Why China May Attack India By 2012

(By Bharat Verma, Editor, Indian Defence Review)

China will launch an attack on India before 2012

There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century. The recession that shut the Chinese exports shop is creating an unprecedented internal social unrest. In turn, the vice-like grip of the Communists' over the society stands severely threatened.

Unemployment is on the increase. The unofficial estimate stands at whopping 14 percent. Worldwide recession has put 30 million people out of jobs. Economic slowdown is depleting the foreign exchange reserves. Foreign investors are slowly shifting out. To create domestic market, the massive dole of loans to individuals is turning out to be a nightmare. There appears to be a flight of capital in billions of dollars in the shape of diamond and gold bought in Hong Kong and shipped out in end 2008.

Internal unrest is making China jittery

The fear of losing control over the Chinese masses is forcing the Communists to compulsorily install filtering software on new computers to crush dissent on the Internet, even though it is impossible to censor in entirety the flow of information as witnessed recently in Tibet, Xinjiang and Iran.

The growing internal unrest is making Beijing jittery. The external picture appears to be equally dismal. The unfolding Barack Obama strategy seems to be scoring goals for democracy and freedom without firing a single shot. While Geoge Bush unwittingly united and arrayed against himself Islamic countries and radical Islam worldwide, Obama has put radical Islam in disarray by lowering the intra societal temperature vis- -vis America and the Muslim world. He deftly hints at democracy in his talk without directly threatening any group or country and the youth picks it up from there as in Iran. With more and more Chinese citizens beginning to demand political freedom, the future of the communists is also becoming uncertain. The technological means available in 21st century to spread democracy is definitely not conducive for the totalitarian regime in Beijing.

India's democracy is an eyesore for China

India's chaotic but successful democracy is an eyesore for the authoritarian regime in Beijing. Unlike India, China is handicapped as it lacks the soft power- an essential ingredient to spread influence. This further adds fuel to the fire.

In addition, the growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness. Obama's Af-Pak policy is primarily a policy that has intelligently set the thief to catch the thief. The stated withdrawal from Iraq by Americans now allows them to concentrate its military surplus on the single front to successfully execute the mission. This surplus, in combination with other democratic forces, can enable the Americans to look deep in to resource rich Central Asia, besides containing China's expansionist ambitions.

Why India is an ideal target for the Chinese

To offset this adverse scenario, while overtly pretending to side with the West, the Chinese covertly ordered their other proxy, North Korea, to test underground nuclear explosion and carry out trials of missiles that threaten Japan and South Korea.

The Chinese anxiety is understandable. Under Bush's declared policy of being 'a strategic competitor' alongside the 'axis of evil', they shared a large strategic maneuverability with others of similar hues. However, Obama policies wisely deny such a luxury by reclaiming more and more international strategic space ceded by the previous administration.

The Communists in China, therefore, need a military victory to unite the disillusioned citizenry behind them. This will assist to market a psychological perception that the 21st century belongs to China and to commemorate their deep belief in the superiority of the Chinese race. To divert attention from the brewing internal dissent is essential to retain the Communist Party's hold on power. In an autocratic system normally the only fodder to unite the citizenry is by raising their nationalistic feelings.

The easy method for Beijing to heighten the feeling of patriotism and thus national unity is to design a war with an adversary. They believe that this will help them to midwife the Chinese century too. That is the end game rooted in the firm belief of the Communists that Chinese race is far superior to Nazi Germany and is destined to 'Lord over the Earth'.

At present, there is no overall cost benefit ratio in integrating Taiwan by force with the mainland since under the new dispensation in Taipei, the island is 'behaving' itself. Also, the American presence around the region is too strong for comfort. There is also the factor of Japan to take into account. Though Beijing is increasing its naval presence in South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands, at this point of time in history it will be unwise for the recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan.

Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast.

China is worried by India's alliance with the US

Ideally, the Chinese believe that the east-wind should prevail over the west-wind. However, despite their imperial calculations of the past, they lag behind the West, particularly America by many decades.

Hence, they want the east-wind to at least prevail over the other east-wind, i.e., India, to ensure their dominance over Asia. Beijing's cleverly raising the hackles on its fabricated dispute in Arunachal Pradesh to an alarming level is the preparatory groundwork for imposing such a conflict on India. A sinking Pakistan will team up with China to teach India 'the final lesson'.

The Chinese leadership wants to rally its population behind the Communist rule. As it is, Beijing is already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan, now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India. Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the United States and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

Is India prepared for the Chinese threat?

All these three concerns of Chinese Communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives. But India, otherwise the biggest challenge to the supremacy of China in Asia, is least prepared on ground to face the Chinese threat.

How will India face and respond vigorously to repulse the Chinese game plan? Will Indian leadership be able to take the heat of war? Have they laid the groundwork adequately to defend India? Is Indian military equipped to face the two-front wars by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian civil administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare?

The answers are an unequivocal 'no'. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front.

It is said that long time back, a king with an excellent military machine at his disposal could not stomach the violence involved in winning wars. So he renounced war in victory. This led to the rise of the pacifist philosophies. The state either refused to defend itself or neglected the instruments that could defend it.

Any 'extreme' is dangerous, as it tends to create imbalance in statecraft. We saw that in the unjust unilateral aggression in Iraq. It diminished the American aura and recessed the economy. China's despotic regime is another extreme, scared to permit political dissent. This will fuel an explosion worse than the Tiananmen Square. Despite use of disproportionate force and demographic invasion of Tibet, Beijing's hold remains tenuous. Pakistan's over-aggressive agenda in the name of jihad haunts it now to the point of fragmentation of the state.

How we must face the threat

Similarly, India's pacifism is the other extreme. More 26/11-like attacks will occur on a regular basis as it infects policymaking. Such extreme postures on either side invariably generate wars. Armed with an aggressive Wahabi philosophy, Pakistan, in cohort with China, wants to destabilise a pacifist India. India's instruments of state steeped in pacifism are unable to rise to its defence.

In the past 60 years, instead of offering good governance, the deep-rooted pacifism contributed to the civil administration ceding control of 40 per cent of the Union's territory to the Maoists and ten percent to the insurgents, effecting a shrinking influence internally, as well in the 'near abroad'.

India must rapidly shift out from its defeatist posture of pacifism to deter China. New Delhi's stance should modify, not to aggression, but to a firm assertion in statecraft. The state must also exclusively retain the capability of intervention by use of force internally as well as externally. If it permits the non-state actors to develop this capability in competition, then the state will whither away. On the contrary, the state machinery should ensure a fast-paced development in the Red Corridor even it if has to hold Maoists' hostage at gunpoint. The state's firm and just intervention will dissolve the Maoist movement.

Keeping in view the imminent threat posed by China, the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the civil administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground -- from Lalgarh to Tawang.

Statement From His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I am deeply saddened and concerned with the worsening situation in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), especially with the tragic loss of lives.

I earnestly urge the Chinese authorities to exercise restraint in dealing with the situation in a spirit of understanding and far-sightedness.

I offer my prayers for those who lost their lives, their families and others affected by this sad turn of events.

THE DALAI LAMA
July 8, 2009

World Tibet Day in Mumbai (July 6, 2009)

Speech given by Latoya Ferns on World Tibet Day and 74th Birthday of HH the XIV Dalai Lama.

Tashi Delek every one! I would like to wish His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama a Happy 74th Birthday, a long and successful life and many more reincarnations to come. Furthermore I would like to wish the people of Tibet a quick and painless resolution to the half a century long Tibetan question and Chinese occupation of their homeland.

All of us here are privileged to be able to gather in a truly democratic country to celebrate the 74th birthday of His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama, the occasion for World Tibet Day. Founded by Richard Rosencrantz, a Pulitzer Prize nominee in history, World Tibet Day was created with three main goals: to create an annual worldwide event to help restore essential freedoms for those living in Chinese occupied Tibet; to increase awareness of the genocidal threats to the Tibetan people; and to celebrate the unique beauty and value of Tibetan culture and thought. It has come to be one of the most important events on the Tibetan calendar after his holiness gave it his blessings in 1998. I am honored to be able to welcome you on behalf of Friends of Tibet and the supporters of the cause worldwide. Friends of Tibet is a movement of people whose mission is to keep alive awareness of the Tibetan crisis through direct action. Aimed at ending the illegal Chinese occupation and the rampant human rights abuse in Tibet, this movement supports the struggle for Independence and autonomy. I am proud to say that I’ve been a part of this organization for exactly a year now.

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Latoya Mistral Ferns-Advani and I am an eighteen year old supporter of total freedom and independence for Tibet. It is an important issue long denied and ignored by the world, a noble and just appeal which will never be stifled by the waning diplomatic cowardice prevalent in society today. I am a humble but passionate supporter of the cause as I am strongly against the Chinese occupation and violent suppression in the region and am a believer in self determination and the sustaining of the beautiful, invaluable and distinct Tibetan culture, something I came to know and love as an ex student of Kodaikanal International school.

It is ironic that my mother once learned about Tibet in her classroom as a child, the glorious and spiritual roof of the world. I remember seeing it as a distinct state and wondering about it on an old, perhaps outdated political map in school. It is jarring because the entire world seems uncertain when an entire country like Tibet can so effortlessly be subdued by the might of another nation. Might may not be right, but normative statements like that don’t seem to be able to halt genocide. It is arguable that cultural genocide more than any other type is the most lethal as it erases an entire memory of the people, and in this the cumulative cultural world, that of the rest of mankind, marring and setting back our intellectual endeavors. My Tibetan teacher Mr. Sither once told me that there are stories that gold dust graced the rivers and streams of tibet, but they were considered so holy that they were never exploited for it. Sadly the comfort of spiritual mythopoeia is fast eroding in a consumerist world, fast eroding as Tibet loses semblance of its long, distinct and rich history of being one of the spiritual storehouses of the world.

The road is long and hard and sometimes I feel I am fighting for a lost cause. It has been fifty years since the international community agreed to lose an entire country for the sake of diplomatic appeasement and political expedience in this great illusory non-interference that is the Maya of international relations policy. It is easy to get on the bandwagon and say that Tibet will never be free. However the lure of easy cynicism and stoic resignation is broken, shattered utterly, for me at least, by the valiant and sincere efforts that still persist in the hope of one day seeing a free and thriving Tibet. I need not talk about the many noteworthy efforts of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to illustrate this. We have in our midst Sethu Das, founder of Friends of Tibet, who I know from personal experience has run it with no thought of any sort of benefit but doing the right thing. Friends of Tibet runs wholly on the contributions of its volunteer members and on donations. From a one member organization and email club in Bombay the organization has evolved into one with 19 regional chapters and six international chapters with close to four thousand members in India alone. I recently met Tenzin Tsundue, the General Secretary of the organization, who is best remembered for his red head band which he has worn for six years and will only remove when Tibet is free. Tsunduela is an inspirational writer-activist who has crossed the border into Lhasa by foot to experience firsthand the condition of his people under Chinese occupation and has made many noteworthy one-man protests during visits to India by Premier Zhu Rongji and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. An Alumnus of Kodi School, I am fortunate to have Tibetan refugee friends and to have worked with the Tibetan community in Kodaikanal. It has not only taught me the stark difference between our realities but has allowed me valuable insight into the indomitable spirit and peaceful worldview which graces any legitimate freedom struggle. Their courage has instilled in me the imperative to acknowledge my responsibility of working towards the realization of true freedom in Tibet and I hope that you will all come to know it first hand and that it proves worthy of your effort too.

I have written an Appeal to the People of China and Tibet in the form of a poem which I would like to have you all hear. It is important to highlight that I wish the people of China holistic happiness as well. An Appeal to the People of China and Tibet.

China discipline those who poison from the inside,

They kill your children too for welcoming Freedom,

This regime that you from Humanity divides

I appeal to your reverence of Justice and Wisdom!

Tibet, though I be a foreigner distinct and proud,

I am your kin in hope and a part of your vigil...

Even as hopeful songs are punished by repression loud,

Valiant hearts remain in beaten bodies which resist ill will!

Citizens of China exert your will and your motherland rule

Bow your insecure government, Censorship is your true Opium.

Have not decades of oppression acted like fuel

To overcome the enforced schismatic delirium?

Tibet with the dignity of people unconquered:

Liberation is the soul mate of preservers of Dreams.

A barren, blood soaked martyrs' land cannot birth a Future,

Let the dew fall on pure upheld prayer flags and unsullied mountain streams

True China, acquaint yourselves with a trodden-down-reality:

Another State, distinct from your own yet steeped in twin grief,

Even in prospects of obliteration holding on to peace and spirituality,

Defiantly depriving the utilitarian sadist-thief.

The moment is rife with telltale signs,

If the struggle retains its untarnished hue

Of ridding the oppressed from malign,

Imminent is the advent of "triumphs of virtue"!

Await the day when you as Neighbors

In spontaneous assembly your national anthems sing,

Great Eulogies to the sacrificial patriotic labors

That inspired the Lauds of self-determination to ring!

The struggle to regain self-determination, freedom of belief, association, assembly, expression and religion, and independence in Tibet is what you are aiding by your very presence here. I encourage you to do more to insure that no voice goes unheard in Tibet, that no incident of human rights abuse goes unseen or approved of, by this an international community, where when empowered everyone can work towards together a better world in enlightened self-interest.

I believe that Tibet is like India before independence, exploited and a thing of speculative contention. If India could get Independence from the British nonviolently then, it is possible for Tibet despite jaded skepticism. I am glad that the Worldview is beginning to change as evident in the mass opposition in the media today. I believe that the present is ripe for heartening change. it is my fervent prayer to be a part of something which will realize a future for our Tibetan Brothers and Sisters and allow for them the basic fundamental rights guaranteed to us all, regardless of where we come from.

I do feel responsible, and hope that all of you gathered here do as well, to see in my life time a free and happy Tibet. Bodh Gyalo, Victory to Tibet!

Happy birthday Holiness!

Riots Erupt in Western China Amid Ethnic Tension
(By Edward Wong, The New York Times, July 06, 2009)

BEIJING - At least 1,000 rioters clashed with the police on Sunday in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.
The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city. The rioters threw stones at the police and set vehicles on fire, sending plumes of smoke into the sky, while police officers used firehoses and batons to beat back rioters and detain Uighurs who appeared to be leaders of the protest, witnesses said.

At least three Han Chinese were killed in the rioting and 20 people were injured, according to Xinhua, the official news agency. Dozens of Uighur men were led into nearby police stations with their hands behind their backs and shirts pulled over their heads, one witness said. Early Monday, the local government announced a curfew banning all traffic in the city until 8 p.m.

The riot was the largest ethnic clash in China since the Tibetan uprising of March 2008, and perhaps the biggest protest in Xinjiang in years. Like the Tibetan unrest, it highlighted the deep-seated frustrations felt by some ethnic minorities in western China over the policies of the Communist Party.

Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s, when cities there were struck by waves of protests, riots and bombings. Last summer, attacks on security forces took place in several cities in Xinjiang; the Chinese government blamed separatist groups.

World is Run on Oil, Not Dharma

Snuffing the lamp of dharma
By Claude Arpi

Aung San Suu Kyi has just spent her 64th birthday in Burma's infamous Insein Prison. She has been charged with 'violating' the terms of her house arrest. If found guilty, she faces a long term in jail. But nobody is willing to take on the junta as everybody wants to cut a deal for Burmese oil and gas

Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 64th birthday in jail. Her previous birthdays in recent years have not been much different — the Burmese democracy icon has been under house arrest for quite some time.

On June 19, her lawyer Nyan Win sent a chocolate cake, an apple cake, three bouquets of orchids and 50 lunch boxes of biryani to Rangoon's infamous Insein Prison, hoping that the Nobel Laureate would be able to share these with her jailors. Mr Win Naing, a senior member of her National League for Democracy, told mediapersons: "She will invite doctors who care for her, some guards and others to her party."

Meanwhile, many celebrities have raised their voices in her support. Hollywood stars Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Madonna, footballer David Beckham and some Nobel Laureates have asked the military junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi.

