Himalayan triangle: A historical survey of British India’s relations with Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan, 1765–1950

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HIMALAYAN TRIANGLE

Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh

Himalayan Tri.angle A historical survey of British India's relations with Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan

1765-1950

The British Library 1988

© A K Jasbir Singh 1988 Published by The British Library Great Russell Street London WCIB JDG British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh Himalayan triangle: a historical survey of British India's relations with Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan 1765-1950

1. Asia. Himalayas, 1765-1950. I. Ti II. British Library 954 ISBN O 7123 0630 7

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Marc Fitch Fund for a generous grant towards production costs of the maps included in this publication.

Maps by John Mitchell Designed by Alan Bartram Typeset in Linotron Bembo by Bexhill Phototypesetters Printed in England on permanent paper 8 by Redwood Bum Led, Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Maps printed in England by BAS Ltd, Over Wallop, Stockbridge, Hampshire.

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Contents

Foreword by Alastair Lamb I ix Preface I xi The Maps I Between pages 76 and 77

Tibet \Jlarly contacts, l 772- 1846 I 3 China and Britain: the opening of Tibet, 1847--96 I 7 The Anglo-Chinese Convention, 1890: arrival of Lord Curzon, 1890--98 I9 LordCurzon's Tibetan policy, 1899-1901 I 10 Events leading up to the Tibet Mission, 1902--03 I 14 The Younghusband Mission, 1903--04 I 17 The road to Guru and beyond, 1904 I 22 The Lhasa Convention, 1904 I 30 The Panchen Lama: negotiations at Calcutta; the Anglo-Chinese Convention, 1905--06 I 32 The Anglo-Russian Agreement concerning Tibet, 1906--07 I 39 China's Asian policy, 1906--07 I 42 The Tibet Trade Regulations, 1908 I 44 The XIIlth Dalai Lama, his relations with China and return to Lhasa, 1904-ro I 46 The Dalai Lama in India, 1910--12 I 49 Challenge in the Assam Himalaya, 1910--13 I 52 Tibet and the Chinese Revolution, 1911-12 I 58 Status of Tibet under the Chinese Republic, 1912-13 I 62 Preliminaries to the Simla Conference, 1912-13 I 67 The Simla Conference, 1913-14 I 70 The McMahon Line I 77 Tibet and China, 1914-19 I 83 Charles Bell's Mission to Lhasa, 1920--21 I 88 Tibet's internal affairs, 1921-30 I 89 Closer ties with Britain, 1930--33 I 96 Death of the XIIlth Dalai Lama, 1933 I 101 Sino-British rivalry in Tibet, 1934-37 I 102 The North-East Tribal Frontier, 1935-47 I 110 The discovery of the XIVth Dalai Lama, 1937-39 I 117

Encroachments on neutrality: China and Tibet, 1940-46 Chinese representation at Lhasa, 1943-45 I 123 The Tibetan Mission to India and China, 1945-46 I 129 Conspiracy in Tibet, 1947 131 Tibet's treaty relations with the National Government of India, 1947 132 Tibet: the question of status I 136

I 120

J

J

Sikkim

I Sikkim, the Gurkhas and early contacts with the East

Undia Company, 1768-1816 I 165 The Treaty of Titalia and relations with the East India Company, 1817-26 174 Negotiations and the cession of Darjeeling, 1827-40 177 Dr Campbell and the Sikkim Darbar, 1841-59 I 182 The Eden Mission and the 1861 Treaty, 186o-62 I 191 Sikkim and attempts to develop the trade route to Tibet, J

J

1863-73

I 191

Internal affairs: increased British influence in Sikkim, 1874-77

I 203

Nepalese encroachments in Sikkim: the Colman Macaulay Mission, 1877-87 I 204 The Lingtu affair, 1888 I 216 The Sikkim Convention, 1890: negotiations regarding trade, pasturage and frontiers, 1891-93 I 218 Anglo-Chinese negotiations; Maharaj a Thutob N amgyal, l 894-99

