ABSTRACT
In October 1962, a simmering border dispute between India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that from the late 1950s had embittered relations between Asia’s two most powerful states descended into armed conflict. In short order, a succession of rapid Chinese military advances saw some commentators question whether India would emerge from the border war as an independent sovereign state. Speaking to his fellow citizens on 22 October, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru characterized China’s thrust into northern India as ‘the greatest menace that has come to us since independence’.1 With India’s armed forces in full retreat, a national state of emergency was enacted, MPs summoned to parliament, sand bags piled around public buildings, and military recruiting stations flooded with eager volunteers. On the streets of the nation’s major cities, effigies of China’s leader Mao Zedong were torched. Citizens added to the atmosphere of melodrama by publicly penning pledges written in their own blood to defend Mother India.2