Beatle Paul McCartney was one of the thousands who wrote a 64-word text for her: "Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration to her country and the rest of the world. I truly admire her infallible resolve and her determination to stand up for what she believes in. It is vital that Aung San Suu Kyi is released so that she can govern the people who elected her and give Burma back the freedom we all take for granted."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that she would raise the Burmese leader's case with the Association of South-East Asian Nations.

As she was due to be released in May after nearly 20 years of being forced to remain incommunicado, Aung San Suu Kyi was charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest when an American national, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside house and stayed two nights at her home.

If found guilty, she faces up to five years in prison. The trial has mostly been conducted in camera and mediapersons were prevented from speaking to her lawyers.

Mr Leandro Despouy, UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, says: "So far, the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and her aides has been marred by flagrant violations of substantive and procedural rights".

The UN working group on arbitrary detention had already issued an advisory ruling a year ago that the Nobel Laureate's continued house arrest was arbitrary. Reading all this, one does not understand why the world is unable to make the junta relent and release the courageous leader.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Burma — or Myanmar, as the junta calls India's neighbour — has oil and gas. This makes a difference.

When the US brought sanctions against the junta in 1997, the US Executive Order permitted the American energy company Unocal to remain in the country. Unocal was subsequently purchased by Chevron which is still very much involved in doing business with Burma and its junta.

It was reported by The Financial Times that a document prepared by the International Monetary Fund indicted the junta which used an accounting trick to keep $ 3.5 billion from the proceeds of the Unocal/Chevron natural gas pipeline off its account books. The finger immediately pointed towards the Generals: Had they simply pocketed the money or kept it in some tax haven for bad days. The Financial Times alleged that that the 'earnings' of the junta were equivalent to 57 per cent of Burma's Budget. One now understands better the reluctance of the Generals to restore democracy.

Will US President Barack Obama, who has condemned the junta for arresting Aung San Suu Kyi, look into the oil and gas deals of American companies? Probably not!

But the Americans are not the only ones involved in doing business with the junta. The French company Total is also present there. While glamourous Bernard Koucher, the French Foreign Minister, writes Op-Eds in The New York Times castigating the junta, business continues as usual. In a June 12 Op-Ed article, Mr Kouchner wrote: "Freedom from fear resounds more than ever as a call for help at a time when the Burmese junta has initiated proceedings against her that are as absurd as they are unjustified. We are not fooled."

Sounds good, doesn't it? He continues: "The thoughts of all those who admire and support her are with the 'Lady of Yangon', a woman full of dignity and finesse, energy and calm, intelligence and compassion."

In 2003, the same Bernard Kouchner was commissioned by Total (as an independent consultant) to write a report on the company's involvement in Burma. He had suggested that Total need not leave the country, but "must come out clearly in favour of democracy". Since then, Total has been very much involved with the oil and gas business in Burma.

Herein lies the hypocrisy. It is why there is little chance of any Western (or Asian) pressure succeeding in getting Aung San Suu Kyi released.

As prosaically mentioned on Total's Website: "Unfortunately, the world's oil and gas reserves are not necessarily located in democracies, as a glance at the map shows."

Mr Christophe de Margerie, Total's CEO, gave his group's view in an article published by the French newspaper Le Monde on June 1: "We have heard your heartfelt cry and share your distress over the imprisonment in Rangoon of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi. I have met her twice, and believe me when I say that her plight concerns me personally … We use our 'influence' whenever we can, but it is limited in Burma."

And then he adds: "We can say without exaggeration that if Total were to withdraw ... the companies that would rush to take our place would be far less concerned with upholding human rights and ensuring decent working conditions for employees. Their presence would in all likelihood increase, rather than shrink, the regime's revenues."

It clearly means: "If we go, China will come; they are worse than us." Though this position is totally amoral, it makes a point. In any case, China is already there. Beijing has begun laying a gigantic 1,100 km long gas and oil pipeline to Burma last September. The pipeline will reduce the transport route by 1,200 km as compared to shipping. It will also reduce China's reliance on the Straits of Malacca importing oil.

It is only one of the hundreds of projects (such as, construction of hydroelectric dams) in which China is involved in Burma. One understands the clout of the Middle Kingdom.

Where is India in this picture?

In 2007, India lost to China a 30-year gas concession from the junta. India will keep loosing to China; its diplomacy lacks teeth. At the same time, India's foreign policy has lost its moral foundation.

Aung San Suu Kyi's family was close to the Nehru-Gandhi family. When Aung San Suu Kyi's father was assassinated, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: "I mourn Aung San, friend and comrade, who even in his youth had become the architect of Burmese freedom." Young Suu Kyi was then two years old.

A few years later, in the early-1960s, her mother Daw Khin Kyi was appointed Burma's Ambassador to India. Aung San Suu Kyi, then 15 years old and with long thick plaits, joined Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi. She knew Mrs Indira Gandhi and her sons well.

Today, everybody has forgotten her in the hope of getting a few drops of oil. And what about her class mates at Lady Sri Ram College? Today, several of them are in positions of power and influence, but they have also forgotten her.

Such is the tragedy of a world running on oil, not dharma.

. . . . .
Friends of Tibet, PO Box: 16674, Bombay 400050, India.
. . . . .
Friends of Tibet is a people's movement to keep alive the issue of Tibet through direct action. Our activities are aimed at ending China's occupation of Tibet and the suffering of the Tibetan people. Friends of Tibet supports the continued struggle of the Tibetan people for independence. Friends of Tibet is also one of the principal organisers of World Tibet Day around the world. To know more, visit: www.friendsoftibet.org
. . . . .

'The World With Tibet' Campaign (June 2009)

Tibetan poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue introducing "The World With Tibet" Campaign of Friends of Tibet to a gathhering of two thousand monks at the Drepung Monastery in Mundgod Tibetan refugee camp in Karnataka in June 2009. Click here to know more about the Campaign.

Tibetan poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue introducing "The World With Tibet" Campaign of Friends of Tibet during one of his public gatherings at Hunsur Tibetan refugee camp in Karnataka in June 2009. Click here to know more about the Campaign.

Tibetans and Tibet supporters around the world are remembering the Tiananmen Square massacre. In Delhi, this will also mark the celebration of an endangered democracy. Ever since the city was brought to a standstill around the time of the Olympics Torch relay, we feel that Remembering the Tiananmen Square incident is more to do with how we are entrenching democracy today, within China and outside.

Another thing is to encourage people to to wear somehting WHITE that day as a part of the campign advocated by a Tiananmen veterant Wang Dan who is leading such a protets rally in Washington DC (See AFP news report: http://tinyurl.com/afp-white-china-21may09).

This is a moment to stand for freeom, democracy and justice, not just for the Chinese, but Tibetans, Burmese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Mongolians, Manchurians, Pakistanis and Uighurs.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's people-to-people relation building is a strategy, of sorts, to create people power to bring freedom and democracy in China and in extention to Tibet. Seeing the People's Republic of China's engagements with other occupied countries and also other countries whose freedom and democracy has been bought (read compromised) by China's business interests, many members of civil society will be remembering June 4 this year, as a metaphor of the dissent which is fast growing enadagered in today's world.

We have been commemorating Tiananmen since 2002 in Dharamsala, where besides a public gathering of about 3 to 4 hundred people we have small speeches made and do a candle light vigil and the main attraction is the film screening where we screen the famed documnetary ''Tiananmen: The Gate to Heavenly Peace''.

We make reports of this with photos and sent it to many chinese activist for freedom and democracy including Human Rights in China, Free China Network, China support network, and now there are a whole lot on Facebook also.

This is a seeking help mail, please suggest active people and organization you have been working with.

This could also be Delhi's call for freedom and justice as we call on more indian participation, NGOs to endorse this call and also physically by being there at jantar mantar.

there would be
- a joint press statement.
- candle light vigil
- short speeches made by representatives
- film screening

Time: 4.30pm
Venue: Jantar Mantar
Date: June 4th, 2009

Contact Aprajita Sarcar at 9899086964 for details

The Contribution of Buddhism and Buddha

(by Dr Ravindra Kumar)

Gautama Buddha and Buddhism have a made an excellent contribution towards strengthening the “Indian Way”, which is based on universal acceptance, particularly in making it dynamic and in bringing the common man into its fold. Buddha’s contribution for taking this way in his time, when it was a narrow path, cannot be underestimated. In his presence, Buddhism flourished and affected millions of Indians. Later, it became the basis for the lives of millions around the world.

Buddhism’s roots are deep. It is believed that Buddhism was in existence long before the birth of Siddhartha Gautama. As is mentioned in Buddhist texts, Gautama Buddha was one among a thousand awakened to attain Buddhahood. The chain of Buddhas will continue, with the Maitreya Buddha being the next one to come.

Buddhism, which is derived from the word “Buddha”, is an accessible way of life as shown by the Buddhas. By overcoming negative ideas, a Buddha develops positive virtues in him and rises to the stature of being a mentor to the world. Anyone − by knowing the reality of life − through self-control, restraint, and discipline, and by following the “Middle Way”, can get through his journey of life. By continuously doing good acts, he develops virtues, escapes the bond of sorrows, and attains the stage of being a Buddha.

Siddhartha Gautama, born in 563 BC, the son of Suddhodana and Queen Mahamaya of Kapilvastu, belonged to that Ikshavaku family line. This family line also gave birth to most of the Jain Tirthankaras – someone who achieves enlightenment through asceticism, becoming a teacher to others – as well as to the great, glorious King Harishchandra and Lord Rama. At the time of Siddhartha’s birth, social and political conditions were very complicated. People were the victims of atrocities and exploitation. There was a great void of love and sympathy among people for one another. Competition and jealousies in their worst form dominated human practices. People were busy with conspiracies against one another and with rivalries and obnoxiousness. The religious field had become discriminatory, isolated, arduous, and the center for achieving self-interest.

At that time, Siddhartha rose to the stature of the Buddha. He, as per the demand of the time, re-established “ahimsa”, the supreme human value, in different walks of life in the form of “karuna”, or compassion. His unique work added a matchless dimension to the Buddhist tradition. By making the way of human equality simple and accessible based on the ideal of karuna, he gave new life to the Indian Way.

Gautama Buddha’s contribution to the Indian Way and to humanity can be highlighted in three ways. On the strength of his intense and highly philosophical research based upon knowledge, logic, and exercise, and having the four Arya-Satyas as the center, he described the reality of human life. This research was his first great contribution. The four Arya-Satyas consisted of sorrow, its cause, its cessation, and the means of its cessation. He clarified to the suffering world that sorrow was the supreme reality of life. Birth, disease, old age, death, astonishment, depression, grief, contact with the unloving, separation from the dear, and the non-fulfillment of desire and lust are sorrows. Desiring enjoyment, power, and wealth, as well as the will to live, are the causes of sorrow. Desire and lust give birth to a state of struggle and conflict, become the source of striving, and lead people toward the ocean of sorrows. Cessation of these desires is the way to become free from sorrow. Gautama Buddha established the Eightfold Middle Way as the way to free oneself desire and lust, the cause of sorrow; he considered it the only true way to cease sorrow.

His path also made a unique contribution to the Indian Way. Besides becoming the Indian Way’s best introduction, it proved to be a milestone of the Way at that time. Buddhism touched the heights of the spiritual world in Siddhartha’s own lifetime and later crossed territorial boundaries as it reached all parts of Asia to guide the lives of millions. The simple and practical teachings of Buddha saved man. Buddhism came to be known as one of the prominent branches of religious philosophy.

Shakyamuni’s call for equality and people’s response to it paved the way for a social change in India. It was his second noteworthy contribution. It deeply affected the lives of many others in the world. Perhaps many are unaware that, on many occasions, Gautama Buddha expressed views on the importance of democracy. He called upon people to strengthen democratic values for the common welfare. Despite the existence of democratic institutions in India centuries before his birth, his advocacy of a democratic system, at a time of complicated social and political conditions, was a historical event. He stressed sitting together; making collective decisions; cooperating to implement them; respecting the pre-established system of welfare and law, elders and their advice; not using force or inflicting pressure on women; protecting Dharma; respecting the sages and monks with the purpose of strengthening morality, ethics and dutifulness in life; and showing reverence for others’ views and faiths. These principles continue to have significance even today for the prosperity of the whole system, if they are adopted as per the demands of the time.

Gautama Buddha brought all movable-immovable objects and views within the scope of “Law of Change”. Purification, according to the demands of the time and place, is an indivisible part of this Law. Hence, his call to accept this Law for all-around progress is his third important contribution to the Indian Way, and to humanity.

Dr Ravindra Kumar is an Indologist and the former vice chancellor of Meerut University, India.

Poems by Dr Gigi Joseph

Tashi Namgyal - A Memorial 2002 (For Tibet in Exile)

Was it only because you bore, alone

An exile heart in this strange land

Or was it that you were overcome

By memories of a lost Shangrila

That you moved about so quietly

Among strangers in the valley?

Charmed;and homesick from the womb

Of an unremembered homeland

Awaiting a rebirth in the next turn

Of the great WJjeel of Becoming

To return to White Mountain

When all hills shall bow, the meek exult

In sick memories, tyrant trumpets overwhelm

The ringing bells and turning prayer wheels.

Rattle of guns ploughed those eternal silences

Echoing among the immemorial mountains .

Clutching their dreams and their lives they fled.

The Buddha's smiles froze in a cold agony,

A jyute plays at the gates of the dark beyond

A call to return, like a reborn mountain spring

When the Wheel has turned again in slow time

Winter thaws, the goats roam the green flanks

Pray that the singer shall not look back

To send you back into dark exile again

In a wishful dream, time is regressed

The clock is ticking backwards to heal

The ancient wounds of a desperate earth

Let the shade not return to the netherworld

Let the memory become flesh in our time.

First to be born and then die to be reborn.

The Wheel turns again.

The T-Shirt Revolution

Out of the jungle in Vallegrande, dead

Short of an arm, sans all dreams, he emerged.

- I imagine, the old rider out of La mancha

Sanctified in beret and star, a new saviour!

New dreams , new worlds almost conquered

And in sweet remembrance, cry Guevara!

Now he leads a T- shirt revolution

With dreamy eyes upward turned,

A fluffy beard and thin moustache

Hallowed in death, wrapped in cliches,

Vague gneralities of murderous rhetoric.

Une mascota en la mascarada!

Flat bright icon upon juvenile lingerie

In the naive supermarkets selling reverie.

The dead, deified saleman of revolutions

In a lost world hungry for fashions

Foot note to a rebellious history!

Once grand ,tragic;but now a comic chic

The wily warrior who wished to doctor

The ancient ills of a wounded world.

Once an ideal, you now seem less real.

Had you survived the enemy's guns

Would you have been sainted thus ?

Or could you have grown to realise once

That the dream that raised a shining head

Under its fierce burnished crown, tread

On soft and crumbling feet of clay?

Middle Way or Bust

(By Tenzing Sonam) 

The Dalai Lama’s two-decade-old strategy has gone flat. Is it time for a ‘Baltic solution’?

The year 2008, for many reasons, is likely to go down in the annals of recent Tibetan history as a watershed year. This was the year when Tibetans in Tibet, 49 years after the takeover of their country, demonstrated clearly and loudly that they were still unhappy under Chinese rule; when a new generation of Tibetans in Tibet, spanning the entire society from monks and nomads to farmers and students, became politicised; and when the Tibetan movement assumed a pan-national character, involving people from all three traditional provinces of Tibet in a united and hitherto unprecedented manner. Finally, this was also the year when the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way approach, which gives up the demand for independence in return for genuine autonomy, and which he has pursued patiently and unwaveringly since the late 1980s, finally crashed in the face of Beijing’s unequivocal rejection. Now, a year on from the widespread anti-Chinese demonstrations of spring 2008, and six months since the ‘special meeting’ convened by the Dalai Lama to discuss future options for the Tibet movement, it is time to face up to some harsh realities.

