BOOK REVIEW Graveyard of Indian idealism Tibet. The Lost Frontier by Claude Arpi
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Although the absorption of Tibet into China since 1950 has been copiously
discussed from different angles, there is a dearth of understanding about the
regional politics surrounding the "roof of the world". Since time immemorial,
Tibet’s fate has been intertwined with that of its two giant neighbors, China
and India. French scholar Claude Arpi's new book teases out the complex
workings of this triangle and throws light on how Indian idealism came a
cropper against Chinese realpolitik.
Arpi begins with a historical distillation about the nature of the triangle:
"Tibet and China always had a relation based on force and power, while Tibet
and India had more of a cultural relationship based on shared spiritual
values." (p 25) In the Medieval age, Indian and Tibetan Buddhist seers and
translators
crisscrossed their respective borders in a constant exchange of knowledge and
wisdom. Arpi classifies Tibet as "a child of Indian civilization".
However, the decline and disappearance of Buddhism in India pushed Tibet to
find new protectors to preserve the Dharma and this set the stage for
priest-patron relationships with Mongol and Chinese emperors. This
politico-spiritual system lasted for centuries until Manchu troops invaded
Tibet in 1908.
Up until the beginning of the 20th century, Manchu representatives in Lhasa
forced Tibet to shut foreigners out from gaining trading benefits. By 1904,
though, Chinese suzerainty over Tibet became a "constitutional fiction" and the
British penetrated the land of snows with boots on the ground. When the Chinese
saw that London was vacillating after its initial foray, they adopted a policy
of reintegrating Tibet into the Manchu Empire by brute force. In an effort to
"Sinicize" Kham (eastern Tibet), Chinese General Zhao Erfeng razed monasteries
and beheaded monks with unprecedented brutality.
The Chinese assault forced the 13th Dalai Lama into political asylum in British
India in 1910. Desperate for public legitimacy, the occupying Chinese tried to
pit the Panchen Lama against the Dalai Lama, but this only raised the ire of
Tibetans. Once Chinese troops were driven out of Tibet, the Dalai Lama returned
and formally proclaimed independence in 1913. He saw the need to have a balance
in relations with the great powers in the neighborhood and also believed in
"using force where force is necessary". (p 93)
The stubborn obstruction of the Dalai Lama's modernizing reforms by big
orthodox monasteries led to his prophecy in 1932 that "Tibetans shall be slaves
of the conquerors". The opportunity for Tibet to assert its independence and
build a strong army was also missed due to infighting between the Khampas and
Lhaseans, which softened the state for communist raiders.
Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang considered Tibet a part of China and bequeathed
this legacy to the succeeding communists. Chairman Mao Zedong was well aware of
the strategic importance of Tibet as a gateway through which the Indian
sub-continent could be threatened. His "liberation" of Tibet from 1950 onward
was a "demonstration to the world of who the real leader of Asia was" and a
humiliation of India as a "paper tiger". (p 18)
For some time, newly independent India followed the British line of recognizing
Tibet as a de facto sovereign state. Even up to the early part of 1949, prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru held that Tibet was a separate entity with a separate
government. New Delhi supplied light arms and ammunition to the Tibetan
government without informing the Chinese and stated its "readiness to help
Lhasa with its security concerns". (p 134)
But by late 1949, Nehru did a volte-face and accepted the fait accompli that
Tibet would be invaded by communist China. The Indian army chief, General
Cariappa, said his forces would be unable to engage the Chinese in a
full-fledged high-altitude war as he was hard pressed on the Pakistan front.
Britain and the United States regretted India’s tendency to "throw up its hands
and say nothing could be done [to save Tibet] and retire to its own frontiers".
(p 143) Due to the compulsions of geopolitics, the rest of the world placed the
onus on India to act before it was too late.
Nehru sacrificed Tibet on the altar of a chimerical "eternal friendship" with
China. A week before the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched into Tibet,
India's ambassador in Beijing, K M Panikkar, consciously changed the word
"suzerainty" to "sovereignty" to define the status of Tibet vis-a-vis China.
Arpi deduces that "perhaps the Chinese received indirect [or direct] assurances
from Panikkar that India would not intervene". (p 166)
When the Tibetan parliament decided to appeal to the United Nations (UN)
against Chinese aggression, India refused to sponsor it for fear of "upsetting
the Chinese". (p 176) Nehru was not keen on criticizing China regarding Tibet,
in the hope that he might "play a more helpful role in mediating between
communist and Western powers" over the Korean War. He worked to defer
consideration of the immediate concern of Tibet at the UN in order to obtain a
ceasefire in distant Korea. India, which had a direct stake in Tibet's future,
acted unclearly about its own national interests at a momentous juncture in its
history.
