Only 8000 Tibetans in Daramsalah?
Isolated and separate from the City's Indian community?
Hoo boy. The DL has already fired his best and last shot.
India wakes to a Tibetan headache
By M K Bhadrakumar
March 18, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JC18Df01.html
DHARAMSALA, India - Within hours of the violence and vandalism
breaking out last Friday in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous
Region of China, the town****p of Dharamsala, nestled against the
Indian Himalayas, was spruced up like an Old Dame anticipating a
****pload of boisterous sailors who just docked at the ****t after
months of seafaring.
The town****p is the seat of the Tibetan so-called
"government-in-exile", presided over by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual
leader and tem****al head of the 8,000-strong Tibetan community living
here. (Dharamsala, also called "Little Lhasa", literally means "Rest
House" and was established in 1849 by the British rulers of India as a
garrison town.)
The Dalai Lama would have reason to be satisfied with the attention he
is receiving from the hordes of Western media persons who have
descended on Dharamsala in the past 24 hours. He has become a
revitalized cause celebre in the international media ever since Lhasa
erupted into violence. He scheduled a special conference on Sunday
afternoon, after the big sharks of the Western media arrived. The
occasion was pregnant with possibilities. At the conference, the Dalai
Lama launched a tirade against the Chinese authorities. Most
im****tant, he point-blank refused to make any appeal for calm in Tibet
in the worst unrest in Tibet for nearly two decades.
Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces on Sunday
as Tibetans continued to defy a Chinese government crackdown. Angry
demonstrations broke out in Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Qinghai
and Gansu provinces.
The Tibetan capital of Lhasa was tense on Monday ahead of a midnight
deadline for people who took part in the violent anti-Chinese uprising
to surrender or face severe punishment. Tibetan officials say 16
people have died and dozens wounded in the violence, although other
estimates put the figure much higher.
The Dalai Lama said, "The situation in Tibet has become volatile, and
only a miracle power can control it, not me."
He seems to realize this may well be his last waltz. The potential for
embarrassing China - and in particular, President Hu Jintao, who once
headed the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet - has never been as great
as in the runup to the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in August. The
Dalai Lama accused China of unlea****ng a "cultural genocide" in Tibet
and demanded an international probe. But, he said, "We want genuine
autonomy and not independence [from China]."
Tibet has suddenly sailed into view. Violence has erupted in Lhasa
after a gap of two full decades. Such large-scale violence was last
witnessed in 1987. How much of the violence on Friday was pre-planned
or orchestrated from outside Tibet, it is difficult to *****s from
Dharamsala. The Chinese authorities have alleged that the "Dalai Lama
clique" instigated the violence. But one thing stands out.
The complete coordination with which the apparatus of the Tibetan
"government-in-exile" has sprung into high-quality action on the
political and propaganda front leaves little doubt that it was at the
very minimum anticipating Friday's eruption. Tibetan activists here
are more forthcoming. They darkly hinted they were indeed expecting
the disturbances. But they refuse to elaborate how they knew or who
their collaborators were or what they did with what they knew.
Set against the Himalayan peaks which still wear a brooding wintry
look sprinkled with powdery snow, the Dalai Lama's palace and its
surroundings provide a stunning location for a drama-filled political
cause that mixes liberation theology yet defaces communism.
A dozen handsome-looking Tibetan youth with flowing hair and bold
headbands spread the red Chinese national flags on the streets of
Dharamsala and trample on them with a couple of Indian policemen
silently watching. A shed has been erected at the gates of the Dalai
Lama's palace where a "relay fast" is observed by Tibetan activists
protesting against China's governance of Tibet.
Western television cameras eagerly lap up the images for beaming them
to drawing rooms in Europe and North America. The Dalai Lama's palace
basks in the warm spring sun****ne of Western attention.
There is much excitement in the air in Dharamsala as the speaker of
the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is expected
in this Himalayan hamlet on Tuesday. It seems she is not having a
stopover in Iraq and Afghanistan but is heading straight for
Dharamsala. Pelosi took the initiative of arranging a Congressional
medal for the Dalai Lama a few months ago, which China robustly
protested. Beijing warned the George W Bush administration that such
unfriendly acts could cast shadows on US-China relations.
The Dalai Lama insisted at the press conference that Pelosi's trip was
long scheduled. He described her as an old friend. But her visit
nonetheless comes at an awkward time for India. Delhi has adopted an
attitude of "see no evil, hear no evil". But it remains to be seen
whether the Chinese are impressed.
Actually, a delicate three-way diplomatic tango is likely commencing -
involving the US and China, with India providing the turf - which can
only turn out to be messy for India. There is an old African saying
that when elephants clash, the grass gets crushed. China would see a
pattern insofar as steadily through recent months, sections of the
Indian cor****ate media, which have been traditionally known to serve
as mouthpieces of American regional policy, have been on overdrive
stirring up dust in India-China relations.
