The British author of India’s
China War surprised his interlocutor with the force of his conviction,
undimmed 50 years after the events
Kai
Friese Interviews Neville Maxwell
British journalist Neville Maxwell is
often excoriated for his evident hostility to the Indian narrative of
victimhood in the 1962 war. But in the course of an hour-long interview
with Kai Friese, he surprised his interlocutor with
the force of his conviction, undimmed 50 years after the events, that India’s
China war was a unilateral act of passive-aggressive folly by Jawaharlal
Nehru’s government.
Readily provoked and eagerly provocative in conversation, Maxwell’s
famous account of the conflict, India’s
China War (1971),
is not easily dismissed. It was widely praised at the time of its publication
across an unlikely range of opinions, from A.J.P. Taylor to Zhou Enlai, and has
the reputation of having eased the Sino-American entente of 1972. Even
Kissinger, it seems, was a fan.
Given the close attention
and enduring respect Maxwell’s book has received in such disparate quarters,
ICW also deserves scrutiny as a master class in tone and for its marshalling of
archival and journalistic data. Much of its force derives from the bald fact
that it is built primarily on the Indian record—and thus on one nation’s dirty
laundry. Given Maxwell’s own account, in this interview, of his conversion from
a liberal anti-Communist to a frank admirer of Maoist China, he may well be
accused of serial amblyopia. “Forget Maxwell!... Read ICW!” he hectored his
amused interviewer—who has of course read the book (twice)—and has no intention
of forgetting its author with whom he has threatened further skirmishes. “It
will be a tutorial,” countered the veteran. Here, while the truce lasts, are
excerpts:
It’s been
fifty years since the India-China war, and some forty-two years since your book India’s China War came out, and in preparing for this
interview I’ve been quite surprised at how many people have strong reactions to
your book, and to you. And also at your strong feelings about the issue and
about many of the characters. Can you start by telling me what led you to write the book and then talk about the
reaction to it and your feelings—were you surprised?
The first
point to make is that the Indian government was highly successful at disguising
its actions during the emergence and development of the border dispute with
China. A multitude of people were taken in and to my shame I was one of that
multitude. During the 2 or 3 years between my arrival in India in late august
1959 and the mid-60s, I was one of those multitudes totally taken in by the
casuistry and dishonesty and successful deceptions of the Nehru govt. When the
penny began to drop and I saw how we had been misled, I saw it as my
responsibility and guilty obligation to set the record straight. And
accordingly, I exposed the deceptions and turned truth the right side up in ICW. I saw that book as a necessary rectification of a
falsified record.
And I was
astounded by the reception it received in India. I thought the government would
be furious but I expected the Indian reaction to be rather as mine had been
‘Good god! How could I have been such a fool?’
Instead, 90% of the reaction, to what was actually a whistle-blowing attempt,
was ferocious personal hostility to me and vicious attacks on the book as if it
had been straight Xinhua, People's Daily propaganda.
It was a deeply disappointing reaction. And I remain disappointed with those
Indians who still harbour those reactions. The disappointment and antipathy is
strongly mutual.
The book was
banned in India was it not?
This is a
mistake. It was never banned in India. It was published very bravely by Jaico.
And sold out immediately. It was never banned. I’m working on a revised edition
to be published by Natraj this year I hope.
Can I now
return to the issue itself rather than the book? Ok
It’s best
remembered that there are two disputes. The first one was created by the
British, specifically by a man called Olaf Caroe in the mid 1930s. When he
resurrected the idea of annexing a swathe of Chinese territory in the
Northeast, in order to give India what in the 19thand early 20th century was
called a strategic frontier. A nonsensical concept in the modern age. At any
rate the idea was to annexe a swathe of Chinese territory at the edge of the
Tibetan Plateau. And the original 1914 attempt failed, it was a fiasco. And the
idea was forgotten but resurrected by Olaf Caroe in the mid-1930s. So that
India inherited a border dispute with China. It had been going on from the
early 1940s when the British began to move into the territory they wished to
acquire. And the Chinese government Complained and Complained and complained
again at the British intrusions into what the Chinese regarded as their own
territory. And not only Chinese but international maps all showed the
international border at an alignment beneath the foothills. That was common
ground between London, Delhi, Shillong, Nanking, and Lhasa. All five governments
concerned knew the border lay beneath the foothills. But beginning 1940 or
thereabouts the British began moving forward into that territory to acquire
what they thought of as a strategic frontier. So that dispute was alive and
kicking and it was the first matter to be addressed by Prime Minister/Foreign
Minister Nehru when India became independent and he assumed those offices.
