Hello, friends! India has won many wars in its history. The first war was fought right after independence. Against Pakistan. It went on from October 1947 to 1949. After that, there were three more wars against Pakistan. In the years 1965, 1971, and 1999. India won all these wars, under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee respectively. But in the midst of all this, there was one war in history in which India had to face a big defeat. The Indo-China War of 1962. This war was fought between the two largest nations of Asia, effects of which are still seen today, on India-China relations. What was the reason behind it? Let's unearth the story of this war in this video. Let's start our story from the year 1949, the year when the Chinese Communist Party won the Civil War and a new China was born. Its leader was Mao Zedong. On the other hand, only two years ago, in 1947 India won independence from British rule, and Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India. "At the stroke of the midnight hour,
when the world sleeps, India will awake
to life and freedom." Both the countries were new and young. Although it is difficult to imagine today, but at that time, there was no enmity
between these two countries. On the contrary, there were many reasons to
extend the hand of friendship towards each other. In 1954, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru went to Beijing for a tour and he was welcomed with applause. There are many actual photos of this trip. You can see how warmly he was welcomed in China. The reason behind this was very simple. Both countries had suffered a lot under
the Western imperialist powers. And these were the two largest countries in Asia. So everyone had hoped that their friendship will help Asia rise and take a stand
against the Western imperialists. Pandit Nehru sat with Mao Zedong and talked for about 4 hours. Mao tells him how both the
Eastern countries have been bullied by the Western imperialist powers and that both should stand together in solidarity. Pandit Nehru replied by saying that, "(The) two countries were bound to attain immense influence given the number of people they constituted." The slogan "Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai"
[Indians and Chinese are brothers] was popularized from here, by Pandit Nehru. At that time, there were small disputes
regarding borders between the two countries, but both countries agreed that they should avoid conflict and build a peaceful relationship. Because of this, in June 1954, a Sino-India Panchsheel Agreement was signed. Five principles were written in this agreement. Both countries will respect each other's
territorial integrity and sovereignty. They will not interfere in each other's internal affairs. They will adopt mutual non-aggression. And they will work towards mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence. Amidst these slogans of Indians and Chinese being brothers the issue of Tibet was beginning to be the root of the problem. In 1950, Mao Zedong had invaded Tibet. India was strongly against it but could not do much. In 1954, when Pandit Nehru signed this peaceful agreement, he thought of compromising on Tibet. Because there were bigger geopolitical issues
that needed to be taken care of. India faced a threat from Pakistan back then. And Pakistan had actually started allying
with America during the Cold War. For the Cold War taking place between
America and the Soviet Union, Pandit Nehru wanted to keep a neutral stance. But Pakistan allying with the US, was making Pakistan more powerful. So, keeping the national interest in mind Pandit Nehru believed that allying with China would be the right choice. Pandit Nehru's statement on this was something like this. "The United States imagine that by this policy they have completely outflanked India's so-called neutralism and will, thus, bring India to her knees. Whatever the future may hold, this is not going to happen." Hence, the 1954 peace agreement between India and China should be seen from this context. In those days, the person in charge of the Chinese government was Zhou Enlai, who is known as the Chinese Premier. This is the second-highest political post in China. Mao Zedong was at the top and Zhou Enlai was only a level beneath him. Till 1956, he openly claimed that China has no claim on any Indian territory. Even though, Chinese maps often showed 120,000 km² of Indian territory as China's part. When Zhou Enlai was questioned about this, he acknowledged that the maps were wrong. China's communication was basically
unreliable regarding these border disputes. But in our story, the first major point of conflict was Tibet in 1959. I have discussed this in detail in the video on Tibet. This was the year when the situation in Tibet was getting worse. Chinese army was torturing the Tibetian people and the Dalai Lama had to flee to save his life. After a very difficult journey, he took refuge in India. This story is historical in itself and very interesting. If you want to know more,
