Sunanda K Datta-Ray: What have we gained from Sikkim?

Forty years after the protected kingdom of Sikkim was obliterated, I am still at a loss to understand why it happened. I can hear Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal's anguished perplexity. "Why are they doing this?" he would cry as agents of Indira Gandhi's government in Delhi took one action after another to wreck his administration. "They've got everything already! What more can India possibly want?"

Under the 1950 treaty, India controlled Sikkim's foreign relations, defence and communications. India could also intervene if law and order were threatened or if there was gross internal maladministration. The Chogyal was bound to obey India's "advice". No court would have upheld such impositions, but Delhi refused to register the treaty and supplementary agreements with the United Nations. Many senior officials were Indian deputationists. Northern and eastern Sikkim bordering China were under Indian army control. The army's clearance was needed to travel in those areas, even in one of the Chogyal's jeeps. I was repeatedly stopped and questioned at military checkposts. The Chogyal exercised only limited jurisdiction in his kingdom.

So why take it over?

The question needs to be answered as we approach the anniversary of an act that echoed the British Raj at its most deviously rapacious. The Lok Sabha adopted the Constitution (36th Amendment) Bill transforming the "associate state" of Sikkim into India's 22nd state on April 23, 1975. The Rajya Sabha followed three days later. Ratification by 13 states was rushed through and the Bill became law on May 18.

China's pragmatic Deng Xiaoping, who thought there was "something very peculiar about Indian policy", shared his bewilderment with the arch strategist, Henry Kissinger, then American secretary of state. Both wondered why India had bothered to annex territory it already controlled. Both were mystified that India didn't even increase its troop strength in Sikkim after the annexation. That indicated Delhi didn't fear any military threat from China. Nor, according to Deng, did China expect an Indian attack.

At the time, Indian spokesmen righteously insisted India had only responded to the demands of Sikkimese democrats. Later, the memoirs of high officials and released documents revealed another picture. The Sikkimese themselves rejected New Delhi's pretensions, with Kazi Lhendup Dorji, who was hailed at the time as the "father of the revolution", and his firebrand lieutenant Nar Bahadur Khatiawara going public with their accusations against Delhi. But dark hints about "the foreign hand" and the Chinese threat persisted although the records confirm the US took not the slightest interest in Sikkim while China contented itself with issuing condemning statements.

Even if we don't know why it happened, we know how. First, Indian agencies incited small Sikkimese groups to demonstrate against the Chogyal. Then, India's political representatives in Gangtok pressured the hapless monarch to seek Indian help to put down the demonstrations that were called a rebellion but were milder than daily street disturbances in Calcutta. That done, the demonstrators' inconsequential leaders (Kazi, Khatiawara and so on) were pressured into demanding abolition of the monarchy and merger with India. The final seal was a referendum carried out at breakneck speed to claim an astonishing 97 per cent support even from remote mountain villages. Clearly, the legal and constitutional preparations were complete long before the drama of anti-Chogyal demonstrations.

There may be some consolation in the thought that all great nations - and many that are not so great - have some stain on their escutcheons. Sometimes, a crime is committed for gain. Sometimes it's an error of judgement. Sometimes it just happens because of forces that acquire their own unstoppable momentum. Perhaps it was a combination of all three factors spiced by the personal animosities that play an unsuspected part in shaping events.

It's impossible to say with certainty what the personal factors here might have been. Sikkim's last reigning king was a doggedly persistent man determined to make his country independent. His American-born second wife, the former Hope Cooke, invited unreasonable fears of US intervention by virtue of her birth and high-level connections. Their personalities may have grated on self-important Indian officials who didn't find it difficult to play on Mrs Gandhi's suspiciousness.

I am guessing. What I do know is that India's media played a disgraceful part. Our newspapers repeated every official lie as gospel truth. And they did so knowingly because they were dazzled by the prospect of expanding borders. Spreading democracy turned territorial acquisitiveness into a moral obligation.

Will someone in authority please explain why Sikkim had to be acquired and what we have gained by the acquisition?