Contact is taking a holiday!

By Lobsang Yeshi

The year 2014 marks the 60^th anniversary of the Panchsheel Agreement between India and China and the Governments declared year 2014 as ‘India—China Year of Friendly Exchanges’. For the Tibetans, each such ‘celebration’ or the reiteration of the so-called Panchsheel principles in every Sino-Indian Joint communiqué is a haunting reminder of their national tragedy.

With the signing on April 29, 1954, the much trumpeted Panchsheel Agreement, which Acharya J B Kriplani referred as ‘born in sin’, Tibet’s political fate was sealed off as the ‘Tibet Region of China’. The treaty was the first ever International treaty that recognizes China’s Sovereignty over Tibet. Much to everyone’s chagrin, the Government of Tibet in Lhasa and the Tibetan people whose fate was decided through this contentious treaty were not even consulted or informed. Indeed, this was an additional injustice to the Tibetans who were passing through the most critical phase of their history.

No wonder, Indian Intelligence Chief B.N. Mullick found the Tibetan Diaspora in Kalimpong shocked and anguished. In his book, “My years with Nehru”, Mr. Mullick stated, “The Sino-Indian Treaty of 1954 caused a terrible shock to the Tibetans. They had already been upset by the unilateral Indian acceptance of the Chinese suzerainty over Tibet which, according to them, allowed China to commit aggression against that country”.

Many political analysts wonder, if Prime Minister Nehru was against inheriting the British imperialist’s extraterritorial rights and colonial legacy in Tibet, why then accept the British imperialist concept of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet?

Meanwhile the Independent India’s continuous diplomatic vacillations finally culminated in the recognition of Tibet as a part of China in a bid to secure peace and security across Himalayas, thus sealing the fate of Tibet for eternity.

Consequently, as India forfeit all its rights and properties in Tibet; downgrading the Indian Mission in Lhasa to a Consulate General and its gradual closure along with its Trade Agents in Yatung, Gyantse and Gartok etc., surrendering of its 12 Rest Houses and the Postal, Telegraph, Public telephone services, hospitals and withdrawal of the military escorts etc, India failed to obtain any quid pro quo in the clear demarcation of the Indo-Tibetan border. And as if that were not enough, the Indian Government agreed upon opening a Chinese Consulate General in Bombay.

It’s another story that barely a month after signing of the Panchsheel treaty, Indian officials and traders in Tibet were unscrupulously harassed and intimidated and eventually coaxed to leave Tibet unceremoniously. This ludicrous harassment campaign involves diverting flashflood and damaging Indian Trade Agent etc, practice of shooting near the Site in order to threaten the lives of the officials and the border incursions in Bara Hoti and other border areas besides the occupation of Aksai Chin.

In July 1954, following the destruction of the Indian Trade Agency buildings in an unprecedented flash flood in Gyantse, Tibet (eyewitnesses suspect Chinese forces of destroying the embankment to let the flash floods into the Agency premises), the Chinese Government had created incessant obstacles in the smooth and timely renovation of the Trade Agent. Later the laborers working on the site of renovation were harassed. Further inconveniences from the Chinese officials included denying accommodation for the official, restriction on the hiring of private trucks or import of India’s own trucks during the renovation. Provisions of transport and other support from the local Chinese authorities are a far cry.

To add to the Agency’s woe, Chinese Government launched military firing practice over the Agency site. The shooting practice is believed to be a strategy of harassing the Indian officials.

Eventually, China even restricted the movements of the Trade Agent officials and their families inside Tibet. And the mail services of the Agency too were suspended.

Furthermore, in the pretext of registration of arms, the Chinese even confiscated the arms possessed by the Agency and the Indian nationals.

The harassment of the Indian traders in Tibet included locking of their shops and confiscation of goods without valid causes. And many others were prosecuted and detained on sheer unfounded suspicion. Indian pilgrims to Mt Kailash were also detained for many weeks and their movements restricted.

Subsequently, the Chinese Government also prevented the Indian Government from evacuating the Indian nationals from Tibet. The Chinese Government refused to accept Indian Government’s evacuation of Ladakhi Lamas and the Kashmiri Muslims to India stating that they are Tibetan citizens from times immemorial.

