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The article Shaheen Bagh protest you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Shaheen Bagh protest for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Example -- Example ( talk) 15:41, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
The article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Shaheen Bagh Protests for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 15:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Propose merging
Template:New Delhi Television Limited with
Template:NDTV Personnel.
Seems redundant as personnel list is already available in NDTV template.
Tharun S Yadla (
talk) 06:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
The article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Shaheen Bagh Protests for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 15:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 21:21, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Can you vote keep on Sanjeev Tyagi AFD. I improved it so much. -- Vansh tyagi24 ( talk) 10:42, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Isu Razi Pass from sv:Isu Razi Pass. It is not all that easy! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
DTM,
Are you interested in doing another one of these for the February edition? Deadline would be about February 25, for the Feb 28 issue. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:05, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Pre Archive
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Of all of Modi's topis...this one is the best. Hope it stays on. But Himachal Pradesh is the wrong place to wear it. Buddhist country. He should do so in Hyderabad, where the Xinjiang refugees were settled and forgotten about ever since. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:11, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
This is another round:
Well, everything is "Tibetan Buddhism" in the generic sense. But, was the art Tibetan or Himachali, I have no idea. (By the way, what is called "Tibetan Buddhism" was transmitted from India to Tibet via precisely this region, the Sutlej valley, during the time of Yeshe-O. This is known as the "second transmission". The first one was destroyed by Langdarma, resulting in the Era of Fragmentation.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
References
Tibet and Tibetan BuddhismOk, I guess the fact that you were "surprised" by the Second Transmission is significant. The dominant narratives of "Tibet" and "Tibetan Buddhism" completely ignore this development. That is not surprising given the fact that "Tibet" has about 3 million people whereas Ngari (West Tibet) has only 100,000. So Ngari's history gets drowned out. Yet West Tibet had a huge empire ( Zhang Zhung) almost equal in power to Lhasa in the first millennium AD. How was that possible? We don't know exactly because it was so far back in history. But the sense I get is that Zhang Zhung was symbolically based close to Kailas (as it was the centre of the universe) but it extended through a large part of the Himalayas including the areas of present day Nepal, Kumaon, Garhwal, Himachal, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit. A language called Zhangzhung and the Bon religion provided a thread that tied them all together. Now the Zhangzhung language is completely dead. But the languages spoken by "Bhotiyas" all over India and Nepal are variants of it. After the Era of Fragmentation, a Tibetan prince called Nyimagon (a great grandson of Langdarma) escaped to West Tibet and tried to recreate this kingdom. This got to be called "Ngari". But after his death, the kingdom got divided into three parts among his sons: Ladakh, Zanskar and Guge. Nyimagon and sons could not conquer Baltistan in the west and Bashahr in the east. So, those two states became the frontier. Ladakh was the most populous among three offshoots and it was most likely the dominant power politcally and militarily. But Guge was dominant religiously. Guge's primacy in religion got established when Yeshe-O renounced kingship and became a lama, I suppose, the Head Lama of Guge. During his time, Rinchen Zangpo went to Ngari and translated many texts into Tibetan. He also founded a "New Tantra School" of Buddhism (a term used by Ryavec [1]), which only exists in Ngari, not in Central Tibet. He was followed by Atisha, who went to Ngari first and then moved to Lhasa. This is considered the renaissance of Buddhism in Tibet. [2] Given all this history, I am not confident that the Himachali Buddhism is "Tibetan Buddhism". In fact, it isn't clear at all what is supposed to be "Tibetan" Buddhism. The Gelugpa school, to which the Dalai Lama tradition belongs to, doesn't exist at all in Himachal or Ladakh or perhaps even in Ngari. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC) Oh, I might also add that there is no relation whatsoever between the "Silk Road Buddhism" and Tibetan Buddhism, except for the fact that the Qing at one time adopted the Gelugpa order, probably for political expediency. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:26, 10 October 2020 (UTC) References
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This CIA report dated November 1962, has a new map of Indian and Chinese posts in 1962 in the first few pages. (You have to enlarge it). Very nice, all the rivers are marked. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:05, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
I think as per the changes to India and the Non-Aligned Movement, the term has matured well in some ways. DTM ( talk) 15:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
Pre-archive
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Indian maps
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC) added another map. Kautilya3 ( talk) 07:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC) Both the maps do the wrong thing in the Demchok sector. The 1947 map excludes the Demchok village (even though notionally, because of the colour-wash). It crosses the Indus river at a place called Lagankhel, where the Indus describes a little semi-circular bend around little hillocks. The 1954 map includes the Demchok village , but seems to run along the Indus river till Lagankhel and Chibra. It is hard to tell because of the thick line along the border, but it seems to fair to say that the the Jara La and Chang La passes on the right bank of Indus don't seem to have been worked out yet. On the other hand, Chepzi seems to have been excluded already in 1954. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 06:55, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Shourie is a good polemecist. But where is he now? Maybe he ran out of energy to rant. Chepzi was an unforced error. Nehru Gov was caught up in its own ideology of watersheds and withdrew from Chepzi. They probably thought it was a good trade for Demchok. But China wants it all. No trading. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:03, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
DiscussionYour map is up again on Ajai Shukla's blog. Meanwhile your "favourite map" is in the Kongka Pass page. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:27, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
And, look, what I found when I searched for "Kongka La". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:14, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
I found and uploaded a US Army version of the map. It is not as precise but gives the same information, in particular the lines on the Raki Nala. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:39, 3 November 2020 (UTC) |
I have figured how to read Henry Strachey's maps. Strachey was the boundary commissioner for the main part of Ladakh in 1847. Thomson went to the northern Ladakh (Shyok, Karakoram range etc.), and Cunningham seems to have stayed in Leh and surrounding areas, doing background research.
The Governor-General asked the Chinese/Tibetans to join for the boundary delimitation, but they didn't oblige. Instead, the Tibetan bosses alerted all the border villages not to let any outsiders in. Remarkably, this helped for boundary delimitation! Wherever Strachey wasn't allowed to go was part of Tibet, as claimed by them in 1847.
Strachey didn't mark the boundary on his map (remember that boundary definitions are political decisions), but he noted down elevations of most places he went to. They used to measure elevation by the rough method of taking the boiling point of water. So he could only note elevations for the places he could physically go to. "14,9 Chumur" means an elevation of 14,900 feet. The actual elevation is supposed to be 16,700 feet according to Wikipedia. The next place with elevation on his map, a little south of "Chabji", is "14,3 Kyungtsang". The map shows all the routes he knows about, but we can easily infer the route he took from his trail of elevation numbers. The dashed red line probably indicates a foot path, or a route he didn't traverse, or both.
"14,1 Demchok", the so-called "hamlet divided by a rivulet", is marked with two red dots. The next place south of it is "Tagle 14,3?". That number is either a guess or obtained from Moorcroft & Trebeck. Dumchele is not marked. There was no village there at that time, just a grazing ground. Rather the village was "Chibra" on the right bank of Indus. The river that flows by Chibra, which I will call "Chibra stream" comes down from Chang La, which is simply marked as "La". Chibra and Dumchele are separated by a mound. Between 1847 and now, the Chibra stream developed a large strand that went around the mound and formed a large lake near Dumchele. So, I expect that the old grazing ground is now submerged. China built a shopping mall next to it (economic warfare?) and built a military base at the old Chibra. In preparation for the 2020 standoff, it installed a missile site as well. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:41, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Although ignorant of it at the time, we discovered afterwards that we were in reality lucky not to have already met with opposition to our journey." [1] So, Migpal wasn't policed strongly, but it was considered Tibetann territory! Edward Weller's map says as much. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
The popular image of pre-1950 Tibet is of a remote land seldom visited by outsiders. But more than a hundred British officials served in Tibet during the early part of this century. [...] An Agency was also maintained at Gartok in Western Tibet, [...] Their isolation, and the lack of trade, meant that they had the time to study a variety of aspects of Tibet... [2]
References
I suddenly looked at a lighter-coloured version of Strachey's map (perhaps it was the original colour anyway). My attention was drawn to the legend on it. So, it turns out that Strachey did mark a more-or-less precise border on his maps (orange, red, or pink shading depending on the kind of territory). Strachey's border on Pangong excludes the Khurnak Plain, even though it includes the rest of the Nyagzu stream and its valley.
The Khurnak Fort is "on the boundary" on Strachey's map, as Alastair Lamb has famously said. The Indian guys disagreed, but can't see why.
Just to the north of Panggong lake Strachey's map located right on the boundary line the deserted and ruined fort of Khurnak...( Lamb, The China-India border 1964:71–72)
The Changlung Lungpa valley shown in India included also Khurnak fort which Lamb mistakenly thinks was placed on the boundary line.( Rao, The India-China Border 1968:28)
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
And, the map was drawn two years before Mehta Basti Ram returned the Khurnak Plain to the Tibetans. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:03, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Near Chushul, Strachey marks Mordo with a sign. Is it a Lhakang or a Lhato? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Strachey himself says:
Thogji Chenmo, the Great Benevolence, is the name of the Lha, or local deity, who has his Lhato or dedicated turret, on the N. side of the larger lake [somewhere near Tso Moriri], which itself must be called by the same name for want of any other.
No idea how "demons" came into the picture. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:06, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
A lha tho is a small structure made of stones for propitiating the gods, very often decorated with branches on the top [1]
References
Something new from Henry Strachey:
Read the section 3 please and then we can discuss it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:36, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
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Dumchele
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The missing Namka ChuOn the other side of the border, here is the map drawn by Morshead and Bailey of Nyamjang Chu in 1913. Namka Chu, which flows between Le and Pangchen (Zemithang) is completely missing, as is Sumdorong Chu. But this was the information that McMahon used to draw his line. "Mila Katong La" is shown wrongly, where Bum La Pass actually is. And there is a river flowing to its north (joining Tsona Chu on the right). McMahon assumed that there was a "Mila Katong La Range" between these two and he claimed that it was an "ethnic frontier" (between the Tibetans and Monpa). It might well have been an ethnic frontier at this place (which is in the "catchment" of Tsona Dzong), but it was not on the Nyamjang Chu river. There, the ethnic frontier was further north (at Trimo, I think). Morshead and Bailey probably thought that entire the Nyamjang Chu valley would be claimed (because the watershed was obviously to the north). So they didn't bother to accurately note the area where the border finally fell. It is through such little mistakes that wars are made. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:34, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
The ChukangsJust beyond Bailey's "Mila Katong La" (which we now call Bum La), there is a place called Chukhang. Near Chang-La and Jara-La passes ( Demchok sector), there is also a place called Chakhang (also spelt Chiakang, Chinese spelling Qiekan?). I always wondered why these names were similar. Finally found this:
So, this is Tibetan for Sanskrit Śukānga (tax department). Many Tibetan names are Sanskrit or Prakrit words that have been spelt in their funny ways. Meanwhile, the Chinese built a new village called
Jiagang next to
G219. They also laid a highway called
Jiagang-Xiekan highway. Baidu says: Care to create a page for this village? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:49, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
"Dumuqilie" is Dumchele. That is where the trading point is. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
References
Long Yogma and ChushulYou probably had enough of maps, but here is an important piece. From Omachanda Handa, this is the description of the last stages of the Dogra-Tibetan War. [1]
"Drangtse" is probably Tangtse. Long-Yogma is marked on Strachey's map, northwest of Chushul. It is now being called "Loi Yogma" and the Indian government plans to build the Chushul ALG there.
The only "canal" that could have been dammed is this one. Called Har Lungpa, it flows into the Chushul plain and joins the Tsaka river (also called Chushul river). This would imply that the "rebels" were ensconced in Chushul, even though it has been branded "Rodakh". That is why the resulting treaty has come to be known as the Treaty of Chushul, even though it was most likely signed in Leh. So, despite the claim that the frontiers would remain the same as before, some territory did change hands. Part of "Rodakh" came into Ladakh! By the way, the Chinese seem to have withdrawn their claim to the Thakung Heights. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
The Tibetan generals did not have authorisation to invade Ladakh. In the Chinese Amban's report to the Emperor, "
This explains why the combined Tibetan-Ladakhi force lost, even though the Dogras had only a couple of hundred men with them. The Tibetans only stayed on the border: Drangtse (Tangtse) and then "Rodakh" (Chushul). The Ladakhis were encouraged to stage a rebellion, but they couldn't dislodge the Dogras for some six months, when the reinforcements arrived. Then the Tibetans got driven out of Drangtse and defeated at "Rodakh". The Nubra man was helping the Dogras because the Tibetans had occupied their land (Drangtse) and probably extracted provisions from the Nubrans. So, my conclusion is that Chushul was conquered from Tibet by the Dogras. All the wooly language used by the commentators has clouded this fact till now. The Chinese amban sheepishly avoided all mention of it. But the Imperial Court figured out what had happened and gave a warning to the "Kalons". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
References
Unfotunately, my theory has been punctured by Moorcroft and Trebeck, who travelled from Durbuk ("Durghuk") till the end of the Chushul Valley, saying it was all in Ladakh. Apparently they went to get kiang, but didn't manage to catch any.
