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{{for|the Irish Olympic rower|Neville Maxwell (rower)}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Neville Maxwell
| image =
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth year|1926}}
| birth_place = London, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2019|09|23|1926|}}
[http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/19/c_138486158.htm ]
| death_place =
| resting_place =
| occupation = Journalist
| language =
| nationality =
| ethnicity =
| citizenship = Australia
| education =
| alma_mater = [[McGill University]]<br>[[University of Cambridge]]
| subject = [[Sino-Indian War]]
| notableworks = ''India's China War''
| spouse =
| partner =
| children =
| relatives =
| awards =
| website = [http://www.nevillemaxwell.com Neville Maxwell's Blog]
}}

'''Neville Maxwell''' (1926 – 23 September 2019) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[journalist]] and scholar who authored the 1970 book ''India's China War'', which is considered a revisionist analysis of the 1962 [[Sino-Indian War]], putting the blame for it on India.<ref name=Hoffmann/> Maxwell has been praised for his objective view on the 1962 Sino-Indian War, but criticised for his pessimistic and often inaccurate views on Indian democracy.

==Career==
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 on the end of the [[Nehru]] era in India and the post-Nehru developments.<ref name="India's China War">Neville Maxwell, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/12249475/Indias-China-War-Neville-Maxwell ''India's China War''], Scribd.com</ref> During the 1962 [[Sino-Indian War]], Maxwell wrote for ''The Times'' from New Delhi and was the only reporter there who did not uncritically accept the official Indian account of events.<ref name="clark"/> This eventually led to his "virtual expulsion" from India.<ref name="clark">{{cite web |url=http://gregoryclark.net/bookrev.html |title=Book review: India's China War |author=Gregory Clark |website=gregoryclark.net |access-date=8 May 2013}}</ref>

In 1967, Maxwell joined the [[School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London]], as a senior fellow to write his book ''India's China War''. He was with the [[Institute of Commonwealth Studies]] at [[Oxford University]] when the book was published in 1970.<ref name="India's China War" />

Regarded as a comprehensive revisionist study, ''India's China War'' contradicted the then prevalent understanding of the war as a product of Chinese "betrayal and expansionism",<ref name=Hoffmann/> and set out to prove that it was "''in fact'' of India’s making, that it was 'India's China War'".<ref name=Mehra>{{cite journal |last1=Mehra |first1=Parshotam |title=India's China War |journal=India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs |volume=26 |issue=4 |date=October 1970 |pages=410–416 |issn=0974-9284 |doi=10.1177/097492847002600406}}</ref> The book drew extensively from India's classified [[Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report]], an internal operational review of India's military debacle, which Maxwell was able to obtain a copy of.<ref name="pandalai"/> Due to the lack of available information from China, Maxwell had to rely on inferences based on official Chinese statements with regards to China's perceptions.<ref name=garver />{{rp|1}} He did not attempt to evaluate the accuracy of these perceptions.<ref name=garver />{{rp|3}}

''India's China War'' 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]].<ref name="friese">
{{cite news |title=China Was The Aggrieved; India, Aggressor In '62 |author=Kai Friese |newspaper=Outlook India |date=22 October 2012 |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/china-was-the-aggrieved-india-aggressor-in-62/282579}}
</ref> On the other hand, Singaporean leader [[Lee Kuan Yew]] considered it "revisionist, pro-China history".<ref>
{{cite news |title=What's the Big Idea? |publisher=Today (Singapore) |url=http://m.todayonline.com/singapore/whats-big-idea |date=23 September 2013 |access-date=26 December 2013}}
</ref><ref name=friese/><ref>
{{Cite news |url=http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1461099/neville-maxwells-revelation-reveals-india-was-hiding-nothing-over-its-1962 |title=Neville Maxwell discloses document revealing that India provoked China into 1962 border war |work=South China Morning Post |access-date=2017-08-16 |language=en}}
</ref> In India, the Indian government charged him with breach of the Official Secrets Act, forcing him to stay out of India to avoid arrest until the charges were annulled by Prime Minister [[Morarji Desai]] eight years later.<ref name="chowdhury">
{{cite news |title=Neville Maxwell interview: the full transcript |author=Debasish Roy Chowdhury |publisher= South China Morning Post |URL=http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1461102/neville-maxwell-interview-full-transcript |date= 31 March 2014 }}
</ref>

