The Revolt In Tibet

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the
revoll"
in
tibet

FRANK MORAES

the macmillan company new york 1960

Frank Moraes 1960

All rights reserved no part of this book may
be reproduced in any form without permission
in writing from the publisher, except by a re-
viewer who wishes to quote brief passages in
connection with a review written for inclusion
in magazine or newspaper.

First Printing

The Macmillan Company, New York
Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Gait, Ontario

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress catalog card number:
60-6644

for
peter
and
lily

foreword

Communist China's brutal seizure of Tibet has roused re-
vulsion and indignation throughout the free countries of
Asia and in the democratic world. This book deals with the
events in Tibet which led finally to the Dalai Lama's flight,
and with the relations between China and Tibet. It also offers
a brief survey of Tibet's history and people, together with
an assessment of the impact made by the Communist aggres-
sion in Asia, particularly on India.

FRANK MORAES

contents

ONE
Flight from Lhasa i

TWO

Roof of the World 32

THREE

The Dragon Leaps Forward 64

FOUR

Land of Lamas 94

FIVE

India, China, and Tibet 117

SIX

The World Outside 144

SEVEN

Han Imperialism 172

EIGHT

Agonizing Reappraisal 197

With the Dalai Lama (A Postscript) 220

the
revolt
in
tibet

THE FLIGHT OF THE
DALAI LAMA

BHUTAN \ OTawang

Right
from
lhasa

CHAPTER ONE

A gray-brown mist of swirling sand enveloped the Nor-
bulingka, summer abode of the Dalai Lama at Lhasa. It was
the evening of March 17, 1959.

All that morning, while the Kashag * and the Tsongdu f
debated whether the twenty-four-year-old God-king should
leave Lhasa, the sun had shone brightly on the tiled roofs
of the massive gateways and on the poplars in the gay green
park and gardens surrounding the palace. Inside the palace
the members of the Tsongdu and the Kashag had been debat-
ing since March i ith whether Tibet's stability and the Dalai

* The Tibetan Cabinet comprising six ministers, two of them monks. They
are appointed by the Dalai Lama, and outwardly the Kashag is the supreme
administrative body. The six ministers are known as shapes or kalons, but
the monks who are the senior members are called Kalon Lamas. The four
lay members are nobles.

fThe Tsongdu is the National, or Grand, Assembly, a nominated body
comprising 350 high officials, including the abbots of the three Great Monas-
teries of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden, whose views have great authority. The
Tsongdu meets whenever important matters are referred to it by the Dalai
Lama or the Kashag.

2 The Revolt in Tibet

Lama's safety lay in yielding to the increasingly peremptory
threats of the Chinese or in flight.

The crisis, simmering for some months, had boiled over
on March loth. About four weeks earlier the Dalai Lama
had agreed to attend a cultural show in the auditorium of
the Chinese military headquarters at Lhasa. This was in no
way abnormal; for, although relations between him and the
Chinese authorities had grown cool since he had evaded
their demand to deploy his bodyguard of five thousand men
against the rebellious Khamba tribesmen, who had been en-
gaged in intermittent guerrilla warfare against the Chinese
for over three years, their dealings with each other had been
polite and even superficially cordial. By February the war-
like Khambas, whose revolt began late in 1955 * n *he dis-
trict of Kanze in the border region of Szechwan, had spilled
over the Sino-Tibetan frontier, and were harassing Chinese
outposts within less than fifty miles of Lhasa. Chinese efforts
to inveigle the Living Buddha into moving his troops against
them had failed. A showdown was inevitable.

It came early in the first week of March when a letter from
Lieutenant General Tan Kuan-san, political commissar of
the Chinese Army units in Tibet, was delivered with calcu-
lated indifference to Tibetan protocol, directly to the Dalai
Lama. It curtly called on the God-king to present himself un-
escorted at the Chinese military headquarters of General
Chang Ching-wu, the Peking Government's representative
in Tibet. There was consternation at the Norbulingka when
the contents of the letter became known. It was unheard of
that a communication should go directly to the Dalai Lama
instead of being respectfully submitted, as usage demanded,
through the Kashag. To order His Holiness to appear unes-
corted was near-blasphemy, since religion and ceremonial re-
quired that the Living Buddha should not move in public
without his train of senior abbots and courtiers. What was

Flight from Lhasa 3

behind the Chinese demand? The suspicion grew in Tibetan
minds that the purpose was to abduct the Dalai Lama, isolate
him from his advisers and people, and use him as a helpless
instrument to advance Chinese policies and designs in Tibet.
Lhasa's streets that week were teeming with crowds gath-
ered to celebrate the Tibetan New Year, and among them
were many hundreds of Khamba tribesmen who had made
their way into the capital. It was not long before news of
General Tan's letter to the Dalai Lama reached the milling
mob. Among the first to hear the news from the Norbulingka
was Gyusm Chemo,* fifty-seven-year-old mother of the Dalai
Lama, and her distress infected the crowds in the streets,
which were soon filled with wailing women. On March i2th
a procession of Tibetan women waited on the Indian consul
general, whose official residence, midway between the Potala,
the Dalai Lama's winter palace, and the Norbulingka, was
to be damaged a few days later by Chinese mortar and artil-
lery fire directed at these two targets. The women requested
the Indian representative to accompany them to the Chinese
Foreign Bureau and be a witness while they presented their
demands. Quite properly the consul general expressed his
inability to do so, but undertook to bring such matters to the
notice of the Chinese authorities.

Meanwhile, on March loth, as news of the Chinese com-
munication to the Dalai Lama spread through Lhasa, a vast
crowd estimated at about thirty thousand surrounded the
Norbulingka, demanding that His Holiness should on no
account expose himself to the risk of visiting the Chinese
military headquarters. The Tibetans made no secret of their
deep hostility to the Chinese. Tibetan officials and army per-
sonnel arrested Communist sympathizers, and anti-Chinese
manifestoes were openly distributed. Arms and ammunition
secreted in the monasteries and other hiding places were
Meaning Great Mother.

4 The Revolt in Tibet

passed out to the populace, including the Khamba warriors
who strutted the streets, their feet encased in great shaggy
boots, their bodies bristling with rifles, daggers, and swords,
and accompanied by lean, savage dogs. Those suspected of
collaboration with the Chinese were given short shrift. Sampo
Tsewong-rentzen, deputy commander of the Tibet military
area command and a member of the Kashag, was attacked
and wounded but escaped death. Significantly, he and Ngapo
Ngawang Jigme, who was also strongly pro-Chinese in his
sympathies, were the only two members of the Kashag who
stayed behind in Tibet when the Dalai Lama fled to India.
Another collaborationist, a monk known as Lama Pebala
Soanamchiato, was less fortunate. He was lynched by a
furious crowd, and his corpse was dragged ignominiously by
the feet through the streets.

Faced with these demonstrations of defiance and open
hostility, the Chinese grew nervous. They could rely on
very few Tibetans, and they knew that even the local Tibetan
Army of a little over three thousand men, under the con-
trol of the Dalai Lama's government, sympathized with the
rebels. With three hundred thousand of their own troops in
Tibet, and with many thousands more available should the
need arise, the Chinese could never have doubted the ulti-
mate outcome. In arms and equipment they were also vastly
superior. But for the vehemence and violence of Tibetan hos-
tility they were not prepared, and it shook them badly.
Nervously they set up machine-gun posts, reinforced their
numbers in Lhasa, and trained their artillery on the Potala
and the Norbulingka.

Inside the Norbulingka the Dalai Lama and his advisers
played for time. They too could have no illusions about the
outcome. Though the majority of the National Assembly was
in favor of the Dalai Lama leaving Lhasa, a few were hesitant,
some of them genuinely concerned as to whether it would not

Flight from Lhasa 5

be wiser in the interests of Tibet and His Holiness if the
God-king stayed on. Others, with their loyalties divided be-
tween the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities, were of
two minds, and urged caution. On March i7th the Chinese
themselves brought matters to a head when in a foolish at-
tempt to intimidate the Dalai Lama and his advisers they
lobbed a couple of mortar shells into the grounds of the
Norbulingka which fell harmlessly into a pond. The shells
helped to make up the mind of the National Assembly, which
decided to advise the Dalai Lama to leave Lhasa.

In the crucial six days between March nth and March
i^th the Living Buddha, though outwardly serene, and con-
tent to leave any decision concerning himself to his advisers,
had not been idle. To allay Chinese suspicions that the
demonstrations around the Norbulingka on March loth
were organized, the Dalai Lama entered into a correspond-
ence with General Tan Kuan-san in the course of which six
letters were exchanged between the two. The authenticity
of these letters was originally questioned among others, by
India's prime minister, Mr. Nehru but there can now be
no doubt that they were genuine, and written by the God-
king with calculated purpose, as he himself admitted to Mr.
Nehru. On March loth His Holiness in a letter to the gen-
eral explained that he was prevented from coming to the
Chinese headquarters by the crowds who besieged his sum-
mer palace. The general's letters are dated March loth, nth,
and i5th, and the second of these is icily polite but minatory
in tone. From addressing the God-king as "Respected Dalai
Lama" in his letter of March loth, the general changes to a
curt "Dalai Lama" in his letter of March nth. He reverts to
the recognized form of address in his last letter, but the
threats grow more insistent. Following his first letter, the
Dalai Lama wrote to the general on March nth and again on
March 12th, signing the last communication not with the

6 The Revolt in Tibet

customary "Dalai Lama" but merely "Dalai." In all of these
letters, however, the God-king attempted to soothe Chinese
susceptibilities and suspicions by describing in the stylized
Communist phraseology the crowds who prevented him from
leaving his palace as "reactionary evil elements" and "the
reactionary clique" whose "unlawful actions . . . break my
heart." While his advisers debated the question of his flight,
the Dalai Lama was stalling.

When finally, in the afternoon of March i7th, the Kashag
and Tsongdu decided that the Living Buddha should leave,
it was agreed that the decision should be conveyed to His
Holiness by a small delegation which included the three ab-
bots of the Great Monasteries of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden,
who had taken a prominent part in the discussions. The
Dalai Lama received them with his accustomed serenity, his
tall loose-jointed figure wrapped in the customary wine-red
cashmere toga, his right shoulder bare as custom also or-
dains. They bowed reverently before him and conveyed their
advice urging him to leave. Their average age was at least
twice that of the twenty-four-year-old God-king. His Holiness
listened calmly to their pleas but seemed momentarily hesi-
tant.

"I shall go," he said, "if by going I can help my people and
not merely save my life."

At this the delegation prostrated itself at the God-king's
feet, pleading with him to leave, and to leave immediately.

"Your Holiness must go before it is too late."

The upturned corners of the Dalai Lama's mouth curved
in the boyish, strangely wistful smile which the world now
knows.

"If that is your unanimous wish, I shall go."

Sunlight shone on the courtyards and filtered through the
trees of the wooded gardens and pathways surrounding the
palace. It was decided that the God-king, accompanied by

Flight from Lhasa 7

his mother, sister, and brother, his tutors, cabinet ministers,
and senior officials, should leave within a few hours. As eve-
ning came, even before night had descended, a sandstorm
swept Lhasa, enveloping the Norbulingka behind a curtain
of gritty sand and dust. Conditions could not have been more
ideal for the God-king's escape.

Outside, the restive crowds, by now increasingly militant,
milled around the palace where it was known that the
Kashag and the Tsongdu were in session. In his letter of
March nth Tan had complained to the Dalai Lama that
the rebels were "openly and arrogantly" carrying out "mili-
tary provocations" by posting machine guns and armed per-
sonnel "along the national defense highway north of the
Norbulingka." The Dalai Lama in his reply dated March
12th, while admitting some minor incidents, attempted to
appease the general. "I am making every possible effort to
deal with them," he assured him. "At eight-thirty this morn-
ing a few Tibetan Army men suddenly fired several shots
near the Chinghai-Tibet highway. Fortunately, no serious
disturbances occurred." It was evident that the Tibetans,
military and civilian, were in an ugly mood.

Even before the final decision was taken, preparations had
been made for the Living Buddha's departure. Food had
been stocked, and part of the treasure at the Dalai Lama's
command was packed on a train of mules. Apart from the
sandstorm, the celebration of the Little New Year festival,
when groups moved about the streets, facilitated the royal
party's escape. It was agreed that the party should split up
into small groups, leaving the palace separately, and meet
at Nethang, thirty-five miles south of Lhasa, between the
river Kyi Chu, one of whose tributaries skirts the southern
rim of the Norbulingka, and the river Tsangpo, as the
Brahmaputra is known in Tibet.

From Lhasa to the Indian border is about 150 air miles,

8 The Revolt in Tibet

but the route traversed by the Dalai Lama covered about
three hundred miles across some of the world's most treacher-
ous mountain territory, over rivers and through valleys and
snow-covered passes. The fifteen-day trek was accomplished
on foot, by horseback, on mules, and by inflated yak-skin
coracles, the party moving at a pace of around twenty miles
a day. The route lay across the river Kyi Chu, up the 17,000-
foot-high Che Pass, and then down over the other side of the
mountain range to the river Tsangpo. South of the Tsangpo
the terrain varies between open plateau and inhospitable
mountains, and there the Dalai Lama's party was enabled to
move from village to village because the territory was con-
trolled by the Khambas. Once the party emerged from the
Brahmaputra Valley they were comparatively safe, for the
Loka Province, the Yarlung Valley, and the district of Tsona
Dzong were studded with rebel strongholds, among them
Mindol-ling, thirty-five miles from the south bank of the
Tsangpo, and others strung in the region of Lake Trigu.
From then on, the dramatic race down from the Roof of the
World to the Indian border more or less followed the ancient
caravan trail to Tawang.

Throughout the evening of March iyth members of the
National Assembly, cabinet ministers, and other officials
trickled out of the Norbulingka in groups of three or four.
They included the Dalai Lama's mother, his twenty-six-year-
old sister, Tsering Domme, and his younger brother, four-
teen-year-old Ngari Rimpoche. Also in the party were his two
tutors, the senior of them being the erudite, grave-faced
Trichang Rimpoche, and three cabinet ministers Surkong
Wonching-galei, Neusha Thibten-tarpa, and Hsika Jigme-
dorje. The fourth member of the Kashag, Yuto Chahsi-
dongehu, had fled to India as far back as 1956. In addition to
the ministers and officials were lesser monks and a retinue of
servants, the party numbering around ninety.

With the crowds in the streets and byways surrounding the

Flight from Lhasa 9

Norbulingka were soldiers of the Tibetan Army and scores of
stray Khambas who provided a protective screen to the royal
party against the inquisitive gaze of the Chinese soldiers
garrisoned about three hundred yards from the walls of the
palace. The Khambas had been instructed to start a diver-
sionary movement should the Chinese discover the flight of
the Dalai Lama, and the commander of the Tensung Khamba
Regiment had been alerted. The Chinese, however, suspected
nothing and had no idea of what was afoot. It had been ar-
ranged that a detachment of twenty-five soldiers from the
Dalai Lama's personal bodyguard, the Kusung Regiment,
should accompany the party. South of the Tsangpo they
would be met by another squad of Khamba tribesmen, who
would take over from the God-king's personal bodyguard the
duty of protecting him.

Around 10:00 P.M. the Dalai Lama, accompanied by three
attendants, emerged from the south gate of the palace. He
had discarded his spectacles, and wore the garb of a poor
monk, consisting of a russet-brown chub a, or loose mantle,
with a stocking cap not unlike a balaklava, swathing his face
against the sandstorm. The Tibetans call this cap o-mo-su.
He walked nonchalantly through the gate and on to the
street, with no one even glancing at him.

"His Holiness left the palace just as if he were taking a
normal walk," one of the attendants remarked later. "No one
interfered. No one tried to stop us."

In the dry bed of the tributary of the river Kyi Chu was
an encampment of Chinese soldiers alongside which the Dalai
Lama had to walk. Here again his luck held. The sandstorm
still blew across Lhasa, and through its haze the royal party
passed unnoticed and unrecognized. At the Kyi Chu crossing
point the Living Buddha and his attendants boarded the
public ferry together with a score of other passengers. No one
recognized him.

On the other bank horses were waiting, ready and saddled

10 The Revolt in Tibet

for the royal party. Mounting, the four disappeared into the
night. By midnight the various groups had reached their
rendezvous at Nethang. From there the party proceeded on
horseback to the Che Pass, dismounting at the summit and
walking down to the valley of the Tsangpo. It is a Tibetan
custom to ride uphill but to walk downhill. An old Tibetan
jingle runs:

Kyan-la mi chi-na, ta omen:

Tur-la mi pap-na, mi-men.

(If you do not carry him up a hill, you're no horse.

If you do not walk down the hill, you're no man.)

At early dawn the Dalai Lama was ferried across the river
in a yak-skin coracle, and again awaiting the party on the
other bank were horses saddled for the long ride ahead. Here
they were in comparatively safe territory, for the Khamba
tribesmen controlled a large sector of southeast Tibet be-
low the Tsangpo. So hurried, however, was their departure
from Lhasa that it was not possible to give advance warning
to the villages and forts through which the Dalai Lama
passed, and only after two days' travel was the party met by
an escort of Khamba tribesmen who replaced the God-king's
personal bodyguard. As the party moved, requests for fresh
horses were sent ahead by the Tibetan "arrow service," a
highly efficient system which ensures that messages under
the Dalai Lama's seal are dispatched by couriers on horse-
back who in the manner of a relay race hand them over from
courier to courier until they reach their destination.

News of the Living Buddha's presence soon seeped through
the area, and at various points he was met by reverential
crowds who bowed or prostrated themselves before him. Con-
trary to general belief the party traveled largely by day. It
was essential that no time should be lost, since the Chinese
were bound to discover the fact of the Dalai Lama's flight

Flight from Lhasa 11

within a day or two of his departure. Actually, they did so on
March igth while the royal party was between Mindol-ling
and Tsetang where the Khamba tribesmen took over the duty
of protecting the God-king.

Having negotiated the grueling i7,ooo-foot Che Pass
which separates the Lhasa Valley from the plain of the
Brahmaputra, the Dalai Lama's party found itself not only in
friendly territory but on less difficult terrain. South of this
broad plain was more broken country, but the Khambas were
loyal escorts and good guides. The original plan, on crossing
the Tsangpo, was to make for the semi-independent border
kingdom of Bhutan, but on hearing that the Chinese had
blown up bamboo and rope bridges spanning mountain
streams near the frontier of Bhutan it was decided to seek
refuge in India.

From Tsetang, capital of Loka Province, to the Indian
border is approximately one hundred miles. When on March
igth the Chinese realized that the Dalai Lama had fled,
they were infuriated. But by then they must have realized
that His Holiness was beyond the Brahmaputra, in Khamba-
controlled territory, and that no practical purpose would be
served by sending columns in pursuit of him. Moreover, their
hands were full. At Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet the hostility
of the Tibetans had erupted into open violence, and follow-
ing the departure of the Dalai Lama the Tibetans intensified
their anti-Chinese activities, destroying bridges, erecting
road blocks, setting fire to Chinese buildings, and surround-
ing units of the Red forces. One of the last acts of the Kashag
before leaving Lhasa was to denounce the Sino-Tibetan
agreement of May 23, 1951, whereunder Tibet, in return for
Chinese recognition of Tibetan national regional autonomy,
had conceded Peking's right to control her foreign rela-
tions and had acknowledged "the unified leadership of the
Central People's Government/' This repudiation was pro-

12 The Revolt in Tibet

yoked by persistent violations of the agreement by the Chi-
nese, of whom the Tibetan Government now demanded that
the Chinese withdraw their occupation forces since Tibet in
view of these violations considered herself independent.
Though the declaration was never officially delivered to the
Chinese authorities, the Tibetans adopted it as a charter of
independence, and on March isth a women's procession at-
tempted to deposit it at the Chinese Foreign Bureau in Lhasa.

Open rebellion broke out in the Tibetan capital on the
night of March igth when the Dalai Lama's bodyguard, the
Kusung Regiment, along with the Trapchi Regiment and
units of the Gyantse Regiment, launched armed attacks
against the People's Liberation Army garrison. They were
assisted by monks, who took a prominent part in the rebel-
lion, and by other individuals to whom arms had been dis-
tributed. The Chinese put the total number of the rebels at
around twenty thousand, their own number in Lhasa being
estimated at forty thousand. Fighting began in earnest the
next day when the Chinese trained their artillery on the
Potala and Norbulingka palaces and on several monasteries,
including Drepung and Sera, and on the great temple of the
"Jo," or Lord Buddha, called the Jokhang, which has been
described as the Lateran of Lamaism. All these ancient edi-
fices were damaged, some badly, and hundreds of priceless
treasures and manuscripts were destroyed. The official resi-
dence of the Indian consul general, between the Potala and
the Norbulingka, being in the line of fire, was slightly
damaged. It houses the only foreign wireless transmitter in
Lhasa with access to the free world, which is perhaps one rea-
son why the Chinese were anxious to see the Indian consular
personnel vacate it during the fighting. The consul general
declined.

Of the final outcome there could be no doubt. By March
22nd the Chinese had succeeded in putting down the Lhasa

Flight from Lhasa 13

revolt; they claimed to have taken four thousand Tibetan
prisoners and to have seized eight thousand small arms, over
one hundred heavier weapons, including machine guns, mor-
tars, and mountain guns, and 10 million bullets. The Chi-
nese estimate of Tibetans killed is two thousand, though
figures vary, some placing the total closer to five thousand.
But in northern and northeastern Tibet, as in the area south
of the Tsangpo, scattered rebel forces held out.

The Chinese were particularly vengeful toward the monks,
concentrating on the monasteries, among them Rongbuk on
the northern face of Mount Everest, which they surrounded
with about four hundred soldiers. Mass deportations of
Tibetans from Lhasa were also reported, one estimate giving
the number at around fifteen thousand. Savage reprisals were
inflicted on loyal Tibetans, and a large number of them were
summarily executed.

Traders and refugees to India brought tales of Chinese
attempts to launch an offensive south of the Brahmaputra
in the region of Nagartse, east of Gyantse, where the Khamba
rebels have some strongholds around Yamdrok Lake. The
Sikang-Lhasa road, built by the Chinese, extends west from
the Tibetan capital to Shigatse, seat of the Panchen Lama,*
and from there to Gyantse, which lies on the trade route
from Lhasa to Gangtok, capital of the semi-independent
frontier state of Sikkim, a neighbor of Bhutan. Gyantse is
about one hundred miles southwest of Lhasa. Dr. Satyanarain
Sinha, a former member of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of
Parliament f ), who was trekking in the southern regions of
Tibet around this time, claimed that some Khambas had told

* The Panchen Lama, who is twenty-two, and tenth of his line, is
second only to the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan ecclesiastical system. He has
local political power only in the region around Shigatse, 130 miles west of
Lhasa, but the Chinese Communists enlarged his political power and used
him as a counterweight to the Dalai Lama.

( Lower House of India's Parliament. The Upper House is known as
Rajya Sabha (Council of States).

14 The Revolt in Tibet

him that they had deliberately circulated false rumors to
mislead the Chinese into thinking that the Dalai Lama would
be coming to India by the Lhasa-Gyantse-Yatung-Gangtok
trade route. As diversionary tactics they had cut off the Chi-
nese communications between Yatung and Lhasa. Early in
April Chinese troops appeared in this area and were sub-
jected to continuous harassment by Khamba guerrillas. One
trader told of seeing white soldiers, "tall, with blue eyes,
light hair, wearing black boots and khaki trousers," in the
vicinity of Gyantse on April 22nd. They were accompanied
by women, also European, who "looked like nurses in white
uniforms/' They came in trucks and in a trailer attached to
a jeep which was equipped with machine guns on top, and
were given a warm welcome by the Chinese. Could they have
been Russians? Or were they technicians with their wives?

The Chinese had made efforts to prevent the Dalai Lama
leaving Tibet. Within a few hours of realizing that His
Holiness had left Lhasa, they began a mammoth manhunt
by air and land. Their land operations are reckoned to have
involved some fifty thousand troops, and not long after the
Dalai Lama's departure heavy artillery fire was heard south
of Lhasa where the Chinese shelled rebels entrenched at
Nethang, the royal party's rendezvous in the first stage of
their flight from the capital. This rebel group comprised a
rearguard party left behind to cover up the Dalai Lama's
flight and to check pursuit. The Chinese air operations
were equally painstaking and thorough. The area which the
Dalai Lama's party were traversing after March igth was
over 350 miles wide and around 75 miles deep, stretching
south of the Brahmaputra from Nagartse to Lho Dzong in
the east, and inhabited, apart from the Khambas, by the
equally rebellious and independent Amdo and Golok tribes.
While the planes flew low over the valleys and towering
peaks the troops combed villages and mountain monasteries

Flight from Lhasa 15

in a desperate but vain attempt to intercept the Dalai Lama.
In the twenty hours which elapsed between the God-king's
crossing of the Tsangpo and the Chinese discovery that he
had fled Lhasa, the royal party had covered over fifty miles.
Mindol-ling lies thirty miles southeast of the Tsangpo, and
twenty-five miles farther east is Tsetang. Persistent grilling
of villagers and monks along the route north of the Tsangpo
produced little of value to the Chinese, for the journey had
been made under cover of night.

Nor were the aerial reconnaissances any more fruitful. Here
two things hampered the Chinese. In their reckoning, the
Dalai Lama would either stay in southwest Tibet, as he had
done during the Han "liberation" of Tibet in 1950 when he
had moved his temporary government to Yatung near the In-
dian border, or proceed to Bhutan or Sikkim. The Dalai
Lama did neither. Another retrogressive factor affecting the
Chinese was the weather. For the greater part of the eleven
days which the royal party required to cover the hundred-odd
miles from Tsetang to the Indian frontier, a thick wall of
cloud hung over the eastern Himalayas, making visibility
poor and hindering aerial pursuit. Under the blanket of
cloud enfolding the mountaintops, the Dalai Lama slipped
into India. It is curious but true that on the morning after
the night of March 3ist when the Dalai Lama entered India
the clouds lifted and the sun shone brightly. Some Tibetan
lamas have been known to claim occult powers which en-
able them to control the weather, inducing rain in a season
of drought or sunshine when the clouds threaten a flood.

Whatever the cause, the fact is that the Dalai Lama's party
after crossing the Brahmaputra sighted aircraft only twice
the first time on the fifth day out of Lhasa when in the
vicinity of Tsetang, and the second time when approach-
ing the Indian border. On the first occasion the Chinese
plane, which passed at some distance, did not spot them; the

i6 The Revolt in Tibet

second plane they believed to be Indian. Twice again they
heard aircraft while south of the Brahmaputra, but were
unable to see anything owing to the dense, unseasonable
clouds. It is doubtful if the Chinese parachuted troops at any
point along the Dalai Lama's route, for the simple reason
that they never sighted him. Nor did the party at any time
see Chinese troops or hear of them being in the vicinity.

From Tsetang the Living Buddha with his entourage
moved up the mountains south through the Trigu Valley,
traveling some forty miles to Trigu Lake in the heart of the
Nyem area, the chief stronghold in rebel hands. The region
is fairly populous, and enmeshed with caravan routes which
thread their way through the mountains and the plain.
Crowds gathered at every encampment where the Dalai Lama
halted, and wherever he could give them a public audience
and his blessing. It was imperative, however, that no time
should be lost unnecessarily, and such halts and delays as
were inevitable were reduced to the minimum.

Some fifty miles to the south of Trigu Lake is Tsona
Dzong. While approaching this district, and while still two
days' ride from the Chuthangmu Pass which leads into the
Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA), whose eight-hundred-
mile frontier of mountainous terrain abuts on Tibet, the
Dalai Lama dispatched two emissaries with a message re-
questing the Government of India to permit him and his
party to enter India and to seek asylum there. The emissaries
reached officials at the Indian checkpost of Chuthangmu on
March ggth. They informed the Indian authorities that the
God-king was expected to reach the border at Kanzey Mane
near Chuthangmu in the Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA
on March 3oth. His route from Tsona Dzong to the Indian
frontier ran for ten miles along the Towang Chu River.
The Government of India, already apprised of the possi-
bility of the Dalai Lama's seeking asylum in India, had, in

Flight from Lhasa 17

Mr. Nehru's words to Parliament, "instructed the checkposts
round about there what to do in case such a development
took place." On the evening of March gist the God-king,
accompanied by his mother, brother, sister, three cabinet
ministers, and two tutors, was received by the assistant politi-
cal officer of the Tawang subdivision, and crossed into Indian
territory. He was followed shortly afterward by the remainder
of his party. Dividing later into two groups, they proceeded
to Tawang, the site of one of India's largest Buddhist monas-
teries, which is about forty miles down the valley, close to
the eastern border of Bhutan.

Mr. Nehru disclosed the news of the Dalai Lama's entry
into India in a statement to the Lok Sabha on April grd, but
Hong Kong newspapers, quoting the official Chinese news
agency report, had released the news the day before. Obvi-
ously the course of the Living Buddha's journey in the last
stages of his three-hundred-mile trek was known to the Chi-
nese, but by then he was beyond their reach. It must also
have been known to their intelligence agents inside India,
who are concentrated largely in Kalimpong, a hill station
in the foothills of the Himalayas which teems with spies and
counterspies of varied political hues. Indifferent communica-
tions in NEFA accounted for Mr. Nehru not receiving the
Dalai Lama's message of March 2gth until April ist, for no
direct wireless facilities exist between the border checkposts
and New Delhi; messages have to be relayed by wireless from
Bomdila, headquarters of the Kameng Frontier Division, to
Shillong, capital of Assam State.

Once the Chinese realized that the God-king was heading
for India, their tone and attitude to that country changed
perceptibly. On March gist, the day the Dalai Lama crossed
into India, the Peking People's Daily, while referring to India
as China's "great and friendly neighbor," pointedly warned
against foreign intervention in the developments in Tibet,

i8 The Revolt in Tibet

which, it stressed, "are entirely internal affairs of China/'
It underlined this by stating flatly that Kalimpong was being
used as "a commanding center of rebellion'* against Tibet,
although only three days previously the Indian prime min-
ister had categorically denied the charge. The circulation of
the Peking editorial by the Chinese Embassy in Delhi an-
gered the Lok Sabha, which was also indignant that the
National Council of the Indian Communist party had almost
simultaneously issued a statement supporting the charge.
Tempers ran high in Parliament, and were concentrated on
the Communist members, who were angrily shouted down.
Mr. Nehru, who was not present in the Lok Sabha that day,
sought to mollify the mood of the House on the following
day. But it was obvious that, aside from the Communists, the
other members were not in a mood to be appeased.

Nor were the Chinese. Since the Dalai Lama's flight Peking
had been insisting that the Living Buddha had been "ab-
ducted" by his "traitorous advisers," an interpretation which
Mr. Nehru unequivocally declared that he did not accept. "As
for the Dalai Lama himself," he remarked in a speech to the
Lok Sabha, "I imagine that he left Lhasa of his own free will.
I cannot conceive of the Dalai Lama being pushed about
by his own people. People revere the Dalai Lama so much
that it is difficult to believe that the great mass of Tibetans
are against him." This could hardly have been to the liking
of Peking, whose tone in the face of mounting public criti-
cism and indignation in India stiffened visibly. India was now
accused of expansionist aims in Tibet, and "Indian expan-
sionist elements" were charged by the New China News
Agency of having "inherited this shameful legacy from the
British." The NCNA went on to explain: "That is why the
members of this gang [of Tibetan rebels] were of a mind to
join with foreign forces from within our country, with their
faces turned to India and their backs to the motherland. See

Flight from Lhasa 19

how affectionate they are with each other, calling each other
sweet names and reluctant to part!" Mr. Nehru in a dignified
rejoinder dismissed the allegation, affirming that "India had
no political or ulterior ambitions in Tibet." He also repudi-
ated the Chinese charge that the Dalai Lama was being held
in India under duress. "They [the Chinese]," he observed in
a speech to Parliament on April syth, "have used the lan-
guage of cold war regardless of truth and propriety. . . .
The charges made against India are so fantastic that I find it
difficult to deal with them. ... It is therefore a matter of
the deepest regret and surprise to us that charges should be
made which are both unbecoming and entirely void of sub-
stance."

When Mr. Nehru said this, nine days had elapsed since the
Dalai Lama himself had made his first statement on Indian
soil at Tezpur. It had taken the party eighteen days to cover
the 220-odd miles from Chuthangmu across the Sela Pass
by way of Tawang and Bomdila to the railhead of Tezpur,
which they reached after an arduous journey on foot, by
horse, jeep, and car. For security reasons the Indian author-
ities had originally planned not to release the news of the
Living Buddha's arrival until he was safely ensconced at
Tawang within the "inner circle" of the NEFA area. But the
premature Chinese announcement of his arrival in India in-
duced a hasty change of plans. A strong detachment of Assam
riflemen was sent to the border checkpost to ensure the
safety of His Holiness, who was urged to lose no time in leav-
ing for Tawang. The Northeast Frontier Agency was sealed
off, only accredited officials and the local population being
allowed entry. Private traffic was banned in the foothills
region of Assam State, and identity cards were rigorously
checked. At Chuthangmu the Dalai Lama's bodyguard sur-
rendered their arms to the Indian authorities, and the Assam
riflemen became the Living Buddha's escort. It was not

so The Revolt in Tibet

expected that the Chinese would pursue the God-king across
the Indian border, but there was always danger from sabo-
teurs and other terrorist elements.

The point where the Dalai Lama entered India consists of
mountainous, generally snow-clad terrain, but in the early
spring the Sela Pass is aglow with flowers. Inside the giant
white-walled monastery at Tawang, some ten thousand feet
up in the mountains, six hundred shaven-headed monks
chanted prayers for the God-king's safe journey, lit candles,
and planted "prayer flags" on the green hillside. At Thong-
leng, a village not far from Tawang, the party split into two
groups, the larger traveling ahead of the smaller group, which
comprised the Dalai Lama and his entourage. These included,
besides cabinet minister and tutors, a lord chamberlain, three
lord attendants master of ceremonies, master of robes, and
master of tea an Incarnate Lama,* and one representative
each from the monasteries of Sera and Drepung. On the
afternoon of April 5th the Dalai Lama's party was seen
wending its way up the steep path leading to the monastery.
This was lined with Buddhists in ceremonial robes and
saffron-clad monks chanting hymns. The Dalai Lama, though
cheerful, looked tired. Contrary to earlier reports he was
neither injured nor ill. For security reasons it was decided
that the Living Buddha should not put up at the monastery
as originally arranged, but in a separate residence ringed by
a unit of the Assam Rifles.

On April 8th the Dalai Lama set out for Bomdila, sixty-two
miles from Tawang, along a mule track which traversed diffi-
cult mountain passes and deep valleys, through Jang, where
the party halted briefly, to Sengi Dzong, some sixteen miles

* An Incarnate Lama, also known as Tulku Lama, is believed by the Tibet-
ans to be a reincarnation of a bodhisattva, i.e., a holy man who attains nirvana
(boundless bliss) but renounces his right to it in order to be reborn for the
benefit of his fellow creatures. There are about 1,000 Tulku Lamas in Tibet
today.

Flight from Lhasa 21

away, a journey which entailed some arduous trekking and
riding on mules or on small Bhutan ponies. Bomdila which
stands about nine thousand feet above sea level, is the highest
administrative center in India. Overlooking the mountains
are three snow peaks. The country is picturesque, with dense
forests interspersed with gay flora. For the comfort of the
royal party the Indian authorities had set up tents and bam-
boo shelters at intervals along the route.

Waiting to receive the royal party at Bomdila was P. N.
Menon, former Indian consul general at Lhasa, whom Mr.
Nehru had specially sent to meet the God-king and who was
later attacked by the Chinese as the man responsible for
master-minding the Living Buddha's Tezpur statement. The
Dalai Lama reached Bomdila on April lath, the last lap of
his journey being along a bridle path winding through for-
ested hills. From Bomdila a jeep track runs some seventy
miles to the foot of the hills, where just across the border is
an Assam Rifles post known as Foothills, which controls the
border separating NEFA from the State of Assam. About the
time of the Dalai Lama's arrival at Bomdila, an official
spokesman in Delhi announced that the God-king would
ultimately reside in the hill station of Mussoorie, and it was
later learned that his residence would be in a house put at
his disposal by the well-known Indian industrialist G. D.
Birla. It was also officially stated that Mr. Nehru would see
the Dalai Lama on April 24th, when the prime minister
would be visiting Mussoorie for the conference of the All-
India Association of Travel Agents.

At Bomdila a convoy of about thirty jeeps awaited the
arrival of the party, which rested at this post for two days.
The Living Buddha was described by a Tibetan who saw
him there as looking "big and shining, wearing a magenta
robe with a knitted handkerchief on his head." On April
i7th the party reached Khelong, ten miles from Foothills,

22 The Revolt in Tibet

where they proceeded after a night's rest to Foothills and
from there through the Darrang district of Assam to Tezpur.
About twenty miles from Foothills on the Assam side is
Missamari, where arrangements were later made to set up a
camp for the Tibetan refugees.

Over fifty foreign and Indian correspondents had gathered
at Foothills, which the Dalai Lama reached on the morning
of April i8th a little after 7:30 A.M. It had been drizzling
intermittently, and a mist hung over the mountainside. Be-
fore leaving Bomdila the God-king had held his first confer-
ence with his advisers on Indian soil. It was attended by the
three cabinet ministers who had accompanied him, a former
general of the Tibetan army, and high officials and monk dig-
nitaries. The Dalai Lama impressed on his party the need to
be inspired by Buddhist ideals, and adjured them not to
abuse the hospitality of India, the land of the Buddha's birth.
At the conference a code of conduct for Tibetans in India
w r as framed which generally discussed the outlines of the press
statement which the Dalai Lama was expected to issue at
Tezpur. To the correspondents assembled at Foothills the
God-king made no statement, but he looked buoyant and
cheerful, and the serene smile rarely left his face.

After a brief halt at Foothills, the Dalai Lama, who was
now transferred to a limousine which carried the Indian and
Tibetan flags, the latter hastily improvised with crayons, left
for Tezpur, arriving there about two hours later. Shortly
before his arrival at the Circuit House, where the corre-
spondents had assembled, a statement by the God-king was
read on his behalf, first in Tibetan by Rimshi Surkhang
Lhawang Tobgey, an official in his party, and then in English
by another official, Jigme Pangdatshang. Copies of the state-
ment were distributed to the correspondents.

In Peking at this time the second Chinese National Peo-
ple's Congress was in session, and among the delegates was

Flight from Lhasa 23

the Panchen Lama, clad in a gold robe and seated near Chou
En-lai. On the day the Dalai Lama reached Tezpur and issued
his historic statement categorically denying that he was in
India "under duress," and challenging the Chinese accusation
that he had been "abducted'* by the rebels, the Chinese prime
minister repeated these charges. "Although the Dalai Lama
has been abducted to India/' said Chou, "we still hope he
will be able to free himself from the hold of the rebels and
return to the motherland." At Tezpur on the same day the
Dalai llama's statement declared: "The Dalai Lama would
like to state categorically that he left Lhasa and Tibet and
came to India of his own free will and not under duress. It
was due to the loyalty and affectionate support of his people
that the Dalai Lama was able to find his way through a route
which is quite arduous."

Even this categorical statement was repudiated by Peking
in a desperate effort to "save face." Commenting on it, the
Panchen Lama insisted: "The statement issued in the name
of the Dalai Lama, which turns things upside down, is a sheer
distortion of the facts and a complete fabrication. It is obvi-
ously a result of coercion by the reactionaries, and certainly
not of the Dalai Lama's own will." Evidently the term "reac-
tionaries" was intended to include the Dalai Lama's Indian
hosts. But Peking could not erase facts merely by contradic-
tions and insinuations.

The Dalai Lama's statement of April i8th was notable for
some other significant declarations. It began with the flat
assertion that "the Tibetan people are different from the Han
people of China," and went on to say that "there has always
been a strong desire for independence on the part of the
Tibetan people. Throughout history this has been asserted
on numerous occasions." The statement then discussed the
Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951 when "the suzerainty of
China was accepted, as there was no alternative left to the

24 The Revolt in Tibet

Tibetans/' and declared that the full autonomy which Tibet
was promised in return had not been respected and recog-
nized by the Chinese. "In fact/' observed the Dalai Lama's
statement, "after the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese
armies, the Tibetan Government did not enjoy any measure
of autonomy even in internal matters, and the Chinese Gov-
ernment exercised full powers in Tibetan affairs/' The pic-
ture of a small nation struggling unceasingly but unsuccess-
fully to preserve its independence from its powerful and
aggressive neighbor emerges clearly from this account.

The statement went on to reveal that "by the end of 1955
a struggle had started in the Kham Province, and this as-
sumed serious proportions in 1956." By early February, 1956,
"the relations of Tibetans with China became openly
strained." There followed a brief description of the events
which had finally compelled the Living Buddha's advisers to
suggest that the God-king should leave Tibet. In expressing
his gratitude to the Indian people and government "for their
spontaneous and generous welcome, as well as for the asylum
granted to him and to his followers/' the Dalai Lama's state-
ment referred to the ancient religious, cultural, and trade
links between India and Tibet, and described India as "the
land of enlightenment, having given birth to the Lord
Buddha/' There is noticeable even in the reference to India
an implied desire that Tibet should be treated as equal and
sovereign, and not as a humble suppliant dependent on
India's benefactions.

It is also significant that the statement, while demanding
freedom from China, implying either independence or real
autonomy, did not shut the door on any solution on nego-
tiation, arbitration, or reference to the United Nations. But
there could be no going back to Tibet's post-igsi status. The
Dalai Lama concluded his statement, couched throughout
in the third person, a fact to which the Chinese later were to

Flight from Lhasa 25

attach a sinister significance, with the fervent hope that,
"These troubles will be over soon without any more blood-
shed. As Dalai Lama and spiritual head of all Buddhists
in Tibet, his foremost concern is the well-being of his people
and in ensuring the perpetual flourishing of his sacred reli-
gion and the freedom of his country." The emphasis the
statement lays on the Dalai Lama's religious and secular
functions and on the right to religious and political freedom
flowing therefrom is interesting and revealing.

Confronted with this frank, forthright, and assertive docu-
ment, the Chinese Communists reacted characteristically,
mounting a barrage of vituperative denial and abuse which
questioned the authenticity of the "so-called statement of the
Dalai Lama," describing it as "a crude document, lame in
reasoning, full of lies and loopholes." The Chinese dismissed
the Tibetan claim to independence as contrary to historic
facts, and insisted that Peking had controlled Tibet's political
and religious systems from the thirteenth to the eighteenth
centuries. "Not even the title, position and powers of the
Dalai Lama were laid down by the Tibetans themselves,"
affirmed the New China News Agency. The Tibetans, it
conceded, are different from the Hans, but so are the Mon-
golians, Manchus, Uighurs, Huis, Chuangs, Miaos, Yaos, and
"dozens of other small nationalities in the southern prov-
inces." None of these small nationalities had claimed inde-
pendence, though they had enjoyed regional autonomy
"within the big family of their motherland." The same
NCNA commentator observed, with an implied innuendo
on Indian involvement: "The publication at this time of this
so-called statement of the Dalai Lama, which harps on so-
called Tibetan independence, will naturally cause people to
ask: Is this not an attempt to place the Dalai Lama in a
position of hostility to his motherland and thus to block the
road for him to return to it? Is this not an attempt to create

26 The Revolt in Tibet

a situation for compelling the Indian Government to permit
the Tibetan rebels to engage in anti-Chinese political activ-
ities in India?" The rebels were, of course, denounced as
"reactionaries," representative of vested interests who were
opposed to the reforms and modernization schemes intro-
duced by the Chinese Communists. The Panchen Lama again
added his voice to this noisy chorus, particularly of critics
of "Indian expansionism/' and sarcastically referred to
India's sudden solicitude for Buddhism, a religion it had
successfully edged out of the country.

Meanwhile in India the Dalai Lama continued to receive
the most friendly welcome by enthusiastic crowds along the
rail route from Tezpur to Mussoorie. He left Tezpur in an
air-conditioned coach at noon on Saturday, April i8th, after
receiving an address of welcome from the citizens of Tezpur
and giving his blessings to them in the traditional Buddhist
way. On Sunday morning the special train halted at Siliguri
in West Bengal for nearly seventy-five minutes, and there a
mammoth crowd, estimated at several thousands, greeted
him. They included the children of the Dalai Lama's elder
brother, who had come from their school in Darjeeling to
greet him. Also there to pay the God-king his respects was
the Maharajkumar of Sikkim with members of his family.
Waiting to welcome him were monks bearing wooden in-
cense burners, some with long trumpets and other musical
instruments with which they greeted the God-king. The
crowds shouted, "Down with Chinese imperialism!" As the
Dalai Lama stepped onto the rostrum which had been
erected before the station, hundreds of Tibetans, men,
women, and children, showered the traditional white scarves
at him. A request for yellow flowers for his daily devotional
prayers had been transmitted to Siliguri, and a large posy
of saffron and yellow dahlias awaited the God-king when he
alighted. The open space before the station presented a color-

Flight from Lhasa 27

ful scene with the thousands of Tibetans in flamboyant cos-
tumes of magenta, claret, pink, and purple. His Holiness
looked wan but cheerful.