The Indian Government lodged constant protest over the unhelpful and unfriendly attitude of the local Chinese authorities towards Indian officials and national but to no avail. Such ghastly actions by China are hardly in conformity with principles of non-aggression and friendly co-existence enshrined in the Panchsheel treaty.

Meanwhile Chinese Government launched series of hostile propaganda against India in its official ‘Lhasa Daily’ newspaper accusing the Indian troops based in Gyantse of harassing local Tibetans. The Indian troops were alleged to be seizing food grains and fodders and forcing the local Tibetans to supply transport, firewood, servants, etc in return for nothing. They were also accused of forcing locals to do corvee work, and also destroying crops and colluding with the Tibetan traitor Phala etc. The Indian doctors were also alleged to be charging exorbitant fee from the local Tibetans and the Indian traders purportedly exploiting the Tibetans.

Indian Government denied the allegations as sheer fabrication.

Yet, amid all these developments, curiously enough, unlike India, a small Himalayan nation of Nepal continue to retain its Consulate General in Lhasa to this day.

It was even more appalling to find that the Indian Government was supplying rice and other commodities to the occupying Chinese PLA soldiers in Tibet during the critical period. And in the Indian parliament many lawmakers were alarmed to find the Government “Feeding the enemy?”

In his recent article titled, “60 years on: Unforgiving Legacy of the Panchsheel Agreement”, former Special Director of The Intelligence Bureau, Mr. R N Ravi aptly asked, “Why did India go for the Panchsheel Agreement giving away all its geopolitical and geostrategic interests and assets in Tibet accrued over centuries and so crucial to its national security, even without settling the border?”

Later, Prime Minister Nehru was vehemently criticized for naively assuming that the signing of the agreement indirectly symbolizes China’s acceptance of the Sino-India frontiers and that he had secured peace in the Himalayas.

Studies show that many Indian foreign ministry officials including Secretary General Girja Sharkar Bajpai did stress on the quid pro quo and in his notes to Ambassador Panikkar on 21^st November 1951, Mr. Bajpai emphasized that the recognition of the Sino-India border should be a part of general settlement and that there was no question of surrendering the advantages accrued from the Simla Convention without getting a firm assurance from the Chinese on the McMahon Line and the other sectors. Mr. Bajpai further warned that there was also no question of withdrawing the garrisons in Gyantse and Yatung without securing such an assurance.

Nonetheless, many geo-strategists deemed those as the best period for India to resolve Sino-Indo border crisis with China conclusively.

The First Foreign Secretary of India, Mr. K.P.S. Menon (Senior) justifying Indian Government’s stand, clarified in his book, ‘Twilight in China’ that “Critics of the Government of India have often denounced its alleged inaction on that occasion (Chinese invasion of Tibet). They even say that India gave away Tibet to China. As if Tibet had been India’s to be given away!”  In that case, it could also be argued that India had no business to define the status of Tibet and that too against the wishes of the Tibetan people.  Especially when Prime Minister Nehru had already asserted in the Indian Parliament on 1^st November 1950 that ‘according to any principles they (China) proclaim and the principles I uphold, the last voice in regard to Tibet should be the voice of the people of Tibet and of nobody else’.

Perhaps, such cold political response to the Tibetan tragedy by Nehru could not have been out of his displeasure over Lhasa Government’s cynical demand of the return of ‘lost’ territories of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Arunachal Pradesh and certain parts of Ladakh instead of responding promptly totheIndependent India’s call for ratifying the Simla Convention.

Mr. Claude Arpi, Strategic Analyst and Tibet expert, in his study titled, “The Ev­­olution of Nehru’s Policy on Tibet: 1947-1954” published in year 2000, argued that this historical blunder of claiming ‘lost’ territory would have incalculable consequences for Tibet and for India. Mr. Arpi stressed, “This was in fact one of the most preposterous actions of the Tibetan Government. It was not without reason that Jawaharlal Nehru and other Indian officials were very displeased with the Tibetans. This certainly marks a decisive turn in Nehru’s view on Tibet.” Mr. B.N. Mullick, the IB Chief, summed up Nehru’s feeling when he wrote “this ill-advised claim [to lost Tibetan territories], made by the Tibetan Government resulted in the temporary loss of a certain amount of Indian sympathy for Tibet.”

Strategist Mr. Mohan Guruswamy, in his article titled, “Sino-Indian Ties: 20^th Century Borders for Stable 21^st Century Relations” and many other articles, charged Dalai Lama of staking claim to ‘Tibetan territory’ in the Indian Himalayas, and wrote, “In 1947 the Dalai Lama (the same gentleman who is now in Dharamshala) sent the newly independent India a note laying claim to some districts in NEFA/Arunachal).

It must be clarified that Dalai Lama did not sent the note of territorial claims to the Indian Government. Mr. Guruswamy fails to notice that Dalai Lama was just 12 years old in 1947 and that Tibet was ruled by the Regent Tagra Rinpoche in 1947. All the decisions were made by the Regent in consultation with the Kashag and the Assembly then.

Dalai Lama was called upon to assume the full political power of Tibet only on 17^th November 1950 when he was barely 15 years old (16, according to Tibetan tradition). In fact when the Kashag (The Cabinet) approached Dalai Lama with a request to assume the responsibility of the leader of Tibet, Dalai Lama, in his Autobiography ‘My Land and My People’ wrote, “This filled me with anxiety. I was only sixteen. I was far from having finished my religious education. I knew nothing about the world and had no experience of politics, and yet I was old enough to know how ignorant I was and how much I had still to learn. I protested at first that I was too young, for eighteen was the accepted age for a Dalai Lama to take over active control from his Regent.”

Later, however during an interview with Mr. Claude Arpi in March 1997, when Mr. Arpi asked Dalai Lama if the Kashag had committed a great mistake by refusing to ratify the Simla Convention and bargaining instead for the return of some ‘lost territories’?, Dalai Lama did acknowledged the blunder and said, “Yes, it is my strong feeling. At that time the Tibetan Government should have send a strong delegation to celebrate the Independence of India. Of course that was a big mistake”. He further clarified that although in 1914 at the Simla Convention the border was already demarcated and the [Convention] was signed, the Tibetan officials did not know the Government’s decision.

However, Tibetan Government was among the many nations that had sent the message of Congratulations to the new Independent India.

Mr. Huge E Richardson, British India’s last and Independent India’s first Representative in Lhasa, who was witness to the unfolding events, in his book, “Tibet and its History” referred to this unpleasant Tibetan request explaining, “The request to India was that counterpart of the message conveyed to the Chinese Government by the goodwill mission in 1946, in which they (Tibetan Government) asked in equally wide terms, for the return of all Tibetan territories still in Chinese hands”. 

Mr. Richardson however, revealed that Tibetan Government did contemplate signing a new treaty with the Indian Government but “they were dissuaded by the consideration that negotiations of that sort would have given an opportunity for renewed Chinese pressure on Tibet at a time when the Indian Government was not yet securely in the saddle.”

When we realize the backdrop of unfolding political complexities of the time, we would comprehend Lhasa’s lackluster reaction to the Indian overture. Tibet in the 1940s was passing through one of the most volatile phase of its history when its Government is bogged down in various political quagmire; Regent Reting conspiracy, Panchen Lama imbroglio, the neutrality during the World War-II pitting Tibet against British, American and China on the issue of allowing passage for the weapons through Tibet, indifference to the Tibetan Goodwill Mission by Britain and United States, Chiang Kaishek’s Nationalist Party’s political hijacking and maneuvering of the Tibetan Goodwill Mission in Nanjing Assembly, Ma Pufang’s threat of further invasion of Tibet from the east and Chinese Communist Party’s alarming rise in the east etc.

Eventually, after few months of initial dithering, formal agreement was signed and direct diplomatic and trade relations established between Tibet and India in accordance with its extraterritorial rights derived from the Simla Convention; maintaining an Indian Mission in Lhasa, Trade Agencies, maintaining Military escorts, Rest Houses, Postal, Telegraph, Public telephone services and Hospitals etc.

The signing of the fresh agreement and establishing a diplomatic relation between the two nations however did not clear the initial trepidations. Mr. Richardson stated that the Tibetans continued to be anxious over Indian Government’s attitude towards the status of Tibet. He elaborated, “Although the new Government of India continued, as its predecessor has done, to deal with Tibet on the basis of its de facto independence, by supplying arms and ammunition and maintaining direct diplomatic contacts, the nature of their relations seemed to be misinterpreted in certain pronouncements by Nehru. On more than one occasion he referred publicly to a general recognition of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. He qualified that statement by describing the suzerainty as ‘vague and shadowy’. Nevertheless, the Tibetans were concerned at his disregard for the obligation, which he had inherited under Simla declaration of 1914, not to accord recognition of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, of any sort whatsoever.” “By gratuitously stressing Chinese suzerainty the Indian Prime Minister appeared to serve notice on the Communists that in their designs on Tibet they need not fear any serious opposition from India”, he added.

Meanwhile China’s incessant deception and subsequent 1962 attack shocked and shattered Prime Minister Nehru so much that in a broadcast to the nation on October 20, 1962, he confessed, “Perhaps there are not many instances in history where one country (referring to India) has gone out of her way to be friendly and cooperative with the government and people of another country (referring to China) and to plead their cause in the councils of the world, and then that country returns evil for good.”

And the Indian Parliament on November 14 1962 adopted a unanimously Resolution affirming, “The firm resolve of the Indian people to drive out the aggressor from the sacred soil of India, however long and hard the struggle may be.”

Despite all the brouhaha over the Chinese betrayal and vengeance and all, the subsequent Indian Governments, even after Nehru’s tragic death, continue to follow Nehru’s India policy on Tibet which he announced in the Indian Parliament on 27^th April 1959. Mr. Nehru affirmed, “I stated some time ago that our broad policy (on Tibet) was governed by three factors: (1) the preservation of the security and integrity of India; (2) our desire to maintain friendly relations with China; and (3) our deep sympathy for the people of Tibet. We shall continue to follow that policy because we think that is a correct policy not only for the present but even more so for the future.”  

The policies also entail that the Tibetans in India will be restricted from carrying out anti-Chinese political activities. And that Tibet will be regarded as an internal matter of China.

Over the years, another strange justification over India’s restrained political approach to the Tibetan issue is that “if India does anything more to help Tibet, it will upset the Chinese and the fate of Tibet would only worsen”. Like many other weird arguments, this too would be repeated ritualistically for many decades to the great dismay of the Tibetans.

Consequently, the challenge for the Government of India’s policy on Tibet and the Tibetans is to maintain a balance between the three core principles of 1) the preservation of the security and integrity of India; (2) to maintain friendly relations with China; and (3) to accord deep sympathy for the people of Tibet.  

But many believe that the balance has been severely tilted in favor of China to the detriment of India and Tibet’s national interest. Compromising principles for the sake of cordial bilateral relation and economic gains is one thing, but compromising national security and long-term interest is anything but Realpolitik.

Indeed, India’s humanitarian support to the exiled Tibetans is overwhelming and unparallel in the history of a national struggle and the Tibetan people are highly indebted for the same. But the Tibetan people will be most contented the day India intensify its political support to the Tibetans in tune with its own national and strategic interest. After all, Tibetan struggle is a political and a national struggle and not merely Humanitarian.

Furthermore, Tibet is a lever that India can utilize to further its national interest vis-à-vis China. And on every occasion, Tibetans in India have never failed to demonstrate their utmost loyalty, dedication and love for this country. However it would be morally wrong and practically inconceivable if it employs the leverage against the Tibetan people and their Interest. Thus far, such strategy had always boomeranged in the diplomatic sphere.

While it is indisputable that a policy of a country is driven more by a national interest and pragmatism than principles and emotions, it is imperative that those policies be primarily based on reality and facts rather than false expectations and gimmicks.

And many strategists believe that it is in the national interest; territorial integrity, security, strategic, democratic and in the long term interest of India to adopt more assertive and pragmatic policy vis-à-vis China and effectively neutralize its half a century-long containment policies and campaign.

Thus far, Panchsheel and other appeasements have seriously failed to build a genuine friendly neighborhood with China. Therefore, stakes are definitely high and the task daunting but it’s inevitable that the coming Government should revamp its policy on China as a key priority.

(The writer is a member of Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Central Tibetan Administration)