In response to a query asked by MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Rajya Sabha on the release of the report, Defence Minister A K Antony said, "The report has been recommended to be declassified in the national security interest."
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday ruled out the release of the classified Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 India-China war that is said to be openly critical of the Indian political and military structure of the time, saying its disclosure would not be in national interest.
More than half-a-century after humiliation in the 1962 war, India is still not prepared to take on the Chinese dragon. Every now and then, that dragon flexes its muscles, reminding India the threat persists, says Virendra Kapoor.
After the defeat in the 1962 war with China, the Indian government requested Lieutenant General Henderson-Brooks and Brigadier Prem Bhagat to prepare a report. Fifty years later, it remains one of India's most secret documents. What on earth has stopped the government from revealing the report to the Indian public, asks Claude Arpi.
B Raman's book is exceptional because for the first time we get an insider's analysis of the success and failures of the secretive Indian external intelligence agency.
'I was exhausted, hungry, unshaven and despondent.' 'My mouth was full of sores due to dehydration.' 'My clothes were in tatters due to walking through bushes and sliding down thorny slopes,' Brigadier John Parshuram Dalvi wrote of his capture during the 1962 War.
'The Himmatsinghji Report is still 'missing'.' 'It is a great loss for the knowledge of India's borders.' 'It would have an immense value at a time China is bound to shift its attention to other border fronts in the Himalayas,' notes Claude Arpi.
Visiting the Rezang La Memorial, one has a feeling of super-humans defending the Indian territory against the Chinese onslaught, says Claude Arpi on the 60th anniversary of the heroic battle of the 1962 War.
'Anglo-Indians have played a significant role at the forefront, meeting every challenge to the security of the motherland.' A fascinating excerpt from Barry O'Brien's The Anglo-Indians: A Portrait of a Community.
On the title page of the Top Secret Report, Henderson-Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: 'Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories', says Claude Arpi, highlighting where the Indian Army and government failed to counter the Chinese attack in 1962.
Nothing spawns the creation and perpetration of conspiracy theories more effectively than an official obsession with secrecy.
No account of the 1962 war could be complete without Maxwell's authoritative analysis. Which is why we are reprinting this article which was run on Rediff.com in June 2001.
Let us hope that what happened in 1962 will never happened again, prays Claude Arpi
Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress on Tuesday accused it of playing "cheap politics" ahead of Lok Sabha polls on the issue of 1962 India-China war in the wake of a classified report on it being made public, saying it only showed the principal opposition party's mindset.
It is well-known, and the Brooks-Bhagat report vouches for it, that the real failure for the 1962 debacle against China was not military, but political, says Ram Madhav.
'Why isn't the story of the valiant 13th Kumaon a part of every child's textbooks?' 'Why have we let these brave men die unwept, unmourned, and unsung?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
'We fear worse things to happen. We feel this is just a teaser.' 'I wonder whether later, the Christian community will be targeted.'
Very few today realise that without Brigadier John Dalvi's courage, we would never have known what really happened during those tragic days of October/November 1962, reveals Claude Arpi.
'If only Cariappa/Thimayya/Chaudhari/Manekshaw were given a free hand, there'll be no PoK, the Chinese would have been taught a lesson, 1965 would have slain the Pak demon and in 1971 just another fortnight's fighting after Bangladesh and West Pakistan would have been occupied.' 'No authoritative military account suggests anything remotely like any of these...' '...Chronologies, names, even periods get mixed up, but, never mind, because the point -- strong Army denied by cowardly Congress -- is made.' 'This is where Modi is coming from,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
'In the last one year, it looks like there were bad things that didn't take place, and there were good things that didn't take place,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'The Gita was propounded on a battlefield and regards the use of force to establish Dharma or righteousness, as not only legitimate but one's highest duty,' says Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
'The Panchsheel Agreement is unique in the annals of international relations as it stands out as a bizarre illustration of a prime minister trading his country's crucial national interests solely to buffer his personal international image,' feels R N Ravi.
'Both nations have a common problem: A rampaging, jingoistic and hostile China which is making substantial territorial claims. In the long run, Japan and India are going to be the victims of Chinese aggression -- so they might as well hang together to contain China,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
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