled: “The Chinese entry into Tibet in 1950 …dictated henceforward a more elaborate and complex administrative structure in the tribal areas than I had favoured, ...Mine had been governance with a light touch, on a personal, paternalistic basis.”
The Himmatsinghji Committee probably realized the light touch had to be balanced by military presence.
Some rumours have recently circulated that Nehru did not know about the Tawang operation; this would truly mean a serious lapse as the Assam Rifles worked directly under the Ministry of External Affairs and Nehru was then the Minister. A 'military' operation of this scale certainly could not be decided locally and needed the approval and funding from the Central Government.
Did Patel and Bajpai decide the operation on their own and order Jairamdas Daulatram accordingly?
It is impossible to answer this question unless the related files are found.

The Himmatsinghji Committee Report

If  the Henderson-Brooks report is the symbol of the over-classification of the Indian archives, it is not the only 'secret report' to remain in the drawers of the ministries of Defence or External Affairs in North or South blocks.
The Himmatsinghji Committee Report is another of such reports which should have been made public long ago.
Here is the background of the Report of the Himmatsinghji Committee.
Unfortunately, we have very few details about the findings of Committee which, besides Major-General Himmatsinghji, Deputy Minister of Defence (Chairman), included Lt.-General Kulwant Singh, K. Zakaria, Head of the Historical Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, S.N. Haksar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Group Capt. M.S. Chaturvedi from the Indian Air Force and Waryam Singh, Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau.
B.N. Mullik, the Intelligence Chief says in his China’s Betrayal: My Years with Nehru that the decision to form a Committee followed a note “New Problems of Internal Security” sent by the Intelligence Bureau as well as the letter of Sardar Patel, which “were considered by all the Ministries concerned within the next seven days”.
The latter is probably true.
According to Mullik, two main decisions were taken:

1. A small committee of military experts with a representative of the IB in Shillong would visit the NEFA agencies and propose the places near the frontier at which the Assam Rifles units should be posted.
2. A high-powered committee presided over by the Deputy Minister of Defence, Major-General Himmatsinghji, with representatives of Defence, Communication, Home, External Affairs and the IB would be formed to study the problems created by the Chinese aggression in Tibet and to make recommendations about the measures that should be taken to improve administration, defence, communication, etc. of all the frontier areas.

This Committee, known as the North and North East Border Defence Committee sent its report in two parts. Mullik explains:

The first part consisted of its recommendations regarding Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA and the Eastern frontier bordering Burma. This part was submitted in April, 1951. The second part contained the recommendations on Ladakh and the frontier regions of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal and was submitted in September, 1951.

Mullik has often to be taken with a pinch of salt, having the habit to justify his own decisions and actions first; in this case however, there is no reason to doubt his words when he says:

The Himmatsinghji Committee also had before it the recommendations which had been made by a smaller Committee formed in Assam to assess the dangers in NFFA and suggest the possibility of pushing the Assam Rifles Posts as far towards the frontier as possible.

It is probably this ‘smaller’ Committee which decided to do what the British had not done, to occupy Tawang.
The North and North-East Border Defence Committee carefully analyzed the nature of the frontier, the contending claims, the general situation in the border areas, the state of the administration and the appreciation of the threat. On the basis of this analysis, it laid down the principles of policy to be followed. Thereafter it made comprehensive recommendations under various heads; such as (1) Administration, (2) Development, (3) Defence and Security which included the Army and the Air Force, (4) the Civil Armed Forces including the Assam Rifles and other police units, (5) Communications, and (6) Intelligence. According to Mullik:

With regard to the state of the frontier and the contending claims, …at that time the knowledge about the alignment of the frontier was not as accurate as it was after the study made in 1960-61. Regarding the threats and dangers from this undemarcated frontier, the state of administration in these areas and also the threats and dangers arising out of the Chinese presence in Tibet, the Committee came to the same conclusion as [drawn] by the IB in its note of November, 1950, and also Sardar Patel's letter.

