NEW DELHI: Sections of the top-secret classified Henderson Brooks Report have been leaked online by Australian journalist Neville Maxwell, sparking a huge furore as it purportedly blamed implementation of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s “forward policy” by the then Army leadership for this country’s humiliating military defeat at the hands of China in 1962. Mr Maxwell was a journalist based in India, working for a British newspaper, at the time of the war.
The report was written by then senior Indian Army officer Lt. Gen. Henderson Brooks, with the assistance of another officer, Brig. P.S. Bhagat. The Indian government has so far refused to make the report public on the grounds that it is “top secret” and of “current operational value”.
The controversy over leakage of the Brooks report led to the BJP attacking the Congress and demanding that the report be made public. It remains unclear when and from whom Mr Maxwell got parts of the report, but there is speculation he could have obtained the report from sources associated with the compilation of the report in the 1960s. Defence sources said making verbatim contents of the report public was a punishable offence and that Mr Maxwell can arrested for the offence if he comes to India.
But the government refused to comment on the contents leaked online and said the “top secret” report as “extremely sensitive”.
“The ministry of defence has come across news reports which state that an Australian journalist, Neville Maxwell, has put out sections allegedly from the Henderson Brooks Report on the India-China conflict of 1962. Given the extremely sensitive nature of the contents of the report, which are of current operational value, it is reiterated that the government has classified this report as a top secret document and, as such, it would not be appropriate to comment on the contents uploaded by Neville Maxwell on the Web,” the MoD said.
The forward policy at the time referred to the setting up of Army posts in the Ladakh area with a view to ensure domination of Chinese positions. The report purportedly blames the Indian defence establishment of relying more on perceived lack of reaction from the Chinese side rather than India’s own military strengths. The report purportedly says this belief of perceived non-reaction by the Chinese was allowed to go down to all levels of the commands in the Army, inducing a sense of complacency which is disastrous for any military force.
The report is believed to have referred to the fact that the forward policy was sought to be implemented without the means to implement it with regard to the requirement of troops and resources. The report is also believed to have blamed the lack of reaction to the Chinese military buildup in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA, today Arunachal Pradesh) before the war. The report also allegedly blamed a misplaced belief that Indian military preparedness was sound in NEFA before the conflict.
Senior Army commanders at the time have also been reportedly blamed. The report is also believed to have blamed a lack of balance of Indian military positions that was responsible for the severe military defeat along with interference in operations and lack of adequate logistical support.