J

224

Curzon's Tibetan policy, its effect on Sikkim, 1900-03 I 238 Sikkim and the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa, 1903--05 I 246 Maharaja Kumar Sidkeong Namgyal: administration of Sikkim, 1906---14

I 249

Maharaja Tashi Namgyal, 1914-46 I 256 Indian independence: Sikkim's Standstill Agreement, 1946---48 Post-independence and annexation of Sikkim, 1949-75 I 262

I 258

Bhutan ~ n and the East India Company: first contacts, 1766-92 I 291 Bhutan, the Gurkhas and the Indo-Nepalese War, 1793-1816 I 296 The Assam Duars and Indo-Bhutanese relations, 1825-38 I 298 The Pemberton Mission, 18 3 8 I 302 Annexation of the Assam Duars, 1839----63 I 306 Frontier disputes, 18 56----59 I 308 Annexation of Ambari Falakata, 1860 I 310 Eden's Mission to Bhutan, and its effects, 1863-64 I 313 The Anglo-Bhutan War and the 1865 Treaty, 1864-66 I 318 Anglo-Bhutanese relations: demarcation of the Indo-Bhutan frontier, 1867-72 I J25 Neutrality in relation to Bhutan's internal affairs, 1873-98 I 330 The Macaulay Mission and Bhutan, 1885-86 I 332 Bhutan and the Younghusband Mission, 1899-1904 I 334 British suzerainty in Bhutan, 1905--07 I 347 Chinese claims to suzerainty in Bhutan, 1908-ro I 349 Charles Bell's Mission to Bhutan: the Treaty of 1910 I 352 Bhutan in treaty relations with the Crown, 19II-45 I 354 The end of the British connection: status of Bhutan, 1946----50 I 365

Bibliography Original sources I 383 Printed Books in European Languages (IOL) I 384 Appendix: Brief notes on other archival sources in Britain, India, Sikkim, Bhutan and China I395 Index I 397

Foreword For more than three centuries the British were involved with India, at first only as merchants and then increasingly as imperial rulers. By the middle of the 19th century the existence of the Indian Empire was one of the central fixed points in British colonial and foreign policy; and nothing demonstrated more clearly the new diminished British world role following the Second World War than the departure from India in 1947. The importance of India to the understanding ofBritish history over the greater part of the modem era cannot be questioned. By what may justly be called a miracle the central corpus of source material for the study of this great subject has remained intact and undivided in London in the India Office Library and Records. In this book Amar KaurJasbir Singh explains for the benefit of all scholars one section (and a relatively small one at that) of this great wealth of documents, that dealing with British contacts with Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet from the 176os until the end of British rule in 1947. When I started working on this material in 1953 as part of my research for my doctoral dissertation at Cambridge on the subject of British relations with Tibet from the 18th century until the Y ounghusband Expedition of 1904, the India Office Library had not moved from its old premises in Whitehall and the papers were still arranged in a marmer better suited for the functions of Whitehall bureaucracy than the methods of an academic historian. Indeed, it was often easier to approach the India Office material through the copies that were sent to the Foreign Office and available in the Public Record Office (then still housed in the pseudo-medieval splendour of Chancery Lane). All this is now changed. The India Office Records have been sorted out and listed. Some of the adventure may have been removed from research, but also a great deal of needless labour. Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh's work, plus her guide to source materials published as a companion volume to Himalayan Triangle, would have been of enormous value to me had I had them to hand when I was doing research for my PhD. In the early 1950s, at least so it seemed to me, the subject on which I was working and which is also the subject of Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh's book was one of great interest but little practical importance. The Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau to their north did not appear to constitute one of the pivots of global policy. Indeed, what appealed to me most about the whole region (a tiny comer of which I was able to visit in 1955) was that it represented a world in which the nuclear and mechanised horrors of the 20th century could be forgotton for a while. Unfortunately, this vision was to prove (indeed the process had already so started) to be quite false. The landscape covered in the present book is far from marginal to world history. It represents the interface between the two most populous nations on earth and marks the site of one of the most complicated boundary disputes ever to disturb the peace of nations. There have been two major, though related, issues involved in the India Office Records covered in this book (as well as a large number of relatively minor matters), namely the international status of Tibet (and the Chinese tights, or lack of rights, there) and the nature of the Sino-Indian boundary as it had evolved during the period of British rule in India. In that both are to a great

