Former Indian Ambassador Dilip Sinha speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on his recent book “Imperial Games in Tibet: The Struggle for Statehood and Sovereignty”| SAM Conversation
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00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor. It is our pleasure to
00:15welcome Mr. Dilip Sinha, former ambassador, whose latest book, Imperial Games in Tibet,
00:30is worth reading. It's very, very educative because the gobbling up of Tibet by China
00:41is something which has not been described enough or written by enough scholars and writers.
00:57It's a catchy title. That's a very significant one, Imperial Games in Tibet, because Tibet
01:07was the result of the great game between the British and the Russians. India is one of
01:23the countries which also got very, very seriously affected and till date it is suffering from
01:32the effects. And over the years, this great game has maybe, you know, it's got another big player,
01:42the US, and another big player which was there, Russia, is not now immediately in the picture.
01:50The equation between India and Russia is different now. But I think all who refer to India,
02:05who refer to the India-China border, need to be corrected. It is the India-Tibet border,
02:133,488 kilometers long, and referred to by India as the line of actual control. And if you take a
02:28larger look at it, from the Chinese side, it's a line of no control, a line which they are trying
02:36to control. That's just a personal comment, but it's one which comes with having studied them
02:45from the time one was a schoolboy, and I had an elder brother who was in the army in 1962.
02:52I'll end soon. The Dalai Lama or Tibet, mention of Tibet, one has realized its experience. Very
03:12often when discussing it with Chinese, they see it's like a red rag to a bull, particularly if
03:21it's a Chinese government official like army or a scholar sponsored by the government. In 1975,
03:31in Tulungla, Arunachal, there were four personnel of the 5th Battalion of Assam Rifles who were
03:43captured by the Chinese PLA. They were tortured to death. Mainly why? Because it is the 5th Assam
03:52Rifles Battalion which escorted the young Dalai Lama inside India, guarded and escorted him,
03:59and that is not forgotten by the PLA. I'll briefly show some photographs which I have
04:12included in my book on China. These are from my book in 2022, China's Bloodiest Bulletless
04:29Borders. Anyway, I will not take any more time. Dilip sir, your book is very interesting and
04:40very informative. Well, thank you for having me on your show. It's a great honour to be present,
04:48to be able to talk about my book and to present the cause of our largest neighbour, Tibet,
04:55which is currently under Chinese occupation. As you have very correctly pointed out,
05:01we have never shared a common border with China. Our border historically was always with Tibet.
05:07It was only in the 1950s that the Chinese army got stationed on the India-Tibet border. India,
05:19of course, recognised Tibet as being under the suzerainty of China. But on account of this
05:26admission of India, China not only claims Tibet but also large parts of the Himalayas, the sub-Himalayan
05:37terrain, which has traditionally had close religious links with the Dalai Lama and with
05:46Tibetan Buddhism. So, it is regions like Ladakh and Sikkim and Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh,
05:53these are all areas claimed by China. So, we have to be extremely careful about the policy that we
06:02pursue in Tibet because it has implications for our own security. Now, Tibet has been historically
06:11our largest neighbour. You mentioned the length of our border. It has been historically the longest
06:17land border that we have had with any country. But what is interesting is that it has also been
06:23the most peaceful border because historically we never stationed any troops on this border.
06:28We didn't need to station any troops on this border because the border was very broadly defined
06:33as borders were in those days and very few people crossed them, never did an army cross,
06:39of course, perhaps except for one or two occasions which are negligible in this long history that we
06:46have had. And historically our relations with Tibet have been extremely close, so close in fact that
06:54the longest serving dynasty in Tibet which served from about 2nd century BC to
07:03the 8th century, 9th century CE, that dynasty called the Yarlung dynasty according to
07:10Tibetan tradition was founded by a member of the family of Mahatma Buddha. That is the kind of
07:17linkage that Tibet sees with India and of course subsequently Buddhism travelled from India to
07:25Tibet and all the Tibetan scriptures are translated from Sanskrit and Pali into Tibetan and not only
07:37translated into Tibetan, historically Tibetans have had very close links with their northern
07:43neighbours, Mongolia, the Manchus, to a certain extent even China and the Buddhism that travelled
07:50to Manchuria and to Mongolia was through Tibet. It was the Tibetans who translated their texts
07:59from Tibetan into their languages and that is how Tibetan Buddhism spread into other parts of
08:05Central Asia. In China, Buddhism went both directly from India across from eastern Turkestan
08:13through people like Wen Sang Xuan Zhang whom we all know about but also separately through Tibet.
