by Andrew Duff
‡ Commonly used term for Coocoola, as consort to Thondup.
* The Chinese seat at the UN was, at this time, held by the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan.
* The parity voting system set up in 1951 (see chapter 2) had, in fact, become even more convoluted. But the basic principle remained the same: the Bhutia-Lepcha community (by now only 25 per cent of the population) had at least 50 per cent of seats reserved for them in elections, with only 50 per cent reserved for the Nepali population (75 per cent of the electorate).
* Hope would later write: ‘When my husband was asked why he had fallen in love with me, he said, “Well, besides the fact that Hope is a beautiful woman, I fell in love with her because she is so quiet. And I loved her, because she seemed to love my children so much. In choosing a wife, I had to take into consideration that she would have to be content to live in Gangtok. I couldn’t have a wife who wanted to go to the theater or opera every evening, because there is no theater or opera in Gangtok and—” I stopped him short and laughed. “You’re making me out a cultural bankrupt!”’ (McCall’s Magazine, September 1963)
* In her autobiography, Hope makes clear that there was a specific relationship between Thondup and an American socialite that survived well into their engagement, and possibly beyond. (Palm Beach Daily News, 16 April 1981)
* The McMahon Line defined the southern border of Tibet, agreed in the Simla Convention of 1914. It was notoriously ill-defined (the markers used a thick red pencil to draw it, covering many kilometres in width) and had been contentious for more than half a century.
* The Kazini never failed to make an impression. Indian journalist Sunanda Datta-Ray later described the effect she had as she entered a room: ‘A stately woman with honey blonde hair drawn into a tight bun swept into the room, long skirts rustling about her ankles. “I am the Kazini of Chakung,” she announced. Her face was a thick smooth white, resembling the chalk masks of Japanese Kabuki dancers. On it arched a pair of thin blue-black eyebrows and the scarlet gash of a painted mouth. Her long lashes were stiff with kohl. Only the eyes were real, glittering like live coals.’
* A lakh is the equivalent of 100,000 rupees.
* The couple received an extraordinary list of wedding gifts: a Steuben glass punch bowl from the US ambassador, an autographed photograph from Pope John XXIII and many gifts in ‘exquisite silver’ from the Dalai Lama, as well as a number of specially bound volumes containing poems by Hope’s favourite authors: Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, Villon and Wallace Stevens.
* Part of a remarkable group of adventurous travellers known as the DXpeditioners, or DXers. There is no substantive evidence of a link with the CIA.
† Eleven years later, this radio would be put to good use (see chapter 10).
* The succession of events held over two days was something of a challenge for all the guests: Martha Hamilton wore no less than five different dresses to the various functions.
* Mrs Lakshmi Menon was the official representative – Mrs Gandhi attended in a personal capacity.
* Compare and contrast with the title of Datta-Ray’s account: Smash and Grab: The Annexation of Sikkim
* The second such proxy conflict, after the Korean War of the early 1950s.
* HH is Thondup; PO is Indian political officer.
* A rumoured rather than actual attack.
* Indian word for a person who washes clothes.
† Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister.
