In the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh abutting China lies a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Tawang. Galden Namgey Lhatse, as the monastery is called, is the second biggest in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The 341-year-old shrine was built in accordance with the wishes of the 5th Dalai Lama, Nagwang Lobsang Gyatso, who ruled over Tawang from Lhasa. The sixth Dalai Lama was born in Tawang. Texts at the monastery say 14-year-old Tsangyang Gyatso was identified as a reincarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama and taken to Lhasa from Urgelling in 1697. According to records at the monastery, most of the food consumed in Tibet was grown in Tawang and the region accounted for a third of Tibetan economy.
Even though the British claimed Tawang as per the 1914 Simla accord, they never ruled Tawang. India gained independence in 1947 but took control of Tawang only in 1951, when it pushed Tibetan officials out of the area. Even though Chinese control of Tibet was still a few years away, Chinese scholars blame India’s cunning in taking advantage of Beijing’s military commitment in the Korean War at the time. Not that other parts of the disputed India-China boundary are easy to resolve, but for New Delhi, Beijing’s claim to Tawang remains one of the biggest hurdles in reaching a boundary settlement.
An agreement signed by the two countries in 2005 stated that “in reaching a boundary settlement, the two sides shall safeguard due interests of their settled population in the border areas.” This would imply that Tawang would come to India, but China insists that it is an inalienable part of Tibet. Dai Bingguo, who served as Beijing’s Special Representative for border talks with India between 2003 and 2013, wrote in an article in 2017 that “the major reason the boundary question persists is that China’s reasonable requests [in the east] have not been met.”