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In all the clamour about the Henderson-Brooks report on the Indian defeat in the 1962 war with China, one detail seems to have gone down the memory hole: then defence minister Y B Chavan had revealed a year after the war that the committee was not tasked to look into the role of the government in the debacle.
The committee, comprising Lt Gen T Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat, was set up on December 14, 1962 by then Army Chief General JN Chaudhary for an "Operations Review" of the military humiliation.
According to a statement made by Chavan in the House on September 2, 1963, the committee set up by the then Army Chief was asked to find out what was wrong with "our training, our equipment, our system of command, the physical fitness of our troops and the capacity of our commanders at all levels to influence the men under them", as only 24,000 Indian soldiers took on far greater number of Chinese troops.
Despite its circumscribed mandate, the committee reviewed the "higher direction of operations", Chavan had said, stressing that the report points out that "the largest and the best equipped of Armies need to be given proper policy guidance and major directives by the government, whose instrument it is".
Chavan made it amply clear that the report–now in a safe in the defence secretary's office - could not have been released either completely or in parts as it contains "information about the strength and deployment of our forces and their locations would be invaluable use to our enemies".
The committee, comprising Lt Gen T Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier P S Bhagat, was set up on December 14, 1962 by then Army Chief General JN Chaudhary for an "Operations Review" of the military humiliation.
According to a statement made by Chavan in the House on September 2, 1963, the committee set up by the then Army Chief was asked to find out what was wrong with "our training, our equipment, our system of command, the physical fitness of our troops and the capacity of our commanders at all levels to influence the men under them", as only 24,000 Indian soldiers took on far greater number of Chinese troops.
Despite its circumscribed mandate, the committee reviewed the "higher direction of operations", Chavan had said, stressing that the report points out that "the largest and the best equipped of Armies need to be given proper policy guidance and major directives by the government, whose instrument it is".
Chavan made it amply clear that the report–now in a safe in the defence secretary's office - could not have been released either completely or in parts as it contains "information about the strength and deployment of our forces and their locations would be invaluable use to our enemies".