Affair of the Dancing Lamas
The 13th Dalai Lama and the government of Tibet felt that the film and the pseudo-religious performances required of the monks ridiculed Tibetan culture – as a diplomatic protest they banned future Everest expeditions.
[1] The ensuing 1904 treaty and 1906 convention formalised Chinese suzerainty over Tibet while declaring that it would permit no foreign interventions (including by Russia or Britain).
Even with the political backing of Lord Curzon, who was now Britain's Foreign Secretary (and who had been RGS president from 1911 to 1914), Younghusband only received lukewarm support from Whitehall but was still able to send Charles Howard-Bury to India to try to take things forward.
Howard-Bury met the Viceroy of India, Lord Chelmsford, who was sympathetic but said he could do nothing while negotiations with Tibet were pending, although he suggested that Charles Bell should be approached.
[11] Early in 1921 the Mount Everest Committee was set up jointly by the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club to manage all future British expeditions – Younghusband was appointed chairman.
[17] Noel raced back to civilisation to start work on his film; John Hazard went to the West Rongbuk Glacier to do further surveying but then went beyond his remit by going north to Lhatse and the upper part of the Tsangpo River; the others went to the Rongshar Valley[note 1] to recuperate before the long trek home.
[18][19][20] In Britain matters were treated differently – the climbers' memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral was attended by King George V, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.
[18] The Times had the scoop headline "Everest: The Last Climb: Hopes That Summit Was Reached", and Noel's 1924 film, according to Wade Davis, "elevated Mallory ... into the realm of the Titans".
To provide what Noel called "large doses of local colour", before the film started a group of monks was to come on stage equipped with ethnic accoutrements to perform pseudo-religious music, chanting and dance.
[25] However, the political difficulties turned things sour and by the end of 1925 Explorers' Films had gone bankrupt in Colombo, requiring the Mount Everest Committee to send £150 to get the monks back to India.
[32][33][note 4] After seeing the performance the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India wrote that it was "unspeakably boring" but that it could not cause "more than that smile of kindly superiority which we generally assume when we see or hear of strange customs".
The modernisation and militarisation being introduced by the Dalai Lama and the head of the army, Tsarong Dzasa, were deeply unacceptable to the governing religious conservatives who were opposed to any British presence or influence.
They had good reason to be so opposed – Britain was secretly trying to provoke an uprising in support of the military, although this ultimately failed and Tsarong had to escape to Sikkim.
She concludes that the Tibetans' strongest complaint was over the monks' publicity visit and credits Walt Unsworth with uncovering the "dancing lama furore" in 1981.
[39] The diplomatic affair had been swept under the carpet for over fifty years because Younghusband (president of the RGS and chairman of the Mount Everest Committee) must have been aware of, or even a party to, the scheme to invite the monks.
[42][43][note 6] The main blame for the diplomatic incident is indeed laid on Noel rather than Hazard but Unsworth views the position of the Tibetan government differently from the more recent accounts of Hansen and Davis, whose analysis has been given above.
[49] Unsworth supports the "Mount Everest Committee view" in seeing Bailey as the creator of much of the antipathy towards expeditions whilst relying on mere acquiescence from Lhasa.
[52] The authors agree that the India Office in London became enraged by the Mount Everest Committee's indiscretions and it suited everyone concerned in the debacle to keep the whole thing quiet.
