by Andrew Duff
Within a year, the Americans’ Special Center in the Hauz Khas area of Delhi had put infiltrations into Tibet on hold and started to wind down military support for the Tibetan operation in Mustang. The Special Frontier Force continued to attract Tibetan recruits but the short-lived resistance movement funded by the Americans and operating out of India was all but over.
For the Indians, too, supporting the return of Tibetans to their homeland was no longer a primary concern. Instead their focus shifted to preventing the possibility of Chinese incursions into the Himalaya, and infiltration into India itself. As a result, Sikkim was in the spotlight more than ever as a strategic pillar in India’s northern defences.
In the middle of 1966, Martha Hamilton returned briefly to Sikkim to hand over her duties to her successor. During her six years in Sikkim she had fallen deeply in love with the country. It was a wrench to leave. Back in Scotland she had found herself ‘looking up at every plane wishing I was on it’.
Even on this visit Thondup teased her by trying to persuade her to break her rule of ‘not drinking East of Suez’ – but she held firm. In recognition of her contribution to Sikkim, he awarded her the Pema Dorji medal, one of a series of medals made in Spinks of London; she was the first – and only – European to receive one.
While in Sikkim, Martha passed the baton to Ishbel Ritchie as the new headmistress of the Paljor Namgyal Girls’ School. Ritchie was also a Scot, but from a different background. Where Martha had sought out the adventure of missionary work for the joy of teaching and to fulfil a pledge to her wealthy grandfather, Ishbel felt more of a calling and a sense of Christian mission.
In a few important respects, however, the two were alike. Just as Martha had written frequently to her parents, Ishbel wrote home every week to her mother in Scotland. And while Ishbel was perhaps more dedicated to the Church and less intimate with the Palace than Martha had been, she shared her predecessor’s humour and keen eye for detail.
One of her first visits to the palace, on Christmas Eve 1966, coincided with an important visit from the Secretary for External Affairs in the Government of India, a tall Kashmiri called Tikki Kaul. Thondup had known Kaul since the early 1950s and saw him as a powerful friend in Delhi. He had invited the Indian to Gangtok in the hope of enlisting his support for the cause of treaty revision.
Ishbel Ritchie found the evening relaxed but impressive, the kind of dinner for which the Palace would become known. Guests included the American consul-general, the political officer and the dewan. Hope had already become adept at getting the best supplies sent up to Gangtok by whatever means she could, and Ishbel, while feeling ‘a trifle out of place’, marvelled at the range of food – ‘caviar, mild gorgonzola, Christmas cake, and Egg Nog’.*
The strange menu worked; in February 1967 Thondup secured a vital concession from Kaul: that the border between Sikkim and India should be demarcated as an international line. For Thondup it was a step in the right direction. It seemed that he was well on the way to achieving his goal of treaty revision.
But, despite some minor successes such as the international borderline agreement, Thondup faced one major problem: without a democratic political system, he could not claim any real legitimacy to speak for his country. He tried to laugh off the invective from the typewriter of the Kazini in Kalimpong, which suggested that Thondup and Hope were the last vestiges of a crumbling feudal monarchy – but he knew her well-crafted articles hit the mark for those of a ‘leftist’ disposition. Both Thondup and Hope did their best to make the case for the existing system. When Indian journalist Ved Mehta interviewed the pair, Hope made a point of referring to the Kazi as the ‘Al Capone of Sikkim’, while Thondup defended his laissez-faire approach. ‘Now there is no popular agitation for merging with India,’ he told Mehta in 1966. ‘I think the reason . . . is that the Sikkimese like my government. My friends in the Indian government are always telling me that monarchy is on its way out, that I have to change my government, and I’m always saying to them that people will like monarchy as long as monarchy continues to be useful.’
In early 1967, elections were held in Sikkim, testing the existing system again. The Kazi and his SNC party were quite clear in their message to the electorate: getting democracy in Sikkim was far more important than Thondup’s attempts to fiddle around with the treaty with India. The SNC message hit home, particularly with the young Nepali electorate. Despite the imbalanced voting system, designed to favour the Bhutia-Lepcha community, the SNC won enough seats to justify the Kazi’s inclusion in the appointed Executive Council that served as an advisory board to the Chogyal and the Durbar (parliament). Here was an opportunity for Thondup to try and build a consensus, to bring Lhendup Dorji into the fold. Instead he deliberately snubbed him, appointing a rival contender for the leadership of the SNC to the Executive Council instead. The Kazini was livid, frustrated that her husband had been sidelined so publicly. But there was little she could do – except write more articles.
