Even after 73 years after his demise, Sir Henry McMahon continues to remain relevant to Indian geopolitical uncertainties, threats and strategies especially in borderlands. McMahon was a British Indian Army Officer who was instrumental in the demarcation of the Indo-Tibetan border which, a century after such delineation, locks two Asian giants in perpetual animosity. Owing to border related tensions, the Simla Convention was negotiated in 1914 between Republic of China, Tibet and Great Britain.
In the Simla Convention which was convoked to deliberate and decide on the status of Tibet. Until 1912, Tibet was a protectorate under the Qing Dynasty with China making strong claims on Tibetan sovereignty. British India’s interests in Tibet were linked to growing Soviet connections between Tibet and the thirteenth Dalai Lama.
In the proceedings of the Convention of 1913 & 1914, British India was represented by Sir Henry, Tibet was represented by Paljor Dorje Shatra, (the Prime Minister of Tibet at that time), while China was represented by Ivan Chen, the Commissioner of Trade and Foreign Affairs for China.
China recurrently and continually remonstrated against the British cartographic representations of the lands in question. Yet, the Convention demarcated and defined the boundary lands between Tibet and China as well as British India and Tibet; this latter border separation came to be known as the McMahon line or the Line of Actual Control.
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