19 March 2014: For the first time, a large section of the still classified Henderson Brooks Report, which details a comprehensive operational review of India’s military debacle in 1962, has been made public. The report, which is still classified in India, has indicted former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other top government officials for India’s failure in the 1962 war.
The report was uploaded on the internet by Australian journalist NevilleMaxwell, who was a war correspondent during the war. The uploaded section includes 100 pages of the report’s first volume that has an exhaustive operational review of the war. The report was submitted in 1963. Maxwell on his website stated that the reason for not making the report public must be ’political, indeed partisan and probably even familial’.
The request for the report to be declassified had earlier been made by BJP president Rajnath Singh. At the time, Defence Minister A K Anthony said that the report could not be made public as it contained sensitive information. Ironically, this report has been made public on day when Congress President Rahul Gandhi was in Arunachal Pradesh to campaign ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The report has been already taken up as an election issue after more than 50 years.