Sikkim
Page 8
Immediately the tenor in Gangtok changed. At last Thondup had an ally, someone who he felt understood Sikkim. Within weeks Rustomji submitted a report to the Government of India outlining what he saw as the looming problem left by his predecessor. Cognisant of the views expressed to him by the prince and his friends at every opportunity, he did not mince his words: ‘I believe one of the main reasons on account of which the Dewan has been resented in Sikkim is that, in many ways, the appointee was considered to be acting more arbitrarily than ever did the Ruler himself.’28 He then gave his prescription for enhancing relations between India and Sikkim:
If people here could be convinced that India means to stand by the treaty and not merely to manoeuvre things towards the ultimate taking over of the state, the entire atmosphere would be altered and it would be possible to establish a firm and lasting confidence.29
The report won Rustomji allies among the Sikkimese ‘palace set’ in Gangtok. However efficient John Lall might have been, he had been dismissive of the social scene revolving around the Namgyals. Rustomji, it was clear, saw himself as Thondup’s man, supporting the Sikkimese state, rather than an Indian stooge.
Now the Palace came alive once more. Princess Coocoola and her aristocratic Tibetan husband led the parties. A number of wealthy Tibetan families had settled in Sikkim, fleeing the increasing troubles in their homeland. The Tibetan women in particular were ‘madly fond of western dancing . . . the champagne flowed as the revellers from distant Lhasa swirled to the Viennese waltz in the their dazzling, flowing brocades, the turquoise of their long, pendant ear-rings swinging and glittering with the lilt.’30
Meanwhile the strains of Beethoven could be heard from both Mintokgang (Rustomji’s residence) and Tsuklakang (the hilltop on which the Palace stood).
Rustomji could not have been more different from the Indo-centric Lall. He adopted the Sikkimese kho on a daily basis*, even wearing it on occasion in Delhi; he worked with the Chogyal to devise a plan to promote Sikkim’s culture and status; he brought in Thondup’s Oxford-educated brother (‘tall, dark and handsome, with hair like Senator Kennedy’s; he wore a blue turtleneck sweater and a blue sports shirt hanging out, American style, over corduroy pants’31) to take a role as ‘Sikkim Development Commissioner’. Thondup’s mood lightened immediately. This was what he envisioned for the country – a plan for development, with a cadre of supporters to put it into action.
Together the two men submitted the first ‘Seven Year Plan’ for the economic development of Sikkim to the Indian Planning Commission, with a strategy for the ‘expansion of educational and medical facilities, the construction and improvement of roads and bridges, and all the other social services expected of a modern welfare state’. Thondup persuaded Rustomji to include in the submission a project to construct an aerial ropeway to the Tibetan border.* This, he thought, would allow Sikkim to become more self-sufficient by replacing the old mule-caravan trade with a modern and efficient system. Although Rustomji knew this pet project would never be economically feasible, he helped win the argument with the Planning Commission. Thondup felt this was just what he wanted in a dewan: a champion for Sikkim’s cause.32
In 1955, a new Indian Political Officer, Apa Pant, also arrived in Gangtok. Pant was from an established diplomatic family; he had been ‘sitting in his office doing nothing, and doing it rather well’, when someone had mentioned that the old political officer in Gangtok was ill. Overhearing that it involved ‘not much work to do, a lot of riding and a wonderful house high up in the Himalayan foothills’, Pant had been quick to volunteer. ‘Miraculously,’ Pant would write later, ‘there opened up before me six and a half of the most glorious years of my life. It was as simple as that.’
Unlike Rustomji, Pant knew next to nothing about the Namgyals when he was appointed to the post in Gangtok. Tikki Kaul (a leading Indian bureaucrat) organised a party in New Delhi to introduce him to the Namgyals and Rustomji. ‘This first encounter with the glamour, the polish and mystery of the ruling family of Sikkim,’ Pant wrote, ‘had me truly spellbound.’ With a sharp eye, he soon noticed Thondup’s complexities. The Prince was
as if encased in thick armour plating, looking out on the world through small chinks that he would close down at the slightest sign of danger to his ego, his image of himself. I wondered what had made him so self-enclosed. Deep inside, I thought, he would be a very fine and capable person, if one could ever penetrate the aura of suspicion and self-defence.
