Forwarded post:

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's letter to Jawaharlal Nehru on 7
November 1950 not only deploring Indian Ambassador KM
Panikkar's action but also warning about dangers from China

Friends of Tibet, friendsoftibet.org

My dear Jawaharlal,

Ever since my return from Ahmedabad and after the cabinet
meeting the same day which I had to attend at practically
fifteen minutes' notice and for which I regret I was not
able to read all the papers, I have been anxiously thinking
over the problem of Tibet and I thought I should share with
you what is passing through my mind.

I have carefully gone through the correspondence between
the External Affairs Ministry and our Ambassador in Peking
and through him the Chinese Government. I have tried to
peruse this correspondence as favourably to our Ambassador
and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say
that neither of them comes out well as a result of this
study. The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by
professions of peaceful intention. My own feeling is that
at a crucial period they managed to instill into our
Ambassador a false sense of confidence in their so-called
desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means.
There can be no doubt that during the period covered by
this correspondence the Chinese must have been
concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action
of the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of
perfidy. The tragedy of it is that the Tibetans put faith
in us; they chose to be guided by us; and we have been
unable to get them out of the meshes of Chinese diplomacy
or Chinese malevolence. From the latest position, it
appears that we shall not be able to rescue the Dalai Lama.
Our Ambassador has been at great pains to find an
explanation or justification for Chinese policy and
actions. As the External Affairs Ministry remarked in one
of their telegrams, there was a lack of firmness and
unnecessary apology in one or two representations that he
made to the Chinese Government on our behalf. It is
impossible to imagine any sensible person believing in the
so-called threat to China from Anglo-American machinations
in Tibet. Therefore, if the Chinese put faith in this, they
must have distrusted us so completely as to have taken us
as tools or stooges of Anglo-American diplomacy or
strategy. This feeling, if genuinely entertained by the
Chinese in spite of your direct approaches to them,
indicates that even though we regard ourselves as the
friends of China, the Chinese do not regard us as their
friends. With the Communist mentality of "whoever is not
with them being against them", this is a significant
pointer, of which we have to take due note. During the last
several months, outside the Russian camp, we have
practically been alone in championing the cause of Chinese
entry into UN and in securing from the Americans assurances
on the question of Formosa. We have done everything we
could to assuage Chinese feelings, to allay its
apprehensions and to defend its legitimate claims in our
discussions and correspondence with America and Britain and
in the UN. Inspite of this, China is not convinced about
our disinterestedness; it continues to regard us with
suspicion and the whole psychology is one, at least
outwardly, of scepticism perhaps mixed with a little
hostility. I doubt if we can go any further than we have
done already to convince China of our good intentions,
friendliness and goodwill. In Peking we have an Ambassador
who is eminently suitable for putting across the friendly
point of view. Even he seems to have failed to convert the
Chinese. Their last telegram to us is an act of gross
discourtesy not only in the summary way it disposes of our
protest against the entry of Chinese forces into Tibet but
also in the wild insinuation that our attitude is
determined by foreign influences. It looks as though it is
not a friend speaking in that language but a potential
enemy.

