A Forgotten War, Valour & The Vanquished: Tid-bits from a Hoary Past
What next..? The PLA contingent marching past the Indian President on Republic Day , come 26 Jan..??
Indo-Chinese relations have come a long way indeed, they can be said to be in step & so to say hand-in-hand, almost ! Why, when I got commission in Feb 1964, we were all keyed up & geared up to fight the Chinese breathing fire and brimstone on our Northern Borders. The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) had routed the Indian 7 Infantry Brigade in the Kameng Division of the erstwhile North East Frontier Agency’s ( now Arunachal Pradesh) on the Namka Chu in a world record timing of 30 minutes flat! Many were taken prisoners of war (PsOW) enmasse, but many continued their defiance even in the ignoble captivity. The most awkward for the Chinese guards, was, one 2/Lt BD Dogra of 1/9 Gorkha Rifles. He was given a Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) for his dogged stance on 20 Oct 1962, on the Dhola Post on the ‘river of silence’, the Namka Chu, which was dominated by the Heavy Chinese fortifications on the Thagla Ridge, the bone of contention between China & India . Dogra was the last to be repatriated from Lhasa, as he was in the solitary confinement & needed hospitalization before he could be in some shape to be handed over to the Indian Red Cross. He was my Cadet Sergeant Major ( CSM) of the 20 th NDA Course C Squadron. He used to talk very tough even then, a regular havidar major. He picked up his Lt Cols rank & command, in the Para Commandos, where his troops used to swear by him! He did not rise any more, as he got tough even with the brass on the chain of reporting!
The WW II, fabled Indian 4 Infantry Division was badly mauled in Oct-Nov 1962; & their General Officer Commanding ( GOC) Maj Gen A S Pathania, Military Cross (MC) ; earned with the Frontier Force (FF, later 5 RGR); was hauled over the coals & discredited & disgraced in the media….May his soul RIP……..he passed away very recently, aged 93!
The cat’s-whiskers at the hurriedly cobbled together HQ 4 Corps, BM Kaul, actually hadn’t a clue ( he was a from the services (ASC) & not from any of the fighting arms; though he was the blue-eyed boy of Panditji’s ( & Indian Army Commander-in-Chief, Gen PN Thapar’s ( media-don Karan Khapar’s Dad) Chief of General Staff (CGS) . Only the Indian 62 Brigade in Se La ( 4182 meters, i.e.13000 feet or so) commanded by the redoubtable Brig Hoshiar Singh, IOM,IDSM, Croix de Guerre, with Silver Star of the Rajputana Rifles, put in some semblance of a fight……….but they too fell apart as the PLA closed in from many directions & un-expected quarters, cut them into smithereens and routed them hither and thither! Hoshiar Singh got to get shot dead at point blank range by the Chinese political commissar, after the latter identified who he had in his sights! He was the Deputy Commandant at the National Defence Academy , Kharakvasla, Maharashtra, where I was training with the 24 NDA Course.
The Garhwalis (4 Garhwal Rifles); however, fought very valiantly at the screen position at Nuranang; won many laurels for their bravery; also, enabled the AHQ & MoD to announce the only Battle Honour of the 1962 Border War with the Chinese: ” Nuranang”, to them and the beaten Indian Army. However, the jawans, Junior Commissioned officers and Officers of the infantry battalions ( 3/3 G R, 3 Kumaon, and the Grenadiers) took on the Chinese PLA hordes in Walong and made their life hell till overwhelmed by sheer numbers ( of the fabled ‘human sea-wave method’ of PLA infantry assaults). Many of our troops & stragglers did; indeed, manage to find their way back to to Misamari in the Assam Plains via-Bhutan, but only after trudging over forgotten mountain trails; on empty stomachs; over many weeks. Tejpur was evacuated! The Defence Minister was forced to be sacked. Thapar was removed from the Chief’s office. Kaul was asked to go on long leave or some thing. Gen Manekshaw relieved him as GOC 4 Corps & one of the first orders he gave was “There will NOT be another withdrawal, come what may.” Pandit Nehru openly wept, when Lata Mangeshkar lamented; on the All India Radio national hook-up; whilst crooning “Aiye mere watan ke logo..”
The India Army (Gen) Henderson Brooks Inquiry Report on the causes for the debacle in NEFA is yet to see the light of day though Neville Maxwell has quoted freely from it in his, the then immediately banned ( in India), ‘India’s China War”! Brooks migrated to Australia.
The Indian 114 Infantry Brigade in the high Himalayas & Karakorams of Ladakh gave the Chinese a very bloody nose, and, the ahirs of 13 Kumaon in Rezangla, proved to the last man last round, what it meant to keep the izzat of their fore-fathers intact…… . All but four, fell. Maj Shaitan Singh was awarded a posthumous Param Vir Chakra (PVC), eight were given the Vir Chakras, all posthumous; four got the Sena Medals, one each of Vishist Seva Medal & Mentioned-in-Dispatches. This is an all time world record un-bettered to date! In the barren wastes of the Pangong Lake Gap ( altitude around 14000 feet ) area, Maj Dhan Singh Thapa of 1/8 GR, got his PVC ( then announced ‘posthumously’, as his CO reported him & all ranks killed in action, so heavy was the Chinese attack! He surfaced suddenly; and much to the delight of his dear wife; from captivity; who had already performed his last rites……………poor Dhan Singh Thapa had to get re-married to her just to keep the Hindu Trinity on his right side!) with his rifle company holding out at Sirijap, on the Pagong Tso. He got promoted to Lt Col, to pass away a few years back, after serving the JET-Airways in Lucknow . He was umpire on me during our ( EC-7/ 33 Regular Course) last mountain-warfare camp in the Chakrata ( Bhadeshwar) hill-ranges when I was under pre-commission training at the Indian Military Academy Dehradun, way back in 1963… . The 114 Brigade Commander; the WWII war-wounded, one –glass eyed ( a la ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, one time Captain of the Indian Test Cricket team, later husband of Sharmila Tagore, the latter who switched over to the moniker Ayesha Begum after the nikah.) Brig Tapeshwar Narain “Tappy” Raina was awarded the Maha Vir Chakara (MVC.) Frommhis HQs in Chushul, he held his brigade firmly to its defences against over-whelming odds, and a fiercely virulent PLA onslaught in the height of the high altitude winter of Oct/Nov 1962. Later, he rose to become the Chief Of the Army Staff of the Indian Army. He was my GOC in 25 Infantry Division, circa 1967-68, when he was a Major General.