On the way to Siliguri crowds had gathered by the wayside
stations in the hope of getting a glimpse of the God-king. The
train had halted at some points, and at the first stop on Satur-
day evening at Rangapara in Assam a large crowd broke
through the police cordon and gathered around the Dalai
Lama's coach. Farther on, at a small wayside station, Rangiya,
through which the train passed late at night, a crowd of a
few hundred villagers waited in the pouring rain merely to
see the train go by. These scenes were repeated throughout
the night as the heavily guarded royal coach moved toward
Siliguri. Early in the morning the train stopped at Bonarhat,
where among the crowd were some European planters from
the tea estates in the vicinity.

From Siliguri the train moved into the State of Bihar, an
area hallowed by Buddhism, for in Bihar Gautama centuries
ago had become the Buddha. Chapra was the last station in
Bihar, and there the Dalai Lama's train halted at 2:00 A.M.
amidst a huge crowd waving banners and shouting slogans,
greeting the God-king, who at that late hour was resting.
Shortly afterward the train crossed the frontier of Bihar into
Uttar Pradesh, which is Nehru's home state.

At Sarnath, where the Buddha had preached his dharma,
or eightfold way of life, the Dalai Lama alighted later that
morning on a platform festooned with flags and banners in a
station constructed on the lines of Buddhist architecture.
Along with the Tibetan monks were others from Ceylon,
Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and India. The Dalai
Lama, accompanied by this colorful retinue, proceeded to
the Dhamek Stupa, reputedly built by India's great apostle-
emperor Asoka, a convert to Buddhism, where the God-king
knelt in prayer. He also offered a silk scarf to the golden

2 8 The Revolt in Tibet

image of the Buddha in the Mulganda Kuti Vihara, whose
great bell, tolled only for highly distinguished visitors,
chimed throughout the morning in the Living Buddha's
honor.

At Banaras, the Rome of Hinduism, the Dalai Lama's
party changed into a broad-gauged train for Dehra Dun, and
arrived there early in the morning of April sist. A crowd of
over three thousand awaited His Holiness, and in a long
motorcade he drove to Birla House at Mussoorie, which was
his journey's end, some 1,500 miles from Lhasa. It was a little
over a month since the God-king had left his capital. At
Gandhi Chowk, the center of Mussoorie, the Dalai Lama was
welcomed with flowers by the chairman of the local municipal
board.

What was his status to be in India? On April 2oth, a day
before His Holiness arrived at Mussoorie, questions were
asked in the Lok Sabha at Delhi to which initially Nehru
gave equivocal replies. The Dalai Lama, said India's prime
minister, would be free to carry on his religious activities in
India, "but political activities are not carried on from one
country against another." When a veteran Independent
member, the highly respected Dr. H. N. Kunzru, pointed out
that in Britain, when asylum was granted, refugees were al-
lowed to carry on normal propaganda in favor of their views
but were prohibited from collecting arms or making warlike
preparations, Mr. Nehru observed that it was difficult to
draw the line. It would be permitted to one to some extent
but not to another. In reply to other questions the prime
minister said that the Dalai Lama was a responsible person
acting in a responsible way but that there were many others
and that "we do not know how they might function." It was,
continued Mr. Nehru, the ordinary right of any country,
including Britain, to limit the function of foreigners who
created difficulties with other countries. The rule of law was

Flight from Lhasa 29

that a country had the right to limit such activities to what
extent and in what manner was a matter of circumstances and
situation.

The Indian prime minister's replies and elucidation are
interesting in view of subsequent developments, and might
conceivably affect and influence future events. On April 24th
Mr. Nehru met the Dalai Lama, whom he had last seen some
three years before. As the prime minister remarked to a
group of newspapermen shortly after his four-hour talk with
the God-king: "He does not come to us as a vague, mystical
figure. He comes here as one we know/' Mr. Nehru revealed
that the Dalai Lama had admitted writing the letters to
General Tan Kuan-san but said that the God-king "was then
passing through highly troubled times." He had had, he said,
"a fairly good talk and I hope a helpful talk with the Dalai
Lama/' Had it not been that the prime minister had another
engagement, he might have continued the discussion for
another hour or so. India's interest in Tibet, Mr. Nehru
stressed, was "historical, sentimental and religious, and not
essentially political." Of course, he himself would try for a
peaceful solution of the Tibetan problem, and he would
welcome the Panchen Lama "or anyone else . . . the Chi-
nese ambassador or any Chinese emissary," who might want
to meet the Dalai Lama. Mr. Nehru hoped that subsequently
conditions would be created for the return of the God-king
to Tibet but said that "this as well as other things should not
be the subject of heated exchanges and debate." The prime
minister observed that his government was anxious "not to
muzzle" the Dalai Lama but that at the same time "we do
expect him to keep in view the difficulties of the situation
and speak or act accordingly." He revealed that when the
Dalai Lama visited India in 1956 the God-king had told him
that Tibet was spiritually advanced but socially and econom-
ically backward. His Holiness had repeated the statement in

30 The Revolt in Tibet

his talk that day. Mr. Nehru suggested that the Dalai Lama
"has more anxiety for conditions in Tibet, in a peaceful solu-
tion, and not in giving press interviews/' It was an oblique
but obvious hint to the God-king.

Nonetheless, about two months later, on June 2oth, the
Dalai Lama chose to receive press correspondents at Mus-
soorie and to circulate a two-thousand-word statement which
went specifically and categorically far beyond his Tezpur
statement. Nothing short of the pre-ig5o status of Tibet, he
flatly declared, would be acceptable to him, and this would
be a condition precedent to the reopening of negotiations
with the Chinese, wherein he would welcome a foreign medi-
ator. "We ask for peace and for a peaceful settlement," he
declared. "But we must also ask for the maintenance of the
status and rights of our state and people/' The Sino-Tibetan
agreement of 1951 had been concluded as "between two
independent and sovereign states." At the same time the
Dalai Lama accused the Chinese of obtaining the agreement
under duress, and charged them with forging the Tibetan
seal affixed to the document. "Wherever I am," he declared
in answering a question, "the Tibetan people will recognize
me as the Government of Tibet." Indeed, the Dalai Lama's
statement, with its frequent reiteration of the phrase "I and
my Government," read like the pronouncement of an emigrd
government.

His Holiness charged the Chinese not only with obstruct-
ing reforms which his own government sought to introduce
in Tibet but also of instituting a reign of terror. They had,
he alleged, introduced forced labor, indulged in compulsory
exactions, persecuted the people, and plundered and con-
fiscated property belonging to individuals and the monas-
teries. Thousands of Tibetans had been imprisoned and
hundreds executed. The Dalai Lama stated that he would
welcome an investigation into these charges by an interna-
tional commission. "I and my Government," he declared,

Flight from Lhasa 31

"will readily abide by the verdict of such an impartial body/'
His Holiness also disclosed, though this was widely known,
that during his last visit to India he had told Mr. Nehru that
he was unwilling to return to Tibet "until there was a mani-
fest change in the attitude of the Chinese authorities/' and
had sought the Indian prime minister's advice. At that time
Chou En-lai was also in India; and Nehru, after consulting
him, and on receiving assurances that China would respect
her undertakings with Tibet, had advised the Dalai Lama to
return. His Holiness was asked whether the Chinese would
gain or lose by his being in exile.

"The Chinese should be able to answer that question,"
said the God king with a seraphic smile.

He estimated that since 1956 the number of Tibetans
killed while fighting the Chinese forces exceeded the figure
of 65,000 given in a report filed before the International Com-
mission of Jurists. What the Chinese aimed to do, said His
Holiness, was to exterminate Buddhist religion and culture
in Tibet and to absorb the Tibetan people.

Would he appeal for arms on behalf of the rebel patriots
who, according to him, were still fighting in eastern and
northern Tibet?

"Although," said the Dalai Lama, "I have no intention to
leave the National Volunteer Defense Army unaided, I am
intending to help them by all means of a peaceful solution
rather than by military force/'

It was an answer as skillful as any Nehru might have given
in similar circumstances. The God-king seemed well aware
that he had no effective sanctions behind him except the
moral conscience and indignation of the civilized world, and
to that also he appealed "to the conscience of all peace-
loving and civilized nations," as he put it.

But would the civilized world respond to his appeal? Tibet
was even more mysterious and remote than Czechoslovakia
had seemed two decades earlier.

roof
of
the
world

CHAPTER TWO

"Where is your God?" A Chinese Communist once sarcas-
tically demanded of a Tibetan. "You are born. You die/ 1

"He is everywhere," said the Tibetan simply.

The Chinese filled a bowl with water and, tilting it, poured
the water onto the ground between them.

"Like this water/' he said somberly, "you too will go down
into the earth. Where is your God?"

Tibet, land of lamas,* is inevitably a land of religion.
Since at least one son from each family is expected to become
a monk, it is estimated that about one-quarter of all Tibetan
males enter the priesthood. Lhasa's "Big Three" monasteries
Drepung (Rice Heap), Sera (Rose Fence), and Ganden

* A lama is a senior monk who has studied the Tibetan scriptures closely,
done religious penance, and practiced meditation. Junior monks are known
as da bos or trapas.

38

Roof of the World 33

(Joyous) are said to house between them some 20,000 in-
mates, almost half the population of the capital city. In the
whole of Tibet there are believed to be over 300,000 monks
attached to the numerous monasteries scattered over the coun-
try, as well as many thousands of nuns. From childhood every
Tibetan is taught to pray in the shrine room of his house, and
most Tibetans carry their io8-bead rosaries and their prayer
wheels, which are called korlos.

Since the Dalai Lama sought asylum in India nearly twelve
thousand Tibetan refugees are believed to have entered the
country. Their reason for leaving is mainly Chinese efforts to
exterminate their religion and to absorb them. More than
any other coercive measures of the Han intruders, this has
deeply affected the lives of the common people. "They started
talking very nicely and sweetly/' said a Tibetan refugee.
"But later on they troubled us quite a bit."

The Tibetans, a cheerful, friendly people, have always
been sturdily independent. Geography and history have con-
spired to encourage this outlook. Until the Communist ag-
gression of 1950 Tibet was one of the most isolated and im-
penetrable countries in the world. It covers a vast plateau in
Central Asia, in area about 500,000 square miles, bounded on
the north by Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan, on the south
by Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, along with 800 miles of
mountainous Indian territory; on the west by the Ladakh area
of Kashmir, and on the east by China. Tibet's terrain is
around 10,000 feet above sea level; but large areas in the
north are over 16,000 feet in elevation, with mountains alter-
nating with plains and valleys, the so-called northern plains
being known as the Chang Tang. It is bitterly cold there
and the area is desolate, inhabited for the most part by hardy
nomadic tribes. Southern Tibet, which contains Lhasa, the
capital, and which also encompasses the valleys of the
Tsangpo, the Indus, and the Sutlej rivers, really forms Tibet

34 The Revolt in Tibet

proper, with the two important towns of Shigatse and
Gyantse. Western, or Upper, Tibet has three districts, in-
cluding the gold mines of Jalung, to which Herodotus re-
ferred in somewhat mythical terms. Along the eastern border,
on both sides of the Sino-Tibetan frontier, reside the warlike
Khambas and the Goloks, with the Amdos just across the
northeast border. A large part of the population in the Chi-
nese districts abutting Tibet's northern and eastern frontiers
is Tibetan. These districts include Chinghai and Szechwan,
and Yunnan in the south. Many mountain ranges run across
the plateau in a west-east direction, the most important being
the Tangla Range, which is an extension of the Karakoram.
Eastern Tibet, also known as the Land of the Great Corro-
sions, is crisscrossed with canyons and high mountains, par-
ticularly in the region around Chamdo, which is inhabited
by the Khambas. Through this area run the Yangtse, Mekong,
Salween, and Irrawady rivers with their tributaries.

The Tibetans call their country Bhot, a term widely used
in India, where the inhabitants of Tibet are called Bhotias.
Probably the word Tibet is a European adaptation of To-
bhot, or High Bhot, the name by which the great plateau
with its uplands bordering the frontiers of China, Mongolia,
and Kashmir is known to Tibetans. The term "Tibet" first
occurs about A.D. 950 in the works of the Arab writer Istakhri,
who calls the country "Tobbat."

Since no official census has been taken in Tibet except by
the Chinese Communists, whose statistics are somewhat re-
silient, it is not possible to estimate the population accurately.
Their number is probably in the neighborhood of two mil-
lion in Tibet with around another two million outside its
frontiers. Moreover the spiritual authority of the Dalai Lama
is not confined to Tibet alone, but extends to Ladakh, Sik-
kim, Bhutan, Sinkiang, the Buriat-Mongolian Republic of
the Soviet Union, and the Kalmucks, who inhabit a region
northwest of the Caspian Sea and south of the Volga.

Roof of the World 35

Landlocked by geography, Tibet has also historically re-
mained the Hidden Land. Of its history prior to the seventh
century after Christ little is known, its real history beginning
with the reign of the great Song-tsan Gampo who ruled Tibet
from A.D. 620 to 650. He introduced an alphabet, formulated
a code of criminal law and a code of morals, and conquered
Upper Burma and western China, subjecting the Chinese to a
humiliating treaty which entailed giving the Tibetan king a
Chinese princess in marriage. Her name was Wen-Cheng, and
equally lovely and intelligent was the king's other wife, Prin-
cess Bhrukuti-Devi, daughter of the king of Nepal. Both the
queens were devout Buddhists, and although Buddhism had
entered Tibet about two hundred years earlier the queens
persuaded the king to restore the influence of that religion,
whose power had waned. It was Song-tsan Gampo who laid
the foundations of the Potala and made Lhasa his capital.

In the second half of the eighth century, a Tantric * teacher
from India, Padma Sambhava, known as Guru Rimpoche
(the precious teacher), was summoned to the court of King
Ti-Song Detsan, grandson of Song-tsan Gampo. The strength
of Buddhism had flagged again, and Guru Rimpoche was
successful in reviving it by adapting Buddhism to the earliest
form of worship in Tibet, known as Bon. This was a mixture
of Shamanism or nature worship, divination, the exorcising
of devils, propitiation of various spirits, and animal sacrifice.
Devil worship was a prominent feature of this primitive cult.
By incorporating many Bon beliefs and practices into the
Buddhist ritual, Guru Rimpoche evolved Lamaism, which
is the religion of Tibet. It includes a widespread belief in
reincarnation. We shall have occasion to examine its develop-
ment and sects in greater detail later.

During the reign of Ti-Song Detsan, China paid a yearly
tribute of 50,000 yards of Chinese brocade to Tibet. This was
in the era of the glorious T'ang dynasty which ruled China

Tantricism is the worship of the divine energy (Shakti) in a female form.

36 The Revolt in Tibet

from A.D. 618 to 907 and gave that country a strong central-
ized administration. In A.D. 763 the Tibetans invaded the
border regions of China in great strength and sacked the city
of Chang An. During the second half of the eighth century
and the first half of the ninth, the Tibetans continued their
encroachments upon Chinese territory, acquiring most of
western Kansu and large parts of western Szechwan, and it
was only around A.D. 850, when internal rivalries sapped the
strength of Tibet's ruling dynasty, that the Chinese were able
to hold the Tibetans in check.

In the eleventh century the long line of Tibetan kings
came to an end with the death of Lang Darma, and interne-
cine warfare reduced Tibet from a monarchy to a congeries
of small principalities ruled by petty chieftains. In this
political chaos the religious strength of Lamaism began to
assert itself, and by the end of the eleventh century the new
religion took strong root throughout the country. Lamaism
received a tremendous impetus in the second half of the
thirteenth century when the hierarchy of the Sakya lamas,
taking their name from the monastery at Sakya in Central
Tibet, obtained political recognition from the Mongol em-
peror of China, Kublai Khan, who embraced Lamaism and
gave the sovereignty of Tibet to the high priest of the Sakya
lamas. This dynasty of priest-kings ruled for some seventy
years until 1345, when twenty successive Sakya lamas had
administered the country.

Genghiz Khan, who laid the fortunes of the Mongols, de-
scended on China in 1210, capturing Peking but leaving the
task of conquering the rest of the country to his generals while
he turned to western Asia. The accession of Kublai Khan and
the foundation of a new capital at Peking in 1263 mark the
establishment of a separate Mongol Empire. Historically the
reign of the Mongol Yuan dynasty begins in 1279 when the
last of the Sung pretenders was destroyed and Kublai Khan's

Roof of the World 37

domains covered all China and Tibet. The Mongol Empire,
based on terror, remained peaceful only as long as its rulers
were strong. Kublai Khan's death in 1294 saw the decline of
his dynasty, which was replaced by the Mings in China in
1368. The Mings made way for the Manchus in 1644.

During the Ming period, and indeed for some years before
that, Tibet functioned as a virtually independent kingdom.
The Mings were more interested in extending their authority
northward than in ensuring stability in the south. Some fifty
years after Kublai Khan's death the Sakya priest-kings whom
he had entrenched in sovereignty over Tibet were replaced
by the Sitya dynasty, who continued to rule until 1635, and
successfully asserted their independence vis-a-vis China. In
the second half of the seventeenth century Tibet was blessed
by the rule of a remarkable Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatse,
known as "The Great Fifth," * who journeyed to Peking,
where he was acknowledged by the then Manchu emperor of
China as an independent sovereign. Lobsang Gyatse, a strong
and farsighted ruler, rebuilt the Potala, much of which the
Mongols had destroyed. He was able to control the Mongols
who were concentrated in Yunnan, which was one reason why
the Manchus, who were troubled by them, cultivated his good
will. During his lifetime the first European, a Portuguese
named Antonio de Andrada, entered Tibet, but did not reach
Lhasa or Shigatse.

The sixth Dalai Lama, Tsang-Yang Gyatse, a talented poet
but a man of dissolute habits, was murdered in eastern Tibet
by the Chinese in 1706. There was trouble in Tibet following
the installation of the seventh Dalai Lama, Lobsang Kesang
Gyatse, and the Manchus took advantage of the dissensions to
dispatch a military expedition to Lhasa in 1720. Tibet was
compelled to recognize Chinese sovereignty in 1727, and a
system of diplomatic relations was established whereunder a

* He was the fifth Dalai Lama.

38 The Revolt in Tibet

Chinese amban, or representative, was stationed at Lhasa.
The number of ambans was later raised to two, and they
interfered in Tibetan administration. In 1750, resenting the
interference of the ambans, who had put the Tibetan regent
to death, the Tibetans in turn massacred the Chinese in
Lhasa, but Peking's authority was soon reestablished by an
army dispatched by the emperor of China. Significantly, this
period of Tibetan subservience coincides with the apex of
the Manchu dynasty under the emperors Yung Cheng and
Chien Lung. Following the example of the Emperor Kang
Hsi who preceded them, they extended the boundaries of
the Chinese Empire, subduing not only Tibet but also con-
quering Mongolia and Turkestan.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Tibet was vir-
tually a vassal of the Celestial Empire, which through its
ambans at Lhasa supervised the nomination of every new
Dalai Lama. In 1893 the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tupten
Gyatse, who was born in 1876, assumed temporal power,
holding it through various vicissitudes until his death in
1933. He succeeded in 1911 in getting rid of the Chinese who
had forced him to flee to India a year earlier. It was not his
first exile. At the time that the Younghusband expedition *
had moved on Lhasa in 1904, the Dalai Lama took refuge in
Mongolia, returning to Tibet five years later. By steering
skillfully between the Chinese, the British, and the Russians
he was able eventually to restore de facto independence to his
country.

The Mongols were no more Han than are the Tibetans.
Nor were the Manchus, who, like the Mongols, also inter-
mittently attempted in later years to assert their sovereignty
over Tibet. Though Tibet's relations with China go back to

* This expedition, led by Sir Francis Younghusband, was launched in
1904 during Lord Curzon's viceroyalty in India, and was actuated by British
suspicions that the Dalai Lama was allegedly plotting with the Russians to
keep the British out of Tibet.

Roof of the World 39

the seventh century, their character has never remained con-
stant but has varied with the strength of China's central gov-
ernment. Thus, taking advantage of geography to influence
history, the Tibetans have asserted their independence when
the Chinese were weak and unwillingly accepted Peking's au-
thority when the Chinese were overwhelmingly strong. This
has been so even up to the eve of the Dalai Lama's flight
from Lhasa in March, 1959.

The contention, therefore, that in assessing Tibet's po-
litical status only the views of China should be taken into
account is manifestly unfair to the Tibetans, whose own point
of view cannot be brusquely brushed aside. For considerable
stretches of their history the last, for forty years from 1911
to 1951 they have remained aloof from the Chinese claim
to overlordship and have functioned as an independent gov-
ernment. Even in negotiating the Lhasa Convention in 1904,
following the Younghusband expedition, the British Govern-
ment dealt directly with Tibet, thereby impliedly recognizing
its special status, although the Chinese Imperial Resident
was allowed to "examine" the treaty before the signatures
were appended. In fact Britain claimed and was accorded
recognition as the most-favored nation with "special inter-
ests" in Tibet.

By Article 9 of the Convention, Tibet agreed not to send
out representatives abroad or to permit any foreign power to
intervene in its affairs without the previous consent of the
British. Thus China, though nominally consulted, was really
excluded. By the Peking Convention of 1906 China con-
firmed the Lhasa Convention, with some minor modifications
affecting customs dues and the establishment of trading sta-
tions, but also secured one major point from Britain that
the preservation of Tibet's integrity should be China's re-
sponsibility and that China alone should have the right to
concessions in Tibet. The Tibetans greatly resented their

40 The Revolt in Tibet

exclusion from the conference in Peking. The term "suze-
rain" as governing the relations between China and Tibet
was first used in the St. Petersburg Convention of 1907 when
Russia also recognized Britain's "special interest'* in the
maintenance of the status quo in the external relations of
Tibet, but both Powers agreed to enter into negotiations with
Tibet only through the intermediary of China, "except on
matters arising out of the Lhasa Convention/' Britain
thereby secured what she had set out to achieve to keep
Russia out of Tibet, which henceforth would serve as a buffer
between India (then under British rule) and China. The
price for this was the recognition of Chinese "suzerainty"
while simultaneously acknowledging Tibet's autonomy. Yet
this fiction of suzerainty soon wore thin, as Britain demon-
strated in 1914 when she invited China and Tibet to a tri-
partite conference with herself at Simla, Tibetan plenipoten-
tiaries taking part in the discussions on an equal footing
with the British and Chinese delegates.

At Simla the Tibetans on British persuasion agreed to
accept a treaty by which the Chinese were accorded the right
to maintain a mission in Lhasa, though they were strictly for-
bidden to interfere in the internal affairs of Tibet. In 1911,
after the decrepit Manchu Empire had collapsed, the Ti-
betans expelled the Chinese forces, and the Dalai Lama
declared Tibet independent. China's first Republican presi-
dent, Yuan Shih-kai, proclaimed Tibet to be an integral part
of China, but he was unsuccessful when he attempted to
implement his declaration by military force. The Simla Con-
vention, held on British initiative, followed this attempt.

Although the Chinese plenipotentiaries had agreed to the
terms of the Convention, Peking refused to ratify them,
thereby releasing the Tibetans from their undertaking to
acknowledge Chinese suzerainty. From then until the Sino-
Tibetan agreement of May, 1951, following the first Com-

Roof of the World 41

munist aggression designed to "liberate" Tibet, that country
functioned for all practical purposes as independent until
again this time under the guns of the Communist Chinese
she was forced to recognize "the unified leadership of the
Central People's Government/ 1 but did so only on Peking's
pledge that "the Tibetan people have the right of exercising
national regional sovereignty." More specifically, the Com-
munists undertook not to alter the existing political system in
Tibet or the established status, functions, and powers of the
Dalai Lama, and to respect the religious beliefs, customs,
and habits of the Tibetan people. Additionally they prom-
ised that "in matters related to various reforms in Tibet,
there will be no compulsion on the part of the central au-
thorities."

The Chinese violated every one of these pledges. Even as
in 1914 repudiation by Peking of the Simla Convention re-
leased the Tibetans of their undertaking to recognize Chinese
suzerainty, the violation by Peking of its pledges under the
Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951 permitted Lhasa to de-
nounce the agreement and proclaim Tibet's independence.
In international as in private agreements all the parties con-
cerned must fulfill their undertakings if their contracts are
to be valid and enforceable.

What sort of people are the Tibetans? Most of what is
known of them prior to the seventh century of the Christian
era is based on myth and legend. According to Tibetan tradi-
tion the human race was born in Tibet and originated from
the marriage of a monkey with an ogress. Indians identify
the monkey with Hanuman, the monkey-god of the Hindu
pantheon, who was a protege of Avalokiteshwara, the Lord
of Mercy, whom the Tibetans call Chen-re-si, the Compas-
sionate Spirit. Tibetan legend holds that the Compassionate
Spirit entered into the body of the monkey. Thus the Ti-
betans trace their descent from Chen-re-si, who permitted

42 The Revolt in Tibet

Hanuman to marry the mountain ogress. From their saintly
paternal ancestor the Tibetans claim the virtues of piety,
fortitude, charity, and diligence, while their deficiencies, such
as greed, lust, love for trade, obstinacy, and bad temper they
attribute to their female progenitor.

Whatever the legend, the likely fact is that Tibet's people,
like its plants, have a postglacial origin, being immigrants
from the steppes and deserts farther to the north when Tibet,
which apparently was once an ice desert, became habitable.
In appearance they vary greatly, although the Mongoloid
strain is pronounced. Some might be taken for Annamese
or even for Persians or Navajo Indians. Their complexions
range from pink, generally among the children, to brown.
By temperament they are rugged and gay, smile spontane-
ously, and have a simplicity of manner which places them
among the most natural people in the world.

Before the Communist invasion Tibet's people fell broadly
into four classes nobles, traders, peasants, and nomads. The
nobility, which owned most of the country's land and wealth,
formed a class apart and traced its descent from one of three
sources. The oldest and smallest section of the aristocracy
comprised descendants of the early monarchs who ruled
Tibet before the tenth century of the Christian era. The sec-
ond were descendants of the families in which a Dalai Lama
or a Panchen Lama was born, for these families were auto-
matically ennobled and given large estates by the govern-
ment. The third section was composed of individuals whose
ancestors had rendered meritorious service to the country and
were duly rewarded. Certain peculiar customs relating to
property prevailed among the nobility. Although property
generally descended from father to sons, it was bestowed on
the daughter where there were no sons, and when she married
she adopted her husband into the family. This meant that she
did not change her name but that the husband took hers.

Roof of the World 43

The name by which the family of an existing Dalai Lama is
known is Yap-shi Sar-pa, which means the New Patrimony.
But the moment the Dalai Lama dies, or in the Tibetan
phrase "retires to the heavenly fields," his family changes its
name.

Traders in Tibet constitute what might be called the mid-
dle class, though there has never been a real middle class in
the country. But they rank intermediately between the
landed gentry and the peasants. Though simple, the Tibetans
are by no means artless, and have a strong commercial sense.
Besides the professional traders, nobles and monks also en-
gage in trade. Tibetan women are free from seclusion, and
many of them manage shops and engage in small retail busi-
ness while their menfolk take charge of the commercial deal-
ings which necessitate long and often arduous journeys.

Tibet does not lack arable land, but most of it is under-
developed owing to want of manpower because large num-
bers of the male population take to a monastic life which
ordains celibacy, which in turn controls the birth rate. The
position of peasants vis-i-vis their landlords has been virtually
that of serfs, for no peasant is allowed to quit his land with-
out the landlord's permission. This is rarely given, and then
only for a monetary compensation. Though slavery is not
common in Tibet, slaves exist; and, oddly enough, they are
often treated better than the paid servants or tenants. They
are also allowed to move freely, and theatrical troupes that
tour Tibet are mainly drawn from the menial classes.

In the fourth class fall the shepherds and herdsmen, the
nomads who work largely in the uplands, descending once a
year to lower levels to sell their produce of wool, salt, yak
tails, and butter, and in return to purchase commodities not
available in the uplands, such as barley, wheat, tea, and
woolen clothes. This grazier class is known for its hardihood
and independence.

44 The Revolt in Tibet

Women enjoy a remarkably high status, and in an older
day, when Tibet was split into principalities, the chieftain
was often and sometimes still is a woman. Like the women
of Burma, the women of Tibet are influential not only in
home affairs but also in business and, where their husbands
are officials, in affairs of state. The only realm in which their
position might be described as inferior is the religious do-
main, where, significantly, of the three forms of blessings ac-
corded by the Dalai Lama the lowest is reserved for all
women except one. The exception is Dor-je Pa-mo, the only
female incarnation in Tibet, who is the head of a monastery
with male monk inmates at Sam-ding on Yamdrok Lake. Her
name is interpreted as "Thunderbolt Sow," based on the
Tibetan belief that she can change into that animal at will.
Her predecessor, Pal-den Lha Mo ("The Glorious Goddess"),
was also known in Sanskrit as "The Adamantine Whore/'
This female divinity is known as one of the "Eight Terrible
Ones" and is depicted as riding on a white mule through a
sea of blood. She is venerated as a special protector of the
Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

Marriage in Tibet is generally an arranged affair, a son
being consulted by his father on the suitability of a bride
chosen for him, while a daughter's opinion on her future hus-
band is rarely, if at all, canvassed. Monogamy, polygamy, and
polyandry are all practiced in Tibet, monogamy being the
normal type of marriage. If a man is affluent, he may, if he
so desires, indulge in polygamy, while at the other end of the
economic ladder polyandry might be more convenient. In
polyandry, practiced largely among the nomadic herdsmen
and farmers, the wife is shared by her husband and his
younger brothers but not by any elder.

Because Tibet is a theocratic state, its ruler, both civil and
ecclesiastical, is the Dalai Lama, who theoretically enjoyed

Roof of the World 45

absolute powers until the Chinese Communists whittled
down his authority, which depended largely on his person-
ality and prestige. He appointed and dismissed officials, and
his judgment was invoked in all important cases, civil, crim-
inal, and administrative. Custom decreed that all questions
requiring his decision should be put into writing and ten-
dered to His Holiness. Against each question was written the
sentence "To be or not to be/' and the Dalai Lama signified
his command by placing a dot of bright blue ink, which no
other person is permitted to use, over whichever of the two
phrases he desired.

The first Dalai Lama was Ge-dun Truppa, who founded
the monastery at Tashi-lhunpo in the fifteenth century. Two
hundred years later it became the residence of the Panchen
Lama, a creation of the fifth Dalai Lama. Ge-dun Truppa
was a nephew of the great Lama Tsong Ka-pa (The Man
from the Land of Onions), who reorganized Lamaism late in
the fourteenth century and established the Gelugpa (The
Virtuous Way) sect, whose members were known as Yellow
Hats from the color of their headgear. Tsong Ka-pa also
founded the monasteries of Ganden and Sera. He might be
described as the Luther of Tibet. Earlier the dominant sect
was the Kadampa, or Ngingmapa, which was established by
an Indian pundit, Atisha, who came from Bengal to Tibet
in the opening years of the eleventh century. Members of
this sect wore red hats, and were known as such. Monks of
that order had been permitted to marry and drink, and they
soon became notorious for their lax living. The Yellow Hats
set out to reform Lamaism, and their monks were required
to observe celibacy, refrain from intoxicants, and to follow
a strict code of morals. Both the Dalai and the Panchen Lama
are members of the Gelugpa sect.

Ge-dun Truppa died in 1474, but his spirit was supposed
to have entered the body of a baby boy born two years later.

46 The Revolt in Tibet

This child became his successor, and thus there came into be-
ing the system of priestly incarnation, the reincarnated being
known as Incarnate Lamas. The Dalai Lama was the first and
greatest of these, but the Tibetans acknowledge reincarna-
tion in other lamas, who now number about a thousand. Two
of the present Dalai Lama's brothers, one of them older than
he, are held to be Incarnate Lamas. The elder one was pro-
claimed as such even before the discovery of the Dalai Lama.

In Tibet the Dalai Lama is known as Gyalpo Rimpoche
(Great Gem of Majesty). The title of Dalai Lama, which
means Ocean of Wisdom or Ocean Wide, was conferred on
the third Incarnate Lama, Sonam Gyatse, who as the third
Grand Lama of the Gelugpa sect converted a Mongol chief-
tain, Altan Khan, and spread the new faith to Mongolia. Like
Kublai Khan before him, Altan Khan sought to reward his
religious benefactor not by bestowing a kingdom on him
but by investing him with a title. This happened in 1517.

The temporal overlordship of all Tibet was conferred
some years later, in 1640, on Lobsang Gyatse, the "Great
Fifth," who, allying himself with the Mongols, subdued the
lords of Tsang, a province at the gates of Lhasa. These
chieftains had disputed the power of the Gelugpa sect. In
return the Mongol Prince Gusri Khan conferred on the Great
Fifth the sovereignty of Tibet. Lobsang Gyatse also assumed
divinity, claiming to be the incarnation of Chen-re-si.

The procedure governing the search for and discovery of
the new Dalai Lama on the death of his predecessor is com-
plicated and often protracted. Those responsible for the
choice are the heads of the three great monasteries of Dre-
pung, Sera, and Ganden who are assisted by the state oracle
at the Nechung monastery near Lhasa and the oracle at
Samye, Tibet's oldest monastery. The search is generally in-
stituted about three or four years after the Dalai Lama's
death, though the interval is sometimes longer. According

Roof of the World 47

to Lamaist belief the soul of the dead Dalai Lama goes to
dwell for forty-nine days in Lake Cho Kor Gye in southern
Tibet before taking up residence in a newborn infant. The
theory underlying this belief is that Tibet is ruled not by
different Dalai Lamas but by successive appearances among
mankind of the same spiritual entity, the bodhisattva Chen-
re-si, who is known in India as Avalokiteshwara, the em-
bodiment of compassion and benevolence. In the Lamaist
pantheon the most important gods are the Buddha, Avalo-
kiteshwara, and Amitabha, "the Boundless Light," whose re-
incarnation is held to be the Panchen Lama.

Sometimes one of the two oracles goes into a trance and is
able to indicate where the new Dalai Lama lives. In the case
of the present Dalai Lama, the oracle of Sainye, after going
into a trance, following a fruitless four-year search, advised
that the investigation should be extended to the Chinese
province of Chinghai, whose Amdo region is largely popu-
lated by Tibetans. Incidentally the great Tsong Ka-pa was
born in Amdo. Here, along the shores of Lake Koko Nor, the
fourteenth Dalai Lama, child of a humble peasant family,
was discovered.

Before the child is accepted as the Living Buddha he is
put through various tests. Some of his predecessor's posses-
sions, such as his rosaries, liturgical drums and bells, hand-
kerchiefs and teacups, are mixed with those belonging to other
individuals, and the child is required to identify them. He
is also examined for physical "signs of distinction." These
include large ears, outstanding shoulders, "tiger-skin" spots
on the legs, an imprint like a conch shell on one of the palms,
and curving eyebrows. Normally he is invested with full au-
thority on attaining eighteen, but until then a regent, assisted
by a council of ministers, rules in his name.

The present Dalai Lama, whose name at birth was Lhamo
Dhondup, later elongated to Jetsun Jampal Ngawang Lob-

48 The Revolt in Tibet

sang Yishey Tenzing Gyatso Sisunwangyur Tshunpa Getson
Mapal Dhepal Sango, together with a litany of titles Gentle
Glory, Mighty in Speech, Pure in Mind, of Absolute Wisdom,
Holder of the Dharma, Ocean Wide was born on June 6,
1935, eighteen months after the death of the thirteenth.
However, two years of negotiations were required before he
could be conveyed to Lhasa, as the Chinese warlord of Ching-
hai demanded 30,000 dollars before he would let the child
leave, and later upped it by another 90,000 dollars. In Feb-
ruary, 1940, the four-and-a-half-year-olcl child was solemnly
installed as the Dalai Lama on the golden throne in the
Potala, and Sir Basil Gould, who headed the British delega-
tion at this ceremony, remarked later on the child's com-
posure, poise, and gravity during the long hours of blessings
and prayers. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in October,
1950, the God-king was not quite sixteen, but it was decided
by his advisers to invest him with his full powers even though
he had not attained the recognized age for the conferment of
sovereignty. This was done on November 17, 1950, and on
December i8th the Dalai Lama left Lhasa for Yatung near
the Indian border, where he established a temporary govern-
ment.

Second only in status and importance to the Dalai Lama is
the Panchen Lama who, as noted, was a creation of the fifth
Dalai Lama. The title actually conferred by the "Great Fifth"
on one of his revered teachers was Panchen Edreni (His Holi-
ness the Great Teacher), but the Tibetans call him Panchen
Rimpoche (The Precious Grand Sage). The first Panchen
Lama was made the Grand Lama of the Tashi-lhunpo
monastery at Shigatse and proclaimed to be an incarnation
of Amitabha, "the Boundless Light" who is known in Tibet
as Opame. Since Amitabha was the spiritual guide of Avalo-
kiteshwara, whose reincarnation is the Dalai Lama, the spirit-
ual prestige of the Panchen Lama would appear to be higher

Roof of the World 49

than that of the Dalai Lama. In theory, the Panchen Lama's
functions are almost exclusively spiritual, his political au-
thority being localized in the region around Shigatse, 130
miles west of Lhasa. In practice, however, foreign Powers
particularly China have tended to use the Panchen Lama as
a political foil against the Dalai Lama.

Just as the degree of Tibet's independence varied with the
strength or weakness of the Chinese Government, so also the
influence of the Panchen Lama has varied with the authority
exercised by Peking. Whenever China was capable of exert-
ing pressure on Tibet, the authority of the Dalai Lama has
been weakened or compromised. Conversely, the Panchen
Lama has tended to feel insecure when Tibet has been
strong enough to resist Chinese threats or force. By and large
the Panchen Lama has invariably looked to the Chinese for
support against his temporal master in Tibet. And as in-
variably the Chinese have been quick to respond.

In the eighteenth century the dissensions which gave the
Chinese an excuse to interfere in Tibet were caused largely
by the differences and rivalries between the twin pillars of
the Gelugpa sect the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
In 1780 the latter visited Peking for the Emperor Chien
Lung's seventieth birthday and was given a reception com-
parable to that accorded to the fifth Dalai Lama a century
earlier. The Tibetans interpreted this as a Chinese way of
playing off the Panchen against the Dalai Lama, and for a
while there was nervousness at Lhasa, but the Panchen Lama
fortuitously died the same year of smallpox. When, again, in
1904 the thirteenth Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia from the
British, the Chinese sought to "depose" him, and issued a
proclamation to that effect which the Tibetans ignored. The
Chinese also tried to install the Panchen Lama in the Dalai
Lama's place, but this also the Tibetans ignored. On the
Dalai Lama's -return in 1909 the God-king found the Chinese

50 The Revolt in Tibet

Resident Lien-Yu entrenched firmly in authority, and had
difficulty in asserting his own. In 1910 he was again forced
to flee this time to India, as the Chinese demands grew
more peremptory. The collapse of the Manchu Empire in
1911 enabled the Dalai Lama to return, expel the am bans
and the Chinese forces, and by June, 1912, reestablish
Tibetan authority completely. It is noticeable that when
the God-king returned to Lhasa from his Indian exile he
roundly rebuked the Panchen I^ama for not fighting the Chi-
nese garrison troops. Relations between the two grew so
strained that in 1923 the Panchen Lama fled to China, where
he died in exile in 1937.

In the fall of 1930 the then Kuomintang Government of
China addressed eight questions to the Dalai Lama, seeking
clarification of Sino-Tibetan relations and of the status of
the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama's answers are illuminat-
ing. In reply to a question as to how good relations between
Tibet and the Central Government might be restored, His
Holiness answered: "If the Central Government would treat
the patronage relationship between China and Tibet with
sincerity and good faith, as it previously did, Tibet, on its
part, having always shown sincerity in its dealings in the
past, would from now on make an even greater effort to give
full support to the Central Government." To another ques-
tion regarding Tibet's autonomy the Dalai Lama's reply is
even more emphatic: "The area over which autonomy is to
be exercised should naturally be the same as before. It is ex-
pected that the Central Government will return to Tibet
those districts which originally belonged to it, but which
are under its control, so that a perpetual peace and harmony
will surely be the result." And again regarding the Panchen
Lama's status: "His duty has always been confined to the re-
ligious affairs of Tashi-lhunpo, for he has no political af-
fairs to attend to. He should be available for membership of

Roof of the World 51

Lhe Kuomintang.* It must be understood, however, that he
lias never had any say in the settlement of Tibetan affairs."
The Dalai Lama also describes his relationship with the
Panchen Lama as a "tutor-disciple relationship."

On December 17, 1933, the powerful thirteenth Dalai
Lama died, and Tibet was again torn by factions and eyed
covetously from abroad. If Tibet had got no nearer to the
outside world, the outside world had got nearer to Tibet.
Within the country there was rivalry between the strongly
nationalist, forward-looking Young Tibet group and the
vested interests of the monasteries which resented attempts
to curtail their power. Abroad, China and Britain watched
Tibet uneasily.

In the absence of the Dalai Lama a regent had to be
elected, and the lamas succeeded in getting Reting Rimpoche,
the abbot of a monastery, elected regent. But the Young Tibet
group were influential with the army, and when the Chinese
Nationalist Government attempted a tour de force by peremp-
torily demanding of Lhasa recognition of Peking's overlord-
ship the Chinese were rebuffed. The demand was made
through General Huang Mu-sung, who had been dispatched
to Lhasa as Special Commissioner to Tibet, and the Tibetan
reply was contained in a ten-point rejoinder. Some of the
clauses of this document are revealing. The first point reads:
"In dealing with external affairs, Tibet shall remain an in-
tegral part of the territory of China. But the Chinese Gov-
ernment must promise that Tibet will not be reorganized
into a province." The Tibetans request that "the Chinese
Government will not interfere with the Tibetan civil and
military authorities. . . . One representative of the Chinese
Government may be stationed in Tibet, but his retinue shall
not exceed twenty-five. There shall be no other representa-
tive, either civil or military. This representative must be a
* The Panchen Lama was then in exile in China.

52 The Revolt in Tibet

true believer in Buddhism/' There is a reference to border-
area disputes: "For permanent harmony and friendship, to
avoid any possible disputes and to maintain peace on the
borders, the northeastern boundary between Koko Nor and
Tibet should be maintained as proposed during the negotia-
tions of the year before last, with O-Lo, which has long been
under Tibet, to be included on the Tibetan side. As for the
boundary between Tibet and Szechwan, the territory and
people, together with the administration of De-ge, Nyarong,
and Tachienlu, should be turned over to the Tibetan Gov-
ernment at the earliest possible moment/'

The Kuomintang Government, being in no position to
force the issue, wisely held its hand. General Huang went
back to Peking with no more than Lhasa's reluctant consent
to the return of the Panchen Lama. When China attempted
to secure the Panchen Lama's reentry into Tibet, the regent
stalled. The problem was solved by the death of the Panchen
Lama on December i, 1937. But other problems arose. On
February 22, 1940, the fourteenth Dalai Lama was installed
at the Potala, and the opposition of the Young Tibet group
to the regent Reting Rimpoche came to a head. In 1941 he
retired in favor of Tagtra Rimpoche, head of a small mon-
astery. Six years later the former regent, who had the back-
ing of the monks of Sera monastery, attempted a revolt,
which was quickly subdued and in which Reting Rimpoche
lost his life in mysterious circumstances.

All these years, during the war and after, the Kuomintang
Government, harassed by the Japanese and menaced by their
own Communists, were too preoccupied to threaten Tibet.
In August, 1945, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek conceded
that "if and when the Tibetans attain the stage of complete
self-reliance in political and economic conditions, the Chi-
nese Government would like to take the same attitude as it
did toward Outer Mongolia, by supporting their independ-

Roof of the World 53

ence. . . . Tibet should be able to maintain and promote
its own independent position in order that the historical
tragedy of Korea might not be repeated." The tone of this
declaration is more subdued than the ultimatum delivered
to the Tibetans some five years earlier. History was repeating
itself.

Though the Young Tibet group was able to keep China at
bay, on one issue it was unable to assert itself. This concerned
the choice of a new Panchen Lama, whose selection is gov-
erned roughly by the same procedure employed in the choice
of a new Dalai Lama, and was similarly supervised by the
Chinese representative at Lhasa. The ninth Panchen Lama,
as noted, had died in exile in China in 1937, Search for his
reincarnation was finally narrowed down to three boys, o
whom one died before the selection was completed. Of the
other two China backed one over whose choice Lhasa was
not happy. Nonetheless he was installed in 1944 as the tenth
Panchen Lama at the Kumbum monastery in the Chinese
province of Chinghai. He is the present Panchen Lama, who,
though selected by the Kuomintang Government, is sub-
servient today to the Communists. There he follows tradi-
tion; for the Panchen Lama, like his predecessors, serves as
China's Tiojan horse in Tibet.

The tenth Panchen Lama, who is twenty-two, was born
in Chinghai, a Chinese province carved out of Tibet a few
generations earlier, and was declared a reincarnation of the
ninth Panchen Lama in 1943. By a curious coincidence both
he and the present Dalai Lama were born, or reincarnated,
in the same province. While the Dalai Lama was taken to
Lhasa at the age of four, the Panchen Lama remained in
China until 1952 when he was brought by the Communists
to Tibet for the first time and formally installed at the
Tashi-lhunpo (Mount of Blessing) monastery at Shigatse.
Slightly taller than the Dalai Lama, he is not as personable

54 The Revolt in Tibet

or pleasant, and lacks the graciousness and cultured charm
of His Holiness. The Panchen Lama bears the honorific of
His Serenity.

