Why is the story of Ockenden important?

My first encounter with the story of the Ockenden incident, in its barest form, occurred in the summer of 2017 during a research trip to the Tibetan Bonpo settlement in Dolanji, northern India. Sangye, after 2 years of the incident, in 1968, was selected through the traditional Bon system of the lot (Tib: rtags sgril) the thirty-third Menri Trizin, the titular head of the Bon religious community, and assumed the religious name of Lungtok Tenpai Nyima. The six Bonpo boys from the Ockenden school were popularly known among the first generation of exiled Bonpos as “Bon trug druk” (six bonpo children). As a result, the story of the Ockenden incident, in its broader outline, is intimately familiar to the older generations of exiled Bonpo community. It informed their sense of history, identity, and belonging in exile. Outside this community, this story is virtually unknown.

A brief reference we find to the Ockenden incident in Gyaltsen Choden's memoir, a former staff at the Ockenden school, the whole incident is characterized as students revolting against the unrestrained harsh corporal punishment by the school authorities, specifically by Dexter (chos ldan 2016, p. 366). According to this account, the Ockenden incident was an uncomplicated case of students revolting against the harsh discipline of the school. Yet, the exiled Bonpos today remembers the incident differently. Some of the first generations of Bonpos, whom I interviewed, narrate the incident as one of the early instances of the marginalization of Bonpos from the exile Tibetan (Buddhist) national order. The archive of the incident partly confirms this Bonpo's version of the story. They point us to the deep entanglement of the Ockenden story with the broader political processes of nation-building in exile. Since as we will see in the following text, at the heart of the Ockenden incident and what followed afterward was the desire of the exiled Tibetan leadership to control the production and dissemination of the “right” historical knowledge to – as it is popularly referred to among exiled Tibetans – the “future seeds” of the nation. Like in many colonized societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the historical emergence of the ideology of nationalism and popular sovereignty among Tibetans, especially in the post-exile years, history was enlisted by the Tibetan leadership to serve the emergent idea of the nation (see Banerjee Reference Banerjee, Daura, Murthy and Sartori2014; Chatterjee Reference Chatterjee2005; Duara Reference Duara1996; Winichakul Reference Winichakul, Daura, Murthy and Sartori2014). This history was “the History” of the Tibetan nation that has its beginning in antiquity, and as history's sovereign subject, travels through time, often unconscious of its self-sameness but gradually overcoming the challenges of history to eventually realize its moral and political destiny of being a nation in the present.

Yet, the practice of writing national history has never been singular. In the early moments of discursive formation, the ideological terrain of history writing was deeply contested by different groups within the nation. Only through the historical process of contestation, co-option, and marginalization of alternative histories and nationalist visions a particular strand of nationalist thought became dominant. This nationalist thought retrospectively produced its own history, the official biography of the nation that projected the historical emergence of national consciousness as not only inevitable but morally and politically necessary. As a part of the exiled Tibetan leadership's new governmental strategies, this emergent practice of writing national history simultaneously imposed historical amnesia on exiled Tibetans about the contested and contingent history of the nation formation. The uncomfortable episodes from the past, especially stories from the early two decades in exileFootnote ⁷ that do not fit into the standard meta-narrative of unity and harmonious nation-building process in exile, were excluded from the official inventory of nationalist historiography. Such hegemonic construction of linear evolutionary history and suppression of contested memories gave the contemporary dominant nationalist thought among exiled Tibetans an aura of naturalness imagined to be without history.