The reports turned out to be false, but it is significant that people believed them. Apparently, Rudok had the liberty to send armed contingents to arrest people in Chushul, but still, it doesn't seem like Chushul could be counted as being part of Rudok. According to Alastair Lamb, Moorcroft said that the border was between Chushul and Punjoor (Spanggur), basically where it is today. (This is not in the book, but in some report available in the India Office archives.) So it is odd that Handa and Charak write as if Chushul was already part of Rudok. The only possibility is that that the Gyalpo of Ladakh might have made a deal with the Tibetans by ceding these parts in return for their help. If such were the case, it lasted only a few months. I can't see how the Tibetans can claim Chushul to be their "border village". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Please have a read through the Tangtse page now. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
References
Kautilya3, adding to the amusement, I randomly Wikied three of the words. It seems that while the meanings are a little bit more understandable, even parts of the meanings need one more level of explanation.
So some law and order does develop. Seeing this, it seems that at least three levels of meanings will be needed for a common person to even comphrehend what is being said! While you were "enlightened", my mood has lightened. :) DTM ( talk) 14:31, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
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I was predisposed to thinking of it as the "Battle of Chushul" (for which references are aplenty), but I wasn't reading the narratives carefully. The very top quotation in the previous section was saying that the Tibetans were entrenched at Tangtse, not the Dogras. So, the battle was at Tangtse. Why did anybody call it the "Battle of Chushul"? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
There is no mention of the "Battle of Chushul" in Shakbpa's books. But there is this intersting passage:
While this trade agreement was being negotiated [in 1853], a letter was sent to Dangtse Kharpon [Drangtse Kharpon], a representative of Thanedar Bisram stationed at Od in Rudok, which read: "The Tibetan and Ladakhi leaders have concluded negotiations regarding our common borders. We have agreed to adhere to the same border demarcations that existed previously. You are requested, therefore, to hand over Od to the Tibetans and to look after your own territory." It was signed by Thanedar Bisram and dated the fourth day of the third month of the Water-Ox year (1853).[43] [1]
I never heard of Thanedar Bisram but he is well-attested. So, he sent a letter to the Kharpon (local official) of Tangtse, asking him to hand over "Od" to Rudok. The only "Od" I know of, on the border between Ladakh and Rudok, is the Ote Plain, now known as the Khurnak Plain.
So, after the war, Tangtse took control of the Khurnak Plain and, following elaborate negotiations, it was handed back! Godwin-Austen was right after all. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:39, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
This version of the letter is even better:
Two similar letters of agreement have been signed concerning the border between Ladakh and Tibet according to legal traditions. The three, Ladakh, Tibet, and the Sikhs are completely equal. Thus, in the future, each should hold their own territory; there should be no pretext for conflict over the (Rutok)ö border.
- Fourth day of the third month of the Water-Ox year (1853)
- Thanedar Bisram [2]
The o-with-diarsis "ö" is apparently pronounced as "od" by the Tibetans and "ot" by the Ladakhis. (Compare Yeshe-Ö.) Stracahey spelt it as "Ot". Later British converted it to "Ote".
"Sikhs" is a mistranslation. The Tibetan original would have been "shen-pa" (Singh people) which would cover both the Sikhs and Dogras. But it is interesting that the Dogras elevated the Ladakhis to an equal status with them.
It would be interesting indeed to find out what were in the other "two similar letters". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Found a good discussion of the Kongma–Parma–Yogma terminology in Strachey. (See [2].) They mean Upper–Middle–Lower.
So the "Chang Parma" valley means the "Northern Middle" valley. Pretty sensible. Also the Nyagzu in the middle of the valley can now be parsed as "Nyak Chu" (the middle river). "Nyak" is another word for middle. The British writers have claimed that the Pangong Lake to the east of the Khurnak plain was called "Nyak Tso". Hedin says none of the Tibetans he spoke to knew that term. They knew "Tso Ngombo" (blue lake).
Coming back to Drangtse, it is now clear to me that the major battles of Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War wer also fought right here. No wonder you found rock art with chariots. One can imagine that the good old Dardic-Tibetan wars would have also been fought here. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
So here we go. I find the Indian claims quite flaky. They were mostly based on the testimonies of the British, who were clueless as explained above.
China was in bad shape. They lost the Opium Wars. The Dogras had captured Ladakh and, even though the Ladkhi ruler submitted to China, China was unable to help. Thankfully, the Tibetans were strong enough to defend themselves, but China didn't want to get into trouble with the British and warned Tibet to back off. So Tibet did. The "century of humiliation" had begun. It took another couple of decades for the Tibetans to gather up the courage to negotiate the border and it appears that the Dogras were graceful and returned whatever territory they had occupied. But Tibet did not enforce its claims strongly. All those areas that were in dispute (in the sense that Ladakhis might have had access to them) continued to be free to access. The Brits ran all over the place in there, hunting, toouring and exploring. The impression got created that all this was Ladakhi territory. But nobody knew for sure.
Then India comes stomping along. It claims all the territory that the British had claimed and more. (For example, the eastern bank of the Indus River in the Demchok sector was never claimed either by the Ladakhis or the British. The Demchok village was not claimed by them either. But India did, and it stationed troops there. China might tolerate Ladakhis accessing it, but not India to put up troops saying all this is "our land" and pushing back the Tibetans.) A British guy went to Demchok in 1946 and he says,
On what was unquestionably Kashmiri territory numerous [Tibetan?] flocks were grazing. It was evidently the concern of no one, least of all of the kotwal, to safeguard the interest of either country. The truth was, of course, that it did not matter, as the people did not care a doit for political restrictions. After all, they were Tibetans, irrespective of what side of an arbitrary frontier line they lived. [3]
India needed to dig into the Kashmiri records and find out what territory was actually being claimed by them. Apparently, the border was discussed between Mehta Basti Ram and the Tibetan representatives. How come nobody mentions it? Even when the Indians did find the records, they misinterpreted them. For example, the 1908 settlement report showed no people living in Demchok, and the 1921 census showed 2 families. Clearly this was not the Tibetan Demchok village. Yet, India assumed that this meant both the Demchok villages were Ladakhi territory. The Tibetans claimed Dumchele as early as in 1904. (This was the first time they were having a dialogue with the British, after the Younghusband Expedition.) But the Indians never bothered to investigate it.
So, on the whole, the Indian claim line is quite half-baked and doesn't stand up to scrutiny. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:20, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
there is no mention of the "Battle of Chushul" in Shakbpa's books. However Shakbpa does mention a TIBETAN LETTER OF AGREEMENT, 1842. This was
one of the earliest treaties regarding the boundaries in the western sector was issued in 1842it does not mention where that boundary lay, even if it was/was not the same as post Second Anglo-Sikh War.
the Indian claim line is quite half-baked and doesn't stand up to scrutinyreminds me of the term fog of war. Having definite facts and finding them, the facts we are looking for and are interested in, documented on paper at the time would be surprising.
"He ( Mehta Mangal) demarcated the boundary between Ladakh and Tibet."His name should definitely be in the background section of the Sino-Indian border dispute article if the line is true to its word. DTM ( talk) 13:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- India's northern frontiers and China, (pahar to the rescue again) edit & GoI report DTM ( talk) 13:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Mangal Mehta, wazir of Ladakh during 1860-65, organized the revenue settlement of the whole area. His successors, including Johnson (1870-1881) and Radha Kishen Kaul (1882), made the necessary revisions. In the regular revenue assessment reports the names of areas and villages and the amount of revenue collected from each of them, which is now claimed by China as having been under their administrative jurisdiction for centuries, were included. The report of 1908 mentioned 108 villages including Tankse, Demchok and Minsar and mentions Aksai Chin, Lingzi Tang where rights of pastures and salt collection were exercised, as parts of Tankse ilaqa. [...] The assessment report of Ladakh tehsil of 1909 stated,’ There have been no boundary disputes on the Lhasa frontiers and the existing boundary seems to be well understood by the subjects of both the state and the Lhasa Government’.[...] In 1865) Mehta Mangal had prepared a11 original sketch map showing the routes and stages up to Shahidulla in the north and Minsar in east in which Demchok was shown as the eastern boundary post.
References
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Nubra means the "western realm". But west of what? Cunningham fudges it seriously by saying "the north-western district of Ladak, includes all the country drained by the Nubra and Shayok rivers". It is certainly not a "northwestern district of Ladakh", it is rather its north-eastern district!
Unless we imagine Nubra being governed from somewhere near Durbuk, it is hard to make sense of Nubra being called "wetern". Durbuk being at the V-shaped bend of the Shyok river, we can imagine the western branch being called Nubra, and the eastern branch (which is unpopulated) having no name. "Dumra" covered both, and often "Dumra" is used to refer to Durbuk itself:
Prince Tshe-dban-rab-brtan fled to Spi-ti, passing through Ldum-rå and Dran-tse. (p.130 of Francke)
Unless Durbuk was the capital of Dumra, it wouldn't make sense to do so.
And here is a very interesting description of Ladakh:
This is the tale of the former king of La-dvags (Ladakh) and of the war with the Sin-pas. During the time of the father-king the following (districts were inhabited by) his subjects : [the region] from
- the Hdu-zi pass (Zoji pass) upwards,
- from the Chos-hbad [Chorbat] pass of Sbal-ti-yul [Baltiyul] upwards, and
- from La-hdar [Lahul?] in Zans-dkar upwards;
- [the region] within the Se-hdu-la pass [Karakoram or Shahidulla?] of Ldum-ra (Nub-ra), and
- within Pho-lon-hdra-hdra [?] of Byan-than [Changthang].
All those [who lived there] were the subjects of the father-king of La-dvags. Besides the father-king none could give orders to them. (p.250 of Francke)
The reference to "Se-hdu-la pass" makes it clear that both the wings of the Shyok river were included in Dumra. Incidentally, Francke's map of Ladakh includes Shahidulla. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
That map of the Shyok Valley above was created using https://umap.openstreetmap.fr. I couldn't figure out what layer he used to get it in that understated elegance. I wonder what more can be done with this tool? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
OSM has installed a new "layer". Even though it is not as good as the French elegance, it is a lot better than the other layer I used before. So I made a map with it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Locating Ladakhi history [4] by John Bray has a nice historical map of Ladakh, which is worth reproducing. And, the article is a nice overview of Ladakh's history too. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, we just need consensus on some formula which avoids flooding the map with inconsequential places. I don't know exactly how our original artist picked his places. He probably read through the history and located all the places he encountered. But then he also added some places which don't have historical prominence, like Kargil and Deskit, for completeness sake. He might have also had difficulty locating other places like Durghuk and Drang-tse. But how did he miss Hanle (Wam-le) mentioned in the founding document? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
References
Godwin-Austin says (in writing about Thakung): [1]
Towards the shore of the lake rise two very conspicuous isolated low rocky knobs, a mile apart, and between these is the confluence of the Chushal stream and the Pangong Tso. The next morning I walked across and ascended the most eastern eminence, having the strange sounding name of Tuggu Nuggu. This had formerly been a fortified post; the level space at the top was enclosed by a low stone wall, while a detached outwork had been built on the low spur that ran out on the east side ...
The terrain map certainly shows two "eminences" flanking the Chushul river. But can one of them be called the "most eastern" eminence? Both of them are pretty blank on satellite maps. No sign of any fortified post. On the other hand, the most eastern eminence of the Thakung plain now houses the Indian post. So what do you think? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:44, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
One and a half mile beyond Tuggu Nuggu low spurs abut upon the lake in cliffs of 150 to 200 feet high...
References
Finally for some Chinese maps. See my notes in the Wikipedia Commons. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
...the findings point to the need to correct the epistemic criteria used to reproduce claims of an unambiguous boundary between India and China by both countries, in order to ensure abatement of similar outcomes.
