Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report

The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report (or the Henderson Brooks report) is the report of an invesigative commission, which conducted an Operations Review of the Indian Army in the Sino-Indian War of 1962. It was commissioned by General J. N. Chaudhuri, appointed the Army chief at the conclusion of the war. Its authors were Lieutenant-General T.B. Henderson Brooks and Brigadier Premindra Singh Bhagat, a Victoria Cross recipient and a former Director of Military Intelligence. The report was mainly written by Brig.  Bhagat.[1]

The report was never made public. The lessons learned from it were summarised by the defence minister Y. B. Chavan in the Indian Parliament.[1] Journalist Neville Maxwell acquired a copy of the volume 1 of the report and published it on his blog site.[2] The published version was not validated by the Indian government but scholars generally take it to be authentic.

Investigation

The functioning of the Army Headquarters was outside the purview of the commission, as was the civilian direction of the army. The commission had access to the directives issued to the lower levels of the army command but these did not provide information about the political directions given by the civilian authorities.[2]

Scholar Willem van Eeekelen states that General Chaudhuri did not want to "dig too deeply" into the conduct of the top military echelon.[2]

The Report

The report was highly critical of the Indian political and military structure of the time as well as of the execution of operations. According to Australian journalist Neville Maxwell, the report claims that the Indian government, which was keen to recover territory, advocated a cautious policy but that the Army Headquarters dictated a policy that was militarily unsound.[3]

On 17 March 2014, Maxwell posted Volume 1 of the two-volume report on his website.[4] Maxwell had acquired a copy of the report and wrote his book India's China War based on it.[5] In an interview, Maxwell said he had never seen Volume 2 but understood it to be "mainly memos, written statements and other documents on which the authors based the report".[6]

Discussion

Some analysts argue that the continuing public controversy over the report indicates that many of the problems identified in the report still continue.[7]

Governments led by Indian National Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party have refused to declassify the report over the decades, claiming that its contents are extremely sensitive and are of "current operational value".[8][9][10]

References
  1. Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis (1990), p. 221.
  2. Van Eekelen, Indian Foreign Policy and the Border Dispute (2015), p. 224.
  3. "Henderson-Brooks report hold Bureaucracy for defeat in 1962 China War". IANS. news.biharprabha.com. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  4. Unnithan, Sandeep (18 March 2014). "Henderson Brooks report lists the guilty men of 1962". India Today. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
  5. Pandalai, Shruti (2 April 2014). "Burying Open Secrets: India's 1962 War and the Henderson-Brooks Report". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
  6. Debasish Roy Chowdhury (31 March 2014). "Neville Maxwell interview: the full transcript". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  7. David Brewster. "Leaked 1962 report reveals India's still-unresolved military weaknesses, Lowy Interpreter, 2 April 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2014".
  8. Declassification law on official documents needs review, says committee Murali Krishnan, Nerve News,
  9. The ghost of 1962, by Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis, 2 May 2010,
  10. http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-did-arun-jaitley-delete-his-blogpost-on-the-india-china-war-report-from-his-website-2000849

Bibliography

Further reading
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