Events leading to the Sino-Indian Conflict of 1962

Monograph No. 58

In this monograph, the author provides evidence to show the assertion made by Gyalo Thondup (the Dalai Lama’s older brother) in his book, The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong (2015), that the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962 was one of the outcomes of the US Central Intelligence Agency’s covert operation in Tibet (1956 onwards), appears true and correct. It has also been shown that the CIA’s quiet admission, through Bruce Reidel’s book, JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and the Sino-Indian War (2015), about the Sino-Indian conflict being an ‘unanticipated consequence’ of the covert operation, does not appear to be correct.

The interpretations offered so far to explain the events leading to the Sino-Indian conflict are based on incomplete and selective use of material and accordingly fail scrutiny. The originator of the Forward Policy School was the CIA, which was to be taken to new heights in a popular account by Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (1970). Since then, sufficient material has been declassified along with written accounts by persons associated with the covert operation becoming available, which reinforce the findings. This monograph presents an objective account of a very crucial six-year period (1956-1962) in the histories of India and China (and Tibet) — the countries directly involved in the conflict.

About the Author

Sunil Khatri holds a bachelors and masters in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a post-graduate diploma from the Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi. As a member of the Indian Administrative Service, he served in several districts of the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh and was chief executive, on three separate occasions, of three state level public enterprises. In the Government of India, he has served in various capacities in the Ministries of Petroleum Chemicals & Fertilizers, Finance, Defence, Industry, and New & Renewable Energy. He retired as Special Chief Secretary, Andhra Pradesh. Khatri has published papers covering areas such as poverty, growth and public enterprise. He was invited twice to co-edit two special issues of Public Enterprise, a journal of the International Centre for Public Enterprise, Llubjiana, Slovenia. For the past eight years or so, he has been engaged as an independent researcher on the Sino-Indian boundary question. This is his first publication on the subject.

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