by J J Singh
The dastardly massacres of Mr Williamson, the assistant political officer based at Sadiya, and his friend Dr Gregorson, an adventurous doctor working in the tea estates of upper Assam, and most of the forty-odd members of his party, including the coolies (porters), by the fiercely independent, curious and suspicious Abor tribesmen of Kebang village at Komsing and Pangi in the Siang Valley during 30–31 March 1911 created an outcry that resonated throughout the British Empire. The official account of this gruesome tragedy, caused possibly by a grave misunderstanding and unfounded apprehensions, is contained in the Abor Blue Book, published at the end of 1911.19
When viewed against the backdrop of the Chinese activities on the south-eastern frontiers of Tibet, this incident triggered not only the launch of a punitive expedition but also exploratory surveys of the vast unexplored tribal territory along the Lohit, Dibang, Siang and Subansiri river valleys and the Tawang tract. Thus began a huge exercise by British India to reach out to the natural frontier and the Himalayan watershed to ascertain the southern limits of Tibet and the demography of the border region. Though there was general knowledge of this frontier, there were yet many dots that had to be joined to define it with greater authenticity and accuracy.
It needs to be highlighted that as late as 1910–11, it had not been authoritatively established that the Tsangpo and the Dihang or Siang were one and the same river, and the mystery of the gigantic waterfall in the gorge at the ‘great bend’ of the Tsangpo had yet to be unravelled. In order to fill the gaps in the existing knowledge of the terrain and of the people inhabiting the tribal region, specific guidelines were issued in 1911 by the military General Staff at Simla to the survey parties that accompanied every mission. The most important amongst them was, first, identification of a suitable watershed along the eastern Himalayas to form the border, keeping ‘on our side’ the tributaries of the lower Siang or Brahmaputra, the Dibang, Lohit and Irrawaddy rivers; and second, determination of the limits of the tribal areas.20 This became imperative, as in Asiatic countries the frontiers were vaguely expressed and the boundaries not clearly defined, leaving great scope for misinterpretation.
It was a colossal task, with rather overambitious targets. Unsurprisingly, it only succeeded in partially achieving its objectives because of the extremely rugged and almost impassable forested tracts on the southern glacis of the Himalayas. This remote region was inhabited by fierce tribes, most of whom had never seen Europeans and were intrinsically suspicious of outsiders. On the other hand, approaching the Himalayan watershed and the few known passes over a 1,000-kilometre frontier was, in fact, considerably easier from the Tibetan side because of the relatively friendlier attitude of the people there as well as the gentler topography. Moreover, the absence of or reduced forest cover on the northern slopes of the Himalayas facilitated survey of the mountain ranges and triangulation of the prominent peaks.
Fortunately for the British, the intrepid adventurer Captain Bailey, accompanied by Morshead and a small support group, who were part of the Mishmi expedition led by Dundas, was able to cross over the Himalayan watershed through the Yongyap La in May 1913 into the Pomed region of Tibet by going northwards up the Dibang river. Apparently, this happened more by accident rather than design, as while reconnoitring the upper Dibang Valley, the team came across some Tibetan settlers at a village called Mipi who were familiar with the Pomed and Pemakoichen areas of Tibet. They had come to this area in the hope of finding the mythical ‘holy mountain of glass’, but the hostility of the Mishmis had prevented them from realizing their dream and thus they returned to Tibet.
