After all these years, do the Chinese expect the
82-year old to lead a revolution in Tibet?
POLITICS | 3-minute read | 07-04-2017
COLONEL R HARIHARAN @colhari2
China does not seem to have realised
that India, under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is different
from the one ruled by the Congress for a decade.
It is difficult to understand,
why China is getting worked up over the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang.
The Buddhist spiritual leader
fled his homeland and arrived in India, nearly six decades ago, as a young monk
of 24 to save himself from the Chinese army, who sought to crush the mass
uprising in Tibet.
After all these years, do the
Chinese expect the 82-year old to lead a revolution to “liberate” Tibet?
Apparently, some sections of
Chinese leadership think so, however absurd it may seem, particularly as the
Dalai Lama has repeatedly been saying his demand was that Tibetans gain
autonomy to preserve the identity and religion.
Whether he visits Tawang or not
makes an iota of difference to the status of Tibet and to China’s territorial
disputes with India.
These problems are not going to
vanish into thin air if the Dalai Lama prays at the monastery in Tawang.
The territorial disputes
between the two countries have long been on the dialogue table for long, and
are waiting to go through the ordeal of talks for the umpteenth time. No light is visible at the end of the
“dispute tunnel” as neither side has look to a resolution.
What then does China achieve
when its foreign ministry demands that “India stop using the Dalai Lama to do
anything that undermines China’s interests” and that “the Indian side not hype
up sensitive issues between India and China,” or by calling the Indian Ambassador
to China Vijay Gokhale to lodge a protest.
China’s hype on the Dalai
Lama’s has done one thing: it has given wide publicity to his visit.
It has raised a lot of heckles
among the public leaving little manoeuvring space for both the governments.
The Dalai Lama does not make
front page news in India till the Chinese make a noise about him. The Indian
media makes very little space for him.
The Tibetan cause has to jostle
for media space in the land full of sadhus (including the corporate ones who
have entered our breakfast cereal and shampoos), spiritualists, fakirs and a
whole tribe of religious leaders whose message the electronic media beams 24x7.
The Chinese have done a favour
to the Tibetan leader by creating a ruckus over his visit.
We can expect the Dalai Lama’s address
at the Dirang monastery to be widely broadcast.
The Chinese, on the other hand,
would do well to read his message: “Situation inside Tibet is tragic. The
situation in 21st century will be miserable if it continues like
this. The world suffers from short-sightedness which is not good. We shouldn’t
bully each other.”
Pondering on the last sentence
of Dalai Lama’s message would help cool the tempers to take a realistic view of
the situation.
China feels, by disregarding
its concerns and “obstinately” arranging the visit to the disputed part of
Sino-Indian border, India is “causing serious damage” to China’s interests as
well as India-China relations.
It is difficult to believe that
the Dalai Lama’s visit would cause more damage to the bilateral ties, than when
the Chinese have repeatedly trampled upon India’s concerns.
It has blocked India’s efforts to get the
Pakistan-sponsored terrorist Azhar Masood black listed by the UN, although it
knows India has been under serious threat from Pakistan-based jihadi terrorist
outfits.
Can it be worse than China
finalising the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, in utter disregard
to India’s objections, and start executing the project through Indian territory
illegally occupied by Pakistan?
China should seriously ponder
how it is dealing with India. India is not Mongolia to be brow beaten by
words. Beijing needs good relations with
New Delhi as much as the latter does. But they won’t improve by threats or
warnings.
India is not China; it is a
vocal democracy where public perception impacts how India acts, probably, much
more than it does in China. The earlier
the Chinese realize the better the relationship building will be.
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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