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 The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...

of 1962. It was commissioned by General

J. N. Chaudhuri General (India), General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri (Bengali Language, Bengali: জয়ন্তনাথ চৌধুরী; 10 June 1908 – 6 April 1983) was a General Officer in the Indian Army. He served as the 6th Chief of the Army Staff ( ...

, the Acting Army Chief at the time. Its authors were Lieutenant-General T.B. Henderson Brooks and Brigadier

Premindra Singh Bhagat Lieutenant General Premindra Singh Bhagat, PVSM, VC (14 October 1918 – 23 May 1975) was a general in the Indian Army and an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy ...

, a

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

recipient and a former Director of Military Intelligence. The report was mainly written by Brig. Bhagat. 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. 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.

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

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. The leaked version of the report reveals that the report was divided into two parts. Part 1 contained four chapters: :* 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. 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. On 17 March 2014, Australian–British journalist Neville Maxwell posted a portion of the Part 1 the report on his website.Sonia Trikha Shukla
BJP's Bipolar Behaviour and the Shroud of Secrecy Around the 1962 War
The Wire, 28 March 2018. 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. 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".

Discussion

Some analysts argue that the continuing public controversy over the report indicates that many of the problems identified in the report still continue. 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". BJP leader

Arun Jaitley Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...

, 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.Did Arun Jaitley delete his blogpost on the India-China war report from his website?
Daily News and Analysis, 9 July 2014. A report in ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...

'' wondered if the BJP's reluctance to release the report indicates that Nehru, their primary political target, was in fact innocent of all blame. 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).Colonel Anil Athale
Exclusive: What provoked the India-China war?
Rediff, 16 October 2012.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

* Neville Maxwell
My Albatross
With link to the text of the report. *The Henderson Brooks Report o
Outlook
as uploaded by Neville Maxwell {{DEFAULTSORT:Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report Sino-Indian War 1963 in India