When the Communists seized power in China they were
quick to exploit the Panchen Lama, Early in their advance
across the Chinese mainland, the Chinese Communists an-
nounced that Tibet was an integral part of China and would
be "liberated from the imperialists." In July, 1949, as the
Communist troops were converging on Peking, the Tibetan
Foreign Affairs Bureau politely asked the Chinese Nationalist
Mission and all Chinese traders suspected of Communist
sympathies to leave the country. Two months later the
bureau requested Mao Tse-tung to respect Tibet's terri-
torial integrity. Alive to the political value of the Panchen
Lama, then a boy of twelve, the Chinese Communists began
to cultivate him and his advisers, and when in October, 1950,
the Communist armies marched into Tibet they persuaded
the advisers to send a telegram from Chinghai in the Panchen
Lama's name to Mao Tse-tung, by then Chairman of the Chi-
nese People's Central Government, and to General Chu Teh,
commander in chief of the People's Army, to express His
Serenity's support for the "liberation" of Tibet. Shortly after-
ward the Panchen Lama was invited to Peking.

In January, 1950, General Chu Teh had declared China's
decision to "liberate" Tibet from "imperialistic influences/'
and it was announced by the Chinese Government, two days
after India had recognized the Communist regime, that one
of the "basic tasks" of the People's Liberation Army during
1950 was the "liberation" of Tibet. Meanwhile the Tibetans
reaffirmed their independence and hastily organized mis-
sions to rally support for Tibet's cause in India, Nepal, the
United States, and Britain. Peking countered this move by a
blunt warning that any country which received such an
"illegal" mission would thereby demonstrate its hostility to

Roof of the World 55

China. Eventually only a single seven-man mission, ap-
pointed by the Dalai Lama's Government, left in April,
1950, for India en route to Hong Kong, where it hoped to
meet representatives of the Peking Government. The British
authorities, however, refused to grant visas to the Tibetans
on the ground that such negotiations might exacerbate the
already "delicate situation" in Hong Kong, and the mission
consequently found itself marooned in Kalimpong.

The first Chinese Communist ambassador arrived at New
Delhi in September, and on Lhasa's instructions the Tibetan
mission opened negotiations with him, but the talks ended
inconclusively on October ist. According to one report the
Tibetans were offered a choice between immediate surrender
or invasion and given to understand that nothing less than in-
corporation of Tibet within the "new China" would be ac-
ceptable. Peking demanded that the delegation should come
to the Chinese capital. As is their habit when placed in dif-
ficult situations, the Tibetans played for time, and Peking
characteristically construed the delay as due to hostile foreign
intrigue and interference.

India had all along counseled that the Sino-Tibetan dis-
pute should be settled peacefully. On October 25, 1950, the
Tibetan delegation left Delhi, and almost simultaneously
came the news that the "People's Liberation Army units have
been ordered to advance into Tibet." India protested at
this use of force majeure but was curtly told by the Chinese
to mind her own business.

Actually the Chinese armies had marched into Tibet on
October 7th, crossing the headwaters of the Yangtze, Mekong,
and Salween rivers at several points simultaneously on that
day, and had attacked isolated garrisons on the outer fringe
of the Tibetan fortress town of Chamdo. This town is in the
eastern region of Kham and was once part of Sikang Prov-
ince, which no longer exists. At Chang-tu, about ninety miles

56 The Revolt in Tibet

from the Sino-Tibetan frontier, the Tibetans made a valiant
but vain attempt to defend their country. According to the
Chinese some four thousand men and officers were taken
prisoner or killed by the People's Army. Among those cap-
tured was the governor of the Chamdo area, Ngabon
Ngawang Jigme, who was also a member of the Kashag. He
was subjected by the Communists to some months of ' 'brain-
washing," and proved a docile pupil, for, as noted, he was
one of two members of the Kashag who did not accompany
the Dalai Lama when His Holiness fled to India in March,

1959-

Chamdo fell on October 13th, and there was little re-
sistance by the Tibetans after that. The main military de-
fense of Tibet had been breached, and thereafter the Chinese
advanced in a leisurely way, one army moving from Central
China through the former Sikang Province, the other from
northwestern China through Chinghai Province both con-
verging on Lhasa and both building highways as they ad-
vanced. Late in April, 1951, a delegation of six Tibetans, led
by the pro-Chinese Ngabon Ngawang Jigme, arrived in
Peking from Lhasa, and on May 23, 1951, the Communist-
imposed seven teen-point agreement was signed. We shall
examine this later. During the negotiations and after, the
tenth Panchen Lama, along with some forty of his followers,
was present at Peking. It was said after Napoleon's fall that
the Allies had brought the Bourbons back to France in
their baggage. The Panchen Lama was to go to Tibet with
the Chinese as their creature.

Meanwhile, on August 8, 1951, the first official repre-
sentative of the Peking regime, General Chang Ching-wu,
arrived at Lhasa, a month ahead of the vanguard of the
Chinese Army. Nine days later the Dalai Lama returned
from Yatung to the Potala, but not until October 24th did
he officially intimate to Mao Tse-tung the Tibetan Govern-

Roof of the World 57

ment's acceptance of the May ggrd agreement. On October
s6th the divisions of the People's Army which had entered
Tibet from the east marched into Lhasa under Lieutenant
General Chang Kuo-hua, and they were reinforced on De-
cember ist by the divisions which had entered Tibet from the
northwest. On February 10, 1952, the Tibet Military District
of the Communist Chinese Army was formally established at
Lhasa under the command of General Chang. China's mili-
tary stranglehold on Tibet was complete.

Before examining in detail the developments from Com-
munist China's invasion of Tibet in 1950 to the flight of the
Dalai Lama in 1959, let us look at the governmental struc-
ture of Tibet as it was prior to the Communist infiltration.

Under the Dalai Lama, Tibet was divided for administra-
tive purposes into five main zones which in turn were sub-
divided into several provinces and districts. The five main
zones were U-Tsang (Lhasa and Shigatse), Gartok (western
Tibet), Kham (eastern Tibet), Loka (southern Tibet), and
Chang (northern Tibet). In each of these zones was a repre-
sentative of the government known as chi-kyap. Below the
chi-kyaps were the dzongpons (captains of the fortresses) who
act as local magistrates and tax collectors. These officials, both
at the top and lower levels, could be either lay or clerical,
monks figuring in the civil and military administration.

The ultimate control of all civil and ecclesiastical matters
lay in the hands of the Dalai Lama, whose authority was
supreme. During his minority or absence a regent who was
appointed by the Tsongdu (National Assembly) could act for
the Dalai Lama; but no one else, including the Panchen
Lama, may exercise his temporal or religious authority. The
regent chosen was traditionally an Incarnate Lama from one
of seven specified monasteries.

Like the Dalai Lama, who exercised both secular and ec-

58 The Revolt in Tibet

clesiastical authority, so also the administration retained a
dual character, with a secular and an ecclesiastical official
functioning jointly at each post. During the periods when
the Dalai Lama ruled (but not when there was a Regent),
there were usually two prime ministers, one an ecclesiastical
prime minister and the other a prime minister of state for
civil affairs. They were known as silons, and served as inter-
mediaries between the Kashag and the Dalai Lama. One of
the first moves of the Chinese Communists was to dismiss
the Dalai Lama's two prime ministers, Lukhang, a noble-
man, and Lobsang Tashi, a lama.

The Kashag (Tibetan Cabinet) originally consisted of four
members, one a monk and three nobles who are known as
shapes or kalons. Later the number was enlarged to six, four
of them lay and two monks. Each member held one or more
portfolios in the government, but matters of foreign policy
were under the direct charge of the Dalai Lama, though in
1942 a Bureau of Foreign Affairs under the state prime
minister was created. The Chinese Communists compelled
the Kashag to dissolve the bureau. On the secular side of the
government was an Accounting Office composed of four
tsepons (chief accountants or financial secretaries), and the
secular side of the government also supervised the provincial
governors (depons) with their subordinate prefects known as
dzongpons, a pair consisting of a monk and a layman, who
were in charge of the districts (dzongs) into which the coun-
try was divided.

The ecclesiastical counterpart of the Kashag was the
Yiktsang (Nest of Letters), and this body was composed en-
tirely of monks, normally four in number. The Yiktsang
holds the Dalai Lama's seal, which is affixed to all docu-
ments of importance, and also appointed the monks who
shared power with the lay nobles at the higher rungs of the
administrative ladder. It administered all the monasteries

Roof of the World 59

except the Three Great ones (Drepung, Sera, and Ganden).
The Lord Chamberlain (Chi-kyap Khempo) who was in
charge of the Potala was the counterpart of the silons and
acted as intermediary between the Yiktsang and the Dalai
Lama. The present Dalai Lama's third elder brother,
Lobsang Samten, who had been with His Holiness to Yatung,
held the office of Lord Chamberlain. The treasuries within
the Potala were in charge of the ecclesiastical section of the
government.

Assisting the Kashag was the Tsongdu, or National Assem-
bly, which was summoned by the Kashag only to discuss
matters of great national importance. Its functions were ad-
visory, its decisions being transmitted through the Kashag,
which could add its own recommendations, to the Dalai
Lama. In this assembly the opinions of the abbots and
treasurers of the Three Great Monasteries carried the larg-
est weight. The Tsongdu had some 350 members made up of
an equal proportion of priests and laymen. A Small Assembly
(Tsongdu Dupa) composed of about forty laymen and twenty
monks was occasionally invited to discuss matters of lesser
importance.

Despite the centralized character of the administration,
the degree of local autonomy in Tibet's outlying areas de-
pended largely on the personality and prestige of the Dalai
Lama. Of the modern Dalai Lamas the greatest so far has
been the thirteenth, ranking only second to the Great Fifth.
The peculiar misfortune of Tibet has been that at a crucial
period of her history, when the Hans who were hammering
down the door finally forced it open, both the Dalai Lama
and the Panchen Lama were minors, for in 1950 the Dalai
Lama was around fifteen while the Panchen Lama was a lit-
tle over twelve. Both were susceptible to environment and
influence.

It cannot be denied that the numerical preponderance of

60 The Revolt in Tibet

the lamas and their pervasive influence in the secular and
ecclesiastical spheres, combined with the fact that the monas-
teries relied mainly on the lay population for financial
support, even though the state had endowed them gener-
ously with landed property, rendered this class a heavy bur-
den on the people. They enjoyed many privileges which
attracted not a few masculine drones to the profession of
priesthood. The Chinese Government, even before the
Communists came to power, realized the political value of
Tibet's vast army of lamas and monks, and capitalized on it
by heavily subsidizing various monasteries, including the
three great seats which in moments of stress could be relied
upon to support them. This has paid dividends no less in the
days of the Manchus than of Mao Tse-tung.

Since the Communist offensive has been concentrated
largely on the lamas, it is necessary to peer more closely at the
social and religious structure of Lamaism, which is Tibet's
religion. That the monks form a superior caste is evident in
and acknowledged by the fact that wherever they share au-
thority with a layman and this is widespread in Tibetan
administration the voice of the monk prevails. On the other
hand, the procedure which governs the selection of the Dalai
Lama combines both conservative and liberal practices re-
specting the aristocratic and democratic. It also ensures a
measure of social stability. In so far as the Dalai Lama may
emerge from economically the lowest in the land the Great
Fifth was the son of a poor peasant from Chung-gye the
method of his selection makes for national unity. There is
no class consciousness where the Living Buddha is con-
cerned. His office is no one's privilege. And the manner of his
choice combines respect for popular democracy with regard
for metaphysical monarchy, perhaps deliberately, since if he
came from a rich family its automatic ennoblement might tend

Roof of the World 61

to make an already influential family excessively powerful.

Tibetan life has been medieval and feudal. But, oddly
enough, the Tibetans seem to be among the really happy
people of the world, which is not an excuse for perpetuating
prevailing social and economic conditions but a sound reason
for inducing change within the pattern of Tibetan thinking,
though not by the imposition of a cast-iron Chinese mold.

To the average Tibetan his religion is what really matters.
"The one thing," said a refugee, "which the Chinese want to
break is our worship of our Gods. That is why we left/' And
another, pulling out from beneath his shirt a string of bags
with sacred relics which encircled his neck, remarked, "If my
heart is pure, fifty bullets can't kill me/' The strength and
influence wielded by the monasteries, which are the strong-
holds of Lamaism, are undoubtedly enormous. There are
over three thousand of these in Tibet. But Lamaism as
practiced is a living faith, not merely the privilege and
perquisite of an ambitious and avaricious monastic brother-
hood, but a truly popular religion which saturates the life
and mind of the Tibetan people.

Actually, the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet is not
vastly different from Indian Buddhism, being of the same
type as the Mahayana or theistic form of Buddhism. First
in order of importance in the Lamaist pantheon is the Bud-
dha, then Amitabha, whose reincarnation is the Panchen
Lama; and next Avalokiteshwara, whose spirit lives in the
Dalai Lama. Highest in the Lamaist pantheon is the Adi
Buddha, or First Buddha the One, the External, the Un-
created. In Tibet he is known by different names representa-
tive of different attributes. Thus the Gelugpa sect call him
Dorje-chang (He Who Holds the Lightning), while the
Ngingmapa or Kadamba sect call him Samantabhadra (Uni-
versal Kindness). The Kargyupa lamas, who practice an oral
tradition, know him as Dorje-sempa (Whose Essence Is

62 The Revolt in Tibet

Light). The Adi Buddha has five manifestations, the Five
Dhyani Buddhas (Buddhas of meditation), each presiding
over one of the five kalpas (epochs) * of the world, and each
emanating one of the five elements, one of the five senses,
one of the five colors, and one of the five vowels. These
Dhyani Buddhas are depicted as ascetics seated in the
Adamantine posture, the posture of most meditation. They
represent the thought and order behind our multiple uni-
verse. Each Dhyani Buddha has his Dhyani Bodhisattva
whom he generates, and each Dhyani Bodhisaltva creates a
universe over which he presides, and has two aspects
samsara (militant) and karuna (benevolent compassion). Once
in every epoch each Dhyani Buddha generates a Manushi
Buddha, a terrestrial Buddha like Gautama himself, who was
born Prince Siddhartha and became the Lord Buddha.
Succession by reincarnation governs the line of the two
Grand Lamas, who are linked in a metaphysical interde-
pendence representing two aspects of the Buddha the
Panchen Lama being an incarnation of the Dhyani Buddha
Amitabha while the Dalai Lama is the incarnation of the
Dhyani Bodhisattva Avalokiteshwara. The Bodhisattvas, be-
ing potential Buddhas, are in contact with the vortex of life,
while a Dhyani Buddha lives only on the plane of pure
thought. This is the reason why the Panchen Lama is sup-
posed to wield no secular power, confining himself only to
the spiritual, though it does not always happen in practice.
The Dalai Lama exercises both spiritual and secular author-
ity.

Everywhere in Tibet one sees inscribed or hears chanted
the sacred words Om Mane Padme Hum, which translated
literally mean "Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus. "

Yet as an Incarnate Lama explained to an Indian visitor,

* Lamaists reckon the present to be the fourth epoch. Each epoch runs
into thousands of years.

Roof of the World 63

"The Jewel is none else but the Buddha, and the Lotus is the
heart. So its real rendering is 'Hail to the Buddha in our
hearts!' "

God, according to the Tibetans, resides in every one of
their hearts.

the

dragon
leaps
forward

CHAPTER THREE

"Recognizing that each nationality has the right to self-
determination does not mean that each nationality must be
independent and isolated," declared Radio Peking in the
first of two lectures on "Basic Marxism- Lenin ism" delivered
on May 9, 1956. "Whether it is appropriate for a nationality
to be independent ... is for the Communist party to de-
cide. Lenin expressed the essence of the right of nations to
self-determination in a simple formula: 'To separate in order
to unite/ "

On May loth, in the course of the second lecture, the
speaker observed: "The various national minorities are
politically, economically, and culturally backward as com-
pared to the Han nationality. They live in extensive areas of
rich natural resources, highly significant to the socialist con-
struction of the motherland. ... In accordance with the

64

The Dragon Leaps Forward 65

situation the Chinese Communist party formulated its
policy toward nationalities. This is a policy to consolidate
. . . and build up the great motherland."

Five years earlier the Chinese Communists had applied
this policy to Tibet, emphasizing in the preamble to the Sino-
Tibetan agreement of May 23, 1951, that "in order that the
Tibetan nationality and people might be freed and return
to the big family of the People's Republic of China to en-
joy the same rights of national equality as all the other na-
tionalities in the country/' the seventeen-point agreement
was being signed. In effect this declaration implied two
things first, that Tibet had not before this, for some time at
least, been a member of the big family of the great mother-
land and, second, that the agreement was between two equal
and independent countries. For instance, the preamble to
the agreement states, inter alia, that "the Central People's
Government appointed representatives with full powers to
conduct talks on a friendly basis with the delegates with full
powers of the local government of Tibet. As a result of these
talks both parties agreed to conclude this agreement and
carry it into effect." The reference to "full powers" implies
an independent and equal status for both sides which is re-
inforced by the fact that the essential purpose of the agree-
ment was not the grant of power by the Chinese Govern-
ment to the Government of Tibet but the transfer of certain
rights by Tibet to the Chinese authorities. In order to be
able to transfer rights a state must possess them more spe-
cifically under Article 14 of the agreement. Tibet undertook
to surrender to China her right to conduct her foreign af-
fairs, a right which automatically carries with it an interna-
tional status and recognition.

To turn to the agreement itself. Clause i, accordingly, says:
"The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist
aggressive forces from Tibet; the Tibetan people shall re-

66 The Revolt in Tibet

turn to the big family of the Motherland the People's Re-
public of China." Since the agreement was a result of aggres-
sion by the imperialist Chinese, the irony of the clause was
perhaps noted but not relished by the Tibetans. In return
for this gesture the Chinese conceded that "the Tibetan
people have the right of exercising national regional au-
tonomy under the unified leadership of the Central People's
Government/' The content and character of this national
regional autonomy was indicated negatively by Chinese
promises not to interfere in certain spheres.

Thus Clause 4 specifically stated that "the central au-
thorities will not alter the existing political system in Tibet.
The central authorities also will not alter the established
status, functions, and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of
various ranks shall hold office as usual."

Clause 5 ensures that the established status, functions,
and powers of the Panchen Lama shall be maintained; while
the following clause, interpreting what is meant by the es-
tablished status, functions, and powers of these two Grand
Lamas, defines them as those enjoyed by the thirteenth Dalai
Lama and the ninth Panchen Lama when they were in
friendly and amicable relations with each other. Clause 7
promises that "the religious beliefs, customs, and habits of
the Tibetan people shall be respected, and the lama monas-
teries shall be protected. The central authorities will not af-
fect a change in the income of the monasteries."

There is yet another promise which the Chinese Com-
munists must have given with their tongues well in their
cheeks. Under Clause 1 1 they pledge that "in matters related
to various reforms in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on
the part of the central authorities. The local Government of
Tibet shall carry out reforms of its own accord, and when
the people raise demands for reform they shall be settled

The Dragon Leaps Forward 67

by means of consultation with the leading personnel of
Tibet/'

These promises were no sooner given than they were
broken. Yet with characteristic cynicism the Chinese Com-
munists continued to give bland assurances of their inten-
tion to respect Tibetan autonomy. In a reference to projected
land reforms, Mao Tse-tung while receiving a Tibetan dele-
gation in 1952 assured them that "it is as yet premature to
speak of distributing the land in Tibet. The Tibetan peo-
ple themselves must decide whether it is to be distributed in
the future. Moreover the land, when it is distributed, will be
distributed by the Tibetan people themselves/' Such as-
surances were probably provoked by the growing resistance
in Tibet to the Communist policy of infiltration, indoctrina-
tion, and domination, a conclusion supported by similar
statements made by lesser Chinese dignitaries with the sole
intention of allaying Tibetan fears and suspicions while
pressing Communist policies forward. This was virtually ad-
mitted by General Chang Kuo-hua, commander of the Tibet
military district, in a speech at Lhasa some three weeks after
the Dalai Lama's flight when he confessed that Tibetan re-
sistance to Communist "reforms" had begun as early as
1951. Nonetheless in the late fall of 1954, when the Indian
prime minister was in Peking, Mao Tse-tung utilized the
opportunity to stage a pantomime of his own. In the presence
of Mr. Nehru he assured the Dalai Lama, who was there
with the Panchen Lama, that Tibet would enjoy autonomy
which "no other Chinese province enjoyed in the People's
Republic of China." Earlier, on September 2Oth, when the
Chinese ruler received the two Grand Lamas he had indi-
cated that among impending changes the Chinese intended
to colonize Tibet at a ratio of around five to one. This was
disclosed two years later in a speech at Lhasa on April 26,

68 The Revolt in Tibet

1956, by General Chang Kuo-hua, who paraphrased Mao's
statement: "Tibet is a huge area but is too thinly popu-
lated. Efforts must be made to raise the population from
the present level of two million to more than ten million.
Besides, the economy and culture need development. Under
the heading of culture, schools, newspapers, films, and so on,
are included, and also religion. . . ."

The last clause of the Sino-Tibetan agreement stipulated
that it "shall come into force immediately after signatures
and seals are affixed to it," which implied that it would not be
operative unless and until the Dalai Lama's seal was affixed
to the document. Accordingly the Tibetan delegates, accom-
panied by one of the Chinese signatories, Chang Ching-wu,
proceeded to Yatung, where the Dalai Lama had moved his
government from Lhasa. They arrived there on July 14, 1951,
and showed the document to His Holiness, who in August
decided to return to his capital, reaching it on August 17th.
He did not, however, formally accept it until October 24th.
As the God-king explained to the world press in his state-
ment issued from Mussoorie on June 20, 1959: "While I
and my Government did not voluntarily accept the agree-
ment, we were obliged to acquiesce in it and decided to abide
by the terms and conditions in order to save my people and
country from danger of total destruction. It was, however,
clear from the very beginning that the Chinese had no inten-
tion of carrying out the agreement." His Holiness at the same
time alleged that the Tibetan seal affixed to the agreement
"was not the seal of my representatives but a seal copied and
fabricated by the Chinese authorities in Peking and kept in
their possession ever since."

If this is correct, the Dalai Lama's approval of the agree-
ment was not only obtained under duress but enforced by
chicanery. That it was obtained under duress is clear from the
three-month interval which occurred between the submission

The Dragon Leaps Forward 69

of the document to His Holiness and the God-king's reluc-
tant consent. The Dalai Lama did not accept the agreement
until after the vanguard units of the People's Liberation
Army arrived in Lhasa on September 9, 1951, and the main
body of the army was on the outskirts of the capital. Signifi-
cantly, too, the Tibetans attached no validity to the agree-
ment until the Dalai Lama had formally assented. Why in
the circumstances the Chinese should have fabricated the
God-king's seal which should have been attached to the
agreement is less easily explained. It is possible that the
Yiktsang, which holds the Dalai Lama's seal in custody, was
reluctant to transport it to Peking and that the Chinese,
interpreting this as the traditional Tibetan method of play-
ing for time, forestalled it by devices of their own.

Having established the Tibet Military Area Headquarters
in February, 1952, and opened the Lhasa branch of the Peo-
ple's Bank of China in the same month, the Communists
around April began to assert their authority more overtly.
The Dalai Lama was first compelled to dismiss his two prime
ministers under the threat, as he revealed at Mussoorie, "of
their execution without trial because they had in all honesty
and sincerity resisted unjustified usurpation of power by the
representatives of the Chinese Government in Tibet." The
Kashag, as noted, was also ordered to dissolve its Foreign
Affairs Bureau, and was replaced by a Lhasa Foreign Affairs
Office of the Peking regime, "to dispose of all foreign affairs
of the Tibet area." This, however, was in accord with the
agreement.

Having accomplished this, the Chinese Communists then
set out systematically to erode the powers of the Dalai Lama
and enlarge those of the Panchen Lama. On April 28, 1952,
the Panchen Lama, never previously in Tibet, was brought
to Lhasa under the auspices of the People's Liberation Army
and formally installed later in the Tashi-lhunpo monastery

70 The Revolt in Tibet

at Shigatse. The Dalai Lama's prestige and power were still
considerable, however, and the Chinese, behind a facade of
Tibetan representation, could only bypass these by subtly
altering the governmental structure to enlarge the Panchen
Lama's domain and authority and simultaneously to curtail
those of the Dalai Lama.

They did this in three ways over a period extending from
1951 to 1956. In 1951 the Chinese Communists organized the
People's Liberation Committee of the Chamdo Area, where
their armies had first penetrated when they had invaded
Tibet the year before. This area in the western half of what
was then Sikang Province was formerly governed from Lhasa
by the Tibetan Government.* It now came under the con-
trol of the Liberation Committee, which set up its own
organs of administration at the local and regional levels,
abolished the "feudal service systems" of the former govern-
ment, and established state trading companies and controlled
schools. Five years later, when the Communists set up the
Preparatory Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Area,
which effectively neutralized the Dalai Lama's authority, the
People's Liberation Committee was one of its three compo-
nent units. One of the other two was the local Tibetan Gov-
ernment headed by the Dalai Lama, and the third was to
be the Panchen Kanpo Lija, under the Panchen Lama's
control.

In March, 1954, the Communists established at Shigatse,
seat of the Panchen Lama, the so-called Panchen Kanpo Lija,
or Council, staffed by followers of the Panchen Lama whose
primary loyalty was to His Serenity and not to His Holiness.
The exact extent of the territory administered by the
Panchen Kanpo Lija was never defined, but it covered the
populous sections of the province of Tsang, which forms a

* Sikang Province was abolished on July 18, 1955, and incorporated partly
into Tibet and partly into Szechwan Province.

The Dragon Leaps Forward 71

large portion of central Tibet. Of about 200,000 people in
Tsang, the Panchen Lama's followers number over 100,000.

Thus by 1954 Tibet was divided into three administrative
areas, over only one of which the Dalai Lama, with his seat at
Lhasa, exercised effective authority. Even this restricted
power, as noted, was neutralized by the establishment in
Lhasa on April 22, 1956, of the Preparatory Committee for
the Tibet Autonomous Region, whose creation had been
first authorized by the Chinese State Council in March, 1955.
The Chinese division of Tibet into three administrative areas
added a new element to the existing Han-Tibetan rivalries
- mtra-Tibetan disunity, which was crystallized, fostered,
and accentuated by the establishment of the Preparatory
Committee.

Of the fifty-one members of the Preparatory Committee,
fifteen represented the local Tibetan Government, which was
under the Dalai Lama's control, while ten were from the
Panchen Kanpo Lija and ten from the People's Liberation
Committee of the Chamdo area. In addition there were five
members from the cadres of the Central People's Government
now working in the Tibet area, and eleven others, including
representatives from the major monasteries, religious sects,
and public bodies. The Dalai Lama was appointed director,
with the Panchen Lama and General Chang Kuo-hua as first
and second vice directors. Simultaneously, the Chinese made
it clear that the Preparatory Committee would function
under the direction of the State Council at Peking. On ad-
ministrative matters (a compendious and comprehensive
term) the three organizations the local Tibetan Govern-
ment, the Panchen Kanpo Lija, and the People's Liberation
Committee of the Chamdo Area were also directly respon-
sible to the Chinese State Council. It was, moreover, stipu-
lated that all the enterprises under the State Council which
operated in Tibet would be controlled by the various respon-

72 The Revolt in Tibet

sible departments of the State Council, and that the agency
for carrying out the State Council's directives would be the
PLA Tibetan Military District Command. Thereby Tibet's
administrative matters were in practice controlled by the
Chinese Army authorities, though theoretically the power
resided in a body with a facade of Tibetan representation.
Many of the committee's subordinate offices were headed by
Chinese Communists. Of forty-nine "leadership personnel"
seventeen were Chinese and thirty-two Tibetans, while ac-
cording to the list released by the New China News Agency a
Chinese was among the "leadership personnel" of every one
of the fifteen committees except that of Culture-Education.
This office, however, was in the safe hands of the Political
Committee of the Tibet Military Command. As the Dalai
Lama observed in his statement of June soth at Mussoorie,
"They [the Chinese Communists] did not lose any opportu-
nity to undermine my authority and sow dissension among
my people."

Behind the facade of Tibetan autonomy the Chinese
worked methodically to undermine the Dalai Lama's influ-
ence in every sphere. Before the end of 1952 branches of the
People's Bank of China were opened in the principal cities
and towns of Tibet. On May i, 1952, the Chinese created the
Tibet Regional Working Committee of the Communist
Youth League to aid their efforts to indoctrinate the country's
youth who they felt could be most easily "educated" into
accepting Chinese rule and the Marxist philosophy. Simulta-
neously they planned to utilize this new youthful cadre to
eliminate education in the Buddhist religion and deprecate
other traditional Tibetan social values. By January, 1953,
a New China News Agency dispatch was able to claim that
fourteen primary schools with thirteen hundred pupils had
been opened and over four hundred Tibetans trained. Hun-
dreds of Tibetan youths were taken to China for "training,"

The Dragon Leaps Forward 73

and returned to their country duly indoctrinated. In April,
1957, the Chinese Communists claimed that during the past
six years some seventy primary schools with accommodation
for six thousand students had been established in various
localities in Tibet.

Propaganda proceeded with indoctrination. By 1953 the
Political Department of the Tibet Military District had
begun publication of a monthly paper called Tibetan News,
and this was reinforced three years later in April, 1956, by a
daily, the Tibet Jih Pao, published in Tibetan and Chinese,
which served as the organ of the Preparatory Committee.
Many thousands of handouts of propaganda material in the
Tibetan language were distributed by PLA units in various
parts of the country.

Yet even here, in propaganda and indoctrination, on which
the Communists concentrated from the beginning, the Ti-
betans offered resistance. Until the Communists came, educa-
tion in Tibet was practically non-existent except in a reli-
gious form, and was confined to the monks, nobles, mer-
chants, and other affluent classes. Many Tibetan monks are
educated and well versed in the complexities of Lamaism and
Tibetan politics. For the most part the nobles and others of
their ilk are educated partly in Tibet by monks and partly
abroad, in English-teaching schools in India. In 1913 Sir
Charles Bell, British Representative at Lhasa, persuaded the
Tibetan Government to send four Tibetan boys for edu-
cation to England. One of the four was Dorje Tsegyal Lung-
shar, who for a brief period after the thirteenth Dalai Lama's
death was the dominating political force in Tibet.

For the serfs and artisans there were no educational facil-
ities, and the Communists have concentrated on them as
good and pliable material for their purposes. At the new
Lhasa Primary School the children of the aristocracy now sit
alongside the children of the serfs, and about two-thirds of

74 The Revolt in Tibet

the pupils come from the homes of commoners. The pattern
is repeated in the one hundred and more primary schools
which the Communists have established in the country.
These institutions are coeducational. No religious instruc-
tion is now given, but there is a course on the Han language.
In more advanced educational institutions, such as the col-
leges of social education at Lhasa and Shigatse, political
studies have a high place in the curriculum and consist
largely in the study of Sino-Tibetan agreements (particularly
the agreement of 1951), the Chinese Constitution, and the
policy of the Chinese Communist Government on religion
and national minorities. The Communists have also set up
technical colleges, devoted largely to agriculture and live-
stock farming the two main branches of Tibetan economy
and institutions for training in administration, medicine,
banking, and industry.

In themselves these are welcome reforms, and would have
been accepted as such by the vast mass of Tibetans had their
objective not been the undermining and eventual uprooting
of the Tibetan religion, culture, and way of life and the in-
doctrination of the country's youth with Communist ideas.
In his June 2oth statement at Mussoorie the Dalai Lama de-
clared that the Tibetan Government was not opposed to
reforms. Indeed, it realized the need for them. "I wish to
emphasize," said His Holiness, "that I and my government
have never been opposed to reforms which are necessary in
the social, economic, and political systems prevailing in
Tibet. We have no desire to disguise the fact that ours is
an ancient society and that we must introduce immediate
changes in the interests of the people of Tibet." The Dalai
Lama went on to say that during the previous nine years he
and his government had proposed several reforms but that
the Chinese had strenuously resisted them and prevented
their realization.

The Dragon Leaps Forward 75

The only reforms the Communists were prepared to intro-
duce were those molded to suit Marxist ends. What the Chi-
nese aimed at in Tibet was the production of reliable pro-
Chinese Communists, and this involved a complete break
with Tibetan traditions. The zeal with which the Chinese
carried out this indoctrination is revealed in a report sub-
mitted late in 1957 by Fan Ming, Secretary of the Chinese
Communist party's Tibet Work Committee. "Now," he re-
ports, "there are more than 5,000 local revolutionary cadres
of Tibetan nationality, more than 1,000 Communist party
members of Tibetan nationality, and more than 2,000 Youth
Communist League members. At the same time, there are
more than 6,000 members of the Patriotic Youth Cultural
Association, and more than 1,000 members of the Patriotic
Women's Association." Members of the last two associations,
apart from their collective activities, were required to set up
home study groups in each village. The Tibet Jih Pao of
December 11, 1957, carried a report of the activities of one
such association at Yatung: "They not only study policy on
'no reform in six years,' * but also study articles on major
foreign and home events carried in the Tibetan edition of the
Tibet Jih Pao. The Yatung branch of the C.C.P. Work Com-
mittee gave them reading materials."

The same Fan Ming about this time was driven to confess
that the problem of Chinese disregard for Tibetan customs
and sensitivities was becoming worse, and that Tibetan re-
sentment was increasing. "Great-Han chauvinism in Tibet,"
he complained, "is manifested in the feeling of superiority
of the Han race, repugnance at the backwardness of Tibet,
discrimination against Tibet, distortion of Tibet, failure to
respect the freedom of religious belief and traditional cus-
toms of the Tibetan people. ... As a result, some cases

* This refers to the Chinese decision, announced in 1957, not to proceed
with "democratic reforms" in Tibet until after 1962.

76 The Revolt in Tibet

have occurred where the nationalities policy was impaired,
law and discipline were violated, and the freedom of religious
belief and the customs of the Tibetans were not respected."
The Communist phrase for describing these lapses was to
label them "the phenomenon of commandism."

Not long after the Dalai Lama's flight a communiqu is-
sued by Peking on March 28, 1959, admitted that Tibetan
officials had begun to organize resistance to Communism
soon after the Chinese armies had entered Tibet. It declared
that ever since 1951 highly placed Tibetans, including four
of the six members of the Kashag, had "been plotting to tear
up the [seventeen-point] agreement and preparing for armed
rebellion." This was later reiterated by the Chinese Commu-
nist military commander in Tibet, General Chang Kuo-hua,
who revealed in a speech on April 8, 1959, to the Preparatory
Committee that the Tibetan Government's opposition to
Communist policies began soon after the Sino-Tibetan agree-
ment of 1951 was signed. According to Chang, "a group of
reactionaries" headed by Sitzub Lokangwa, Tsewong Routen,
and Lozong Drashi of the former local Tibetan Government
had in 1952 organized a people's conference with the inten-
tion of starting a counterrevolutionary plot. This group had
submitted a memorandum to the Chinese through the Dalai
Lama demanding that His Holiness should be given full con-
trol over Tibet, that the over-all strength of the Chinese occu-
pation troops should be reduced, that conditions in the
Tibetan monasteries should be improved, and that the food
situation should be seriously considered because food prices
were rising dizzily. Not only had the local Tibetan Govern-
ment failed to deal with the "reactionaries," but it had,
alleged Chang, actively connived with and supported them.
The general was referring to the Tibetan patriotic organi-
zation called Mimang, which means in Tibetan the "masses"
or the "majority."

The Dragon Leaps Forward 77

Thus opposition to the Chinese Communists was by no
means confined, as they asserted later, to the feudal minority,
but was widespread among the people. On this point Mr.
Nehru shared the Tibetan view, and said so in his speech to
the Lok Sabha on April 27, 1959: "To say that a number
of 'upper strata reactionaries' in Tibet were solely responsi-
ble for this appears to be an extraordinary simplification of a
complicated situation. Even according to the accounts re-
ceived through Chinese sources, the revolt in Tibet was of
considerable magnitude and the basis of it must have been
a strong feeling of nationalism which affects not only the
upper-class people, but others also. No doubt, vested interests
joined it and sought to profit by it. The attempt to explain
a situation by the use of rather worn-out words, phrases, and
slogans is seldom helpful."

Naturally the Chinese Communists did not relish the
Indian prime minister's frank statement. But Nehru's analy-
sis had in fact been earlier borne out by the declarations of
the Chinese leaders themselves, including Mao Tse-tung and
Chou En-lai, the former having ordered a tactical retreat in
Tibet in his famous speech on ' 'contradictions" on February
27, 1957. "Because conditions in Tibet are not ripe, demo-
cratic reforms have not yet been carried out there/' explained
Chairman Mao. "It has now been decided not to proceed
with democratic reform in Tibet during the period of the
second Five-Year Plan,* and we can only decide whether it
will be done in the third Five-Year Plan in the light of the
situation obtaining at that time." On April 22, 1957 the
first anniversary of the formation of the Preparatory Com-
mittee a government decree formally announced that social
reforms in Tibet would be postponed until after 1962. If
opposition to them had been confined only to the upper
strata, Peking would not have bowed even temporarily before

The second Five-Year Plan was initiated in 1957.

78 The Revolt in Tibet

the storm. In fact the Tibet Jih Pao of August 23, *957> ad-
mitted that the opposition was widespread. "Although a
minority of the people is eager for the reforms, the majority
still lacks an enthusiastic demand/' it confessed.

One of the Communists' earliest activities was to open up
Tibet to China. In that sense the former state of geograph-
ical isolation was replaced by one of political insulation. The
improvement of communications with China by air, rail, and
land enjoys a high priority in the Communist development
programs, for politically and economically it brings Tibet
closer within the Han fold.

As the Chinese troops advanced into Tibet in the late fall
of 1950, they were directed by Peking to undertake, with the
help of the "work personnel" also entering Tibet, the con-
struction of two major arteries to link Tibet with China.
These were the Sikang-Tibet and the Chinghai-Tibet high-
ways, the former linking Lhasa with Central China, the latter
connecting the Tibetan capital with northwestern China.
Both represent considerable engineering feats, the 1,41 3-mile
Sikang-Tibet highway being reckoned the world's highest
road, perched at an average height of 13,000 feet across four-
teen high mountain ranges and twelve rivers, including the
Mekong and the Salween. The Chinghai-Tibet highway also
traverses difficult terrain over the desolate swampland and
desert of northern Tibet, running from Sining east of Lake
Koko Nor to Zamsar about fifty miles northwest of Lhasa.
The two highways meet at Zamsar from where the Sikang-
Tibet road has been extended southwest to Shigatse and
through Gyantse to Phari, the nearest town from the mouth
of Nathu La, the old caravan pass leading to Gangtok, capital
of Sikkim, which lies some thirty miles on the other side of
the border. Northward the Tibet-Sikang highway reaches out
from Sining by an older highway to Lanchow in the Chinese
province of Kansu.

The Dragon Leaps Forward 79

Both these highways were completed by December, 1954,
and according to Radio Peking "the journey from Peking or
Shanghai to Lhasa has been cut to less than twenty days as
compared with three months needed by the old caravan
routes." On the Sikang-Tibet highway the first convoy of
trucks, again according to Radio Peking, took eight days to
go from Chengtu, where the road begins, to the southern
bank of a tributary of the river Kyi Chu which runs through
Lhasa. This journey had formerly taken "more than thirty-
eight days." The extension of the Sikang highway from Lhasa
to Shigatse, seat of the Panchen Lama, and beyond almost to
the Bhutan-Sikkimese border is indicative of the Commu-
nists' political motives and their calculated efforts to increase
the authority of the Panchen Lama at the cost of the Dalai
Lama. The extension of the road to Shigatse meant that one
could drive from there to Lhasa within a day, a journey
which had formerly taken a week by horse. The political
influence of the Panchen Lama could thereby make a propor-
tionately closer impact. On the economic side Shigatse was
put on the main route from India to Lhasa and Peking, and
its economic importance was consequently increased.

It is evident that the Dalai Lama and his advisers were not
unaware of these implications, for despite continuous, even
rigorous, Communist control and supervision His Holiness
was able by subtle suggestion in his public statements to indi-
cate that he did not wholly approve of Chinese policies. He
had noted that while the Communists sought to denigrate his
political authority vis-a-vis the Panchen Lama, they had also
attempted unsuccessfully to deprecate his spiritual influence.
In May, 1954, both the Grand Lamas were summoned to
Peking for the First National People's Congress as deputies
from Tibet, and in August they left the country by different
routes for the Chinese capital. In their absence the Commu-
nists began a campaign against the Dalai Lama, even re-

8o The Revolt in Tibet

writing Tibetan Buddhist history to suggest that the Panchen
Lama was the ruler of Outer Tibet, which includes the Lhasa
region, while the Dalai Lama's authority was alleged to be
restricted to the disputed districts of Inner Tibet, which
comprise areas in Chinghai, Szechwan, and Kansu provinces.
These efforts did not impress the Tibetans, but it is note-
worthy that the Chinese Communist attempts to whittle
down the Dalai Lama's prestige extended to Chinese-popu-
lated areas abroad. About this time, in 1954, the Hong Kong
Communist daily Ta Kung Pao blatantly declared that after
the death of Tsong-kapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect of
Yellow Hats, "two of his disciples ruled over Inner and Outer
Tibet respectively in accordance with his will. The elder
disciple, the Dalai Lama, became ruler of Inner Tibet and
the younger disciple, the Panchen Lama, ruler of Outer
Tibet." These palpable efforts to diminish the Dalai Lama's
prestige were not unnoticed by him.

The two major highways linking Tibet with China, as
well as the network of new roads inside Tibet, were described
by the Chinese as having been constructed by voluntary
labor. In fact long stretches of these roads were built by
forced Tibetan labor and with the "loan" of vast quantities
of grain and silver from the reserve granaries and treasury of
the Government of Tibet. A Tibetan official has since com-
puted that during four years of road construction largely
for Chinese military purposes the Tibetans were required
to "lend" the equivalent of nearly 10 million dollars in terms
of grain and another 300,000 dollars in silver coinage. Work-
ing under conditions of extreme hardship comparable to
those which attended the building of the Great Wall of
China, thousands of Tibetans who were dragooned for this
purpose paid with their lives, while others were subjected to
much misery and suffering.

At the inaugural meeting of the Preparatory Committee in

The Dragon Leaps Forward 81

Lhasa, the Panchen Lama was obsequious in his flattering
references to the "achievements" of the Chinese Commu-
nists, but the Dalai Lama, while deferential, was obliquely
critical. In a reference to the road construction program His
Holiness mentioned "the many people who have sacrificed
their valuable lives/' and said, "I wish to express here my
sincere condolence for the martyrs." He also referred point-
edly to the indoctrination of the country's youth. "Several
hundreds of the finest youths of the country," he remarked,
had been sent by the Communists to study Marxism-Lenin-
ism in Peking's institutes for national minorities. "Tibet,"
said the Dalai Lama, "is the center of Lamaism. The whole
population has a deep belief in Lamaism. The people treas-
ure and protect their religious belief like their life. . . . Re-
cently news from neighboring provinces and municipalities
where reforms are being carried out or under preparation
has reached Tibet and roused the suspicion and anxiety of
some people here. . . . Tibet has no other alternative but
to take the road of socialism. We must carry out reforms
step by step." The statement was polite, but its implied note
of protest and criticism could not have been lost on the
Chinese.

In April, 1956, at the first meeting of the Preparatory
Committee, the Chinese Vice Premier Chen Yi announced
that "a railway from Lanchow to Lhasa will be built in the
future." The Khamba uprising more than slightly dislocated
this project, whose blueprint envisaged a rail line across the
Chinghai Province area of Inner Tibet where in the Tsidam
Basin, according to the Chinese Communists, potentially rich
oilfields exist. On May 26, 1956, a Peking-Lhasa air-transport
service on a ten-hour schedule was inaugurated, the first
plane flying the new route being a Soviet IL-12.

What did this calculated opening of communications by
land and air bring to the Tibetans? As a Tibetan refugee

82 The Revolt in Tibet

described it: "The first Chinese invaders proclaimed that
they had come only to help the Tibetan people, not to inter-
fere in their affairs, disturb their religion, or take anything
from them 'not even needle or thread/ But they brought
nothing with them but their mugs and their chopsticks, and
the effect of their chopsticks and the effect of their inroads
on essential supplies was to make prices rise by five or six
times/' The Tibetans had hoped that the opening of com-
munications would ease many of their economic stresses and
strains, as the Chinese had promised, but to their dismay
these were increased.

"When the first vehicles began to arrive in 1953," said an-
other Tibetan refugee, "they brought not more supplies but
more and more Chinese. Prices rose still further/'

Since the Chinese working personnel in Tibet "came only
with their mugs and chopsticks," this was not surprising. The
Dalai Lama himself drew the attention of the Preparatory
Committee in 1957 to the growing inflationary trends, and
mildly suggested that the administration had failed to notice
the comparatively poor harvests turned out in many localities
on account of drought. Therefore, it was difficult to reduce
the prices of daily necessities when the prices of certain com-
modities, especially food and butter, "were gradually increas-
ing." In fact, prices were mounting steeply.

