The story of the Battle of Rezang La, one of the few bright spots from the 1962 war with China
On 18 November, 1962, 13 Kumaon’s C Company made their heroic last stand against the Chinese army in the high Himalayas of Ladakh, warding off a very significant threat and, in the process, writing a glorious chapter in India's military history.
November 18, 2022, is the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Rezang La, one of the few bright spots in the War of 1962 with China. On that day, 13 Kumaon’s C Company made their heroic last stand against the Chinese army in the high Himalayas of Ladakh, warding off a very significant threat and, in the process, writing a glorious chapter in India’s military history.
This is an edited version of the recounting of the Battle of Rezang La by the late political commentator Inder Malhotra, which was published in The Indian Express on February 20, 2012, under the headline ‘The courage of 13 Kumaon: Amid the army’s ignominy in 1962, there were stories of incredible bravery - like the battle of Rezang La’.
So painful, indeed traumatic, is the story of the 1962 border war with China that the spotlight needs to be turned on whatever little did go right amidst the overwhelming disaster when almost everything else went unbelievably wrong. Sadly, the Indian army did disgrace itself. But it was the incompetence of the army’s high command, consisting largely of amiable frauds or flatterers who had flourished until then, which drove the army to its nadir, not the rank and file or young officers…