Writing more of India into Tibetology

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Writing more of India into Tibetology

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• Tibetology: The Indian Army wants its officers to now study "Tibetology", which will include Tibet's history, culture, and languages. It will be on both sides of the LAC, and will counter Chinese propaganda.
• India-China relations: The Army is thinking correctly, and studying Tibet will help fine-tune Indian approach to a belligerent China. And by excluding Tibet and the Himalayas, India China relations cannot be tackled.
• Wider gamut: But there's a risk - Tibetology cannot and should not be restricted to just the state interests, and territorial conflicts. It is much wider than that, and includes the entire Himalayan region.
• Defining the region: Experts indicate that the region is not just the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region, or U-Tsang), but also Amdo, Kham, large areas of Himalayas, parts of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Tawang. So two ways India can approach the Tibetan studies – (i) from the nation-state silo, or (ii) these Trans-Himalayan connections.
• How British saw it: Whatever knowledge they codified on Tibet, was to serve colonial needs. Britain knew how important Sikkim and Bhutan were, to secure Tibet. From Warren Hastings in 1770s to Younghusband in 1900s, many experts worked to codify knowledge on Tibet. (experts - cartographers, mountaineers, linguists, botanists etc.)
• Shangri-la or ... : 'Lost Horizon' by James Hilton (1933) showed Tibet as a Shangri-la utopia, away from modernity, ensconced in true Buddhism. On the ground though, the McMahon Line was drawn in 1914 to delineate British India's boundaries and of protectorates, too.
• Nehruvian India: It accepted the deep ties across Himalayas, and Buddhism's role as the tissue connecting it. Many institutional efforts in 1950s were around this logic. New institutes were set up at Leh, Sarnath, Varanasi and Sikkim. Indian Army wants its officers to use the Sarnath and Gangtok institutes to study Tibetology. 
• A limitation: Due to the anxieties generated by the 1962 China war, Indian scholars have focused on Tibet from the India-China bilateral prism. It ends up creating a wrong narrative of India and Tibet being 'natural allies', overlooking the complex relationship over many other things (through the centuries), like frontiers, trading and grazing rights.
• Guru-Chela narrative: When scholars push the narrative that Buddhism was born in India and Tibet simply received this wisdom, it ignores Tibetan Buddhism's existence as a standalone evolving system across the Himalayas. It ignores sectarian complexities, and also non-Buddhist religions. Same happens when Buddhism is pushed as an offshoot of Hinduism.
• Tragedy: When Tibetology is defined so narrowly, Indians miss out on many aspects of India's own history. The Himalayan region is not a natural barrier separating India (one nation) from all neighbours. It is a living entity with many cultures and societies. India has many resources on Tibet - the 14th Dalai Lama lives here, the Central Tibetan Administration is here, as are the refugees, and many Tibetan institutes. 
• Summary: Tibetology's mandate must not be restricted to just the bilateral relation between two countries, but must be widened to include Tibet-Himalayan interconnections and relations with India over the centuries.

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