4 days Ago By Firstpost
A few months ago, the Chinese Communist Party expelled Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, two former defence ministers, for corruption. Li was sacked in October 2023, after he served just seven months at the post; no explanation was given for his sudden removal. Wei Fenghe, another former defence minister, had earlier been expelled from the CCP for “serious violation of party discipline and the law”.
Now, the rumour is floating in the Chinese social media that Admiral Miao Hua, 68, who is a member of the all-powerful Central Military Commission and director of the Political Work Department, has been arrested. What is going on in the Middle Kingdom? Despite the turmoil in the Chinese leadership, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has scheduled to meet Gen Dong Jun, the new Chinese incumbent. It will be the first interaction at the ministerial level after the ‘disengagement’ in Eastern Ladakh.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus (ADMM-Plus) in Laos. The upcoming talks are expected to discuss the next steps on the border issue. Could there be further steps? Inaugurating the Major Bob Khathing Museum in Tawang, Singh told ANI : “This consensus has developed on the basis of equal and mutual security,” adding that moving beyond disengagement will take a little longer: “We will strive to move beyond just disengagement, but for that, we will need to wait a little longer.
” What could the next step be? The time has come to think beyond the conflict and look to the future. What can be done? Pilgrimage is certainly a field to explore, as it always played an important role in India’s relationship with Tibet. It has provided a bridge between both sides of the Himalaya; it could, in the future, become a major Confidence Building Measure (CBM) between China and India.
The Panchsheel Agreement The Tibet Agreement, also known as the Panchsheel Agreement for its preamble, was signed in April 1954; both nations agreed to put the age-old relation between India and Tibet in a legal framework. It was all about trade and pilgrimage in Tibet; if taken up again, it could certainly be a way forward and a meaningful and powerful CBM. A lot has recently been written in the Indian press about another example of a pilgrimage, ie, the Kartarpur corridor between India and Pakistan; it is a mutual gesture of goodwill agreed upon despite the tough reality and difficulties.
The corridor on the Indian side starts from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district before crossing the international border; the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur is across the border on the banks of the river Ravi. Both governments agreed to the development of a corridor to enable smooth passage of pilgrims seeking to visit Guru Nanak’s final resting place at Kartarpur in Pakistan, facilitating the unrestricted flow of devotees. Similarly, can pilgrimage be encouraged to promote better relations between China, India, and Tibet? The importance of pilgrimage The 1954 Tibet Agreement lapsed in April 1962, and 6 months later, India and China fought a bitter war over Tibet.
The objective was to regulate trade and pilgrimage from India to Tibet and vice versa. Article III of the Agreement says: “The High Contracting Parties agree that pilgrimage by religious believers of the two countries shall be carried on in accordance with custom.” The agreement mentioned that for an Indian pilgrim to go on the Kailash pilgrimage (yatra), he just needed a valid passport and a visa from China.
After the 1962 war, pilgrimage was temporarily stopped, but on June 28, 1981, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Huang Hua, told a press conference in New Delhi: “The Chinese side has informed the Indian side that it will make temporary arrangements for a certain number of Indian pilgrims to go on pilgrimage to what the Indians call the Kailash Mountain and Mansarovar Lake. As for long-term arrangements, we will discuss them with the Indian side through diplomatic channels.” Since then, the pilgrimage has been allowed to take place, with ups and downs (it is completely down since 2020!).
The Tsari Yatra Reopening the Kailash yatra could be a first step, but another yatra could be considered: the Pure Crystal Mountain Pilgrimage, or Tsari Yatra, cutting across Lhuntse County of Tibet and the Upper Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. In the Tibetan psyche, Tsari has always been synonymous with ‘sacred place’. With Mt Kailash and the Amye Machen in eastern Tibet, the pilgrimage around the Dakpa Shelri, the ‘Pure Crystal Mountain’ has, for centuries, been one of the holiest of the Roof of the World.
The ‘Pure Crystal Mountain’ lies at 5,735 meters above the sea in the Tsari area of southern Tibet; the Tsari Yatra used to take place every Monkey Year, often special years. For example, in 1956, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama visited India on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the birthday of the Buddha, but it also witnessed a last circumambulation around the Dakpa Shelri. Toni Huber, one of the foremost scholars on the subject, wrote a great deal about the site of the pilgrimage, located in India, between Tsari in Tibet and the Upper Subansiri: “The large-scale, 12-yearly circumambulation of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims around the mountain known as the Rongkor Chenmo , had the character of a state ritual for the Ganden Phodrang (the Dalai Lama’s government).
Pilgrims in this huge procession crossed the McMahon Line below the frontier village of Migyitun in the Tsari district,” writes Huber. A Buddhist website describes the pilgrimage thus: “The Immaculate Crystal Mountain of Tsari provides the definitive Tibetan pilgrimage. It is the palace of the Buddha-deity Demchok, Supreme Bliss, and his mandala of deities.
And it is also a principal abode of the sky dancers ( dakinis ), amongst whom Khandroma ( dakini ) Dorje Phagmo is supreme. More than Kang Rinpoche and Lapchi (the hermitage of the yogi Milarepa, north of the Nepal border), it is the tantric power place par excellence, a testing place for yogis where the sky dancers dwell. It is a place of breath-taking beauty, the snow mountain rising out of verdant pastures and forests, while in the valleys below is thick jungle.
” Incidentally, there was a shorter pilgrimage around the holy mountain, the Kingkor organised every year, but the route does not cross the Indian border. The British intelligence officer, Capt Frederick Bailey, described thus the Kingkor: “There was also a Small Pilgrimage ..
.We visited the temples. The largest was Pagmo Lhakang, down in the valley.
It had a golden roof, and the principal image, that of Dorje Pagmo, was studded with precious stones. A golden butter lamp was set before it.” Let us come back to the Rongkor yatra.
After crossing the Tibet-India border, the pilgrimage would proceed southwards along the Tsari Chu (river) and then suddenly turn westwards to follow the Subansiri, to finally cross back into Tibet to reach the first frontier village in Chame County. The southern leg of the Rongkor procession crosses the tribal areas of Upper Subansiri; this was the territory of the Mara clan of the Tagin tribe, who lived downstream in the Tsari Chu valley and around its confluence with the Subansiri at Gelensiniak. According to Huber, there was an elaborate system of ‘compensations’ or ‘taxes’ depending on which side one experienced the holy pilgrimage from.
Payments in kind were regularly made to both the Mara and Na tribes by the Tibetan government to allow the passage of tens of thousands of pilgrims via the tribal areas. The ‘assistance’ to the local population was compulsory for the sacred journey to proceed smoothly, south of what is now the Line of Actual Control. In some ways, it was a clash of civilisations.
The tribes of the North East Frontier Agency did not belong to the Tibetan world, but it was for them an occasion to interact and eventually extract their dues for the passage of the pilgrims on their territory. During the 1914 Simla Conference, Bailey, who had mapped the area with his colleague Capt Henry Morshead, informed Sir Henry McMahon about the sensitivity of the issue, and it is probably on their recommendation that a condition was inserted in the border agreement to reassure the Tibetans that the yatra would not be disturbed despite the fact that it was crossing into India’s territory; further, India always facilitated the smooth continuation of the Tsari pilgrimage on the Indian side of the border, at least till the last Rongkor in 1956, which passed off peacefully; unfortunately, since then, the yatris from both sides can’t cross over the border. Why can’t the Indian defence minister’s government propose to his Chinese counterpart a corridor circumambulating the Holy Mountain where people from both sides could perform the yatra again? It is worth thinking about.
The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence (Delhi). Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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