Tibetan Foothold E-Book

Dervla Murphy

• Herausgeber: Eland Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 415

Beschreibung

After her epic journey from Ireland to India by bicycle in 1963, Dervla Murphy immersed herself in the life of the sub-continent, working for six months in an orphanage for Tibetan children in Northern India. She fell in love with the 'Tiblets' - the cheerful, uncomplaining, independent and affectionate children of the new Tibet-in-exile - but she also managed to explore India's Tibetan frontier, leaving the reader panting in her wake. Alongside her enchantment, Dervla became a perceptive witness to the realities of aid work: the corruption, smug piety and power struggles of the bureaucrats, and the dangerous, long-term side effects on the recipients - cultural enfeeblement and dependency. Tibetan Foothold not only confirmed Dervla's status as a traveller, but also revealed her to be a truly independent voice and an acute observer of politics and society.

Leseprobe

Tibetan Foothold

DERVLA MURPHY

This book is dedicated to the Tibetan refugees

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction to Tibland

1 Refuge in Dharamsala

2 Disease and Drama

3 The Book of the Dead

4 Difficulties and Diversions

5 Some Queer Specimens

6 The Dalai Lama

7 Politics and Parents

8 Here and There

9 Camping with Tibetans

10 The Valley of Refuge

11 Over the Jalori Pass

Epilogue in Europe

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Afterword

About the Author

Index

Copyright

Foreword

When I first became involved with Tibetan refugees – in July 1963 – I knew no more about Tibet and her people than does the average European newspaper reader. The flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959 and China’s final annexation of Tibet were vividly remembered, but to me the consequent exodus of refugees to India was just one more facet of our contemporary tragedy. So, for the benefit of those who may be equally vague on this subject, here is a general outline of the background to Tibetan affairs.

As soon as one attempts to clarify the history of Tibet’s relations with China one is up against problems that refuse to be resolved in Western political terms. Doubts about whether a country is or is not an independent state may seem ridiculous to us now; yet even a century ago things were not so relentlessly organised, especially in Central Asia, and for this reason well-meaning efforts to make a watertight case for Tibetan independence, as we understand the term, strike a slightly disingenuous note. Hugh Richardson writes: ‘The Tibetans are admittedly by race, language, culture and religion a separate entity’ – but this is not quite the point. One might say the same of the Gilgitis, for example, or of the inhabitants of other remote areas, yet these peoples do not necessarily claim political independence because of their separateness. The Tibetan question was virtually a matter of honour, requiring for its solution the application of humanity and common sense, rather than legalistic argument, and it is this fact which now moves so many people to sympathise with Tibet in a special way.

Recorded Tibetan history begins about AD 625 when Srongtsen Gampo became king of Tibet and encouraged Nepalese Buddhist preachers to replace the old animistic Bön religion. In 763 the Tibetans captured Ch’ang-an, the Chinese capital, and in 821 a treaty, carved on a stone pillar which may still be seen at Lhasa, fixed the Tibetan-Chinese frontier near the present boundary of the Chinese province of Shensi. An anti-Buddhist movement followed the accession of King Lang Darma (c.838) and after his assassination in 842 the kingdom disintegrated into a number of minor monastic and lay principalities. Then came two hundred years of widespread reversion to the old religion, before the advent of the famous Bengali saint, Pandit Atisha, who revived Buddhism among the masses of the Tibetans.

In 1207 Tibet submitted to Chingis Khan, and in 1244 the Abbot of Sakya Monastery was made Viceroy of Tibet on behalf of the Mongols. This period of Mongol suzerainty lasted until 1368, when the Mongol Yuan dynasty of China, established by Kublai Khan, was deposed by the founders of the Ming dynasty and Tibet regained complete independence.

In 1578 the Lama Sonam Gyatso was given the title of Dalai Lama by the Mongol leader, Alton Khan, and in 1642 another Mongol leader, Gusri Khan, invaded Tibet, deposing the King and establishing the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, as ruler. Two years later the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty succeeded the Ming dynasty in China.

The next Mongol invasion of Tibet came in 1717, when Lhasa was seized, and three years later the Emperor Kiang Hsi sent an army to drive the Mongols out of Tibet and establish Imperial supervision over the Tibetan Government. These objectives achieved, the Chinese troops withdrew from Lhasa in 1723, but were back again in 1728, when civil war made the Emperor fear another Mongol invasion of the disunited country. On the restoration of peace the Tibetan Government was reorganised and Imperial representatives, known as Ambans, were posted to Lhasa and given a small military escort of Manchus. Twelve years later Sonam Topgye of Phola, who had been chief minister since the end of the civil war, was entitled King of Tibet. This ten-year reign was Tibet’s last monarchical period, and when Phola’s death in 1750 led to more unrest in Lhasa China again intervened and the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kesang Gyatso, was given the authority of supreme ruler.

China’s next intervention in Tibetan affairs came in 1791, when a Nepalese invasion was repelled by Chinese troops. Again, in 1855, war broke out between Tibet and Nepal, but this time China did not come to the assistance of Tibet and the curious relationship which had existed between these two countries since 1720 was seen to be changing. This relationship had always been an informal and basically friendly arrangement, with Tibet accepting the nominal overlordship of the Emperor on the understanding that China would give military protection whenever the country or its religion was threatened. But until 1910 Tibetan administration was largely under Tibetan control, though it is difficult to assess what degree of influence the Ambans may have exerted from time to time.

