The Indo-China conflict of 1962 continues to be one of our least understood historical events. Many books have been written about it, usually by those who were involved in some way, anxious to provide justification for their actions. These accounts have only succeeded in muddying the picture further. What is clear is that 1962 was an unmitigated disaster. The terrain over which most of the battles were fought for not fought) was remote and inaccessible: the troops were sorely underequipped, lacking even warm clothing; and the men and officers who tried to make a stand were repeatedly let down by their political and military superiors. Time and again, in Nam Ka Chu, Bum- la, Tawang, Se-la, Thembang, Bomdila-all in the Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA in the Eastern Sector-and in Ladakh and Chushul in the Western Sector, our forces were mismanaged, misdirected or left to fend for themselves. If the Chinese Army hadn't decided to stop its victorious campaign, thedamage would have been far worse.

In this definitive account of the conflict, based on dozens of interviews with soldiers, officers, support staff, bureaucrats, and numerous others who had a first-hand view of what actually happened in 1962, filmmaker and military historian Shiv Kunal Verma takes us on an uncomfortable journey through one of the most disastrous episodes of independent India's history.