Lunchtime Seminar – 21 October – Raman Mohora

N.B. This seminar is in-person only

Negotiating Sovereignty in the Himalayas: Sikkim, India and the Standstill Agreement (1947-50)

Raman Mohora (PhD Scholar, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)

Abstract: In the immediate aftermath of the British withdrawal from South Asia, the newly independent Indian state was faced with the challenge of integrating over 500 princely states of varying size, status and strategic value. While some of the processes were turbulent and highly visible, such as those in Kashmir, Junagadh, and Hyderabad, the case of Sikkim (largely overlooked in South Asian historiography) offers a unique and revealing perspective on borderland diplomacy.

This presentation explores the 1948 Standstill Agreement between the Buddhist Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim and the newly independent Indian State, culminating in the Indo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1950 that established Sikkim as an Indian protectorate. Signed in 1948, the agreement temporarily preserved Sikkim's sovereignty amid India's integration of princely states via accession, negotiation and coercion. Unique in this context, it mirrored India's approach to its middle Himalayan neighbours, Nepal and Bhutan, while navigating Tibet and China sensitivities. Despite its uniqueness and pivotal role in Sikkim's political trajectory, the agreement has received little scholarly attention.

This presentation draws on archival sources from the Sikkim Palace Archives (digitised by the British Library) to analyse the legal, political and cultural dimensions of the negotiations involving the Sikkimese ruler and the Indian State. It argues that the Standstill Agreement was an experiment in managed sovereignty in which India balanced its strategic interests on the Tibetan frontier with its ideological commitment to non-coercive diplomacy and pan-Asian solidarity in the Himalayas.

Finally, the presentation reflects on how the signing of the Standstill Agreement prefigured the shifting politics of Himalayan territoriality - from the Indo-Sikkim Treaty of 1950, which formalised Sikkim’s protectorate status, to its eventual integration into the Indian Union in 1975. In tracing Sikkim’s trajectory, the study highlights how the meanings of sovereignty, protection, and autonomy were reimagined in South Asia’s Himalayan borderlands, where the boundaries of post-colonial statehood were first negotiated and ultimately redrawn.