then watch the entire video. I will put the link in the description below. China felt betrayed by India. That India was interfering in China's internal matters. How the tensions grow between these two countries, before talking about that, let's take a look at the borders. India and China share a 4,000 km long boundary. It is divided into three sectors. The first is the Western Sector in Jammu and Kashmir. This is a 2,150 km long border. A large part of it is occupied by China that we refer to as Aksai Chin. South of it is the Middle Sector. 625 km boundary line which is not so controversial. Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal share this border and there's no major conflict here. The third is the Eastern Sector with the boundary around Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The border with Arunachal Pradesh is called the McMahon Line. And China claims that the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh is theirs. By the way, at that time, the state of Arunachal Pradesh did not exist. This whole area was under the state of Assam. Arunachal Pradesh was formed in 1987. So, this region was called as North-East Frontier Agency. NEFA. Actually, the reason behind this name is the British Empire. In 1826, the British defeated the Burmese
in Manipur and Assam in the first Anglo-Burmese War. After that, this area was under British rule. After 1875, they started preparing
the jurisdiction of this area. And in 1912 and 1913, they worked with the indigenous people living there and created the North-East Frontier Tracts. This is where the name North-East Frontier Agency comes from. China considers this region to be very important for itself because it considers Tibet to be its territory. And the town of Tawang, which is part of Arunachal Pradesh today, was a colony of Tibet back then. In 1912, when the rule of the Qin Dynasty in China ended and the Republic of China was born, this new China claimed ownership of Tibet. In those days, the British didn't want
the territory to be taken by China. So, in 1914, a conference was called by the British in Shimla. In this conference, representatives of China,
Britain, and Tibet were present. Although China did not sign the Shimla Convention, despite this, the British and the Tibetians
enter into a bilateral agreement. A border was drawn as per this agreement and this is where the McMahon came to be. Later, the British admitted that the reason behind creating the McMahon line was that they wanted to take away the town of Tawang from Tibet. Eventually, India and China started having problems with this McMahon line. China's perspective was already clear, it was obvious that
they considered Tawang's town as a part of Tibet and hence they didn't want to accept the McMahon line. But what was India's problem with this McMahon line? What happened was that after independence in 1947, Indian military started patrolling that area and came to know about an interesting thing. They saw that the highest mountains in the region were further north of the McMahon line The Thag La Ridge, for example,
was 6 km further north of this line. India wanted the actual boundary to be decided according to nature. The highest Himalayan mountains or rivers should be used as natural borders. That's why India started to extend its military post further. We will talk about this later. But first, let's look at the Western Sector. The Western sector, i.e. Aksai Chin's region, was ignored for a long time in history because it is such a remote and isolated area. This area used to be under the rule of
King Gulab Singh in the Sikh Empire. In 1846, when the British came,
they took over this area and made Gulab Singh a puppet king. After this, the British tried to make proper boundaries. They went to meet the Chinese and Tibetan officials but nothing happened by that. They wrote, "Since neither the Chinese nor the Tibetans would co-operate, there could be no demarcation of the Tibet-Ladakh boundary in 1846." But in 1892, the Chinese set their own boundary marker. Later on, the British made two conflicting boundary lines at different points in time. The first was the Johnson Line in 1865. It was made by the Civil Servant of Survey of India, William H. Johnson. After 1897, this line was called the Ardagh-Johnson Line because it was formally proposed by Major General John Charles Ardagh. He was the Chief of the British Military Intelligence then. According to this boundary line, the Aksai Chin region was in Kashmir as India's part. If you look at it on Google Earth, this line places the Karakoram range of the mountains in India. And this line runs along the Kunlun Mountain range. In 1893, a senior Chinese official, Hung Ta-Chen, drew