Darjeeling History Club

The original document was documented by Vice Consul W.G.Gibson. It is basically a conversation between Prince Peter of Greece and a Consular Officer.

The link to the original document : https://darjeelinghistoryclub.in/e-documents/

This conversation took place on 10th of May, 1952, at Prince Peter’s residence in Kalimpong. Some of the details of the conversation are as follows –

• Permit – Prince Peter and French Consul General, Pierre Landy, were planning to go on a trek for 10 days or two weeks in Sikkim, if possible upto the Tibetan border. The permit had not yet arrived and the possibility of getting permission to go so near Tibet seemed dubious.
• Conversation with a Tibetan trader – The Prince said that he had been talking to a Tibetan trader that morning and that this man had reported that the shootng in Lhasa recently reported in the press had been very serious with “bodies lying about in the street.” Prince Peter said that he did not know whether the Tibetan nobles were being very ingenous and cowardly in collaborating so eagerly with the Chinese Communists or whether they were playing a double game and encouraging the common people to resist the agression. in any case, he said the nobles had turned over their houses to Chinese Communist officials and collaborated in many other ways (for instance, Mary La Tering / Tshering) the wife of Jigme, was teaching the Chinese Communists Tibetan.
• Trade between India and Tibet – Prince Peter said that the Himalaya Syndicate (controlled by Yangpel Pangdatshang) was sending quantities of shovels, pick-axes, and boots into Tibet. He was sure that no gasoline or lubricating oil was moving into Tibet, but did say that a Tibetan official had suceeded in getting across the border with five Land Rovers, which had been dis-assembled in Gangtok, and which reportedly would be re-assembled in Phari Dzong after crossing the pass (Prince Peter said that the government of India had interposed certain objections to this export of Land Rovers previously imported into India, but that it had been unable to ship the shipment for some reason).
• Kalimpong – Tibetan wool was still coming to Kalimpong in fairly significant quantities. The reason was that the buyers from Kalimpong had advanced the wool traders money and goods against future deliveries and the wool traders were now repaying this by bringing in the wool, even though buyers from Kalimpong were not very anxious to increase their stocks. Furthermore, since there was practically no other commodity, with which to load the mules moving southward, it was just about as cheap to bring in the wool as to bring the mules down empty.This might indicate that there was no demand in Tibet for wool, and not sufficient Chinese demand to justify overland transport to China.
• White Russian Refugees – Princess Irene’s emotional thoughts on White Russian Refugees.

Context of the Conversation – To understand this conversation clearly, we need to understand the context of the conversation. This conversation was documented in the year 1952, which was a decade, that fuelled the Cold War, in years to come. For example : The end of the 1950s witnessed what we refer to as “the Space Wars”. “The Cold” hasn’t gone away completely, even today in the year 2021. With the western countries encouraging more private ventures in space, and transforming space into a domain of power and influence, the chills of the Cold War are still very much prevalent.