The vagueness surrounding Tibet’s status at the end of the last century is revealed by British actions at the time. It was initially impossible to determine who was actually in authority over the country, but when the Chinese failed to implement those treaties concerning Tibet which had been signed by their Imperial Government and the British Government, Britain decided to negotiate with Tibet as an independent state, while simultaneously attempting to respect the historic, if ill-defined links between that country and China.

During the first decade of this century the situation remained confused. In 1904 Britain, fearing a Russian invasion of her Indian Empire, invaded Tibet, occupied Lhasa and caused the flight of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to China and Mongolia. An Anglo-Tibetan treaty was then signed, without reference to China; but two years later the Anglo-Chinese Convention gained Chinese agreement to this treaty, which Britain and China proceeded to modify, without reference to Tibet. These odd diplomatic manoeuvres were followed, in 1908, by Chinese aggression on the eastern borders of Tibet and, in 1910, China staged its first invasion of Tibet for the purpose of incorporating that country into the Empire. This cleared the air considerably because the Dalai Lama, having taken refuge in India, vigorously repudiated the ancient tacit agreement between the two countries and pronounced Tibet to be an independent state. Two years later the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty enabled Tibet to free herself, and in January 1913 His Holiness returned to Lhasa.

Nine months later representatives of the Tibetan, Chinese and British Governments met at Simla on an equal footing. The British aim in organising this conference was to achieve a stable and clear-cut relationship between China and Tibet, but the outcome – not altogether surprisingly – merely reclouded the issue.

At first Tibet reluctantly agreed to forgo a part of its newly proclaimed independence by acknowledging the suzerainty of China, provided that China guaranteed the autonomy of Tibet and agreed on a common frontier. But though the Chinese had initialled the draft convention they refused to give it a full signature so, when the British and Tibetan Governments finally signed, they declared the Convention to be valid only between themselves. The chief benefit thus withheld from China was recognition of a strictly limited Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, and from 1914 to 1947 the British Government treated Tibet as an independent state.

During this period Tibet also acted as an independent state. Her troops pushed the Chinese army east of the Yangtse in 1918 and in 1919, 1930, 1934 and 1940 she rejected China’s attempts to establish her claims to suzerainty. During the Second World War both the Chinese and British Governments exerted pressure to have a free passage through Tibet for war-supplies to China, but Tibet insisted on remaining neutral, just as Ireland did when Sir Winston Churchill sought the use of Irish ports in 1940. In 1948 a Tibetan Mission, with Tibetan passports, visited Britain and America, and in July 1949, the Tibetan Government expelled the Chinese Nationalist Mission from Lhasa, two months before the Communist Government took over in Peking.

The Indian Government recognised the new Chinese regime in January 1950, but when the Communists announced that they intended to ‘liberate’ Tibet Pandit Nehru replied, ‘Liberate from whom?’ On 7 October 1950 the Chinese began their ‘liberation’, and when the Indian Government protested the reply was that ‘Tibet is part of China’. Exactly a month later the Tibetan Government appealed to the United Nations, but a discussion on their appeal was postponed and their request for a Commission of Enquiry was ignored. Then, on 23 May 1951, Tibet was forced to capitulate to the might of China and the ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’ was signed in Peking.

Fourteen months later the Chinese set up their military and civil headquarters at Lhasa, and in September 1952 their troops began to occupy strategic points throughout Tibet. It was at this time also that they installed their ‘stooge’ in the Panchen Lama’s See of Shigatse. (After the Sixth Panchen Lama’s quarrel with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1923 he left for China, and died there in 1937. His successor, appointed by the Chinese Nationalist Government in 1949, was not acceptable to the Tibetans on religious grounds.)

In 1956 the people of the Amdo and Kham regions rebelled against the Chinese and by 1958 guerrilla warfare had spread to the Lhasa area. Chinese atrocities in Tibet had been steadily increasing and, though it was manifestly impossible for this tiny nation to repel China, it was inspired by the courage of despair to fight such oppression as best it could. The International Commission of Jurists, whose report Tibet and the Chinese People’s Republic was published from Geneva in July 1960, found unanimously that the Chinese in Tibet had been guilty of genocide.

On 10 March 1959 a special session of the National Assembly of Tibet met at Lhasa and denounced the ‘Seventeen Point Agreement’, many of whose articles had been contravened by the Chinese. It also reaffirmed – rather pathetically – Tibet’s right to independence. During the following week tension increased daily in Lhasa and on 17 March the Dalai Lama fled to India and the Lhasa uprising began. Eleven days later the Chinese replaced the Tibetan Government by a military dictatorship.

Now the world at last became aware of Tibet’s tragedy and, in October 1959, the General Assembly of the United Nations debated the question and passed, by 46 votes to 9 (with 26 abstentions), a kindly but ineffectual resolution demanding respect for human rights in Tibet. This resolution was sponsored by Malaya and Ireland and it makes me proud to quote from Hugh Richardson’s pamphlet on the subject. He writes:

The Resolution was proposed with ability and feeling by Dato Nik Kamil, of the Federation of Malaya; but the most memorable figure in the discussions was Mr Frank Aiken of Ireland, who made a deep impression both in the Steering Committee and in the General Assembly by the dignity, humanity and sincere conviction with which he spoke. The Tibetans should be grateful to him and to the whole Irish delegation for the spirit and energy they devoted to studying the facts and making them known.

