The McMahon Line- a Century of Discord
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Chen said he would communicate the final day’s proceedings to Peking and assured his colleagues that he would revert to them immediately if reassembling of the conference was necessary. He then conveyed his ‘grateful thanks’ to the British government and to McMahon for their kind hospitality, and also to Bell and Rose, in particular, for their kind services. He also had a special word of praise for Waugh, the secretary of the conference.
Lonchen Shatra ended his remarks by saying he would stay on for a few days more in the hope that his Chinese colleague would sign the convention.92
This brought the Simla Conference to an end. Within a month, the First World War was unleashed on the world, and it overshadowed all matters that had been otherwise engaging the attention of the world powers—Tibet being one of them. Despite the war raging in many parts of the world, the Himalayan region and Tibet remained comparatively peaceful for the next four decades.
While forwarding McMahon’s final memorandum of the conference, dated 8 July 1914, to the Earl of Crewe, the Secretary of State for India, Viceroy Lord Hardinge in Council expressed their appreciation of the services of Sir McMahon and his team:
We wish to take this opportunity of placing on record our appreciation of the services of Sir Henry McMahon and his assistants in the conduct of these prolonged and troubled negotiations. Sir Henry has shown throughout good judgement, tact and perseverance in most trying circumstances. The fact that the negotiations here have been concluded without the signature of the Chinese Representative to the Convention is no reflection whatever on the able diplomacy of the British Plenipotentiary. Indeed, it says much for Sir Henry’s conduct of the negotiations that he was able to obtain in April the Chinese Representative’s initials to the Convention; while the arrangements made with his Tibetan Colleague, particularly in regard to the settlement of the Indo-Tibet frontier and the Trade Regulations, are most creditable to our Plenipotentiary. As regards the services of Mr. Bell and Mr. Rose, we desire cordially to endorse what is said of them in the enclosed Memorandum.93
Although the Simla Convention was seen by most analysts of the time as a failure, or as an inconclusive tripartite conference, the import and significance of the ‘red line’ defining the Indo-Tibetan boundary was substantially underestimated by the policymakers of imperial Britain. The fact that China was totally sidelined (till such time as it would come on board, if it ever did), the boundary agreement—which concretized and initialled on two large-scale map sheets the north-east frontier of India, (provisional, scale 1 inch: 8 miles)—and the Indo-Tibetan trade treaty were great achievements. These agreements were perhaps underplayed at that time because of the international political power play then happening and the war clouds on the horizon, not to mention the self-denying (for Britain) Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (see Appendix 3). The Simla agreement was, as a result, not accurately recorded in Aitchison’s treaties soon afterwards.
For independent India, the McMahon Line, as it is referred to now, has proved to be a boon; it is cartographically accepted and shown as the boundary in maps worldwide. In retrospect, it would be fair to conclude that Sir A.H. McMahon, in drawing up the Simla Convention, added an invaluable feather in his cap, one that would also be remembered by India forever.
14
Defining and Delineating the McMahon Line
‘… of all these natural features, a definite line of watershed carried by a conspicuous mountain ridge, or range, is undoubtedly the most lasting, the most unmistakable, and the most efficient as a barrier.’1
One of the principal British objectives of the Simla Conference, although unstated, was to identify, concretize and delimit the frontier between Tibet and the British Empire in the north-eastern region of India and northern Burma. Chao Erh-feng’s advance into central Tibet and Lhasa, his forays into the Himalayan frontier during 1910–11 and the flutter it created amongst the British administration and the European community in the tea gardens and oilfields of Assam, resulted in a U-turn of the British policy of ‘non-involvement’, not only in Tibetan affairs but also in the affairs of the indigenous tribes living in the densely forested and unpenetrated hills up to the Himalayan crest line. It would be correct to say that until 1910, not much was known of the tribal territory in this region, apart from the Lohit Valley and the trade route coming down from Tawang to Udalguri along the Bhutan border. The rest was ‘terra incognito’, and this information void could have been a costly lapse and a source of huge embarrassment to the British Empire.
