Any book on Kalimpong which intends to document the past and present of this town would be shorn of its credibility if it does not tell the story of GyaloThondup, the elder brother of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and arguably the most colourful personality in Tibetan politics in the second half of the 20th century.
Born in the remote village of Taktser, in the Amdo province of Eastern Tibet, he spent his early life in Lhasa, after his brother was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama and was later educated in China. GyaloThondup finally made Kalimpong his home and the base wherefrom he globe trotted and hobnobbed with some of the tallest world leaders. It was from here that he plotted, planned and directed all his political strokes in his efforts to salvage what he could of the Tibetan freedom, religion and international rights.
So intriguing is his life and role in the Tibetan struggle for independence and survival that it can be said with certainty that after His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, GyaloThondup has no parallels so far as Tibetan Independence struggle is concerned. The international trail of intrigue, suspense, controversies and conspiracies that he left behind made him a personality detested and unreliable in the eyes of his adversaries but loved and respected by an entire generation of Tibetans.
GyaloThondup’s life story appears so surreal that it seems more like a plot for a block-buster movie or a best seller novel rather than that of a man born in one of the remotest part of the world. In fact his autobiography “The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong” published in 2015 did become a best seller which left readers amazed at the life of this Tibetan freedom fighter. Tibet and Tibetans will never be able to thank this gentleman enough for his efforts to internationalize, popularize and publicize the plight, struggle and quest of the Tibetans for independence from the clutches of Chinese rule.
Born in the village of Taktser, GyaloThondup was the 3rd child of ChoekyongTsering and DikiTsering. Taktser was a village of just about a dozen houses, 4o km from the famous Kumbum monastery. This monastery was built on the spot where Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism was born. His ancestors were descendants of soldiers of SongtsenGompo, who is regarded as the greatest king of Tibet. It is said that SongtsenGompo, through his Chinese and Nepali wives, was instrumental in spreading Buddhism in Tibet.
(His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama with his elder brother GyaloThondup in 2023)
His parents had seven children who survived till adulthood. GyaloThondup was the second of the five sons while the 14th Dalai Lama, named LhamoThondup, was the 4th son of the family. GyaloThondup’s elder brother was JigmeNorbu who was recognized as the TaktserRimpoche in the year 1923.
GyaloThondup was the only son of the family who did not become a monk, his father wanting him to become a farmer who would take over the management of the family estate in the future. Born in 1929 GyaloThondup is six years older than his younger brother LhamoThondup who was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in the year 1939.
The 13th Dalai Lama died on 17th of December 1935. Divinity indicated that the new Dalai Lama would be found in the region around the Kumbum monastery and accordingly a search party headed by the KewtsangRimpoche reached the village of Taktser and after having put the three year old LhamoThondup through a series of tests recognized him as the 14th Dalai Lama. Amidst wide spread joy and a celebration, the family was shifted to Lhasa where the little brother of GyaloThondup was officially enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama.
Life changed drastically for the family once in Lhasa. From being an ordinary farming family from a remote village the family suddenly became the first family of Tibet. The family name was changed from Taktser to Taklha and his father came to be known as Yabshi Kung while his mother got the title of Gyayum Chemo, meaning the great mother. Their status and wealth increased drastically with the Tibetan Government providing the family all the comforts due to the first family of Tibet. They were granted five huge estates across Tibet which earned the family much riches and prestige. The Regent of Tibet at that time, the RetingRimpoche also constructed from them an enormous three story house with over fifty rooms, near the Potala, the official residence of the Dalai Lama. With this the life of GyaloThondup also changed dramatically- GyaloThondup was thereafter groomed to be the closest advisor to the Dalai Lama. The RetingRimpoche assumed personal charge of GyaloThondup and sent him for education to a private school named Tarkhang, which provided traditional Tibetan education. The Regent felt that if GyaloThondup could understand the history, culture and tradition of China, it would help Tibet in the long run and with this in mind he appointed a Chinese Muslim named Ma Bao as GyaloThondup’s personal Chinese teacher. Within a few years GyaloThondup had a basic knowledge of the Chinese language and its way of life.
With his elementary training complete it was decided that GyaloThondup be sent to China for further education. This was a surprising move as generally Tibetan royalty and elite families sent their children to India to receive education and being sent to China for an education was unheard of in those times. The RetingRimpoche probably took this decision as an act of balancing between China and British India. GyaloThondup left for China in the year 1945 via India. The first place in India that he stopped over was Kalimpong. He travelled to Kolkata from here and life in Kolkata was a complete new experience for this young boy of sixteen. The glamour and glitz of Kolkata gave GyaloThondup a cultural shock. It was here that he had his first hair cut and had his first experience of shopping in departmental shops and staying in five star hotels. In April 1946, GyaloThondup finally left for China and settled down in Nanjing where he was enrolled in the reputed Central University of Politics. Chiang Kai-Shek the leader of the Nationalist government of China at that time being his sponsor. Nanjing was the capital of China at that time and he was hosted personally by the Governor of Jiangsu province and the mayor of Nanjing.