* One of the more ridiculous accusations from the Chinese was that India had stolen ‘59 of their yaks’. The whereabouts of the yaks was never determined.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Fragile State
1965–70
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Twenty-five-year-old Hope Cooke arrived back in Gangtok happy after the press conferences she had conducted in London on her husband’s behalf during the crisis of 1965. Despite her youth, she had felt ‘good and mature’ in front of the microphones. She was pleased to have played her part in representing Sikkim’s cause; it boosted her confidence when she realised that ‘Chogyal is proud of me . . . He knew I wouldn’t get panicky.’1
Soon, however, a sense of loneliness returned. As Thondup’s children from his first marriage (Tenzing (13), Wangchuk (12) and Yangchen (9) – all closer to her in age than her husband) drifted back to school, she was left feeling isolated. Martha Hamilton, who Hope had counted as a friend, left too in early 1966, to support her father after her mother’s unexpected death. Alone in Gangtok, Hope found that all too frequently ‘boredom wraps me in a sad net’.2
She was still also unable to trust Thondup not to slip back into his infidelities. The rumour that one of her husband’s former lovers might be returning to the palace on a social visit left her ‘gut pulled into a tight skein of jealousy and anger’. She found it hard, too, to accept the frequent presence in the palace of her sister-in-law Coocoola, whom she believed resented her. This paranoia, justified or not, developed to such an extent that she became ‘so scared of her I take Valium before I see her. “Ma belle-soeur,” I write [to a friend], “continues to be a little bit difficult.”’3
Even writing letters to her friends in New York, which had become such a cherished lifeline of unrestricted freedom of expression, became problematic, curtailed by the crude censorship that Martha Hamilton had also noticed in late 1965:
I can’t write what is really on my mind; all the letters are opened (as if by police dogs – the flaps are jaggedly torn, reglued with heavy paste that sticks the letter to the envelope) by the Indians. ‘So kind of you to rewrap my letter,’ Alice [a friend] writes in a postscript to the censors.4
Despite these challenges and her loneliness, she was starting to feel a strong connection to Sikkim, in particular through her son Palden, now nearly two years old. For the first time in her life, Hope Cooke felt like she had found somewhere she really belonged. ‘I’ve stopped being floaty, boundless, unattached,’ she wrote. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’ve borne a child that I feel rooted, earthbound. And I love it.’5 Her new child gave her a personal sense of identity; she hoped it might also strengthen her relationship with Thondup.
Desperate to become part of Sikkim’s future, she built on this newfound sense of belonging by beginning a series of initiatives to give philosophical, cultural and historical underpinnings to the country’s assertion of its own identity. She helped produce a glossy commemorative booklet on the coronation; she gave support to the development of local cottage industries to demonstrate Sikkimese handicrafts; she chaired a major project to develop school books focused on bringing Sikkimese history and culture into the classroom.
It was her influence, too, that helped turn the Namgyal ‘palace’ into not only a home but also a place to entertain and welcome visiting dignitaries from the USA and beyond who came up to see the sun set over Kangchendzonga’s five magnificent peaks. The self-styled ‘Queen’ of Sikkim gave the inside of the building a makeover, ordering new soft furnishings that lent the home an international feel for the first time. Great care was taken to ensure that there were symbols of Sikkim’s individuality and Buddhist heritage. One reporter recalled arriving at the palace through ‘bright-red-and-blue gates, ornately covered with dragons’ heads, past bright Chinese-style sentry boxes, from which Guards clad in bright-red felt jackets, striped kilts and straw hats step out to salute’.6
For Thondup, now 42 years old, these Sikkim Guards on the gate in their unique ceremonial attire were the ultimate symbol of Sikkim’s separate identity. He was proud of them and of what they represented. In 1961 he had tried to argue for the creation of a militia in Sikkim in case of ‘internal disturbances’, but questions in India’s parliament about the wisdom of such an independent force in a protectorate had scotched those plans. Instead, Thondup had settled for a doubling of his Sikkim Guards to two companies. It was still less than 200 men, led by a commanding officer from the regular Indian army, but for Thondup the Guards served a purpose. One company served on ce
remonial duties; the other assisted the Indian Army in border defence. The very existence of his own Guards made him feel more secure.
But in reality the Sikkim Guards were mere window-dressing. Large numbers of Indian Army infantry and artillery (two divisions, about 2,000 men) were now all but permanently stationed in Sikkim – and there were vast reserves ready to be moved to the border if there were further murmurs of trouble from the Chinese.
