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Opinion / S Zeyaur Rehman

'Nehru was so obsessed with his 'Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai' slogan that he was afraid to give even moral support to Tibet'

With the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (b 1876), we come to modern times. The British were firmly set on the Indian sub-continent and to consolidate themselves in the north, they sent a military expedition to Tibet under Colonel Francis Younghusband in 1904. Once having taken to Buddhism, the Tibetans were out of touch with warfare. By new to be in army was considered to be the lowest farm of life in Tibet. The result was a rout of the ill-equipped Tibetan army.

The Dalai Lama took refuge in Mongolia while his trusted official, the monk Lama Shar Lobsang Gyaltsen, concluded the treaty with Younghusband. We must note that the treaty was between Tibet and Britain, with China nowhere in the picture.

The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in December 1909, and in February 1910, Chinese troops entered Lhasa. He had to flee again, this time the direction was British India. As a result of circumstances, that is, disintegration, of the Manchu dynasty in China, the Tibetans ejected the Chinese in 1911.

When the communists in China had finished taking over Inner Mongolia, East Turkestan and Manchuria, they turned their attention to Tibet. On October 7, 1950, the Peoples Liberation Army of China invaded Tibet. Thus began the darkest phase in the history of Tibet.

The borders of Tibet were ill-defined; a proper census had never been held. The Dalai Lama was the absolute spiritual and temporal authority. Tibet was not very clearly defined as a nation in Western terms; it was not even a member of the UN; it was militarily poor, very backward, in fact, still medieval as a state. These are some of the factors, which made Tibet such an easy prey.

The international political scene was not favourable for Tibet then. India was an infant nation with its own set of problems. Nehru was so obsessed with his 'Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai' slogan that he was afraid to give even moral support to Tibet. It was Nehru who persuaded the 14th Dalai Lama, who was in India on the occasion of the Buddha Jayanti celebrations, to return to Tibet and talk with Chou En-Lai. India was not even ready to sponsor a resolution on Tibet in the UN. Nehru so dreaded going against China that India abstained when Malaya and Ireland sponsored a resolution on Tibet in the UN.

The USSR was not expected to act against China. And the US was then engaged in the Korean War and, by aiding Tibet, it did not went to open another front in Asia. The CIA clandestinely supported the freedom movement in Tibet, but that was never going to be enough.

Till date, countries like India and US, which can play a major role in the Tibetan problem, are yet to come up with a concrete policy on Tibet or a concrete proposal on the issue.

'In a private talk with the Dalai Lama, Mao admitted that Tibet is a great country in its own right'

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