POST & TELEGRAPH SYSTEM
The modern Tibetan postal service was built on courier systems used during the early Tibetan Empire and later Mongol Imperial rule. A “pony express” (atrung) service was used for official missives, while general mail was carried by a system of postal-runners (bhangchen or dakpa). A Central Post and Telegraph Office (dak-tar laykhung) was created in 1920 in Lhasa [61] which took over the old postal stations (tasam) throughout Tibet. Postage stamps of various denominations were indigenously designed and hand-printed, and are now collector’s items. Though not a signatory to the International Postal Treaty, a system was created so that letters from Tibet could be delivered to foreign addresses, [62] and letters from abroad be delivered inside Tibet.
Tibetan postage stamps and envelope with New Jersey address
Spencer Chapman, visiting Lhasa in 1936, declared that, “the postal and telegraph system is most efficient.” [63] The same system continued for some years after 1950. The Czech filmmaker Vladimir Cis (working for the Chinese Communist government) had a letter from his family in Prague delivered to him in the wilderness of Tibet by a postal-runner in 1954. [64]
A telegraph line from India to Lhasa was completed in 1923, along with a basic telephone service. Both were open for public use. The event was commemorated in a publication of the Royal Geographical Society, London. [65]
The Tibetan capital was electrified in 1927. The work of installing both the hydroelectric plant and the distribution system was undertaken near “single-handedly” [66] by a young Tibetan engineer, Ringang. All these projects were initiated and paid for by the Tibetan government.
Radio Lhasa was launched in 1948 and broadcasted news in Tibetan, English and Chinese. [67]
WITNESSES TO INDEPENDENT TIBET
The fact that Tibet was a peaceful, independent country is attested to by the writings of many impartial western observers who not only visited pre-invasion Tibet, but even lived there for considerable periods of time – as the titles of some of their memoirs seem to proudly proclaim: Twenty Years in Tibet by David McDonald [68], Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer [69], and even Eight Years in Tibet, the biography of Peter Aufschnieter. [70]
Richardson at a Lhasa garden party
The premier scholar on Tibet, Hugh Richardson, lived for nine years in Tibet, and his many writings [71] reveal a country that was functioning, orderly, peaceful and with a long history of political independence and cultural achievement. He later wrote, “The British government, the only government among Western countries to have had treaty relations with Tibet, sold the Tibetans down the river…” Richardson also acknowledged that he was “profoundly ashamed” [72] at the British government’s refusal to recognize Tibet ’s historically independent status.”
Sir Charles Bell
Another great scholar and diplomat, Charles Bell, regarded as the “architect of Britain ’s Tibet policy,” was convinced that Britain and America ’s refusal to recognize Tibetan independence (but which they sometimes tacitly acknowledged when it was to their advantage) was largely dictated by their desire “to increase their commercial profits in China.” [73]
It is almost certain that none of the official propagandists who demonize Tibet in Chinese publications had witnessed life in old Tibet. In fact, none of Beijing ’s Tibet propagandists in the West (Michael Parenti, Tom Grunfeld, Barry Sautman, Melvin Goldstein et al) [74] had visited Tibet before 1980. The first two misrepresent old Tibet by selectively quoting English journalists and officials (L. A. Waddell, Percival Landon, Edmund Candler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor) who accompanied the British invasion force of 1904, and who sought to justify that violent imperialist venture into Tibet by demonizing Tibetan society and government.
Dr. Shen with Tibetan Foreign Secretary, Surkhang Dzasa
The only high-ranking Chinese official with scholarly credentials who spent any length of time in old Tibet was Dr. Shen Tsung-lien, representative of the Republic of China in Lhasa (1944-1949). In his book Tibet and the Tibetans, Dr. Shen writes of a nation clearly distinct from China, and one that “…had enjoyed full independence since 1911.” He writes truthfully of a hierarchical, conservative society “fossilized many centuries back” but whose people were orderly, peaceable and hospitable – but also “notorious litigants,” adding that “few peoples in the world are such eloquent pleaders.” Shen also mentions “Appeals may be addressed to any office to which the disputants belong, or even to the Dalai Lama or his regent.” [75]
Jamyang Norbu
[61] Photographs of letter to Mr.A.C.Rosslier of Newark, NJ, and various Tibetan stamps.
[62] Chapman, F. Spencer.
[63] Cis, Peter.
[64] King, W.H. “The Telegraph to Lhasa ”,
[65] (Jun., 1924). Pp 527-531. Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).
Group photograph of officials, engineers, crew and local laborers involved with the telegraph line. Sitting from left to right: Mr. Sonam Tsering of Kalimpong (sent on deputation by Indian Postal Dept.), first telegraph master of Lhasa. Mr. Ringang, Mr. W.H. King (chief engineer), Mr.W.P.Rosemeyer (assistant engineer), and Mr Kyibuk, official interpreter. The officials Kesura and Jorgay were also employed as supervisors, but are not in the photograph.
[66] In 1948, Radio Lhasa started the first of its daily broadcasts to the outside world. At five p.m., the station would go on air. The news was read in Tibetan, and then in English by Reginald Fox or by Kyibuk, one of the surviving Rugby students and an official at the Tibetan Foreign Bureau. Finally, the news was read in Chinese by Phuntsok Tashi Takla, the Dalai Lama’s brother-in-law. Official announcements were also read over the radio, as this one prepared by Aufschnaiter: “We have the honour to announce that Radio Lhasa will broadcast an announcement of the enthronement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the ruler of Tibet, together with a proclamation of the Tibetan government to the Tibetan people and the world, on Friday 17 November 1950, at 5.45 p.m. Indian Standard Time.” (Brauen, Martin.
[67] David, MacDonald.
[68] Harrer, Heinrich.
[69] Brauen, Martin.
[70] Richardson, H.E.
Richardson, H.E. and David Snellgrove.
Richardson, H.E.