Tibetan ‘hawks’ might ‘ambush’ the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch relay when it passes through India on April 17

Musings on the riotous situation in Tibet, China, the North-Eastern neighbor of Khalistan

What can India do if China diverts the Sutlej river in Tibet or fires non-nuclear missiles at Dharamshala in anger & hits the Bhakra Nangal dam instead?   NOTHING!



Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - The sudden eruption of violence and vandalism in Lhasa, capital of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and the synchronized, well-organized, provocative protests orchestrated by ‘Tibetan-looking’ activists in India (obviously with a ‘wink and a nod’ from the Chanakyan rulers in Delhi) raise some profound questions. The first question that comes to mind is about the safety of millions of Sikhs living, astride the Xiangquan He river (or Sutlej river) in the Indian occupied Sikh Homeland of Punjab Khalistan which unhappy and vulnerable land is located less than 200 miles - or 3 minutes away ‘as the missile flies’ – from an ‘angry’ China.

When the People's Republic of China (PRC) refers to Tibet, it means the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR): a province-level entity which, according to the territorial claims of the PRC, includes the area, named Arunchal Pradesh by India, through which passes the mighty Brahmaputra river (the Chinese want to dam that river) on its way to Bangladesh and Bay of Bengal. China’s Tibet Autonomous Region is a plateau region in Central Asia and the home to the indigenous Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 meters (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the ‘Roof of the World,’ from where the following seven major Asian rives rise and flow outwards:- Sutlej, Indus, Brahmaputra to South Asia, Yangtze, and Yellow river to China, Mekong and Salween rivers to South East Asia.

The Chinese government gives the number of Tibetans in Tibet Autonomous Region (area 2.5 million sq. kilometers) as 2.4 million, as opposed to 190,000 non-Tibetan Han and Muslim Hui communities. The Chinese Central government exempts Tibet from all taxation and provides 90% of Tibet's government expenditures. The Tibetan economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture. Due to limited arable land, livestock raising is the primary occupation mainly on the Tibetan Plateau, among them are sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks and horses. However, the main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes and assorted fruits and vegetables. The region has been opened up for investment (and internal immigration) by the highest (a marvel of engineering) railroad in the world, the 1142 km Golmud to Lhasa railway, which also connects Lhasa to Beijing, and was inaugurated on 1 July 2006 by Chinese president Hu Jintao:

This sudden violent eruption in Chinese Tibet after two decades of peaceful existence and very fast economic expansion, four months before the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, scheduled to be held in Beijing from August 8, 2008, to August 24, 2008, has raised eye brows among political observers of the Asian scene. Some coincidence!

There seems to be a background! Most people have not noticed that the years 2006/2007 saw the Indian Foreign Office upgrade its relationship with the Tibetan government-in-exile located in Dharamshala, Himachel Pradesh. An annual face-to-face engagement between the Indian Foreign Secretary (why not the Home Secretary?) and the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, (in India’s Himachel Pradesh state) has been institutionalized along with an increase in Delhi’s overt and covert financial help to the Tibetan government-in-exile. Officially the annual stipend figure is reported  (> http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=14283&t=1&c=1 <) to have been increased to seven crore rupees (Rs. 7 million) from two crores but covertly ten times that amount (Rs. 700 million) has been funneled to the Dalai Lama, by India’s intelligence agencies, in 2008. Synchronized with the India’s upgrade of it’s diplomatic and financial relationship with Dalai Lama’s Dharamshala-based government-in-exile the Indian government also gave ‘a wink and a nod’ to the first two-day 'Conference for an Independent Tibet' organized by Friends of Tibet at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, on June 23 and 24, 2007. The ‘Friends’ included the following (> http://www.friendsoftibet.org/sofar/delhi/tsg_meet_june_2007 <) organizations located all over the world:- Comite de Apoyo al Tibet, Madrid, Spain, France-Tibet, Friends of Tibet (Sri Lanka),  Friends of Tibet (UK),  Friends of Tibet (Spain), Friends of Tibet (Nepal),  Friends of Tibet (Uruguay), Independent Tibet Network, International Tibet Independence Movement, USA,  The Committee of 100 for Tibet, TibetMichigan, World Tibet Day Foundation  and others. Activists and participants in the above mentioned 'Conference for an Independent Tibet' in it’s New Delhi meeting vowed that they would copy South Africa's anti-apartheid campaign by targeting companies that do business with China, and would use next year's Beijing Olympics to highlight the issue.

The 'Conference for an Independent Tibet' held in New Delhi on June 23-24, 2007 adopted the following, very provocative, four-point resolution, which will guide its call for Independence of Tibet and its plan of action in the coming years: RESOLUTION: "Realizing that Complete Independence (Poorna Swaraj) under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and with the help of India and other members of the freedom-loving world community is the only hope for Tibet, the Conference RESOLVES:-

1) To call upon the Government of India to recognize the Tibetan Government-in-Exile as the sole legitimate Government of Tibet and the Tibetan people and His Holiness the Dalai Lama as its sole political and spiritual leader. 2) To call upon the United Nations to fulfill its obligation in view of its 1993 UN Declaration that there should remain no colonized country in the world by the year 2000. 3) To call upon every member of the international community to recognize Tibet as one of the last remnants of colonial rule in need of decolonization. 4) To call upon all Tibet Support Groups around the world to put back Complete Independence as their main agenda in their campaigns and observe 22 November every year as "Anti-Colonialism Day" and to run signature campaigns reminding the United Nations to implement its resolutions on Colonialism."

