China and Tibet – The Future
Tibet is a region on the northern borders of India and for long acted as a buffer between India and China. Tibet has its own distinctive culture that is quite different from that of China. But it is also a fact of History that China has always coveted Tibet.
At the turn of the last century Tibet was a closed society. But Colonel Younghusband on the orders of Lord Curzon ordered an invasion of Tibet in 1903-04. The Tibetans were defeated and accepted a resident at Lhasa, the capital. But again the suzerainty of Tibet was recognized. The British shrewd as ever also got the Tibetans, Chinese and themselves into a pact that delineated the border with Tibet and India in the Shimla pact of 1914.
Tibet had degree of independence during the period between the two wars. However the end of the Second World War brought about a sea change in the political equation. India was granted independence by the British.Nehru the Indian Prim Minister, who had all his life spent agitating against the British rule did not understand the game of power politics. He showed naivity and by default accepted Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, though he talked of autonomy for the mountain state.
The Chinese invaded Tibet and soon entered Lhasa and all the while Nehru kept twiddling his thumbs. The Communists now established a stranglehold over Tibet and began to slowly dismantle their centuries old culture and religion. There was an uprising by the Tibetans which was ruthlessly crushed by China. The Dalia Lama the temporal and spiritual head of Tibet escaped to India and was granted political asylum
But again the Indian government could not do anything as China enforced communist rule over Tibet. Monasteries were razed and the Tibetan Buddhist nuns were forcibly married to Chinese men. The Lamas were hounded and Tibet was put under the strictest of laws. It was a dark age.
In this period the Indian Army suffered a devastating defeat to China and vast tracts of land were lost in Ladakh. The Chinese were thus able to consolidate their grip over Tibet. The Chinese even kidnapped young Tibetan girls and took them to China and Chinese from China were encouraged to settle in Tibet, so as to change the demographic character of the state.
As things stand the world and India can only sit and watch as the Chinese consolidate their grip over the Tibetan people. What is the solution? There appears to be none as the Chinese government on one pretext or another does not want to negotiate with the Dalai Lama. India and the USA are also weak as far as Tibet is concerned. Tibetan culture is totally suppressed and a curtain is drawn all over Tibet. Thus the road ahead is bleak and short of a complete collapse of communism in China, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the Tibetans.