Between Boldness and Cautiousness

UN Session on the Question of Tibet, 1965

External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar yesterday stated that “If India has to grow, it has to shed its traditional caution, step out more, be more confident and articulate its interests.”

That sounds good.

The former diplomat, now minister added: “If we are to grow by leveraging the international situation, we have to exploit the opportunities out there. Can’t do that by saying, ‘I’m going to stay away from it all, and when I find it convenient I will step out’. Either you’re in the game or you’re not in the game. The era of great caution and greater dependence on multilateralism, is behind us. We have to step out more. We have to be more confident, we have to articulate our interests better. We need to take risks. Without taking risks, you can’t get ahead. Those are choices we have to make.”

Let us hope that his government will make the right decision.

The Vijay Gokhale Directive

We still remember that on February 22, 2018, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, a former Indian ambassador to Beijing, requested PK Sinha, the Cabinet Secretary  to issue a “classified circular advisory advising all Ministries/Departments of Government of India as well as State Governments not to accept any invitation or to participate in the proposed commemorative events [of the 60th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's arrival in India].”
Addressed to the secretaries and heads of government departments,the directive banned the participation of government servants in the events to mark the start of 60 years in exile of the Dalai Lama; "it should be discouraged", said the note and “accordingly, you are requested to ensure appropriate action in the matter”.
The Indian Express then wrote: “In an unusual departure from its stand on the Tibetans-in-exile, the government, underlining that this is a ‘very sensitive time’ for bilateral relations with China, has sent out a note asking ‘senior leaders’ and ‘government functionaries’ of the Centre and states to stay away from events planned for March-end and early April by the ‘Tibetan leadership in India’ to mark the start of 60 years in exile of the Dalai Lama.”

Sinha quoted Gokhale’s note to underline “the sensitive nature of the subject.”

That was cautiousness at the extreme.

Retrospectively, did this help India …or China?

In my opinion, it emboldened China a great deal.

That is why is good that Dr Jaishankar speaks now of shedding its traditional caution.

Bolder Times

This reminds me another era, other times, when India was still bold.

The Prime Minister might have been short, but he was a Tall Leader.

Just read the statement of Rafiq Zakaria, the Indian Permanent Representative at the UN General Assembly in New York during a debate on the ‘Question of Tibet’ in 1965, you will understand.

That was bold and to the point; defending India's interests as well as supporting Tibet.

Eventually, the UN General Assembly passed a Resolution in favour of Tibet; what was interesting was that while during the previous sessions in 1959 and 1961, India had abstained from voting, in 1965, India voted in favour of the Resolution.

The full text of the Indian Representative is given below.

Tibetan delegates in 1965
(Rinchen Sadhuthsang, Tsepon Shakabpa, Gyalo Thodup)

Statement by Shri Rajiq Zakaria (India):
As representatives are aware, for the past fifteen years the question of Tibet has been from time to time under the consideration of the United Nations.
It was first raised here in 1950 at the Fifth Session of the General Assembly but it could not be placed on the agenda.
In fact, my country opposed its inclusion at that time because we were assured by China that it was anxious to settle the problem by peaceful means. However, instead of improving, the situation in Tibet began to worsen, and since then the question has come up several times before the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Our delegations participated in the discussion at the Fourteenth Session in 1959 and although we abstained from voting, we made it clear that because of our close historical, cultural and religious ties with the Tibetans, we could not but be deeply moved and affected by what was happening in that region.
We hoped against hope that wiser counsel would prevail among the Chinese and that there would be an end to the sufferings of the people of Tibet.
However, the passage of time has completely belied our hopes. As the day pass, the situation becomes worse and cries out for the attention of all mankind. As we know, ever since Tibet came under the stranglehold of China, the Tibetans have been subjected to a continuous and increasing ruthlessness which has few parallel in the annals of the world. In the name of introducing 'democratic reforms’ and fighting a ‘counter-revolution’, the Chinese have indulged in the worst kind genocide and the suppression of a minority race.
To begin with, we in India were hopeful that, as contacts between the Chinese and the Tibetans under the changed set-up became closer and more intimate, more harmonious relationship would emerge. In fact, in 1956, as a result of the long talks with Mr. Chou En-lai the Chinese Premier, my late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru felt confident that a mutually agreeable adjustment between the two peoples would be established.
Even the Dalai Lama expressed a similar hope to our late Prime Minister, but, as subsequent events have proved, the Chinese never believed in living up to their assurances. They promised autonomy to Tibet and the safeguarding of its culture and religious heritage and traditions but, as the International Commission of Jurists its June 1959 report on Tibet has emphasised they attempted on the contrary:

To destroy the national, ethnical, racial and religious group of Tibetans as such by killing members of the group and by causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group.

