After Indian independence and the Chinese Revolution, which were roughly simultaneous, things were bound to change — and change they did. India’s initial reaction to the march of the People’s Liberation Army into Lhasa was sharp. China responded even more acrimoniously and refused to countenance any “interference” in its internal affairs. No country in the world contested China’s claim. The British who had started the whole thing were the first to wash their hands of Tibet. They were worrying about Hong Kong! In the circumstances, India accepted the inevitable but insisted that Tibet’s autonomy be protected. The Chinese readily concurred and even signed an agreement with the young Dalai Lama in 1953, which they cynically reneged on.

In accepting the Chinese assurance on Tibetan autonomy, Nehru rejected the advice of Sardar Patel and Rajagopalachari (then Union minister without portfolio) for a “clean break” with China, and ignored a “vague hint” by the American ambassador, Loy Henderson, that the State Department would be “glad to help, if asked”. Those who continue to curse Nehru for “not resisting” the Chinese occupation of Tibet are talking nonsense. India did not have the power to do so, and was itself under heavy pressure at the UN over Kashmir where an uneasy cease-fire was in its early stages.

Nehru’s cardinal mistake, of course, was the 1954 agreement on the Tibet region of China, accepting Chinese sovereignty over “autonomous Tibet” without any quid pro quo in terms of Chinese acceptance of this country’s “long-settled”, “long-established” border. This story of Nehru falling between the two stools of trusting and distrusting China and the Chinese successfully fooling the Indian side is much too complex and convoluted. In this, the role of then Indian ambassador to China, K.M. Panikkar, was not just disastrous but diabolical.

... contd.