You remember that movie, don't you? The loyal butler, completely devoted to the service of his master, firm in his belief that he is playing a historic role in facilitating international affairs? Whereas his masters were only appeasing the Nazis, all leading to the doomsday that befell the whole world?
Well, I read Ghulam Rasool Galwan's biography, Servant of Sahibs. It gave me the same feel. Except that this guy had no clue about any historic role in international affairs. He did it for a job, and for the thrill of it. He certainly had a lot more fun than Anthony Hopkins, earned a lot more money (relatively speaking), and became a big shot by the end of his life.
A lot of people read the book last year, and there were quite a few Internet book reviews as well [5] [6]. Everybody was full of admiration for this poor boy, who accomplished much and became famous.
The western scholars say "no". It is all an example of colonial subjugation.
The singular focus of the book on Rassul Galwan's growth through colonial labor, combined with the authenticity imposed on him and his account through a number of textual and editorial devices, suggest that Servant of Sahibs may be read credibly as a text that aids the colonial establishment in utilizing a discourse of Native authenticity in support of a somewhat discredited discourse of benevolent colonial labor relations. [2]
Martijn van Beek too apparently endorses this reading:
His life, at the time of publication in 1923, was displayed to show the blessings of empire and to illustrate the civilizing effect of contact with Europeans, as has been noted by other scholars (Butz and MacDonald 1995). [3]
So these people know better than us what colonialism means? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:27, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
References
China-India border dispute: Ladakh, Aksai Chin and the Tibet factor
Tibetan traditional residential area
[You wonder what that is? read on]
The Aksai Chin area is located in the eastern part of the Kashmir Valley [wow! some valley!], covering an area of approximately 37,250 square kilometers. It belongs to the Hetian County of Xinjiang and the Ali area of Tibet in China.
Ladakh is a traditional residential area for Tibetans.
At the end of the 17th century (1684) Ladakh signed a contract with Tibet to recognize Tibet as the suzerainty [Gosh! I thought the Chinese language didn't have a word for "suzerainty"], and pay tribute to the Dalai Lama, the ruler of Tibet every year.
Later, the rulers of Ladakh were conferred by the emperor of the Manchu and Qing Dynasty and were "tempered" by the minister in Tibet. [What? Manchu dynasty was gone by 1684. Come on! Don't be picky with such trifles! Be a sport.]
Later, Ladakh became a possession of the British East India Company. [Ah, the British imperialists again! I knew it had to to be them.]
The Financial Times reported [not us, we are "trustworthy"] that Beijing believes that Ladakh is part of China's Tibet and that China still controls the territory acquired during the Sino-Indian border war in 1962 [Phew, we said it, even though we know that it is actually in the Hotien County of Xinjiang. What gawd-awful things these western papers say, not at all trustworthy].
Dalai Lama's visit to disputed areas between China and India in southern Tibet arouses concern
"Indian Internal Affairs" [sic, including the quote marks]
In 1987, India announced the establishment of "Arunachal Pradesh". The territory of this state includes the northern region of Assam in India and southern Tibet, which China considers to be the southern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Most of the state's land, about 90,000 square kilometers, is located in southern Tibet [excepting maybe 1000 sq km or so in the "northern reigon of Assam in India"], a territorial dispute between China and India, so the Chinese government does not recognize it.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
From the first trustworthy source:
He [Marek from the Observer Research Foundation] said in a report in the Financial Times that Ladakh includes parts of Tibet and Xinjiang, and Tibet and Xinjiang are the buffer zone separating Indian civilization from Chinese civilization.
But Ashok Malik actually said [7]
Ladakh was once one of a number of autonomous states, also including Tibet and Xinjiang, that Mr Malik says served as buffers between Indian and Chinese civilisations.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Nathan Russer posted a link to a "humdata" site that shows the LSIB, Version 10 boundaries, dated 10 March 2020:
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/large-scale-international-boundaries-lsib
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
F. M. Bailey writes: [1]
Morshead went further down the river to see what prospect there was of exploring the No Man's Land. But four miles down he came on the ruins of a foot-bridge over to the right bank and could get no further. It was one of the Mishmi type, five long strands of cane bound at intervals with hoops. The Tibetans had tried to build another, but they lacked the skill of the Lopas. So there was nothing for it but to return the way we had come. We had done what we came to do. We had found and mapped the limit of Tibetan authority—the frontier in fact, down this valley.
It is 3.5 miles from Migyitun to the map-marked McMahon Line, and 4.5 miles to the new Chinese village [8]. I have no idea how it feels to live in there, cold and dark, hemmed in by mountains from all four sides. No wonder they have to make simulation videos [9]. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
References
I don't know why it took me so long to find the District Census Handbook. The border shown in the front pages is quite different from anything else we have seen. So, I went to Bhuvan3D to check. And you get a really beautiful perspective of a diamond shaped mountain, with Dakpa Sheri in the centre. You really get to understand the the whole idea of the Rongkor pilgrimage here.
I also traced India's claim line with a blue pen, since it is not really visible otherwise. As I expected, the annual pilgrimage route is entirely within Tibetan territory. (The OSM boundary is quite wrong.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:18, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
From the Sandhu et al.,
Chinese troops launched an attack on the morning of 23 Oct, against the border posts of Asaphila, Sagamla, Tamala and Potrang.
Other than Asaphila, the other three places are on the annual pilgrimage route. This was supposed to be Tibetan territory by the 1940 Survey of India map. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
In this article (which you cited for " Gelen Bung"), Vinayak Bhat calls the line Captain Bailey's McMahon Line. So that gave me an idea. The Survey of India didn't send any more survey teams to the border before the map got made. Who would go with all that equipment, to the top of Himalayas, trekking through some hundreds of miles of vicious tribal territory? Captain Bailey tried to go in from the Tibetan side, but he couldn't, because all the bridges were broken and the Tibetans couldn't repair them. So, all the points in the Subansiri District are dubious, and only the points in Tibet are reliable.
So, by synchronizing on the Tibetan points (and the Kamla River, which I had to use in the south), I got this reasonable looking alignment. I was quite pleased to discover that Captain Bailey knew exactly where Yume Chu went, but had absolutely no idea what was happening to the Subansiri River. Ok, so, at least he knew something!
Captain Bailey did put the Pindigo river, which India has been claiming for itself, firmly in Tibet. He also knew that the Pindigo river had a tributary that came in from the northeast, but he didn't know what happened after the confluence. He sent it all the way to Tsari Chu in the east. But in reality, it goes south to join Subansiri a little east of Taksing. [1]
Now, the funny thing is that the Chief Electoral Officer of Arunachal Pradesh knows about five villages along the Pindigo river, and he has been getting those people to happily vote in Indian elections. [2] According to the Census of India, 31 people live there (classifed as the village Kacha). They are pretty patriotic too.
Hiwak Chader, a student from Kacha village of Taksing circle, told Deccan Chronicle that people there had noticed the movement of Chinese troops in the Asa-Pila-Maya area around three months back, but the government was not aware about it. He said the villagers handed over photos to Army Intelligence and IB sleuths. [3]
All said and done, we can be pretty sure that the poor Tibetans didn't get to do any Tsari pilgrimages after 1959. Apparently, neither India nor China cares -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Detailed maps of Arunachal Pradesh districts can be found here. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 18:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Working on the Ladakh border at one end and Arunachal Pradesh at the other (and Sikkim-Bhutan in the middle as well), I always wondered why all these places feel the same, but don't feel much like the Central Tibet. Here is a clue:
The power of the Karma Kagyü was centered on the figure of the Karmapa, or Gyelwang Karmapa[72] the longest surviving incarnate lama lineage in Tibet. During this pivotal period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, his power was manifest in his Great Encampment, garchen in Tibetan.[73] The garchen's influence included even outposts in Ngari of far western Tibet,[74] and it maintained a significant presence at the major pilgrimage site of Tsari, or Crystal Mountain, along the border with Arunachal Pradesh.[75] ... The successive "kings of Tsang" came to represent the nationalistic and conservative forces of Tibet,[76] which were defeated only in 1642 when the Geluk school called upon the Oirat, or "Western Mongols," to come to their aid in Tibet. [1]
And Tibet seems to be an abject lesson on why not to mix religion and politics. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
References
My little contribution to Biden's inclusive agenda. Please try to find more info. The Indian newspapers were sorely disappointing. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
According to Leo Rose and Margaret Fisher, The best of the descriptive reports of the Chinese invasion of 1962 to have appeared so far.
The ages 89-91 of the Rose and Fisher volume has loads of citations on Arunachal, including Migyitun and Tawang.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:40, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
The position of Longju in earlier times thus becomes a little clearer. Obviously, there was a brisk trade across the border in the Tsari valley. Furthermore, food supplies (except for Tibetan salt) were going north,… From which valleys the rice came,… Nevertheless, it is of interest that the goods which Bailey in 1913 saw moving south were exactly those….
I am afraid I got RSI from doing too much OpenStreetMap. So I am going to set aside geography and start attacking the diplomatic history. Nasty western historians, in an effort to mock the British Empire, make up stories of how Britain screwed China. The life of the Chinese propagandists is made, as they don't even have to make up any new propaganda.
But the proof is in the pudding. Today, Mongolia is independent whereas Tibet has been occupied in China. If Britain had indeed screwed China, the results should have been the opposite. So there is a long long story to be told. (Interestingly, Alastair Lamb invents a Russian conspiracy theory, whereby the Russians supposedly engineered the situation so as to weaken the British hand in Tibet whereas they gave themselves a free hand in Mongolia! So, apparently Russia had won the Great Game.)
Meanwhile, I am afraid the Dakpa Sheri page is quite wrong. I hope you can fix it. (I will put some comments on the article talk page.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:39, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Please feel free to copy this footnote wherever you need to. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel really cheated for having spent money from my pocket to buy books that finally show up on archive.org. But at least my friends can read them and I don't have to feel so lonely any more. This book is a gem! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 22:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Total population | |
---|---|
c. 3 million | |
Regions with significant populations | |
China ( Tibet) | 3,682 (2010) [1] |
India ( Arunachal Pradesh) | 2.5 million (2014) |
Languages | |
Bokar, Tibetic languages, Digaro languages, Puroik language | |
Religion | |
East Asian Buddhism / Donyi-Poloism [2] | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Tagin, Adi, Idu Mishmi |
The bullshit on this page will make your head spin! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Can you see if you can make a better version of the Map 1 on the Depsang Bulge page? I think this page is slowly falling into place now. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Where is the bottleneck? This is the only spot where there is no road from either the Indian side or the Chinese side. But this doesn't look like a bottleneck at all!
I marked this spot because I think this is where the two sides pitched tents for the 2013 Depsang standoff. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Located them. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
This report has two maps annotated by Lt. Gen. Panag: one on Pangong Lake and the other on Depsang Plains. The second is wild! He believes the Indian patrol points are next to the Tiankong Highway! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:19, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
I finished updating the Galwan River article. Please give it a read. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Shekhar Gupta likes their report [10]. I suppose he is right. If Indians had to a report on China, they wouldn't be able to do as good a job.
Be sure to read also Ananth Krishnan's summary [11]. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I got a big kick out of reading this. The Chinese nationalists will give our own nationalists a run for their money any day. My favourite:
This kind of “nonsensical compromise”, some online commentators warned, will have disastrous consequence for China. It will not only lead to the loss of China’s strategic initiative in the western front at a key historical juncture, erode its power and psychological advantage over India, but may also lead to the shaping of the new actual line of control on the Sino-Indian border based on this agreement. Once that happens, many fear that China’s long term goal of “strategic suppression of India, delaying India’s rise, and preventing India from becoming a major geostrategic threat to China in the future” will only be jeopardised. [1]
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Javadev Ranade at An Intensifying Rivalry? The Future of India-China Relations, Hudson Institute, 22 February 2021, 1:00:15 hours in.
Let me point you to an article written by Hu Shisheng, who makes three points:
- 1. A showdown with India was inevitable from the time they got liberated and we [India] became independent.
- 2. Rise of India is a bigger problem than India's growing proximity to the US.
- 3. Confrontation at the border will continue until the two Armies come to their respective red lines, which will then become the Line of Actual Control.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Our respected Encyclopedia Britannica says:
Delegates of the Chinese republican government also attended the Shimla Conference, but they refused to sign the principal agreement on the status and boundaries of Tibet on the ground that Tibet was subordinate to China and had not the power to make treaties. The Chinese have maintained this position to the present day...
