Classified, yet demystified report...

The release of ‘top secret’ Brooks-Bhagat Committee report on Indian debacle in 1962 war with China, by Australian journalist Neville Maxwell, has brought to fore what was widely believed. In fact, the content of the report, which is closely-guarded by Government of India for well over 50 years, was found in bits and pieces in one or the other document or books or various other analytical reports. The Government itself effected various changes taking cognisance of the observations in the report. Still, the report itself is ‘officially’ out of public domain. The report, as released by Maxwell has certain pages and annexures missing. But, it presents an analysis of operations in 1962 war and reverses suffered. ‘The Hitavada’ Chief Reporter Kartik Lokhande examines what the Brooks-Bhagat report -- as released by Maxwell -- has brought to fore and what it leaves to be desired.

A view from Bum La along India-China border.

THE GUILTY MEN OF 1962: A copy of an old photograph taken during Pt Jawaharlal Nehru's visit to NEFA is displayed at Jaswantgarh. The then Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon, Lt Gen B M Kaul also seen.

Chinese graveyard at Jaswantgarh. (Pic by: Kartik Lokhande)

Published in Sunday Forum of 'The Hitavada' on March 23, 2014.

WHAT went wrong in 1962? What caused Indian debacle in the Sino-Indian war fought in this year? Who did -- or, did not -- do what? These and many such questions haunt the public memory of the said war for over 50 years. Of course, many independent entities attempted to analyse the things and bring to fore certain answers. The only thing that could have made everything clear to the public is Brooks-Bhagat Committee report on the 1962 war. The Government had appointed the committee and also took cognisance of the observations made in it. Still, the report itself was never brought to public domain ‘officially’, arousing curiosity as to what was ‘so scary’ in the report. 

In September 1963, while making a statement in the Parliament, the then Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan (who succeeded V K Krishna Menon after the war) had explained why the report was not being made public. In his own words, “The House would appreciate that by the very nature of the contents it would not be in the public interest to lay the Report on the table of the House. Nor is it possible to attempt even an abridged or edited version of it consistent with the consideration of security that would not give an unbalanced or incomplete picture to the House.” Since then, till date, the contents of this ‘secret’ report have been found in various books, analyses, and even the official history of 1962 war (which again is a ‘restricted’ document).
Suddenly, in third week of March 2014, Australian journalist and author of the noted book ‘India’s China War’ (1970) Neville Maxwell ‘released’ on Internet a copy of the sensitive Brooks-Bhagat report on 1962 war. It created a media frenzy and the Government tried to downplay it. At the same time, the Government ensured that access to Maxwell’s blogspot was blocked so that the spread of the damage could be contained. There were reports in media that the report released by Maxwell blamed the then Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon, and some of the military leaders namely General P N Thapar, Lt Gen B M Kaul and others.

However, if one goes through the ‘released portion’ of the ‘Top Secret’ report prepared by Lt Gen T B Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat, one finds that at least 55 out of total 190 pages are missing (that is, not uploaded by Maxwell). The pages that are missing in Maxwell’s release are 20-29, 35, 104-110, 112-157, and 187. Thus, in effect, 135 pages of the report have been released. What do these pages reveal? These do not find any mention of Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, but leaves scope for interpretation of things through mention of the meetings held at Prime Minister’s residence and names of some of those present at these meetings. At most of the places, there is no mention of names. Only designations have been mentioned viz. Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB), Director of Military Operations (DMO), General Staff Branch etc.

Rest of the details pertain to situation before the war with China broke out, actions taken (or, not taken) during the war, and reasons behind advances of the Chinese Army and reverses suffered by the Indian Army. In effect, it concentrates more on ‘Operations Review’, the main objective behind institution of this enquiry. Still, even the ‘Operations Review’ could not be carried out properly by the committee as is evident from the comments in the opening chapter of the Brooks-Bhagat report.

“Review of the functioning of the Army Headquarters, however, has not been dealt with on the advice of the Chief of the Army Staff,” mentions the report. It is very surprising as to why the Army Headquarters was kept out of the purview of the review if the entire exercise was supposed to be aimed at taking stock of operations during the war and drawing lessons for future. Obviously, this led the Brooks-Bhagat Committee to comment, “Thus, perforce, the actions and developments at Army Headquarters have had to be traced from documents available at Command Headquarters. In this process, a number of loose ends concerning Army Headquarters could not be verified and have been left unanswered.”

Further, it was clear since inception of the ‘Operations Review’ that the report would be held back to protect remainder of the image of the political powers. How? Here is another lament from Brooks-Bhagat Committee: “The relationship between Defence Ministry and Army Headquarters and the directions given by the former to the latter also could not be examined.” There are many such remarks that raise a question if the Government wanted to keep certain things under the wraps.

The most shocking content of the report is the observation about much-touted ‘Forward Policy’ adopted by the Government of India. It may come as a surprise to all that the minutes of the meeting laying down the ‘Forward Policy’ were not available to Brooks-Bhagat Committee. The committee mentions, “The background to the Government’s decision on the ‘Forward Policy’ is not known.”

Despite these handicaps, the Committee went ahead with its given task. Through a review of various documents and communications it could access, the review committee drew certain conclusions. But, while presenting the conclusions in accordance with the given ‘Terms of Reference’ also, Lt Gen Brooks and Brig P S Bhagat did not spare making scathing comments on those who lived in a make-believe world of their own and those who had made it a mission of their life to please the political masters.

For instance, the report points out that everyone -- right from military leaders at Delhi to Director of Intelligence Bureau to Foreign Secretary to officers in Defence Ministry -- stuck to the thought that the Chinese ‘would not react’ to India establishing new posts. Interestingly, in a meeting held at Prime Minister’s office on November 2, 1961, Director of Intelligence Bureau B N Mullick had given the same opinion. However, the report points out, it was ‘contrary’ to Military Intelligence appreciation of 1959-60 which stated that the Chinese ‘would resist by force’.

The ‘top secret’ report has brought to fore problems with intelligence gathering also. After review, it commented that the intelligence was ‘obviously haphazardly collected, badly processed, unaimaginatively put across, and inefficiently disseminated.’

At the same time, the report appreciates the attempts of Eastern Command and Western Command to present ground-reality through appreciation papers. However, it stated that these papers were ignored by those at Army Headquarters and in the Ministry of Defence. Despite the assessments based on reality on ground in NEFA, the decision regarding ‘forward movement’ of troops and setting up posts was taken. The Government was ‘politically keen’ to recover territory but advocated a cautious policy, while the Army Headquarters ‘dictated’ a policy that was ‘clearly militarily unsound,’ states the report.

Brooks-Bhagat Committee has flayed the adoption of ‘Forward Policy’ without proper thought to situation on ground. The troops were not given enough time to get acclimatised to hitherto unfamiliar terrain. The Chinese had developed road connectivity to all important areas they held and could mobilise forces at any given place. In contrast, due to ‘militarily unsound’ adoption of ‘Forward Policy’, the Indian forces were ‘spread out thinly with no supporting arms worth the name and with poor communications between various sectors. Thus, in case of hostilities, we would be defeated in detail’, observes the report.

Commenting on the mindless pursuit of ‘Forward Policy’ without proper preparations, the report minces no words and states in clear terms, “It is more a question of acting on whims and suppositions and then plugging holes rather than on deliberate military thought followed by planned actions. This had repercussions all down the line with the result that our forces were ill-prepared to meet any military situation.”

The report is critical of Chief of General Staff Lt Gen B M Kaul, who was later appointed as Commander of IV Corps. Lt Gen B M Kaul ‘did not’ consider it likely that the Chinese would resort to any large scale hostilities in Ladakh. “They also sidetracked the main issues, and argued on the correctness of the Forward Policy,” states the report. The ‘main issues’ referred to various observations made in a reappraisal of the situation by Western Command on August 15, 1962. The Western Command had observed that till the situation was ‘unfavourable’ in Ladakh, it would not be appropriate ‘to provoke’ the Chinese into armed clash. Besides, Western Command sought proper build-up of the forces and political solution to certain issues. However, the Army Headquarters chose to ignore that, the report reveals.

The role played by the Army Headquarters also has attracted criticism from the committee for lapses. “Comparatively, the mistakes and lapses of the staff sitting in Delhi without the stress and strain of battle are more heinous than the errors made by commanders in the field of battle,” observes the report. It has commented on various other aspects also like non-military officials giving directions to military officials, lack of proper supplies to forces at the border, ‘inflated figures’ for planning resulting in hardship to the troops, etc.

