1962: A View from the Other Side of the Hill

The 1962 War was indeed a traumatic experience for the Indian arms. The story from the Indian side is generally well known but very little is known about how the Chinese planned and orchestrated the entire campaign. While India held a firm belief till the very end that China would not resort to a large scale military action; the Chinese on the other hand had been preparing for it since 1959. Even though the writing was on the wall, Indian Army allowed itself to be hustled into a war on those high Himalayas for which it was ill prepared……..a kind of hurtling towards a point of no return. Based on the Chinese literature, for the first time, we have been able to delve into the Chinese thought process, their grand strategy and reconstruct various battles across the entire front from Chinese point of view; of course tempered with what is known from authentic Indian sources. It is a narrative that is designed to fill a great void that has existed all these years about this War.