In a September 1911 note to Whitehall, Viceroy Lord Hardinge was clear about what British policy on these matters would be. He said:
Circumstances have thus forced us to revert practically to the original proposal of Lord Minto’s government that endeavours should be made to secure, as soon as possible, a sound strategical boundary between China and Tibet and the tribal territory from Bhutan up to and including the Mishmi country, and this should, we consider now, be the main object of our policy.
As long as there existed a tribal belt between India and a ‘peacefully dormant neighbour’ like Tibet, there was no threat, went his rationale; but ‘with the recent change in conditions, the question of a boundary well-defined and at a safer distance from our administrative border admits of no delay’.2
The viceroy then tasked the chief of General Staff with carrying out an appreciation of the Himalayan border and submitting a report suggesting a ‘suitable frontier line’, keeping in mind the geostrategic imperatives and factors such as the historical background, traditional frontiers and ethnicity of the region. It is remarkable that even a century ago the British policymakers gave so much importance to custom, tradition and ethnicity while deciding the boundaries of their empire.
Accordingly, survey missions were launched during the campaigning seasons from September to April of 1911–12, 1912–13 and 1913–14. These were the Mishmi mission that explored the Lohit and Dibang Valleys; the Abor mission that endeavoured to penetrate the hitherto untrodden Siang or Tsangpo Valley (as a matter of fact, this was a punitive expedition to avenge the murder of Williamson) and the Siyom Valley to its west; the Miri mission that had been given the task of venturing into the unknown Subansiri, Kamala and Khru Valleys, where no white man had been seen before; and finally the Aka mission, which was given the responsibility of exploring the Kameng Valley and the Tawang Chu and Namjyang Chu Valleys, where, again, no Westerner had entered until 1910.
However, it needs to be borne in mind that some kind of agreements had already been made with these tribal people by the Upper Assam administrative authorities through their political officers. Besides gaining knowledge of the topography of the land, the aim of these military–civil ventures was to establish friendly relations with the tribes, to institute a system of loose political control, and to demonstrate the superiority of British military power.
The British General Staff in Simla, the Military Department in the Government of India and the surveyor general began working feverishly during the period 1910–14 to carry out fresh strategic analyses and assessments based on the numerous reconnaissance reports and tour diaries as they arrived. At the same time, the sketchy and incomplete topographical information available on maps was revised without delay. The same sense of urgency was transmitted to the frontier officials and the field force of the army. As of 1910, geographical information about the region was grossly inadequate. This was emphasized in the memorandum of 8 July 1914 summarizing the events from 1911 to 1914, which was appended to the final memorandum of the Simla Conference. On the inadequacy of the empire’s knowledge of the terrain at the frontier up to 1910, McMahon had said in the memorandum:
We had practically no geographical knowledge in regard to the configuration of the country, the position of the frontier was undefined and unknown, and the Government of India was well content to leave the tribesmen to their own devices, so long as they confined themselves to the hills, and respected the lives and property of British subjects in the cultivat
ed and administered plains which lie just to the south of the mountainous tribal belt.3
Traditional age-old boundaries did exist, though not defined formally, along the natural divide formed by the highest mountain ranges, the passes and river valleys in the region. However, these kept changing over the centuries as migration of peoples kept taking place. Even though there were no settled populations along the seemingly impassable high-altitude areas, the indigenous tribes referred to as ‘Lopas’ by the Tibetans and others exercised their rights for hunting, grazing, and collection of medicinal herbs and rare edible rock algae up to their side of the high Himalayas. The Lopas fiercely defended their territories against intrusion by aliens.
