Chanakya the
master of statecraft in ancient India practiced his art in and
around the subcontinent. His art has not flourished
all that well in India the land of his birth in the decades following
Independence. Before we get down to understanding as to how Hu
Jintao might yet again have outsmarted his counterparts in New
Delhi it would be worth reproducing relevant excerpts from the
book Global Security Paradoxes: 2000-2020 with special reference
to the chapter “China, Tibet, India: Status Quo or Reappraisal?”
-After establishment of Chinese unity through
the bloody route, the Chinese leaders understood, more comprehensively
than
anyone else, that power, in the ultimate analysis, did flow from
the barrel of a gun. Having understood the currency of power they
quickly went on to occupy Tibet while India was embroiled in Kashmir.
Indian leaders were not able to grasp the global reality of that
period. They tried to rebuild India on the platform of idealism.
They made way for the Chinese in Tibet. They have been making way
for the Chinese ever since.
Militarisation
of any region takes place on account of perceived military threats
to that region. In the second
half of
the twentieth century the Chinese rapidly militarized Tibet to
consolidate their grip on the conquered territory. In addition
to the internal unrest caused by the occupation they might have
had misgivings regarding the intentions of India and/or the USA.
Mention is made of only these two countries because no other nation
or community of nations had, or would be likely to have in the
foreseeable future, the direct interest or the military wherewithal
to mount any credible challenge to continued Chinese occupation
of Tibet. Today the world at large and certainly USA and India
are reconciled to the Chinese presence in Tibet. The misgivings
that China may have entertained in the twentieth century – if
at all – of being militarily challenged in Tibet cannot obtain
at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Therefore, since no country
seriously questions the status quo, China can safely undertake
the demilitarization of the Tibetan Plateau and the loosening of
its harsh grip on the Tibetan people without any qualms. The perceived
raison d’etre for the militarisation of Tibet having disappeared
altogether in the new millennium makes it possible for the Chinese
to arrive at an accommodation with the Dalai Lama and undertake
demilitarization without a backward glance.
Today,
the view from Beijing on the Tibetan issue would be that everything
is moving along better than expected.
From the
Chinese standpoint it is a dead issue. Washington and the European
capitals, they feel, keep the issue alive merely to embarrass China.
In the Chinese perception, as far as the West is concerned economics
will, hereafter, propel geopolitics. Hence, if geo-economics is
what matters China is exceptionally well placed – at least
for the time being. The other power that has any locus standi is
India. As Beijing sees it, India does not have the stomach to question
China’s policy in Tibet.
For
several decades India was a little more than a bit player vis-à-vis China in Central or South East
Asia or for that matter anywhere else, with some exceptions. Therefore,
it really did not have many options regarding Tibet. Not only did
it supinely accept Chinese outrages in Tibet, linked to developments
that threatened the security of India, it curtailed severely the
options that could have been exercised by the Dalai Lama to enlarge
the Tibetan question. It needs to be restated here that India did
not advocate the challenging of China’s position in Tibet
in the last century, nor does it wish to do so now, unless China
by its actions forces India and the rest of the world to throw
open the whole question of the occupation of Tibet. To obviate
such a situation the obvious course for China would be to settle
the boundary dispute with India and meet the very reasonable minimum
demands of the Dalai Lama. (Emphasis added)
China
has sat on the question of autonomy for Tibetans and the boundary
dispute with India for several decades.
It may
not be prudent for it to prolong these issues in the fashion that
it did before. Dramatic changes could take place that might not
be in China’s interest if it continues to drag its feet from
a position of near-absolute unassailability, to the extent that
the world had practically reconciled itself to the Chinese position,
primarily because the prime contenders, India and the Dalai Lama,
were not willing to challenge it or do anything about it.
The
moment the twentieth century mindset is shed, as being totally
inadequate, the realization dawns that the
simple
issue of the restoration of the Dalai Lama has assumed such extraordinary
military dimensions that one is hard put to find any parallel in
recent times. The nature of the military build up in Tibet is just
not commensurate to the challenge that the Dalai Lama poses. How
on earth can a handful of followers of an itinerant monk militarily
challenge the might of the Peoples’ Republic of China? The
very notion is absurd. Whichever way they look at the problem the
military dimension should not enter into the reckoning unless the
Chinese wish to use Tibet as a launch pad for aggression against
India at some future date. That assumption too becomes difficult
to comprehend in the case of Tibet. In the eyes of the Government
of India, except for not insurmountable differences on the boundary
issue, the Tibetan question has been settled once and for all.
