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Such a move, Congress leader Praveen Davar said, would have escalated the conflict into a “much bigger war”.
Contending that it “is very easy to be wise by hindsight”, Davar said the political decision not to use offensive air power had been taken after an assessment of the ground situation.
“Use of Air Force would have escalated a localised operation into a much bigger war with the possibility of Indian cities being targeted by the enemy air force. The political leadership made a wise decision of not using the air power against the enemy who may have had a better capability, and therefore the risk was not worth it,” Davar, a former army officer who edits the Supreme Saviour magazine, said.
“It was easy for the enemy to bomb Tejpur, Guwahati and Kolkata and almost impossible for the IAF to retaliate due to much longer distances involved,” Davar added. “Situation however was completely different in 1965 and 1971 when India had more lethal air power than its adversary and took full advantage of it.”
We all no congress is wrong, but this wrongress thinks that they panacea for all and sundry. Nehru made us lose war and a professional soldier is being rebutted and that too a serving Air Chief. Wake up wrongress!!
Politicians in India are known to be scare crows with the exception a a very few, thy never had the balls to deal with internal security then how can we ever think of them taking the battle into the enemy camp, just leave the defenses to the officers and India would be much better off
As joint dir War history division I and Air Commodre OP Sharma Vir Chakra researched into this aspect. China had no air bases in Tibet then and inferior fighter aircraft vis a vis India. The only aircraft that could reach Indian targets were Illushin 24 at Extreme range.offensive air was not used as the whole decisionmaking was ad hoc. mr Dawar should confine to defending Vadra and not dabble into issues he known nothing.
Ha ha! That's hitting Dawar below the belt but it's true. India was more active buying up air assets in the 1950s from Britain and France;China was even then not known to have anything greatly advanced in comparison.
It is very silly that the people like Praveen Dawar, who have absolutely no clues about war has dared to comment on the Air Chief's comments.In this country the politicians think it is their right to comment on every thing civilian as well on military. I feel they must desist at least not commenting on military affairs.It is the area they must not tread., or else they look like idiots.
It is not clear whether Dawar has given version of the Congress or his own, because he speaks on wisdom of the then political rulers. In the latter case he should have spoken on what authority he was speaking. In the former case he should cited basis of his commendation. Whether he has authority to speak on behalf of the incumbent government? So, a much serious open debate is essential to educate the citizens of the country on how vast lands of the country were annexed by the Chinese due to the war.