Two of the countries which might have been expected to give Tibet full support – Britain and India – were among those who abstained. Though Britain had treated Tibet as an independent state since 1914 her delegate, Sir Pierson Dixon, now said that his Government ‘did not take up a final or definite position on the matter’. To Tibet’s many friends in Britain this giving the benefit of the doubt to the bully in the case came as a bitter disappointment and was a grim illustration of the dominance of expediency over honour in political circles.

India’s betrayal of Tibet in the Assembly was less unexpected because the Indian Government had already censured the Dalai Lama for appealing to the United Nations. Yet in 1947 this same Government had inherited Britain’s attitude to Tibet and, until the Sino-Indian agreement of 1954, had acted upon the assumption that Tibet was an independent nation. India and Britain were the two countries who best knew the truth about Tibet, but Mr Krishna Menon’s speech showed either inexcusable ignorance or deliberate malice. He said that ‘India inherited the British position in Tibet in 1947 – that is to say, that Tibet was under Chinese suzerainty’. This blatant misrepresentation of the facts, which could – and should – have been contradicted by Sir Pierson, was allowed to confuse the issue further, and the British delegate continued to play China’s game by proposing that, ‘as full discussions had taken place, a resolution was not really necessary’. This idea was given the reception it deserved.

In its 1960 report the International Commission of Jurists found that ‘Tibet demonstrated from 1913 to 1950 the conditions of statehood as generally accepted under International Law’. The Commission did not find it necessary to declare whether Tibet’s independence was de jure or de facto, but no disinterested student of the case could disagree with their verdict. However, it came too late to affect the situation materially; in 1950, when Tibet first appealed to the United Nations, no government – except, curiously, that of El Salvador – had any knowledge of Tibet’s status.

Undeniably Tibet’s deliberate isolationism helped to make it convenient for the free world to ignore the Chinese threat. She has never wished to project a flattering image of herself onto the world-screen nor to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ in material advance. Foreigners and their ideas were severely discouraged from entering Tibet, no diplomatic missions were maintained abroad and the country did not even belong to the World Postal Union. With characteristic simplicity she believed that by minding her own business and doing no harm to anyone she could escape involvement in the nasty complexities of the modern world – though history should have taught her that no country can stand alone.

Numerically the Tibetan refugee problem is a minor one. It is impossible to give accurate figures, but the most reliable estimate says that there are 4000 Tibetan refugees in Bhutan, 5000 in Sikkim, 7000 in Nepal and 60,000 in India. This gives a total of only 76,000, yet the singularity of Tibetan traditions complicates the situation out of all proportion to the numbers involved; for these refugees resettlement means adjusting not only to an alien country but to an alien century, in which current values are sadly antipathetic to the Tibetan way.

Introduction to Tibland

To arrive in Delhi during the early part of July constitutes gross mismanagement of an itinerary – especially if one arrives by bicycle. My first week in the capital was spent recovering from heatstroke; then, putting aside all thoughts of cycling during the months ahead, I began to make tentative enquiries about the possibility of doing some voluntary social work until November’s coolness came to the rescue and I could start cycling again.

The enquiries were tentative because my accomplishments were so few. I could not drive a car, teach, nurse, type, keep accounts or speak any language but English; in fact my only discernible skill was long-distance cycling, which seemed totally irrelevant. Yet, like Barkis, I was willin’, and chance did the rest.

I had an introduction to Mrs Llewellen, sister of Mr Beck whom I had met at the British Embassy in Kabul, and when I called on her one evening she said that I simply must meet Mrs Bland, who lived near by and came from Ireland. Within half an hour I had met Mrs Bland, who in turn said that I simply must meet Mrs Buxton, an Englishwoman who knew a great deal about India’s social problems.

This suggestion was very welcome as I already felt myself becoming drugged by the oddly soporific atmosphere of New Delhi’s foreign colony. Even a week spent in such a cosmopolitan pocket of luxury tends to blunt one’s perception of the realities of Indian life, and contact with someone like Mrs Buxton seemed an ideal escape route. The difficulty was that a slight aura of mystery surrounded this Mrs Buxton and no one knew her whereabouts. She did not, I gathered, belong to the Western social bloc in Delhi, nor had she any fixed address; but she regularly visited the Cheshire Home at Kalkaji – on the famous Ridge immortalised during the uprising of 1857 – and on 17 July I went there in search of her, leaving my friend’s house on Janpath at 5.30 in the morning to avoid that heat which by 8 a.m. would be torturing the city. Yet despite this precaution I arrived at Kalkaji saturated with sweat, after an easy eight-mile cycle.

Over breakfast with Mrs Davies, the Anglo-Indian matron, I explained my problem and she promised to do her best to contact the elusive Mrs Buxton. The rest of the morning I spent talking to the patients; it was heartening to see at least a score of India’s destitute being so well cared for – but depressing to think of all the millions who need similar care and can’t have it. For a citizen of a tiny country like Ireland it takes time to get adjusted to the immensity of every Indian problem.