And at that point, fatally he made a profound political, diplomatic,
psychological mistake. He came to the conclusion that provided India quickly
made good that new boundary alignment, he could then say to China “Well that’s
it, that’s our boundary, nothing more to discuss about it, it’s not open to
negotiation, you’ve got to live with it.” An extraordinary misjudgement and the
one that was to destroy him and to cost India, China, and Indeed the
international community dearly.
"The Indian govt disguised very well its actions in its border ispute
with China. Many were taken in. I too was misled."
|
That’s the
first dispute, inherited by India, grossly mishandled by Nehru and alive and a
curse to both countries today. Bad enough you might think but worse was to
follow.
Nehru then
used that same approach and applied it to the other sector of Sino-India
territorial impingement, the western sector. And decided that this was not a
matter to be discussed with China. The alignment of the Western border was to
be ascertained by Indian enquiries into the record. By consideration of it’s
own interests. And he and his advisors came up with an alignment far in advance
of anything ever claimed by the British, an alignment that according to the
sole objective Indian analyst of this period, Karunakar Gupta, was an alignment
that lacked any foundation in history, treaty, or practice. AN alignment which
claimed Aksai Chin.
Well up to
that point, no great damage, no great risk. Because countries going into
boundary negotiation will always go in with a maximum demand. They can retreat
during the process of negotiation. Because to negotiate means to compromise. So
up to that point no harm. But then again Nehru took this nonsensical absurd
approach: “I won’t negotiate, I’ll tell them where the boundary is. Tell them
“That’s our boundary. There’s no question about it, there’s no dispute, it’s
non-negotiable. You must accept it.” Again you create a dispute and at the
instant you create it you make it insoluble! An act of the greatest personal
folly for which Nehru can never be excused.
You’re
glossing a lot and you haven’t touched on the issue of China’s territorial
instability and it’s absence from Tibet for long stretches of time and
certainly at the moment of Indian Independence. I suspect Nehru made the
mistake of dealing with the Chinese, when they arrived as if he was dealing
with the Tibetans.
Well Nehru
had been to China, he was fully aware of China as a separate state and I don’t
think it’s appropriate to excuse this fundamental error as an attitude to
Tibet. I mean even if he was dealing with Sikkim or Bhutan surely he wouldn’t
say “I’ll tell you where your border lies and you’ll have to accept it.” The
agreement of a formal boundary of two separate states requires agreement by
those two states. One state cannot impose a boundary, unless it’s victorious in
war. And yet India attempted to impose a boundary on China in the western
sector and to force it to accept McMahon’s, Caroes’ alignment in the eastern
sector. It was from the very beginning an approach which could lead only to
conflict and in the last resort to war. There was no turning back. It was like
a railroad with a single junction. A buffer at the end: War.
The obvious Indian response to that, at
least as far as Aksai Chin is concerned is that the Chinese equally imposed
their understanding of the boundary on India.
It would be
quite false to say that China tried to impose anything. China said “this is our
understanding of where the traditional and customary boundary in that sector
lies and we would be very happy to discus it because you may have very
different ideas, and between us we are sure we will find an alignment perfectly
acceptable to both of us.” And this is an approach that they have applied with
every one of their neighbours and they have a dozen mutually satisfactory
boundary agreements to show for it. So I would not accept your statement that
from the Indian point of view they tried to impose a border. They never did
they never have, they never will, they are always ready to negotiate. And
they will compromise and compromise provided that the compromising is
reciprocal. So that any two groups of officials can easily find a
mutually acceptable line in Aksai Chin. There’s one already, it’s called the
MacCartney/MacDonald Line, and was proposed by the British in 1899.
