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To be fair to the readers, it must be said that since it is
difficult to point out when the politician in Dr Swamy takes
over from the Harvard trained academician, there is always a
lurking suspicion that he is pursuing an agenda. The intensity
of the suspicion grows as one goes through the chapters
related to the fundamentals of the Tibet and the Sino-Indian
border disputes. The reader should not be faulted for
wondering again and again if the subject of the book was the
indictment of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal
Nehru, and his China policy.
There is
little doubt that a large number of Indians have held the
first Prime Minister guilty of leading the country to a
disastrous and humiliating defeat during the 1962 war with
China, though it is debatable if this should be attributed to
his approach to the needs of the defence forces of the
country, or, his ambivalent approach to the Indo-China border.
It is easy to condemn him for the ostrich-like approach to the
problem, his inability or unwillingness to broach the subject
with his Chinese counterpart on a number of occasions even
while he was being asked to do so by Sardar Patel (1950),
Girija Shankar Bajpai, former Foreign Secretary and Governor
of old Bombay province and Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah in 1952.
The irony,
also noted by Professor Roderick MacFarquhar in his foreword,
however, is, that "for all his trenchant criticism of
Jawaharlal Nehru, Swamy’s vision resembles that entertained
by India’s first Premier in the heyday of "Hindi-Chini
bhai-bhai".
The reason
for this is not far to seek if the reader were to ask himself
as to what ails the Indo-China relations in the light of the
facts provided by the author. The problem, one would gather,
works subtly at various levels of consciousness, giving rise
to the highs and the troughs of relationship. Going by the
historical perspective provided in the book, it is very clear
that for long periods of history the process of "Sanskritisation
of China" had been taking place. The Indian monks
influenced phenology, astronomy, medicine, chemistry and
physical exercises, so much so that Zen Buddhism and karate of
Japan too can trace their origin to their teaching.
The author
notes that this was followed by strenuous opposition from the
Confucian literati, who defended Confucianism and
counter-attacked Buddhism. So much so that Dr Hu Shih, a
Chinese philosopher who gave a lecture at Harvard, stated
"that it (Buddhism) was an alien religion and that it was
a national disaster and a humiliation for the Celestial Empire
to be thus under the influence of aliens". An ancient and
proud civilisation with the Great Wall to monitor the comings
and goings could not have allowed total Indianisation of its
life style and philosophy. This is an important aspect which
has not been given due weightage while analysing subsequent
events.
The key
chapter, and the information which is relevant to the other
problem facing the two countries is Tibet. Even a cursory
understanding of the Tibetan issue brings out the magnitude of
the problem. Tibet, Dr Swamy has conclusively proved, has been
and is part of China. Despite its large area it cannot be an
independent country because the numbers ensure that for its
defence, it has either to look towards China or India.
Historically, this responsibility has been with the Chinese,
and even the institution of Dalai Lama came into existence
with the approval of Beijing. It was in 1578 that the Ming
prince Anda Khan of Mongolia conferred the title "Holder
of Vajra Dalai Lama" on Gelugba and the same title was
conferred on the first and the second Dalai Lama posthumously.
The
devolution of the political power to the Dalai Lama too took
place with the blessing and approval of the Chinese. In 1720,
with the help of Chinese Emperor Kang Xi, the king of Tibet
was deposed and the ninth Dalai Lama was made the political
head as well. The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907 contains the
clause that both the powers should deal with Tibet through the
Chinese! No further proof of Tibet being part of China is
required.
Having
established this, the author also informs the reader that from
time to time Tibet, the autonomous region of China, has laid
claims to the areas in the north-east of India. This has
happened when China was very weak and as late as 1947 when the
world was in a flux. Throughout the 19th and 20th century,
Tibet has laid claim to Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.
Tawang in Arunachal has always been considered a part of
Tibetan authority, informs the author, and in 1902 the Tibetan
troops actually invaded Sikkim.
The British
efforts to resolve the issue without sacrificing their
imperial interests resulted in the Simla Convention of 1914
which, however, turned out to be a dilemma for India. At the
convention Henry McMahon drew the famous McMahon Line from
Laos to Bhutan demarcating the frontiers, but unfortunately
the Chinese representative was recalled and the Tibetan
plenipotentiary disowned the map, leaving only the Indian side
to recognise the efforts.