Bailey’s expedition was the first of its kind, and it was able to carry out a fairly systematic survey from the east to the west of the Tsangpo Valley in southern Tibet, the Pemakoichen, Pomed, Tsari, Mago, Monyul and eastern Bhutan areas. Amongst the most notable achievements of this expedition was its confirmation that Tsangpo, Siang and Dihang were the same river, and their proving that there was no spectacular waterfall in the Tsangpo gorge. This dispelled the myth of a ‘gigantic’ waterfall hidden in the bowels of the deepest gorge in the world. The only major waterfall recorded by the expedition was at Pemakoichen in the ‘great bend’ region, where the water cascaded through a deep gorge and fell with a great roar from a height of about 9 metres. The volume and velocity of the ‘seething and boiling mass of water’ were described as awesome. There was, in fact, another waterfall of over 30 metres in this area, at a place known as Shingche Chogye, where a smaller river falls into the Tsangpo. According to legend, ‘a demon who gives his name to the falls’ is seen only by the fortunate on certain occasions. He is believed to be chained to the cliffs behind the foaming and cascading torrent (Figure 14).21
Figure 14: The Waterfall and the Demon (sourced from Tibetan Thangka painting)
These were extremely valuable geographical findings that more or less confirmed the account of this area rendered by Kinthup, a British-trained spy and adventurer of Sikkimese origin, thirty years before. The findings of Bailey and Morshead were most timely, as well as the only reliably researched topographic account of the vast unsurveyed and virgin Himalayan range between the Tsangpo bend and the Subansiri, and westwards, between the Subansiri and the Nam Jyang Chu west of Tsona Dzong, and ascending up to the tri-junction of Tibet, Bhutan and India. Had this reconnaissance not been completed, there would have been no possibility of McMahon charting out the famous ‘red line’, demarcating the boundary between Tibet and the loosely administered tribal territories of British India, especially the frontier extending westwards from the Tsangpo or Siang gorge right up to Tawang and Bhutan. Although the frontier in the Lohit Valley was also fairly extensively reconnoitred by Dundas during the Mishmi expedition in 1911–12, by Bailey in 1910–11, and by O’Callaghan in early 1913, there remained a gap from Kangri Karpo peak at the head of the Chimdro river in the Pome region down to the Lohit Valley. In this gap, extending about 160 kilometres as the crow flies, the survey was apparently done from the southern side of the Dibang watershed, that too only partially, by a subsidiary exploration team led by Captain Hardcastle of the Mishmi expedition during 1911–12. This extremely rugged, densely forested and unapproachable area has the famous ‘fish-tail segment’ of the boundary, where the watershed could not be adequately surveyed and was therefore only loosely delimited by the General Staff and McMahon, based on inputs from the tribal people.
It may be pertinent to point out that prior to 1912 it was the deputy commissioner of Lakhimpur on whom devolved the responsibility of establishing a loose political control over the tribal areas. His span of control and responsibility for maintaining relations with the frontier tribes was reduced with effect from 1882 by the appointment at Sadiya of an assistant political officer for that area. The first such assistant was Mr Francis Jack Needham of the Bengal Police.22 There is handsome praise and recognition of Needham’s contribution in the preface to the Sadiya Frontier Tract Gazeteer of 1928: ‘By his explorations and discoveries, Mr. Needham acquired an international reputation and his work from 1882 to 1905 laid the foundations of the modern North-East Frontier of Assam.’23
In a reorganization of the administrative set-up as a result of these expeditions, three frontier regions were created by mid-1912 to administer the Assam Himalayas; the Western at Balipara, the Central at Lakhimpur, and the Eastern at Sadiya, which had become a full-fledged district. S.N. Mackenzie, the first political officer of the newly created district of Sadiya had, in his first annual report, succinctly alluded to the fact that the reorganization of the administrative structure of the hilly north-east frontier region south of the Himalayan watershed took place as a consequence of the Abor expedition of 1911–12:
The Dibrugarh Frontier Tract ceased to exist, and the district of Sadiya became a separate entity controlled by a Political Officer, working directly under the Chief Commissioner, with three Assistant Political Officers, one of whom was posted to Pasighat, and was, broadly speaking, in charge of the Abor Hills.24
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br /> The Abor expedition in the Siang Valley in 1911–12 was a major politico-military survey expedition under the overall command of Major General Hamilton Bower, the general officer commanding of Assam Brigade. This was launched in October 1911 to cover the Siang Valley, inhabited primarily by the Abor tribe. At the same time a series of exploratory subsidiary missions was also mounted, as part of the somewhat ambiguous policy of ‘loose political control’, to establish friendly relations with the Mishmi, Hill Miri, Dafla, Aka and Monpa tribesmen of the Lohit, Dibang, Subansiri, Tenga, Tawang and Namjyang Chu Valleys. Importantly, these missions were to also carry out surveys of all such untrodden territories so as to be able to propose ‘a suitable frontier line between India and Tibet’ in the north-east.25
The tasks of Major General Bower’s punitive and exploratory mission during the winter season of 1911–12 were outlined by the viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in his communication to the Secretary of State in London on 29 June 1911. He emphasized that the basic aim of the expedition was to seek ‘reparation for the murder of Mr Noel Williamson and party, and the establishment of our military superiority in the estimation of the Abor tribe’. He also underscored the fact that maximum advantage should be taken of this opportunity ‘to carry out such surveys and exploration as may be possible, that we may obtain the knowledge requisite for the determination of a suitable boundary between India and China in this locality’.26
Elaborate instructions were issued by the commander-in-chief of the army as well as the Governor General in Council to Major General Bower with regard to the military, political and survey aspects of the special mission. With a force of about 2,350 of all ranks and a contingent of military police, Major General Bower, with A. Bentinck and Dundas as assistant political officers, was also given the responsibility of overseeing all subsidiary missions into the other largely uncharted tribal territories, besides the Abor area. A survey party comprising two British officers, four surveyors and thirty-six khalasis (‘native helps’) was provided to this expedition. Dundas, an officer who belonged to Bengal Police, rendered his services with great dedication in the north-eastern-most corner of British India as assistant political officer, and later as political officer, at Sadiya from 1911 to 1920.