08:21So it is this but today China aims to monopolise Buddhism and it claims that Buddhism
08:29actually is indigenously Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism is an offshoot of Chinese Buddhism
08:36which really is a mockery of history. So it is very important for us in India to understand
08:44our historical links with Tibet, our cultural links with Tibet and of course the fact that
08:51when Tibet was attacked by China in 1950-51, the people of Tibet looked to India for help
09:01and then eight nine years later in 1959 when Chinese forces carried out a very brutal repression
09:10of the uprising in Tibet then the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled to India and they took
09:17refuge in India and China has never forgiven us for giving shelter to the Dalai Lama. You
09:24mentioned about the 1962 war that came just three years after India gave shelter to the Dalai Lama.
09:32So China wanted to slap India in the face for this action of hostility or perceived hostility to China
09:43and that China has never forgotten and China continuously now not only sees the Dalai Lama
09:52both as a splittist and occasionally as a terrorist and also keeps claiming Indian territory. So we
09:58have to formulate our Tibet policy very very carefully keeping in mind both the interests
10:03of our large neighbour which looks to India for help for spiritual inspiration and guidance
10:08but also for our own national security. Thank you Dilip sir. One has had the opportunity to
10:17visit four or five places in India where there are Tibetan settlements like
10:26Pathankot, Dalhousie, McLeodganj, Dehradun. There is a place called Amdo Tibetan
10:39it's an eatery. Amdo is a very significant word and in all four of these places in the early 70s
10:52when I had the opportunity of going and visiting these places it was
11:00also for the pleasure of eating chow chow and momos and thukpa, Tibetan dishes which
11:08you get in the eateries. One met about five at least veterans of the China-Tibet war.
11:22You know that very fierce confrontation which they had and a couple of them showed photographs
11:32a very young version of themselves with a revolver or a weapon photograph.
11:45They shared briefly some of the experiences when one asked them.
11:53In Delhi also one has had the opportunity of interacting with
12:01their officials of the government in exile. Otherwise I think the most common news that
12:10one hears about them is of still being exploited in so many ways of so many of the monks committing
12:21suicide of the PLA. The PLA is even trying to now incorporate them in their army and
12:36the way they are being exploited within China in all kinds of
12:42forms. It is sad but it is a fact. What all other you will say is the most
12:58outstanding or highlighted points about your book?
13:03I got into the writing of this book essentially because I felt that in the discourse that
13:12we are having in India or we have in India on India-China relations with the focus being on
13:20what we call the India-China border dispute. We ignore the most important factor which is Tibet.
13:31Most books that I have read written either by Indians or by foreigners
13:36on India-China relations focus on what they call the India-China border dispute
13:42and in this they scrutinise with a very fine tooth comb India's claims.
13:49They pick loopholes in those claims and they say India's claim is weak. Therefore,
13:56China's claim is correct and they accept China's claim as Q.E.D. Confusion reached.
14:04They do not examine China's claim. So, I started looking at China's claim
14:10and then I found that there is after all there is Tibet in between and the Chinese army
14:18historically has crossed the Himalayas only once and that was in 1793 when the emperor
14:24Qianlong, who was a Manchu emperor, he had sent an army at the invitation of the Tibetans
14:30because Tibet was being continuously raided by the Gurkha rulers of Nepal. So, the Tibetans got
14:39very disturbed and they asked the Qianlong emperor, who was also a Buddhist and a patron of
14:43Tibetan Buddhism, to send an army. So, he sent a Manchu army led by Fukan Khan who came down
14:50from Beijing, crossed Lhasa, came down, crossed the Himalayas and then threatened Kathmandu.
14:56This was in 1793 and then the ruler of Nepal accepted the terms. He also accepted the terms.
