From: "(Xiaowen Li)" <lix@CRSA.BU.EDU>
Subject:      Forward for Mr. Anonymous, Part 2 of Sikkim
Reply-To: "(Xiaowen Li)" <lix@CRSA.BU.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:11:28 GMT
Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu

Another part of Mr. Anonymous' article. My standard disclaimer applies.
In addition, it took me sometime to realize what is "Pi3Fu1Wu2Zui4
Huai2Bi4QiZui", which is a quite old saying. I haven't heard it for
long times. It means: What is the crime of a common folk? His crime is
that he has a jade in his pocket, and he can't protect himself, then he
has to die. Sorry sometime I simply can't help showing off I know something
also:-) Here it goes:



    Sino-Tibetan Trivia    Section V -- Part C

Worse, Pi3Fu1Wu2Zui4 Huai2Bi4QiZui, Sikkim, now supposedly free of the
greedy British, came under heavy Indian pressures to become a
"protectorate."  If you have some idea of the potential wealth of
Sikkim, which is 35% covered with forests and contains large reserves
of valuable minerals including copper, lead, iron ore, and zinc, you
will understand why Britain was so eager to detach it from China
and why India was equally eager to keep Britain's stolen goods.   At any
rate, the illegal immigrant population of Sikkim was growing rapidly.
If Sikkim did not accept Indian protection, there was always the threat
of riots and the predictable Indian invasion that would follow.  So in
1950 Sikkim's ruling family, Tibetans all, signed a treaty with India
and became the protectorate of a country supposedly  dedicated to anti-
colonialism.

The CCP made perhaps its first major mistake in Tibet by failing to
openly challenge Indian domination of Sikkim.  While Tibetan-speakers
in the T.A.R. continued to climb, the percentage of Tibetans in Sikkim
kept shrinking.  While Lamaist monks in Tibet got richer and more
numerous during 1951-1959, with many monasteries renovated and expanded,
including the Sera Monastery which was badly damaged during the brief
but bloody Tibetan Mini-Civil War instigated in 1947 by human rights
advocates like Hugh E. Richardson, Sikkim Lamaism continued its not-so-
slow and sure downfall.

Meanwhile, despite his status of being the number one Tibetan
spokesperson and savior in the world and despite his claim to have been
appointed by Mao to be vice president of the mysterious "steering"
committee of the PRC, Tenzin Gyatso, also known as His Holiness the
Dalai Lama XIV, did and has done little to help the people of Sikkim,
either before or since his break with the CCP in 1959.

The net result has been disastrous for the Sino-Tibetan speakers  in
Sikkim.  Its ruler was both unable and unwilling to stand up against the
Indians.  Instead of escaping the fate of being a dumping ground for
India's poor, hungry, and thirsty,  Sikkim became something of an
international curiosity when its Chogyal (ruler) married a New York
socialite, who seems to have exhausted the hapless Tibetan country's
cash reserves before a well-publicized divorce finally put an end to a
sorry chapter of Sikkim's miserable modern history.

In the mean time, Sikkim continued with its assigned role of a human
dumping ground for the benefit of the Union of India.  Lamaism/Buddhism
continued its irreversible decline.  More and more monks left more and
more run-down Red Hat monasteries, to the apparent pleasure of almost
everyone who is now shouting for self-determination in Tibet and
angrily pointing a finger at alleged cultural oppression there.

The Indians quickened their pace of annexation.  In June 1974, there
was a huge riot sponsored by non-Sino-Tibetans.  Non-Sino-Tibetan troops
moved in.  Now it's about time for the "self-determination" business.
Events were happening with breath-taking speed.  By August and September
1974, India had virtually gotten rid of the ruler, while denying any
territorial ambitions and blaming the "troubles" on others.  It was all
over, bar the shouting.  In a May 16 Notice (516 Tong1zhi :-)), the
Indian Government announced to the world on 5/16/1975 that the Tibetan
country Sikkim was no more.  It would be known thenceforth as the 22nd
state of the wonderful country whose name is the Union of India.  In
1981, the estimate was:  there were about 300,000 souls in Sikkim and
only 25% of them were Tibetan.  In other words, here's one true case
of Tibetans reduced to a minority in their own country.  Did any of the
cultural-heritage-protectors, from Richardson the Scottish "historian"
to US congressional grandstanders, say anything in protest?  Absolutely
not.  Did the very source of much of compassion and generosity in Asia,
namely His Holiness himself, do anything to help fellow Sino-Tibetan-
speakers?  If you don't have the answer by now, don't bother to read on.

Of course, it is quite true if you take the King's shilling you have to
do the King's bidding.  Small wonder His Holiness has been effectively
put under a gag order on this major development concerning his fellow
Tibetan-speaking Lamaists, their heritage and culture, except, perhaps,
an occasional, sheepish folly like marking a place named Sikkim on some
of his maps without daring to offer any elaboration.

If you understand the full implications of how a predominantly Sino-
Tibetan-speaking country with almost everybody a Lamaist could be
subverted culturally, linguistically, and ethnically until it became
overwhelmingly non-Buddhist and non-Tibetan-speaking with only the
ruling family put on occasional display on the shiny pages of National
Geographic,  you will have some inklings of what would happen if some
famous Sino-Tibetan  leader and his Western sponsors should have their
way.   A Tibet detached from China would very much likely meet the same
fate as that once Sino-Tibetan state to the south of the Himalayas. For
one thing, Thupten Gyatso's "generosity" seems to have passed on to his
reincarnation.  All in the genes, you know.

Of course to those who refuse to face the realities of international
geopolitics, either historic or modern or future, I'll say no more. I
can only let them keep sucking their moralistic pacifiers for self-
consolation.

Next section in this series will deal with the extraordinary story  of
Bhutan, a country which saw through the raves' games early on,  stood
up with some success to Indian pressures and put Tibetan traitors  and
raves alike in their places.  Further section will discuss another Sino-
Tibetan place called Ladakh, which has had a fate not  entirely unlike
Sikkim's.