Tawang

The Monyul region covering Eastern Bhutan and the Tawang tract (Survey of India, 1936)

Birthplace of 6th Dalai Lama, Ugyenling Monastery, near Tawang[5]

Tawang is inhabited by the Monpa people. The Tawang Monastery was founded by the Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso in 1681 in accordance with the wishes of the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, and has a legend surrounding its name. Ta means "horse" and wang means "chosen". So, the word Tawang means "chosen by horse". As per a legend, the Monastery is believed to have been chosen by a Horse Owned by Mera Lama Lodre Gyatso.[6] The sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was born in Tawang.

Tawang was historically under the control of Tibet. During the 1914 Simla Conference, Tibet and British India signed an agreement delineating their common boundary in the Assam Himalaya region, which came to be known as the McMahon Line. By this agreement, Tibet relinquished several hundred square miles of its territory, including Tawang, to the British. The agreement was not recognized by China.[7] According to Tsering Shakya, the British records show that the Tibetans regarded the border agreed in 1914 as being conditional upon China accepting the Simla Convention. Since the British were unable to get China's acceptance, the Tibetans regarded the MacMahon line "invalid".[7]

The British did not implement the McMahon Line for over two decades, during which Tawang continued to be administered by Tibet. When the British botanist Frank Kingdon-Ward crossed the Sela Pass and entered Tawang in 1935 without permission from Tibet, he was briefly arrested. The Tibetan government lodged a formal complaint against Britain.[8] This drew the attention of the British, who re-examined the Indo-Tibetan border, and attempted to revive the McMahon Line.[8] In November, the British government demanded that Tibet implement the border agreement. This met with resistance from the Tibetan government which implied that China's acceptance of the Simla Convention was a prerequisite to all such concerns.[9] Tibet refused to surrender Tawang, partly because of the importance attached to the Tawang Monastery. In 1938 the British made a move to assert sovereignty over Tawang by sending a small military column under Capt. G.S. Lightfoot to Tawang.[10] The invasion was met with strong resistance from the Tibetan government, a serious protest was lodged against the British Indian government.

After the outbreak of the war between China and Japan in 1941, the government of Assam undertook a number of 'forward policy' measures to tighten their hold on the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) area, which later became Arunachal Pradesh. In 1944 administrative control was extended over the area of the Tawang tract lying south of the Sela Pass when J.P. Mills set up an Assam Rifles post at Dirang Dzong and sent the Tibetan tax-collectors packing. Tibetan protests were brushed aside. However, no steps were taken to evict Tibet from the area north of the pass which contained Tawang town.[11]

The situation continued after India's independence from Britain but underwent a decisive change in 1950 when Tibet lost its autonomy and was incorporated into the newly established People's Republic of China. In February 1951, India sent an official with a small escort and several hundred porters to Tawang and took control of the remainder of the Tawang tract from the Tibetans, removing the Tibetan administration.[12][lower-alpha 1] The Indian efforts were warmly welcomed by the native population as a respite from an oppressive feudal regime. During the Sino-Indian war of 1962, Tawang was briefly under Chinese control, but China voluntarily withdrew its troops at the end of the war, and Tawang returned to Indian administration. But China has not relinquished its claims on most of Arunachal Pradesh including Tawang.[14]

Tawang district

Tawang town is located approximately 555 kilometres (345 mi) from Guwahati and 320 kilometres (200 mi) from Tezpur. Tawang has an average elevation of 2,669 metres (8,757 ft). Tawang, north of Sela Pass/Tunnel, is in the basin of Tawang Chu.

