The Indo-China war began on 20 October, 1962 and lasted a month, ending on 19 November, 1962, when Premier Zhou Enlai announced a unilateral ceasefire.
India was caught off guard as previous policies initiated by Nehru had been made in an effort to cooperate with China.
The main reasons for China to start the war were that India had offered asylum to Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in 1959 and because of a dispute between India and China over the sovereignty of the Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions.
The attack was a personal blow to Nehru who had signed the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Treaty’ (Panchsheel) with China, in 1954.
The war was a systematic, planned attack launched by China at a time when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were busy dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Jawaharlal Nehru and India’s Defence Minister Krishna Menon were busy attending Commonwealth and UN conferences respectively. Due to Russia’s involvement in the Cuban crisis, it was not able to extend much support to India at the time.
The Chinese Aggression cost India 1,383 Indian soldiers and the loss of 43,000 sq km of land in Aksai Chin (roughly the size of Switzerland). Nehru never recovered from the shock of this betrayal and it is widely regarded as the biggest setback of his political career.
Picture Credit : Google
