Forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
http://tibet97.blogspot.com/2008/09/annexation-of-tibet-by-china-and-indias.html
Annexation of Tibet by China and India's Himalayan security
By Brahma Chellaney, Hindustan Times
September 22, 2008
First Published: 19:30 IST(22/9/2008) Last Updated: 19:38 IST(22/9/2008)
Art of War
Are we deceiving ourselves again?
By Arun Shourie ASA/Rupa Rs 395 PP 214
India and China are both adept at playing with numbers.
While China invented the abacus, India conceived the binary
and the decimal systems. But India, having forsaken the
Kautilyan principles, has proven no match to China's Sun
Tzu-style statecraft. From Nehru's grudging acceptance of
Chinese suzerainty to Atal Behari Vajpayee's blithe
acceptance of full Chinese sovereignty, India has
incrementally shed its main card -- Tibet.
As a result, India has found itself repeatedly betrayed.
Indeed, it wasn't geography but guns -- the sudden
occupation of the traditional buffer, Tibet, soon after the
communists seized power in Beijing -- that made China
India's neighbour.
Jawaharlal Nehru later admitted he didn't anticipate the
swiftness of the Chinese takeover of Tibet because he had
been "led to believe by the Chinese foreign office that the
Chinese would settle the future of Tibet in a peaceful
manner". Shourie's well-researched, powerfully written book
relies on Nehru's letters, speeches, notes and other
correspondence to bring out the significance, in Nehru's
own words, of the events from the 1950-51 fall of Tibet to
China's 1962 invasion.
The author then draws 31 lessons from those developments
for today's India. After all, there are im****tant
parallels, as Shourie points out, between the situation
pre-1962 and the situation now. Border talks are
regressing, Chinese claims on Indian territories are
becoming publicly assertive, Chinese cross-border
incursions are rising, and India's China policy is becoming
feckless.
Indeed, what stands out in the history of Sino-Indian
disputes is that India has always been on the defensive
against a country that first moved its frontiers hundreds
of miles south by annexing Tibet, then furtively nibbled at
Indian territories before waging open war, and now lays
claims to additional Indian territories. By contrast, on
neuralgic subjects like Tibet, Beijing's public language
still matches the crudeness and callousness with which it
sought in 1962, in Premier Zhou Enlai's words, to "teach
India a lesson". India's cru****ng rout in 1962 hastened the
death of Nehru, "a fervent patriot," according to Shourie,
who "misled himself and thereby brought severe trauma upon
the country, a country that he loved and served with such
ardour".
The defeat transformed Nehru from a world statesman to a
beaten, shattered politician. A classic example of Nehru's
selfdelusion cited by the author is the following note he
wrote on July 9, 1949, to the country's top career
diplomat: "Whatever may be the ultimate fate of Tibet in
relation to China, I think there is practically no chance
of any military danger to India arising from any change in
Tibet.
Geographically, this is very difficult and practically it
would be a foolish adventure. If India is to be influenced
or an attempt made to bring pressure on her, Tibet is not
the route for it. I do not think there is any necessity for
our defence ministry, or any part of it, to consider
possible military repercussions on the India-Tibetan
frontier.The event is remote and may not arise at all."
What Nehru naively saw as a "foolish adventure" was mounted
within months by China. What Nehru asserted was
geographically impracticable became a geopolitical reality
that has impacted on Indian security like no other
development since the 20th century. Right up to 1949, Nehru
kept referring to the "Tibetan government" and to Tibet and
India as "our two countries". But no sooner had China begun
gobbling up Tibet than Nehru's stance changed. He started
advising Tibetan representatives, as Shourie brings out, to
go to Beijing and plead for autonomy.
By 1954, through the infamous 'Panchsheel Agreement', Nehru
had not only surrendered India's extra-territorial rights
in Tibet but also recognised 'the Tibet region of China' --
without securing any quid pro quo, such as the Chinese
acceptance of the McMahon Line. From Nehru's grudging
acceptance of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet to Atal Bihari
Vajpayee's blithe acceptance of full Chinese sovereignty
over Tibet, India has incrementally shed its main card --
Tibet -- and thereby allowed the aggressor state to ****ft
the spotlight from its annexation of Tibet and Aksai Chin
to its newly assertive claims on Arunachal Pradesh.
The irony is that by laying claims to additional Indian
territories on the basis of their pur****ted ties to Tibet,
China blatantly plays the Tibet card against India, going
to the extent of citing the birth in Tawang of one of the
earlier Dalai Lamas, a politico-religious institution it
has systematically sought to destroy. Yet India remains coy
to play the Tibet card against China.
The sum effect of failing to use Tibet as a bargaining chip
has been that India first lost Aksai Chin, then more
territory in 1962 and now is seeking to fend off Chinese
claims to Arunachal Pradesh. And as Shourie reminds us,
India has still to grasp that the Chinese modus operandi of
promising a peaceful settlement and then employing force to
change facts on the ground is an old practice.
The lessons he paints -- from not running policy on hope to
ensuring peace by building capability to defend peace -- are
words of warning no leader****p ought to ignore. Shourie's
book is a call for a down-to-earth Indian policy which,
without pu****ng any panic buttons, begins to build better
Himalayan security and countervailing leverage to ensure
that China's growing power does not slide into arrogance
and renewed aggression. After all, China's dramatic rise as
a world power in just one generation under authoritarian
rule represents the first direct challenge to liberal
democracy since the rise of fascism in the 1930s.
But just as India has been battered by growing terrorism
because of its location next to the global epicentre of
terror, it could bear the brunt from its geographical
proximity to an increasingly assertive China.
Brahma Chellaney is a political commentator
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=cecc03dd-2d15-417e-8817-16cb0ca4b7fa
End of forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
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