Review: Tibet in Pictures

Govinda, L. G. (1979). Tibet in pictures : text and photos. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Pub.

The author and photographer of this book seems have been a remarkable woman. Li Gotami Govinda, wife of German-born Lama Govinda, was from a wealthy Bombay family before her restless artistic spirit brought her to Buddhism in 1947. She soon after journeyed to Tibet, and was the first and perhaps only non-Tibetan woman to ever live in Tibetan monasteries. It took thirty years for this trip that covered much of Western TIbet to be memorialized in a two volume set. Interestingly, her photos predate the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and thus provide valuable insight into a world that has all but disappeared over the last tumultuous half of the 20th century. Indeed, "Tibet in pictures" stands out as "the most complete account of the region's art treasures."

[Lama Govinda film project]

The opening of Nathu La and Himal's Positive Prognosis

Himal Magazine's July 2003 commentary, The Nathu La switch outlined how the establishment of a customs station at Nathu La, on the frontier of Sikkim and Tibet, basically accorded de facto recognition of India's annexation of Sikkim and China's control of Tibet. More importantly, the commentary also claimed that the trading post would allow China to have access to the sea via Highway 31 that passes a town called Silguri on its way to Calcutta's port. This vital trade link may figure prominently in any review of a resurgent border trade.

Here's a particularly telling passage that may indicate the potential of economic integration overtaking the lumbering state apparatus as the engine of economic development in the region:

...it is possible that uncharted developments may soon overtake the Indian Northeast, especially if an energised economy dilutes the sanctity of the internal state security apparatus that has been built up in this region. Who knows, even faraway Calcutta’s trade may see a revival of sorts as container trucks ply the distance to Lhasa via Siliguri and Yatung.

Today, if New Delhi is less apprehensive about China, it could very well mean that Nathu La is only the beginning, to be followed by the opening up of Jelep La and a lot of the other las (passes) in the Tibetan-speaking Himalayan rim of South Asia. The long-standing antipathy in New Delhi for Kathmandu’s desires for north-south roads within Nepal may also finally be overcome. The end result of this little switch on Nathu La could be the start of economic and human relationships across the northern frontier of South Asia.

Wow, this is what I have been looking for! [Himal Commentary]

The other two posts -- Gunji/Pulan through Lipu Lekh La (est. 1992) and Namgyal/Jiuba through Shipki La (est. 1993) is worth $100 million of official trade (2003) and looks to rise to $500 million in five years. This data was given in a Rediff article from 2003.

Prophetic Quote about the Bhotiya

The following quote appears in the conclusion of Vinita Hoon's seminal work on the Kumaon Bhotiya. While the language is rough, the fact that the border trade was identified as the locus of Bhotiya culture so early is remarkable. That the border was closed due to China's conquest of Tibet and the subsequent Sino-Indian War has set in motion the annihilation through assimilation pressures cited by Batten:

Traffic is the life and soul of the Bhotiyas and were the trade between the hills and Hoondes to become closed (though the wants of the Tibetans and their dependence on India for so many of the necessaries and luxuries of life may always be supposed to render such an event improbable) he would soon become an half-starved savage, or abandoning altogether his present station at the outposts between human endeavour and the extreme horrors of unconquerable nature, would rapidly merge into the common herd of Chinese Tartar or the Khasia Paharees.

Bratten, J.H. (1843). "Report of JH Batten Accompanying Settlement Papers of the Bhote Mehals and Northern Pergunnahas to GW Lushington" in Reports of the Revenue Settlement of the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency under Regulation IX, 1833, Vol. II, Part II, Medical Hall Press, Benares.

[link]

China-India Project at Hong Kong University

I recently reviewed a paper published by the Centre of Asian Studies at Hong Kong University by Professor B.M. Jain. He is one of the scholars associated with this new project which may be a useful resource for looking at Sino-Indian bilateral relations specifically. Indeed, their introduction echoes my thoughts on the state of relations:

Given their respective importance to Asia and the world, it is remarkable that there has been so little scholarly or social interaction between these two polities in recent decades. The two sides have been almost cut off from each other since the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Even more interestingly, Hong Kong remains the main link to India from the Chinese mainland, which reveals much about Hong Kong's cosmopolitan character as well as frozen relations across the Himalayas. [link]

The more of these resources I discover, the more I realized that the issues are being discussed in such places, including the US Institute of Peace which held a seminar on the state of Sino-Indian bilateral relations in October 2003 [link]. The Himalayan angle is key to this, but I feel that I must narrow my research further down to the people of the borderlands.

