Article 78

Tibet: Priority for Indian Foreign Policy

By M.L. Sondhi
Tibetan Review, Vol. VII, No. 6-7, June-July 1972

“A dynamic Indian Tibet policy must have three inter-related purposes: First, although the Communist Chinese do not wish to acknowledge their responsibility for their genocidal actions in Tibet, India must not allow Peking to extricate itself from the burden of moral and political guilt. This question must remain on the agenda of bilateral negotiations with Peking and should also be underscored and assigned high priority after the initiation of the Chinese Communists in the United Nations system.

Second, a substantive element of constructive negotiations must be the recognition of the Dalai Lama’s right to speak for his own people whose interests should not be sacrificed in the interests of a new Sino-Indian understanding. Finally, India must reaffirm with firmness and strength her conviction that the area of Tibet should not be used for creating a hostile military presence and she should seek an explicit recognition of her interest in the demilitarised orientation of Tibet.”

Bridges with the Sinic World

The difficulties involved in developing a course of rapprochement between New Delhi and Peking cannot be overcome without attenuating the final character of Peking’s colonialist power position in Tibet. The geographical realities of Tibet’s situation make it India’s principal problem for any serious re-examination of foreign policy towards China. India’s obligations and responsibilities towards the Tibetan nation against the background of the 1959 uprising and the Dalai Lama’s asylum in India, need not be looked upon as formidable barriers to fresh efforts to build bridges with the Sinic world. What is actually at issue is the possibility of developing a new perspective in which Tibet is no longer regarded as an integral part of the Chinese community but a resurgent Asian nationalism whose destiny lies in common understanding and association with both India and China. The legal interpretations of the Chinese, Tibetan and Indian Governments on the international status of Tibet are hardly decisive under conditions where basic factors in relationship between Tibet and India and China demand deep and far-reaching political action, to develop a stable peace order in Central Asia.

Peking’s Counter-revolutionary Role

Indian sponsorship of Tibet’s cause does not entail a journey on a way which is irretrievably blocked and would be unpalatable to Peking under all circumstances. What should be the framework within which a variety of points of view relating to the strategic and political calculations of the Chinese and the Indians can be considered to promote the growth of a consensus of the future of Tibet? The historical experience beginning with the 1951 Agreement between Lhasa and Peking strongly indicates that Communist China has only had an ambiguous assurance that it has bridged the gap between the Chinese and the Tibetans. The Sino-Indian agreement of 1954 was intended on Peking’s side to remove the underlying instability of the position of Tibet. The Chinese Communists did not gauge the danger of the acute tensions generated by the dogmatic and propagandist moves to weaken Tibetan autonomy. The resulting situation produced an escalation in Tibetan resistance and its culmination in the events of 1959. The long smouldering resentment of the mass of the Tibetan people found expression in the revolutionary mission of the Tibetan freedom fighters who adopted the same guerrilla tactics which were preached by the Maoists to the world at large. Peking’s leaders who boast of a vast experience of revolutionary activity found themselves cast in a counter-revolutionary role in Tibet. To understand the present situation in Tibet it is essential not to be misled by the inflated claims of the Chinese Communists; there remains in full view for the discerning observer the political vulnerability of Peking and the stubborn fact of the resilience of the revolutionary Tibetan forces.

Adventurism vs Capitulationism

The spectrum of a new Indian posture on Tibet cannot exclude the themes which relate to Communist Chinese responsibility for the deteriorating relations between the Chinese and the Tibetans. Indian policy should, however, aspire to generate an atmosphere of détente by attempting to conduct its pressure on the vulnerable points of Peking’s position with a readiness to reach practical solutions. Progress in India’s Tibet policy will depend entirely on the ability of the Indian Government to avoid both “adventurism” and “capitulationism”. While India may have to offer sanctuaries to the Tibetan guerrillas and alter the magnitude and character of Indian sympathy for the aims of the Tibetan freedom fighters, Indian diplomacy must lay the groundwork for a moderate and reasonable settlement which will lead to stabilisation of the internal politics and external relations of Tibet.

Three Purposes

A dynamic Indian Tibet policy must have three inter-related purposes: First, although the Communist Chinese do not wish to acknowledge their responsibility for their genocidal actions in Tibet, India must not allow Peking to extricate itself from the burden of moral and political guilt. This question must remain on the agenda of bilateral negotiations with Peking and should also be underscored and assigned high priority after the initiation of the Chinese Communists in the United Nations system. Second, a substantive element of constructive negotiations must be the recognition of the Dalai Lama’s right to speak for his own people whose interests should not be sacrificed in the interests of a new Sino-Indian understanding. Finally, India must reaffirm with firmness and strength her conviction that the area of Tibet should not be used for creating a hostile military presence and she should seek an explicit recognition of her interest in the demilitarised orientation of Tibet.

India’s Failure

The crux of the matter is that it is impossible for India to divorce her National Security Policy from its intricate connection with the politico-military order in Tibet. In a very real sense, from October 1950 to September 1951, India would not have found it difficult to exert her influence on behalf of a policy of military restraint by Peking if she had organised a deterrence posture based on the supply of conventional arms to the Tibetans and strengthened their bargaining power with the Chinese Communists. India’s commitment to a peaceful solution was not strengthened by curtailing the right of the Tibetans to improve their military posture. India also failed to offer a meaningful alternative when the matter was raised in the United Nations and the Indian representative’s approach lacked any sophistication and a total unawareness of the complexity of the military situation in Tibet. The ambivalence of the Indian position on a major foreign policy issue was naïve and maladroit and this contributed to seriously upsetting the balance of power between India and communist China. There is little doubt that in the early 1950s an Indian policy which took into account the stringent military limitations of Peking would have accomplished a political dialogue leading to a political settlement acknowledging the defence interests of India and Tibet and accommodating the security concerns of Peking.

Indian-Tibetan-Chinese Reconciliation

The Dalai Lama’s aspirations to the restoration of Tibetan freedom are an important psychological asset for India, and for the purposes of constructing a new approach to Peking it would be indispensable for the Government of India to be favourably disposed towards the functioning of the Tibet Government-in-exile. This government should draw up disengagement and demilitarisation plans and adopt a foreign policy programme based on a future consensus between New Delhi, Peking and Lhasa. While working at the political level for Indian-Tibetan-Chinese reconciliation, at the military level the Tibetan Government-in-exile would be free to coordinate aid programmes for the Tibetan resistance movement.

The choices confronting India in a new Tibet policy, in the context of disengagement and demilitarisation, will be, it is obvious, also of interest to the Soviet Union. India will have to study carefully the repercussions of its own actions on Soviet policy towards Tibet and Communist China, and India should be free to hold exploratory discussions with the Soviets. The success of India’s Tibet policy will, however, become manifest in a wholly new arrangement for tripartite diplomacy through the legitimization of the Dalai Lama’s government and dismantling the inadequate system created by the 1954 Agreement. India’s foreign policy programme would have to project Tibet as a live political issue, direct the main thrust of the Tibetan resistance to a fundamental change in the environmental conditions, and with energy and diplomatic skill create a new structure of security compatible with the political interests of India, China and Tibet.