[The Tribune]
By Pratibha Chauhan
Shimla, March 28: The Himalayan Committee for Action on Tibet (HCAT) today said India must redefine its foreign policy and clarify its stand on the Tibet issue. It is currently the centenary year of the drawing of the McMohan line between India and Tibet in Shimla on July 3, 1914.
Historians, members of the HCAT and Tibetan representatives gathered here at a seminar to discuss the changed scenario and the border dispute between India and China in sharp contrast to July 3, 1914, when the McMohan line was drawn.
It was here in Shimla that Sir Henry McMohan, the main negotiator of the agreement, along with others had drawn the McMahon line, demarcating the Indo-Sino border.
“To mark the centenary year of the McMohan line, historians and eminent people from all over the country will gather here in July and submit their recommendations to the Centre,” said Bhagat Singh Kinner, general secretary of the HCAT. He said though there was a dispute with China on the border issue, it was a historical fact that the line was drawn in the presence of representatives of the British Indian and Tibet at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) here.
He lamented that unfortunately, India had diluted its stand on the Tibet issue and made a mistake of accepting Tibet as a part of China whereas facts were contrary to this.
He said Tibet was always a buffer zone between India and China and had this situation continued, there would not have been unrest in the border states of the country. “India must vociferously raise the issue of Tibet at the international level and lend its support in the fight for freedom that the exiled Tibetans are waging,” participants at the seminar said.
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