Geopolitics

The Years of Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai
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Issue Book Excerpt: Tibet - The Lost Frontier | Date : 03 Jul , 2015

Zhou’s First Visit to Delhi

During the years following the signing of the Panchsheel Agreement, Delhi continued its efforts to champion the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa. The intellectual elite in Delhi looked at the Chinese revolution as part ‘of the great Asian Resurgence’; its politicians thought that India could enhance her image by becoming the champion of China’s cause in every possible forum and became the promoter of Beijing’s entry into the United Nations.

Zhou stopped in Delhi for three days and had five long sessions with Nehru. The most surprising aspect of these talks was that Tibet as well as the border problem which had been the main issues between the two nations, were not mentioned even once.

Two months after Ambassador Raghavan had signed the accord, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited Delhi for the first time. He was on his way back from Geneva where he had attended the Conference on Indochina. He needed some support in favour of a negotiated settlement to which the Americans would not be a party. Nehru was the ideal ‘neutral’ Asian leader to back the Chinese plan for a ‘peaceful’ solution to the Indochinese imbroglio. Zhou stopped in Delhi for three days and had five long sessions with Nehru. The most surprising aspect of these talks was that Tibet as well as the border problem which had been the main issues between the two nations, were not mentioned even once. The discussion centred on the Geneva talks and the role that India could be invited to play in a brokered solution. In the course of the discussions, Nehru repeatedly brought up the question of the acceptance of the Five Principles by the other Asian nations. This was according to him the panacea for all ills and the ultimate solution for peace in Asia (and in the world).

‘Small matters’ such the Tibet issue (and the border question) were ignored. This confirms that for Nehru at least the main feature of the Agreement was not the content (Tibet’s trade and pilgrimage), but the preamble.

Nehru’s Visit to Beijing in October 1954

The visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Beijing marks the apogee of the ‘friendship’ between India and China and perhaps also brought the first doubts in Nehru’s mind.

For the first time on October 19, 1954, the Indian Prime Minister met Mao in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The Great Helmsman began the talks by dwelling “on the age-old associations and the new friendship between China and India”. This remark speaks for itself. While the Indian leaders were speaking of 2000 years of friendship, Mao was speaking of ‘new friendship’.

Nehru had two talks with Mao, but neither party raised the Tibetan issue or the border question. Mao was more interested to know the reaction of the Indian leader on the use of the atomic bomb. It is during this meeting that Mao first termed the bomb as a ‘paper tiger’. According to Dr. Li, the private physician of Mao, when Nehru visited China in 1954, the Chairman flabbergasted Nehru during their meeting.1

The Indian Prime Minister had still not realised that the Five Principles were a one-way road. Two small incidents indicate the future direction in which the relations between India, Tibet and China would go.

During the three meetings between Nehru and Zhou Enlai, once again the ‘small matters’ were not discussed, except for a short mention about the Chinese maps which showed large parts of India and Burma within the Chinese territory. Nehru hesitantly told Zhou:

“As regards maps, I just casually mentioned to you some of the anxieties of our neighbours. We are not worried on this point. Our frontiers are clear but I mention it in the case of Burma because questions of this kind become a handle in the hands of enemy. …But as I said, I am sure, the maps were old maps and you did not mean it.”2

Finally at the end of meeting, Nehru dared ask Zhou a question directly linked to the six-month old Agreement on Tibet. For a simple matter such as the rights to go on a pilgrimage, the Indians (and Tibetans) were harassed. Nehru explained as mildly as possible to his counterpart the difficulties encountered by the pilgrims:

“There is a small matter which I may take this opportunity to mention to you. Some complaints have recently been received from pilgrims going to Tibet. Some of them are apparently being harassed by guards and I hope that Your Excellency will look into the matter. …As an example of the sort of harassment to which these pilgrims are subjected, I would mention that one of my friends was stopped by the border guards who told him that he could not be regarded as a pilgrim because he was not wearing a monk’s gown.”3

The Indian Prime Minister had still not realised that the Five Principles were a one-way road. Two small incidents indicate the future direction in which the relations between India, Tibet and China would go.

