This article lists the political officers in the Kingdom of Sikkim from 1889 to 1975. Until 1947, political officers were British and acted as local representatives of the British Empire and British Raj. Following its independence in 1947, India continued to appoint its own political officers until 1975, when Sikkim became the 22nd state of India following a referendum. [1] The officer also oversaw British trade agencies in Tibet. [2]
(Dates in italics indicate de facto continuation of office)
| No. | Portrait | Name | Term | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| British Political Officers | ||||
| 1 |  | John Claude White | 1889 – April 1908 | |
| 2 |  | Charles Alfred Bell | September 1906 – January 1907 | Acting for White |
| 3 | | Charles Alfred Bell | April 1908 – April 1918 | 1st time |
| 4 | James Leslie Rose Weir | 10 August 1911 – 8 November 1911 | Acting for Bell | |
| 5 |  | Basil Gould | 13 October 1913 – 5 October 1914 | Acting for Bell |
| 6 | William L. Campbell | April 1918 – January 1920 | Acting to March 1919 | |
| 7 | | Charles Alfred Bell | January 1920 – December 1920 | 2nd time |
| 8 | John Bartley | 7 December 1920 – 24 January 1921 | Acting | |
| 9 |  | William Frederick Travers O'Connor | January 1921 – March 1921 | 1st time, acting |
| 10 | David Macdonald | March 1921 – 18 June 1921 | ||
| 11 |  | Frederick Marshman Bailey | 19 June 1921 – 6 June 1926 | 1st time |
| 12 | Frederick Williamson | 7 June 1926 – 16 December 1926 | 1st time, acting | |
| 13 | | Frederick Marshman Bailey | 16 December 1926 – 16 October 1928 | 2nd time |
| 14 | James Leslie Rose Weir | 16 October 1928 – 2 April 1931 | 1st time | |
| 15 | Frederick Williamson | 3 April 1931 – August 1931 | 2nd time, acting | |
| 16 | James Leslie Rose Weir | 5 November 1931 – 3 January 1933 | 2nd time | |
| 17 | Frederick Williamson | 4 January 1933 – 17 November 1935 | 3rd time | |
| 18 | Richmond Keith Molesworth Battye | 18 November 1935 – 22 December 1935 | Acting | |
| 19 | | Basil Gould | 22 December 1935 – May 1937 | 1st time |
| 20 |  | Hugh Edward Richardson | May 1937 – November 1937 | Acting |
| 21 | | Basil Gould | November 1937 – June 1945 | 2nd time. From 1941, Sir Basil Gould |
| 22 | Arthur John Hopkinson | June 1945 – 14 August 1947 | ||
| Indian Political Officers | ||||
| 23 | Arthur John Hopkinson | 15 August 1947 – 1948 | ||
| 24 | Harishwar Dayal | 1948–1952 | ||
| 25 | Balraj Krishna Kapur | March 1952 – 1955 | ||
| 26 | Apa Parshuram Rao Pant | 1955–1961 | ||
| 27 | Inder Jeet Bahadur Singh | 23 October 1961 – December 1963 | ||
| 28 | Avtar Singh | 1964–1966 | ||
| 29 | Vincent Herbert Coelho | 1966 – 21 June 1967 | ||
| 30 | Nedyam Balachandran Menon | 3 July 1967 – May 1970 | ||
| 31 | Inder Sen Chopra | 1970 – July 1972 | ||
| 32 | Kayatyani Shankar Bajpai | 1972–1974 | ||
| 33 | Gurbachan Singh | 1974 – 16 May 1975 | ||
Bhutan's early history is steeped in mythology and remains obscure. Some of the structures provide evidence that the region has been settled as early as 2000 BC. According to a legend it was ruled by a Cooch-Behar king, Sangaldip, around the 7th century BC, but not much is known prior to the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism in the 9th century, when turmoil in Tibet forced many monks to flee to Bhutan. In the 12th century, the Drukpa Kagyupa school was established and remains the dominant form of Buddhism in Bhutan today. The country's political history is intimately tied to its religious history and relations among the various monastic schools and monasteries.
Suzerainty includes the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity which controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, but allows the tributary state internal autonomy. Where the subordinate party is called a vassal, vassal state or tributary state, the dominant party is called a suzerain. The rights and obligations of a vassal are called vassalage, and the rights and obligations of a suzerain are called suzerainty.
Jelep La elevation 14,390 feet (4,390 m), is a high mountain pass between Sikkim, India and Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is on a route that connects Lhasa to India. The pass is about 4 km (2.5 mi) south of Nathu La and is slightly higher. It was frequently used for trade between Tibet and India during the British Raj, with Kalimpong serving as the contact point. The Menmecho Lake lies below the Jelep La.
Nathu La(Tibetan: རྣ་ཐོས་ལ་, Wylie: Rna thos la, THL: Na tö la, Sikkimese: རྣ་ཐོས་ལ་) is a mountain pass in the Dongkya Range of the Himalayas between China's Yadong County in Tibet, and the Indian states of Sikkim. But minor touch of Bengal in South Asia. The pass, at 4,310 m (14,140 ft), connects the towns of Kalimpong and Gangtok to the villages and towns of the lower Chumbi Valley.
The history of Sikkim begins with the indigenous Lepcha's contact with early Tibetan settlers. Historically, Sikkim was a sovereign Monarchical State in the eastern Himalayas. Later a protectorate of India followed by a merger with India and official recognition as a state of India. Lepchas were the main inhabitants as well as the Ruler of the land up to 1641. Lepchas are generally considered to be the first people, indigenous to Sikkim also includes Darjeeling.