a map. And in this map too, Aksai Chin was shown as a part of India. The line on this map was almost the same as the Johnson line. But apart from this, the British drew another boundary line in 1899 which is called the Macartney-MacDonald line. Initially, it was suggested by the British Council, George Macartney and it was presented to the Chinese by Sir Claude MacDonald. This is where the name of this line comes from. This line was based on watershed divisions. This means creating a boundary between two countries using natural geographical landscapes. For example, if a river is flowing between two countries, then that river should be the boundary line. Or if there is a range of mountains, then the topmost peak should be the boundary line. This is called the Watershed Division in geography. You can see the comparison of the Johnson line
with the Macartney-MacDonald line in this map. According to this new line, the mountains of the Karakoram range were the boundary. But the difference between these two lines was so vast that choosing the new line meant that almost half of the Aksai Chin region would go to China. When the British government proposed this line
to the Chinese Qin government, they did not respond. But still, till 1959, China had informally accepted the Macartney-MacDonald Line. Now, that we have understood the map,
let's get back to our story. As I had said, in 1959, the first major point of conflict was seen between both countries. But 2 years before that, in 1957, China started constructing roads in Aksai Chin. China had started claiming large areas in Ladakh and NEFA. And seeing this, Pandit Nehru's trust in
the Indian-Chinese brotherhood started to falter. In 1958, Pandit Nehru told the then-Indian Ambassador to China,
G. Parthasarathy, to never trust the Chinese. Nehru also told him not to carry out communications through
the then Defence Minister, VK Krishna Menon. To bypass him. Because Nehru felt that Krishna Menon was a staunch communist and his communist ideology would interfere with his opinion of China. That it might be possible that
he would be influenced by his ideology and not see China from a neutral perspective. Pandit Nehru's suspicion was justified here because though the Chinese Premier would say that they had no interest in Indian territory, but their maps showed otherwise. Roads were built there. How could a reliable relationship be formed like this? Finally, in March 1959, when the Dalai Lama took refuge in India, it became a big trigger point for China. If you want to know more about the history of the Lamas and Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet, I would suggest this audiobook on KUKU FM. Lamas: The Tibetan Legacy in Hindi. This 1.5-hour-long audiobook is divided into 11 episodes, explores this topic in great detail. In case you don't know, KUKU FM is a
great audio-learning platform. On it, you can listen to many such audiobooks. On almost every kind of topic. If you have not joined it yet,
then go and try it. Use the coupon code DHRUV50 to get 50% off on their first month's subscription. You can find the link in the description below. Now, let's get back to our topic. The then-leader of the Soviet Union,
Nikita Khrushchev, actually blamed Mao Zedong
and supported Nehru. Mao felt that this was some Indian conspiracy. And that the situation created in Tibet
was perhaps India's doing. In anger, the Chinese government breached
the McMahon Line in the Eastern Sector. It starts claiming the areas south of that line too. Meanwhile, Zhou Enlai came to India to have diplomatic talks. He offers Pandit Nehru that they will retract their claim on NEFA if India retracts its claim on Aksai Chin. Pandit Nehru wasn't pleased with the offer, to say the least. They were claiming and offering land arbitrarily. He simply rejects the 'offer'. This discussion took place on April 24, 1960,
between Nehru and Zhou. And let me read the exact words. Nehru says, "...As far as I remember, at no time did the Chinese government
raise objection to our maps. Objection to our maps was raised
only in the middle of the last year... ...Normally speaking, we would have expected you to tell us about it
in case you objected to them... ...Naturally, we were led to believe all through these years
that broadly speaking our maps were acceptable to you..." In response, Zhou Enlai said, "...we cannot recognise the McMahon Line
or the Shimla Convention; but if a settlement was reached,
naturally we would also change our maps... ...If we must reach a settlement then both our maps will have to be changed accordingly..." But Nehru says that, "...But here we have been trying to find a solution in a friendly way to our questions consistent with dignity and self-respect of both countries.." This discussion goes on for a long time but no conclusion could be reached. According to the Chinese,
