Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
the first Prime Minister
of India, on Tibet
(i) Address to the Lok Sabha, 7 December, 1950:
IT is not right for any country to talk about its sovereignty or
suzerainty over an area outside its own immediate range. That
is to say, since Tibet is not the same as China, it should ultimately
be the wishes of the people of Tibet that should prevail and not
any legal or constitutional arguments. That, I think, is a valid
point. Whether the people of Tibet are strong enough to assert
their rights or not is another matter. Whether we are strong
enough or any other country is strong enough to see that this is
done is also another matter. But it is a right and proper thing to
say and I can see no difficulty in saying to the Chinese
Government that whether they have suzerainty or sovereignty
over Tibet, surely, according to any principles, principles they
proclaim and the principles I uphold, the last voice in regard to
Tibet should be the voice of the people of Tibet and of nobody
else.
(ii) Statement to the Lok Sabha, 27 April, 1959:
WHEN premier Chou En Lai came here two or three years
ago, he was good enough to discuss Tibet with me at considerable
length. We had a frank and full talk. He told me that while Tibet
had long been a part of China, they did not consider Tibet as a
province of China. The people are different from the people of
China proper. Therefore, they considered Tibet as an autonomous
region which could enjoy autonomy. He told me further that it
was absurd for anyone to imagine that China was going to force
communism on Tibet. Communism could not be enforced in this
way on a very backward country and they had no wish to do so
even though they would like reforms to come in progressively.
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Even these reforms they proposed to postpone for a considerable
time.
(iii) His Last Letter, 24 May, 1964:
Dehradun
May 24, 1964
My dear Dr. Gopal Singh,
Your letter of the 20th May. It is not clear to me what we can
do about Tibet in present circumstances. To have a resolution in
the United Nations about Tibet will not mean much as China is
not represented there. We are not indifferent to what has
happened in Tibet. But we are unable to do anything effective
about it.
Yours sincerely,
(Sd) Jawaharlal Nehru.