The climate is temperate in Tawang. In winter, there is much less rainfall in Tawang than in summer. According to Köppen and Geiger, this climate is classified as Cwb. The average temperature in Tawang is 5.5 °C. The average annual rainfall is 3,080 millimetres (121 in).[15]

As of the 2011 census, Tawang had a population of 11,202.[16]

The 8m tall statue of the Shakyamuni Buddha in the Tawang Monastery

Tawang Monastery was founded by the Mera Lama Lodre Gyatso in accordance to the wishes of the 5th Dalai Lama, Nagwang Lobsang Gyatso. It belongs to the Gelugpa sect and is the largest Buddhist monastery in India. The name Tawang (Tibetan: རྟ་དབང་, Wylie: Rta-dbang) means "horse chosen".[17] It is said to be the biggest Buddhist monastery in the world outside of Lhasa, Tibet.[18] It is a major holy site for Tibetan Buddhists as it was the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama.[19]

When the 14th Dalai Lama fled from Tibet to escape from the Chinese army, he crossed into India on 30 March 1959 and spent some days at the Tawang Monastery before reaching Tezpur in Assam on 18 April.[20] In 2007, the Dalai Lama acknowledged that both the Tibetan government and Britain recognized the McMahon Line in 1914.[19][21] He visited Tawang on 8 November 2009. About 30,000 people, including those from neighbouring Nepal and Bhutan, attended his religious discourse.[22]

Sheets of paper left to dry on individual moulds on the mountain slope near Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, 1914.

Tawang receives snowfall every year during December–January.[32] There is also a ski lift in town. Tawang is the most famous tourist destination in Arunachal Pradesh. Visitors to Tawang, as is the case with the entire Arunachal Pradesh, require special Inner Line Permit (ILP) issued by the concerned government body and can be obtained from offices based in Kolkata, Guwahati, Tezpur, and New Delhi. Most of the travel from the plains is on a steep hill road journey, crossing Sela Pass at 4,176 metres (13,701 ft). Tourists can travel to Tawang from Tezpur, Assam by road and Tezpur has direct flights from Kolkata. In Oct 2014, a biweekly helicopter service from Guwahati was started by the Arunachal Pradesh government.

Other notable and worth visiting places include: Sela Pass, Bumla, Lumla, Shonga-tser (Madhuri) Lake, PTSO Lake, Zemithang.

• China–India relations
• Tourism in North East India

• Gyume Dorje. (1999). Footprint Tibet Handbook with Bhutan. Footprint Handbooks, Bath, England. ISBN 0-8442-2190-2.
• Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1991), A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-91176-5
• Maxwell, Neville (1970), India's China War, Pantheon Books, ISBN 978-0-394-47051-1 – via archive.org
  • Maxwell, Neville (1972). India's China War. Anchor Books.
• Mayilvaganan, M.; Khatoon, Nasima; Bej, Sourina, eds. (2020), Tawang, Monpas and Tibetan Buddhism in Transition: Life and Society along the India-China Borderland, Springer Singapore, ISBN 9789811543463
  • Nanda, Neeru (2020), "Tawang and the Mon in their Borderlands: A Historical Overview", in M. Mayilvaganan; Nasima Khatoon; Sourina Bej (eds.), Tawang, Monpas and Tibetan Buddhism in Transition: Life and Society along the India-China Borderland, Springer Singapore, pp. 29–44, ISBN 9789811543463
• Mehra, Parshotam (1974), The McMahon Line and After: A Study of the Triangular Contest on India's North-eastern Frontier Between Britain, China and Tibet, 1904-47, Macmillan, ISBN 9780333157374 – via archive.org
• Richardson, Hugh (1984). Tibet & Its History (2nd ed.). Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0-87773-376-7.
• Shakya, Tsering (1999), The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947, Columbia University Press, pp. 279–, ISBN 978-0-231-11814-9
  • Shakya, Tsering (2012), Dragon In The Land Of Snows: The History of Modern Tibet since 1947, Random House, ISBN 978-1-4481-1429-0
• Tenpa, Lobsang (2018), An Early History of the Mon Region (India) and its Relationship with Tibet and Bhutan, South & Inner Asian Studies/ Tibetan & Himalayan Studies, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, ISBN 9789387023345
• Van Eekelen, Willem Frederik (1967), Indian Foreign Policy and the Border Dispute with China, Springer, ISBN 978-94-017-6555-8

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tawang.

• Official website
• Tawang travel guide from Wikivoyage