The Home overlooks an undulating landscape, now shrivelled to dull dust. While waiting for lunch I sat on a mud roof in the shade of a peepul tree and looked down on the stagnant, scummy waters of a little lake into which emaciated buffaloes were being driven for their daily splash. Near them an equally emaciated Hindu was vigorously washing himself, standing waist-deep a yard out from the shore and pushing the green scum aside before plunging his head under water. Above, the sky was like a reflection of the landscape, colourless with heat, and kites and vultures wheeled slowly round, ever vigilant for carrion. Below, in the compound, two women were quarrelling shrilly in Hindi and their irritation communicated itself ridiculously to me. Clouds of flies buzzed and tickled; the hot, greasy odours of curry and ghee, rising from the kitchen, killed any flicker of appetite I might have felt. Beside me sat a lugubrious Hindu youth, telling me of his domestic troubles in singsong Indian English: his mother had fought so incessantly with his bride of a year ago that the girl had returned to her parents and he had not yet seen his all-important first-born son, now a fortnight old. I listened to the sad, unoriginal story with an odd lack of sympathy. By midday, in such weather, a deadly apathy – physical, mental and emotional – takes possession of me, so that I can register nothing but the unsavoury impact which India makes simultaneously on all the senses.

After a token lunch I fell fast asleep in Mrs Davies’s sitting-room, and when I was awakened at 2 p.m. by a hand on my shoulder I looked up dopily to see someone sitting beside me – it was Mrs Buxton.

Before we had been talking for five minutes I could see that she was one of those people who are born with a flair for living happily outside the framework of tiresome conventions, and neither of us wasted any time. I explained my ambition, listing all the ways in which I could not possibly be of the slightest assistance to anyone – but adding that I did have an infinite capacity for roughing it. As I talked, I was aware of being very thoroughly sized up; Jill Buxton’s vague and amiable manner does not entirely camouflage her shrewdness.

When I had finished she asked, ‘Would you like to work with Tibetan refugees?’ Then she went on to outline graphically the appalling conditions prevailing in most of the refugee camps. It soon became clear that in such surroundings something worthwhile could be achieved by any able-bodied person who was willing to co-operate with the medical staff, and I replied unhesitatingly that I would love to work for Tibetans.

When we left the Home I was introduced to Arabella, the Land-Rover in which Jill had driven to India two years previously. Like myself, she had had no fixed plans on arriving, but Mrs Freda Bedi, the English-born principal of the Young Lama’s School at Dalhousie, had put her in touch with the Tibetan problem – in which she has been deeply involved ever since.

On meeting Arabella I saw why no one knew Jill Buxton’s address: she lives in Arabella, cooking on a primus-stove and sleeping on the front seats, to the horror of all those who consider it both dangerous and unseemly for a Memsahib to behave in this fashion.

In turn I introduced Jill to Rozinante, the long-suffering bicycle which had taken me from Ireland to India; then Roz was loaded into Arabella and we drove back to Delhi, through blistering heat which almost annihilated me but left Jill cheerfully unaffected.

During the following week I spent most of my time getting to know the various international relief agencies which help the Tibetans, meeting members of the Delhi Tibetan colony and learning a lot from Jill about the many awkward angles of the refugee problem.

It was eventually decided that I should go to the transit camp-cum-school at Kangra, where 300 children were living in unbelievably squalid conditions. As Jill was now planning one of her tours of the camps we arranged to leave Delhi together on 22 July, by which date she hoped to have collected a supply of clothing, tinned foods and medicines. But in the East things rarely happen at the appointed time and the 22nd became the 23rd, and then the 24th, before we were ready to start.

The parched Punjab landscape is not very inspiring immediately before the monsoon, yet it was good to be out in the country again, after sixteen days in a city. For 150 miles Jill kept Arabella to the straight, flat Grand Trunk Road along which I had cycled by moonlight on my way from Pakistan to Delhi; and then, a few miles beyond Ambala, we turned north towards the hills.

Twenty miles further on the road began to climb steeply; the landscape became suddenly green and rain-washed, the air was dustfree and the insidious stench of the plains – which permeates even the best-run homes – was replaced by the strong tang of resin. As Arabella swung effortlessly around countless sharp bends my spirits rose perceptibly with the increasing coolness of every mile.

On each side the mountains were dense with trees, shrubs and ferns, and occasionally a clear stream sparkled across the road. This fertility would be taken for granted at home but now I looked at it with something akin to a sense of reverence. We spent the night at Kasauli, a little hill-station perched cheekily on a ridge 6400 feet above sea-level. By day the view from here is splendid enough, but by night it is quite magical, for then the lights of Simla, forty miles away, can be seen twinkling in their thousands on the crest of another mountain.

At Kasauli Service Civil International runs a nursery for about fifty Tibetan refugees under the age of seven. Two British International Voluntary Service workers – David Williams and Robert Bell – had done a great deal to improve the building during the previous six months and I reflected that such projects show the brighter side of our so-often-condemned age. The youth of earlier generations left home and travelled the world usually for gain of some sort, however ingeniously their motives may have been wrapped in pious phrases; but now a number of highly qualified young people, impatient of the meaningless luxury of their own society, choose to work with the ‘have-nots’ on a daily maintenance allowance of one and sixpence.

The other helpers were an elderly Indian ‘housefather’, a thirty-year-old Tibetan and a young Japanese nurse. All these people, of widely different backgrounds, were co-operating generously to make this effort a success, and the homely atmosphere more than made up for a frugal standard of living, shared alike by the children and the volunteers.