The world is aware that it was in protest against and enslavement of Tibet that the Dalai Lama, who is held in the highest esteem by all Tibetans and, indeed, respected as a spiritual leader by all Indians - fled From Lhasa and took asylum in India. Today there are thousands of Tibetan refugees in my country; approximately 50,000 who have left their hearth and homes and fled from their country to loin their leader and seek refuge in India. The flight of these refugees still continues, far the Chinese have transformed Tibet into a vast military camp, where the indigenous Tibetans are made to live like hewers of wood and drawers of water.
Although the relationship between Tibet and India is centuries old and has flourished all through the ages in all its manifestations, whether religious, cultural or economic, we have always token care not to make that relationship a political problem. In recent years, despite the fact the Dalai Lama and thousands of his Tibetan followers have come to our land, and despite the fact that China has turned Tibet itself into a base of aggression against our northern borders, we have not exploited the situation.
Undoubtedly, our notional sentiments are now and again aroused as a result of the atrocities and cruelties committed by the Chinese against Tibetans, but we have exercised the greatest caution, for we believe that what should concern all of us is the much larger human problem, namely the plight of these good and innocent people who are victimised merely because they are different, ethnically and culturally, from the Chinese.
Here I feel that it would not be out of place to put before this august Assembly the following facts which stand out stubbornly and irrefutably in connection with Chinese policy in Tibet.

1. The autonomy guaranteed in Sino-Tibetan Agreement of 1951 has from the beginning remained a dead letter.
2. Through increasing application of military force, the Chinese have in fact obliterated the autonomous character of Tibet.
3. There has been arbitrary confiscation of properties belonging to monasteries and individuals and Tibetan Government institutions.
4. Freedom of religion is denied to the Tibetans, and Buddhism is being suppressed together with the system of priests, monasteries, shrines and monuments.
5. The Tibetans are allowed no freedom of information or expression.
6. There has also been carried out a systematic policy of killing, imprisonment and deportation of those Tibetans who have been active in their opposition to Chinese rule.
7. The Chinese have forcibly transferred large numbers of Tibetan children in China in order to denationalise them, to indoctrinate them in Chinese ideology and to make them forget their own Tibetan religion, culture and way of life, and
8. There has also been a large-scale attempt to bring Han Chinese into Tibet, and thereby make Tibet Chinese and overwhelm the indigenous people with a more numerous Chinese population.

These atrocities, carried out ruthlessly with utter disregard for Tibetan sentiments and aspirations, and in complete violation of universally recognised human rights, and up to a frightful programmed of the suppression of a whole people. It surpasses anything that colonialists have done in the past to the peoples whom they ruled as slaves. That is why the United Nations General Assembly took note of the situation in Tibet and passed two resolutions, one in 1959 and the other in 1961, deploring the denial of these human rights to the people of Tibet by the Chinese Government and appearing to it to restore these rights to the Tibetan people. But all such pleas have fallen on deaf ears, is this situation not a challenge to human conscience?
Can we, dedicated as we are here to the Charter of the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, remain mute spectators to the ghostly tragedy that is being enacted by a ruthless and oppressive regime in Tibet?
In a recent appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations and to the Member States, which is contained in Document A/608 1, the Dalai Lama, who has been a model of restraint, serenity and, indeed, of humanity, has warned the Organisation that the Chinese's, if unchecked would resort to still more brutal means of exterminating the Tibetan race. There is no limit to the hardships that the Tibetan people are suffering. Even their supply of food is restricted and controlled by the Chinese who first feed their military forces in Tibet, and then whatever remains is given to the ingenious Tibetans. My delegation naturally feels concerned about the terrible deterioration of the situation in Tibet.
On December 17, 1964, for instance, the Dalai Lama was formally deprived of his position as Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet and denounced as 'an incorrigible running dog of imperialism and foreign reactionaries’, this was immediately followed by the disposition an December 30, 1964 of the Panchen Lama, whom the Chinese tried assiduously to take under their wing, and by his condemnation as a leader of the clique of reactionary serf owner.
Thus the Chinese have severed the remaining political links between Tibet and its two politico-religious structures, and have given a final blow to what they fondly used to call, in the past ‘The Special status of Tibet’.
Moreover, the campaign to dispossess Tibetan peasants of their land and to distribute their properties is also being accelerated with the definition of what precisely constitutes Feudal elements being expanded, from time to time to cover a wider and wider range of peasants. In fact, those so-called land reforms are being used by the Chinese Government to advance its own political purpose and to turn the Tibetan peasants into slaves of its system. The naked truth - which all of us must face - is that the Chinese Government is determined to obliterate the Tibetan people, but surely no people can remain for long suppressed. I have faith in the world community. I believe it will be able to help restore to the Tibetans all the freedom which we hove enshrined, with such dedication, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For our part, we assure the United Nation that - as in the past - we shall continue to give all facilities to the Tibetan refugees, and do our best to alleviate their sufferings and hardships, the Dalai Lama has been living in India for some years now, and is carrying on his religious humanitarian activities without any restriction from us. We shall continue to give the Dalai Lama and his simple and peace loving people these facilities and all our hospitality.
It is for these reasons that we support, fully and wholeheartedly, the cause of the people of Tibet. Our hearts go out to them in their miserable plight and in terrible suppression that they are suffering at the hands of the Government of the People's Republic of China. Although that regime has given us, and continues to give us, provocation, we have refused to use the Tibetan refugees as pawns in our conflict with China. We do not believe that the sufferings of one people should be made a weapon in the armoury of another. 'In the end, may I express the fervent an behalf of the United Nations that there would soon be an end to the reign of misery and oppression in Tibet and that the people of Tibet will be able to shore with us all those human rights that all of us, in different lands are so fortunate to possess and enjoy.

My delegation will, therefore, vote in favour of the draft resolution contained in Document A/L.473, and I commend the same to this august Assembly.