That tightrope called Tibet

Forty-four years is a long time for consistency in politics, especially when the raw passion of youth comes face to face with the age of reason. But when all the sound and fury is done 8212; for example over the recent 8216;8216;incident8217;8217; between Intelligence Bureau officials and Chinese soldiers in the no-man8217;s land of Arunachal Pradesh, said to be brought upon themselves by the IB 8212; one of the most enduring stories in India8217;s foreign policy, on the question of Tibet, would have taken a small step forward.

Contrary to popular perception, that New Delhi 8216;8216;sold out8217;8217; the Tibetans to China 8212; in return for Beijing8217;s acknowledgement of Sikkim as being a part of India, as well as the promise of a boundary solution 8212; Tibetan leaders in exile in Dharamsala are actually quite satisfied with the Prime Minister8217;s June trip to China.

The sentence in the Sino-Indian joint declaration that seems to have seriously offended parts of the strategic and political community in the Capital 8212; 8216;8216;The Indian side recognises that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the People8217;s Republic of China8217;8217; 8212; has, in fact, been welcomed by none other than Samdhong Rimpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Passing through New Delhi recently, Rimpoche told The Indian Express that 8216;8216;this was the best sentence the Indian Government could phrase8217;8217;. He added, gently, that the Tibetan leadership had a prior idea of New Delhi8217;s negotiating strategy. 8216;8216;What happened in Beijing,8217;8217; Rimpoche said, 8216;8216;was not a surprise to us.8217;8217;

Rimpoche8217;s remarks confirm the perception that the Vajpayee Government, while it would like to cut a deal with China on the boundary issue, is keenly aware that the Dalai Lama8217;s non-violent struggle to keep the Tibetan story alive touches a popular nerve at home and abroad.

With the Tibetan leader himself 8216;8216;abandoning8217;8217; the drive for Tibetan independence and once again sending his emissaries to talk to Beijing 8212; talks were held in September 2002 and May-June this year 8212; New Delhi is hopeful that step-by-step progress can be made by all three sides in this triangular relationship.

It is learnt a series of consultations between the Indian side and the Dalai Lama took place before Vajpayee8217;s visit to China. Samdhong Rimpoche met senior officials in the Capital, while Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal met the Dalai Lama himself. A number of encounters took place between Nalin Surie, MEA8217;s pointsperson on the China desk now ambassador-designate to China, and the Dharamsala leadership. Surie even travelled to Dharamsala recently to bid farewell to the Dalai Lama before taking up his post.

The pre-visit negotiations, meanwhile, had been packed with drama. Since this was the first China trip by an Indian prime minister in ten years, New Delhi seemed to be under some pressure to pull off a 8216;8216;success8217;8217;. So even as a joint declaration was being wrapped up, differences on two major issues remained. First, Sikkim, which every country other than China recognises as part of India, as well as reopening trade at Nathu La. Second, Beijing wanted the Indian side to concede that 8216;8216;Tibet is an inalienable part of China8217;8217;.

As Air India One bearing the Prime Minister and his party lifted off for China on June 22, the joint declaration was still full of holes or 8216;8216;brackets8217;8217; in diplomatic jargon.

For the next 24 hours, both delegations laboured over the appropriate phraseology. It was found in the phrase, 8216;8216;The Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People8217;s Republic of China.8217;8217;

The Chinese were thrilled New Delhi had for the first time recognised TAR a province created by Beijing in 1965 by breaking up the historical boundaries of Tibet as part of the PRC. Xinhua, the state-owned Chinese news agency, was so exuberant it broke with official restraint and made the announcement a day earlier.

Meanwhile, there was quiet satisfaction on the Indian side, as well as in Dharamsala. Read the text carefully, journalists were repeatedly told, and there it was. What India had 8216;8216;recognised8217;8217; was TAR, the truncated Tibetan province that did not include Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo, which the Chinese had in 1965 amalgamated into Gansu, Qinghai, Szechuan and Yunnan provinces.

Since TAR was a later creation, it could not correspond to the boundaries of 8216;8216;historical Tibet8217;8217; 8212; which, in turn, had never been part of 8216;8216;historical China8217;8217;. Moreover, New Delhi had beautifully confused matters by accepting that TAR was part of the 8216;8216;Peoples Republic of China8217;8217;, which came into being in 1949. This, in fact, was the Dalai Lama8217;s line.

Samdhong Rimpoche seemed happy with the literary fudge. 8216;8216;TAR is a new phenomenon that exists only from 1965, while PRC is a phenomenon that exists only since 1949,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;Both exclude a commitment to history. Today8217;s reality is that TAR is a part of PRC.8217;8217;

Rimpoche also pointed out that though the Dalai Lama had dropped the idea of Tibetan independence and had once again sent emissaries to negotiate with Beijing, that only pertained to Tibet8217;s 8216;8216;future8217;8217; status. The past, he stressed, could not be tampered with. The historical fact remained that, certainly before 1914 and even till 1949, Tibet had been independent of Beijing.

Even so, since 1954 and the first agreement on 8216;8216;Trade and Intercourse between Tibet Region of China and India8217;8217;, the 8216;8216;Tibet region8217;8217; had always been accepted as part of 8216;8216;China8217;8217;. All the successive notes and joint communiques see box had noted that fact. Until now, when New Delhi allowed that a truncated TAR 8212; only part of the original Tibet 8212; was part of PRC, not China as it existed before 1949.

Dharamsala was more than relieved, even if Tibetan Youth Congress at first thought the Indians had quietly sold out.

In fact, a section of the Tibetan community now believes that thought contact with the BJP has not been as intense as with the Congress 8212; the Dalai Lama has met Vajpayee only once, just after the nuclear tests in May 1998 8212; the BJP government has been more than 8216;8216;faithful8217;8217; to the Tibetan cause, even reversing 8216;8216;concessions8217;8217; given by Jawaharlal Nehru. The Dalai Lama8217;s autobiography, Freedom in Exile, gives several instances of the superior manner in which Nehru treated the newly-escaped boy lama in 1959, although they became good friends later.

Meanwhile, the outpouring of Indian public opinion on the Tibetan question seems to have quite surprised Dharamsala. 8216;8216;By implying that the Indian Government had made a great concession to China on Tibet, Xinhua has actually done the Tibetan cause a great service,8217;8217; Rimpoche said. 8216;8216;We had begun to believe that the Indian people had sort of forgotten about us, even though we lived in your country. But now we know.8217;8217;