Look at the nonsensical nature of it. The Chinese refused to sign because Tibet was subordinate to China? After having accepted to come to the conference, accepted the credentials of the Tibetan representative, and even signing the draft Convention, they are supposed to have decided that "Tibet was subordinate to China"?
The reality is totally different:
The Foreign Ministry indicated that the frontier remained the only issue to which China objected: "As regards the present Draft Agreement, apart from the boundary question dealt with in Article 9, the ideas of both parties are generally speaking in agreement as to the remaining, and it will not be a difficult matter to reach an agreement by mutual consultation." [1]
Working on the Simla Convention page, I am getting to see how widespread Chinese propaganda is. Whatever might have been the situation before Maxwell and Nixon, right now all of Chinese bullshit is swallowed up without question by all kinds of sources! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Shishir Gupta writes, in the context of the 2013 Depsang standoff:
While the Indian Army asked the PLA to withdraw to its original positions as per the 1976 border patrolling agreement, the PLA produced a map, which was part of the annexure to a letter written by Zhou to Nehru and the Conference of African-Asian leaders in November 1959, to buttress its case that the new position was well within the Chinese side of the LAC.[3] The November 1959 map (reproduced on the facing page), which defines the LAC running parallel to Raki Nullah [Depsang Nala] and widely diverges from the Indian LAC, was an indicator that the PLA had come prepared and the incursion was planned much in advance; according to this map, the strategic Depsang Bulge, which gave India an option of countering any PLA attack towards DBO, belonged to China. [1]
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:06, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Why did our army prevail in the conflict in the Kalwan Valley? These three factors are the key. [1]
* ... even though India has a "quantity" advantage in the number of outposts in the area near the river valley, compared with China, the Indian army's outpost lacks a "qualitative" advantage. The border defense regiment of the Xinjiang Military Region of the People's Liberation Army built few outposts here, one line away from the confrontation, but the outposts are well-equipped, with many and advanced delivery vehicles, and the quality of their troops are better than those of the Indian army. Therefore, they have the upper hand in this confrontation.
* According to public information, the food provided by our border soldiers is two large meats, two and a half meats, and a vegetable dish with eggs. The intake of a large amount of protein helps the PLA border guards maintain a good body shape and physical fitness, and give play to their advantages in border conflicts. Compared with our army, the Indian army has insufficient protein intake and high dietary starch ratio.
* This time the People's Liberation Army has basically controlled the battlefield, which is also conducive to the evacuation and treatment of the wounded. Moreover, in the Kalwan Valley area, our army also has a heliport station to facilitate the evacuation of critically ill and wounded. In contrast, the Indian army, after the collapse of the fighting in the Kalwan River valley, a large number of soldiers were injured and abandoned near the river beach, exposed to the wild under minus conditions at night. ... The Indian army has only temporary camps in the Kalwan Valley area, unable to rescue the severely wounded with plateau symptoms, so they can only be evacuated.
By the way, India has a helipad at the KM 120 post. But that is on the Shyok River and about 4-5 km from PP-14. In between, there is not even a road, despite the Indian gloating we have seen in the newspapers. In contrast the Chinese have a helipad right on PP-14.
The fact that India was trying to build infrastructure between PP-14 and KM-120 is precisely why the Chinese have initiated this conflict. "It belongs to China", "China's sovereignty is very clear", and so on.
Also India's supposed "quantity advantage" is a fallcy. India has lots of posts in Murgo, Depsang and DBO, but there is practically nothing between Murgo and Durbuk. In contrast, the Chinese have the Heweitan base and the Kongka base, both of which are no more than an hour's drive from Galwan. And Kongka is connected to Rudok by a motorway, supporting 100 miles/hour speeds. So, even going by road the Chinese wounded can get to Kongka and Rudok faster than the Indian wounded could get to KM 120. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
The Indian government's poor performance in fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic has only served to exacerbate domestic pressure, and a hostile international trading environment caused by US President Donald Trump's administration further hit the Indian economy. Against such a background, a convenient scapegoat was found, China. It works well for the BJP, and now the same tactics have been adopted by the opposition to beat the ruling party. [2]
References
At 0:57 [12]. "You are in Indian territory. Go back"? Is Soiba Moningba speaking English or Mandarin? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:52, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
After overrunning some of India’s defences along the IB they met with stiff resistance from a platoon of 1 Sikh under Subedar Joginder Singh. The platoon fought fiercely, losing more than half their men. Subedar Joginder Singh, despite a bullet injury in his thigh, refused to be evacuated and fought on bravely to stem the Chinese advance. The Chinese attacked in waves and finally regrouped in larger numbers to attack the post. Using the lone light machine gun, Subedar Joginder Singh killed many advancing Chinese. When the situation became desperate, he and his men, with their bayonets unsheathed, emerged from their trenches with their war cry, “ Wahe Guruji ka Khalsa wahe guruji ki fateh.” Subedar Joginder Singh was captured by the Chinese, but refused treatment and died a prisoner of war. He was awarded the Param Vir Chakra for his gallantry. There is a memorial to him on the road to Bumla.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 18:12, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
This is funny (in a delightful puzzling way). The author,
Madhu Gurung, writes in such a wonderful way about 1962 related stories and then goes on to write "Wikipedia estimates that, in the 1962 war, 1,383 Indian soldiers died, while 1,047 were wounded and 3,968 became prisoners of war". I like how this just goes with the flow.
DTM (
talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
"Has he abandoned us?"– The second article from The Hindu that is linked echoes the same feeling as I had posted before— ..."he chose to give us away to China" ( ref). I had never searched for this before, the sentiment has actually been debated on before and quite recently too. "How should a Prime Minister sound in wartime?" ( ref) DTM ( talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Huge Chinese armies have been marching in the northern part of NEFA. We have had reverses at Walong, Se La and today Bomdila, a small town in NEFA, has also fallen. We shall not rest till the invader goes out of India or is pushed out. I want to make that clear to all of you, and, especially our countrymen in Assam, to whom our heart goes out at this moment. (Nehru, All India Radio; November 20, 1962)
The original speech though seems to convey it differently, of course. DTM ( talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
From Olaf Caroe in 1962: [1]
Before I go any further I must take exception to a map which appeared in The Times on November 21st, which in my view is extremely misleading. The map, which was on the middle page, had the caption " Tibetan Frontiers before 1914." It showed the line at the foothills as the frontier of Tibet before 1914. Now it looks to me as though The Times has been indoctrinated by China. Of all the National dailies that appeared today-some of them have rather good maps, particularly the Daily Mail-not one of them repeated this error. Why on earth The Times, which has always prided itself on being so well informed on foreign correspondence, should publish a thing which definitely supports Chinese claims against a member of the Commonwealth, I think I must leave it to the audience to judge. The paper actually shows the frontier before 1914 down here; it never was. The Tibetans never penetrated this area, except for one or two monasteries right up in the north of it (Tawang was one of them), where monks levied certain monastic dues.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:10, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Apparently, Caroe had been battling the map-makers for ages:
And what would they make of these documents when British cartographers persisted in showing an international border in Assam which ran along the old Outer Line? This was the case with the major British map publishers like Bartholomew's and it was so with The Times Atlas. Such a border was also to be found in many of the maps included in books and articles by specialists in the affairs of Assam and the Assam Himalayas like Colonel Shakespear and F. Kingdon Ward. As late as 1937 even the Government of Assam, in its Administration Report for 1935-36, reproduced a map showing the offending old Outer Line frontier, as K.P.S. Menon irritably pointed out.[939] Caroe could, of course, make sure that the Survey of India in the fullness of time published the doctrinally correct alignment; and this happened consistently after 1937. What was not so easy was to convince the British cartographers of the errors of their ways (Caroe probably did not lose much sleep over what non-British map makers did other than Chinese). [2]
The problem was not so much that they showed an Outer Line frontier (at the foothills). But rather that they labelled what was beyond as "Tibet" or "China", even though there was no Tibetan/Chinese presence there. So the maps can't be taken too seriously. The map-makers are loath to admit their ignorance. So they pretend to know, much to the detriment of all the people that have to later die for it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:16, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Did you ever look for Chumar on this map? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:47, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh, there is a key? I didn't notice. But it is not in any trijunction. It is right smack in Tibet!
So, this is when we start reading Hriday Nath Kaul seriously.
From the movement of the British Commission along the frontier, as also other indications, Golab Singh became painfully aware of what kind of boundary the British had in view to replace the ancient limits of Ladakh. The first commission had determined that the boundary between Ladakh and Spiti should run from Lingti boundary stone to the Lanka Hill and from that along the mountain range on the northern bank of the Cherpa river, "as far as the southern end of the Tsomorreri from which point we understood that the Chinese territory commenced."[40] British objective to extend their territorial limits to the very shores of the Tsomorreri, far to the north, was consistently pursued by them and explorations and surveys for the purpose were conducted even before the formation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. But extension of the Tibetan or, as the British called them, "Chinese" territories was astonishing. [1]
This happened in the first boundary commission, headed by Vance Agnew, and assisted by Alexander Cunningham. Only after the commission "broke up" in August, did the Maharaja's reps come and join Cunningham. What happened with them, we are not told. But Kaul quotes some of Cunningham's writings, which are positively scandalous. But, for the second boundary commission, which happened in 1848, I assumed that things were straightened out. Certainly, Strachey did quite an honest job of finding the actual boundary. So I was surprised to discover that all his work was buried somewhere, the old boundary was still on the records! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:36, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Remember my rant on Talk:Asaphila about V.P. Malik? Well, that was only a start.
Here is Bhuvan2D's map of the Subansiri valley. Notice where Ishneya and Taksing really are, and where Bhuvan marks it. So, whereas Taksing is only about 3 km from the border, India deludes itself into thinking it is some 10-15 km from the border? Does anybody really know what is going on?
If you look at Google Maps, it is even worse. There it is supposedly somewhere up in the snows! Apparently Google is using the coordinates India provides and that is where they show up.
Even more crazily, India has been claiming areas to the west of the confluence of Yume Chu and Subansiri. There is in fact a little village there called " Juga", with maybe about 2 houses, which India claims is Indian. India has a track going up there (or maybe the tribals do). Now, China has built its own track coming from the other side. Then India jumps up and down, claiming "this is Indian territory!"
Is there an end to this madness? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:24, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stuck to the deal, speaking for a couple of minutes each. Then it was China's turn, and diplomat Yang Jiechi launched into a monologue that lasted over 16 minutes. [1]
Any idea what he talked for 16 minutes? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
These remarks went viral in China, and Mr. Yang was praised for his forthrightness. Some in the Chinese press were drawing comparisons to Mao Zedong’s famous declaration in 1949 that “the Chinese people have stood up”, viewing his comments as laying down a marker in China’s challenge of American dominance.
"However, as the US side first delivered opening remarks, they exceeded the set time limit severely and wantonly attacked China’s domestic and foreign policies, provoking disagreements".
— Zhao Lijian
Never let a fact get in the way of propaganda! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an academic and columnist for the Indian Express, a national newspaper, was one of the few to raise misgivings. A government that gleefully twisted the law and suspended local democracy in one place could surely do the same in another. Mr Modi proposed to "Indianise" Kashmir, noted Mr Mehta. "Instead, what we will see is potentially the Kashmirisation of India."
— The Economist on Downgrading Delhi
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Hey y'all, the April 2021 WikiProject Military History Reviewing Drive begins at 00:01 UTC on April 1, 2021 and runs through 23:59 UTC on April 31, 2021. Points can be earned through reviewing articles on the AutoCheck report, reviewing articles listed at WP:MILHIST/ASSESS, reviewing MILHIST-tagged articles at WP:GAN or WP:FAC, and reviewing articles submitted at WP:MILHIST/ACR. Service awards and barnstars are given for set points thresholds, and the top three finishers will receive further awards. To participate, sign up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_History/April 2021 Reviewing Drive#Participants and create a worklist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/April 2021 Reviewing Drive/Worklists (examples are given). Further details can be found at the drive page. Questions can be asked at the drive talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
It is no exaggeration to say that China’s rise challenges every national interest that the United States has ever had. With its continental economy and cutting-edge technological prowess, Beijing threatens to seep into the nooks and crannies of the liberal international order like butter on an English muffin — clogging the arteries of freedom with the cholesterol of communism and corruption. [1]
No clue why it had to come out on April 1st! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:33, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
References
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The article Shaheen Bagh protest you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Shaheen Bagh protest for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Example -- Example ( talk) 15:41, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
The article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Shaheen Bagh Protests for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 15:42, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Propose merging
Template:New Delhi Television Limited with
Template:NDTV Personnel.
