The Great Game & The Brave Sikhs

In July 1807, Emperor Napoleon and Tsar Alexander met on a huge raft moored on the River Niemen, in east Prussia to conclude a treaty of partnership against the British, thereby beginning “The Great Game”. The treat gave full control to the Russian empire to begin its expansion, which was to culminate in the conquest of India. Rapid Russian conquests of Central Asian Khanates (kingdoms) brought the Russians close to the northern fringes of the Karakoram and the Pamir Mountains. Russia’s commercial dealings with Kashgar, a famous city of the Leh-Yarkand-Kashgar silk route made the British anxious of a possible Russian infiltration from Sinkiang. The Russian longing for a colonial empire and a warm water port did not diminish and so the game continued.

Napoleon and Czar Alexander - Treaty of Tilsit (1807)

The British response to meet the Russian threat was to establish a forward defensive line in the northern region so that a Russian thrust could be halted well before they could reach the plains of India. This called for making Afghanistan and Tibet into buffer states. In 1772, when Warren Hastings became Governor General of Bengal, Chinese influence was strong in Tibet. This influence increased after the Chinese helped the Tibetans defeat the Nepalese in 1792. After this, Tibet followed an active policy of excluding foreigners from their country. This was mainly to avert conversion activities of Christian missionaries. Despite Tibetan opposition, few travellers managed to penetrate into the country.

The Great Dogras & Brave Zorawar Singh

In 1822 the Dogra Raja, Gulab Singh, set about extending his territory and his forces, under the leadership of Zorawar Singh. General Zorawar Singh led six campaigns across the great Himalayan range to conquer Ladakh and finally invade Western Tibet. He was an immaculate planner and visionary. Kishtwar was the training ground where he created the Dogra Army for his campaigns.

Zorawar Singh’s forces successfully invaded Western Tibet in May 1841 resulting in the Dogra War. During this period, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty was in control of Tibet. The war continued for more than a year upto August 1842. Zorawar Singh knew that western Tibet (Ngari) was connected to the rest of Tibet by the Mayum La pass. His plan consisted of advancing as quickly, capturing the pass before winter, and building up his forces for a renewed campaign in the summer. His six thousand-strong army was divided into three columns that marched parallel into Tibet in May 1841. One column under the Ladakhi prince Nono Sungnam followed the course of the Indus River. Another column of 300 men under Ghulam Khan marched along the mountains south of the Indus. Third column was led by Zorawar, along the plateau region passing along the Pangong Tso Lake.

Zorawar met with success in the beginning of the invasion, using superior quality of weapons. The Tibetans resisted using guerrilla tactics. Defeating all resistance before them, the three columns passed Lake Manasarovar and converged at Gartok, defeating the small Tibetan force stationed at the fort on 6th Sep 1841. The nearby towns were garrisoned and an administration unit was setup to rule the occupied territories. Meanwhile, in Punjab, the British got jittery and pressurised Maharaja Gulab Singh to order withdrawal of his forces, which he did not do.

General Zorawar

Zorawar and his men went on pilgrimage to Mansarovar and Mount Kailash. At this time his communication and supply lines were extended over 720 kilometers of inhospitable terrain and was connected by small forts and pickets along the way. With the onset of winter all the passes were blocked and roads snowed in. The supplies failed despite Zorawar’s meticulous preparations. As the intense cold, coupled with the rain, snow and lightning continued, many of the soldiers lost their fingers and toes to frostbite. Others starved to death, while some burnt the wooden stock of their muskets to warm themselves.

Soon, the Tibetans and their Han Chinese allies regrouped and advanced to give battle. Zorawar and his men met them at the Battle of Toyo on 12th Dec 1841. In the early exchange of fire the general was wounded in his right shoulder, but he grabbed a sword in his left hand and kept fighting. One of the Tibetan horsemen charged and thrust his lance in Zorawar Singh’s chest. Wounded and unable to escape he was pulled down off his horse and beheaded. The battle ended with death of about 300 soldiers and capture of 700 soldiers of his Army. Balance of Zorawar’s Army retreated to Ladakh with the Sino-Tibetan forces on their heels. General Zorawar Singh’s severed head was carried to Lhasa where it was placed at a thoroughfare for public viewing.

