Question

Answer the following question.
Trace the circumstances that led to the outbreak of the Indo-China war in 1962.

Answer 1

 India and Tibet had very good relations since ancient times when Buddhism started to spread to Tibet, during the British period. The government found it difficult to establish and maintain trade relations. With Tibet. Finally, Colonel Younghusband was able to start the trade relation with Tibet. Tibet agreed to open three trade marts to the British.

China had established herself as a powerful Communist state. Under the leadership of Mao- Tse Tung, she asserted her suzerainty over Tibet and occupied it in 1959.

While Nehru’s government remained only a passive spectator, it supported the Dalai Lama and the thousands of Tibetans who entered India as refugees. This act was not taken positively by China and it aggravated her into making strategic attack plans against India.

China forcibly occupied the Indian territories of Long in the North Eastern Frontier and Ladakh in the Himalayan region in 1959. Without any warning or any intimation, China made an aggressive attack on the Northern and Eastern frontiers of India in 1962.

The main cause of this war was the conflict over the sovereignty of the widely separated Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions. While India claimed Aksai Chin as part of Jammu and Kashmir, China demanded it as part of their Xinjiang province. Aksai Chin had an important road that connected the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang and its construction was one of the major causes of conflict.