[Indian Today]
By Sanat Kaul
Sanat Kaul
While the Chinese are celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the lapsed Panchsheel Agreement with India is also joining in, India is not bothering to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Simla Agreement of 1914, the basis on which it claims Arunachal Pradesh. The Modi government must introspect on it as it already sent the Vice-President of India to Beijing to join the celebrations.
The Simla Convention of 1914 led to a landmark international Agreement. This was so because the British Government invited Governments of Tibet and China as equals to sit with the British Government in Simla to delineate the border of India, Tibet and China. China was represented by its plenipotentiary Ivan Chen or Chen I’fan, Tibet by Lonchen Shastra and the British Sir A Henry McMahon, Foreign Secretary, Govt of India and an authority on demarcation of border as well as a skilled Arbitrator.
Discussions
The discussions went on for eight months from 1913 into 1914 July. On April 27, 1914 an agreement was initialled by the three representatives. However, the Chinese Government did not support their representative and did not ratify the agreement. Notwithstanding the Chinese refusal to ratify the agreement it was a clear acknowledgement that Tibet was a sovereign power. The British and the Tibetan Government thereafter, signed the agreement on 3rd July 1914 delineating the border between India and Tibet which became known as the McMahon line.
What was this convention about? The British wanted settled borders with Tibet and were prepared to give China suzeranity over Tibet to ward off the Russians from coming to Tibet. McMahon’s professed aim of the Conference was to put an end to the state of war that existed between China and Tibet. The Tibetans looked towards an acknowledgement of Tibet as an independent country, which they achieved. The Chinese, wanted sovereignty over Tibet, but they even lost their claim even of suzerainty by not ratifying it. In this dispute, Sir Henry McMahon became a kind of arbitrator and proposed division of Tibet into Inner and Outer Tibet- inner being west Tibet as an independent country while outereastern Tibet going to China on the lines of division of Mongolia done by the Russian a year earlier. China did not accept the division but they had no problem over Indo-Tibetan boundary. The fact that the Chinese, came willingly and sat as equal with the Tibetans shows that they then accepted Tibet as a sovereign nation.
India’s warm ties with China started with the Panchsheel Agreement. But the Simla Agreement better represents our interests.
Sovereignty
The Chinese started believing in the myth of their sovereignty over Tibet only after 1911 when China became a republic overthrowing their emperor. Nehru’s role in accepting Tibet as a region of China and not coming to Tibet’s help since 1950 finally caught up with him in 1962 when China invaded India. It was unfortunate that Tibet’s cry for help and even going to the UN for help was ignored by Nehru. It was El Salvador which took up the cause of Tibet in a UN resolution against the Chinese aggression in Tibet but failed to get it passed as India requested it to be deferred and the western powers looked to India to give a lead.
The McMahon Line was drawn in 1914 at the Simla Conference over Indo-Tibetan border, initialled by China, Tibet and Britain as equals and thereafter, Tibet and Britain also signing an Agreement on the Indo-Tibetan border. This is the basis on which we consider Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India. China, on the other hand, started calling Simla Agreement as an ‘unequal treaty’ and after conquering Tibet has laid claim to the entire Arunachal Pradesh.
By 1954 Nehru’s infatuation with China was total. Sardar Patel, then India’s Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, a realist and against Nehru’s soft policy towards China, had written him a letter on 7th November 1950 warning him of his China policy. But his letter remained unanswered and he died a little thereafter. This allowed Nehru a free hand as he never appointed a foreign minister. He sent a delegation to Beijing in 1954 which concluded the Panchsheel Agreement on trade with Tibet.
Surrender
This agreement was described by Acharya Kripalani, a major political leader of those days and an MP, as ‘Born in Sin’ as India accepted Tibet as a region of China without even consulting Tibet which was an independent country then. Further, India surrendered all its existing rights and properties in Tibet without a quid pro quo. No border issues were discussed as Nehru forbade the Indian delegation to discuss it unless the Chinese wanted to. The Panchsheel Agreement was valid for eight years i.e. up to 1962 and was never renewed and is since a dead document. Incidentally, Chinese attack on India took place in 1962 after this agreement had lapsed.
The Panchsheel Agreement of 1954 died in letter in April 1962 and was killed in spirit by the Chinese in October 1962. On the other hand, the Simla Agreement of 3rd July 1914 and 27th April 1914 is still a living legal document. Can we not celebrate its 100th Anniversary and undo the wrong in history done by ourselves to ourselves?
The writer is connected with the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
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