The Snow Lion and the British Lion continues....

In 1944 the British Government decided to send Sir Basil Gould, the Political Officer in Sikkim, to Lhasa to discuss some possible ‘adjustments’ to the McMahon Line. After the discussions, Gould wrote to the Indian Government suggesting that action on the McMahon Line be postponed for a short time, because the Tibetan Government felt that the Tibet-China issue was about to come to a head soon.

From his side he suggested, in his note to the Tibetan Foreign Office dated November 4, 1944, based on the assurances from London, that ‘my government would be willing to alter the frontier so as to run from Sela, not to the north of Tawang, but to the south of Tawang’.

He even suggested that Britain would not object to voluntary contributions to monasteries, even south of Sela, as long as the Tibetan Government continued to recognize the adjusted McMahon Line and the rest of the original line as the border, as agreed in the Shimla Convention.

It would then be considered not as a tax being paid by the local population to its government, but as a voluntary contribution to a religious institution. Since much has been written regarding the problem of the McMahon Line, not much more needs to be written on the subject.

It can be said, nevertheless, that the line, as described in words in the original document, as running from ‘ABC-La’ to ‘DEF-La’ to ‘PQR-La’and on to ‘XYZ-La’, can be plotted on modern cartography onto the same passes named, and the alignment for the rest of the intermediate spaces can be mutually agreed upon. It is certainly not an insurmountable problem. But this will only help define the McMahon Line, and will not automatically determine the Sino-Indian boundary.

The Snow Lion and the British Lion concluded!

Next up :- Chapter 5 - Enter the Dragon: Chinese Invasion of Tibet 1949-1951 and the Tibetan Resistance

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