Neville Maxwell
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Neville Maxwell (1926–2019) was an English-born Australian
journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...
and scholar who covered South Asia for ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' of London during 1959–1967, and one of the few who have seen the Henderson-Brooks Report, which was India's internal report of the 1962 border war with China, which is still currently being classified by the Indian government, and publicly unavailable to Indians. After five decades of the Indian government failing to declassify the Henderson-Brooks report, Maxwell later uploaded part of the report online and authored the book ''India's China War.'' The book is considered a revisionist analysis of the 1962
Sino-Indian War The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispu ...
, putting the blame for it on India. His views received praise in
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and in the
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
administration.


Early life

Maxwell was an Australian born in London. He studied at
McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
, Canada, and the
Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
. After graduation, he joined ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' of London, and got posted to its Washington bureau.


Career

In 1959 he was posted to
New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
as the South Asia correspondent, shortly after the Longju incident, the first Sino-Indian border clash. During the next few years, he reported on the emerging Sino-Indian border conflict, then the end of the
Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a prin ...
era and the post-Nehru developments in India. During the 1962
Sino-Indian War The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispu ...
, Maxwell wrote for ''The Times'' from New Delhi and was the only reporter there who did not uncritically accept the official Indian account of events. In 1967, Maxwell joined the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, as a senior fellow to write his book ''India's China War''. He was with the
Institute of Commonwealth Studies The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, founded in 1949, is the sole postgraduate academic institution in the United Kingdom devoted to the study of the Commonwealth. It is also home to the longest-running interdisciplinary and practice-oriente ...
at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
when the book was published in 1970. He remained at Oxford for at least ten years, and created a visiting fellowship programme for journalists from developing countries. Regarded as a comprehensive revisionist study, ''India's China War'' contradicted the then prevalent understanding of the war as a product of Chinese "betrayal and expansionism", and set out to prove that it was "''in fact'' of India’s making, that it was 'India's China War'". The book drew extensively from India's classified Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report, an internal operational review of India's military debacle, which Maxwell was able to obtain a copy of. Due to the lack of available information from China, Maxwell had to rely on inferences based on official Chinese statements with regards to China's perceptions. He did not attempt to evaluate the accuracy of these perceptions. ''India's China War'' was widely praised across a diverse range of opinions, including British historian A. J. P. Taylor, Chinese premier
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...
and US Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
. On the other hand, Singaporean leader
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew; 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean politician who ruled as the first Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He is widely recognised ...
considered it "revisionist, pro-China history". In India, the Indian government charged him with breach of the Official Secrets Act, forcing him to stay out of India to avoid arrest until the charges were annulled by Prime Minister
Morarji Desai Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (29 February 1896 – 10 April 1995) was an Indian politician and Indian independence activist, independence activist who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India between 1977 and 1979 leading th ...
eight years later. The book was apparently instrumental in bridging the gulf between the US and China.
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
had read the book, and recommended it to
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
. He told Zhou Enlai, "Reading that book showed me I could do business with you people." Nixon too is said to have discussed the book with
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...
during his 1972 visit to China. Chinese leaders heaped praise on the book. In a banquet in 1971, Zhou En-lai and
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was a Pakistani barrister and politician who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan from 19 ...
walked up to Maxwell and raised a toast. Zhou said, "your book did a service to truth which benefitted China."


Anti-Indian biases

Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar, who was a reporter for ''The Times'' during the same time that Maxwell was its correspondent in Delhi, says that Maxwell had deep an anti-Indian bias, labelling it an "understatement". He likened him to a British colonial. At the same time, Maxwell was said to have had full praise for China's authoritarian regime. Others that knew him echo similar sentiments. In 1967, he wrote a series of articles claiming that India's democracy was "disintegating". He said the famine was "threatening", the administration was "strained" and universally believed to be corrupt, the government and the governing party (
Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...
) had lost public confidence etc. The experiment of developing India within a democratic was said to have failed. He predicted that the next general election (for the
4th Lok Sabha The 4th Lok Sabha was in session from 4 March 1967 to 27 December 1970. Its members were elected in February and March 1967. 13 sitting members from the Rajya Sabha were elected to the 4th Lok Sabha in the general election.Indira Gandhi was th ...
) would be last one.


Leak of the Henderson Brooks–Bhagat report

On 17 March 2014, Maxwell posted the first part of the Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report on his website. The report was written by two Indian army officers in 1963 to examine India's defeat in the Sino-Indian War. It has been classified as top secret by the Indian government, but Maxwell acquired a copy and his ''India's China War'' contains the gist of the report. After the Indian government refused to release the report for over 50 years, Maxwell decided to make it public.


