(reading time 6 min)
Look at the map from 1948. The border situation was very different then. China never had a border with India. However, the history is not linear. Tibet as a region is culturally influenced by India but historically a part of Qing Dynasty many a times. So was the case with East Turkestan or Xinjiang.
Although mired in internal conflicts and turmoil, the Middle Kingdom maintained an expansionist and hegemonistic view of its remote border areas. This was true not only for the Ming and the Qing Dynasties but also for the Republic (1912 to 1949) and now the People’s Republic. For this reason, a pacifist Tibet either enjoyed the status of being a sovereign or a protectorate or part of a hegemonistic rule.
Taking advantage of this confusion, the British decided to demarcate the boundary between British-India and Tibet. At that time, Tibet enjoyed de facto sovereignty. However, when treaties are forced on weak states, the politics gets murky. Perceiving threat to its hegemonistic control, China intervened and the British and the Russians acknowledged that neither nation will engage with Tibet except through the Chinese.
Why was Russia a part of this engagement? Their search for a warm water port led them to Afghanistan and further south – a situation that made the British uncomfortable. What ensued was a great game of political confrontation between the British and the Russians over Afghanistan and Central Asia.
That also brings us to the nominally independent part of Central Asia and today’s restive province of Xinjiang – known to history variously as East Turkestan, the Dzungar (people), Tamir Basin (a part of it) or Sinkiang.
At the time of drawing of the McMahon Line, which China refuses to accept, and which Tibet only accepted under duress, the British maintained a Political Agent in both Lhasa (Tibet) and Kashgar (Xinjiang). In fact, Kashgar was later upgraded to a Consulate-General and was managed through the Indian Political Department of the British India. This indicates that both these regions were perceived as independent by the British.
What’s interesting is that Kashmir, Tibet, East Turkestan, and other small principalities, regions or valleys maintained an active trade and cultural exchange amongst themselves and traveled freely between the regions. The borders were porous and ill-defined. The concepts of sovereignty were unknown. Daulat Beg of the Daulat Beg Oldi region of Ladakh today bears the name of a certain Yakub Beg, a Tajik who conquered and ruled the East Turkestan and adjoining areas.
The Qing dynasty often controlled these regions either by means of a direct rule or by means of a confederacy.
Geography played an important role. The Himalayas made it difficult for the Indians and the British to venture into these areas. That meant, the Chinese and the Russians exercised most of the control.
From 1948 onwards Mao’s expansionist view was violent and backed by modern aggressive military. They walked over Tibet and Sinkiang. The resistance was brutally crushed. India, having won the freedom recently, was trying to put its own house in order. And grasp of strategic interests was absent.
India inherited the consulate in Kashgar. However, when the consulate was closed by the Chinese, there was no curiosity to find out what was happening under the hood. In fact, Captain Ram Sathe, who was the Consul General in Kashgar and later on the Ambassador to China, unceremoniously walked back to India via Lhasa facing great difficulties along the way. The construction of the road passing through Aksai Chin may have begun as early as 1948, a reason to close the consulate. This road and the Chinese annexation of the region was dismissed as irrelevant by the then government.
Thrust on Tibet and Sinkiang should have alarmed us. But either our mandarins were woefully unprepared or did not care. We tirelessly worked on the Panchsheel Agreement. We believed in the ‘peaceful rise of China’ when this was an example of oxymoron. We never understood the duplicity of the Chinese. And largely don’t understand it well even today. Sun Tzu has proved wiser than Kautilya.
We may have partially learnt our lessons from the 1962 war, but the psychological defeat is still alive. The incident of 1967 is unknown to many. And the Doklam standoff presided over a bickering that brought out the worst of Indian politicians.
The needling at the Pangong Tso lake or Daulat Beg Oldi or Tawang could have been avoided with buffer states. Today, we seem to have lost Nepal, opening up one more theater for the conflict.
Our strategy to counter China does not seem cohesive. Our muscle power and soft power has definitely increased. But it is wise to acknowledge that there is still a long way to go.
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