In 1935 two
independent events made it necessary for colonial India to
give legitimacy to the McMahon Line. Kingdon Ward, a British
botanist, was arrested by Tibet for entering Lhasa from Tawang.
To secure his release the McMahon Line was brought out of the
files by Sir Olaf Caroe. The same year the Government of India
Act of 1935 required a precise delineation of tribal Assam.
The McMahon Line was again a handy tool.
This was the
position inherited by independent India. This meant that
either the neighbours accepted this position and, therefore,
the immediate task of the new rulers could not have been the
ratification of the boundary. Alternately, after accepting
that the Simla Convention of 1914 was stillborn, they should
on their own have raised the issue with the Chinese, as many
leaders, including Sardar Patel, wanted.
Jawaharlal
Nehru chose to follow the former approach and this seemed to
be producing results as the age-old friendly ties between the
two seemed to be growing stronger. If any proof of the success
of this policy was needed, it was provided by the Preamble to
the Agreement on Tibet in 1954 which contains the five
principles of coexistence (the much publicised and later
equally much reviled Panchsheel). One of the five principles
was, "mutual respect for each other’s territorial
integrity and sovereignty".
Clearly this
statement by the two countries implied that the borders were
known to each other. Nehru, one would think, must have felt
gratified that the fears of McCarthyism enunciated by Sardar
Patel and his school had been finally set at rest. His fears
were further allayed by the assurance given by Zhou Enlai that
just as China had accepted the McMahon Line with Burma, it
would do the same with India.
This was not
to be, and the reasons are not easy to explain even four
decades after the stunning blow that China delivered to Nehru
and India, though Nehru must be held responsible for gross
under-preparation of the defence forces and false bravado once
the Chinese had raised the border issue.
For all his
erudition and sharp analytical brain, even Dr Swamy is of the
"considered view" that it was the Sino-Russian rift
that precipitated matters in 1962, though much of the book is
devoted to proving that independent India’s Tibet policy has
been at the root of the problem.
The author
claims that in the present book all that he has attempted to
do is to compile enough historical material to show that till
1959 India’s relations with China had been relatively free
of tension. It was only Tibet that upset the equation. He,
however, does not offer a solution in this book, which he has
promised to do in a subsequent volume. But one thing can be
safely said: the author does not reconcile the contradictions
of Tibet without which there is little hope of evolving a
compact with China. It is also significant that he has quoted
tht in 1981 Chinese strongman Deng Xiaoping had said that
China had never accepted the annexation of Sikkim, and it
would never do so in future. For a people who have infinite
patience and who have no compunction in saying that they did
not raise a particular issue since "the time was not
ripe", this is a serious threat as it can be raised by
China at a time and place of their choosing.
It is
unfortunate that the politician in Dr Swamy seems to have got
the better of the academician in him. He has interpreted
events to suit his politics, thus he contradicts himself when
he evaluates the military strength of China in relation to its
neighbours. Selectively he quotes passages to prove that the
Indians and Vietnamese were no match for China at one place,
while proving the opposite at another. He also needs to go
through the history of Ladakh (page 64) again, for Gulab Singh
was not Sardar Gulab Singh but Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu when
forays into Tibet were made and Gulab Singh never led the
Sikhs to Tibet; it was General Zorawar Singh who led the
"valiant" Dogras while capturing Mansarovar-Kailash
area. Tibetans, with Chinese help, counterattacked at Leh, and
the Dogras, not the "fierce Sikhs", were victorious.
This chapter
of history is like skating on thin ice, as the accidents of
the 19th century can always be challenged by a tradition of
history and culture.
The irony of
the whole essay on India’s China perspective is that it is
based on Sardar Patel’s letter to Nehru in 1950. During the
course of the letter he says that the Chinese cannot be
trusted as the communists have the mentality of "whoever
is not with them being against them". One would have
thought that this philosophy had been monopolised by the
Americans! Or, is it that Dr Swamy shares his India’s China
perspective with the Americans, and therefore devotes much of
the book to prove the domestic and diplomatic failures of
Nehru?
Though, finally, he too seems
to be pursuing Nehru’s China policy but, of course, with a
new economic policy.
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