Thondup pressed ahead with creating an environment to reinforce his claim that Sikkim had a distinct international identity. One key move was to set up a seemingly innocuous committee in Gangtok, called the Study Forum, to ‘advise the Darbar on specific matters relating to the national interests of the Kingdom’.15 Consisting of a group of ‘intellectuals’ in Sikkim, the Study Forum stood clearly for revision of the treaty to enhance Sikkim’s credential as a ‘separate’ nation (a position diametrically opposed to that of the Kazi).
The Study Forum’s members were always searching for further symbols that would help demonstrate that Sikkim’s identity was separate from that of India. As a model they had Bhutan (Sikkim’s near neighbour geographically and culturally, which was seeking revision of its own treaty with Delhi) and Nepal (whose independent status had never really been in doubt). The Study Forum advocated that Sikkim should follow Bhutan’s lead and join the Colombo Plan (seen as a natural step on the way to UN recognition), should begin to print its own stamps and earn foreign exchange (both of which Bhutan did successfully), and retain control of the Inner Line Permit system that required visitors to Sikkim to register for a permit.
In the search for symbols of nationhood, none were considered too small – in 1966 the Asia Society in New York was persuaded to establish a ‘Sikkim Council’; in 1967 Princess Coocoola arranged for two Sikkimese women to represent Sikkim at the ‘Associated Country Women of the World’ conference, displaying a collection of items to represent their country, including the national flag and a number of other artefacts which stressed the Bhutia-Lepcha roots of the nation. In 1968 two Sikkimese artisans flew to Peru to represent the country in a World Craft Council meeting.16
Few of the Study Forum’s big ideas came to fruition; but for those like the Kazi and Kazini, opposed to Thondup’s plans for greater autonomy, it became a symbol of all that was wrong in Sikkim – an unrepresentative group, predominantly Bhutia-Lepcha, with a misplaced loyalty to an outdated feudal system.
Clear divisions were emerging in Sikkim.
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In March 1967, Indira Gandhi went to the polls across India for the first time. The results were a huge setback. Since independence in 1947, the Indian Congress Party had never failed to win less than 60 per cent of the vote. Now, with Indira at the helm, the party was reduced to just over 40 per cent of the seats and was forced into a minority government. In London, the Times called the election result a personal ‘slap in the face’ for the Indian prime minister.17
Things were particularly bad in West Bengal, the Indian state to Sikkim’s south, where Congress lost power for the first time to a communist-dominated coalition. Worse, the communists themselves in West Bengal were starting to splinter, reflecting the global split between Chairman Mao’s revolutionary vision and the more moderate communism of the Soviet Union. The Maoists coalesced around the hills near Naxalbari, a small town in the narrow chicken-neck of land in the north of the state that ran between the northern tip of East Pakistan and
Sikkim. Delhi considered it a major threat, particularly when Radio Peking announced provocatively that the Naxalbari rebellion was ‘the front paw of the revolutionary armed struggle launched by the Indian people under the guidance of Mao Tse-Tung’s teachings’.18 In the Indian capital the liberal journal Thought worried that ‘these pro-Peking Reds would “fan out from Naxalbari to link up with their cells in Bengal, till they come right into the heart of Calcutta. Behind them will be the Chinese army menacing the Himalayan border.”’19
The writer scarcely needed to mention that if the Chinese were to consider invasion, the easiest route would be straight through Sikkim.
Thondup, well aware of Delhi’s grave concerns about the threat from the Chinese, picked this moment to pile on more pressure for treaty revision, which he tried to portray as the only viable way forward. He also calculated that Mrs Gandhi might seek to resolve matters quickly, given the trouble in the north of neighbouring West Bengal. In May 1967, he held another press conference, telling journalists that while he recognised the Indian government had ‘more important things on their hands than we have’20, he sought changes to the treaty at ‘the convenience of the Government of India’ and through ‘discussions’.21
The Indian press reacted with predictable outrage at Thondup’s statements: change could only bring problems, they said. Both publicly and privately Thondup expressed surprise at the negative reaction – he remarked to one journalist that it seemed to him that Sikkim had ‘been pushed around too much by not only Indian officials, but also by others who see even in our simplest statements a deep and sinister meaning’.22 He complained to Rustomji that ‘the Press Trust of India has taken it into its head to run me down’. In the Sikkim Herald, a Sikkim government publication, they went even further, saying that if India did not open up discussions over the Indo-Sikkim treaty, it was in danger of stepping ‘into the shoes of British imperialism’.