Reception

Scholars regard Maxwell's ''India's China War'' as a revisionist account of the
Sino-Indian War The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispu ...
. The earliest accounts of the war regarded China as the aggressor that unleashed its forces on an unsuspecting India. Maxwell inverted the blame, by asserting that India was the aggressor and China the victim. : "The earliest accounts by academic authors looked upon India as the victim of Chinese betrayal and expansionism, and a pro-Indian school of thought was thereby established. Contrary ideas about the historical-legal side of the dispute were soon introduced by the British historian Alastair Lamb. But a more favourable image of China vis-a-vis India did not appear until 1970, when Neville Maxwell's comprehensive revisionist study was published." : "To anyone at the time of the Sino-Indian dispute who tried to think about the case on its merits it was manifest that the faults were, at least, not all on China's side. But very few in the West made this effort.... axwell'sbook is designed to rectify this." : "Dorothy Woodman in ''Himalayan Frontiers'' in 1969, like Fisher, put the full blame for the war on China. ... On the contrary, Neville Maxwell in his ''India’s China War'' focused on the faults of the Government of India, maintaining that it was mostly the latter’s provocative border policy that was responsible for a major escalation." The book received negative reviews in India. Historian Parshotam Mehra commented that "deeply-rooted prejudice" oozed out of its every sentence, with examples such as: To sustain his narrative, Maxwell cited those facts alone that were convenient and omitted the others. Well-known scholarly analyses such as the ''Himalayan Battleground'' or Francis Watson's ''The Frontiers of China'' were missing from Maxwell's bibliography, and so too were the writings of men who had first-hand knowledge, such as Sir Olaf Caroe. Notwithstanding these defects, Mehra believed that the book made a contribution as an "alternative point of view to an understanding of the events" that led to the hostilities. Historian
Sarvepalli Gopal Sarvepalli Gopal (23 April 1923 – 20 April 2002) was a well-known Indian historian. He was the son of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the first Vice-President and the second President of India. He was the author of the ''Radhakrishnan: A Biography ...
, himself a key player in the Sino-Indian dispute as the Head of Indian MEA's historical division, wrote a lengthy rebuttal in '' The Round Table''. He pointed out that the Indian case for its border definition was set out in considerable detail in the ''Report of the Officials'', which Maxwell dismisses with a one-liner and no real analysis. Historian Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow at the
Centre for Policy Research The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is an Indian think tank focusing on public policy. Established in 1973 and located in New Delhi, it is one of the national social science research institutes recognized by the Indian Council of Social Scie ...
, called ''India's China War'' a "seminal revisionist account". He argued that Maxwell "overreached" and that he "curiously interpreted Delhi's actions almost as Beijing would have viewed it". Raghavan recommended "post-revisionist" accounts, such as Steven Hoffman's ''India and the China Crisis''.
Shekhar Gupta Shekhar Gupta (born 26 August 1957) is an Indian journalist and author. He is the founder and the current editor-in-chief of ''ThePrint''. He is also a columnist for the ''Business Standard'' and pens a weekly column which appears every Saturda ...
praised Maxville as a "relentless journalist and scholar" over his findings of the Sino-Indian war. K. N. Raghavan described the book as the "most authoritative work" on Sino-Indian war but also noted that "the pronounced anti-India bias" of Maxwell's work "ensured the book was denied the credibility that such an account should have deserved". In 2002, Rediff News included a book extract from ''India's China War'' in its "Remembering a War" series, with the comment "no account of the 1962 war would be complete without Neville Maxwell's authoritative analysis." American political scientist John Garver wrote that Maxwell shaped the orthodox scholarly view, which was also reached by American scholar
Allen Whiting Allen Suess Whiting (October 27, 1926 – January 11, 2018) was an American political scientist and former government official specializing in the foreign relations of China. Whiting was University of Arizona Regents' Professor of Political Scienc ...
, regarding China's perception of and response to India's Forward Policy: "in deciding for war, China's leaders were responding to an Indian policy of establishing Indian military outposts in territory claimed by both India and China but already under effective Chinese military occupation." Garver pointed out that Maxwell did not have access to Chinese documents or archives which would have given him insights into their policy making process.


Publications


Books

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Selected articles

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References


Bibliography

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External links

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China, India, and the fruits of Nehru's folly
Interview with Neville Maxwell by Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis, 6 June 2007
My Albatross
With link to the text of the report. {{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, Neville Australian journalists The Times people Sino-Indian War People associated with the School of Advanced Study McGill University alumni 1926 births Alumni of the University of Cambridge 2019 deaths British male journalists Himalayan studies