Nehru’s Folly and the ‘Loss’ of Tibet continues...

On the purely military plane, it must be noted that for the Indian Army to defend Tibet at that time, it would have had to send almost immediately at least a division, (of three infantry brigades, each of three infantry battalions, and an artillery brigade, combat engineers and signals troops, plus administrative support troops), for the defence of Chamdo, the capital of the Kham region, against the buildup of the Chinese. This would have entailed the establishment of a salient from Walong in the then NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency, now Arunachal Pradesh), to Rima in Tibet, and further to Chamdo.

The ‘line-of-communication’ would stretch through underdeveloped Assam and NEFA to very difficult terrain in Tibet, and the defence of the salient itself, if such was necessitated, might have taken another two divisions.

Logistical maintenance of the Chamdo garrison itself would require effort of the kind that was required by the Allies for the war in Burma in 1943-44, though not on the same scale.

However, it is also true that had a brigade been sent immediately to Lhasa, while another was rushed for the defence of Chamdo, it may indeed have been possible to forestall the Chinese take-over of Tibet, on the ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ principle.

To be continued...