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The McMahon Line 1911–45: The British Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Karunakar Gupta
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Extract

In 1913 the British convoked a conference at Simla; the Tibetans attending willingly, the Chinese under constraint. The purpose of the British Government in this conference was to extend and formalize the de facto independence which Tibet had begun to enjoy in 1912 as a result of the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, and of the consequent turmoil in China: Tibet would thus be maintained as a buffer state between India and China. This the British hoped to achieve by making the Chinese accept a zonal division of Tibet into “Inner” (from Peking's point of view) and “Outer” regions. (The Russians had obtained China's acquiescence in a similar division of Mongolia in 1913.) The British aim suited Tibetan aspirations, and the British and the Tibetans worked throughout the Conference in closest co-operation, not far short, indeed, of collusion.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 47 , September 1971, pp. 521 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

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References

1. The background to the Simla Conference and the course of the Conference have been exhaustively recounted and analysed, notably by Professor Alastair Lamb in his two-volume study The McMahon Line (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).Google Scholar Miss Dorothy Woodman in her Himalayan Frontiers (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1969) adds some fresh material.Google Scholar

2. Woodman, , Himalayan Frontiers, p. 176.Google Scholar

3. The distinction between “delimitation” and “demarcation” is all-important in the discussion of boundary questions. It was first drawn in 1897 by Sir Henry McMahon, who later put it in these words: “The laying down of boundaries comprises two distinct and important stages, ‘Delimitation’ and ‘Demarcation’ … ‘Delimitation’ I have taken to comprise the determination of a boundary line by treaty or otherwise, and its definiton in written verbal terms; ‘Demarcation’ to comprise the actual laying down of a boundary line on the ground, and its definition by boundary pillars or other similar physical means.” (SirMcMahon, Henry's inaugural Address as the President-Elect to the Royal Society of Arts, 6 11 1935.Google ScholarJRCS, Vol. LXXXIV.)Google Scholar

4. India Office Records (IOR): L/P & S/10/181. Confidential Note by Chief of General Staff, 1 June 1912. I would like to record my gratitude to Mr Martin Moir of the India Office Library for the unstinting help he gave me in searching these records.

5. I.O.R.: Pol. 464: Pts. 5 & 6: L/P & S/10/344. Political and Secret Memo B 206. No. 90 of 1914 G.O.I. Foreign And Political Department. Hardinge to Crew, 23 July 1914.

6. I.O.R.: Pol. 464: Pts. 5 & 6: L/P & S/10/344. No. 448 E.B. Simla, 3 September 1915. From Foreign Secretary to the Government of India to C A. Bell Political Officer in Sikkim.

7. Ibid.

8. Aitchison, C. U., Collection of Engagements, Treaties and Sanads published under the authority of the Foreign and Political Department, Government of India, Vol. XIV.Google Scholar

9. I.O.R. L/PS/10/1192. No. P 2972/1928, Simla, 22 May 1928. From Foreign Secretary, Government of India, to Secretary, Political Department, India Office, London.

10. For reasons explained below, only two copies of this volume are known to this author to be in existence. They are in the India Office Records and Harvard University Library. (See note 45.)

11. Aitchison, , Vol. XIV, p. 20.Google Scholar

12. Tibet Past and Present (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), pp. 155–156.Google Scholar

13. Aitchison, , Vol. XII, p. 100.Google Scholar

14. I.O.R. Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. No. P.Z. 2788/1936. Caroe, to Walton, , 9 04 1936.Google Scholar

15. “The McMahon Line was drawn just before World War I and then forgotten,” Caroe (by then Sir Olaf) recalled in 1959, “and I know all about this because … it was I who discovered that it had been forgotten” (Asian Review (London), 01 1960Google Scholar). H. E. Richardson, the last British – and first Indian – representative in Tibet, gave Caroe his due: “In 1936 he discovered that the exact position and nature of India's frontier with Tibet was unknown…. And it was due to Sir Olaf that the frontier was revived and was made very much a reality; and what he started has been kept up” (ibid. October 1959).

16. See above, note 14.

17. This says: “For the purpose of the present Convention the borders of Tibet, and the boundary between Outer and Inner Tibet, shall be shown in red and blue respectively on the map attached hereto.”

18. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Telegram No. 3028, 5 November, 1935. From Foreign, New Delhi to Political Officer, Sikkim, Lhasa.

19. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Telegraph R No. 5, 14 November 1935. From Trade Agent, Lhasa to Foreign, New Delhi.

20. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 37/File 28. No. P.Z. 9019/1935.

21. See above, note 14.

22. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept: Collection 36/File 23. No. P.Z. 2661/1936.

23. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. Assam Secretariat, D.O. No. Pol. 1887/9/85 A.P. This appears to be the first occasion on which the crest-line alignment was given the name of its progenitor.

24. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept: Collection 36/File 23. The Residency, Gangtok, Sikkim. D.O. No. 6 (3) – P/35.

25. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept: Collection 36/File 23. Foreign and Political Department, New Delhi.

26. In this address McMahon said, “The lessons of history teach us the grave political dangers of an ill-defined and undemarcated frontier…. I fear that future history may have to record yet further wars arising from disputes over undemar cated boundaries.” This fear was unhappily fulfilled in 1962

27. See above, note 14.

28. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. No. P.Z. 2905/1936.

29. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. No. P.Z. 4911/36.

30. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. No. 6154/1936.

31. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept: Collection 36/File 23. No. 6153/1936.

32. Walton to Secretary, Foreign and Political Dept., 15 October 1936. The British Embassy in Peking later commented that although the Shen Pao Atlas was not an official publication, Chinese legislation required that “no maps and charts showing the boundaries of China may be published without the imprimatur of the Central Government authorities.” Peking letter of 15 December 1936, I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. No. P.Z. 802/1937.

33. See above note 32.

34. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. No. P.Z. 3850/1936.

35. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Telegram XX No. 2929, 8 December 1936, New Delhi.

36. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Telegram XX No. 205, 12 December 1936, Lhasa.

37. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. S 4/3.

38. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36 (2)/File 23.

39. SirReid, Robert, History of the Frontier Areas Bordering on Assam (Shillong: The Assam Government Press, 1942), pp. 295–296.Google Scholar

40. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Register No. P.Z. 3507/38. Telegram R. No. 899, 4 May 1938. From Gould, Yatung to Foreign, Simla. (See also SirReid, Robert, History of Frontier Areas, p. 297.)Google Scholar

41. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Register No. P.Z. 5109/1938.

42. “The British Government undertakes to exercise no interference in the internal administration of Bhutan. On its part the Bhutanese Government agrees to be guided by the advice of the British Government in regard to its external relations” (Aitchison, , Vol. XIV, p. 100).Google Scholar

43. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Confidential letter No. 3 (5)-L/37, Lhasa, 26 August 1938. From Rai Bahadur Norbu Dhondup to the Political Officer, Sikkim.

44. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 23. G. E. Crombie's Note to Mr R. Peel, 20 October 1938.

45. The Harvard volume was discovered by Mr John Addis, see Lamb, Alastair: The McMahon Line, Vol. II, p. 546n.Google Scholar It is, however, possible that more original copies are to be found in University and private libraries, whence, of course, they could not be recalled for destruction.

46. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Reid's confidential letter to Linlithgow dated 3 January 1939.

47. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Lord Linlithgow's private and personal letter to Twynam.

48. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Register No. P.Z. 2976/39.

49. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Paragraph for Secretary of State's letter to Viceroy included 25 07 1939.Google Scholar

50. I.O.R.: Pol. (External) Dept.: Collection 36/File 29. Extract from private letter from Lord Linlithgow to Lord Zetland, 24 August 1939.

51. See Richardson, H. E., Tibet and its History (London: O.U.P., 1962), pp. 160–164Google Scholar; Li, Tieh-Tseng, Tibet To-day and Yesterday (New York: Bookman Associates, 1960), pp. 189.Google Scholar

52. Foreign Relations of the United States: 1943: China (Department of State, Washington), pp. 626–628.Google Scholar This telegram bears all the hallmarks of having been drafted by Caroe. Owing to the operation of the “30-year rule” the British copy of this telegram is not yet de-classified.

53. Ibid. 630. The Department of State to the British Embassy: Aide-mémoire.

54. Mills, J. P., “Problem of the Assam-Tibet Frontier,” Journal of Royal Central Asian Society (04 1950).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. von Fürer-Haimendorf, C., Himalayan Barbary (London: John Murray, 1955), Introduction, p. xi.Google Scholar

56. See CR, 104–106.Google Scholar

57. CR, 106.Google Scholar