by J J Singh
An examination of the southern frontier of Sinkiang in Chinese maps of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as depicted in geographical and historical works such as Hsi yu tu chih (1762) and Hsin chiang chi lueh (1821), reveals that China’s southern boundary was along the Nanshan or the Kunlun range right through history, from the Han to the Ch’ing dynasties. This was corroborated later by Chinese postal maps of 1917, 1919 and 1933 too.11 While there may be claims and counterclaims on both sides, it is apparent that the boundary in this sector was recognized more through traditional and historical understanding rather than through physical demarcation on the ground. This was acknowledged as such by the Indian prime minister, in his address to Parliament on 12 September 1959:
This place, Aksai Chin area, is in our maps undoubtedly. But I distinguish it completely from other areas. It is a matter for argument as to what part of it belongs to us and what part of it belongs to somebody else. It is not at all a dead clear matter. However, I have to be clear with the House. It is not clear.12
While for India, Aksai Chin was not critically important to hold, for the Chinese it was. As emphasized by Garver, not only was it ‘essential to Chinese control of western Tibet’ but also ‘very important to its control over all of Tibet (emphasis added)’.
The Central Sector
The frontier of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand with Tibet forms the central section of the Indo-Tibetan border. This region, unlike Aksai Chin and certain parts of Arunachal Pradesh, is inhabited on both sides of the border. Therefore, although the area has very high mountains, there are well-known passes and routes used since ancient times by pilgrims, travellers and traders, as well as by herdsmen seeking pastures. The boundaries here evolved by tradition, custom and usage, and there is enough documentary evidence to establish the historic and de jure writ of either side. The Chinese have laid claim to four areas along the Himalayas in the central sector—at Spiti, Shipkila Pass, Nilang–Jadhang and Barahoti–Sangcha Malla–Lapthal, as shown in Figure 19.
The boundary between Uttar Pradesh and Tibet follows the watershed between the Sutlej and the Ganga or Ganges (Kali, Alaknanda and Dudhganga). Revenue records and other evidence with the Government of India are said to establish the fact that in this part of the boundary, the high Himalayan range, with passes at elevations of up to 5,183 metres, forms the traditional and well-known boundary. The boundary here too follows the watershed principle. Authentic Chinese maps, even as late as 1958, showed this as the boundary. The Nilang–Jadhang and the Barahoti–Sangcha Malla–Lapthal areas, according to the contention of the Chinese government, lie within the limits of Tibet, but are in fact well on the Indian side of the watershed. The boundary between Himachal and Tibet is the water parting between the eastern and western tributaries of the Sutlej. The border between the erstwhile Punjab and Tibet is the major watershed between the Pare Chu and Spiti river systems.
Figure 19: Chinese claims in central sector
Geography, as is usually the case, makes the task of the map-maker most challenging. In this frontier region, the first complication comprises the groups of awesome peaks such as those of the Nanda Devi, Trishul, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Bandarpunch (all above 6,000 metres) which lie south of the main Himalayan watershed and form a parallel range. Also, all the rivers here flow southwards, and none into Tibet. Secondly, the area where the Sutlej cuts across the mountains through a deep gorge and where many of its tributaries join it from both east and west makes precise delimitation of the boundary here tough. These factors have led to differing perceptions of the boundary in this region, even though the areas under contention are small. This area has well-known border passes like the Shipkila, Mana, Niti, Tunjun and Taklakot, which have been used for centuries by traders—particularly those dealing in pashmina, wool and yak tails—to access Tibet. Most importantly for Indians, these passes have been used to access the famous Hindu pilgrimage sites of Manasarovar and Kailash Parbat. And besides these factors, there is the issue of common pasturage in some areas.
The mention of these border passes in the 1954 Sino-Indian agreement was done with the intention of using them as markers while delimiting the boundary, as has been the case with numerous passes such as the Karakoram, Lanak La and Jelep La. These were, in fact, portals for entry into Tibet from India, and vice versa. For these reasons, resolution of the boundary in this region should not pose insurmountable problems.
