The McMahon Line: A Study in the Relations Alastair Lamb.
Two volumes. (Routledge
Along the Imperial Frontiers
Tun main range of the Himalayas, which divides the Indian subcontinent from the Central Asian plateau, forms one of the world's major ethnic, linguistic and cultural boundaries. In the Hima- layan regions peoples of Europoid race and Indo-Aryan speech confront the Mongoloid speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages, and here adjoin and dovetail the spheres of Hindu civili- sation and Tibetan Buddhist culture. When the tnan-made frontiers dividing Korea, Vietnam and Germany have long been forgotten, the natural boundary between two of the great ethnic blocks of Asia will still be a reality.
Yet it is only in rcent years that the line dividing the Indian and the Tibetan culture areas has attracted the limelight of international con- troversy. Until the Indo-Chinese conflict of the 1950s and 1960s there were, outside a small circle of civil servants and experts on Asian affairs, few who had ever heard of the McMahon Line, and when the name first appeared in news items commentators were hard pressed to discover the background of the opposing claims put forward by India and China with regard to this boundary. The publication of Alastair Lamb's monumental work on the relations between India, China and Tibet in the vital years of 1904 to 1914 has greatly facilitated their task, for this impressive book examines the events which began with the British military incursion into Tibet in 1904 and culminated in the Simla Conference of 1914, when the McMahon Line was formulated.
In two volumes amply furnished with maps and appendices, Lamb describes and analyses the development of the British attitude towards Tibet, the Himalayan states Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, and the tribal zone on India's north- east frontier. His main sources are unpublished documents contained in the archives of the India Office and the Foreign Office, many of which have become accessible only after the end of the fifty-year period when confidential records have, up to the present, been withheld from the scrutiny of historians. The handling of both original and secondary data is admirable and the style elegant and not devoid of humour. Despite its technical character, the work makes absorbing reading. While concentrating mainly on the crucial 1904-14 period, Lamb refers frequently to events of the nineteenth century and discusses in detail the long-term consequences of the decisions made during the viceroyalties of Curzon, Minto and Hardinge.
At the beginning of the century British policy towards Tibet was dominated by the fear of Russian influence, and the famous Young- husband Mission of 1904 to Lhasa was motivated by the desire to forestall the forging of a political link between the Dalai Lama and Im- perial Russia. Lamb believes that Younghusband and probably also Curzon envisaged the ulti- mate establishment of an Indian protectorate over Tibet, but the home Government never approved of such designs or, indeed, of any move which might have led to a British involvement north of the Himalayas. The years between the Younghusband Mission and the Simla Con- ference were marked by a constant tussle between the 'frontier men,' who advocated a forward policy vis-à-vis Tibet and the tribal country north of Assam, and the officials in London, who vetoed most of their plans for an extension of Indian influence into and across the Himalayan region.
The decade under review saw at first a streng- thening of Chinese domination over Tibet. The Government of India, hamstrung by Morley's cautious policy, failed to exploit the advantages achieved by Younghusband, thus indirectly en- abling the Chinese to fill the power vacuum created by the flight of the Dalai Lama to Mongolia. Anxious not to jeopardise British commercial interests in China and unwilling to believe that Chinese rule over Tibet might con- stitute a threat to India, the home Government pursued for many years a policy of non-inter- ference and ignored Tibetan pleas for guarantees against Chinese pressure, notwithstanding the fact that in the analogous case of Mongolia Russia actively supported the movement for independence from China and in 1912 con- cluded an agreement with the Mongolian govern- ment which confirmed by implication the inde- pendence of that country.
When, as a result of the Chinese Revolution of 1911-12, the Tibetan authorities regained some freedom of action, British attempts to profit from this situation were half-hearted, and Chinese suzerainty over Tibet remained unchallenged. The Simla Conference of 1914, attended by British, Chinese and Tibetan representatives, aimed at the delimitation of an agreed Indo- Tibetan frontier along a line proposed by Sir Henry McMahon, but it failed in this purpose on account of the Chinese refusal to ratify the convention. Had it succeeded, Sino-Indian rela- tions might have taken a less troubled course.
Yet the Russian success in aiding Mongolia to free itself from Chinese rule makes one wonder whether Britain could not have achieved a similar result by supporting the Tibetan quest for independence. In so far as the tribal country in the Assam Himalayas is. concerned, the `frontier men' have proved more far-sighted than the officials in Whitehall. Had they been per- mitted to extend Indian control right up to the McMahon Line, a feat not beyond the capacity of the Indian government during the years be- tween the two World Wars, independent India might well be in a better position today to resist Chinese claims, and China might indeed have refrained from coveting territory which would have been patently uncles an established Indian administration.
Lamb's work will undoubtedly stimulate readers to such and similar speculations, but its main value lies in the presentation of data indis- pensable for an understanding of one of the major problems of Asian politics. Historians may hope that some time in the future Chinese and Tibetan records relating to the same problem will be analysed with equal care and competence, but it is doubtful whether, under present circum- stances, a Chinese scholar undertaking such a task would have the freedom to produce a work of the objectivity characteristic of Alastair Lamb's book.
C. VON FORER-HAIMENDORF
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