15:08A peace treaty was signed and he withdrew. That was one occasion. That's the first occasion when
15:14a Chinese army had crossed the Himalayas and entered not India but Nepal. The second location
15:20was in 1910 when the governor of Sichuan province, a person called Cao Erfang. Cao Erfang
15:27was a very brutal governor of Sichuan and he had been appointed by the Manchu emperor in the dying
15:33days of the Manchu dynasty, Manchu rule in China and he invaded Lhasa, butchered a lot of people
15:43there and then his troops also crossed into Arunachal Pradesh. Now, this disturbed the British
15:52and they decided that they would need to draw up the border between India and Tibet and of course
15:59subsequently Cao Erfang, the Manchu dynasty was overthrown. There was Chinese revolution.
16:06The Manchu dynasty was overthrown and Cao Erfang was killed by the people
16:13and the 13th Dalai Lama declared independence in 1913. When he declared independence,
16:21the British decided that the border between Tibet and India, at least the northeast, must be defined
16:26and they called the representative from Tibet and the representative from China. China at that time
16:31was in civil war. So, they picked up one of the two governments in China, recognized it one two
16:36weeks before the conference started, called them over to India and this was the Shimla conference
16:42and the outcome of it was a tripartite agreement which decided the McMahon line. The Chinese did
16:50not get the significance of the Shimla agreement. The British of course followed a very very very
17:00dubious kind of policy where they called the Tibetan representative to India, had him sign
17:06the agreement as a high contracting party but the agreement also says that Tibet is under the
17:11sovereignty of China and this was part of the agreement and this is where the title of my book
17:17comes, The Imperial Games in Tibet because the status of Tibet was decided by Britain and Russia.
17:28Britain and Russia were fighting for supremacy in Central Asia right across from Iran to the
17:36northeast of Asia and Britain was trying to ensure that Russia did not come anywhere close to the
17:43British Empire in India. So, in 1907 they came to an agreement by the Manchu rulers of China
17:53but the Manchu dynasty had subsequently become very weak. You know in the 18th century
17:58the Manchu China, the Chinese empire under the Manchu or the Qing dynasty was a very powerful
18:04and a very rich dynasty, probably the richest country in the world at that time in the 18th
18:08century but in the 19th century it had become very weak because Europeans were taking away
18:14concessions on the pacific ocean side, the Russians were eating away into the north. So,
18:20Britain and Russia decided that it was best to keep Tibet as a buffer not between Britain and
18:29China but between Britain or the British Empire in India and the Russian Empire and both felt that
18:35keeping Tibet under the Chinese empire was perhaps the best thing to do. The Tibetans also did not
18:42quite mind being under Chinese suzerainty at that time because the Manchu rulers were also
18:49followers of Tibetan Buddhism. They respected Dalai Lama, they kept him and they honoured him.
18:55The fifth Dalai Lama in fact in the 17th century had gone down to Peking and the Chinese emperor,
19:07the Manchu emperor had welcomed him, built a palace in his honour and asked him to help them
19:13organise the administration of the Manchu empire. They also devised the Manchu script
19:20and helped the Manchus develop scriptures or Buddhist texts in the Manchu language. So,
19:26the Manchu emperors greatly revered the Tibetan rulers. So, Tibet did not quite mind being
19:32under the overall suzerainty of China because they did not interfere in day-to-day affairs in Tibet
19:38but the situation changed under Chow Ar Fung. When Chow Ar Fung became governor of Sichuan province,
19:45he was for some reason extremely brutal and he came in and he started
19:49trying to plunder Lhasa and that is when the differences became very acute between
19:57Tibet and China. Even in 1951 when China invaded Tibet, some Tibetans felt that perhaps
20:06the communist China would not be brutal, they would also be like the Manchu rulers,
20:12they would respect Chinese autonomy and in fact if you remember in May 1951, there was an agreement
20:18signed between Tibet and China which is called the 17 point agreement under which China agreed
20:24to respect Tibetan autonomy, agreed to respect the institution of Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhism
20:32and the internal autonomy of China but they could not respect their own commitments and very soon
20:40they started repressing the people, carrying out cultural genocide. You talked about the repression,
20:47the Tibetans estimate that nearly a million people have been killed in Tibet, there have
20:52been periodic uprisings and right now there are boarding schools being set up where all Tibetan
20:59children are taken into colonial style boarding schools where they are only taught Chinese language,
21:05taken away from their families, from their parents. So, that is the kind of repression
21:10that is taking place now. Earlier, trying to convert them to becoming. This is the
21:19harnification of Tibet and earlier Tibetans could come across through Nepal into India
21:28till about 2007-2008 but lately their numbers have come down to a trickle because China has
21:34is fencing the border in Nepal as you must have seen and it is also building border villages
21:41to keep an eye on Tibetans trying to cross the border. So, Tibet is becoming, has become a prison
21:49where Tibetans are not allowed to come out, not allowed to meet their families, relatives
21:56and Tibetans outside are not allowed to visit Tibet.
