The study is divided in four parts, each covered in a volume.
The four volumes respectively cover the periods 1947-1951, 1951-1954, 1954-1957 and 1957-1962.
Introduction
The end of the 1940s saw momentous events which, in one way, redesigned the world.
Two years after the end of WWII, India got her Independence from the British; in October 1949, the sleeping Dragon, Communist China rose when its Great Helmsman announced the creation of the People’s Republic of China from the rostrum on Tiananmen Square.
Mao Zedong was very quick to move: by the end of December 1949, with the blessings of Stalin, he had annexed Eastern Turkestan (today Xinjiang) and reached the gates of India, north of the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
In January 1950, Beijing announced its next step on the Asian chessboard: it would ‘liberate’ Tibet, Formosa (today Taiwan) and the island of Hainan.
While the Communists advanced their pawns towards India’s borders, some leaders in India continued to imagine a perfect world and soon their main strategic objective became to avoid at any cost a world conflict.
It is with this background that the study of Tibet-India relations between 1947 and 1962, conducted under the Field Marshal KM Cariappa Chair of Excellence of the United Service Institution of India, witnessed the rise of the two Asian giants, with two different purposes, one could say, two opposite visions of the world: one wanted to dominate Asia with its foreign ideology, while the other dreamt of world peace.
Unfortunately in the process, India lost a century-old buffer zone between its Northern plains and the Middle Kingdom.
By the beginning of 1951, Tibet and Xinjiang were militarily absorbed into the new People’s Republic of China.
Many Indian political leaders soon realized that the Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai honeymoon between Delhi and Beijing as envisaged by the Indian Prime Minister could only translate into the loss of a peaceful frontier for India.
Unfortunately, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister and prime opponent of this policy, who presciently foresaw the implications for his country, passed away on December 15, 1950, leaving Jawaharlal Nehru to freely continue his policy of ‘friendship’ at any cost, with consequences very much present more than 70 years later.
Paradoxically, the Indian officials posted on the Roof of the World quickly discovered the true objectives of the Communists. But tragically, after Patel’s death, nobody in Delhi or the Indian Embassy in Beijing was ready to listen to the intrepid officers.
This study goes in depth into the slow break-down of the age-old Indo-Tibet relations, gradually being replaced by a cruder relation with the new occupiers of Tibet.
India’s friendly relationship with its Buddhist neighbour was progressively terminated by the presence of the PLA on the plateau. During these fifteen years, not many Tibetans had the courage to fight the ineluctable; most of them, whether from the aristocracy or the clergy, collaborated with the occupying forces, particularly in the first years after the invasion.
The fifteen years under study witnessed a series of momentous events: starting with the annexation of Xinjiang and the closure of the Indian Consulate in Kashgar (end of 1949/1950), the invasion of Tibet (end of 1950), the signature of a 17-Point Agreement (May 1951) between China and Tibet and the arrival of the Chinese troops in Lhasa (September 1951).
During the first years of occupation, the reports of the Indian Trade Agent in Yatung, Gyantse and Gartok, as well as of the Indian representatives in Lhasa, vividly described the changing trends in the power balance on the plateau. The Indian officials, who for decades dealt directly with the Tibetan authorities, had now to pass through the Chinese PLA officers.
Then China started to build strategic roads, most of them towards the Indian borders or worse, through Indian territory in the Aksai Chin in Ladakh.
As the situation continued to deteriorate on the plateau, India and China decided to engage in the ‘Tibet Talks’ in Beijing (which started on December 31, 1953); the negotiations, which culminated with the signature of the Panchsheel Agreement in April 1954, saw India losing all the rights it had in Tibet since the beginning of the 20th century.
This bi-lateral accord between Delhi and Beijing redefined India’s age-old trade relations with Tibet; but the Tibetans themselves were excluded from the negotiations and the benefits of the Agreement.
In many ways, it marked the tail end of the events set into motion by the entry of Younghusband in Tibet in 1904. While the British expedition indicated recognition of Tibet as a separate entity (for the Western power), the signing of the Agreement put an end to Tibet as an independent nation. The circle was closed, with incalculable consequences for the Himalayan region and India in general.
It took a few more years and many persistent Chinese intrusions on Indian soil to sensitize the Indian government and public to the gravity of the new state of affairs.
The third and fourth parts of our study go further into the deteriorating situation on the Roof of the World, with Communist China tightening their grip on the administration, trade and religion. Despite a visit to India of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama in 1956/57 for the 2500th Buddha Jayanti celebrations, the down-sliding could not be stopped.
This tense situation culminated in the events of March 1959, which saw an uprising of the Tibetan population in Lhasa and the flight of the Dalai Lama who took refuge in India.
Soon after, the border intrusions turned into armed clash on the frontier (Longju, Spangur Gap, etc.); this marked the beginning of the ‘dispute’ with China over the Northern boundaries of India.
The three following years saw the Chinese ‘preparations’ for the onslaught on the Indian borders. Our narrative finishes with the border war between the two Asian giants in October 1962; it shattered the Indian Prime Minister’s dream of an eternal friendship with Communist China.
The Indian presence in Tibet ended with the lapse of the Panchsheel Agreement in April 1962 (it was not renewed) and the closure of the Consulate General of India in Lhasa in December 1962. This marked the end of an era.
The study has recorded in great detail these events which continue to have implications 60 years after the armed conflict in NEFA and Ladakh; the consequences can still be seen today in Eastern Ladakh and other sectors of the Tibet-India boundary, which has unfortunately become the Sino-Indian border.
Today, the Chinese propaganda would like us to believe that Tibet has always been part of China, but historical records show that it is not a fact and that the relations between Tibet and India are as ancient as the Himalaya ranges. Fifteen years have been documented through more than 2,000 pages.
To put these facts on record was the main purpose of our study under the Field Marshal KM Cariappa Chair of Excellence.
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