The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan, is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Chumbi Valley is connected to Sikkim to the southwest via the mountain passes of Nathu La and Jelep La.
A salute state was a princely state under the British Raj that had been granted a gun salute by the British Crown ; i.e., the protocolary privilege for its ruler to be greeted—originally by Royal Navy ships, later also on land—with a number of cannon shots, in graduations of two salutes from three to 21, as recognition of the state's relative status. The gun-salute system of recognition was first instituted during the time of the East India Company in the late 18th century and was continued under direct Crown rule from 1858.
The British expedition to Tibet, also known as the Younghusband expedition, began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian Armed Forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim. In the nineteenth century, the British had conquered Burma and Sikkim, with the whole southern flank of Tibet coming under the control of the British Indian Empire. Tibet ruled by the Dalai Lama under the Ganden Phodrang government was a Himalayan state under the protectorate of the Chinese Qing dynasty until the 1911 Revolution, after which a period of de facto Tibetan independence (1912–1951) followed.
The Sino–Indian border dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute over the sovereignty of two relatively large, and several smaller, separated pieces of territory between China and India. The first of the territories, Aksai Chin, is administered by China and claimed by India; it is mostly uninhabited high-altitude wasteland but with some significant pasture lands at the margins. It lies at the intersection of Kashmir, Tibet and Xinjiang, and is crossed by China's Xinjiang-Tibet Highway; the other disputed territory is south of the McMahon Line, in the area formerly known as the North-East Frontier Agency and now a state called Arunachal Pradesh. It is administered by India and claimed by China. The McMahon Line was signed between British India and Tibet to form part of the 1914 Simla Convention, but the latter was never ratified by China. China disowns the McMahon Line agreement, stating that Tibet was not independent when it signed the Simla Convention.
Yatung or Yadong, also known as Shasima , is the principal town in the Chumbi Valley or Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is also its administrative headquarters.
The Kingdom of Sikkim, officially Dremoshong until the 1800s, was a hereditary monarchy in the Eastern Himalayas which existed from 1642 to 16 May 1975, when it was annexed by India. It was ruled by Chogyals of the Namgyal dynasty.
The bilateral relation between Nepal and China is defined by the Sino-Nepalese Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed on April 28, 1960, by the two countries. Though initially unenthusiastic, Nepal has been of late making efforts to increase trade and connectivity with China. Relations between Nepal and China got a boost when both countries solved all border disputes along the China–Nepal border by signing the Sino-Nepal boundary agreement on March 21, 1960, making Nepal the first neighboring country of China to agree to and ratify a border treaty with China. The government of both Nepal and China ratified the border agreement treaty on October 5, 1961. From 1975 onward, Nepal has maintained a policy of balancing the competing influence of China and Nepal's southern neighbor India, the only two neighbors of the Himalayan country after the accession of the Kingdom of Sikkim into India in 1975.
The Treaty of Tumlong was a March 1861 treaty between the British Empire and the Kingdom of Sikkim in present-day north-east India. Signed by Sir Ashley Eden on behalf of the British and by the Sikkimese Chogyal, Sidkeong Namgyal when his father Tsugphud Namgyal refused to return from Tibet, the treaty secured protection for travellers to Sikkim and guaranteed free trade, thereby making the state a de facto British protectorate.
John Claude White was an engineer, photographer, author and civil servant in British India. From 1889 to 1908, White was the political officer in Sikkim, then a British protectorate. As part of his remit, he also managed British India's relations with Tibet and Bhutan.
Gipmochi is a mountain in the Lower Himalayas in south central Asia. Rising to a height of 14,523 feet (4,427 m), the mountain sits on the border between the northern Indian state of Sikkim and Bhutan. China claims Gipmochi as the China–India–Bhutan tri-junction point. Bhutan and India, however, claim that the tri-junction is 6.5 km to the north, at Batang La.
The Convention of Calcutta or Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890, officially the Convention Between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet, was a treaty between Britain and Qing China relating to Tibet and the Kingdom of Sikkim. It was signed by Viceroy of India Lord Lansdowne and the Chinese Amban in Tibet, Sheng Tai, on 17 March 1890 in Calcutta, India. The Convention recognized a British protectorate over Sikkim and demarcated the Sikkim–Tibet border.
Doklam, called Donglang by China, is an area in Bhutan with a high plateau and a valley, lying between China's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha District to the east and India's Sikkim state to the west. It has been depicted as part of Bhutan in the Bhutanese maps since 1961, but it is also claimed by China. The dispute has not been resolved despite several rounds of border negotiations between Bhutan and China. The area is of strategic importance to all three countries.
Tibet–India relations are said to have begun during the spread of Buddhism to Tibet from India during the 6th century AD. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India after the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising. Since then, Tibetans-in-exile have been given asylum in India, with the Indian government accommodating them into 45 residential settlements across 10 states in the country, creating the Tibetan diaspora. From around 150,000 Tibetan refugees in 2011, the number fell to 85,000 in 2018, according to government data. Many Tibetans are now leaving India to go back to Tibet and other countries such as United States or Germany. The Government of India, soon after India's independence in 1947, treated Tibet as a de facto independent country. However, more recently India's policy on Tibet has been mindful of Chinese sensibilities, and has recognized Tibet as a part of China.
The Five Fingers of Tibet was a Chinese territorial claim to the Himalayan region bordering India attributed to Mao Zedong. It considers Tibet to be China's right hand palm, with five fingers on its periphery: Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and North-East Frontier Agency that are considered China's responsibility to "liberate". The policy however has never been discussed in official Chinese public statements and is now dormant, but concerns have often been raised over its possible continued existence or revival.
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