The southern glacis of the Great Himalayan range in the middle sector has historically been the domain of small Hindu chieftaincies or hill rulers (‘Pahari Rajas’), who went by the titles of ‘Sena’, ‘Rana’ or ‘Thakur’. They considered themselves to be rulers but were actually vassals of the stronger amongst them or the monarch at Delhi. However, sensing their vulnerabilities, fractiousness and lack of unity, the ruler of Nepal expanded his kingdom to include all the sub-Himalayan territory from Kangra in the west to Bhutan in the east, between 1803 and 1814. He also brought under his fold the fiefdoms in the hills of Punjab up to the Jamuna.
However, nothing can arrest the vicissitudes of time, and the Anglo-Nepalese war of 1814–15 put an end to these dreams of a Nepalese empire in this region. After the Gurkhas were defeated, as per the Treaty of Sagauli of 1815, they had to surrender all territory to the west of the Kali river, the Kumaon hills, Garhwal and the Punjab hilly areas to the British. These territories were either annexed to the dominion of India or under some form of protectorate. The treaty also provided for a British resident to be stationed in Kathmandu for recruitment of Gurkha soldiers to the British Indian Army and deportation of all American and European officers who had been employed to train the Nepalese army. During the next three years, agreements or sanads were signed with the large number of chiefs, Pahari Rajas and Thakurs, who were given various titles and were made to pay tributes or nazaranah ‘for defraying the expenses of protection by British troops’. There were other stipulated terms. Undoubtedly, ‘according to the terms of the sanads, the British regarded their boundaries as traditionally fixed and in the aggregate extending to the borders of Tibet’.
After the defeat of the formidable Sikh army by the British in the Anglo-Sikh wars—more as a result of treachery, sabotage and the treasonable conduct of a few of the generals of the Khalsa army than to any superior stratagem of the British on the battlefield—the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir—the hilly area between rivers Indus and Ravi, and Ladakh—was founded under Gulab Singh. The British cleverly did not commit their resources and efforts to the unremunerative Ladakh and hill areas of Jammu region, but retained Kulu and Spiti Valley in order to have an access to the ‘wool producing districts of western Tibet’. Thus, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, British India and Tibet shared a frontier from Gya peak south of Demchok in Ladakh to the border of Nepal.
Lord Curzon has described the situation in 1907 after Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan had been converted into a chain of protectorates. He said the British were ‘content to rest their boundary there comfortably beneath the foothills’. In 1890, China signed with Britain a convention recognizing Sikkim as a British protectorate and delimiting the Sikkim–Tibet boundary; in 1910, over the protests of China, the British signed a treaty with Bhutan, in which that kingdom bound itself to be guided by Britain in her foreign relations. This situation was ideal for the British, so long as the approaches to India could be guarded by obedient feudatories as securely as British power itself could, and far more cheaply too.
In the central sector, the Chinese claimed approximately 2,100 square kilometres of Indian territory, specifically in the areas of Spiti, Shipkila Pass, Nilang–Jadhang (Sang and Tsungha) and Barahoti–Sangcha Malla–Lapthal, as shown in Figure 19.
Spiti was a Hindu kingdom since ancient times, as per historical records. Its kings bore the surname or suffix of ‘Sena’. It was annexed in the tenth century by Ladakh, and eventually brought under British rule in 1846, along with Kulu. During this latter period, its boundar
y with Tibet was demarcated by Captain A. Cunningham and Vans Agnew, and subsequently a detailed survey of Spiti was undertaken during 1850–51 by J. Peyton. This survey placed the Indo-Tibetan boundary on the ‘watershed between Spiti and Pare rivers’. Moreover, examination of the revenue records of these areas shows adequate evidence of their having formed part of the small Indian fiefdoms mentioned earlier, thus reinforcing the ‘validity of the Indian alignment along the east of Spiti’.13
In the area of the Shipkila Pass, contrary to the Indian stand, the Chinese regard as theirs ‘not merely the pass but also the pastures on its west upto Hupsang Khud’. Various historical accounts, revenue and travellers’ records indicate that the area up to the pass was part of India. In fact, the pass itself is known in Tibetan as ‘Pimala’ (meaning ‘common pass’) and hence has always been regarded as such.14
Similarly, in the Nilang–Jadhang, Barahoti and Sangcha–Malla–Lapthal areas, the claims of the Chinese are not based on convincing facts. ‘From times immemorial, this region as a whole has been regarded as one of special sanctity by the Hindus. It has been described as “Kedara Kshetra” in ancient Sanskrit Literature.’15 The sacred temples at Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath are visited by pilgrims from the entire subcontinent, who trek for days in these forbidding higher altitudes in their thousands even to this day. In our scriptures, this region is referred to as ‘Deva Bhoomi’.
