The Tibet Conundrum: Part 1. The Annexation

The Tibet Conundrum: Part 1. The Annexation.
Samvad with Claude Arpi
An Interview with Mayank Singh

Claude Arpi in Samvad discusses the period between 1950-51 as China annexed Tibet militarily. PM Jawaharlal Nehru's idealism was no match for Mao's strategic thinking. India's refusal to get involved in Tibet as a peaceful nation was being ravaged by a revisionist China resulted in a situation where a peaceful Indo-Tibet border was converted into a hostile Indo-China border. Nehru's refusal to pay heed to Sardar Patel's strategic advice and warning would soon have grave repercussions for India. The British deception in the takeover of Tibet is also elaborated upon by Arpi.

A nation without a memory is a dead nation

by Shankar, November 5, 1950
US President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson
when the Chinese entered Tibet

I wrote for Friends of Tibet about The Importance of Memory

October 7, 2020 marked the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossing the Upper Yangtze, entering into the territory controlled by Lhasa and advancing towards Chamdo, the capital of Kham province. While invading Eastern Tibet, Beijing asserted that it was ‘liberating’ the Land of Snows.
It was indeed a great tragedy for the Tibetan Nation, but perhaps worse is the fact that today the world seems to have completely forgotten what befell the Land of Snows.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s native country had all the attributes of a sovereign State (a government, a language, a script, a flag, a (weak) army, coins, stamps, etc); for centuries, the Land of Snow also had unhindered relations with India, first and foremost, in the cultural and spiritual domains (Tibetan Buddhism originates from Nalanda), but also economically with countless ‘silk’ roads across the Himalaya; in other words, there was a deep kinship between the two nations.
This has been forgotten by many.

A nation without a memory is a dead nation
That is why one can only welcome the initiative of Friends of Tibet to open a Research Page on their website; in their own words, their objectives are: “to conduct and publish research on the unique heritage, legacy and history of Tibet, before and after Chinese occupation.”
To keep the memory alive, research is necessary.
Let me give a personal example.
Lost memory is what motivated me to record the history of the relations between India and Tibet between 1947 and 1962; Why? Today, the world is facing China’s formidable propaganda machinery, which is able to paint in white what is black and vice-versa. I have already mentioned the ‘liberation’ of Tibet which, in fact, was its enslavement.
To give a more precise example, the last volume of my four volumes (1958-1962) witnessed the most dramatic events not only for the Tibetan nation, but also for the bilateral relations between India and Tibet; it first saw the consolidation of the Chinese military presence on the plateau facing the Indian borders, then the Uprising of the Tibetan masses in March 1959, which prompted His Holiness the Dalai Lama to flee to India, where the Tibetan leader and tens of thousands of his followers became refugees: the Chinese propaganda projected the March 1959 events as the ‘emancipation of the serfs’, though the reality was the exact opposite.
Very few today remember the Indian Trade Agents in Gartok, Gyantse and Yatung or the Consul General of India in Lhasa who played such an important role in the life of the Himalayan nation and the silk roads with India. More than ever, it is necessary to remember the past to understand the present.
During the last two years before the 1962 border war, many realized that an era was coming to an end; Mao’s China did not want any Indian presence in Tibet, China’s ‘new colony’. A sense of jealousy towards India prevailed; Beijing clearly resented the existence of an age-old civilizational relation between India and Tibet;, it wanted to erase all traces of Indian presence in Tibet. It is what the Communists did.
Trying to reconstitute what happened from the few sources available is always a hard job, but ultimately a satisfying one.
Using new sources, I managed to uncover some not-too-well known aspects of the 1962 China-India war, in particular, the five-year ‘training’ of the PLA during the Tibetan insurgency which greatly helped the Chinese forces in becoming familiar with the terrain and other logistic difficulties on the plateau.
In a previous volume, I quoted Apa Pant, the Political Officer in Sikkim, saying that the Chinese officers were not interested “in harmony and compassion but in power and material benefit”; Pant spoke of the confrontation of two different worlds: “The one so apparently inefficient, so humane and even timid, yet kind and compassionate and aspiring to something more gloriously satisfying in human life; the other determined and effective, ruthless, power-hungry and finally intolerant. I wondered how this conflict could resolve itself, and what was India’s place in it.”
An ancient world disappeared in 1962 and in the process, India lost a friend, a kind neighbour and a peaceful border.