The scholarships on exile Tibet have, by and large, reflected this historical erasure. With a few exceptions (Dhompa Reference Dhompa2021; Frechette Reference Frechette2002; McGranahan Reference McGranahan2010; Norbu Reference Norbu2016; Tethong Reference Tethong2000), the history of the early two decades of Tibetans in exile is largely ignored. This period was a crucial formative year in the nation-building process when the official version of the history and discourse on Tibet was being standardized. Instead, the history of exile Tibet is predominantly narrated through a series of what are best characterized as “paradigmatic memorialized events” (e.g., the March 1959 Uprising, 1960 Oath of Allegiance, 1963 declaration of the future constitution of Tibet, 1970 founding of Tibetan Youth Congress, 1991 adoption of Tibetan charter by the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, etc.). The historical narrative that emerges from these paradigmatic memorialized events broadly aligns with the nationalist meta-historical narrative of the gradual evolution of Tibetan national consciousness in exile, where the voices of dissension, although briefly underlined, are nevertheless internal to the nation (see Avedon Reference Avedon1994; Bernstorff and Hubertus Reference Bernstorff and von Welck2003; bod mi mang spyi ‘thus lhan tshogs 2014; Brox Reference Brox2016; Kharat Reference Kharat2003; Roemer Reference Roemer2008; Su'u cu hor 2009). Yet despite this gap in our knowledge of the early exile Tibetan history, the hegemonic status of the above paradigmatic memorialized events marks the “in-between phases” of our past as analytically blank. A past that is unknown yet remains firmly entrenched as unassailable truths in the depiction of Tibet's past. A past that may contain “extra” details, but its overall narrative structure is intimately familiar. The Ockenden story disrupts this hegemonic nationalist narrative in significant and fundamental ways. As a fragmentary and forgotten episode from the exile Tibetan past, Ockenden's story speaks of differential histories and worldviews. It shows us that the contemporary hegemonic discourse of “unity” among exiled Tibetans was not only a product of recent history but was historically one of the many visions of organizing the nation that became dominant after co-opting and subjugating alternative histories and future visions. In other words, in those early years of exile, the future of exiled Tibetans, as “realized” in the present, was by no means clear. Instead, as we will see in the following text, there existed among historically varied constituted groups, such as exiled Bonpos, a desire for a different future.

Schooling the nation in exile

Historically, the introduction of nation-wide schooling was part of a political project of the modern nation-state to construct right, and responsibility-bearing national citizens from the previous, at least the expectation of the ruling authority was passive subjects of the state (see Judge Reference Judge1996; Marshall Reference Marshall1995; Vickers and Kumar Reference Vickers and Kumar2015; Weber Reference Weber1976). This shift in the orientation of the modern state and its political elites toward their subject was part of the larger cultural and political shift that was introduced first in Europe with the emergence of new modern discourse of nationalism and national sovereignty and later in the colonies through imperial globalization of this nationalist paradigm (see Anderson Reference Anderson2006; Chatterjee [1986] Reference Chatterjee1993). At these state-run national schools, modernizing nationalist elites performed what appeared to them as their preordained historical pedagogical role vis-à-vis illiterate majority members of the nation, that is, teaching the masses to think and speak of themselves as an indivisible part of the “nation” (Duara Reference Duara1996; Harrison Reference Harrison2000; Merkel-Hess Reference Merkel-Hess2016).

Among the first acts the Dalai Lama spearheaded after seeking asylum in 1959 was requesting provisions from the GOI for Tibetan schools (Lama Reference Lama2008). Unlike in Tibet, these schools were open to all children of exiled Tibetan.Footnote ⁸ In fact, the Tibetan leadership, through their network of officials across India, actively encouraged exiled Tibetans, at the behest of the Dalai Lama, to send their children to these schools for their and the nation's future. Since the emergent nationalist paradigm required the making of former state subjects into national citizens, these schools were seen by the exiled Tibetan leadership as fundamental to producing a new generation of exile Tibetan youth with a radically different worldview from their parent's generation. A worldview shaped and defined by the emergent ideas of the nation. With Nehru's assent, in 1961, the TSS was created to oversee and assist in establishing schools for Tibetan refugees. In all matters of formulation of the education policy, curriculum, administration of the schools, training, and appointment of Tibetan teachers, the Dalai Lama-led government-in-exile was closely involved as the sole recognized representative of the Tibetans in exile (Narayan Reference Narayan1965; rgyal mtshan 2000). Therefore, in the absence of one's own state apparatuses, Tibetan leadership in exile, through close coordination with the GOI, had considerable control over one of the primary ideological institutions in the modern world. By 1965 exiled Tibetan government had under its jurisdiction, direct and indirect, seven residential schools, eight-day schools, and many smaller transit schools with approximately 6,000 students in total (Narayan Reference Narayan1965).

