CHINA AND PAKISTAN. THE EVIL AXIS POWERS TORMENTING INDIA-TIBET RELATIONS

THE TWO EVIL DOCTRINES TORMENTING INDIA-TIBET RELATIONS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING

India gained full independence in 1947 but is besieged with two evil doctrines tormenting her from the very beginning. On one hand, India faces an insurmountable problem due to the evil doctrine of the 'Divide and Rule' policy of the British Empire to systematically weaken India using Pakistan as a hostile force. On the other hand, India faces a very serious threat to her security by the evil doctrine of 'Expansionism', the State policy of Communist China which replaced the Imperialist China in 1949. Apart from Pakistan's invasion and occupation of Kashmir, India faces the difficult challenge to defend the entire Himalayan Frontier which basically existed for several centuries with no troops guarding the border.

I entirely agree with Indian Prime Minister Nehru's assessment made in 1953. India lacks the military capabilities to intervene in Tibet to counter Communist China's Expansionist Policy.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force

Review: Will Tibet Ever Find Her Soul Again? by Claude Arpi

Claude Arpi’s new book is particularly relevant as China rolls out the Belt and Road Initiative

BOOKS Updated: Apr 05, 2019 17:59 IST

Thubten Samphel

Hindustan Times

A view of Lhasa, Tibet, on March 27, 2019.(VCG via Getty Images)

578pp, Rs 1550; Vij Books

 

The brilliance of new China’s leaders in pursuing their hard-nosed strategic objectives in Tibet was to weave a plausible narrative of ‘liberation’ around what was an outright invasion of the country. The other twist in the narrative was to force Lhasa to sign the 17-Point Agreement in 1951 in which Tibet promised to “return voluntarily to the lap of the motherland.” Half the world, largely the socialist camp, bought China’s story on Tibet.

The process of dealing with China’s fait accompli on the Roof of the World was particularly painful in the corridors of power in New Delhi. Should close cultural, commercial bonds and an open, unguarded border between India and Tibet blindside New Delhi to the changed new geopolitical reality in which the balance of power between independent India and new China had shifted in Beijing’s favor?

In dealing with the issue of Tibet, the two Asian giants brought two different mindsets. India had hoped, as articulated by Nehru, de-colonizing Asia and Africa would come together as one big family to work for common prosperity and peace. China on the other hand was there for itself, in whatever form that enduring Chinese imperial impulse was dressed up in the reigning ideology of the day.

The clash of views of men on the ground who figured out China’s true intentions in Tibet and beyond and those who took Beijing’s comforting words at their face value are put together in Will Tibet Ever Find Her Soul Again? The value of Claude Arpi’s contribution to scholarship on the subject is that it is based on the Nehru papers housed in the Nehru Memorial Library and Museum and the National Archives of India. “It is the first time such documents have been used (or even seen),” says Arpi.

At the time these events unfolded in Tibet, New Delhi’s man in Lhasa was Sumul Sinha. In his briefing to New Delhi about Chinese intentions, he wrote: “It seems to me that we are not facing fairly and squarely the realities of the situation here, inclined as we are to gloss over Chinese dislike and distrust for insignificant aliens like us, for no better reason than to keep Delhi in good humour and to keep alive the illusions of our policy-makers who still believe that much maligned Chinese are just as good today as they were in the past.”

Author Claude Arpi ( Courtesy the author )

 

In his briefing note to Major SM Krishnatry, the Indian Trade Agent in Gyantse, Sinha was brutally honest. He accused the People’s Liberation Army of doing a Robert Clive act on Tibet. “I hardly think that Chinese officials in Tibet can help being adventurous nor do I blame them for dreaming of conquest far beyond the confines of Tibet. They are physically placed at the outskirt of an empire and has happened in so much of history, think and behave like modern Clives and Hastings, always anxious to out-do their own achievements.”

The critique to this assessment came from Nehru himself. In 1953, India’s first prime minister wrote that Sinha “looks with certain nostalgia to the past when the British exercised a good deal of control over Tibet and he would like India to take the place of the British of those days. As a matter of fact, the weakness of our position in Tibet has been that we are successors, to some extent, of an imperial power which has pushed its way into Tibet. When that imperial power has ceased to have any strength to function in the old way, it is patent that we cannot do so, even if we so wished.”

In this Great Game played out between independent India and re-united China, Arpi’s ability to piece together all the confidential memos and exchange of notes in high places serve as a fly on the wall. His contribution on the subject will serve as a guide for new players not to repeat the mistakes of the past. With China rolling out the almost globe-girdling Belt and Road Initiative to improve sea and land connectivity to purportedly facilitate international trade but also to assert its political influence on the countries strung along the new Silk Road, the Great Game is being played with new vigour. Arpi’s contribution constitutes a playbook for the participants in the new Great Game, now rebranded and re-sold as the Belt and Road Initiative.

