The myth of ‘Greater China’

History has moved on. For the 21st century to be stable, 20th century borders must be stable, whatever be our yearnings

Mohan Guruswamy Diqen (Yunnan, China)

The Chinese seem to be either testing the waters or ratcheting up the dispute over, either the whole of Arunachal Pradesh or part of it with their recent string of pronouncements on the subject, starting with the statement of the Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi. The Chinese have never been quite explicit on how much of Arunachal they seek. Yesterday, I saw an official map displayed in a travel agent's office in Lhasa that showed only the Tawang tract as Chinese territory. In other maps they have their border running along the foothills, which means all of Arunachal.

The Chinese have based their specific claim on the territory on the premise that Tawang was administered from Lhasa, and the contiguous areas owed allegiance to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. Then the Chinese must also consider this. Sikkim, till into the 19th century a vassal of Tibet and Darjeeling, was forcibly taken from it by the British! By extending this logic could they realistically stake a claim for Sikkim and Darjeeling? Of course not. It would be preposterous. History has moved on. The times have changed. For the 21st century to be stable, 20th century borders must be stable, whatever be our yearnings.

At the crux of this issue is the larger question of national identities of the two nations and when and how they evolved. The imperial India of the Mughals spanned from Afghanistan to Bengal but did not go very much below the Godavari in the south. The imperial India of the British incorporated all of today's India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but had no Afghanistan, not for want of trying. It was the British who, for the first time, brought Assam into India in 1826 when they defeated Burma and formalised the annexation with the treaty of Yandabo. It was only in 1886 that the British first forayed out of the Brahmaputra valley when they sent out a punitive expedition into the Lohit valley in pursuit of marauding tribesmen who began raiding the new tea gardens. Apparently, the area was neither under Chinese or Tibetan control for there were no protests either from the Dalai Lama or the Chinese Amban in Lhasa. Soon, the British stayed put.

Tibet remained in self-imposed isolation and the race to be first into Lhasa became the greatest challenge for explorers and adventurers in the second half of the 19th century. Not the least among these were the spies of the Survey of India, the legendary pundits. The most renowned of these was Sarat Chandra Das whose books on Tibet are still avidly read today. As adventurers, often military officers masquerading as explorers began visiting Tibet; the British in India began worrying. Reports that the most well-known of Czarist Russia's military explorers, Col. Grombchevsky, was sighted in Tibet, had Lord Curzon, the Governor General of India, most worried.

In 1903, Curzon decided to send a military expedition into Tibet led by Grombchevsky's old antagonist, Col. Francis Younghusband. A brigade strong mixed force of Gurkhas and Tommies went over the Nathu La into the Chumbi valley and advanced unhindered till Shigatse. A Tibetan military force met them there but offered what can only be described as passive resistance. Not a shot was fired back as the British Indian troops rained bullets on them. It was a forerunner to Jallianwalla Bagh.