"...When the penny dropped, I saw it as my responsibility and
guilty obligation to set the record straight. Hence my book.”
|
Your
contention that China will always be reasonable is contradicted by her ongoing
maritime disputes with several nations. To some extent it seems that the focus
has shifted to the Indian Ocean and China does not seem very tractable in it’s
disputes there.
Point taken.
Let me address it. Largely because of the Sino Indian dispute but also because
of the Sino Soviet Dispute, China has the unearned reputation of being unreasonable
and forceful in dealing with territorial issues. The opposite is the truth it
has again and again shown a remarkable willingness to compromise, even on
matters of fundamental principle. The Sino-Russian agreement is an example of
that. And in the South China Seas again, China has been calling for individual
negotiations with any of its rival claimants, none of them have agreed so
far—not China to blame. But now, the United States has come steaming into the
South China Seas, encouraging all other claimants, “Stand Up! Don’t negotiate,
if it’s yours; act as if it’s yours!” Deliberately attempting to create
anti-China attitudes. You must always recognize that when you hear of the
‘international community’ it often means the United States. Which is implacably
hostile and would like nothing more than to see regime change in Beijing.
I don’t want
to get too distracted from the 1962 war but it seems excessive to me to argue
that all China’s maritime disputes in the IO/SCS have to do with American
instigation. Surely all these nations: Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan,
have their own interests at heart. It would be hard to make a case that Vietnam
is toeing the American line.
I quite see
that, so let’s not argue about that, Point taken.
To go back to
Indian reactions to you and your book: you are also well remembered and a
little notorious for your piece on the ’67 elections—it’s cited as a discussion
point in school text books to this day. What is your assessment of that opinion
of yours today? And also to connect back to 62, do you think that the Indian
government was hampered in its conduct of both boundary negotiations and of the
war itself by the pressures of democracy—something that China did not face. And
did the experience of the war colour your opinion of the viability of Indian
Democracy?
Apart from
reminding me of a very foolish thing I wrote in an article—something I’m always
open to accept—I don’t see any relevance between what I wrote in 1967 and my
analysis of the Sino-Indian dispute. I do not accept that there is any
connection.
To go back to your question was the Indian approach to the Sino-Indian border in
some sense handicapped or distorted by the pressure of an aroused public
opinion—that is, by it’s democratic nature?
That would
be an easy cop-out. It doesn’t stand up. The enraged public attitude was the
creation of the Indian government. The moment they began to accuse China of
aggression, the Indian public became enraged. What people wouldn’t?
"Nehru’s most profound mistake? His approach: “We’ll decide where
the boundary is. It’s not negotiable. They have to accept.”
|
But analyse
if you can what the Indians called ‘aggression’ when I say Indians I mean
the Nehru government or let’s say Nehru. So Nehru gets his acolytes, “bring me
a map! What should be our territory?” So they look at the books and they
see what they would like, what they wouldn’t like, and they pick something far
more extreme than the British have ever suggested to China and they say
“Panditji, that’s where India’s International boundary lies”. And he says
“that’s fine, put it on the maps and mark it as a full formal international
boundary. There can be no further discussion or certainly no negotiation about
that.” The next thing he finds out is that this new boundary includes thousands
of Chinese; it’s Chinese occupied territory. So instead of saying, “well
something must be wrong there”, he says “What! Chinese on territory that we
have unilaterally declared as ours! —That’s aggression.”
If in
diplomatic terms use the word ‘aggression’ that’s like putting your hand
on the pommel of your sword. It’s threatening violent action. And the Indian
government first used the word ‘aggression’ against the Peoples Republic of
China in 1958 when they found a small Chinese/Tibetan outpost in the middle
section of the frontier—Uttar Pradesh [Bara Hoti]—on Indian-claimed territory.
