Col Satish Singh Lalotra
‘If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today’—ThichNihatHanh.
Faith and hope are twin facets of life that have within themselves the intrinsic quality of moving mountains, leave alone human beings. It is this vague but complete assuredness in these twin facets of life that are the corner stones of any change which we wish to aspire. Faith and hope are complimentary to each other, with either of them reinforcing each one’s quality and deriving strength for their survivability. Faith is grounded in the reality of the past, hope is looking to the reality of the future. Without faith, there is no hope and without hope there is no true faith. The invitation seemed innocuous: A Chinese General asked if the 14th Dalai Lama would like to see performance by a Chinese dance troupe. But when he was told to come to the Chinese military headquarters without soldiers or armed body guards, according to his official biography, the Tibetans sensed a trap. After years of guerrilla warfare between Tibetan rebels and the Chinese soldiers in a land that China considered to be its own territory, the friendly overture seemed suspicious enough that on the day of performance thousands of Tibetan protestors surrounded the Dalai Lama’s palace in Lhasa to keep him from being abducted, arrested or killed. Over the following few days, the protests expanded into declarations of Tibetan independence and the mobilizing of Tibetan rebel troops to take on the PLA. The state oracle, the Dalai Lama’s advisor urged him to flee. On this day of 17 th March in 1959 , Tibet’s spiritual and political leader all of 23 years in age disguised himself as a soldier and slipped through the crowds outside the ‘Norbulingka’palace he would never see again. Something of these feelings of hope and faith must have played out in the mind of HH Dalai Lama when he headed towards India along with his close confidants including his immediate relations making their good escape from the famous ‘Norbulingka’ palace in Lhasa with the Chinese army (PLA) hot on their heels. Lot of water has flown down the rivers of Tibet since then to have an objective assessment of the goals with which the spiritual leader set his foot on the sacred land of India, secured in the firm belief that thousands of years of cultural cum religious ties between India & Tibet will see him as well his people through this predicament.
Back in Tibet, thousands died fighting the Chinese forces. All fighting rebels who had survived the revolt were deported, and those fleeing the scene reported that Chinese troops burned down corpses in (Lhasa) for 12 hours. Over the centuries, the mountain locked nation of Tibet has often been overrun by invaders-Mongols, Manchus, and Gurkhas , but most often the Chinese . Whenever China was strong, it would send a garrison to occupy Lhasa , and conversely whenever China was weak Tibetans would drive the garrison out. That discord endures even today albeit with changed and nuanced approach by the PLA. Tibetans can still be arrested if caught with the writings or a picture of their spiritual leader , a Noble prize winner. What were the cherished goals of HH Dalai Lama and has he been able to achieve them when he braved the mighty ‘Karpo pass’ one of the highest on his flight route which began on 17 th March and ended finally with his setting foot on the soil of the then NEFA ( Arunachal Pradesh) on 31 st March 1959? But before that -the official Chinese version of his fleeing to India. As per the Chinese, the Dalai Lama fled to India due to a failed attempt “to maintain the serfdom in the region, under which the majority of Tibetans were slaves leading a life of unimaginable misery’. What a sham of pretension on the part of the Chinese which they maintain even after 66 long years of their illegal occupation of Tibet. What options do the spiritual & political leader of Tibet harbourin order to pull out his masses from the morass that has seen six decades roll out in front of them?
DALAI LAMA’S GOAL WHILE FLEEING OUT OF TIBET.
When Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, his cherished goals were to protect the Tibetan culture, and identity as also to establish a democratically based Tibetan government in exile. Overtime his stance saw a shifting from Tibetan independence to Tibetan autonomy that gained traction somewhere in 1970s after the US stopped its ‘Tibetan programme’ spearheaded mainly by the CIA. A proponent of the so called ‘Middle way’, this graded climb-down of the spiritual leader’s stance is contested in many ways by his own people.
CHANGING WORLD ORDER & DALAI LAMA’S DILEMMA.
