1962 Indo-China war secret report 'blames' Nehru; BJP demands the document be made public

NEW DELHI: With a section of the confidential Henderson Brooks report on the 1962 Indo-China war going public, the UPA government on Tuesday came under fire from BJP, with the latter questioning India's defence preparedness at that time.

"What is UPA government trying to hide by making the Indo-China war report classified?" BJP asked. BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded that the entire report be made public. "It is high time that the current and future generations can know and debate as to who worked for the security of India; Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel."

Australian journalist Neville Maxwell has released a part of the report online. According to Maxwell, "The reasons for long-term withholding of 1962 war report must be political, probably partisan & perhaps familial."

Maxwell, who wrote a controversial account of the reasons that led to India's defeat in his work, India's China War, says on his website that he has always had access to the report and had waited for it to be declassified. He says he has now decided to put a large part of the report in the public domain because of India's unwillingness to release it.

While the Nehru government's forward policy has been widely analyzed and criticized as being a contributor, Maxwell says on his website that the report holds India's first prime minister personally responsible for the war. "The reasons for the long-term withholding of the report must be political, indeed probably partisan, perhaps even familial," says Maxwell, who was based in Delhi at the time of the war.

While the report may not contain significantly new revelations about the poor state of India's forces during the war, it discusses "how the Army was ordered to challenge the Chinese military to a conflict it could only lose," according to Maxwell.

The report was authored by Lieutenant General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat, then commandant of the Indian Military Academy, soon after the war. It was commissioned by Lt General J N Chaudhuri who had just taken over as chief of Army staff in 1962.

It continues to be considered classified by the Indian government. As late as April 2010, defence minister AK Antony told Parliament that the contents of the report are "not only extremely sensitive but are of current operational value."

(with inputs from TNN)