As Bhutan gets on the highway of diplomacy with China, is India being side-lined or waylaid, Ravi Nair muses.

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READING tea leaves in the best of circumstances is hazardous. More so when there are so many varieties on offer.

Indian Darjeeling, one of the best teas, is exquisite in all its varieties, it is also the easiest to classify. Oolong, one of the finer Chinese teas, with its many varieties, is much more difficult. Suja, Bhutanese butter tea, is difficult to read due to the infusion of generous dollops of extraneous butter.

The Sino-Bhutan talks

From a careful reading of the tea leaves from all three countries, it is evident that a border agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Kingdom of Bhutan is ready to be signed. It is not known if the exact details have been shown to India but it would defy comprehension if Thimpu has not shared the contours with New Delhi.

The recent dash to Thimpu by the Indian Prime Minister was reportedly not to stall the draft border agreement between the Chinese dragon and the thunder dragon of Bhutan. It is understood that it was only to impress upon Thimpu not to sign the border agreement with China until after the Indian parliamentary election results in June 2024.

The figment of India not having lost territory to China in the recent past would be difficult to sustain in the wake of impending Bhutanese territorial concessions to the Chinese in areas crucial to India’s well-being.

Beijing and Thimpu have had 25 rounds of bilateral talks. Since 1984, China and Bhutan have held boundary talks alternately in Beijing and Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan.

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In 1998, the two signed the Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in the China–Bhutan Border Areas during the 12th round of the boundary talks. This was the first intergovernmental agreement between the two countries.

From a careful reading of the tea leaves from all three countries, it is evident that a border agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Kingdom of Bhutan is ready to be signed.

In 2021, China and Bhutan signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the ‘Three-Step Road Map’ for accelerating China–Bhutan Boundary Negotiations in Beijing and Thimpu via video link, which was of significance for accelerating the negotiations on boundary demarcation and advancing the process of establishing China–Bhutan diplomatic relations.

That the Bhutanese have been flagging the impending agreement with the Chinese for some time was a no-brainer. The coy public explainer came in the form of a dispatch from a former member of Parliament from Bhutan.

A necessary historical digression

The Bhutanese are perhaps the only people in South Asia not to take their eyes off the ball and have a prescience of using opportunity to their advantage. Their survival is dependent on nimble-footed diplomatic work.

In the early 1900s, when the Chinese Amban (Viceroy) in Lhasa was merely titular, the Tibetans became more independent and closed than what North Korea is today, the Bhutanese saw their chance to get rid of their Tibetan yoke.

More informed of the might of British power through Bhutanese merchants such as Ugyen Kazi who had extensive business dealings in Sikkim and the then Bengal Presidency they thought that this was the time to assert their independence from Lhasa.

The Penlop (Baron) of Tongsa, Ugen Wangchuk was only too happy to help Calcutta, then the seat of imperial power on the subcontinent. The British, in turn, were happy to allow him to anoint himself as the King of Bhutan for facilitating the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa.

By recognising a hereditary monarchy, the British also put paid to the role of the Shabdrungs. The Shabdrungs in Bhutan were akin to the Dalai Lama in Tibet. They were vested with spiritual and temporal powers.

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Nineteenth-century Bhutan saw the loss of the Assam and Bengal Duars (alluvial floodplains) to British India in 1865. This was over 20 percent of Bhutan’s territory. The Duar War lasted only five months.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Sinchula, in November 1865, Bhutan ceded territories in the Assam Duars and Bengal Duars, as well as the 83 km² of territory of Dewangiri in southeastern Bhutan, in return for an annual subsidy of 50,000 rupees.

The Treaty of Sinchula stood until 1910, when Bhutan and British India signed the Treaty of Punakha, effective until 1947.

After India’s independence in 1947, ‘standstill agreements’ with Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet were signed to continue existing relations until new agreements were made. For Bhutan, its status became clearer following Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s invitation to a Bhutanese delegation to participate in the Asian Relations Conference in 1947. Following this, the negotiation for a fresh Indo-Bhutan Treaty started in the summer of 1949.

The geopolitical scene in the entire Himalayan region and Indian sub-continent underwent a major change following the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the takeover of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1950.

These events, and the presence of Chinese troops near Bhutan’s border, the annexation of Bhutanese enclaves in Tibet and other Chinese claims, all led Bhutan to reevaluate its traditional policy of self-imposed isolation. The need to develop its lines of communication with India became an urgent necessity.

Diplomatic relations between India and Bhutan were established in 1968 with the establishment of a special office of India in Thimpu. Ambassadorial-level relations began with the upgrading of residents to embassies in 1978. The basic framework of India–Bhutan bilateral relations is the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed in 1949 between the two countries and revised in February 2007.

Bhutanese askance about India

The seeds of Bhutanese askance about independent India were laid during the process of the integration of the Indian Princely States starting in 1948.

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The Bhutanese watched with interest the merger of the adjoining Princely State of Cooch Behar into India in September 1949. Cooch Behar State was initially placed in the list of ‘C’ category states. In 1950 it was merged into West Bengal as a district.

Since 1984, China and Bhutan have held boundary talks alternately in Beijing and Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan.

Thimpu was alarmed at the consolidation of Communist Chinese in Tibet, but it realised the limitations of the Indian protective umbrella when India was both unable and unwilling to take up the issue of Indian and Bhutanese enclaves in Tibet.

