Around 4 am on 20 October 1962, Chinese forces came down from the Thagla Ridge, crossed the Namka Chu, and overwhelmed a series of Indian army 7 Brigade posts strung along the right bank of the river. By 8 in the morning, it was all over. Within days, the Chinese were in Tawang and Brig John Dalvi in Chinese custody.
On 26 October, Nehru's government issued a Proclamation of National Emergency. The same day, a young Rajya Sabha MP, one Atal Behari Vajpayee, aged 36, accompanied by his parliamentary party colleagues (just four of them in total) called on the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, then at 72 exactly twice Vajpayee's age, and with a two-thirds majority backing him. Vajpayee sought an immediate convening of parliament. Nehru instantly agreed. Both houses were summoned on 8 November. It was an object lesson in how democracy functions in a time of armed conflict.
The Lok Sabha's proceedings began with an intervention from Dr LM Singhvi, Independent MP from Pali, Rajasthan. He "suggested that this House go into secret session" and added that he understood "a large number of Opposition leaders also concurred in this view." Knowing, as he did, that the debate would be full of vitriol directed at him personally, his closest political associates, his chosen military commanders, his principal Intelligence chief, and his foreign/defence policies, any Prime Minister less democratic than Jawaharlal Nehru would have grabbed this opening to duck being roasted in full public view. Instead, he responded: "The issues before the House are of high interest to the whole country. Right at the beginning to ask for a secret session would have a bad effect on the country." Not only would he welcome criticism, he would encourage it.
In deed too, he had shown his willingness to make redress. After accepting VK Krishna Menon's resignation from the post of Raksha Mantri at the end of October but retaining him in the cabinet as Minister for Defence Production, he had bowed to widespread denunciation of Krishna Menon in the press and on public platforms, and on 7 November, the day before parliament convened, secured his resignation. He did not shut down adverse press and public opinion, but listened to it although the country was at the losing end of a shooting war - and worse was still to follow.
In so doing, Nehru was conforming to democratic precedent in a time of war. Throughout the First and Second World Wars, Westminster remained in session. Press virulence went unchecked in not only media attacks on political leaders but army commanders as well - not even Lord Kitchener, the legendary war hero, recalled from retirement as War Minister, nor the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the continent, Sir John French, were spared. Members of Parliament were unrestrained on the floor of the House. Winston Churchill was forced to resign from the Admiralty after the disaster at Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself, H.H. Asquith, gave way to Lloyd George in December 1916 at the lowest point of Britain's desperate war effort.
In the Second World War, even as Hitler in May 1940 was over-running the Low Countries, Holland and Belgium, and France was falling, and with the Battle of Britain about to begin - perhaps the most dangerous period in the island-nation's history - Leo Amery, a Conservative like the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, rose in the House to denounce Chamberlain in words that resonated throughout the Kingdom and Empire: "In the name of God - Go!" Chamberlain resigned; Halifax was expected to replace him; instead, of his own volition, Halifax gave way to Churchill. It was democracy that saved the island and kept the world safe for democracy.
Doubtless, Nehru had all this in mind when he moved the two resolutions in the Lok Sabha on 8 November 1962 that kick-started the debate that stretched for seven full days. A staggering 165 members took the floor. None was cut off in mid-flow on the plea of shortage of time. Everyone had their say - and many, even from the Congress, notably Mahavir Tyagi, fiercely attacked their own government. None was stopped. Democracy remained in full flower.
At the same time as Nehru introduced the resolutions in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri did the same in the Upper House. Although Vajpayee had been instrumental in getting parliament convened the middle of a war, and that too just as the Chinese were moving against 4 Sikh, the Gorkhas and the Kumaonis in the Walong sector of NEFA, it was not till the second day of the debate, 9 November, that he, as the leader of one of the smallest groups in parliament, got his chance to speak. Indeed, even as Vajpayee spoke, damning the Nehru government, the Chinese were capturing the two key hillocks of Green Pimple and Yellow Pimple that gave them a commanding point over 4 Dogra's battalion HQ established at Walong the same day. (Shiv Kunal Varma,
1962: The War that Wasn't, Aleph, 2016, p. 228)
Vajpayee, ever the fiery orator, was in top form, uninhibited by the thought that the Indian army was locked in fierce combat with the Chinese invaders even as he spoke. He opened up by underlining that in this "
agni-pariksha", this "battle of life and death", "victory demanded, as its first challenge, that we introspect (
atma-nirikshan karein)." Vajpayee recognized, as Nehru had done, that in a democracy, it is not by brushing sensitive matters under the carpet, but by openly accepting where we had gone gravely wrong (
mahan apradh kiya hai) and the great sin we were guilty of (
mahan paap ke bhagi bane hain).