With the exception of the Lohit Valley, all the other major river valleys were virgin territory. Most of the tribal peoples in these parts had never seen a white man with yellow hair, as access to the plains had been denied to the interior tribes by the Abors, the Mishmis and the Daflas of the lower valleys.
It is of interest to note that contingencies such as face-to-face meetings with Chinese officials or troops, just in case they happened, had been catered for even a century ago. The instructions to the British Indian expeditions were that in such an eventuality, ‘endeavour should be made to maintain amicable relations. If however, such officials or troops be met within the territory of tribes on this side of recognized Tibetan-Chinese limits, they should be invited to withdraw into recognized Tibetan-Chinese limits, and, if necessary, should be compelled to do so (emphasis added).’27 However, there was no trace of any Chinese presence in these tribal areas, except for an odd Chinese foray in the Lohit and Dibang Valleys during 1910–11, that too confined to the close proximity of the customary boundary.
A fair amount of information about the Mishmi-inhabited Lohit Valley had already been obtained and collated based on the reconnaissance sorties carried out by Needham, Bailey and Williamson during the past two decades, but it was in the frontier areas of the Dibang, Siang, Subansiri, Kamala, Khru, Kameng, Tawang and Namjyang Chu Valleys that there were huge unsurveyed areas and considerable gaps in the topographical data. Many of the probes and reconnaissance missions into these valleys proved to be abortive or only partially successful. However, despite the total lack of background information on these areas and on the tribes residing in this territory, it was a great achievement to reconnoitre many of these valleys up to distances just three to four marches short of the passes on the main snow-covered Himalayan range. In the Miri-inhabited areas of the Subansiri and the adjacent Kamala river valley, the survey parties could not proceed beyond Mara and Tali, whereas in the Siang Valley they could go up to Sigging and in the Dibang Valley up to Mipi. At Tali there was an armed clash with the Miris, as a result of which Tali village, along with its granary huts, was torched.
However, the expedition was able to take the bearings and carry out rough surveys of the snow-covered main Himalayan range from the intermediate hills about 50–60 kilometres away as the crow flies, but could not go up to the major passes in these valleys from the south. West of the Kamala river there was a 70-kilometre-wide gap up to the Kameng river that remained unsurveyed. But the surveying team were able to observe a major snow-covered range, some of its peaks above 7,000 metres, extending about 200 kilometres westwards from the Subansiri to the Tawang Chu. This stretch has not been pierced by any river from the Tibetan side and has very few passes; in fact, only three were known (including Tunjun La, at 5,244 metres), and even these remained open only for a few months in the summer.
The British General Staff took stock of the information obtained by the Abor and affiliated exploratory missions and, by the collation, synthesis and analysis of these survey reports, were able to arrive at an outline boundary alignment between Tibet and India. But there remained some grey areas which needed to be addressed. The essence of the recommendations was to carry out further survey of the areas to fill the gaps.