The fast changing global world order was never ever in a state of such flux as it has been now in the last few years more so with the Gaza & Ukraine conflagration tempting the multipolar world to hedge its fortunes often at the expense of suffering countries. The fact that Trump 2.0 dispensation has done some clear somersaults with regards to both wars and in many ways found its long cherished goals of establishing world peace taking a beating and siding with the aggressor ( read Putin) to reach a middle ground in abating the Ukraine war , should serve a warning to the spiritual leader of Tibet that he may have to do a rejig while asking unqualified support from the US for his Tibetan cause. Though it was under Trump 1.0 administration way back in December 2020 when America underwent a major shift in its foreign policy decision with regard to Tibet and signed the ‘Tibetan policy and support act -2020’ ( TPSA) into a law; a move that dramatically strengthened US policy on Tibet , it remains to be seen how Trump 2.0 will square up to the Dragon’s appetite of subjugation of Tibetan populace. Built on the historic ‘Tibet policy act of 2002’ , the TPSA makes it official US policy that decisions regarding the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama are exclusively within the authority of the current Dalai Lama ,Tibetan Buddhist leaders and the Tibetan people. Similarly the Biden administration carrying forward the baton from the Trump 1.0 administration put the seal of approval last June 2024 when it passed the RTA (Resolve Tibet act) which is much more stringent in its applicability and a bold successor to the earlier two acts preceding it few years back. This RTA enjoins China to define exact geographical limits of Tibet after more than 7 decades of Chinese intrusion which tantamount to saying that the Chinese intrusion is temporary in nature, and hence they should vacate the occupied area. Does the spiritual leader says so and tows this American line of thought, since his holiness doesn’t say in so many words that China is an occupier force and wants only autonomy for Tibet rather than full independence as enshrined by the majority of his clan in their numerous utterances. With the spiritual leader stepping into his 90 th year this July 2025, have the goals once held as supreme by the leader mellowed down or changed direction under the onslaught of time and tide of events? In fact there is an increasing dichotomy between the spiritual leader and his followers as also how China views the succession of the present Dalai Lama to the 15 th in line of the said lineage. As per past utterances of the present 14 th Dalai Lama , he wants this centuries old tradition of succession to be left to his people -i.e whether to continue it or break off from this sacred act. If this is what is the thinking of the present spiritual leader of Tibet, then the very act of his seeking asylum in India comes into question. Since he fled Tibet primarily to save himself, his people from Chinese persecution who believed in the very ethos of Tibetan culture; and he being the progenitor of all that stands today as Tibetan exclusivity in an increasingly ‘Sino- centrism’ of Tibet where does this purported stand of his leaves him? Moreover with China considering the present 14 th Dalai Lama as a ‘proponent of separatism’ fanning the same sentiment in Tibet , and with no change of heart even after 66 long years in the leaders of mainland China are there any meeting grounds between the two entities?
Though last June 2024 a US bipartisan delegation consisting of speaker Nancy Pelosi and house foreign affairs committee chairman Michael Mac Caul visited Dharamshala and met the spiritual leader and the big wigs of CTA (CentralTibetan administration) after passing of the RTA (Resolve Tibet act), did the spiritual leader say in so many words his appreciation of the above mentioned act which actually is a booster shot in the arms of the Tibetans asking for independence from China? Has the time come for the Tibetan diaspora living in various quarters of the world as well as in Tibet per se to ‘step up the gas’ on their spiritual leader to come clean on his stance with his one leg already in the grave (not withstanding his present good health). There are already rumblings inside Washington’s Asian allies that US may abandon Taiwan if the island nation’s tensions escalate with China. The Trump administration’s stance on the Ukraine conflict with the US secretary of state Pete Hegseth saying ‘Washington prioritising deterring war with China’ in the Indo-Pacific because of the alleged threat to US core national interests should serve as a wakeup call to the spiritual leader of Tibet. Can not the same fate befall on Tibet? In fact the present Dalai Lama is the perfect person who has been first hand witness at age 23 to the sheer atrocities by the Chinese way back in the 1950s, to understand the devious mindset of this yellow race. Can his successor, the 15 th Dalai Lama who will be but natural younger in age bring forth the same intensity in his views that once were held by the present 14 th Dalai Lama with regards to his Tibetan identity and culture? Is it any brainer that for a nation-state to survive and leave its lasting impression in the comity of nations there are certain symbols which go with the very idea of that country? Symbols like the national flag, language, and a gigantic personality in terms of bringing forth to fruition a country free from the shackles of colonial legacy are the edifices on which is built a nation-state. Same when extrapolated in terms of Tibet, its national flag and its national cum spiritual leader HH Dalai Lama comes to the mind. Are they all in sync? No I do not think so. There seems to be a yawning gap cum dilemma what the national flag of Tibet portrays to the world at large vis a vis Dalai Lama’s stated stand. Incidentally this flag has been the epitome of Tibetan independence as also adopted by all the resistance fighters and Tibetan organizations worldwide.
Is the purported stand by HH Dalai Lama ( one of the Tibetan national symbols) asking for mere autonomy and not full independence from Chinese occupation not going against the second national symbol ( Tibetan flag) that has been the standard bearer of Tibetan independence all along?
THE WAY FORWARD
As things stand today, the only way forward for the Tibetans is to stick to their long stated demand of full independence and nothing short of it. Any dilution of this stand and going along with the changed stance of grant of autonomy will not only embolden the Chinese hegemony in that area but will also be counterproductive to the very cause of a free and independent Tibet. Not only this, it will force the Tibetan diaspora spread all-over the world to question the very ‘raison d etre’ of their struggles since decades. With talks of 15 th Dalai Lama doing rounds, a very neat job is already cut out for him. Will he follow the same footsteps as that of his predecessor? Will he realign the cherished goals that seem to have been misaligned or will he heed to the call of expediencies of the times? As the famous Vietnamese Buddhist thinker cum philosopher ‘ThichNhatHanh’ said— ‘If we believe tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today’… Will not the same question be asked by countless Tibetans if bearing hardships were worth the effort? Have the goals of his holiness withered over? Think it over.
(The writer is a retired army officer)
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