The book may have been instrumental in bridging the gulf between the US and China. According to Maxwell, Kissinger told Zhou Enlai, "Reading that book showed me I could do business with you people."<ref name="chowdhury"/> US President [[Richard Nixon]] too is said to have read the book and discussed it with [[Zhou Enlai]] during his [[1972 Nixon visit to China|1972 visit to China]].<ref name=arpi>
{{cite web |last=Arpi |first=Claude |author-link=Claude Arpi |title=1962 War: Why keep Henderson Brooks report secret?|url=http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/1962-war-why-keep-henderson-brooks-report-secret/ |work=Indian Defence Review |access-date=8 April 2014 |date=January 2011}}
</ref> Maxwell's contention that the war was "a frame-up" was "a flash of light everywhere." Zhou is said to have acknowledged to Maxwell, "your book did a service to truth which benefitted China."<ref name="chowdhury"/>

===View on Indian democracy===
In the 1960s, Maxwell incorrectly predicted that India would not remain a democracy for much longer. 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."<ref>
{{cite news |title=Past & Present: Verdicts on India |author=Ramachandra Guha |url=http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/07/17/stories/2005071700140300.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070921000737/http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/07/17/stories/2005071700140300.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=21 September 2007 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=17 July 2005}}
</ref>

===Leak of the Henderson Brooks–Bhagat report===
On 17 March 2014, Maxwell posted the first part of the [[Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report]] on his website.<ref name="unnithan">
{{cite news |last=Unnithan |first=Sandeep|title=Henderson Brooks report lists the guilty men of 1962 |url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/the-guilty-men-of-1962-india-china-war-jawahar-lal-nehru-krishna-menon/1/350080.html |access-date=8 April 2014 |newspaper=India Today |date=18 March 2014}}
</ref> The report was written by two Indian army officers in 1963 to examine India's defeat in the Sino-Indian War. It has been classified as top secret by the Indian government, but Maxwell acquired a copy and his ''India's China War'' contains the gist of the report.<ref name="pandalai">
{{cite news |last=Pandalai |first=Shruti |title=Burying Open Secrets: India's 1962 War and the Henderson-Brooks Report |url=http://southasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/04/02/burying_open_secrets_indias_1962_war_and_the_henderson_brooks_report |access-date=8 April 2014 |newspaper=Foreign Policy |date=2 April 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408224604/http://southasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/04/02/burying_open_secrets_indias_1962_war_and_the_henderson_brooks_report |archive-date=8 April 2014 |df=dmy-all }}
</ref> After the Indian government refused to release the report for over 50 years, Maxwell decided to make it public.<ref name="pandalai"/><ref name="chowdhury"/><ref name="unnithan"/><ref>
{{Cite news |url=https://thediplomat.com/2014/03/indias-top-secret-1962-china-war-report-leaked/ |title=India's Top Secret 1962 China War Report Leaked |newspaper=The Diplomat |date=March 2014}}
</ref>

==Reception==
Scholars regard Maxwell's ''India's China War'' as a revisionist account of the [[Sino-Indian War]]. The earliest accounts of the war regarded China as the aggressor that unleashed its forces on an unsuspecting India. Maxwell inverted the blame, by asserting that India was the aggressor and China the victim.<ref name="friese"/><ref name=Hoffmann>
{{harvp|Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis|1990|p=3}}: "The earliest accounts by academic authors looked upon India as the victim of Chinese betrayal and expansionism, and a pro-Indian school of thought was thereby established. Contrary ideas about the historical-legal side of the dispute were soon introduced by the British historian Alastair Lamb. But a more favourable image of China vis-a-vis India did not appear until 1970, when Neville Maxwell's comprehensive revisionist study was published."
</ref><ref name=Kiernan>
{{citation |first=V. G. |last=Kiernan |title=''India's China War''. by Neville Maxwell |journal=International Affairs |volume=47 |number=2 |date=April 1971 |pp=456-457 |JSTOR=2614016}}: "To anyone at the time of the Sino-Indian dispute who tried to think about the case on its merits it was manifest that the faults were, at least, not all on China's side. But very few in the West made this effort.... [Maxwell's] book is designed to rectify this."
</ref><ref name="Dasgupta Lüthi">
{{citation |editor1-first=Amit R. |editor1-last=Das Gupta |editor2-first=Lorenz M. |editor2-last=Lüthi |title=The Sino-Indian War of 1962: New perspectives |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hFRuDQAAQBAJ |year=2016 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |ISBN=978-1-315-38892-2 |p=13}}: "Dorothy Woodman in ''Himalayan Frontiers'' in 1969, like Fisher, put the full blame for the war on China. ... On the contrary, Neville Maxwell in his ''India’s China War'' focused on the faults of the Government of India, maintaining that it was mostly the latter’s provocative border policy that was responsible for a major escalation."
</ref>