The Committee also recommended the reorganization of the administrative divisions of NEFA, the opening of new districts, and increase in the staff manning new posts, the extension of these administrative centres further towards the McMahon Line and the formation of a Frontier Service cadre for service in the frontier areas.
The Himmatsinghji Committee further recommended an important increase in the Assam Rifles and the Civil Armed Police and the deployment of the Assam Rifles and other Armed Police units in larger concentration at strategic points from which effective patrolling could be regularly undertaken.
The Committee also suggested the construction of new roads and the improvement of existing ones to link the Assam Rifles posts with headquarters.
The State Governments were to extend modern administration right up to the frontier and this without interfering with the customs and the ways of life of the tribal people. However new schools and dispensaries were to be opened at the earliest.

Still a classified report
Sixty-one years after the Himmatsinghji report was presented to the Government, it is still a secret. Better, the Report seems to have been lost by the Ministry of Defence.
In November 2011, one Anil Mukherjee applied under the Right to Information Act to see the Report of Himmatsinghji Committee.
In its order, the Central Information Commission stated:

Shri P.K. Gupta [Director, Vigilance in the Ministry of Defence] submits a letter dated 12.10.2011 before the Commission which is taken on record. The operative paras of the letter are reproduced below:

I am directed to refer to CIC order File No. CIC/LS/A/2011/001106 dated 05.09.2011 and state that none of the remaining five reports viz-a-viz - (1) PMS Blackett Report 1948; (2) Himmatsinghji Committee Report, 1951; (3) HM Patel Committee report on functioning of the Ministry of Defence(MOD), 1952; (4) Sharda Mukherjee Committee report on restructuring of MoD, 1967 and (5) Committee on Defence expenditure report, 1990 are available in the Ministry of Defence. This is issued with the approval of Defence Secretary .

The Ministry of Defence admitted: “It is, thus, clear that the reports mentioned at Sl. Nos. 01 to 04 and 06 of the RTI application are not available with the MoD and the question of supplying them to the appellant does not arise.”
Practically, does it mean that the Himmatsinghji Committee Report is lost forever? For the CIC, the conclusion was:

However, the issue raised by the appellant regarding the alleged loss/mislaying of the Reports mentioned at Sl. Nos. 1 to 4 and 6 of the RTI application by the MoD cannot be disregarded. The MoD has not denied existence of these Reports; it has simply indicated their non-availability. Needless to say, the Reports deal with sensitive national security related issues and their 'non-availability' in the MoD is a serious matter. In the premises, it is ordered that a copy of this order be sent to the Defence Secretary for information and appropriate action at his end.

As usual, the ministry’s babus will seat on this order till their retirement.
The Himmatsinghji Report being will continue to be missing in action in the vaults or almirahs of the Ministry of Defence.

The take-over of Tawang
More than 60 years, later, it is still not clear who ordered the take-over of Tawang, but is probably the first Committee. At the end of 1950, the entire area down to Dirang Dzong (South of the Sela Pass) was still under some vague Tibetan administration, with the Tibetan Dzongpon of Tsona in Tibet, collecting 'monastic' taxes from time to time in and around Tawang.
It is there that Major Bob Khathing of the Assam Rifles entered the scene.
Born on 28 February 1912, in Ukhrul district of today's Manipur, Ranenglao (Bob) Khathing belonged to the Tangkhul Naga tribe.
In 1942, Khathing joined the newly raised Assam Regiment in Shillong and became a captain. Later he was told by Sir Akbar Hydari, the first Governor of Assam after Independence to join the Assam Rifles.
He served with the 2nd Assam Rifles in Sadiya and by 1951 he was inducted into the Indian Frontier Administrative Service as an Assistant Political Officer (APO).
We are quoting here from an excellent article written by Yambem Laba in The Imphal Free Press.

Summoned by then Assam governor Jairamdas Daulatram, [Khathing] was asked, “Do you know Tawang?” He was then given a 'secret' file to study and told to “go and bring Tawang under Indian administration”. This task could not be implemented by the British for 50-odd years.

