Times of India
KOCHI: The India-China war of
1962 could have been averted if the two Asian giants had sat down across the
negotiation table and explored ways to revive the Panchsheel pact, which was to
lapse that year.
But, difficult as it may sound,
it was India which took an aggressive stand and turned down the Chinese
proposal to resume talks on Panchsheel, claims a book.
The book, to be released here to
on Wednesday, to coincide with the 50 years of the 1962 war - 'Dividing Lines',
published by Platinum Press - exposes these and many other 'facts' which may
run contrary to the popular perception in India that the 1962war was an act of
treachery by China on a peace-loving and gullible India.
An equally interesting dimension
is that the book, replete with similar views that contradict many official
positions, has been authored by a senior serving government official K N
Raghavan.
Raghavan, a post-graduate in
physical medicine and rehabilitation, had joined the Indian Revenue Service
(Customs and Central Excise) in 1989 and is presently the Commissioner of
Customs in Kochi, his hometown.
"The Sino-Indian boundary
was never delineated, and India erred in unilaterally fixing her borders in
1954. But the dispute was not over just boundaries, as most Indians
believe," says Raghavan. The book details the failure of Indian diplomacy,
and the actions of the army and paramilitary forces, which the Chinese
interpreted as unfriendly.
"It was the failure of
Indian diplomacy that had led to the war. Talks would have acted as a venting
valve for many of the distrusts that had developed between these two countries
which had never fought each other till the fateful autumn of 1962,"
Raghavan says.
India had published a map in 1954
showing Aksai Chin - an alternative route from China to Tibet
- as its part. This, along with India's decision to give asylum to the Dalai Lama, is some of the factors that
made China suspicious of India, says Raghavan.
On what prompted him to write a
book on the Indo-China conflict, he says: "Foreign policy was a strong
point of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was my childhood
hero. I was keen to find out where Nehru would have erred in going to war with
China. This was probably the only blot in his career.''
"I could get some time to
read on the conflict during my posting in Singapore from 2007 to 2011. I had
jotted down the points then and those notes took the shape of the book,"
he clarifies.
On former defence minister late V
K Krishna Menon's role in the war, Raghavan says, "Krishna Menon would
have definitely known that it was one war which India could never have won
considering the huge and alert war machine that China had then possessed. He
did commit some diplomatic errors, like forming a core group in the Indian Army
and asking them to take position in the frontline in 10 days. However, Krishna
Menon had received enough brickbats for the setback in the war and he paid for
it with his position."
Raghavan, who is passionate about
cricket, is an accredited umpire. He has umpired one-day international matches,
and authored World Cup Chronicle.
Courtesy:
Times of India, August 22, 2012
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