Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom

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Description

This is the actual story of Sikkim, a tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas that survived the end of the British Empire in India only to be annexed by India in 1975. It tells the remarkable story of Thondup, the last King of Sikkim, and his American wife Hope Cooke, thrust unwittingly into the spotlight as they sought strengthen for Sikkim’s independence after their ‘fairytale’ wedding in 1963. But as tensions between India and China spilled over into war in the Himalayas, Sikkim became a pawn in the Cold War ideological battle that played out in Asia all the way through the 1960s and 1970s. Rumours circulated that Hope was once a CIA spy. Meanwhile a shadowy Scottish adventuress, the Kazini of Chakung, married to Sikkim’s leading political figure, coordinated opposition to the Palace. As the geopolitical tectonic plates of the Himalayas ground together, forming the political landscape that exists today, Sikkim never stood an opportunity. On the eve of declaring Emergency in India, Indira Gandhi brazenly annexed the country. Thondup died a broken man in 1982; Hope returned to New York; Sikkim started a new phase as India’s 2nd state. In line with interviews and archive research, in addition to a retracing of a journey the writer’s grandfather made in 1922, this can be a thrilling, romantic and informative glimpse of life in Shangri La.

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