they were not invading India. They were just reclaiming their rightful territory. But if India wanted to defend its territory, it had to push out the Chinese. And this was the beginning of Pandit Nehru's
Forward Policy. As per this policy, military outposts and
border patrolling began in the conflicted areas. The idea here was simple. Indian soldiers will go ahead
and set up military outposts. And the land that should belong to India
according to the border lines, will be under India's claim. Here, Pandit Nehru had expected that China will not retaliate. It will not go to war against India for this. Interestingly, this Forward Policy is said to be the reason why the war actually happened. In response to these Indian outposts, China adopted the formula of 'Armed Co-Existence'. They too would send armed soldiers to build military outposts and patrol these areas. China's Central Military Commission ordered that the McMahon Line be patrolled by Chinese soldiers. Mao Zedong considered India's Forward Policy as a strategic move in the chess game. Krishna Menon had also said later that had it been a chess game, there would be no problems. There were no aggressions till this time. But slowly, due to these mind games, mistrust and aggression between the countries started to grow. 10th July 1962, around 350 Chinese soldiers surrounded an Indian post. This was in the Chushul village of Leh. They started instigating the villagers there to take a stance against India. And just like that, a huge argument broke out over loudspeakers. In response to this, India further extended its Forward Policy on 22nd July. The soldiers were told to push back the Chinese. And if they feel threatened, to fire at them. Before this, firing was only allowed in case of self-defence. Only if the Chinese fired first. But now they were permitted to fire first. Slowly, India's stance was clear. We will not back off
if someone enters our territory. China started to retaliate more strongly. There is an area in the Eastern Sector
called the Thag La Ridge. It was about 5-6 km north of the McMahon line. In August, China sent about 200 troops to patrol here. It was not easy to reach here
as it took weeks of hiking. But gradually, China was sending many troops to this area. 600 troops gathered in this area by September. 10th October, 1962, it was 8 in the morning. Our soldiers were busy with their daily activities, when suddenly, the Chinese soldiers attacked in large numbers. Only 56 Indian soldiers were present there. On the other side, 600 Chinese troops. We somehow managed to escape the first attack, but at 9:30 AM, another attack was launched. Chinese soldiers started mortar firing and bombing. "The Chinese army launched a massive attack on India. Both in Ladakh and in the North East." Our soldiers requested mortar and machine guns too. But Brigadier John Dalvi said that India was not prepared to fight a war. Chinese soldiers attack for the third time from three directions and this time there was no other option
except retreating. All this happened in just a few hours. This time, the Chinese soldiers heavily reinforced their posts. Barbed wires were installed. Heavy mortars were laid. Unfortunately, Indian soldiers could do nothing but watch. Because there was a severe lack of
manpower and weapons to counterattack. "The Indian army was not prepared
for such a full-scale invasion. Nehru was shocked by this unprovoked act of treachery." Friends, this is how the 1962 war began. Today, looking back at history, it is easy to say that India underestimated China and that it was a stupid mistake. But had you been in that time, you might have thought the same. Because all the top Indian military officials believed so. R. Swaminathan writes in this paper how high-rank military leaders ruled out war with China in August 1962. They were confident that China would never want to wage a war. In fact, in September 1962, Major General J.S. Dhillon had said the same thing. In his experience of dealing with Chinese soldiers till then, he had seen that firing a few bullets, was enough to make them retreat and run away. This is why the Indian army was completely unprepared when this first attack was launched. About 10 days after this, the war officially began. How did the Indian forces prepare and
carry out the counterattack? Which areas did India win back? And which areas did India lose? And what was Pandit Nehru's reaction after the end of the war? Let's get to know these
in the Part 2 of this video. Like last time, the Part 2 video
will be released after 2-3 weeks. If you are watching this video in the future, you will find the link to Part 2 in the pinned comment. For now, if you liked this video, you will definitely like the video on the Kargil War. You can click here to watch it In it, I have narrated the whole story of the Kargil War. See you in the next video. Thank you very much!