During the course of his visit, Nehru had occasion to meet the young Dalai Lama4 for the first time. As we have seen, Tibet and the border issue had been totally ignored in the talks with the Chinese leaders. This encounter with the young Lama was for Nehru like a mirror reminding him of the main provisions of the treaty (i.e. Tibet). The Dalai Lama recalls:

The Dalai Lama recalls: Zhou Enlai said: ‘This is the Dalai Lama.’ Nehru remained motionless, no speech, not looking in the eyes…[That day] I thought and felt that from Nehru’s side, there will be no support for Tibet…

“When we heard that we will meet him, there was a bit of excitement.

Pandit Nehru led by Zhou Enlai and many Chinese dignitaries were lining up when he reached the place where I was standing.

Zhou Enlai said: ‘This is the Dalai Lama.’ Nehru remained motionless, no speech, not looking in the eyes.

He just stood in front of me, without speech, without moving, motionlessly he remained like that. I was a bit embarrassed. I told through the Chinese interpreter: ‘I have heard a lot about you, and today I am very happy to meet you’. Nehru did not give a particular response, he seemed maybe happy, then he went to the next person. That was my first experience [with him].

[That day] I thought and felt that from Nehru’s side, there will be no support for Tibet and no support for the Dalai Lama. During a short moment, many things that occurred from 1949 till 1954 [passed] in his mind, like lightning.”5

Was this strange silence of the Indian Prime Minister a sign that he had begun to realize that he had betrayed his own statement four years earlier in the Lok Sabha?

The Bandung Conference

The period following the visit of Nehru to Beijing, was marked by a lull in the relations between the three nations. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa after receiving some assurances from Mao that the so-called Communist reforms would not be immediately enforced on the Tibetan people. Upon his return Nehru became busy with the preparation of the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung.

This Conference seemed the culmination of his personal ambitions. He had always wanted to be at the center of the stage amongst the newly decolonized nations. In Bandung, he was able to introduce his friend Zhou Enlai to the other Asian and African leaders.

Nehru was awed by Zhou, but was he completely blind to the danger for India of an emerging powerful China?

These encounters (in Bandung and later in Delhi) with an apparently moderate Zhou Enlai convinced Nehru of the ‘sincerity’ of the Chinese Communist rulers. He would discover the Communists’ true face in October 1962.

Though the purpose of the Conference was not to discuss ‘small matters’, Tibet was mentioned one day during a conversation between the Prime Ministers of Ceylon, Pakistan, Indonesia and Burma. Zhou explained his views on the question. Nehru later reported:

“When asked if he wanted to push communism into Tibet, Chou En-lai laughed and said that there could be no such question as Tibet was very far indeed from communism. It would be thoroughly impracticable to try to establish a communist regime in Tibet and the Chinese Government had no such wish. …Tibet was an autonomous region of China and they had no desire whatever to interfere with its customs or ways of life. They had gone to Tibet because it was an integral part of the Chinese state and because it had been used for imperialist intrigues, meaning thereby the British recently and previously Czarist Russia.”6

Later, when someone asked Zhou about Tibet, his answer was: “You cannot introduce socialism or communism into Tibet, you just cannot do it; maybe 50 years, 100 years later they may do it, I do not know.”

Unfortunately for the Tibetans, communism was already being introduced on a very large scale in Eastern Tibet and the Dalai Lama while returning to Lhasa in 1955 witnessed some of the dramatic consequences for the population of the provinces of Amdo and Kham.

During this period, the Chinese Liberation Army was busy consolidating its strategic occupation of Tibet, building several roads and airstrips. This was unquestionably their main priority.

Nehru was awed by Zhou, but was he completely blind to the danger for India of an emerging powerful China? He was probably not, though he could not grasp all the implications for India at that time.

During this period, the Chinese Liberation Army was busy consolidating its strategic occupation of Tibet, building several roads and airstrips. This was unquestionably their main priority. No doubt that ‘reforms’ could be postponed till China fully controlled the Roof of the World.

