How KPS Menon’s travelogue provided a rare Indian perspective on Kashgar

When eminent diplomat KPS Menon, appointed the Agent General for India in China, travelled to the country for the second time, he undertook a 125-day voyage from Delhi to Chongqing in 1944. On this rigorous journey, which crossed the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamirs, as well as the deserts and oases of Central Asia, Menon was accompanied by British diplomat Michael Gillett, who spent a large part of his career in China. 

A prolific writer, Menon kept a detailed diary of the epic journey, which was later converted into a book titled Delhi-Chungking: A Travel Diary. One of the finest travelogues about Asia in the mid-20th century, it was a unique Indian perspective on western China of the 1940s. 

A particularly fascinating part of the book is his entries from the fabled Silk Route city of Kashgar in Xinjiang (then spelt Sinkiang). 

“I am glad I have at last reached a place where I can rest,” Menon wrote in an entry dated October 23. “I need some rest, as before me lies a journey of a thousand miles to Urumchi. I think I have earned it too after 77 days of nomadic existence.”

During the 77-day voyage from Delhi to Kasghar, Menon and Gillett travelled by car, boat, tonga, plane, horse, yak, foot and even a doli. “I lived in every kind of building - rest-houses, infested with flies and sand-flies; mud huts from which sheep and yak had been hastily turned out in order to provide accomodation for the Agent-General for India in China; rock shelters which let in flakes of snow, and akois from which I could see the Seven Sages [Saptarishis from the Vedic period].” It’s hard to figure out what Menon meant by the word “akois.”

During this part of his journey, Menon ate all sorts of food, from pulao and qorma to sheep’s sinews and a web of duck’s feet, and drank water from springs, streams, wells, and beverages like Karnal gin and Russian vodka.

“And now I find myself installed in a delightful house with fly-proof rooms, English baths, long mirrors, Russian tea sets and Khotan, Aqsu and Turfan carpets,” Menon wrote. “Abetted by Gillett, I decided to give myself up to the luxury of it all for one day.”

Manchurians and Russians
The Indian diplomat observed a significant presence of Manchurians living in Kashgar. The northeastern province, now called Heilongjiang, was then under Japanese control, and the former emperor of China, Pu Yi, was installed as emperor of the puppet state of Manchuquo. 

The residents of Kashgar seemed to enjoy their meat and alcohol, prompting Menon to write, “To a Chinese, life without meat and drink is not worth living.” 

Kashgar also had a visible Russian presence at that time, as Xinjiang bordered the then-USSR. The Russians were the first to set up diplomatic missions in this western Chinese province and played an important part in the political and economic life in the region through Russian advisors and the Soviet trade agency until the outbreak of the Second World War. 

Since the British and Soviets were allies in the war, the diplomats of the two countries enjoyed warm and friendly relations at that time. Menon and Gillett dined with the Soviet consul-general, who treated them to “delicious Andijani wine which tasted like Sherry.”

Menon described what he called a “quadrangular conversation between him, the English, Russians and Chinese, as their interpreter could translate from English to Chinese, and the interpreter used by the Russians would translate that translation to Russian, and the answers would be translated in the reverse order. “On such occasions one almost relents in one’s antipathy to basic English.”

Contrasting historical narratives 
The diplomat had read several old and contemporary accounts of Kashgar and mentioned two contrasting views about the city. The first was from 16th-century general and governor of Kashmir Mirza Haider, who said the city was a “sort of Purgatory between the Paradise of towns and the Hell of deserts.” The second account was from British Lord Dumore, who travelled there in the 1890s and said Kashgar was “as desolate, dirty and uninteresting a city as possibly can be imagined.”

Menon visited a famous temple and memorial park dedicated to Chinese Eastern Han Dynasty explorer and general Ban Chao (31-102 CE) or Pan Chao. 

“I visited Pan Chao’s temple not only for its intrinsic interest but also for the view it commands,” Menon wrote. “From there, I could survey the whole city— a vast collection of flat-roofed mud dwellings. Here and there, one could see shrines and mosques, most of which partook of the neighbouring squalor, though one or two raised their heads above it. Surrounding the city was the slave-built wall, which, so the story goes, the bodies of the slaves who died at their work were driven in order to give it additional strength.”

Menon stood at the spot at dusk and contemplated the history of the city that had faced numerous invasions over the centuries. 

“The poplars around Pan Chao’s pool were shedding their golden leaves like a woman who puts by her golden ornaments, one by one,” he wrote. “And the willows were weeping by their side. The temple itself, despoiled and desecrated built and rebuilt over and over again, seemed to be a symbol of the history of Kashgar, which from time to time has been raped by the Huns, White Huns, Uigur Turks and Turkis.”

Menon said that the city, which filled Mirza Haider with reverence and Lord Dumore with disgust, filled him with sorrow.

Genuine Appreciation
After spending a few days in the city, Menon began to appreciate it more. Several things about Kashgar impressed the Indian diplomat, such as the fact that it had no beggars. He added that Chinese cities were totally devoid of them, unlike their Indian counterparts. 

Menon was disappointed that he did not see any remnants of Kashgar’s Buddhist past. He said the “sword of Islam” destroyed the Buddhist antiquities of the city, adding that Buddhism in the rest of China died a natural death. “Generally speaking there was little persecution of Buddhism in China,” he wrote. “No country has been more tolerant in religious matters than China. Here there were no massacres, no burnings and hangings of heretics.” 

Many parts of Xinjiang were once home to vibrant Indian communities, but by the time of Menon’s visit, there were only a few people from the country left there. He visited the city’s Hindu Serai, meeting some of the Indians still living there. The small community organised a dinner for him.

“Formerly, there used to be Hindu communities in all the oases in southern Sinkiang,” he wrote. “They have gone with the wind, like the Hindus themselves; and the Hindu serai in Kashgar is all but deserted. However, our hosts have beautified it by hanging carpets everywhere— Khotan, Khirgiz and Persian carpets on the floor, the walls and the ceiling.”

Menon was hosted by a leading Indian trader named Pandit Biharilal, who the diplomat said was “more of a pandit than a trader.” The diplomat added, “He is proficient in Sanskrit, quotes the Bhagavadgita, by the yard, composes poems in Hindi (and did so in my honour), has a smattering of English and is collaborating with Gillett in preparing a Turki grammar.”

He lamented how geographic barriers prevented the growth of trade between India and Xinjiang. “Sinkiang faces Russia, and not India,” he wrote. “Besides, communications between India and Sinkiang are primitive; and Nature will not permit a motor road, at any rate in my lifetime.”

Menon’s fascinating account of the still relatively-isolated city of Kashgar and the region of Xinjiang is something that should be celebrated at a time when India and China are slowly moving towards improving bilateral relations, especially in areas such as culture and people-to-people contact.