According to media reports some Indian observers are questioning New Delhi’s action to ‘flash steel’ in its reactions over the rioting in Tibet?  (>  http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=317895 <) Chinese statements make it clear that Tibet is seen as no more than a potential embarrassment during China’s ‘coming out party’ at the August 2008 Olympic Games. Beijing for the time being is giving the impression that it believes that New Delhi’s foreign policy conservatism will ensure that it continues to toe the line on Tibet. Some hope! But some jingoistic Indian observers point out that Indian interests will be better served by reminding China that it has painful pressure points at Dharamshala that can be activated in case Beijing persists on its policy over Arunchal Pradesh and Aksai Chin. In line with that jingoistic thinking India’s Vice-President  Hamid Ansari is to meet the Dalai Lama in Delhi next week – something no Vice President or President of India has ever done in the past. Incidentally the Dalai Lama is reported to have supported India’s claim to Arunchel Pradesh. Tibetan activists in India have also recently called for new tactics in the campaign for Tibetan independence from China, saying attempts by their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to engage Beijing have ‘not been successful.’ Reliable sources in India report that there is scuttlebutt all over Delhi that these Tibetan ‘hawks’ plan to ambush the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch relay when it passes through India, on April 17, 2008, on its way to Beijing. These rumors persist despite assurances given to China, by India’s National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan, who said today that all steps would be taken to ensure safe passage of the torch during the India-leg of its’ journey. 

How would the Chinese react if these provocations, (timed to make China ‘lose face’ before the Beijing Olympics in August this year)  continue, is anybody’s guess? Last Saturday (22 March, 2008) Chinese showed their anger when the Indian Ambassador to China, Ms.  Nirupama  Rao, was summoned to the Chinese Foreign Office at 2 AM, on Saturday 22 March, 2008, to protest the inability of the Indian Police to stop the intrusion into the Chinese Embassy, in New Delhi, last week by some Tibetan-looking ‘protestors’. If one were to study the past history of the Middle Kingdom – 1962 Indo-China border war, the January 1987 Chinese attack on Vietnam to ‘teach Hanoi a lesson’ for example - one can safely assume that the Chinese have long memories, and unlike India’s Brahmin/Bania rulers, are quite certain that ‘General Geography’ is on their side, if they at any time want to teach India a lesson.  Chinese decision-makers know that India’s major population centers, like Kolkatta, Patna, Allahbad, Cawnpur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Meerut, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Jammu et al are all located less than 200 miles – or 3 minutes away ‘as the non-nuclear missile flies’ – from an ‘angry’ China looking down from the Tibetan Heights. A nuclear war is NOT an option for India as it will mean massive destruction - with much more destruction in vulnerable India.  Instead the Chinese have the Sutlej and Brahmaputra rivers.  They can easily create artificial lakes in Tibet out of these two rivers with a few sticks of dynamite, and release the water at will, with a few more dynamite sticks and flood Himachel Pradesh, Punjab and Assam down stream. without firing a shot in anger. Some years ago an artificial lake at Pareechu, on a tributary of the Sutlej river  in Tibet was created, according to the Chinese authorities, by seasonal landslides. (Read an interesting report on these temporary lakes in Tibet at:>  http://www.tibet.net/tibbul/2004/0910/tibetnews2.html   <) When the lake burst it created havoc downstream in Himachel Pradesh. What can India do to stop the artificial lakes diversion of the two rivers – Sutlej and Brahmaputra? NOTHING!

All the armaments (including Nuclear missiles) India is acquiring, in an obscene spending spree while the majority in India starves, are useless against the nuclear-armed Chinese, as India would be crazy to invite massive retaliation if it unsheathed its nukes. As Dharamshala is located near the vulnerable Bhakra (and other dams) in Himachel Pradesh a Chinese non-nuclear missile fired in anger, to ‘flash steel’ at Dharamshala, could easily hit the Bhakra dam as both are located about 100 miles from the Chinese border. What can India do if this comes to pass as parts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan are very vulnerable and could die of thirst if Bhakra Nangal Dam gets hit? NOTHING!

Above everything else, India can hardly afford to seize the moral high ground on Tibet considering its own vulnerability to criticism on a number of outlying States like Jammu & Kashmir and in the North-Eastern region. It would be downright hypocritical for New Delhi to lambast Chinese atrocities in Tibet when the Indian rulers cannot bear the slightest international disapproval of what the Indian security forces are doing in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East states. Quite a bit of the clamour about India acting tough with the Chinese is with an eye to Western applause for such a stance.

It is therefore, in the interest of India in general, and Punjab in particular, that China not be provoked over Tibet.