When Jill and I arrived at the entrance to the nursery playground our appearance caused a demonstration that astonished me. From every direction the children came running towards us, with outstretched arms, greeting us as though we were long-lost friends. All they wanted was to be picked up and cuddled, and their unselfconscious revelation of this basic need completely disarmed me. In his book Tibetan Marches, Dr André Migot writes:* ‘As for Tibetan children, they can only be described as adorable …’ Remembering this, while these toddlers hugged my legs and climbed all over me, I saw exactly what he meant. Many of them were in pretty poor shape, suffering from scabies and general malnutrition, yet they glowed with good humour; and later, at the evening dispensary session, I observed that Tibetan gaiety was equalled by Tibetan docility. Diminutive four-year-olds stoically swallowed gigantic sulpha tablets without a murmur and one five-year-old boy stood unflinchingly, his head laid on the nurse’s lap, while she dressed an agonising ear-abscess.

After the children had chanted their night prayers and been put to bed by the four Tibetan ayahs, Jill and I dined with the volunteers. During the meal we discussed the Indian Army’s recent threat to requisition the Nursery building; obviously someone had blundered badly by not ensuring, before investing precious time and money, that no such threat could be made. I heard later that, through the kindness of the Area Commanding Officer, SCI were allowed to retain the house; but this was my first experience of the inefficiency too often connected with aid to the Tibetans. Many individuals and organisations are helping the refugees, yet the lack of co-ordination – either through insufficient knowledge of the overall picture or because of petty jealousies between rival organisations – sadly diminishes the sum total of good achieved.

Looking back on my initiation into the refugee world such a short time ago it is strange to remember my innocent assumption that everyone involved in this type of work puts refugees first; the disillusionment was extreme when it became obvious to me that a large minority put themselves or their organisations first and remain coolly detached from refugees as human beings. This does not, of course, apply to the full-time field-workers, almost all of whom are genuinely concerned and who have little interest in the machinations of the powers-that-be in London, Delhi or New York. These machinations are by no means confined to Tibetan relief work, but recently several experienced people have remarked to me that the Tibetans do seem to bring out the worst in relief agencies – possibly because this race has ‘something special’ and stimulates extra possessiveness. Admittedly such criticisms leave one open to charges of ‘crankiness’; people argue that ‘human nature being what it is one can’t expect anything else’, and no doubt this is partly true. Yet in Big Business human nature is not allowed to impede efficiency so drastically and it seems only reasonable to aim at a similar discipline in the administration of refugee aid.

Another of the basic problems of this situation arises from the cultural gulf between Western helpers and an Eastern people; what looks like an excellent scheme to an American or European may well have a disastrous effect on a group of Tibetans. However, this difficulty should diminish in time if each side makes the necessary effort to understand the other’s point of view.

On the following afternoon Jill and I arrived in Simla. Like the Red Fort in Old Delhi, Simla is one of India’s ghost-haunts – though instead of the formidable elegance of the Fort one sees here a monument to the Victorian penchant for ugliness on a grand scale. The skill with which a large town was built on such vertical slopes gives the place a certain interest and charm, but from a visitor’s point of view Simla’s fall from glory is as yet too recent for it to seem anything more than an embarrassing example of the fragility of empires.

One hundred and thirty years ago this 7300-foot mountain was as inaccessible and deserted as its neighbouring peaks. Then an enterprising army lieutenant built himself a bungalow near the summit and within a few years the mountain-top had been transformed by the magic wand of wealth and power into a centre of imperial opulence. Here, until 1947, the British lived during the hot season in their own little world, comfortably cushioned on the knowledge that they were indispensable to India, yet remaining as remote from the fundamental realities of Indian life as Simla is from the sweat and dust of the plains. Then, less than a century after Simla’s creation, there was no more Empire. Overnight, the town became an ill-at-ease holiday resort for Indians, who now stroll along those streets which not long ago were forbidden to their race. Yet the spirit of Simla remains obstinately British, just as the spirit of the Red Fort remains Moghul, and this must indeed be flattering to the Indians who, looking at these reminders of past conquests, can see that however omnipotent the invaders may once have been, they all finally succumbed to the implacable vastness of India.

The Save the Children Fund runs two Tibetan Homes at Simla – ‘Stirling Castle’, on Elysium Hill, and ‘The Manor’, on Summer Hill – each caring for about 150 children under the age of eight. At Chota Simla there is an Indian Government-run boarding-school for some 500 boys and girls, and to this establishment the children are transferred from the SCF nurseries.

Our first stop in Simla was at ‘Stirling Castle’. As Arabella ascended the perilously steep drive we overtook a group of neatly dressed, spotlessly clean children being shepherded home from their afternoon walk by two equally clean and neat Tibetan ayahs. The contrast with the ill-clad, unhealthy Kasauli toddlers was marked; yet these Simla children, though obviously contented and cheerful, were also noticeably more subdued and disciplined – no doubt along kind but firm Western lines. And soon I realised that this difference presented a microcosm of the whole Tibetan problem.

The kernel of the problem is the extent to which these refugees should be encouraged to conform to the world in which they now lived – a question on which I soon found myself hopelessly split. My reason told me that Tibetans, as Tibetans, were doomed, while my instinct fiercely opposed every move which might hasten the process of absorbing them into any other culture. To live among these people is a lesson in the uses of courage, and the destruction of their unique way of life is one of the greatest tragedies of this century. However, it is now a fait accompli and, though one must sympathise with official Tibetan efforts to preserve their national integrity, fanaticism on this point seriously hinders the resettlement of the peasants.

