Coming down heavily on the military leadership, the report is particularly critical of the then Chief of General Staff Lt Gen B M Kaul, who was made GOC of the newly created 4 Corps just before the war.
He was based out of Tezpur, but was evacuated to Delhi on account of illness just as hostilities broke out in what was then called NEFA.
The report records him “dashing in and out” of his York Road (now Motilal Nehru Marg) residence, issuing orders from his bed, and the top brass letting him do so instead of finding a successor. These have all been cited as examples of poor generalship.
Similarly, a copy of Kaul's letter to Nehru at the height of the conflict, urging him to approach the Americans for assistance, has been mentioned and included in the annexures to underscore the loss of nerves among senior officers.
Significant space, sources said, has been given to the retreat of 4 Infantry Division which had been quickly reconstructed after the Namka Chu defeat and posted to defend the fallback line along the Se La-Senge-Dhirang axis in Arunachal Pradesh.
This was after Tawang had been overrun by advancing Chinese forces.
It was decided that this axis is where the Army would fight a dogged and prolonged defensive battle for which resources and logistics had been built up.
The idea was that longer the campaign stretched, the more difficult it would get for the Chinese to sustain operations.'
But 4 Div withdrew without fighting, a fact that is officially confirmed and documented in the report.
This entire episode of the “collapse and rout of the 4 Infantry Division” has been described in the report as “a shameful incident” of a “renowned division collapsing and retreating without putting up a fight”.
The GOC of the Division, Maj Gen Anant Singh Pathania, has been severely criticised and shown up as another example of poor generalship.
The loss of nerves among key military commanders is again emphasised by citing an inland letter that Pathania wrote to Harish Sarin, Joint Secretary in Defence Ministry.
He asked Sarin to give him another chance, volunteering to be even deployed as a “sepoy” at the front.
Pathania's appointment itself has been commented upon as an example of poor decision-making by the military hierarchy.