 

After years of leading Dharamsala up the garden path of promised negotiations, Beijing unceremoniously and unambiguously pulled the rug out from under the Dalai Lama’s envoys in November 2008, when it categorically rejected his Middle Way approach and the formal proposal that emerged from it, the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People. Not only this, Chinese officials even dismissed the right of the Dalai Lama to represent the Tibetan people. In a news conference in Beijing on 12 November, Zhu Weiqun, the Executive Vice-Minister of the United Front Work Department, accused the Memorandum of seeking “half-independence” and “covert independence”. Furthermore, he stated: “We talked with Mr Lodi Gyari” – the Dalai Lama’s special envoy – “and his party only because they were the Dalai Lama’s private representatives. And we merely talked about how the Dalai Lama should completely give up his splitting opinions and actions, and strive for the understanding of the central authorities and all Chinese people so as to solve the issue concerning his own prospect. We never discussed the so-called ‘Tibet issue’.”

 

It was a major turnaround. Whatever the nature of their discussions in private – and observers have always been led by the Dalai Lama’s envoys to believe that these were substantial and building up to real negotiations – the Chinese clearly had no qualms about publicly quashing the entire exercise in one humiliating move. Those who had always warned that Beijing was not serious about the talks, and was simply playing for time, were vindicated. But even to the most ardent critics of the Middle Way approach, China’s decision to abandon any pretence of discussion with the Dalai Lama so soon after the Beijing Olympics, held just three months before, undoubtedly came as a surprise.

 

It is clear that China is now ready to embark on a new strategy in its efforts to resolve the Tibet question – one that has no place for the Dalai Lama. In the short term, this seems to mean continuing its campaign to discredit and sideline the Dalai Lama internationally, while using brute force and draconian measures to stamp out any sign of protest or dissent on the plateau. China is engaging in this with impunity, simply because there is no one to tell it not to do so. The international economic crisis has made China an even stronger world player, one that is able to dictate terms to the West in a way that would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Beijing is in no mood to listen to Western admonitions about its human-rights record or conduct, and Western governments are in no position to push the point.

 

Of course, Chinese officials do understand that there is deep discontent in Tibet. But they believe that this will disappear in the longer term, particularly once the Dalai Lama is no longer there to provide inspiration. And the government is clearly prepared to wait for this to happen. More interestingly, Beijing also seems to have decided to confront the Dalai Lama’s influence on the world stage, by challenging the exile Tibetan perspective in the public debate over Tibet – or, at least, influencing it so that it is no longer a black-and-white issue. It is doing this by aggressively asserting its own view of Tibet to the world.

 

A case in point is the eight-page advertisement supplement headlined “China’s Tibet: The Past and the Present”, which came out in the Hindustan Times edition of 9 April 2009. Abundantly illustrated with photographs and statistics, it purports to show how backward and hellish old Tibet was, and how much progress and development, both socially and economically, the Chinese government’s munificence has brought to the area. It makes no mention of the Dalai Lama – China wants to marginalise him – or the recent unrest in Tibet, which it chooses to portray as the work of a few agents provocateurs. Instead, it stresses its claim that China’s rule in Tibet has brought modernisation, prosperity and happiness to the long-suffering, and now eternally grateful, people of Tibet. For the uninformed reader, the facts are impressive and convincing.

 

Similarly, China’s declaration that, beginning this year, 28 March would be celebrated as Serf Emancipation Day in Tibet, is a direct challenge to the 10 March Uprising Day commemorated by Tibetans in exile, an anniversary that has continued to challenge the legitimacy of China’s rule over Tibet. This may seem provocative  and crude to those who know something about the real situation in Tibet; but China is not concerned about such individuals. Rather, its officials are seeking to influence the vast majority of the world’s population that knows little to nothing of Tibet. Why else would they decide to take out, on 6 April this year, an 18-page supplement entitled “50 Years of Democratic Reform in Tibet” in, of all places, the Daily Times of Malawi? Indeed, we can expect many more such supplements to appear, throughout the world, as China ratchets up its public-relations campaign on Tibet.

 

Dithering Dharamsala

How can the Dharamsala government-in-exile counter this new offensive? Unless it fights to reclaim its ground in this debate, and brings fresh thinking into the movement, the Tibet issue risks becoming increasingly amorphous and eventually sidelined. But Dharamsala’s response to both the situation in Tibet and the failure of its talks with China has been anything but convincing. It has simply insisted on holding on to an ever-more tenuous moral high ground, by claiming that the Middle Way approach and the Memorandum for Genuine Autonomy remain the only ways by which to resolve the Tibet issue.

 

The two key strategies outlined by the Kashag, the exile Tibetan cabinet, earlier this year, are to continue to promote and explain the Memorandum both among its own people and internationally, and to reach out to ordinary Chinese citizens. Its position with regard to China’s rejection of its Middle Way approach is simply to state: “The entire responsibility for the future status of our dialogues, irrespective of what it is going to be, lies squarely on the Chinese leaders. The Tibetan side has already made all the required clarifications and brought a process of dialogue that began in 2002 to its logical conclusion.” But what does this mean, exactly? That, in an ever-unpredictable, politically charged situation, Dharamsala has played its final hand and, come what may, will not budge from its position? A recent Reuters report quoted the Dalai Lama’s lead envoy, Kalsang Gyaltsen, as saying: “If there is any seriousness and political will on the part of the Chinese government, the ball is now in their court,” a sporting metaphor thereafter repeated by Prime Minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche. The image here is of two equally matched contestants playing a back-and-forth game of tennis. But in reality, China has long since abandoned both the ball and the court.

 

Dharamsala’s curiously passive and moralistic response to the gauntlet thrown down by China is evident in a second statement by Samdhong Rinpoche, from mid-March. “If the present leadership do not wish to take the credit of resolving the Tibetan issue,” he said, “the next leadership will take the credit.” This seems to imply that Dharamsala has done the current Beijing leaders a favour by giving them the opportunity to respond positively to its proposal, and that it would be their loss if they were to refuse. But the most mystifying of the confusing signals emerging from Dharamsala is Samdhong Rinpoche’s assertion that, “As far as we are concerned, we are prepared for another hundred years of struggle. The inspiration is there. So we have no worry.”

 

This latter contention needs to be examined within the context of the primary justification for the Middle Way approach. The way that this strategy was originally sold to the Tibetan people was on the grounds that the situation in Tibet was so dire and so desperate that its very existence as a culture and a nation faced imminent extinction. Therefore, in order to forestall this, Tibetans had to give up the goal of independence, so that genuine negotiations over the future of Tibet could begin with China. The Dalai Lama has since repeated many times that “Tibet faces something like a death sentence”; that a “cultural genocide” is taking place there; and that if the situation does not improve soon, Tibet, as a nation, would soon disappear. Samdhong Rinpoche himself, in an interview last March, said, “If the Tibet issue is not resolved amicably within five, ten years of time, there will be no more Tibet inside Tibet. It will be a completely non-Tibetans’ land. It may be Han Chinese or it may be some other minority but Tibetans will be completely lost in the vast majority of non-Tibetans. It is very true and we also realize that it is a very urgent threat for the survival of Tibet, but what we can do?”

 

The crux of the Middle Way approach was that it provided a compromise position that would, ostensibly, be acceptable to China and, therefore, would stand a better chance of being able to save Tibet’s culture and identity. In a meeting with Chinese journalists in Seattle in April 2008, the Dalai Lama clearly spelled out his reasoning behind this approach: “We are not seeking independence. We are very much happy to remain within the People’s Republic of China. We are concerned about the preservation of Tibetan culture, Tibetan Buddhism, environment.” But if this is not the case, as Samdhong Rinpoche now seems to be implying, and if the struggle can continue for another hundred years without any worry, then the question inevitably arises: Why should Tibetans spend the next hundred years struggling for genuine autonomy when they could just as easily be fighting for the very goal that all Tibetans believe in – independence?

 

Dharamsala’s justification for continuing with the Middle Way approach is that it is a democratically endorsed policy, and one that received renewed support from the people through the outcome of the special meeting that the Dalai Lama convened in November. Unsurprisingly, delegates at that meeting, representing a cross-section of the exile Tibetan community, reiterated their faith in the Dalai Lama’s leadership, and a majority endorsed his Middle Way approach. But anyone familiar with the workings of Tibetan society knows that such an endorsement is not so much for the Middle Way approach as it is for the Dalai Lama himself. If, tomorrow, the Dalai Lama were suddenly to decide that the Middle Way approach is no longer a viable option and that he would instead revert to the goal of independence, would even one Tibetan be prepared to stand up to him because of his or her belief in the principle of the Middle Way approach? The spiritual devotion to the Dalai Lama simply clouds any kind of political realism among his people.

 

In fact, a more significant result of the special meeting was the recommendation that support for the Middle Way approach should be made conditional on concrete results emerging within a short timeframe. Failing that, all other options, including independence, were to be discussed. Strangely, this point has neither been taken up by the government-in-exile, nor even mentioned in its subsequent statements, which only stress overwhelming support for the Middle Way approach. Why this reticence to open up the debate on the future course of action for Tibet when, patently, the current policy has run its course? What is to be gained from holding on to the Middle Way approach in this context, other than in trying to prove a moral point?

 

The Middle Way approach is, after all, a political strategy, and one that has not paid tangible dividends. Why, then, is it being promoted with the dogmatic zeal of a religious doctrine, unchallengeable and unshakable? In fact, the Kashag’s insistence on holding on to the Middle Way approach as a ‘democratically endorsed’ decision is both disingenuous and, in the long run, dangerous. There is absolutely no guarantee that, in the Dalai Lama’s absence, there would be continuing support for the Middle Way approach and genuine autonomy.

 

Baltic Archetype

Meanwhile, in Tibet itself the situation could not be worse. A year on from the massive protests of March-April 2008, it would appear that the spring uprising, which inspired Tibetans everywhere so powerfully and seemed to have held out so much promise, has ended in tragedy. The sacrifice of the thousands who risked their lives has today achieved nothing more than a brief, incandescent moment in the international spotlight.

 

In fact, however, all is not as it seems. The long-term consequences of the demonstrations may yet prove to be more significant than anyone can currently imagine, and might come back to haunt the Chinese leadership. One hint of this came during a radio call-in show on Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan language service in Washington, DC, last September. The reporter, Dolkar, was in conversation with three young Tibetan students studying in Beijing. One told her:

The uprisings of ‘89 and ‘59 were a long time ago, and for us youngsters, these are just like stories from the past. But now, with the recent uprisings and the oppression, the story has unfolded for real in front of our own eyes. This was a reminder of our past; it woke us up. Until recently, people have been disheartened and scared to carry out any action. But with the March demonstrations, and with the coming-together of people from all walks of life, we have been reminded that the burden of the struggle for truth and freedom does not rely only on one or two persons. It isn’t just the responsibility of His Holiness or the Tibetans in exile, nor is it just the responsibility of the educated ones, but it is the responsibility of every one of us. This has become very clear this time.

This may be the real impact of the protests, and the reason why they may not ultimately have been in vain. A new generation of Tibetan activists has been born in Tibet, and it has now been empowered to carry the struggle into the future. The renewed belief and commitment of this new generation in Tibet demand that the policies made by the government-in-exile are strong and inspirational, and are designed to keep the movement alive for as long as it takes to achieve its goals. But it seems increasingly unlikely that doggedly hanging on to the Middle Way approach is the way to meet this challenge.

 

Given Beijing’s aggressive new strategy to neutralise the Tibet issue internationally, the only practical and effective course of action open to Dharamsala would seem to be what one long-time Tibet watcher calls the ‘Baltic solution’. This would entail shifting the goal of the struggle back to independence. It would require persevering in the international forum by repeatedly and forcefully asserting Tibet’s claim to independence, both historically and in accordance with the principles of self-determination; knowing full well that, in the short term, this would not pay concrete dividends other than keeping the idea of Tibetan nationhood alive. At the same time, it would mean building up a strong and genuinely democratic government-in-exile, which would prepare Tibetans for a post-Dalai Lama future and shift the focus of the struggle away from his person, thereby keeping it from disintegrating in his absence.

 

These measures would invigorate the Tibet movement, make it vibrant and unified, and help it to remain a source of hope and inspiration for the people inside Tibet. And in some distant future, when the Communist Party of China no longer holds power, these measures would also do much to prepare the ground for real negotiations, and for the possibility of either complete independence or genuine autonomy in its true sense. It took the Baltic states more than 70 years to regain their independence; today, Tibet has as much right and resilience as a nation to hope for the same. If Samdhong Rinpoche is serious about keeping the Tibetan struggle alive for a hundred years, this may be the only option he has.

Guru Gobind Singh, Khalsa and Indian Nationalism

(By Dr. Ravindra Kumar)

Guru Gobind Singh was a nationalist among the nationalists. He not only adopted the national culture in its purest form, but also worked to protect it. He preferred local language in his day-to-day practices on the one hand and accorded full honour to different languages of the country on the other. He developed his active method of working having contemporary regional and national problems in the centre so that their solution in an effective manner could be feasible. He searched the remedy for pains of vast majority of the people. Furthermore, he based his method of working and the searched remedy on those eternal values which were approved by Indians thousands of years ago in their lives for ever. Those very values had become the basis of their unique identity; they are the basis of the identity of the Indians until today. Universal acceptance, forbearance and tolerance are the main among those values. The fearless and enmity-free Supreme Lord, God, is the original source of those values.

The entire views of Guru Gobind Singh were connected to the true beliefs and welfaristic traditions of his motherland. Imported or foreign-originated views never became the basis of his actions for the mass awakening. Whole of his actions were on priority to light a fire of nationalism in the hearts of the people to make them active. They were for the resolution of national problems on the basis of the mass awakening. In the root of his views was equality-based life for each and everyone in the society so that all could live with honour. So was the purpose of his actions. He wished a life full of fearlessness and chivalry for everyone so that all could defend their motherland and add to the pride of the nation.

Creation of the Khalsa

In this regard the creation of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 A. D. at Anandpur on the occasion of the ‘Baisakhi Day’ was a historical event as it was a unique step taken by him for the protection and solidarity of the universal acceptance-based Indian way, culture and national values. Without a doubt it was an act of strengthening nationalism; it was a milestone of the way of national renaissance. The importance of the creation of the Khalsa could be understood from the following points of view: 

The purpose of the creation of the Khalsa was to awake Indians, who were sleeping for centuries, through those well-prepared brave men who were monotheistic, adherent to the path of truth, possessors of strong character and mindful of their duties. Through them the message of struggling against any kind of injustice was conveyed to the masses. The common men were filled with courage and enthusiasms to become fearless in toto, and came forward to perform their duties and become ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the nation. Furthermore, by overcoming of the artificial division of the society in the name of caste and class, to bring all within the scope of unity and thus to establish the real and practical equality among the people was the purpose of the creation of the Khalsa.

Dayaram [1661-1708], the first among the Five, Panch [Panj] Pyare, appeared at the time of the creation of the Khalsa, was the son of Suddha and Dayali Sobti; he was Khasttriya by caste. Dharmarai [1666-1708], the second, son of Santram and Sahabo, resident of Hastinapur, Meerut was a Jat by caste. Himmatrai [1661-1705], the third and who was a son of Gulzari and Dhanno of Jagannathpuri, Orissa was a water-drawer by caste. Similarly, Mohkamchand [1663-1705], the next, son of Tirathchand and Divi, resident of Dwarika, Gujarat was a tailor by caste while the last Sahebchand [1662-1705], son of Guru Narayana and Anakamma of Bidar, Karnataka was a barber by caste. Thus, undoubtedly, the Khalsa created by Guru Gobind Singh was a unique organization based on social equality. There was no place for the system like caste or class in it. It was a matchless way towards the development, maturity and strengthening of nationalism.

For centuries Indian Society has been divided into castes, sub-castes and classes thousands in number. This division as an evil has constantly widened the range of inequality among the people. Consequently, besides suffering in many ways India has to loose its independence internally and externally from time-to-time. Guru Gobind Singh, a philosopher, visionary and a man of wisdom, well understood the consequences of this artificial and inequality-based division of society and the creation of the Khalsa by him was a remedy to this centuries-old evil. In Khalsa everyone, doesn’t matter if he was engaged in a work of a particular nature, received representation and that too with equal honour. The purpose of the Khalsa was quite clear: difference between general and particular was to mitigate to enable all to come forward to fight against attackers, barbarians, exploiters, invaders, oppressors and tyrants wholeheartedly and with unity, doesn’t matter if they were internal or external. Moreover, getting the people realized of truth, their duties and responsibilities towards strengthening nationalism and eventually defending and serving the humanity as a whole was the successful objective behind the creation of the Khalsa.

Another important idea behind the creation of the Khalsa was to pave a way towards the establishment of the political unity of the country. Although Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel integrated India on a larger scale after its political freedom from the British Empire in the year 1947 and thus he established a record, but it is equally true that along with his followers who were limited in number Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa having the approach of national unity in the centre. Moreover, Guru Gobind Singh did so in a critical time and difficult situation and that too through limited means. Therefore, his work was too great and exemplary. His approach towards political unity of the country was of a high level. The five, Panch Pyare, represented the whole of India-from north to south and east to west. They also represented that portion which is not a part of today’s India. The Khalsa was a symbol of India’s political unity. It, therefore, clearly reflected Guru Gobind Singh’s approach and commitment towards nationalism. His nationalism could also be seen in the light of the most effected and excellent system like the Panch Parmeshwar established centuries ago in India in accordance with the national circumstances. 

As mentioned earlier, Guru Gobind Singh first prepared the Five, Panch Pyare, and then asked them to offer the Amrit to him. They did so and he drunk it. By doing so, he granted them an equal status. He accepted them as his Guru and said, “Where the five true Sikhs [Khalsa] will present, I will also be there. The decision of the five will be considered the decision of the Guru himself. The Guru himself is bound by their decision.”

His nationalism was not isolated in nature. Rather, its scope was large enough and it was refined. It was full of spiritualism. Human welfare was in the centre of it. It was connected with high human-values. Therefore, his nationalism was the furthering step towards universalism. In other words, it was an effective basis of transforming the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam into a reality.

For the establishment of true and firm nationalism and through it for the development of the spirit of internationalism one has to set himself free to a large extent from the self interest that is inevitable in day-to-day human practices. He has to come forward to make sacrifice, some time great in nature. In this regard the sacrifice made by Guru Gobind Singh was unparallel and exemplary. No other sacrifice could be greater than the sacrifice made by him.

His father, the ninth Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur, sacrifice his life for the cause of the nation and humanity. He, as Gobind Rai, had himself inspired his father for that. He took all pains in his individual life. He faced so many difficulties. In spite of that he never compromised at the cost of the honour of the nation, cultural heritage and humanity. Rather, he throughout his life fought for safeguarding the national culture, values and humanity and that too by fair means. In this fight his four sons-Ajit Singh, Jujhar Singh, Jorawar Singh and Fateh Singh-too sacrificed themselves. But Guru Gobind Singh neither expressed grief nor did he shed a single tear over the sacrifice of his sons. Rather, he thanked God, and thus, by setting example of greatest sacrifices exhorted the people to defend the nation and humanity. Moreover, he left it as his legacy to be followed by generations to come.

So many examples of those great men are found in the pages of history of India, and the world also, who lived for the welfare of humanity. Indeed, through their exemplary acts they created histories. But, some of them certainly became helpless, doesn’t matter if for a while, when a critical situation got emerged in their individual life. But the case of Guru Gobind Singh is quite different; it is an exception. After the sacrifice of his four sons he neither mourned nor did he deviate for a moment from his mission. Where is the other example to compare the sacrifice of Guru Gobind Singh? 

Guru Gobind Singh well identified the element necessary as per the demand of time for the establishment of true nationalism in India, a country of unity in diversity. In other words, he recognized indifference of his misguided compatriots from their duties. That is why; he encouraged them to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the cause of nationalism. He declared it to be their foremost duty towards their nation. But, his nationalism was undoubtedly dedicated to humanity. It was a furthering step towards internationalism. All-backwards, down-trodden, poor or unprivileged-were within the scope of his nationalism. In it were the warriors, soldiers or the weak. As a Guru and a disciple Gobind Singh, the initiator of a new age, was himself a part of it. 

In his forty-two years’ worldly life Guru Gobind Singh tirelessly worked for the protection, development and steadfastness of nationalism and through nationalism to save humanity. In this regard he adopted a practical and wonderful approach of uniting people on the basis of equality. That approach is still relevant and exemplary particularly for those who think about nationalism, who are concerned of it and desire to work for its development and strength. Doubtlessly, for them Guru Gobind Singh is an ideal. Simultaneously, his ideas and works pertaining to nationalism are also significant and exemplary for those who see it in the perspective of human-welfare, and thus believe in universalism. Guru Govind Singh’s words that “I have been sent [to teach the humanity the lesson of truth, love and sanctity and to fight for justice, and to prepare the people to follow eternal values], although, I am myself an ordinary person” are enough to set those free from their doubts who consider his nationalism to be isolated and far from internationalism. He was a true representative and defender of nationalism of his time. The creation of the Khalsa was a historical step to strengthen nationalism. But the real purpose of it was the defence and welfare of all human beings.

(Dr Ravindra Kumar is a former Vice Chancellor of Meerut University and a renowned Indologist)

The Power Of Tibet

 

Nothing happens by coincidence,

Like a flower that sheds its petals upon the wind.

Like the dandelion seed dispersed.

So the people of Tibet were scattered

to the four corners of the globe,

so that their beliefs

could take root

and grow in foreign soil,

on distant lands.

So that their beliefs could germinate in the hearts of others

and peace could grow around the world.

(by Simon Herfet / simonherfet@btinternet.com)

The Bounty Of March

(By Tenzin Tsundue | Tehelka | April 04, 2009)

The Tibetan activist outlines his people’s crucial history of hope in the half century since the March Uprising

As a schoolboy in Class vii, my first serious Tibetan history lesson was one of provocation. I used to listen to Professor Samdhong Rinpoche’s Tibetan history lectures on audio tapes sent by a scholar uncle in Varanasi. In one anecdote, Professor Rinpoche tells of the 1950 fall of the eastern gate of Kham-Chamdo to invading Chinese troops. A messenger in Lhasa ran to deliver the Morse code alert to the Tibetan Cabinet. As he stood gasping for air at the door to an official hall, the doorkeeper blocked his entry, stating that this news would disturb the aristocrats’ party within.

In March 2008, protests swept across the entire Tibetan Plateau in a people’s movement that was reminiscent of the Lhasa uprising of March 1959. The international media descended last year on His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s exile residence in Dharamsala to ask him, “Do you support this ‘riot’? Can you stop it?” His Holiness replied: “No, I can’t. I have no magic power.” He was right. He had expressed a similar powerlessness back then in 1959 when the occupying People’s Liberation Army ordered him to “control the rebels.”

Tibet’s unofficial resistance movement began with monks, nomads and farmers taking up arms when China first invaded Tibet in 1949. Tibetan soldiers later organised themselves with the CIA and the Indian Government’s help. And in exile, they fought for India: in 1962 against China, in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war, and in 1975 against Pakistan. When US President Nixon befriended Mao Zedong in 1972, the CIA dumped the Tibetans, and when the Nepalese army threatened to flush out Tibetan camps, the Dalai Lama ordered an end to violent resistance with the camps’ disbandment. Today, 6,000 Tibetan soldiers serve the Indian army in its declassified Sector 22, a paramilitary force posted mainly on the Siachen Glacier.

In 1951, the Lhasa Government did officially protest Beijing’s imposition of the 17-Point Agreement for the “Peaceful Liberation” of Tibet, but then tried to live with newly-Communist China in an arrangement of autonomy; by 1959, citizens rebelled against Chinese bullying and arrogance. The otherwise apolitical farmers and nomads rapidly spread the word: “The Chinese military plans to kidnap His Holiness Kundun. We must protect him.” The next morning, people gathered in unprecedented numbers and made history. In Lhasa, the anxious crowds gathered in front of the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, shouting slogans and begging their leader not to leave his abode. When government officials from inside the Norbulingka walls requested the crowd to disperse, war cries arose of “China, get out of Tibet!” The protective gathering lasted for many days and the mounting tension between PLA soldiers and Tibetans resulted in the Dalai Lama escaping to India.

Thousands of Tibetans were massacred in the following days and months. This public awakening is honoured in exile every March 10 as Tibetan National Uprising Day, and continues to inspire new generations of Tibetans. The spontaneous protests in Lhasa in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1993 have all been resurgences of this public indignation. During the last half century, Tibetans have repeatedly proved that the real issue of Tibet is not the status of the country’s high-profile leader, but the wishes of the citizens themselves, sometimes even overriding official statements and agreements.

The protestors of the 2008 uprising knew they, too, would suffer loss of life, incarceration and torture. Yet shepherds born under Mao — who had never seen the Tibetan flag — photocopied the design from a book smuggled into Tibet and flew it gaily in the air. A friend’s uncle, a nomad from a remote mountain region in Amdo, reported on the phone that since there were no Chinese in the mountains, he was running about with other nomads searching for them. The group hoped to “raise our fists and shout in their faces: ‘Chinese Go Home!’”

The 2008 uprising happened in the wake of the failing “dialogue process” between Dharamsala and Beijing. It historically signifies Tibetans' rejection of Beijing’s bribes of material comforts and individual security. They repudiated Beijing’s lofty claims of development and its “gifts” like modern schools, hospitals, highways, shopping malls, discotheques and the much-admired railway linking Lhasa and Beijing. The Chinese Government described the people’s uprising as a “disturbance” instigated by the “Dalai Clique,” thereby belittling the Tibetan nation’s aspirations and insulting the intelligence of the six million Tibetans inside Tibet. This is symptomatic of colonial powers that treat colonies as treasure islands and their citizens as exotic beasts on leashes.

In 2002, after the resumption of “dialogue” with the Beijing leadership, the Dalai Lama’s envoys were scolded by their Chinese counterparts for masterminding anti-Beijing protests within the international community, including the pro-independence activities of the Tibetan Youth Congress. The envoys replied that, as a democracy, the Dalai Lama can’t dictate terms to his people as the Beijing does in its own country. Upon the promise of further dialogue, and a possible “give-and-take” solution in the future, the exile government “requested” Tibetans not to stage protests during visits by Chinese presidents and prime ministers of foreign countries.

But many of us have utterly no trust in the corrupt Communist leadership and continue to protest. The exile government created such high hopes for “dialogue” that some of us “rebels” have even been tagged as “anti-Dalai Lama” by our community. By keeping our political stand steadfast through this criticism, we appreciate only too well that China itself lacks the will to negotiate, using the charade of promised talks simply to fend off Western criticism of their appalling human rights record. Today, the Dalai Lama himself is saying that he is losing hope in Beijing.

Beijing is not confident enough to invite the Dalai Lama to Tibet or China and has repeatedly rejected his autonomy proposal. Most Tibetan youth believe they can regain their identity and dignity of life through independence, and that without independence Tibet will die under the Chinese weight. Tomorrow, even if autonomy is granted, our struggle for Independence will continue in Tibet. The Tibetan people’s struggle to re-establish their lost independence is, therefore, not a secessionist movement — the difference is more philosophical than ideological.

Following the non-confrontational Buddhist methods of conflict resolution, His Holiness has repeatedly tried to stop the Tibetan youth from sitting on hunger strikes, marching to Tibet, and requested Tibetans inside Tibet to restrain from mass street protests as they would result in loss of life. What, perhaps, remains misunderstood is that even though Tibetan youngsters take aggressive and confrontational actions, our common credo remains Nonviolence.

The Dalai Lama has gone out of his way in introducing and successfully nurturing a vibrant democracy-in-action in the exile Tibetan community. We will bring this gift to Tibet when independence is achieved. With such strong democratic safeguards now enshrined in our exile community, how can the Chinese Government expect to continue with its childish propaganda that the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet would re-establish “serfdom and feudalism”?

In 1997, having read my Shakespeare and AK Ramanujan I graduated from Loyola College, Madras and went to Tibet to start a revolution. This romantic rebel soon got arrested, beaten and thrown into jail in Lhasa. A fellow-prisoner advised me: “Do not let the smoke out even if Free Tibet burns in your heart.” But by then this inexperienced prisoner, a Bhagat Singh fan, had already boasted he had come to free Tibet. For both Tibetans inside and outside our land, the undeclared common strategy of the movement is to live through this difficult struggle with patience, and outlive the dictatorial Chinese leadership to witness changes in China for ourselves.

His Holiness has now called for people-to-people contact between Tibetans and the Chinese. Our future leaders may not be as brilliant, dynamic or unifying as the 14th Dalai Lama, but Tibet will have passed successfully through one of the most difficult periods in its long history.

Tibetan Monk Who Supported Sri Lanka's Freedom Struggle

 

Sri Lanka was under the yoke of the British colonialists for a period of more than hundred years and the Sinhala people were in constant clash with the rulers to gain freedom. This struggle to free Lanka from the Colonialists was supported by many in the other parts of the world.

 

In 1913, a 12 year old Tibetan by the name of S.K.Thashinamgal came to Sri Lanka with his brother who was a Buddhist monk. In fact, his elder brother had been a Professor in the Calcutta University and the second brother had been the Prime Minister to the king in Sikkim. It was with the third brother that Thashinamgal had come to Sri Lanka and had resided in a temple in Polgasduwa. He had studied languages at Vidyodaya Pirivena, the then higher educational institute for Buddhist monks and later, in 1930 had ordained himself as a monk by the name Sikkim Mahinda.

 

Ven. S. Mahinda was so friendly with the Sinhala people, in 1936, decided to reside in Panadura where the famous religious debate took place and made Sri Sudharmaramaya temple his permanent residence. He lived in that temple for 15 years and engaged in supporting the Sinhala patriots with his poetic recitations. The Tibetan monk was actually a good poet whose verses filled the people of Lanka with strong patriotic sentiments and he, too, was completely engrossed with the anti-colonial struggle. His poems aroused the flames of patriotism among the Sinhalese people in an extraordinary manner. It was none other than this Tibetan monk who mainly influenced the Sinhala people to continue with their struggle against the British and FREE THE COUNTRY.

 

He worked as a teacher at Ananda College in Colombo and died on 16th March 1951.

 

There were lots of community work that this Tibetan monk, Ven. S. Mahinda had done during his stay in Panadura, namely, starting up an English language school for Dhamma studies, free dispensary for the poor, a Dharmashala for the people to gather and discuss on Buddhistic teachings.

 

Even today people use his poems to educate children of the value in respecting one's nationality.  His poems show that no community should be under fetters of any ‘OTHER’ which means FREEDOM TO ALL NATIONALITIES.  The patriots today consider this Tibetan monk as a strong supporter of the Sri Lankan patriotic struggle against the colonialists and he is being commemorated annually. At this moment of writing this note we can see hundreds of posters put up by the National Buddhist Congress to celebrate the death anniversary of this veteran Tibetan poet who inspired the Sri Lankans. This, indisputably shows the strong bond between Tibet and Sri Lanka and in return people in Sri Lanka are fully in support of the Tibetan Freedom Movement. Today Sinhala people are so keen to read about HH the Dalai Lama and about the Tibetan people. Even the book 'My country and my people' written by His Holiness has been translated into Sinhala and many other articles about His Holiness and the Tibetan people have been published making the Sri Lankan people aware of the TIBETAN STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM..

 

SRI LANKANS ARE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE TIBETANS!

Ravindra Ranasinha

ravindra.ranasinha@friendsoftibet.org

Friends of Tibet (Sri Lanka)

A Cartoon by Nanda Soobben

Nanda Soobben is currently the cartoonist for "The Daily News"; a major daily newspaper in KwaZulu Natal. He is also the founder and creative director of the Centre for Fine Art, Animation and Design, South Africa.

Nanda has received international recognition for his solo exhibitions of political cartoons in New York and Brazil. His book of cartoons, 'The Wizard of HOD' (House of Delegates) is a collector's item and part of the African Library Collection of the Smithsonian Institute Museum. While studying in New York he was a member of the prestigious New York-based Cartoon and Writers' syndication. Soobben studied computer animation at the Parsons School of Design in New York and did an internship at the San Francisco Art Institute prior to returning to South Africa, where he established the Centre for Fine Art, Animation and Design (CFAD) in Durban.