The Relations between India and Tibet
Cultural relations between India and Tibet are as old as the Himalayas.
Historically, the first contact occurred when Nyatri Tsenpo was enthroned as the first king of Tibet (Yarlung dynasty) in 127 b.c. The king is said to have belonged to the Sakya clan (Buddha’s family) and to have ‘landed’ in Central Tibet from India with the help of a legendary ‘sky-rope’.
However, modern research in the pre-Buddhist Tibetan civilisation have revealed the presence of a highly developed culture on the Roof of the World, the Bon faith, long before Buddhism was introduced. This culture, which flourished in the kingdom of Shangshung (Western Tibet) had constant contacts with India as well as Central Asia; its script (Mar-yig) probably derives from an old brahmi script.
The relations with the Roof of the World took a new turn during the period known as the First Propagation of the Buddha Dharma in Tibet (VII-VIII century A.D.). Many great Indian Masters such Padmasambhava and Sankarakshita visited Tibet and Buddhism became the religion of the court. The present Tibetan script and grammar were brought from India by a Minister of King Song-Tsen-Gompo in order to translate Buddhist scriptures,
The Second Propagation (X-XI century) is considered by many scholars as the Renaissance in Tibet. The temples and gompas (viharas) of Tholing and Tsaparang in Western Tibet (as well as Alchi and Tabo in the Indian Himalayas) witnessed an extraordinary explosion of Buddhist Art, Literature, Architecture and Spirituality. The origin of this renaissance was India.
The Indian source of inspiration dried up with the Muslim invasion of North India (XII-XIII century). All remnants of Buddhist culture and knowledge disappeared from the sub-continent. Tibet had to turn towards Mongolia and then China to seek protection. Eventually the Tibetan Lamas became the gurus of the Mongolian Khans and the Manchu Emperors.
However for Tibet, India remained the Sacred Land: Aryabhumi.

The Tibetan medicine
Many aspects of Tibetan history and civilization need to be researched and recorded. I particularly think of the necessity to preserve the Tibetan System of Medicine or Sowa Rigpa (‘The Art of Healing’). If not done, China will do it …with Chinese characteristics.
Beijing recently applied to get the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status for the Tibetan Art of Healing; it has submitted an application to the Paris-based UNESCO.
China says that Tibetan medicine, which originated from the ‘Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’ in the 7th century is one of the world's four traditional medicines: “It has been well known in neighboring countries such as Nepal, Mongolia, Russia, Bhutan and India as well as European countries in the 8th century.”
The age-old connection with the Indian medicinal systems such ayurveda has been relegated to just be “well known in neighboring countries.”
I am happy that Friends of Tibet has already started posting research papers on Sowa Rigpa in this section.
The possible research topics are countless, whether in the religious and spiritual realm, in art, poetry, painting, architecture, or sociology; it has never been so important to record the rich heritage of the Tibetan nation, even if world politicians, in their egoism and their eagerness ‘to do business with China’ are still reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as a Tibetan Nation.
I have to add that some fifteen years ago, it was a real pleasure for me to work with Friends of Tibet and write the text giving the background of a number of exceptional cartoons on Tibet.
The survival of the Land of Snows depends today on the research on Tibet’s past as well as a vision for the future; this needs to be looked into with a modern and scientific mind. Hopefully, the world will soon change for the better and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Land of Snows will be able to play again a role in the Concert or Nations; in the meantime, it is crucial to preserve of the Memory of this unique nation.
Let us hope that the initiative of Friends of Tibet will be emulated.

Old Chinese habits die hard but have we learnt the lessons?

Namkha chu-Namjiang chu

My article Old Chinese habits die hard but have we learnt the lessons? appeared in The Daily Guardian

Here is the link...

China’s questionable conduct regarding border and territory disputes has raised eyebrows time and again. What remains to be seen now is whether India can learn from history to prevent it from repeating.

