Chapter 126: Erasure or Change?

The Grand Trunk Road, near Gujrat,

West Punjab,January 1950

The road west of the Chenab had not been a road for weeks now; it had become a river of people.

They came up from Sindh in carts and on foot, and down from the Kashmir foothills and out of the passes of Baluchistan, and by the second week of January the Grand Trunk Road between Gujrat and Rawalpindi carried more than forty thousand a day. Nobody had ordered the movement. Nobody had organised it. A rumour had gone ahead of the Indian columns, passed from village to village and camp to camp: the Indians were coming, and those who did not wish to live under the tricolour should go north while the road was open.

Some went out of fear and some out of conviction. Many simply followed the person ahead of them.

Khalid Mahmood, the relief officer who had watched the carts at the Sukkur barrage in May, now stood at a crossroads outside Gujrat with a clipboard and four exhausted clerks. He had stopped counting at three hundred thousand. Beyond the crossroads, the Punjab fields lay under a thin January frost, and every one of them had a family camped in it.

"Where do they go?" a clerk asked. "The camps are full. The Government says Rawalpindi, but Rawalpindi has no grain."

"Tell them Jhelum," Khalid said. "Tell them Chakwal. Tell them anything with a road leading to it."

"And when those are full?"

He did not answer, for he had none. A column of Baluch families was passing, men in long shirts with rifles slung, women walking behind with their faces covered, children riding on camels piled with rugs and iron pots. They had walked from Kalat. An old man at the head stopped and asked, in broken Urdu, whether it was true that the Punjab would give them land.

"I do not know, Baba," Khalid said honestly.

"The Government in Pindi said so."

"Then I hope the Government is right."

The old man studied him. "You do not look like a man who believes it."

"I am a man who has seen the wheat prices," Khalid said, and found himself apologising to a stranger for something he had no part in.

Behind them, on the Jhelum Road, a convoy of Kashmiri refugees from Mirpur and Poonch crawled north in trucks the Pakistani Army had commandeered and then abandoned. They were mostly Muslims from the districts the Indian Army had taken in the autumn, villagers who had been told that the Hindus would burn their houses. Nobody had burned anything. But the rumour had been repeated so often, and the shelling had been so loud, that a district headman from Kotli who had stayed through the fighting said he could no longer tell which fear was true.

In Lahore, under Indian siege, the Pakistani authorities were rationing bread by the slice. In Rawalpindi, where the war cabinet sat, Liaquat Ali Khan received a report that the refugee population of West Punjab had passed three million and was growing by sixty thousand a week. He read it twice, set it down, and said to nobody in particular that the Punjab could not feed them and could not turn them away.

Brigadier Shaw, in his corner, took the pipe out of his mouth.

"There is a cruelty in this," he said quietly, "that I do not think the Indians intended."

"No?" Akbar Khan said.

"They did not drive them. They only advanced. The people ran ahead of the advance and are now eating the Punjab. A siege from the inside." He lit the pipe again. "I would call it very good generalship, if it were deliberate."

South Block, New Delhi

January 9, 1950

Mullick brought the figures to the Cabinet Room on a single sheet.

"Between the first of December and the end of last week, Prime Minister, an estimated one million eight hundred thousand people have left the Indian-held areas of Sindh, Baluchistan, and the Kashmir districts west of the line and gone into Pakistani Punjab. The movement is accelerating. We have not interfered. We have not encouraged it. The Pakistani press says we are expelling Muslims at gunpoint. The American correspondents say the opposite. The truth is that most of them are walking out on their own."

Ram read the sheet. Patel, in his high-backed chair by the window with a rug over his knees, listened with his eyes half closed.

"We have not driven them," Ram said. "Just as we had not separated electorates, or partitioned the country. If they leave by their own will, who are we to stop them?"

"Your standing orders are being followed, Prime Minister," Mullick said. "General Chaudhuri’s troops have fed anyone who asked, in Karachi, in Hyderabad, and in Sukkur. Several thousand families have chosen to stay. Many more have decided that they would rather live among their own."