The Dalai Lama has not advocated an armed uprising and nor would
the Indian government countenance such action from Indian soil.
Hence, China is very comfortably placed vis-à-vis Tibet
at the dawn of the twenty-first century. By not demilitarizing
Tibet it forces India to militarise the eastern Himalayas. Should
over-militarisation again erupt into a major conflagration the ‘settled’ Tibetan
question would automatically stand re-opened, regardless of the
outcome of the struggle. The rest of the world acquiesced in the
Chinese conquest of Tibet in the 1950s because India did so. Had
India challenged the usurpation, the world, without doubt, would
have sided with India at that time. China should remain eternally
grateful to India for not only serving Tibet to it on a platter,
but for compounding the Himalayan blunder by then going on to champion
that country’s case before the rest of the world, in the
difficult years following the communist takeover. Thereafter, India
maintained a stoic silence while the genocide in Tibet proceeded
apace. Hence, from a geopolitical standpoint it is vital to China’s
long-term interests to demilitarize Tibet with concomitant demilitarization
of the eastern Himalayas on the part of India.
Chinese
leaders have invariably taken a long-term view of China’s
security since the communist takeover. Even in the turbulent early
stages when the communist regime was threatened from various directions
and faced large-scale internal unrest on account of collectivization
they did not hesitate to challenge the might of USA in Korea. This
was in spite of the fact that the USA possessed atomic weapons
and the Chinese did not. They were also aware that the USA had
demonstrated its ability to use atomic weapons in the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having conquered Tibet, unopposed by India,
they would not only have readily accepted the boundary indicated
by India, but might have even agreed to a forward Indian presence
beyond its boundaries for a given period had India adopted an uncompromising
attitude in the early turbulent period of China’s consolidation.
Unfortunately for the Tibetans and the world at large the leaders
of the country south of the Himalayas displayed a lack of geo-political
realism.
Post–1962 it was difficult for Nehru’s successors
to undo the initial blunders of that great statesman, whose idealism,
in this particular case, was wholly misplaced. The country had
to live with the initial mistake till it was able to show some
spine in the closing years of the 20th century. By that time its
economic position had started improving and it was able to declare
itself a nuclear power after the Pokhran II tests of 1998. The
latter could have been a feather in the cap of another tall leader
of the country had Mr. Vajpayee not then gone on to compound the
monumental error of the Nehruvian period on his visit to China
as prime minister in 2003. Pandit Nehru was naïve. India had
just become independent. He was experimenting with non-alignment.
He was hoping to co-opt China into the same fold. After full 50
years there was absolutely no excuse for Mr. Vajpayee and his team
of strategic advisers to compound the original sin – for
it was nothing less than a sin – by making the statement
in China that India considered Tibet a part of that country. The
Chinese strategic community must have been stunned by India throwing
away its last trump card in such cavalier fashion. Vajpayee’s
successors went and repeated the assurance, thereby leaving themselves
no escape route for a rainy day. No wonder the Chinese in the final
declaration after the Hu Jintao visit said repeatedly that they
were happy to note that India accepted Tibet as a part of China.
Put in another way they were happy to note that it was India itself
that had further undermined the Dalai Lama’s position and
the cause of Tibetan autonomy; the question of independence had
been abandoned much earlier. At this stage it is worth examining
the consequences of the ineptitude of India’s leaders with
regard to the countries’ long-term strategic interest.
First
of all by reiterating that Tibet is unquestionably a part of
China it gives the Chinese, or rather confers upon them, the
legal right to question the boundary with India as well as Bhutan.
What is more, it confers similar rights on their successors. When
the Chinese occupied Tibet they would have been relieved to have
negotiated a treaty with India on the autonomous status of Tibet
had this country opposed their occupation of Tibet tooth and nail.
In those earlier years, in fact for several decades thereafter,
the Chinese were not really interested in occupying more Indian
territory after 1962. They kept - and continue to keep – the
boundary question alive so that Indian leaders never question China’s
occupation of Tibet or its activities in Tibet, which include the
marginalisation and genocide of Tibetans and the ecological devastation
of Tibet.