Perhaps the most significant in this endeavor was the introduction of history into the school curriculum. In Tibet, except in the modern schools introduced by the Republic of China in the eastern Tibetan regions, history as a separate and specialized scientific field of study of the past was absent in both the state- and privately run schools. After coming into exile, perhaps primarily in response to modern Chinese historicist discourse on Tibet, Tibet's past became a popular site of contestation, debate, and reflection among the exiled nationalist elites. Within this nationalist paradigm, the past became the new legitimate foundation for the future claim to national sovereignty. Therefore, immediately after coming into exile, as early in December 1959, the Tibetan government-in-exile had setup a textbook committee tasked to write, among others, a history curriculum that was to be taught in the exile Tibetan schools (Bureau 1969; rgyal mtshan 2000, pp. 395–96). Reflecting the new nationalist paradigm of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the textbook committee consisted of members from different schools of Tibetan Buddhism but none from the Bon religion.Footnote ⁹ Consequently, the “official history” that was produced in these textbooks presented the Tibetan nation as a historically natural and discrete political unit coterminous with the contemporary national geo-body that has a continuous history of indivisible sovereignty organically linked to Buddhism and, most importantly, the person of the Dalai Lamas (see shes rig 1965). The mythohistorical Buddhist narrative on imperial Tibet (7th–9th CE) was foundational to the nationalist historiography since it provided exiled nationalist leaders with the founding myth of the nation that was not only “united” and Buddhist but also was one of the most powerful empires in central Asia.

Ockenden school as anomaly in the national order of things

Ockenden school was an anomaly in the grand national scheme of things in exile. Unlike most Tibetan refugee schools of the time, the school was run exclusively by a foreign-aid organization, Ockenden Venture. Although this was done with prior approval and in coordination with the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, Ockenden nevertheless exercised complete oversight on the appointment of staff, selection of students, and setting of their curriculum. What was taught at school? There are no extant detailed reports regarding the school's curriculum aside from a list of general topics to be covered: Hindi, English, general knowledge, arithmetic, geography, and lessons on Tibetan culture, religion, and history (Department of Home 1965). However, a careful reading of the complaints made by boys in their letters against Dexter and Sangye, along with the contemporary remembered accounts of the school, we can get some sense of what was taught at the school.

A boy aged eighteen claimed Dexter taught them “Sangye's birthplace [shar khog, Amdo] and others like Gyelrong and many more are self-governing [political] entity because they did not pay tax to [central] Tibetan government” (OI 1966k). Another fourteen-year-old boy complained Sangye said, “there are two completely different languages in Tibet which are Kham Gyelrong's language and Tibetan language,” and this, he continues, “I doubt if we say this to foreigners, this will give the impression that there are two countries in Tibet; therefore, Sangye must have a big reason to say this” (OI 1966k). Another boy, aged fourteen, complained, “when visitors came to the school, chopsticks and Chinese dishes were served and it was emphasized that they were in common use in Tibet and even their very names were in Chinese” (OI 1966k). Some of the other boys accused Sangye of criticizing exiled Tibetan government-produced textbooks, saying “its contents are embarrassing and incorrect.” They alleged Sangye told them, “Our history [in the textbook] is not true,” and “Lang Darma [as projected in the Buddhist historical narrative that permeates school textbooks] was not evil.” More broadly, boys complained Dexter and Sangye often inserted political commentaries, telling them that the Dharamshala officials were “reactionary,” and many dissident groups were working “completely different ways” (OI 1966k). Generally, they asserted an overriding anti-GelugpaFootnote ¹⁰ bias at the school, with one boy lamenting Dexter told them that “other religions are less [represented] than Gelugpas in the monks' college in Mussoorie” (OI 1966k).

