Imperial Games in Tibet

This book is an absolute page turner. It is very easy to read, with alot of interesting information. The author has done a great job in weaving the historical narrative into current geopolitics.

I find this book extraordinary. A clumsy history written with remarkable clarity. As he is a public speaker he knows how to connect the readers. His language is superb. This book shall stand on its own brilliance. - Rajen Saikia.

Dilip employs a combination of investigation, analysis and erudition that is as outstanding as it is compelling. As a rabid history buff who has perused more than his fair share of tomes and was left wanting , this one was extremely satisfying and thoroughly satiating. Well done.

The book just published by Macmillan( available on Amazon) has presented concisely and succinctly the poignant history of the Tibet’s struggle . After a long time I stumbled upon a very informative and interesting book on Tibet which I had been longing to read. Coming from a highly regarded top diplomat who has a deep knowledge and understanding of history and geopolitics of the region, this book is a must- read for all those who desire to have a balanced and an analytical view of the plight of the Tibetan people.The question of Tibet’s struggle has been discussed historically beginning from early centuries and has lucidly depicted how the great powers embroiled themselves in executing their game plans. It gives an insight into the Chinese realpolitik and the expansive game relentlessly pursued by them resorting to all means.I highly recommend this book to the young generation especially the aspirants to the Civil Services . The younger generation today does not have much exposure to the tortuous politics by the great powers which led to the whittling down of the Tibet suzerainty leading to its eventual control by the Chinese . The sufferings of the people of Tibet and their humiliation have been brilliantly portrayed by the author. The ambivalent stance of India has also been brought out clearly.I have always held the author in high esteem . He has successfully discharged the various assignments in the foreign service with remarkable finesse and competence.Highly recommended to all readers . An unputdownable read for the book lovers .

Starting from the mid-nineteenth century under Manchu China, Sinha details how Tibet's peaceful Buddhist culture made it vulnerable to external influences, leading to invasions by the Mongols and Manchus. The book vividly recounts how Tibet became a pawn in the British and Russian rivalry, highlighting significant events like the British expedition led by Younghusband and the policies of Lord Curzon.The author provides a balanced perspective, examining human rights issues and the strategic future of Inner Asia. He delves into Tibet's continued struggle for autonomy under Chinese occupation, offering a poignant look at the Tibetan people's silent suffering.Overall the book, ‘Imperial games in Tibet’ is an engaging and accessible read, making complex geopolitical dynamics understandable. Sinha’s narrative is both informative and thought-provoking, enriched with fascinating details that appeal to anyone interested in Tibet’s historical and geopolitical significance. It’s a must-read for those keen on understanding the deeper nuances of Tibet’s destiny shaped by global powers.

To an amateur historian of the Indian frontier any book on Tibet is welcome. The more so as Tibet, as a political entity, is virtually extinct now. Her brief spells of independence in the past - parlously poised, temporary always thanks to China’s predations - are a poignant memory, almost completely effaced now. It is - as some probably will pragmatically maintain - an anachronism.Yet it is essential that that anachronism be dredged up now and then to the forefront of contemporary geopolitical consciousness, if only to show how an entire universal order, a post-war, post-colonial order at that - India, the West, the hallowed UN (with the sole heroic exception of tiny El Salvador) - all conspired, for motives less than honourable, to smother and kill a nation. Ambassador Sinha’s book does just that, reprising the final tragedy of Tibet, taking us first through her millennial history, the tortuous chronicle of her contentious relationship with China, her patron-turned-overlord.Strictly speaking, there isn’t much that is new in the book: the historical facts and narratives have all been threshed out before - both pro- and con- in innumerable books and academic papers, over more than half a century since the Chinese takeover of Tibet. All authors / historians / academics are more or less agreed that Tibet’s goose was primarily cooked by the British and the Russians by their self-serving assertions of Chinese ‘suzerainty’ over Tibet - Curzon’s famous contrarian ‘constitutional fiction’ remark availed little, his enemies ruled the roost. As the successor state to British India, independent India could have exercised rights flowing from the 1904 Lhasa Convention and treated with Tibet as a contracting state; but Nehru was no Curzon, or even a Churchill (he even said he didn’t want to take Curzon’s place in Lhasa). After the 1950 invasion, Nehru-India’s plaintive, pathetic Notes to the Chinese PM, a sheep futilely bleating - more than 700 in all, according to Ambassador Sinha - could only have provided comic, derisive relief to Chou En-Lai and Mao.The 1954 Trade Agreement - prominently proclaiming the ‘Tibet Region of China’ in the very Preamble - was the last nail in Tibet’s coffin, arguably the greatest diplomatic disaster in all of history, when hard-won gains - colonial albeit, but inherited - were surrendered without so much as a murmur: indeed, Nehru called it his greatest foreign policy achievement! Evidently stupidity (and cowardice) went by other names then. (Just so had another PM crowed on returning from Munich in 1938, after another sell-out).In the UN, Nehru blocked even the efforts of those who wanted to help: the debate on El Salvador’s motion condemning the Chinese invasion of Tibet was postponed indefinitely through US and UK interventions, prompted by India’s prodding.No matter how many books on the subject one has read - including Amb. Sinha’s now - the one inescapable, overwhelming thought is this: had India had a different Prime Minister at the time - and a different ambassador in Peking - the later history of Tibet might have been happier.One or two minor quibbles about the book. The style is somewhat jerky and abrupt, and the absence of a bibliography is a serious omission, especially since all the sources quoted in the End Notes are contemporary (meaning present, modern, mostly American and unfamiliar) ones. Which brings me to the other serious omission: none of the old classic authors / academics / authorities is referenced or quoted. I am especially thinking of the late Professor Parshotam Mehra, the late Dr. Dorothy Woodman, and the American trio of Fisher, Rose and Huttenback (Prof. Alastair Lamb, the manifestly pro-Chinese British doyen is not missed, although he is mentioned in a footnote).In the Epilogue the author mentions current Tibetan political leadership and the government-in-exile, and a prospective less ambivalent US and Indian support to it as the Tibetans’ only ray of hope. But that can only be illusory in the contemporary geopolitical world. Unwittingly, Nehru has the last word here, the only truth and wisdom he seems to have uttered in a long career of diplomatic blundering. When the young Dalai Lama told him “Tibetans expect the achieving of independence in the long run” he dismissed this as impractical, saying, ‘the whole world cannot bring freedom to Tibet unless the whole fabric of the Chinese state is destroyed.’He certainly wasn’t going to do anything in that direction.***K V K MurthyBangalore