After a token lunch I fell fast asleep in Mrs Davies’s sitting-room, and when I was awakened at 2 p.m. by a hand on my shoulder I looked up dopily to see someone sitting beside me – it was Mrs Buxton.
Before we had been talking for five minutes I could see that she was one of those people who are born with a flair for living happily outside the framework of tiresome conventions, and neither of us wasted any time. I explained my ambition, listing all the ways in which I could not possibly be of the slightest assistance to anyone – but adding that I did have an infinite capacity for roughing it. As I talked, I was aware of being very thoroughly sized up; Jill Buxton’s vague and amiable manner does not entirely camouflage her shrewdness.
When I had finished she asked, ‘Would you like to work with Tibetan refugees?’ Then she went on to outline graphically the appalling conditions prevailing in most of the refugee camps. It soon became clear that in such surroundings something worthwhile could be achieved by any able-bodied person who was willing to co-operate with the medical staff, and I replied unhesitatingly that I would love to work for Tibetans.
When we left the Home I was introduced to Arabella, the Land-Rover in which Jill had driven to India two years previously. Like myself, she had had no fixed plans on arriving, but Mrs Freda Bedi, the English-born principal of the Young Lama’s School at Dalhousie, had put her in touch with the Tibetan problem – in which she has been deeply involved ever since.
On meeting Arabella I saw why no one knew Jill Buxton’s address: she lives in Arabella, cooking on a primus-stove and sleeping on the front seats, to the horror of all those who consider it both dangerous and unseemly for a Memsahib to behave in this fashion.
In turn I introduced Jill to Rozinante, the long-suffering bicycle which had taken me from Ireland to India; then Roz was loaded into Arabella and we drove back to Delhi, through blistering heat which almost annihilated me but left Jill cheerfully unaffected.
During the following week I spent most of my time getting to know the various international relief agencies which help the Tibetans, meeting members of the Delhi Tibetan colony and learning a lot from Jill about the many awkward angles of the refugee problem.
It was eventually decided that I should go to the transit camp-cum-school at Kangra, where 300 children were living in unbelievably squalid conditions. As Jill was now planning one of her tours of the camps we arranged to leave Delhi together on 22 July, by which date she hoped to have collected a supply of clothing, tinned foods and medicines. But in the East things rarely happen at the appointed time and the 22nd became the 23rd, and then the 24th, before we were ready to start.
The parched Punjab landscape is not very inspiring immediately before the monsoon, yet it was good to be out in the country again, after sixteen days in a city. For 150 miles Jill kept Arabella to the straight, flat Grand Trunk Road along which I had cycled by moonlight on my way from Pakistan to Delhi; and then, a few miles beyond Ambala, we turned north towards the hills.
Twenty miles further on the road began to climb steeply; the landscape became suddenly green and rain-washed, the air was dustfree and the insidious stench of the plains – which permeates even the best-run homes – was replaced by the strong tang of resin. As Arabella swung effortlessly around countless sharp bends my spirits rose perceptibly with the increasing coolness of every mile.
On each side the mountains were dense with trees, shrubs and ferns, and occasionally a clear stream sparkled across the road. This fertility would be taken for granted at home but now I looked at it with something akin to a sense of reverence. We spent the night at Kasauli, a little hill-station perched cheekily on a ridge 6400 feet above sea-level. By day the view from here is splendid enough, but by night it is quite magical, for then the lights of Simla, forty miles away, can be seen twinkling in their thousands on the crest of another mountain.
At Kasauli Service Civil International runs a nursery for about fifty Tibetan refugees under the age of seven. Two British International Voluntary Service workers – David Williams and Robert Bell – had done a great deal to improve the building during the previous six months and I reflected that such projects show the brighter side of our so-often-condemned age. The youth of earlier generations left home and travelled the world usually for gain of some sort, however ingeniously their motives may have been wrapped in pious phrases; but now a number of highly qualified young people, impatient of the meaningless luxury of their own society, choose to work with the ‘have-nots’ on a daily maintenance allowance of one and sixpence.
The other helpers were an elderly Indian ‘housefather’, a thirty-year-old Tibetan and a young Japanese nurse. All these people, of widely different backgrounds, were co-operating generously to make this effort a success, and the homely atmosphere more than made up for a frugal standard of living, shared alike by the children and the volunteers.
When Jill and I arrived at the entrance to the nursery playground our appearance caused a demonstration that astonished me. From every direction the children came running towards us, with outstretched arms, greeting us as though we were long-lost friends. All they wanted was to be picked up and cuddled, and their unselfconscious revelation of this basic need completely disarmed me. In his book Tibetan Marches, Dr André Migot writes:* ‘As for Tibetan children, they can only be described as adorable …’ Remembering this, while these toddlers hugged my legs and climbed all over me, I saw exactly what he meant. Many of them were in pretty poor shape, suffering from scabies and general malnutrition, yet they glowed with good humour; and later, at the evening dispensary session, I observed that Tibetan gaiety was equalled by Tibetan docility. Diminutive four-year-olds stoically swallowed gigantic sulpha tablets without a murmur and one five-year-old boy stood unflinchingly, his head laid on the nurse’s lap, while she dressed an agonising ear-abscess.