Some of the older boys I have interviewed, now in their early seventies, confirmed being taught similar histories at the school. They remember Sangye while teaching the history of Tibet, would often interject with commentaries about Bon being the native religion of Tibet, the existence of written script in Tibet prior to Thonmi Sambhota, and Lang Darma not being evil. However, as one of the older boys pointed out, many of the “overaged” students (in their early twenties) would dispute such facts, and Sangye “would not dare to impose his thoughts on us” (Dorjee, pers. comm., May 20, 2021). Sangye and Dexter's own intellectual predilections suggest that the boys' allegations might not be entirely false. Both men studied with David Snellgrove at SOAS, who was among a new group of western scholars of Tibet using Bon historical literature and the newly available archival sources on the imperial Tibet known as Dunhuang manuscripts.Footnote ¹¹ In fact, Snellgrove wrote to Pearce after the incident explaining Dexter was teaching Tibetan history at the Ockenden school using more recent literature by Petech, Stein, Richardson, and himself (OI 1966j). These alternative histories, for instance, began to question the very historicity and greatness of some of the key mythohistorical figures in the Buddhist historical narrative on Tibet. It undermined the key accepted beliefs like Thonmi Sambhota was the founder of Tibetan script and the legends of “three great of kings of Tibet” as elevated dharma kings (chos rgyel) who brought and spread Buddhism throughout the realm of Tibet by subjugating the “evil” Bon religion. Such beliefs upended the dominant Buddhist idea of Tibet as a sacred realm of Avalokitesvara widely believed to have humanly manifested in the person of the Dalai Lamas, and the legends of the last imperial king Lang Darma as the destroyer of Buddhism.

Also, historically, most of the Tibetan regions east of Dri chu (Yangtze river), including Sangye's birthplace and Gyelrong, were outside the political jurisdiction of the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa and its inhabitants, especially on the popular level, did not identify themselves as member of a singular Lhasa-centered political entity called Tibet. It is also not unlikely that Sangye (and Dexter) would have made commentaries about the dominance of Gelugpa in the exile Tibetan administration since, as a Bonpo, as we will see in the following text, marginalization was part of Sangye's experience in exile. Therefore, taken as a whole, the boys' letters, their remembered accounts today, and Sangye and Dexter's background offer a glimpse of clarity to the pattern, rationale, and form of the knowledge being disseminated at the Ockenden school.

The historical narrative introduced at Ockenden school deviated from and challenged the “official history” produced by the exiled Tibetan leadership. In Ockenden's alternative narrative, Tibet was historically decentralized with multiple and contesting centers of power and diverse religious traditions, cultural practices, and languages. It contested the emergent nationalist representation of Tibet as a nation-state with a singular national culture, language, and history. In Ockenden's narrative, to be Tibetan was not to be Buddhist, nor was it to speak a singular national language. Also, Ockenden contested the demonization of Bon and Bonpos in the Buddhist mythohistorical narrative and instead presented Bon, as the native religion of Tibet, as the quintessential part of Tibetan identity. Since the “official history” was the ideological bedrock of “official nationalism” in exile, the dissenting historical knowledge produced at the Ockenden school posed a fundamental challenge to the emergent national order. The Ockenden headquarters in London realized this problem and, from the beginning, identified the issue of what history was to be taught as the most important of all matters. As mentioned above, Pearce was even willing to discontinue teaching Tibetan history until some official history was produced and approved by the Dalai Lama (OI 1966e). Yet, since the teaching of history cannot be separated from who is teaching it, Ockenden's insistence on Sangye and Dexter continuing their role in the school was unacceptable to the exiled Tibetan leadership. Unlike Choden and Liushar, Sangye's loyalty to the nation represented by the exiled Tibetan leadership was not seen as unconditional but was subject to suspicion. But why?

Emergent nationalist discourse in exile

Woodard's invocation of the Dalai Lama's elder brother in the story of the Ockenden incident may appear at first glance as insignificant, immaterial, or of only passing interest. However, read in the context of the broader political landscape of the early years in exile, Woodard's allegation points to a deeper entanglement of Ockenden's story with the newly emergent political formation led by Gyalo Thondup. Who was he?

Gyalo Thondup today is only a vaguely familiar figure to most third-generation exiled Tibetans. In the early decades of exile, however, Thondup was a household name assumed to wield considerable influence across the Tibetan government. Whether real, half-true, or completely imaginary, his name is intertwined with numerous stories of spies, conspiracies, revolts, and assassinations. For many first-generation exiled Tibetans, Thondup's name invokes extreme responses. His loyalists address him with the prefix lha sé (son of God), while his opponents call him ten dra (enemy of the faith) or dü lhé jin (demon Devadatta).Footnote ¹² No matter how one viewed him, all agreed that Thondup established himself as the most powerful figure in the Tibetan political landscape in the early years of exile. He did not hold any elaborate official position.Footnote ¹³ However, through his long-nurtured network of fervent loyalists, secretive intelligence agents, patriotic armed men (Chushi Gangdruk soldiers), and above all, as the elder brother of the Dalai Lama, he had a monopoly of access to the USA, India, and Taiwan and gained control over all aspects of reconstruction of the Tibetan government-in-exile (Norbu Reference Norbu2016; Yuthok Reference Yuthok2016). The powerful aristocratic officials of the pre-colonial Ganden Phodrang government in Lhasa, whom Thondup saw as a “national tragedy” (Thurston and Thondup Reference Thurston and Thondup2016, p. 98), were swiftly purged from their positions in the new political order in exile (Craig Reference Craig1998; Surkhang Reference Surkhang2015; Yuthok Reference Yuthok2016).