The "difficulties" encountered in Tibet were confirmed
by General Chang Ching-wu, Peking's chief representative in
Tibet, in a speech to the State Council at Peking in 1955.
"Owing to communications and transport difficulties and
many other factors," he admitted, "what we have achieved
is very little as far as the construction of Tibet and the con-
solidation of national defense are concerned. There have
been grave misunderstandings among the nationalities. This,
coupled with the unthorough education on the implementa-
tion of the Agreement of 1951, caused misunderstandings

The Dragon Leaps Forward 83

and doubts on the part of the Tibetan personnel, thus hinder-
ing the smooth progress of our work." It is odd that the
Chinese, refusing to learn from experience, should repeat in
Tibet the mistakes they made in China. To cite one instance:
for the purpose of manufacturing steel in a primitive way
the Communists in China proper mobilized some 50 million
workers, building furnaces everywhere, regardless of com-
munications and of the distance from the source of raw
materials. According to a correspondent in the Yugoslav
paper Borba, each of these 50 million workers manufactured
at most two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of steel per day. Enor-
mous quantities of ore, coal, coke, and metal scrap had to be
transported, and suddenly there appeared the bottleneck:
transportation.

In the year of "the great leap forward/* the Communists
in China intensified their land reforms by the introduction
of communes, and by the end of December, 1958, there were
a total of 26,000 communes in the country covering 99 per
cent of China's peasant households. The primary aims of the
communes are to step up agricultural production, overcome
China's immediate labor shortage (due to lack of mechanical
equipment), and curb the long-term problem of overpopula-
tion. Yet during this year, to quote Borba again, there was
stricter food rationing than before, and a concerted drive to
limit consumption.

This experience has not deterred the Communist Chinese
from introducing land reforms and attempting to establish
communes in Tibet. That there was undoubtedly need for
such reforms is widely acknowledged, and the Dalai Lama
himself in his June 2Oth statement testified to the urgency
for drastic changes in the prevailing system. "In particular,"
he declared, "it was my earnest desire that the system of land
tenure should be radically changed without further delay and
large landed estates [should be] acquired by the state on pay-

84 The Revolt in Tibet

merit of compensation, for distribution amongst the tillers
of the soil. But the Chinese authorities deliberately put every
obstacle in the way of carrying out this just and reasonable
reform. I desire to lay stress on the fact that we, as firm be-
lievers in Buddhism, welcome change and progress consistent
with the genius of our people and the rich traditions of our
country. But/' His Holiness warned, "the people of Tibet
will stoutly resist any victimization, sacrilege and plunder in
the name of reforms, the policy which is now being enforced
by representatives of the Chinese Government in Lhasa."

In the absence of statistics, the extent of the lands held by
the monasteries, nobles, and other wealthy classes in Tibet
cannot be accurately computed. Nor can their personal treas-
ure in money, jewels, and other possessions be correctly esti-
mated. But there is no denying that as Lamaism grew in influ-
ence the political importance and economic wealth of the
monasteries expanded proportionately. The politico-religious
domination of the lamas enabled them to achieve both power
and privilege representing a vast vested interest steeped for
the most part in archaic feudal customs. So also the rich
nobility whose families are reckoned to number around two
hundred. Tibet, in fact, is or rather was a medieval country
with preponderating power and wealth in the hands of the
church and the nobility. Yet its economic basis is agriculture
and stockbreeding, with the tillers and the herdsmen as the
chief props of this agricultural-pastoral society. Both these
classes together constitute the largest numerical unit, enjoy-
ing no rights and certainly no riches.

Under the guise of introducing "democratic reforms/' a
comprehensive term for communization, the Chinese at-
tempted to introduce a double-pronged program of land
reforms and Han colonization in the border regions of Inner
Tibet. The campaign was initiated in February, 1956, in
western Szechwan, which contains a large number of Ti-

The Dragon Leaps Forward 85

betans, but even earlier the Communists had imposed this
socio-economic pattern in Inner Mongolia and Sikiang, both
of which are officially "autonomous areas/' a fact which
throws a revealing light on what the Chinese mean by au-
tonomy. In Inner Mongolia the Chinese outnumber the
Mongols, as they do the Uighurs in Sinkiang. These moves
created restiveness in the other minority regions, such as
Szechwan, where the Khambas were in no mood to be
clamped within a rigid superimposed mold.

There are some 60 national minorities in China occupying
some 50 to 60 per cent of her total area, including regions
rich in mineral resources; but their population, about 35
millions, is only about 6 per cent of the total. Although in
theory they are guaranteed equal rights, in practice the key
posts in the administration are held by Han cadres. "Without
the help of the Han nationality and Han cadres, it is impos-
sible to carry out Socialist reforms in the minority areas/' a
Chinese official statement proclaimed. From their own dec-
larations the Chinese Communists in Tibet behaved like
conquerors.

As a first step they ordered the formation of collective
farms in the Kanze area of Szechwan province, transferring
wholesale the farms, cattle, and sheep of the lamaseries and
monasteries to "farm cooperatives/ 1 In April, 1956, Commu-
nist China's Vice Premier Chen Yi and General Chang Kuo-
hua, addressing the Preparatory Committee, announced that
"necessary reforms would be introduced to rid Tibet of its
backward situation/' adding arrogantly that this was also
necessary to bring the Tibetans up to the level of "the ad-
vanced" Han nationality. Khamba repercussions were swift,
and in June, 1956, the New China News Agency divulged
that Jao Chia-tso, chairman of the Communist-controlled
Chinese Buddhist Association, had informed the National
People's Congress of rebellions on the eastern Tibetan border

86 The Revolt in Tibet

as a result of local dissatisfaction with Communist policies.
Jao complained that "there were recently some improper
measures on land reform, and commercial taxes on lamaseries,
farmland, and cattle," and advised caution. For one thing, the
lamas resented being asked to participate in agricultural cul-
tivation, as this was contrary to traditional Buddhist regula-
tions and customs. The conversion of their farmland and
cattle into cooperatives deprived them of a major source of
monastic revenue, while Chinese insistence that the lamas
and monks should join in extirpating rats, birds, insects, and
various types of vermin deeply offended their Buddhist sus-
ceptibilities, which regarded all forms of life as sacred. These
"reforms'' confirmed the suspicions of the lamas and their
followers that the Chinese aimed at destroying the Buddhist
religion.

The Khamba uprisings were concentrated in those regions
where the "democratic reforms" were most widespread.
These comprised the three autonomous areas of Liangshan,
Apha, and Kanze, where some 4,800 agricultural cooperatives
were set up with a total membership of 120,000 households,
and which were the scene of rioting and rebellion from the
opening months of 1956. Even before the Preparatory Com-
mittee held its inaugural meeting in April, reports of revolts
in Tibet had reached Kalimpong and Khatmandu. Peking
was forced to admit that guerrilla warfare was widespread in
eastern and northeastern Tibet in the territories inhabited
by the Khambas, Amdos, and Goloks. In the Batan-Litang
area of Szechwan the Tibetans accused the Chinese of mas-
sacring over four thousand men, women, and children, bomb-
ing monasteries and other dwellings, and perpetrating cruel-
ties on the local population. Within a few months the trouble
had spilled across the Sino-Tibetan border into the Chamdo,
Dinching, Nagchuka, and Loka areas of Tibet, where the
rebels attacked agencies and army units of the Central Peo-

The Dragon Leaps Forward 87

pie's Government. The uprisings compelled the Chinese
Communists to revise their policies temporarily, and induced
Mao Tse-tung to make his declaration of 1957, that the
"democratic reforms" might be postponed until the third
Five-Year Plan was inaugurated. In April this decision was
formalized in a government decree.

But the Tibetans no longer respected the promises of the
Communist Chinese, and were resentful of attempts at Han
domination. As usual the Chinese and their henchmen at-
tempted to explain away the uprisings as the work of feudal
and religious reactionaries, the Panchen Lama denouncing
the revolts as "the treacherous activities of the imperialists
and separatists." On their part the leaders of the revolt made
it clear that they were not opposed to land reforms, and in a
declaration on January i, 1959, proposed some radical
changes in the social and political organizations of the coun-
try. These proposals included the acquisition of large landed
estates on payment of compensation, the introduction of the
elective system on the basis of adult suffrage, and the princi-
ple of individual liberty according to the accepted constitu-
tional concept. The leaders of the revolt also declared: "We
pledge ourselves for the improvement of the condition of our
people and their standard of living. We engage ourselves to
introduce all necessary reforms in the country in consonance
with the natural conditions, customs, and genius of our peo-
ple. In the field of economic development we pledge ourselves
to improve the life of our nomadic people, of the tillers of the
land, of the artisans and the handicraft men to the best of our
ability and to effect changes in all by peaceful means." This
declaration was supported not only by the masses but had the
backing of the nobility, both lay and ecclesiastical. Certainly
the tribesmen who spearheaded the revolt could hardly be
described as members of the privileged classes.

The Tibetans were justified in their suspicion of Chinese

88 The Revolt in Tibet

promises to go slow, for the Communist tactics were con-
sistent with the doctrine which Mao propounded of letting
a hundred flowers bloom, a device to trap those opposed to
the Red ideologies to come out and expose themselves. The
flowers soon turned to weeds, and the Chinese then got down
to the job of uprooting them. Late in 1957 the Central Com-
mittee of the Chinese Communist party dispatched a five-
man mission to Lhasa for "weeding out reactionaries' ' who
"come in the way of modernizing Tibet on socialistic lines/'
Peking thereafter prepared to get tough.

The Chinese infiltration tactics were resumed, and pursued
several courses, and these in turn provoked Tibetan resistance
which culminated in the revolution spreading to Lhasa and
in the flight of the Dalai Lama. In September and October,
1958, the Communists launched a campaign in Chinghai and
Kansu having as its obvious purpose the destruction of the
Buddhist religion, which the Chinese sought to undermine
by labeling the lamas as oppressors of the masses. Undoubt-
edly many of Tibet's religious fraternity are noted for their
rapacity. But the age-long attachment of the Tibetans to
Lamaism, to reverence for the Buddha and for traditional
values asserted itself against the Communists. The failure of
the Chinese to rouse the Tibetan masses against the lamas
was demonstrated when the Communists were driven to play
even the nomadic herdsmen against each other by placing
"reactionary herd owners" in the same category as the lamas
and inviting the masses to attack both. With few exceptions
these ignorant, illiterate, and landless people did neither, for
even to their unlettered minds the Chinese attack seemed to
be an offensive against religion, not against privilege.

Han chauvinism, though deprecated officially by word of
mouth, then began to be implemented by deed. In 1956 Gen-
eral^ Chang Kuo-hua had mildly warned the Tibetans that
an influx of Chinese settlers was imminent and had implied

The Dragon Leaps Forward 89

that these immigrants would help to advance the country's
economy more rapidly. The two major highways from Tibet
to China had been completed the year before, and a trickle
of Han immigrants had begun to seep in since then. In 1958
this trickle assumed menacing proportions as masses of Chi-
nese youths descended on the country. Although the Peking
press described their reception in Tibet as enthusiastic and
friendly, one report claiming that the Tibetans had warmly
welcomed the Hans "in a manner in which they might cele-
brate their own festivals" and that the Tibetans and Chinese
had "told one another about their own customs and ex-
changed production experience," the actual Tibetan reaction
was neither friendly nor enthusiastic. Peking had inspired
this fresh drive for mass Chinese settlement in Tibet, and
this is borne out by Marshal Chu Teh's appeal in December,
1958, to the youth of China to go and colonize the "frontier
areas" a modern and Eastern variant of "Go west, young
man."

The Chinese immigrants settled largely in the populous
and arable regions of eastern Tibet, particularly in the Kham
and Amdo districts. Their number * is not known but it was
enough to alarm the frontier Tibetans, who are mostly tribes-
men, and to unite them in a common front against this alien
influx. The Chinese sense of superiority vis-a-vis the Tibetans
aggravated the latter's hostility. "Part of the Han cadres/'
noted the Peking Government representative in a report to
the Chinese State Council, "have demonstrated a varying
degree of the remnant concept of Great Hanism, such as lack
of due respect to the religious beliefs, customs, and habits
of the Tibetans, the insufficient recognition of the merits of
the Tibetan cadres, and the lack of due respect and warm sup-
port of them." Even so pronounced a Tibetan collaborator as

* One estimate gives it at 500,000, but no authentic figures are available.
Another estimate places the total at 5,000,000.

go The Revolt in Tibet

Ngabon Ngawang Jigme observed that "in individual cases
some Chinese Communist cadres and Chinese army officers
and soldiers, owing to ignorance of Tibetan customs and
habits and because of language difficulties, occasionally com-
mitted defects and errors in trading and transport work in
certain districts/'

Apart from the fear of being swamped by the Chinese in-
flow, the Tibetans were disturbed by its economic conse-
quences and by the impact on their religious traditions of the
Communist infiltration. "The economic effect of the 'libera-
tion' of Tibet," stated Thubten Nyenjik, former abbot of
Gyantse monastery who was also governor of Gyantse Prov-
ince and is now a refugee in India, "has been disastrous.
Before the advent of the Chinese the economy of Tibet was
sound, the cost of living low, and the Tibetan Government
was in a position to aid its people in their economic, social,
cultural, and religious aspirations. But now, owing to the
influx of 100,000 Chinese soldiers who live off the Tibetans,
their granaries are empty, for the Chinese take 'loans' which
are never repaid; the vast herds of yaks and flocks of sheep
have been decimated, trees in government- and private-owned
parks uprooted for firewood, and the economy of the country
has been so disrupted that the cost of living for the bare
necessities of life has risen nine and ten times, and where
formerly there was a large exportable surplus, these com-
modities have now to be imported/' Thubten Nyenjik also
warned that, despite Communist talk of autonomy, the Chi-
nese "are committed to the obliteration of the religion, cul-
ture, and tradition of a non-Chinese people so that the
people might become indistinguishable from the millions of
Chinese. . . . Such is the meaning of Chinese autonomy for
Tibet."

Parenthetically it might be noted that during the past three
years some 1,380,000 Han people have migrated to northeast

The Dragon Leaps Forward 91

and northwest China and Inner Mongolia. Peking decided, in
November, 1958, to transfer more Chinese manpower to the
Ninghsia region, where one-third of the population is already
of Han stock. In this Moslem region the China Association
for the Promotion of Moslem Culture was by a curious coin-
cidence concluded during the same month. The Chinese ex-
plain this mass migration by claiming that it satisfies the
demand of the various nationalities for help in construction
work over the next few years. But the Tibetan reaction, as
well as the repercussions in other minority areas, does not
endorse this interpretation. The real reason animating Com-
munist policy is revealed in a Chinese statement: "The ques-
tion of whether or not to accept the Han cadres and immi-
grants is precisely also the question of whether or not to
accept Socialism."

In other minor ways the Chinese Communists have also
sought to harass the Tibetans into subservience. Under the
1951 agreement the Tibetan Government had agreed actively
to "assist the People's Liberation Army to enter Tibet and
consolidate the national defense/' It had, moreover, con-
sented to the Chinese demand that the Tibetan troops would
be "reorganized" by stages and become a part of the national
defense forces of the People's Republic of China. The Tibet
Military Area Headquarters of the Chinese Army was estab-
lished, as noted, in February, 1952, and almost immediately
efforts were made by the Chinese to undermine the loyalty
of Tibetan officers and soldiers. Since Tibet was virtually
governed by the PLA Tibetan Military District Command,
this presented few difficulties; but it is eloquent of the aver-
age Tibetan's antipathy to the Han intruder that the loyalty
of very few Tibetan soldiers was suborned.

The indoctrination of the armed forces proceeded along-
side that of the civilian population. Like other Tibetans,
they were inundated with Communist propaganda through

9* The Revolt in Tibet

posters, pamphlets, lectures, and study classes but proved
equally impervious and immune. Including the Dalai Lama's
personal bodyguard of 5,000 soldiers, the Tibetan armed
forces numbered around 10,000, and it is significant of the
failure of the Chinese Communists to undermine their loy-
alty that the army took a prominent part in the revolt against
the invaders. The first local congress of the Chinese Commu-
nist party was held in Lhasa in December, 1952, and was
attended by nearly 340 delegates representing party mem-
bers in the various units of the Tibetan military command.
It was reported here that over four hundred Tibetans had
been trained by PLA units in the school set up for this pur-
pose. Three years later the State Council at Peking decided
"to expand and strengthen" the Tibetan Military District
Cadres School, changing its name to Cadres School for the
Tibet Area. The same meeting of the State Council, on the
initiative of Ngabon Ngawang Jigme, considered a "request"
by the Tibetan Government for help in reorganizing the
Tibetan Army and redeeming the Tibetan currency.

Although a great deal of trade inside Tibet is by barter,
the country has its own currency, with the sang as the mone-
tary unit. Until the Chinese came, Indian rupees circulated
freely inside Tibet, but the Communists have succeeded in
largely replacing these, as well as Tibetan coinage, by Chi-
nese currency. Shortly after the flight of the Dalai Lama
Indian currency was not allowed to circulate in the country.
Tibet had also its postal system, and the Dalai Lama's gov-
ernment issued its own postage stamps. Until about two
years ago the Government of India arranged for the carriage
of mail from Lhasa to the outside world through Gyantse, but
the mail is now routed north and east through China to for-
eign lands. Chinese postage stamps are gradually replacing
the Tibetan.

So Tibet, whose previous window on the world was mainly

The Dragon Leaps Forward 93

India, is being reoriented toward China, and taught to regard
herself as part of the great motherland of the Han world.
Pressures and pinpricks are collectively and cumulatively
being applied to force her into the Communist mold. The
greatest of these pressures is the Chinese effort to destroy the
power of the lamas, undermine Buddhism, and substitute
the supremacy of Communism. But of all pressures the Ti-
betans are most antipathetic to this one, for from time im-
memorial Tibet has been the Land of Lamas.

land

of

lamas

CHAPTER FOUR

In the theocratic society of Tibet, as we have seen, the lamas
constituted the predominant class not only concerned with
their ecclesiastical duties but also participating in trade and
sharing in the work of government, civilian, and military as
well. Their power, before the Chinese Communists took
over, was pervasive, their wealth immense and immeasurable.
They were indeed a caste apart, for only through them could
the ordinary person approach the gods of the Lamaist pan-
theon. Tibet was a country ruled by priests.

We have noted how Lamaism evolved as a mixture of Bon,
the ancient Tibetan animistic religion, Buddhism, and cer-
tain Hindu practices of the Tantric type. The Tantras, the
sacred books of the cult of Siva,* date from the sixth and
seventh centuries of the Christian era, and consist of dia-
logues between Siva and his Shakti, or Female Energy, one

* One of the gods of the Hindu Triad representing destruction and crea-
tion.

94

Land of Lamas 95

of whose names is Durga (The Inaccessible). A shakti is usu-
ally depicted in a carnal embrace with the god who generated
her. While the male divinity represents karuna (compassion)
the female embodies prajna (perfect knowledge), which sug-
gests a certain equality of the sexes.

Buddhism has gone through three main evolutions since
Gautama first preached it six centuries before Christ. In their
pristine form the Buddha's teachings and monastic rules are
contained in the Tripitka written in Pali by the early Bud-
dhists of South India and Ceylon. Tripitka means "three
baskets," and these are the Vinaya, which deals with monastic
rules; the Sutra, the repository of the doctrine of the Buddha;
and the Abhidhamma, which contains the metaphysical and
philosophical discussions on Buddhist doctrine.

The gist of Gautama's teaching is to be found in the Four
Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path which the
Buddha discovered while meditating under a pipal tree and
which he first proclaimed to his five companions in the Park
of the Gazelles at Banaras. To them he expounded the Four
Noble Truths and showed how they led to the Noble Eight-
fold Path:

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of pain: birth is pain-
ful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful,
sorrow, lamentation, dejection and despair are painful. Con-
tact with unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one
wishes is painful. . . .

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cause of pain:
the craving which tends to rebirth, combined with pleasure
and lust, finding pleasure here and there, namely the craving
for passion, the craving for existence, the craving for non-
existence.

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of
pain, the cessation without a remainder of craving, the aban-
donment, forsaking, release, non-attachment.

96 The Revolt in Tibet

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the way that leads
to the cessation of pain: this is the noble Eightfold Way,
namely right views, right intention, right speech, right action,
right livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, right concen-
tration.

"This is the noble truth of pain: Thus, monks, among doc-
trines unheard before, in me sight and knowledge arose, wis-
dom arose, knowledge arose, light arose." *

With the Buddha's death his teachings took various forms,
according to the interpretations of his disciples and followers.
Attempts were made to resolve controversial points, and at
least three councils were summoned for this purpose but with
no positive result. In time the original philosophy evolved
into a religion with the Buddha elevated to the status of a
deity. Buddhism reached its apogee in India in the reign of
the great emperor-apostle Asoka in the third century B.C.

Thereafter it went through several vicissitudes, moving
away from Gautama's agnosticism to a sort of metaphysical
polytheism, dividing finally into two schools the Hinayana
or Theravada, which survives in Ceylon and is faithful to
the Buddha's original doctrine; and the Mahayana, poly-
theistic and metaphysical, where each individual trains him-
self to become a Buddha, being known in the process of
attainment as a Bodhisattva, that is, a being destined for en-
lightenment, who deliberately renounces nirvana, the state
of ultimate bliss, to remain among his fellow men and serve
them. The Mahayana school flourishes in Tibet and Japan,
and was once active in China.

In Tibet, Buddhism took the form of Lamaism with, as we
noted, the animistic elements of Bon and the Tantric prac-
tices of Hinduism grafted onto it. This type of Buddhism
is known as Vajrayana, the Buddhism of the Adamantine

* Edward J. Thomas's translation in Early Buddhist Scriptures (Routledge
& Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1935).

Land of Lamas 97

Vehicle, with a strong belief in reincarnation, and influenced
by demonology.

Like Buddhism, which in time was divided into sects,
Lamaism also took various forms the Kadampa, or Red
Hats, established by Atisha; the Gelugpa, or Yellow Hats, the
predominant sect, to which the Dalai Lama and the Panchen
Lama belong; and various other sects the Sagya, or Colored,
sect, founded by Basba, tutor of Kublai Khan, which estab-
lished the lay-ecclesiastical system of government; and the
Kargyupa, or White, sect founded by Marpa, the guru of
Milarepa, the hermit-philosopher of eleventh century Tibet.

Lamaism has an extensive literature contained in the 108
volumes of the Kangyur, which comprises the scripture of
Tibetan Buddhism, including the Vinaya, or canon law,
and the 225 volumes of the Tangyur, which consists of com-
mentaries on the scriptures. Although the larger monasteries
in Tibet grant degrees in divinity, the scholarship is said to
be of a not very high order. The highest intellectual of the
Lamaist church is the Ganden Dzeba, the Enthroned of
Ganden monastery, who holds his office for seven years, and
whose mastery of philosophy and religious knowledge en-
titles him to sit in the seat of the great Tsong Ka-pa, founder
of the Yellow sect. During the New Year even the Dalai Lama
had to bow to the Enthroned. Succession at the end of the
Ganden Dzeba's seven-year term was determined by examina-
tion, this being conducted by the Dalai and Panchen lamas
and by the monk vacating the seat.

Head of the religious hierarchy was the Dalai Lama, who
was also the supreme secular power, with the Panchen Lama
exercising only spiritual authority until the advent of the
Chinese. The local Tibetan Government headed by the
Dalai Lama had its seat in Lhasa, and His Holiness's direct
authority extended over U, the largest single area of Tibet,
comprising nearly no dzongs, or counties. The Panchen

98 The Revolt in Tibet

Lama's authority was confined to the much smaller area of
Tsang, and even here a number of counties were controlled
by the Dalai Lama's followers and by adherents of the Sagya,
or Colored, sect.

Ranking below the two Grand llamas were the Incarnate
Lamas, numbering about one thousand, and headed by the
abbots of the Three Great monasteries of Drepung, Sera, and
Ganden, all situated in the vicinity of Lhasa. The Dalai
Lama studied at these centers until he was installed on the
Golden Throne, and the abbots of these monasteries wielded
great spiritual and political power. Drepung, some six miles
west of Lhasa at the foot of the hills which flank the plain
on the north, is one of the largest monasteries in the world,
housing around ten thousand inmates. Sera, three miles north
of the capital, has a temple dedicated to Dorje-chang, also
known as Vajradhara; while Ganden, some twenty-five miles
east of Lhasa, is the oldest monastery of the Yellow sect, hav-
ing been founded by Tsong Ka-pa, who was its first abbot.
From the "Big Three" came the majority of monk-officials
and high ecclesiastics. The Incarnate Buddhas are trained at
these centers.

Tibet is studded with about three thousand monasteries,
but the vast majority are small local monasteries and her-
mitages with often less than one hundred inmates, though
some of the bigger ones house as many as one thousand or
more. Besides the Big Three there are other well-known
monasteries, or gompas, as the Tibetans call them. These in-
clude the monastery at Samye, about forty miles from Lhasa,
which was once used as a government treasury; Tholing,
Tsaparang, and Kochar in western Tibet; and many others
spread throughout the country. Nuns and nunneries are
also numerous, but they occupy an inferior place despite the
Tantric doctrine, since women are not deemed the spiritual
equals of men. Other centers of religion are the temples.

Land of Lamas 99

\mong the better known are the Jokhang and Ramoche in
Lhasa and the Kumbum at Gyantse, which has been de-
scribed as the Assisi of Mahayana Buddhism. Dominating
Lhasa are the golden roofs and sloping walls of the Potala,
winter residence of the Dalai Lama, which at one time
housed a veritable army of monks and retainers. In the cen-
ter of the Potala is the Red Palace containing the principal
halls, chapels, and shrines of past Dalai Lamas. Here also
are life-sized effigies of Song-tsan Garnpo and of his two
wives. The Potala hill on which stands the palace of the
Dalai Lama is named after a hill at Cape Comorin in South
India. There is a third Potala, a hill on the coast of the Chi-
nese mainland.

The Lamaist hierarchy has similarities with that of the Ro-
man Catholic Church, the Dalai Lama being for all practical
purposes the Pope of Lamaism. Below him and the Panchen
Lama are the abbots of the great monasteries, known as
chuluktus, whose status corresponds in many respects to that
of the Roman cardinals. Like the two Grand Lamas, they
bear the title of Rimpoche, or Glorious. Next in order of
gradation are the chubilkans, who are abbots of the lesser
monasteries, and, like the chutuktus, they are regarded as
Incarnate Lamas. A number of monasteries in Tibet contain
one or more of these Incarnate Lamas.

Aside from the Incarnate Lamas there are ordinary lamas,
whose number runs into thousands and who are distinguished
from the monks by their learning of the Tibetan scriptures
and by the practice of meditation and penance. The junior
monks are known as dabas or trapas, and sometimes function
in a servile capacity to the lamas as servants. The ordinary
lamas hold various ranks and degrees corresponding roughly
to the Western hierarchy of deacon, priest, dean, and doc-
tor of divinity. The larger monasteries are theological col-
leges, but the Big Three alone confer the coveted degree of

zoo The Revolt in Tibet

Ge Shi (Devoted to Virtue) on the lamas who have mastered
scriptural and other esoteric studies. Of the Ge Shi lamas a
small number are chosen to enter one of the two academies
attached to the Ganden monastery. These are the Gyu-Me
and Gyu-To academies, which specialize in advanced studies
in Tantric Lamaism. Ultimately, as noted before, the most
learned scholar and master of religious theory, as well as of
esoteric practices, is installed as the Enthroned at Ganden
with the title of Ganden Dzeba, the office originally occupied
by Tsong Ka-pa. Until the Dalai Lama left Tibet, the abbots
of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden, along with eight government
officials, presided over the Tsongdu, or National Assembly.
No decision was taken without the assent of the clerics.

Those who aspire to priesthood in Tibet generally enter
a monastery around the age of eight, though there have been
entrants aged only four. Here the candidate lives a life of
strict discipline, celibacy, and abstinence enforced more often
than not by the whip. Whereas the Dalai and Panchen lamas
invariably come from poor families, the status of an acolyte
or monk inside a monastery is often determined by his
wealth, and wealthy monks have houses of their own inside
the monastery, do no menial work, and have their food pre-
pared for them. Some among those from poor families are
able in time to read and write and advance in the monastic
hierarchy, but the majority are condemned to work for the
greater part of their lives as servants catering to the needs of
the more affluent monks. These serving monks are known as
monk-servants. A monk is allowed to sow seed but not to dig
or plow, which again places the poor monks at a disadvan-
tage, for they cannot afford to pay their lay tenants to till the
soil. On the other hand they can engage in trade, and to be a
monk, whether one is the son of a peasant or herdsman, is
to enjoy a status superior to that of the laity.

A candidate for priesthood passes through three stages be-

Land of Lamas 101

fore he becomes a fully ordained monk. He begins as a pupil
probationer or ge-nyen, advances to be a novice or get-isul,
and finally is graduated as a fully ordained monk or ge-long.
As a Buddhist monk he is required to observe no less than
some 250 vows, and there are said to be fifteen ways of ap-
proaching nirvana after overcoming the 84,000 human pas-
sions which in the Lamaist vocabulary afflict mankind.

Over the centuries a vast mass of wealth in the form of
gold, treasure, and land has congealed in the vaults and rec-
ords of these monasteries which without exception possess
land and engage in trade. One estimate reckons that collec-
tively the monasteries of Tibet own a third of the coun-
try's arable lands. These lands are worked by serfs, who
earn no wages but are paid in kind, in the form of food
grains and crops according to a tariff arbitrarily fixed by the
lamas or landlords. The higher rank of monks augment their
income from trade, rent, and moneylending, with presents,
monetary and material, for officiating at marriages, births,
deaths, festivals, and in sickness.

Undoubtedly lamaism meant lucrative living. According to
Heinrich Harrer, who spent seven years in Tibet,* during
one month a monastery in Lhasa received from the govern-
ment three tons of tea and fifty tons of butter in addition to
subsidies totaling over 100,000 dollars. Liberal gifts of
tsamba, a flour of baked barley or wheat, which the Tibetans
usually knead with their butter-tea, are not uncommon.

In their campaign to undermine Lamaism and finally to
uproot it, the Communists have been following in Tibet the
same tactics they employed against the Buddhists in China.
According to the Chinese the number of Buddhist monks and
nuns in China, including Tibet, is roughly 500,000, while
the number of Buddhist followers totals 100 million. Of the
500,000, about 200,000 monks reside in Tibet proper, while

* Seven Years in Tibet (New York: E. P. Button & Company, Inc., 1954).

102 The Revolt in Tibet

another 100,000 live in the Tibetan-populated areas of
Chinghai, Szechwan, and Kansu. In Inner Mongolia there are
20,000. This leaves a balance of 180,000 Buddhist monks in
China proper. Before the Communists seized power, there
were 700,000.

"Followers of Marxism-Leninism are from top to bottom
atheists," declared the People's Daily, official organ of the
Chinese Communist party in November, 1951. In the Com-
munist view, religion, as Marx propounded, is the opium
of the people, lulling them into docility and meek acqui-
escence with their way of life. If the Communists make a
show of religious tolerance, it is only to achieve their ulti-
mate political ends. In his book Principles of New Democ-
racy, Mao Tse-tung indicates how religion can be exploited
for this purpose. "Communist party members," he explains,
"may very well form an anti-imperialist united battlefront
in political activities with certain proponents of idealism, and
even with religionists, but they should never agree with their
idealism or their religious doctrines."

In China, as later in Tibet and other "national minority
areas," the Communists mounted their offensive against re-
ligion under various guises. Although in China as in Tibet
they first made a show of tolerance and even of appeasement,
it was not long before they made their real purpose plain.
In October, 1948, a year before they officially assumed power,
the Central China Bureau of the Chinese Communist party
announced a set of regulations called "Principles Governing
Rental and Interest Reductions" whereunder they promised
that "land owned by religious bodies shall remain untouched.
If it is not being administered by any special body, it shall
come under the provisions governing disposal of land be-
longing to runaway landlords. Land belonging to runaway
landlords shall be placed under the custody of their rela-

Land of Lamas 103

tives. If there are no relatives the Government will take cus-
tody."

These promises and provisos seemed reasonable enough in
theory but were far different in practice. The Agrarian Re-
form Law of 1949 contained an article abolishing ownership
rights of religious bodies, temples, monasteries, and churches,
though no drastic efforts were immediately made to imple-
ment the policy. The official line was still to appease Bud-
dhism, thereby lulling the fear and suspicions of indigenous
Buddhists and simultaneously gaining the good will of Bud-
dhists abroad. By 1951 the Red regime in China had begun
to stabilize itself, and the Communists then shifted cautiously
to the attack, working largely through their front, the so-
called Chinese Buddhist Association founded in June, 1953,
which initially had only two branches one significantly in
Tibet and the other in the Thai-Chingpo autonomous chou,
or district, of Yunnan. Other branches were established later
in Inner Mongolia, Kansu, Shansi, Liasoning, the Sibsong-
Pana autonomous chou in Yunnan, and the Apha-Tibetan
autonomous chou in Szechwan.

Behind this front the Chinese Communists sought to dis-
credit Buddhism under cover of land reform, accusing Bud-
dhism of "serving the purpose of feudalism/' and labeling
the Buddhist clergy as "lackeys of the exploiting class." A
Central Government decree of August 4, 1950, classified
monks and nuns, both Buddhist and Taoist,* along with
geomancers, fortunetellers, diviners, and superstitious prac-
titioners. Since in China as in Tibet the monasteries un-
doubtedly owned extensive properties, and since religious
custom ordained that the Buddhist clergy could not till the
soil themselves, they proved an easy target for the Commu-

* Taoism is a religion of China founded by Lao Tzu in the sixth century
B.C.

104 The Revolt in Tibet

nists. Head monks or abbots were particularly denounced as
"feudalistic landlords who depend for a living on the blood
and sweat of the working people, not working themselves but
living on the spoils of their exploitation/'

Through the Chinese Buddhist Association the Commu-
nists thereupon set out to ' 'reform" the clergy whose property
holdings of temples and monasteries, with a few exceptions
for show purposes, had already been confiscated. They did
this by emphasizing three themes. First, all Chinese Buddhist
monks and nuns were called upon to accept the leadership of
the Communist party and resolutely take the road to So-
cialism. This meant, in the words of Ulanfu, chairman of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, that the lamas must
"either join a cooperative or operate a joint public-private
stock farm." They have in fact been dragooned into doing
so, and in one cooperative in Inner Mongolia every lama
is required to do 260 days of work a year, which, though
permitted by a few Buddhist sects such as the Zen, leave the
average monk after attending the "thought reform" or
"brainwashing" classes very little time to perform his re-
ligious duties. The compulsion to undergo ideological re-
molding constitutes the second major theme, the two being
sometimes lumped under the composite head of "the move-
ment of productive labor and study." The third major
theme is the necessity for all the clergy to "draw a clear line
of demarcation between the enemy and themselves" and "to
expose bad men and bad things to the government." Not
only are Buddhists set against Buddhists but they are also
set against the Taoists. In March, 1958, a meeting of Bud-
dhists in Kiangsi pledged to "fight to the end against reac-
tionary Taoist sects." Similarly Chinese Moslem imams or
priests and Mongolian lamas have since early 1950 been the
especial objects of Communist-inspired denunciations. Like
the old landowners in China, religious leaders in Tibet and

Land of Lamas 105

other national minority areas are put on platforms and the
masses are invited and incited to accuse and denounce them.

The Chinese have began to adopt these tactics in Tibet.
There, as in China, the lamas are being "persuaded" to work
rather than pray, to earn rather than beg, and to participate
in the world rather than reject it. Such compulsory partici-
pation often takes strange forms. In November, 1958, Shirob
Jaltso, chairman of the Buddhist Association in Chinghai,
declared in a speech to a group of Tibetans that "the killing
of rats and locusts is compatible with our religion. We kill
not only locusts but also any other harmful elements such as
imperialists and counterrevolutionaries." The first rule of
the Vinaya ordains that a Buddhist shall not take the life of
any sentient being. Around this time a meeting of Tibetan
monks in Chinghai was called upon to shout, "American
troops, get out of Lebanon!" The Buddhist Association, one
of whose honorary presidents was the Dalai Lama, was used
to bolster up the Communist peace front, and Buddhist
monks from China and Tibet were prominent among the
delegates to the conference of World Peace Supporters held
in Tokyo in April, 1954.

Chinese pressure on the lamas in Tibet proper was at first
cautious. Even in the border areas such as Chinghai the
drive against the monasteries was calculatedly moderate in
its tempo, and for some time the lamaseries there continued
to receive their original rents from peasant villages even after
these had been made cooperatives. Only in 1958 when the
Khambas in western Szechwan stepped up their resistance
did the Chinese Communists clamp down on the rebels and
direct a fierce offensive against the monasteries.

In Tibet proper, the Chinese, realizing that Lamaism had
its roots in the people, proceeded slowly. "Members of the
Tibetan race, be they roving herdsmen or agriculturists, are
all believers in Lamaism/' the Peking Kwang Ming Daily

io6 The Revolt in Tibet

News acknowledged. "Tibet's rulers therefore utilize Lama-
ism to intoxicate the general populace and as a means of
support for their measures of domination and exploitation/'
But the Chinese Reds were themselves not averse to exploit-
ing religion. Aware of the wide geographical distribution of
Buddhism in countries and states such as Burma, Ceylon,
Viet Nam, Thailand, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal, the Com-
munists behind a show of respect for religion set about
utilizing it politically. They pursued this policy with charac-
teristic cynicism, and while respectfully welcoming the Dalai
and Panchen lamas and several of the Incarnate Lamas
from Tibet they had no compunction in ravaging famous
centers of worship such as the Ta Euh temple in Chinghai
and requisitioning the Chin Yah temple (The Temple of
Golden Tiles) to house the Military and Political Institute
of Chinghai Province. Nor did Communist vandalism stop
there. Images of the Buddha, bronze figures, and holy relics
taken from temples and monasteries were sent abroad to
other countries, including the Soviet Union. Sometimes this
was done as a political stunt. Thus a tooth of the Buddha
was loaned to Burma in 1955-1956 while the bones of the
scholar-pilgrim Hsuan Tsang were dispatched to the Nalanda
Institute in India. Another of Hsuan Tsang's bones was pre-
sented to the Buddhists of Ceylon, and in Japan the Chi-
nese Buddhist Association sponsored a monthly magazine
from June, 1957, entitled Japanese and Chinese Buddhism.
When the Chinese Communists ventured on the "peace-
ful occupation" of Tibet in October, 1950, the Northwest
China Administrative Council made a formal announcement
"exempting land owned by the monasteries of Lamaism from
requisition and distribution"; but, as General Chang Kuo-
hua later explained, freedom of religious belief was not to
be confused with freedom of counterrevolutionary activities
carried out by "bandits under red robes." Nonetheless soon

Land of Lamas 107

after the occupation of Tibet the Chinese Communists at-
tempted to bring the lamas into line, but met with strong
resistance. Not only the monasteries but the people at large
resisted measures such as the formation of cooperatives and
the enforcement of agricultural cultivation by the monks.
The opposition was so widespread and firm that the Com-
munists had to beat a retreat, and in April, 1957, ^ey for-
mally postponed, as we noted, their "democratic reforms"
until after 1962. At the Eighth Congress of the Chinese Com-
munist party in Peking in September, 1956, Liu Shao-chi,
the party theoretician who was then vice chairman of the
Politburo, advised: "In regard to religious belief in the
areas of national minorities, we must for some time adhere to
the policy of freedom of religious belief and must never in-
terfere in that connection during social reform/* In other
words, the Chinese Communists were counseled to bide their
time.

They had not very long to wait, for by March, 1959, the
train of rebellion lighted by the Khambas in western Szech-
wan as far back as December, 1955, exploded in Lhasa with
the flight of the Dalai Lama. After that the Communists had
no need even for pretense. The crushing of the rebellion in
Lhasa by March 22nd though it still continues in the out-
lying northern and eastern regions was followed less than a
week later by Peking's peremptory dissolution of the Dalai
Lama's local Government of Tibet on March 28th and the
declaration that the Preparatory Committee set up in 1956
for the proposed Tibetan Autonomous Region should "exer-
cise the functions and powers of the local Tibet Govern-
ment." The Dalai Lama's supporters on the Preparatory
Committee, who numbered eighteen, were summarily dis-
missed and replaced by sixteen supporters of the Panchen
Lama, who was appointed acting chairman of the committee,
the Dalai Lama still being nominally permitted to retain the

io8 The Revolt in Tibet

chairmanship o that body. The Chinese action had a double
motivation. In the first place, by keeping the chairmanship
open to the Dalai Lama the Communists, flourishing an
olive branch, probably still hoped to inveigle him back. Sec-
ond, Tibetan tradition ordains that if the Dalai Lama hap-
pens, for whatever reason, to be incapacitated the Panchen
Lama can assume neither the God-king's secular nor his re-
ligious authority. In the prevailing circumstances the Chinese
had to make a show of respecting indigenous custom.

However, there was no longer any need for Peking to
pretend that its authority was other than omnipotent in
Tibet. An official news agency comment flatly announced
that "until further notice" Chinese Communist troops
would control all religious, social, and governmental func-
tions in Tibet. The Chinese openly abandoned their policy
of "gradualism." Among the first acts of the new Preparatory
Committee was the administrative redivision of Tibet from
five into seven zones, designed, as was frankly announced,
to erase the "old feudalistic carving up of land" between the
lamas, the nobility, and the traders. The Tibet Autonomous
Area now consists of seven Zones Shigatse, Chamdo, Takun,
Loka, Gyantse, Tsangchuka, and Ari, with Lhasa, seat of the
Dalai Lama, converted into a municipality. For all practical
purposes the Dalai Lama has been written off, and along with
him the lamas and nobility, as well as the official hierarchy
of the chi-kyap and the dzongpons. Evidently the Chinese
aim at substituting for them in Tibet the so-called official
cadres of glorified clerks recruited largely from the rural
areas, such as exist in China.

That the Tibetan rebellion still continues is obvious from
the order of priorities listed by the Chinese Communists
and their creatures in Tibet. According to the Panchen Lama
and General Chang Kuo-hua, both of whom addressed the

Land of Lamas 109

second plenary session of the Preparatory Committee in July,
1959, at Lhasa, the first task was to suppress the rebellion and
the second to introduce "democratic reforms." What shape
these would take was indicated in some detail.

"A campaign/' said General Chang, "will be carried out in
the monasteries and temples to oppose rebellion, privileges,
and exploitation. At the same time," he continued blandly,
"the policy of the Communist party and the government of
the freedom of religious belief will be firmly adhered to."
He termed redistribution of land the second stage of Tibetan
reform under the Communists, when the old order would be
abolished and "peasants' associations" would be established.
These associations would become the basic form of mass lead-
ership and would exercise the functions and power of the
government "at basic levels," a clue to what the administra-
tive redivision portends.

The Panchen Lama dutifully endorsed the general's re-
marks, adding more specifically that "temples and monas-
teries will inevitably be involved during the reform since
the temples and monasteries and some of the high-ranking
lamas in them possess manorial estates and are serf owners.*
It will not be beneficial to religion if the serfs of the aristo-
cratic feudal government are emancipated while the serfs of
the lamaseries are to remain in bondage. Genuine and
philanthropic religion must not retain any stigma of serfdom.
Therefore, many feudal systems of oppression and exploita-
tion existing in the lamaseries should also be reformed." In

* This seems highly ironic in the context of the description of the Panchen
Lama's palace at Shigatse by the pro-Communist Alan Winnington in his
book Tibet (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1957). Winnington describes the
Tashi-lhunpo monastciy where the Panchen Lama resides in the following
terms: "A greater sense of wealth and pomp pervades the Tashi-lhunpo
monastery, winter home of the Panchen Lama, than any single monastery
in Lhasa. The biggest pieces of turquoise I ever saw are let in as floor slabs
before some of the altars."

no The Revolt in Tibet

the light of Wilmington's observations, reform might ap-
propriately begin with the Tashi-lhunpo monastery of the
Panchen Lama.

Both the Panchen Lama and General Chang Kuo-hua
warned the Tibetan "rebels" who had been loyal to the Dalai
Lama that they would be punished in various ways, includ-
ing the confiscation of all their lands and properties. This is
now being done. On the other hand, in accordance with the
traditional Marxist tactics, "collaborators" in the landlord
class who took no part in the rebellion were promised that
they would be treated "with consideration." Their lands,
livestock, and property holdings in excess of the maximum
allowed under the property redistribution plan would be
paid for in full by the government naturally according to
the government's assessment. "Those," said the Panchen
Lama, "who have used the land to exploit the broad masses of
the people for centuries and thus become debtors of the peo-
ple should, as a matter of course, return the land to the peo-
ple without receiving any compensation." Who these "debt-
ors of the people" are would again naturally be determined
by the government.

The Panchen Lama, echoing his master's voice, announced
that the policy of "buying out" landowners would also be
adopted toward "the upper strata members who have not
taken part in the rebellion." As a general rule, he added,
herds would not be redistributed except in the case of "rebel"
owners. Livestock under such ownership would be handed
to herdsmen who had not opposed the Chinese.

