BOOK REVIEW                      POLITICAL
THE TRAGEDY OF TIBET
AUTHOR: MAN MOHAN SHARMA
REVIEWER: RATNADEEP BANERJI

The Trampling of Tibet

Why should Tibet be wrested from China? Isn’t Tibet an integral part of China when Beijing administration claims to possess ten lakh files to corroborate evidence on claiming Tibet as its dominion? The book serves to dispel some misplaced notions among world community. The author, Man Mohan Sharma embarked on a fact – finding mission to ferret out The Truth. The book is a fact - file on the integrity of Tibet, its sovereignty and its present captivity.

The author lambastes Chinese obduracy, ‘the Chinese have persistently tried to justify this naked aggression on a peaceful neighbour with peace loving populace on the plea that China has had unbroken suzerainty over Tibet for more than 700 years’. And then seven hundred years back during the 13th century, ‘China was a subject nation’ itself where the Moghul Dynasty had ruled until 1367. Prima facie ‘they (the Chinese) had no say in the affairs of Tibet at that time or later at any time’. Still the author has put forward the Chinese contention for the readers to decide for themselves.

Nepal and Tibet fought a war in 1855-56 and subsequently the Tibet Nepal Treaty of 1856 was signed between the two countries. In one of the articles of the treaty it states, ‘we have affixed our seals unto it of our own free will and choice ’. This rubbishes China’s suzerainty theory. Besides, several Indian generals like Raja Bahadur invaded western Tibet in 1670. Again in 1834, Gen Zorawar Singh, the mighty general of the Dogra king, Raja Gulab Singh had advanced to Tibet and fought for seven long years in Tibet but did not get any whiff of Chinese presence. The facial features of Tibetan men and women bear an admixture of Mongols and Aryans ruling out Chinese lineage of migrating from other parts of China. To efface out this evidence the wily Chinese are forcibly marrying off young Tibetan girls with Chinese youth.

The Tibetans believe themselves to bear the lineage of Hanuman (Hilumandju) of Ramayana and Raja Rupati (Nya – Khri – Tsanpo) of Mahabharata. But alas! It was Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru who in the Indian Parliament in 1954 had declared,’ Over the past several hundred years, as far as I know, at no time has any foreign country denied Chinese Sovereignty over Tibet’. What is the veracity of the contentious clause, ‘as far as I know’? Why did Nehru in his capacity of being the Prime Minister of India make such a flippant statement when he himself had a niggling doubt? How far was Nehru versed in the history of Tibet? The blunder has been inherited till this day when the Indian foreign minister reiterates the Indian stand that ‘Tibet is a part of China’.The author says, ‘He (Nehru) was also not aware that over one lakh Tibetans of Ladakhi and Kashmiri origin were Muslims. They were Tibetan citizens and regarded the Dalai Lama to be a Pir (religious teacher)’. The irony holds that Nehru became instrumental in inducting China in the UNO turning a blind eye to salvage the Tibetan cause.

In a contrast Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel had written a detailed stentorian letter to Pandit Nehru citing Chinese mala fide intention to usurp Tibet. The author has presented the entire text of the letter for his readers wherein Sardar Patel is cogent to say, ‘The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions. …..they managed to instill into our Ambassador a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Taliban problem by peaceful means. He castigated the system saying: “The tragedy of it is that the Tibetans put faith in us; they chose to be guided by us; and we have been unable to get them out of the meshes of Chinese diplomacy or Chinese malevolence.” The letter serves as an eye-opener to know the Iron Man of India’s political astuteness.

The author has also included several photographs to rebuff ‘any Chinese claim that Tibet was a backward society and that they are the noble saviours is malicious and wrong’. The book conclusively establishes Tibet’s claim for sovereignty, UNO’s ineptness to grapple with this horrendous situation while the world community has remained a mute ringside spectator. The author has sent a clarion call to the comity of nations across the world that the Tibetan imbroglio is a blot on the face of humanity and the onus falls on the world camaraderie cutting across lines to cut the Gordian knot and resuscitate The Dying Tibet.