After the children had chanted their night prayers and been put to bed by the four Tibetan ayahs, Jill and I dined with the volunteers. During the meal we discussed the Indian Army’s recent threat to requisition the Nursery building; obviously someone had blundered badly by not ensuring, before investing precious time and money, that no such threat could be made. I heard later that, through the kindness of the Area Commanding Officer, SCI were allowed to retain the house; but this was my first experience of the inefficiency too often connected with aid to the Tibetans. Many individuals and organisations are helping the refugees, yet the lack of co-ordination – either through insufficient knowledge of the overall picture or because of petty jealousies between rival organisations – sadly diminishes the sum total of good achieved.
Looking back on my initiation into the refugee world such a short time ago it is strange to remember my innocent assumption that everyone involved in this type of work puts refugees first; the disillusionment was extreme when it became obvious to me that a large minority put themselves or their organisations first and remain coolly detached from refugees as human beings. This does not, of course, apply to the full-time field-workers, almost all of whom are genuinely concerned and who have little interest in the machinations of the powers-that-be in London, Delhi or New York. These machinations are by no means confined to Tibetan relief work, but recently several experienced people have remarked to me that the Tibetans do seem to bring out the worst in relief agencies – possibly because this race has ‘something special’ and stimulates extra possessiveness. Admittedly such criticisms leave one open to charges of ‘crankiness’; people argue that ‘human nature being what it is one can’t expect anything else’, and no doubt this is partly true. Yet in Big Business human nature is not allowed to impede efficiency so drastically and it seems only reasonable to aim at a similar discipline in the administration of refugee aid.
Another of the basic problems of this situation arises from the cultural gulf between Western helpers and an Eastern people; what looks like an excellent scheme to an American or European may well have a disastrous effect on a group of Tibetans. However, this difficulty should di
minish in time if each side makes the necessary effort to understand the other’s point of view.
On the following afternoon Jill and I arrived in Simla. Like the Red Fort in Old Delhi, Simla is one of India’s ghost-haunts – though instead of the formidable elegance of the Fort one sees here a monument to the Victorian penchant for ugliness on a grand scale. The skill with which a large town was built on such vertical slopes gives the place a certain interest and charm, but from a visitor’s point of view Simla’s fall from glory is as yet too recent for it to seem anything more than an embarrassing example of the fragility of empires.
One hundred and thirty years ago this 7300-foot mountain was as inaccessible and deserted as its neighbouring peaks. Then an enterprising army lieutenant built himself a bungalow near the summit and within a few years the mountain-top had been transformed by the magic wand of wealth and power into a centre of imperial opulence. Here, until 1947, the British lived during the hot season in their own little world, comfortably cushioned on the knowledge that they were indispensable to India, yet remaining as remote from the fundamental realities of Indian life as Simla is from the sweat and dust of the plains. Then, less than a century after Simla’s creation, there was no more Empire. Overnight, the town became an ill-at-ease holiday resort for Indians, who now stroll along those streets which not long ago were forbidden to their race. Yet the spirit of Simla remains obstinately British, just as the spirit of the Red Fort remains Moghul, and this must indeed be flattering to the Indians who, looking at these reminders of past conquests, can see that however omnipotent the invaders may once have been, they all finally succumbed to the implacable vastness of India.
The Save the Children Fund runs two Tibetan Homes at Simla – ‘Stirling Castle’, on Elysium Hill, and ‘The Manor’, on Summer Hill – each caring for about 150 children under the age of eight. At Chota Simla there is an Indian Government-run boarding-school for some 500 boys and girls, and to this establishment the children are transferred from the SCF nurseries.
Our first stop in Simla was at ‘Stirling Castle’. As Arabella ascended the perilously steep drive we overtook a group of neatly dressed, spotlessly clean children being shepherded home from their afternoon walk by two equally clean and neat Tibetan ayahs. The contrast with the ill-clad, unhealthy Kasauli toddlers was marked; yet these Simla children, though obviously contented and cheerful, were also noticeably more subdued and disciplined – no doubt along kind but firm Western lines. And soon I realised that this difference presented a microcosm of the whole Tibetan problem.
The kernel of the problem is the extent to which these refugees should be encouraged to conform to the world in which they now lived – a question on which I soon found myself hopelessly split. My reason told me that Tibetans, as Tibetans, were doomed, while my instinct fiercely opposed every move which might hasten the process of absorbing them into any other culture. To live among these people is a lesson in the uses of courage, and the destruction of their unique way of life is one of the greatest tragedies of this century. However, it is now a fait accompli and, though one must sympathise with official Tibetan efforts to preserve their national integrity, fanaticism on this point seriously hinders the resettlement of the peasants.
For a few years after the establishment of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile its policy was based on the assumption that Tibet would soon be liberated and that then all her refugees could return home to live happily ever after in the changeless Tibetan way. Unfortunately this policy made it much more difficult to help the people to adjust to a new way of life and one hopes that the Tibetan Government’s newly displayed realism on the subject will now spread as rapidly as possible among the people.
