IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM 1962

Ever since the skirmish in June 2020 between the Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley of India's Ladakh region, discussions on the 1962 war have continued to be in the headlines (it dominated even the proceedings in the just parliamentary session in India), given the recent border clash in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh on December 9.

In any case, drawing the right lessons from 1962 is always a worthy exercise.

In 1962, China was not a great military power as it is today. But it still went for a war against India because of three principal reasons. First, there was that tremendous sense of Chinese insecurity in Tibet, particularly after the Dalai Lama crossed over to India and established the government-in-exile to internationalise the issue of China's illegal occupation of his land and be a rallying force for Tibetans' resistance against Beijing's rule inside Tibet. Obviously, China saw (and it continues to see) India as a troublesome factor behind the Tibetan unrest.

Secondly, the war against India was a diversionary strategy on the part of the then Chinese supremo Mao Zedong, whose politico economic policy of "The Great Leap Forward" was proving to be a disaster for the Chinese people, thus strengthening his opponents in the Chinese Communist Party such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Wars, after all, unite the countrymen like nothing else and if the country comes out victorious, then it strengthens the position of the leader like never before.

Thirdly, despite China being a communist country, Mao (and all his successors so far) never gave up the nation's past culture in which the concept of "Middle Kingdom" (that China is the centre of global civilisation and all the nations must acknowledge its political and cultural supremacy by paying tributes) is deeply ingrained. That means China will not allow any other nation, at least in Asia, to be as important as it is. Obviously, Mao did not like the global attention and importance that India's then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was drawing at that time. He had to show Nehru that China was a great power and, for this reason, had to 'punish' India once".