Chiang Kai-shek being his sponsor, GyaloThondup settled into a comfortable life in Ninjing with a personal three room house, domestic and personal staff and a generous allowance to cover all his expenses.
At the University GyaloThondup was favoured student with Chiang Kai-Shek deputing the President of the Central University Dr.GuYuxice to personally look into his studies. Six senior professors were assigned to privately give GyaloThondup lessons in World History, Geography, Chinese History, Literature, Music and Maths. The education and life in Ninjing was an eye opener for GyaloThondup. Here he realized how backward and under-developed Tibet was and how defective and outdated the administrative system in his country was. His experience here made him aware of all the modern ways of life and governance in a civilized society. This filled him with ideas and desires to implement these reforms back in Tibet for the betterment of his countrymen and for the modernization of his country.
In the meanwhile while he was sponging in all the knowledge of the modern world, civil war in China was at its peak. The Communists under Mao Zedong and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek were locked in a bitter battle for control of the country with Chiang Kai-Shek on the verge of defeat. While this was on he found the love of his life in the beautiful Zhu Dan. She was the daughter of Zhu Shigui a leading General on the side of the ruling Nationalist party. She had a degree in social work from the Jilin University in Ninjing.
After two years of courtship the two married in the year 1948. The wedding reception was a grand affair held at the Grand International Hotel in Shanghai. Their happiness in China though was short lived due to the fact that within the next few months the Communists had all but routed the Nationalists and were knocking on the doors of Ninjing. GyaloThondup and his new wife had to escape to Hong Kong via Shanghai in March 1949.
During the years GyaloThondup spent in China there was a huge political turmoil in Tibet. Both his father and the chief supporter of his family and the former Regent of Tibet, the RetingRimpoche, died- both seemingly under suspicious circumstances. In his absence a power struggle had been underway in Tibet between the RetingRimpoche and the TaktraRimpoche, the former and ruling Regent of Tibet.
The young RetingRimpoche was appointed as the Regent of Tibet after the demise of the 13th Dalai Lama and it was him who oversaw the coronation of LhamoThondup as the 14th Dalai Lama. He was the chief benefactor of GyaloThondup’s family in Lhasa. After a few years in office the RetingRimpoche took temporary leave of office to go into a religious retreat and appointed TaktraRimpoche as the stand-in Regent of the country on the understanding that the former would resume office once his retreat was complete. Unfortunately TaktraRimpoche refused to vacate office once RetingRimpoche returned. In the ensuing power struggle, the RetingRimpoche was imprisoned and died under suspicious circumstances in prison. GyaloThondup’s father too passed away, many believed under dubious conditions.
After the death of the two, the Tibetan government wanted GyaloThondup to return to Tibet but he refused to do so till he completed his studies in Ninjing. His decision was also prompted by apprehensions on his security now that his two main supporters were no longer alive and that people opposed to them were in the helm of affairs in Tibet. But return he had to on being forced to do so after the Communist takeover of China. From Hong Kong he made his way to Kalimpong wherefrom he got in touch with his mother who was still in Lhasa. His mother instructed him not to travel back to Lhasa. Since GyaloThondup’s wife was expecting their first child and medical facilities in Kalimpong being poor, they decided to shift base to Kolkata.
While in Kolkata the then Prime Minister of India PanditJawaharLal Nehru contacted him and invited him and his wife to spend some time with him in Delhi. They travelled to Delhi and had a dinner meeting in which Nehru, his daughter Indira and a host of other important officials were present. Nehru wanted to understand the situation in Tibet and also the effects of the communist takeover of China. Nehru wanted to offer help to the Tibetans and in the absence of any accredited Tibetan Official in India, Nehru requested GyaloThondup to be the go-between. The Americans as well as the new Chinese government too contacted GyaloThondup and wanted him to be the intermediary between them and the Tibetan Government. GyaloThondup made several trips to Kalimpong and managed to relay messages to the Lhasa Government via the newly opened Telegraph station at Kalimpong. The Tibetan Government chose to ignore all messages from these various governments, relayed via GyaloThondup, for reasons best known to them. Finally they sent a delegation under their progressive minded Finance Minister, Shakabpa and this delegation based itself in Kalimpong. Although they made several efforts to visit China and start a dialogue with the Chinese Government, all their efforts were in vain as visa issues prevented them from travelling to China. In any case their efforts were too little and too late as by this time the Chinese had already started their invasion of Tibet. The first attack of the Chinese on the eastern frontier of Tibet began in October 1950.
