That India was defeated by China in 1962 is known to everybody. What is not known is why there was a rout which was so humiliating. The inquiry was entrusted to the two top army officers, Lt General Henderson Brooks and Lt General Prem Bhagat. Their report is some 46 years old. Yet the government is sitting over it. The general impression is that since the army and the then Prime Minister, Jawharlal Nehru, have been blamed in that order, the report has been suppressed. I am more or less positive that the impression is correct. I tried to access the report through the Right to Information Act (RTI). But the government got away in the name of "public interest." Nowhere in the world has the army been able to dupe the public on facts for such a long period in the name of secrecy. It is a pity that the Central Information Commission comprising of two retired civil servants Wajahat Habib Ullah and M L Sharma could not rise above the hangover of their loyalty to the establishment. They rejected my plea to make the report public. My experience is that the army in India is a sacred cow. The public, particularly the media, is so circumspect when it comes to discussing the armed forces that even a word of criticism is avoided, lest it should affect the "morale" of the armed forces. This craven attitude of the media has allowed them to get away even with murder. The commission's verdict is so palpably wrong that it goes against the grain of intelligence. It considers the issue of India-China border to be "alive" because of the "ongoing negotiations" between the two countries. It does not want to lift the lid from a scandal of cowardice and arrogance. The commission should know that the negotiations began long before hostilities. They were going on when I was information officer of the then Home Minister, Gobind Ballabh Pant, in 1957. The talks are continuing between the two countries even now because they have come to believe that the break down of talks would be more harmful than going over the same exercise again and again. Where the commission goes wrong in its effort is to combine the process of dialogue with the causes of ignoble defeat. I sought not for the disclosure of mode of talks which is the prerogative of the government in power. Nor did I want the disclosure of the strategy of war which was 15 days of retreat. My purpose was to let the people - masters in a democratic system - know why the political leadership and the armed forces were found wanting when they were expected to stand up against China. Former Chief of Army Staff V P Malik has aptly reacted to the withholding of the report. He has said that the strategy of those days is outdated and even the weapons used then have no relevance today. The commission's judgement defeats the reason when it says that the disclosure "will seriously compromise both security and relationship between India and China, thus having a bearing both on internal and external security." A war lost 46 years ago because of the failure of the army and the then rulers' ineptness can neither endanger external nor internal security. It is a mere cover up. The report would have made it clear how the army was not fit enough to fight and the politicians were not capable enough to give the guidance. It was a disaster which the government has been able to cover up by hook or by crook. It is a shame that the commission has become a party to it. The fact is that Nehru, a hero of my generation, did not prepare the nation. Nor did he warn India against China's perfidy. He harboured two beliefs: one, a communist country would never attack a third world country, and, two, the Chinese invasion would spark off a world war which would not be fought on India's frontiers. Nehru turned out to be wrong on both the points. In due course, the two members of the Central Information Commission would also realise that theirs was an unjustified fear: the disclosure "will seriously compromise both the countries and the relationship between India and China, thus having a bearing both on internal and external security." It is not the report which they have withheld. It is the democratic right to discuss the government's wrong that they have withheld. The very apparatus of RTI has a question mark against it. If its job is to dot I's and cross the T's, the sooner the set-up is wound up the better. At least, the nation will not live under the delusion that the commission is for transparency in governance. The writer is a former member of the Indian Parliament and senior journalist E-mail: knayar@nation.com.pk