Sikkim – Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom

Title: Sikkim – Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom
Author: Andrew Duff
Publisher: Penguin, 2015 (First)
ISBN: 9780143427605
Pages: 380
 
Sikkim is the small bulge on India’s Himalayan border on the north of West Bengal. Unlike the British provinces and native states that acceded to India in 1947, Sikkim maintained its distinct status as a protectorate of India. The administration and defence of the state was controlled by Indian officials, but the traditional ruler known as Chogyal commanded respect and obedience from his subjects. However, the Chogyal possessed only limited constitutional authority, quite unlike Bhutan which retained its sovereignty under some obligations to India on defence and foreign policy. In the 1950s, the crown prince who in effect handled the Chogyal’s privileges began to get upset over the disparity with Bhutan as its ruling family was dynastically related to the Chogyal. He maneuvered for more space for himself in the state’s administration. He highlighted Sikkim’s political status in international forums which caused immense embarrassment to India. With Chinese military aggression in 1962, the northern border suddenly became very critical to India. As the Chogyal’s manipulations increased, popular protests for democracy assumed violent manifestations. With tacit support from India, the pro-democracy factions managed to gain limited power in the state. But the frequent clashes of the popular leaders with the Chogyal put impassable obstacles in the state’s progress. Finally, upon a request from the popular assembly, India militarily intervened. Chogyal’s bodyguards were disarmed, he was placed under house arrest and Sikkim was integrated into the Union of India. This book tells this story with a sympathetic view of the Chogyal. Andrew Duff is a freelance journalist based in London and Scotland who writes on India and other subjects. He travels frequently throughout India and East Asia.
 
Sikkim’s ruler was traditionally submissive to colonial masters. The British had made a permanent presence in Sikkim from the 1890s. The ruling family adopted many elements of the imperial system and the lifestyle that went with it. Young princes were encouraged to develop an understanding of the British way of life. They all had English governesses who recreated British social life in Sikkim. The Chogyal was very popular with Europeans passing through Sikkim on purposes of travel, mountaineering, geology or plant-hunting. They frequently got invitations from the palace and dined with the ruler and his consort. They were fascinated by the combination of simple lifestyle and complex religious beliefs of the people set against the awe-inspiring beauty of the landscape. Sikkim’s aristocrats made it a habit to educate their children in England or prestigious British institutions in colonial India. Many of them married white women which made them more endearing to western travellers and media. Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal’s wife was an American girl who was seventeen years his junior.
 
The constitutional dilemma faced by Sikkim after the departure of the British was caused by large-scale immigration of people with Nepali ethnicity into the kingdom during British subjugation of the tiny Himalayan state. Even though the British established political supremacy over the Chogyal by virtue of their military muscle, they could not get enough manpower from among the native Bhutia and Lepcha communities to which the Sikkim aristocracy belonged. The British then sought out Nepali Hindus to settle in Sikkim and associate with public works designed for better integration with India. Sikkim was admitted to Indian Chamber of Princes in 1935. By the 1940s, Nepali Hindus constituted 75 per cent of the population that outnumbered the Buddhist Bhutias and Lepchas 3 to 1 even though the latter remained the ruling minority. Nepalis were excluded from all walks of state power. With increase in political awareness formed by exposure to freedom struggle in the neighbouring towns of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, the Nepalis formed the Sikkim State Congress and demanded accession to India. The Chogyal refused to have any truck with them. Even when democratic reforms were reluctantly introduced, it put the indigenous communities on equal parity in the number of reserved seats to the Nepalis. Their protests, which sometimes turned violent, prompted India to intervene. However, the author argues that public unrest was planned and orchestrated by India to forcibly annex the kingdom. After China’s occupation of Tibet and its war with India in 1962, having a firm grip on Sikkim had become highly strategic for India.
 