More tales of bewildering official secrecy

In addition to maps of the border area, it seems that the Indian government to this day has kept its records and investigations into the India-China War classified under the Public Records Act. Their 30-year declassification schedule was denied as well, and the documents remain top secret. Decried in a Rediff article commemorating that catastrophe, the official secrecy has basically allowed for the Chinese view of the conflict to dominate. The lack of an Indian side of the story contributed to the views of Kissinger and the White House in their 1972 trip which AGREED with the Chinese view of India as the aggressor!

The author Claude Alpi reveals further that:

"at the National Archives of India, all documents for the NEFA area (which included Tibet and Bhutan) were 'classified' after 1913 and nobody could access them. For 'Gilgit area' [read Kashmir], the date is 1923. This colonial terminology gives an indication of the backwardness of the historical studies in India. Have not the British left India 55 years ago?

What about the famous 'Nehru's Papers'? They are kept in the Nehru Library by a private trust, chaired by the leader of the opposition, and you have to obtain her consent to see them. In any case, you cannot see them, as they are 'restricted'.

Only 'official' historians are able to study them. The very helpful staff can only tell you: "Sorry, sir, this is the rule." India must be the only nation where the prime minister's official papers belong to his family and not the state!

In my case it was even more stupid because most of the political files regarding Tibet from 1914 till as late as 1952-53 were freely available for researchers in the India Office Library and Records in London. The moral of the story: go to London to study Indian history."

Aargh. This will certaintly make historical research more difficult. DAMN IT, OPEN THE RECORDS!

More on Pareechu from Nature

Nature magazine seems to have picked up the crisis over Pareechu lake in August with this article:

"Crisis foments as unstable lake builds in the Himalayas: Indian scientists say China is denying access to dammed river" Nature, 18 August 2004.

This claim seems to fly in the face of the news reports that painted a rosier picture of trans-Himalayan cooperation in the post-flood period. However, this article appeared relatively early, when little was known about the potential danger of the lake flooding the Sutlej, so maybe things did improve afterwards. Nevertheless, it does reveal how the information remains tightly controled on both sides.

Chronology of Sino-Indian ties

A thorough and comprehensive timeline of Sino-Indian ties since Indian independence was compiled by the Hindustan Times in their Friday, June 20, 2003 issue. Here's the [link].

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts also publishes many of its volumes entirely on the internet, such as this book where a timeline also appears in one of its sections. Incidentally, this chapter provides more context to the trade figures where we see a steady increase during China's age of capitalist export-oriented expansion from $2.5 million in 1977 to $1.16 billion in 1999. Here's the full citation and link:

Singh, S. (1998). Building Confidence with China. In T. Chung (Ed.), Across the Himalayan gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. [link].

High resolution pictures of Pareechu Lake

NASA hosts very high resolution pictures of natural disasters in the making on their earth observatory web site. While searching for Pareechu maps, I found this site that will be of immense help in the future for getting accurate information on restricted areas. [link]

Tibetan Information Network news

The TIN carries several articles that should be of use for understanding the actual state of relations on the border from a Tibetan perspective. For example, they have stated that "talks held by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the government of India in the Indian capital New Delhi in July 2004 have failed to bring about a general normalisation on the Indo-Tibetan border." However, the Indian side has remained optimistic about opening a Land Custom Station in Leh and other points of crossing from India into Tibet. There are already two in operation -- Shipki La (Himachal) and Gunji (Uttaranchal?) while a third is being built at Nathu La in Sikkim.

However most importantly in their Sept. 8, 2004 article, TIN has claimed that smuggling by nomads in the region is continuing despite the lack of a LCS in Ladakh. So the border is actually porous!

Vajpayee's trip to Beijing in June 2003 was also given extensive coverage as Nathu La was opened.

[TIN link]
[border smuggling]
[2003 trip]

Himalayan research institutes

Actually, I should note down some institutes that are already dedicated to conducting research on the Himalayas:

1. INDIA

- Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (Dehradun)
- Wildlife Institute of India (Dehradun)
- GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development (Almora)

2. INTERNATIONAL

- ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development [link]

ICIMOD has also listed its 1997 collaborators which can provide some leads into research institutes from the wider region. [link]

Photo galleries of various Himalayan treks

This UK-based Himalayan trekking company has some spectacular photo galleries. One of the most interesting is the Kailash trek for obvious reasons. The pictures seem to show that the pilgrimage sites near Lake Mansarovar and Kailash are quite crowded with many tents, burial grounds, and of course prayer flags.