How did the Communists redeem these equivocal prom-
ises? In Inner Mongolia and the border areas, as noted, they
had bunched together "reactionary herd owners and lamas"
in an attempt to identify one with the other, and to turn the
more indigent monks and herdsmen against both. In Tibet
itself, along with the herd owners, the more affluent lamas

Land of Lamas in

were obliged to appear on public platforms where they were
made the targets of an "antifeudal complaints struggle/'
Unfortunately for the Communists, the masses displayed no
great enthusiasm for this campaign, which led the Chinese to
accuse "the reactionary clique of the upper strata in Tibet"
of ignoring "the interests of the broad masses of the people,
ecclesiastical and secular/' It is not that "the broad masses"
did not want reforms. They were eager for them, but the
methods adopted by the Communists to enforce these reforms
seemed to the ordinary Tibetan calculated attempts by the
Han foreigners to undermine their religion and destroy their
traditions.

On March 31, 1959, about a fortnight after the Dalai
Lama had left Lhasa and three days after the local Tibetan
Government was dissolved, the Peking People's Daily sug-
gested in an editorial that the rebellion "has proved the
necessity of instituting democratic reforms." The Reds were
preparing to apply to Tibet the ideological pattern they had
tried to impose in Szechwan and Chinghai. "How long
can the lamas remain privileged in Tibet while they are re-
formed in Chinghai?" the Communists demanded. As far
back as October, 1956, the Reds had forced the establish-
ment in Tibet of the Buddhist Association which had been
launched in China three years before. But Tibetan non-
cooperation rendered this organization more or less quies-
cent. The Chinese complained that their efforts were being
nullified by the "idealism-theism" of the Tibetan masses, and
the Kuang Ming Daily News was moved later to confess,
"We dared not publicize materialism and atheism out of fear
that this would come in conflict with religious policy and
arouse the apprehensions of the masses."

With the departure of the Dalai Lama and the installa-
tion of the Panchen Lama in political authority, Peking set
out to institute its land reforms in Tibet on the lines fol-

ii The Revolt in Tibet

lowed by the Communists in China from 1949 to 1951. First,
peasants' associations were formed to exercise governmen-
tal powers on the village level, this "reform" following al-
most automatically the elimination of the chi-kyaps and
dzongpons. Among the duties of these associations is the
task of seeing that land is given only to those who are po-
litically reliable. In the pastoral area herds belonging to
Tibetan rebels were confiscated, and since a large percentage
of herdsmen took part in the revolt this policy gave the Com-
munists wide scope to eliminate political opposition.

In Chinghai, Szechwan, and other parts of Communist
China inhabited by Tibetans, "democratic reforms" had in-
cluded confiscation of herds, the formation of communes, and
campaigns intended to reduce popular respect for Tibetan
monks and the Buddhist religion. These "democratic re-
forms" were now promulgated in Tibet proper, where the
Chinese got the Panchen Lama to declare that "feudal op-
pression and exploitation in monasteries would be abol-
ished." The Panchen Lama had been summoned to Peking
early in April, 1959, soon after the Preparatory Committee
was designated Tibet's new local administration, and re-
mained in China until late June.

"Struggle meetings" were organized on a wide scale
throughout Tibet where the lamas were charged with char-
latanism, robbery, torture, fraud, and all manner of mis-
demeanors. Since the monasteries were large landowners
these "struggle meetings," while utilized to denigrate the
lamas and their "superstitious practices," were also used to
propagate "land reform." In the past the Tibetans, en-
couraged by their lamas, had refused to accept collectiviza-
tion. Now they had no alternative, for anyone who dared
to oppose the "reforms" was instantly branded as a counter-
revolutionary and a criminal. As in the border areas, not
only are the landless Tibetan herdsmen urged to denounce

Land of Lamas 113

the "reactionary" herd owners but the poorer lamas also are
encouraged to retail their sufferings at the hands of the richer
lamas or Incarnate Lamas.

Heading this campaign is the Panchen Lama, who since
being invested with political authority by the Chinese Com-
munists has spearheaded the attack on the monasteries and
obliquely even on some Buddhist practices. Thus in July His
Serenity was quoted by Peking Radio as saying: "Things
keep changing and developing. Some irrational religious sys-
tems should be constantly reformed. Temples and monas-
teries will inevitably be involved in the reforms since the
temples and monasteries and some of the high-ranking lamas
in them also possess manorial estates and are serf owners. It
will not be beneficial to religion if the serfs of the aristocratic
feudal government are emancipated while the serfs of the
lamasaries remain in bondage." Such statements are inevita-
bly accompanied by assurances that there will be no inter-
ference with the people's freedom of worship.

Peking's land reforms are pervasive and cover wide spheres
of activity, for though ostensibly economic their purpose is
political. The blow at the lamaist monasteries is calculated to
eliminate the power of the Buddhist priesthood, whose es-
tates are now in the process of being broken up. On the
surface many of the reforms instituted by the Communists
seem reasonable and accord with a widely quoted Han say-
ing in Tibet: Alan man ti lai (Slowly, but it will come). It
certainly will; for as experience in China and the national
minority areas proves, this tactic merely represents the thin
end of the wedge which in time will prise wide open the en-
tire political, economic, and social systems.

It is worth recalling in the light of what is happening in
Tibet today what was promised to that country by the Chi-
nese as late as April, 1956. At the inaugural meeting of the
Preparatory Committee, General Chang Kuo-hua outlined

H4 The Revolt in Tibet

what he described as "the established policy of the Central
People's Government on the question of reforms in Tibet."
According to him the Tibetan region differed greatly, so-
cially and economically, from the areas of the Han people and
the other minority nationalities. "The measures to be taken
in future to carry out reforms in the Tibetan region must
also be different from those adopted in other areas/' the gen-
eral assured his Tibetan audience. "Future reforms in the
Tibet region must be carried out from the upper to the lower
levels and by peaceful consultation, in accordance with the
will and desire of the majority of the Tibetan people. During
and after reforms, the government must take whatever steps
are necessary to ensure that the political status and living con-
ditions of the upper-class Tibetan people (including upper-
class ecclesiastics) will not be reduced but will possibly be
raised. That is to say: changes can only be for the better and
not for the worse. This method is to the advantage of the
aristocracy and of the monasteries and also of the people.
After future reforms in Tibet the religious beliefs of the peo-
ple can remain completely unchanged."

The brazen brashness and effrontery of these assurances
in the context of later events reveal the cynicism underlying
Communist promises. They were in fact endorsed at the
same meeting by Chinese Vice Premier Chen Yi, who said:
"The Communist party of China and the Central People's
Government hold that reforms in Tibet can only be carried
out when the Tibetan leaders and people unanimously de-
mand them and are determined on them. They can never
be carried out by any other nationality."

Today the Chinese in Tibet are engaged in "reforms"
which, far from ensuring that the political status and living
conditions of the upper-class Tibetan people lay and secu-
lar are not merely maintained but improved, are calculated
to destroy both. No genuine democrat denies the need for

Land of Lamas 115

changes in Tibet's political, economic, and social structure,
and the Dalai Lama himself has expressed this view both be-
fore and after leaving Tibet. But what is taking place in that
hapless country today represents the first step on the road to
Communism which will end only with the "conversion" of
Tibet into a Communist land absorbed in the great mother-
land of Han imperialism. Many of the reforms so far initiated
by the Chinese Communists in Tibet would have been ac-
ceptable to the Dalai Lama and his government if their pur-
pose had not been the consolidation of Han overlordship.
Furthermore it was obvious that the Chinese were out to
destroy traditional Tibetan values and to replace them by a
superimposed Marxist ideology and rule.

Two-thirds of Tibet's population comprise agricultural and
pastoral serfs living in a feudal economy which denies them
wages, payment being made in the form of grain, crops, and
other commodities which they help to produce. The vast
majority of them are metaphorically chained to the land,
and they cannot leave it without obtaining their landlord's
permission and paying him compensation. The former is
generally refused, while the latter is too often beyond the
serf's resources. The Communist plan to abolish the system
of unpaid, forced labor and to give the serfs freedom of their
persons is therefore in principle unexceptionable. The Com-
munists also plan to "buy out" landed estates from the ma-
norial lords and redistribute them among the peasants, a meas-
ure whose justice will obviously depend on the amount of
compensation which the Reds pay to the landlords. If past
experience is any guide, this is nothing but a form of virtual
expropriation. Lands belonging to the monasteries will also
be "bought out," and the lamas are promised subsidies if the
revenue from the land left to them is insufficient to support
them. Debts owed up to the end of 1958 by the "laboring
people" to the manorial lords are annulled. Freedom of wor-

n6 The Revolt in Tibet

ship is promised, but since the survival of each monastery de-
pends on the loyalty of its inmates to the regime this con-
stitutes a form of political blackmail holding up the lamas
to ransom. Their ultimate fate is not likely to be vastly dif-
ferent from that of the erstwhile Buddhist monks and nuns
in China who have been "persuaded" to leave their monas-
teries, engage in "productive labor," and marry. The Com-
munist policy on the Tibetan religion, and its use as a politi-
cal instrument, were foreshadowed in October, 1957, when
General Chang Kuo-hua commented on the role he expected
the Tibet branch of the China Buddhist Association to
play. As reported in the Tibet Jih Pao of October i8th,
Chang said: "In order to implement better the policy of re-
ligious freedom, it is the duty of the Tibetan Buddhist Asso-
ciation to transmit regularly and propagate to the Buddhists
the policies, laws, and decrees of the Party and government;
organize them to engage in study and positively take part in
the anti-imperialist and patriotic campaign and the campaign
for defending world peace, as well as in various constructive
undertakings."

In short the Tibetan lamas, like the Panchen Lama, are
expected to be the mouthpieces of their political masters.

India,
china,

an

d
tibet

CHAPTER FIVE

In the period of British rule India's policy on Tibet was gov-
erned by the primary consideration of securing a buffer state
between India and China from which Russia, at first tsarist
and later Communist, would also be excluded. This was the
underlying purpose of the successive conventions of Lhasa,
Peking, St. Petersburg, and Simla.

Two years after India attained independence China be-
came Communist, and the situation between India, China,
and Tibet altered radically. It was Nehru's mistake that he
continued to treat the situation as static on the specious plea
that independent India's policy on Tibet was a heritage
from the British raj. Lord Curzon, who was Viceroy of India
at the time of the Younghusband expedition, had described
Chinese suzerainty over Tibet as "a political affectation" and
"a constitutional fiction" and had pressed for an "altered

117

n8 The Revolt in Tibet

policy" to fill the vacuum which, he feared, Russia might
occupy. Nehru's policy, it would seem, was activated prin-
cipally by a desire to appease China while respecting Tibetan
autonomy. Thereby he hoped to ensure his main aim, which
was the preservation of the security and integrity o India.

In doing this he underestimated the strength of Han ex-
pansionism reinforced by the even more purposeful ag-
gressiveness of Communist imperialism. It cannot be claimed
that he was not forewarned. What the Russians did in Hun-
gary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Poland, Bulgaria, and Al-
bania the Chinese did in Tibet. In fact in 1959 the Chinese
merely completed that which they had begun in 1950 and
against which India, then as later, had protested ineffectually.

No reasonable person or government expected India to go
to war with China over Tibet in 1950 or in 1959. But by re-
fraining from recognizing Tibet as a sovereign, independent
state between 1947 and 1949, at a time when neither the
Chinese Communists nor the Nationalists could have effec-
tively intervened, India lost the opportunity of bringing
Tibet into the forum of independent nations and simultane-
ously of ensuring the existence of a buffer state between her-
self and China. That mistake might still cost India dearly.
But its consequences were aggravated by New Delhi's at-
titude to China and Tibet in 1950, and again in 1959.

In both instances India began by protesting vigorously,
but when faced with a fait accompli she meekly acquiesced.
Had New Delhi supported the request of the El Salvador
delegate in November, 1950, that the Tibetan plea should be
heard by the United Nations it is possible that both the
United States and Britain would have voted in its favor. The
record of the U.N. proceedings suggests this. But the Indian
attitude, as we shall see, was unfortunately equivocal. Simi-
larly in 1959, having allowed the Dalai Lama and some
12,000 Tibetans asylum in India, the Government of India

India, China, and Tibet 119

appeared to be currying favor with the Chinese by announc-
ing that it would again sponsor Communist China's admis-
sion to the U.N. Peking's reaction to New Delhi's humble
gesture has been one of lordly and calculated disdain, and
the U.N., as expected, has rejected the plea after a remark-
ably brief speech by the normally loquacious Krishna Menon.

The Chinese invasion of Tibet in October, 1950, while the
Tibetan mission was on its way from India to Peking, pro-
voked a sharp exchange of communications between the In-
dian and Chinese governments. In its first note of October
26th the Indian Government complained that, despite the
fact that "we have been repeatedly assured of a desire by
the Chinese Government to settle the Tibetan problem by
peaceful means and negotiations," and notwithstanding the
departure of the Tibetan delegation for Peking on October
25th, the Chinese Government had ordered its troops to in-
vade Tibet. Actually the invasion had already taken place
on October 7th, but Peking did not announce its decision
to move its troops until about October 25th. On October
30th the Chinese replied in pointedly sharp tones. "Tibet/*
Peking affirmed, "is an integral part of Chinese territory.
The problem of Tibet is entirely a domestic problem of
China. The Chinese People's Liberation Army must enter
Tibet, liberate the Tibetan people, and defend the fron-
tiers of China. This is the resolved policy of the Central Peo-
ple's Government. . . . No foreign interference will be tol-
erated/' The reference to defending the frontiers of China
in relation to Tibet is interesting, for the Tibetan frontiers
abut on India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Ladakh, the other
frontiers on the north and east abutting on China itself.
Peking's note went on to characterize the Indian viewpoint
as "deplorable" and as "having been affected by foreign in-
fluences hostile to China in Tibet."

In its second note, dated October 3ist, New Delhi repudi-

120 The Revolt in Tibet

ated the Chinese charge that it was affected by foreign in-
fluences. Earlier, on October 8th, the U.N. forces in Korea
had crossed the 38th parallel, and the Indian Government
was anxious to contain the area of conflict. It accordingly
appealed to the Chinese to refrain from doing anything
"calculated to increase the present deplorable tensions of the
world," emphasizing simultaneously that "Tibetan autonomy
is a fact which, judging from reports they have received from
other sources, the Chinese Government were themselves
willing to recognize and foster." While reiterating that New
Delhi had "no political or territorial ambitions" in Tibet,
the Indian Government emphatically stated that "there was
no justification whatever for such military operations" which
represented "an attempt to impose a decision by force." On
November i6th the Chinese Government replied, insisting
that Tibet was an integral part of Chinese territory and that
the problem of Tibet was entirely a domestic problem of
China. Peking's note of November i6th makes some dis-
quieting disclosures which New Delhi has so far not chal-
lenged. The note refers to an aide-memoire dated August 28,
1950, by the Indian Government to the Chinese Government
wherein, according to the latter, New Delhi had accepted
Peking's view that "the regional autonomy granted by the
Chinese Government to national minorities inside the coun-
try is an autonomy within the confines of Chinese sover-
eignty." The note also asserts that "on August 31 the Chi-
nese Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the Indian Gov-
ernment through Ambassador Panikkar that the Chinese
People's Liberation Army was going to take action soon in
west Sikang." New Delhi did not deny this, which suggests
that at least a month before the Chinese actually launched
their offensive on Tibet, New Delhi was aware of Peking's
plan.

Looking back on these episodes, the Chinese strategy vis4-

India, China, and Tibet 121

vis India on Tibet emerges more clearly. Once Peking had
decided on "liberating" Tibet, it was anxious to secure New
Delhi's support or, at the very least, the Indian Government's
noninterference. Seen in that light its actions assume a con-
sistent pattern. First, Peking skillfully extracted an acknowl-
edgment by New Delhi in the aide-memoire referred to above
that the Government of India recognized Chinese sovereignty
over regionally autonomous Tibet. Having secured this,
Peking next proceeded to inform New Delhi of its decision
to act soon, thus attempting to make India privy to the Chi-
nese plan. What the Indian Government's reactions to this
were has not been disclosed, but consistent with its later at-
titude New Delhi probably urged China to settle the matter
"peacefully." When China ignored this advice, all that
India could do was to protest.

It could in fact have done more. On December 6th Nehru,
speaking in the Lok Sabha, declared that India wanted the
Sino-Tibetan question settled peacefully, and in a reference
to Chinese talk of "liberating" Tibet confessed it was not
clear to him from whom the Chinese were going to "liberate"
Tibet. Yet when the helpless Tibetans turned to New Delhi,
pleading with India to sponsor their case before the U.N.,
Lhasa was advised to appeal to the U.N. directly. This, in
view of Tibet's ambiguous international status, could not
be done by her except through a sponsor. Even so, the
Tibetans assumed that India, having given this advice, would
support their plea to the point of censuring China for using
force against a helpless people. In this also they were doomed
to disappointment. As Jayaprakash Narayan, well known
once as a Socialist leader but now associated with Vinoba
Bhave's Bhoodan (land renunciation) movement, observed:
"It is true that we could not have prevented the Chinese
from annexing Tibet. But we could have saved ourselves
from being party to a wrong."

122 The Revolt in Tibet

Unfortunately, India's attitude when the Tibetan ap-
peal came up before the U.N. in November, 1950, was
equivocal and, in the context of the facts, inexcusable. The
representative of El Salvador in sponsoring Tibet's case
pointed out that while Tibet was not a member of the
U.N., a duty rested on that organization to maintain peace
not only between member states but throughout the world.
He urged the General Assembly not to dismiss the Tibetan
case unheard. The Indian representative, the Jam Saheb of
Nawanagar, in reply observed that India as a neighbor of
China and Tibet, "with both of which it had friendly rela-
tions," was particularly anxious that the matter should be
settled peacefully. The Chinese forces, he pointed out, had
ceased to advance after the fall of Chamdo, "a town of some
480 kilometers from Lhasa." The Indian Government was
certain that the Tibetan question could still be settled by
peaceful means and that such a settlement could safeguard
the autonomy which Tibet had enjoyed for several decades
while maintaining its historical association with China.

By a coincidence which did not go unnoticed, the British
representative, Mr. Younger, had earlier spoken in broadly
the same terms as the Jam Saheb, and had proposed that the
committee * should defer decision on the request made by
the El Salvador delegate. The Jam Saheb concluded his
speech by endorsing the British representative's suggestion.
"My delegation," he observed, "consider that the best way of
obtaining this objective [a peaceful settlement] is to abandon,
for the time being, the idea of including this question in the
agenda of the General Assembly." The Australian representa-
tive, Sir Keith Officer, dutifully concurred. That the United
States only reluctantly agreed to this proposal was made clear
by its representative, Mr. Ernest A. Gross. He had voted for
adjournment, he explained, in view of the fact that the Gov-

The General Committee of the U.N. General Assembly.

India, China, and Tibet 123

ernment of India, whose territory bordered on Tibet and
which was therefore an interested party, had told the Gen-
eral Committee that it hoped that the Tibetan question
would be peacefully and honorably settled. In accordance
with its traditional policy, the United States would in usual
circumstances have voted for the inclusion of the item in the
General Assembly agenda. His government had always sup-
ported any proposal to refer to the U.N. international dis-
putes or complaints of aggression, which could thus be aired,
considered, and settled at international hearings. That was
the principle applied by the United States Government even
in the case of accusations made against the United States and
despite the illogical and fraudulent nature of those accusa-
tions. However, in the present case, the United States delega-
tion wanted to support the proposal made by the member
states most directly concerned in the subject matter of the
request submitted by the El Salvador delegation.

Like Czechoslovakia twelve years before, Tibet was sold
down the river. The irony lay in Nehru's contrasting attitudes
to these two tragedies. In 1938 he had visited Czechoslovakia
while in Europe and had watched with growing irritation
and dismay the devious strategy of Lord Runciman, who was
endeavoring simultaneously to soften up the Nazi Henlein
and, as Nehru put it, "to break the back of the Czechs/' He
had listened to the League of Nations as it debated on Czech-
oslovakia and was contemptuous of the entire proceedings.
Did these thoughts recur to him when the Indian delegate,
on New Delhi's instructions, assumed the same equivocal
posture in the United Nations debate on Tibet?

An eastern Munich was not far away, and to that also India
unhappily lent her imprimatur. Pledges and promises mean-
ing nothing to the Communists, Peking signed an agreement
with Tibet on May 23, 1951, recognizing Tibet's regional au-
tonomy under the unified leadership of the Central People's

124 The Revolt in Tibet

Government of China. We have seen how these pledges, easily
given, were easily broken.

In 1950 Nehru, lulled by Communist China's assurances
of her intention to reach a peaceful settlement with Tibet,
not only induced that country to negotiate directly with
Peking but persuaded the democratic nations of the U.N. to
refrain from censuring China. The Communist armies, well
aware of India's proclivities on this issue, had temporarily
halted at Chamdo. They were marking time. No sooner did
the U.N., on India's assurance, flash the green light than the
Communists resumed their march on Lhasa. The Sino-
Tibetan agreement, dictated by Peking and assuring Tibet
of regional autonomy, was hailed as a great diplomatic vic-
tory in New Delhi and as an endorsement of the Government
of India's farsighted policy. Events were to prove how near-
sighted that policy was.

Charmed and beguiled by the "sweet reasonableness" of
the Chinese, New Delhi went a step further. The British had
recognized Chinese suzerainty over Tibet in return for Chi-
nese recognition of Tibetan autonomy. India for no discerni-
ble reason proceeded beyond this. In the Sino-Indian treaty
on Tibet of April, 1954, to which, incidentally, Tibet was not
a signatory, India by implication recognized Chinese sover-
eignty as distinct from suzerainty. By dealing directly with
China and ignoring Tibet, India officially recognized the
special status of the former vis-&-vis the latter. Moreover, in
the agreement itself it adopted the Chinese phrase, "the
Tibet region of China," thereby impliedly recognizing Chi-
nese sovereignty over Tibet. This interpretation is borne out
by Nehru's speech in the Lok Sabha where the agreement was
attacked by several members, including the veteran Congress-
man Purushottamdas Tandon, the late Dr. S. P. Mookerjee,
Dr. Satya Narayan Sinha, and Dr. H. N. Kunzru. "Some criti-
cism has been made that this is a recognition of Chinese sov-

India, China, and Tibet 125

ereignty over Tibet/' said the prime minister. "I am not
aware of any time during the last few hundred years w hen
Chinese sovereignty or, if you like, suzerainty, was challenged
by any outside country, and all during this period whether
China was weak or strong and, whatever the Government of
China was, China always maintained this claim to sovereignty
over Tibet." Clearly in Nehru's mind the distinction between
suzerainty and sovereignty was of no great consequence. That
was also the Chinese view.

The agreement, signed at Peking, dealt with trade and
other matters concerning pilgrims between India and Tibet,
and was to remain in force for eight years. It permitted Indian
trade agencies to function in the Tibetan border towns of
Yatung, Gyantse, and Gartok in return for Chinese trade
agencies operating in India's capital, New Delhi, Kalimpong,
and the leading commercial city of Calcutta. Certain markets
for trade were specified in both countries. Traders and pil-
grims, except "inhabitants of the border districts of the two
countries who cross the borders to carry on petty trade or to
visit friends and relatives," were required to hold entry cer-
tificates or permits in addition to the usual passports and
visas. The agreement was confirmed in a subsequent note
addressed by the Government of India to the Chinese Gov-
ernment wherein New Delhi undertook to withdraw within
six months the military escort which had been stationed at
Yatung and Gyantse ever since the Lhasa Convention of 1904
for the protection of Indian pilgrims and traders. It also
promised to hand over to the Government of China, "at a
reasonable price," the post, telegraph, and public telephone
services together with their equipment operated by the Gov-
ernment of India in "the Tibet region of China." New Delhi
later decided, "as a gesture of good will," to waive its claim
to compensation for the postal, telegraph, and telephone
equipment in Tibet.

126 The Revolt in Tibet

The preamble to the Sino-Indian agreement on Tibet
enunciated for the first time the now famous five principles of
coexistence known in India as Panchshila* which though not
formally accepted by all the countries of Asia and Africa,
notably Pakistan, Thailand, South Viet Nam, Malaya, Tunis,
and Morocco, is still regarded by them as an intangible safe-
guard against the incursions of Red China. The preamble
reads: "The Government of the Republic of India and the
Central People's Government of the People's Republic of
China, being desirous of promoting trade and cultural inter-
course between the Tibet region of China and India and of
facilitating pilgrimage and travel by the peoples of China and
India, have resolved to enter into the present agreement
based on the following principles: (i) Mutual respect for
territorial integrity and sovereignty (2) Nonaggression (3)
Noninterference in internal affairs (4) Equality and mutual
benefit (5) Peaceful coexistence."

The principles of Panchshila were reiterated and re-
affirmed in a joint statement by the prime ministers of India
and China in June, 1954, when Chou En-lai visited New
Delhi, and in April, 1955, the principles were incorporated
in the final communique of the Afro-Asian Conference at
Bandung in Indonesia. If pious verbal assurances of this
character really meant what they said, the world would by
now have talked itself into peace. Nehru's misguided trust
lay in accepting without question Chinese assurances of
good faith and good conduct, although the experience of
Tibet in 1950, which exposed simultaneously the character
of Han expansionism and Communist imperialism, should
have warned him against any such facile belief.

At Bandung, Chou En-lai was to wear the same mask and
deceive not only India but many countries of Asia and Africa.
Never was the calculated cynicism and opportunism of Com-

The word means "five tenets/'

India, China, and Tibet 127

munist China more skillfully deployed than at this Afro-
Asian conference where Chou blandly assured the small na-
tions of Asia that they had nothing to fear from their big
neighbor China, even though at that very time Peking was
in the process of "softening up" Tibet for the final kill.
Where the borderline between China and a neighboring
country had not yet been fixed, announced Chou, his country
was willing to do so "by peaceful means." China had demon-
strated in Tibet and Korea what she understood by that
phrase. Doubtless in good time the same means would be
employed to settle the frontier between China on the one
hand and India and Burma on the other.

In the Lok Sabha, shortly alter the signing of the Sino-
Indian agreement, Nehru, faced with criticism that the
Indian Government had shown great weakness in dealing
with the Chinese on Tibet, particularly in admitting that
China had full authority over Tibet or that China was con-
trolling Tibet, defended the agreement firmly. "In my opin-
ion," he asserted, "we have done no better thing than this
since we became independent. I have no doubt about this.
... I think it is right for our country, for Asia and for the
world." The critics had fastened on the withdrawal of the In-
dian military escorts from Yatung and Gyantse. "Is it proper
that troops of our country should be stationed in another in-
dependent country?" the prime minister demanded. "The
number of troops was not too large, barely three hundred, but
what does it indicate? What right does India have to keep a
part of her army in Tibet, whether Tibet is independent or a
part of China? The British Empire in the days of Lord Cur-
zon, about fifty years ago, had expanded into and made sev-
eral types of arrangements in Tibet. Now it is impossible and
improper for us to continue any such arrangements as the
British Empire had established." If so, the question naturally
arose: Why then accept the British "imperialist" concept of

1*8 The Revolt in Tibet

Chinese suzerainty over Tibet? Either India accepted the
British legacy wholesale or not at all. To pick and choose
was to be selective at the cost of China or Tibet, and to ex-
pose oneself to the charge of being guided more by expedi-
ency than by principle.

Dr. Satya Narayan Sinha, in criticizing the Indian Govern-
ment's attitude to Tibet, had referred to various treaties and
maps going back to the period of British rule in India. Ac-
cording to Dr. Sinha these documents proved that independ-
ent India had gone further than the British had done in their
commitments to China. Nehru contemptuously brushed aside
these charges. "Let me tell him/* he declared answering Dr.
Sinha, "these treaties and maps were all prepared by British
imperialists. These treaties and maps are intended to show
that we must act as they did." In saying this, the prime min-
ister overlooked one fact: that he himself had accepted Chi-
nese suzerainty over Tibet as a political legacy from the
British. He also did not anticipate that the Communist Chi-
nese themselves would so adjust their maps that they would
ultimately prepare a blueprint for a Himalayan federation
consisting of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Ladakh, and parts of
India's Northeast Frontier Agency, to function doubtless
under Chinese sovereignty or, in the prime minister's words,
"if you like, suzerainty/'

The integrity and security of India must inevitably govern
that foreign policy which, like that of every country, is mo-
tivated by "enlightened self-interest." India's prime minister
was obviously impressed by the Communist revolution in
China which repeated after the Second World War what the
Bolsheviks had succeeded in establishing in Russia in the
closing years of the First. "Now we must realize," Nehru
apostrophized his audience in the Lok Sabha, "that this revo-
lution that came to China is the biggest thing that has taken
place in the world at present, whether you like it or not.

India, China, and Tibet 129

. . . For the first time in several hundred years of history
China now has a strong central government. This fact is a
very important fact for Asia and the world." Those who do
not know Nehru would immediately accuse him of thereby
placing might before right. Nothing could have been further
from his mind; but from the language he used even the Com-
munist Chinese can be excused for reading into it the conclu-
sion which the Indian prime minister's critics deduced.

In the same speech Nehru referred to Panchshila in words
which the hindsight of history exposes as both pathetic and
prophetic. "Live and let live," he proclaimed. "No one
should invade the other, no one should fight the other. . . .
This is the basic principle which we have put in our treaty
with China."

In the light of China's ruthless aggression on Tibet in
1959, the assurances are ironic. "These," said India's prime
minister, referring to Panchshila, "are words we have used:
'recognition of territorial integrity and sovereignty, nonag-
gression, noninterference/ and we consider other things like
'mutuality.' Now 'territorial integrity' and 'sovereignty' mean
that there should be no invasion. 'Nonaggression' also means
the same thing, and 'noninterference' means that there
should be no interference in domestic affairs because some
people are in the habit of interfering in other people's
affairs."

The puzzle is why Nehru, confronted with accumulating
evidence of Chinese duplicity and bad faith, should have
continued to take Peking's promises on trust. Surely he had
read his Marx and Lenin and remembered Lenin's dictum
that "in the battle for the victory of socialism every means is
allowed." Did India's prime minister believe that Peking
was making a distinction between the West and Asia and was
bound to the latter by fraternity and blood? Or did he feel
that the Communists used the methods of duplicity and force

130 The Revolt in Tibet

only against the capitalist world? Russia had pledged to re-
spect the freedom of the peoples of East Europe in the Yalta
Agreement, and thereafter had proceeded to subjugate Czech-
oslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Al-
bania, all of which had desired to be friendly with her. In the
Communist code friendliness is not enough, and international
agreements are respected only so long as they are advan-
tageous. China was shortly to give a proof of peaceful coexist-
ence in Tibet.

In 1956 the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama visited
India, and also in India at the time was the Chinese prime
minister. The Dalai Lama has since revealed * that he was
even at that time acutely unhappy over the situation in
Tibet. "As I was unable to do anything for the benefit of
my people/' he confessed, "I had practically made up my
mind when I came to India not to return to Tibet until
there was a manifest change in the attitude of the Chinese
authorities/' In this predicament the Dalai Lama sought the
advice of the Indian prime minister, who, as His Holiness
acknowledged, "has always shown me unfailing kindness and
consideration/' Nehru thereupon spoke to Chou En-lai, who
promptly gave him the usual assurances, which as usual
Nehru accepted at their face value. He assured the Dalai
Lama that all would be well, and urged him to return to his
country. "I followed his advice/' said His Holiness, "and re-
turned to Tibet in the hope that conditions would change
substantially for the better. And I have no doubts that my
hopes would have been realized if the Chinese authorities
had on their part carried out the assurances which the Chi-
nese prime minister had given to the prime minister of India.
It was, however, painfully clear soon after my return that the
representatives of the Chinese Government had no inten-
tion of adhering to their promises. The natural and inevita-

* In his statement of June 20, 1959.

India, China, and Tibet 131

ble result was that the situation daily grew worse until it be-
came impossible to control the spontaneous upsurge of my
people against the tyranny and oppression of the Chinese
authorities."

What were the assurances which Chou En-lai so glibly gave
and which Nehru so easily accepted? A clue was given by the
Indian prime minister in a speech in the Lok Sabha on March
30, 1959. "When Mr. Chou En-lai was last in India/' said
Nehru, "he laid stress first of all that Tibet was and had al-
ways been a part of the Chinese State, part of the larger fam-
ily of China. Then he said that Tibet was not a province of
China. It was different from China proper, and he recognized
that and therefore we [India] consider it an autonomous re-
gion of the Chinese State. The Chinese people are called the
Han people. The Tibetans are not Hans. Tibetans are Ti-
betans."

Chou, however, clearly did not mean what he said. In
Nehru's view China, while claiming Tibet as part of its larger
family, recognized Tibet's regional autonomy, and had no de-
sire to assimilate it by making it a province or part and parcel
of China. This, however, is precisely Communist China's
aim, for the Chinese Constitution, unlike the Soviet Consti-
tution, does not give the national minorities the right of
secession. The Communist Chinese aim has always been to
assimilate the national minorities, including the Tibetans,
and to absorb them totally within the political, economic,
and social structure of the Communist State. According to
the Chinese the Tibetan view is irrelevant in the overriding
context of the Chinese concept of the state.

This is contrary to the orthodox Marxist-Leninist approach
to nationality, though it is not the only instance where Mao
Tse-tung has deviated from the recognized line. When the
Bolsheviks seized power in Russia under Lenin, they pro-
claimed the right of self-determination, including the right

132 The Revolt in Tibet

of secession as a fundamental right of the national minor-
ities, though in practice no nationality has been allowed to
exercise that right. Article 15 of the Soviet Constitution states,
"The U.S.S.R. protects the sovereign rights of the Union
Republics/' while Article 17 says, "The right freely to secede
from the U.S.S.R. is reserved to every Union Republic." The
fact that the right is theoretical undoubtedly detracts from
the principle, but it is of interest in so far as it shows that the
Communist Chinese attitude to the national minorities is
both theoretically and in practice more rigid than that of the
Soviet.

Initially the Communist Chinese approach was similar to
that of the Soviet Union. In the 1931 Constitution of the so-
called Kiangsi Soviet of which Mao Tse-tung was chairman,
the national minorities were promised the right of self-
determination and secession from any Union of Chinese
Soviets that might be established in the future. In his state-
ment "On Coalition Government/' published in 1945, Mao
reaffirmed this by suggesting that the various races should
form a Union of Democratic Republics of China. In 1949,
however, when the Communist Chinese State was founded,
the idea of independent republics was dropped in favor of
"autonomous areas," and the Common Program by which the
new government was guided made no mention of the right of
secession. The National Constitution of Communist China,
which was promulgated in 1954, went further. It stated une-
quivocally that China is "a unified, multinational State."

Federalism is an idea foreign to the Chinese, who regard
themselves more as a civilization than as a nation, and a civi-
lization in which anyone can be accepted. Hence the inherent
expansionist thrust in Chinese society and civilization which
makes it far more propulsive than that of the U.S.S.R.

The Indian Communist party's attitude to national minor-
ities inclines toward Soviet policy but goes further. Not only

India, China, and Tibet 133

does it support the right of self-determination, including the
right of secession for linguistic minorities, but in the 1940*5
it actively promoted the creation of Pakistan by backing up
the Moslem League's claim to a separate Islamic State. As
long as it functions within a democratic state, this will prob-
ably be the policy of the Indian Communist party, but in
the unhappy event of Communism coming to India it is likely
that the Red attitude to the linguistic minorities will approxi-
mate to that of Communist China. Despite their present pol-
icy in India, the Indian Communists were vociferous in their
support of Peking's action in Tibet, forgetting for the mo-
ment their own proclaimed adherence to national self-deter-
mination.

Nehru's adherence to peaceful coexistence automatically
implies tolerance for a Communist party functioning in
India. Indeed, the Indian President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad,
once described Kerala, then under Communist rule, as a
beautiful example of coexistence. But the Indian Communist
party is the Trojan horse of international Communism in
India. When criticism of Communist China mounted shortly
after the Dalai Lama's flight from Lhasa and tempers ran
high, the Chinese Embassy in Delhi summoned some Indian
Reds for a briefing. As a result these Peking patriots dutifully
echoed their master's voice and were not ashamed to say so.
"The People's Government of China, in all sincerity, has
asked us to look into this matter," a Communist leader con-
fessed in the Lok Sabha. As we have noted earlier, the Na-
tional Council of the Indian Communist party passed a reso-
lution supporting China's action in Tibet, and its spokesmen
in Parliament upheld Peking's charge that the Tibetan revolt
was Indian-inspired and that Kalimpong was the command
center of a revolt by "feudal elements" in Tibet against the
"people." The reaction of other parties to the Communist
attitude was indignant, some members demanding that

134 The Revolt in Tibet

India's chief election commissioner should cancel the Com-
munist party's accreditation as a national party. "The Com-
munists/' commented Nehru, "cease to be Indians, having
shown a total absence of feelings of decency and nationality."
If the general Indian reaction to China's aggression on
Tibet was sharp and angry, the Government of India initially
pursued a more cautious and less consistent course. When
early in March, 1959, the Indian prime minister was ques-
tioned in the Lok Sabha on reports reaching India of clashes
between the Tibetans and Chinese, Nehru deprecated such
accounts as colorful and exaggerated, and described the re-
ported clash as "a conflict of minds." This phrase should rank
high in any list of political euphemisms. When the Dalai
Lama visited India in 1956 he extended an invitation to the
Indian prime minister to visit Tibet, but when in the fall
of 1958 Nehru proposed to go to Lhasa he was cryptically
asked to postpone his visit. Even after the fact of the uprising
in Lhasa was world news, New Delhi remained circumspect.
The matter was again raised in Parliament late in March
when the Chinese accused India of allowing Kalimpong to be
used as "a commanding center of rebellion," a charge which
Nehru had repudiated three days earlier. "This is a difficult
and delicate situation," said the prime minister, "and we
should avoid doing anything which will worsen it. We have
no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of China,
with whom we have friendly relations. In 1954 the Sino-
Indian agreement was concluded. It was in this that for the
first time the principle of Panchshila was stated. . . . India
wishes to have friendly relations with the people of Tibet
and wants them to progress in freedom. At the same time it
is important for us to have friendly relations with that great
country China. That does not mean that I, the Government
or the Indian Parliament or anyone else should submit to
any kind of dictation from any country, howsoever great it

India, China, and Tibet 135

may be. But it does mean that in a difficult situation we
should exercise a certain measure of restraint and wisdom in
dealing with the situation and not in excitement do some-
thing which will lead our country into difficulties/'

Wise words, and in the context justifiable. But their wis-
dom and justification depended on how they would be im-
plemented. New Delhi's official attitude was politically im-
peccable, but newspaper correspondents at this time were
interested to notice that in some official circles another line
was privately canvassed. Nehru had expressed India's wish
to see Tibet ''progress in freedom/' and it was subtly implied
that the Chinese were helping this progress by undermining
Tibet's feudal society. It was a line sedulously peddled by
the Communists and fellow travelers, as well as by their sym-
pathizers inside and outside the citadel of the government.
Jayaprakash Narayan made the most effective retort to these
transparent tactics. "It is said/' he remarked, "that even if
the Chinese are behaving a little roughly in Tibet, why be
so squeamish about it? Are they not forcibly rescuing the
Tibetan masses from medieval backwardness and forcing
them toward progress and civilization? It is strange that as
soon as some people put themselves outside their own coun-
try, they become screaming imperialists. If the right is con-
ceded to nations to thrust progress forcibly down the throats
of other nations, why were the British not welcomed as torch-
bearers of progress in India?" The issue also depended, as
Jayaprakash Narayan went on to say, on what one meant by
human progress. Did one equate it with industrialization,
rising production statistics, communes, and sputniks? He pre-
ferred another view that saw progress in terms of humanity
the growth of human freedom, the decline of selfishness
and cruelty, the spread of tolerance and cooperation.

If Nehru thought that his verbal rebukes would halt the
Chinese in their aggressive tactics and induce a reexamina-

136 The Revolt in Tibet

tion of conscience, he was mistaken. No sooner did the Chi-
nese realize that the Dalai Lama was heading for India than
they loosed a vituperative barrage against India which later
they were to reinforce by troop movements along the Indo-
Tibetan border. The New China News Agency spearheaded
this attack with a series of reports and comments accusing
Indians of "expansionist aims" in Tibet, and this theme pro-
vided the keynote for the subsequent stream of virulent abuse
directed against India. ''Some Indian papers/' lamented the
NCNA, "openly advocated to convene a conference by India
to discuss the rebellion in Tibet which was purely China's
internal affair. Such an absurd advocation fully reflected the
conspiracy and ambition of the Indian expansionists." In
Bombay followers of the Indian Praja Socialist party and
other groups had demonstrated before the Chinese Consulate,
hurling rotten tomatoes at posters of Mao Tse-tung and
shouting slogans such as "Long Live Free Tibet!" "Down
with Stalinists!" and so on. In an angry tirade the NCNA
denounced these "slanderous slogans against China," referred
to the "ravings" of Indian politicians over the "rebellion in
Tibet" and harped again on "Indian expansionism." Even
the pro-Communist Bombay weekly Blitz, which, following
the Red line, had justified Peking's aggression on Tibet, was
taken to task by the NCNA for making "a nonsensical sug-
gestion." This was a proposal for a tripartite conference of
India, China, and Tibet. The NCNA, while commending
Blitz's general attitude, complained: "The editor of the
weekly in this open letter completely disregarded the fact that
Tibet is an integral part of China and that the rebellion in
Tibet is China's internal affair which allows no foreign inter-
vention." More specifically the Chinese attacked the views ex-
pressed by the Congress party president, Mrs. Indira Gandhi,
daughter of Nehru, who had sponsored a Citizens' Committee
in Delhi to organize relief for the Tibetan refugees. Their

India, China, and Tibet 137

ire was aroused by a speech wherein Mrs. Gandhi, according
to the NCNA, "attempted to defend the stand of India on
the Tibet question." All that Mrs. Gandhi had said was that
"India's stand on the Tibetan issue and the granting of asy-
lum to the Dalai Lama were in keeping with the country's
tradition and its independent foreign policy/'

Peking objected violently to "the conspicuous notice"
which the Dalai Lama was receiving in India and to the "unu-
sual reception" accorded him. Here it scented a device to con-
demn China indirectly, and in proof quoted an article by
Prem Bhatia, the well-known editor of the Tribune of Am-
bala, Punjab. Bhatia had written: "The highly probable ex-
planation of such a reception, and one which is much more
important in terms of foreign policy, is Nehru's wish to ex-
press indirect disapproval of China's stand over Tibet. While
India cannot with complete justification sermonize the Chi-
nese over what has been accepted as the internal affair of
China she can . . . make her attitude known through this
oblique condemnation of China's bad faith."

Had New Delhi at this juncture maintained a firm and
correct attitude, Indian repercussions to China's aggression
on Tibet would have crystallized in a consistent mold. But
Nehru preferred to be circumspect. Although an overwhelm-
ing proportion of the press and public opinion was deeply
stirred against China, Nehru leaned backward to preserve
the old cordial relations with Peking. The daily newspaper
National Herald which he founded in the days before inde-
pendence and in which he still takes intimate interest, de-
clared editorially that "certain parties and individuals in this
country [India] have no doubt been striving to utilize devel-
opments in Tibet to malign China and undermine Sino-
Indian friendship." Nehru meanwhile continued to proclaim
and protest India's friendship for China. Although he pub-
licly rebuked the Chinese for using "the language of cold

138 The Revolt in Tibet

war/' and repudiated their accusations and calumnies as "un-
becoming and entirely void of substance/' he reiterated con-
stantly the need for Sino-Indian friendship. After visiting
the Dalai Lama at Mussoorie in April, 1959, Nehru, talking
to newspaper correspondents, expressed a desire to create
conditions for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, and
urged that this as well as other matters "should not be the
subject of heated exchanges and debates." They had to be
considered quietly with a view to preventing the situation
from getting worse.

The Chinese, however, were in no mood to reciprocate
these soothing gestures. They stepped up their verbal barrage
against India, reinforcing it with hostile acts. "The People's
Republic of China/' insisted a writer in the People's Daily of
Peking, "enjoys full sovereignty over the Tibet region just
as it does over the regions of Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang,
Kwangsi, and Ninghsia. There can be no doubt whatever
about this, and no interference by any foreign country or by
the United Nations under whatever pretext or in whatever
form will be tolerated/' The more moderate New Delhi's
tone became, the more aggressive grew Peking's attitude.

When on June 2Oth the Dalai Lama in an interview with
newspaper correspondents declared, "Wherever I am, accom-
panied by my ministers, the Tibetan people recognize us as
the Government of Tibet," New Delhi issued a statement
ten days later that the Government of India did not recognize
any separate Government of Tibet and that there was no
question of a Tibetan Government under the Dalai Lama
functioning in India. In reply the Dalai Lama a fortnight
later stated that what he had said represented "a historical
truth." His Holiness affirmed that the Panchen Lama had no
locus standi and his government was "a deceptive one." In
July the Government of India announced that it would again

India, China, and Tibet 139

press at the next U.N. session for the admission of Commu-
nist China to the United Nations.