IX

extent problems of history. the records of the India Office are of enormous importance in their understanding if not necessarily in their solution. These documents which Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh has listed and commented upon, and which in 1953 I rather naively thought were obscure, are probably amongst the most important of the records of the British Indian Empire for those who have to deal with the practical affairs of the contemporary world. Their significance, however, is not always easy to understand; and it is here, above all, that Amar KaurJasbir Singh has made her contribution to the whole subject, based upon a sound sense of history combined with many years of devoted study of the archives in her care. There is a certain irony in the fact that the India Office Library and Records, an institution which serves as a memorial to a dead empire, in fact is of great interest to empires which are very much alive. British policy towards the Himalayas from the outset was part and parcel of British policy towards both the Chinese Empire and (particularly from the latter part of the 19th century) the Empire ofTsarist Russia. While the British Empire really has disappeared, the Chinese and Russian Empires have marched on under the leadership of Communist regimes. The Chinese remain in Tibet, where the true nature of their present position can only be appreciated in the context of a fairly recent past upon which some of the records examined here by Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh throw a great deal of light; and the Russians have achieved what they never did in the British period, the occupation of Afghanistan, again a situation the historical context of which can be greatly illuminated by research in the India Office Library and Records. What Amar Kaur Jasbir Singh has to say about Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan ought to be considered very carefully not only by scholars but also by those more practically involved in the disentangling of the more diplomatic misunderstandings which have arisen over this particular region. In that a significant amount of the confusion has derived from past incomprehension or misinterpretation of the British documents, many of them officially examined on the premises of the India Office Library and Records by visiting delega~ons, it is perhaps appropriate that this work should serve to help put the evidence, correctly quoted, in its true perspective. ALA ST AIR LAMB

X

Preface The extension of East India Company control over Bengal and adjacent areas during the 176os and the 1770s brought the Company into direct contact with the kingdoms of Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet. The Company's early impetus to penetrate the Himalayan region was not, however, simply a matter of territorial contiguity. On a more fundamental economic level, it also reflected the increasing significance of the China trade in the Company's accounts and, in association with this, a growing anxiety about the imbalance of its Bengal trade. Increasingly, the Company came to rely on its monopoly of the China trade to provide its profits. The main impediment to the expansion of this trade lay in the inability of the East India merchants on the China coast to establish direct communications with the Chinese official hierarchy. Contact with Tibet was thought to offer an alternative to Canton, a way round the obstacle of China through the mediation of the theocrats of Tibet with their special relationship and access to the Manchu Emperor. No one appreciated the significance of the relationship more clearly than did Warren Hastings when he became Governor-General of Bengal in 1771. Before Hastings, fragmentary documentation bears witness to haphazard attempts at trade through offers of unwanted merchandise to the northern principalities. With Hastings's arrival, rapid territorial expansion in India foW1d a natural expression in the government of Bengal developing quasidiplomatic relations with neighbouring states. The documents of the East India Company reflect this process. Since British India's relations with the Himalayan region begins in earnest in the late 18th century, this study takes up the story at the same time. Himalayan Triangle consists of an historical survey which examines, in detail, the diplomatic relationship between British India and the states of Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan from the first connections in the 18th century down to the independence of India in 1947. The aim of the historical study is to present, for the first time, an integrated appraisal of the development of these three kingdoms with their closely inter-linked political and religious ties. The emphasis is on the treatment of the region as a whole, the early common denominator of government being Buddhism and Tibetan suzerainty linking the kingdoms. Within this regional approach - and using the primary source materials in the India Office Library and Records and the Public Record Office in some instances for the first time- the study seeks to reassess particular issues and themes affecting the political development of the region. Foremost amongst these issues were the interests of the great imperial powers, Great Britain and Russia; the claim of China to sovereignty in Tibet and through Tibet to shadowy rights over Sikkim and Bhutan; and the consequences of Britain's earlier strategic and frontier policy in relation to the Himalayan region for the period after 1947. It needs to be stressed that the diplomatic history of the three Himalayan states outlined in this study is based almost entirely on British archives, and it cannot claim therefore to portray anything other than a one-sided picture. Unfortunately, the Tibetan records in Lhasa, and the Chinese records in Beijing were difficult of access. Records of the Sikkim Darbar under Indian

