On 20 October 1962, in the freezing valley of the Nam Ka Chu, 2 Rajput and other regiments faced impossible odds against a relentless Chinese assault. While Chinese troops occupied the commanding heights above the valley, Indian soldiers struggled with inadequate clothing, limited ammunition, and treacherous terrain. Yet, despite the disadvantages, the men of 2 Rajput, 7 Infantry, and 1/9 Gorkha Rifles stood their ground against overwhelming assaults from both front and rear.
In 1962: Death Trap in Nam Ka Chu, Major General Ashok Kalyan Verma and Shiv Kunal Verma reconstruct one of the most devastating battles of the Sino-Indian War, and tell a story of tremendous courage, self-sacrifice, and survival against all odds.
Drawing on archival records and the writings of Major General Ashok Kalyan Verma, the book revisits the morning of one of the darkest days in India’s military history.
Major General Ashok Kalyan Verma, AVSM, was a soldier–scholar whose life embodied the Rajput Regiment’s finest traditions. Commissioned into 2 Rajput and later commanding 18 Rajput in 1971—winning the Battle Honour Akhaura—he combined battlefield experience with historical depth. The regiment’s sixth colonel, he remained its conscience and chronicler until his passing in 2015.
Born into an army family (his father, Major General Verma, was a captain with 2 Rajput in 1962), filmmaker and military historian Shiv Kunal Verma has worked with all three arms of the Indian armed forces over the last two and a half decades. From flying extensively with the IAF while making Salt of the Earth and Aakash Yodha to the filming of the Naval Dimension and the Kargil War, Verma has had a ringside view of matters military. His film on the National Defence Academy—The Standard Bearers—is considered a classic. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Northeast Trilogy (that documented the entire region
and its peoples) and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why. His acclaimed works include 1962: The War That Wasn’t and 1965: A Western Sunrise.