The remoteness and inaccessibility of this region resulted in its appellation of ‘Shangri-La’. The course of the Tsangpo in the area of the famous bend in the Himalayan gorge was unknown to both the Western world and to the people in India, even to those living in the plains of Assam. Myths abounded, of a river descending from the heavens and of a mammoth waterfall in this region. The lack of geographical information on this area was in fact astounding; whether the Tsangpo and the Siang, Dihang and Brahmaputra were one and the same river had till then not been conclusively proved. The upper reaches of many other rivers flowing through the tribal areas, some of them cutting through the Himalayas—such as the Namjyang Chu, Tawang Chu, Kameng, Subansiri, Kamala, Siyom, Siang, Dibang and Lohit—were ‘unknown territory’. Access to the Himalayan watershed from the south was barred to outsiders by the tribal peoples in the area. The sole exception was the Lohit Valley, which had been penetrated by a Westerner; it had been entered from the Tibetan side by Captain Bailey in early 1911 and a few times from Sadiya, a frontier administrative base in Assam. In those days, a white man with ‘yellow hair’ was viewed with immense curiosity and suspicion by the native tribes.
It was McMahon’s design that this boundary should, first of all, define the southern limit of Tibet by being drawn as a red line, eastwards from the north-eastern corner of Bhutan to the tri-junction of Tibet, India and Burma north of the Diphu Pass. Beyond that it would then continue eastwards along the Irrawaddy watershed and then southwards to the Isu Razi Pass in the Taraon Valley. Delineation of this boundary would also result in delimitation of the northern frontiers of Assam and Burma. From there the red line was to be drawn in a loop going upwards and westwards, marching along the historical and traditional boundary of Tibet with the Chinese Szechuan and Xinjiang provinces, to end near the Karakash river in western Tibet, thereby encompassing the whole of Tibet and delimiting its frontiers with India’s north-east and with the Yunnan, Szechuan and Xinjiang provinces of China. This red line eventually came to be known as the McMahon Line (see Figure 17).
At the second meeting of the Simla Conference on 18 November 1913, McMahon had emphasized that it was imperative to decide on the geographical and political limits of Tibet as an entity before any discussion could take place on its status with respect to China. Both Tibet and China had adopted maximalist positions as far as their boundaries were concerned; their claims stretched to such an extent that Tibet claimed territory as far east as Tachienlu and Kokonor lake, and the Chinese felt they were entitled to extend theirs westwards to include Chiangta (Giamda), about 200 kilometres from Lhasa. Understandably, both sides had catered for some latitude for bargaining, but there was an amazing and ludicrous spatial gap of over 1,600 kilometres between the two claim lines (Figure 17). This proved to be a major hurdle during the negotiations and was the principal reason for refusal by the Chinese to be a party to the agreement. Whereas McMahon’s proposal received the Tibetan delegation’s assent, the Chinese plenipotentiary continued to demur and procrastinate. Despite this, McMahon decided to continue discussions independently with the Tibetans till such time as Ivan Chen received the go-ahead to join in. As a matter of fact, instructions to that effect were indeed received by Chen soon after these independent discussions, thus proving the efficacy of the British threat and indicating the degree of Chinese sensitivity to direct Anglo-Tibetan talks.
During the Simla Conference, the British and Tibetans commenced serious parleys for a month, starting in mid-January 1914, to arrive at a mutually acceptable boundary between Tibet and the north-east frontier of the British Empire, including northern Burma. By then the most crucial and important geopolitical inputs, significantly from the Tibetan side, based on the first-ever surveys done by any European after traversing and surveying about 600 kilometres of an important and previously unsurveyed part of the Himalayan frontier, from the mystical Tsangpo gorge up to Bhutan, had also been obtained. This vital survey report was submitted to McMahon by Captains Bailey and Morshead in November 1913 at Simla. All these reports helped fill vital voids and grey areas, not only in the geographical knowledge of that particular region but also in what was known about the ethnic composition of the peoples inhabiting the frontier region on both sides of the Himalayan divide. The surveyors were also able to discern to a fair degree of accuracy the southern border of Tibet and the area controlled and inhabited by the indigenous tribes or the Lopas.