"Their own," Patel repeated drily. "A very flexible word."

"It is the word they use, Sardar-sahib."

"It is the word that made this war." Patel opened his eyes. "Ram, I do not like what we are watching. A million and eight hundred thousand into the Punjab. It is Partition again, only slower."

"It is not Partition, Vallabhbhai. In Partition, the people were murdered on the way. These are walking on roads we have not blocked, carrying their goods, and drinking from wells we have not poisoned." Ram folded the sheet. "But you are right that it is not a solution. It is a pressure. Pakistan will break under the weight of it before we break under the weight of the war."

"And the humanity of it?"

"It is the cost of the war," Ram said. "I cannot refuse to see it. I will not exploit it. Mullick, I want relief columns on every road crossing into Indian-held territory. Grain, water, medical teams, and no questions asked of anyone who accepts them. If a family wishes to go on, they will not be stopped; if they wish to stop, they will be documented and will follow the laws of the country."

"The Pakistani authorities will call it propaganda."

"Let them. It will also be true."

The Kashag, Lhasa

January 1950

It was a bitter month in Tibet. The wind came down from the Chang Tang in long, dry gusts, and the butter lamps in the Potala guttered in every draught. In the Kashag council chamber, a long, low room hung with faded tapestries, the four ministers sat on cushions facing the Regent, and nobody had spoken for several minutes.

The letter from Peking lay open on the low table between them. It had arrived by the same hand as the first, with a second page in Tibetan that was nearly polite: a delegation was to be sent to Peking within three months, to negotiate "the peaceful liberation of Tibet." If the Tibetan Government declined, the People’s Liberation Army would consider "other means."

Shakabpa, the finance minister, spoke first because he was the least afraid to speak. "They have not said they will invade. They have said they will consider other means. It is the language of men who have not yet decided."

"It is the language of men who have decided and wish us to think otherwise," said Surkhang, the senior lay minister, a thin, grey-haired aristocrat who had held office under three Regents. "I have read that sentence in many forms. It means: obey, and we will be gentle."

"Then we do not obey."

"With what army?" Surkhang’s hand moved in a small, tired gesture. "Ten thousand men, half of them monks in uniform? They have fought the Nationalists to a standstill in Manchuria and across a river wider than the Drichu, or in their language, the Yangtze. We cannot even close the passes."

"The Indians will close them," said a younger minister, Ngabo, who had spent time in Kham. "They have told us so. They have promised a shield."

"At what price?"

Nobody answered. The Indian proposal, carried up from Gangtok in a sealed cypher by a Ladakhi monk the Kashag had not been supposed to know about, was in the Regent’s lap. It was written in careful, plain Tibetan: accession to the Indian Union on the Bhutanese model, a tiered arrangement over fifteen years, full freedom of religion, wide local self-government, an Indian garrison on the passes, and a place in the Union’s democratic framework.

There was no throne in it. The Dalai Lama would be recognised and honoured as the head of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, his spiritual authority respected by the Republic and protected in law, but he could not be sovereign inside a constitution that knew no sovereign but its people.

The land system, too, would have to change over time, by stages, in consultation with the monasteries. It ended with a line the Regent had read twice: The Republic does not ask Tibet to cease to be Tibet. It asks Tibet to change, and to let India stand beside it while it does.

"They call it an accession," Surkhang said. "I call it a surrender with a better name."

"And what do you call the Chinese offer?" Shakabpa asked. "The peaceful liberation? That is also a surrender, and its name is better still. Under the Indians, we lose a throne and some of our estates, and we keep our faith, our monasteries, our language, and our people. We are asked to change. Under the Chinese, we have the testimony of those who have already been liberated. Ask the monks of Amdo."

"The Communists say they will respect our religion."

"The Communists have discarded religion."

Taktra, the aged Regent, who had said nothing, raised one hand. He was a small, frail man, nearly eighty, who had held power for nine years and wanted very much to hand it over without a catastrophe.