The point
for Indians to keep in mind is that there is not and never has been a legal
international boundary between India and China in any sector. The McMahon Line
is not a legal boundary; it is an Indian claim line.
As it
happens, until recently, the Chinese were eager to confirm that alignment and
live with the McMahon Line provided only that India would negotiate it.
It is the
Indian refusal to negotiate that created the boundary dispute, that makes it
impossible to resolve it, and will make it always impossible until some Indian
government appears, and as Gorbachev once did, says “we’ve got it wrong, you’re
right. We’re ready to sit down and negotiate. Which doesn’t mean we’re going to
give you territory but it does mean we’re going to discuss with you and argue
with you over where the boundary should lie.”
The current
LoC has been essentially stable since 1962, and I wonder whether either party
really feels motivated to settle the dispute and whether it isn’t mutually or
equally convenient to let it lie. Something both sides can occasionally finger
each other with. For any Indian party in power it would be very tricky to enter
into negotiations that would lead to altering the sacred map…
Part of the tragicomedy of the
Sino-Indian dispute is that there was no real conflict of interest between
them. The territory claimed by each was not in any way needed or desired by
either. The only change was when Nehru put a claim on the map and pretended
that it wasn’t a claim, that it was a formal international boundary! From that
point on retreat became very difficult. And as you have just said it would be
very difficult for any government of India to say “We and our predecessors have
always been wrong and that territory which is marked as Indian on our maps is
not in fact our territory, it never was and we never should have claimed it.
And the maps should be quite different.” Terribly difficult to do now. Indeed,
politically impossible. But the brighter side is that the present situation is
fully acceptable to both parties. However when Narasimha Rao was PM with his
very sharp Foreign Secretary, Dixit, he had the wisdom—unique—he is the only PM
who’s ever tried to move towards settlement—to negotiate with China to achieve
peace and tranquillity along the boundary. If such a treaty could be passed
again, because that one has fallen into disuse, and actually be observed by
India with the creation of an agreed line of actual control, which is a swathe
of territory, 2-3km wide, not a precise line, a general line, with both sides
saying ‘we’ll keep well away from that’ then you pacify the border and in 50
years a new government can say ‘What’s this? An old issue, of course we’ll
resettle the boundary on the lines of the present line of actual control. But
it’s got to be frozen for 50 years. And the Indian attitude is of constant
wariness, anticipating aggression, always on the lookout for some sort of
intrusion. A patrol! What are they after? And India is rearming in the border
sectors, breaking the Narasimha Rao agreement, which was to keep military
forces at a basic level. That’s been broken by India. India’s now openly
building up its defence forces.
"I went to India as a profound admirer of Nehru. It was a bitter
blow to see how foolish he’d been with China on the border issue."
|
Surely the
militarisation on this frontier is and has always been much stronger on the
Chinese side?
I quoted the
treaty signed with China, which provided that both forces would keep their
armed forces to a minimum level and it’s not me saying there’s been a build up,
and people in India have announced the build up. New squadrons of Sukhoi
aircraft, new divisions being formed, sent up to the borders, that’s on the
record. Why are you questioning it?
It’s all
done in the context of the disputed border and India’s sense that in 1962 it
experienced an aggression by China. Once that perverse falsification of the
record is put aside, then the issue of Sino-Indian relations can be looked at
honestly, and practically, rationally. So long as India accepts the Nehru
falsehood, so long as that view is widely held in India, there will always be
the risk of further hostilities.
It must be
understood that India was the aggressor in 1962, and if you read carefully, India’s
China War, even you will be convinced.
Don’t you
‘even you’ me!
I should
have said, even the most committed Indian will be convinced and will have to
say as I had to say once, ‘how could I have been such a fool? How could I have
been so gullible when all the evidence pointed in the other direction, how
could I write about Chinese aggression and report it in the Times. Disgraceful performance on my part.
I’d like to
run a few names past you to which I’d like your immediate short response. Let's
start with Jawaharlal Nehru.
