A War Without Winners: Rethinking the 1962 War

Speaker: Dr. Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, King’s College, London and author of Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910-62

Chair: Shri Bharat Bhushan

 

Almost 55 years have passed since the War of 1962. To this day, the conflict is remembered as a traumatic defeat for India. But is this all there was to the war? Were the roles of winner and loser so clearly divided between China and India?

 

In her new book, Shadow States, historian Bérénice Guyot-Réchard argues there is another way to understand 1962, as the outcome of a protracted struggle between China and India for the hearts and minds of Himalayan people. On that count, military victory did not give China what it wanted. Beijing might have won the war, but it also lost the peace