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India in 1962, was hamstrung by Nehru who worshipped China and by the traitorous commie defence minister who put coward generals in charge to avoid military coups. And did not use the air force at all which could have hit the Chinese hard.

And while you are right that the Chinese infra is far better, most Indian troops also have easy connectivity. They are not short of supplies, well acclimatised and well equipped. In 1962, troops from the plains were rushed to the high mountains without warm clothes, shoes and no time to acclimatise. with only .303 rifles and a few MGs. Now there are anti-tank weapons, helicopters and a aggressive nationalist leadership. Its not going to be 1962 again.

[India in 1962, was hamstrung by Nehru who worshipped China and by the traitorous commie defence minister who put coward generals in charge to avoid military coups. And did not use the air force at all which could have hit the Chinese hard.

At that point, India spent very little on defense. I don’t think it was a question of Nehru’s attitude. China was armed to the teeth because it had taken huge loans from the Soviet Union during and after the Korean War. The consequence of these loans was famine dead in the tens of millions, as Mao prioritized* paying them back by seizing entire harvests. It’s hard to compete with that degree of ruthlessness re allocation of resources by your adversary’s leadership. A leadership that doesn’t care about the welfare of its people will, at least in the short run, be able to squeeze more resources out of them to support a military effort.

The issue for the Indian defense of Ladakh is similar to that in 1962 - the Chinese are better-resourced, this time as a result of 4 decades of rapid economic growth. One estimate is that Chinese military spending is 80% of the US number, when adjusted for salary differences. I don’t think it’s just hot air from Beltway types trying to scrounge up a bigger defense budget by making China out to be a bigger threat than it actually is. If you’ve been monitoring Chinese procurement news, you’ll have noticed that they seem to be doing shakedown cruises of new ship types at what appears to be an interval of every other year. And then there’s the aircraft (manned and unmanned), ground vehicles and so on.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/03/chinas-defense-spending-larger-it-looks/164060/

* It wasn’t strictly necessary, but Mao made it a point of pride. Vietnam never fully paid back the money it borrowed from the Soviets to acquire the tanks, artillery and MiG’s it used to invade the South. A big chunk of those loans was cancelled in exchange for the abrogation of the Russian lease for Cam Ranh Bay naval base.