India and Tibet / A history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

All this, however, is a matter of machinery. I have touched on it first because it is, in my opinion, through the machinery being of a defective type that the object of our policy in Tibet has not been attained. It is now time to examine the results of our efforts there since 1773.

The net result is that at last we find the Tibetans anxious to be on neighbourly terms, and, indeed, to form an alliance with us, but that the action of the Russians on the one hand and of the Chinese on the other, together with lukewarmness in England, stands in the way of our being as intimate with the Tibetans as they now wish us to be. It has proved in the result that the Tibetans are not really the seclusive people we had believed. By nature they are sociable and hospitable and given to trade. They are jealous about their religion, but as long as that is not touched they are ready enough for political relationship, for social intercourse, and for commercial transactions. The present obstacle to neighbourly intercourse is the suspicion of the Chinese. There is some reason to think that from the first they have instilled into the Tibetans the idea of keeping themselves secluded. Anyhow, now they are quite evidently keeping us apart. And any means we had of preventing the Chinese insinuating themselves between us and the Tibetans have been taken from us through the jealousy of the Russians. Owing to this, we are not now in Chumbi and we have not an agent at Lhasa. The Chinese fear we may absorb Tibet and press them in Szechuan, and the Russians fear a predominant influence with the Dalai Lama might be used by us detrimentally to their Buddhist subjects present and to be. Both, therefore, stand in the way of that close relationship with the Tibetans which is now desired even more by them than by us.

This in brief is the situation at which we have arrived, and in drawing conclusions as to any future action we must first make our minds clear as to what we want in Tibet.

Many say that we do not want anything at all. They argue that the Tibetans live at the back of a stupendous range of snowy mountains, and we had much better leave them alone. Some go so far as to say that it was actually wicked of us forcibly to enter Tibet in 1904. The Mission was styled in the House of Commons “an ignoble little raid,” and even the then leader of the Opposition, after its successful conclusion, said that it had “lowered our prestige.” Before, then, I proceed to examine what we actually do want I will deal with this question as to whether we really want anything at all, and whether there was anything inherently wicked in the Lhasa Mission of 1904.

This idea of the immorality of in any way coercing a people like the Tibetans is, I believe, largely based on the assumption lying unconsciously at the back of people’s minds that Tibet is as distant and as much separated from India as it is from England, that it is some remote and inaccessible country into which no one but meddlesome adventurers should want to enter. And they think that for us to go out of our way deliberately to interfere with a people who only wanted to be left alone was sheer wanton wickedness, and nothing else—except, perhaps, inane folly and wastefulness of human life and good money. This view proceeds, I am convinced, from the quite intelligible lack of appreciation by those in England of the actual conditions prevailing on the spot. For the men who act on the confines of the Empire in this supposedly evil way are, after all, kith and kin with themselves. They were born and bred in England, and are probably not more naturally wicked than an ordinary Member of Parliament.

Now, I have shown that, however remote Tibet is from England, it is not remote from India, but, on the contrary, adjoins and marches with India for 1,000 miles. And if Russia, whose border nowhere comes within hundreds of miles, can yet take such a practical interest in the country as to protest time after time at each little move we make in relation to the Tibetans, surely there is some probability that we also have a necessity for interesting ourselves in it? If the Russians as well as ourselves take practical interest in Tibet, and feel it necessary to have some fairly sharp diplomatic correspondence about it, the probability is that any action we take is not merely inspired by inquisitiveness, idle curiosity, or love of adventure, but that animating this interest must be some real practical necessity.

What that necessity is must, I think, be evident to those who have read the previous pages. Though it is the fact that Tibet is divided from India by the lofty Himalayas, it is also the fact that there is connection and intercourse between the inhabitants of the two countries. Tibet is not isolated like an oceanic island. The inhabitants of India and the inhabitants of Tibet have always had relation and intercourse with one another. And it is the necessity for regularizing and harmonizing the intercourse, and for putting it on a business-like footing, that has been the cause of our interest in the country.

Let me bring the point a little nearer home. Supposing there were in the far Highlands of Scotland a people who had drawn their religion from England, who always looked with veneration upon and made pilgrimages to the sacred cities of Canterbury and York; who were accustomed to come and trade in Perthshire, and occasionally in Glasgow and Dundee; who pastured their flocks and herds along the Grampians; and who intermarried with the people in the Lowlands; and, supposing that this people said they wanted to keep to themselves in their own country in the far Highlands, and not admit anyone from outside, we would say that we could sympathize and understand such a wish, though it certainly seemed somewhat one-sided, considering they had all the advantage of coming into the Lowlands of Scotland and into England whenever they liked. For the benefit of these Lowlanders and Englishmen we might send some emissaries to the Highlanders, as Hastings sent Bogle and Turner to the Tibetans to try by amicable methods to get them to admit our traders, to the reciprocal advantage of both. But if they resented them strongly, we should probably say to ourselves that as long as they did not worry us we would not worry them, and would leave them in their isolation in the Highlands.

But if they did worry us, would not the whole situation be changed? If 10,000 of them came down one day and built a fort in the Perth Hills and refused to move, would not that change our ideas as to leaving them alone? And if, in addition, after they had refused to receive a letter from us, they sent an emissary with letters to the German Emperor and his Chancellor, would not that yet further change our ideas as to respecting their seclusion? The Chancellor might explain that the letter to him was merely to inquire after his health, and that the business with the German Emperor was of a “purely religious nature”; but we should, all the same, think it was about time to be bestirring ourselves to come to some practical understanding with these inhabitants of the Highlands. We should say to them: “We do not in the least mind your keeping yourselves absolutely to yourselves, though we think it inhospitable and unneighbourly; but now you have begun to worry us and to have communications with our rivals, we must come to a clear understanding with you.”

But supposing we found it impossible to discover anyone to make an understanding with, and that the emissary we had sent to them, at the first place inside their border, accompanied with a just sufficiently large escort to protect him in venturing into these wild regions, could find no one to communicate with, and had his letters returned, would the proper thing then have been to bring him back home, and say that as we could do nothing further except by using force—and the use of force was wicked—we must give up the whole business, not mind how many letters were written to the German Emperor, and whether the Highlanders did exclude our traders, and occupy our pasture-lands, and throw down our boundary pillars? We might say that the game was not worth the candle, that the coming to an understanding was not worth all the expense and trouble of sending our emissary by force into the very heart of the Highlands. But can it really be contended that there would be anything unjustifiable, wicked, or immoral in increasing our emissary’s escort and sending him still farther into the Highlands, with orders that, by the use of force, if necessary, he must proceed till he could find someone of authority sufficient for us to make a lasting understanding with him, so that this intercourse with our neighbours might for the future be properly regulated, and any risk of their entering into undesirable connection with possible rivals be removed?