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Neville Maxwell

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Neville Maxwell
Born1926 (age 97–98)
London, England
OccupationJournalist
CitizenshipAustralia
Alma materMcGill University
University of Cambridge
SubjectSino-Indian War
Notable worksIndia's China War

Neville Maxwell (born 1926 in London) is a retired Australian journalist and author of the 1970 book India's China War, an analysis of the 1962 Sino-Indian War .[1][2][3]

As a well-known Indian newspaper editor wrote [who?] in 2014, "I am of the vintage that grew up detesting Neville Maxwell as an utterly contemptible India-hater. Or worse. A pro-Chinese communist toadie, even an unreconstructed Trotskyist who should never have been allowed to set foot in India, least of all accredited as the New Delhi correspondent of The Times (London)." The editor then said: "If Maxwell is able to help us Indians face that bitter family secret and thereby find closure for 1962, in my book he will be listed as a friend of India, not an enemy. As for his allegedly red-hot left ideology, it has already been swept away in the entire world, India, and even more notably, in China."[4]

Maxwell's book continues to stimulate lively debate on the factors that prompted the 1962 Chinese counter-offensive, which caught India by complete surprise.[5] Almost 44 years after he published his controversial book, the 88-year-old Maxwell publicly released a portion of a classified report prepared by two Indian Army officers, Lieutenant General T.B. Henderson Brooks and Brigadier P.S. Bhagat. Maxwell apparently received the classified report from one of its two authors, or from another high-level source in the Indian Army, in the 1960s, underscoring the military leaker's interest in disseminating the findings of the report. Maxwell used this report and Chinese government briefings to write his account of the war.

India's China War

An Australian born in London, Maxwell was educated at McGill University in Canada and the University of Cambridge in England. He joined The Times as a foreign correspondent in 1955 and spent three years in the Washington bureau. In 1959 he was posted to New Delhi as the South Asia correspondent. In the next eight years he traveled from Kabul to East Pakistan and Kathmandu to Ceylon, reporting in detail the end of the Nehru era in India and the post-Nehru developments.[6] During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Maxwell wrote for The Times from New Delhi, and did not accept the official Indian account of events regarding the war.[7] This eventually led to his "virtual expulsion" from India.[8]

In 1967 Maxwell joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in London a senior fellow in order to write his book India's China War. He was with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at Oxford University at the time when the book was published in 1971.[6] The book was widely praised across a diverse range of opinions, including British historian A. J. P. Taylor, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. However, Maxwell was perceived as hostile to the Indian narrative of victimhood and received ferocious personal attacks in India.[3]

Views on Indian democracy

As the New Delhi-based correspondent of a British newspaper, Maxwell presented a pessimistic portrayal of India in the 1960s, predicting the early collapse of Indian democracy and the break-up of India.[9][10] While serving as the South Asia correspondent of The Times of London, Maxwell authored a series of pessimistic reports filed in February 1967. In the atmosphere leading up to the 4th Lok Sabha elections, he wrote that "The great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed. [Indians will soon vote] in the fourth—and surely last—general election." [11]

References

  1. ^ Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2005), Mao: The Unknown Story, London: Jonathan Cape
  2. ^ "Remembering a War". Rediff. 8 Oct 2002. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
  3. ^ a b Kai Friese (22 October 2012). "China Was The Aggrieved; India, Aggressor In '62". Outlook India. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
  4. ^ Shekhar Gupta (2014-03-21). "Who's afraid of Neville Maxwell?". Indian Express. Retrieved 2014-03-21.
  5. ^ Claude Arpi (2012), 1962: The McMahon Saga, New Delhi: Lancer Publishers
  6. ^ a b India's China War
  7. ^ Neville Maxwell (1970). India's China War. Pantheon Books. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-394-47051-1.
  8. ^ Gregory Clark. "Book review: India's China War". Retrieved 8 May 2013.
  9. ^ Stanley Plastrik (1972-05-18). "Indignation over India". The New York Review of Books.
  10. ^ Ramachandra Guha (2005-07-17). "Past & Present: Verdicts on India". The Hindu. Retrieved 2013-12-21.
  11. ^ Ramachandra Guha (2005-07-17). "Past & Present: Verdicts on India". The Hindu. Retrieved 2007-05-13.

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