Reviewed by Vibha Arora
Mikel Dunham’s Buddha’s Warriors is not a Shangri-La story about Tibet, but a sensitive historical account of the valiant warrior Khampas armed resistance to Chinese colonialism: a tribute to Tibet’s freedom fighters. This heart-rending and gripping account is based on interviews of persons who actively participated in the armed resistance in Kham and are now living in refugee camps and settlements in India and Nepal.
The fierce, independent, and intimidating Khampa brigands are anything but the gentle stereotyped image of a peace-loving religious Tibetan group, nevertheless “To be a Khampa was [is] to be a Tibetan Buddhist” and whole monasteries in Kham armed themselves and waged war against the Chinese forcible occupation of Tibet (pp. 8, 10). The Bhutias among whom this reviewer conducted research in Sikkim migrated from Kham to Sikkim in the fourteenth century; they are Khampas. During my own fieldwork in Sikkim I inadvertently heard stories of Tibetan resistance, the flight of the Tibetans in 1959, and their subsequent settlement into Sikkim as refugees.
These stories prompted me to compare the fate of Tibet with that of the Buddhist kingdom of Sikkim, which became an Indian state in 1975 (see Vibha Arora, “Changes in the Perception of Tibetan Identities in Contemporary Sikkim, India,” in Tibetan Borderlands, edited by Christian Klieger, 31–52 [Leiden: Brill, 2006]; and Vibha Arora, “The Roots and the Route of Secularism in Sikkim,” in Economic and Political Weekly 16: 38 [2006], 4063–71). In 2005, China officially acknowledged Sikkim as part of India, and during the Chinese Premier’s visit the Tibetans vociferously protested. It has taken more than forty-four years for Sino-Indian internal trade to be resumed through the Nathula pass of Sikkim. Yet the solution to the Tibet problem has not been found. Will Tibet ever become free?
The loss of Tibet is epic and monumental. Despite prima facie evidence of genocide in Tibet, economic interests between Western nations and China have precluded any strategic criticism or questioning of this totalitarian occupation and monumental violation of human rights. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, nearly 95 percent of the monasteries and temples of Tibet were razed to the ground and about 1.2 million Tibetans died.
There are now over 7.5 million Chinese in Tibet compared with an indigenous population of 6 million (p. 6). What led to this sordid state of affairs? Did the Tibetan government and people oppose the Chinese annexation? What was the reaction of the international community to the Tibet issue? Organized into eight chapters with an epilogue, this enthralling book seeks to provide us with a historical account of the events and negotiations leading up to the annexation of Tibet, the flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959, as well as the lesser-known resistance in Eastern Tibet.
The book begins by giving us insights into the history and functioning of the Tibetan religious polity, the history and geography of Kham, and the Khampa psyche and lifestyle—along with biographical sketches of the key men who participated and led the CIA-backed Khampa armed resistance. Aptly titled “Leopard Cubs,” the first chapter introduces General Gonpo Tashi, Athar Lithang, Kalsang Gyatotsang, and Wangdu Gyatotsang; the men who formed the core of Khampa resistance.
The second chapter describes the Chinese occupation of Eastern Tibet in 1950 and the weak and strategically damaging response of the Tibetan government of Lhasa to this invasion. The third chapter narrates the ineffective efforts of Tibet to get international support for their cause, the shunning response of the United Nations, India, Great Britain, the US and other countries to the Tibetan appeal, the complicity of some members of the Tibetan nobility, and the tragic events leading to the Dalai Lama’s acceptance of the May 1951 17-point Agreement with China that recognized the suzerainty of China over Tibet.
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