Central to Thondup's nation-building project in exile was the Tibetan United Association (Tib: chol gsum bod rigs chig bsgril tshogs pa), founded in 1964 in Darjeeling.Footnote ¹⁴ The Tibetan United Association (hereafter TUA) was arguably one of the most significant pan-Tibetan nationalist organizations in the early years of exile. The leaders of the organization were Thondup's close associates and loyalists (dar rgyas 2020; Norbu Reference Norbu2016; rnam rgyal 2014; Yuthok Reference Yuthok2016). On its founding day, members of TUA called upon all the “flesh”- and “blood”-related Tibetans (Tib: sha-khrag cig pa bod rigs) from three regions of Tibet to unite single-mindedly under the leadership of the Dalai Lama to regain Tibet's lost independence (chol gum 2005). The members of TUA took an oath to oppose sectarianism, regionalism, and class stratification within the exiled Tibetan community and to never go against the wishes of the Dalai Lama and the two oracles of Tibet, the transgression of which, they vowed, be violently borne by the transgressors. One of the main objectives of the organization was to oppose “both internal and external enemies” of the Tibetan nation, who, they argued, was serving as the “running dogs” of the enemies, both Communist China and Taiwan, and therefore must be weeded out (chol gsum 2005).

The TUA's discourse of “unity” among Tibetans, imagined as a biological unit, was historically a novel discourse.Footnote ¹⁵ For centuries prior to modern Chinese colonization, the Tibetan political landscape was composed of a central Tibetan state centered in Lhasa and various smaller polities in the eastern parts of Tibet. These eastern polities had different and changing sets of relations with the central Tibetan state in the west and the Nationalist Government in the east (see Goldstein et al. Reference Goldstein, Sherap and Siebenschuh2004; Samuel Reference Samuel1993; Tsomu Reference Tsomu2014; Tuttle Reference Tuttle2007). The socio-political identities in Tibet were primarily shaped by their sense of affiliation and loyalty to a particular monastery or local religious hierarch(s), their tribal chieftain or king, and most importantly, their distinct sense of belongingness to a locality, that is, their fatherland (Tib: pha yul). This heterogenous Tibetan past posed a problem for the emergent nationalist elites at the turn of the twentieth century, especially in the post-exile years. The leaders of TUA anachronistically read this history as signifying a lack of national unity among Tibetans in the past that cost Tibet its independence. To regain Tibet's lost independence, therefore, they argued, an absolute unity among exiled Tibetans under the leadership of the Dalai Lama must be maintained (chol gsum 2005). The new moral lesson from history was for the Tibetans to abandon their traditional identities and loyalties, now categorized negatively as regionalism and sectarianism, and think of themselves first (and perhaps only) as Tibetans.

By 1965, TUA, under the patronage of Thondup and with support from the Tibetan government-in-exile, had become a powerful political force to reckon with (chol gsum 2005; dar rgyas 2020, pp. 219–34). Through their grassroots network of regional chapters, they convened various political meetings in exile Tibetan settlements, organized protests against those they identified as the “enemies” of the nation (chol gsum 2005; Yuthok Reference Yuthok2016), and, at times, attempted to mobilize the coercive apparatus of the Indian state against the members of dissident groups declared unpatriotic, traitors, and a threat to the national unity of Tibet and security of India (rnam rgyal 2014, pp. 92–97). In these campaigns against the “internal enemies,” the TUA-run Tibetan Freedom newspaper served as their official mouthpiece. Around mid-June 1965, TUA passed a resolution (publicized in Tibetan Freedom) declaring their opposition to the Tibetan groups seeking to establish separate settlements, schools, and industries from the initiatives of the Dalai Lama-led government-in-exile (chol gsum 2005). For the leaders of TUA, any pursuits of different paths by exiled Tibetan groups from those laid down by the exiled Tibetan leadership were unpatriotic acts that threatened to subvert the national unity among Tibetans. Was the reference to separate schools in the TUA resolution (among others) for the Ockenden school? We do not know. However, a broader intersection that emerges in our archive between Ockenden school, exiled Bonpos, and TUA points us in that direction.

