In 1948, Pakistan attacked India and seized what's now known as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. After that war, Nehru decided India couldn't afford another conflict with a second neighbor. So instead of building up India's military, he extended a hand of friendship to China — and his defense minister actually cut the army's budget. China, meanwhile, was pouring more and more money into its own military. By 1950, China invaded Tibet, and Chinese troops began pushing deeper into Tibetan territory.
In an effort to build trust with China, Nehru signed the Panchsheel Agreement in 1954 — a pact stating that neither country would attack the other for the next five years.
By 1959, China had taken full control of Tibet, and that same year, the Panchsheel Agreement expired.
Lieutenant General Premindra Singh Bhagat sent a 31-page report to Defense Minister Krishna Menon. The report laid out India's military weaknesses in stark terms: there were no roads leading to the border, Chinese troops were crossing into Indian territory and India had no effective response, there weren't enough soldiers, the army lacked weapons, soldiers had no proper cold-weather gear, ammunition was scarce, and India had no technology to intercept Chinese military communications. Bhagat documented all of these critical shortfalls in detail — but Krishna Menon ignored the report entirely.
The very next month, in August, Chinese forces attacked Walong in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by an assault on an Assam Rifles post in the Longju sector. Indian troops were forced to retreat, and Longju fell under Chinese control. Chinese forces kept advancing steadily into Indian territory. In October 1959, they seized the La Pass in northern India, then attacked Kongka La, killing 9 to 10 Indian soldiers.
In 1960, Nehru's companion Edwina Mountbatten passed away, and to honor her final wishes, Nehru sent the INS Trishul to bury her remains at sea. By this point, China had already taken control of Tibet, parts of Arunachal Pradesh, and parts of Ladakh.
The Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet, and Nehru granted him asylum in India — a move that infuriated China. In 1961, Nehru introduced the "Forward Policy," ordering Indian troops to peacefully push Chinese soldiers back to the actual line of India's borders.
But Indian troops had neither the cold-weather gear nor the resources to enforce this. Armed with ordinary clothing and outdated bolt-action rifles with limited ammunition, Indian soldiers were still expected to peacefully push back Chinese forces. This gave China exactly the opening it needed to launch a full-scale war. By now, the Chinese army was fully equipped — including machine guns supplied by the United States — and ready for battle, waiting only for the order to attack.
Indian troops were eager to fight, but were badly outnumbered and under-resourced to take on the Chinese military. Meanwhile, B.N. Mullik of India's intelligence service assured Nehru that the Chinese would never actually dare to provoke India — that they simply didn't have the nerve for it.
Then, on October 16, 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted worldwide. The Soviet Union had placed nuclear weapons in Cuba, right next to the United States, while the U.S. had positioned nuclear weapons in Turkey, near Soviet territory. It felt like the two superpowers could strike each other at any moment. China saw an opening: India was non-aligned, and with the world's attention consumed by the Cuban crisis, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union would step in to help India.
Four days later, on October 20, Chinese forces received orders for a full-scale war and launched a massive assault on Arunachal Pradesh — even as India was still promoting the "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai" (India-China, brothers) friendship narrative back home.
Nehru hadn't anticipated the attack at all. Chinese forces overwhelmed the Indian military — in many engagements, four Chinese soldiers faced off against every one Indian soldier. Chinese troops kept pushing deeper into Indian territory.
After roughly a month of brutal fighting, China had captured Aksai Chin in northern India and nearly all of Arunachal Pradesh in the east. Chinese forces were now advancing toward Assam.
On November 19, 1962, Nehru addressed the entire nation over the radio, saying: "At this moment, the enemy stands at the gates of Assam... our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters living in Assam... we will do everything we can to help them... we will fight to the very last breath until Assam and all of India are completely free of the enemy."
In the chaos that followed, Lieutenant General B.M. Kaul urged Nehru to bring in foreign military support, warning that without it, the situation would spiral out of control — Chinese forces were advancing relentlessly and India had no way to stop them.
Nehru reportedly resisted at first, citing India's commitment to non-alignment. But military officials pushed back hard, arguing that principles meant nothing if they cost countless lives — that innocent people had already died in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, and now Assam was next. They urged him to seek international help immediately.
Nehru grounded every commercial airline in India so the aircraft could be repurposed for military use.
It looked as though Chinese forces might soon capture Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, and Manipur entirely. Nehru declared a national emergency across the country.
Nehru then wrote urgently to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, explaining that Chinese forces had seized Arunachal Pradesh and most of Ladakh, and were now threatening Chushul as well — India desperately needed fighter jets to counter China.
Just a few hours later, Nehru sent a second letter, warning that the entire Brahmaputra Valley was now in serious danger, and that without immediate intervention, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, and Nagaland could all fall to China. He requested 12 squadrons to counter Chinese forces, asking that American pilots fly the aircraft until Indian pilots could be trained — with the explicit condition that these planes would be used solely to defend Indian cities and bases. Airstrikes inside Tibet, he specified, would be carried out by the Indian Air Force itself, for which he requested two squadrons of B-47 bombers. He assured Kennedy that any weapons provided would be used exclusively against China, not Pakistan. In total, he asked for 350 fighter jets along with 10,000 support personnel to operate them.
Both letters were first delivered to the U.S. ambassador stationed in Delhi, who then forwarded them on to Kennedy.