Indian deputy prime minister Sardar Patel bemoaned Nehru's "lack of firmness
and unnecessarily apologetic" tone towards China on Tibet. He warned of the
dire threat posed by "the disappearance of Tibet and the expansion of China
almost up to our gates". (p 192) Parliamentarians urged New Delhi to strengthen
India's borders in view of Chinese maps incorporating Assam and Ladakh. But
their prescient words fell on deaf ears. Nehru was intent on appeasing China
and winning a friendship at any cost on the grounds that "the future of Asia
depended on it". (p 203) Ironically, Arpi notes, "By abandoning Tibetans, he
[Nehru] could no longer claim to be the hero of the trampled and the
downtrodden." (p 229)
G S Bajpai, then head of India's Foreign Ministry, said ambassador Panikkar had
"allowed himself to be influenced more by the Chinese point of view, Chinese
claims, Chinese maps and regards for Chinese susceptibilities than by India's
interests". Mao and his premier, Chou Enlai, exploited Nehru and Panikkar's
anti-imperialist instincts to China's advantage. To Arpi, "The lack of courage
and self-confidence of Indian leaders, demonstrated by their need to please the
Chinese at any price, cost India her chance to be a leader of the so-called
Third World." (p 211)
With all doors of assistance - Indian or Western - closed, Tibetans had little
choice but to consent to be a province of the "Great Chinese Motherland". India
was reportedly "somewhat shocked" at the extent of Tibetan capitulation to
China in the 17-point agreement of 1951, but was thereafter "inclined to adopt
an attitude of philosophic acquiescence". (p 243)
The Indian representative in Lhasa was redesignated a consul-general under the
Indian Embassy in Beijing. Indian diplomats bent backward to accommodate
Chinese demands and conceded rights in Tibet that were inherited from the Simla
Convention of 1914. Panikkar recommended that India should dismantle its
"colonial rights" in Tibet and offer them to China as a necessary gesture of
goodwill. India even began supplying rice to the PLA forces in Tibet from 1952
to help Beijing consolidate its conquest. True autonomy for Tibet, which would
have assured security for India's borders, was jettisoned.
When a farsighted Indian Foreign Service officer wrote ominously about Chinese
military designs on the northeast frontier of India, Nehru dismissed it as "not
quite an objective or balanced view as it was colored very much by certain
conceptions". (p 263) At the 1953-54 Beijing conference, Indian diplomats
obsessed with "broader perspectives" and "larger issues", such as creation of a
neutral "third pole" in world affairs, while the Chinese side came with the
hardnosed goal of formalizing its occupation and ownership of Tibet.
The Five Principles (Panchsheel) Agreement of 1954 gave Beijing what it wanted
and saw New Delhi surrender its "old advantages" in Tibet. India could not even
get a confirmation of the McMahon Line as the undisputed border with China.
From June 1954, with no traditional Tibetan buffer left, Chinese military
incursions into Indian territories commenced. Indian traders and pilgrims were
harassed in Tibet by the new "revolutionary" authorities. About 1955, China
embarked on building a highway through Indian territory in the Aksai Chin area
to connect Tibet with Xinjiang.
Mesmerized by Chou's guile, Nehru justified these Chinese actions without
taking retaliatory measures or issuing timely protests. In 1957, Chou told
Nehru that though the McMahon Line was "unfair to us, we feel that there is no
better way than to recognize it". (p 301) But the Chinese leadership had
already decided to "teach India a lesson" for encouraging and ultimately
offering asylum to the 14th Dalai Lama and his people. The PLA's onslaught on
India across the McMahon Line in 1962 pricked the bubble of "Asian
brotherhood".
Nehru's successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, took a tougher stand and voted in favor
of the 1965 UN resolution for self-determination in Tibet. In 1967, the Indian
army repulsed Chinese troops trying to intrude into Sikkim, in the eastern
Himalayas. The incident "made Beijing think twice" and ushered in frosty
Sino-Indian relations for decades. In 1986, the PLA was thwarted from nibbling
at Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh in the Sumdorong Chu incident. This
again gave the Beijing leadership pause for thought since it "had earlier
always considered India to be a weak nation". (p 307) Yet, as of 2008, India’s
defense infrastructure along the Chinese border remains below par.
The Sino-Indian border row is unsolved to this day, even as Tibetan autonomy
has vanished. Arpi mocks recent optimism about China among "Panikkar's
children" in the corridors of Indian foreign policymaking. He nails down the
main problem as follows: "While the Chinese remain pragmatic, most of the
Indian leaders are sentimental." (p 313)
The moral from history for India is that atmospherics are superficial facades
behind which China is an unpredictable and wily bargainer. With the destiny of
Tibet already sealed as a graveyard of Indian idealism, New Delhi is now left
to strive for its own territorial integrity against a surging Beijing. A
bilateral settlement that could not be reached in 1954 has much less chance of
materializing today when China's power is on the ascendant.
Tibet. The Lost Frontier by Claude Arpi. Lancer Publishers, Olympia
Fields (October 2008). ISBN: 0-9815378-4-7. Price: US$27, 338 pages.
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Up until the beginning of the 20th century, Manchu representatives in Lhasa
forced Tibet to shut foreigners out from gaining trading benefits. By 1904,
though, Chinese suzerainty over Tibet became a "constitutional fiction" and the
British penetrated the land of snows with boots on the ground. When the Chinese
saw that London was vacillating after its initial foray, they adopted a policy
of reintegrating Tibet into the Manchu Empire by brute force. In an effort to
"Sinicize" Kham (eastern Tibet), Chinese General Zhao Erfeng razed monasteries
and beheaded monks with unprecedented brutality.