From
the time of Indira Gandhi’s declaration of Emergency
and more so after her demise Indian leaders have gotten into the
groove of sacrificing the national interest in the internal governance
of the country. The same tendency is reasserting itself in external
relations as well. There is a strange phenomenon operating in this
country whereby national leaders – and this includes military
chiefs as well – get carried away on their visits to foreign
countries, especially the USA and China. The charm offensive and
the encomiums showered upon them by their hosts evidently work
wonders. Almost invariably they end up giving much more than they
get in return. Moreover, there is a tendency amongst these leaders
to shine personally as great statesman on the world stage at the
cost of the long-term interest of the country. The same tendency
manifests itself in other fields as well.
Of
course it is possible to put an altogether different construction
on the attitude and actions of the Indian leaders dealing with
China since Independence. China’s history has been one of
aggressiveness with its neighbours. India’s historical experience
has been just the opposite. Chinese leaders are the product of
China’s past, just as India’s leaders are the product
of India’s past. The latter’s worldview would, in any
case, have carried a pacific strain. Consciously or subconsciously
it would have been reinforced by the passage of Mahatma Gandhi
on the Indian stage in the first half of the 20th Century. No Indian
leader of stature has been able to abjure Gandhi’s philosophy,
at least not publicly. The influence on the psyche of the people
of India as a whole goes much deeper. With this background it would
not be wrong to suppose that Indian leaders gave up several negotiating
advantages in the belief that India’s and, more importantly,
Asia’s long-term interest could only be served by complete
harmonization of India-China relations. Most Indians still hold
that view, the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the 1962 war notwithstanding.
It is not in China’s interest, and certainly not in the interest
of Asia and the world that India be forced by Chinese intransigence
to abandon its historical perspective and faith in pacifism as
an instrument of state policy. It was in this spirit that Nehru
went to Bandung as the leading votary of Panchsheel. It would indeed
be sad if Chinese leaders in the 21st Century were to take India’s
lack of aggressive posturing as a sign of weakness carried over
from the previous century.
In
the light of what has been stated above China, in its own long-term
interest, having been assured of India’s acceptance of Tibet
as a part of China, should commence the phased demilitarization
of the Tibet Autonomous Region and permit the return of the Dalai
Lama on the lines of the very modest proposals put forward by him.
Failure to do so would automatically, in the not too distant future,
reopen the entire Tibetan question. What is more, it would force
India to militarize its borders with China far more meaningfully
than at present. Militarization creates its own logic – mostly
tragic. China’s demilitarization of Tibet has now become
an ineluctable ecological imperative as well. The sooner China
gets going on this long delayed step the better it would be for
Sino-Indian relations and for peace and harmony in Asia.
The
world has been so inured to the China, Tibet, India equation
of the previous century that it failed to take into account the
importance of perhaps one of the most significant developments
of recent years as it moved into the new century. The epoch-making
event that needs to be emblazoned across all points of the horizon
is that in spite of the merciless repression visited upon the fragile
Tibetan nation – fragile in numbers and fragile in its ecology – since
the Chinese invaded Tibet the Dalai Lama has remained steadfast
in his belief in non-violence. Any other leader, recoiling in horror
at the magnitude of the devastation wrought on Tibet and its people,
would long ago have changed course; in the manner of so many insurgent
and terrorist organizations that have sprung up all over the world
to cause a veritable nightmare for the well-being of so many nations.
The Dalai Lama stood rock-like in his belief in ahimsa as propounded
by the Buddha and Mahavira several millennia ago and as practiced
by Mahatma Gandhi in the 20th century when challenging the might
of the greatest empire of that age. The Dalai Lama’s steadfastness
becomes doubly commendable in the face of the bitter opposition
by a large portion of the Tibetan youth who do not see any hope
for salvation – for their country or people – at the
other end of the road taken by their spiritual leader, no matter
how much they might revere him personally. This self-sacrifice
and steadfastness of the Tibetan people to uphold the values they
cherish, in the face of prolonged inhuman repression, has to be
seen in contrast to the violence and suicide bombings erupting
elsewhere in the world in the face of much lesser wrongs, imagined
or real, perpetrated against oppressed people. Today it is perhaps
the only experiment of its type on a large enough scale that the
world is aware of. It must not be allowed to fail. More, so for
the sake of humanity at large than just the Tibetan people. The
whole world has an immense stake in seeing the Dalai Lama’s
experiment succeed. The stakes are simply too enormous for humankind
in the midst of the turmoil that has now engulfed the world. The
spiritual leader of Tibet stands as a beacon for people everywhere.
A satisfactory outcome of his struggle will renew humanity’s
faith in itself in a world rent asunder by so many hatreds and
divisions.
New
Delhi
December 7, 2006
© Vinod Saighal
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