Indian, Tibetan flags waved at unsung martyr's funeral; Ram Madhav pays homage, but deletes tweet

Indian and Tibetan flags were waved side-by-side at the funeral of Nyima Tenzin in Leh on Monday – a week after the Special Frontier Force soldier was killed during an operation to pre-empt a fresh move by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on Pangong Tso’s south bank in eastern Ladakh.

The general secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Ram Madhav, attended the funeral, but quickly deleted the tweet he posted paying homage to the fallen “Company Leader” of the Special Frontier Force (SFF) soldier. The government too remained silent on the supreme sacrifice made by the 51-year-old Tibetan while fighting for India resisting the Chinese PLA’s aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Madhav placed a wreath on the coffin of Tenzin as people waved not only the tricolour of India, but also the snow-lion flag, which continued to be an icon of independence of Tibet, in spite of being banned by the Chinese Government.

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The BJP general secretary did acknowledge in his tweet that Tenzin laid down his life “protecting” India’s borders in Ladakh. He also wished for peace along the “Indo-Tibetan border”, stating that it would be the “real tribute” to all martyrs. He, however, deleted his tweet later.

The Indian Army had earlier lost 21 of its soldiers in a violent face-off with the Chinese PLA in Galwan Valley on June 15. President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then led the nation to pay homage to the martyrs.

Tenzin, who served the SFF for 33 years, was killed when the Indian Army carried out an operation in the late hours of August 29 and early hours of August 30 to pre-empt an imminent move by the Chinese PLA to push the LAC westwards on the south bank of Pangong Tso (lake) and to occupy the territory of India.

But his martyrdom remained unacknowledged, because he belonged to the SFF – an elite paramilitary force, which had been raised during the India-China war in 1962 with most of its recruits being young refugees and guerrilla soldiers from Tibet.

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The SFF has always been kept under a shroud of secrecy. The valour of its soldiers was never officially acknowledged, even as they fought valiantly shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Indian Army and made supreme sacrifices – be it during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh or during the 1999 Kargil War.

The SFF, a.k.a. “Establishment 22”, is under administrative control of the intelligence establishment of India, although it is placed under the command of the Indian Army, whenever it is required to carry out covert operations. With most of its men still refugees or descendants of refugees from Tibet, New Delhi continues to keep the SFF under wraps, just as it never officially acknowledges the existence of the Tibetan Government in Exile in India – ostensibly to avoid complications in its diplomatic relations with China.

The Indian Army apparently factored in the familiarity of the SFF personnel with the terrain along Ladakh-Tibet border region, when it decided to deploy the highland warriors to support operations to counter the Chinese PLA’s expansionist moves along the LAC. It came just after China claimed that thousands of youths in its Tibet Autonomous Region joined the PLA amid the military stand-off along the disputed boundary with India.