Influential voices in the Indian strategic community have also jumped
into the fray, including former diplomats who served at the highest
level in the Indian foreign policy establishment and are close to the
ruling Congress party. Their plea is that Tibet is at the core of
India's intractable border dispute with China. They claim China is
displaying the iron in its soul by pressing its claims in the border
dispute. According to them, China is deliberately "provoking" India
because it is in no mood to settle the border dispute with Delhi until
Beijing has "subdued" Tibet on its terms. They see the odds as heavily
favoring China in its current shadow boxing with India, whereas, Tibet
is Delhi's only leverage.
At the same time, there has been a pro-US ****ft in Indian
foreign-policy orientations in general in recent years. The present
government has worked hard to harmonize its regional policies with the
US policy almost across the board. It has left virtually no stone
unturned - be it over Kosovo, the Palestinian problem or Afghanistan.
From this perspective, the strong Indian reaction to the Lhasa
violence assumes significance. First, it is not clear whether an
Indian reaction was warranted on an issue which is patently China's
internal matter. The question is of diplomatic propriety - and not the
rights and wrongs of what took place in Lhasa. Second, Delhi cannot
adopt double standards. Delhi is not going to be amused if any world
capital makes it a point to begin pronouncing on incidents of violence
that rock India from time to time. Delhi used to show irritation
whenever Pakistan took note of Hindu-Muslim violence in India.
The Indian Foreign Ministry expressed its "distress" over the
"unsettled situation and violence" in Lhasa. It called on "all those
involved" (meaning, Tibetan agitators as well as Chinese authorities)
to "improve the situation and remove causes of such trouble in Tibet".
Without doubt, Delhi has chosen to be prescriptive on an internal
matter of China. But it can boomerang, even if it pleases Wa****ngton
in the present instance. Ironically, news just trickled in that the
60-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) passed a resolution
by consensus at its summit meeting in Dakar, Senegal, on Friday
expressing "concern about the long-lingering, oldest unresolved
dispute of Kashmir" and underscoring the organization's sup****t of the
Kashmiri people's right of self-determination.
The Indian Foreign Ministry promptly dismissed the OIC statement,
saying, "The OIC has no locus standi [standing] in matters concerning
India's internal affairs, including Jammu and Kashmir, which is an
integral part of India. We [Indian government] strongly reject all
such comments," the Indian Foreign Ministry pointed out.
Of course, Delhi did the right thing. No government in Delhi will
countenance a dilution of India's sovereignty and territorial
integrity. Equally, the central issue is whether the Dharamsala folks
have a future. Indian strategists are exceedingly foolish to pretend
Delhi holds a "Tibet card". A visit to Dharamsala will at once bring
them face-to-face with the sobering reality that the Tibetan community
here faces disarray once the 73-year-old Dalai Lama departs from the
scene. He dominates the landscape with his sheer physical presence.
While hundreds of Tibetan demonstrators marched in the town center on
Sunday, local Indians went on with their daily lives. The Indians and
the Tibetan Buddhists live in water-tight compartments in Dharamsala.
Even after 49 years, they hardly intermix. The Indians complain that
the relatively more affluent Tibetan "refugees" are disdainful. This
is especially so among second-generation Tibetans who otherwise feel
comfortable with the Western nationals who throng to this exotic town
in the Himalayas for a variety of reasons.
The local Indians complain wealthy Tibetans are buying up property at
fancy prices. No matter what Indian strategists in their ivory towers
may write, Tibet is not a "popular" issue among ordinary Indians.
Therefore, there is a touch of surreality about the whole situation.
There is a "civilizational" angle insofar as Indians are largely
indifferent towards Buddhism. Western nationals throng the Buddhist
monasteries in Dharamsala curious to know about Tibetan medicine,
yoga, mysticism and of course Buddhist philosophy. But there are
hardly any Indians to be seen in the monasteries except the odd
tourist escaping the heat of the Indian plains.
The sad reality of Indian history is that the country gave birth to
Buddhism, but in the name of "Hindu revivalism", it subsequently
decimated Buddhism and ruthlessly removed all traces of it from the
Indian cultural consciousness, though Buddhism still remains the
finest flower of the Indian civilization in a philosophical sense.
It, therefore, becomes difficult for ordinary Indians to champion the
issue of Tibet. The issue needs to be "oxygenated" in Indian opinion
constantly, which is eventually bound to become tedious. But that is
looking ahead. For the present, a lot of money is undoubtedly pouring
into this little town under the rubric of "donations".
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador
to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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