The Indian Spy Who Fell for Tibet

So many Victorian women travelled to Tibet, Alexandra David-Neel comes to mind. Isabella Bird, of course.
On Top Of The World by Luree Miller would be a start for research.
To have a Voyages Issues. Adventures for the Ages, and then don't find any adventures that women have had that are worthy of telling is LAZINESS.
I don't mean women just to Tibet, of course, we were and are everywhere!!
Disappointing. Dissed again and continually. Shame on the Times for allowing such disparity. All adventurers are not, nor ever have been, men.

The Chinese "snatched" back Tibet which was not theirs to "snatch." They have committed genocide in Tibet, with monk after monk, nun after nun, and Tibetan after Tibetan beaten, imprisoned, tortured, raped, and murdered, and the desperation so great that a number have set themselves on fire as protest. China is now a genocidal state, as recognized by the United Nations. This fascist nation now commits genocide, but will one day be deprived of that ability when Tibet become free of the Chinese yoke.

I am surprised by this story and its significance or insignificance. Tibet was in the hands of China way back when the Tang Dynasty already controlled Tibet. There are many stories about it in the Chinese history to describe it. However, the Buddhism always plays a very important part in Tibet history.

My stepfather, a civil engineer in the Indian army went up into Tibet, as a spy, after the Chinese occupied it. He went on Yak back, disguised as a Buddhist monk, sat inside the walled city and counted Chinese soldiers, etc and did what civil engineers do to prepare for the unexpected.
He was a maverick who volunteered for such expeditions. Now I read of another brave man who served his country and loved doing so.

Why would Britain, after successfully suppressing the first war of Indian independence in 1857, having subdued China in Boxer wars, had to send a spy surreptitiously to learn about Tibet? Why not just send a small military expedition. Tibet had no army to stop the expedition. I believe the British eventually did that in 1900s but why wait that long?

Ah yes, what a paradise Tibet would be today, if only the British, using spies like Mr Das and military men like Francis Edward Younghusband (whose expedition, no doubt was, as portrayed here, an example of R2P before the phrase was invented, rather than yet another imperialist attack on an Asian country) had managed to wrest the region from those dastardly Chinese ! The evidence is all around us, in the state of the indigenous people's in India's northeastern provinces....

Henri

Thanks to the author to bring out this great but unknown spy sent by the British Empire . it is strange that the British who boasted the heroic works of many of their spies through novels, history and James Bond Films never cared to bring out the name Mr. Das as one of the greatest spies who worked for them at the highest level literally and metaphorically speaking.

Tibet fell into Chinese lap due to short sighted policies of politicians of Indian sub continent. Partition of India could well have been avoided. There was no one Abrahim Lincoln who fought a four year long war and endured emergnance of a united and a powerful nation. The leaders of newly independent Induan sub continent failed to do so , Chinese could never have succeeded in their walk into Tibet in face of a United India. Nehru the tall leader of India, failed to see through the Chimese designs, in his blinkered vision of real politics. Chou en Li, the Chinese PM took for a ride, promising oral brotherhood, in exchange handing over Tibet to Chinese. Indian Armed Forcers, that were the third most powerful , after the USA and Russian Armed Forces, at the end WW2, were neglected by new leaders of India, brought up non violence doctrines. Rest is history.
BIS CHEEMA

Some say he was one source of inspiration for Kipling, in creating the character of Kimball O'Hara, player of the Great Game.

Kipling probably modeled his character Huree Babu in his novel KIM

I certainly would have liked a longer article ,so evocative but too short.

Very interesting to read a little about the life of the man who created the first major Tibetan-Engliish dictionary which so many students and scholars have used over the years. Thank you for this article- really wonderful.