If you want to understand the problems of defence, it is not enough to be aware of the performance of our armed forces. We must try to understand why the nations pursue particular policies. Why do they sometimes speak of peace? Why do they make preparations for war and sometimes make war also? What is their political reasoning behind these stances? What are the benefits that they get out of these policies? Such are the questions to which one must seek an answer to understand the problem in its true perspective. Till the year 1962, when China invaded India, we were considering the Chinese as our brothers. The people of India lustily cheered the Chinese leaders with the slogans of "Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai". Some people now say we did it because of our credulity. That may be so. But whatever we did, there was a national purpose behind it, and that purpose was that when we were busy in reconstructing the economy of the country and enforcing the pace of social and economic change, we could not and did not want to have inimical relations with a powerful neighbour. Even in our private life we do not start building a new home by quarrelling with neighbours. India was also similarly placed. Therefore, our attitude was that not only China but all the countries in the world should be our friends. That was the deal we sought to achieve. We had presumed that there is a genuine response from China to our attitude of friendship. But that was not true as was proved by the Chinese invasion of 1962. One must try to understand what China wanted to achieve by this invasion.
The day after I went to Delhi to take over as the Defence Minister, the Chinese forces went back. The question was what was the meaning of that? They came and they went back, and we had to study the political objectives behind this exercise of theirs. In 1962, the timing of the invasion coincided with the period when tension between Russia and America was increasing over the question of Cuba. There was a possibility of a nuclear war between the two super powers. If you keep this background in view, you can distinctly see three motives behind the Chinese adventure.
The first motive is related to the question of leadership of the continents of Asia and Africa. China and India are both thickly populated land masses. When such land masses are neighbours, knowingly or unknowingly, there develops a clash of interests. In a way there was a competition between our country and China over who should be the leader of the group of independent nations of the two continents of Asia and Africa. China could only think of having an armed clash with our country as the means to establish its supremacy. The basic objectives of China in this regard were to establish its military, political, economic supremacy over our country and if possible also wrest the leadership of international communism from the hands of Russia. They sought and took the opportunity of demonstrating their military supremacy in the Himalayas.