If New Delhi reckoned that by these gestures it would mol-
lify Peking, the Communist Chinese soon disabused the In-
dian Government of the notion. Not only did the Red tirade
continue but it was now accompanied by pointedly un-
friendly acts to India. Indian and Nepalese traders were
branded as "bloodsuckers," and Nehru, though not openly
labeled a "running dog of imperialism," was impliediy ac-
cused of being in league with the so-called "upper strata" in
Tibet, particularly the lamas who were denounced as "yellow
brigands and red robbers." Every effort was made to discour-
age Tibetan traders from dealing with their counterparts in
India, thereby making it difficult for the Indians, who were
now suspect, to function normally in Tibet. Simultaneously
through a hate campaign the Chinese attempted to stir up
hostility to the Indians among the Tibetans as a counter to
the latter's continuing loyalty to the Dalai Lama. While the
anti-Indian campaign temporarily subsided after a while
in China, it was continued in Tibet where it was virulently
waged at certain trade centers like Gyantse. Later it was re-
vived in China. Until 1955 a small Indian military force had
been stationed in Gyantse, which still harbors memories
of the Younghusband expedition, following which an In-
dian military force had been quartered at the town. Com-
munist propaganda, carried on through bulletins and broad-
sheets and by word of mouth, described the Indians as
inheritors of British imperialist traditions, with expansionist
aims in Tibet. Indian nationals in that country were now
subjected by the Chinese to various forms of harassment, pri-
marily by interference with their trade. The majority of these
traders come from Ladakh, and some of them have married
Tibetan women. On the ground that a Tibetan woman

140 The Revolt in Tibet

though married to a foreigner retains her nationality, several
Ladakhi traders were asked to quit Tibet, leaving their wives
and families behind.

Indian officials were also subjected to petty harassments
and humiliations. The Indian Trade Agent in western Tibet,
Laxman Singh Jangepani, normally spends the summer
months at various trade marts in his area, returning to India
for the winter. In June, two months after the Dalai Lama
was given asylum in India, Jangepani obtained a visa from
the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi which specified that he
should enter Tibet by the Niti Pass. This was convenient for
him, as in returning to India during the previous October he
had left his tents and other heavy equipment near the Ti-
betan end of the pass. After a journey of over three weeks
Jangepani reached a Chinese checkpost in the Niti Pass and
was coldly informed that he could not proceed by that route
but should go by way of the Lepuleh Pass near the eastern
border of Nepal and some three weeks' journey from the Niti
Pass. This meant, apart from the personal discomfort and
hardship involved, that the Indian trade agent would be able
to spend only three months out of the four months' trading
season in western Tibet.

Meanwhile the inflow of Tibetan refugees into India con-
tinued, and has now reached a total of nearly thirteen thou-
sand, including some six thousand Khambas. Camps were
initially set up for these refugees in Assam and West Bengal
from where they are now being dispersed to various parts of
the country, mostly to the mountainous northeast, and to Sik-
kim, where around three thousand refugees have settled and
found work, mainly on road construction. It is possible that
some of the Khambas will be settled in the Northeast Frontier
Agency. The biggest resettlement problem is posed by the
lamas, who number nearly three thousand, but efforts are
being made in consultation with the Dalai Lama to place

India, China, and Tibet 141

them in Buddhist monasteries in India, Bhutan, and Sikkim.
To date, not a single one of the Tibetan refugees has asked
to be sent back to his homeland. Among non-Indian agencies
the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere, Inc.
(CARE), has played a most useful part. Food provided by
CARE was waiting for the first refugees who reached the
camps near Tezpur in Assam in mid-May, and the organiza-
tion undertook to supply the basic ration for up to eight
thousand people. Self-help programs were also devised to en-
able the refugees to learn new skills, apart from their tradi-
tional skills, such as wood and metalworking, bootmaking,
the painting of Tibetan religious pictures, the weaving of
Tibetan aprons and small rugs, the care of sheep and other
livestock. Arrangements are also being made by CARE to
find places for Tibetan scholars and students in universities,
museums, and other institutions overseas so as to help them
to go out into the world to study engineering mechanics, ag-
riculture, medicine, and much else "to build a new Tibet/'

The areas where these refugees are for the most part now
being rehabilitated are regions which the Communist Chinese
have cartographically already appropriated to themselves, de-
spite India's protests. Chinese maps show many thousands of
square miles of Indian territory spread over the Northeast
Frontier Agency, along with Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and
Ladakh, as belonging to the People's Republic. At the same
time Peking blandly assures New Delhi that "China never
has interfered and never will interfere in India." In 1958
Nehru, speaking in the Lok Sabha, disclosed that Indian
grazing lands on the Tibetan border had been forcibly occu-
pied by Chinese herdsmen. Even before the Dalai Lama's
flight to India a party of Indian officers, skiing in the Ladakh
region of Kashmir, were suddenly kidnaped by some mem-
bers of the Chinese Army on the ground that they had tres-
passed on territory belonging to the People's Republic. A

14* The Revolt in Tibet

similar incident occurred on the Indo-Tibetan border in
the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where ten Indian Army
men were arrested by superior Chinese forces, taken across
the border, interrogated, and then returned to the frontier
blindfolded.

More recently the Communist Chinese have ceased even to
pretend good will for India. Shortly after the Indian Govern-
ment announced that it would again press for Communist
China's admission into the U.N., Nehru disclosed in the Lok
Sabha that the Chinese authorities had passed orders declar-
ing Indian and Tibetan currencies illegal in Tibet. It was not
clear, said India's prime minister, whether this order had
been enforced. "However," he added, "it is not in keeping
with the spirit of the 1954 Sino-Indian agreement."

Nehru also admitted that India's trade with Tibet had
suffered very considerably "after the disturbances in Tibet."
Indian imports from Tibet had dropped from Rs.i5 lakhs
($300,000) in February, 1959, to Rs. 2 lakhs ($40,000) in June,
1959, exports during the same period dropping from Rs.io
lakhs ($200,000) to Rs. 3 lakhs ($60,000). Nehru confirmed
that Indian traders in Lhasa were facing many difficulties:
"Sometimes they could not travel about. Sometimes they
could not get transport to carry their goods."

All this is part of a planned pattern. New Delhi has lodged
more than one protest with Peking against these flagrantly
discriminatory practices, but Peking has ostentatiously ig-
nored the protests, and continues its calculated policy of
harassment. Merchandise held by Indian traders has been
frozen, and in some cases entire stocks have been "purchased"
by the Chinese at arbitrary prices. Various payment difficul-
ties have been artificially created. In certain areas stocks of
Tibetan wool traditionally purchased by the Indians have
been bought up by the Chinese. Although Nepal's trade with
western Tibet has also suffered, owing partly to unsettled

India, China, and Tibet 143

conditions, the Chinese have adopted a policy of treating the
Nepalese better than the Indians, thereby planning to play
off the one against the other. Pressure on Indian traders
varies with localities. It is less strong in western and southern
Tibet, traditionally supplied from India, than in the central
and eastern regions. Local transborder trade has not yet been
seriously affected, but obviously the Chinese plan to orientate
the entire economy of Tibet toward China. External trade
with India, as we noted, has slumped steeply, and the time is
not far away when such external trade as Tibet is permitted
will pass into the hands of monopoly official agencies.

All this constitutes a clear breach of the 1954 Sino-Indian
Trade Agreement on Tibet whose preamble enshrined
Panchshila. The agreement was made with the specific pur-
pose "of promoting trade and cultural intercourse" between
Tibet and India, and the fourth of the five tenets of Panch-
shila postulates "equality and mutual benefit/' Neither exists
today in Tibet.

the

world

outside

CHAPTER SIX

Tibet's history is very largely the history of a struggle to
maintain her independence against foreign countries which
schemed for political mastery. The most aggressive of these
was China, but there were others, notably Britain, Russia
and, in a much smaller degree, Nepal. Over the centuries
the chief concern of the Tibetans has been twofold to pre-
serve their religion and to maintain their independence.

Although little is known historically of Tibet before the
seventh century of the Christian era,* legend and tradition
tell of links with China and India long before that time.
While the Chinese association with Tibet even in this dim
period was motivated very largely by expansionist aims, that
of India has always been religious, cultural, and commercial.
Even in the some two hundred years of British rule in India,

* The first source of this knowledge was Chinese. "The History of the Yuan
Dynasty" (1280-1368) enumerates the administrative divisions of Tibet under
the Mongol emperors, but there are earlier references to Tibet in Chinese
historical documents.

144

The World Outside 145

interest in Tibet was primarily concerned with trade until
late in the nineteenth century when the contending rivalries
of Britain, China, and Russia made it political.

According to Tibetan folklore the very origin of the Ti-
betans, as we have seen, derives from the marriage of an
ogress with a monkey identified as the Hindu deity Hanu-
man, a proteg of the Lord of Mercy who is called Avalo-
kiteshwara by Indians and Chen-re-si by Tibetans.

The early legendary kings of Tibet commence with Nya-tri
Tsen-po, who is said to have been the fifth son of the Indian
King Prasenojit of Kosala. Today the Tibetan language,
which consists of several dialects, is allied most intimately
with the Burmese family of languages, but the link between
the two is provided by the dialects spoken in the Himalayas
and in North Assam. The Tibetan-Burman languages are
closely related to Chinese and, less closely, to Thai, but it is
a historical fact that during the reign of Song-tsan Gampo in
the seventh century after Christ, the king sent scholars to
India to fetch Buddhist scriptures and another to Kashmir to
devise a Tibetan alphabet. This was done, the script being
modeled on the Brahmi characters of Devanagari Sanskrit. A
form of grammar was also introduced, and translations were
made from Pali and Sanskrit manuscripts. Only in the fif-
teenth century, under the patronage of the Ming emperors,
did Tibetan scholars turn to Chinese literature, which in
time was to influence Tibetan ideas and writing. The Lama-
ist scriptures, compiled mostly between the eighth and thir-
teenth centuries, are for the major part translations from
Sanskrit and Pali texts, though a few come from Chinese
sources.

In other cultural fields, as in religion, Tibet has been af-
fected greatly by India. Thus Tibetan art, particularly in
the realm of painting, shows strong Indian influences going
back to the medieval Buddhist art of Bihar and Orissa, which

146 The Revolt in Tibet

under the Pala kings were the strongholds of Indian Bud-
dhism during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Legend re-
lates that the most ancient Buddhist sculpture imported into
Tibet came from Magadha or South Bihar (a district inti-
mately associated with the development of Buddhism) but
that it reached Tibet by way of China, having been brought
there by Wen Cheng, the Chinese princess who married King
Song-tsan Gampo. This statue is preserved in the Jokhang
temple in Lhasa. Both sculpture and painting in Tibet, like
language, came in time under Chinese influences, so that
Tibetan art might be said ultimately to have acquired three
aspects Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan. An interesting exam-
ple of an Indian form is the swastika which the Tibetans
paint on walls, pillars, and lintels on the eve of their New
Year and which is reminiscent of the rangoli drawn on the
floors of Indian households during the Hindu New Year.

Tibetan medical science has also borrowed heavily from
the Indian Ayur-Veda, or indigenous system of herbal treat-
ment, though wide recourse is made in case of illness to spells,
incantations, and the exorcism of evil spirits. Again, the Ti-
betan calendar shows traces of Hindu astrology. Its cycle of
sixty years is divided into five twelve-year groups based on
the five elements which accord with the Indian panch-mahab-
hoot earth, water, fire, iron, and wood.

In the domain of religion India's impact has been strong-
est. Buddhism came to Tibet early in the sixth century, but
not until around A.D. 650 in the reign of Tsong-tsan Gampo
was Buddhism established as a state religion. According to
Tibetan tradition the first Buddhist objects are said to have
fallen from heaven on the palace of King Lha-to To-ri Nyan-
tsan, but in all likelihood they came from Nepal. After the
advent of Buddhism in Tibet there was a flow of earnest
scholars from that country to India, where students from
other countries such as China, Cambodia, and Java also

The World Outside 147

converged to study the Tripitaka and Buddhist tomes like
the Lalita-Vistara, which is the chief source of the legend of
the Buddha's life. The first Indian scholar to cross the Him-
alayas to the Roof of the World was the Tantric teacher
Padma Sambhava who, as we have seen, founded Lamaism
late in the eighth century and is revered as the patron saint
of the Red Hat sect, followers of the Tantric form of Lama-
ist Buddhism. In 1013 the Indian pundit Dharmapala came
to Tibet accompanied by his disciples, and he was followed
early in the eleventh century by another Indian sage, Atisha,
founder of the Red Hat sect which was to be reorganized
some three centuries later by Tsong Ka-pa, the new form being
known as the Yellow Hat sect. It is worth noting that Lama-
ism was first opposed by the Chinese Buddhists, one of whom
named Hwa Shang protested against the teachings of Padma
Sambhava, but he is said to have been defeated in argument
and expelled from Tibet. The religious link between India
and Tibet was strong enough, until the Communist advent,
to see a yearly flow of Tibetan pilgrims to Bodh-Gaya in
India where Gautama became the Buddha, and in the other
direction of Hindus to Mount Kailasa in western Tibet
where the deity Siva is supposed to reside with his consort
Parvati. The Tibetans also regard Mount Kailasa, which
they call Kang Rimpoche, as their holiest mountain; to both
Hindus and Tibetans the Himalayan Mountains are sacred.
Mount Kailasa overlooks Lake Mansarovar, again a place of
pilgrimage for Hindus and Tibetans. In Hindu as well as in
Buddhist cosmography Mount Kailasa is identified with
Sumeru, the cosmic center of the earth, and Mansarovar is
said by Hindus to have been created by the God Brahma's
mental projection.

Trade between India and Tibet goes back almost to time
immemorial. Tibetan exports consist largely of raw wool furs,
hides and skins, rock salt, borax, medicinal herbs, and

148 The Revolt in Tibet

pasham, the soft underwool of the shawl goat. Ponies and
mules are also exported, along with Tibetan metalwork and
jewelry, more often than not heavily set with turquoises. The
largest market of the Tibetan wool trade is Kalimpong,
through which passes quite half the entire trade between
India and Tibet. Indian exports include cotton goods, food
grains, precious stones, corals, tobacco, hardware, and mis-
cellaneous stores. From China before Communist days Tibet
received silk, satin, brocade, cotton goods, and brick tea. It
used to be said that the Chinese emperor exploited tea and
silk to control Tibet.

In pre-Communist days most of the merchandise from the
outside world was brought in by an almost continuous train
of mule caravans, and the Lhasa Bazar made a colorful spec-
tacle with traders from Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh, and
from Kalimpong and northern India. The caravan routes still
operate, but the construction by the Chinese of two major
highways linking Tibet closer with China, as well as the new
network of internal roads capable of carrying traffic by motor
trucks, might soon displace the muleteers on the old trails.
Today the most important trade route between India and
Tibet starts from Kalimpong in the district of Darjeeling,
running through Gangtok, capital of Sikkim, through Nathu
La * into the Chumbi Valley to Phari. There is another
route, also starting from Kalimpong, which traverses Sikkim
to enter Tibet by the Jelep La. From Phari, before the con-
struction of the Sikang-Tibet highway, there were two routes
to Lhasa one skirting the eastern side of Hram Tso (Otter
Lake) and the other through Gyantse, the latter being the
longer route. With the extension of the Sikang-Tibet road
southwest to Shigatse and through Gyantse to Phari, the
Chinese have come up almost to the mouth of Nathu La.
There are other passes leading from western Tibet into Sik-

* La means Pass.

The World Outside 149

kim and Bhutan, such as the Niti Pass and the Lepuleh Pass
near the eastern border of Nepal.

China's relations with Tibet, unlike those of India, have
never contented themselves with being cultural and commer-
cial. With the Mongols, Mings, Manchus, the Kuomintang,
and Communists, and even in prehistoric days, commerce
and culture have served primarily as instruments of political
domination.

From ancient times the vast majority of China's northern
and northwestern neighbors were nomadic peoples like the
Mongols and Tibetans. An old Chinese pictograph of a
Tchiang, or Tibetan, shows a man driving a sheep, which
suggests a pastoral herdsman. Chinese tradition describes
the emperor Yu, founder of the first Hsia dynasty around
2000 B.C. as descended from the nomads. So apparently were
the forebears of the Chou dynasty in the Feudal Age. Even
more specifically, the ancestors of the Chin dynasty which
ruled in the third century B.C. are legendarily held to have
come from the region of Tibet. According to Chinese chron-
iclers the nomads, of whom the Tchiang constituted a con-
siderable proportion, occupied from about 2000 B.C. to 60
B.C. a region covering Kansu, northern Szechwan, Shensi, and
Shansi, and were independent of the Chinese. During the
Han dynasty a Chinese general defeated the Tibetans for the
first time in their own homeland. This was around 60 B.C.
Thus for some two thousand years if these legends are cred-
ible the nomads who counted the Tibetans among them
held the Chinese at bay and sometimes even attacked them.

With the decay of Han power the Tchiang again asserted
themselves, and for over three hundred years, from 200 to
580 of the Christian era, the whole of north and northwest
China was again in the hands of the nomadic peoples. It was
only in the period of the Second Empire, covering the Sui
and Tang dynasties from around 590 to 907, that the Chinese

150 The Revolt in Tibet

were able to dislodge the nomads, including the Tibetans,
from the northern and northwest regions, the Tibetans being
prised out of the Koko Nor area where they had established
their rule.

This brings us to the historical period of the seventh cen-
tury and to the reign of the great Song-tsan Gampo and of his
father Nam-ri Song-tsan, who died in 630. The latter relaid
the foundations of Tibetan independence by uniting the no-
madic tribes and chieftains in Central Tibet, creating so
prosperous a country that it was said that "the king built his
palace with cement moistened with the milk of the cow and
the yak." * It was Song-tsan Gampo who extended his sway
over Ladakh in the west and the untamed Kiang tribes of
the north. Moving south he conquered Nepal, penetrating
the Himalayas into India where he established his rule in
Bengal. Chinese historians, mentioning this period of Ti-
betan rule in India, which ended in the eleventh century with
the dissolution of the Tibetan monarchy, describe the area
ruled as the whole of Bengal up to the sea. The Bay of Bengal
was christened the Tibetan Sea. Nepal rebelled, and recov-
ered her independence in 703.

In the latter half of the eighth century Ti-Song Detsan,
grandson of Song-tsan Gampo, was king of Tibet, and in his
reign the country reached its zenith. "All the countries on
the four frontiers were subdued," notes a Tibetan chronicler
of this period. "China in the east, India in the south, Baltis-
tan and Gilgit in the west, and Kashgar in the north were
brought under his [Ti-Song Detsan's] power." His successor,
Ral-pan-chan, consolidated his conquests. "The range of the
Sro-long-shen mountains," f notes another chronicler, "re-
sembling a curtain of white silk, was the frontier with the

* A squat, shaggy bull used mainly as a beast of burden at high altitudes in
Tibet. The female of the species is sometimes referred to as dri.
f In eastern Tibet, now in China.

The World Outside 151

Chinese king of astrology. Near the great river Ganges, there
was an iron pillar which was the frontier with the Indian
king of religion. The gate of Pa-ta Shadung was the frontier
with the Persian king of wealth, and the ridge of sand which
looks like the back of Nya-mang-ma was the frontier of the
king of Be-ta." Tibetans know the three kings, Song-tsan
Gampo, Ti-Song Detsan and Ral-pa-chan as "The Three Re-
ligious Kings, Men of Power."

With Sino-Tibetan relations since then we have already
dealt, but the more significant high-lights might be noted.
Early in the thirteenth century the Mongol hordes of Genghiz
Khan, as we saw, set out to conquer the world. The signifi-
cant fact is that while the whole of the Chinese world up to
Annam came under Mongol rule, Tibet alone was able not
only to preserve her then ramshackle independence but to
strengthen it by wooing Kublai Khan to Lamaism. The disso-
lution of the Mongol Empire was accompanied by the de-
cline of Lamaism, which under the succeeding dynasty of the
Mings suffered a further setback as the Ming emperors, un-
able to impose their direct authority on Tibet, attempted
indirectly to retain their influence by playing off the lamas
against one another and by encouraging secular leaders to
come forward. This weakened Tibet internally but did not
impair her independence. The extraordinary fact emerges
that over 3,500 years, with a brief interlude during the Han
dynasty, the Chinese were unable to assert their authority.

Even before the Mings collapsed to make way for the
Manchus, Lamaism received a fresh lease of life in Mongolia
and Tibet. History repeated itself, the Mongol chieftain
Altan Khan being converted to Lamaism, as we saw, by the
third Incarnate Lama Sonam Gyatse, who was thereupon
invested with the title of Dalai Lama. Similarly the Great
Fifth, as we have also noted, was later invested with sover-
eignty over Tibet by another Mongol chieftain, Gusri Khan.

152 The Revolt in Tibet

These episodes vividly illustrate the resilience of the Ti-
betans, their will for freedom, and their willingness to fight
in order to retain or achieve it.

The death in 1680 of the Great Fifth, which was kept secret
for some ten years by the regent Sangye Gyatso, saw the rise
of discord and dissension within Tibet. Taking advantage of
this, the Manchus asserted their authority over Tibet, which
for the next two centuries, until the dynasty's fall in 1911,
was subject to Chinese control and direction. The details of
these developments we have noted. From this account it
would appear that from prehistoric days until 1951 the Ti-
betans have functioned as a free people for around 3,500 years
with two interruptions, each of about two hundred years
the first during the Han dynasty and the second during the
Manchu era. Although Tibet was part of Kublai Khan's
domains, his conversion to Lamaism ensured its independ-
ence under the Sakya priest-kings.

Developments in China during the Manchu period af-
fected the course of events in Tibet. Until about 1840, when
the Manchus found themselves embroiled in the First Opium
War with Britain and when China was increasingly exposed
to the rapacity of foreign Powers, the Manchus held the reins
of authority. By the end of the Second Opium War, in 1860,
the power of China, as well as that of the Manchus, had
waned, and Tibet found itself eyed with more than usual
interest by certain foreign Powers, notably Britain and
Russia.

Until then the interest of Western countries in the Hidden
Land was exploratory and commercial. Some accounts name
Friar Odoric of Pordenone as the first European to have
reached Lhasa around 1328, but this is open to doubt. It is
more likely that the first pioneer was the Portuguese Jesuit
Antonio de Andrada (1580-1634) who, traveling from India,

The World Outside 153

appears to have entered Tibet in the Manasarovar Lake re-
gion on the west. The first Europeans to enter Lhasa were
two Jesuit priests, an Austrian named Grueber and a Belgian,
D'Orville. They came from Peking in 1661, traveling by Lake
Koko Nor to the Tibetan capital. Thereafter followed a long
train of missionaries, explorers, and traders.

British interest in Tibet goes back to 1774 when George
Bogle, a writer (or clerk) of the East India Company, was
sent by Warren Hastings, first governor general of British
India, to explore the possibilities of trade between Tibet and
and the East India Company. Bogle visited Shigatse where
he saw the then Tashi Lama,* now known as the Panchen
Lama, who referred the British proposition to Peking,
whence no more was heard. The Manchus were firmly in
the saddle. Bogle's account is interesting. He mentions having
observed among the treasures in the Panchen Lama's palace
some goods from Russia, presumably transported from what
is now the Buriat-Mongolian Republic of the U.S.S.R. In
1783 Hastings dispatched another envoy to Tibet, Captain
Samuel Turner, who again got no farther than Shigatse, with
the same negative result. The Chinese, unversed in the ways
of Western diplomacy, traditionally regarded foreign envoys
as mere bearers of tribute, and as such not entitled to be
treated as equals. Turner was rebuffed, but from his account
it would appear that the Chinese were also suspicious of Brit-
ish intentions in Tibet, particularly since Hastings' efforts
followed a move against Bhutan, then a tributary of Tibet.f
In 1772 the Bhutanese had invaded the principality of Cooch
Behar in Bengal, which appealed to the British for aid.
Hastings had then sent a force which drove out the invaders,

* He was at the time regent for Tibet.

(According to Bhutanese records Tibetan troops invaded the country at
the end of the ninth century, "drove out the Indian princes and their sub-
jects/' and settled down in occupation of the land.

154 The Revolt in Tibet

pursuing them into their own territory. At this juncture the
Tashi Lama in his capacity as regent for Bhutan * inter-
vened, and a treaty of peace was negotiated in 1774. In his
account of his mission Turner refers to a letter sent by the
Chinese amban in Lhasa to the Panchen Lama which clearly
reflects the suspicions of the Chinese. Paraphrasing the
amban's letter, Turner writes: "The Ferenghi [Westerners]
were fond of war, and after insinuating themselves into a
country raised disturbances and made themselves masters of
it; and as no Ferenghis had ever been admitted to Tibet he
advised the Tashi Lama to find some method of sending them
back/'

During the next hundred years Britain's interest was ab-
sorbed by the frontier areas of Sikkim and Bhutan, both of
which were then tributaries of Tibet, and by Nepal. These
three frontier states are adjacent to one another, with Sikkim
bounded on the west by Nepal and on the east by Bhutan.
The northern frontiers of all three abut on Tibetan terri-
tory, and all of them contain a number of Tibetans known
as Bhotias. All have had associations with Lhasa.

After the peace treaty of 1774 British relations with Bhutan
were marked by no incident until 1826 when the British oc-
cupied Assam. It was then discovered that the Bhutanese had
usurped a tract of territory in Assam known as the Duars,
and for this the British exacted an indemnity. The Bhu-
tanese, however, failed to pay the tribute and resisted British
demands for compensation. Relations deteriorated, and in
1863 the British sent an envoy to Bhutan to demand repara-
tions for certain alleged "outrages," but the Bhutanese held
him captive and forced him under duress to sign a treaty
ceding the disputed territory to Bhutan. This treaty was
repudiated by the British and an expedition dispatched. In

* Here is an early example of the Chinese efforts to invest the Tashi (or
Panchen) Lama with political authority vis-a-vis the Dalai Lama.

The World Outside 155

November, 1865, Bhutan sued for peace, restored the dis-
puted territory, and in return received an annual subsidy
from the British Government which was later increased. In
1910 another treaty was concluded whereby the Bhutanese
Government agreed to be guided in its external affairs by the
British Government and the latter in turn undertook to
exercise no interference in its internal affairs. It is worth not-
ing that in the same year the Chinese Government formally
claimed Bhutan as a feudatory; but the British, rejecting
the demand, asserted that Bhutan was independent of China
and that its external affairs were under the British Govern-
ment. To this legacy, with all its commitments and responsi-
bilities, the present independent Government of India has
succeeded. Nor has the attitude of the present Communist
Government of China changed. Communist Chinese maps
today show Bhutan as part of China.

Sikkim's associations with Tibet are even closer than those
of Bhutan, for its ruling family claim descent from one of the
gyalpos, or princelings, of eastern Tibet, and Lamaism is the
state religion. Until the end of the eighteenth century Sikkim
was practically a dependency of Tibet, and its ruler was desig-
nated Governor of Sikkim. In 1816, at the end of the
Nepalese-British War, to which we refer below, the terrai,
or submontane, portion of Sikkim which the Nepalese had
occupied was restored by the British to Sikkim's ruler but
was taken back in 1849 as retaliation for certain injuries and
insults inflicted on two British travelers who had been im-
prisoned by the Sikkimese. Relations with the British grew
increasingly strained, and in 1861 came the usual show of
force with the dispatch of British troops to Sikkim, which
was obliged to sign a treaty "defining good relations/' The
Sikkimese, however, continued to be stubborn, the ruler
spending most of his time in Tibet. In 1888 the British sent
another expedition into Sikkim to eject some Tibetan sol-

156 The Revolt in Tibet

diers who had built a fort there, and a convention was then
signed in 1890 with China whereby the British protectorate
over Sikkim was acknowledged and the boundary of the state
defined. It is noteworthy that the Tibetans formally repudi-
ated this treaty, thereby asserting their independence.

Nepal, like Bhutan and Sikkim, also has affinities with
Tibet. Its people are of mixed Mongol origin and, besides
the Bhotias or Tibetans, include many other races such as
the Newars, Lepchas, and Gurkhas. The Gurkhas, a martial
race, are descendants of the Brahmans and Rajputs who
were driven out of India by the Moslems, took refuge in
Nepal, and intermarried there. The state religion is Hindu-
ism, and even the Buddhism that exists is so intermingled
with and influenced by Hinduism as to be hardly recogniz-
able.

Until the fall of the Manchus, Nepal maintained rela-
tions with China, occasionally sending an envoy with pres-
ents to Peking. From ancient days it has had commercial re-
lations with Tibet, the principal trade routes being two
one running northeast from Katmandu to the frontier post
of Nilam, crossing the Himalayan Range at a height of
14,000 feet; the other passing out of the northwest valley
over the Himalayas into Tibet. The Kalimpong-Lhasa route
has taken away much of the trade along these two trails.

Nepal has always regarded itself as independent both in its
foreign relations and in its internal affairs, a status recognized
by the British Government in December, 1923, though only
after some shifts in relationships. This status is also recog-
nized by the present independent Government of India.
Within a period of some seventy years the Gurkhas of Nepal
have twice invaded Tibet, but met with stout resistance,
though they were successful on the second occasion. In 1788
the Gurkhas who had gained ascendancy in Nepal occupied
some Tibetan districts near the Nepal frontier and three

The World Outside 157

years later captured Shigatse. The Chinese thereupon sent
reinforcements to the Tibetans, and a mixed Chinese-
Tibetan force under Chinese generalship repulsed the
Gurkhas, pursuing them to Noakote, a few miles from Kat-
mandu, where the Chinese dictated terms to the Nepalese
whereunder the latter were required to send tribute to
Peking every fifth year. This was in 1792 when the Manchu
dynasty had reached its apogee under the celebrated Em-
peror Chien Lung. The Chinese, perhaps justifiably, believed
that the British had a hand in the Gurkha invasion, and the
suspicion was probably well grounded, for in 1791 the
Nepalese had entered into a commercial treaty with the
British, who, after the Gurkha reverse, had sent their repre-
sentative, Colonel Kirkpatrick, to Noakote. Kirkpatrick, how-
ever, arrived only after the conclusion of peace, but managed
to extricate another commercial treaty in Britain's favor from
the chastened Nepalese.

The Chinese reaction to these events is interesting. They
closed Tibet as far as possible to foreign influences, and
decreed that all foreign questions should be dealt with by
the ambans, and not by the Tibetan Government. All for-
eigners in Tibet were henceforth suspect. Chien Lung died
in 1795, and with his passing the power of the Manchu
dynasty and of China rapidly declined. Simultaneously
Western interference and intrigue in both China and Tibet
intensified. In 1850, following the visit of Jung Bahadur,
ruler of Nepal, to Britain, Nepalese-British ties grew stronger,
and five years later the Gurkhas were again emboldened to
invade Tibet. The Manchus, irked by multiple foreign in-
filtration into China, were in no position to help. Nine years
earlier the Tibetans, faced by an invasion of Dogras from
Kashmir, had dealt with the intruders effectively, almost ex-
terminating them, but the Nepalese posed a more formidable
threat. The Tibetans were forced to sue for peace, and the

158 The Revolt in Tibet

resultant treaty secured for Nepal extraterritorial rights, the
establishment of an agency in Lhasa and other centers, an
annual subsidy of 10,000 rupees (now equivalent to $2,000),
and the right of free trade with Tibet.

Had it not been for the Indian Mutiny of 1857, it is pos-
sible that the British might have attempted to peer closely
into Tibet earlier than they did. The Ming period in China
saw an influx of European voyagers and traders, beginning in
the sixteenth century. The Portuguese, French, Dutch, and
British opened trade with China, and in 1784 the first ship
from the United States entered Chinese waters. In 1669
China signed her first treaty with a European power, Russia,
and between 1839 an d *86o the two opium wars and a long
series of foreign treaties took place, crippling China and leav-
ing her the victim of rival imperialisms. By 1860 the Manchus
were at their last gasp.

In 1876 Britain exacted from China as the annex to a
treaty the right to send an official to Tibet on what was
euphemistically described as "scientific exploration." If the
enervated Manchus were pliant the Tibetans were not, and it
sheds a revealing light on Chinese claims to sovereignty over
Tibet that the Tibetan Government refused to permit the
entry of a British official into Tibet. The Chinese had no
alternative to withdrawing a concession which they had
nominal authority to give but no real authority to enforce.

Tibetan suspicion of British intentions had earlier been
aroused by the dispatch from 1863 onward of surveying spies
who were Indians for the most part but who also included a
few Tibetans. The best known of these was Pandit Nain
Singh who entered Tibet in the disguise of a merchant from
Ladakh. He carried a prayer wheel in which a compass was
secreted, and his io8-bead rosary served his survey purposes,
for he dropped a bead with every hundred paces he took.
Nain Singh entered Tibet twice, the first time in 1866 and

The World Outside 159

again eight years later. Another Indian to enter Tibet on
behalf of the British was the well-known Pandit Krishna
(called A.K.) who visited Lhasa in 1878, staying there for
about a year. A Tibetan from Sikkim, U-gyen Gya-tso, was
also employed by the British, and he was instrumental in
securing the permission of the authorities of the Tashi-
Ihunpo monastery for an Indian, Sarat Chandra Das, to enter
Tibet as a student. In this guise Das made a series of ex-
ploratory journeys inside Tibet, bringing back, besides much
valuable information, a large number of books in Tibetan
and Sanskrit. When the Tibetans discovered the real char-
acter of these explorations, particularly those of Das, they
were incensed and took even more stringent precautions
against the entry of foreigners. In 1892 an Englishman,
Lieutenant Colonel L. Austin Wadell, who attempted to
reach Lhasa from the Nepal side in the disguise of a Tibetan
pilgrim, was summarily bundled out of the country.

Although the Tibetans refused in 1890 to accept the Sino-
British treaty whereby Sikkim became a British protectorate
the Tibetans insisted it was still feudatory to them they
were unable to enforce their repudiation of the treaty nor
were the Manchus in any position to assist them. The 1890
treaty had stipulated for the opening of a trade mart at
Yatung and for the entry of duty-free imports from India into
Tibet. Compelled to comply with these provisions, the
Tibetan attitude to the British grew more and more recalci-
trant. The thirteenth Dalai Lama was now on the Golden
Throne, and as Manchu authority waned he embarked on a
policy of preserving Tibet's de facto independence by playing
off the Russians against the British and the Chinese against
both. Faced with British hostility and suspicion, he leaned
more heavily on the Chinese and the Russians. Communica-
tions addressed by the British Government to the Dalai Lama
were returned unopened on the plea that His Holiness could

i6o The Revolt in Tibet

only receive letters from foreign Powers through the ambans.

The first Slav to enter Tibet was the explorer Prjewalsky,
who is described as a Russian though his name sounds Polish.
He traveled a great deal in northern Tibet, the last of his
four journeys taking place between November, 1883, and
October, 1885. In the course of his travels Prjewalsky
studied closely the topography of the northeastern and east-
ern mountain systems, making an intensive investigation of
the Tsaidam Basin. It is these areas that have always inter-
ested Russia most, just as in China proper Moscow's eyes
have been focused on Outer Mongolia and on Sinkiang
which abuts on Tibet and Kashmir. China's relationship with
Outer Mongolia, which until the Communist advent was for
all practical purposes independent, was similar to its rela-
tionship with Tibet. Outer Mongolia's natural orientation
was through the Trans-Siberian railway to the U.S.S.R., but
the Sino-Soviet treaty of 1924 recognized that "Outer Mon-
golia is an integral part of the Republic of China and re-
spects China's sovereignty therein." Tsarist Russia, how-
ever, with other European countries was anxious to have its
slice of the Chinese melon, and in 1898 China was forced
to recognize the territory north of the Great Wall as a Rus-
sian "sphere of interest." The British with their Indian Em-
pire were naturally wary of Russian moves in China and
Tibet.

In the opening years of the twentieth century there ap-
peared on the Tibetan scene a mysterious individual referred
to as "the Russian agent" Dorjieff. He seems to have been
a lama hailing from Buriat-Mongolia, and his arrival in
Tibet aroused acute British suspicion. Being of the Lamaist
faith, Dorjieff received a warm welcome in Tibet. In 1903
Russia's incursions into Manchuria had disturbed the Japa-
nese, and relations between the two countries deteriorated.

The World Outside 161

They were to erupt in the following year in the Russo-Japa-
nese War.

To the British this seemed an opportune* moment for
moving against Tibet. On the plea that the Tibetans and
Chinese were stalling with the British while intriguing with
the Russians, the British in December, 1903, dispatched a
military force to open a way into Tibet for a mission headed
by Colonel (later Sir Francis) Younghusband. China was too
feeble to render any effective aid. The Tibetans, in the
words of some foreign observers, "were shot down like
partridges. " Younghusband entered Lhasa in August, 1904.
A large insect, as the Tibetans put it, had eaten a small in-
sect. Younghusband discovered that the Dalai Lama with
his entourage had fled to Mongolia, but he negotiated a
treaty with the Tibetan delegates which in effect virtually
made Tibet a British sphere of influence. Henceforth, it
was ordained, no Tibetan territory could be ceded or leased
to any foreign Power without previous British consent. Never
was China's prestige in Tibet so low.

The Dalai Lama who returned to Tibet in 1909 enter-
tained no great respect for the Chinese, who during his
exile had compelled him to kowtow before the Imperial
Throne at Peking, where he was condescendingly dismissed
by the emperor with the title of "Loyally Submissive Vice
Regent." Even while on his way back reports reached His
Holiness of various aggressive acts by the Chinese in Tibet.
After signing the Lhasa Convention the British had with-
drawn their forces, thereby creating a vacuum into which the
Chinese stepped. Enraged by their own impotence and the
unconcealed contempt of the Tibetans, the Imperial Gov-
ernment in Peking had sent an army to Tibet accompanied
by an official to reimpose Chinese authority. The army was
commanded by General Chao Erh-feng, whose entry was re-

162 The Revolt in Tibet

sisted by the Tibetans. Feng Chien, the Chinese deputy
amban, was assassinated. In retaliation General Chao's troops
destroyed several monasteries and were ruthless in suppress-
ing the revolt. Chao anticipated the Communists by inaugu-
rating schemes for having the land cultivated by Chinese
immigrants, depriving the monasteries of their secular
powers, limiting the number of lamas, and replacing Tibetan
magistrates by Chinese.

Meanwhile the Dalai Lama had returned to Lhasa to find
the Chinese ensconced firmly in authority. His Holiness soon
found himself at loggerheads with the Chinese amban Lien
Yu. As the Manchus' enfeebled grip relaxed on China, their
attitude to the Tibetans grew more vengeful. The Dalai
Lama was forced to flee again this time to Darjeeling in
India where the British authorities accorded him great con-
sideration. There is a curious parallel between the events
which followed the thirteenth Dalai Lama's flight to India
in February, 1910, and the flight of the fourteenth Dalai
Lama nearly fifty years later. Then as now the Chinese
troops overwhelmed the Tibetans and ruthlessly restored or-
der. The Chinese amban at Lhasa took all power into his
hands, the Tibetan ministers being reduced to a status of
servility. Meanwhile, according to Sir Charles Bell,* the
Government of China informed the British minister at
Peking "that they had no intention of altering the adminis-
tration of Tibet, still less of converting it into a province,
which, as they were careful to point out, would be a contra-
vention of treaties. Both promises/' notes Bell dryly, "were
soon to be broken." Then as now the Chinese Government
sought the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. Soon after
His Holiness's flight Peking made overtures to the British

* In his book Tibet: Past and Present (Oxford University Press, 1924). Sir
Charles, who is rated the foremost British authority on Tibet, served for
some time as British representative at Lhasa.

The World Outside 163

Government in India, inviting it to induce the Dalai Lama
to return. On this move Sir Charles Bell's comment is in-
teresting: "It would have suited the Chinese book to keep
him [the Dalai Lama] as a State prisoner, and, if harsher
measures were necessary, it would have been easy to adopt
them. But to such betrayal our government declined to agree
and the idea was accordingly abandoned. Had it been fol-
lowed, there would have been an end of the Dalai Lama/'
On subsequent developments on the collapse of the Man-
chu dynasty, the return of the Dalai Lama, the ejection of
the Chinese from Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's declaration of
Tibet's independence we have briefly dwelt.*

Between the Lhasa Convention of 1904, following the
Younghusband expedition, and the Dalai llama's proclama-
tion of Tibet's independence in 1912, several interesting de-
velopments occurred, to which we have also referred. In 1906
China by the Peking Convention confirmed the Lhasa Con-
vention, but the very fact that the British Government sought
Chinese approval of their treaty with Tibet was an implied
recognition of the special relationship between China and
Tibet. What was that relationship? The St. Petersburg Con-
vention of 1907 between Britain and Russia gave it a name.
For the first time the term "suzerain" was employed to de-
scribe the relationship between China and Tibet. By this
convention Britain and Russia recognized Chinese author-
ity over Tibet and stipulated that neither Britain nor Russia
should interfere in the internal administration of that coun-
try. They also bound themselves not to seek concessions
there or take any part of the revenue or depute representa-
tives to Lhasa.

The motivations which induced the signing of the conven-
tion were probably similar on both sides. Britain and Russia
were each anxious that the other should not secure too pre-

See Chapter Two.

164 The Revolt in Tibet

dominant a place in China, and if the convention ensured
this in Tibet it served the purposes of both Powers.* Tibet
has a strategic situation, its high plateaus dominating India;
moreover, both parties were well aware of the Dalai Lama's
spiritual influence in Manchuria and Mongolia. So were the
Chinese. Within a year of the St. Petersburg Convention they
implemented their suzerainty by seizing administrative power
in Tibet, bringing in troops and forcing the Dalai Lama to
flee to India in 1910. The fall of the Manchus, the return of
the Dalai Lama to Lhasa, and his proclamation of Tibet's
independence called for a reevaluation of the situation.

This the British proceeded to do by inaugurating a tri-
partite conference at Simla in October, 1913, to which they
invited Chinese and Tibetan representatives. Here, as we
have seen, the Tibetans were persuaded by the British to
accept Chinese suzerainty in return for Peking's assurance
that Tibet would be internally autonomous. Tibet, for ad-
ministrative purposes, was divided into Outer Tibet, con-
taining Lhasa, Shigatse, and Chamdo, and Inner Tibet, the
area adjoining China which includes Bitang, Litang, Tachi-
enlu and a large portion of eastern Tibet. The terms Outer
and Inner are applied to Tibet as seen from China much as
the same labels are applied to Mongolia. As far as Outer
Tibet was concerned, its autonomy was Recognized; China
undertook not to interfere in its administration, and to re-
frain from sending troops and officials there; not to establish
a Chinese colony nor to require Tibet to be represented in
the Chinese Parliament. The Chinese delegates at the con-
ference agreed to these terms, but Peking refused to ratify the
convention following differences on what constituted the
boundary line between Inner and Outer Tibet. Peking laid
a claim to Chamdo, Litang, and Batang in Outer Tibet which

* As a result of the Bolshevik Revolution this convention is believed to
be no longer in force.

The World Outside 165

the Tibetans resisted. Since the Chinese failed to ratify the
treaty, the Tibetan plea is that this absolved Lhasa from its
recognition of Chinese suzerainty.

In various ways since then, until the Chinese Communists
imposed their control, the Tibetans have attempted to assert
their independence. During the First World War they offered
to send a thousand soldiers to fight alongside Britain, an index
to their increasingly friendly feelings toward that country.
China, meanwhile, was disrupted by civil war, and the au-
thority of the Central Government did not extend to the
outlying areas. Seizing the opportunity, a Chinese garrison
commander on the Sino-Tibetan border in the east attacked
the Tibetans but was repulsed by them. The incident oc-
curred in 1917, and is related by Sir Eric Teichman,* who
was then the British consular agent in Tibet. Not only did
the Tibetans repulse the Chinese but they also recaptured
certain areas of Tibetan territory previously annexed by the
Chinese. Teichman's intervention secured a truce. In his
opinion had the fighting continued, "another month or so
would possibly have seen several thousand more Chinese
prisoners in Tibetan hands and the Lhasa force in possession
of all the country up to Tachienlu." Tachienlu is on the
border between eastern Tibet and China, and on the main
route between the two countries.

In the Tibetan view, the sentimental and religious bonds
which existed between China and Tibet were broken by the
Chinese revolution of 1911. "Tibet thereafter/' according
to the Tibetan appeal to the United Nations in November,
1950, "depended entirely on her isolation, her faith in the
wisdom of the Lord Buddha, and occasionally on the support
of the British in India for protection/' From 1912 onward
Tibet maintained independent relations with neighboring

* In his book Travels of a Consular Officer in Eastern Tibet (Cambridge
University Press, 1922).

166 The Revolt in Tibet

countries such as India and Nepal. In this period the Tibetan
Government conducted its own foreign affairs, maintained
its own army, had its own coinage, and controlled its internal
administration. In the Second World War Tibet did not com-
promise her position by throwing in her forces on the side of
China, and in 1942, when the Kuomintang Government
pressed for the opening of communications through Tibet,
Lhasa successfully resisted the claim. Until the Chinese Com-
munist invasion all officials and other functionaries in the
country were appointed by Lhasa independently of the Chi-
nese Government. Indeed, it would not be incorrect to say
that in this period Tibet had closer relations with India
than with China, both when India was under British rule
and when in August, 1947, it became independent.

When the Nationalist Government ruled China several
attempts were made to reassert China's authority in Tibet,
but all of them were consistently rebuffed. In 1933 Chiang
Kai-shek sent a mission to Lhasa calling on the Tibetan
Government to let China handle its foreign affairs and share
in its internal administration. The Tibetans refused. They
also declared that they would not recognize Chinese suze-
rainty unless certain frontier territory inhabited by a major-
ity of Tibetans was ceded to Tibet. This is interesting in
view of the present Dalai Lama's declaration of June 20,
*959 that not only must Tibet return to her pre-igso status
but that the disputed areas on her northern and eastern fron-
tiers should be given back to her. His Holiness was alluding
to the Tibetan-inhabited regions of Chinghai and western
Szechwan, possibly also to Kansu, though he made no specific
reference to any area.

