Read of the Week

In 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet into India, where he was granted refuge. Few know about the carefully calibrated operation to escort him safely to the Indian border. ‘An Officer and His Holiness’ narrates how political officer Har Mander Singh of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) successfully managed this assignment with limited resources.

He kept careful diary entries of the period, which have been reproduced for the first time by his niece and renowned journalist, Rani Singh. Rare pictures bring alive this thrilling operation that forever changed relations between India, China and Tibet.