Probably, for these observations, the Government of India decided to hold back the report and not declassify it despite passage of over 50 years. Still, the report has been like an open secret as the Government implemented recommendations in it, and the critical content kept appearing in one or the other book-accounts of military leaders. Of course, Maxwell had got access to the report -- as is evident now -- and wrote ‘India’s China War’ using those details. Some content of the Brooks-Bhagat report is found also in the official history of 1962 war instituted by the Ministry of Defence. But, this official history too is a ‘restricted’ document.

Militarily, the lessons were learnt by using the contents of the Brooks-Bhagat report. Over the years, several changes have been effected in Intelligence set-up, co-ordination between military and political leadership, linking of foreign policy with military thought. Still, the observations in the ‘classified, yet demystified’ report bear some relevance even today in educating the people as well as helping them develop proper perspective on defence thinking of the country.

Lt Gen S P P Thorat’s foresight was ignored

The Brooks-Bhagat Committee report appreciates a paper appreciating the situation on ground and suggesting certain measures for defence of North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA). This paper was prepared by Lt Gen S P P Thorat, General Officer Commanding-in-Charge of Eastern Command, in October 1959, much before the Chinese aggression.
Army Headquarters Intelligence Appreciation also was issued about the same time bringing out the Chinese threat. Based on these this and Eastern Command paper, the Army Headquarters issued Operation Instruction to Eastern Command on January 29, 1960. To check the efficiency of this Operation Instruction, Army Headquarters conducted ‘Exercise Lal Qila’ at Lucknow in April 1960.
However, extra troops for NEFA never materialised despite being suggested after the exercise. In conrtast, in 1961, little note was taken of a major build-up of the Chinese against NEFA. A brigade was taken away from NEFA to Nagaland, a process reverse to what was planned earlier. All this has been revealed in the Brooks-Bhagat Committee report.
Against this backdrop, it becomes necessary to take a look at what did Lt Gen S P P Thorat suggest. As history has proved, he had rightly predicted that the Chinese invasion would come from the North over the McMahon Line in the shape of ‘a number of simultaneous thrusts’ likely in Towang-Bomdila, possibly supported by minor thrusts through Bhutan converging on the Towang-Bomdila road, Longju-Daporijo-Ziro, and Rima-Kibithoo-Teju. It happened that way. Not only this, but Lt Gen Thorat had pointed out the ‘disadvantages’ that the Chinese would face as they penetrated deeper in Indian territory. Based on these factors, he had suggested setting up road-heads and air-heads at certain points, and garrisons to boost defences of NEFA.
“As the enemy comes farther away from his bases, the other side of the McMahon Line, his communications will get stretched. He will find it increasingly more difficult to maintain his forces, and the situation will get worse day-by-day. A stage will come when his maintenance difficulties will be the same as mine, and it is then that I shall give him the first real fight,” Lt Gen Thorat had spelled out.
Unfortunately, the then Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon and Lt Gen B M Kaul ‘ridiculed’ Lt Gen Thorat’s report and accused him of being ‘alarmist’ or ‘war-monger’. As Lt Gen Thorat’s efforts to add reason to thinking of powers-that-be of the time failed, he lamented that, “I was satisfied beyond any doubt that under conditions obtaining in NEFA at the time (1959), it was militarily unsound to adopt the ‘Forward Policy’.” Surprisingly, and shockingly, Lt Gen Thorat’s report was shown to the Prime Minister only in October 1962, when damage was already done.

The Brooks-Bhagat Committee

The Chief of the Army Staff instituted the ‘Operations Review’ on December 14, 1962 with a stated objective of ‘going into the reverses suffered by the Army’, particularly in the Kameng Frontier Division of North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA), which is now known as Arunachal Pradesh.

The terms of reference of the Review were to enquire into what went wrong with training, equipment, system of command, physical fitness of the troops, capacity of Commanders at all levels to influence the men under their command. Lt Gen T B Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat carried out the review. They were aware of the significance of the exercise of ‘Operations Review’. Hence, though they were asked to take up the review concerning Kameng Frontier Division in NEFA, they covered the region of Ladakh also. For, they felt that developments that led to military operations and ‘reverses’ had to be studied in corelation to NEFA and Ladakh regions both. Accordingly, they prepared the report in two parts.

The Part-I of the report has four chapters dedicated to developments in Western Command, Eastern Command, IV Corps, and Conclusions. The last chapter of conclusions brings out salient factors and actions that led to ‘reverses’ for Indian side and ‘lessons derived’ from them. The Part-II of the report deals with detailed lessons learnt and this covers mainly the aspects mandated as under ‘Terms of Reference’ given to the committee.