The release for the first time of the classified Henderson Brooks 1962 war report, first reported by The Hindu on Monday, has been welcomed by scholars as a move that would enable a more transparent understanding of the India-China war and also prompt the government to rethink its long-held reluctance to declassify important historical documents.
A 126-page section of the first volume of the Henderson Brooks report, which includes an operational review of India’s failure in the war with China, was made public by veteran Australian journalist Neville Maxwell, who published it on his website.
Mr. Maxwell did so in February. The report, however, had been ignored until The Hindu reported on its release on Monday, triggering a fresh debate on the failures of the 1962 war and on the Indian government’s persisting reluctance to allow a transparent review of the decision-making in the lead up to the border war.
The section includes four chapters, but not the still secret second volume, which highlights sensitive correspondence on decision-making in the lead up to the war. The chapters show there were many assessments from commanders on the ground to Delhi, which, if considered by the Nehru government, would have led to a revision of the Forward Policy and averted the debacle.
Mr. Maxwell explained his decision to release the report, saying he believed he was “complicit in a continuing cover-up” by keeping the report to himself. He suggested that the reasons for withholding the report “must be political, indeed probably partisan, perhaps even familial.”
Open and honest debate“The release of the report is healthy if it ignites an open and honest debate over what led to the border dispute and war; this has to go beyond who is to be blamed,” said Dibyesh Anand, Associate Professor at University of Westminster, who studied the report while researching on the history of the border dispute.
“A close reading of the report,” he said, “shows that the primary blame for the debacle in the war... was put on the failure of command and control at every level from top to bottom and hence this was as much a military failure as a diplomatic and political failure.”
The government’s reluctance to release the report has been criticised by scholars, who reject the suggestion that the five-decade report had any “operational value,” as claimed by the government.
“The entire notion that declassification in this case, and in general, will undermine national security is a bogey, in the sense it comes down to nobody wanting to make a decision on this,” said Zorawar Daulet Singh, a scholar who has published at King’s College London, has written on the war and has read through the volume released by Mr. Maxwell.
“This report does not undermine what India should be doing with China today or with border negotiations.”
“Hopefully,” he added, “the Indian government can expedite the process of de-classification, albeit in a redacted version, in order for contemporary policymakers to draw the right lessons form 1962.”
One lesson, Mr. Anand said, was “not less democratic control of decision making but in fact more democratic control.” “It is important to have a critical analysis of what all went wrong and how to avoid repetition of this. Nothing is gained from an ostrich-like attitude that the Indian government has adopted since 1962.”
On Tuesday, reports said Mr. Maxwell’s website, and the copy of the report, could not be accessed in India, leading to suggestions that the government already moved to block the website that remained accessible from Internet protocol accesses from outside the country.