I went to
India as a profound admirer of Nehru. I had been reading his books. I had an
experience in India before independence, as a boy, I had long been interested
in India and I went to India with a profound admiration for Nehru, which I
maintained as a foreign correspondent and twice president of the foreign
correspondents’ association, I came into contact with him. As the Times correspondent
I had some reasonable access to him, and my admiration for him didn’t falter.
He was a very attractive personality; people liked him even when he was angry with
them. There was a wide national affection for Nehru, and correspondents
generally and I personally shared that view. I became quite fond of him.
And it was quite a bitter blow as I
came to see how foolish he had been in his approach to China over the border.
How irrational. And in a sense I cannot still quite understand the degree of
irrationality. It was as if he sought, despite his feeling that there should be
amity between India and China, it was as if he was driven by some subconscious
force into deep hostility, and as if he even desired war with China. It’s an
astonishing thing to say and many Indians will think there’s that mad bastard
Maxwell again. But if you read the record, certainly B.N. Mullick, he discloses
that Nehru told him when he first became director of the intelligence bureaus,
“India has two enemies, one is Pakistan, the other is China.”
"India and China have never had a legal international boundary. The
McMahon Line is an Indian claim line, not a legal boundary."
So maybe
there was an underlying fear of China, and underlying jealousy which led
somehow toward an unconscious enmity towards China, which could explain what is
otherwise an entirely irrational policy maintained to the point of war.
Mao Zedong?
Mao’s
attitude is now known. In the new edition of India’s China War I can quote
him. And you can see the Chinese scratching their heads. “What on earth are the
Indian’s up to? Why are they provoking us? They know we are stronger than they
are militarily. They know they can’t defeat us. Why are they pushing us to
war?” They are puzzled. And finally they accept it. “They have pushed us to a
point at which we cannot avoid war.” Mao Zedong is on record saying, “well,
they want war, we’ll give them war. We’ve fought Chiang Kai-Shek, we’ve fought
the Americans in Korea. We’re not frightened of war.” And Zhou Enlai comes in
to that conversation and says “yes, we’ve done everything we possibly can to
avoid war, now we cannot avoid it, Nehru has declared that he’s going to attack
us in our positions north of the McMahon Line. He’s made a public declaration.
They’re building up their pathetically weak forces beneath Thagla ridge to
attack us. Why should we wait to be attacked?
And indeed
General Niranjan Prasad said exactly the same thing. ‘Nehru said he’s going to
attack China and they’re certainly not going to wait to be attacked. You must
expect a pre-emptive assault.’ Which duly came.
I was hoping
more for your personal feelings or assessment of Chairman Mao.
I didn’t
meet Mao Zedong. I replied to your question only by quoting to you what Mao
Zedong said about the Sino-Indian dispute when war became inevitable. I have no
other opinion of Mao, not having met him.
Krishna
Menon?
Always got
on well with him, very interesting character, very mixed up, highly
westernized, very westernized Indian, very abrasive, didn’t like the military,
though he was Defence Minister. Don’t forget that in that period, the 1950s,
Congress people generally didn’t like soldiers very much. Didn’t like soldiers
of the old guard. Soldiers of the Thimmayya generation. A bit too much the
colonial Saab in manner. And they were therefore quite amenable, quite
approachable, by a new type of soldier, of General Kaul’s type. So there was a
division. And Krishna Menon’s weakness was that he liked to humiliate generals
of the old school and was altogether too fond of and too open to persuasion by
the generals who were known as the ‘Kaul boys’ in those days.
It was
Maneckshaw who came up with that.
Yes,
Maneckshaw’s coinage. A great soldier. Someone should write his biography.
I was going
to ask for your opinion of Kaul next.
I’ve
expressed my opinion of General Kaul in my book; I wouldn’t wish to do so
personally.
Sardar
Patel?
He died very
shortly after I arrived. I never met him.
I think many
Indians have wondered if things would have been different had Patel been
around. He had a reputation as an Iron man, as more of a realist. Do you share
that view?
