Along the India-China border, the Chinese engaged in massive road building, 112 miles of which took place in the remote Aksai Chin region, located in India’s Ladakh district. Situated in a rocky and hostile region, which contained no land routes from India, the road was not discovered by India until October of 1958. The Indian government took the Chinese presence in Aksai Chin as an act of “illegal and clandestine seizure,” and in response, implemented what was called the “forward policy,” establishing a series of fortified and unfortified forward posts (posts that were placed well within the disputed territory) to police India’s northern border (Maxwell, p. 177).
By 1962 it was clear to Prime Minister Nehru and his colleagues that the Chinese had no intention of voluntarily evacuating from Indian territory. India slowly began to build up its forces along the border, but was nowhere near a state of readiness to fight a border war with China, when, on September 8, Chinese troops crossed over the Thagla Ridge and surrounded India’s Dhola post.
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