In 1939 the Chinese Nationalist Government tried again,
and again failed. Thereafter the Sino-Japanese War absorbed
China's attention, and in this difficult period relations be-
tween China and Tibet improved, though in 1942 the Na-

The World Outside 167

tionalist Government refused to have any dealings with the
newly established Tibetan Foreign Affairs Bureau which
the Communists were later summarily to demolish. To other
efforts by Nationalist China we have previously referred, but
late in 1945 a Tibetan mission visited China and asked for
the recognition of Tibet's independence and for the return of
all Tibetan territory occupied by the Chinese. To Chiang
Kai-shek, who had categorically proclaimed that "the fron-
tiers of China lie in Tibet/' this request was inadmissible. It
was also the Nationalist Government which by its announce-
ment in 1944 that a new Panchen Lama had been found
and enthroned in Chinghai despite Tibetan protests put
a powerful weapon later in the hands of the Chinese Com-
munists. The Panchen Lama whom the Chinese Nationalists
hoped to exploit is now being exploited by the Communists.
Between the end of the First World War and the begin-
ning of the Second, Tibet moved closer within the British
orbit. In 1921 Sir Charles Bell, who since 1908 had handled
British relations with Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim, was re-
called from retirement and sent again to Lhasa as head of a
diplomatic mission. Its object, as Bell subsequently revealed
in his book Portrait of the Dalai Lama,* was to persuade
Tibet to accept British arms, allow Britain to train Tibetan
troops as well as Munitions workers who would turn out ex-
plosives and rifles, accept British mining prospectors and
machinery, and allow an English-teaching school to be
opened at Gyantse with a British headmaster. Mainly with
the support of the wealthy and influential Tsarong Dzasa,
who though born a commoner rose to be commander in chief
of the Tibetan Army and one of the thirteenth Dalai Lama's
principal advisers, Bell was able to persuade the Tibetans to
agree in principle to his proposals. Tsarong lived to see the
Communists come in but did not long survive the Red

Cambridge University Press, 1945.

168 The Revolt in Tibet

regime. He had been instrumental as commander in chief
in defeating the Chinese troops in the revolution of 1911 and
forcing them out of Tibet. In the previous year when the
thirteenth Dalai Lama fled to India pursued by Chinese
troops, Tsarong, with a handful of soldiers and monks, had
held up the Chinese pursuers at the Chaksam ferry on the
river Tsangpo and enabled His Holiness to escape. When the
fourteenth Dalai Lama fled to India in March, 1 959, Tsarong,
by then a man of seventy-two, courageously decided to stay
behind in Lhasa. His death was reported not long afterward.
Apparently he committed suicide after being publicly beaten
by some of his servants and a few pro-Chinese monks and
humiliated before his people. This is one of the methods by
which the Chinese Communists attempt to denigrate and dis-
pose of Tibetan dignitaries opposed to them.

With Bell's departure from Tibet in 1921, Lhasa showed a
shift in relations. By 1925 the thirteenth Dalai Lama seemed
to be moving away from the British orbit to the Chinese.
What His Holiness was really engaged in doing was attempt-
ing to maintain Tibet's de facto independence by playing
off the Chinese against the British. The Russians, after the
Bolshevik Revolution, having voluntarily relinquished their
extraterritorial rights in China no longer represented a threat
to Tibet. The Dalai Lama's Government had also always re-
sented the British Government's acceptance of the concept
of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet.

What the concept of suzerainty exactly implies has long
been a matter of dispute among international jurists. The
Tibetan view was stated in Tibet's appeal to the United Na-
tions in November, 1950. "There were times," this appeal
declared, "when Tibet sought, but seldom received, the pro-
tection of the Chinese Empire. The Chinese, however, in
their natural urge for expansion, have wholly misconstrued
the significance of the ties of friendship and interdependence

The World Outside 169

that existed between China and Tibet as between neighbors.
To them China was a suzerain and Tibet a vassal state. It is
this which aroused legitimate apprehension in the mind of
Tibet regardless of the designs of China on her independent
status. . . . The Chinese claim Tibet as a part of China.
Tibetans feel that racially, culturally, and geographically
they are apart from the Chinese. The conquest of Tibet by
China will only enlarge the area of conflict and increase the
threat to the independence of other Asian countries/'

The Chinese have laid claim not only to suzerainty but to
sovereignty, insisting that Tibet is an integral part of Chi-
nese territory and that Tibetan borders are Chinese borders.
When the Tibetan appeal came before the United Nations,
the Kuomintang Chinese delegate Mr. Liu stated that "Tibet
had been part of China for seven hundred years, and all Chi-
nese, whatever their party or religion, regarded it as such/'
Mr. Liu, however, referred to Sun Yat-sen's declaration af-
firming the equality of the five branches of the Chinese race
the Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui, and Tibetan. He re-
called that the representatives of Tibet had taken part in
drafting the new Chinese constitution in 1946 and in elect-
ing the president and vice president of the Republic in
1947; but he also recalled that Sun Yat-sen had stated that "if
disputes arose between those branches they should never be
settled by force/' The Kuomintang condemned the Com-
munists for settling the dispute by force.

Britain's attitude, as we have seen, was equivocal and
sometimes inconsistent. The British were prepared to treat
the Tibetans as "gentlemen" but not to recognize their in-
dependence in principle, though they conceded it in practice.
They realized that the Lhasa Government was virtually in-
dependent and that Chinese sovereignty was only technically
maintained. But they were reluctant to say so openly. Hence
they sought a compromise, simultaneously persuading the

170 The Revolt in Tibet

Russians, Chinese, and Tibetans to accept it by supporting
the principle of Tibet's internal independence within the
orbit of Chinese suzerainty. Peking, as we have seen, refused
to ratify the Simla Convention; consequently Tibet resiled
from her earlier acceptance. Suzerainty was left dangling like
a floating kidney in the Sino-Tibetan body politic. Independ-
ent India had a chance between 1947 and 1949, when the
Chinese National Government was on its way out and when
the Communists were not yet in, to recognize Tibet as an
independent sovereign state and thereby secure a buffer
region between China and herself. Unfortunately she chose
to inherit the British legacy and to recognize the Chinese
Government as the suzerain authority in Tibet.

What exactly does suzerainty imply? As we noted, it is a
juristic concept which eludes precise definition and has been
more often than not described in negative terms. Origi-
nally the word "suzerain" was one of feudal law where the
vassal owed certain duties to the feudal lord and the lord in
turn was bound to perform certain reciprocal duties. It was
therefore even in its pristine form a two-way obligation. In
modern times suzerainty has come to be used as descriptive
of relations, vague and ill defined, which exist between
powerful and dependent states. But a state under suzerainty
is different from a protectorate. In the latter case there is a
diminution of the sovereignty of a protected state, whereas
in the case of suzerainty there is a reduction in the sov-
ereignty of the dominant state. Where suzerainty exists the
vassal state has larger powers of action than those belonging to
a protected state, since suzerainty proceeds from a concession
by the suzerain. There is reciprocity of obligation, and the
vassal state acquires certain of the powers of an independent
country, which might extend to the conferring of its
exequatur on foreign consuls or the making of commercial
conventions. As subject to suzerain authority, a vassal state

The World Outside 171

cannot normally conclude treaties unless specifically em-
powered to do so by its suzerain.

The character of suzerainty has varied greatly, and its very
ambiguity has been exploited, this being its main recom-
mendation to imperialists in a hurry or in difficulties. Suze-
rainty might be nominal, as it was in feudal times when the
Papacy held Naples in fief. Or it might be real, as it was in
the case of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. The sign of vas-
salship is the acceptance and approval by the suzerain power
of the individual who heads the internal government of the
subordinate state. China attempted to do this in the case of
the Dalai Lama in Tibet, but with no great success except
at intermittent intervals under the Manchus.

The international status of a vassal state under suzerainty
is again ambiguous, one reason why another state, in this case
El Salvador, had to sponsor Tibet's case against China before
the United Nations in 1950. In the opinion of the celebrated
international jurist Dr. L. Oppenheim, a vassal state which
has absolutely no relations whatever with other states is "a
half-sovereign State/' But Tibet does not fall into this cate-
gory, since at various times she has had relations with other
states, and China's suzerainty is itself a matter of reciprocal
obligation where a lapse on the part of the suzerain authority
releases the vassal state from its obligation.

This is the core of Tibet's contention against China.

hem
imperialism

CHAPTER SEVEN

With China's forcible seizure of Tibet the Communist Chi-
nese have come to the straggling 2,ooo-mile-long Indian fron-
tier running from Ladakh in Kashmir to the eastern fringes
of the Northeast Frontier Agency, and including within it
the 500-mile frontier of Nepal. Until 1959 Tibet, "the high-
est country in the world/' with its bleak desolate northern
tracts, and ringed by the Himalayas to the south, provided an
ideal buffer state between India and China. So long as
China did not dominate the uplands, the valleys, and the
plains leading through the Himalayan passes to India, Tibet
offered an effective barrier. Shut off by geography and partly
by design from the outer world, Tibet had for centuries lived
a conservative feudal existence, suspicious of foreigners and
eager to maintain her independence and way of life.

All this has now changed. From a buffer state Tibet has
become a potential springboard, and the Chinese dragon
may well take its long leap forward into Southeast Asia from
there. In the vulnerable areas of Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan,
Sikkim, and in some districts of NEFA, reside many people
religiously and racially akin to the Tibetans. The Chi-

172

Han Imperialism

nese, who now control the Tibetans, can use them as instru-
ments of political infiltration into the regions which carto-
graphically they already claim. Under the Shadow of the
new dispensation on the Indo-Tibetan border, foreign and
defense policies must change, for behind these frontier re-
gions is the great land mass of India with Pakistan and Burma
to the west and east and, beyond, the polyglot countries of
Southeast Asia, with a considerable Chinese population. The
Himalayan region might prove to be the cockpit of the world.

The construction by the Communists of two major high-
ways in China others are being planned not only links
Tibet closer with China but makes the Indo-Tibetan fron-
tier more accessible to motor-truck traffic coming from China
and Tibet. Since 1951 the Chinese have also been busy con-
structing military bases and airfields in southern Tibet.
Henceforward the Han colonization of Tibet will be intensi-
fied, converting Tibet within a few years into a Chinese
settlement with a preponderating Chinese majority.

To appreciate better and to assess more accurately the
danger and threat which these activities pose, the real na-
ture of Communist Chinese policy toward the national
minorities should be understood. Although these minorities,
according to the 1953 Chinese census, number only 35 mil-
lion (roughly 6 per cent of the population) they are spread
over areas covering 60 per cent of the country. The frontier
province of Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan, to the north of
Tibet is one-sixth of all China. The largest minority are
the Chuangs, who number over six million and who live
mostly in Kwangsi Province; other minorities include the
Uighurs (3.6 million) of the northwest; the Hui, or Chinese
Moslems (3.5 million); the Yi (3.2 million), who reside largely
in Yunnan; and the Mongols (1.4 million), living mainly in
Inner Mongolia. The Chinese estimate the number of
Tibetans at 2.7 million, though a recent article in the Peo-

174 The Revolt in Tibet

pie's Daily* of Peking places their total at 1,200,000. Com-
munist Chinese statistics are notoriously resilient and elastic.
Of these minorities only the Hui speak Chinese.

Though the areas occupied by the national minorities are
generally designated as autonomous, in practice the Chinese
through the local Communist party branch, which is con-
trolled by the National Council at Peking, have consistently
attempted to consolidate centralized rule while keeping up
the pretense of regional autonomy. Among the autonomous
areas are Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Ningsia, and Kwangsi. The
Communists have made a great show of their impartiality by
condemning at times the sin of "Great Han Chauvinism/'
though simultaneously they stress that the Hans constitute
"the overwhelming majority of the population and the main
revolutionary force." On these grounds, the Communists
explain their colonization tactics by stating that it is there-
fore necessary to send Han personnel into the national
minority areas. Incidentally the Chuangs, who are the largest
minority, are outnumbered almost three to one in Kwangsi.
In these autonomous regions the Han cadres play down the
differences between the national minority and the ruling
race, and highlight the class differences among the former.
They thus attempt to divide the minorities within themselves
and at the same time draw them closer to the ruling Han
race.

Land reform met initially with considerable resistance
among the nomads of Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia, where
the herd owners slaughtered their livestock rather than sur-
render them to the Communists, who were thereby com-
pelled to go slow. In many areas the Han cadres had no alter-
native to winking at local feudal practices such as slave own-
ership, concubinage, and even human sacrifices, which for a
time were permitted among the primitive Kawas. But ulti-

Issue of May 6, 1959.

Han Imperialism 175

mately, under the guise of "democratic reforms/' the minori-
ties were brought to heel.

In some respects Tibet offered a tougher problem. Of all
the non-Chinese races the Tibetans are the most nationalistic,
and among the minority areas Tibet was closest to Mongolia,
to whom in pre-Communist days she was accustomed to turn-
ing when Britain or Russia failed her against China. Mon-
golia lies to the northeast of Tibet, divided from that region
only by a strip of the Chinese province of Kansu which the
two separated regions claim is inhabited largely by Tibetans
and Mongols. On the Chinese mainland Mongolia is Tibet's
natural ally, each being closely related to the other in race, re-
ligion, and outlook. Urga is the capital of Mongolia, and the
Grand Lama of Urga, head of the Mongolian church, has in-
variably been a Tibetan. Inner and Outer Tibet, as we have
noted,* have their counterparts in Inner and Outer Mon-
golia.

In Mongolia as in Tibet the Communist Chinese en-
countered strong opposition to their "democratic reforms"
and were compelled to go slow. In both areas separatist
tendencies were strong, and both resisted the infiltration of
Chinese settlers and were particularly afraid of assimilation.
Their opposition to Communism, apart from the fact that it
sought to undermine their religion and way of life, stemmed
from the fact that Communist party leadership meant Chi-
nese leadership. Neither Tibet nor Mongolia wanted to be
absorbed, nor did the other so-called autonomous areas.

But all, of course, are now being rapidly absorbed and
assimilated into the great family of Han imperialism. In the
minority areas "Great Han Chauvinism" was initially con-
demned by the Communists, but this appeasement campaign
was soon abandoned in favor of an all-out drive against
"local nationalism." Significantly, one of the main features

This division was made at the Simla Conference of 1914.

176 The Revolt in Tibet

of the drive was a new migration of Chinese, from the over-
crowded regions of North China and the Yangtse plains to
the northwest, to Sinkiang, Chinghai, to the Khamba areas
of West Szechwan (formerly the province of Sikang), and to
Chamdo in Tibet. This assimilation drive, as we saw, lit a fire
in northeast Tibet which finally reached Lhasa, enveloping
almost the whole of Outer Tibet and large areas of Inner
Tibet. The flames still flicker.

At his press conference at Mussoorie on June 20, 1959, the
Dalai Lama claimed that the revolt was still going on and that
"several places in the east and north of Lhasa" were still un-
der the control of the Khambas who were Tibetans. At the
time of the Dalai Lama's flight the Khambas, as we noted, also
controlled a corridor running south of the Tsangpo to the
Indian border along which the God-king made his way to
India. The final outcome of this one-sided struggle, how-
ever, was never in doubt, for the Chinese aim was not only
the armed suppression and political subjugation of Tibet but
also its extinction as a separate civilization represented by a
distinctive language, culture, religion, and government. This
involved genocide and the suppression of human rights.

Because the Chinese Communists refused to allow an In-
ternational Commission to visit Tibet to investigate the
charges of Chinese crimes, an International Commission of
Jurists was set up on a nonpolitical, nongovernmental basis
at Geneva. This distinguished body, comprising twenty-two
members drawn from different countries, is headed by Mr.
Joseph T. Thorson, of Canada, and is representative of over
thirty thousand lawyers in fifty countries. At the initiative of
the commission its general secretary, Purshottam Trikamdas,
a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India, was deputed
to make a preliminary inquiry and report. Trikamdas, who
was assisted by a team of Indian experts, conducted his in-
quiry for two months, examining "reliable witnesses from

Han Imperialism 177

Tibet" and sifting through a mass of documents and ma-
terials, including press and radio reports, both Chinese and
Indian. The report, released early in June and* published the
following month, constitutes a formidable indictment of the
Peking regime.

"From 1912 to 1950," states Trikamdas, "there was no Chi-
nese law [in Tibet], no Chinese judge, no Chinese police-
man on the street corner; there was no Chinese newspaper,
no Chinese soldier, and even no representative of the Chi-
nese Government." The report then covers the developments
following the Chinese occupation and culminating in the
Tibetan rebellion of 1959. It describes the large-scale Chinese
immigration into Tibet, particularly in the northeast and
eastern areas, and estimates, "according to reliable sources,"
that about five million Chinese have already been settled in
Tibet.* The report refers to the building of the new roads
and highways with Tibetan labor involving some 200,000
men, women, children, laymen and monks, "many of them
forcibly drafted for the work." Of this number, about one-
fourth are said to have died of cold, hunger, and fatigue.
From 1952 a policy of systematic destruction of religious
freedom and persecution of monks was instituted. In Khan
Province alone, 250 monasteries were destroyed. Of seven
leading lamas charged with offenses "which fit into the gen-
eral scheme of attack on religion," only one Zongsar
Khentse Rimpoche escaped to India, the others , being ex-
ecuted or imprisoned. Several heads of monasteries were
killed, jailed, or publicly humiliated. "One case in our files,"
notes the report, "refers to a very highly respected lama who
was stripped and dragged with a rope over a rocky terrain, as
a result of which he died. . . . Cases have been reported of

* The report quotes the Dalai Lama as estimating the number of Chinese
immigrants who had arrived in Tibet, or were being sent there, at nine
million.

178 The Revolt in Tibet

Head Lamas being dragged to death by horses, and a fairly
large number sent as prisoners to concentration camps in
China/'

Coming to the rebellion of 1959 the report observes that
large-scale aerial bombing was resorted to, since ground
troops could not be extensively employed against the rebels
in mountainous terrain. Reliable estimates of the number
killed are about 65,000.* Another 20,000 are believed to
have been deported, and after the suppression of the rising
in Lhasa all Tibetan males from the ages of fifteen to sixty
were removed from the capital to an unknown destination.
The report recommends full investigation into the "alleged
deportation of 20,000 Tibetan children/' It was apparently
not uncommon for high personages, suspected to be hostile
to the Chinese, to be invited to parties by the Chinese mili-
tary commanders, who then ordered them to be imprisoned
or executed a fact which impelled the Dalai Lama's advisers
to counsel him against accepting an invitation to come to
the Chinese military headquarters in Lhasa unescorted.

Trikamdas' report, which covers two hundred pages, was
submitted to the commission which appointed him, and it
was decided to set up a Legal Inquiry Committee in Tibet to
collect further evidence for a more detailed report which
will be submitted to the United Nations. "What at the mo-
ment appears to be attempted genocide/' the report had
warned, "may become the full act of genocide unless prompt
and adequate action is taken/ 1 The Legal Inquiry Com-
mittee will continue to collect documents, and obtain inter-
views, commentaries, and statements for a final report to de-
termine whether the crime of genocide is established. If it
is, the commission will initiate action to refer the charge to
the United Nations under the Genocide Convention of 1948
and the United Nations Charter itself. Several distinguished
* The Dalai Lama placed the figure higher but gave no specific total.

Han Imperialism 179

legal luminaries, including Lord Hartley Shawcross, former
attorney general in Britain, and lawyers from India, Burma,
Malaya, Ghana, Thailand, and the Philippines, have ac-
cepted membership on the committee whose first meeting is
scheduled to be held in Delhi.

The Hans who swallowed up the Manchus are now ready
to ingest the 35 million who constitute their national minori-
ties. They have already done so in Inner Mongolia, in
Sinkiang, Ningsia, Kansu, Chinghai, Szechwan, Kweichow,
Yunnan, and Kwangsi. Tibet cannot for long survive the
swoop of the dragon. Though pockets of resistance continue
to the north and east of Lhasa, the back of the Tibetan rebel-
lion has been broken as it was bound to be against the over-
whelming superiority of numbers and equipment of the Chi-
nese. According to the latter, the rebels numbered 20,000 of
whom about one-third were Khambas. The Chinese Com-
munists as far back as May were boasting that "the rebellion
was utterly routed in the twinkling of an eye, in spite of the
national and religious signboards held up by the rebels, the
difficult terrain with high mountains and precipitous valleys
and the many different kinds of foreign aid they got." The
boast was premature; but events since then suggest that
Tibet, like the other national minority areas, will soon be
bound hand and foot to the chariot wheels of Communist
China. "The fusion of one nationality with another," de-
clared a Red spokesman, "is an inevitable process of his-
torical development which no nationality can avoid."

The Khambas are good guerrilla fighters but so are the
Chinese, particularly the Communist legions trained over the
years by Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh. They proved it in
Korea against superior equipment and force. Those who have
fought the Tibetans, including the British, have testified to
their valor in battle. Writing of the Younghusband expedi-
tion, Sir Charles Bell observes: "The bravery of the Tibetans

i8o The Revolt in Tibet

came as a surprise to their opponents, but they had no mili-
tary training and were in the main armed with antiquated
muzzle-loaders locally made. Neither these, nor the swords
that they carried, were of any use against modern firearms."
It is possible that against the Communists the Tibetans were
armed with more modern weapons than flintlocks and
muzzle-loaders. But the odds were immeasurably against
them.

Early in August, Nepalese border forces intercepted fleeing
Khamba remnants from Tibet, survivors of a group which
had fought a strong Chinese unit on the southern bank of the
Tsangpo River while the Dalai Lama headed southeast. They
had suffered heavy losses but had managed for nearly four
months to remain inside Tibet, harassing stray Chinese forces
until they were compelled to take refuge in Nepalese terri-
tory northeast of Katmandu in the Everest region. A Nepalese
unit keeping vigil on the border intercepted and disarmed
them. They asked to be sent to India and were sent across
the Indo-Nepalese border. Their number was not disclosed,
but with some five thousand Khambas already in India it
would seem that a considerable proportion of these guerrilla
fighters who resisted the Chinese are outside Tibet.

While the system of ruthless assimilation proceeds inside
Tibet and the national minorities are being absorbed accord-
ing to the "inevitable process of historical development/' the
Chinese Communists are by no means inactive outside their
national boundaries. As compared with the 35 million minor-
ity peoples inside China, there are 14 million Overseas Chi-
nese who over the past thirty years have been wooed in turn
by the Kuomintang and the Communists. Although many of
them are strongly opposed to the Communist regime and
these include a large proportion of those who left China for
that reason a substantial number are inclined to Peking.
The vast majority of them are inclined to favpr Peking and

Han Imperialism 181

constitute the Chinese Communists' shock brigades in the
countries of Southeast Asia. Though divided by a dozen na-
tional boundaries, they are influential within individual
countries and regions ranging from Burma and Singapore to
Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In recent
years the propagandist activities of the hua-ch'iao, as the
Overseas Chinese are called, has been curbed in the last three
countries. At the Bandung Conference in the summer of
1955, Chou En-lai tried to pose as the apostle of reasonable-
ness by signing an agreement with the Indonesian Govern-
ment on the Chinese minority, and also advised his country-
men abroad to be loyal citizens of their host countries.

In terms of percentage as compared with the indigenous
population, the Chinese do not constitute an impressive pro-
portion, but when broken down the figures reveal the extent
of their influence, particularly in the commercial sphere.
Thus in Thailand as a whole they are only 16 per cent of
the population; but in the capital, Bangkok, the nerve center
of political and economic activity, they number 45 per cent.
In Indonesia they are only 3 per cent, but the important
cities of Jakarta and Soerabaja have a large Chinese popu-
lation. This is also true of Burma, where the Overseas Chi-
nese constitute less than 2 per cent of the population but
where the Chinese section of Rangoon contains some of the
most important electoral constituencies. Chinese are prom-
inent in Manila and Cebu, but here again their over-all per-
centage in the Philippines is 1.5. In Singapore however they
constitute 65 per cent of the population, and Malaya with
Singapore accounts for 45 per cent. Every important city on
the Malayan mainland is predominantly Chinese.

"If the Japanese hadn't conquered Malaya in 1942 the Chi-
nese would have," was a remark one heard very often in
Singapore soon after the last war.

Although Indians form part of the polyglot pattern of

182 The Revolt in Tibet

Southeast Asia, they are neither politically, economically, nor
numerically as influential as the Chinese. Even in Ceylon,
where they cohstitute a considerable proportion of the popu-
lation, the majority of them are descendants of indentured In-
dian laborers who were imported into the island many years
ago. Malaya also contains an Indian population of around
700,000, but they are mainly laborers. In Singapore there are
less than 100,000 Indians. The Indian community in South-
east Asia has been reinforced in recent years by a thin layer of
businessmen with a leavening of doctors, lawyers, and teach-
ers. But neither in numbers nor influence are the Indians
comparable to the Chinese, who are as prolific as they, more
sturdy, venturesome, disciplined, and purposeful.

Of all the Asian settlers in this region of lotus-eaters the
Indians and Chinese are most industrious, and in almost
every country of Southeast Asia both have left the stamp of
their civilizations, cultures, and commerce. The Indian, how-
ever, unlike the Chinese, has never been politically expan-
sionist. His interests have been commercial, cultural, or reli-
gious, and in the long history of India's association with this
region the only rulers who have shown expansionist maritime
ambitions in these waters were the Cholas who reigned from
A.D. 850 to 1 150. The impact which India has made on South-
east Asia has been likened by Western historians to the im-
pact of Greece on the peoples of the Mediterranean.

Southeast Asia, containing nearly 200 million people and
straddling two oceans, the Indian and the Pacific, represents
the soft underbelly of Asia. A strategic area, it is peculiarly
susceptible to the purposeful thrust of an aggressive Asian
power, for it represents a plural polyglot society with no ra-
cial, linguistic, or religious bonds among its varied peoples.
There exist, for instance, no racial affinities between the
Burmese and Indonesians nor any linguistic link between
the Thais and the Malays. Religiously the Buddhist Cam-

Han Imperialism 183

bodians and the Catholic Filipinos are far apart. But the
eyes of all of them are fixed on the two giants of Asia India
and China whose close understanding untifl the Tibetan
affair they viewed with uneasy suspicion.

Now that Sino-Indian relations are strained and the Chi-
nese stand poised along India's long frontier, the countries
and peoples of Southeast Asia see in India their main bul-
wark against the Red tide. The Chinese irredentist urge is
not confined only to Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh.
Over forty years ago the late Sun Yat-sen cited a long list of
so-called lost territories which China would reclaim. "We
lost/' he declared, "Korea, Formosa, and Peng Fu to Japan
after the Sino-Japanese War, Annam to France and Burma
to Britain. ... In addition the Ryukyu Islands, Siam, Bor-
neo, Sarawak, Java, Ceylon, Nepal, and Bhutan were once
tributary States to China." This is a pretty inclusive list,
embracing as it does almost the whole of Southeast Asia and
beyond. Chiang Kai-shek subsequently repeated these claims,
and Mao Tse-tung has reiterated them. Mao in fact traces
the beginnings of his political consciousness to his realization
of China's territorial losses. Edgar Snow quotes him as saying,
"I began to have a certain amount of political consciousness,
especially after I read a pamphlet telling of the dismember-
ment of China ... of Japan's occupation of Korea and
Formosa, of the loss of suzerainty in Indo-China, Burma and
elsewhere."

Apart from their strategic importance the countries of
Southeast Asia are rich in mineral wealth and natural prod-
ucts. Before the last war 90 per cent of the world's rubber
output came from this region, along with 60 per cent of its tin
and 90 per cent of its quinine. Burma, Thailand, and Viet
Nam constitute Asia's rice bowl, and though Thailand is not
in actual territorial proximity with Red China, being sep-
arated from it by the northern wedge of Laos and the Shan

184 The Revolt in Tibet

States, all three are in dangerous proximity to China and each
is vulnerable. The Sino-Burmese frontier has not been de-
marcated, and Rangoon has more than once protested to
Peking against territorial encroachments by Chinese troops.
In 1955, a year after the declaration of Panchshila, Commu-
nist Chinese units moved into the Kla States on the plea that
the boundary was vague and not defined.

Southeast Asia, though vulnerable to China, represents
the "rimland" of the democratic bloc against the continental
"heartland'* of Communist China. This ''rimland/' but-
tressed by the vast land mass of India, is a challenge to China,
a deterrent for the time being to that country which attempts
to reach out to the Indian and Pacific oceans. Beyond the land
curtain of Southeast Asia lie the Antipodes, a vast territorial
area conspicuously underpopulated.

China's irredentist urge in these regions is concentrated in
the Overseas Chinese who function as its fifth column in this
area and who are the nuclei of its shock brigades. The hua-
ch'iao serve as instruments to propagate the message of Com-
munist China, not only politically but by commercial and
cultural means. Through the Bank of China, which has
branches all over Southeast Asia, the Communists bring pres-
sure and persuasion to bear on Chinese businessmen to ad-
vance Peking's commercial policies which have basically po-
litical motivations. India and Indian businessmen have good
reason to know this, for Asian economic rivalry in Southeast
Asia is mainly Indo-Chinese. Since 1958 Peking has made
determined efforts to undercut Indian trade and to drive
Indian exporters out of Southeast Asia's markets. Chinese
goods, amazingly low priced and often of high quality, have
been dumped in this region, thereby stimulating the state-
subsidized Chinese trade drive throughout this area. Cultural
propaganda is purveyed through nearly 2,000 Chinese pri-
mary schools, over 180 middle schools, and the Nanyang

Han Imperialism 185

University in Singapore, and at one time this led to a small
exodus of Chinese students to their homeland, only to bring
back the majority of them disillusioned. Buf pride in the
"achievements" of Communist China is still a big selling
point, and appeals to the Chinese as Chinese, irrespective of
their beliefs. Another medium for cultural as well as eco-
nomic and political propaganda is the Chinese Overseas press.
There are some seventy-five daily Chinese-language news-
papers published in Southeast Asia in addition to scores of
journals, and an output of motion pictures. Many of them
help in propagating the Communist cult. With Peking and
Taiwan two Chinas exist. But in reality there are three, for
the 14 million Overseas Chinese are not negligible, and the
vast majority have their eyes focused on Peking.

China's occupation of Tibet, by bringing the Communist
menace to the doors of India, thus threatens the whole of
Asia and the democratic world. Happily, as in India, the
Chinese Communist aggression has created a revulsion of
feeling against China and Communism not only in Asia but
in the Middle East. Asian feeling was reflected in the sharp
comments of the press and of public leaders in countries
ranging from Burma to Indonesia, Ceylon to Japan, Malaya
to Cambodia. "Here," wrote the Singapore Straits Times, "is
colonialism blood-stained and rampant. Asia must condemn
it."

Asia did. Until the Hungarian tragedy of 1956 Asia had
identified imperialism solely with the domination and exploi-
tation of the black, brown, and yellow races by the white,
and also with the belief that Western capitalism, with its urge
for cheap labor and raw materials and its hunger for new
markets, incited colonialism. Hungary stirred some faint
doubts. Was Communism equally capable of imperialist ruth-
lessness? It is true that Soviet Russia even before this had
brought the countries of East Europe under her heel, but in

i86 The Revolt in Tibet

the confused aftermath of the last war this seemed in Asian
eyes the normal projection of a European war fought for
power. Neither Britain nor France, Asia noted, had shed its
imperial domination even after a war fought for freedom
and democracy. Tibet registered another important fact, for
Communist China's aggression proved that imperialism was
not necessarily a European monopoly but could extend to
an Asian Power capable of exercising it against a weaker
Asian country. True, Japan had ravaged China before the
war; but, more than China, Tibet high-lighted an imperial-
ism at once Asian and Communist. Japan had run amok with
militarists at her helm. But Chou En-lai had pledged China
to Panchshila and peace.

Peking's oppression and tyranny in Tibet were an eye-
opener to Asia, particularly to India. This was unashamed
Machtpolitik. To flout Panchshila was bad enough, but to
pervert it as China did by claiming that India's protest was
"interference in China's internal affairs" and therefore con-
trary to the five principles seemed brazen and cynical effron-
tery. "In Tibet," wrote Jayaprakash Narayan, "we see at this
moment the workings of a new imperialism, which is far
more dangerous than the old because it marches under the
banner of so-called revolutionary ideology."

Tibet unmasked China as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Until
the Tibetan tragedy Asia had assumed that the freedom and
neutrality of the newly independent nations were threatened
more by the old colonial imperialists of the West buttressed
by a bitterly anti-Communist America than by Russia and
China, both of whom preached peaceful coexistence. Suez
had deepened Asia's suspicion that the old imperialism was
only dormant, not dead. But Tibet provoked a radical change
in outlook. It appeared to Asia that Communist imperialism
was even worse than the Western imperialism it had known
and suffered under, for Communist imperialists had hitherto

Han Imperialism 187

posed as the liberators of downtrodden countries and indi-
viduals. In Tibet, China proved that Communism was not
only out to crush capitalism but that it was also equally will-
ing to mow down the peasants and workers of any country
which tried to throw off its tyrannical yoke.

It proved another thing. Asia had drawn a distinction only
between the old Western imperialists and the new Commu-
nists, but as between Soviet Russia and Communist China
it had also naively believed that while Russia could in certain
circumstances be ruthless China somehow was "different."
China was Asian and, like other Asian countries, had once
been oppressed by the West. Now China showed itself capa-
ble of being equally ruthless against a weak and helpless
Asian country.

Asia's credulity had its counterpart in the Middle East
where over a long period President Nasser of Egypt had been
inclined to woo the Russians. Their intervention during the
Suez crisis further fortified the link. But Moscow soon showed
in Iraq and elsewhere that Russia's professed friendship for
the Arab world was by no means disinterested and that its
clasp of friendship only too often signified the clutch of
death. What both Russia and China sought to do by protesta-
tions of peace and professions of friendship was to lull the
neutral independent countries into dreamy unawareness and
thereby to foster the growth of Communist influence in
those states which would ultimately wake up to find that they
had lost both their neutrality and their independence. Mos-
cow has demonstrated in the Arab world as China has in
Tibet what exactly the Communists mean by peaceful co-
existence, noninterference, and respect for territorial integ-
rity.

The onus and responsibility for preventing further Com-
munist infiltration into Asia now rest largely on India. De-
spite New Delhi's efforts to maintain friendly relations with

188 The Revolt in Tibet

China while expressing deep sympathy for and continued
belief in at least the regional autonomy of Tibet, it is be-
coming increasingly obvious that a firmer attitude and more
positive action are called for if the main objective of this
policy the preservation of the security and integrity of India
is to be ensured. New Delhi's conciliatory gestures have in-
duced no reciprocal manifestations in Peking. On the contrary
Communist China's attitude has hardened, is hardening, and
is likely to harden further. The harassment of Indian traders
in Tibet continues, and despite India's protests, which have
been ignored, the Chinese appear to have launched on a
policy of systematic persecution.

During the uprising the Chinese authorities placed various
obstacles in the way of persons of Indian origin, residing in
Tibet, who wished to register themselves as Indian citizens
at the Indian Consulate General in Lhasa. Three Indians
were held in custody by the Chinese for not having travel
papers or documents of nationality, although the Indian
Government pointed out that these persons had gone to Tibet
at a time when there was no obligation to take out such
papers.

According to the Government of India there are 97 regis-
tered Indian traders in Yatung, Phari, and Gyantse and about
21,000 seasonal traders in western Tibet. No precise statistics
are available about the number of Kashmiri Moslems and
Ladakhi lamas, but as far as can be ascertained there are 1 24
families of Kashmiri Moslems with a total number of 583
individuals residing in the Lhasa-Shigatse area, while the
number of lama students from Ladakh studying in various
Tibetan monasteries was about 400 before the uprising. Of
the latter, around 40 were among the refugees who came to
India. A few of the Kashmiri Moslems are descendants of the
prisoners captured by the Tibetans when a Dogra force of
5,000 men led by Zorawar Singh unsuccessfully attacked
western Tibet in 1841.

Han Imperialism 189

Prior to 1954, when the Sino-Indian agreement on trade
with Tibet was signed, travel between Ladakh and Tibet was
practically free, and traditionally hundreds of Ladakhi Bud-
dhists visited Tibet every year for religious purposes, many
of them staying on as students in the monasteries. Similarly,
Moslem traders came in large numbers from the same area.
Very few of these traders and students had troubled to regis-
ter as Indian nationals because the Chinese authorities had
not been insistent on documents of nationality. There has
been no response from Peking so far * to the Indian Govern-
ment's plea that persons of Indian origin in Tibet who con-
sidered themselves Indian nationals should be allowed, if
they so wished, to seek the advice and protection of the
Indian Consul General in Lhasa or, alternatively, should be
permitted to return to India.

More perturbing than these harassments is the reported
concentration of large Chinese forces on Nepal's northern
border and all along the Indo-Tibetan border. Disclosing
this early in August, the Nepalese prime minister, B. P.
Koirala, announced that his government planned to spend
an additional Rs. 15 lakhs ($300,000) on defense this year.
The defense of Nepal's southern border is very largely India's
responsibility. Koirala also referred to "adequate measures"
taken by the Nepalese Government against the infiltration of
Communist agents in the northern districts and to their re-
ported efforts for "the amalgamation of certain parts of Nepal
with Tibet." Earlier reports had spoken of "the suspicious
and subversive activities of some Tibetans who are perhaps
Peking's agents" in the Solo Khumbu area.

Since 1856 when the Gurkhas of Nepal, having defeated the
Tibetans in battle, imposed a treaty on them, Nepal has re-
garded Tibet as a tributary. The Manchus at that time were
in no position to help the Tibetans, who were badly beaten.
Under the treaty Tibet was required to pay Nepal an annual
* This is being written in August, 1959.

The Revolt in Tibet

tribute of Rs. 10,000 ($2,000) and grant extraterritorial rights
to the Nepalese in Tibet which gave them the privilege of
being tried in their own country for any offense committed
in Tibet and which also exempted them from trade duties.
Nepal continued to receive the tribute and enjoy these
extraterritorial rights until some time after the Chinese Com-
munists overran Tibet in 1950. In a recent reference to this
treaty the Nepalese prime minister remarked that "Tibet
was almost under Nepal's suzerainty and paid Nepal a fixed
amount for its defense. This position has changed after the
occupation of Tibet by the Chinese." Incidentally Nepal
itself, after being defeated by the Chinese in 1792, was re-
quired to send a quinquennial tribute to Peking which Kat-
mandu discontinued in 1908.

Not surprisingly, relations between Nepal and Tibet have
never been too cordial, though the Chinese Communists, as
we noted, by favoring the Nepalese traders in Tibet as against
their Indian counterparts have tried to play off the one
against the other. During the period of British rule in India,
Nepal, though friendly with Britain, tried to preserve her
own independence by playing off China against Britain, and
at times helped China to be strong in Tibet. Thus in 1909,
when General Chao Ehr-feng was advancing into Tibet,
Katmandu advised Lhasa not to resist. Nor, though under
the 1856 treaty with Tibet the Nepalese undertook "to
afford help and protection" to Tibet "as far as they can, if
any foreign country attacks it," did Nepal go to Tibet's
assistance when a British military expedition marched into
the Chumbi Valley in 1888 or when the Younghusband ex-
pedition entered Lhasa in 1904.

It would therefore not be surprising if the first Commu-
nist probe from Tibet were directed at Nepal, which has also
a considerable pro-Communist element, headed by Dr. K. I.
Singh, who about eight years ago, when the Communist party

Han Imperialism 191

was outlawed in Nepal, took refuge in Tibet. Singh has since
returned to Nepal and is now a member of its legislature.
China should find it to her advantage to exploit Tibetan
antipathy to the Gurkhas by persuading the Tibetans to infil-
trate politically into Nepal as a prelude to its absorption.
Nepal is thus threatened by potential fifth columns inside
and outside her borders. The mountain ranges to the north,
which contain some of the highest peaks of the Himalayas,
including Everest and Kinchin junga, were at one time
thought to be an impenetrable barrier. But a range of moun-
tains no more than a barbed-wire fence can keep out ideas.
The Ranas, or feudal ruling class, were overthrown in Nepal
in January, 1951, and their counterparts in Tibet are on their
way out. Of all the regions strung along the Indo-Tibetan
border, Nepal would seem to be the most vulnerable, though
Bhutan and Sikkim may also fall easy prey to Chinese infil-
tration.

Shortly after Communist China's first aggression on Tibet
in 1950, the Indian prime minister declared that any trans-
gression of the Indo-Tibetan border would be resisted by
India and that the same principle would apply to the
Nepalese-Tibetan border. India declared her determination
to do this by guaranteeing the integrity of the Himalayan
border states of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan. Nepal's northern
frontier which faces Tibet occupies, as we saw, some five
hundred miles. To the east lies Sikkim, a former tributary of
Tibet, with the Kumaon district of India's Uttar Pradesh
on the west separated from Nepal by the Kali River. The
southern border, whose defense, according to Nepal's prime
minister, is largely India's responsibility, adjoins a part of
Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

From the ethnographic standpoint Sikkim, Bhutan, and
Ladakh are Tibetan, which would make the area of ethno-
graphic Tibet around 800,000 square miles with a population

192 The Revolt in Tibet

of about five million, the majority living in the area between
Lhasa and the Chinese border. Three-fourths of Sikkim's
inhabitants ate Indians of Nepalese origin, but its ruler and
leading personages are Tibetan, and Sikkim was originally
under Tibetan rule. It is a curious fact that while along
the northern border of Nepal westward to Ladakh there are
many Tibetan settlements on the Indian side, no Indian set-
tlements exist on the Tibetan side. Bound to Tibet by ties
of race and religion, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Ladakh are there-
fore highly susceptible to propaganda from across the border.

Even in the days of British rule in India more than one
Chinese spokesman urged the blending of the "five colors/'
these being China, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan. By
bringing the three Himalayan border states under their influ-
ence, the British reared an effective barrier against Chinese
infiltration, and this barrier was consolidated by the buffer of
autonomous Tibet, which with its lofty altitude and large size
constituted an ideal protective screen. British policy was de-
signed to prevent military infiltration, but independent India
finds itself faced with a dual threat the threat of military
infiltration and, more insidious, of political infiltration.

In the three Himalayan states which, unlike Tibet, are on
the Indian side of the Himalayas, the Indian Government has
taken over the policy of the British raj. No longer, however,
do the Himalayan ranges and the lofty uplands of Tibet pro-
vide an effective barrier, while the MacMahon Line which
defines the frontier east of Bhutan up to the intersection of
the Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese borders has never been
officially recognized by China, though Nehru in reply to
questions in the Lok Sabha on August 13, 1959, said that
Chou En-lai had given him the definite impression some
years back * that, "having regard to all the circumstances,
they accepted the MacMahon Line as the international fron-

* Presumably either in 1954 when Nehru visited China or in 1956 when
Chou En-lai visited India.

Han Imperialism 193

tier." This, like Chou's other assurances, was probably de-
signed to lull India without completely committing China.

Recent reports tell of a mass meeting in LHasa when the
cry for the "liberation" of Ladakh, Sikkim, and Bhutan was
raised by the Chinese. As on the Nepalese frontier, the Chi-
nese are said to be massing troops on the borders of Sikkim
and Bhutan. Questions were asked in the Lok Sabha in mid-
August; but Nehru, while reiterating that India's territorial
integrity would be "safeguarded at all costs/' observed that
he did not think that any large forces were concentrated on
India's frontiers, although there were "very large Chinese
forces all over Tibet" in the wake of the Tibetan rebellion.
No doubt, said the prime minister, there were some Chinese
forces on "our frontier," but India was "quite awake and
alert over the matter." Replying to a query as to whether it
was a fact that "as many as twenty divisions of Chinese troops
are stationed in Tibet at present," Nehru remarked that he
could not say "I do not know exactly."

The questions asked in the Lok Sabha were sparked by a
dispatch appearing in the London Daily Telegraph from its
Kalimpong correspondent, quoting a speech made by the
Chinese commander in Lhasa, General Chang Kuo-hua,
wherein the general had declared that "the Bhutaiiese, Sik-
kimese, and Ladakhis form a united family in Tibet. They
have been subjects of Tibet and the great motherland of
China and must, once again, be united and taught the Com-
munist doctrine." In his reply Nehru said that he had read
the report of the speech which had appeared in "the official
Chinese newspaper" but that the particular passage men-
tioned was not there. "That, of course," he commented,
"does not lead us to believe that it is not possible, but it is
not there. . . . Anyhow, he would be an exceedingly foolish
person who would make the remarks attributed to this gentle-
man."

