Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...
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