Claude Arpi | How Gyalo Thondup, Dalai Lama’s brother, fought for Tibet from his Kalimpong home

Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother who passed away on February 9, aged 97, at his home in Kalimpong, West Bengal, was described by the New York Times as a “political operator in Tibet and the greater region”, and “the second-most influential person” in Tibet, “eclipsed only by his brother, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama”.

The Dalai Lama said of his brother: “He was a good man who did his best for the Tibetan cause. I pray he will take a good rebirth as a Tibetan again and that he will be able to serve the Tibetan administration once more.”

The “Noodlemaker of Kalimpong”, as Thondup’s biography called him, was born in 1927 in the tiny village of Takser in the Tibetan province of Amdo. The International Tibet Network, a global coalition of Tibet-related NGOs, said: “Gyalo Thondup was a central figure in Tibet’s modern history. He was liaising with global powers and leading efforts to support Tibetan resistance to China’s occupation. Throughout his life, he played a crucial role in taking the Tibetan issue to the United Nations, resulting in three significant resolutions between 1959 and 1965.”

But Thondup was first and foremost a great fighter for Tibet’s independence. In A History of Modern Tibet, historian Melvyn Goldstein mentions the power struggle between the pro-independence supporters led by Gyalo Thondup and the Chinese authorities in Tibet in the 1950s: “A group, based in Kalimpong, known as Jenkhentsisum, fought for Tibetan freedom. The term is an acronym of the titles of its three leaders, Gyalo Thondup, Tsipön Shakabpa and Khenjung Lobsang Gyentsen -- literally, jen (older brother), khen (khenjung, or fourth rank official), tsi (tsipön or finance secretary), and sum (number 3).”

In August 1954, a month after dreadful floods which destroyed the Indian Trade Agency in Gyantse, Jenkhentsisum began to organise Tibetans living in India “to provide relief to the flood victims but also saw this as a perfect opportunity to launch the political organisation they had been planning. On August 5, they met in Kalimpong and openly started the Tibet Relief Committee, whose aim was to raise relief funds for flood victims. At the same time, they covertly started the Association for the Welfare of Tibet, to work for Tibetan independence,” wrote Goldstein, adding: “The members took an oath in front of various protector deities, swearing to serve the cause of the organisation for as long as it might take.”

At that time, the US consulate-general in Kolkata was contacted for support; in the following decades, Thondup would be the main interlocutor of the US authorities (including the CIA) for Tibetan affairs.

The 1962 India-China war led to creation of the Special Frontier Force (SFF), a Tibetan army based in Chakrata, Uttarakhand, whose objective was to infiltrate into Tibet within six months of its creation. This did not happen, but here too Thondup was involved.

For most Indians, November 14 is Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday, but it is also another anniversary, though “uncelebrated”: the SFF’s creation. It was also known as Vikas Regiment or “Two-Twos”. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, in The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet, recounted one day an emissary was sent from the Intelligence Bureau to Darjeeling “to fetch the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo Thondup. After years of attempting to court the Indians – often sympathetic but never committal -- Gyalo relished the moment as he sat in front of a select group of senior intelligence and military officials in the capital.”

Thondup Gyalo told the meeting he needed 5,000 volunteers.

Ratuk Ngawang, one of the commanders, recalled that one day, Gyalo Thondup asked Andruk Gonpo Tashi, the top Khampa guerilla leader, to come to his residence in Darjeeling. Ratuk accompanied the Khampa leader; Thondup thought of starting a large Tibetan military academy in India.

He sought Gonpo Tashi’s opinion, who told Thondup it would be an important military initiative that could make the Tibetan people more powerful. When Gyalo Thondup asked the Khampa leader about recruitment plans, Gompo Tashi said that 1,00-2,000 soldiers wouldn’t be of much help, and the objective should be to have as many soldiers as possible.

The Dalai Lama’s brother said he would speak with the IB to check if there was any possibility of finding Indian support, and told Gonpo Tashi he should maintain strict confidentiality. This is how the SFF came into being.

While the move was orchestrated by R.N. Kao, RAW’s first chief, Thondup was also indirectly instrumental in the Tibetan participation in the 1971 operations for Bangladesh’s liberation. Rathuk Ngawang, by then a commander in Chakrata, said Kao instructed the SFF and advised its leaders to prepare themselves and fight well. In his memoirs, The Phantoms of Chittagong, Brig. Surjeet Singh Uban, the SFF commander, recounted the details of the Tibetans’ achievements: “After we captured Chittagong, Mr Kao came to visit our regiment and gave awards and speeches in praise of the Tibetan unit’s heroic battles.”

Gyalo Thondup was not directly involved in the decision to send the Tibetan soldiers to the Bangladesh front as New Delhi had categorically banned from doing any political activities, but at that time, he was still deeply involved with the SFF in Chakrata.

Several years ago, during an interview, Gyalo Thondup spoke of one of his encounters with Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping’s father, who showed him his watch: “In 1954, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited China, he gave me an Omega watch… I think that it was an Omega that he showed me. I told him: ‘Very good, keep it.’ He attached a great importance to this watch because the Dalai Lama presented it to him, it came from India.”

Tibet has indeed lost a great man who lived a great life.

Claude Arpi is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence (Delhi), and writes on India, China, Tibet and Indo-French relations