One Year On: Worldwide Calls for Release of Tibetan Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen

The Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen, director of the documentary film "Leaving Fear Behind", was first arrested a year ago on 26 March 2008. On behalf of his family and thousands of people worldwide who have seen the documentary, Gyaljong Tsetrin, cousin of Dhondup Wangchen and President of  "Filming for Tibet" calls on the Chinese government to release him immediately.

The documentary, depicting the views of ordinary Tibetans on the Olympics, China and Tibet, was first screened in Beijing on 6th August 2008. Since then, Leaving Fear Behind has been screened all over the world including UK, Switzerland, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Holland, Poland and Japan. Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Association of Tibetan Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, national groups of Amnesty International, student organisations and hundreds of Tibet groups have expressed their concern for the fate of Dhondup Wangchen and his associate Golog Jigme.

Gyaljong Tsetrin in Switzerland who helped to produce the film stated today: In the past 12 months I have seen growing support for Dhondup Wangchen's case. I can assure the supporters that the news of their solidarity crosses the prison walls and keeps him alive. I call on governments, human rights organisations and Tibet groups not to slow down their activities to free Dhondup Wangchen and his helper Golog Jigme.

As far as it is known, Dhondup Wangchen has not officially been charged by the Chinese authorities of any crime. He is reportedly being held in Ershilipu Detention centre, Xining, in Qinghai Province.

According to recent information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), the Chinese authorities re-arrested Golog Jigme on or around 10th March 2009. Golog Jigme had first been arrested on 23 March 2008 and then later released on 15 October 2008 for providing assistance to the making of the film "Leaving Fear Behind".
 
Contact:
Gyaljong Tsetrin, Zurich, +41 76 462 67 68 (Tibetan language only, President, Filming for Tibet)
Dechen Pemba, London, +44 778 482 39 07 (German and English, met  Dhondup Wangchen in March 2008)

www.leavingfearbehind.com

"Elusive Dreams"

(Daily Pioneer | March 21, 2009)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan freedom movement and the Dalai Lama’s exile from his homeland. Kaushik Deka reviews the trajectory this movement has followed in the past five decades and the direction in which it is headed.

Year 2009 is a landmark year for Tibet. This year marks five decades since the Dalai Lama was exiled from his homeland. As for the Tibetan freedom movement, it recently observed the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising which occurred on March 10, 1959. Time, perhaps, to examine this movement as it reaches a major milestone in its history of resistance.

Fifty years ago in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama along with a large numbers of followers and a huge Tibetan population crossed over to India after a failed attempt to liberate Tibet from Chinese rule. Subsequently, he made India his home and established the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamsala which runs a parallel network of institutions based on democratic principles to govern about three lakh Tibetan refugees in India.

The past five decades have been remarkable in terms of transformation. These 50 years have witnessed the meteoric rise of China to the position of a potential superpower challenging the world’s sole superpower, the United States. This increasing power capability of China has, to a great extent, adversely affected the Tibetan movement despite worldwide support for the Dalai Lama and his cause. Nothing has tangibly moved ahead in the last five decades for the movement and there is very little hope that things will turn for the better in the near future.

Today the hope of an independent Tibet, free of Chinese monolithic control, seems increasingly feeble or elusive with even the Dalai Lama showing signs of giving up. His despair flows from the glaring lack of a positive response from the Chinese authorities to his demand for Tibet’s ‘genuine autonomy’ within China.

The status of Tibet is controversial and is a subject of vociferous debate between the Communist Government of China and the Tibetans fighting for freedom.

Mongol and Qing Empires. Therefore, the Tibetan independence movement views the current PRC rule in Tibet as illegitimate and against their right for self-determination. This section views PRC’s rule as imperialistic and autocratic and its policies as assimilationist, aimed at destroying Tibet’s distinct ethnicity, culture and identity and consolidating the process of ‘sinification’.

In the past five decades China has steadily consolidated its hold over Tibet through large-scale developmental campaigns and modernisation drives. Today, it seeks to sell the developmental logic and reasoning to justify its claim to rule Tibet. This is a perfect example of how development and its rhetoric are often used as a tool to justify unjust rule and to suppress freedom and liberation movements. China’s Tibet policy bears a striking resemblance to British colonialis. Supporters of Tibetan independence maintain that Tibet was a distinct nation and an independent state before its conquest by the Mongols around 700 years ago, between the time of the fall of the Mongol Empire in 1368 and subjugation by the Qing Dynasty in 1720, and again between the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911-12 and its incorporation into Communist China (PRC) in 1950-51. Moreover, Tibet had been largely self-governing even during periods of nominal subjugation to them in the 19th century which sold the civilisational logic to justify its rule over colonies. Most Tibetans consider the developmental projects that the PRC implements — like the China Western Development Campaign or infrastructure projects like the Qinghai-Tibet Railway — as politically motivated to consolidate Beijing’s control over Tibet by facilitating militarisation and by flooding Tibet with Han Chinese migrants, a move that is diluting the Tibetan resistance and Tibetan culture. In fact, the Dalai Lama has openly accused China of ‘cultural genocide.’

Standing at the opposite end, the PRC Government and its supporters believe Chinese rule over Tibet is a legitimate one as Tibet has always been an indivisible part of China de jure since Tibet’s conquest some 700 years ago by the Mongols. They hold that all subsequent Governments of China — the Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty, Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — have succeeded the Mongols in exercising de jure sovereignty and de facto power over Tibet. Further, Tibet has itself acknowledged Chinese sovereignty by sending delegates to its Constitution making in the past. These are propagated by the PRC authorities to articulate Chinese authority over Tibet.

Dealing with an obdurate China

Political contacts and overtures were made from both sides in search of reconciliation, mainly in the post-Mao period. Talks in the post-Mao regime first started in 1979 and some real and positive movement occurred in 1988 when the Dalai Lama in his attempt to find a political solution in a non-violent manner dropped the demand for ‘complete independence’ and settled for ‘internal autonomy’ (defence and foreign affairs left for Beijing) within the PRC along the lines of a ‘one-country, two-systems’ policy. Despite this flexibility Beijing has not yet responded positively. The Chinese continue to accuse the Dalai Lama of being a ‘separatist’ and ‘traitor’ who is indulging in the dastardly act of ‘splitting the motherland’.

After years of impassé fresh rounds of talks were initiated around 2002. However, to this date there has been no concrete outcome. In fact, during these talks China has raised fresh demands of the Tibetan side: One, that they must consider Tibet a historical part of China, and two, that they must also accept Arunachal Pradesh as part of China. This obviously is a very dangerous demand and a wily ploy that poses a strategic threat to India. The ‘Olympic flame’ was disrupted at a number of places. The disruption in the journey of the ‘Olympic flame’ became a matter of huge embarrassment for China as the march of “Chinese glory” was seen to be tainted by the Tibetan cause. A large number of countries openly criticised the Chinese Government’s high-handed treatment of the protestors and even called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in protest.

With no end in sight came the March 2008 uprising in Tibet just ahead of the Beijing Olympics which assumed mammoth proportions in terms of violence and protests. The protests soon spread to other parts of China as well, its intensity leaving a deep psychological scar on China-Tibet relations and Chinese assertion on the global scene.

Dalai Lama: China’s best bet: 

* At the heart of all attempts aimed at removing the present stalemate lie the Dalai Lama’s steadfast efforts to reach a conciliation at the earliest date possible. Some important factors shape this effort:

* India’s growing convergence with China on many issues.

rowing signs of Tibetan extremism and restlessness, particularly among the Tibetan youth.

* The Dalai Lama has time and again made it clear that his China’s rise to the position of a potential super power. The aim is not to seek separation or independence from China; rather, he wants Tibet to be more prosperous within China as he appreciates the developmental changes China has made. He only asks for ‘genuine autonomy’ within China. He maintains that “Tibetans, as one of the larger groups of China’s 55 minority nationalities, are distinct in terms of their land, history, language, culture, religion, customs and traditions. I have only one demand: self-rule and genuine autonomy for all Tibetans, i.e., the Tibetan nationality in its entirety.” But the Chinese side remains adamant and refuses to concede to the Dalai’s demands.

The Chinese, on their part, seem to be playing the waiting game in the hope that the Tibetan issue will gradually loose steam and vanish with time. But they are ignoring one very important aspect here. The Dalai Lama is their best chance and bet to solve this issue, a man who does not speak for separation and who can convince the Tibetan population for a settlement. They must note that a majority of Tibetans is still in favour of independence and separation from China. In a post-Dalai Lama era, the situation can become rather complicated for China with the distinct possibility of radicals within the Tibetan community capturing the leadership of the movement in which case a solution will be next to impossible to arrive at.

Time is running out for Dalai Lama as well since he faces challenges from within a section of his people. Many Tibetans, especially the young, feel the Dalai Lama and his Government are conceding too much in their stand. The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) with more than 20,000 members remains strongly critical of the Dalai’s ‘non-violent’ and ‘middle path’ approaches. The TYC believes in an armed struggle and has a strong support base in India and overseas. Extremism is clearly on the rise among the Tibetan youth with current trends indicating that the TYC is radically changing its resistance methods to more extremist actions. Although the Dalai Lama has so far been able to keep such forms of expressions within check, instances of Tibetans resorting to violent methods are increasing at a steady pace. There are informal reports that a large number of Tibetan youth are flocking to India from across the Himalayas to fight for freedom. This can be a tricky situation for India as well in the future and can have a negative impact on China-India relations if this huge Tibetan population start using Indian territory for its extremist protests.

While Tibetan youth also expresses doubt about the ability and efficacy of monks and philosophers controlling their politics. In a way, the Dalai Lama and his movement is facing more or less the same challenge and situation which Mahatma Gandhi faced during the 1920s and 1930s in the Indian national movement for his policies and strategy of struggle.

Tibet and the international community: The Tibet question has earned international attention since 1950 in varying degrees but the response was far from expected lines. Once, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked, “Neither the UK nor USA, nor indeed any other power, is particularly interested in Tibet or in its future. What they were interested in is embarrassing China.” This still holds true because Tibet is yet to achieve anything concrete.

The international community’s response and handling of the Tibetan issue is one which is consistent with the national interest of its components. Although international governments do criticise Chinese actions in Tibet from time to time and resolutions are passed in parliaments of major world powers supporting the Tibetan cause and the Dalai Lama, nothing concrete has been achieved on the ground. The lack of political will to take concerted and coordinated action against China renders all high-sounding pronouncements futile. The United Nations (UN) was not able to respond positively to Tibetan appeals for assistance when China mounted a full-scale military attack in 1950 and has remained ineffective in upholding the ‘respect for and observance of human rights’ in Tibet under Chinese Communist rule.

The unresponsiveness and inability of the international political system to address the Tibet question seems to be because of its state-centric approach with protection of individual national interests being of paramount concern. Western countries today have huge investments inside China and have developed extremely lucrative trade relations with it, a factor that prevents them from antagonising China on any issue. They instead use the ‘Tibet card’ occasionally to get concessions from China and as a tool of pressure politics. The Chinese are fully aware of this and have the requisite tricks to respond accordingly.

This a critical aspect for the very survival of the monolithic communist system of China. In that sense, conceding to the demands of the Dalai Lama would have a catastrophic effect on the Chinese system as it may lead to the destruction of the communist legitimacy of the Communist Party of China.

China’s claims over Tibet today are mostly based on the Seventeen-point Agreement signed in 1951 with the Dalai Lama which recognises Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. This agreement is contested by the Dalai Lama for having been signed under duress. However, the agreement remains unchallenged by major nations of the world which recognise Tibet as China’s sovereign territory. Therefore, the Dalai Lama’s ‘middle way’ is a very realistic and feasible arrangement within this context, aimed at a realisable solution free of raw emotionalism and dogmatism. However, providing autonomy of the liberal sense to a constituent part

The Tibet angle in India-China relations: If there is one country on whom the Tibet question has the highest bearing it is India as Tibet has always been in close proximity to India — historically, religiously, geographically, and strategically. India’s position since 1954 has been consistent in explicitly recognising “Tibet as an autonomous region of China”. The Government of India reiterated this stand by accepting that “the Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of the territory of PRC” in 2003.

Clearly, India has never assumed a bold or assertive role in the Tibetan issue in order not to antagonise China. The Nehruvian foreign policy was a failure in Tibet’s case as it failed to protect, leave alone further, India’s national interest. Oblivious to India’s national and security interests, the admission of Communist China in the UN seemed more important for Nehru and his diplomats than protection of the Tibetan cause in the international arena. The decision taken by Nehru and his advisors in the early 1950s of ‘not to upset the Chinese at any cost’ has actually pushed India into a diplomatically weaker position and more crucially impacted its border issue with China. Today, New Delhi needs to take a firmer stand consonant with its own security and strategic interests, without of course antagonising Beijing.

Tibetans consider India an ‘Enlightened Land,’ an expression of spiritual inheritance with India since the seventh century with the transmission of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama has called Indo-Tibet ties a relationship between a guru and chela. But there are stray areas in this relationship. India has criticised the Dalai Lama on several occasions for making unfavourable statements about the McMahon Line and matters relating to the China-India borders and for claiming Tawang. This situation can worsen should China and the Dalai Lama reach a complete reconciliation in future. Tawang’s status as the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama has already been used by the Chinese to justify their claims over the whole of Arunachal Pradesh. At this juncture, however, both the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan Government-in-Exile recognise Arunachal as part of India, indicating their recognition of McMahon Line as the border between India and Tibet.

The Chinese system In all this, it is not just a question of Tibet alone. At the heart of the entire issue lies the arrangement of the power structure at work in communist China. ‘Autonomous Regions’, ‘Autonomous Prefectures’ and ‘Autonomous Counties’ depending on the concentration of minority population at the regional, prefecture and county levels respectively. These autonomous areas are devised as ‘organs of self-government’ for the ethnic nationality and are said to have been given a fair amount of autonomy on areas related to the promotion and protection of the distinct identity and culture of the nationalities. But this so-called autonomy is just an eye-wash as the real power is held by the central communist party leadership based in Beijing.

China’s minority nationality policy is expressed in practice through a concept and mechanism called “Ethnic Regional Autonomy.” Under this arrangement, minority areas are organised
adership and power structure overwhelmingly represents the Han majority. This means that granting of regional autonomy to minority areas does not in any way affect the Central Chinese Government’s overall and ultimate control over the minority areas. Another important aspect of the power structure and governance of communist China is “adhering to the principle of ‘democratic centralism’”. The principle of democratic centralism is theoretically the guiding principle for decision-making and administrative functioning in communist countries. This principle technically forbids any kind of real autonomy or freedom for lower levels of government outside the approval of the central leadership of the communist party and stresses unity of action which for all practical purposes is to adhere to Central decisions and policies.

Further, another important issue in the communist ideology and discourse is its somehow uneasy relationship with the concept and arrangement of ‘autonomy’, specially ethnic or cultural autonomy. Communist ideology is not quite comfortable with the idea of autonomy and generally does not give importance to any other considerations except those economic, very often treating ‘autonomy’ as a kind of ‘bourgeois value’ and its relic. Although the authorities have had to acquiesce to the demand of some form of autonomy for national minorities due to practical and political reasons, they actually view them as ‘counter political values’ against the legitimacy of their own political values. Beside these theoretical aspects, there is practical politics at play as well. Ultimately, the Chinese system is a ‘system of power communndards to bring in economic prosperity which would in turn lend legitimacy to the communist rule. But they are not easing the monopolistic control over the political system as they fear losing power monopoly. Another important aspect governing Chinese rule over the minority areas is the nationalistic basis of Chinese communism. Chinese communism is an expression of Han Chinese nationalism which to a great extent explains the acceptability and legitimacy of the communist regime within Chinese nation and Chinese national psyche despite the regime’s inflexible and undemocratic character. From the very early part of its formation, the communist party has been pushing forward the nationalistic agenda and values. ‘Han cultural superiority’ has been strictly pursued over peripheral people and nationalities wherein territorial and cultural expansion over regions like Tibet and Xinjiang became very much a part of national duty on the part of the communist Government. Following China’s economic reforms, it is definitely a move in that direction.

