The Forward Policy and ‘Operation ONKAR’ begins...

In September 1959 China had laid formal claim to 80,000 sq kms of

territory which India believed to be hers, in Ladakh in the west and in

Arunachal Pradesh in the east. In the east, the Chinese, even though

they did not accept the McMahon Line, had kept their border posts on

their own side of their own interpretation of the McMahon Line. The

Indian interpretation of the line, however, differed from that of the

Chinese in some areas, notably in the Kameng area. There, at places,

the Indian interpretation was further ‘forward’ than the Chinese

interpretation of it.

One of India’s policy responses to the increasing possibility of

military problems arising with China was to send the 4 Infantry Division, the Western Command Reserve Division, normally based concentrated at Ambala, to NEFA. With its principal fighting

component, its three integral infantry brigades, 5 Infantry Brigade, 7

Infantry Brigade, and 11 Infantry Brigade, each of three infantry

battalions, it was dispatched eastwards to the Brahmaputra River valley

in Assam in November 1959. This was despite the absence of any

logistical set-up for deploying the division in NEFA. The entire NEFA

was at the time a roadless wilderness. 11 Brigade was sent to Sikkim, 7

Brigade was made responsible for the Kameng Frontier Division of

NEFA, and 5 Brigade was assigned the responsibility for the rest of

2 NEFA. 4 Division established its HQ at Tezpur. It was to function under

33 Corps, whose HQ was at Shillong, and which was responsible for the

entire North-Eastern region: Sikkim, NEFA, the India-Burma border,

the India-East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) border, and Nagaland.

To be continued....