Alliance with India

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Subject:	Alliance with India

SEMSHOOK
OUR BOND WITH INDIA
Tenzin Tsundue

Tibetan Review
December 2004

Last year around this time, a television news channel quoted His Holiness
the Dalai Lama as saying that he is willing for Tibet to be a part of
China. This shocked many Indians. One of them happened to be the landlord
of my Indian college friend living in Pune. I was visiting Pune for a
photo-exhibition on Tibet that we were organizing in the city. And I was
supposed to stay at my friend's rented accommodation. After listening to
the news clip, the landlord refused to let me step in his house, calling
me "Chinese". I was deeply hurt, but what could I say?

The man knew everything about Tibet and its struggle. My friend protested,
but his landlord was adamant. He said, "If Dalai lama wants to make Tibet
a part of China, then why is he here in India? All the Tibetans should be
immediately sent back to China."

Decades back, when the Indian parliamentarians were first getting to be
conscious of Tibet's occupation by China and the consequential danger to
India, Nehru was questioned about his mild policies towards the PRC. In
defence he said, "not a blade of grass grows there" referring dismissively
to the Aksai Chin area of Ladakh.

This has been the Indian mentality behind issues over its 4,200 km
Himalayan border; part idealistic peace-making and part gross neglect.
Because of this both India and Tibet have suffered tremendously and both
are at a lost to find any solution to the quagmire created by Beijing's
occupation of Tibet.

I have been watching with a sense of sadistic pleasure the rituals as
India and China try to molest each other during their border debates.
While they solemnly pretend to be solving border issues with utmost
seriousness; they both know that without first solving the status of
Tibet, no lasting solution is possible. But as a diplomacy and PR
exercise, the dragon and the tiger have been - uncomfortably - trying to
smile at each other.

As a school kid I first participated in a Tibet protest rally in Kullu
when I was in the fifth standard. We shouted "Tibbat ki azaadi, bharat ki
suraksha", but in the busy Indian streets, bystanders watched us merely
for the spectacle of Tibetans on parade, not giving any attention to what
we were saying. It hasn't changed much even today with the Indian masses.

When news of the PLA's invasion of Tibet reached India in 1950, Indian
leaders expressed outrage and people marched down the streets in Bombay in
protest. That was then the prevalent spirit against foreign invasion and
injustice, having recently won her independence.

Those marchers were one type of Tibet supporters in India. Around the same
time another brand of Tibet supporters were born - the patriotic Indians
who saw the danger to India from the Chinese invasion and occupation of
Tibet. This lot were mainly the educated ones. They supported Tibet
keeping India's interests in mind. This trend grew steadily ever since.
Today the sub-continent has more than 150 Tibet Support Groups. They
mainly work to create awareness about Tibet through grassroots education
and also by lobbying public representatives to take up the issue of Tibet
at the national and international levels.

Last year, when the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went
to China and declared the "Tibet Autonomous Region as part of the
territory of the People's Republic of China", many Tibetans and Tibet
supporters expressed anger and disappointment. Some even called it India's
betrayal of Tibet.

If we look more deeply, I think this happened mainly because we have
failed to convince India the viability of our freedom struggle. Most of
our efforts to explain our situation have been going to the west. After 45
years of protests and asylum in India, the Indian government was still not
convinced of the possibility of free Tibet. India once again decided not
to invest political expediency in us.

But this does not mean India has given up on Tibet. Never. India can't
afford to do that due to her own interests. Besides the border, there are
many other geo-political and cultural considerations that guide India's
interest in a free Tibet.

It was our own decision to seek "Genuine Autonomy" for our homeland
without striving to separate Tibet from China that has left little
political choice for India. When we ourselves go about announcing that we
do not seek independence for Tibet, how can India help us? India won't do
anything that would make China her permanent neighbour.

The fact that India is sheltering more than 130,000 Tibetans living here
as foreigners, with all basic necessities provided, tolerating the illegal
Tibetan Government-in-Exile, and recruiting 10,000 Tibetans soldiers into
the Indian Army, is a clear sign that India has not washed its hand of the
idea of Tibetan independence.

This doesn't mean India will take up the issue of Tibet anywhere. India
has not, and I think she will not, raise it with China or in international
forums. In the mass Indian psyche Tibet doesn't mean anything other than
"Kailash-Manasarover". Tibet is definitely not an issue within India.
There is no political will to support the Tibetan cause.

For the past few months we have been vigorously campaigning across India
to stop the execution of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. Tibetan Youth
Congress took the campaign to four metropolitan cities, and yet besides a
few news reports no major media took any serious note of the issue. The
colourful Tibetan culture makes a pretty background for Bollywood films,
but it never makes it to the news headlines, not even the Dalai Lama.

>From the first day of exile in India till today we have resettled
ourselves from being empty-handed escapees to become the most successful
refugees with more than 100 schools, over 500 monasteries and cultural
centres and a standard of living that is a little better than the average
Indian. From this basic infrastructure of exile government, our hope of
resurrecting a new Tibet flourished. Today we confidently think of
returning to our homeland to resurrect a new Tibet - and this dream is
only made possible by India.

The reality in which India lives - with a humongous population with
growing "working chaos" as somebody described it - means she has little
energy to attend to any issue unless it is literally burning. To top that
is the power struggle among the political parties, for whom "the seat" is
more important than any national issue. After Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
there's never been a strong government at the centre to make any political
headway.

I have met some Indian communists at strange chance encounters. Though as
Indians we shared many national concerns, they seemed to have a silent
bonding with China when it came to idealism. An in-depth talk with them
made me aware how terribly outdated they are on the issues of Tibet and
China. They still imagine that the Tibetan struggle is supported by the
CIA, citing the involvement of westerners and the fact that the CIA did
support the Tibetan arms resistance movement, but only to check the spread
of Chinese communism to the west. They do not even know that the CIA
abandoned the Tibetans 30 years ago to die in the cold mountains waiting
for food and arms, once the US switched policy and Nixon flew to Beijing
to shake hands with Mao.

And yet, I believe if there is one country that can understand our
struggle to regain the lost freedom and dignity of being a nation, our
craving to re-establish that Tibet which can be a safe haven for our
culture and traditions, it is India. India can help us achieve that, and
will remain a partner in its maintenance.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most sincere and
dedicated Indian friends of Tibet. And I have felt the power of that
spiritual bonding. This is the source of my conviction that finally the
declaration of Tibetan independence will arise from this land.
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*Tenzin Tsundue is a writer and activist for free Tibet. He can be
contacted at tentsundue@xxxxxxxxxxx



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