The Sino-Tibetan force then mopped up the other garrisons and laid siege to Leh, when reinforcements from Gulab Singh’s reserves came from Jammu and repulsed them. Soon the fortunes reversed. The Chinese and Tibetans were chased to Chushul. The Battle of Chushul (August 1842) ensued and was won by the Sikhs who executed the enemy general to avenge the death of Zorawar Singh. The 1842 treaty extended the Sikh frontiers to existing positions and at this point, neither side wished to continue the conflict.

Zorawar's feats were monumental. The British were alarmed at the Dogra success in Tibet which had resulted in their possession of territory up to Lakes Manasarovar and Rakas Tal. The Tibetans recognized the valor of General Zorawar Singh and built a Chorten (Cenotaph) at Taklakot in his memory. Even today, the Tibetans call it “Singh ba Chorten” or the Cenotaph of the “Singh Warrior”.

Singh Ba Chorten - Taklakot, Tibet

The Crafty Visions of the British

The years from 1855 onwards saw a systematic survey of the Western Himalayan region by the Survey of India. One of the most famous of these men was Godwin Austen who, in 1862 and 1863, surveyed the northern borders of the Pangong District in Eastern Ladakh. In 1863, P.H.Egerton, Deputy Commissioner for the Kangra District, unsuccessfully wrote to the Garpon of Gartok asking him to meet and discuss the fixing of northern boundaries.

Johnson Line

Johnson Line

In 1865, W.H.Johnson, who was a junior civilian sub assistant with the Survey of India, travelled from Leh across the Aksai Chin to Khotan and his map included the Aksai Chin as part of Ladakh. This line linked Demchok in the south with the 18,000 feet high Karakorum pass in the north. It took a circuitous route beyond the Kuen Lun mountains and including the Aksai Chin desert. Johnson’s surveying service to the Maharaja of Kashmir greatly enlarged the size of the Maharaja's domain by incorporating Aksai Chin.

By 1890, the Chinese began to assert their claim to the Karakoram Range as their southern boundary in Sinkiang. In 1892, they placed a pillar of stone and wooden boundary notice on the summit of the Karakoram Pass. The Indian Government, in 1907, learned of the Chinese border marker and asked the Chinese to clarify their intentions and ambitions in the Karakoram area, showing the Chinese a Russian map which showed the boundary considerably north of the Karakoram Range, aligned with the Johnson line and placing Aksai Chin in Kashmir territory. The Chinese team produced a map showing the Karakoram Range as the Sino-Indian boundary, with Aksai Chin as part of China. But the Chinese survey, did nothing to clarify or to make official the boundary in the Aksai Chin area.

In 1896, George Macartney, the British representative in Kashgar, brought the issue of the disputed border to the leading Chinese official in Kashgar. Macartney felt that Aksai Chin proper, north of the Lokzhung Range, was Chinese; south of the Range, British. In the summer of 1898, Lord Elgin's Government incorporated Macartney's ideas into a definite proposal asking the Chinese to accept a verbal description of the Kashmir boundary. Elgin's proposal was a highly compromised attempt to resolve the boundary, offering almost the entire Aksai Chin to the Chinese.

On 14th March 1899, Sir Claude MacDonald, the British minister to China, submitted the description of this alignment to the Chinese Department of External Affairs in Peking. The Department of External Affairs in Peking communicated the proposal to the Sinkiang Provincial Government. The Sinkiang Government had no objections to the boundary alignment, and the British Legation was informally notified that there were no objections; however, no formal acceptance was forwarded from Peking.

By the time the Chinese had responded, the British were beginning to reconsider the proposed boundary; hence, the British made no efforts to secure a formal response to MacDonald's proposal. Later, the Chinese Communist government regreted that the a formal acceptance of the MacDonald boundary proposal was not done at that time. The controversial Chinese military road lies to the north (the Chinese side) of the 1899 MacDonald line.

The installation of the 13th Dalai Lama as ruler of Tibet with full secular powers in 1895 was followed by the arrival of Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India in 1899. The Treaty of Amritsar had given the British responsibility for Kashmir's northern and eastern borders with Sinkiang and Tibet. Curzon decided that, henceforth, MacDonald should be considered the border. This line, corresponded with the Chinese claim line and the Line of Actual Control. Curzon tried a direct approach to the Tibetan authorities sending letters to the Dalai Lama but these were returned unopened, the last one in October 1901. At this time news had reached India of a mission from Tibet to Russia led by Agvan Dorjiev, a Russian Buriat, which was part of an attempt by the 13th Dalai Lama to develop foreign and military relations with Russia.