"I have listened to both of you with respect," he said. "I will say only what I have thought for many nights. The Indians are not asking for Tibet. They are asking for a partnership. It is not a free one, and it has conditions. But it leaves the Dalai Lama alive as the head of our faith, and the faith alive with him. The Chinese are not asking for a partnership. They are asking whether Tibet will exist at all."

"His Holiness is fifteen," Surkhang said stubbornly. "It is not for us to decide. He has not yet been enthroned."

"He expelled four of the Kashag’s own members last month without asking any of us," Shakabpa said. "I would say he has already decided."

A silence followed. Surkhang looked at the letter. At last, he said, in a low voice, "If we do this, and the Chinese do not accept it, they will come anyway."

"Yes."

"Then it will be war, and Tibet will be the battleground."

"It will be war, with the Indian Army beside us instead of in front of us," Ngabo said. "That is the whole of the difference. I think it is a large one."

The debate lasted seven days. On the third, a group of senior abbots from Drepung and Sera, who had been listening from the corridor, requested to be heard, and the Regent allowed it. The abbot of Sera, a vast, bald, genial man with a voice like a drum, said that the monasteries had weighed the matter and wished the Kashag to know where they stood.

"A Buddhist does not seek war," he said. "But he does not give his house to a thief. The Indians have been our friends for fifteen hundred years. The monks who built Samye were Indians. The books we read were written in India. We would rather have a friend with a rifle than a stranger with a speech."

"The Chinese are also Buddhists, some of them," Surkhang said.

"The ones who have come here are not. The ones who have come here have burned our books." The abbot looked at him steadily. "I have no wish to put my name to a paper that Peking can use. But I will put my name to one that India will honour."

On the seventh day, with the Regent’s consent, the vote was taken. It was three to one. Surkhang, who had spoken against, stood last, in the silence, and bowed his head.

"If I am wrong," he said, "I hope someone will be kind enough to say so."

"If you are wrong," Shakabpa said, "there will be no one left to say it."

The delegation to Delhi left Lhasa on the fourteenth of January, eleven men on mules and ponies, with an escort of Indian Gurkhas who had appeared at the passes by quiet arrangement. In Gangtok, where they stopped to rest, the Ladakhi monk Tenzin met them at the Residency gate with a small bow.

"You are expected," he said. "The Prime Minister will receive you on the twentieth."

"You are not a monk," Shakabpa said, looking at him closely.

"I was a monk for ten years," Tenzin said. "It was the best of my jobs."

DelhiJanuary 20, 1950

The meeting lasted four hours and was held in a small room at the back of South Block, with a copper brazier in the corner and a pot of Tibetan tea that Shaktidas had ordered from a shop in Karol Bagh. Ram received the delegation alone, with Menon beside him. He asked Shakabpa, through an interpreter, how the passes had been in the snow.

"Difficult, Prime Minister."

"They will not be difficult for long. We are building a road to the border at Nathu La. It will carry trucks by autumn."

Shakabpa studied him. The Prime Minister of India was a man of no particular presence, plainly dressed, with a quiet voice and a way of listening that made one wish to say more than one meant.

"We have come to say that the Kashag accepts the principle of your proposal," Shakabpa said. "On conditions."

"Name them."

"First, that the Dalai Lama is enthroned at the proper time and acknowledged as sovereign, whatever the Indian constitution says."

"That I cannot grant," Ram said, without unkindness. "The Constitution has no place for a sovereign, and I will not write a lie into it. What I can promise is this. The Republic will recognise His Holiness as the head of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, in Tibet and wherever Tibetans live.

His authority in matters of religion will be respected and protected by law, and his voice will be heard in any matter touching Tibet. He may be enthroned by your own rites, as the Dalai Lama has always been. The Republic will attend, with honour."

Shakabpa looked at his colleagues. Nobody spoke for a time. Surkhang’s face had gone grey.

"It is not what we asked."