The book is indebted to people in the Chogyal’s inner circle for much of the information. But readers find him to be a profligate spender who used to travel extensively in Europe and America with family for purely personal reasons. He believed that the state and its resources belonged to him without accountability to anyone. In the 1950s and 60s, he indulged in conscious effort to assert his independence from India that troubled the relations with her. After his coronation in 1965 on the death of his father, Thondup Namgyal changed the usual title of Maharaja and Maharani to the traditional Chogyal and Gyalmo, emphasizing Sikkim’s distinctness. Hope Cooke, his American wife, muddled waters by writing an article in the Tibetology Institute’s magazine questioning the annexation of Darjeeling to India in British times and wanted the town back. A more odious challenge came in 1968, on India’s Independence Day celebrations in Gangtok. A group of Sikkimese school children went on a procession asking Indians to get out of the state and demanded full independence. Discrete interviews were arranged by the royal couple to prominent international journals to stress the liberation of Sikkim from Indian yoke. However, the people rose up in revolt at the blatant disregard of the Chogyal towards their wishes. The resultant flood of discontent swept away the his throne.
 
The book also describes the measures taken after annexation to remove the legacy of Chogyal. The family’s name was removed from the titles of prestigious institutes in the state. Palace budget was slashed to a quarter of the original. The ruler had raised a private militia called Sikkim Guards to protect his person and the palace. India withheld the money allocated to the contingent. The Chogyal ineffectively struck back by raising allegations in press conferences held in Kolkata and Kathmandu where he had visited in connection with the coronation of King Birendra of Nepal. The author alleges that India freely distributed money, promised promotions and threatened when the first two options proved unyielding. Anyway, he is able to cite only people who did not want to identify themselves as the source of information. India conducted a plebiscite to test the acceptability of Sikkim’s annexation. 63 per cent of the eligible voted and among them 97 per cent supported the integration and removal of the Chogyal. This was the same percentage of votes obtained by the ruling party in elections held in the previous year. But the author claims that the polls were rigged.
 
Though having only a peripheral relation to the main narrative, one notable fact is Nehru’s bungling in crucial matters of international policy, landing the country in serious trouble. A delegation of Sikkim’s popular leaders had met Nehru in 1948 itself requesting the state’s accession to India. But Nehru’s response surprised them. He told them not to push for accession as it may lead to adverse international opinion that India coerced the small states unnecessarily. Instead, he asked them to grow according to their own genius (p.36). Nehru’s pusillanimity on Tibet was unpardonable. Perhaps he might not have been able to prevent China’s taking over, but the saddest fact is that he did not even try. Right in 1947, Sardar Patel felt that India should continue to support the autonomy of Tibet to keep it as a vital buffer against China. But Nehru rejected this line of thought. His vision was for a pan-Asian federation, with China and India as close partners in a post-imperial world. He feared that India’s strong commitment to Tibet would cause unnecessary tensions with China (p.39-40). So he sat back and impotently watched China walking into and annexing Tibet. The Tibetans turned to India for help in the form of a modest quantity of arms and ammunition for resistance groups. But Nehru refused, as he did not want to be seen as siding with the USA against China (p.42). In spite of obvious inimical signs from China, Nehru sheepishly tried to please them. In 1952, he downgraded India’s representation in Tibet to a consul-general, conceding that Tibet’s foreign relations were controlled by China. Two years later, India withdrew its military escort in the Chumbi Valley, which is the tri-junction between Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet and handed the dak bungalows there over to the Chinese (p.53). It is ironic to remember that China’s incursions in 2017 were along this route!
 
Duff exhibits a hostile attitude to India throughout the text. This leads to absurd inconsistencies on a few occasions. He claims that another book critical of India, titled ‘Smash and Grab – Annexation of Sikkim’ is banned in India, but then retracts it in a footnote saying that ‘it is not banned, but cleverly sidelined by the authorities’. How can a government sideline a book displayed for sale in a bookstall or for lending in a library? As is typical of haughty European writers, clichés like flickering electric lamps and peeling paint in Indian buildings are scattered here and there in the narrative. There are many photographs that mainly show the personal life of Thondup Namgyal, but nothing of interest in the political front is seen. The book is easy to read, but a distinct feeling of relying too much on unverifiable hearsay cannot be shaken off.
 
The book is recommended.
 
Rating: 2 Star