The Chinese still maintain their (post our-Independence) ages-old CLAIM LINE. They still do not abide by the highest water-shed principle of international boundary notation; in the instance case the McMahon Line. They issue visas to any one traveling to Arunachal!! They claim Tawang from the roof-tops still. They will never give up their road link to the Sinkiang province in OUR Aksai Chin, most of which they hold; like the bailiff, who calls all the shots, in any case, & possession is nine-tenths of the law! Hats off to Margret Thatcher; The Iron Lady who wrested the Falklands out of the clutches of the Argentines, working a miracle from 10, 000 kms away, across a very choppy Southern Atlantic, from White Hall / 10 Downing Street, her official residence, when she was the Brit PM & out-did even Sir Winston Churchill on his home ground ! The high altitude railway to Lhasa has made troop movement & military logistics, in the very close proximity of the Siliguri Corridor ( to India’s North East & the Seven Sisters) a mere child’s play, for the Chinese brass & top-guns. Chinese goods & bric a brac is freely available at throw away prices all along our Northern & Eastern border-areas. Our local populace there, seem quite happy with this arrangement…….our mandarins in North & South Blocks are all ga ga over the ‘improvement’ in the Sino-Indian relations. We have to do ‘business’ with the Chinese, they say. & Chindia is the latest buzz word.. India’s soft-power, is being peddled all over……………who cares for the national disgrace of 1962, any more! Who dare talk of revenge, or of effacing of the black mark ( Kalank) on the fore-heads? It is a globalized village now a days & the WWW has made a nonsense of inter-national geographical & political boundaries. Inter-dependence is the name of the game in this era of the falling American Dollar. Trade is all important. Mammon is KING & GOD, all in the upper case & bold type-face. We have to kow tow to the neo-cons of the US of A too…..
JAK LI’s Gorkha, nunus from Ladakh, locals of The Srinagar Valley, the Jammu Dogras were flown in a IL 76 of Indian Air Force to Kunming in the Yunan province of Red China under their commander Brig D S Dhadwal, a Dogra Rajput (undoubtedly,he will hanker for a AVSM at least).The Chinese PLA contingent is commanded by a Maj Gen! The Indian’s vigorous exercises around a pole, called malkhamb ( Maratha Light Infantry troops as well, wouldn’t be surprised as this must be one of JJ’s parting shot !) impressed the Chinese soldier; and their kung fu martial art impressed the Indian jawans. Air-cover and the artillery support is being provided by the Red Chinese. Mock Counter-terrorism operations, and honing up of cooperation drills is on the cards. China has problems in their Khasghar region, from indigenous Muslim population which must be in cahoots with the Al Qiada, the universal menace post 9/11.
In a by-gone era, Zorawar Singh, the towering Dogra General of the Kashmiri Maharaja’s Court, conquered parts of Tibet in the 16th (??) Century. In the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, 1 Sikh Infantry, The Rajputana Rifles ( Bombay Native Infantry) & the Indian Cavalry’s 16 Bengal Lancers; as part of a ‘Chinese Expeditionary Force’ under Gen Sir Barrow; were the first ones to reach Peking, and were crucial in the final snuffing out of the belligerent Boxers; who got to believe, that, all foreigners ( including the missionaries, starting with the German’s, were out to humiliate and finally subvert the Chinese way of life. In this International Force, troops of the French, British, American, German, Japanese, Russian, Italian & Austrian Armies; along with the Imperial Ching Chinese Army were deployed in Peking to relieve the besieged foreign Legation, between 20 June and 14 August 1900 . They, ultimately; got the better of the Boxers; though it was very a close call right till the end. The Boxers Armed Rebels fought very well & hard in close quarter battle & gave their antagonist soldiers, the run for their monies, alright.
But now…the JAK LI holding hands with the personnel of the Chinese armed forces! Beats me how, & why..?!!
Perhaps, it is the times of the Zhoung kou ren; the concept of the Chinese/ Han ‘middle-kingdom’; which envisages China being central to world affairs; is finding prominence the world over ! ‘Pearl of Strings’ deployment of the Chinese armed forces in the Indian Ocean is part of this ploy. The training of the Indian Army in China, fits into the Chinese scheme of things like a T. Alas, a marching contingent of the PLA; all decked out in their ceremonial best, trotting it out on New Delhi’s Rajpath on Republic ( of India) Day does not figure in it. It hardly matters, as long as the Chinese have their way other wise. They had it in the hey day of the “Hindi-Chini bhai- bhai” era of the 1950s & early 1960s. Will not be a surprised if they have it again, in this decade of the joint military manoeuvres of the kind of Exercise ‘Hand-in-Hand”, and the golden hand-shake.
(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)