The following month, Sikkim’s Executive Council (the body from which the Kazi had been conveniently excluded) issued a ‘historic joint statement’, again requesting immediate talks on treaty revision, and highlighting what they saw as economic grievances. The closure of both Sikkim–Tibet passes in the aftermath of the 1962 war, they said, had caused loss of Sikkim’s traditional trading revenue; and excise duty (collected by India) was crippling the Sikkimese economy.
Then, to compound Delhi’s worries about the Chinese threat, there were fierce clashes between Indian and Chinese troops at the Nathu La in September 1967, after the Chinese dismantled a stretch of barbed wire laid by Indian soldiers.* Time reported that ‘for four days gunfire and cannonades echoed through the thin Himalayan air’.† In the febrile atmosphere of Delhi, some MPs had no hesitation in making a link between the clashes and the emergence of the Study Forum, which one called ‘a sinister group on the very lines of the Red Guards in China with the help and aid of Chinese funds’, adding that ‘this organisation has started very strong anti-Indian propaganda in Sikkim and neighbouring border areas’. National Geographic’s description of Sikkim as ‘the weakest buckle in the Himalayan belt’ was beginning to sound uncannily accurate to many in India.
Whether Indira Gandhi liked it or not, Sikkim was right back at the top of her agenda. She decided that the issue had to be addressed – one way or the other. In March 1968 she sent her deputy, Morarji Desai, to Gangtok for discussions. Desai was a particular man, fussy about his food to the extent that he sent a long list of requirements to Gangtok before his arrival, detailing what he could and could not eat.‡ But he was also, Thondup felt, ‘a good man, an honest man of principle’.23 During their meeting, Thondup won over Desai by raising the question of excise duty, which went straight to the heart of the question of Sikkim’s status. It seemed ridiculous, Thondup argued, that India was giving government aid to Sikkim with one hand, then taking the money away by collecting excise duty on the other. Why not simplify matters and take the problem off Indian hands altogether? Desai was persuaded. The Indian deputy prime minster returned to Delhi to argue Sikkim’s case – that the state was indeed a separate entity and, as such, the excise duty should be returned.
When Indira Gandhi herself came to Gangtok for further discussions accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Sonia, and Tikki Kaul, it seemed that Thondup might be on his way to genuine talks on a revised treaty. In meetings and over dinners at the palace, Thondup outlined his vision of a future where responsibility for defence remained in Indian hands, but external affairs and communications were returned to Sikkim. In private, Hope Cooke later recalled, Mrs Gandhi (who was ‘a delightful guest – unassuming, appreciative’) seemed to ‘respect Sikkim’s otherness from India and to be pro-Sikkim’.24
For a brief moment, it seemed that Thondup was winning the argument and that greater independence was within reach. But some comments from Tikki Kaul towards the end of the dinner seriously alarmed him. Perhaps, Kaul suggested, ‘Indians from hilly Garwhal and Kumaon* should be settled in the Lachen and Lachung valleys’25 in the north of Sikkim. To Thondup this was anathema. From his point of view, the Bhutia-Lepcha community had already been slowly marginalised by nearly a century of Nepali immigration. There was also already huge resentment that the administration was entirely dominated by Indians. Thondup had even proposed halting further immigration from India altogether in 1965. Besides, the proposed areas in the north of Sikkim around these two valleys were ‘reserved’, holy areas with access restricted even for Sikkimese. The whole suggestion seemed incongruous with the rest of the discussions.
Something had subtly changed. Just before Mrs Gandhi and Tikki Kaul left Gangtok, she told the Chogyal and his Executive Councillors that the timing was not right – she was not yet out of the woods politically and needed to be more secure before contemplating anything so radical as treaty revision. Thondup was disappointed. There had been very warm words, with both sides praising each other and talking of the importance of the relationship between India and Sikkim, and a promise of a ceremonial visit from the Indian president in 1970; but he wondered if Mrs Gandhi was merely playing for time.
One Indian official would later refer to Indira Gandhi’s 1968 visit as ‘the high point of Indo-Sikkimese cordiality’.26 He was right: from here, it was all downhill.
It was a provocative newspaper article, and the subsequent actions of a group of schoolchildren, that proved the turning point.
During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of independent newspapers had sprung up in Sikkim. Among them was a fortnightly, titled Sikkim. The editor, Kaiser Bahadur Thapa, was an unapologetic proponent of independence – Sikkim took as its masthead the famously patriotic epigram ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’. During the 1960s the paper had carefully and pointedly catalogued all the former colonial territories that had changed over one by one to independence, particularly in Africa. In the wake of Mrs Gandhi’s visit, the fortnightly Sikkim took an even more aggressive stance. On 6 August 1968, only a few weeks after Indira had left Gangtok, a leader in the newspaper thundered:
Revision of the 1950 treaty there must be, and in keeping with our present-day trend, not only should our treaty be revised but it should also be registered with the United Nations Organisation. If our rights are not given to us gracefully, we are prepared to get it anyhow. But in doing so let us hope that we will not be driven to the extreme so that we are compelled to repeat the underground Naga story.27
The reference to the disturbances in Nagaland was particularly incendiary. For months the tribal Nagas had been fighting for their independence on the extreme eastern frontier between India and Burma.
A few days later, on 15 August, Indian Independence Day, a group of schoolchildren walked through the streets of Gangtok carrying banners that reflected the growing sense of frustration felt by some in Gangtok. ‘INDIANS GET OUT OF SIKKIM’ read one; ‘WE ARE A BUFFER NOT A DUFFER’ read another; ‘WE WANT INDEPENDENCE’ proclaimed a third.28
In the Delhi parliament, MPs fired questions at Mrs Gandhi abo
ut the existence of a ‘Quit Sikkim’ movement, echoing the ‘Quit India’ movement that had raged across the subcontinent during the 1940s in protest at British imperial rule. She dismissed the whole issue as a ‘minor demonstration’ but pointedly added that officials had ‘taken up the matter strongly with the Chogyal of Sikkim’. In Gangtok the Indian political officer ensured that those involved were forced to publicly denounce the incident.
The whole affair of the schoolchildren and their banners was a storm in a teacup. But it had an effect on the attitude of the Indian government. Any intentions they had of supporting treaty revision and discussing greater independence on Thondup’s terms were disappearing fast. Towards the end of the year, Tikki Kaul returned to Gangtok. This time his message was quite clear: until such incidents stopped, Thondup could forget his fond hopes of Indian support for UN membership, or Indian support for inclusion in other international bodies.
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In February 1968, a few months before Indira Gandhi’s visit, Hope Cooke gave birth to her second child, a girl. Between them the royal couple now had five children. Despite the pressures that her husband was under, life for Hope at last seemed to be settling into some kind of routine. She loved the sense of being part of a home, a family. She missed the elder three when they were away at boarding school, but in the summers, when Coocoola’s family of five also gathered in Gangtok, she revelled in the atmosphere, putting her differences with her sister-in-law to one side. The palace would ‘explode with children’, with picnics, large family meals and board games at night.
Both Thondup and Hope had always appreciated that Hope’s American nationality brought with it the potential for press coverage for Sikkim, which could help to build up the idea of the country as a separate entity. It had never been hard to get journalists interested in their story – the glamour of the marriage and coronation aside, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker and others were always eager for copy about the American ‘Queen’ in a faraway Himalayan land. Hope’s well-heeled and intelligent friends, too, helped get the message out in all kinds of outlets. National Geographic ran features; McCall’s (a popular glossy in the 1960s) ran a piece by Hope herself. Other friends such as Alice Kandell, who wrote about Sikkim in Redbook magazine, were only too happy to help. ‘We played up the smallness, the fragility of our nation-building effort,’ wrote Hope later, ‘while clinging to a truculent notion that we would prevail because of our righteousness.’ Perhaps to portray some of this fragility her voice had dissolved into a whisper, almost as if she believed her own fragility would somehow communicate Sikkim’s vulnerability.*