The Aka promenade was accordingly planned during 1913–14 to obtain topographical details and explore the tribal territories of the Miris, Akas and Monpas. Led by Captain Nevill, it consisted of 1,032 of all ranks.28 This expedition met with hostility from the Dafla tribe in Riang village, which the mission had to pass en route. The expedition had to fight its way through at a number of places.
This array of expeditions beyond the outer line was carried out with the least publicity so as to avoid any debate on it in British Parliament and the consequent hassle of responding to allegations of breach of the Government of India Act, 1858. Therefore, as described by Alastair Lamb in his authoritative account of the times, ‘the press were kept as far away from the Abor Expedition as could be arranged, and an attempt was made to keep the Miri and Mishmi Mission secret’.29 This was necessary not only to avoid possible hype in London over British India’s forward push into the Himalayan watershed, but also to prevent the Chinese from raising an alarm. A Chinese newspaper, Kuo-min Pao, published from Chengdu, carried the news on 27 March 1912 that ‘British activity up the Lohit was clearly directed towards Zayul and the “Wild Men’s Country” (i.e., the Mishmi tribal tracts)’. If the British obtained control of Zayul, the paper declared, they could easily advance farther to the north-east to include both Batang and Chamdo within the sphere of influence of the Indian Empire. British influence in eastern Tibet would eventually lead to British domination of Szechuan province, it said.30
The British had of necessity to come out with the Abor Blue Book to support the official stand that ‘neither the Mishmis nor the Abors were beyond the British external frontiers’.31 This observation relating to the two major tribes of Arunachal Pradesh further reinforces the point that the tribal territories that lay to the south of the Himalayan watershed were within British territorial limits.
The only valley where the British were able to go across the known Tibet–India frontier was the Lohit—or Zayul, as it is called in the upper reaches—where the British missions reached up to Rima, a recognized Tibetan frontier outpost. Therefore, the reconnaissance carried out by Bailey and Morshead of the areas, mountains, rivers and passes from the Tibetan side during 1913 were of great value and helped to corroborate the findings of the exploratory missions launched from the southern glacis of the Himalayas under Major General Bower. I am of the opinion that drawing up the McMahon Line would have been impossible without the inputs provided by these two intrepid adventurers.
The Mishmi mission, led by Mr Dundas du
ring the same winter, was divided into two parts; one force under Captain Bally, accompanied by Captain F.M. Bailey as political officer, tasked with exploring the ‘completely unknown’ Dibang Valley to ascertain the limits of Tibetan or Chinese influence, if any, and to discern the most appropriate boundary along the main Himalayan crest line; and the other (main) force under Dundas, accompanied by Captain Hardcastle and Captain Jeffery, a Chinese-language specialist, to survey and recommend the boundary as it traversed the Lohit Valley going from west to east up to the area north of the Diphu Pass on the tri-junction of India, Tibet and Burma. In the Walong sector, based on the reports filed by Captains Gunter and Morshead, who had mapped the area extensively, Dundas recommended a boundary alignment along the Tho Chu (Figure 9), which flows down from the Dibang–Lohit watershed into the Lohit river at a point midway between Rima and Walong (a mention of this has been made in his account of 26 January 1912).32
On his arrival at the Yepauk nala, that drains into the Lohit river near Walong, on 3 January 1912, Dundas found that the Chinese had ‘put up fresh boundary markers besides the old ones of 1910’, the new ones bearing a red flag with the image of a four-clawed dragon and a red placard bearing in Chinese and Tibetan the following inscription: ‘Zayul, southern limit, boundary of Manchu Empire.’ Dundas ignored these markers and advanced to Walong, camping there till 31 January 1912. Interestingly, the Chinese and Tibetan authorities at Rima with whom Dundas remained in touch never protested the British presence beyond their (Chinese) claimed area, but kept the latter in good humour by welcoming them with the traditional gifts of chicken, eggs and other local products.33 Later, these Chinese activities were reconfirmed by the report of the Walong promenade led by T. P. M. O’Callaghan during early 1914. He recommended that the boundary going from the Lohit to the eastern tri-junction should be along the ridge just north of the Di Chu so that the Di Chu Valley and the track leading to Burma through the Diphu Pass would be under British control. He strongly advised occupation of a post at Walong, for reasons that he spelt out clearly: