The McMahon Line- a Century of Discord

by J J Singh

  The third major axis connecting Peking with Lhasa is through Chengdu, Derge, Chamdo and Nagchuka, a distance of about 2,210 kilometres. A southern alignment of this route takes off from Chamdo, joins the road coming from Yunnan at Gartok and then proceeds westwards to Lhasa. Though they pass through areas with relatively larger populations, these axes from Sichuan province to Tibet run through some of the most challenging terrains in the world. Between the mountain ranges here tapering off from the Tibetan massif in the south-eastern direction flow the major rivers of South-East Asia and southern China (the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze and their numerous tributaries). As mentioned earlier, these rivers flow through extremely narrow valleys and deep canyons, posing a formidable challenge for lateral movement against the ‘grain’ of the country in the east–west direction.

  In order to appreciate the degree of difficulty involved in travelling this route, one must know that over a spatial distance of about 500 kilometres between the Yangtze and the Tsangpo river valleys, there are at least seventeen ridges or mountain ranges that have to be negotiated, with elevations yo-yoing between 2,500 metres and 5,000 metres. Till the mid-twentieth century, it would take many months, perhaps even up to half a year, to cover this distance on foot or on horseback. Going up and down every ridge and the steep ascents and descents took a heavy toll of men and material. The fierce, semi-nomadic tribes living in this forested mountainous region were a law unto themselves and made travel here that much more difficult. Provision for security for travel in this region had always been a major concern, and remained so till even a few decades ago. To add to all this, the heavy precipitation (1,000–1,500 millimetres annually) and even snow in the higher reaches of these mountain ranges often resulted in snow avalanches and mudslides that would wash away bridges and even segments of roads.

  The route from the south-east linking Yunnan to Tibet too is a very challenging and difficult one. Of approximately 2,170 kilometres, it connects Kunming to Lhasa via Dali and Gartok, where it joins the southern Sichuan–Tibet road. From Dali it proceeds northwards along the valleys of the Yangtze and Mekong rivers and passes through difficult, heavily forested mountainous terrain. This region too had its proud tribes, and security along this route too had always been a big challenge. Heavy precipitation of up to 1,000 millimetres annually along this route results in enormous erosion of riverbanks and floods. Frequently, massive landslides occur, carrying the roads along with them.

  The last route left to describe is the one from the southern direction, from India to Tibet—to Lhasa in particular. Since the ancient times, Tibet’s proximity to India had resulted in exchanges of culture, ideas, trade and commerce between the peoples of the two regions. Buddhism spread across the Himalayan passes from India to Tibet. The core of Tibet and the Lhasa region are just 500 kilometres to 1,000 kilometres away from many places in north India, requiring only a month or two to reach by foot or on horseback from there. In fact, from Kalimpong and Darjeeling, Lhasa is only about 400 kilometres away as the crow flies, while Kolkata (earlier Calcutta) is 600 kilometres distant. The only barriers between the two regions are the mighty Himalayas and the Tsangpo river.

  2

  History and Geopolitics

  ‘When Tibet was free, we took our freedom for granted. We had little sense that it was something we had to prove or even defend, because we were unaware that it was under threat … Our physical isolation lulled us into a sense of complacency … In former times Tibetans were a war-like nation whose influence spread far and wide. With the advent of Buddhism our military prowess declined.’

  —Dalai Lama1

  Geography isolated Tibet from the world, and its history was a construct thereof. Till 1951, when the Chinese assimilated Tibet into its fold, and with brutal force when the situation called for it, Tibet witnessed either periods of independence or some form and degree of vassalage to the Chinese kingdom, depending upon the waxing and waning of imperial China.

  Tibetans have been acclaimed as a race of ferocious warriors and were militarily aggressive. In fact, Tibet was an important military power in Asia till the seventh century. During brief periods in its history it even held sway over parts of China, Turkestan, Mongolia and Hindustan.2 It was on account of the advent and spread of Buddhism from the fifth to the eighth century that the Tibetans commenced their transformation into a pacific society. Once they embraced Buddhism, their military prowess gradually diminished to such an extent that they were hard put to even defend their own nation. The Tibetans were naive in the extreme and believed that spiritual strength and non-aggressive intent would guarantee them a peaceful existence. They eventually realized that religion and a ‘strong national faith’ were no substitute for military power. Interestingly, a unique choe–yon, or priest–patron relationship, as some kind of a security shield, came into being, first between the Tibetans and the Mongols in the mid-thirteenth century, when it was established between the Sakya guru, Phagspa, and Kublai Khan, the Mongol prince, in 1254, and later between the Tibetans and the Chinese.3

  Ancient Tibetan history is shrouded in obscurity. Tibetans believe in their mythological origin from the union of a divine male monkey reincarnation of Chen-re-zi, an avatar of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, and a ‘mother cliff-ogress’. Their six offspring were believed to be the first inhabitants of Tibet.

  There is some evidence to show that human settlements existed in this elevated plateau from palaeolithic times. Nomadic tribes who were fierce hunter-gatherers and herders came into Tibet from northern China, Koko Nor and Zhang Zhung (Amdo) and settled in this region. It is also probable that some frontier tribes from western Sichuan and from the northern parts of Yunnan and Burma moved northwards along the major river valleys and established habitats here and in the uplands of eastern and south-eastern Tibet. It is clear that as they were scattered across this vast, inhospitable and desolate land mass, their civilization took a long time to evolve and emerge.

  Tibet having no written language, the oral records of its history and civilization assumed a mystical and mythological dimension. Some accounts derived from the annals of Chinese historians and from later reports of the intrepid travellers and explorers to Tibet from around the fifteenth century have helped trace the origin and history of this ‘hidden land’ and its people. The Tibetans were a prosperous people who lived in the agricultural river valleys and in towns in the central, southern and south-eastern regions of their land; these people consisted of the elite, the lamas, the landed gentry and the laity. There were also the nomads who inhabited the vast Changthang Plateau and the northern, western and eastern highlands. And, lastly, there were the people who lived on the northern glacis of the Himalayas and led a pastoral existence. By and large, the average Tibetan led a simple and fun-loving life. A Tibetan saying aptly portrays this facet of their lifestyle: ‘If you have beer [a local brew] you will get a headache, and if you don’t have it you will get heartache.’

  Civilization, as the world understands it, began in Tibet with the founding of a large Tibetan empire during the reign of the illustrious Songtsan Gampo in the seventh century. A powerful king, he ‘overran upper Burma and western China and forced the Chinese emperor to a humiliating peace’. As part of the terms of this peace with China in AD 640, ‘he received a Chinese princess [named Wencheng] in marriage’.4 Reportedly, his first wife was Bhrikuti, a Nepalese princess. Both wives happened to be zealous Buddhists and were able to prevail upon their husband to adopt Buddhism and spread this faith throughout Tibet. ‘He sent his minister Thomi Sambhota to India with sixteen students to study Buddhism and Sanskrit. On their return, they created a new script derived from a Gupta script, which is still used today, to render the Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan.’5 He is also credited with moving the capital from Yarlung to Lhasa and constructing a palace on Potala hill.

  Buddhism got established as a state religion under the subsequent kings. The new religion prevailed despite great resistance from the o
lder Bon faith associated with the ancient Zhang Zung culture. The new faith could not gain acceptance among the laity without some kind of its synthesis with the traditional Bon religion. ‘The deities that ruled their environmentally harsh and hostile surroundings needed pacification, and many of the local spirits and deities and their complicated, extremely localised reverence rituals were absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon. Many of these local spirits were made into local protectors of the Buddhist religion.’6

  During this period, Tibet’s relations with China deteriorated time and again, resulting in conflicts. Peace treaties of significance were concluded in AD 783 and 821; they were inscribed bilingually on pillars and tablets. The AD 821 treaty has even broadly demarcated the border between China and Tibet.7 This treaty’s terms were engraved on three stone pillars—the first erected at the boundary, the second at the Jokhang temple at Lhasa, both of which exist today, and the third at the Chinese capital of that time, Chang’an, currently known as Xian or Sian.

  Here are some relevant snatches from the inscription:

  Tibet and China shall abide by the frontiers of which they are now in occupation. All to the east is the country of Great China; and all to the west is, without question, the country of Great Tibet … Between the two countries, no smoke nor dust shall be seen … This solemn agreement has established a great epoch when Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet, and the Chinese in the land of China.8

  As a matter of fact, H.E. Richardson, the last British resident in Lhasa, has said in his authoritative book A Short History of Tibet, ‘Tibet and China, it is clear, were then two powers on an equal footing. In fact, the Tibetans were regularly the aggressors and, in general, had the upper hand.’9

  Richardson says that in time, the power and authority of the lamas (priests) became supreme, beginning with the Indian scholar Atisha, who was invited by the king of western Tibet in the early part of the eleventh century. Chiefly due to the wisdom, knowledge and ability of Atisha, the first of the ‘chief priests’, ecclesiastical rule firmed in its roots in Tibet. Subsequently, during the Mongol (Yuan) rule in China, Kublai Khan, son of the famous Genghis Khan, summoned to his court the head priest of the Sakya monastery ‘who stayed for twelve years with the Great Khan’. He prevailed upon the emperor to accept the Buddhist faith, and, for his services as ‘the consecrator and coronator of the emperors of China’, was conferred sovereign powers over the entire territory of Tibet comprising the U-Tsang, Amdo and Kham provinces. This was the beginning of spiritual and temporal rule by the Sakya lamas, the ‘red hat’ sect, in Tibet during the eleventh century.

  With the downfall of the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols retreated into outer Mongolia and established their own Buddhist religious order with their grand lama located at Urga, near the great lake of Lob Nor. As a result of withdrawal of patronage of the imperial court, the authority of the Sakya lamas diminished considerably. In the meanwhile, a reformist movement in Tibetan Buddhism, the ‘yellow hat’ sect, was founded by Tsong Khapa, a famous Buddhist teacher. This period, the fourteenth century, witnessed the founding of the three famous monasteries of Lhasa—Sera (The Wild Rose Fence), Ganden (The Joyous, located about twenty-six miles from Lhasa) and Drepung (The Rice Heap, the largest in the world, near Lhasa). Due to the unsettled political situation, the Gelug school was declared as a new sect and gained strength and recognition as the predominant strain of Buddhism in Tibet.

  Eventually, Sonam Gyatso, believed to be the reincarnation of the first two chief priests of the Gelug sect, was the first to be formally anointed with the title of Dalai or ‘Tale’ (Vast as the Ocean) in 1578 by the Mongolian king Altan Khan. Thus began the tradition of the Dalai Lama. The fourth Dalai Lama was from Mongolia. During his scholarship in Tibet he became a disciple of the reputed Lama Lobsang Chosgyan of Tashilhunpo (The Mount of Blessing) monastery near Shigatse. This ‘guru’ later became known as the Panchen Lama, ‘Great Gem of Learning’, and was given the spiritual status of a Grand Lama by the Dalai Lama. Also referred to as Tashi Lama, this line of chief priests had no temporal power, but was revered for its piety and ecclesiastical acumen. The Tashi Lama played an important role in the selection and approval of the new Dalai Lama and in ordaining him, as was done by the Grand Lama of Lhasa for the Tashi Lamas. As borne out by history, the two Grand Lamas from the same yellow hat sect have been frequently set against each other as part of a ‘balancing game’ by the bigger players or external powers.10

  The Mongol prince, Gushri Khan, who was a firm follower of the Gelug sect, invaded Tibet in 1640, and in the next two years established his writ over Amdo, Kham and the ‘U’ regions. Assisted by Sonam Rapten, the Dalai Lama’s regent, he disempowered the ruling clan of Tsangpa and ended the era of dynasties, firmly putting in place instead theocratic rule by the Dalai Lama in Tibet.11

  The fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Ngawang Gyatso, ruled for thirty-five years. He united Tibet once again. With the help of his patron, Gushri Khan, he became the supreme spiritual and temporal leader of all Tibet—a combination of priest, God and king in the seventeenth century.

  He was also received by the Chinese emperor Shunzi in January 1653 with elaborate protocol and stayed in the specially built Yellow Palace. During his reign, the Great Fifth, as he was called, brought in many reforms and established the Ganden Phodang, a new form of government, with the Dalai Lama as its head and a Kashag or council of ministers.12 (This temporal administrative structure remained in vogue till the Chinese takeover in 1951.) It was the Great Fifth who commenced construction of the Potala palace and spurred enhancement of the powers of the monasteries of Tashilhunpo, Ganden, Sera and Drepung.

  Tibet went into turmoil after this relatively peaceful period and was invaded by the Dzungar tribe of Mongols in 1717. Lhasa witnessed rape and pillage, and the Tibetans appealed to the Chinese emperor K’ang Hsi for help. His army evicted the Dzungars and installed the next Dalai Lama. This aid came at a price, in that K’ang Hsi assumed formal suzerainty over Tibet in 1720, and positioned a Chinese Amban who represented the Manchu emperor and had vast powers at Lhasa with an armed escort, taking away the temporal powers of the Grand Lama. This was the first armed intervention carried out by the Chinese in Tibet. As time passed, the powers of the Ambans and of their appointees, the regents of the successive Dalai Lamas, increased phenomenally.

  The Sino-Tibetan boundary in the early eighteenth century was edified by the erection of pillars bearing inscriptions that demarcated the frontier, as mentioned in the famous British explorer Eric Teichmann’s account.13

  In 1727 the Chinese erected a boundary stone on the Bum La (Pass) to the west of Batang which indicated that they regarded this border as more or less following the Mekong-Yangtze watershed …14

  As narrated by Alastair Lamb in The McMahon Line, Volume 1

  East of this line the Chinese exercised nominal control over the Tibetan districts except for the main communication arteries. With the decline of the Chinese Empire in the latter part of the nineteenth century, even main roads were at times controlled by the local tribals.

  During certain phases of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the machinations of the Ambans and the regents to retain their hold on power ensured that the young Dalai Lamas never attained adulthood and died as minors.15 ‘It is perhaps more than a coincidence that between the seventh and the thirteenth holders of that office, only one reached his majority,’ said Thubten Jigme Norbu, the older brother of the present Dalai Lama.

  British India’s earliest contact with Tibet took place in 1774 when Warren Hastings, the first de facto Governor General of India, sent his emissary George Bogle to Tibet at the request of the Panchen Lama. Bogle met with the great lama of Tashi Lhunpa in response to Tashi Lama’s missive interceding on behalf of the Bhutanese. The second contact of the British with Tibetans was when Captain Samuel Turner, a cousin of Warren Hastings, visited Shigatse in 1783, endeavouring to build on the rapport established with the Tashi Lama by Bogle. Cordial
relations were thus established between the two sides, which led to an increase in commerce and trade between them. However, this development was short-lived as the first Gurkha–Tibet war started in 1790; the Gurkhas, in a surprise offensive, crossed the Himalayas and captured Shigatse. They plundered and damaged the Tashilhunpo monastery too. The Tibetans appealed to the Chinese once again, and a large army was sent to Tibet by the Manchu emperor. Eventually, the Gurkhas were not only defeated but pushed back into the precincts of Kathmandu by the combined forces of the Chinese and the Tibetans and made to sign an ‘ignominious treaty’ as recorded by Teichmann. This was the second occasion when the Chinese army advanced into Tibet. As a result of this campaign, ‘by Imperial Decrees of 1793 two Ambans were appointed, given equal rank with the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, and made responsible for the superintendence of the administration of the country’.16

  The unfortunate outcome of this war was the Tibetan adoption of the ‘policy of exclusion’ under Chinese pressure as they felt there was a British hand behind the Gurkha campaign. This kept Tibet isolated from external influences, particularly the British, for almost a century. However, it goes to the credit of Thomas Manning—the first British adventurer who cleverly and ingeniously managed to reach Lhasa in 1811 without any encouragement or official support from British India—that he was able to gain the audience of the seven-year-old Dalai Lama and secure a high degree of standing amongst the Chinese and Tibetan officials. But after Manning’s return in 1812, following its age-old custom of keeping foreigners out, Tibet once again became the ‘Forbidden Land’.