Despite the assurances which India's prime minister said

194 The Revolt in Tibet

he had been given on the MacMahon Line by the Chinese
prime minister, which Peking was later officially to deny,
thereby impliedly branding the Indian prime minister as a
liar, Nehru disclosed that "discussions had taken place about
some pockets along the MacMahon Line which, no doubt,
would be continued." He did not specify where the disputed
pockets lay. The MacMahon Line, which was defined in the
Simla Convention of 1914, is concerned with securing India's
northeast frontier running some eight hundred miles east of
Bhutan along the northern and eastern borders of Assam to
the meeting place of China, Tibet, and the Burmese hinter-
land. Since this frontier is around a hundred miles from the
plains of India, with difficult hills and valleys between, it
forms a useful barrier. Bhutan is contiguous for a little
under 250 miles with the Tibetan frontier, while the bound-
ary between Tibet and Sikkim is the crest of the mountain
range separating the waters flowing into the Tista River and
its affluents in Sikkim from the Machu River in Tibet and
northward into other Tibetan rivers. The NEFA's northern
frontier is defined by the MacMahon Line. At one point,
near the 95th meridian, the line is broken by the Brahma-
putra River, and although it traverses difficult terrain it
has been fully surveyed except for a strip of about one
hundred miles west of the Brahmaputra defile. Possibly the
disputed pockets to which Nehru referred lie in this region,
but the Chinese can conveniently ignore the MacMahon Line
when it suits them, since the Simla Convention, in which it
was incorporated, was not ratified by China. Nehru, however,
has left China in no doubt that so far as India is concerned
the MacMahon Line is the country's "firm, northern frontier
firm by treaty, firm by usage and firm by geography/'

Ladakh, which the Chinese also claim as their natural
sphere, is in northeast Kashmir, belonging to the broad
valley of the upper Indus which flows from West Tibet, and

Han Imperialism 195

is bounded to the east by the Tibetan districts of Nagri and
Rudok. It contains a considerable Moslem population, de-
scendants of the invaders from neighboring Baltistan who
ravaged Ladakh in the seventeenth century. Almost all the
Ladakhi traders in Tibet are Moslems, but there is also an
influential community of Buddhists owing religious alle-
giance to the Dalai Lama. The Ladakhis, by nature quiescent,
are no soldiers. This region formed part of the Tibetan Em-
pire until its disruption in the tenth century, but its religious
ties continued with Lhasa until disrupted by the Communist
Chinese invasion. Now it looks as if Peking would like to
revive these links under its own auspices and for its own
particular purposes.

It is no longer possible to conceal (even if some in New
Delhi might wish to do so) the grave deterioration in Sino-
Indian relations with the turn of events in Tibet. In its long
history Tibet has known many reverses and humiliations at
the hands of China, but it has also had its eras and spells of
good fortune, the last being when the Manchus were toppled
from their throne in 1911 and Tibet knew and enjoyed
nearly a half-century of freedom. As China's captive, Tibet,
with its long experience of Chinese ways and means, realizes
that its future role is to serve as a decoy in order to make its
smaller Buddhist neighbors also captive.

Communist China will not risk a world conflagration by
launching a frontal attack on India's two-thousand-mile fron-
tier, for the ways of Communism are more insidious and
calculated. What is likely to happen is a general "softening
up" of the Himalayan states at India's front door as a prelude
to infiltration within the inner citadel, while simultaneously
the same tactics are employed elsewhere, as they have been in
Burma and more recently in Laos. The Communists invari-
ably nibble at the flanks. Inside China the national minor-
ities will be used as baits to lure the other minorities across

196 The Revolt in Tibet

the border into Peking's vast and widening maw. Outside, in
the sprawling regions of Southeast Asia, the fifth columns of
the Overseas Chinese will be deployed. Behind the Laotian
imbroglio is the long arm of Communist China.

The Indian Government, while it has given asylum to the
Dalai Lama and to some twelve thousand Tibetan refugees,
has repudiated the Dalai Lama's claim to regard himself and
his ministers as the Government of Tibet. But the Dalai
Lama, if he is an embarrassment to New Delhi inside India,
is a menace and a nuisance to Peking as long as he remains
outside China. His Holiness claims the allegiance of many
thousands in the border states of Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan,
and Sikkim, as well as in parts of the Northeast Frontier
Agency. He is India's best insurance and deterrent against
Communist efforts to lure the peoples and rulers of the Hima-
layan states into the Chinese orbit. As long as the Dalai Lama
remains an honored guest on Indian soil, he is the best safe-
guard against the witchery and wiles of Communist China
in the frontier regions, as well as in the Buddhist lands of
Southeast Asia. India knows only what the Communists do.
The Dalai Lama knows what Communism is. He is a victim
of its treachery, and as such the symbol of his followers'
hopes and faith.

agonizing
reappraisal

CHAPTER EIGHT

With China's aggression on Tibet the scales have fallen from
Asia's eyes, and Asia, more particularly India, is now in the
process of agonizing reappraisal.

Whether the countries of Southeast Asia succumb finally
to Communist blandishments and threats depends largely on
the attitude India immediately adopts. The Tibetan tragedy
has high-lighted as nothing else has done the inherent contra-
dictions in India's foreign policy. On principle India's policy
is the right policy for India and for the newly independent
countries of Asia, provided neutrality or nonalignment is
positive and not "on one side." India cannot consistently con-
demn Communist China for her oppression in Tibet and
sponsor her membership for the United Nations. If nothing
else, Tibet has proved that the distinction between the ag-
gressor and the victim is no more academic than the distinc-
tion between Communist and democratic beliefs. India was
rightly vigorous in her condemnation of the Anglo-French
aggression on Egypt in October, 1956, but it is difficult to
defend her lukewarm attitude to the brutalities perpetrated
in Hungary by Soviet Russia about the same time. If Indian

198 The Revolt in Tibet

condemnation of the Western action in Suez was justified, as
it undoubtedly was, and did not lead to any intensification
of the hot war, why make the excuse that India's restrained
criticism of China's action on Tibet was inspired by a desire
to do nothing to aggravate an inflammable situation? It is
unconvincing. As a result of her attitude to Suez, India did
not lose the friendship of Britain and France, but she seems
to have lost the good will of Communist China by her mild
criticism of its government's action in Tibet. Nothing could
demonstrate more clearly the difference between what the
democratic and Communist worlds understand by friend-
ship. To the Communists friendship plainly is friendship on
their own terms.

The revulsion which Russia's brutal suppression of the
Hungarian uprising provoked in Europe is paralleled in Asia
by China's crushing of the Tibetan rebellion. Asia has sud-
denly discovered that the Chinese Communists are not differ-
ent from the Soviet Communists and that the objectives and
methods of Communist imperialism, whether Russian or
Chinese, are the same. Communism is by nature expansion-
ist, for its aim is to transform and rule the world.

Tibet has highlighted the menace posed by this fact, and
dramatically if also tragically revealed the cynicism and
cruelty of Communism. Less than a year after the Budapest
rising, Khrushchev was impudently asserting that Hungary
was "an independent State with its own independent Gov-
ernment," * while Chou En-Iai in the eight years preceding
the Chinese absorption of Tibet had blandly assured Nehru
more than once that Peking meant to respect Tibetan au-
tonomy. While Russia was the strongest power in Europe,
China emerged after Japan's defeat in the Second World War
as the major military state in Asia, determined to assert her
right to Central Asia and to be that continent's leading

* In an interview given to the New York Times, May 10, 1957.

Agonizing Reappraisal 199

Power. In the former plan her ambitions lay, ironically
enough, across the path of Russia, for in north and northwest
China are the frontier regions of Manchuria, Kfongolia, and
Sinkiang, whose peoples are akin to those across the border
in Soviet Russia. One reason why Peking, unlike Moscow,
has not given its so-called autonomous regions the theoretical
right of secession may possibly be because of China's lurking
fear that these frontier regions might cast their lot with their
neighbors across the border. To believe that there are not
internal rivalries within the camp of international Com-
munism is to misread its character.

Basically, however, the impulses which motivate Com-
munist states are similar, for Communism grows by what it
feeds on and its intrinsic expansionist urge is impelled by
the necessity to clear obstacles in its path inside and outside
its boundaries. An autonomous region such as Tibet, Inner
Mongolia, Sinkiang, Ningsia, or Chinghai was an obstacle
not only to the fulfillment of the Communist program in its
own area but to some extent in China itself. Opposition in
Tibet combined with the Dalai Lama's threat to remain in
India in 1956 induced Peking the following year to call a
temporary halt to its "democratic reforms" in Tibet. Sim-
ilarly the Chinese encountered resistance to their efforts at
ideological infiltration in Chinghai, which borders Tibet and
which has a population consisting largely of national minor-
ities such as the Moslem Dungans and the Tibetan Bud-
dhists who acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Dalai
Lama. It became necessary for the Chinese Communists to
sweep aside both these obstacles. The same pattern repeats
itself in Europe. West Germany is an obstacle to the fulfill-
ment of the Soviet plan not only in East Germany but in
Eastern Europe and therefore requires to be swept away.
Hence the Russian description of West Berlin as "a cancerous
growth. "

200 The Revolt in Tibet

What the Tibetan tragedy has done is to expose the real
character of Communism to Asia and to impress on it the
fact that Communism changes its mask but never its charac-
ter, whether such Communism masquerades as Asian or Euro-
pean. Those in its dangerous propinquity see the point when
the menace actually threatens them as India has belatedly
done, and also the United Arab Republic. A Cairo pamphlet
issued by the Information Department of the U.A.R. Govern-
ment shortly after China's aggression in Tibet described
Peking's action as "imperialistic/' and linked Tibet with
Iraq as part of a grand plan by international Communism to
"subvert positive neutrality and nonalignment." It is an
interesting comment since its implication is that what the
Communists expect from the neutral nations is to be "neutral
on one side." The logical conclusion which follows from this
is that Panchshila means peaceful coexistence on Communist
terms and as the Reds understand and interpret it. These are
the facts to which non-Communist Asia has at last awakened.

It has been hinted in New Delhi that the facts of history
must be recognized and that Tibet having been under Chi-
nese domination off and on, the question of her independence
cannot be raised at this stage. Hungary, for one, was long
under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and
is now, despite Khrushchev's assertion, under the heel of
Soviet Russia. Does that mean that Hungary is thereby con-
demned to perpetual subjugation? The Chinese Communists,
it is also hinted, are converting Tibet from a feudal into a
progressive ^tate, an argument often advanced by British
apologists for British rule in India, and rightly condemned
at the time by Indian nationalists, including Nehru. How can
India square her justification of the fact of China's imposition
of "progress" on Tibet with her condemnation of the same
process by the British in India?

Tibet should induce not only second thoughts but clearer

Agonizing Reappraisal 201

thinking. The hard-won freedom of the newly independent
countries of Asia is no longer threatened by the old colonial-
ism of the West but by the new imperialism o( the Commu-
nist bloc which must burst its boundaries or be broken.
Expansionism is endemic to the Communist system. "We
Communists and revolutionary cadres/' declared a Chinese
monthly,* "should not merely know the world but, what is
more important, transform the world." The Communism of
Stalin, Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung is far removed and
different from the Communism preached by Karl Marx, who
propounded it as a scientific study of society. Though Nehru
has stated that he dislikes dogmatism and the treatment of
Karl Marx's writings or any other books as "revealed scrip-
ture which cannot be challenged/' and has also expressed
his detestation of regimentation and heresy hunts, it would
seem from his attitude toward Soviet Russia and Communist
China that what he objects to in them is primarily their too
easy resort to violence. He did not, for instance, object in
1950 to China's claim to assert its "sovereignty or, if you like,
suzerainty" in Tibet but only asked Peking to do it "peace-
fully." This was tantamount to asking a tiger to deal with a
lamb mercifully.

By her aggression on Tibet, China is revealed as a cruel
imperialist Power with the old Han spirit of expansionism
intensified by the new spirit of Communist colonialism. Had
Communism, as Jayaprakash Narayan pointed out, been a
truly liberating and anti-imperialist force, the Chinese Com-
munists on assuming power would themselves have shed
voluntarily the old imperialist notion of suzerainty and
entered into a treaty with Tibet of equality and friendship.
This would have been in line with what the early Bolsheviks
did on assuming power in Russia and with what Lenin laid
down when the Soviet took over the government of the coun-

Hsuch Hsi (Political Study), monthly Peking periodical No. 5, 1955.

202 The Revolt in Tibet

try. "If," declared Lenin,* "any nation whatsoever is de-
tained by force within the boundaries of a certain State, and
if that nation contrary to its expressed desire whether such
desire is made manifest in the Press, National Assembly,
Party decisions, or in protests and uprisings against national
oppression is not given the right to determine the form of
its state of life by free voting, and completely free from the
presence of troops of the annexing or stronger State and with-
out the least pressure, then the adjoining of that nation by
the stronger State is annexation, i.e., seizure by force and
violence."

India's mistake, as we saw, was twofold. Presented with an
opportunity to treat Tibet as independent, New Delhi chose
to accept the Chinese claim to suzerainty on the plea that this
concept was a British legacy left in the lap of independent
India which India could not repudiate, even while New Delhi
repudiated other imperialist legacies in Tibet, such as the
privilege of stationing small Indian military units at Yatung
and Gyantse. The second mistake which India made, and
under which the Indian Government still seems to labor,
was to trust explicitly and implicitly every assurance given
to it by the Chinese Communists even when experience had
proved how utterly untrustworthy were the pledges and
promises freely made by Peking. History might find it hard to
exonerate India of the charge that consciously or uncon-
sciously she aided and abetted Peking on obliterating and
absorbing Tibet. If she did it consciously, a theory which
this writer does not accept, it was undoubtedly a crime. If
India did it unconsciously, as the records suggest, it was
folly. The celebrated words of Fouch on the murder of the
Due d'Enghien are apposite in this context: "It was worse
than a crime. It was a blunder."

In "Decree on Peace" (1917), quoted in Works (4th Russian edition),
Vol. 26, p. 218.

Agonizing Reappraisal 203

There is an interesting parallel in the development of
Communism and capitalism to which many Asian intellec-
tuals, notably Jayaprakash Narayan, have drawn insistent
attention. Nineteenth century capitalism under the leader-
ship of Britain, France, and Germany became progressively
aggressive and expansionist, acquiring in time in Asian and
African eyes the stamp of colonialism. So also now, the
Communism of Marx, which once stood for the freedom of
the proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world, who
were invited to throw off the chains and shackles which
bound them, has emerged as an imperialism which threatens
the liberty of both. As Jayaprakash Narayan again has ob-
served: "Somewhere or the other Marxism had gone wrong.
Lenin wrote a famous thesis on imperialism as the last phase
of capitalism. Someone should write another thesis on Com-
munism as the first phase of a new imperialism/' In short,
Communism, in its contemporary form, whether Asian or
European has revealed itself for what it really is not a pro-
gressive force identified with humanism, equality, and free-
dom, but a medieval tyranny threatening the liberty of
millions of unoffending peoples, members largely of the
weaker nations of the world.

Nehru's moderation in condemning the new Communist
imperialism, as compared with his unequivocal attacks on
the old colonialism of the West, puzzles and confuses not only
India but also Asia and Africa, which still lay great store
and rightly by his utterances. Until quite recently Nehru
was inclined to view Marxism through the rose-tinted spec-
tacles of the early 1930'$ when as a member of the Com-
munist-sponsored League Against Imperialism he saw Com-
munism not as another form of totalitarianism which threat-
ened democracy, but as a shield protecting the weaker
colonial countries against the unceasing rapacity of the im-
perialist Powers masquerading behind the mask of democ-

204 The Revolt in Tibet

racy. As matters have developed in Tibet, the choice before
India is plain. As long as it was possible to press for the
recognition of Tibetan autonomy, while maintaining friendly
relations with Communist China in order to ensure the major
aim of Indian policy, which is the security and integrity of
India itself, what the veteran Chakravarti Rajagopalachari *
described as New Delhi's "tightrope-walking line" was justi-
fied. But once it was clear that the two could not be simul-
taneously pursued, one of them had to be dropped. Nehru's
mistake lay in continuing to maintain both, even when con-
fronted by mounting obloquy from China. The contrast in
Peking's reactions to New Delhi's protests over China's ag-
gression on Tibet in 1950 and again in 1959 is striking and
significant.

In 1950, after first sharply rebuffing India and asking it to
mind its own business, Peking found it wise to assume a pose
of reasonableness, and in the Sino-Tibetan treaty of May,
1951, agreed to respect Tibetan autonomy and the position of
the Dalai Lama as the supreme spiritual and temporal ruler
of Tibet in return for Lhasa's recognition of Chinese suze-
rainty and of Peking's authority over its external affairs.
Peking, of course, had no intention of keeping these promises;
but at that time, with the Korean War on her hands, Com-
munist China was in no position further to exacerbate world
opinion and intensify Asian uneasiness. At this juncture India
was the monkey that the Chinese tiger utilized for pulling
Peking's chestnuts out of the fire.

In the following years China's strategy was to lull and
mollify opinion abroad, particularly in Asia, while trying to
stifle Tibet's regional autonomy behind the screen of the
bamboo curtain. Hence her pose as the defender of Asian
interests, the champion of the war against colonialism, and the

* Former Governor General of India and now leader of the newly formed
Swantantra party in opposition to the Congress party.

Agonizing Reappraisal 205

protector of the freedom of the newly independent countries
o Asia. With the same purpose in view Peking subscribed to
Panchshila in the preamble of the Sino-Indian treaty on
Tibet in April, 1954, reaffirmed it in the Sino-Indian state-
ment of June, 1954, and at Bandung in the following year
reiterated its belief in the Five Principles while protesting
its "peaceful intentions" toward the small nations of Asia.

Simultaneously inside Tibet the Chinese Communists were
trying in every way to browbeat and batter that country into
subjection. As the Dalai Lama observed in an interview to a
Burmese newspaper editor in August, 1959: "The cruel at-
tempt to wipe out the Tibetan race has not just come about.
It is a long-range program which was first introduced in
1949-50." * Not long after the Chinese forces had entered
Lhasa, the Tibetans, as we saw, grew restive and by the end
of 1951, on the testimony of General Chang Kuo-hua, they
were beginning to organize resistance. In the Dalai Lama's
words, the Communists at first tried "subversion without
open violence. Their earliest primary schools taught the
Tibetan language as well as Tibetan prayers. But gradually
the Tibetan prayers were dropped and then the Tibetan lan-
guage gave way to Chinese." Yet, as we have seen, the tempo
of Tibetan resistance grew and in time erupted into open
rebellion, compelling the Communists in 1957 temporarily to
retrace their steps.

In April, 1958, Peking set up its rural communes inside
China proper in the central province of Honan, and by De-
cember, 1958, the Communists claimed to have established a
total of 26,000 communes covering 99 per cent of China's
peasant households, that is, 120 million households. Before
the spring of 1959, when it was planned that the communes
would be fully operational, opposition to this policy of

* Presumably when the Communists had established their regime in
Peking.

206 The Revolt in Tibet

"regimentation of the people" had crystallized both in China
proper and in the minority regions where the communes had
almost simultaneously been imposed. On October 9, 1958,
the Peking People's Daily castigated the critics and skeptics,
adding that the ideologies of individualism, parochialism,
and capitalism could still cause mischief, and urging that "the
struggle" be continued. Two days previously the same paper
had ominously recommended that a "little rectification cam-
paign" should be launched. Early in 1959 party cadres were
summoned from Tibet to China to study the working of the
new communes, and the Dalai Lama himself had been invited
to Peking in April. Internal exigencies and external pressures
thus compelled Communist China to drop its mask. This it
finally did when the revolt of the Khamba tribesmen in west-
ern Szechwan infected Tibet, threatening Lhasa itself. The
mailed fist replaced the not so velvet glove.

Peaceful coexistence served the countries of Asia as long
as Peking was prepared to respect the principles of Panch-
shila. China's naked aggression on Tibet had shocked not
only the smaller Asian countries such as Burma and Cam-
bodia, but also India, into the realization that unless they con-
front the new imperialism more resolutely the same fate
awaits them. This is the great lesson which Tibet has taught.
In retrospect it was foolish and complacent for India to have
taken Communist China's assurances at their face value and
to have believed that a powerful totalitarian state could be
trusted to respect a small country's autonomy which it had
pledged itself to honor. India, however, is not the only victim
of Communist guile.

Nehru's statements in the Lok Sabha on August i3th sug-
gest that the Indian Government has at long last awakened
to the threat which Communist imperialism poses to Asia.
Some faint stirring of doubt was already evident in an earlier
statement Nehru had made in the course of a speech in

Agonizing Reappraisal 207

August, 1958, explaining to his party the difference between
Communism and Indian Socialism. "It [Communism] is
failing/' he observed, "because of its rigidity,* because sup-
pression of individual liberty is bringing about powerful
reactions, because of its contempt for the moral and spiritual
side of life, and because it tends to deprive human behavior
of standards of values." Owing to these deficiencies, Nehru
prophesied that Communism "eventually will be over-
thrown." As was to be expected, neither the analysis nor the
prophecy was received kindly by Moscow or Peking. Yet
even to many democrats Nehru's prophecy that the Com-
munist system would eventually be overthrown because of
the intrinsic evil it enshrines would seem to presuppose that
only the good flourish on earth which as a presumption is
glib and dangerously near wishful thinking.

Peking has not only denied Nehru's statement that Chou
En-lai had repeatedly assured him that China accepted the
MacMahon Line but it has also claimed an area of 90,000
kilometers on the Indian side of the Himalayas which would
include the entire NEFA area and more, and bring the Chi-
nese to the north bank of the Brahmaputra River. As Nehru
said in the Lok Sabha, it amounted to a claim by the Chinese
for "the Himalayas being handed over as a gift to them," and
added, "It is the pride and arrogance that is showing in their
language, in their behavior to us, and in so many things that
they have done."

Characteristically, having repudiated his previous assur-
ance on the MacMahon Line, the Chinese prime minister
now assures India that Sikkim and Bhutan do not enter into
the present Sino-Indian dispute. Nehru, a wiser and sadder
man, in announcing this to Parliament reiterated the Indian
Government's pledge to protect the borders of those states,
interference with which would be the same as interference
with the borders of India. At the moment of writing, the Chi-

208 The Revolt in Tibet

nese are still in possession of the Indian checkpost of Longju,
ten miles inside the Indian border, and have declined to
accept New Delhi's suggestion that they withdraw as a pre-
liminary to negotiations on disputed points in the Mac-
Mahon Line.

Communism cannot be wished out of existence any more
than it can be wished out of international life. Some more
purposeful and positive attitude and action are needed if
Asia is first to counter and then to conquer this menace.
Nehru has often emphasized and is himself sincere in declar-
ing that India's foreign policy is not motivated by fear, but
there is no denying that the attitude of the general Indian
public toward Communist China is a mixture of admiration
and fear, and in turn provokes from the Chinese a mixture
of threats and blandishments. Some foreign observers see in
the passionate attachment of India, Burma, Indonesia, and
Cambodia to the principles of coexistence an admission by
these countries of their belief that these principles provide
the only guarantee against aggression by China. The alter-
native is war, which they are not prepared to face. But this
alternative is precisely what they must realistically face and
be prepared for. On the surface China's attitude toward India
is one of condescending friendship, described starkly by a
recent Indian visitor to that country, Dr. Chandrasekhar, as
an attitude ranging from "total ignorance to absolute con-
tempt."

In 1948, a year before the Communists officially assumed
the government of China, the so-called Southeast Asian Youth
Conference, a Communist front, which met in Calcutta,
adopted the Zhdanov line decreeing violent revolution
against the governments of the newly independent countries
of Asia, including India, Burma, Indonesia, and other areas
such as Malaya and Indonesia. Although India had been
among the countries which very early decided to recognize

Agonizing Reappraisal 209

Red China, the Communist Chinese had no hesitation in de-
nouncing the members of the Indian Government as "bour-
geois reactionaries/' "lackeys," "stooges of capitalism," and
"running dogs of Anglo-American imperialism." India was
labeled in the Peking press as "an Anglo-American gendarme
in the East." Even when another change of front was later
decreed by international Communism, China's attitude to-
ward India remained one of suspended judgment. When the
nonaligned countries of Asia, headed by India, pressed for
Communist China's admission to the United Nations, and
refused to declare China an aggressor in Korea and to put an
embargo on war materials to China, Peking displayed no
great gush of gratitude. It blew hot and cold according to
what its own interests demanded.

The primary aim of New Delhi's policy being to ensure
the country's security and integrity, anything which endan-
gers either cannot but be resisted. This also Nehru has lat-
terly emphasized. On his first visit to the United States in
1949, while addressing the House of Representatives, the
Indian prime minister declared: "Where freedom is menaced,
or justice threatened, or where aggression takes place, we
cannot be and shall not be neutral." He had earlier expressed
the same sentiment in a speech he made soon after inde-
pendence in March, 1948: "We are not citizens of a weak or
mean country, and I think it is foolish for us to get frightened
even from a military point of view, of the greatest of the
Powers today. Not that I delude myself about what can hap-
pen to us if a great Power in a military sense goes against us;
I have no doubt it can injure us. But after all in the past as
a national movement, we opposed one of the greatest of
World Powers." Joint defense measures have recently been
initiated between Indian and Nepal should the latter's north-
ern frontier be encroached upon by forces across the border
in Tibet, while in NEFA the Assam Rifles have been replaced

210 The Revolt in Tibet

by regular military units and maintain a ceaseless vigil along
the border. Within India the Union Home Ministry has
alerted those 'responsible for detecting and preventing the
percolation of subversive ideas from outside or clandestinely
from inside through the Communist "grapevine or under-
ground. The dismissal by India's president of the Communist
Government of Kerala in July, 1959, and the establishment
of President's Rule in that state have irked the Reds, who
had looked on Kerala as a springboard for more extensive
infiltration, and regarded it as India's Yenan.

Public opinion in India had even earlier begun to assert
itself more vigorously in favor of a firmer policy toward Red
China. The past ten years' developments have shown that in
the Communist vocabulary friendship is a unilateral business
where the Communists invariably take but rarely give. India's
friendly gestures have provoked, at the most, condescending
acknowledgment and sometimes, as after Tibet, cold indif-
ference and open contempt. Nothing reveals this more clearly
than the language employed by the Chinese in the notes ex-
changed between Peking and New Delhi since 1954. In April,
shortly after a procession of Indian demonstrators in Bombay
had pelted a portrait of Mao Tse-tung with rotten tomatoes
and eggs, the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi sent the Indian
Ministry of External Affairs the following note: "Such an act
of pasting the portrait of the Chairman of the People's Re-
public of China on the wall and throwing tomatoes and rot-
ten eggs at it is a huge insult [which] the masses of 650 mil-
lion Chinese people absolutely cannot tolerate, and it must
be reasonably settled. ... In case the reply from the Indian
Government is not satisfactory the Embassy is instructed to
make it clear that the Chinese Government will again raise
this matter, and the Chinese side will never come to a stop,
that is to say, never come to a stop even for 100 years/'

Later, on May i6th, the Chinese ambassador followed up

Agonizing Reappraisal 211

this elegant epistle with another note: "The Chinese Govern-
ment has no obligation to give assurances to any foreign
country, nor can it tolerate others under the 'pretext of so-
called different autonomy to obstruct Chinese sovereignty in
Tibet. . . . Nevertheless there appeared in India before and
after the rebellion in Tibet large quantities of words and
deeds slandering China and interfering in China's affairs. For
instance, responsible politicians and publications openly
called Tibet a 'country,' and demanded that the Tibet ques-
tion be submitted to the United Nations. . . .

"You can wait and see. As the Chinese proverb goes, 'The
strength of the horse is borne out by the distance trav-
elled. . . .' You will ultimately see whether the relations be-
tween the Tibet region of China and India are friendly or
hostile by watching up to a hundred years. The quarrel
between our two countries in the past few years and particu-
larly in the past three months is but an interlude and does not
warrant a big fuss." The note concluded: "Our Indian
friends! What is your mind? Friends! It seems to us that you
too cannot have two fronts. Is it not so? If it is, here, then,
lies the meeting point of our two sides. Will you please think
it over?"

To this India's rejoinder was polite but pointed: "It is a
matter of particular surprise and disappointment that a
Government and people noted for their high culture and
politeness should have committed this serious lapse and
should have addressed the Government of India in a language
unbecoming even if it were addressed to a hostile country.
Since it is addressed to a country which is referred to as
friendly, this can only be considered as an act of forgetful-
ness/'

Referring to the Bombay incident, the reply of the Indian
Secretary General of External Affairs reminds the Chinese
ambassador that in "India, unlike China, the law recognizes

212 The Revolt in Tibet

many parties and gives protection to the expression of differ-
ing opinion/' It goes on to state: "That is a right guaranteed
by our constitution and contrary to the practice prevailing
in China. The Government of India is often criticized and
opposed by sections of the Indian people. It is evident that
this freedom of expression and civil liberties in India are
not fully appreciated by the Government of China.

"From the statement made on behalf of the People's Gov-
ernment of China, it appears that the five principles of peace-
ful coexistence may or may not be applied according to con-
venience or circumstances. This is an approach with which
the Government of India is not in agreement. They will
continue to hold to these principles and endeavor to apply
them/' Peking, however, has artfully if obviously sought to
differentiate between Nehru and the Indian people with the
probable intention of inducing the prime minister to pay
more heed to Peking's ruffled feelings than to the indignant
opinions voiced by his own people. Those who know Nehru
realize how vain are China's hopes and how mistaken and
confused is their understanding of the relationship between
India's people and their prime minister. After referring to
the "large volume of slanderous utterances" which had ap-
peared in India, an article in the Peking People's Daily of
May 6, 1959, states: "Prime Minister Nehru is different from
many persons who bear obvious ill-will toward China. He
disagrees somewhat with us on the Tibetan question. But in
general he advocates Sino-Indian friendship. Of this we have
no doubts whatsoever." Obviously the Chinese Communists,
despite their vituperative outbursts against India, lay great
store by Sino-Indian "friendship," which, however strained
and tenuous, they calculate on utilizing and exploiting when
the occasion suits them.

The likelihood, however, is that the Chinese will not ven-
ture the risk of being involved in a global war which would

Agonizing Reappraisal 213

almost certainly follow any armed incursion into India.
Their methods of infiltration will be more subtle and sub-
terranean. They will try to seep through SoutHeast Asia, not
by force of arms but by the injection of subversive ideas in
regions which provide the classical conditions for the recep-
tion of Communist dogmas. These regions combine illiteracy
and economic underdevelopment with poverty and wide-
spread unemployment.

Since the last war Asia has loomed large on the global
horizon, and in Asia Communist China has the advantage of
working in an area which Soviet Russia has "softened up"
over a period of thirty years. Like the Japanese who before
the last war preached "Asian co-prosperity" when they meant
Japanese prosperity, the Russians had preached freedom for
Asia when their design was to substitute Soviet domination
for Western domination. A great many Asian countries real-
ized this with time; but when the Communists seized power
in China, Asia tended to look starry-eyed at Peking with a
mixture of friendly interest, admiration, and sympathy. Later
came fear and, with it, caution. In the early years of Commu-
nist rule in China, Mao Tse-tung and his henchmen cate-
gorized countries such as India, Burma, Thailand, and the
Philippines as "colonial and semicolonial" lands whom the
Communists should "liberate." In November, 1948, a year
after India achieved independence, Liu Shao-chi, who has
been elected to succeed Mao Tse-tung as Chairman of the
Chinese People's Republic, in his book Internationalism and
Nationalism called on the Communists in Asian countries to
"adopt" a firm and irreconcilable policy against national be-
trayal by the reactionary section of the bourgeoisie, especially
the big bourgeoisie which has already surrendered to im-
perialism. If this were not done it would be a grave mistake.
Naturally when Peking talked of "liberation" it meant being
"liberated" to Communism.

214 The Revolt in Tibet

Though Liu's call was directed to the indigenous Reds, it
was also an invitation to the fifth columns within the Over-
seas Chinese to overthrow their "bourgeois" regimes. In this
dewey-eyed period China posed as the savior of all Asia, the
Communist Moses who would lead the downtrodden peo-
ples of Asia into the Promised Land. There were, as we saw,
to be shifts and changes in this original line, but the general
strategy was to remain consistent. "All Overseas Chinese/'
said Ho Hsiang-ming, director of Overseas Chinese Affairs
in April, 1950, "should unite, support the motherland, and
strengthen their unity. Strong and broad patriotic unity
among all Overseas Chinese, irrespective of class, occupation,
political views, or religious beliefs should be developed/'
Peking evidently lost no time in organizing and mobilizing
its shock brigades abroad. After the developments in Tibet
this process is likely to be intensified, and pressure brought
to bear on those Overseas Chinese still reluctant to commit
themselves to Peking.

Singapore, Malaya, and Indonesia, along with Burma, will
probably be the focal points of this infiltration, though South-
east Asia as a whole, with its large Chinese communities, is
generally vulnerable. Burma has been bedeviled in her rela-
tions with both Peking and Taiwan, for Kuomintang troops,
retreating before the Communists, were at one time settled
in fairly large numbers * in northern Burma along the Chi-
nese and Thai borders. America's good offices have more
recently been used to persuade Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw
them from the country. The dispute with the Chinese Com-
munists, on the other hand, concerns Upper Burma where a
triangular northern tip of territory, comprising some 75,000
square miles, abuts on Yunnan. The greater part of this dis-
puted line was settled by 1941, when the war interrupted the
negotiations, but a considerable stretch north of 25 35' north

* Estimated at around 12,000.

Agonizing Reappraisal 215

latitude remained unsettled, and gave the Communists an
opportunity to use the stratagem of shifting frontiers in a
region where borders and boundaries are largely notional.
In 1955, as we saw, the Communist Chinese marched their
troops into the Kla States on the plea that the boundary was
vaguely demarcated. This area, it has been claimed by both
the Nationalists and the Communists, was part of a state
which had paid tribute to China since the Tang dynasty in
the seventh century. In 1947 the Nationalist Government
laid claim to the northern triangle, but the Burmese Gov-
ernment reacted strongly. When the Communists seized
power in China they neither reiterated the Nationalist claim
nor renounced it, preferring to leave the position ambiguous
until circumstances favored direct intrusion. The 1955 in-
cursion is a portent of things to come, but the Burmese
Government will probably be as unyielding as it was with
the Nationalists in 1947. Inside Burma the Communists have
been weakened by factionalism and, though offering fitful
opposition to the government, constitute no immediate
threat. More dangerous and insidious are the 300,000 Over-
seas Chinese in Burma.

In Indochina, Peking has its shock brigades in the Com-
munist Government of North Vietnam headed by the faithful
Ho Chi-minh. This Red baliwick covers approximately
62,000 square miles with its capital at Hanoi, and through
it Peking seeks to stir up trouble in the southern Republic
of Vietnam and in Cambodia, having already done so in
Laos. Indochina, north and south, contains around one
million Chinese, and its proximity to China which lowers
over it to the north, makes it an easy and obvious prey.

In Thailand and Indonesia the national governments have
cracked down vigorously on any infiltration move by the
Chinese. Thailand maintains diplomatic relations with the
Nationalists and is vigilant in its scrutiny and control of its

si 6 The Revolt in Tibet

Chinese population, which numbers nearly three million.
Adjacent to Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, it is sensitive and
susceptible to* pressures in this area, whether generally Chi-
nese or specifically Communist. Thailand is not afraid of
Communism. Thailand is afraid of China. Throughout
Southeast Asia every regime following the Manchu dynasty
has sought to expand Chinese influence, and Thailand,
which tried to preserve a precarious independence between
the contending rivalries of France and Britain, only to be
overrun by the Japanese in the last war, does not relish the
prospect of being subject to another manifestation of Chi-
nese chauvinism which is Han Communism.

Sukarno's government once came down heavily on the Na-
tionalist Chinese by closing their schools, newspapers, and
banks and rounding up their leaders, but Indonesia, with its
totalitarian tendencies, might still be more susceptible to
Chinese Communist influences than most other areas in
Southeast Asia. The Chinese number over two million in
Indonesia and, despite Chou En-lai's much propagandized
appeal to be good and loyal citizens, they know that Peking
does not spurn such local citizens as potential Chinese citi-
zens. They realize only too well that they are Peking's fifth
column in Indonesia, and many of them appreciate their
role and are prepared to play it.

Singapore, with its preponderating Chinese majority, as
well as the Malayan mainland, whose population is 45 per
cent Chinese, would appear to be more vulnerable than Indo-
nesia to the threats and blandishments of Peking. But both
these regions, having had a taste of Communist violence in
the prolonged bandit insurrection, might be expected to
know not only what the Communists do but what Commu-
nism is. Unfortunately, in Singapore the results of the latest
elections show that Peking has found fertile soil in the con-

Agonizing Reappraisal 217

tentious class conflicts which assail that island, proving one
fact that the future of the Overseas Chinese will be spelled
out in local terms and measured largely by local problems,
although the achievements or setbacks of the mainland Com-
munists will undoubtedly help to tilt the scales one way or
the other. Taiwan offers no practical alternative to Peking.
But more and more Chinese intellectuals and businessmen
in Malaya, disillusioned by the fate of their class in Com-
munist China, are beginning to think again.

In the Overseas Chinese Peking has a weapon, at once
secret and overt, which the democracies would be foolish to
discount or dismiss. The Red-inclined among them can and
are being used, as they will be employed in the near future,
for various purposes to incite unrest and provoke strife, to
serve as the advance guards of Communist infiltration, to
work as spies and contact men, to be exploited as alibis for
sudden intervention. They are the Praetorian guard within
the citadel and among the forces of Communist expansion-
ism.

To counter their insidious influence will be a difficult
task, for through them the Chinese Communists hope to
breach the walls which ring the countries of Southeast Asia.
The one sure way of countering Communist China's divisive
moves is by the rapid growth of a free Southeast Asia where
the Overseas Chinese, as members of a free country and com-
munity, would be assimilated in this region's multiracial
polyglot fabric and by their industry, enterprise, purpose-
fulness, and skills help in the creation of strong, independent
Southeast Asian governments. A move has already been made
in this direction with the establishment of self-government
on the Malayan mainland and the first elections in Singapore.
But it is worth noting that the government elected is pro-
Communist. The Marshall Plan forced the Soviet steam-

2i8 The Revolt in Tibet

roller into reverse in Europe. An Asian Marshall Plan might
yet salvage that continent from Communism and stop the
Chinese juggernaut in its tracks.

Is Russia as complacent as she seems over the aggressive
thrust of Communist China in Asia? If India were to be
converted to or coerced into Communism, Moscow would be
faced by a mammoth land mass peopled, along with China,
by over one-third of the world's population, and capable,
despite the Atomic Age, of trading space for time and num-
bers for nuclear power. It is in Soviet Russia's interests that
Asia should not be made Communist too quickly. Just as
Peking has been wary of Russia as a potential threat to her
northern and northwestern flanks in the frontier regions of
Manchuria, Mongolia, and Sinkiang, so also Moscow is
acutely sensitive to the threat posed by the presence of an
Asian colossus which is also Communist along the exposed
southeastern border of Soviet Russia. What has been de-
scribed as "a muted controversy" has been proceeding for
some time between Communism's two leading protagonists,
and it dates back even before Khrushchev and the final as-
cendancy of Mao in China. Mao's tactics in the struggle
against the Kuomintang deviated from orthodox Commu-
nist methodology, which had stipulated that in colonial or
semicolonial countries the proletariat or urban workers must
spearhead the revolution against capitalist-colonial power.
China's revolution was achieved successfully by the peasantry.
Peking has acknowledged itself as an ally of Moscow but
never as its satellite. Stalin had presented a characteristically
ambivalent front toward Mao, and shortly after Potsdam
had signed a treaty with Chiang Kai-shek. Not until late in
1954, when Khrushchev and Bulganin visited China, were
Sino-Russian relations made normalized. They have yet to
be stabilized. Mao for a brief period in 1956 seemed to en-
courage the Polish Communists to break away from Mos-

Agonizing Reappraisal 219

cow's apron strings, while during the interlude of the llh^rti-
dred flowers" Chinese suspicions of Russian designs on the
peripheral provinces of China were freely expressed. More
recently the differences came to a head with the introduc-
tion of communes into China, which Khrushchev scoffed at
as an exploded experiment in which Russia had unsuccess-
fully indulged. At the root of this quarrel was Moscow's
suspicion that China was "growing assertive and was too big
for its boots" and was aspiring to the political and ideological
leadership of the Communist fold. Though Moscow sup-
ported Peking in its action on Tibet, the tone of its approval
was noticeably lukewarm.

All of which demonstrates that conflict is endemic as much
within the Communist system as between the totalitarian
and democratic worlds. If Moscow in Europe and Peking in
Asia each set out to conquer new worlds, the success of each
can end only in a head-on collision between both.

Tibet's tragedy underlines many lessons for Asia and the
world, revealing at once the strength and weakness of the
Communist doctrine and system. There can be neither com-
promise nor coexistence with Communism. Monolithic in
its structure, it represents the resurrection of a brute force
which, believing that might is right, would return to the
laws of the jungle trampling on the weak and the helpless,
stamping out the smallest spark of individualism, caring
nothing for personal freedom or human honor, respecting
neither the dignity of man nor the right of small countries
to live their own lives.

Tibet is dead. But if in dying it has taught a lesson that
will save Asia from the monstrous fate which befell it, Tibet,
with Asia's awakening to the real character of Communist
cruelty and tyranny, might yet be revived and live again.

with
the
dalai
lama

(A POSTSCRIPT)

On September 8th, while in Delhi, I was able to have an in-
terview with the Dalai Lama and to assess something of his
personality, outlook, and opinions. I had seen him earlier in
Mussoorie in May but had not met him or spoken to him.

His Holiness has an extremely affable and agreeable per-
sonality. He is, moreover, a perceptive and intelligent young
man, well informed on certain matters and eager to know
more on various topics. His manner is friendly, almost infor-
mal, and he asked me about as many questions as I asked him.
What struck me most was the sense of loneliness and nostalgia
which he exuded and which made his conversation in a way
pathetic and touching. Had I seen much of the world, he
inquired. I replied that I had seen a fair deal. Had I been
to China. Yes, twice; once under Kuomintang and again
under the Communists.

220

With the Dalai Lama

He spoke then of China and of Tibet. When in 1 550 Ae
Tibetans through El Salvador had taken their case against
China to the United Nations, India, said His boliness, had
expressed her belief that the dispute could be settled peace-
fully and by negotiation. Largely on that assurance the other
nations had agreed that the matter should not be discussed
further and that the appeal should be withdrawn. This was
done. A Sino-Tibetan agreement had subsequently been
signed in 1951, only to be broken by the Chinese, who had
later resorted to force. Should not India, asked His Holiness,
support Tibet's latest appeal to the United Nations in the
circumstances? I replied that in my opinion India certainly
should, though our prime minister had already indicated his
mind on the matter.

Evidently the possibility of a Sino-Soviet rift, should Mos-
cow draw nearer to the West, weighs on Tibetan minds, for
His Holiness asked my opinion on the Khrushchev-Eisen-
hower meeting. I answered at some length. It was a mistake
to assume that there were no inner conflicts and contradic-
tions within the Communist camp. In India only recently we
had seen the spectacle of the Kerala chief minister, Mr.
Namboodiripad, conditionally accepting Mr. Nehru's sug-
gestion for midterm elections, only to be repudiated by the
National Council of the Communist Party. It was my feel-
ing, I said, that Russia was not at all anxious that India
should go Communist so quickly, for otherwise Moscow,
checkmated in Europe, would be faced with the great land
mass of India and China backed up by their tremendous
populations. It followed that if China secured the mastery of
Asia, and Russia was predominant in Europe, the next
head-on collision would be between the two of them.

From the Dalai Lama's animated appearance it was obvious
that he was interested in that line of argument. I asked him
what his own views were on it. He shrugged his shoulders,

222 The Revolt in Tibet

boyish, strangely wistful smile suddenly lit his face.

"I don't know/' he said with an air of helplessness. "I've
never seriously thought about it." Perhaps he was reluctant
to express his own view, and one could understand that.

Only on one issue, when I observed that Peking made
promises only to break them, was he verbally forthright.

"That," remarked the Dalai Lama, "is the way of the
Communist Chinese."

I asked him who he believed would take up Tibet's case
before the United Nations. He replied somewhat somberly
that he did not know, but implied, though he did not directly
say so, that he was consulting "some of the smaller nations."
Whether he had in mind his legal consultations with Nor-
way's Trygve Lie, who had declined the brief, or whether
he had in view some of the smaller Afro-Asian countries it
was difficult to decipher, and obviously unfair to press and
pursue.

Would His Holiness be going to the United Nations him-
self?

He smiled again but was noncommittal. "I should like to
go on a world tour," he said in a seeming burst of candor.
"But always I shall return to India."

The Dalai Lama finally said he had heard I was writing a
book on Tibet. The world, he added, should know the truth.

His Holiness spoke throughout in Tibetan, but it was no-
ticeable that he could follow some of the simpler, more
direct, questions in English. Apart from the interpreter the
only other person present was a junior official of the Indian
External Affairs Ministry. On coming in I had presented the
ceremonial white silk scarf, but on leaving, His Holiness
shook hands warmly. His grip is strong and firm.

I left him with strangely mixed feelings, for the Dalai
Lama, while he gives the impression of being acutely un-
happy over his country's fate (which indeed he is), also con-

With the Dalai Lama 223

veys an impression of relief as of one momentari 1 7 *c <jned
from oppressive burdens. The mixture of ^boyishness and
maturity, of melancholy combined with an intrinsic gaiety of
spirit and charm, is also noticeable.

What has the future in store for him and his country? It is
doubtful if he will ever return to Tibet and if the Commu-
nists, as long as they rule China, will ever release their grip
on his hapless and forlorn land. The Dalai Lama is prob-
ably doomed to rove our planet without a visa; but the fate
of his country, accentuated by the barefaced repudiation of
China's commitments to India on the MacMahon Line,
stresses a moral. Communist pledges are no better than pie-
crust made only to be broken.

September 12, 1959 FRANK MORAES