22:02There are, you mentioned villages, there are about 800 I think villages that they have
22:11which are strewn across the, along the line of actual control or the India-Tibet border which is
22:20referred to as the disputed Sino-Indian border but the India-Tibet border. It's very alarming
22:31although very recently in the last day or two there seems to have been some stepping down,
22:41I'll believe it only if it happens on the ground, from what they did in 2020 which amounted to
22:48the second aggression by China. The first aggression was in 1962. 2020, May and June
22:56were easily what could be, you know, termed as a second aggression and much of what they
23:07grabbed then, it is reported that they're going to de-escalate and, you know, try and
23:18get back to the pre-May 2020 status. There's a book by Major K. C. Johre. I wonder if you
23:28read that. It was actually about pre and post 1962. He was 94 when he wrote it about five years ago.
23:41He was from the Indian Frontier Administrative Service in the post-independence days and had,
23:53was actually posted in Tibet. He mentioned something about, you know, a lot of documents,
24:05a lot of, you know, records not being, you know, with us. Is that so?
24:17What you're trying to bring out is that China often wins when they, you know, refer to history
24:26of that period, you know, pre and post-independence,
24:30of which we don't seem to have any records. Well, nor do the Chinese. The first thing to
24:39examine is what is China's claim to Tibet? Now, China claims that Tibet is a part of China.
24:47The question is when did Tibet become a part of China?
24:53Chinese historians themselves do not agree on when Tibet became a part of China. Some say it
24:59became a part of China under the Manchus, which means 18th century. Some say no, it became a part
25:05of China under the Mongols, that is the Yuan dynasty, which means the 13th century. So,
25:11you go back five centuries. Some say it became a part of China under the Tang dynasty, which means
25:16you go back to about the 9th century CE or 8th century CE. Now, the Chinese claim that it has
25:27been a part of China since ancient times. Now, what does ancient times mean? Nobody knows. Now,
25:35China claims that Tibetan language is a part of what they call the Sino-Tibetan family.
25:41Now, Tibetan is nowhere, is nothing like Chinese. It's a completely different family of languages.
25:47It is closest to a family of languages you can call the Tibeto-Burman,
25:52Tibeto-Burmese family. People who speak Sikkimese and Bhutanese can understand Tibetan because they
25:59have been traditionally very close languages. So, it is nothing like Chinese and the Tibetan
26:05script was developed by Tibetan monks who came down to India, Tibetan pundits who came down to
26:11India and they prepared the script on the basis of the late Brahmi script of the Gupta period.
26:19So, the script, if you look at the script, anybody who knows Devanagari script today
26:23or any Indian, North Indian script can easily see Kaka Gaga written there. It's that similar.
26:31The Tibetan religion, although Chinese claim that it has come from China, the fact is that if you
26:36look at all their textbooks, all the 300 volumes are translations of texts from India. In fact,
26:43today the teachings of the Buddha are best compiled in Tibetan because in India,
26:49a lot of the books were destroyed. And in fact, when Nalanda University was set on fire,
26:54a lot of the books were rescued by monks, both Tibetan and Indian, who took them to Tibet.
27:05And in the 20th century, early 20th century, there was an Indian Mahapundit called
27:10Sankrityan, Rahul Sankrityan, who traveled to Tibet and he collected many of these
27:16manuscripts and brought them to India. And these manuscripts are lying in Patna museum today.
27:22So, these manuscripts have been rescued from Tibet and when the Tibetan monasteries were destroyed,
27:27a lot of the manuscripts were destroyed by the Chinese army.