The question
to ask is not whether he would have been more of a realist. But would he have
been less of an ass than Nehru. Because this was an act of folly. The way to a
boundary settlement was open. The Chinese were eager to settle on the McMahon
Line. Zhou Enlai came to India in 1960, begging for an agreement on the McMahon
Line. But because of the idiotic Indian claim for Aksai Chin, this fanciful
irredentist claim to territory that had nothing to do with India, boundary
settlement became impossible. Would anybody else have been so foolish?
I fear that
any Indian would possibly have been so because of perhaps this deep, deep
national ill will towards China. It’s up to you people to explain, not me. I
should ask you, why was it that Nehru followed such a course? Why did he
destroy the friendship with China that he had said was so important for India?
You tell me?
I don’t want
to interview myself but I’m uncomfortable with the suggestion that there’s an
inherent antipathy to China in the Indian nation state. Obviously we inherited
the boundaries or frontiers of the empire just as the Chinese inherited…
No! Sorry!
Sorry! Please! You did not inherit any boundaries...
I said
frontiers!
Yes,
frontiers but unfortunately the Brits left you with no boundaries. All of the
successor states of the Subcontinent: India, Pakistan Nepal, Bhutan—they are
all left with the task of settling the boundary. Pakistan did it, no great
problem. Nepal did it; there was the makings of a great dispute over Everest
but no dispute because they said, “oh all right we’ll divide it. You take half,
we’ll take half. No problems. Boundary negotiation is not difficult if both
sides seek agreement. It’s straightforward. It’s only if you refuse to
negotiate that agreement becomes unreachable.
The last
name I wanted to toss at you is Olaf Caroe.
Yes, he’s
very important for India in this whole subject. It should be called the Caroe
Line not the McMahon line. Because the McMahon Line never existed except as a
failed attempt to trick China. But when Caroe picked it up in the 1930s, he had
the drive and the force to convince those in Delhi and in London that the
advanced border in the Northeast was of such strategic importance to India that
the record should be falsified by forgery of the diplomatic record, of
Aitchison’s Treaties, a new concocted version was produced
and passed off to replace the withdrawn 1929 original edition—a crude
diplomatic forgery. Skulduggery. And this was Olaf Caroe’s work. However the
Brits were up to it, this was an imperial state. So Olaf Caroe is a guilty man.
The very idea of a strategic frontier was out of date by the 1930s. Any
sensible soldier will tell you if China is going to invade India from the
Northeast the place to meet them and to resist them is at the foot of the
hills. SO when the invaders finally come panting out of breath and ammunition,
you can meet them from a position of strength. The last place, strategically,
to meet the Chinese was along the McMahon alignment. Caroe is very much the
guilty party in all of this.
It’s a
piquant irony that Nehru didn’t like Caroe
He did not.
And he
pushed him out of office, and yet he himself relies on a Caroeist position
The big
question we will never know. I will never know, you may but I doubt it: will
India ever open the papers from that period? The big question is at what stage
did the Indian government become aware that the McMahon Line claim was based on
a British diplomatic forgery. It became known around 1963 or ‘64 when an
English diplomat discovered the forgery by comparing two volumes in the Harvard
library. Until that point it was not public knowledge. But it must have been
known in the Indian foreign office. Did anyone tell Nehru that the McMahon Line
claim was based on a forgery? We won’t know that unless and until the papers of
that period are made public.
Speaking of
secret papers, I met your friend Brig. Gurbax Singh last week and the first
thing he asked was, “Did Neville tell you how he got hold of the
Henderson-Brooks Report?”
I’ve never
told anyone how I saw the Henderson Brooks Report. Gurbax certainly doesn’t
know, and nobody ever will know!
I had to
ask.
No worries.
To wind up a
bit of a tangential question which emerges again from your reputation as an
apologist for China…
I’m going to
pick you up on that, because I have no reason to apologise for China in the
Sino-Indian context. China is the aggrieved party. With the ‘forward policy’
India became the aggressor in 1962.