All these factors point to the near impossibility of the Tibetan movement getting any genuine concession from the Chinese under the prevailing political system of China. The only plausible solution (although not in the foreseeable future) seems to lie in a situation and time when the current political system itself is transformed into a more liberal, moderate and more open one which not only raises the levels of freedom granted to the general population but also fosters a system of genuine autonomy desired by smaller and distinct groups to exist on an equal footing with the majority. Although this hope is a long-term and gradual one, it is a realistic one as in the context of the ongoing globalisation process in China several factors have started pulling the Chinese system and society in multiple directions. In order to stabilise the system would ultimately have to display more flexibility and adaptability. If we see greater freedom and relaxation of restriction

The Angry Tibetan

(By Fatima Najm, Arab News | March 19, 2009)

 

Tsering Phantsok looked at us with cloudy, unseeing eyes. At the hands of his Chinese guards, his 19-year-old eyes had already seen more torture than he could come to terms with. The young monk was 18 when he lost his sight from the brilliance of the snow on the Himalayan pass as he made his way up the savage, snow-capped terrain through Nepal, into India. The brilliance of the snow was literally blinding. By the time he got to Nepal, he could barely see. Doctors told him it was a common condition for Tibetans who survived frostbite and starvation as they attempted to cross the mountains that stand sentinel over India’s border with Tibet.

“I had heard of a land of freedom, where you could practice Buddhism without being beaten; this sounded impossible to me. But I knew our spiritual leader was there, and I wanted to see him and to ask for guidance. Around me, monks from many different monasteries called for an uprising; they wanted to fight. But that is violence and it is also suicide,” said the young monk who was on a bunk at the reception center for newly arrived Tibetans in Dharamsala, India, seat of the Dalai Lama’s government in exile.

Many of his friends and fellow monks from Salu Monastery in Western Tibet avoid tourists’ questions about the Chinese. But the flow of information in and out of Tibet is so tightly controlled by the Chinese authorities that some monks succumb to the idea that tourists can somehow spread the word that the situation is not improving. “They disappear only because they talk to Western tourists, and then we find them somewhere beaten, tortured and dying. An uprising will have no effect, impossible to defeat the Chinese, but the monks would rather die.”

Just a year after the monk traded his sight for freedom, thousands of Tibetans marked the 1959 armed uprising in Lhasa with vociferous and violent protests. This report appeared in the New York Times on March 15, 2008:

“BEIJING: Violence erupted Friday morning in a busy market area of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans brawled with Chinese security forces in bloody clashes. Witnesses said angry Tibetan crowds burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus. State media said at least 10 people died.

Beijing is facing the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in Tibet since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a rebellion there with lethal force that left scores, and possibly hundreds, of ethnic Tibetans dead.”

Amid twirling prayer wheels and the chanting of prayers, a resolute group of Tibetan refugees is camped at the central chowk (market square) in Leh. As the sun sinks in the sky and the temperature drops to minus seven, 70 year-old Nagwang Dolma remembers with a smile how she walked 60 days to safety.

“We were young. That was the only way to travel. We walked days to the nearest village. I am not trying to make my journey sound hard. What is hard is the suffering of the people. We were beaten if we didn’t denounce our lamas in public. How could we do that?” It was 1959 and she doesn’t remember making a decision to follow the Dalai Lama into exile. It just happened.

The wrinkles close in over her eyes as Dolma recalls how there was blood in the dust of the unpaved streets of her village as “Chinese soldiers ran around killing, killing, killing, stepping over wounded children, or trampling them; sometimes they turned around and shot into their bodies just to make sure they were dead. We were hiding, walking, hiding, scared.”

The barren beauty of Ladakh in India’s far north reminds her of her home in Tibet. She longs to return but says she is comfortable in the refugee settlement of Choglumsar, where she can wake to views of the magnificent Himlayas. “I am on hunger strike because I am old; maybe the young can fight for the freedom of Tibet. I can only feel some pain for my people — my protest. The monks were forced into reacting violently in Tibet. How long must they tolerate the (daily) violence of the Chinese?”

How can monks, who train and meditate in the hope of serving society by attaining inner peace turn into rebel fighters? Very easily, says Lowell Thomas, author of “The Silent War in Tibet.” Their training casts them into the mould of the perfect warrior: “They can subsist on a meager diet, and the rigors of their duties give them muscular strength and stamina; they are superbly disciplined.” Their legends speak of King Gesar slaying enemies with a ruthlessness that seems at odds with Buddhist teachings. Several distinguished historians warn against ignoring Tibet’s warrior past when expansive tracts of the east ruled by three tribes, the Khampas, the Goloks and the Amdoans, who refused to pay taxes to central Tibet in a show of their disdain for what they saw as a corrupt bureaucracy that surrounded their beloved Dalai Lama. The Khampas were the most feared of the tribes. It was from among their ranks that the CIA recruited and trained several freedom fighters before air dropping them back into Tibet to lead a guerilla resistance movement. The rebel fighters (Chushi-Gangdruk) fought valiantly until they were outnumbered and savagely suppressed by the Chinese.

When Rinzen Tashi isn’t working at a nearby beauty parlor, she is wrapped in the writing of ex-CIA operative Roger E. McCarthy. In “Tears of the Lotus,” he describes the Tibetan rebels he worked with and their “wit”, “intelligence” and “unparalleled courage.” For young Tibetans roaming the lanes of Majnu Tilla, the largest Tibetan refugee settlement in Delhi, the stories take them back to a time when the people of Tibet were a proud, united force fighting for a common purpose: To protect their young king, the Dalai Lama, and their faith. Tashi, 17, says, “I want to fight, I want to die fighting. But I live in India, and my parents say there is a future for me here, but I want to study Buddhism and devote myself but then I read what the Chinese did and I hear they are still doing it, I think I must learn to fight before trying to learn Buddhism. Even monks can put aside their vows.”

Tenzin Norsang monitored the progress of the Olympic Torch around the world with only one thought in mind — extinguishing the symbol of Chinese arrogance when it arrived in Delhi.

“That torch was a blood-stained propaganda vehicle (we could not allow) to pass through here,” said Norsang, joint secretary of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC). “We wanted to convey a message; our nonviolent protests are being ignored so we have to be more aggressive.”

India has been home to 140,000 Tibetans in exile since the Dalai Lama fled the Chinese Army as it overran Tibet in 1959. The TYC hears from thousands of the younger members of the Tibetan community in exile when they plan protests. They were seething at the idea of a torch being paraded through their home, and hundreds poured in to carry out covert operations in India’s capital, Delhi.

Norsang squatted in the debilitating summer heat. It would be a while before the monsoon arrived to relieve the sun’s scorching glare. He had memorized the route the torch would take and he surveyed every inch of the area, looking for “any hole, every space, corner” to conceal protesters who didn’t mind a stint in Tihar Jail. Seven hundred young Tibetans streamed into the city to engage in “guerilla protest tactics” hiding in secret locations all over Delhi as other Tibetan groups held hunger strikes and peace vigils.

The Indian authorities began to show their apprehension: They failed to find the Tibetans who they knew from past experience were concealed somewhere in the city. They cut the Olympic torch route from nine to three kilometers. The city refused Tibetans a permit to protest that day, but they were won over by “pacifism displayed” by Tibetan hunger strikers in Jantar Mantar, an area in central Delhi designated for protests, similar in spirit to the Hyde Park Corner. A permit was granted and the Tibetans engineered a little surprise on the side.

“Storming the Chinese Embassy gives young Tibetans a chance to confront the Chinese boldly and feel that they are doing something other than sitting and waiting; so many are sick of the nonviolent approach and they feel ignored and want to see results,” says Dhondup Dorjee, vice president of the Tibetan Youth Congress.

In Oct 2007, they managed to breach tight security at the Chinese Embassy by pulling up in a bus next to the impossibly high walls, scrambling over the hood and roof of the bus, stepping onto the wall, and dropping down into the embassy grounds. They quickly painted “Free Tibet” on the walls before they were arrested and dragged from the compound.

Migmar Tsering, 23, said, “I jumped in and suddenly I was face to face with a Chinese guard, Dil chaha kay alloo key taraha chheel kay maar daaloon, (I wanted to peel his skin like a potato and kill him there),” he says in fluent Hindi before continuing in English: “But then the Dalai Lama’s teachings kept coming into my head and my hands were locked. I was feeling so frustrated, I wanted to do more than just jump the wall. The Chinese have come into our homes in Tibet and dragged our people out and beaten them to death and I wanted this guard to feel some of their pain.”

In particular, the Tibetans were protesting a new Chinese law that banned reincarnations of “living Buddhas” that do not meet government approval; the banning obliterates a centuries-old Tibetan practice. As the torch approached the TYC’s protests intensified, and Beijing began to get agitated while Delhi promised to step up security. On April 16, police arrested 33 Tibetans as they once again tried to scale the walls of the heavily guarded embassy.

“They now spray the ground with water so we slip; they keep tools to break our chains if we chain ourselves to the gates; they are learning to defeat us, but we are continuing to keep up pressure on them,” said Norsang, who has the extremely difficult task of preparing emotionally charged Tibetans for a peaceful protest. “We keep having debriefings, explaining we do not want to hurt anyone, just make a point, so don’t throw stones at the Chinese officials, only at the building; don’t touch anyone, but their emotions run so high, it is very hard.”

Then there are independent operators like Karma Dorjee, 25 from Darjeeling. He shows up at organized protests but he takes orders from no one. He is a familiar face in the cells at Tihar Jail, having broken into the Chinese Embassy three times in the last 12 months.

“Dekho desh azaad karna hai (Look, I need to free my country) so I am willing to shed my own blood or the blood of any. Our other problem is not fear, when it comes to shedding blood I can promise you the Tibetans will rise and not worry about how much we shed, but the Dalai Lama forbids us for now. We are Buddhist. If we are fighting to preserve it, then how can we violate the idea of non-violence but then also how can we watch Chinese kill Buddhism?” said Karma who respects the TYC’s efforts but considers them too passive and pacific for his revolutionary taste.

Karma says he does not want to hear about torture, execution and starvation in Tibet. He wants to do something about it. But while the Dalai Lama insists on a peaceful approach, Karma confines himself to barging into Beijing’s buildings in Delhi.

But Thupten Ngodup had no such qualms. When police showed up to break up a 1989 hunger strike in order to appease Beijing, he doused himself with gasoline and lit a match. As the flames consumed him, he held his hands together in prayer, dying a few days later of his burns. Every young Tibetan conjures that story within a few moments of talking about violent action.

Tibetans Deserve Much Better

By  David Kilgour
(Parliament Hill Demonstration, Ottawa, March 10, 2009)

Today Tibetans—in Tibet and in exile— and their many friends in Canada and around the world mark 50 years of enormous suffering and remarkable endurance.  Today is the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Lhasa Uprising, when the much-loved Dalai Lama fled Tibet.  

Tibet has become a militarized zone. Sandbag outposts have been set up in the middle of towns, army convoys rumble along highways, and paramilitary officers search civilian cars. A curfew has been imposed on Lhasa. Only a few days ago, several hundred monks from Sey monastery in Ngaba held a protest march after officials prevented them from marking a major prayer festival

Multiply that by the harsh facts over the past five decades: tens of thousands killed; hundreds of thousands imprisoned. Over 6,000 monasteries, nunneries and temples, pillaged and destroyed. Thousands more Tibetans disappeared last year or were imprisoned, and more destruction was directed against monasteries and religious objects.  

Painful Past
In  Mao-The Unknown Story, authors Jung Chang (author of Wild Swans) and Jon Halliday told the world about Beijing`s treatment of the Tibetan people:  

In early 1959, Mao wrote about the uprising then underway in Tibet, caused in part by drastically-increased food requisitions there because of the famine conditions created across China by his catastrophic 'Great Leap Forward': "This (rebellion) is... a good thing. Because this makes it possible to solve our problems through war."  

When word spread later in Tibet that Mao planned to kidnap the then very young Dalai Lama, thousands of Tibetans passed in front of the palace, shouting "Chinese get out." Mao cabled that the Dalai Lama should be allowed to escape because he feared his death would "inflame world opinion, particularly in the Buddhist countries and India, which Mao was courting. Once he had escaped, Mao told his men: 'Do all you can to hold the enemies in Lhasa...so when our main force arrives we can surround them and wipe them out'."  

The book adds other details, including statements by the Panchen Lama, who initially actually welcomed the Chinese invasion of Tibet: "After Mao's death, the Panchen Lama revealed what he had not put in his original letter (to Mao): that a staggering 15-20 percent of all Tibetans-perhaps half of all adult males-were thrown into prison, where they were basically worked to death. They were treated like subhumans. Lama Palden Gyatso, a brave long-term prisoner, told us he and other prisoners were flogged with wire whips as they pulled heavy plows."  

The Dalai Lama  
According to a 2008 opinion survey in six European countries, the Dalai Lama is the most respected world leader among Europeans.  He is also the spiritual leader of Tibetans, a Nobel Peace Price laureat and a much-loved honourary citizen of Canada,       

The Chinese party-state has unfairly accused him of fomenting violence in Tibet. The Dalai Lama advocates Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule, but strongly disavows violence and does not favor secession.  

The Dalai Lama is Beijing`s best chance for a peaceful resolution of the Tibet Issue. Peaceful demonstrations do not disturb stability. The presence of thousands of armed military and police provoke disturbances.  

In an interview last year, the Dalai Lama expressed fears that there is a possibility of greater violence after he passes away. Some groups launched by Tibetans in exile  seek complete independence, rejecting the Dalai Lama's middle approach.  

Robert J. Barnett, a Tibet specialist, thinks that Beijing should separate "the difficult talks about autonomy and the Dalai Lama's status, which they're nervous about, from the easy issues, which are about religion, and migration, and development." He argues the Chinese will have to do this eventually because the alternative, "keeping one-third of your country under military garrison every so often" is unsustainable.  

Petition of Chinese Intellectuals  
A year ago, a group of prominent Chinese intellectuals circulated a petition urging the government to stop what it called a “one-sided” propaganda campaign and initiate direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama. It was signed by more than two dozen writers, journalists and scholars and contained 12 recommendations which, taken together, represented a sharp break from the Chinese government’s response to the wave of demonstrations then sweeping Tibet.  

“We support the Dalai Lama’s appeal for peace, and hope that the ethnic conflict can be dealt with according to the principles of goodwill, peace, and non-violence,” it read.

The petition went on to cite government claims that the unrest was “organized, premeditated and meticulously orchestrated by the Dalai clique,” and calls on Beijing to invite the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to carry out an independent investigation of these charges.  

“In order to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, the government must abide by the freedom of religious belief and the freedom of speech explicitly enshrined in the Chinese Constitution, thereby allowing the Tibetan people fully to express their grievances and hopes and permitting citizens of all nationalities to freely criticize and make suggestions regarding the government’s nationality policies.”  

Silence Unacceptable  
The former president of the Canadian NGO Rights and Democracy, Jean-Louis Roy, noted on the eve of the Dalai Lama's visit to Ottawa five years ago, "Silence in response to any abuse of human rights is unacceptable and it is especially objectionable in response to abuses that amount to cultural genocide as in Tibet. These abuses continue to taint Canada's flourishing economic relationship with China, not to mention our reputation as a defender of human rights and democratic freedoms." Who can disagree?  

Thank you. 

The Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day

 

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Tibetan people's peaceful uprising against Communist China's repression in Tibet. Since last March, widespread peaceful protests have erupted across the whole of Tibet.  Most of the participants were youths born and brought up after 1959, who have not seen or experienced a free Tibet. However, the fact that they were driven by a firm conviction to serve the cause of Tibet that has continued from generation to generation is indeed a matter of pride.  It will serve as a source of inspiration for those in the international community who take keen interest in the issue of Tibet. We pay tribute and offer our prayers for all those who died, were tortured and suffered tremendous hardships including during the crisis last year, for the cause of Tibet since our struggle began.

