India: Never Again the Same

(7 of 10)

After three weeks, Kaul felt emboldened to make a probing attack on the Chinese lines. Following an artillery barrage, 1,000 Indian jawans (G.I.s) drove the Chinese from the lower slopes of a hill near Walong. It was a costly victory, for the Chinese launched a massive counterattack through and around Walong, driving the Indians 80 miles down the Luhit valley. At Se Pass, the Chinese victory was even more spectacular. Having spotted the Indian gun emplacements, the Chinese plastered them with mortar and artillery shells, and then sent forward a Korea-style "human sea" assault. Two Chinese flanking columns of several thousand men each moved undetected and with bewildering speed through deep gorges and over 14,000-ft. mountains around the pass to capture the Indian supply base at Bomdi La, trapping an Indian division and throwing India's defense plans into chaos.

Panic spread from the mountains into the plains. Officials in Tezpur burned their files, and bank managers even set fire to stacks of banknotes. Five hundred prisoners were set free from Tezpur jail. Refugees jammed aboard ferry boats to get across the Brahmaputra River. Even policemen joined the flight.

Indian army headquarters was hastily moved from Tezpur to Gauhati, 100 miles to the southwest. Officers and men who had escaped from the fighting referred dazedly to the Chinese as swarming everywhere "like red ants." An Indian colonel admitted, "We just haven't been taught this kind of warfare."

Needed Intellect. Though India—like the U.S. after Pearl Harbor—could not yet afford scapegoats and recrimination, Defense Minister Krishna Menon was almost universally blamed for the inadequacy of Indian arms, the lack of equipment and even winter clothing. His fall from grace not only finished his own career but brought a turning point in Nehru's. The Prime Minister had tried to pacify critics by taking over the Defense Ministry and downgrading Menon to Minister of Defense Production, but Nehru's own supporters demanded Menon's complete dismissal.

On Nov. 7, Nehru attended an all-day meeting of the Executive Committee of the parliamentary Congress Party and made a final plea for Menon, whose intellect, he said, was needed in the crisis.

As a participant recalls it, ten clenched fists banged down on the table, a chorus of voices shouted, "No!"

Nehru was dumfounded. It was he who was used to banging tables and making peremptory refusals. Taking a different tack, he accurately said that he was as much at fault as Menon and vaguely threatened to resign. Always before, such a threat had been sufficient to make the opposition crumble with piteous cries of 'Tanditji, don't leave us alone!" This time, one of the leaders said: "If you continue to follow Menon's policies, we are prepared to contemplate that possibility." Nehru was beaten and Menon thrown out of the Cabinet. Joining him in his exit was Menon's appointee, Commander in Chief General P. N. Thapar, who resigned because of "poor health."

The Defense Department at once, but belatedly, got a new look and a firmer tone. Impatient of turgid oratory and military fumbling, all India turned with relief to the new Defense Minister, Y. B. Chavan. A big man in every sense of the word—including his burly 200 lbs.—Chavan