The first incident hinting at a boundary problem here happened in 1954, when the Chinese border guards transgressed across the Niti Pass and came to the Barahoti plains. This was an area where for centuries the local inhabitants had been bringing their cattle and yaks for grazing. Some of these graziers used to come from the Tibetan side and might have spurred their new Chinese masters to claim these pastures. Taking an expansionist and maximalist stand, the Chinese proffered a claim to the Barahoti plains in 1954; and subsequently, after a gap of a few years, in a clandestine manner, occupied Sangcha Malla and Lapthal in close vicinity of the border on the Indian side, in 1958. Not only that, in 1960 the Chinese also laid claim to the adjacent areas of this remote and unpopulated region. This approach, not atypical of the Chinese, was also reflective of the lack of clarity in their own claims; or else they were taking advantage of geography and advancing their claims southwards because there are higher peaks and a parallel range here, but they forgot (or chose to forget) that the watershed is along the northern Himalayan range.
A striking fact that stands out and goes against the Chinese logic is that none of the rivers in this region flows northwards into Tibet. However, as mentioned earlier, the differences between the claims of India and China in this region are the least complicated of their disputes and involve much smaller parcels of territory. Moreover, the region being populated on both sides of the Himalayas, there is enough historical, political and customary evidence to find a mutually acceptable solution. For resolution of the long-standing Sino-Indian boundary problem, this could be the crucial first stepping stone.
Finally, at the time of India’s independence in 1947, Nepal too became an independent country, and fresh treaties were signed between the two countries in 1950.
19
Hurtling Towards the Border War
The geostrategic importance of Tibet in eastern Asia, particularly for India and China, cannot be underestimated. ‘He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalayan piedmont; he who dominates the Himalayan piedmont threatens the Indian sub-continent; and he who threatens the Indian sub-continent may well have all of Southeast Asia within its reach, and all of Asia,’ said George Ginsburg, in his study Communist China and Tibet:The First Dozen Years.1 While the British had come to such a conclusion more than a century ago, presumably Mao was aware of it too. It was the British Empire’s grand design to retain Tibet as an ‘autonomous buffer state’ and thereby keep at bay potential adversaries like Russia or China.
As emphasized by Kissinger, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War advocates attacking the opponent’s ‘strategy’ and ‘alliances’, and that would ‘involve psychology and perception’. Sun Tzu ‘places considerable emphasis on the use of subterfuge and misinformation. When able, feign inability, when deploying troops, appear not to be. When near, appear far, when far, appear near.’ This precept ‘remains a central text of Chinese military thought’.2
During the so-called ‘liberation’ of Tibet in 1950–51, one prong of the PLA’s thrust into Tibet was from the north-west. The Chinese sent troops, though not substantial in number, from Sinkiang; they took the ancient caravan route to reach Rudok and Gartok in western Tibet, travelling on horseback and on foot. Later, the Chinese used this route for maintenance of their troops in western Tibet. Yaks were extensively used for transportation of resources and as ‘meat on hoof’. While developing the other vital routes connecting Sining, Chengdu and Kunming to Lhasa, the Chinese also decided to develop this strategic communication artery as early as 1951. In fact, Mao’s command to his advancing armies was to build motorable roads as they penetrated into Tibet. These roads took four to six years to be completed, and entailed a huge cost of human life and resources. However, while the other roads passed through Chinese territory, the Sinkiang route traversed partly over the disputable Aksai Chin area.
