Uma Maheshwari asked: What is the actual contention and position regarding McMahon Line?

Rup Narayan Das replies: In order to put the issue in perspective, it is worth while to revisit history for a moment. Concerned at the growing Russian interests in Tibet in early 1900s, the British Government in India had sent a military mission to Lhasa under Col. Younghusband in 1904, which led to the signing of the Anglo-Tibetan Convention the same year. By this agreement, the British secured the right to establish Trade Agencies at Gyantse, Gartok and Yatung in Tibet, as also a commitment about the express exclusion of any other foreign power from political influence there. Anticipating political complications in the region, the British Government invited both the Tibetan and Chinese representatives to a tripartite conference at Simla in October 1913. The draft tripartite convention while recognising Chinese suzerainty over Tibet also expressly stipulated for the autonomy of Tibet. China, however, declined to accept the convention. Subsequently, a bilateral agreement was signed between Tibet and Great Britain, and a formal declaration issued, barring the Chinese Government from enjoying any privileges accruing from the Simla Agreement so long as it did not ratify it. Thus, the McMahon line is based on the Simla Conference.

The Simla Agreement continued to be basis of Anglo-Tibetan relations till the British withdrawal from India in 1947. In July 1947, the British Government in India formally informed the Tibetan Government that after the transfer of power, British obligations and rights under the existing treaties would devolve upon India (for details, see Nancy Jetlly, India China Relations 1947-1977, Radiant Publishers, 1979, pp. 13-14). When India became independent on August 15, 1947, it acquired the latent boundary dispute with China in the Eastern sector - the McMahon Line.

On November 20, 1950, while responding to a question whether India has got any well-defined boundary with Tibet, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru stated in the parliament that the frontier from the eastwards has been defined by the McMahon Line which was fixed by the Simla Convention. He declared, “Our map show that the McMahon line is our boundary - map or no map. That fact remains and we stand by that boundary and we will not allow anybody to come across its boundary”.