"No. It is what I can give." Ram’s voice stayed even. "I will not flatter you, Shakabpa-la. Tibet is offered a choice, and I do not pretend it is an easy one. On one side, the Communists, and with them the end of everything you are. On the other, the Republic, and a Tibet that continues, with its Dalai Lama, its monasteries, and its people, but changed. I would rather tell you the cost now than have you discover it later."

Shakabpa was the first to answer. "A Dalai Lama whose faith is respected is better than a Dalai Lama whose throne is a prison."

"Then we may proceed," Ram said.

"Second, that Indian troops will not be quartered in Lhasa. On the passes and in the border districts, yes. In the capital, no."

"Granted."

"Third, that the monasteries retain their estates and their courts. That no reform of land tenure be imposed from outside."

Ram was silent for a moment. "On the third, I must be honest again. Land reform will come. The Constitution abolishes serfdom and bonded labour everywhere in the Union, and Tibet cannot be an exception. But it need not come as a blow. It can come in stages, over years, with compensation to the monasteries and the nobility, with the land first passing to those who farm it, and with the monasteries keeping enough to support their monks and their schools. Your own administrators will carry it out. Ours will advise."

Shakabpa looked at his colleagues. Ngabo nodded, and Surkhang, after a long breath, nodded too.

"And the fourth?" Ram asked.

"That if the Chinese cross the border, India will fight."

"If the Chinese cross the border," Ram said, "they will cross it into India. Tibet will be Indian territory under the Union’s protection, and an attack on it will be an attack on this Republic. We have shown in Kashmir what that means. I do not say it as a threat. I say it as a promise."

Nobody spoke. The brazier hissed. Shakabpa took a folded paper from his sleeve, unfolded it, and laid it before the Prime Minister. It was a letter from the Dalai Lama, in his own hand, in careful Tibetan script, and it was addressed to Ram by name.

Ram read it through the interpreter. It was short. It said that the writer was young, that he understood what was asked of him, and that he would rather lead his people through change than watch them be erased. He hoped India would remember him when he was old.

"He is fifteen years old," Ram said quietly.

"He is the oldest fifteen I have ever met," Shakabpa said.

Ram took out his pen. "Then let us do this properly. Menon-ji, bring the instrument."

They signed on the twenty-second, in the presence of the whole Cabinet. Patel, wrapped in his shawl, made the journey to South Block in a car with the physician beside him, sat through the ceremony in a high-backed chair, and said nothing until it was over. When the last signature was dry, he rose with some effort and went to Shakabpa.

"Tibet and India," he said, in his slow, gravelly Hindi, through the interpreter, "have been neighbours for a thousand years. We were not always good ones. We will try to be good ones now."

South Block

January 24, 1950

The Cabinet Room was almost empty by evening. The last of the clerks had gone. On the table, the final draft of the Constitution lay in three thick volumes, bound in blue cloth, with a ribbon marker in each.

Ram stood at the window, looking out over Rajpath, where the lamps were being lit one by one. Behind him, Shaktidas gathered the day’s papers.

"The Assembly meets on the twenty-fourth," Shaktidas said. "The last session. Dr. Ambedkar asks whether you would address it before the final vote."

"I will. But briefly."

"And then?"

"And then, on the twenty-sixth, the Republic will have a Constitution," Ram said. He turned from the window. In the lamplight, his face looked tired and calm. "Thirteen years ago, in a jail in Naini, I told a man in a plain khadi shawl that a country was made of three things: steel, grain, and law. We have the steel. We are growing the grain. Now we will have the law."

"Is it a good one?"

"It is the one we could write. Whether it is a good one, the next fifty years will say." He picked up the first of the three volumes and weighed it in his hand. "Jawaharlal will make a speech about destiny. Ambedkar will make a speech about justice. I will make a speech about homework."

Shaktidas smiled. "Homework?"

"Every law in this book is a promise to someone," Ram said. "Our work begins when we have to keep them."

He set the volume down, put out the lamp, and went out into the corridor. Outside the high windows, the dusk was fading, and a thin new moon stood over the dome of the Secretariat.

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