Exiled Bonpos' pursuit of alternative future

In exile, Bonpo leaders saw the task of bringing together their exiled co-religionists from across the Tibetan regions as imperative to their very existence (bzang po 2013; yongs ‘dzin n.d.). Bonpos had escaped to India in small groups from different parts of Tibet. Not only did they not share their faith with most Tibetans in exile, but many also had no affiliation with the Dalai Lama government in central Tibet or had recently experienced persecution at their hand (Shakya Reference Shakya and Vitali2014; Karmay Reference Karmay1998, Reference Karmay, Tuttle and Schaeffer2013). Moreover, although the emergent nationalism among exiled Tibetans sought to incorporate other non-Gelug Buddhist schools in the new national political framework, however, the Bon and Bonpos remained outside its purview for over a decade.Footnote ¹⁶ According to Karmay Samten, an exiled Bonpo and a scholar of Tibet, the Bonpos faced an enormous challenge in their attempt to resettle (as a group) in India since most of the aid for Tibetan refugees was controlled by the exiled Tibetan leadership who in turn “completely ignored the Bonpo group” (Karmay Reference Karmay1998, p. 534). These historical experiences of either indifference or active marginalization, along with the post-exile danger of assimilation of Bonpos, dispersed across India, within the larger Buddhist community produced among exiled Bonpo leaders such as Tenzin Namdak a desire for separate Bonpo settlement in order to preserve their faith (yongs ‘dzin n.d.). The preservation of their faith from the enemy was one of the primary reasons why Bonpos escaped into exile in the first place. Namdak was one of the two Bonpos to join Sangye to study with David Snellgrove in London. While in London, he retained his ties with other notable Bonpo religious leaders in India and Nepal and frequently exchanged letters to discuss their plans for the collective future. Namdak was eventually successful in securing financial support for his plan (yongs ‘dzin n.d.).

After returning to India, Namdak met the Dalai Lama and discussed at length his plan to establish a separate Bonpo settlement (yongs ‘dzin n.d.). Although the Dalai Lama did not seem to have objected to his plan, opposition from other quarters soon emerged. Actively led by TUA, Namdak and other Bonpo leaders were labeled as divisive sectarians opposed to the Dalai Lama and political lackeys of Taiwan.Footnote ¹⁷ Amidst mounting oppositions, at times violent, from members of TUA, the exiled Bonpos, primarily led by Namdak, joined hands with other dissident groups to form a Tibetan Welfare Association (Tib: bod mi bde don tsogs pa) – popularly known as tsho khag bcu gsum (Thirteen Groups). The Tibetan Welfare Association (TWA) was a loose-knit association of exiled Tibetan groups predominantly from Kham and Amdo that had reorganized in exile, in most cases by establishing their own separate settlements,Footnote ¹⁸ along the pre-exilic monastic/sectarian and homeland affiliations. This, the members of the TWA claim, was in response to what they saw as an attack on their traditional religiopolitical identities and way of life by the newly emergent political force of TUA led by Gyalo Thondup. The members of TWA alleged that the aim of TUA was to “unite” the three regions of Tibet and different sects of Tibetan Buddhism into one; i.e., to eliminate regional identities and impose Gelug school on all exiled Tibetans (see rnam rgyal 2014).Footnote ¹⁹ In my interviews with some of the first generation of exiled Bonpos, many compared the political activities of the TUA to Mao's “cultural revolution” in Tibet and thereby framed the narrative of their opposition to TUA within the older religiopolitical idioms of defending the faith from the enemy and the new nationalist idiom of preserving the diverse cultural and religious traditions of Tibet. The TUA, in turn, saw the leaders of TWA as craven traitors, working as agents of enemies to sabotage the national liberation struggle of the Tibetan people. These contesting narratives point to the confrontation of ideals over core definitions of what was and was not good for the Tibetan nation. Such conflicts were often fought out of view, in arenas rarely visible to non-exiles, but which emerged and became ever so briefly visible in the Ockenden Incident.

