The Department of Defence and National Security Studies, Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh on Saturday organised a Seminar on “1962 War: An Appraisal”. Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Statistics & Programme Implementation (Independent Charge) and former Army Chief General V.K Singh was the Chief Guest.
The event also marked the book release of “1962 The War That Wasn’t” by Kunal Verma.
General V.K. Singh described the book as very refreshing. He said that a myth got created after independence that Military was very keen to get into the power. It was one of the reasons that military was kept out of the loop of decision making by not taking their opinion on important decisions and diminishing that trust that should have existed between political and military establishment. Thus the military also kept itself aloof.
Refering to the 1962 war with China, the former Indian Army Chief said, “It was a War in which I think, the soldiers performed very well. What failed us was the political establishment and what failed us was the higher leadership in the Military."
He said we have brave soldiers. No one across the world can match our brave soldiers provided they are trained well and well equipped. “We created a myth about 9 feet tall and 9 feet wide china man who could have been defeated anytime and I strongly believe that people who do not learn from history suffer subsequently”, he said.
Filmmaker and military historian, Shiv Kunal Verma, who authored the book “1962 The War That Wasn’t” mentioned that while signing the Panchsheel agreement India made concessions to china which was against the advise given by military leadership. Soon after, General Kulwant Singh predicted the clash with Chinese in 1953 and unfortunately it proved to be true. “The then PM of India, Jawaharlal Nehru committed the biggest blunder by handing over NEFA to Indian Army which triggered a chain reactions”, he added.
1962 war veteran, Maj. Gen Rajender Nath said that in 1962 whole laddakh had no police force to guard the border. We had only militia battalion in laddakh at that time with no roads and no tracks. In 1956 Indian platoon discovered that a road exists between Xinjiang and Tibet. We knew nothing about our enemy. We were not prepared at all for the war in 1962 and mentally, our military leadership was weak. We should learn from our mistakes made in 1962 war.
Brigadier Amarjit Singh Behl, who was 2nd lt. during 1962 War, shared his memories and experience from the war. He particularly credited his men who without acclimatizing to the harsh climate and with little ammunition and food reached the destination. Sharing about the morale of his men he said “All my men were full of ‘Josh’ to fight the Chinese”.
1962 War veteran, Brigadier D K Khullar said,”If there had been no General Kaul, the result would have been very different. We had General Harabaksh Singh whose leadership was inspiring and boosted the morale of the troops during the 1962 war.”