 

 

 

 

KASHMIR PROBLEM COMPLICATES INDIA-TIBET RELATIONS

INDIA-TIBET RELATIONS COMPLICATED BY KASHMIR ISSUE

In my analysis, India-Tibet relations from the very beginning were impacted by Pakistan's invasion of Kashmir. The Kashmir issue poses a great danger severely undermining India's ability to exercise full freedom to formulate an independent Tibet Policy. India needs the support of the United States to counter China's military superiority and at the same time, India has to balance the US involvement in Kashmir in support of Pakistan's aggression.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

Review: Tibet: When the Gods Spoke by Claude Arpi

Claude Arpi shows that the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement’s guiding principle of non-interference in and respect for each other’s territorial integrity left China to do in Tibet whatever it willed

BOOKS Updated: Aug 17, 2019 10:10 IST

Thubten Samphel

Hindustan Times

In the run-up to signing the Panchsheel agreement: Jawaharlal Nehru with Zhou Enlai, the first Premier of the People's Republic of China (both center) at Palam Airport on 25 June 1954. (HT Photo)

572pp, Rs1,650; United Service Institution & Vij Books

Claude Arpi’s third volume on relations between India and Tibet covers the deepening Chinese penetration of the plateau and Beijing’s administrative and military consolidation there. The freehand given to China in its consolidation in Tibet was made possible when the two Asian giants signed the Panchsheel Agreement on Tibet in 1954. This was the document with which India withdrew its effective presence in Tibet in the form of two trade agencies and military escorts, though India’s mission in Lhasa operated as before. The agreement’s guiding principle of non-interference in and respect for each other’s territorial integrity left China to do in Tibet whatever it willed. Beijing imposed land ‘reforms’ and new leadership and administrative structure that led to the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.

Digging deep into India’s national archival treasure trove, Claude Arpi has pulled out a real gem. This gem is the assessment of the various Indian officers, and of the character and motives of those figures, both political and spiritual, within the Tibetan leadership structure. The comments by India’s Tibet hands include the urgent need for Tibet to reform its social structure, making it fair and just for all Tibetans. This Indian examination of the strength and weakness of the Tibetan leadership came for closer scrutiny when the Dalai and Panchen Lamas visited India in 1956 for the Buddha Jayanti commemorations.

These lengthy and fascinating reports were submitted to New Delhi by Apa Pant, the political officer based in Gangtok, who dealt with affairs of Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim, PN Menon, the former Indian consul general in Lhasa, and PN Luthra, special officer of border areas in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Apa Pant was convinced that “Old Tibet cannot fight new dynamic China.” He suggested that “In Tibet, unless the high monks, thinkers, and saints start seriously the re-organizing of the whole social and economic structure which is today based on privileges and is corrupt, there is no point in calling Tibet a Buddhist land…”

Apa Pant also suggested that “The Chinese have also a doctrine of social revolution and change which they are certain will help the common man. The Tibetans shall have to have an equally powerful dynamic policy of social change.”

Apa Pant made this fearful prediction. With China creating the conditions for the settlement of Tibet by Chinese migrants, “Tibet, as we know it today, will be annihilated, the process for its complete absorption into China (has) started.”

Colonel PN Luthra was assigned to the Panchen Lama’s party in its travels throughout India. About China’s designs on Tibet, the astute colonel has this to say. China, he wrote, “was eating Tibet like an artichoke, leaf by leaf.”

Claude Arpi ( Courtesy the author )

As for the time he spent with the Panchen Lama, Luthra wrote, “At a certain stage of the tour, it became possible to freely and frankly discuss any matter, however delicate, with the Panchen Lama himself or some of his principal associates.” Luthra was impressed by the Panchen Lama’s ability to recognize faces. He was, Luthra wrote, careful to “recognize the humbler staff such as motor drivers and dispatch-riders.” The Panchen Lama told Luthra that he did not believe in the “superstitious practices of Tibetan society. The Dalai Lama’s consultation with his oracle to decide the date of his departure to India had caused the Panchen Lama much amusement.” Luthra wrote, “I once asked the Panchen Lama what it felt like to be the incarnation of Amitabha. He replied that he had no such consciousness nor does he possess any supernatural powers. He struck me as a man without pretensions.”

According to Luthra, despite the traditional rivalry between Lhasa and Shigatse and the court politics of the two Lamas, “There seems to exist personal friendly accord as one would imagine between two youths who have so much in common… I have seen them cutting jokes, thumping each other’s backs and exchanging warm greetings.”

In 1959 when the Tibetan people rose up against Chinese rule in Tibet, the Dalai Lama along with an estimated 87,000 Tibetans fled Tibet to India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Panchen Lama chose to remain in Tibet. In 1962, the Panchen Lama after extensive research and tour of all Tibet submitted the 70,000-character petition to the Chinese Communist Party, laying bare the Party’s disastrous mistakes on the plateau, nearly falling short of accusing the Party of genocide. Mao Zedong called the Panchen Lama’s constructive criticism “a poisoned arrow” aimed at the Party. For this, the Panchen Lama spent 14 long years in prison. After Mao’s death in 1976, he was released. In 1989, he confided publicly to the Tibetan people that Tibet had lost more than it gained under Chinese rule. That year under mysterious circumstances, the Panchen Lama died.

The third major voice to offer his commentary on the Tibetan political scene is that of PN Menon. He spent two years as India’s consul general in Tibet. In 1956 he was assigned to the Dalai Lama’s party. According to Menon, the weakness of the Tibetan struggle was “the real lack of a sense of unity and political consciousness in the way we understand it. At times the conflicting advice seemed to make the Dalai Lama rather confused…” But according to Menon, the Tibetan leader’s basic common sense seemed to “guide him away from the pitfalls of some of the advice offered.”

Contemporary and future generation of researchers of this period of Tibet’s relations with India will remain grateful to Claude Arpi for making these documents accessible. They will appreciate his bringing alive, loud and clear, the sterling character of these India’s frontier officials and their insights into the ominous events unfolding in overwhelmed and beleaguered Tibet.

Thubten Samphel is an independent researcher and a former director of the Tibet Policy Institute
First Published: Aug 16, 2019, 18:31 IST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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