Arun Jaitley questions why remaining parts of Henderson Brook's report on 1962 war not made public

NEW DELHI: A day after an Australian journalist made public protions of the classified Henderson Brook's report on the 1962 Sino-India war, BJP today wondered if its remaining parts have not been been made public because its content could have been embarssing for Jawaharlal Nehru government.

"What has been made public is Part-I of the report? It has been reported in the media that pages 112 to 167 are still not known. Is it because these pages contain some material which can be embarrassing to those in power in 1962?," said Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley.

The Defence Ministry had yesterday refrained from commenting on the report, which continues to be officially classified, after it was uploaded on his website by journalist Neville Maxwell. The leaked report blamed the "Forward Policy" of the Nehru government and army leadership for India's debacle in the war against China.

"Given the report's extremely sensitive nature, which is of current operational value, it is reiterated that the government classified it as a top secret document and, as such, it would not be appropriate to comment on the contents uploaded by Neville Maxwell on the web," it had said.

Pressing the need to make the report public, Jaitley said any society is entitled to learn from past mistakes. He said Maxwell released first 111 pages and urged the government to put out the remaining pages rather than allowing public opinion to be influenced by unauthentic sources.

With the wisdom of hindsight, he said, he was of the opinion that the report's contents could have been made public some decades ago. The BJP leader blamed Nehru and his "favourite" set of officials for their "flawed" assessment in pursuing the Forward Policy, which sought raising of outposts in areas claimed by China and aggressively patrolling them.

"The opinion of these officials close to the PM had cost this country heavily. The unpreparedness of the armed forces is writ large in the contents of the report. Was a Himalayan blunder of 1962 in fact a Nehruvian blunder?," he said.