Thondup realised it would have been churlish to complain about the presence of the Indian Army in Sikkim. He was under no illusions about Sikkim’s security – he knew that Sikkim needed the protection of India (guaranteed under the provisions of the 1950 treaty between Sikkim and India) and he wanted that protection to continue. As an Honorary Major-General in the 8th Gurkha Regiment of the Indian Army, he also found the commanding officers posted to Gangtok invariably convivial company and good for a ‘peg’ of whisky or two. But he was far less comfortable with the two other main provisions of the 1950 treaty – namely that India was responsible for Sikkim’s external relations and for its communications. Nor was he a fan of the continued presence of the political officer and of the dewan, the prime minister who had the delegated power – in theory from Thondup, in practice from Delhi – to run the state. For Thondup, these were symbols of Sikkim’s emasculation, a slight on the proud history of his country.
By 1966 he was convinced that something had to change. He decided it was time to demonstrate that Sikkim had an identity all of its own. At the very least, he realised, that would mean a change in the treaty between India and Sikkim.
The opportunity to raise the question of treaty renegotiation arose with an unexpected change in Indian political leadership.
On the final day of talks at the Indo-Pakistani peace conference (hosted by the Soviets) in Tashkent in January 1966, Prime Minister Shastri keeled over and died of a heart attack. Coming only weeks after the conclusion of 1965, the death thrust India into political turmoil. Rumours of foul play only intensified the atmosphere of crisis.
One person towered head and shoulders above those jostling to replace Shastri. Indira Gandhi had ducked the opportunity to replace her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, on his death in 1964, but two years later there was no question that she was the leading candidate. Some said she was the only person in India worthy of the job. Her perceived bravery during the Pakistan war – as Minister of Information and Broadcasting she had been in Kashmir at the time of the Pakistani incursion and had refused to leave – had led the press to hail her as ‘the only man in a cabinet of women’.7 The ruling Congress Party quickly shuffled her in as prime minister. For the world’s press, her anointment as India’s saviour was a sensation. ‘Troubled India in a Woman’s Hands’ announced the 28 January 1966 cover of Time, alongside a flattering portrait, days after she had been sworn in.
Thondup already knew Indira Gandhi well. She had visited Sikkim with her father twice, and had attended his coronation the previous year. She was only a few years older than him, and he had always found her agreeable company. He felt confident that she would continue with her father’s affectionate and understanding attitude towards Sikkim. But Thondup was also astute enough to recognise that the weakness of her political position (as a new, unproven prime minister facing major economic challenges) created a window of opportunity for him to argue his case for a revision to the treaty.
Buoyed by an article in the respected Calcutta magazine, The Statesman, calling the Indo-Sikkim treaty a ‘hopelessly outdated straitjacket’, Thondup briefed the Indian press on his views on treaty revision.8 Carefully acknowledging ‘India’s vital interests in Sikkim’ (to ensure no one could accuse him of pro-Chinese sympathies), he reminded the press that the appointment of a dewan from Delhi had only ever been intended as temporary and that if ‘a properly qualified person from Sikkim’ should become available, that person should be given the post.9
Thondup was confident that most people in Gangtok supported his call for a rethink of arrangements – the dominance of Indians in the administration had not gone unnoticed and was resented by many in the Sikkim civil service. He was therefore not overly unconcerned when the Kazi (prompted by the Kazini, who by now had become the unofficial press officer for the Kazi and the Sikkim National Congress that he led) publicly opposed the idea of treaty revision from his base in Kalimpong, calling it ‘ill-timed’ and suggesting that it would not benefit the people.10
Thondup was satisfied that he had achieved what he wanted: he had floated the idea in the press. Discussions soon commenced with the Ministry of External Affairs in the Indian government. He was also hopeful that once his friend Indira had settled in as prime minister she would respond positively.
But it was his wife’s involvement with the Institute of Tibetology, and an article that she wrote in its obscure academic journal, the Bulletin of Tibetology, that brought the question of Sikkim directly onto the desk of Indira Gandhi – and created a minor political storm.