On 17 January 1951, Khathing, accompanied by Captain Hem Bahadur Limbu of 5th Assam Rifles and 200 troops and Captain Modiero of the Army Medical Corps left Lokra for the foothills, bound for Tawang. They were later joined by a 600-strong team of porters.
On 19 January, they reached Sisiri and were joined by Major TC Allen, the last British Political Officer of the North East Frontier Agency. Five days later the party reached Dirang Dzong, the last Tibetan administrative headquarters, and were met by Katuk Lama, Assistant Tibetan Agent, and the Goanburras  of Dirang. On 26 January, Major Khathing hoisted the Indian flag and a barakhana  followed. The party stayed in Dirang for four days, during which time they received airdrops.
On 1 February, they moved out and halted at Chakpurpu on their way to Sangje Dzong. On the third day, they made a five-mile climb to cross Sela pass and pressed on to what was entered in Khathing’s diary as the ‘Tea Place’ where water could be collected from the frozen surface to make tea. By 7.30 pm, the party closed in on Nurunang.

On 4 February, they reached Jang village where two locals were sent out to collect information and gauge the people’s feelings towards their coming. The next day, the headmen and elders of Rho, Changda and the surrounding villages of Jang called on Khathing, who lost no time in explaining the purpose of his visit and told them in no uncertain terms that they were no longer to take orders from the Tsona Dzongpens. That day, he, Captain Limbu, Subedar Bir Bahadur and Jamadar Udaibir Gurung climbed about half a mile on the Sela Tract to choose the site for the checkpost and construct a barracks.
On 6 February they camped at Gyankar and Tibetan representatives of the Tsona Dzongpons came to meet them. It was also Tibetan New Year or Lhosar, the first day of the Year of the Iron Horse. In the evening it snowed heavily and the villagers took this as a very good omen.

The Assam Rifles of Bob Khathing finally reached on February 7.

…two days were spent scouting the area for a permanent site where both civil and military lines could be laid out with sufficient area for a playground. A place was chosen north-east of Tawang Monastery and a meeting with Tibetan officials was scheduled for 9 February, but they had shown a reluctance to accept Indian authority overnight.

The journalist of the The Imphal Free Press remembers Khathing telling him in 1985 (he had accompanied Khathing on his last trip to Tawang) that he had no option, but to order Captain Limbu to ask his troops to fix the bayonets and stage a flag march around Tawang “to show he [Khathing] means business”.
Apparently, it had the desired effect and in the evening the Tibetan officials and elders of the monastery came to meet the Political Officer; they were told that from now on the Tsona Dzongpons or any representatives of the Tibetan government would no longer exercise any power south of Bumla.
The article continues:

On 11 February, Khathing visited the monastery, called on the abbot and presented him and the other monks gifts that comprised gramophone players, cloth and tiffin-carriers. The next day all the chhgergans (officials) of the 11 tsos  or Tibetan administrative units were called up and a general order was issued directing them not to take any more order from the Dzongpons or Drekhong or pay tribute to them any longer. That afternoon, Tibetan officials and the Nyertsang called for time and permission to exercise their authority till they heard from the Tibetan government in Lhasa. Khathing put his foot down and told them the ‘area is ours according to the Treaty of 1914’ and there was no question of a reply from their government in Lhasa and, hence, no extension could be given. Thus did Tawang effectively become a part of India from that day on.

Some rumours have recently circulated that Nehru did not know about the operation; it would mean a truly serious lapse as the Assam Rifles worked directly under the Ministry of External Affairs and Nehru was then the Minister.
It is possible, but it is certain that a 'military' operation of this scale needed the approval and funds of the Central Government.
Did Patel and Bajpai (the Secretary of the Ministry) decided the operation on their own and ordered Jairamdas Daulatram accordingly?
It is impossible to answer this question unless the related files are declassified, but it is a possibility.
The website of the Assam Rifles states: “Following the end of the war, the five Assam Rifles battalions became part of the civil police under the Assam Inspector General of Police. After independence, however, the Indian government assigned the Assam Rifles its own Inspector General. The Assam Rifles were then placed under command of the Ministry of External Affairs as part of the North Eastern Frontier Agency."
Nehru was the then Minister of External Affairs.
Was it Bajpai's last homage to Sardar Patel who had passed away on December 15 and who had understood the meaning of integrating all territories belonging to the Union of India? The fact is that it had been realized by a few in Delhi that a ‘thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power’ was knocking at India's doors.
We have another version of Khathing taking-over of Tawang: Neeru Nanda an IAS officer who had a posting in Tawang wrote an excellent book on the area. She says:

Soon after independence Major Bob Khating, a Naga officer of the Indian Frontier Service and the Deputy Commissioner [then known as Assistant Political Officer] of Bomdila, marched into Tawang. He was greeted warmly by representatives of the Tawang monastery, the three tsorgens (heads) of Choksum (the three chos ) and other noted leaders who welcomed him with open arms when he declared the intention of the Indian government to establish a permanent office and headquarters in the area. After watching the working of the office and men for about a month the leaders came to him quietly in a deputation with folded hands and grave faces.