 

Around 1949, Communist forces began to enter north-eastern and eastern Tibet (Kham and Amdo) and by 1950, more than 5000 Tibetan soldiers had been killed. Taking the prevailing situation into account, the Chinese government chose a policy of peaceful liberation, which in 1951 led to the signing of the 17-Point Agreement and its annexure. Since then, Tibet has come under the control of the People's Republic of China. However, the Agreement clearly mentions that Tibet's distinct religion, culture and traditional values would be protected.

 

Between 1954 and 1955, I met with most of the senior Chinese leaders in the Communist Party, government and military, led by Chairman Mao Zedong, in Beijing. When we discussed ways of achieving the social and economic development of Tibet, as well as maintaining Tibet's religious and cultural heritage, Mao Zedong and all the other leaders agreed to establish a preparatory committee to pave the way for the implementation of the autonomous region, as stipulated in the Agreement, rather than establishing a military administrative commission. From about 1956 onwards, however, the situation took a turn for the worse with the imposition of ultra-leftist policies in Tibet. Consequently, the assurances given by higher authorities were not implemented on the ground. The forceful implementation of the so-called “democratic reform” in the Kham and Amdo regions of Tibet, which did not accord with prevailing conditions, resulted in immense chaos and destruction. In Central Tibet, Chinese officials forcibly and deliberately violated the terms of the 17-Point Agreement, and their heavy-handed tactics increased day by day. These desperate developments left the Tibetan people with no alternative but to launch a peaceful uprising on 10 March 1959. The Chinese authorities responded with unprecedented force that led to the killing, arrests and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Tibetans in the following months. Consequently, accompanied by a small party of Tibetan government officials including some Kalons (Cabinet Ministers), I escaped into exile in India. Thereafter, nearly a hundred thousand Tibetans fled into exile in India, Nepal and Bhutan. During the escape and the months that followed they faced unimaginable hardship, which is still fresh in Tibetan memory.

 

Having occupied Tibet, the Chinese Communist government carried out a series of repressive and violent campaigns that have included “democratic reform”, class struggle, communes, the Cultural Revolution, the imposition of martial law, and more recently the patriotic re-education and the strike hard campaigns. These thrust Tibetans into such depths of suffering and hardship that they literally experienced hell on earth. The immediate result of these campaigns was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans. The lineage of the Buddha Dharma was severed. Thousands of religious and cultural centres such as monasteries, nunneries and temples were razed to the ground. Historical buildings and monuments were demolished. Natural resources have been indiscriminately exploited. Today, Tibet's fragile environment has been polluted, massive deforestation has been carried out and wildlife, such as wild yaks and Tibetan antelopes, are being driven to extinction.

 

These 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet. Even today, Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear and the Chinese authorities remain constantly suspicious of them. Today, the religion, culture, language and identity, which successive generations of Tibetans have considered more precious than their lives, are nearing extinction; in short, the Tibetan people are regarded like criminals deserving to be put to death. The Tibetan people's tragedy was set out in the late Panchen Rinpoche's 70,000-character petition to the Chinese government in 1962. He raised it again in his speech in Shigatse in 1989 shortly before he died, when he said that what we have lost under Chinese communist rule far outweighs what we have gained. Many concerned and unbiased Tibetans have also spoken out about the hardships of the Tibetan people. Even Hu Yaobang, the Communist Party Secretary, when he arrived in Lhasa in 1980, clearly acknowledged these mistakes and asked the Tibetans for their forgiveness. Many infrastructural developments such as roads, airports, railways, and so forth, which seem to have brought progress to Tibetan areas, were really done with the political objective of sinicising Tibet at the huge cost of devastating the Tibetan environment and way of life.

 

As for the Tibetan refugees, although we initially faced many problems such as great differences of climate and language and difficulties earning our livelihood, we have been successful in re-establishing ourselves in exile. Due to the great generosity of our host countries, especially India, Tibetans have been able to live in freedom without fear. We have been able to earn a livelihood and uphold our religion and culture. We have been able to provide our children with both traditional and modern education, as well as engaging in efforts to resolve the Tibet issue. There have been other positive results too. Greater understanding of Tibetan Buddhism with its emphasis on compassion has made a positive contribution in many parts of the world.

 

Immediately after our arrival in exile I began to work on the promotion of democracy in the Tibetan community with the establishment of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in 1960. Since then, we have taken gradual steps on the path to democracy and today our exile administration has evolved into a fully functioning democracy with a written charter of its own and a legislative body. This is indeed something we can all be proud of.

 

Since 2001, we have instituted a system by which the political leadership of Tibetan exiles is directly elected through procedures similar to those in other democratic systems. Currently, the directly-elected Kalon Tripa's (Cabinet Chairperson) second term is underway. Consequently, my daily administrative responsibilities have reduced and today I am in a state of semi-retirement. However, to work for the just cause of Tibet is the responsibility of every Tibetan, and as long as I live I will uphold this responsibility.

 

As a human being, my main commitment is in the promotion of human values; this is what I consider the key factor for a happy life at the individual, family and community level. As a religious practitioner, my second commitment is the promotion of inter-religious harmony. My third commitment is of course the issue of Tibet. This is firstly due to my being a Tibetan with the name of 'Dalai Lama'; more importantly, it is due to the trust that Tibetans both inside and outside Tibet have placed in me. These are the three important commitments, which I always keep in mind.

 

In addition to looking after the well being of the exiled Tibetan community, which they have done quite well, the principal task of the Central Tibetan Administration has been to work towards the resolution of the issue of Tibet. Having laid out the mutually beneficial Middle-Way policy in 1974, we were ready to respond to Deng Xiaoping when he proposed talks in 1979. Many talks were conducted and fact-finding delegations dispatched. These however, did not bear any concrete results and formal contacts eventually broke off in 1993.

 

Subsequently, in 1996-97, we conducted an opinion poll of the Tibetans in exile, and collected suggestions from Tibet wherever possible, on a proposed referendum, by which the Tibetan people were to determine the future course of our freedom struggle to their full satisfaction. Based on the outcome of the poll and the suggestions from Tibet, we decided to continue the policy of the Middle-Way.

 

Since the re-establishment of contacts in 2002, we have followed a policy of one official channel and one agenda and have held eight rounds of talks with the Chinese authorities. As a consequence, we presented a Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, explaining how the conditions for national regional autonomy as set forth in the Chinese constitution would be met by the full implementation of its laws on autonomy. The Chinese insistence that we accept Tibet as having been a part of China since ancient times is not only inaccurate, but also unreasonable. We cannot change the past no matter whether it was good or bad. Distorting history for political purposes is incorrect.

 

We need to look to the future and work for our mutual benefit. We Tibetans are looking for a legitimate and meaningful autonomy, an arrangement that would enable Tibetans to live within the framework of the People's Republic of China. Fulfilling the aspirations of the Tibetan people will enable China to achieve stability and unity. From our side, we are not making any demands based on history. Looking back at history, there is no country in the world today, including China, whose territorial status has remained forever unchanged, nor can it remain unchanged.

 

Our aspiration that all Tibetans be brought under a single autonomous administration is in keeping with the very objective of the principle of national regional autonomy. It also fulfils the fundamental requirements of the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. The Chinese constitution and other related laws and regulations do not pose any obstacle to this and many leaders of the Chinese Central Government have accepted this genuine aspiration. When signing the 17-Point Agreement, Premier Zhou Enlai acknowledged it as a reasonable demand. In 1956, when establishing the Preparatory Committee for the “Tibet Autonomous Region”, Vice-Premier Chen Yi pointing at a map said, if Lhasa could be made the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which included the Tibetan areas within the other provinces, it would contribute to the development of Tibet and friendship between the Tibetan and Chinese nationalities, a view shared by the Panchen Rinpoche and many Tibetan cadres and scholars. If Chinese leaders had any objections to our proposals, they could have provided reasons for them and suggested alternatives for our consideration, but they did not. I am disappointed that the Chinese authorities have not responded appropriately to our sincere efforts to implement the principle of meaningful national regional autonomy for all Tibetans, as set forth in the constitution of the People's Republic of China.

 

Quite apart from the current process of Sino-Tibetan dialogue having achieved no concrete results, there has been a brutal crackdown on the Tibetan protests that have shaken the whole of Tibet since March last year. Therefore, in order to solicit public opinion as to what future course of action we should take, the Special Meeting of Tibetan exiles was convened in November 2008. Efforts were made to collect suggestions, as far as possible, from the Tibetans in Tibet as well. The outcome of this whole process was that a majority of Tibetans strongly supported the continuation of the Middle-Way policy. Therefore, we are now pursuing this policy with greater confidence and will continue our efforts towards achieving a meaningful national regional autonomy for all Tibetans.

 

From time immemorial, the Tibetan and Chinese peoples have been neighbours. In future too, we will have to live together. Therefore, it is most important for us to co-exist in friendship with each other.

 

Since the occupation of Tibet, the Communist China has been publishing distorted propaganda about Tibet and its people. Consequently, there are, among the Chinese populace, very few people who have a true understanding about Tibet. It is, in fact, very difficult for them to find the truth. There are also ultra-leftist Chinese leaders who have, since last March, been undertaking a huge propaganda effort with the intention of setting the Tibetan and Chinese peoples apart and creating animosity between them. Sadly, as a result, a negative impression of Tibetans has arisen in the minds of some of our Chinese brothers and sisters. Therefore, as I have repeatedly appealed before, I would like once again to urge our Chinese brothers and sisters not to be swayed by such propaganda, but, instead, to try to discover the facts about Tibet impartially, so as to prevent divisions among us. Tibetans should also continue to work for friendship with the Chinese people.

 

Looking back on 50 years in exile, we have witnessed many ups and downs. However, the fact that the Tibet issue is alive and the international community is taking growing interest in it is indeed an achievement. Seen from this perspective, I have no doubt that the justice of Tibet's cause will prevail, if we continue to tread the path of truth and non-violence.

 

As we commemorate 50 years in exile, it is most important that we express our deep gratitude to the governments and peoples of the various host countries in which we live. Not only do we abide by the laws of these host countries, but we also conduct ourselves in a way that we become an asset to these countries. Similarly, in our efforts to realise the cause of Tibet and uphold its religion and culture, we should craft our future vision and strategy by learning from our past experience.

 

I always say that we should hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. Whether we look at it from the global perspective or in the context of events in China, there are reasons for us to hope for a quick resolution of the issue of Tibet. However, we must also prepare ourselves well in case the Tibetan struggle goes on for a long time. For this, we must focus primarily on the education of our children and the nurturing of professionals in various fields. We should also raise awareness about the environment and health, and improve understanding and practice of non-violent methods among the general Tibetan population.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to the leaders and people of India, as well as its Central and State Governments, who despite whatever problems and obstacles they face, have provided invaluable support and assistance over the past 50 years to Tibetans in exile. Their kindness and generosity are immeasurable. I would also like to express my gratitude to the leaders, governments and people of the international community, as well as the various Tibet Support Groups, for their unstinting support.

 

May all sentient beings live in peace and happiness.

The Dalai Lama

10 March 2009

1959 Tibetan Uprising: Rebels With A Cause

(By Claude Arpi, March 06, 2009)

Fifty years is long in the life of a man. It is long also for a nation.

Fifty years ago, on March 10, 1959, the population of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital revolted against the Chinese Communist invaders. A few days later, the Dalai Lama, the temporal and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people fled his country. Since then, he lives as a refugee in India.

Ironically, it was a Chinese communiqué issued in Beijing on March 28, 1959 by the New China News Agency which gave a stunned world the first details of the uprising ('rebellion' in Communist jargon). “Violating the will of the Tibetan people and betraying the motherland, the Tibetan Local Government and the upper-strata reactionary clique colluded with imperialism-assembled rebellious bandits and launched armed attacks against the People's Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Lhasa during the night of March 19. Acting on orders to put the rebellion down, the valiant units of the PLA stationed in Tibet completely smashed the rebellious bandits in the city of Lhasa on the 22nd. Now, the units of the PLA, assisted by patriotic people of ail sections, both monks and lay, are mopping up the rebellious bandits in other places in Tibet,” the communiqué said.

The 'rebellious bandits' had attempted to defend their culture against the onslaught of an atheist power and save the life of their revered leader.

But let us return to a few days before this date.

Tibet had already been under occupation for nine years when in early 1959, the situation begun to deteriorate.

The watershed was when General Tan Guansan, commandant of the Chinese forces in Lhasa, invited the Dalai Lama to attend a theatrical performance inside the Chinese headquarters. A strange condition had been added: he should come without his bodyguards.

Speaking in third person, the Dalai Lama later explained: "The Dalai Lama had agreed a month in advance to attend a cultural show in the Chinese headquarters and the date was suddenly fixed for the 10th of March. The people of Lhasa became apprehensive that some harm might be done to the Dalai Lama and as a result about 10,000 people gathered round the Dalai Lama's summer palace, Norbulingka, and physically prevented the Dalai Lama from attending the function. …In spite of this demonstration from the people, the Dalai Lama and his government endeavoured to maintain friendly relations with the Chinese and tried to carry out negotiations with the Chinese representatives on how best to bring about peace in Tibet and assuage the people's anxiety.”

But the situation was quickly getting out of control. At a loss, the young Dalai Lama tried for a few days to keep a channel of communication open with both sides. His heart was with his people, but he knew the ruthlessness of the Chinese. He wanted at any cost to avoid a bloodbath. Was it still possible?

He gained some time by writing a series of letters to General Tan. He thought that this could perhaps temporally pacify the Chinese official and his bosses in Beijing, though he also knew that he would have to soon take a plunge.

For many years, the Dalai Lama had to bend backward to avoid repressive acts from the Communist officials; his scope to maneuver was limited. The Tibetans were in a no-win situation; the pressure mounted; people were increasingly resentful and anguished at the ruthless occupation of their country.

On March 17, during a trance, the Nechung State Oracle ordered the Dalai Lama to immediately leave his country. At the same time, two or three mortar shells which were fired in the direction of the Norbulingka palace, fell in a nearby pond. For the Dalai Lama, the mortar shells were the Gods' confirmation that he should follow the Oracle's advice. The time had come for him to leave Tibet.

The young Tibetan leader had thought that he could establish a government in South Tibet and negotiate with the Chinese. The Gods however decided otherwise. Still in trance, the Nechung drew the road to be followed by the Dalai Lama's party on a piece of paper. He had to cross the Indian border near Tawang (in today's Arunachal Pradesh).

The Great Escape: At night, under disguise, the Dalai Lama managed to sneak out of the Norbulingka Palace without being seen. He was later joined on the opposite side of the Kyi Chu river by several members of his family and his Khampa bodyguards. They crossed the river without being noticed by the Chinese troops stationed in a camp nearby and began their flight southward. While the news of the Dalai Lama's departure was still a well-guarded secret, fighting broke out in Lhasa; it lasted for two days.

On March 21 at 2.00 am, the Chinese fired more than 800 shells at the Norbulingka Palace. Thousands of men, women and children camping in the vicinity were slaughtered and the residences of hundreds of officials living in the complex destroyed. The Dalai Lama's bodyguard regiment was disarmed and publicly machine-gunned; according to the Tibetan government in exile, over 86,000 Tibetans in Central Tibet were killed by the Chinese during this period. The 'bandits' had been smashed.

One of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century unfolded while the world remained blissfully unaware. The information would take some more time to cross the mighty Himalayas.

The First Statements: It was only a few days later that the Chinese discovered that the Dalai Lama had made good his escape. They reacted violently. As the Chinese communiqué explained: “In order to wipe out the rebel bandits thoroughly, the State Council has ordered the units of the Chinese PLA stationed in Tibet to assume military control in various places in Tibet. The tasks of the Military Control Committees are: to suppress the rebellion; to protect the people and the foreign nationals who observe the laws of China; …to organise self-defence armed forces of patriotic Tibetans to replace the old Tibetan Army of only a little more than 3,000 men who are rotten to the core, utterly useless in fighting and who have turned rebel.”

For the first time since the Liberation Army had entered Tibet in 1950, the Chinese government had admitted to disturbances and widespread revolts against the Chinese occupiers in Tibet.

It was something new for Mao. During the days of the Long March, he had always been welcomed as a hero by the masses. Wherever the Liberation Army went, common people received them as liberators and provided food and logistic support. In Tibet, for the first the time, the masses did not accept Mao’s 'liberation' forces.

