DHARAMSALA, March 10 – When Tibetans rose up against Chinese rule and were crushed 45 years ago, this town locked in the pine trees of northern India was little more than a hillside backwater.
Dharamsala is today synonymous with the Dalai Lama and the 10,000 other Tibetans who live here — in an exile which, paradoxically, has become a livelihood.
Tourists lured by “Little Lhasa” pack guesthouses, Internet cafes and restaurants serving up food from continents away, while the Tibetans maintain temples and archives full of treasures sneaked out of their homeland.
But with the tourist dollars come worries of Tibetan traditionalists that the town meant as a cultural haven free from Chinese troops has come under the spell of another foreign influence: Westernisation.
On her shelves at the Om Hotel she runs, Dickey Chodon keeps the latest CDs of genres from soul music to trance — and those of Tibetan chants for tourists to take home.
“We may be learning better English because of the tourists but the outlook is definitely changing for the worse,” she said.
Thupten Lungrig, the culture minister of the government-in-exile set up by the Dalai Lama, said his greatest fear was the loss of the Tibetan language among the youth, many of whom have never seen their ancestral land and believe the path to prosperity comes through English and, to a lesser extent, Hindi.
“I find the Tibetan youth today are not wearing the smiles that Tibetans are famous for. I find the youth today look gloomy,” Lungrig said.
“Smiling makes a big difference. It costs nothing but still it is vanishing from our society,” he said.
But at least, Lungrig said, this societal change did not come at the barrel of a gun.
“In exile the degradation of Tibetan culture is out of choice whereas in Tibet it is out of force,” he said.
One of the most common concerns of Tibetan activists is that age-old traditions are being eradicated as part China’s professed campaign to “modernise” the Buddhist territory from its hierarchical, religious past.
It was anxiety for the most prominent symbol of Tibet that brought thousands into the streets of Lhasa on March 10, 1959, after rumours circulated that the Dalai Lama, then 23, was about to be kidnapped by Chinese forces.
The reputed incarnation of the Buddha fled Lhasa for India on March 17 that year and in exile has grown from a young monk patronised or ignored by world leaders to a global cultural icon.
Dharamsala and its adjacent garrison town McLeod Ganj became the headquarters of the Dalai Lama in 1960 with the blessing of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
The green hills around Dharamsala, which stares at mountains 5,200 meters (17,000 feet) high, had the town endeared British colonialists, who considered making it their summer capital until it was devastated by an earthquake in 1905.
But while some tourists still come here to hike, the indisputable top attraction is the Dalai Lama himself, who on the week of the uprising that led to his exile is giving public teachings that have generated enough interest to fully book most of Dharamsala’s guesthouses.
Hollywood celebrities such as Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn are regular visitors to Dharamsala, rubbing shoulders with Westerners seeking to meditate or study Tibetan philosophy.
“The Dalai Lama brought Dharamsala onto the world map. The economy of the town soared after he established his government-in-exile here,” said Prem Sood, a tour operator here.
But it has come at a cost, he said.
“Drugs are now flourishing in town. Fake gurus offer meditation and other healing courses are also sprouting,” Sood said.
Other common complaints are the poor infrastructure of Dharamsala, which has only irregular flight service and no rail connection.
For Lungrig, the culture minister, Tibetans should redirect their concerns to preserving their way of life.
“We have hope, but I find everybody is busy looking after their own affairs,” Lungrig said. “We have to control ourselves. We have to know our own culture well, before we adopt others’ ways.”