His wife, Sangey Deki, was ‘quite exquisite, like a delicate porcelain doll’, but it was the Namgyal sisters, Coocoola and Kula, whose names he had heard ‘whispered with sensuous mystery in Delhi’s corridors of power’, that intrigued him most: ‘I could see what had captivated others in their soft, subtle gaiety, their gracious mannerisms and sophisticated patter. But why, I wondered, were they so sad behind all that glitter?’33
Pant would spend seven years in Gangtok, installed in the magnificent Residency on the hill. He saw himself as a quasi-ambassador for India in Sikkim, quite distinct from the hard-working administrative attitude of Thondup’s Dewan, Rustomji.
Underneath the unusual triumvirate of Thondup, Rustomji and Pant, however, the day-to-day political administration was still hopelessly inadequate. American traveller John Sack passed through in the mid-1950s and wrote a brilliantly witty account of what he saw for Playboy magazine; the article would later be published in Report from Practically Nowhere, the story of his travels in ‘thirteen no-account countries’:
Sikkim, in the Eastern Himalayas, is a democracy now. Its first election was in 1953, and its first law in 1955, but, in these few years, the alert Sikkimis have learned not only the outward forms of democracy but many of the refinements, subtleties, and secrets that are, to us in the civilized world, almost its very soul – parties, platforms, partisan strife, mudslinging, muck-racking, windbags, windfalls, major parties, minor parties, pull, plums, padded payrolls, stuffing, roughing, raucus caucuses, brass spittoons in smoke-filled rooms, bosses, losses, lobbies, gobbledegook, and gerrymandering, among others.34
Later, as he tried to establish the distinction between the rival parties (the Sikkim State Congress and the National Party), he found himself
none the wiser, [so] I went to the Sikkimi capitol and buttonholed the Chief Secretary, a sort of prime minister there, who said, ‘On the whole the parties are identical,’ but that I shouldn’t noise it about. Down the hall, he suggested, I’d find the national chairmen of both, working in their office.
‘In their offices?’ I said.
‘In their office,’ he said, and while he went back to his papers, I hurried down the hall and saw, indeed, that Mr Sonam Tsering, of the Nationalists, and Mr Kashiraj Pradhan, of the Congress, worked in the very same office, side by side.35
Neither did the issue of Nepali immigration avoid Sack’s keen eye. ‘The Nepalis,’ he wrote, ‘are immigrants, while the Bhotias, to their way of thinking, came over on the Mayflower.’ It was a sharp observation of the growing tension in Sikkim between the two dominant ethnic groups. Thondup and the Buddhist minority in Sikkim could not shake their concern about the issue of Nepali immigration. Rustomji recalled that ‘the Prince’s aim was to call a halt to fresh immigration’ while ‘allaying the apprehension of the Lepchas and Bhutias that their culture was in danger of being eroded away.’36
For Thondup and the Palace faction, this was the major issue. He knew that there were old established Nepali families who were contributing considerably to the structure of Sikkimese society. He also knew that if he wanted to create a cohesive country, he would have to accept the immigration that had already taken place. But he was not willing to countenance further erosion of what he saw as Sikkim’s core heritage. It frustrated him when Pant, a committed Hindu, gave the impression that Buddhism was in some way an offshoot of an overarching Hindu faith. To combat this, Thondup strongly supported Rustomji’s plans for promoting a sense of Buddhist Sikkim, reinvigorating some of the ol
d Sikkimese traditions and connections with Tibetan culture, setting up an Institute of Tibetology and generally promoting the country’s strong links with Tibet, encouraging the preservation of precious Buddhist celebrations such as the colourful Pang Lhabsol.
Even if these initiatives were aimed at creating a clearer Sikkimese identity, they naturally created some unease in sections of the Nepali community.
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In 1956, Thondup again found a reason to travel to Lhasa. This time, as President of the Indian Buddhist Society, he carried with him an invitation for the Dalai Lama to visit India for the Buddha Jayanti, the 2,500th anniversary celebrations of the Buddha’s birth.