The small Tibetan army, ill trained and poorly armed, was routed in Eastern Tibet. The panicked government in Tibet hurriedly decided that the Dalai Lama, despite being under-aged, should assume full temporal powers for the larger good of Tibet. His advisors, fearing the worst, decided that the Dalai Lama and his Government would relocate temporarily to Droma, a small village on the border with Sikkim. The Chinese having marched into Lhasa later forced the Tibetan Government to sign what is now known as the 17 Point Agreement, which effectively gave the Chinese over lordship over entire Tibet.
While this tragedy was underway in Tibet, GyaloThondup was making efforts to go to China and have some kind of dialogue with the communist leaders of China. With the Indian government having refused to allow him direct passage to China, GyaloThondup travelled to Manila, the capital of Philippines, with the intention of entering China via Macau. He failed in this effort too as the ruling Portuguese administration in Macau refused him entry visa. He finally ended up in Taiwan where his former mentor Chiang Kai-Shek had established a government. Although he was extremely well received by Chiang Kai-Shek and the government of Taiwan and was hosted with much respect and pomp, GyaloThondup was forced to stay in Taiwan for about a year and a half due to the Taiwanese government obstructing his visit to main land China. Chiang Kai-Shek probably believed that young GyaloThondup would be influenced by the Communists if he travelled to China. While in Taiwan he managed to send letters to President Truman of USA and his Secretary of State Dean Acheson pleading for their intervention. His efforts paid dividends when they finally invited him to America.
Once in America he stayed for a while with his elder brother JigmeNorbu, the former TaktserRimpoche, in Washington. JigmeNorbu had escaped from Tibet and had immigrated to America after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. The Americans offered him a scholarship at the Stanford University for which he travelled to San Francisco with his family. Later deciding that he could best serve his country by being nearer to home, he journeyed back to Darjeeling after a brief stopover at London. In Darjeeling he met up with his mother who was in residence there after a pilgrimage of the holy Buddhist sites in India.
After a happy reunion with his mother and other members of his family GyaloThondup received first hand information on the situation in Tibet. It was decided that GyaloThondup would best serve the interest of Tibet by accompanying his mother back to his country of birth.
Since his wife was expecting their second child she was forced to stay back in Darjeeling while GyaloThondup returned to Tibet with his mother. Riding on horse-back he entered Lhasa via the usual trade route after seven long years of absence from his country. Back in Lhasa GyaloThondup bustled with excitement on the prospect of finally getting a chance to implement all the ideas and experiences he had gained living in places like China, Taiwan and USA. Having closely followed the land reform policies of China and Taiwan as also the farming and animal husbandry techniques used in the modern world, he couldn’t wait to implement his idea in Tibet for the benefit of his countrymen. Having discussed his ideas with the Dalai Lama who was supportive of his vision, he tried to convince the government to support his ideas but all his efforts were in vain. The traditionalists in the ruling class shot down his enthusiasm and overruled his ideas. A disappointed GyaloThondup saw his dreams die an unnatural death. He however implemented land reforms in his own estates across Tibet giving the peasants living on his estate right over the land they toiled on.
While he was in Tibet a country wide revolt broke out against the Chinese and the Chinese rulers of Tibet wanted to use force to quell this mass uprising. They started pressurizing GyaloThondup to side with them and support their depraved designs. In the meanwhile an order was received directly from Mao Zedong directing GyaloThondup to attend the Communist Youth Congress that was to be held in Beijing. GyaloThondup was to attend it as the head of the Tibetan delegation. Unable to directly deny an order from the Chinese supreme leader he escaped to India on the pretext of visiting his estates in southern Tibet.
Having returned to India he visited Darjeeling before proceeding to Kolkata where his wife delivered their second child, Khendoop. The Chinese rulers of Tibet on hearing of his escape naturally flew into a rage and giving vent to their anger, took away his citizenship.
Having made Kolkata his base, GyaloThondup started to write to various International agencies, head of governments and international organizations lobbying for international intervention in the Tibetan issue. He made several trips to various countries highlighting the plight of the Tibetans and internationalizing the issue of Tibetan independence. During one of his visits to Taiwan he also brought the Taiwanese and Indian intelligence agencies together so that they could work cohesively for their mutual benefits. GyaloThondup managed to create some amount of international interest to the ongoing crises in Tibet.