He said it was "a matter of shame" that even 15 years after Independence, our jawans were not armed with automatic rifles, that they did not have proper uniforms. He praised the bravery of our soldiers but added, "We should hang our heads in shame" that they had not been properly prepared for the war in which they were engaged. He demanded to know why our army was not "in full force" in NEFA and why they were not equipped as required. He demanded to know also why between 8 September, when China's aggressive intentions had become clear, and 20 October, when they attacked, we had not deployed in full force against them. He insisted on knowing who had "kept the Government in the dark and what action had been taken against them. Is Government in a position to give the guarantee that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated, and the sins we have committed will not be granted a new lease of life (
punrawarti nahi hone dijayegi)?"
He was not interrupted, not shouted down, but listened to with respect and in silence through his hour-long speech that covers nearly 40 columns of the Rajya Sabha record for the day. One set of brief interruptions came from the Left when, towards the end of his speech, he turned on the communists. The treasury benches did not disrupt proceedings even when he aimed his fire on the government's China policy, claiming he "doubted whether even now the government had understood or not understood Chinese intentions." Was Government still toying in distinctions between "talks" and "negotiations"? Had policy changed after 8 September "when it was apparent that China had cheated us, when it had invaded us with a huge force, when it had committed aggression and then sought to mislead everyone into believing that it was we who were the first to resort to aggression?"
Can one imagine the ruckus such a speech would cause if such an attack were to be mounted today on the Modi dispensation?
He went on to say "the stain of our humiliation and defeat would not be wiped out until we had swept the last Chinese from our soil." He therefore demanded that "since our honour and our self-respect were in the balance, we should remain firm in our resolve and not allow any mediation or pressure to allow us to retrieve our land but not our honour." He then sneered at the government saying, "We did not want to fight the Chinese. We wanted to establish brotherly relations with them. Even after the sacrifice of Tibet, we put a lock on our mouths and wanted to sit still, but what we wanted does not happen, is not happening, and will not happen in this world, because the world is not as we would want it to be." He added, "If those who frame our defence policies do not understand this, it is a matter of great sorrow, a great misfortune."
Continuing in the same vein, Vajpayee trained his guns on Non-alignment that he described as "not a principle but a policy". He said, "Policies are made for the country, not the country for the policy". "Non-alignment is not a holy raiment; the day it no longer serves the national interest, it should be discarded as one would an old, torn garment...the nation comes first, policies later." He ended his oration with the plea that "we should put in place proper policies in the light of past mistakes."
There was much more in Nehru's response but, for the purposes of this article, I would stress one particular phrase he used: "we, as a nation, have been conditioned in a democratically peaceful manner."
That proposition is, however, now in serious doubt as, in the present conflict, any doubt cast on the government's actions, any questions asked of our military responses, any words other than the sycophantic are greeted with a howl of protest that the writer or the speaker is anti-national, unpatriotic, disrespectful of our jawans and uncaring of their sacrifices. To the saffron brigade, I say, look to your own leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and see how biting was in his criticism of a government at war, how frank and open he was in his critique of government policy, and learn from him the lessons in democracy that he and Nehru taught and practiced - and that you are denying us today. It is our patriotic duty to do today what Vajpayee did then: demand "introspection" and not sweep under the carpet the mistakes being made. Nehru gave Vajpayee and a host of others that privilege. The least Modi can do is return the compliment.
(N.B. As the Rajya Sabha records are kept only in the language in which speeches are made, I have to do the translations in this column myself and hope I have been true to the original, mellifluous Hindi of Atal Behari Vajpayee)Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.