When Bob Khathing marched in: India’s Tawang action of 1951 may have been Sardar Patel’s last gift to nation

Ralengnao Khathing, better known as Bob Khathing, is a legend of modern India. He was awarded the Military Cross by the British for his role in World War II and Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1957. Khathing was the first tribal to serve as an ambassador for his country. In 1951, he was assistant political officer of North East Frontier Agency, or NEFA as today’s Arunachal Pradesh was called then, and led the first armed forces into Tawang that established Indian control in the region. What many may not know is that the Khathing’s mission remained unknown to Prime Minister Nehru till it was accomplished, as Shiv Kunal Verma, author of 1962: The War That Wasn’t, states in this extract. It may also have been Sardar Patel’s last gift to the nation. Read on. The Tawang salient and the Tagin murders During the Second World War, a certain amount of road building had begun in the Lohit and Subansiri divisions of NEFA as part of the attempt to administer the area right up to the claimed border as per the Simla Agreement of 1914. However, Tawang and the entire Kameng Division had been left strictly alone after having established the British-Indian claim on Tawang in 1938 by sending the Gordon Lightfoot Expedition to plant the flag. After 1914, the only known ingress by the Tibetans into Indian territory was in 1942 when they occupied the Tawang salient and the area south of Se-la extending down to the plains near Udalguri. At this time, the British government was fully preoccupied with the Japanese in Kohima and Imphal and, as a result, had ignored Lhasa’s incursion. At that point, the British and American governments had been following a policy of appeasement to keep the leader of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek, fighting on their side in World War II. As a result, the security of North Assam had been downgraded. However, once the situation stabilized and it became obvious that the British would defeat the Japanese, the Tibetans had quietly withdrawn. Interestingly, no diplomatic notes were exchanged about the incident—both sides preferring to behave as if the incident never happened. Immediately after the war, Tibet officially continued to affirm its acceptance of the Simla Convention. In October 1944, Tibet’s governing council, the Kashag, had officially written to the Indian government that it ‘did not wish to dispute the validity of the McMahon Line’, but had requested postponement of the extension of the British administration to Tawang. In 1947, Lhasa accepted the transfer of power in Delhi without any declared reservations. It also tacitly accepted independent India’s legal position that as the natural inheritor of all treaties between Britain and Tibet, it would continue to abide by them. By early 1951, political officers were reporting increased Chinese activity in various parts of NEFA. Most of the Assam Rifles posts were on the McMahon Line, with extended lines of communication running through areas with little or no administrative control. Accordingly, a few posts were set up in the interior to meet tactical requirements. Walong and Hayuliang were established with a platoon each under the command of an officer, while two checkposts were established in the upper reaches of the Siang Valley. However, the governor of Assam, Jairamdas Daulatram, under whose control the Assam Rifles functioned, was most concerned about the Tawang salient where Tibetan dzongpens (local governors) and their henchmen were still exercising control. Major Bob Khathing, the assistant political officer in Pasighat, was summoned by the governor to Shillong and ordered to take a column of Assam Rifles up to Tawang to establish an administration there. A former Assam Rifles officer, Khathing, with an escort of three platoons from 5 Assam Rifles, under the command of Captain H. B. Limbu reached Dirang Dzong on 1 February 1951. The column then crossed Se-la with considerable difficulty and succeeded in establishing an Assam Rifles checkpost at Jang. Khathing finally reached Tawang, where a representative of the Tsona Dzong dzongpen received him. The local Monpas, in light of the subsequent vengeance let loose on them by the dzongpens for having supported the Lightfoot Expedition in 1938, stayed away from the Indian officials. Three days later the dzongpen met with Khathing who formally announced that from ‘the third day of the Iron-Haired Year, corresponding with 9 February 1951 the administration of Tawang and its monastery would be the responsibility of the Government of India’, and that the Tsona dzongpen or any other official of the Tibetan government could no longer exercise authority over the villages south of Bum-la that lay on the McMahon Line. The dzongpen were to cease collection of taxes and any tributes forthwith. The dzongpen immediately referred the matter to Lhasa, while informing the Indians that they had no idea the area had been ceded to India in 1914. In no mood to wait for Lhasa’s reply, Khathing started establishing his own administration by setting up the Assam Rifles post and touring most Monpa villages. He issued orders to the various village chiefs, started building bashas (temporary shelters) and also visited the lamas in the Tawang Monastery. Amusingly, Khathing had to levy an annual house tax of Rs 5 on each Monpa dwelling, for only then were the Monpas convinced that the Indians meant business and that they were, after all, citizens of India. Though it will remain in the realm of speculation, it is quite likely that the Bob Khathing column into Tawang was Sardar Patel’s last gift to the nation. An Intelligence operative who later worked for the Intelligence Bureau (IB) from Tawang claimed the expedition was the brainchild of Mullik and had the blessing of the home minister who had instructed the Assam governor to bring Tawang under Indian administrative control. Even though the Assam Rifles was under the Ministry of External Affairs, which in turn was headed by the prime minister, there is little doubt that Nehru had not been informed. By the time he found out what was happening, Bob Khathing was already in Tawang. Nehru was furious. Fait accompli or not, his immediate act was to summon the governor and yell at him. Shaken, the Assam government lost its nerve. On 25 April, when Lhasa responded on the issue, both Delhi and Shillong were imploring Khathing not to do anything ‘without consulting us’. Lhasa instructed the Tsona dzongpen to dig in and hold his ground. Accordingly, the Tibetans ordered all village chiefs to assemble at Tawang. However, by then, Bob Khathing and the Assam Rifles had made a favourable impression on the Monpas. To further underline his authority, Khathing staged a flag march where fifty men with their rifles and gleaming bayonets marched through Tawang. The meeting called by the dzongpen was a failure, with few village chiefs backing the Tibetans. Seizing the moment, Khathing put in an appearance and firmly told the Tsona dzongpen and the other Tibetan officials that they would be escorted to the Indian border post at Khenzemane. Should they venture to cross back into Indian territory without the administration’s permission, they would be arrested. New Delhi now had administrative control over the whole of NEFA. After the incident, Nehru summoned Khathing and vented his anger, demanding to know who exactly had instructed Khathing to take matters into his own hands. Nehru’s reaction was fast becoming typical; even on the larger question of China and Tibet, the prime minister, in keeping with his image as a man of peace, refused to publicly castigate China despite the fact that all committees set up to study the situation on the northern border were indicating that a clash with the Chinese was a distinct possibility. Published with permission from Aleph Book Company.   Shiv Kunal Verma is a military historian and a documentary filmmaker. The article is an edited excerpt from his latest book, ‘1965: A Western Sunrise’ (Aleph publications). Views are personal.  Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.