‘Without General Zorawar Singh, Ladakh would have been part of China’

Ajay Banerjee

Chandigarh, December 3

Referring to the Ladakh military campaign of General Zorawar Singh in the 1830s and early 1840s, scholar Claude Arpi said, “Without General Zorawar, Ladakh would have been of China”. He was speaking at the second and concluding day of the seventh-edition of the military literature festival here today.

Arpi was part of a panel comprising prof Indu Banga and Dr Karamjit K Malhotra discussing: “Lahore Durbar and its gift of the North West Frontier, Kashmir, Baltistan and Ladakh to India”. The Lahore Durbar is the period of rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Arpi added that India in its negotiations with China should keep in mind the Treaty of Chushul, which defined a border between Ladakh and Tibet following the Dogra-Tibetan war in 1842.

“When India negotiates with China, it needs to remind the other side about the definition of the border which was defined by the Treaty of Chushul,” Arpi added.

Arpi said some historians suggest that Zorawar Singh wanted to capture Lhasa, however, things in western Tibet, which was captured by him, are different from the rest of Tibet.

Arpi said Mao Zedong captured Xinjiang within two months in 1949, this turned what was Eastern Turkestan under Soviet influence into Chinese occupied Xinjiang. He said, “I think Stalin (Joseph, the USSR leader) did not think through before allowing Mao the operation. Its capture has had its ramifications on Ladakh”.

Prof Banga said Ranjit Singh somehow does not have the pan-India appeal despite the fact that his policies were as accommodating as Akbar and Ashoka.