Guha's India after Gandhi...The Experience of Defeat.

' On the last day of March 1959 the Dalai Lama crossed the McMahon Line into India..... Three weeks later he was taken to New Delhi to meet the prime minister himself'

The pressures on the Nehru government continued internally and with the advent of Dalai Lama's asylum in India the deteriorating relationship with China became more complex.
The period was turbulent, there was a conflict between General Thimmayya and his defense minister Krishna Menon, continuing problems in Punjab and Nagaland, the anti-Bengali riots in Assam and Hindu Muslim riots in Jabalpur.

Visitors to India such as Aldous Huxley were concerned with 'the prospect of over-population, unemployment, growing unrest' and found that 'India is almost infinitely depressing'.

The period 1960-61, while a bitter debate raged in India about the dispute with China on the border issues, Nehru's government decided to 'liberate' Goa by force. It was perceived as a ploy to help Krishna Menon in his election campaign in Bombay. Krishna Menon was elected from North Bombay
thanks to Nehru's support and Goa's liberation. In the general election of 62, the Congress comfortably retained its majority.

The debate continued about threats from China. Then China attacked India in September and stopped the border war unilaterally on Nov 22. While it is interesting to speculate on the war, the border war underlined the Chinese superiority in 'arms, communications, strategy, logistics and planning'. The war represented a massive defeat in the Indian imagination. Among the Indian public,the principal sentiment was that of betrayal.

The India-China conflict, then, was a clash of national myths, national egos, national insecurities and - ultimately and inevitably - national armies.

(It was also a vindication of Sardar Patel's practical assessment of China as a threat to India and the failure of Nehru to ignore this threat due to his ideological approach. )