The very next day, November 20, U.S. Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith wrote to Kennedy describing it as the most fear-filled day Delhi had ever seen — he said he'd watched people's morale completely collapse. He urged Kennedy to send weapons immediately, dispatch a dozen C-130 aircraft, and move the Seventh Fleet toward the Bay of Bengal. Kennedy acted on Galbraith's recommendation right away and ordered the Seventh Fleet toward the Bay of Bengal.
To evaluate Nehru's requests, Kennedy sent a delegation of roughly two dozen officials to Delhi, led by Averell Harriman, who arrived on November 22. But on November 21, 1962 — the day before Harriman's arrival — China unilaterally declared a ceasefire. Chinese troops withdrew about 20 kilometers from the Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh, though they did not withdraw from Aksai Chin. Some have speculated this timing suggests a degree of coordination between China and the United States.
China actually had the opportunity to seize much more of eastern India, but the costs likely outweighed the benefits — winter was approaching, making it difficult to sustain operations into Assam, and the longer the war dragged on, the more weapons the U.S. would sell (and profit from). So China withdrew from Arunachal Pradesh, but held onto Aksai Chin.
Back in India, the national emergency remained in effect, with all power concentrated at the center.
The entire country was furious with Nehru. During a special parliamentary session, lawmakers demanded to know why India hadn't reclaimed Aksai Chin, which was rightfully Indian territory. One member reportedly challenged Nehru directly: doesn't it anger you, as prime minister, that 38,000 square kilometers of our land is now under Chinese occupation? Nehru stood up and dismissively replied that Aksai Chin was barren land where not even a blade of grass grew — so why fight for it? A member of parliament, Mahavir Tyagi, shot back: "Not a single hair grows on your head either, Nehru-ji — would you hand that over to China too?"
The remark drew widespread ridicule in parliament and made headlines across the country. Given how angry people already were with Nehru, the moment only deepened the mockery directed at him.
Nehru's public image was taking a serious hit. To try to salvage it, he pressured Defense Minister Krishna Menon into resigning. Menon stepped down, and Nehru replaced him with Yashwantrao Chavan as the new defense minister.
Still, public anger refused to die down.
Around this time, ethnic Chinese residents living in India — many with absolutely no connection to the war — had soldiers show up at their homes, telling them to pack some clothes and no more than 500 rupees, because they had to leave immediately. They were loaded onto a train in Guwahati bound for Kota. Along the way, at every stop, crowds threw stones and sandals at the train, which had been labeled the "enemy train." People chanted slogans branding them traitors and demanding they go back.
These families were held at the Deoli internment camp — some for more than five years. It felt as though the government had simply forgotten about them.
Meanwhile, back in 1962, public fury was at its peak, and the entire nation had one unified demand: the return of Aksai Chin.
With people still cursing Nehru's name, he organized a musical event in Delhi to soothe public anger — a performance where Lata Mangeshkar sang the patriotic song "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon." After hearing it, people were moved to tears and, in that emotional wave, largely let go of their grievances.
This is a pattern that repeats whenever those in power make a serious mistake: they find ways to make people cry, because tears have a way of washing away anger. The easiest tools for this are an emotional song, a poem, or a religious story.
In 1962, Nehru knew he'd made a grave error, so on January 27, 1963, he had Lata Mangeshkar perform "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon" in Delhi. The crowd wept, and after that, almost nobody talked about Aksai Chin anymore.
Just think about it: if someone forcibly took your land, and instead of fighting for it back, you were shown a tearjerker song or a religious epic and ended up crying instead — that's essentially what happened.
And this wasn't an isolated incident. Something similar played out in the Bilkis Bano case. After she survived a horrific assault, she took her case to the Supreme Court, fought for justice, and won. But later, the convictions were overturned with government involvement under Rajiv Gandhi-era precedent regarding such reversals, and the country erupted in outrage — people were furious and turned sharply against the leadership at the time. Amid the public backlash, the government began airing the Ramayana on national television, and the anger gradually faded.
The same pattern showed up during COVID-19, when leaders across the world were making serious missteps. While the rest of the world was racing to develop and distribute vaccines, some Indian leaders were promoting improvised remedies instead — telling people that clapping would drive the coronavirus away, then that lighting lamps would banish the virus, then that turning off the lights for ten minutes would do the trick. None of it actually stopped the virus. Naturally, people grew frustrated with these bizarre claims from national leadership. Rather than admit the missteps, the government began airing the Ramayana serial every evening to keep people distracted — and, once again, public anger cooled off. People moved on.
A similar dynamic played out when the "Epstein files" videos began surfacing, revealing names of powerful politicians and wealthy individuals. Around that time, attention shifted dramatically toward conflict with Iran, and the extended coverage of that conflict meant people largely stopped talking about the Epstein files altogether.
This kind of thing happens again and again: whenever people in power make a mistake, some kind of distraction follows — sometimes a war, sometimes a TV serial, sometimes a tearjerker song.
And yet, if a vendor on a train tries to oversell a bottle of water marked 14 rupees for 20 rupees, we raise a huge fuss — we complain, we post about it on social media. But when a politician or a powerful, wealthy person does something far more damaging, we stay silent.
In my view, both deserve to be held accountable — the water vendor overcharging a few rupees, and the corrupt politician alike. Both deserve scrutiny.
It's up to us not to fall for these tactics, and to stay aware of our rights.