Time and again history has shown that great powers tend to shape the world according to their interests and rarely on the basis of moral precepts. This, as former diplomat and author Dilip Sinha proves in his book, is precisely what is responsible for the tragedy of Tibet, a nation invaded by a powerful neighbour and abandoned by the world community. Even Tibet’s traditional friend, India, badly let down the Tibetans when they most needed assistance and a voice to tell the wider world of their calamity.
Mr Sinha describes how each of the great powers involved in Asia through history treated Tibet, China and India as well as the other related kingdoms of East Turkestan and Mongolia. Put very simply, Britain found itself incapable of fully assimilating or controlling Tibet the way it did India. China too was a distant and vast kingdom that required more power to rule than Britain could expend.
Britain which constantly worried about Russian ingress into every part of Asia, including India and China, felt it was best to prop up Beijing’s authority over these two regions and thereby pre-empt any Russian creep into India’s neighbourhood. The court at Beijing which traditionally had only limited authority over Tibet and enjoyed a special priest-monarchical relationship was thus thrust into the role of protector and suzerain of Tibet and Xinjiang. The Communists led by Chairman Mao who took control of China after the Second World War believed that any region in the past, no mat.