Again reports filtered back from Thondup to the US consulate in Calcutta. The news was worse than ever. Thondup, constantly accompanied by a ‘Chinese guardian angel’ found Lhasa ‘one third . . . Chinese and it looks as if it will soon be half’.37 The house-building programme was astonishing, he reported, with the city up to 50 per cent larger than it had been on his previous visit a year earlier. Heavy fighting was taking place in the east of Tibet as a rebellion in Kham drew the attention of more Chinese troops. It was all hearsay evidence, but the atrocities that he had witnessed provoked Thondup to suggest to his CIA contact in Calcutta that perhaps some Tibetans could be exfiltrated to Burma or Thailand, under the cover of religious training, so that they could receive instruction from American specialists in artillery and anti-aircraft techniques. It was a suggestion that would soon be acted upon in a slightly different form.38
Initially, the Chinese rejected Thondup’s invitation for the Dalai Lama to attend the Buddha Jayanti in India.39 Mao, carefully watching the challenges to Soviet power in Eastern Europe, had no intention of softening his stance on Tibet. But in October, when Nehru personally reiterated the invitation to Mao, it became impossible to refuse. Mao finally gave his assent in November.
As the Dalai Lama set off from Lhasa, the rumours of his impending visit spread through Gangtok. Not only was the Dalai Lama coming, but the Panchen Lama* was also travelling with him, along with a number of other high-ranking reincarnated lamas. Gangtok was alive with anticipation. Meanwhile the Tibetan party made its way across the plateau and down the Chumbi Valley. It was the same route the Dalai Lama had taken in 1950, but this time he was accompanied by an escort of Chinese soldiers. A few days later they crossed the Nathu La into Sikkim. A small group, including Thondup and the young C. D. Rai, now settled as a civil servant in the magistrate’s department, met the party near the border.
For Thondup, it was a moment of great religious and political importance. The party made its way on horseback to Karponang, a small village on the trade route, then by jeep and stationwagon to the outskirts of the capital, where the streets had by now started to fill with people. The last leg was made in convoy, led by Thondup’s sky-blue Buick, through the crowds. Even in Gangtok, though, the Chinese control was unavoidable. A Tibetan flag fluttering from the Dalai Lama’s car was swiftly removed by the Chinese minders.*
The group travelled on to Delhi, where the Dalai Lama met with Nehru in an attempt to convince him of the importance of the Tibetan struggle for self-determination. But in the background Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was also shuttling back and forth to Delhi, creating further tensions. The Dalai Lama got little that was meaningful from Nehru: the Indian prime minister’s sympathies lay with his partnership with the Chinese leader and not with the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama proceeded, downhearted, to Bodh Gaya for the Buddha’s birthday celebrations at the end of the year.
In February, the Dalai Lama finally started to wend his way back to the border. But rather than heading straight back to Tibet he diverted to Kalimpong, the Indian hill town just south of Sikkim, which lay close to the southern tip of the Tibetan Chumbi Valley. It was a decision against the explicit wishes of Zhou, who warned him that the town was ‘full of spies and reactionary elements’.40
Zhou was absolutely right about Kalimpong’s nefarious nature. Long before its role as one end of the wartime trading route to support the Chinese nationalists, the town had developed a rough, tough reputation. Located on a trading crossroads between Tibet, Bengal, Sikkim, Bhutan and even Nepal (trade was conducted through the Jelep La into the Chumbi Valley), Kalimpong had housed a vibrant trading community over many centuries, with thousands of semi-resident Tibetan muleteers. The reinvigoration of the trading route during the Second World War (when it was used to ferry gasoline via Tibet to China’s nationalists) had poured money into the town.