Seems redundant as personnel list is already available in NDTV template.
Tharun S Yadla (
talk) 06:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
The article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Shaheen Bagh Protests for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 15:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Shaheen Bagh Protests you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Femkemilene -- Femkemilene ( talk) 21:21, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Can you vote keep on Sanjeev Tyagi AFD. I improved it so much. -- Vansh tyagi24 ( talk) 10:42, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Isu Razi Pass from sv:Isu Razi Pass. It is not all that easy! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
DTM,
Are you interested in doing another one of these for the February edition? Deadline would be about February 25, for the Feb 28 issue. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:05, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Pre Archive
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Of all of Modi's topis...this one is the best. Hope it stays on. But Himachal Pradesh is the wrong place to wear it. Buddhist country. He should do so in Hyderabad, where the Xinjiang refugees were settled and forgotten about ever since. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:11, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
This is another round:
Well, everything is "Tibetan Buddhism" in the generic sense. But, was the art Tibetan or Himachali, I have no idea. (By the way, what is called "Tibetan Buddhism" was transmitted from India to Tibet via precisely this region, the Sutlej valley, during the time of Yeshe-O. This is known as the "second transmission". The first one was destroyed by Langdarma, resulting in the Era of Fragmentation.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
References
Tibet and Tibetan BuddhismOk, I guess the fact that you were "surprised" by the Second Transmission is significant. The dominant narratives of "Tibet" and "Tibetan Buddhism" completely ignore this development. That is not surprising given the fact that "Tibet" has about 3 million people whereas Ngari (West Tibet) has only 100,000. So Ngari's history gets drowned out. Yet West Tibet had a huge empire ( Zhang Zhung) almost equal in power to Lhasa in the first millennium AD. How was that possible? We don't know exactly because it was so far back in history. But the sense I get is that Zhang Zhung was symbolically based close to Kailas (as it was the centre of the universe) but it extended through a large part of the Himalayas including the areas of present day Nepal, Kumaon, Garhwal, Himachal, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit. A language called Zhangzhung and the Bon religion provided a thread that tied them all together. Now the Zhangzhung language is completely dead. But the languages spoken by "Bhotiyas" all over India and Nepal are variants of it. After the Era of Fragmentation, a Tibetan prince called Nyimagon (a great grandson of Langdarma) escaped to West Tibet and tried to recreate this kingdom. This got to be called "Ngari". But after his death, the kingdom got divided into three parts among his sons: Ladakh, Zanskar and Guge. Nyimagon and sons could not conquer Baltistan in the west and Bashahr in the east. So, those two states became the frontier. Ladakh was the most populous among three offshoots and it was most likely the dominant power politcally and militarily. But Guge was dominant religiously. Guge's primacy in religion got established when Yeshe-O renounced kingship and became a lama, I suppose, the Head Lama of Guge. During his time, Rinchen Zangpo went to Ngari and translated many texts into Tibetan. He also founded a "New Tantra School" of Buddhism (a term used by Ryavec [1]), which only exists in Ngari, not in Central Tibet. He was followed by Atisha, who went to Ngari first and then moved to Lhasa. This is considered the renaissance of Buddhism in Tibet. [2] Given all this history, I am not confident that the Himachali Buddhism is "Tibetan Buddhism". In fact, it isn't clear at all what is supposed to be "Tibetan" Buddhism. The Gelugpa school, to which the Dalai Lama tradition belongs to, doesn't exist at all in Himachal or Ladakh or perhaps even in Ngari. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC) Oh, I might also add that there is no relation whatsoever between the "Silk Road Buddhism" and Tibetan Buddhism, except for the fact that the Qing at one time adopted the Gelugpa order, probably for political expediency. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:26, 10 October 2020 (UTC) References
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This CIA report dated November 1962, has a new map of Indian and Chinese posts in 1962 in the first few pages. (You have to enlarge it). Very nice, all the rivers are marked. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:05, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
I think as per the changes to India and the Non-Aligned Movement, the term has matured well in some ways. DTM ( talk) 15:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
Pre-archive
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Indian maps
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC) added another map. Kautilya3 ( talk) 07:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC) Both the maps do the wrong thing in the Demchok sector. The 1947 map excludes the Demchok village (even though notionally, because of the colour-wash). It crosses the Indus river at a place called Lagankhel, where the Indus describes a little semi-circular bend around little hillocks. The 1954 map includes the Demchok village , but seems to run along the Indus river till Lagankhel and Chibra. It is hard to tell because of the thick line along the border, but it seems to fair to say that the the Jara La and Chang La passes on the right bank of Indus don't seem to have been worked out yet. On the other hand, Chepzi seems to have been excluded already in 1954. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 06:55, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Shourie is a good polemecist. But where is he now? Maybe he ran out of energy to rant. Chepzi was an unforced error. Nehru Gov was caught up in its own ideology of watersheds and withdrew from Chepzi. They probably thought it was a good trade for Demchok. But China wants it all. No trading. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:03, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
DiscussionYour map is up again on Ajai Shukla's blog. Meanwhile your "favourite map" is in the Kongka Pass page. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:27, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
And, look, what I found when I searched for "Kongka La". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:14, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
I found and uploaded a US Army version of the map. It is not as precise but gives the same information, in particular the lines on the Raki Nala. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:39, 3 November 2020 (UTC) |
I have figured how to read Henry Strachey's maps. Strachey was the boundary commissioner for the main part of Ladakh in 1847. Thomson went to the northern Ladakh (Shyok, Karakoram range etc.), and Cunningham seems to have stayed in Leh and surrounding areas, doing background research.
The Governor-General asked the Chinese/Tibetans to join for the boundary delimitation, but they didn't oblige. Instead, the Tibetan bosses alerted all the border villages not to let any outsiders in. Remarkably, this helped for boundary delimitation! Wherever Strachey wasn't allowed to go was part of Tibet, as claimed by them in 1847.
Strachey didn't mark the boundary on his map (remember that boundary definitions are political decisions), but he noted down elevations of most places he went to. They used to measure elevation by the rough method of taking the boiling point of water. So he could only note elevations for the places he could physically go to. "14,9 Chumur" means an elevation of 14,900 feet. The actual elevation is supposed to be 16,700 feet according to Wikipedia. The next place with elevation on his map, a little south of "Chabji", is "14,3 Kyungtsang". The map shows all the routes he knows about, but we can easily infer the route he took from his trail of elevation numbers. The dashed red line probably indicates a foot path, or a route he didn't traverse, or both.
"14,1 Demchok", the so-called "hamlet divided by a rivulet", is marked with two red dots. The next place south of it is "Tagle 14,3?". That number is either a guess or obtained from Moorcroft & Trebeck. Dumchele is not marked. There was no village there at that time, just a grazing ground. Rather the village was "Chibra" on the right bank of Indus. The river that flows by Chibra, which I will call "Chibra stream" comes down from Chang La, which is simply marked as "La". Chibra and Dumchele are separated by a mound. Between 1847 and now, the Chibra stream developed a large strand that went around the mound and formed a large lake near Dumchele. So, I expect that the old grazing ground is now submerged. China built a shopping mall next to it (economic warfare?) and built a military base at the old Chibra. In preparation for the 2020 standoff, it installed a missile site as well. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:41, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Although ignorant of it at the time, we discovered afterwards that we were in reality lucky not to have already met with opposition to our journey." [1] So, Migpal wasn't policed strongly, but it was considered Tibetann territory! Edward Weller's map says as much. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
The popular image of pre-1950 Tibet is of a remote land seldom visited by outsiders. But more than a hundred British officials served in Tibet during the early part of this century. [...] An Agency was also maintained at Gartok in Western Tibet, [...] Their isolation, and the lack of trade, meant that they had the time to study a variety of aspects of Tibet... [2]
References
I suddenly looked at a lighter-coloured version of Strachey's map (perhaps it was the original colour anyway). My attention was drawn to the legend on it. So, it turns out that Strachey did mark a more-or-less precise border on his maps (orange, red, or pink shading depending on the kind of territory). Strachey's border on Pangong excludes the Khurnak Plain, even though it includes the rest of the Nyagzu stream and its valley.
The Khurnak Fort is "on the boundary" on Strachey's map, as Alastair Lamb has famously said. The Indian guys disagreed, but can't see why.
Just to the north of Panggong lake Strachey's map located right on the boundary line the deserted and ruined fort of Khurnak...( Lamb, The China-India border 1964:71–72)
The Changlung Lungpa valley shown in India included also Khurnak fort which Lamb mistakenly thinks was placed on the boundary line.( Rao, The India-China Border 1968:28)
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
And, the map was drawn two years before Mehta Basti Ram returned the Khurnak Plain to the Tibetans. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:03, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Near Chushul, Strachey marks Mordo with a sign. Is it a Lhakang or a Lhato? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Strachey himself says:
Thogji Chenmo, the Great Benevolence, is the name of the Lha, or local deity, who has his Lhato or dedicated turret, on the N. side of the larger lake [somewhere near Tso Moriri], which itself must be called by the same name for want of any other.
No idea how "demons" came into the picture. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:06, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
A lha tho is a small structure made of stones for propitiating the gods, very often decorated with branches on the top [1]
References
Something new from Henry Strachey:
Read the section 3 please and then we can discuss it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:36, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
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Dumchele
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The missing Namka ChuOn the other side of the border, here is the map drawn by Morshead and Bailey of Nyamjang Chu in 1913. Namka Chu, which flows between Le and Pangchen (Zemithang) is completely missing, as is Sumdorong Chu. But this was the information that McMahon used to draw his line. "Mila Katong La" is shown wrongly, where Bum La Pass actually is. And there is a river flowing to its north (joining Tsona Chu on the right). McMahon assumed that there was a "Mila Katong La Range" between these two and he claimed that it was an "ethnic frontier" (between the Tibetans and Monpa). It might well have been an ethnic frontier at this place (which is in the "catchment" of Tsona Dzong), but it was not on the Nyamjang Chu river. There, the ethnic frontier was further north (at Trimo, I think). Morshead and Bailey probably thought that entire the Nyamjang Chu valley would be claimed (because the watershed was obviously to the north). So they didn't bother to accurately note the area where the border finally fell. It is through such little mistakes that wars are made. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:34, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
The ChukangsJust beyond Bailey's "Mila Katong La" (which we now call Bum La), there is a place called Chukhang. Near Chang-La and Jara-La passes ( Demchok sector), there is also a place called Chakhang (also spelt Chiakang, Chinese spelling Qiekan?). I always wondered why these names were similar. Finally found this:
So, this is Tibetan for Sanskrit Śukānga (tax department). Many Tibetan names are Sanskrit or Prakrit words that have been spelt in their funny ways. Meanwhile, the Chinese built a new village called
Jiagang next to
G219. They also laid a highway called
Jiagang-Xiekan highway. Baidu says: Care to create a page for this village? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:49, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
"Dumuqilie" is Dumchele. That is where the trading point is. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
References
Long Yogma and ChushulYou probably had enough of maps, but here is an important piece. From Omachanda Handa, this is the description of the last stages of the Dogra-Tibetan War. [1]
"Drangtse" is probably Tangtse. Long-Yogma is marked on Strachey's map, northwest of Chushul. It is now being called "Loi Yogma" and the Indian government plans to build the Chushul ALG there.
The only "canal" that could have been dammed is this one. Called Har Lungpa, it flows into the Chushul plain and joins the Tsaka river (also called Chushul river). This would imply that the "rebels" were ensconced in Chushul, even though it has been branded "Rodakh". That is why the resulting treaty has come to be known as the Treaty of Chushul, even though it was most likely signed in Leh. So, despite the claim that the frontiers would remain the same as before, some territory did change hands. Part of "Rodakh" came into Ladakh! By the way, the Chinese seem to have withdrawn their claim to the Thakung Heights. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
The Tibetan generals did not have authorisation to invade Ladakh. In the Chinese Amban's report to the Emperor, "
This explains why the combined Tibetan-Ladakhi force lost, even though the Dogras had only a couple of hundred men with them. The Tibetans only stayed on the border: Drangtse (Tangtse) and then "Rodakh" (Chushul). The Ladakhis were encouraged to stage a rebellion, but they couldn't dislodge the Dogras for some six months, when the reinforcements arrived. Then the Tibetans got driven out of Drangtse and defeated at "Rodakh". The Nubra man was helping the Dogras because the Tibetans had occupied their land (Drangtse) and probably extracted provisions from the Nubrans. So, my conclusion is that Chushul was conquered from Tibet by the Dogras. All the wooly language used by the commentators has clouded this fact till now. The Chinese amban sheepishly avoided all mention of it. But the Imperial Court figured out what had happened and gave a warning to the "Kalons". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
References
Unfotunately, my theory has been punctured by Moorcroft and Trebeck, who travelled from Durbuk ("Durghuk") till the end of the Chushul Valley, saying it was all in Ladakh. Apparently they went to get kiang, but didn't manage to catch any.
The reports turned out to be false, but it is significant that people believed them. Apparently, Rudok had the liberty to send armed contingents to arrest people in Chushul, but still, it doesn't seem like Chushul could be counted as being part of Rudok. According to Alastair Lamb, Moorcroft said that the border was between Chushul and Punjoor (Spanggur), basically where it is today. (This is not in the book, but in some report available in the India Office archives.) So it is odd that Handa and Charak write as if Chushul was already part of Rudok. The only possibility is that that the Gyalpo of Ladakh might have made a deal with the Tibetans by ceding these parts in return for their help. If such were the case, it lasted only a few months. I can't see how the Tibetans can claim Chushul to be their "border village". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 08:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Please have a read through the Tangtse page now. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
References
Kautilya3, adding to the amusement, I randomly Wikied three of the words. It seems that while the meanings are a little bit more understandable, even parts of the meanings need one more level of explanation.
So some law and order does develop. Seeing this, it seems that at least three levels of meanings will be needed for a common person to even comphrehend what is being said! While you were "enlightened", my mood has lightened. :) DTM ( talk) 14:31, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
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I was predisposed to thinking of it as the "Battle of Chushul" (for which references are aplenty), but I wasn't reading the narratives carefully. The very top quotation in the previous section was saying that the Tibetans were entrenched at Tangtse, not the Dogras. So, the battle was at Tangtse. Why did anybody call it the "Battle of Chushul"? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
There is no mention of the "Battle of Chushul" in Shakbpa's books. But there is this intersting passage:
While this trade agreement was being negotiated [in 1853], a letter was sent to Dangtse Kharpon [Drangtse Kharpon], a representative of Thanedar Bisram stationed at Od in Rudok, which read: "The Tibetan and Ladakhi leaders have concluded negotiations regarding our common borders. We have agreed to adhere to the same border demarcations that existed previously. You are requested, therefore, to hand over Od to the Tibetans and to look after your own territory." It was signed by Thanedar Bisram and dated the fourth day of the third month of the Water-Ox year (1853).[43] [1]
I never heard of Thanedar Bisram but he is well-attested. So, he sent a letter to the Kharpon (local official) of Tangtse, asking him to hand over "Od" to Rudok. The only "Od" I know of, on the border between Ladakh and Rudok, is the Ote Plain, now known as the Khurnak Plain.
So, after the war, Tangtse took control of the Khurnak Plain and, following elaborate negotiations, it was handed back! Godwin-Austen was right after all. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:39, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
This version of the letter is even better:
Two similar letters of agreement have been signed concerning the border between Ladakh and Tibet according to legal traditions. The three, Ladakh, Tibet, and the Sikhs are completely equal. Thus, in the future, each should hold their own territory; there should be no pretext for conflict over the (Rutok)ö border.
- Fourth day of the third month of the Water-Ox year (1853)
- Thanedar Bisram [2]
The o-with-diarsis "ö" is apparently pronounced as "od" by the Tibetans and "ot" by the Ladakhis. (Compare Yeshe-Ö.) Stracahey spelt it as "Ot". Later British converted it to "Ote".
"Sikhs" is a mistranslation. The Tibetan original would have been "shen-pa" (Singh people) which would cover both the Sikhs and Dogras. But it is interesting that the Dogras elevated the Ladakhis to an equal status with them.
It would be interesting indeed to find out what were in the other "two similar letters". -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Found a good discussion of the Kongma–Parma–Yogma terminology in Strachey. (See [2].) They mean Upper–Middle–Lower.
So the "Chang Parma" valley means the "Northern Middle" valley. Pretty sensible. Also the Nyagzu in the middle of the valley can now be parsed as "Nyak Chu" (the middle river). "Nyak" is another word for middle. The British writers have claimed that the Pangong Lake to the east of the Khurnak plain was called "Nyak Tso". Hedin says none of the Tibetans he spoke to knew that term. They knew "Tso Ngombo" (blue lake).
Coming back to Drangtse, it is now clear to me that the major battles of Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War wer also fought right here. No wonder you found rock art with chariots. One can imagine that the good old Dardic-Tibetan wars would have also been fought here. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
So here we go. I find the Indian claims quite flaky. They were mostly based on the testimonies of the British, who were clueless as explained above.
China was in bad shape. They lost the Opium Wars. The Dogras had captured Ladakh and, even though the Ladkhi ruler submitted to China, China was unable to help. Thankfully, the Tibetans were strong enough to defend themselves, but China didn't want to get into trouble with the British and warned Tibet to back off. So Tibet did. The "century of humiliation" had begun. It took another couple of decades for the Tibetans to gather up the courage to negotiate the border and it appears that the Dogras were graceful and returned whatever territory they had occupied. But Tibet did not enforce its claims strongly. All those areas that were in dispute (in the sense that Ladakhis might have had access to them) continued to be free to access. The Brits ran all over the place in there, hunting, toouring and exploring. The impression got created that all this was Ladakhi territory. But nobody knew for sure.
Then India comes stomping along. It claims all the territory that the British had claimed and more. (For example, the eastern bank of the Indus River in the Demchok sector was never claimed either by the Ladakhis or the British. The Demchok village was not claimed by them either. But India did, and it stationed troops there. China might tolerate Ladakhis accessing it, but not India to put up troops saying all this is "our land" and pushing back the Tibetans.) A British guy went to Demchok in 1946 and he says,
On what was unquestionably Kashmiri territory numerous [Tibetan?] flocks were grazing. It was evidently the concern of no one, least of all of the kotwal, to safeguard the interest of either country. The truth was, of course, that it did not matter, as the people did not care a doit for political restrictions. After all, they were Tibetans, irrespective of what side of an arbitrary frontier line they lived. [3]
India needed to dig into the Kashmiri records and find out what territory was actually being claimed by them. Apparently, the border was discussed between Mehta Basti Ram and the Tibetan representatives. How come nobody mentions it? Even when the Indians did find the records, they misinterpreted them. For example, the 1908 settlement report showed no people living in Demchok, and the 1921 census showed 2 families. Clearly this was not the Tibetan Demchok village. Yet, India assumed that this meant both the Demchok villages were Ladakhi territory. The Tibetans claimed Dumchele as early as in 1904. (This was the first time they were having a dialogue with the British, after the Younghusband Expedition.) But the Indians never bothered to investigate it.
So, on the whole, the Indian claim line is quite half-baked and doesn't stand up to scrutiny. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:20, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
there is no mention of the "Battle of Chushul" in Shakbpa's books. However Shakbpa does mention a TIBETAN LETTER OF AGREEMENT, 1842. This was
one of the earliest treaties regarding the boundaries in the western sector was issued in 1842it does not mention where that boundary lay, even if it was/was not the same as post Second Anglo-Sikh War.
the Indian claim line is quite half-baked and doesn't stand up to scrutinyreminds me of the term fog of war. Having definite facts and finding them, the facts we are looking for and are interested in, documented on paper at the time would be surprising.
"He ( Mehta Mangal) demarcated the boundary between Ladakh and Tibet."His name should definitely be in the background section of the Sino-Indian border dispute article if the line is true to its word. DTM ( talk) 13:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- India's northern frontiers and China, (pahar to the rescue again) edit & GoI report DTM ( talk) 13:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Mangal Mehta, wazir of Ladakh during 1860-65, organized the revenue settlement of the whole area. His successors, including Johnson (1870-1881) and Radha Kishen Kaul (1882), made the necessary revisions. In the regular revenue assessment reports the names of areas and villages and the amount of revenue collected from each of them, which is now claimed by China as having been under their administrative jurisdiction for centuries, were included. The report of 1908 mentioned 108 villages including Tankse, Demchok and Minsar and mentions Aksai Chin, Lingzi Tang where rights of pastures and salt collection were exercised, as parts of Tankse ilaqa. [...] The assessment report of Ladakh tehsil of 1909 stated,’ There have been no boundary disputes on the Lhasa frontiers and the existing boundary seems to be well understood by the subjects of both the state and the Lhasa Government’.[...] In 1865) Mehta Mangal had prepared a11 original sketch map showing the routes and stages up to Shahidulla in the north and Minsar in east in which Demchok was shown as the eastern boundary post.
References
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Nubra means the "western realm". But west of what? Cunningham fudges it seriously by saying "the north-western district of Ladak, includes all the country drained by the Nubra and Shayok rivers". It is certainly not a "northwestern district of Ladakh", it is rather its north-eastern district!
Unless we imagine Nubra being governed from somewhere near Durbuk, it is hard to make sense of Nubra being called "wetern". Durbuk being at the V-shaped bend of the Shyok river, we can imagine the western branch being called Nubra, and the eastern branch (which is unpopulated) having no name. "Dumra" covered both, and often "Dumra" is used to refer to Durbuk itself:
Prince Tshe-dban-rab-brtan fled to Spi-ti, passing through Ldum-rå and Dran-tse. (p.130 of Francke)
Unless Durbuk was the capital of Dumra, it wouldn't make sense to do so.
And here is a very interesting description of Ladakh:
This is the tale of the former king of La-dvags (Ladakh) and of the war with the Sin-pas. During the time of the father-king the following (districts were inhabited by) his subjects : [the region] from
- the Hdu-zi pass (Zoji pass) upwards,
- from the Chos-hbad [Chorbat] pass of Sbal-ti-yul [Baltiyul] upwards, and
- from La-hdar [Lahul?] in Zans-dkar upwards;
- [the region] within the Se-hdu-la pass [Karakoram or Shahidulla?] of Ldum-ra (Nub-ra), and
- within Pho-lon-hdra-hdra [?] of Byan-than [Changthang].
All those [who lived there] were the subjects of the father-king of La-dvags. Besides the father-king none could give orders to them. (p.250 of Francke)
The reference to "Se-hdu-la pass" makes it clear that both the wings of the Shyok river were included in Dumra. Incidentally, Francke's map of Ladakh includes Shahidulla. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
That map of the Shyok Valley above was created using https://umap.openstreetmap.fr. I couldn't figure out what layer he used to get it in that understated elegance. I wonder what more can be done with this tool? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
OSM has installed a new "layer". Even though it is not as good as the French elegance, it is a lot better than the other layer I used before. So I made a map with it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Locating Ladakhi history [4] by John Bray has a nice historical map of Ladakh, which is worth reproducing. And, the article is a nice overview of Ladakh's history too. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, we just need consensus on some formula which avoids flooding the map with inconsequential places. I don't know exactly how our original artist picked his places. He probably read through the history and located all the places he encountered. But then he also added some places which don't have historical prominence, like Kargil and Deskit, for completeness sake. He might have also had difficulty locating other places like Durghuk and Drang-tse. But how did he miss Hanle (Wam-le) mentioned in the founding document? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
References
Godwin-Austin says (in writing about Thakung): [1]
Towards the shore of the lake rise two very conspicuous isolated low rocky knobs, a mile apart, and between these is the confluence of the Chushal stream and the Pangong Tso. The next morning I walked across and ascended the most eastern eminence, having the strange sounding name of Tuggu Nuggu. This had formerly been a fortified post; the level space at the top was enclosed by a low stone wall, while a detached outwork had been built on the low spur that ran out on the east side ...
The terrain map certainly shows two "eminences" flanking the Chushul river. But can one of them be called the "most eastern" eminence? Both of them are pretty blank on satellite maps. No sign of any fortified post. On the other hand, the most eastern eminence of the Thakung plain now houses the Indian post. So what do you think? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:44, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
One and a half mile beyond Tuggu Nuggu low spurs abut upon the lake in cliffs of 150 to 200 feet high...
References
Finally for some Chinese maps. See my notes in the Wikipedia Commons. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
...the findings point to the need to correct the epistemic criteria used to reproduce claims of an unambiguous boundary between India and China by both countries, in order to ensure abatement of similar outcomes.
You remember that movie, don't you? The loyal butler, completely devoted to the service of his master, firm in his belief that he is playing a historic role in facilitating international affairs? Whereas his masters were only appeasing the Nazis, all leading to the doomsday that befell the whole world?
Well, I read Ghulam Rasool Galwan's biography, Servant of Sahibs. It gave me the same feel. Except that this guy had no clue about any historic role in international affairs. He did it for a job, and for the thrill of it. He certainly had a lot more fun than Anthony Hopkins, earned a lot more money (relatively speaking), and became a big shot by the end of his life.
A lot of people read the book last year, and there were quite a few Internet book reviews as well [5] [6]. Everybody was full of admiration for this poor boy, who accomplished much and became famous.
The western scholars say "no". It is all an example of colonial subjugation.
The singular focus of the book on Rassul Galwan's growth through colonial labor, combined with the authenticity imposed on him and his account through a number of textual and editorial devices, suggest that Servant of Sahibs may be read credibly as a text that aids the colonial establishment in utilizing a discourse of Native authenticity in support of a somewhat discredited discourse of benevolent colonial labor relations. [2]
Martijn van Beek too apparently endorses this reading:
His life, at the time of publication in 1923, was displayed to show the blessings of empire and to illustrate the civilizing effect of contact with Europeans, as has been noted by other scholars (Butz and MacDonald 1995). [3]
So these people know better than us what colonialism means? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:27, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
References
China-India border dispute: Ladakh, Aksai Chin and the Tibet factor
Tibetan traditional residential area
[You wonder what that is? read on]
The Aksai Chin area is located in the eastern part of the Kashmir Valley [wow! some valley!], covering an area of approximately 37,250 square kilometers. It belongs to the Hetian County of Xinjiang and the Ali area of Tibet in China.
Ladakh is a traditional residential area for Tibetans.
At the end of the 17th century (1684) Ladakh signed a contract with Tibet to recognize Tibet as the suzerainty [Gosh! I thought the Chinese language didn't have a word for "suzerainty"], and pay tribute to the Dalai Lama, the ruler of Tibet every year.
Later, the rulers of Ladakh were conferred by the emperor of the Manchu and Qing Dynasty and were "tempered" by the minister in Tibet. [What? Manchu dynasty was gone by 1684. Come on! Don't be picky with such trifles! Be a sport.]
Later, Ladakh became a possession of the British East India Company. [Ah, the British imperialists again! I knew it had to to be them.]
The Financial Times reported [not us, we are "trustworthy"] that Beijing believes that Ladakh is part of China's Tibet and that China still controls the territory acquired during the Sino-Indian border war in 1962 [Phew, we said it, even though we know that it is actually in the Hotien County of Xinjiang. What gawd-awful things these western papers say, not at all trustworthy].
Dalai Lama's visit to disputed areas between China and India in southern Tibet arouses concern
"Indian Internal Affairs" [sic, including the quote marks]
In 1987, India announced the establishment of "Arunachal Pradesh". The territory of this state includes the northern region of Assam in India and southern Tibet, which China considers to be the southern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Most of the state's land, about 90,000 square kilometers, is located in southern Tibet [excepting maybe 1000 sq km or so in the "northern reigon of Assam in India"], a territorial dispute between China and India, so the Chinese government does not recognize it.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
From the first trustworthy source:
He [Marek from the Observer Research Foundation] said in a report in the Financial Times that Ladakh includes parts of Tibet and Xinjiang, and Tibet and Xinjiang are the buffer zone separating Indian civilization from Chinese civilization.
But Ashok Malik actually said [7]
Ladakh was once one of a number of autonomous states, also including Tibet and Xinjiang, that Mr Malik says served as buffers between Indian and Chinese civilisations.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 10:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Nathan Russer posted a link to a "humdata" site that shows the LSIB, Version 10 boundaries, dated 10 March 2020:
https://data.humdata.org/dataset/large-scale-international-boundaries-lsib
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
F. M. Bailey writes: [1]
Morshead went further down the river to see what prospect there was of exploring the No Man's Land. But four miles down he came on the ruins of a foot-bridge over to the right bank and could get no further. It was one of the Mishmi type, five long strands of cane bound at intervals with hoops. The Tibetans had tried to build another, but they lacked the skill of the Lopas. So there was nothing for it but to return the way we had come. We had done what we came to do. We had found and mapped the limit of Tibetan authority—the frontier in fact, down this valley.
It is 3.5 miles from Migyitun to the map-marked McMahon Line, and 4.5 miles to the new Chinese village [8]. I have no idea how it feels to live in there, cold and dark, hemmed in by mountains from all four sides. No wonder they have to make simulation videos [9]. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 21:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
References
I don't know why it took me so long to find the District Census Handbook. The border shown in the front pages is quite different from anything else we have seen. So, I went to Bhuvan3D to check. And you get a really beautiful perspective of a diamond shaped mountain, with Dakpa Sheri in the centre. You really get to understand the the whole idea of the Rongkor pilgrimage here.
I also traced India's claim line with a blue pen, since it is not really visible otherwise. As I expected, the annual pilgrimage route is entirely within Tibetan territory. (The OSM boundary is quite wrong.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:18, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
From the Sandhu et al.,
Chinese troops launched an attack on the morning of 23 Oct, against the border posts of Asaphila, Sagamla, Tamala and Potrang.
Other than Asaphila, the other three places are on the annual pilgrimage route. This was supposed to be Tibetan territory by the 1940 Survey of India map. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
In this article (which you cited for " Gelen Bung"), Vinayak Bhat calls the line Captain Bailey's McMahon Line. So that gave me an idea. The Survey of India didn't send any more survey teams to the border before the map got made. Who would go with all that equipment, to the top of Himalayas, trekking through some hundreds of miles of vicious tribal territory? Captain Bailey tried to go in from the Tibetan side, but he couldn't, because all the bridges were broken and the Tibetans couldn't repair them. So, all the points in the Subansiri District are dubious, and only the points in Tibet are reliable.
So, by synchronizing on the Tibetan points (and the Kamla River, which I had to use in the south), I got this reasonable looking alignment. I was quite pleased to discover that Captain Bailey knew exactly where Yume Chu went, but had absolutely no idea what was happening to the Subansiri River. Ok, so, at least he knew something!
Captain Bailey did put the Pindigo river, which India has been claiming for itself, firmly in Tibet. He also knew that the Pindigo river had a tributary that came in from the northeast, but he didn't know what happened after the confluence. He sent it all the way to Tsari Chu in the east. But in reality, it goes south to join Subansiri a little east of Taksing. [1]
Now, the funny thing is that the Chief Electoral Officer of Arunachal Pradesh knows about five villages along the Pindigo river, and he has been getting those people to happily vote in Indian elections. [2] According to the Census of India, 31 people live there (classifed as the village Kacha). They are pretty patriotic too.
Hiwak Chader, a student from Kacha village of Taksing circle, told Deccan Chronicle that people there had noticed the movement of Chinese troops in the Asa-Pila-Maya area around three months back, but the government was not aware about it. He said the villagers handed over photos to Army Intelligence and IB sleuths. [3]
All said and done, we can be pretty sure that the poor Tibetans didn't get to do any Tsari pilgrimages after 1959. Apparently, neither India nor China cares -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Detailed maps of Arunachal Pradesh districts can be found here. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 18:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Working on the Ladakh border at one end and Arunachal Pradesh at the other (and Sikkim-Bhutan in the middle as well), I always wondered why all these places feel the same, but don't feel much like the Central Tibet. Here is a clue:
The power of the Karma Kagyü was centered on the figure of the Karmapa, or Gyelwang Karmapa[72] the longest surviving incarnate lama lineage in Tibet. During this pivotal period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, his power was manifest in his Great Encampment, garchen in Tibetan.[73] The garchen's influence included even outposts in Ngari of far western Tibet,[74] and it maintained a significant presence at the major pilgrimage site of Tsari, or Crystal Mountain, along the border with Arunachal Pradesh.[75] ... The successive "kings of Tsang" came to represent the nationalistic and conservative forces of Tibet,[76] which were defeated only in 1642 when the Geluk school called upon the Oirat, or "Western Mongols," to come to their aid in Tibet. [1]
And Tibet seems to be an abject lesson on why not to mix religion and politics. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
References
My little contribution to Biden's inclusive agenda. Please try to find more info. The Indian newspapers were sorely disappointing. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
According to Leo Rose and Margaret Fisher, The best of the descriptive reports of the Chinese invasion of 1962 to have appeared so far.
The ages 89-91 of the Rose and Fisher volume has loads of citations on Arunachal, including Migyitun and Tawang.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:40, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
The position of Longju in earlier times thus becomes a little clearer. Obviously, there was a brisk trade across the border in the Tsari valley. Furthermore, food supplies (except for Tibetan salt) were going north,… From which valleys the rice came,… Nevertheless, it is of interest that the goods which Bailey in 1913 saw moving south were exactly those….
I am afraid I got RSI from doing too much OpenStreetMap. So I am going to set aside geography and start attacking the diplomatic history. Nasty western historians, in an effort to mock the British Empire, make up stories of how Britain screwed China. The life of the Chinese propagandists is made, as they don't even have to make up any new propaganda.
But the proof is in the pudding. Today, Mongolia is independent whereas Tibet has been occupied in China. If Britain had indeed screwed China, the results should have been the opposite. So there is a long long story to be told. (Interestingly, Alastair Lamb invents a Russian conspiracy theory, whereby the Russians supposedly engineered the situation so as to weaken the British hand in Tibet whereas they gave themselves a free hand in Mongolia! So, apparently Russia had won the Great Game.)
Meanwhile, I am afraid the Dakpa Sheri page is quite wrong. I hope you can fix it. (I will put some comments on the article talk page.) -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:39, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Please feel free to copy this footnote wherever you need to. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel really cheated for having spent money from my pocket to buy books that finally show up on archive.org. But at least my friends can read them and I don't have to feel so lonely any more. This book is a gem! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 22:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Total population | |
---|---|
c. 3 million | |
Regions with significant populations | |
China ( Tibet) | 3,682 (2010) [1] |
India ( Arunachal Pradesh) | 2.5 million (2014) |
Languages | |
Bokar, Tibetic languages, Digaro languages, Puroik language | |
Religion | |
East Asian Buddhism / Donyi-Poloism [2] | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Tagin, Adi, Idu Mishmi |
The bullshit on this page will make your head spin! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Can you see if you can make a better version of the Map 1 on the Depsang Bulge page? I think this page is slowly falling into place now. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Where is the bottleneck? This is the only spot where there is no road from either the Indian side or the Chinese side. But this doesn't look like a bottleneck at all!
I marked this spot because I think this is where the two sides pitched tents for the 2013 Depsang standoff. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 23:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Located them. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
This report has two maps annotated by Lt. Gen. Panag: one on Pangong Lake and the other on Depsang Plains. The second is wild! He believes the Indian patrol points are next to the Tiankong Highway! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:19, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
I finished updating the Galwan River article. Please give it a read. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Shekhar Gupta likes their report [10]. I suppose he is right. If Indians had to a report on China, they wouldn't be able to do as good a job.
Be sure to read also Ananth Krishnan's summary [11]. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I got a big kick out of reading this. The Chinese nationalists will give our own nationalists a run for their money any day. My favourite:
This kind of “nonsensical compromise”, some online commentators warned, will have disastrous consequence for China. It will not only lead to the loss of China’s strategic initiative in the western front at a key historical juncture, erode its power and psychological advantage over India, but may also lead to the shaping of the new actual line of control on the Sino-Indian border based on this agreement. Once that happens, many fear that China’s long term goal of “strategic suppression of India, delaying India’s rise, and preventing India from becoming a major geostrategic threat to China in the future” will only be jeopardised. [1]
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 00:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Javadev Ranade at An Intensifying Rivalry? The Future of India-China Relations, Hudson Institute, 22 February 2021, 1:00:15 hours in.
Let me point you to an article written by Hu Shisheng, who makes three points:
- 1. A showdown with India was inevitable from the time they got liberated and we [India] became independent.
- 2. Rise of India is a bigger problem than India's growing proximity to the US.
- 3. Confrontation at the border will continue until the two Armies come to their respective red lines, which will then become the Line of Actual Control.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Our respected Encyclopedia Britannica says:
Delegates of the Chinese republican government also attended the Shimla Conference, but they refused to sign the principal agreement on the status and boundaries of Tibet on the ground that Tibet was subordinate to China and had not the power to make treaties. The Chinese have maintained this position to the present day...