In the background of this, we have to consider what new
situation now faces us as a result of the disappearance of
Tibet, as we knew it, and the expansion of China almost up
to our gates. Throughout history we have seldom been
worried about our north-east frontier. The Himalayas have
been regarded as an impenetrable barrier against any threat
from the north. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no
trouble. The Chinese were divided. They had their own
domestic problems and never bothered us about frontiers. In
1914, we entered into a convention with Tibet which was not
endorsed by the Chinese. We seem to have regarded Tibetan
autonomy as extending to independent treaty relationship.
Presumably, all that we required was Chinese counter-
signature. The Chinese interpretation of suzerainty seems
to be different. We can, therefore, safely assume that very
soon they will disown all the stipulations which Tibet has
entered into with us in the past. That throws into the
melting pot all frontier and commercial settlements with
Tibet on which we have been functioning and acting during
the last half a century. China is no longer divided. It is
united and strong. All along the Himalayas in the north and
north-east, we have on our side of the frontier a
population ethnologically and culturally not different from
Tibetans and Mongoloids. The undefined state of the
frontier and the existence on our side of a population with
its affinities to the Tibetans or Chinese have all the
elements of the potential trouble between China and
ourselves. Recent and bitter history also tells us that
Communism is no shield against imperialism and that the
communists are as good or as bad imperialists as any other.
Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the
Himalayan slopes on our side but also include the important
part of Assam. They have their ambitions in Burma also.
Burma has the added difficulty that it has no McMahon Line
round which to build up even the semblance of an agreement.
Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different
from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers.
The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times
more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie
concealed racial, national or historical claims. The danger
from the north and north-east, therefore, becomes both
communist and imperialist. While our western and north-
western threat to security is still as prominent as before,
a new threat has developed from the north and north-east.
Thus, for the first time, after centuries, India's defence
has to concentrate itself on two fronts simultaneously. Our
defence measures have so far been based on the calculations
of superiority over Pakistan. In our calculations we shall
now have to reckon with communist China in the north and in
the north-east, a communist China which has definite
ambitions and aims and which does not, in any way, seem
friendly disposed towards us.

Let us also consider the political conditions on this
potentially troublesome frontier. Our northern and north-
eastern approaches consist of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim,
Darjeeling and the tribal areas in Assam. From the point of
view of communication, there are weak spots. Continuous
defensive lines do not exist. There is almost an unlimited
scope for infiltration. Police protection is limited to a
very small number of passes. There, too, our outposts do
not seem to be fully manned. The contact of these areas
with us is by no means close and intimate. The people
inhabiting these portions have no established loyalty or
devotion to India. Even Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are
not free from pro-Mongoloid prejudices. During the last
three years, we have not been able to make any appreciable
approaches to the Nagas and other hill tribes in Assam.
European missionaries and other visitors had been in touch
with them, but their influence was in no way friendly to
India or Indians. In Sikkim, there was political ferment
some time ago. It is quite possible that discontent is
smouldering there. Bhutan is comparatively quiet, but its
affinity with Tibetans would be a handicap. Nepal has a
weak oligarchic regime based almost entirely on force: it
is in conflict with a turbulent element of the population
as well as with enlightened ideas of the modern age. In
these circumstances, to make people alive to the new danger
or to make them defensively strong is a very difficult task
indeed and that difficulty can be got over only by
enlightened firmness, strength and a clear line of policy.
I am sure the Chinese and their source of inspiration,
Soviet Union, would not miss any opportunity of exploiting
these weak spots, partly in support of their ideology and
partly in support of their ambitions. In my judgement the
situation is one which we cannot afford either to be
complacent or to be vacillating. We must have a clear idea
of what we wish to achieve and also of the methods by which
we should achieve it. Any faltering or lack of decisiveness
in formulating our objectives or in pursuing our policies
to attain those objectives is bound to weaken us and
increase the threats which are so evident.

Side by side with these external dangers, we shall now have
to face serious internal problems as well. I have already
asked Iengar to send to the External Affairs Ministry a
copy of the Intelligence Bureau's appreciation of these
matters. Hitherto, the Communist Party of India has found
some difficulty in contacting communists abroad, or in
getting supplies of arms, literature, etc., from them. They
had to contend with the difficult Burmese and Pakistan
frontiers on the east or with the long seaboard. They shall
now have a comparatively easy means of access to Chinese
communists and through them to other foreign communists.
Infiltration of spies, fifth columnists and communists
would now be easier. Instead of having to deal with
isolated communist pockets in Telengana and Warrangal we
may have to deal with communist threats to our security
along our northern and north-eastern frontiers, where, for
supplies of arms and ammunition, they can safely depend on
communist arsenals in China. The whole situation thus
raises a number of problems on which we must come to an
early decision so that we can, as I said earlier, formulate
the objectives of our policy and decide the method by which
those objectives are to be attained. It is also clear that
the action will have to be fairly comprehensive, involving
not only our defence strategy and state of preparations but
also problem of internal security to deal with which we
have not a moment to lose. We shall also have to deal with
administrative and political problems in the weak spots
along the frontier to which I have already referred.