The book received negative reviews in India. Historian Parshotam Mehra commented that "deeply-rooted prejudice" oozed out of its every sentence, with examples such as:<ref name=Mehra/>
{{quote|quote=Hostilities were provoked by India’s reactionary ruling clique which, itself successor to a hateful imperialist regime ([[British Raj]]), had been guilty of continuing the latter’s unabashed aggression against a peaceful neighbour....worse still at places, Indian troops in the East crossed the McMahon Line into China’s Tibet region.

Nor was that all. For towards Peking’s oft-repeated offers to negotiate and settle the dispute in a spirit of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, New Delhi’s attitude was one of arrogance, even intransigence. It laid down impossible pre-conditions, including the ridiculous one that China should withdraw from the territory which New Delhi claimed! Provoked beyond patience itself, the Chinese frontier guards fighting in self-defence, wiped out New Delhi’s armed aggression all along the 2,000-mile frontier.
|author=Neville Maxwell
|source=''India's China War''
}}
To sustain his narrative, Maxwell cited those facts alone that were convenient and omitted the others. Well-known scholarly analyses such as the ''Himalayan Battleground''<ref>{{citation |last1=Fisher |first1=Margaret W. |last2=Rose |first2=Leo E. |last3=Huttenback |first3=Robert A. |title=Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh |date=1963 |publisher=Praeger |url=https://www.questia.com/read/10466588 |ref={{sfnref|Fisher, Rose & Huttenback, Himalayan Battleground|1963}}}}{{dl|date=July 2021}}</ref> or Francis Watson's ''The Frontiers of China'' were missing from Maxwell's bibliography, and so too were the writings of men who had first-hand knowledge, such as Sir [[Olaf Caroe]].<ref name=Mehra/> Notwithstanding these defects, Mehra believed that the book made a contribution as an "alternative point of view to an understanding of the events" that led to the hostilities.<ref name=Mehra/>

Historian [[Sarvepalli Gopal]], himself a key player in the Sino-Indian dispute as the Head of Indian [[Ministry of External Affairs (India)|MEA's]] historical division, wrote a lengthy rebuttal in ''[[The Round Table (journal)|The Round Table]]''. He pointed out that the Indian case for its border definition was set out in considerable detail in the ''Report of the Officials'', which Maxwell dismisses with a one-liner and no real analysis.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gopal |first1=S. |title=Sino‐Indian relations |journal=The Round Table |volume=62 |issue=245 |year=2008 |pages=113–118 |issn=0035-8533 |doi=10.1080/00358537208453008 |ref={{sfnref|Gopal, Sino-Indian relations|2008}}}}: 'Mr. Maxwell, however, brushes aside the whole complex Indian argument with half a sentence. "The Indian officials' report, which to a quick or unquestioning reader does seem a massive documentation of the Indian case..." (p. 218). How, one might ask, does it appear to a slow and questioning reader, such as, one presumes, Mr. Maxwell believes himself to be; but he does not bother to tell us.'</ref>