What I want
to know is what your own attitude was to the Chinese entry in the early 1950s,
into Tibet. Did you have any political or sentimental opinion on Tibet’s
autonomy, suzerainty, sovereignty, nationality?
Like Nehru,
I accepted that Tibet was part of China. I read a lot about Tibet and I found
two different schools among the British who wrote about Tibet. I call them the
‘Aah! School’ and the ‘Ugh! School’. The Aah! School said this is Shangri La.
What saintly people. The Ugh! School said what an appallingly ugly society,
beastly feudal domination with a tiny oligarchy running the place with an
oppressed and tortured serf population. Personally I found the Ugh! School much
more convincing. When I finally got to Tibet I found no reason to change my
view. I think that the old Tibet must have been a hideous society.
But don’t forget that when I
transferred from Washington to Delhi I was very much the liberal
anti-communist. I didn’t have much time for communism, very little interest in
Chinese communism, nor much knowledge of it. I hadn’t begun to study it. I
changed my view very much when I did begin reading about China and certainly
when I went to China and I saw the extraordinary success of their basic needs
development approach. Coming from India where there was so little progress in
terms of development and amelioration of the condition of the poor, to go to
China and find so much progress on Basic Needs was quite a big shock. A good
shock I should say.
"I kick and kick myself. I feel I did India an injury. Had I been
sharper...I could have saved these two countries from war.”
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Well, It’s
been a pleasure to talk, I’m sorry if I’ve been acerbic. I admit that it’s the
right of anyone to say “Maxwell what a bloody fool you were to say that this is
India’s last general election.” I heartily agree. But I wrote it, I
can’t unwrite it, fortunately I was mistaken but it has nothing to do with
my analysis of the Sino-Indian dispute. And Indians should just forget about
Maxwell, just read the evidence, and one day, like him, you will say to
yourself, “How could we have been such fools?”
Well I
shan’t hold forth myself. My opinions are oddly probably less emotional than
yours on this. I see the conflict as something between two parties who are out
to get the best deal for themselves, almost a conflict between two egos. But I
agree with you that negotiation would have been more sensible, possibly through
a third party.
I don’t
think that any Indian government could now negotiate. But what could be done is
that the Narasimha Rao treaty could be revived and refreshed, and this time the
Central Government could order, “Don’t get involved in arguing about 300 yards
here or a kilometre there, agree and mark out a line of actual control. Make it
a kilometre deep or five kilometres deep, so there’ll be no more friction on
the border.” That’s what I would urge the Indian Government to do now:
revisit the Narasimha Rao negotiations and implement it this time with the
result that you get an agreed and marked out Line of Actual Control, no more
doubt on either side where troops can or cannot go. That’s the way ahead, the
only way ahead.
I think that
things will stay as they are for a long time because the Map of India, the
Image of India is an incredibly powerful icon…
Absolutely.
It’s a false icon, a falsehood imposed on India by Nehru. He should never be
forgiven!...Sorry!
That’s all
right; all of this happened a year before I was born!
Exactly, and
for me it is so vivid, every nuance of it I remember. I kick and kick myself.
You see, I fear, I feel, that I did an injury to India. A deep injury. Had I
been sharper, had I been quicker to realize what was going on, had I not been
gullible, had not only the Xinhua correspondent but the Times correspondent
been saying day after day week after week, “this will lead to war, India is
mistaken, China wishes to settle, this is a false territorial claim.” To kick
out the Times correspondent would have been very difficult indeed, I doubt that India
would have done it. So I failed India. So did every other correspondent but I
feel it particularly. Had I understood sooner, I could have saved these two
countries from that hideous catastrophe of war. And ongoing hostility. And this
false impression of India that they were the victims of Chinese aggression.
You must go
to political psychoanalysis and emerge saying, “I now understand, India was the
aggressor!”
Well don’t
torture yourself too much, I don’t think any journalist could have made a
significant difference.
It only
needed one!
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