Ockenden at the crossroad of nation-building in exile

Sangye was closely involved in the Bonpos' attempt to reorganize in exile. When Namdak returned to India from London in late 1964 – just as the negotiations to establish Ockenden school got underway – he met with Sangye and Lobsang LhalungpaFootnote ²⁰ in Delhi and stayed at the latter's residence. The three men discussed their plan for the future of Bonpos in exile (yongs ‘dzin n.d.). Sangye wrote to the Ockenden home office in London to request their support for the exiled Bonpo community (OI 1965a, 1965c). On numerous occasions, Dexter mentioned to Pearce the desperate situation of the exiled Bonpos, and the discrimination they faced, and recommended help where possible. Since the Ockenden Venture was a small aid organization dependent on outside funding, their support to exiled Bonpo was limited to modest donations, a small number of volunteers, and training of Bonpo boys. This support, although limited, was crucial for exiled Bonpos in their pursuit of an alternative future. Since, in those early years of exile, when most of the newly arrived Bonpos lacked linguistic and cultural knowledge of the world at large, the young English-educated Bonpo children were to serve as a linguistic and cultural broker of the community to negotiate the outside world of state bureaucracy and aid agencies.

Also, Woodard, Ockenden's key negotiator, appears to have been closely involved with early plans to establish Tibetan Bonpo settlements (OI 1965a). In one of his letters to Pearce, Dexter mentioned Woodard's involvement in the land procurement for the Bonpo settlement yet hinted at how such gestures were ill-received in India. It is difficult to speculate to which specific reactions he was alluding. The land deal being discussed never materialized. The exiled Bonpos established their settlement in 1967, 2 years after the incident. Besides Bonpos, Ockenden was working with other TWA groups, one of which was the Clementown Tibetan settlement led by the Amdo Gungthang Tsultrim. Tsultrim was the de facto leader of the TWA and perhaps the “public enemy” number one for the TUA. Ockenden Venture appears to be aware of the political implications involved with such associations since Dexter, in one of his letters to Pearce, wrote, “met with the Dalai Lama and updated him about the Ockenden school but didn't say anything about development in Clementown” (OI 1965d).

That said, it is essential to note that there was a visible line of difference between the Ockenden home office in London and their appointed staff in India in terms of their knowledge of the political development on the ground, their level of personal involvement, and their approach toward the Tibetan leadership. On Ockenden's part, despite their on-the-ground agent's sympathies and irrefutable political support for these dissident groups, throughout the process, they were clear on pursuing the policy of taking the Dalai Lama into confidence for anything related to Tibet. As an organization, Pearce wrote in one of her letters to Dexter, their policy had to support the nation-building project of the Tibetan leadership “whatever it may be” (OI 1966f). Their task was, she continued, “to train the leaders to support the regime” and not be involved in the internal politics and intrigues (OI 1966f). Ockenden incident highlights the often-unacknowledged broader policy intersection between foreign-aid agencies and the exiled Tibetan leadership's nation-building project. An intersection that played no small part in establishing the hegemonic position of the latter and normalizing their particular historical narrative, ideas, and vision for Tibet.

Although our archival sources are largely silent on how Tibetan leadership viewed the work of the Ockenden Venture among these dissident groups, later accounts of those involved offer some significant insights. In Wangdue Dorjee's biography, a long-serving minister of home affairs (1964–1983), we see that foreign-aid officers from the major agencies like the National Christian Councils were detested for their closeness with the leaders of the TWA and were seen as interfering in “internal” Tibetan matter (rdo rje 1999, pp. 150–84). In fact, there appears to have been a suspicion in the Dharamshala that some of these aid organizations or individuals in them, including in Ockenden, were working as Taiwanese or Chinese fronts to subvert Tibetan national unity and struggle.Footnote ²¹ Today, in hindsight, we may find many of these suspicions and rumors from early exile decades unwarranted. However, in those early years of exile, when the world as the Tibetans knew it “collapsed” around them, such suspicions and rumors seemed more plausible and, perhaps, were the driving force behind everyday political practices.