POST & TELEGRAPH SYSTEM

The modern Tibetan postal service was built on courier systems used during the early Tibetan Empire and later Mongol Imperial rule. A “pony express” (atrung) service was used for official missives, while general mail was carried by a system of postal-runners (bhangchen or dakpa). A Central Post and Telegraph Office (dak-tar laykhung) was created in 1920 in Lhasa [61] which took over the old postal stations (tasam) throughout Tibet. Postage stamps of various denominations were indigenously designed and hand-printed, and are now collector’s items. Though not a signatory to the International Postal Treaty, a system was created so that letters from Tibet could be delivered to foreign addresses, [62] and letters from abroad be delivered inside Tibet.

Tibetan postage stamps and envelope with New Jersey address

 

Spencer Chapman, visiting Lhasa in 1936, declared that, “the postal and telegraph system is most efficient.” [63] The same system continued for some years after 1950. The Czech filmmaker Vladimir Cis (working for the Chinese Communist government) had a letter from his family in Prague delivered to him in the wilderness of Tibet by a postal-runner in 1954. [64]

A telegraph line from India to Lhasa was completed in 1923, along with a basic telephone service. Both were open for public use. The event was commemorated in a publication of the Royal Geographical Society, London. [65]

The Tibetan capital was electrified in 1927. The work of installing both the hydroelectric plant and the distribution system was undertaken near “single-handedly” [66] by a young Tibetan engineer, Ringang. All these projects were initiated and paid for by the Tibetan government.

 

Radio Lhasa was launched in 1948 and broadcasted news in Tibetan, English and Chinese. [67]