India and China are neighbours with much in common. Big land masses, crowded cities, large populations. Between the two countries lives one-third of the human population on earth, histories of many hundreds of years of invasions, brutal oppressions and famines and, of course, Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. They share crucial differences too: ideological distinctions being one (one is a communist dictatorship and another a democracy) and the choice of friends being the other (Pakistan is an all-weather friend to one and foe to the other). Much of their history of the last sixty years though centres around the bitter war the two countries fought in the Himalayas.
The 1962 war, which China won, is a significant event in the relationship and a sore memory for Indians. The dismal defeat dealt a cruel blow to the pride of a grand old civilization and a newly independent country born fifteen years earlier. The impact of that defeat still lingers in Indian thinking about the dangers of antagonizing China.
But unremembered by most people is an equally significant event that took place five years after the 1962 war. India and China fought again in 1967, on two Himalayan passes called Cho La and Nathu La at the China–Sikkim border. This book traces the story of that incredible but forgotten victory over China.
The narrative in this book has been divided into three parts. The story begins in Part 1 three years after the India–China war of 1962. India was still recovering from the damaged morale of its political and military leadership. After the defeat of 1962, India began to acquire weapons and equipment, besides raising multiple army divisions to strengthen its defences. Such rapid developments caught the attention of Pakistani leaders who believed that a better armed and prepared India would be difficult to overwhelm in the future. An alliance against India was entered into between Pakistan and China which suited both countries. For Pakistan, the unresolved issue of Kashmir was a motivation to corner India when it was down, while for China a natural ally such as Pakistan, given the historic India–Pakistan animosity, could be used to fight a convenient proxy war to further establish its dominance over India. In 1965, two vulnerable points – Kashmir in the north and Sikkim in the east – presented an opportunity for China and Pakistan to stretch India’s military deployment on both flanks and demolish its defence capabilities. On both fronts there existed narrow geographical corridors whose capture could end up dismembering India.
The book begins with a story of international intrigue and the resultant devious plan hatched by Pakistan and China to attack India in 1965. This well-crafted plan was shrewdly shared with a prominent Kashmiri politician to try to acquire local support for a Pakistani attack against India. Around the same time, American spies and the CIA, aware about the turn of events, were gazing at a potential war involving the three countries – India, China and Pakistan.
War finally broke out between India and Pakistan in August 1965. Pakistan used a combination of covert and conventional approaches to wage war in Kashmir and then in Punjab, while China threatened India’s protectorate state of Sikkim, then under the control of monarchy. The plan was to capture Kashmir and occupy Sikkim and then force India to the negotiating table for a barter exchange involving the two states. But India’s successful performance in the 1965 war against Pakistan foiled the Sino-Pakistani plans. China’s threat on the eastern border, though, remained unresolved. The war ended with India acquiring an edge over Pakistan but also resulted in a permanent Chinese presence on the Sikkim border. The stage was set for India and China to face off in Sikkim.
The second part of the book traces the events from the end of the 1965 war and leads into the historic battles of 1967. Sikkim’s royals wanted Sikkim to be an independent state, much to the annoyance of the government in New Delhi. And China tried constantly to bully and browbeat India. There were frequent disputes between New Delhi and Peking (now Beijing) in this period on issues such as Bhutan’s territory of Doklam and China’s support to insurgency movements in India, including the new Naxal movement inside Bengal. These were years when things were constantly on the boil: there were frequent skirmishes on the Sikkim–China border, and even the arrest of two Indian diplomats in Peking and the tit-for-tat mistreatment of Chinese diplomats in New Delhi. Atal Bihari Vajpayee even led a flock of sheep to the gates of the Chinese embassy in Delhi to protest Peking’s belligerence.
Relations were on a slippery slope. The armies of the two countries clashed in Nathu La in September 1967 over the laying of a barbed wire fence to mark the Sikkim–China border. The battle lasted a few days. Under the leadership of Lieutenant General Sagat Singh, young officers and soldiers of the Indian army defeated the Chinese at Nathu La. Many lives were lost on both sides but the Indians finally got their revenge against the Chinese for the humiliation of 1962. Embarrassed and shell-shocked, the Chinese engaged the Indians again fifteen days later in another battle at Cho La, in the same sector. Once again, Sagat’s forces proved more than equal to the task. The Chinese were defeated again and this time, the psychological burden of being beaten in two successive battles within a month befell China.
The third part of the book explores the strategic aftermath of the victories at Nathu La and Cho La. The victories of 1967 and Sagat Singh’s audacious decision at that time to occupy the border at Nathu La, ignoring the Chinese threat and even defying the orders of his superiors, played a decisive role in China not participating actively in the India–Pakistan war of 1971. The vulnerability of the Siliguri Corridor, the thin strip of land that links the north-eastern part of India to the rest of its land, and which China would have had easy access to had it won the battle of Nathu La, could not have been felt more than during the 1971 war. Had China had control over Nathu La it could have linked up with East Pakistani forces easily and severed India’s eastern wing from the mainland. But the victories in the battles of 1967 prevented Chinese interference in the Siliguri Corridor in 1971 – something that saved India from certain disaster.
India’s watershed victories are unrecognized turning points in history and helped shape India’s approach to later conflicts with China. These battles determined the military template for India’s aggressive performance in stand-offs such as in Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and Doklam in 2017. Fifty years after these battles, China and India have never fought a war again. There are many important reasons for this but the role of the 1967 battles in creating a template to grapple with military confrontation cannot be underestimated.
The twin victories at Cho La and Nathu La have only been covered in fragments through articles and papers. This book, based on extensive interviews with the army men who were present at the scene, captures the events truthfully and aims to fix this blind spot in history. This was personally important to me, being a former army officer myself.
Today, Nathu La is a bustling tourist attraction on the India–China border. Thousands of visitors flock the border where Indian and Chinese sentries stand opposite each other. The tales of the soldiers’ sacrifices at these Himalayan heights to restore a nation’s self-esteem and usher in an era of peace is unparalleled. It is the story of India’s forgotten victory over China – the last time they fought.