The rout of the Indian army in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh, also confirmed to Thimpu the limitations of the Indian protective umbrella.

The not-so-effective activities of the Bhutan State Congress, composed of mainly ethnic Nepalese in the 1950s, also frightened the feudal regime in Thimpu of the democratic infection from India.

India’s annexation of Sikkim in 1975 got the Bhutanese to twirl their prayer wheels faster and reach out to the world cautiously.

The Bhutanese were to a certain extent assuaged by the Indian silence on the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 ethnic Nepalese subjects of Drukyul (Land of the Druk) to Nepal via India in the 1990s. Bhutan has no contiguous border with Nepal.

The main reason for the expulsion of the third- and fourth-generation Nepalese subjects of Bhutan was the fear that like in Sikkim earlier, regime change by the Indians could be effected using the Nepalese population.

The flying lamas after the 2007 Indo-Bhutan agreement went on an establishing diplomatic relations spree. However, when Thimpu accelerated the pace of reaching out to the Forbidden City, without keeping South Block in the loop, New Delhi rang alarm bells.

India promptly cut kerosene and gas subsidies to Bhutan, sending prices skyrocketing in that country. In time, New Delhi would have shot itself in the foot.

The religious component

The State religion of Bhutan is the Drukpa sect of Kagyupa, a school of Tibetan (Vajrayana–Tantric) Buddhism. The Kings of Ladakh controlled the whole of Western Tibet once upon a time. The link of Bhutan with the western frontier in Kashmir arises because of the Ladakh royal family’s association with the Drukpa Kagyupa sect. The Indian enclaves in Tibet were all Ladakhi in their origin.

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Another controversial issue, though one that is more political than religious, concerns the dispute between the ruling Bhutanese royal family and the line of Zhabdrung reincarnates. The last Zhabdrung candidate went into exile to India and lived in Manali, and later Kalimpong, where thousands of Bhutanese pilgrims visited him until his death in 2003.

Enter the Karmapa

The government of the People’s Republic of China officially recognised Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the 17th Karmapa in 1992. China has continued to recognise Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the Karmapa even after he departed Tibet and arrived in India in January 2000.

Ogyen Trinley was referred to as the ‘Beijing Karmapa’. Trinley Thaye, the pretender, meanwhile, was referred to as the ‘Delhi Karmapa’, due to his having reportedly the support of the government of India.

That the Bhutanese have been flagging the impending agreement with the Chinese for some time was a no-brainer.

In February 2011, Ogyen Trinley Dorje was accused of being a Chinese spy by Indian government officials in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, allegations which the Karmapa denied. India’s intelligence was clearly faulty and lacking sufficient evidence. Money found in his monastery was later deemed to be legitimate donations.

Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s ability to travel had been restricted since 2000. Narendra Modi’s government coming into power changed gears in the Karmapa case. In March 2011, the Indian government lifted travel restrictions on Ogyen Trinley Dorje, allowing him to travel not only out of Dharamshala but also India. He is not going away soon. Watch this space.

The Gelephu story

One of the synonyms for euphoria is madness. Every Indian media organisation, without exception, has bought into the Bhutanese hype of building their version of a Smart City at Gelephu.

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The area was once an area of contention in the Indo–Bhutan border talks. Gelephu adjoins the dusty Assam town of Kokrajhar. The Bhutanese forests in this area in the past housed the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Bodo militant camps.

The younger generation of Drukpas has no use for the heat and rain of the area. The educated amongst them is seeking their fortunes in India, the Gulf and as far away as Australia.

The major population in Gelephu and the larger Sarbhang district prior to 1990 was ethnic Nepalese. With the forcible expulsion of the Nepalese subjects of Bhutan, Thimpu sought to settle Drukpas from Northern and Western Bhutan in the area.

The younger generation of Drukpas has no use for the heat and rain of the area. The educated amongst them is seeking their fortunes in India, the Gulf and as far away as Australia.

Thimpu, desperately seeking to retain them, is building castles in the air in the form of the Smart City. Bhutan does not have the money for such a venture, New Delhi’s sops withstanding.

The periphery

The Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network (THMCN), which is an economic corridor between Nepal and China, is a key part of the Bricks and Roads Initiative (BRI).

With the THMCN in place, the scope of cooperation has been extended from traditional infrastructure projects to cover railways, aviation hubs, ports, communications facilities and power grids. An important project that falls under the THMCN is the Nepal–China railway.

India promptly cut kerosene and gas subsidies to Bhutan, sending prices skyrocketing in that country. In time, New Delhi would have shot itself in the foot.

Is Bhutan meaning to look at Beijing for finance once diplomatic relations are formally established possibly later this year? 

Much more reading of the tea leaves is in order.

In the meanwhile, a reading of the Greek classic, The Iliad is instructive:

“Odysseus, inspired by Athena, thought up the ruse to get a body of men inside the walls of Troy. First, the Greeks all sailed off into the sunset leaving a mysterious offering to the Trojans of a gigantic wooden horse which in reality concealed a group of warriors within.

“The Trojans did take the horse inside the city walls but whilst they were enjoying a drunken celebration of their victory, the Greeks climbed out of the horse, opened the city walls for the returning Greek army, and the city was sacked and the population slaughtered or enslaved.”

Courtesy: Theleaflet