Nitpicking over the temporal head of Tibet, at best, suits
Beijing to needle New Delhi and possibly to please the local audience
POLITICS
| 5-minute read | 7-3-2017
COLONEL R HARIHARAN @colhari2
China has once again “warned” India for allowing the Dalai
Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile in India, to visit Tawang in
Arunachal Pradesh, in April 2017.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the press
that briefing that China was "gravely concerned over information that
India has granted permission to the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal
Pradesh."
He did not fail to add the usual tagline “the Dalai Clique,” which he said had “for a long time carried out anti-China separatist
activities and on the issue of China-India border has a history of disgraceful
performances.”
The Communist Party of China’s tabloid Global Times delivered
the “warning” in more acerbic tones, as it usually does.
The Chinese media did the same thing when the Chinese
foreign ministry “warned” India in October 2016, when
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu had invited the Tibetan spiritual leader to visit
the state to attend a Buddhist conclave to be held in Tawang in 2017.
The Chinese seem to have forgotten the chief minister had good
political and religious reasons to do so
because it would provide a lifetime opportunity for over 160,000 Indian followers living in the state to have the Dalai Lama’s darshan and seek his
blessings.
Without being offensive, union minister for home Kiran Rijiju,
who hails from Arunachal Pradesh, pointed out that the Dalai Lama was the guest
of the Arunachal State and that “as a devotee I will meet him.”
At the same time, Rijiju firmly said, "we are neither going
to be dominated by anyone nor shall we dominate any of our neighbours. But we
give prime importance to India's interests."
He was reiterating India's position on the Dalai Lama, which has
remained the same. Only India is saying it more confidently after Prime
Minister Narendra Modi came to power.
There are two parts to the Chinese objection: visit to Arunachal
Pradesh, particularly Tawang, and the other to the Dalai Lama’s continued
presence in India.
There is nothing new in China’s allergic reaction to any
dignitary visiting Arunachal Pradesh which has been claimed
as the Chinese territory of “Southern Tibet.”
Sometime back, they objected to the US ambassador to India, Richard Verma visiting
Arunachal Pradesh.
The Chinese had even objected to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
visit to Arunachal Pradesh!
Though Tawang is in the eye of China’s territorial claim in the Northeast, in November 2006
China’s ambassador to New Delhi Sun Yuxi enlarged the claim to the whole
Arunachal Pradesh, trivialising Tawang as “only
one of the places” in it.
The anachronism of it was, a week later, China’s President Hu Jintao came on a state
visit to New Delhi and the joint declaration issued after the visit spoke of a
ten-pronged strategy “to intensify cooperation" between China and
India!
The 430-year old Tawang monastery is considered the holiest and thelargest Buddhist
monastery in the world after the Dalai Lama’s traditional seat at Potala Palace
in Lhasa.
This is the reason for Tawang remaining the visible symbol of the living traditions of Tibetan
Buddhism, giving hope to 20 million followers around the world dismayed by
China’s continuous efforts to crush their identity.
China’s “Dalai Lama phobia”
has its roots in the Tibetan spiritual leader seeking refuge in India in 1959
to escape the wrath of the Chinese army, which went on a rampage to suppress a
mass uprising in Tibet.
China had never taken kindly to India receiving the Dalai Lama
and his followers with all the honour in keeping with his exalted status as a
spiritual and temporal head of Tibet.
India has helped the Dalai Lama establish his religious abode in
Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. From there, he continues to keep alive the
Tibetan struggle to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural and religious
traditions.
The Dalai Lama’s seat in Dharamsala has become a beacon of
attraction for Tibetans fleeing from China’s religious and ethnic persecution.
During the last five decades, India had attracted nearly 150,000
Tibetan refugees This must be hurting China’s pride as it is not much of a “testimony”
to the much-touted “autonomy” Tibetans enjoy in China.
India has gone the extra mile to create infrastructure for
education and health care for the Tibetan refugees who live in ‘little Tibets’
dotted all over the country.
China’s description of the 81-year Dalai Lama as a ‘dangerous
separatist’ in its official discourse would be considered laughable, because
Chin does not recognize Masood Azhar, one of the masterminds of Jihadi
terrorism as a terrorist. But in the Chinese eyes, Dalai Lama, respected
globally for his contribution to spread the message of peace and amity, is a “dangerous
separatist”.
In fact, the Tibetan spiritual leader has opted for negotiating
with the Chinese for autonomy rather than carrying out an armed struggle for
Tibet’s independence, although sections of his own followers did not like
it.
The high watermark of
China’s ‘Dalai phobia’ was the award of the Nobel Peace
Prize 1989 to the Dalai Lama, bringing international limelight on the Tibetan cause when
China wants the world to forget it.
The citation said the award was being
given to the Dalai Lama as a “tribute to Mahatma Gandhi” for practising non
violent means of struggle for freedom.
Perhaps, the Dalai Lama
earned the China’s abusive honorifics like “traitor” and “dangerous terrorist” when he delivered the
Nobel Award acceptance speech.
He referred to Tibetans
confronting “a calculated and systematic strategy aimed at the destruction of
their national and cultural identities.
He also added, “the prize
reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our
weapons Tibet will be liberated.”
The Dalai Lama’s
expression of solidarity of the Tibetan people for the popular movement for
democracy in China “crushed by brutal force in June this year [1989]” and that
it had rekindled the spirit of freedom among the Chinese people, was perhaps
the final straw for the Chinese to black list him, perhaps forever.
His words “China cannot
escape this spirit of freedom sweeping many parts of the world” underlines
China’s problem in digesting the idea of a free society.
So we can expect the
Chinese to keep calling him names and objecting to India’s asylum for Tibetans.
It is not going to make much difference to India-China relations because they know
there are much larger issues at stake.
Nitpicking over the Dalai
Lama, at best, suits the Chinese establishment to needle India and
possibly to please the local audience.
The writer is a retired Military Intelligence
specialist on South Asia with rich experience in terrorism and insurgency
operations.
Courtesy:
India Today Opinion portal www.dailo.in
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