Liberating Tawang was a masterstroke

TAWANG (a place chosen by a horse), which witnessed a clash between Indian and Chinese troops recently, and its surrounding places had fallen prey to Chinese imperial expansionism in the 17th century. It remained a colony of Tibet for over 250 years until the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911-12.

Immediately, one of the protagonists of ‘The Great Game’, Frederick Marshman Bailey, was the first to reach Tawang to survey the area during1911-12. He found the ethnic Monpas and Sherdukpens “very distinct from the Tibetans and resembled more with the inhabitants of Bhutan and Sikkim.”

Captain GA Nevill, who followed Bailey in 1914, alerted the government: “Tawang is particularly adapted for a secret and easy Chinese entrance into India.”

British officers (with a missionary zeal) initially tried to free the Monpas and Sherdukpens from excessive subjugation of the Lobas (Tanis) of Akas and Mijis who indulged in regular blackmailing raids and extortion.

On top of that, the Tibetan-run Tawang monastery, the biggest landowner, levied its own tax on Monpa farmers, manors, serfs, herdsmen and pastures. The wealth was transferred to Lhasa. Nevill noted how harshly the Monpas were exploited and murdered by the Tibetan government.

In 1938, Captain GS Lightfoot, in his damning report, wrote, “Only with the departure of Tibetan officials would automatically end their exactions of tribute and forced labour, the oppression which the Monpas bitterly resented.”

He further added, “Tawang monastery belonged to the Monpas, but so inextricably are State and religion intermingled that till the Tibetan monastic officials are withdrawn, Tibetan influence and intrigue must persist in the surrounding country.”

British attempts at liberating the Monpas were repeatedly thwarted by the Tibetan-China combine until the 1940s when Assam Rifles’ posts were set up in Rupa and Dirang to prevent the extortion of taxes.

The 80-year-old Pema Gombu of Lhou who had lived under Tibetan, Chinese and Indian flags, was quoted in the media saying how corrupt and cruel the Tibetan officials were. “They forced us to give over a quarter of our crops to them. We had to carry the loads 40 km to a Tibetan town as tribute every year.”

Tawang’s politico-religious history indicates that it was originally a strong bastion of the Tantric sect founded by 8th-century Indian saint Padmasambhava of Nalanda University. The legend has it that he, by miracles, routed from the place of evil god Dsa-mun and, instead, revealed a sacred realm of Le-go-shi (four entrances to rightful endeavour) comprising four Valleys covering the Yangtse and the holy Domtsang (Chumi Gyatse Falls).

The areas south of the Sela Pass particularly remained a stronghold of Padmasambhava’s Nyingmapa and associated Karmapa and Kagyu religious traditions founded by a 10th-century Bengali saint Naropa.

The third Karmapa built the earliest shrines in Tawang in the late 12th century. The current Karmapa Ugyen Thinly Dorji visited Tawang in 2016 — 400 years after the ninth Karmapa frequented the area in the 16th century. Dorji said he has revived the 900-year-old connection with Tawang and visited over 20 monasteries.

It is also the place where Tsangpa Yeshey Dorjee established the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, now followed by the people of Bhutan and Ladakh.

The indigenous sects lost their political and religious hold when the forces of the Tibetan Ganden Phodrang government under the 5th Dalai Lama, backed by the Qing Empire, militarily conquered Monyul in the 17th century. TS Murty notes that proselytisation in Tawang started in the 16th century.

The story goes that Merek Lama Lodre Gyatso sought to establish the Tibetan Gelug theocratic order vis-à-vis the Kagu order which had gained popularity in the neighbouring Drukpa nation (Bhutan) since 1616.

The Monpas stiffly Lodre’s plan but failed to check forces from the north. They had to build several dzongs (fortresses) to save themselves from the invaders.

Lodre completed the construction of Tawang monastery in 1681 and named it Galdan Namgye Lhatse (celestial paradise chosen by horse). A four-member council, Shi Drel, including a Khenpo (Abbot) and niertsang (attendants), were sent to sway spiritual and temporal authority over Tawang and a network of monasteries.

Following the Qing Empire’s collapse, British India tried to retrieve Tawang through negotiation with the Chinese and Tibetans which led to the signing of the Simla Convention in 1914.

China later chickened out of the accord that also increased the Tibetans’ ambiguity on the McMahon Line; refused to ratify the accord on the pretext that it was contingent upon Peking’s approval. They contended that the Tawang monastery is an integral part of the Tibetan Gelug theocratic system; hence it can never be parted from Tibet.

India’s takeover of Tawang was, therefore, delayed until 1938 due to a) the Tibetan volte-face, b) McMahon’s transfer from India, c) financial severity, and d) the outbreak of the two World Wars (1914-19 and 1939-45).

Lhasa continued to exert control. A British botanist, Frank Kingdon Ward, was arrested by the Tibetans in 1935 on the charge of trespassing in the area. Similarly, GS Lightfoot and his contingent were accused of entering Tawang without Lhasa’s permission.

Several such incidents prompted the government to create a separate Frontier Tract and it brought Tawang under the direct control of the Assam Governor in 1937. The delimitation of the Indo-Tibetan frontier was carried out in accordance with the 1914 Convention and the McMahon Line was depicted in map publications.

In 1946, the Frontier Tract was reorganised to create the ‘Sela Sub Agency’ to be placed under the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). An Assam Rifles post was set up at Dirang Dzong. The political officer post, hitherto held in abeyance, was stationed in Tawang.

It was only after China declared to ‘liberate’ Tibet in 1949 that India in December 1950 tasked the Assam Rifles (under Major R Khating) to evict the Tibetan army from south of the Sela Pass; the move led to the liberation of Tawang in early 1951.

China’s new argument is that Tawang is a part of Tibet’s Deprung monastery. Beijing’s plans do not exclude the use of the pervasive influence of the monastic institutions which were viewed as China’s imperial grandeur, for they also served as vital tools of Chinese expansion for over 300 years. Even though China cast off the Qing-era intimate political and spiritual alliance as a feudatory rule, in reality, Beijing still uses the old expansionist cultural-political paradigm as the footing for nibbling territory in the Himalayas — that our experts and columnists don’t wish to get into.

The game of spiritualism certainly engulfs the Indian minds, but it undercuts India’s ability for geopolitical reasoning vis-à-vis China. As Captain Lightfoot noted in 1938, until this intermingled and intriguing influence is brought to an end, the problem for India will persist.