Word: bhutan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Asked why the border was not better defended, Nehru replied that it is 2,500 miles long, remote, mountainous and scarcely accessible. What about Chinese claims to the tiny Himalayan nations of Bhutan and Sikkim? Said Nehru: "Our position is quite clear. Any aggression against Bhutan and Sikkim will be considered as aggression against India...
Informed Indians believe that after Tibet, the Chinese have their eyes on the mountainous buffer state of Bhutan, a poor but contented nation, without electricity, hotels or shops, which gets a healthy subsidy from India. The only direct mule road from India to Bhutan passes through part of Tibet, and in any fighting the Bhutan army of 2,500, equipped with rifles and bows and arrows, would have only the rugged terrain to its advantage. Bhutan is ruled by a handsome, English-speaking, archery-loving young Dragon King who has freed the slaves, discouraged prostration in the royal presence...
Even more distressing to Indians are China's covetous glances at the Himalayan buffer states of Sikkim and Bhutan, both of them Indian protectorates, and Ladakh, the eastern portion of India's Kashmir. Indians have long complained of "cartographic aggression" by China in mapping these areas as parts of China. At a mass meeting in Lhasa last month, China's top warlord in Tibet, General Chang Kuo-hua. went further. "Bhutanese, Sikkimese and Ladakhis form a united family in Tibet." said he. "They have always been subject to Tibet and to the great motherland of China. They...
...effective system under which messages tied to arrows are shot across rivers and deep ravines along key routes. Arrow messages, couriers on mountain ponies, native runners brought word that the Red Chinese had sealed off all the passes into Sikkim and cut the rope and bamboo bridges leading into Bhutan. The only escape route left open was the one the Dalai Lama took, over the rough trails to Towang on the Indian border...
...troops in Tibet began to drive painfully into the rugged land south of the great Tsangpo River, which still remained in the hands of the Khamba guerrillas. Supply planes roared over Lhasa; other planes dropped paratroopers to seal off the passes north of the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, which the Dalai Lama might conceivably be heading for. To stifle all word of what was going on, the Chinese surrounded the Indian consulate in Lhasa, reduced its staff to virtual prisoners...