It was through Dorjiev that the Dalai Lama learned of Russia and its increasing influence in Central Asia. The Tibetans realized from earlier clashes with the British at the Sikkim frontier that China was neither inclined nor able to aid Tibet to deter British interest in Tibet. When the British learned of the purpose of Dorjiev visit, they viewed it as a real threat to the security of British India.

During this “Great Game” period of Asian imperial and colonial rivalries, the British were particularly concerned to counter what they viewed as growing Russian influence and territorial aspirations. Despite Russian statements to the British that they would not intervene in Tibet, the British remained suspicious. On the basis of extremely unsatisfactory intelligence reaching British India, in 1903, Curzon concluded that Tibet was fast becoming a possible launching pad for a Russian thrust and by the rules of the Great Game the Russians were to be pre-empted. Thus came about the Younghusband mission in 1903–1904 to Lhasa.

In January 1904, the mission, led by Sir Francis Younghusband accompanied by a military escort under Brigadier General Macdonald, proceeded to Gyantse. After several engagements, they reached Lhasa. On the approach of the British troops towards Lhasa in 1904 the Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia. Here he continued to maintain contact with Russians through Dorjiev. He also met representatives of other countries including the American, William Rockhill, who assured him that the British had no territorial designs on Tibet and were willing to establish friendly relations with them.

With Lhasa in a panic, the Tibetan National Assembly, convened to discuss the matter. The majority of the assembly members full-heartedly argued that Tibet should fight the British until the last man. However, the senior most Minister, Shedra Peljor Dorje argued for the need to conclude a settlement with the British. Shedra was one of the few Tibetan officials who had travelled outside Tibet and knew the real strength of the British army.

By the time of the Younghusband mission to Lhasa of 1904 the Russian presence was limited to the Oxus and in the Pamirs. British India was shielded by a series of buffers of varying efficacy, Afghanistan, Jammu & Kashmir, and what was often called Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang or Sinkiang).

In the decade leading to the Younghusband mission the continuance of Chinese rule in Sinkiang was seen by many British strategists as a crucial element in the security of India’s northern border. The Chinese position in Sinkiang, however, was not too secure. There had been a prolonged rebellion against Chinese rule in the second half of the nineteenth century and it still seemed possible that the Russians, their ambitions refreshed, would cross the line of the Pamirs established in 1896 to take over western Sinkiang.

The British presence in Tibet after 1904 was considerable, sometimes exercised from Sikkim, Gyantse (and other Trade Marts) or Lhasa. However, the British gained little from the Younghusband Expedition. The indemnity imposed on Tibet was subsequently reduced and period of payment changed to three years. The other concessions won by Younghusband were also effectively nullified by British actions over the next few years. Despite the success of the Younghusband Expedition and the provisions of the Lhasa Convention, British power in Tibet was to be of a brief duration as, with a change of government in Britain, a strategy of non-interference in Tibet became official policy.

Ending the Great Game in Tibet

Finally, in 1907, the British and the Russians signed an agreement that neither would act in Tibet. This theoretically removed Tibet from the so-called Great Game. Soon, the Dalai Lama left Urga and returned through Amdo giving teachings. He stayed primarily at Kumbum Monastery, which marked the spot of Tsongkhapa's birth. The British troops were soon withdrawn from the Chumbi Valley in 1908. The new Trade Regulations gave China a virtually free hand in Tibet. Thus Tibet, like Afghanistan, became a buffer state between two European imperial powers.

A Chinese Tibet, presented the British Government of India with a set of problems. First: in practice Tibet did not end the Russian contacts in terms with the 1907 Anglo Russian Convention. Second: the Tibetans, even with the Dalai Lama in exile, did not want Chinese rule and by 1912 had effectively expelled the Chinese from Central Tibet. Third: in the years immediately following the Younghusband mission, the Chinese in Central Tibet did not appear to the British to be ideal neighbours. A major consequence of British policy in these years, just before the outbreak of World War 1, created a confused definition of the status of Tibet. The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet in 1912. Although the British refused his requests for active help against the Chinese, they threatened to deny recognition to the new Chinese Republic until an agreement was reached on the status of Tibet.