[link]

Trans-Himalayan Murals

Frontline has carried an extremely fascinating account of trans-Himalayan murals in its Oct.23-Nov.5 issue. Many of the murals depicted come from the lost Buddhist kingdoms of Kashmir that were extent in the 8th century, when Vajrayana Buddhism swept eastwards through Ladakh, Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Tibet, etc. Another flowering came in the 11th century under the patronage of King Yeshe-Od of Guge. [link]

The ravaging of the Himalaya

Hiranmay Karlekar, writing in the Pioneer, decries the rape of the Himalayan environment by insensitive tourists and interlopers. The overbuilding and despoilment of the hills has long been an issue, but has become increasingly evident with the expansion of all the hill stations, including Manali, Mussoorie, and Nainital, beyond their carrying capacity in the last twenty years.

Here's a particularly potent passage: "Palatial structures, architectural monstrosities advertising the marriage of wealth and coarseness, and with total disharmony with their environs, mushroom. Mindless over-drawing, by gargantuan housing complexes, hotels and resorts, is causing water scarcity. With trees being felled indiscriminately to enable construction-both in the hills and them plains-the forest cover, already perilously thin, is becoming thinner. Wildlife is increasingly deprived of its habitat."

Karlekar's passage represents a particular strain of romantic literature that harks back to the British era when hill station were sites of elegance and prestige. However the feelings of loss go beyond mere nostalgia, as the beauty of places like Dehradun can be remembered by people who are only reaching their elder years now.

[link]

China Rising

Both the Globe and Mail and the National Post focused an entire issue to China's rising status in the 21st century this Saturday, Oct. 23. The Globe and Mail focused both feature articles and op-eds on the issue which has come up as a preeminent issue over the last decade. This time, the China's continuing rapid growth as well as its skyrocketing demand for oil is fueling both concerns and expectations about the new superpower.

The piece on Tibet as well as the rural poor and miseries of the working class casted long shadows on what was otherwise a somewhat disturbing paen to China's superfueled capitalism and consumerism. Well worth a read for what the leading agenda setters are thinking about this phenomenon and what it holds for the future.

For Tibet, the Golmud to Lhasa Railway, also a major concern of the International Campaign for Tibet, figures prominently as a stake directed at the heart of Tibet's indigenous culture, which may suffer the same fate as other indigenous peoples bisected by such rapid transit infrastructure. The ICT terms it as the second invasion of Tibet, perhaps not unlike the settling of the American West!

[Globe and Mail Special Report]
[ICT Report]

Imperial Gazetteer

The Digital South Asia Library at the University of Chicago seems to have digitized the entire contents of the Imperial Gazetteer of India, published in 1909 Clarendon Press in Oxford, 1909. I was able to download most of the pages to do with the territorial extent of Uttarakhand as the whole Gazetteer is a remarkable treasure trove of information at the district, tehsil and city levels. [link]

Review: Virtual Tibet

Schell, O. (2000). Virtual Tibet : seaching for Shangri-la from the Himalayas to Hollywood (1st ed.). New York: Metropolitan books.

As a sympathizer of the Tibetan cause, Schell seems perfectly place to dissect the somewhat problematic relation between Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and Western Romanticism as embodied in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet starring Hollywood icon Brad Pitt. In his travels during the production and eventual premiere of the movie, he visits Heinrich Harrer, the spellbinding mountaineer and storyteller who mythologized his account of his escape from a British POW camp in Dehradun in 1944, to his two year journey to Lhasa, and his five years with the Dalai Lama as a "special advisor". The ineffectual nature of Hollywood's intervention is found most wanting when it fails to bring about substantial qualitative change in the policies of important countries like the US and EU. Eventually, what Schell speculates and fears is that the Tibetan cause seems destined to remain a cause celebre, popular precisely because it requires little in the way of sacrifice by supporters. [amazon link]

Abstract for CAGONT 2004

Here's the abstract I submitted for the CAG-Ontario conference in Waterloo this October 30th:

Prospects for trans Himalayan research amidst warming bilateral relations between India and China.

In recent months, political relations between India and China, frozen since the 1962 India-China War, have warmed considerably, leading to the possible restoration of amicable relations across their Himalayan frontier. Fortunately, this subtle but perhaps pivotal geopolitical shift comes at a time when the need for a regional approach is increasingly being felt to address the multifaceted challenges facing the fragile mountain environments and the economic, cultural, and social marginalization of the Himalayan peoples.