Nanda continues:

‘Well sahib’, they said, ‘we have been watching your work and we like it but there is something that makes us very suspicious.’

‘What is it?’ a startled Major Khating asked, wondering what had gone amiss.

‘Sahib’, they said melancholically, ‘you do not take anything from us by way of tax, neither do you seem to be proposing to take any. This is causing grave concern to all of us.’
The sahib relaxed visibly. ‘Is that all?’ he said cheerfully and drawing himself to his full height, delivered a long lecture on how there was only one country and one government that was not exploitative. The Indian government considered itself specially bound to develop the brothers and sisters of border areas, who had been neglected so far by the Britishers.

I was personally told that the truth is that it is the Monpas of Tawang who called the Indian Government to intervene and stop the tax collections of the Tsongpons. They had written to Shillong about it. It is perhaps the secret file shown by the Governor to Khathing. Nanda concludes:

The village elders heard him out politely and respectfully and after he had delivered his sermon they folded their hands, again bowed before him and said, ‘Well sahib, all this is very good. But the villager is illiterate, foolish and ignorant. He will not understand a government that abstains from taxation-so even if it is a very petty amount, you must take a tax.’

It was thus, the story goes, that the system of house-tax was instituted whereby each household paid Rs 5 annually to the government and this is the only tax collected in Tawang till today.
Major Khating was true to the frontier tradition of not interfering as far as possible with the local institutions. But he did appoint a gaon budha (village headman) in each village in addition to the traditional pattern where there was a gaon budha only for each cho (group of three to tell villages). The administrative divisions of Tawang were also formed in such a way so as to coincide, as far as possible, with the traditional political divisions.

The Monpas had for centuries one of the most remarkable ‘democratic’ system which was functioning despite the raids of the Tibetan tax collectors or the Bhutanese neighbours 'visiting' the Land of Mon from time to time.
The Chinese 'Liberation' Army arrived in Lhasa on September 1951, just a few months after Khathing had taken the control of Tawang.
One can imagine what would have happened if Khathing had not ‘liberated’ Tawang and the areas around in time.

Thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power at our doors

The same Assam Rifles accompanied the Dalai Lama in 1959

This letter of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's Deputy Prime Minister to Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, the Secretary General of the Ministry of External Affairs is not as well known as Patel's letter to Nehru on the same subject, written 4 days later (November 7, 1950).
It is here apparent that Patel's 'clairvoyant testament' was based on a Note from Bajai.
It is unfortunate that this note has not yet been declassified, though one can understand that it has a direct relation with the border talks with China.
The question is: why the Foreign Minister (Nehru) did not take note of his Foreign Secretary's Report and it is only the Home Minister (Patel) who seemed concerned by the issue of having an "unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power at the doors"?
This was probably not glamourous enough for the Pandit.
One of the consequences of Patel's interest in the borders of India and the possibility to have China as a neighbour, was the question of Tawang, which legally belonged to India since 1914, but had never been properly administered.

The McMahon Line

At the end of 1950, the entire area down to Dirang Dzong (South of the Sela Pass) was under some vague Tibetan administration, with the Tibetan dzongpon (District Commissioner) of Tsona in Tibet, collecting 'monastic' taxes from time to time.
It is there that Major Bob Khathing of the Assam Rifles entered the scene.
Born on 28 February 1912 ,in Ukhrul district of today's Manipur, Ranenglao (Bob) Khathing belonged to the Tangkhul Naga tribe.
In 1942, Khathing joined the newly raised Assam Regiment in Shillong and became a captain. Later he was asked by Sir Akbar Hydari, the first Governor of Assam after Independence to join the Assam Rifles.
He served with the 2nd Assam Rifles in Sadiya and by 1951 he was inducted into the Indian Frontier Administrative Service as an Assistant Political Officer (APO).
I am quoting here from an excellent article written by Yambem Laba in the Imphal Free Press.