For a few years after the establishment of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile its policy was based on the assumption that Tibet would soon be liberated and that then all her refugees could return home to live happily ever after in the changeless Tibetan way. Unfortunately this policy made it much more difficult to help the people to adjust to a new way of life and one hopes that the Tibetan Government’s newly displayed realism on the subject will now spread as rapidly as possible among the people.

Many Westerners urge that the unusually adaptable Tibetans should be immediately integrated into other societies – a plan which has the virtues of simplicity and practicality. Yet it is basically defeatist and one would like to believe that with the co-operation of the Tibetan Government some compromise may be achieved between the conflicting policies of preserving Tibetan culture intact and abruptly abandoning it to pursue ‘sensible’ integration.

When Arabella stopped outside Stirling Castle a lean, bearded figure came leaping agilely down the slope, and a moment later we were introducing ourselves to Stuart Menteth, the newly appointed SCF administrator for India. At once I mentally nicknamed him ‘Bertie Wooster’ as his charm and phraseology were of the waffling and slightly archaic Wodehouse vintage; but I soon discovered that this façade concealed qualities which had already infused a great deal of badly needed common-sense into the administration of local SCF projects. His wife, Pauline, who welcomed us into their little bungalow, was equally capable, being the sort of Englishwoman who tackles the most improbable tasks with an invincible mixture of guts, humour and compassion. Though lacking any previous experience of such work she managed to keep a complex situation tactfully under control and was immensely popular among the Tibetans.

For me the little tea-party which followed in the Menteths’ bed-sitting-room was quite an historic occasion. We ate English-style cucumber sandwiches and Tibetan-style pastries, baked in the shape of miniature toast-racks, while the Menteths told us about the desperate situation at Dharamsala Nursery.

This camp, the largest of its kind in India, was opened in May 1960 by Mrs Tsiring Dolma, the elder sister of the Dalai Lama, soon after His Holiness moved from Mussoorie to Dharamsala. By June 1963 there were over 1100 children in the camp, which had adequate accommodation for about 300, and at this point SCF sent a fully trained nurse – Juliet Maskell, from Birmingham – to cope with the crisis as best she could. Not surprisingly, Juliet collapsed from overwork after six weeks, and was now a patient in Kangra Mission Hospital. The Menteths were in despair about this situation and by the time tea had been cleared away it was obvious that my destination would have to be Dharamsala instead of Kangra.

On the following morning Jill and I drove down to Chota Simla School, which introduced me to the squalor of refugee camp life. At that time the buildings were overcrowded, leaking and crawling with bed-bugs; inadequate sanitation made it impossible to control the spread of dysentery and worms, and the hungry children were clad in rags. However, after talking at some length to the Indian headmaster – who showed more imaginative sympathy for the Tibetans than do most of his race – I realised that this was not the worst of it. Housing, feeding and clothing are comparatively simple problems – and since that time conditions have improved enormously at Chota Simla – but no plan for the resettlement of untrained youngsters in an already overpopulated country has yet been suggested.

None of these children had any schooling in Tibet and now they are being taught a smattering of English, Hindi, arithmetic and geography – an educational policy which is both farcical and potentially destructive. As the sons and daughters of illiterate agriculturists and nomad herdspeople they have inherited a fine tradition of crop-cultivation and stock-breeding – skills to which Tibetans bring a high degree of natural intelligence. They have also inherited many other talents, such as weaving, dyeing, leather-work and metal-work, and it is generally recognised that Tibetans possess an exceptional sense of colour and design. Yet at the various schools these children are being taught the rudiments of subjects which bear no relation to their natural aptitudes. In Tibet ‘book learning’ was the speciality of Lamas and aristocrats, and its effect on the young refugees is obviously going to be a disastrous discontent with their lot and a contempt for the crafts at which their forefathers excelled.

At present, fortunately for the Tibetans, the Indian Government is building new military roads to the northern frontier and this gives employment to about eighteen thousand refugees of both sexes – an arrangement which also suits India, since at high altitudes one Tibetan can do the work of five Indians. Among these road-workers are hundreds of skilled craftsmen, who now spend their days breaking stones or shifting soil and who are the only remaining link with the artistic splendours of old Tibet. It seemed to me, when I first heard of this situation, that it should be within someone’s power to assemble these craftsmen, provide them with the necessary materials, select the children most likely to profit from their teaching and let them go on from there. However, I soon discovered that nothing is ever as simple as it looks in what a friend of mine calls ‘Tibland’ – the world of Tibetan refugees, Indian Government officials and Western charity organisations. The disheartening thing is that one can never find out why a given project is not considered feasible. Several different reasons may come from several different directions, but the truth, as so often in India, remains forever hidden. If there were a shortage of funds this would not be so unbearable, but money worries are no longer a major problem in Tibland. The fate of Tibet left the governments of the world callously unmoved when their help was most needed, yet the plight of the refugees so stirred the sympathy of ordinary people everywhere that vast sums of money have been subscribed over the past six years. Now the principal needs are: (a) a pooling of resources by the Indian Government and the many organisations involved, (b) people of vision and integrity to administer this central fund and (c) a generous discarding of red tape by both Tibetan and Indian officials. The resettlement of the Tibetans bristles with complications – political, social and philosophical – and a satisfactory solution cannot possibly be found amidst the prevailing bureaucratic chaos.