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Gangtok’s Institute of Tibetology had been established in 1950 to promote the academic study of Tibet-related subjects. The timing of its formation, coming so shortly after the Chinese invasion, was not accidental. The Dalai Lama had laid the foundation stone of the building in the late 1950s and by the mid-1960s, despite persistent rumours that it was being used as a training centre for the CIA*, the institute was developing a reputation for scholarly work on Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist history and thought.
Hope’s intellectual curiosity was stimulated by the institute. In 1966, she decided to write something for its magazine. The article bore the innocuous title, ‘The Sikkimese theory of landholding and the Darjeeling Grant’, but the contents were political dynamite. In it, she chose to question the legitimacy of the grant of Darjeeling District to the British East India Company in 1835, suggesting that Darjeeling had only ever been leased to the British by the Sikkimese, and inferring that, since all land in Sikkim belonged to the royal family, there was a legitimate (albeit theoretical) argument that Darjeeling should be returned to Sikkim.
Even if, as Hope says in her autobiography, her article was intended only to ‘mildly provoke, pique really, but in a scholarly way’, it was hopelessly naive. To the Indian press still with their tails up after the 1965 war, it appeared that she had questioned the legitimacy of Indian ownership of Darjeeling; that was bordering on the inflammatory, a clear challenge to the territorial integrity of India. Headlines such as ‘CIA Agent on Borrowed Plumage’ and ‘American Trojan Mare in Gangtok’ appeared within days.11
Soon the article ended up on Mrs Gandhi’s desk. She knew Hope Cooke – they had met at least twice before, the first time shortly after the royal marriage in 1963 over dinner with Nehru in Delhi, the second time at the coronation. But, for Indira, the timing of the article could not have been worse. India’s economic problems had forced a massive devaluation of the rupee only weeks before the article appeared. She had also faced intense criticism over a visit to the USA, where she had asked, cap-in-hand, for aid; President Johnson had been charmed – he promised three million tons of food and $9 million, saying that he wanted to ensure that ‘no harm comes to this girl’ – and was appreciative when she issued a statement saying that she ‘understood America’s agony over Vietnam’.12 But in Delhi such toadying to the Americans was not appreciated. Against this background of anti-Americanism, the article by Hope Cooke – who some genuinely believed was a CIA plant in the Himalayas – only served to complicate matters.
Under questioning in the Indian parliament Mrs Gandhi tried to brush the issue aside, assuring MPs that ‘there has been no demand from any responsible quarter in Sikkim laying claim over the Darjeeling district’.13 The barbed use of the phrase ‘any responsible quarter’ was meant as a clear message to Gangtok about Hope’s naivety.
In Gangtok, Thondup also felt it necessary to distance himself from his wife, putting out a haughty statement: ‘My government is quite competent to handle any matter concerni
ng the rights and well-being of my country and my people . . . without resorting to the assistance of an academic body like the Namgyal Institute or its bulletin.’14
It had been an irritating episode for Indira Gandhi, albeit a minor one. She faced a far bigger challenge consolidating her political position, as she prepared for an election in March 1967.
Nevertheless, Hope’s article had not done Sikkim any favours.
The outraged reaction of some in the Indian Congress Party to Hope’s article was part of a strategy to push Indira Gandhi to prove her credentials as a strong politician and to distance herself from the USA. Still relatively weak, Indira could not have resisted this pressure even if she had wanted to. On 1 July 1966, she therefore issued a strong statement condemning the American bombing in Vietnam. The impact was immediate: Johnson was furious, and relations with the USA cooled almost overnight.
A knock-on effect of this was felt by the Tibetan resistance fighters in Mustang on the Nepal–Tibet border, who noticed a distinct change in tone in terms of the support they were getting from both the Americans and the Indians. For months the Americans had been trying to extricate themselves from the Mustang project by getting the Indians to take a greater lead in the organisation of the supply flights. Now they all but demanded it.
But Indian priorities were changing, too. China’s control in Tibet was now total. And with the retiral of intelligence chief Mullik – the one man who had tacitly supported the Americans’ Tibet projects – the Tibetans were left isolated and without a champion in India or in the USA.