After much initial resistance the Chinese agreed to attend a tripartite conference at Simla in October 1913 to discuss the status and borders of Tibet. After much resistance by the Chinese, the representatives of the Tibetan, Chinese and British Governments took part on an equal footing. Sir Henry McMahon, who was the Foreign Secretary to Government of India, acted as chairman of the Conference, L?nchen Shatra was the Tibetan delegate, and Ivan Chen represented China. McMahon was assisted by Charles Bell as adviser on Tibet and Archibald Rose as advisor on China.

McMahon and L?nchen Shatra signed the joint Anglo Tibetan declaration stating that they accepted the Convention as binding on their Governments. The British took advantage of the Simla Conference to conclude separate agreements with the Tibetans concerning trade and the Indian Tibetan border. In the period from 1914 to Indian Independence, the main aim of British policy was to maintain Tibet as a buffer state between India and China. They did this by trying to limit Chinese influence in Tibet and by supporting Tibetan claims to ‘de facto’ independence. During World War II, both the Allied and the Axis powers attempted to win Lhasa's favor and sought permission to supply their besieged forces in China through the Tibetan mule route. Germany was interested in Tibet as a potential staging ground for attacks against British India and because the Nazi's ethnic theory credited Tibet with being the "pure" cradle of the Aryan race.

In 1930s a permanent presence of a British official was established in Lhasa. But this position was formally no more than an assistant to the Political Officer in Sikkim, and could not convert into a fully accredited British diplomatic representative to the Dalai Lama. Both Britain and China continued to send missions to Tibet regularly from 1930, and were constantly competing for an upper hand in Tibet. Tibet, tried to follow a policy of non alignment between Britain and China especially after Britain had failed to gain Chinese adherence to the Simla Convention.

Oalf Caroe and Nehru

After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama in December 1933, for the next sixteen years, Tibet was ruled by regents. In the period until the discovery of the new Dalai Lama, Sino British rivalry dominated Tibet’s foreign relations.

In the late 1930s, the Russian threat in Sinkiang gave rise to a unique event in the history of the ‘Great Game’. In March 1938, a small Russian force (commanded by a Soviet agent) actually made its way across a small corner of Chinese Sinkiang from the Soviet Pamirs into the extreme north of British Indian territory, in Hunza which had only just been brought under direct British administration with the lease in 1935 from the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir of the Gilgit region. The Russian menace quietly disappeared, at least in Kashgar (western Sinkiang).

In light of the Russian advances, Olaf Caroe urged the British authorities to make the new boundary, McMohan line and the Johnson lines, effective in 1935. In 1937, the Survey of India for the first time showed the McMahon Line as the official boundary, which included Tawang. The Tibetans tacitly accepted the rest of the McMahon demarcation (excluding Tawang). Caroe and his team had a profound effect upon much of western writings on Tibet during the last years of the British Indian Empire and he continued to influence opinion long after his retirement. He remained an active and widely respected, advocate both of Tibetan independence and of the rightness of the case of independent India in its border arguments with China. He was also the teacher of many of the first generation independent Indian diplomats, including K.P.S.Menon.

The Gift of Great Game - Perception and Assumptions

Caroe’s tragedy, was that, at the time of the transfer of power in Delhi - and of the culmination of his life in the Indian Political Service - Mountbatten terminated his tenure when he was the Governor of the Frontier Province. Mountbatten wrote to him saying how pained he was to terminate his service and intimated that he had little option in view of Nehru’s opposition to Caroe continuing because of his lifelong association with the North West Frontier and with the Islamic world in general. Nehru again proved himself as enemy of India’s true friends.

Conclusions

The events of nearly a century and a half of the Great Game, ensured that northern borders of India were never clearly demarcated or established. Lines kept shifting on maps as political contingencies arose. The Indian people were, for this entire period, passive spectators to these cartographic games. The British were instrumental in ensuring that Tibet does not became a state like Outer Mongolia, capable of preserving its independence against China. Outer Mongolia, could survive only because of the Soviet support. There was no such possibility for Tibet.

In 1940 to 1941, British intelligence learnt that Russian experts were conducting a survey of the Aksai Chin. Once again, the British went back to the Johnson claim line (our current claim line in Aksai Chin). But nothing else was done to clearly demarcate the border. No posts were established and neither were any expeditions sent there to show the flag, as is normal in such situations. Had Oalf Caroe been a part of the British Government, history would have been different.