It is reasonable to presume that China, at the time of Indian independence, had access to Indian maps in which the Aksai Chin area had been depicted by a colour wash, with the qualification ‘boundary undefined’. This colour wash indicated that it was Indian territory whose precise limits were not determined. As the terrain, particularly the Kunlun mountain range, precluded a viable alternative alignment for this strategic artery, the Chinese decided to go ahead with laying the road through this area, doing it as secretively as possible, to present a fait accompli to the world. To keep prying Indian eyes at bay they abruptly forced closure of the Indian consulate at Kashgar. This should have been contested strongly, but India simply acquiesced to it without a murmur. Ambassador K.M. Panikkar failed to appreciate the Chinese design. The forthright words of Zhou Enlai to our ambassador were: ‘The privileges which were being enjoyed by the Government of India as a result of the unequal treaties forced by the British did not any longer exist.’ The Chinese leader also suggested that ‘fresh negotiations’ would be necessary to resolve trade and other issues with respect to Tibet.3 This led to the talks at Peking from December 1953 onwards, which concluded in the famous ‘Hindi Chini bhai bhai’ slogan and the Panchsheel and Trade Agreement of 1954. On the altar of peaceful coexistence and brotherhood, Nehru sacrificed all rights and privileges of India with respect to Tibet—privileges the British had acquired over half a century and had bequeathed to India without a quid pro quo.
Once the Aksai Chin highway was presented as an achievement to the world in 1957, the PLA began to flex its muscles and expand westwards. The principal Chinese objective in Ladakh was to acquire real estate to provide depth to their strategic artery and keep it beyond the reach of long-range artillery and surveillance from ground patrols. In this way, the Chinese kept all the dominating heights on their side of their claim lines. They moved their 1956 claim line further west by 1960, taking advantage of the easier topography of this area to push their troops to assume control of the vacant spaces up to the new claim line wherever feasible.
With the publication of the new Survey of India maps, as directed by Nehru in 1954, India’s frontiers were clearly and unambiguously defined, although unilaterally. But this was the case with the Chinese maps too. In a policy note issued to all the relevant ministries in July 1954, Nehru directed that this boundary issue ‘is not open to discussion with anybody’ and that the frontier should be safeguarded by a ‘system of checkposts’, especially in those areas ‘which might be disputed’.4 As a result of this directive, a few frontier posts manned by civil police and the Intelligence Bureau were established by the Indian government.
In 1954, Zhou Enlai had assured Nehru, when the latter raised the issue of faulty depiction of the Sino (Tibet)-Indian b
oundary in Chinese maps, that China had not had the time to ‘revise’ their old Kuomintang maps. Not surprisingly, the Chinese, following their grand design, published new maps in 1956. These maps, besides not making any corrections to the old maps, incorporated within China even more areas of Ladakh. This development should have sounded alarm bells among the Indian civilian and military leadership, but elicited only an apathetic response.
In the Kongka Pass incident, an Indian patrol was ambushed by the Chinese and nine Indian soldiers were killed and ten were captured in October 1959. According to Jagat Mehta, Nehru wrote to Zhou Enlai expressing his dismay at what had happened, but he still nursed the naive hope ‘that China would be frank, and his ideas of non-alignment would not be exposed as hollow and wishful. It should have been clear that both sides were on different wavelengths and neither understood the other.’5 This aspect will be discussed in the following chapter.
The simmering unrest in Tibet came to a boil in 1959 when the Khampa rebels had fierce clashes with the Chinese army in the eastern Marches. It was only a matter of time before this revolt spread to central and southern Tibet. This did happen, and it led to a regime of severe repression by the Chinese government. Many Tibetan institutions and monasteries were destroyed and thousands of Tibetans killed or arrested. The country was laid to waste once again. The Tibetans began fleeing in hordes. The only secure direction and destination was southwards across the Himalayas to India—the land of the Buddha. In order to avoid detection by the Chinese army, most of them took to hazardous mountain trails and many perished en route. Those who succeeded in reaching India sought refuge here and were accorded asylum, as per international norms.
Fearing his apprehension and deportation to China, the young Dalai Lama, on 17 March 1959, decided to make good his escape to India along with eight of his close aides and advisers. Deliberately, he chose a route different from the one taken by his predecessor and fled to the south. Like the thirteenth Dalai Lama almost half a century ago, he too successfully evaded his Chinese pursuers and made it to India. He crossed the border in the Khinzemane area of Tawang district on 31 March 1959. He was received warmly, and he and his followers were granted asylum.6 Respecting Chinese sentiments, India advised him to refrain from political activities while in India.