On our way back to Stirling Castle we learned that the direct Simla– Dharamsala road was now impassable, as the monsoon had already broken in the hills, so Jill announced that we would have to return to the plains and follow the Grand Trunk Road westwards for another eighty miles. We left Simla late that evening and, after a glorious moonlit drive through the mountains, stopped again at Kasauli.

Soon after leaving the GT Road at Jullundur, on the following afternoon, the countryside again became beautiful in a quiet, green way. But soon the landscape grew wilder and rockier, as Arabella climbed smoothly into the hills that divide the Punjab Plain from the Kangra valley.

We camped after dark near the little town of Dehra, on a cliff high above the Beas river – which made a splendid silver swathe in the moonlight. Within an hour Jill was fast asleep in Arabella and I was almost asleep, wrapped in a blanket on the grass verge of the track. But the night was hot, though dewy, so I threw off the blanket – an action which the local mosquitoes interpreted as an invitation to supper. Having dissuaded them by applying the relevant cream I had just fallen asleep when I was loudly sniffed at by a deputation of astonished dogs, investigating the mystery of the foreign body; then, after their departure, the dew became so heavy that I had to resume my blanket and I spent the remainder of the night restlessly sweating within its shelter.

By 10 a.m. the following morning we were viewing from the south the long, east-to-west Kangra valley, with its tremendous northern backdrop of the Dhauladhur spur of the Himalayas. High on the side of one of these mountains, 4000 feet above the valley floor, I was to live during the next four months. As it happened, this was the last of the sunshine before the monsoon broke – had we come a day later I would have had to wait five weeks to see the snowy ridges above Dharamsala.

Kangra town, overlooking the Ban Ganga torrent, is cobbled, hilly and smelly. Many of its streets are closed to motor-traffic so we walked to the Tibetan Boys’ School, run by the Tibetan Ministry for Education, in the town centre. Passing through the violently coloured bazaar, where flies swarm in millions, I studied the pale-skinned, cheerful faces of the locals and realised that they were as different from the people ‘down-country’ as their valley is different from the plains. Most of them are semi-nomad herdspeople who take their flocks to high summer pastures in the Himalayas and, though there is little wealth in this valley, they are sturdy and contented. Kangra is only 2000 feet above sea-level and is reputed to be one of the unhealthiest spots in India; it would be difficult to choose an area less suited to refugees from the ‘Roof of the World’.

Approaching the school we heard the boys chanting lessons from the Buddhist scriptures, as they sat crossed-legged in tidy rows on the parched earth of the playground. Conditions here were much the same as at Chota Simla. This place was then being run by a Rimpoche, or Incarnate Lama, named Khantoul – a young man of twenty-five, dressed, most disappointingly, in slacks and a cotton shirt – who showed us round the dilapidated, rat-infested building. Then came the inevitable tea and biscuits in his tiny office, followed by a PT display for our entertainment. Wherever one encounters groups of Tibetan children in India PT, for some mysterious reason, ranks high on the list of their accomplishments. So far as I know there is nothing in their national tradition to account for this phenomenon and the only explanation I have ever heard is that each child is regarded by the Tibetan authorities as a future member of Tibet’s Liberation Army and that the PT cult is part of their military training.

From the boys’ school we walked up hundreds of stone steps to the Canadian Mission Hospital. Here Dr Haslem – a remarkable woman who has been running this hospital for the past thirty years – told us that Juliet could return to Dharamsala on the following day, if she avoided overwork for another week. (It was, I noted, accepted that she would have to overwork once her convalescence had ended.) Then Juliet joined us; she looked pale and tired, but was obviously determined to persuade all concerned that she was again in perfect health. When we had been introduced Jill explained that I was coming to Dharamsala to work under her. I had been slightly apprehensive about this moment, in view of my total ignorance of medicine, but Juliet’s welcome at once reassured me.

During the next four months Juliet and I were to share the small SCF bungalow which had just been built at the edge of the Nursery compound. It was clear from the start that we had absolutely nothing in common. I am incurably untidy; Juliet is miserable if any object strays a millimetre to right or left of its appointed place. I work until midnight but Juliet retires early. I fail to get on well with Indians and Juliet – who previously worked for eighteen months at Darjeeling and Delhi – is completely at home with them. Even our attitudes to the Tibetans were opposed; Juliet regarded them as so many patients to be nursed back to health and affirmed that she saw no difference between English, Tibetans and Indians – except that the lamentably uncivilised Tibetans needed lessons in hygiene rather more urgently than anyone else. I, on the other hand, had most unprofessionally fallen in love with all my patients and to me the Tibetans represented what Fosco Maraini describes as ‘Perhaps the only civilisation of another age to have survived intact into our own time’.

At first sight it seemed lunatic to enclose two such dissimilar women in a confined space and expect them both to survive. And yet, miraculously, we never quarrelled. Juliet’s patience and thoughtfulness were monumental. She tolerated the nauseating clouds of cigarette smoke with which I filled our little bedroom and the piles of reference books and sheaves of manuscript that wandered all over our cramped floor space, apparently of their own volition. She never interrupted when I was writing and I soon acquired the knack of not hearing her transistor. Inevitably I felt the strain of never being alone, yet by the end of our four months together Juliet and I had developed a sincere mutual affection.