Historian [[Srinath Raghavan]], Senior Fellow at the [[Centre for Policy Research]], called ''India's China War'' a "seminal [[Historical revisionism|revisionist]] account". He argued that Maxwell "overreached" and that he "curiously interpreted Delhi's actions almost as Beijing would have viewed it". Raghavan recommended "post-revisionist" accounts, such as Steven Hoffman's ''India and the China Crisis''.<ref>
{{cite journal |last=Raghavan |first=Srinath |title=Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute, 1948-60: A Reappraisal |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=41 |issue=36 |pages=3882–3892 |date=2006 |jstor=4418679 }}
</ref>

American political scientist John Garver wrote that Maxwell shaped the orthodox scholarly view, which was also reached by American scholar [[Allen S. Whiting (political scientist)|Allen Whiting]], regarding China's perception of and response to India's Forward Policy: "in deciding for war, China's leaders were responding to an Indian policy of establishing Indian military outposts in territory claimed by both India and China but already under effective Chinese military occupation." Garver pointed out that Maxwell did not have access to Chinese documents or archives which would have given him insights into their policy making process.<ref name="garver">{{cite web |last=Garver |first=John W. |title=China's Decision for War with India in 1962 |url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~johnston/garver.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326032121/http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~johnston/garver.pdf |archive-date=26 March 2009}}</ref>{{rp|29}}

== Publications ==
=== Books ===
* {{cite book |last=Maxwell, Neville |author-mask=0 |year=1970 |title=India's China War |publisher=Cape |location=London |isbn=978-0-224-61887-8 |ref=none |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/indiaschinawar0000maxw }}
* {{cite book |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |year=1979 |title=China's Road to Development |publisher=Pergamon Press |location=Oxford; New York |isbn=978-0-08-023140-2 |ref=none |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/chinasroadtodeve0000unse }}
* {{cite book |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |year=1980 |title=India, the Nagas, and the North-East |publisher=MRG | location=London |isbn=978-0-903114-19-6 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last1=Maxwell |first1=Neville |last2=McFarlane |first2=Bruce J. |year=1984 |title=China's Changed Road to Development |publisher=Pergamon Press | location=Oxford ; New York |isbn=978-0-08-030849-4 |ref=none}}

=== Selected articles ===

*{{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |author-mask=0 |title=China and India: The Un-Negotiated Dispute |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=43 |pages=47–80|date=1970 |doi=10.1017/s030574100004474x}}
* {{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=India's Forward Policy |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=45 |pages=157–163 |date=1971 |doi=10.1017/s0305741000010481}}
*{{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=The Threat from China |journal=International Affairs |volume=47 |issue=1 |date=January 1971 |pages=31–44 |doi=10.2307/2614677 |jstor=2614677 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=Sino-Indian Border Dispute Reconsidered |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=34 |issue=14 |pages=905–918|date=1999 |jstor=4407848 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=Henderson Brooks Report: An Introduction |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=36 |issue=14/15 |pages=1189–1193|date=2001 |jstor=4410481 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=Forty Years of Folly |journal=Critical Asian Studies |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=99–112 |date=2003 |doi=10.1080/14672710320000061497}}
*{{cite journal |last=Maxwell |first=Neville |title=Settlements and Disputes: China's Approach to Territorial Issues |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=41 |issue=36 |pages=3873–3881 |date=2006 |jstor=4418678}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{citation |last=Hoffmann |first=Steven A. |title=India and the China Crisis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BpSRwC5_EPUC |year=1990 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-06537-6 |ref={{sfnref|Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis|1990}}}}

==External links==
* {{cite web |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/oct/08max1.htm |title=Remembering a War |publisher=Rediff |date=8 October 2002 |access-date=8 May 2013}}
* [http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-china-india-and-the-fruits-of-nehru-s-folly-1101845 China, India, and the fruits of Nehru's folly] Interview with Neville Maxwell by Venkatesan Vembu, [[Daily News & Analysis]], 6 June 2007
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140409111124/http://www.nevillemaxwell.com/uncategorized/1-albartross-2/#more-19 My Albatross]. With link to the text of the report.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, Neville}}
[[Category:Australian journalists]]
[[Category:The Times people]]
[[Category:Sino-Indian War]]
[[Category:People associated with the School of Advanced Study]]
[[Category:McGill University alumni]]
[[Category:1926 births]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:2019 deaths]]
[[Category:British male journalists]]

Neville Maxwell - Revision history

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