Government control presented a similar measure of inaccessibility. Bhutan, on the other hand, possesses significant archival material relating to the turbulent years of the Bhutan War and the Younghusband Expedition. Transliteration of the original spelling of Tibetan words and names, as in bKra-shis-lhunpo and Ngag-dbang Blo-bzang rGya-mtsho, has been avoided. They have been rendered phonetically as Tashilhunpo and Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso. Students of Tibetan would find the original spelling unnecessary, while it would only serve to confuse the general reader. Moreover, the phonetic form was most commonly employed by British officials, although extraordinary discrepancies exist for the period with which this study deals. Archaic spelling of Tibetan words has been retained as in the original, i.e. Teshoo Lama or Boutanner, which correctly interpreted should read Tashi Lama and Bhutanese. Himalayan Triangle could not have been written without the India Office Library and Records, but its final form owes much to people whose expert knowledge of this specialised field has been given so generously. I am beholden to Dr Hugh Richardson, Tibetan scholar and last British representative at Lhasa, for guidance and for giving me the benefit ofhis vast experience of Tibetan affairs. I am equally indebted to Dr Alastair Lamb for discussions on frontier matters and the complexities of the McMahon Line which have greatly clarified many of my ideas. His scholarly books and unique interpretation of Himalayan frontier problems were of immense value. To nobody am I more grateful than to the late Sir Penderel Moon, authority on Indian affairs, and the most amusing and trenchant of critics. Gravely ill as he was, he remained a court of appeal throughout. It must be said that none of these experts can be wholly in agreement with what I have written, and nor can they be held responsible for the structure of the work or my conclusions. I owe a special thanks to Margaret Macdonald, who painstakingly read through the final draft of Himalayan Triangle. The book was typed by Barbara Tilbury, without whose expert help this work would have taken much longer. I wish to thank her for making the collaboration so congenial. I should also like to acknowledge my gratitude to sources which have no concern with libraries or documents, but who epitomise something of the background against which the events reconstructed in this study took place. To His Holiness the Dalai Lama whose unrivalled knowledge of Tibetan affairs provided inspiration. To Her Majesty the Queen Mother of Bhutan for her generosity in making it possible to explore the Bhutanese setting of my narrative. and to the Chogyal of Sikkim, who helped remove many preconceptions. I regret any pain or annoyance which my interpretation of events or the posthumous verdict passed in these pages on their forebears may cause to them. AMAR KAUR JASBIR SrNGH

Tibet

* The use of the term suzerainty when applied to Tibet and China is, however,

anomalous. Its application can be justified only in relation to the British who used the term to describe their view of China's status vis-ii-vis Tibet. The word itself defies any absolute legal definition. Nor can it be properly associated with the Central Asian concept of the Priest Patron tradition, which categorised relations between the Dalai Lama and the Manchu Emperor long before the British made their appearance on the Himalayan scene.

TIBET\ 3

Early contacts: 1772-1846 The expansion of British territorial possessions in India in the eighteenth century broug~t abo~t th~-evitah!e contact with the Himalayan kingdoms and notably with Tibet. By the nme Warren Hastings became Governor General in ;J1h--l'ibet ha already become the closed country which~_t