In letter and spirit

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has just turned 90. One could say he has had three life-defining experiences — when he was enthroned as the Dalai Lama at the age of four in 1940, when he was compelled to leave Tibet and come to India in 1959 and being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1989. This has been a long journey for the worldly embodiment of compassion.

Some days back, one had mentioned in The Tribune about the diplomat Sir Basil Gould, the British political officer to Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet. As the British representative, he had attended the investiture ceremony of the Dalai Lama on February 22, 1940. Kanwal Krishna, the artist who had accompanied him, created an extraordinary set of paintings and observations of the moment. These paintings and objects remained with the Gould family. The stored material was sorted and last month, the collection was sold through London auction house Bonhams.

Gould’s granddaughter, Frances Cutler, attended the sale, where Kanwal Krishna’s son and grandson were also present. The ‘Gould Collection’ had two documents related to the history of Tibet and its sovereignty. At the request of the Tibetan community, these were withdrawn from the sale.

While there are lots of dates and names, the sequence is remarkable for the insights these rare documents provide before China took over Tibet.

The first is a letter dated the 25th of the eighth month of the Tibetan Fire Pig Year, which corresponds to October 10, 1947. Written in Tibetan and English, this bears the seal of Ngawang Sungrab Thutob, the Third Takdra (Takra) Rinpoche, the Regent of Tibet (1941-50), who was responsible for educating and raising the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

The letter details that Tsepon Shakabpa, the Finance Minister, and his assistant are being sent on a trade mission to “observe and enquire about Tibetan trade with the US, England, China and India”. The letter requests Basil Gould to help them.

The second letter of the same date says that the Finance Minister and his assistant, Khanchung Changkimpa, are being sent on a trade mission to USA, England and China to purchase gold and silver for importation to Tibet and again, requests Gould to assist them. Significantly, this bears the seal of the Dalai Lama. This was the time when Surkhang Dzasa, the de facto Tibetan Foreign Minister, was trying to develop sovereign Tibetan links outside of the influence of China and newly-Independent India.

This mission left Tibet, travelled to China and arrived in Nanjing in January 1948. Subsequently, they went to Hong Kong, which was still a British colony, and then to Washington DC.

In London, they were received by King George VI. An assessment of this journey stated: “The main achievement of the Mission was that which Surkhang Dzasa had most hoped. To the American, British and other countries, Tibet had now made what amounted to an unqualified declaration of independence from China.” Similar letters of the same date addressed to President Truman are in the archives of the Office of the Historian, USA.

On June 23, Frances Cutler and her sister, Lorraine Bondarenko, went to the Office of Tibet in London and ceremonially handed over these letters to the visiting Sikyong, Penpa Tsering, of the Central Tibetan Administration in India. The sisters stated: “It is an honour on our part to connect with the Tibet Museum and to be able to donate, on behalf of our family and Sir Basil Gould, these important historic documents to you and the Tibetan people.” These letters should soon be in the Tibet Museum in Dharamsala.

While some, like former Indian diplomat Phunchok Stobdan, may have a somewhat contrarian take, Gould’s granddaughter, Frances Cutler, says: “The two letters are clearly so important to the Tibetan people because they are evidence of a period when Tibet was considered a sovereign state by the US and the UK and, I suppose, therefore a lot of the world.”

The tone of the letters is not that of vassals, but of an independent country. The Tibetan authorities seem to be speaking for themselves, and not at the behest of someone.

— The writer is a Shimla-based author

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