Indian Defence Review

Following the visit to Tibet of the young Army officer, a meeting was held in the Foreign Secretary’s Office. We have only the report of B.N. Mullik, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Though Mullik has a tendency to rewrite history in a manner favorable to his image, in this case, his version is probably accurate. He recalls:

I was present at a meeting held in 1950 by the Foreign Secretary, at which K.M. Panikkar, our Ambassador in China, and the Chief of the Army Staff, General Cariappa, were present. At this meeting Panikkar gave a long dissertation on Chinese suzerainty over Tibet and tried to make out that it really meant no more than acknowledging the titular overlordship of China but did not in any way interfere with the practical independence and internal autonomy of Tibet. No one else at the meeting was convinced by the argument. We accepted that the Indian Government as a successor government had to recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, and there could be at this stage no going back on that position. But whilst Great Britain earlier and now India were talking of Chinese suzerainty and Tibetan autonomy, the Chinese had always claimed sovereignty and were doing so now. Moreover, ‘liberation’ in Communist language meant nothing but conquest and depriving Tibet of her status by force.

The fact that Pannikar, the Indian Ambassador to China participated in this meeting, could only prevent a decision to be taken.

A few months later, Sardar Patel had written: “I have tried to peruse this correspondence as favorably to our Ambassador and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as a result of this study.”

The Intelligence Bureau Chief continues:

The question then was asked as to what should be done to prevent the Chinese from pressing their claim of sovereignty by armed invasion. On the question of India sending troops to stop the Chinese, Panikkar explained that legally India’s action would be indefensible. However, when the question was put to General Cariappa, he quite categorically said that he could not spare any troops or could spare no more than a battalion for Tibet, so hard-pressed was he with his commitments on the Pakistan front and with the internal troubles raised both by communal and Communist forces. He was also clear that this battalion could not go much farther than Yatung or at the most might be able to place a company at Gyantse. Moreover, he explained that the Indian army was not equipped or trained to operate at such heights and would be at a serious disadvantage against the Chinese army which had much better training and experience in fighting in this extremely cold plateau and were even better armed, having acquired the arms which the USA had poured into China to bolster the KMT army.

Mullik pretends that he was disappointed by Cariappa, but it is probably an after-thought. In any case he does not mentions the British plan or any similar scheme to extensively use the Air Force to airlift troops in Tibetan plateau. Mullik affirms:

What Cariappa said at that time was indeed very discouraging and disappointing because I had also favoured military intervention in Tibet to save it from China. But the General gave the correct and realistic position, the sum total of which was that India was in no position whatsoever at that time to intervene militarily in Tibet to prevent Chinese aggression. And he was right. It would have been suicidal for India to send a couple of battalions-and that was all that could have been spared which were then neither trained nor equipped for operations at such heights against the vast battle-poised Chinese army of two and a half millions, larger than even the Russian and the American armies put together.

Then, the intelligence officer mentions historical precedents. Obviously, Mullik has not gone into the British appreciations and the technological changes which had occurred since Younghusband marched into Tibet and particularly the advent of aviation. His narrative continues thus:

Critics who cite the example of the Younghusband expedition to argue what India should have done, forget that when on the heels of Younghusband’s withdrawal, the Chinese Army under the Manchu General, Chao Erh-feng, attacked Tibet, in spite of the repeated appeals of the Dalai Lama, the mighty British Government of those days did not raise a finger to stop the Chinese invasion and for the first time in its history, in 1908, Tibet was militarily conquered by the Chinese and reduced to the position of a Chinese province. The British even had to accept the dismissal of those Tibetan ministers who had negotiated the treaty with Younghusband and tolerate the presence of Chinese Officers at Phari and Yatung and deal with them in all trade matters. Except for giving the thirteenth Dalai Lama shelter in Indian territory, the British refused to give him any other assistance. And as mentioned earlier Great Britain was then the mightiest power in the world. Again, in 1919, and also in 1931, when the Chinese attacked Inner Tibet and took away parts of that territory from the Dalai Lama’s control, the British did not intervene physically and even the meagre arms supply to the Dalai Lama was made most reluctantly and was conditional on Tibet not taking the offensive.

It is strange that General Cariappa does not seem to be aware of the British plans to military defend Tibet and of the possibility of using airborne troops.

Around that time, while the Governments of the US and UK discussed the strategic considerations regarding an attack on Tibet, their main concern seems to have been the tendency on the part of Government of India to “throw up its hands and say nothing could be done and retire to its own frontiers.” The Western diplomats felt that there was “too much of a tendency in that direction” on India’s part.19

According to the US Archives, a few months later, the American Chargé d’Affaires was told by San Jevi,20 senior Indian intelligence official that at an “interdepartmental meeting held to discuss Tibet it was decided [that the] most GOI could do was send moderate supply [of] small arms plus a few officers to instruct Tibetans how to use them.”India was not ready to “become involved in any military adventures in Tibet.”21 It was understandable and in conformity with the logic of Nehru’s philosophy of non-violence.

Guerrilla warfare in Tibet

Though the memo had mentioned the importance to organize a guerilla movement within Tibet, it took a few years for the Tibetans to organize such a force. It happened in the mid-1950’s under the Chushi-Gangdruk (Four Rivers, Six Ranges) outfit which fought against Chinese rule and played a key role in the Dalai Lama’s escape to India in March 1959.

A few years ago, we interviewed Ratuk Ngawang22 who commanded the Tibetan secret regiment, known as the Special Frontier Forces, based in Uttar Pradesh. In the 1950’s, he was one of the Commanders of the Tibetan Force. When we asked him how the guerilla force came into existence, he explained the situation in Kham province in 1954/1955: “The situation became bad and dangerous at that time. For the initial two/three years, the Chinese were good and accepted whatever we asked of them. Our demands were approved, even sometime with a signature from Mao Zedong. They had promised religious freedom and also agreed not to break any laws of the land. But in 1954, the Chinese decided to establish a school for the poor. They began to assemble all poor and needy people and spend a lot of money on teaching them farming, nomadic works and other skills. They would also give them and their family money. But soon, these poor Tibetans were told that lamas were yellow robbers and monks were red thieves. The situation began to turn from bad to worse.”

It is then that the population from Eastern Tibet started to rebel.

Ngawang recalled: “From 1955, the Chinese began to brainwash the poor Tibetans. They told them that it was meaningless to offer money to ‘yellow robbers and the red thieves.’ The Chinese told them that their poverty was the result of their offerings to the religious community. This was the beginning of the so-called ‘Democratic Reforms.’ The well-off families, who had guns and knives, were ordered to hand-over their weapons to the Chinese authorities.”

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The guerilla warfare continued even after the Dalai Lama took refuge in India in 1959, though the military operations planned by the General Staff and the Air Headquarters never took place.

The Air Force was not used even during the 1962 operations for the foolish reason that China could have bombarded Kolkata in retaliation.