The End of a Civilization

A major consequence of the Panchsheel Agreement was the advance of the Communist ideology on the Tibetan plateau. A new way of life, less compassionate, less enlightened slowly took over the Roof of the World.

It is interesting to quote from the writings of Apa Pant, the Political Officer in Sikkim who was dealing with Tibetan affairs in the Ministry of External Affairs. Pant was aware not only of the diplomatic and strategic importance of the recent events on the Roof of the World, but was also conscious of the humane aspects of the disappearance of an ancient civilization. Pant writes: “With all its shortcomings and discomforts, its inefficiencies and unconquered physical dangers, here was a civilization with at least the intention of maintaining a pattern of life in which the individual could achieve liberation.7

Pant readily admitted that he always felt “a great admiration for China’s culture and civilization, for its long history and indeed for its new revolution”. However, he was very saddened by the Chinese incapacity to accept (or even understand) a philosophy not fitting in with the Party line.

If the Chinese leadership appeared not to have made up their minds about the ‘reforms’, their main strategic objective was clear. Roads across Tibet and towards the Indian border were built on a war footing.

Pant like many of his colleagues felt that the Tibetans had a lot to learn from the Chinese: “In my travels in Tibet I observed how disciplined the Chinese were. All their activities were directed towards the building of a new culture, a society of ‘new men’”.

Pant often discussed with the Chinese Generals posted in Lhasa, but they could only answer in terms of efficiency and discipline.

We have to remember that during the 50’s, the ‘reforms’ had just started; Zhou Enlai’s reactions during the Bandung Conference reflect this stance. The Panchsheel was perhaps too fresh for the Chinese leaders to take a more radical approach. But the main factor which determined the Chinese approach was that the roads and infrastructure were not sufficiently in place to ‘stabilize the revolution’.

Pant had support in the Ministry of External Affairs for his ‘philosophical’ approach, but worse was the fact that even fewer could comprehend the strategic and military aspect of the events unfolding on the Roof of the World.

If the Chinese leadership appeared not to have made up their minds about the ‘reforms’, their main strategic objective was clear. Roads across Tibet and towards the Indian border were built on a war footing. We should not forget that in 1955, the construction of the Tibet–Sikiang Highway cutting across Ladakh was going on full swing and that the roads heading towards the NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh) and Sikkim had already been completed.

Zhou’s words were definitely linked to the development of the communication infrastructure when he proclaimed that the Tibetan society was ‘not yet ripe’ for socialist changes.

Pant believed that Nehru understood the depth of the conflict, however “the exigencies of power, the feeling that the Chinese must in no circumstances be ‘upset’ and the needless, nervous and desperate hurry to ‘normalize’ India-China relations, lost us the larger perspective of action.”

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These are some of the factors which contributed to the progressive disappearance of one of planet’s most ancient religions from the earth to be replaced by a materialistic dictatorship.

Pant was quite clear of the outcome of the situation: the Tibetans were hoping against hope. They could not get the assurance that they would get the benefits brought by the Chinese on the material plane, while “the old system and the philosophy that taught and practiced the path towards liberation of the human mind from turmoil” would be tolerated.

This is perhaps one of the most serious consequences of the Panchsheel Agreement: an open support for the forces which led to the complete loss of a ‘way of life’, based on the eternal values shared with Indian culture.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Claude Arpi

Writes regularly on Tibet, China, India and Indo-French relations. He is the author of 1962 and the McMahon Line Saga, Tibet: The Lost Frontier and Dharamshala and Beijing: the negotiations that never were.

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3 thoughts on “The Years of Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai

  1. Once again it is a superb piece in strategic analysis for all right thinking Indians (and political historians elsewhere) to take note of. I specially liked the last reference on Shastriji who was an iron man at heart but outwardly docile. One wonders what would be India’s posture towards China in present times had Shastriji lived on. To my knowledge no one among the Indian political establishment has been able to capture that angle.

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