27:33Now, China did not know anything about the border of Tibet and India. It was only after their army
27:44came into Tibet in 1951, their army moved into Lhasa in October 1951. And thereafter,
27:51they slowly spread themselves to the borders of Tibet and they were shown by whichever Tibetans
27:59were prepared to collaborate with them, they were showed the frontier of where Tibet ended
28:04and where India started, which is how one of the first maps that the Chinese published
28:10of Tibet was I think in 1957 or 59. There was no map before that.
28:17And of course, Aksai Chin, they took because the traditional route between
28:23Xinjiang and Tibet was through Ladakh. But since Ladakh was under Indian control,
28:31they made a new road across Aksai Chin, which was a very unnatural road. And this road was
28:39built by the Chinese with Russian help because the Russians were very close in Xinjiang at that
28:44time. So, their engineers came down and helped the Chinese build this road. And the first reports of
28:50the construction of this road through Aksai Chin came actually in some British newspapers
28:54through Russian sources in 1952. So, the Chinese slowly came in, they understood the terrain
29:05and then by the late 1950s, they started asserting and defining their claim lines.
29:13But to date, they do not really draw a clear line of what they claim.
29:18They say that it is an imperial legacy. Of course, it is an imperial legacy.
29:25But Chinese control over Tibet is also an imperial legacy.
29:29You know, since 2020, we have had about 24 meetings, I think, co-commander level meetings.
29:43And it is now, like I said, I will believe it only when it happens on the ground. Whatever
29:50has been reported in the last couple of days of a bit of de-escalation and, you know,
29:58reverting back to a pre-May 2020 status. While on the one hand, they are doing that,
30:06on the other hand, they are arming themselves very heavily with all indications of, you know,
30:17actually preparing for a war. A war which, ironically, they do not want to fight by
30:26firefights. But because in 1967, in some skirmishes that we had in Sikkim,
30:34at which time we, you know, the difference was that in 62, we had an ancient rifle.
30:41In 67, we had a modern self-loading rifle, which we lost. In 67, they lost over 400.
30:52And it is after that, that they expressed very hard that let us not fire at each other.
30:57So, they are very, very shy about, you know, actual close quarter combat,
31:06in which, you know, with firearms. However, what do you see as
31:15the Tibet's future, which so far, I'm afraid, seems very bleak?
31:26Well, Tibet's future, yes, it certainly looks quite bleak, because China has become an extremely
31:33powerful country. It is the world's second largest economy. Militarily, it's extremely strong,
31:39and it is also extremely aggressive. So, it is not willing to negotiate. You're talking about
31:46the border talks that have been taking place between India and China. Now, all that we have
31:51agreed upon in these 30 years of talks is to maintain peace and tranquility. They have not
31:58made any further progress than that. And even that tranquility is difficult to maintain, because we
32:02lost 20 of our people in Galwan the other day. Although the result of it was that of the Chinese
32:10lost, it was reported as 43, then they lost, I think, 100, at least, if not more.
32:17Okay. So, we are looking at the Tibetan people who have a government in exile, but no country
32:26in the world recognizes that government as a government in exile. Now, the United States
32:32has made some very small beginnings by passing an act, the Tibet Support Act, or Resolve Tibet Act,
32:39in which they have recognized certain rights of the Tibetans. It's a very small beginning.
32:45India has so far not changed its policy on Tibet, recognizing that Tibet is a part of China. So,
32:53the Tibetans have a very uphill struggle, but the geopolitical situation can change.
33:00And when it changes, there will be an opportunity. The real resistance of the people of Tibet
33:07comes from the resilience and the resistance of the people of Tibet inside Tibet, because they,
33:13despite being under a very brutal regime, they have been holding on to their faith
33:19in their culture, in their religion, in their nation. And it is this that is the real hope
33:28of the people of Tibet. The very fact that China is still so sensitive about opening up Tibet
33:36shows that it has not yet won the hearts and minds of the people of Tibet.
33:40So, while it can claim that Tibet has been a part of China since ancient times,
33:45fact is that the Tibetans today do not recognize themselves as being Chinese,
33:51which is why China has to hold on to Tibet through brute force.
33:59Mr. Dilip Sinha, thank you very much for some very important facts about Tibet,
34:09which you come out with. And I look forward to reviewing your book. It deserves to be read by
34:19all in India who have anything to do with our borders, from the politicians
34:30and all of us who deal with security. Thank you very much.
34:35All the best.