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.
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."
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.
Nothing spawns the creation and perpetration of conspiracy theories more effectively than an official obsession with secrecy.
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.
'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.
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
'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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances