Beyond taunting China: Does India have a bigger plan for Tibet?

The irony of facing Tibetans-in-exile in border tussle with India may not be lost on Beijing. Does the deployment of SFF against PLA signal a shift in India's Tibet policy? Bharat Bhushan explores

India’s deployment of paratrooper commandos of Tibetan origin on the Ladakh-China border came to light with the accidental death of Company Leader Nyima Tenzin. His colleague Tenzin Londhen was grievously wounded. Both belong to the Vikas battalion of the Special Frontier Force (SFF). While the irony of facing Tibetans-in-exile in border skirmishes with India is unlikely to be lost on Beijing, was the deployment of the SFF against the Peoples’ Liberation Army only a matter of military exigency or did it signal a shift in India’s Tibet policy?
 
Military experts claim that the exceptionally well trained SFF paratroopers perform better in higher altitudes than soldiers from the plains. But the Indian Army also has an infantry regiment, the Ladakh Scouts, also known as ‘Snow Warriors’ and ‘Snow Leopards’, for precisely this kind of mountain warfare. It was raised to guard the high altitude border with China in Ladakh. So, if media speculations are right about India deliberately deploying SFF commandos over Ladakh Scouts, was there a larger game plan or was it merely to mock the Chinese?

 
The SSF was raised after the India-China war of 1962. Five of the seven battalions of the SFF are entirely recruited from Tibetans-in-exile. It is not part of the Indian Army and comes under India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing. Initially, the SFF was meant to operate inside enemy lines, i.e. within Tibet. Women were recruited so that male-female teams could function covertly as a husband-wife couple within the Tibetan community inside China. Now, however, at least three battalions of SFF are routinely deployed – one in J&K and two at different locations in Ladakh.
 
According to media reports, this is the first time that SFF units have been used against the PLA in the current face-off. But the accidental nature of their injuries suggests that the men from the SSF unit may have been just routinely patrolling the area, because the fatality was caused by stepping on a landmine placed in 1962 to stop the advancing Chinese soldiers. With some of the old tactical maps lost, some hillsides on the Southern bank of the Pangong Tso have had to be fenced off with barbed wire and skull-and-bone signs.
 
The Indian Army has said that the circumstances of the SFF commando’s death must remain a secret. The broad public assumption, based on unsourced media reports, is that the SFF was used on the intervening night of August 29/30 against the Chinese PLA preparing to build defences on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on a feature called Helmet Top.
 
If the use of Tibetan commandos was deliberate it would be the first time that Tibetans in exile would be fighting the Chinese with the backing of the Indian Army. It will most certainly annoy China and could be Delhi’s way of alerting Beijing that it is a road that India can take if border tensions are not resolved. Up to now India has not allowed Tibetans-in-exile to engage in any political activity. A military role for the SFF will boost the morale of Tibetans-in-exile, especially the section of youth which differs with the Dalai Lama’s non-violent methods and advocates armed insurgency within Tibet. Even more importantly, it will signal hope within Tibet.

 
However, for such moves to be more than ephemeral they must be integrated into a larger, well-thought plan. If the presence of the SFF on the border is not linked to a larger shift in India’s Tibet policy then the consequences of using Tibetans-in-exile for military ends are less rewarding.
 
As of now there are no indications of any major shift in Delhi’s approach to Tibet. The Indian government has not reached out publicly to the Dalai Lama, the global icon of Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation since 1950-51. Rather, in what could be a pointed rebuff, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ramnath Kovind did not greet the Dalai Lama this year on his 85th birthday on July 6. Significantly, this was two months after the Chinese incursions along the LAC in May.
 
The government has also not withdrawn the advisory of March 2018 asking “senior leaders” from the Centre and states to avoid participation in events organised by the “Tibetan leadership in India”. This effectively put an end to the grand plans of the Central Tibetan Administration, popularly known as the Tibetan Government in Exile, for a series of “Thank You India” events to mark the Dalai Lama’s 60th year in exile. Since that fiasco, the Dalai Lama continues to be marginalised. The Prime Minister has not even called the Dalai Lama to enquire about his continuing poor health.
 
On the other hand, India has remained so mindful of Chinese sensitivities that a half-hour interview to an official TV channel by Lobsang Sangay, President of the Tibetan Government in Exile, was apparently slashed to barely eight minutes. Instead of leveraging his statements for diplomatic negotiations the interview was “officially” buried in a pointless discussion around management of the Covid-19 pandemic among the exiles and the possible efficacy of Tibetan medicine! In a later interview to a private TV channel Sangay argued that Tibet should be the solution to Indo-Chinese border problems as the border dispute was triggered only after Chinese occupation of Tibet.
 
Information about exiles fighting China alongside the Indian Army, could be efficiently conveyed to those in Tibet by activating the network of Buddhist monasteries, in India and those on the Nepal-Tibet border. But there is no visible attempt to do this. Nor has India tried to mobilise world opinion in favour of the International Campaign for Tibet at a time when international support for China is rapidly eroding.
 
It would seem therefore that the reported deployment of exiled Tibetans against the PLA in Eastern Ladakh does not tie into larger political and diplomatic initiatives with China. The gains from such limited manoeuvres are likely to be short-lived and an important opportunity to revisit India’s Tibet policy will have been lost.