The Communist propaganda continued to explain that it was only a serfs' rebellion against the 'upper strata Dalai's clique', but the 10 March incident was actually a movement of the masses to protect their religious leader and save their culture.

Sadly, 50 years later, the Chinese authorities still attribute the deep resentment of the Tibetan population against the Han presence in Tibet to the 'Dalai clique.'

In India, The uprising was mentioned for the first time in the Lok Sabha on March 23, 1959, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a statement. At that time, news was sparse as the only channel of communication was from the Indian Mission in Lhasa, through wireless.

Major L S Chhibber, the Indian Consul had rightly decided not to interfere, said Nehru. This sentence represents the dichotomy of the Indian Government: on one hand, no interference, but 10 days later, tens of thousands of Tibetans were offered asylum by India (a gesture which China even today considers to be a gross interference in its 'internal affairs').

The Dalai Lama's flight, reported in his two biographies, is too well known a tale to be recounted here.

It is however worth mentioning the last moments of his incredible journey. After a few days rest at Lhuntse Dzong, near the Indian border, he sent two of his officials to contact the Government of India and seek asylum for himself and his party. Asylum was immediately granted.

He later stated: "The Dalai Lama is deeply touched by the kind greeting extended to him on his safe arrival in India by the Prime Minister Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, and his colleagues in the Government of India."

A new life started. A few days later, hundreds of journalists waited for him at his arrival in Tezpur, Assam. He was officially received by a senior MEA official, P N Menon, father of the present Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.

Cold War Language: In the first debate in the Parliament, the Indian Prime Minister did not mention a letter he had received from the Chinese Embassy in Delhi. But a month later, when Nehru commented on the Chinese statement in the Lok Sabha, he was deeply upset by the tone used. The Indian Prime Minister made it clear that he considered the language of the Chinese statement as 'cold-war language.' The days of eternal friendship and the Panchsheel (Five Principles) had gone.

"To say that a number of 'upper strata reactionaries' in Tibet were solely responsible for this appears to be an extraordinary simplification of a complicated situation," explained Nehru. How could the Chinese dismiss the fact that more than 90 per cent of the entire population of Lhasa participated in the marches, demonstrations and the defense of the Norbulinka Palace?

China wanted the world to believe that the Chinese government's policy in Tibet was the right one, though due to the large numbers of occupying troops in Central Tibet, the Tibetan capital had for the first time of its 2,000 year history experienced all sorts of hardships, including famine. Worse, the people could not practice their religion the way they had done for centuries.

The Chinese however saw only 'imperialists' and serf-owners': “The rebellious activities of the Tibetan traitors have been of fairly long duration. These rebels represent imperialism and the most reactionary major serf owners. …as the motherland is thriving and prospering day by day, the policy of the Central People's Government toward Tibet is correct, and the garrison units of the PLA in Tibet observe strict discipline, ail enjoy the warm support and love of the people of ail sections in Tibet and the rebellious conspiracy of an handful of reactionaries had no support from the Tibetan people.”

In 2009, the Tibetan population still deeply resents the occupation of their country. The two-month unrest in March/April 2008 was the latest inconvenient proof of it.

The conclusions of the 1959-Chinese communiqué are worth quoting: "Contrary to their wishes, the rebellion started by them [the Dalai's clique] in Tibet has not led to a split in the motherland and retrogression in Tibet, but instead has strengthened the consolidation of national unification, accelerated the doom of the reactionary forces in Tibet, pushed forward democratization in Tibet and promoted the new birth of the Tibetan people."

Fifty years later, there is no democratization in view, China has never been so shaky; the 'new birth' of the Tibetan people has never taken place and the Land of Snows is still under forced occupation.

On February 9, 2009, a news item on Radio Lhasa spoke of the visit of the Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli in Chamdo: "the air was filled with New Year festivity, the place bore an atmosphere of scenic landscape, beautiful new countryside, with [the masses of the divergent nationalities] marching towards prosperity," but at the same time, informal martial law had to be clamped to 'protect the stability of the Motherland'.

Like 50 year ago, there is a vast gap between the words of the leaders and the ground reality.

But how long can the Chinese leadership continue to speak their antediluvian jargon and try to make the world believe that everything is fine in the Land of Tibet?

Tibetan Monk Shot by Chinese Police After Burning Self

(By Charlotte Cuthbertson, Li Xi & Qin Xue for Epoch Times | March 5, 2009)

A Tibetan monk was shot in eastern Tibet on February 27 after setting himself on fire protesting the Chinese regime's banning of a religious ceremony, reports say. The monk, named Tape, 24, was set himself on fire outside the police station, said Kelsang Gyaltsen, member of the Tibetan Parliament in exile. The incident occurred in the Tibetan-populated town of Aba shortly after 1,000 monks were stopped by police from entering Kirti monastery's main prayer hall for Tibetan New Year prayers.

"After the Chinese authorities issued an order to ban the prayer ceremony, at around 1:00 p.m. on January 3 of the Tibetan calendar, Tape set himself on fire in front of a police station. He was carrying a Tibetan flag with the Dalai Lama's picture. He was shouting slogans, although no one understood what he was shouting. He ran out with fire all over his body," Gyaltsen told The Epoch Times.

Eyewitness reports indicate the Chinese police fired three shots at monk Tape after he set himself on fire and at least one of the bullets made contact, the activist group said. His body was removed almost immediately and it is unclear whether he survived the incident.

A Tibetan monk, Tsjang, from Kirti monastery told an Epoch Times reporter through an interpreter, "The way the Chinese police shot a man who set himself on fire is beyond everyone's imagination."

"The man had already set himself on fire. He burned himself to protest, and the police still shot him. With something like this happening, one can imagine how harsh it is in the area."

Some witnesses believed that Tape was dead after police fired three shots that hit him. Witnesses also said after the shooting police extinguished the flame, put him in a police car, and drove away.

It remains unknown whether Tape is alive or not. However, about 500 monks from Kirti monastery went to his home and held a memorial service for him.

Tape had earlier told other monks that he would set himself on fire if the Chinese authorities banned the New Year celebration of traditional prayer festival called Monlam.

Sources said that the regime has turned Aba County into a special Military Surveillance Administration Zone.

Tsjang said that the way the regime killed one person to stop hundreds from following suit won't bring real peace and stability in Tibet; instead, it will "provoke resentment and aversion from people, and will most likely lead to more similar incidents in the future."

Tibetan parliament member, Gyaltsen, said, "For any trivial thing that happens in Tibet, the regime will basically resort to killing in order to cover up or destroy evidence. The regime will shoot without any hesitation and without any concern for the Tibetan people's lives. It will resort to violence in order to suppress any slight protesting activities."

Dechen Tsering, president of the Tibetan Association of Northern California.said China had flooded Tibet with troops and barred all foreigners. "Actions clearly meant to intimidate and suppress any further expressions of dissent during the New Year and in the lead up to March 10, which will mark 50 years of Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation. We fear Chinese authorities are preparing for a renewed assault against Tibetans who dare to speak out for their basic rights."

"There are many policemen on patrol in the street and all of them have guns," an employee at a teahouse in Aba told the AFP news agency.

According to activist groups, dozens of Tibetans from Aba and the surrounding area were killed last year, and many more disappeared and were imprisoned, when protests swept across Tibet. Following the protests, the monks of Kirti monastery were the targets of some of the most extreme torture, abuse, and intimidation by Chinese authorities.

Tibet's government-in-exile says 200 Tibetans have been killed since the Chinese regime's crackdown last year. Chinese officials have denied this, reporting that Tibetan "rioters" killed 21 police.

Last fall, the Dalai Lama's efforts to gain autonomy for the Tibetan region were stymied by the Chinese regime, which instead has renewed a "Strike Hard" Campaign in the region in anticipation of unrest in March.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has lived in exile for around 48 years. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, ninety percent of the temples were damaged in Tibet.

Myriad Shades of Mysticism

(By Shevlin Sebastian, The New Indian Express | February 22, 2009)

Long ago, a Tibetan monk dropped his cloak to enjoy sex – and spirituality, too. In 'The Angry Monk', French director Luc Schaedler profiles the life and career of the little-known Gendun Choephel, one of the foremost writers and thinkers of Tibet in the 20th century.

One day, in 1917, when a teenage Gendun Choephel was in the room of an elder monk at the Drisha monastery in Rebkong, he dropped a cup. Fearing that the monk would scold him, he stepped out, located a cat, put it in the room and locked it. The senior monk had no option but to put the blame on the cat for the mishap. This was Gendun's precocious intelligence at work. Not many people know that Gendun had been the foremost thinker and writer in Tibet in the 20th century. What set this monk apart was that he was also a libertine. He drank, smoked marijuana, and slept with women. 

All this and more was revealed in the movie, 'The Angry Monk', directed by Frenchman Luc Schaedler, which was shown in Kochi recently by Design & People and Friends of Tibet, in association with Open Eyed Dreams. "It is essentially a road movie where the director retraces the footsteps of the monk taken during the course of his life," says Sethu Das, president of Friends of Tibet.

At 17, Gendun joined the Drepung Monastery's Gomang College in Lhasa. But, within a matter of months he fell out of favour with his teacher Geshe Sherab Gyatso. Says writer Topden Tsering: "Gendun attacked the monastic texts and also argued with his teacher. An exasperated Gyatso began calling him, 'Madman'. 

Soon, Gendun left the monastery and earned his living by painting portraits, for which he had a knack. His life changed in 1934, when he met Rahul Sankrityanan, 40, an Indian scholar and freedom fighter. They travelled together to salvage rare Sanskrit scriptures from the monasteries situated in southern Tibet. All this is shown in the film in a documentary style, but the images are striking and beautiful. 

Following this trip, Gendun accompanied Rahul back to India in 1937, and would spend the next 12 years in India, in places like Varanasi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Kalimpong, imbibing the culture and traditions of an ancient country. He also made a brief visit to Ceylon. And, perhaps, in a first-of-its kind experience for a Tibetan monk, Gendun also explored his sexuality. 

It was in Kolkata that he grasped all the opportunities that the city offered, thanks to its thriving red-light district: Sonagachi. Golok Jigme, an 85-year-old monk, who had been Gendun's travelling companion, says, in the film, "Gendun was proud of his ability to sleep with four or five prostitutes in an evening and to get roaring drunk in the process." 

One result was a book called, 'Tibetan Arts of Love - Sex, Orgasm and Spiritual Healing'. In the introduction, Gendun wrote: "As for me - I have little shame I love women. Every man has a woman. Every woman has a man. Both desire sexual union. If natural passions are banned, unnatural passions will grow in secrecy. No religion or morality can suppress the natural passions of mankind."

In a review in Amazon.com reader T. Short says, "This book has unflinching details, is well-written and thorough. Somehow, it is more accessible than the Kama Sutra." 

Gendun went on to write numerous books, which included a travelogue, a guidebook, an English translation of a Tibetan tome on the history of Buddhism and Tibetan translations of Indian classics like the Bhagwad Gita and the Ramayana. He also wrote numerous articles and essays for the Kalimpong-based 'Tibetan Mirror'. In 1993, Sethu, of Friends of Tibet, went to Kalimpong to see the office. "Through broken windows and scattered furniture I could see the ruins of a small room which was once a gathering place for activists and individuals," he says.  

It was in Kalimpong that Gendun became the member of the Tibetan Revolutionary Party. This act would have a fatal repercussion on the monk, because when he returned to Tibet some months later he was accused of being a Communist and plotting to overthrow the Tibetan Government. He was sent to jail and remained there for three years. Released in 1949, he was a physically and emotionally broken man. He died in 1951, just days after the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet and annexed the country. 

The audience in Kochi, though small, watched the film with intensity. "I never knew such a monk existed," says social worker Jiss Victor. "Gendun was enjoying life, but at the same time he was chronicling his experiences. Since I hardly know anything about Tibet, it was an informative film." 

Says architect Kunjan Garg: "I liked Gendun a lot - especially his drinking, womanising, wandering and irreverent ways. He tells us that life is not to be observed from somewhere high above, but to be experienced in its fullest, most material, even filthiest forms."

Design & People and Friends of Tibet in association with Open Eyed Dreams to screen two controversial documentaries - “Sicko” by Michael Moore and “Angry Monk” by Luc Schaedler. While Micheal Moore (Director of Fahrenheit 9/11) investigates and compares American Healthcare system with that of Cuba, Luc Schaedler travels and documents the life of one of the most controversial monks from Tibet – Gendun Choephel. The documentaries will be screened at the OED Basement, Opposite Lotus Club, Warriam Road, Ernakulam on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 5.30pm. 

About Sicko: Opening with profiles of several ordinary Americans whose lives have been disrupted, shattered, and - n some cases - ended by health care catastrophe, the film makes clear that the crisis doesn't only affect the 47 million uninsured citizens - millions of others who dutifully pay their premiums often get strangled by bureaucratic red tape as well. After detailing just how the system got into such a mess (the short answer: profits and Nixon), we are whisked around the world, visiting countries including Canada, Great Britain and France, where all citizens receive free medical benefits. Finally, Moore gathers a group of 9/11 heroes - rescue workers now suffering from debilitating illnesses who have been denied medical attention in the US. He takes them to a most unexpected place, and in addition to finally receiving care, they also engage in some unexpected diplomacy. 

About Angry Monk: Tibet - the mystical roof of the world, peopled with enlightened monks? Only one of them would not toe the line - Gendun Choephel, the errant monk who left the monastic life in 1934 in search of a new challenge. A free spirit and multifaceted individual, he was far ahead of his time and has since become a seminal figure, a symbol of hope for a free Tibet. A rebel and voluble critic of the establishment, Gendun Choephel kindled the anger of the Tibetan authorities. The cinematic journey through time portrays the life of this unorthodox monk, revealing a face of old Tibet that goes against popular clichés. The film offers a fascinating insight into a country whose eventful past is refracted in the multiplicity and contradictions of everyday life. An outsider who was always open to new things, he eventually became a stranger in his homeland and homeless in foreign lands - a wanderer between worlds.

To know more, call: 9847044248, email: support@designandpeople.org or log on to: www.designandpeople.org

Design & People identify how design can intervene to make a contribution to the ongoing efforts to improve the lives of people disadvantaged by war, disability, and political and environmental conditions. We unite and encourage graphic, industrial and architectural designers to use their experience and skills towards social and humanitarian projects. Mission: Design For People In Need.

Open Eyed Dreams, a premier art promotion venture, was launched by Dilip Narayanan in 2002. The initiative that began with a collection from eight artists has today a growing portfolio claiming exclusive representation from over 40 eminent artists in the country. It has held six major shows and a National Art Meet in Kerala. More exhibitions, tours and camps are scheduled running up to 2009. The objective: Promote art and artists, going beyond regional borders.

Friends of Tibet is a people's movement to keep alive the issue of Tibet through direct action. Our activities are aimed at ending China's occupation of Tibet and the suffering of the Tibetan people. Friends of Tibet supports the continued struggle of the Tibetan people for independence. Friends of Tibet is also one of the principal organisers of World Tibet Day around the world.

The Shoe Legacy

All dictators get their shoo dues, Wen Jiabao got his London
yesterday. Not all protesters are bad at aiming though, I reserve the
rights to give a better one to Hu Jintao. Shoes are such a leveler;
this one shoe has put Wen Jiabao on the same vicious pedestal as the
war monger former American president. The engineer diplomat and smart
Premiere has suddenly become a dictator. Thanks to the shoe protester
of London. An enthusiastic Indian activist said to me "we must all
practice shoe throwing form today, who knows who would get the
chance?" Mr Kallianpur, long-time Tibet watcher and Friends of Tibet's
National Coordinator said "The protester should have first thrown the
shoe at the 10 Downing Street - for declaring Tibet as a part of
Tibet, a new blanket statement policy change."

I hope the shoe was a cheap Chinese shoe that must have been produced
from somewhere in the backyard of Guangdong or Fujiang. Thank you from
Dharamshala. The Tibetans and Tibet supporters in London did a great
job at the protest.
(by Tenzin Tsundue / www.friendsoftibet.org/tenzin/ )