Many Westerners urge that the unusually adaptable Tibetans should be immediately integrated into other societies – a plan which has the virtues of simplicity and practicality. Yet it is basically defeatist and one would like to believe that with the co-operation of the Tibetan Government some compromise may be achieved between the conflicting policies of preserving Tibetan culture intact and abruptly abandoning it to pursue ‘sensible’ integration.
When Arabella stopped outside Stirling Castle a lean, bearded figure came leaping agilely down the slope, and a moment later we were introducing ourselves to Stuart Menteth, the newly appointed SCF administrator for India. At once I mentally nicknamed him ‘Bertie Wooster’ as his charm and phraseology were of the waffling and slightly archaic Wodehouse vintage; but I soon discovered that this façade concealed qualities which had already infused a great deal of badly needed common-sense into the administration of local SCF projects. His wife, Pauline, who welcomed us into their little bungalow, was equally capable, being the sort of Englishwoman who tackles the most improbable tasks with an invincible mixture of guts, humour and compassion. Though lacking any previous experience of such work she managed to keep a complex situation tactfully under control and was immensely popular among the Tibetans.
For me the little tea-party which followed in the Menteths’ bed-sitting-room was quite an historic occasion. We ate English-style cucumber sandwiches and Tibetan-style pastries, baked in the shape of miniature toast-racks, while the Menteths told us about the desperate situation at Dharamsala Nursery.
This camp, the largest of its kind in India, was opened in May 1960 by Mrs Tsiring Dolma, the elder sister of the Dalai Lama, soon after His Holiness moved from Mussoorie to Dharamsala. By June 1963 there were over 1100 children in the camp, which had adequate accommodation for about 300, and at this point SCF sent a fully trained nurse – Juliet Maskell, from Birmingham – to cope with the crisis as best she could. Not surprisingly, Juliet collapsed from overwork after six weeks, and was now a patient in Kangra Mission Hospital. The Menteths were in despair about this situation and by the time tea had been cleared away it was obvious that my destination would have to be Dharamsala instead of Kangra.
On the following morning Jill and I drove down to Chota Simla School, which introduced me to the squalor of refugee camp life. At that time the buildings were overcrowded, leaking and crawling with bed-bugs; inadequate sanitation made it impossible to control the spread of dysentery and worms, and the hungry children were clad in rags. However, after talking at some length to the Indian headmaster – who showed more imaginative sympathy for the Tibetans than do most of his race – I realised that this was not the worst of it. Housing, feeding and clothing are comparatively simple problems – and since that time conditions have improved enormously at Chota Simla – but no plan for the resettlement of untrained youngsters in an already overpopulated country has yet been suggested.
None of these children had any schooling in Tibet and now they are being taught a smattering of English, Hindi, arithmetic and geography – an educational policy which is both farcical and potentially destructive. As the sons and daughters of illiterate agriculturists and nomad herdspeople they have inherited a fine tradition of crop-cultivation and stock-breeding – skills to which Tibetans bring a high degree of natural intelligence. They have also inherited many other talents, such as weaving, dyeing, leather-work and metal-work, and it is generally recognised that Tibetans possess an exceptional sense of colour and design. Yet at the various schools these children are being taught the rudiments of subjects which bear no relation to their natural aptitudes. In Tibet ‘book learning’ was the speciality of Lamas and aristocrats, and its effect on the young refugees is obviously going to be a disastrous discontent with their lot and a contempt for the crafts at which their forefathers excelled.
At present, fortunately for the Tibetans, the Indian Government is building new military roads to the northern frontier and this gives employment to about eighteen thousand refugees of both sexes – an arrangement which also suits India, since at high altitudes one Tibetan can do the work of five Indians. Among these road-workers are hundreds of skilled craftsmen, who now spend their days breaking stones or shifting soil and who are the only remaining link with the artistic splendours of old Tibet. It see
med to me, when I first heard of this situation, that it should be within someone’s power to assemble these craftsmen, provide them with the necessary materials, select the children most likely to profit from their teaching and let them go on from there. However, I soon discovered that nothing is ever as simple as it looks in what a friend of mine calls ‘Tibland’ – the world of Tibetan refugees, Indian Government officials and Western charity organisations. The disheartening thing is that one can never find out why a given project is not considered feasible. Several different reasons may come from several different directions, but the truth, as so often in India, remains forever hidden. If there were a shortage of funds this would not be so unbearable, but money worries are no longer a major problem in Tibland. The fate of Tibet left the governments of the world callously unmoved when their help was most needed, yet the plight of the refugees so stirred the sympathy of ordinary people everywhere that vast sums of money have been subscribed over the past six years. Now the principal needs are: (a) a pooling of resources by the Indian Government and the many organisations involved, (b) people of vision and integrity to administer this central fund and (c) a generous discarding of red tape by both Tibetan and Indian officials. The resettlement of the Tibetans bristles with complications – political, social and philosophical – and a satisfactory solution cannot possibly be found amidst the prevailing bureaucratic chaos.
Tibetan Foothold Page 2