At the Kangra School for Tibetan girls, about two miles beyond the town, Jill and I were welcomed by a most engaging couple, who fed us more tea and biscuits before taking us to count the holes in the roof directly over their new supply of beds and blankets.

Then a group of the girls spontaneously decided to perform some of those extraordinary dances which were later to become so familiar. Observing the happiness of these youngsters I was astonished. Many had been forced to leave family and friends behind them when they escaped to India and some had certainly witnessed terrifying scenes of cruelty, as the Chinese tightened their grip on Tibet. I wondered then to what extent suspense, loneliness and the memory of past horrors still affected them emotionally. Later, at Dharamsala, I noticed that some of the adolescents, and a few adults too, were prone to sudden hysterical outbursts for trivial reasons. Yet on balance it appeared to me that the Tibetans’ racial temperament and religious faith did enable them to overcome cheerfully the distresses of a refugee life.

That evening Jill and I camped between Kangra and Lower Dharamsala. On our left the narrow road was overhung by high cliffs of earth and rock, while on our right there was a two-hundred-foot drop to river level. Arabella had to be parked on the edge of the precipice to leave room for passing military traffic and at about 9 p.m. I curled up in my blanket just behind her. After the disturbed rest of the previous night I was soon asleep – but before long a passing peasant prodded me in the ribs and considerately pointed out that rockfalls on this stretch of the road normally landed precisely where we were sleeping. I in turn woke Jill and we blearily proceeded to what seemed a safer spot, but this time, just in case it wasn’t, I settled down under Arabella’s protection.

The next diversion came at 11 p.m., when an army officer returning to Upper Dharamsala mistook me for a dead body. Assured that I was nothing of the sort he remarked encouragingly that at the present rate of progress I soon would be and then proceeded on his way. After this I didn’t go to sleep for sometime – not because the officer’s pessimistic prophecy had unnerved me, but because I am much addicted to thunderstorms, and a particularly impressive specimen was now taking place. There are few experiences more stirring than the arrogant reverberations of thunder in high mountains.

Soon after midnight the storm abated and I dozed off, to be reawakened just after 3 a.m. by Jill shining a torch under Arabella and yelling: ‘Are you all right?’ Her voice was barely audible above the continuous crashing of thunder overhead and the rushing hiss of torrential train. I was about to reply sleepily, ‘Yes, thank you’, when I woke up enough to realise that I was very far from being all right. A young river was racing down the road and I was lying in inches of water. At that moment we heard a menacing bumping near by, as dislodged rocks rolled down the precipice. Jill exclaimed: ‘For God’s sake get out of that! We must move or the road will collapse under Arabella.’ So off we went again, though visibility was almost nil and gigantic waterfalls were roaring off the cliffs onto the road. Above the din Jill shouted cheerfully: ‘If anyone saw us now they’d say we were mad – and they’d be right!’ Actually we were enjoying ourselves enormously and for me this was an unforgettable introduction to the annual drama of the breaking of the monsoon.

A few miles further on we came at last to a really safe spot. By now the water on the road was six inches deep so I squeezed into the back of Arabella – which was not dry, but slightly less wet than the road. Here, reclining on crates of Heinz Baby Food, I slept from 4 to 6 a.m. – when I was quite surprised to wake up of my own accord.

Dharamsala is divided into two sections – Lower Dharamsala, at 4500 feet, and Upper Dharamsala, at 6000 feet. Lower Dharamsala is the headquarters of Kangra District and, like many towns whose prosperity depended on the British, it now seems slightly sorry for itself. Upper Dharamsala, which was a popular hill-station before the earthquake of 1905 levelled most of the houses, is at present famous as a Tibetan enclave. Here are the Palace of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the headquarters of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and the training centre of the Tibetan Drama Party. These institutions, together with the Nursery for Tibetan Children and the hundreds of Tibetan squatters who have occupied nearby hamlets, give the whole area such a Tibetan flavour that within a week of coming here I found it difficult to remember that I was still in India.

It is possible to walk from Lower to Upper Dharamsala in fifty minutes, using the old path which climbs through forests of giant rhododendrons and deodars, at times becoming a stairway of rock; but by the new motor-road that swivels dizzily around the mountains this is an eight-mile journey. When we drove up on 29 July the violence of the monsoon was almost frightening. Everywhere water forcefully had its way, making a mockery of the apparent solidity of the hills as it ripped great wounds in their flanks and uprooted their bushes.

One could smell the Nursery before it became visible through this downpour. Up on our right the earth embankment of the compound was covered with excrement, now being distilled by the rain. Already this dominant stench had become for me one of the hallmarks of a Tibetan camp – that and the ragged, faded prayer flags which flutter indomitably wherever Tibetans gather – but here at Dharamsala the stench was a classic of its kind, with 1100 contributors concentrated in one small area.

Jill drove carefully across the compound – a sea of sticky mud – and then backed up to the SCF bungalow. The strange sight of a Land-Rover brought hundreds of excited children from the shelter of those crowded rooms to which they are confined twenty-four hours a day during the monsoon. Hungry, dirty and covered in sores, they stood watching intently while we unloaded the clothes, medicines and tinned foods which would make life a little easier for some of them.