An often mentioned remark is: “History repeats itself.” Even in antiquity, a Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence was taught. When one looks at the history of the Communist Party of China since 1949, one can see that there is definitely some truth in this concept.
I experienced this “recurrence” a number of times during recent research on the Indian presence in Tibet between 1947 and 1962. Trying to put on record what happened to the age-old relation between India and Tibet is a rather depressing story, not only because it ended with the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet and a border war with China, but also because history seems to be repeating itself today, even in the minutest details.
Since our planet entered the ‘New Virus Era’ (which originated from China) in January, followed by the unexpected attack from the People’s Liberation of China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh in May, the past events in Tibet kept coming to my mind. China seems to have never given up its quest to extend what it perceived as its territory; further, the brutal way to push its interests remains the same.
I remember the great historian R.C. Majumdar’s statement from decades ago, when he had rightly assessed the Chinese way of behaving, which went: “There is one aspect of Chinese culture that is little known outside the circle of professional historians. It is the aggressive imperialism that characterised the politics of China throughout the course of her history… Thanks to the systematic recording of historical facts by the Chinese themselves… we [historians] are in a position to follow the imperial and aggressive policy of China from the third century BC to the present day, a period of more than twenty-two hundred years… It is characteristic of China that if a region once acknowledged her nominal suzerainty even for a short period, she should regard it as a part of her empire forever and would automatically revive her claim over it even after a thousand years whenever there was a chance of enforcing it.” Today, China’s claims have advanced further to earlier unclaimed new areas, and when the mindset does not change, history can only repeat itself.
The Communist regime probably still believes that power comes out of the barrel of a gun. It was true in Xinjiang and Tibet in the early 1950s, and it is a fact in Ladakh today. In 1949, hardly two months after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao had annexed Xinjiang, opening the door to Western Tibet which would be occupied a few months later.
There is a recurrent characteristic of the Communists regime: First, it takes what it “needs”, then announces that it is ready to talk. The two-pronged strategic move had been followed in Tibet, with the military attack on Chamdo in October 1950, after which negotiations had been held in May 1951, forcing a 17-Point Agreement on a weak Tibetan nation. It was a typical Chinese approach. Later, Mao did the same thing in the Aksai Chin area of Ladakh. He built a road on Indian territory and sent Zhou Enlai, his Premier, afterwards to discuss with the idealist Indian Prime Minister.
Today, whether it is in the South China Sea, in Ladakh or elsewhere, China has followed the same pattern — it helps itself to what it wants and then offers to talk. At the same time, as we have seen recently in Ladakh (or 60 years ago for the Aksai Chin), Beijing remains intransigent and refuses to vacate any of the areas which have been freshly occupied.
Beijing has been unable to justify its action in one more ‘repeat’ of the kind of incidents seen in the 1950s, even with solid historical proofs Why is it so? In 1950, apart from a vague suzerainty, China had no proof that Tibet and Xinjiang ‘belonged’ to the Middle Kingdom (China’s suzerainty over Tibet was called by Lord Curzon a ‘constitutional fiction’). Ditto in Ladakh, where China cannot justify its military advance, even though, at the same time, the Chinese propaganda would like to make us believe that black is white or vice-versa. In March 1959, Mao had projected the Tibetan Uprising as the ‘emancipation of the serfs’, whereas the reality had been the very opposite. It was the greatest mass movement witnessed in the Land of Snows, with the entire population of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital revolting against the invaders. Meanwhile, today, the Chinese propaganda claims that India attacked China in Ladakh and tried to grab some ‘legitimate’ Chinese territory. The tragedy is that the Chinese masses have no choice but to believe their official media (as there is no other).
The two years preceding the closure of the Indian diplomatic missions in Tibet in 1962 saw constant harassment of the Indian diplomatic personnel in Tibet who had to deal with thorny issues such as the fate of Indian traders or the vicissitudes of the pilgrims to Mt Kailash. It is frightening to see that in each case, the Chinese authorities put the blame on the helpless Indian officials in Lhasa, Gyantse or Yatung.
Finally, the Chinese way to negotiate continues to follow similar patterns. At the end of 1953, negotiations for the “Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India” started in Beijing. The talks were to be settled in a couple of weeks. It took four months to arrive at an accord, and in the process, the Indian negotiator “forgot” to include the border (an issue still haunting India) in the package deal. On 23 March 1954, after three months of tough negotiations, the Indian Ambassador N. Raghavan cabled Delhi that the Chinese had objected to keeping open the old traditional route via Demchok in Ladakh. The Indian diplomat could not understand why.
A month later, on 24 April, Raghavan informed Delhi about a fight which took place between him and Zhang Hanfu, his Chinese counterpart. “It was a royal fight from beginning to end,” he reported. In the process, the Indian diplomats discovered that China had a big problem with Ladakh. It virulently objected to the Ladakh route being included in the Agreement, and Zhang quoted an oral understanding. “[China] would not like in writing even by implication to have any reference to Ladakh,” cabled Raghavan to Delhi. Why? Simply because the mountainous region was considered a “disputed” region, with China claiming part of it. The route has never been reopened since then.
History seems to repeat again and again, but one can hope that India has learnt some lessons from history and will be firmer and stronger than it was in the 1950s.