Summoned by then Assam governor Jairamdas Daulatram, [Khathing] was asked, “Do you know Tawang?” He was then given a 'secret' file to study and told to “go and bring Tawang under Indian administration”. This task could not be implemented by the British for 50-odd years.
On 17 January 1951, Khathing, accompanied by Captain Hem Bahadur Limbu of 5th Assam Rifles and 200 troops and Captain Modiero of the Army Medical Corps left Lokra for the foothills, bound for Tawang. They were later joined by a 600-strong team of porters. On 19 January, they reached Sisiri and were joined by Major TC Allen, the last British political officer of the North East Frontier Agency. Five days later the party reached Dirang Dzong, the last Tibetan administrative headquarters, and were met by Katuk Lama, assistant Tibetan agent, and the Goanburras of Dirang. On 26 January, Major Khathing hoisted the Indian flag and a barakhana followed. The party stayed in Dirang for four days, during which time they received airdrops.
On 1 February, they moved out and halted at Chakpurpu on their way to Sangje Dzong. On the third day, they made a five-mile climb to cross Sela Pass and pressed on to what was entered in Khathing’s diary as the “Tea Place” where water could be collected from the frozen surface to make tea. By 7.30 pm, the party closed in on Nurunang.
On 4 February, they reached Jang village where two locals were sent out to collect information and gauge the people’s feelings towards their coming. The next day, the headmen and elders of Rho,Changda and the surrounding villages of Jang called on Khathing, who lost no time in explaining the purpose of his visit and told them in no uncertain terms that they were no longer to take orders from the Tsona Dzongpens. That day, he, Captain Limbu, Subedar Bir Bahadur and Jamadar Udaibir Gurung climbed about half a mile on the Sela Tract to choose the site for the checkpost and construct a barracks.
On 6 February they camped at Gyankar and Tibetan representatives of the Tsona Dzongpens came to meet them. It was also Tibetan New Year or Lhosar, the first day of the Year of the Iron Horse. In the evening it snowed heavily and the villagers took this as a very good omen.
Tawang was reached on 7 February and two days were spent scouting the area for a permanent site where both civil and military lines could be laid out with sufficient area for a playground. A place was chosen north-east of Tawang Monastery and a meeting with Tibetan officials was scheduled for 9 February, but they had shown a reluctance to accept Indian authority overnight. Khathing told me in 1985 — when I’d accompanied him on his last trip to Tawang – that, left with no option, he told Captain Limbu to order his troops to fix bayonets and stage a flag march around Tawang to show he meant business. By the evening it had the desired effect and the Tibetan officials and elders of the monastery came to meet him. They were then given notice that the Tsona Dzongpens or any representatives of the Tibetan government could no longer exercise any power over the people living south of the Bumla range.
On 11 February, Khathing visited the monastery, called on the abbot and presented him and the other monks gifts that comprised gramophone players, cloth and tiffin-carriers. The next day all the chhgergans (officials) of the 11 tsos or Tibetan administrative units were called up and a general order was issued directing them not to take any more order from the Dzongpens or Drekhong or pay tribute to them any longer. That afternoon, Tibetan officials and the Nyertsang called for time and permission to exercise their authority till they heard from the Tibetan government in Lhasa. Khathing put his foot down and told them the “area is ours according to the Treaty of 1914” and there was no question of a reply from their government in Lhasa and, hence, no extension could be given. Thus did Tawang effectively become a part of India from that day on.