By the mid-1950s Kalimpong had also started to attract an extraordinary assortment of characters. Adrian Conan Doyle, son of the Sherlock Holmes novelist Arthur, was one, seeking a ‘spiritual reunion’ with his late father; Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark, an anthropologist with a deep interest in polyandry (multiple husbands for a single wife), who was also a cousin of the British Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was another. Prince Peter and his white Russian wife Princess Irene were suspected of being spies. There were Afghan princesses, relatives of the deposed King of Burma, a Russian painter and mystic Svetoslav Roerich (who a former US Vice-President had once addressed as ‘Dear Guru’) and his wife, the Bengali actress Devika Rani, Christian missionaries, journalists and retired military officers. At the heart of Kalimpong’s social scene was the Himalayan Hotel, run by the three elderly daughters of David Macdonald, the former Anglo-Sikkimese trade agent in Gyantse who had welcomed the 13th Dalai Lama on his flight in 1910, who was by now nearly 90 years old, ‘a small wrinkled man beaming under his knitted cap’.41
The Dalai Lama knew full well that Kalimpong had also developed into a centre of espionage. His brother, Gyalo Thondup, had been hovering between Kalimpong and Darjeeling for a number of years. A few years senior to the Dalai Lama, Gyalo was the ‘proverbial prodigal son . . . the only one of five male siblings not directed toward a monastic life’.42 Before the arrival of the communists in 1950, Gyalo had been one of those developing good relations with Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese nationalists in the hope of coming to a reasonable arrangement about an autonomous Tibet. After the arrival of the communists he had continued to move in diplomatic circles in Hong Kong and Washington during the early 1950s. By 1956 he was based mostly in Darjeeling, where he had settled and started a business. But his family connection meant that he had also become a natural focal point for links with the Khampa fighters congregating in Kalimpong and planning to return to give the Chinese a bloody nose.
Gyalo and two others formed the core of a new organisation, Jen Khen Tsi Sum*, dedicated to fighting the occupation of Tibet from Kalimpong. Three others formed an outer circle. One of them was Sikkim’s Princess Coocoola. During the summer of 1956, she had become the conduit for the group’s connections with the US government. At first Gyalo, in his role as unofficial leader of this resistance in exile, sought practical support for the Khampa fighters from the Nationalist Chinese, now in control of Taiwan. He also sounded out B. N. Mullik, the head of the Indian intelligence services. Neither gave much hope of practical assistance.
When he approached the Americans, however, the response was quite different.
Gyalo came onto the radar of the CIA in the Calcutta consulate in late 1956. One of their officers, John Hoskins, was tasked with working out how to approach him. Hoskins discovered that Gyalo was a keen member of the Gymkhana Club, with a particular love of tennis – so much so that he was the local champion. The young CIA officer packed his racket and headed to Kalimpong, managing to arrange a doubles match partnering Gyalo. The contact had been made; shortly afterwards Gyalo and another of the Dalai Lama’s brothers had headed to Delhi to be with the Tibetan leader during the Buddha Jayanti celebrations.
When the Dalai Lama and his brothers arrived back in Kalimpong in February, the discussions started in earnest. What was the best way to serve the people of Tibet? Should he return to Lhasa? Should he support the resistance movement? For the Dalai Lama, this nascent resistance threw up a particularly diffi
cult problem. At still only 24 years old, he found himself in a quandary: the Buddhist faith that he led forbade the taking of life. After much discussion, it was decided in mid-February that he should return to Lhasa. There were few signs of support from Nehru; Mao meanwhile, in a calculated effort to encourage the Dalai Lama’s return, was hinting that the hated reforms in Tibet might be postponed for six years.
In April 1957 the Dalai Lama headed to Gangtok, where he delayed for a month, staying along with his Chinese minders in the old Residency with Apa Pant, before returning, with a heavy heart, to Lhasa.
Discussions between the CIA and the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo, now suddenly took off. One of the members of the Dalai Lama’s party (almost certainly unknown to the Tibetan leader) had carried a secret telegraphic book back to Lhasa; the other copy sat in Kalimpong, opening a line of secret communication.43 The Americans immediately tabled a further proposal that a number of Khampa fighters should be smuggled out of India to be trained in guerrilla tactics and then airdropped back into Tibet. Even Princess Coocoola was involved in hurried discussions about drop zones and potential trainees. The idea of training a guerrilla force was readily accepted. Six of the best fighters were selected in early March and intensive planning started as to how to get them out of the country. The best option, Hoskins and the CIA decided, was to work with the Pakistanis, with whom the Americans had developed relations. The northern tip of East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh) snaked up to within less than 50 miles of Kalimpong. It was perfect for a clandestine exfiltration.