Reclaiming a Forgotten Victory: Why Watershed 1967 Deserves a Place in India's Strategic Memory

Abstract

The book resurrects the September 1967 fights at Nathu La and Cho La, high-altitude skirmishes on the Sikkim border where Indian troops, guided by commanders such as Sagat Singh, Bishan Singh and P.S. Dagar, delivered a decisive check to the People's Liberation Army. Set only five years after the trauma of 1962, yet these clashes have been left out of India's public memory, overshadowed first by the humiliation of 1962 and then by the 1965 war with Pakistan. DasGupta's main achievement is making clear why that absence matters: 1967 is presented as the moment India's Army shook off the psychological burden of 1962 and proved, on much the same terrain against the same rival, that deterrence and determination could hold.