Some rumours have recently circulated that Nehru did not know about the operation; it would mean a truly serious lapse as the Assam Rifles worked directly under the Ministry of External Affairs and Nehru was then the Minister.
Did Patel and Bajpai (the Secretary of the Ministry) decided the operation on their own and ordered Jairamdas Daulatram accordingly? 
It is possible, but it is certain that a 'military' operation of this scale needed the approval and funds of the Central Government.
The website of the Assam Rifles explains:"Following the end of the war, the five Assam Rifles battalions became part of the civil police under the Assam Inspector General of Police. After independence, however, the Indian government assigned the Assam Rifles its own Inspector General. The Assam Rifles were then placed under command of the Ministry of External Affairs as part of the North Eastern Frontier Agency."
It clearly means that the order to send Khathing to Tawang came from South Block. Whether or not the Minister was informed is irrelevant.
It is only relevant to realize that Nehru may have not known what was happening in his own Office.
But it could also be Bajpai's last homage to Sardar Patel who had passed away on December 15 and who had understood the meaning of integrating all territories belonging to the Union of India and above all that a "thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power" was knocking at India's doors.
The Chinese 'Liberation' Army arrived in Lhasa on September 1951, just a few months after Khathing had taken the control of Tawang.

Letter from Sardar Patel to Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, I.C.S.,
Secretary-General, External Affairs Ministry, New Delhi.
NEW DELHI
4 November 1950
My Dear Sir Girja,
Thank you for your letter of the 3rd November 1950. I am sending herewith the note which you were good enough to send me. I need hardly say that I have read it with a great deal of interest and profit to myself and it has resulted in a much better understanding of the points at issue and general though serious nature of the problem.
The Chinese advance into Tibet upsets all our security calculations. Hitherto, the danger to India on its land frontiers has always come from the North-West. Throughout history we have concentrated our armed might in that region.
For the first time, a serious danger is now developing on the North and North-East side; at the same time, our danger from the West or North-West is in no way lessened. This creates most embarrassing defense problems and I entirely agree with you that a reconsideration of our military position and a redisposition of our forces are inescapable.
Regarding Communists, again the position requires a great deal of thought.
Hitherto, the smuggling of arms, literature, etc. across the difficult Burmese and Pakistan frontier on the East or along the sea was our only danger. We shall now have to guard our Northern and North-eastern approaches also.
Unfortunately, all these approaches-Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and the tribal areas in Assam-are weak spots both from the point of view of communications and police protection and also established loyalty to India.
Even Darjeeling and Kalimpong area is by no means free from pro-Mongolian prejudices. The Nagas and other hill tribes in Assam have hardly had any contact with Indians. European missionaries and other visitors have been in touch with them, but their influence was, by no means, friendly to India and Indians.
In Sikkim, there was political ferment some time ago. It seems to me there is ample scope for trouble and discontent in that small State.
Bhutan is comparatively quiet, but its affinity with Tibetans would be a handicap. Nepal (we all know too well, a weak oligarchic regime based almost entirely on force) is in conflict with an enlightened section of the people as well as enlightened ideas of the modern age. Added to this weak position, there is the irredentism of the Chinese. The political ambitions of the Chinese by themselves might not have mattered so much; but when they are combined with discontent in these areas, absence of close contact with Indians and Communist ideology the difficulty of the position increases manifold. We have also to bear in mind that boundary disputes, which have many times in history been the cause of international conflicts, can be exploited by Communist China and its source of inspiration, Soviet Russia, for a prolonged war of nerves, culminating at the appropriate time, in armed conflict.
We have also so take note of a thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power practically at our doors. In your very illuminating survey of what has passed between us and the Chinese Government through our ambassador, you have made out an unanswerable case for treating the Chinese with the greatest suspicion. What I have said above, in my judgment, entitles us to treat them with a certain amount of hostility, let alone a great deal of circumspection. In these circumstances, one thing, to my mind, is quite clear; and, that is, that we cannot be friendly with China and must think in terms of defense against a determined, calculating,unscrupulous, ruthless, unprincipled and prejudiced combination of powers, of which the Chinese will be the spearhead. There might be from them outward offers or protestations of friendship, but in that will be concealed an ultimate hideous design of ideological and even political conquest into their bloc. It is equally obvious to me that any friendly or appeasing approaches from us would either be mistaken for weakness or would be exploited in furtherance of their ultimate aim. It is this general attitude which must determine the other specific questions which you have so admirably stated. I am giving serious consideration to those problems and it is possible I may discuss this matter with you once more.
Yours sincerely,
VALLABHBHAI PATEL