For centuries, Tibetans and people in the southern Himalayan region and beyond in the Indian subcontinent have engaged in trade and commerce for mutual benefit. ‘Bhotbagan Math’ at Ghusuri in Howrah, on the banks of river Hooghly opposite the city of Kolkata, is a testament of these early relations. 

Having realized the potential of Tibet trade, when Warren Hastings, the first British Governor General of India, sent his emissary George Bogle in 1774 to Shigatse, the Panchen Lama, whose seat was there, requested for a piece of land to set up a Buddhist temple and a guest house for Tibetan lamas and traders visiting Kolkata. Hastings had allocated a sprawling plot of prime land in Howrah.

After the Anglo-Bhutan war of 1864 and the incorporation of the Kalimpong hills in British India, the town of Kalimpong, now in the Indian state of West Bengal, had turned into a thriving centre of trade with Tibet. Old videos of the 1950s would show people of different nationalities milling around in the Kalimpong market: Europeans in hats, riding horses, Tibetan and Bhutanese businessmen in their flowing robes and knee-high shoes, traders from the plains of India in their ‘dhoti.’ 

Tibetan traders arrived in large numbers, through Chumbi Vallley and across Jelep La and Nathu La passes. Wool from Tibet was in great demand, carried on the backs of mule caravans. They would take back manufactured items from Kalimpong. The sprawling wool warehouses and the watering holes for mules are the relics of this once-thriving trade. The most talked-about item that had been taken to Tibet along this route was an automobile, carried in knocked-down condition on the back of mules and reassembled in Tibet for the use of the 13thDalai Lama.

Relations of trade between Ladakh and western Tibet were even older. In the 17thcentury, the Namgyal kings of Ladakh negotiated with Tibet to win the monopoly in trading of the famous pashmina wool. Ladakhi traders would procure the prime wool available from pashmina goats reared in the plateau of western Tibet and sell the wool to Kashmiri shawl makers who would weave the exquisite pashmina shawls from this wool. The royalty that the Ladakhi kings would make from this trade had made Ladakh prosperous in those days. The sale of pashmina wool had brought prosperity to western Tibet too.

People living in the upper Himalayan ridges in Arunachal Pradesh were also engaged in trading with Tibet. People of Tawang and BomdiLa, of Upper Subansiri, Siang and Lohit had strong ties of trade and commerce with people of Tibet. 

The Chinese aggressions launched all along the border since 1958, culminating in the Sino-Indian war of 1962, brought to an end this trade. Jelep La and Nathu La passes were closed, so also the routes to Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh. The borders between Ladakh and Tibet became the domain of Indian and Chinese militaries. Kalimpong is today a shadow of its glorious past. Ladakh has to woo tourists in search of prosperity. Communities in Upper Siang have fallen back on farming as the alternative occupation. Western Tibet is a backyard of China for the extraction of valuable minerals.

Following the visit of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988 and the signing of a “Protocol for Resumption of Border Trade,” two border trade points were opened between India and Tibet; one across Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand in 1992 and the other across Shipki La pass in Himachal Pradesh, in 1995. In 2012, the Indian imports through Lipulekh were worth Rs 1.84 crore while Indian exports were worth Rs 88 lakh. The respective figures in 2011 were Rs 1.49 crore and Rs 1.12 crore. The items traded were tailored to the needs of the local people in India and those in Tibet. Through Shipki La in 2012 goods worth Rs 45 lakh were exported by Indian traders and goods worth Rs 62 lakh were imported from Tibet.

The initiative to open the Nathu La trade route in Sikkim was taken by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when he visited China in 2003. The route was opened to trade in 2006. The notable point is that the initiatives for border trade, which are meant essentially to help the local people in Tibet and the southern slopes of the Himalayas, have come from India. 

The scope of the trade through the Nathu La route has been wider than that through the other two routes. In 2016, the value of exports from Sikkim to the Tibet Autonomous Region was over Rs 63 crore while imports from TAR to Sikkim amounted to Rs 19 crore. The list of exportable items through Nathu La is 34 and the list of importable items 19.

Unfortunately, however, the thriving border trade through Nathu La and the other two routes has come to a halt since 2020 when the Chinese army carried out a surprise incursion in disputed areas in eastern Ladakh in violation of a series of bilateral protocols between India and China. Officially, the reason for the suspension in border trade is shown to be the pandemic, but the fact remains that the pandemic ended long ago while the trade remains suspended for the past five years. The real reason for the suspension in trade is aggressive moves by China on the border, beginning in 2017 with the incursion in the Doklam Plateau in Bhutan, which is close to Nathu La.

The prolonged closure of the border trade has hit the common people of Sikkim as well as those of the Tibet Autonomous Region, according to General Secretary of Gangtok-based Nathu La Border Trade Association Tshephel Tenzing. Nearly 400 families depending on border trade between Sikkim and Tibet are facing difficulties. In a year, 400 trade passes used to be issued to traders in Sikkim to do business with traders in Tibet. The Association has written to the Sikkim Government to provide these traders with alternative employment. About 150 drivers ferrying merchandise from Gangtok to the Sherathang trade mart on the Indian side and Rinchengong on the Tibetan side are facing loss of income since the closure of the trade. Some of them have now started driving taxis and buses on the mainline passenger routes in Sikkim.

Tibetan traders and labourers are also facing financial hardships since the closure of the trade, Tenzing says. He had interactions with Tibetan traders at the trade marts when trading was on. Since the beginning of the border trade, the financial conditions of these Tibetans had improved. Most of the Tibetan labourers engaged in the border trade came from Tromo County, a part of the Shigatse prefecture in the plateau. Only they could travel up to the Indian trade mart at Sherathang, not the Chinese businessmen engaged in the border trade. The Tibetan traders and labourers in Tromo County have suffered the most because of the closure of the Nathu La border trade.

The repeated Chinese aggressions across the border with India have thus brought only suffering and hardships for the common people in the trans-Himalayan region. But the Chinese communist rulers do not care for them.