The identification of and correlation between the various peaks of the highest Himalayan chain in the region, which had now been surveyed from both sides—from a closer proximity and greater accuracy from the Tibetan side—proved to be a boon for McMahon. His team was able to come up with a fairly accurate boundary in the nick of time. Details about the local conditions and ethnicities gained by them, particularly of the Tawang region, proved to be of vital importance. It needs to be borne in mind that this particular reconnaissance by the two outstanding adventurers was the first by any European along this route. To have covered 2,700 kilometres in a period of about six months (15 May to 14 November 1913), averaging 15 kilometres daily, was a stupendous feat by any standard. This arduous journey was made mostly on foot, and at other times on horseback, wherever the terrain and the track permitted.
It bears highlighting that many studies of the Indo-Tibetan boundary have not adequately analysed the interrelationship between the Burma–Tibet and India–Tibet boundaries. As has been mentioned earlier, the Chinese design was to carve out a new province of Hsikang by including in it Amdo, Kham and the Marches, along with areas of Tibet proper as far west as Chiangta/Gyamda, the south-eastern districts of Pomed and Zayul, and the upper Irrawaddy region in Hkamti Long. Possession of a direct route between Yunnan province of China and Lhasa through the Zayul and Pomed districts was a core strategic objective for the Chinese, although, according to the British Legation at Peking, the Chinese could ‘show no historical claim, nor any claim by conquest, to these two districts which are entirely beyond the bounds of their control’.4 For the Chinese, this vital artery would avoid not only the difficult terrain comprising deep gorges formed by the Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and their tributaries, as well as numerous high-altitude and snow-covered passes, but also the ungovernable tribes of the southern Kham region. Besides, the existing southern route was prone to heavy snowfall and massive landslides, remaining generally closed during winter.
The British were quick to realize the dangerous portents of this new link, even if their primary concern at that time was only to ensure the security of the tea plantations and the oilfields and coalfields of upper Assam, and other European investments. So they took steps to ensure that no encroachments by the Chinese were allowed in northern Burma and in the Taraon Valley.
From the Isu Razi Pass, the alignment of the boundary followed the Irrawaddy watershed up to the tri-junction between Burma, Tibet and India, slightly north of the Diphu Pass. As part of their strategy, the British also established firm control over this region by developing Myitkyina as a railhead and road terminus, and thrust ahead with their flag to the watershed of the Irrawaddy north of Putao, where they established a frontier outpost, naming it Fort Hertz. This was to honour the services of William Hertz, a civil service officer, towards consolidation of the British Empire in north Burma between 1888 and 1913. By th
ese measures, China’s quest for a secure, all-weather and direct (shortest) route from Yunnan to Lhasa was given a quiet burial.
Going westwards from the tri-junction of Burma, Tibet and India, the boundary descended into the Lohit Valley along the northern shoulder of the Dichu stream, cutting across the Lohit river upstream of Walong and north of a hamlet called Kahao. The last Tibetan settlement is at Sama, which is just across the boundary. From there the boundary continued westwards to the source of the Tho Chu and followed the watershed of the Rong Thod Chu and the Dibang and its numerous tributaries. The alignment of this stretch of the proposed boundary, up to a peak named Kangri Karpo, which was the fount of three valleys—Rong Thod Chu to the east, Chimdro to the north and Dibang in the south—was based on sketchy information obtained from the locals. Even though Kangri Karpo peak, which is of a height of over 5,000 metres, had been fixed by the survey parties of Dundas’s Mishmi mission in 1912 with a fair degree of accuracy, no exploration teams could have penetrated the thickly forested slopes and extremely challenging terrain leading to the south-eastern part of the Dibang watershed. Perhaps because of this, an approximate alignment based on oral evidence supplied by the indigenous peoples was accepted for this section of the frontier, from the Kangri Karpo peak to the Glei Dakhru Pass and eastwards to Lohit river. The extent of inadequacy or incompleteness of such a survey probably explains the creation of two prominent salients nicknamed the ‘Fish Tails’. Based on information provided by the Mishmi tribals, these wedges were supposed to define the watershed by following the shoulders of the valleys formed by the tributaries of the Rong Thod Chu, as incorrectly marked in the map of that period that accompanied McMahon’s memorandum of 8 July 1914. These tributaries do not actually exist as confirmed by modern surveys and even tourist maps!