Look at the nonsensical nature of it. The Chinese refused to sign because Tibet was subordinate to China? After having accepted to come to the conference, accepted the credentials of the Tibetan representative, and even signing the draft Convention, they are supposed to have decided that "Tibet was subordinate to China"?
The reality is totally different:
The Foreign Ministry indicated that the frontier remained the only issue to which China objected: "As regards the present Draft Agreement, apart from the boundary question dealt with in Article 9, the ideas of both parties are generally speaking in agreement as to the remaining, and it will not be a difficult matter to reach an agreement by mutual consultation." [1]
Working on the Simla Convention page, I am getting to see how widespread Chinese propaganda is. Whatever might have been the situation before Maxwell and Nixon, right now all of Chinese bullshit is swallowed up without question by all kinds of sources! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 12:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Shishir Gupta writes, in the context of the 2013 Depsang standoff:
While the Indian Army asked the PLA to withdraw to its original positions as per the 1976 border patrolling agreement, the PLA produced a map, which was part of the annexure to a letter written by Zhou to Nehru and the Conference of African-Asian leaders in November 1959, to buttress its case that the new position was well within the Chinese side of the LAC.[3] The November 1959 map (reproduced on the facing page), which defines the LAC running parallel to Raki Nullah [Depsang Nala] and widely diverges from the Indian LAC, was an indicator that the PLA had come prepared and the incursion was planned much in advance; according to this map, the strategic Depsang Bulge, which gave India an option of countering any PLA attack towards DBO, belonged to China. [1]
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 01:06, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Why did our army prevail in the conflict in the Kalwan Valley? These three factors are the key. [1]
* ... even though India has a "quantity" advantage in the number of outposts in the area near the river valley, compared with China, the Indian army's outpost lacks a "qualitative" advantage. The border defense regiment of the Xinjiang Military Region of the People's Liberation Army built few outposts here, one line away from the confrontation, but the outposts are well-equipped, with many and advanced delivery vehicles, and the quality of their troops are better than those of the Indian army. Therefore, they have the upper hand in this confrontation.
* According to public information, the food provided by our border soldiers is two large meats, two and a half meats, and a vegetable dish with eggs. The intake of a large amount of protein helps the PLA border guards maintain a good body shape and physical fitness, and give play to their advantages in border conflicts. Compared with our army, the Indian army has insufficient protein intake and high dietary starch ratio.
* This time the People's Liberation Army has basically controlled the battlefield, which is also conducive to the evacuation and treatment of the wounded. Moreover, in the Kalwan Valley area, our army also has a heliport station to facilitate the evacuation of critically ill and wounded. In contrast, the Indian army, after the collapse of the fighting in the Kalwan River valley, a large number of soldiers were injured and abandoned near the river beach, exposed to the wild under minus conditions at night. ... The Indian army has only temporary camps in the Kalwan Valley area, unable to rescue the severely wounded with plateau symptoms, so they can only be evacuated.
By the way, India has a helipad at the KM 120 post. But that is on the Shyok River and about 4-5 km from PP-14. In between, there is not even a road, despite the Indian gloating we have seen in the newspapers. In contrast the Chinese have a helipad right on PP-14.
The fact that India was trying to build infrastructure between PP-14 and KM-120 is precisely why the Chinese have initiated this conflict. "It belongs to China", "China's sovereignty is very clear", and so on.
Also India's supposed "quantity advantage" is a fallcy. India has lots of posts in Murgo, Depsang and DBO, but there is practically nothing between Murgo and Durbuk. In contrast, the Chinese have the Heweitan base and the Kongka base, both of which are no more than an hour's drive from Galwan. And Kongka is connected to Rudok by a motorway, supporting 100 miles/hour speeds. So, even going by road the Chinese wounded can get to Kongka and Rudok faster than the Indian wounded could get to KM 120. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
The Indian government's poor performance in fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic has only served to exacerbate domestic pressure, and a hostile international trading environment caused by US President Donald Trump's administration further hit the Indian economy. Against such a background, a convenient scapegoat was found, China. It works well for the BJP, and now the same tactics have been adopted by the opposition to beat the ruling party. [2]
References
At 0:57 [12]. "You are in Indian territory. Go back"? Is Soiba Moningba speaking English or Mandarin? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 11:52, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
After overrunning some of India’s defences along the IB they met with stiff resistance from a platoon of 1 Sikh under Subedar Joginder Singh. The platoon fought fiercely, losing more than half their men. Subedar Joginder Singh, despite a bullet injury in his thigh, refused to be evacuated and fought on bravely to stem the Chinese advance. The Chinese attacked in waves and finally regrouped in larger numbers to attack the post. Using the lone light machine gun, Subedar Joginder Singh killed many advancing Chinese. When the situation became desperate, he and his men, with their bayonets unsheathed, emerged from their trenches with their war cry, “ Wahe Guruji ka Khalsa wahe guruji ki fateh.” Subedar Joginder Singh was captured by the Chinese, but refused treatment and died a prisoner of war. He was awarded the Param Vir Chakra for his gallantry. There is a memorial to him on the road to Bumla.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 18:12, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
This is funny (in a delightful puzzling way). The author,
Madhu Gurung, writes in such a wonderful way about 1962 related stories and then goes on to write "Wikipedia estimates that, in the 1962 war, 1,383 Indian soldiers died, while 1,047 were wounded and 3,968 became prisoners of war". I like how this just goes with the flow.
DTM (
talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
"Has he abandoned us?"– The second article from The Hindu that is linked echoes the same feeling as I had posted before— ..."he chose to give us away to China" ( ref). I had never searched for this before, the sentiment has actually been debated on before and quite recently too. "How should a Prime Minister sound in wartime?" ( ref) DTM ( talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Huge Chinese armies have been marching in the northern part of NEFA. We have had reverses at Walong, Se La and today Bomdila, a small town in NEFA, has also fallen. We shall not rest till the invader goes out of India or is pushed out. I want to make that clear to all of you, and, especially our countrymen in Assam, to whom our heart goes out at this moment. (Nehru, All India Radio; November 20, 1962)
The original speech though seems to convey it differently, of course. DTM ( talk) 11:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
From Olaf Caroe in 1962: [1]
Before I go any further I must take exception to a map which appeared in The Times on November 21st, which in my view is extremely misleading. The map, which was on the middle page, had the caption " Tibetan Frontiers before 1914." It showed the line at the foothills as the frontier of Tibet before 1914. Now it looks to me as though The Times has been indoctrinated by China. Of all the National dailies that appeared today-some of them have rather good maps, particularly the Daily Mail-not one of them repeated this error. Why on earth The Times, which has always prided itself on being so well informed on foreign correspondence, should publish a thing which definitely supports Chinese claims against a member of the Commonwealth, I think I must leave it to the audience to judge. The paper actually shows the frontier before 1914 down here; it never was. The Tibetans never penetrated this area, except for one or two monasteries right up in the north of it (Tawang was one of them), where monks levied certain monastic dues.
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 19:10, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Apparently, Caroe had been battling the map-makers for ages:
And what would they make of these documents when British cartographers persisted in showing an international border in Assam which ran along the old Outer Line? This was the case with the major British map publishers like Bartholomew's and it was so with The Times Atlas. Such a border was also to be found in many of the maps included in books and articles by specialists in the affairs of Assam and the Assam Himalayas like Colonel Shakespear and F. Kingdon Ward. As late as 1937 even the Government of Assam, in its Administration Report for 1935-36, reproduced a map showing the offending old Outer Line frontier, as K.P.S. Menon irritably pointed out.[939] Caroe could, of course, make sure that the Survey of India in the fullness of time published the doctrinally correct alignment; and this happened consistently after 1937. What was not so easy was to convince the British cartographers of the errors of their ways (Caroe probably did not lose much sleep over what non-British map makers did other than Chinese). [2]
The problem was not so much that they showed an Outer Line frontier (at the foothills). But rather that they labelled what was beyond as "Tibet" or "China", even though there was no Tibetan/Chinese presence there. So the maps can't be taken too seriously. The map-makers are loath to admit their ignorance. So they pretend to know, much to the detriment of all the people that have to later die for it. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:16, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Did you ever look for Chumar on this map? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:47, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh, there is a key? I didn't notice. But it is not in any trijunction. It is right smack in Tibet!
So, this is when we start reading Hriday Nath Kaul seriously.
From the movement of the British Commission along the frontier, as also other indications, Golab Singh became painfully aware of what kind of boundary the British had in view to replace the ancient limits of Ladakh. The first commission had determined that the boundary between Ladakh and Spiti should run from Lingti boundary stone to the Lanka Hill and from that along the mountain range on the northern bank of the Cherpa river, "as far as the southern end of the Tsomorreri from which point we understood that the Chinese territory commenced."[40] British objective to extend their territorial limits to the very shores of the Tsomorreri, far to the north, was consistently pursued by them and explorations and surveys for the purpose were conducted even before the formation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. But extension of the Tibetan or, as the British called them, "Chinese" territories was astonishing. [1]
This happened in the first boundary commission, headed by Vance Agnew, and assisted by Alexander Cunningham. Only after the commission "broke up" in August, did the Maharaja's reps come and join Cunningham. What happened with them, we are not told. But Kaul quotes some of Cunningham's writings, which are positively scandalous. But, for the second boundary commission, which happened in 1848, I assumed that things were straightened out. Certainly, Strachey did quite an honest job of finding the actual boundary. So I was surprised to discover that all his work was buried somewhere, the old boundary was still on the records! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:36, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Remember my rant on Talk:Asaphila about V.P. Malik? Well, that was only a start.
Here is Bhuvan2D's map of the Subansiri valley. Notice where Ishneya and Taksing really are, and where Bhuvan marks it. So, whereas Taksing is only about 3 km from the border, India deludes itself into thinking it is some 10-15 km from the border? Does anybody really know what is going on?
If you look at Google Maps, it is even worse. There it is supposedly somewhere up in the snows! Apparently Google is using the coordinates India provides and that is where they show up.
Even more crazily, India has been claiming areas to the west of the confluence of Yume Chu and Subansiri. There is in fact a little village there called " Juga", with maybe about 2 houses, which India claims is Indian. India has a track going up there (or maybe the tribals do). Now, China has built its own track coming from the other side. Then India jumps up and down, claiming "this is Indian territory!"
Is there an end to this madness? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:24, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stuck to the deal, speaking for a couple of minutes each. Then it was China's turn, and diplomat Yang Jiechi launched into a monologue that lasted over 16 minutes. [1]
Any idea what he talked for 16 minutes? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
These remarks went viral in China, and Mr. Yang was praised for his forthrightness. Some in the Chinese press were drawing comparisons to Mao Zedong’s famous declaration in 1949 that “the Chinese people have stood up”, viewing his comments as laying down a marker in China’s challenge of American dominance.
"However, as the US side first delivered opening remarks, they exceeded the set time limit severely and wantonly attacked China’s domestic and foreign policies, provoking disagreements".
— Zhao Lijian
Never let a fact get in the way of propaganda! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 13:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
References
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an academic and columnist for the Indian Express, a national newspaper, was one of the few to raise misgivings. A government that gleefully twisted the law and suspended local democracy in one place could surely do the same in another. Mr Modi proposed to "Indianise" Kashmir, noted Mr Mehta. "Instead, what we will see is potentially the Kashmirisation of India."
— The Economist on Downgrading Delhi
-- Kautilya3 ( talk) 09:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Hey y'all, the April 2021 WikiProject Military History Reviewing Drive begins at 00:01 UTC on April 1, 2021 and runs through 23:59 UTC on April 31, 2021. Points can be earned through reviewing articles on the AutoCheck report, reviewing articles listed at WP:MILHIST/ASSESS, reviewing MILHIST-tagged articles at WP:GAN or WP:FAC, and reviewing articles submitted at WP:MILHIST/ACR. Service awards and barnstars are given for set points thresholds, and the top three finishers will receive further awards. To participate, sign up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_History/April 2021 Reviewing Drive#Participants and create a worklist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/April 2021 Reviewing Drive/Worklists (examples are given). Further details can be found at the drive page. Questions can be asked at the drive talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
It is no exaggeration to say that China’s rise challenges every national interest that the United States has ever had. With its continental economy and cutting-edge technological prowess, Beijing threatens to seep into the nooks and crannies of the liberal international order like butter on an English muffin — clogging the arteries of freedom with the cholesterol of communism and corruption. [1]
No clue why it had to come out on April 1st! -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 14:33, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
References