1962 India-China war secrets made public

New Delhi: A large section of the still classified Henderson Brooks Report that critically reviewed India's defence preparedness and strategies during the 1962 war with China has been made public. The report on the 1962 Sino-Indian War has been uploaded on the internet by an Australian journalist Neville Maxwell. Maxwell was a war correspondent during the 1962- Sino Indian war. The report supposedly contains details of India's humiliating defeat at the hand of China. Most parts of the Henderson Brooks report are still classified in India. 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. 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. 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." 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 report may provide cannon fodder for the BJP to attack Congress and beef up its campaign for a strong India under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Congress analysts are likely to dismiss the contents since it may not be revelatory, but harp on the progress India has made since then.