Английская Википедия:Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Use Indian English The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report (or the Henderson Brooks report) is the report of an investigative commission, which conducted an Operations Review of the Indian Army's operation during the Sino-Indian War of 1962. It was commissioned by General J. N. Chaudhuri, the Acting Army Chief at the time. 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.Шаблон:Sfnp
The Government of India has left the report classified, citing national security reasons. The lessons learned from it were summarised by the defence minister Y. B. Chavan in the Indian Parliament.Шаблон:Sfnp Journalist Neville Maxwell acquired a copy of Part I of the report and published it on his blog site. The published version was not validated by the Indian government but scholars generally take it to be authentic.Шаблон:Sfnp
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.Шаблон:Sfnp[1]
Scholar Willem van Eeekelen states that General Chaudhuri did not want to "dig too deeply" into the conduct of the top military echelon.Шаблон:Sfnp
The Report
According to R. D. Pradhan, the private secretary of Defence Minister Y. B. Chavan, the report was in seven bound volumes, along with appendices. There were two copies of the report, one with General Chaudhuri and the second with Chavan under Pradhan's own care.[2]
The leaked version of the report reveals that the report was divided into two parts. Part 1 contained four chapters:Шаблон:Sfn
- Chapter I - Western Command
- Chapter II - Eastern Command
- Chapter III - IV Corps
- Chapter IV - Conclusions
Part 2 contained "detailed lessons" in the tactical sphere, written for a more general distribution.Шаблон:Sfn
The report was critical of the Indian Army high command of the time as well as of the execution of operations. It states that the Indian government, which would have been keen to recover territory, advocated a cautious policy, but that the Army Headquarters dictated a policy that was militarily unsound.[3]Шаблон:Sfn
On 17 March 2014, Australian–British journalist Neville Maxwell posted a portion of the Part 1 the report on his website.[4][5]Шаблон:Efn He had acquired a copy of this portion while writing his book India's China War, and included a "gist" of it in the book.[6] In an interview, Maxwell said he had never seen Part 2 but understood it to be "mainly memos, written statements and other documents on which the authors based the report".[7]
Discussion
Some analysts argue that the continuing public controversy over the report indicates that many of the problems identified in the report still continue.[8]
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".[9] BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who had argued for the report's declassification while in opposition changed his stance after his appointment as the Minister of Defence and continued the former policy of classification.[10][11] A report in The Wire wondered if the BJP's reluctance to release the report indicates that Nehru, their primary political target, was in fact innocent of all blame.[4]
Col. Anil Athale, India's official historian of the 1962 war, stated that the report was fully utilised by him and P. B. Sinha in writing History of the Conflict with China (the "official history" of the war).[12]
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
- Prem Shankar Jha (5 June 2020). Why It Is Imperative That Indians Come to Know What Happened in 1962. The Wire.
- Dr. Bhartendu Kumar Singh (2013). Henderson Brooks Report and India’s China Challenge. United Service Institution of India.
External links
- Neville Maxwell, My Albatross. With link to the text of the report. (archived 9 April 2014)
- The Henderson Brooks Report on Outlook as uploaded by Neville Maxwell
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web: '"Review of the functioning of Army Headquarters, however, has not been dealt with on the advice of the Chief of the Army Staff," the report notes.'
- ↑ Шаблон:Harvnb: "The report was in seven bound volumes with a number of appendices containing exhaustive information. Each battle, each order and directive from higher to lower formations and vice versa, was documented and analysed. It was a methodical exhaustive study."
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 Sonia Trikha Shukla, BJP's Bipolar Behaviour and the Shroud of Secrecy Around the 1962 War, The Wire, 28 March 2018.
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Declassification law on official documents needs review, says committee Murali Krishnan, Nerve News, [1]
- ↑ Venkatesan Vembu, The ghost of 1962, Daily News & Analysis, 2 May 2010,
- ↑ Did Arun Jaitley delete his blogpost on the India-China war report from his website?, Daily News and Analysis, 9 July 2014.
- ↑ Colonel Anil Athale, Exclusive: What provoked the India-China war?, Rediff, 16 October 2012.