In this presentation, the potential impact of these developments will be explored by outlining the historical context of political, spiritual, and commercial relations across the trans Himalayas, the contemporary avenues for regional cooperation, and emerging opportunities for scholarly work in this area. Moreover, both the evolving Sino-Indian relationship and the interests of highland communities in this process will be considered.

Confederation of Himalayan States?

Surprise, surprise. ND Tiwari, Chief Minister of Uttaranchal does have some good ideas on how to empower the Himalayas. A two-day conference of the forest and environment ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, West Bengal, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland concluded in Dehradun on Oct. 12, called for such an alliance. The idea was for the central government to compensate the ecologically sensitive Himalayan states for bearing a heavy environmental cost brought on by their forced underdevelopment.

Very interesting -- so the states want compensation for the conservation in their areas that have thwarted normal economic development. One wonders if the compensation will flow to the communities adversely affected or the states to squander!

Although at this point mainly a lobby group aimed at changing the central government's policy towards the Himalayas, some of its framers have also envisioned a "Himalayan Development Authority". [link]

India-China Cold War relations

The online World Encyclopedia has a long passage on the state of Sino-Indian relations through the later half of the 20th century that seems to cover a lot of ground. This will provide some good contextual information for any future papers. [link]

Article annotations

Here are three articles that I recently read and reviewed for their relevance to my plan of study:

Jain, B. M. (2003). India-China Relations: Issues, Trends, and Emerging Scenarios (China-India Project Occasional Paper No. 1). Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.

Jain proceeds through the history of Sino-Indian relations, starting from the starry eyed 1950s of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, to the nadir of 1962 and the decades of mistrust that endured until the late 1980s. In 1987, upon Arunachal's formation as a state of India, the Chinese advance into the Somdurang Chu Valley almost precipitated another war, which prompted Rajiv Gandhi to renew attempts to find a lasting peace. In September 1993, Narasimha Rao's visit to Beijing "culminated in the signing of an agreement on the LAC" and launch of bilateral border trade. However, in 1998 upon India's nuclear tests, relations went into a deep freeze until 2001, when Vajpayee again tried to extend his hand in friendship.

Jain's last point, is also his most geopolitically salient, as he lays the case for forging a partnership that can counter the increasingly unilateralist position of the world's remaining superpower. Ironically, it was the US during the Cold War that played an integral part in the Asian Stalemate where the Soviet-Indian alliance was countered with Pakistan and China in tight partnership (including the exchange of nuclear technologies!) Now China is increasingly worried about the US's tilt towards India as a means to triangulate and pin down China in the 21st century. But Tibet remains a major irritant, as China seems "allergic" to the Dalai Lama for his successful campaign to make Tibet cause-celebre, which by its very nature marks the Chinese as human-rights violators and god forbid, Imperialists!

However, for my purposes, the article doesn't elaborate on the bilateral trade situation beyond common strategy at the WTO and other global economic issues. [link]

Murshed, S. M., & Gates, S. (2004). Spatial-Horizontal Inequality and the Maoist Insurgency in Nepal (Discussion Paper No. 2004/43). Helsinki, Finland: UNU-WIDER.

Murshed and Gates point a couple of key features of the ongoing insurgency in Nepal in this article. Section 2 looks at this theoretical determinants of uprisings in the past, positing them between grievance on one hand where ethnic, class, caste, etc. discrimination and victimization play a part, to greed on the other where the contest for resources such as oil, diamonds, etc. prompt a deadly civil war. Ethnic identification in particular is cited as a strong organizing factor, far superior to class in inducing collective action. The authors also bring up the social contract that prevents grievances from spilling over into violence. Most importantly though, the authors point out that a military solution to the insurgency is exactly the wrong approach as it encourages the very same autocracy that has laid the groundwork for the uprising. Moreover, the conflict has an important spatial aspect in that certain regions of Nepal are poorer than others and thus more likely to rise against the government. Thus the authors have corrollated the socio-economic position of each district with the intensity of the conflict. [link]

Srikantia, S. V. (2000). Restriction on maps: A denial of valid geographic information. Current Science, 79(4), 484-488.

Srikantia decries the official secrecy that has denied Indian scientists and geographers accurate data about their country for more than 30 years. All topographic and geographic maps of the area within 80km of the border, on the scale 1:1,000,000 and larger have been restricted since at least 1967. Thus even today, no definite map of the border areas is available in India, although oddly enough maps are available elsewhere. The author makes the case that these restrictions no longer make sense in the age of satellite imagery, and should be repealed, especially so that scientists can deal with the pressing issues involving the border regions. I second that wholeheartedly! [link]