China’s Shadow Over Sikkim: The Politics of Intimidation

This book brings together some of the major events between the mid-nineteenth century when the British started making inroads into Sikkim, and the merger of Sikkim with India in 1975. During this period of about 100 years, Sikkim changed its status from an independent feudal state to a protectorate of the British Empire, then as a protectorate of independent India and finally as the 22nd state of the Union of India. When all the factors and events of that period are put together and all that the people at that time had thought, done and gained and all their mischief, crimes, follies and misfortunes are viewed in the context of destiny of that region, they combine to form a picture which is at once tense and kaleidoscopic.