In the year 1956, the Dalai Lama managed to get permission from the Chinese for a visit to India. Officially the reason for Dalai Lama’s visit to India was the 2500th birth anniversary of Lord Buddha but the hidden agenda was to seek political asylum for the Dalai Lama and his government. The Chinese, getting wind of the actual reason, dispatched Zhou Enlai to prevent any such move and he managed to get the Indian government to go back on its commitment to shelter the Dalai Lama. On his way back to Tibet, the Chinese and Indian government even tried to prevent Dalai Lama and his entourage from visiting Kalimpong fearing that the Tibetan expats there along with agents from various international espionage agencies who had made Kalimpong their base, would prevent the Dalai Lama from reentering Tibet. The Dalai Lama swatting away these apprehensions of the Chinese visited and stayed in Kalimpong for a week before returning to Tibet.
The situation in Tibet further deteriorated in the next few years with the Chinese making unreasonable demands and the Tibetan public exploding in open revolt against the oppressive Chinese forces stationed in Tibet. In utter frustration over the repressive measures adopted by the Chinese against the unarmed Tibetan protesters GyaloThondup used his contacts in the CIA to help train a small number of young Tibetan fighters in the art of guerilla warfare. The first group of recruits was smuggled into Kalimpong and GyaloThondup used his own jeep to transport them to the Bangladesh border wherefrom they were transported to Saipan in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They were trained here by the CIA and later airdropped into Tibet so that they could lead an armed revolution there. In later years more than 250 other young recruits were further trained in Saipan and later in Camp Hale in Colorado. These trained guerilla fighters were smuggled back to Lhasa and later became the backbone of ChusaiGangdruk, the Tibetan Guerrilla army under the inspirational leader Gompo Tashi.
Finally in 1959, fearing for his life, the advisors of Dalai Lama planned for Dalai Lama, his family and his closest advisors, to escape into exile in India. GyaloThondup once again was instrumental in convincing the Indian Prime Minister JawaharLal Nehru into giving the Dalai Lama and entourage shelter in India. GyaloThondup travelled to Delhi after getting news of Dalai Lama’s flight from Lhasa and had a meeting with Nehru. Nehru consented to providing shelter to Dalai Lama and his group after this meeting with GyaloThondup.
Dalai Lama and his advisors had hoped that the Government of India would allow them to set up base in either Darjeeling or Kalimpong but the Government of India in its wisdom decided take them to Musssorrie. Later after a year they were shifted to Dharamshala where the Dalai Lama set up his Government in exile. GyaloThondup was appointed the Foreign Minister in the Government of exile.
GyaloThondup led several delegations to various American, European and Asian countries trying to advocate the need for them to intervene in the Tibetan crises. He even held meetings with International NGOs like the International Red Cross, CARE, Catholic Charities and Oxfam in his bid to internationalize the issue. For him no international forum or no country was taboo as long as they were willing to listen to the plight of the Tibetans. He even set up meetings and came to an understanding with the KGB, the Russian secret service. It was through them that he later learnt that the Americans and Chinese had already reached an understanding and that the Americans had decided to wash their hands off Tibet and the Tibetans were left to their fate.
After the Indo-China War in 1962 GyaloThondup was once again contacted by the Indian Intelligence and he helped the Indian Army set up a special armed force consisting of Tibetan fighters known as Establishment 22 which exists till date. On GyaloThondup’s appeal hundreds of young Tibetans, many of them trained guerrilla fighters, joined this force which was and is used by the Indian Army in high altitude operations.
GyaloThondup spent the next decade criss-crossing the globe talking to Governments, advocating the case of Tibet and pleading for their intervention but with the growing might of China in the international arena, all that the Tibetans received was a sympathetic hearing but no concrete results. He finally decided to give up all official designations having become mentally and physically exhausted with the high voltage life that he was constantly exposed to. Despite new persons taking up charge of Foreign affairs in the Tibetan Government in exile GyaloThondup was still called upon to negotiate whenever the situation turned tricky. The Chinese Government especially found the new team inept and GyaloThondup was requested to once again continue the negotiations which he did for the greater good of Tibet.
He even met Deng Ziaoping, the Chinese supreme leader after Mao Zedong, and despite several rounds of talk with him and other senior leaders no agreement could be reached on the return of Dalai Lama to Tibet.
GyaloThondup finally decided to hang up his political boots and settle down to a peaceful and less stressful life in Kalimpong in the 3 acre land which he had purchased here way back in the year 1952. The beautiful house just before St. Philomena’s School at 8th Mile Kalimpong was named Taktser House in memory of his birth place. The noodle factory that he has set up here, now take up much of his time whenever he is in Kalimpong.
GyaloThondup’s dream of seeing a Tibet independent of the Chinese may not materialize in this life time of his but there is no doubt that his contributions towards the struggle for Tibetan Independence will be remembered and spoken of in all times to come.
There is no doubt that he will remain one of the brightest shining jewel on Kalimpong’s crown.
(Sandip C Jain is Editor Himalayan Times and well known author and writer from Kalimpong. Views are personal. Email: himalayantimes@rediffmail.com)
