Arunachalis
in solidarity with Tibet

By Barun Das Gupta

Just when the Chinese army’s incursions in Arunachal Pradesh have become deeper and more frequent, the people of Arunachal in a rare example of solidarity cutting across party lines, have demanded that New Delhi take up with Peking the question of ‘Reaching a permanent solution that is favourable to the Tibetan people (which) will be most beneficial to India and the security of Asia.’

In a lengthy memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently, they pleaded for a ‘new level of collaborative and coordinated pressure and engagement with the Chinese Government on the Tibetan issue including lifting restrictions on media access to the region’ and open renewed dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representative ‘without precondition.’

The initiative for submitting the memorandum was taken by the Tibetan Support Group (TSG) of Arunachal and endorsed by all political parties. Signatories included TSG president Tacho Kabak, APCC president Mukut Mithi, MP, State BJP president Tai Tagak; NCP president Kahfa Bengia; and People’s Party of Arunachal president Kameng Ringu.

These leaders are for a dialogue between Chinese officials and Tibetan leaders for arriving at a ‘negotiated solution to the problem afflicting Tibet and the Tibetan people.’ The memorandum dwells at length with the ‘irony’ of China ‘balatantly playing the Tibet card’ against India by laying claims to additional Indian territories on the basis of ‘their purported ties to Tibet’ while India remains ‘coy’ to play the Tibet card against China. The result of failing to use Tibet as a bargaining chip has been that India ‘first lost Aksai Chin, then more territory in 1962 and now is seeking to fend off Chinese claim to Arunachal Pradesh.’

The memorialists point out the other irony that on one hand China claims Tawang on the basis of the birth of the sixth Dalai Lama in Tawang, while on the other it has ‘systematically sought to destroy’ that very same ‘politico-religious institution’ called Dalai Lama. They have emphasised the fact that the Tibetan government-in-exile is not demanding full independence for Tibet from China but only ‘genuine autonomy.’

They have also expressed their deep anxiety at the unilateral steps taken by China in building dams on and diverting the waters of the rivers originating in Tibet and their consequences on downstream countries like India. (The Brahmaputra enters India from Tibet in Arunachal and then flows to Assam and finally to Bangladesh).

A fear that is constantly worrying the Arunachal people is the ‘Sinicisation’ of Tibet. It is now a widely known fact that since the annexation of Tibet by China in 1950, Chinese settlers of Han origin have been settled in what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). This process was speeded up after 1992. A document of the Tibet Support Group (TSG) claims that 7.5 million Chines now live in Tibet alongside 6 million Tibetans. In the eastern Tibetan province of Aamdo (Qinghai) and Kham (Sichuan), The Chinese admit that their settlers now outnumber the local Tibetans.

These claims cannot be verified. But there is no doubt that the Chinese authorities are consciously pursuing a policy of settling Chinese people in Tibet on various pretexts (like engaging them in railroad construction and other projects). This is slowly bringing about a change in the demographic pattern in Tibet. The people of Arunachal are aware that the Chinese authorities refer to Arunachal as ‘Southern Tibet’. If China ever succeeds in gobbling up Arunachal, they know what awaits them in future.

The TSG has been repeatedly drawing attention to the repression of the Tibetans by the Chinese, their ‘intrusion’ into all Tibetan institutions, particularly in religious and cultural ones and the denigration of Tibetan culture. They want the Chinese Government to respect human rights in Tibet and preserve the Tibetan religion, language and culture.

There is no doubt that if the Chinese had not been able to annex Tibet immediately after the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, India would not have faced the threat it is facing now all along the Sino-Indian border. But India gave in to the annexation because the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru thought that India was militarily in no position to defend Tibet against China. As noted by his biographer S. Gopal, Nehru thought ‘ultimately India had no effective sanction and to take up an attitude of resistance without the strength to follow it up’ and to take that course would have been ‘a political folly of the first magnitude.’

So, China got Tibet as a favourable launching pad against India. And now, more than half a century later, Tibetan people are becoming a minority in their own land and India faces a constant threat from the north. (IPA Service)