It is unfortunate that this topic has been raised again, although I must confess that if it had to be raised, I would rather that it was one of you yourself, or
CardSharp, or
Chinese-Dragon, or
huizihaidou who raised it: in my personal opinion, it is difficult to have a rational conversation with other Chinese posters, and, of course, needless to add, that must logically be mirrored by the distrust and suspicion of Chinese posters for Indians.
I am glad that you have invited
a mature argument among grown-ups
and have called for
to be absent. This is welcome; I request my Indian friends to stick to fact and not to make a row, or to get involved in a
tu quoque - you too! - kind of argument, which is peculiarly unpalatable to anyone interested in the reality of a situation.
Presumably,
gpit, you have no personal knowledge of the territory, or of administration over there in the past. It seems to be so from some of your remarks, which, with respect, are tendentious and based purely on conjecture. As a background to the arguments that I am about to present below, I would like to share some personal information. This has a direct bearing on your post, and my response to it, so please bear with me, and please keep your friends and fellow countrymen from falling on me in a pack and tearing me to shreds until I finish my account. I will respond separately on the administrative, cultural, ethnic, historical and legal aspects, which I have actually already covered in an earlier thread, and which you may already have seen. However, we have seen your arguments, which you hold on to in spite of our rebuttals with fact and with information, and I suppose neither side will give up its position. For what it's worth, I will re-present those facts and that information that I had done before, so that you have handy,
within this thread itself, whatever I have said elsewhere, and will not think I am making excuses or am being evasive.
I am now 60 years old. My father, 91 last November, a policeman, was posted in North Bengal in 1957. We travelled there and lived there, in a small town called Jalpaiguri, for four years, from 57 to 61. In 61, after my sister was born, my father was posted back to another job in the southern part of the state and we went back away.
You might like to look up Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling on the map; any detailed map of India will do. My father toured extensively, mostly to cover his beat of five districts in the north, the entire north of West Bengal. Jalpaiguri was the town, but the district it belonged to was also known as Jalpaiguri, and the town was in fact the district Head Quarters. The point of interest was that it abuts on Assam, and all traffic to Assam from the rest of India travels through that district. At one point, the distance between Nepal and Bangladesh is 50 kms. or perhaps even less. A glance at the map will show you what I mean. Incidentally, since you appear to be fond of Wikipedia, Jalpaiguri will get you a map and other references a-plenty. The huge river hurtling past the town is the Teesta, and it goes into Rangpur in Bangladesh soon after washing past Jalpaiguri, and taking the Karala river in as it goes. We lived between the Karala and the Teesta, and it was a frightening ordeal for a 7 year old to travel alone along the raging Teesta in full flood in the monsoons, along the top of the 20 foot embankment that kept the river - both rivers - out of the town.
Besides his official tours (touring and inspecting police stations and their fitness for duty occupied most of his time, and he had to cover five districts, so he was a busy man), my father was very friendly with the tea planters, and he and my mother would usually have dinner with one or the other planters at their plantation and return home around 1 or 2 in the morning. These social expeditions sometimes took them into Assam, and we consequently have a lot of Assamese friends as well. In addition, he was occasionally invited as a state guest to Bhutan, whose administration were on very easy and casual terms with the administration of north Bengal. So, too, the administration of Sikkim, except that the Sikkimese were sharply divided between the Chogyal's faction and the Kazi's faction; the Kazi had married an European lady who claimed to be the niece of the famous Field Marshal Mannerheim, and was the ruling belle in Sikkim, even at a somewhat advanced age, until the Chogyal stole a march on his political and cultural rival and married a young American, and put the cat among the pigeons. If it had not been for Hope Cooke (the young American wife of the Chogyal), Sikkim might still have been an allied state of India.
In 1959, my father was suddenly given instructions to travel to Assam, and to a part of Assam then known as NEFA - North East Frontier Agency - to receive a mysterious and unnamed Very Important Person. He had no official rank in Assam, and was probably asked to go there to be an additional source of information. He travelled to Tezpur and then turned up into the hills, past the pass named Bomdi La almost right up to the Tibetan border. The VIP turned out to be HH the Dalai Lama, who, with his entourage, turned up at a place called Tawang, the site of a very large monastery, reputed to be the largest after Lhasa, which was a Gelugpa monastery, Gelugpa being the Dalai Lama's sect. My father was the guest of the District Commissioner of West Kameng District (in those days called the Political Officer) which was a very large district and has since been divided into two or three smaller ones since then.
Later, in early 1960, my father sent us on holiday (my brother and I with some staff, my mother accompanying him on an official assignment abroad) to the extreme east of the state of Assam, to that part of NEFA, Lohit, where the Brahmaputra enters the plains through a series of incredible gorges. I remember standing there, a stunned schoolboy on a mountain bluff, seeing in front of me the Brahmaputra in its first phase in the plains, a completely awesome sight. I wish I had photographs; unfortunately, we were not rich people, the only camera we owned was a Kodak Brownie, and my mother had taken it to Europe. In her judgement, a photo-tour of Europe was far more interesting for our large family and friends and relatives than her two little boys on some vague trip to the back of beyond. How things have changed!
The point is to remind you that British, and thereafter Indian administration of these tracts, as they were called, dated back to the 1880s, when it was administered out of Dibrugarh, along with a portion of land called Tuensang which has since become Nagaland. There was extensive travel and administrative work done through the 40s, 50s and 60s, the limiting factor, as always, being funds. We were never a rich country.
It is far from true that some administrative efforts were made in 1962, as you have very bravely claimed; by then, there had been 80 years of administration, direct, detailed administration, of these areas.
I would like to present other facts and information after giving you this background, which I have presented to remind you that unlike others, I have a personal and close knowledge about the places we are discussing, as well as a structured and educated view of the land, including (as I have mentioned at the outset) administrative, cultural, ethnic, historical and legal aspects.
Thank you for your patience.
A special note for my friend
CardSharp: since you made the very unwise declaration that you are not very well-up in matters prior to the 20th century, I invite you to attend closely to the arguments that follow in the subsequent posts. Of course, that is in case you are interested in covering these gaps; we have the contrary attitude of Sherlock Holmes , who was found to be ignorant of the facts regarding the solar system, and insisted that he refused to clutter his mind with inessentials.
While most Indians claim, intentionally or unintentionally, all over the place that Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) is an integral part of India, (see in
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-...china-not-reality-says-pm-manmohan-singh.html ) I actually find, with factual truth, that
Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) is NOT an integral part of India.
Friends, the following is why Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet) is NOT an integral part of India. And there is no legal ground for Indians to claim so.
While it is true that there are some traces of Indian cultural relics found in AP, it had been more that Tibetans who ruled ZN before the British took it over.
For simplicity, just get a rough picture from wiki:
Simla Accord has been trashed by the very UK itself:
Thus, India has only recently (after 1962) occupied the territory illegally, and there is no legal ground for Indians to claim that ZN(AP) is an integral part of India.
Dissidents from India or Tibetans in exile who want to be indian, voice your different/opposing opinions.
No jingoism, no slogans, as they count nothing in a legal argument among matured grown-ups.
You americans live in your own little world! and think you guys can do whatever want in the world!
