By B. GAUTAM
Special to The Japan Times
MADRAS, India – The Dalai Lama is still the leader of Tibet. He may be just a figurehead, but China, which annexed Tibet in 1959 and drove the Dalai Lama and his followers into India, knows that only this monk can convince his people to reconcile to Beijing’s control over Lhasa.
But the Dalai Lama is 69, and China understands that the stakes are getting higher. His death would leave a void among the Tibetans, who could then rise in a bloody revolt.
It also appears that there may not be another Dalai Lama. The current one, the 14th — who now lives in the Indian town of Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile — does not wish, in any case, to be reborn.
Nevertheless, the average Tibetan’s faith in the Dalai Lama is still unshakable. Beijing’s consistent efforts to eradicate the man from people’s memories have not really paid off. Many Tibetans yearn for the return of the one they consider their spiritual and temporal head. While China makes it a point through its official media to spit venom on the Dalai Lama, calling him a traitor bent on dividing Tibet from the mainland, his followers’ trust in him merely deepens.
One reason for this could be the Dalai Lama’s ability to comprehend the pressures of changing situations and the need to adapt: He has virtually given up the demand for a free Tibet, and instead seeks greater autonomy. He realizes that it will be impossible to dislodge China from the plateau and that, given the geopolitical compulsions of the time, no other country will or can help Tibet achieve total independence.
Unfortunately, Beijing has yet to seize an opportunity. It has yet to begin talking with the Dalai Lama. If it does not, there is a good chance that Tibet will turn uglier.
Analysts aver that China has a “rare opportunity to solve the Tibetan question once and for all.” In fact, many Chinese admit this in private conversations, saying Beijing is unnecessarily paranoid about a people who are largely peace-loving and wonderfully cultured.
China remains obstinate. Its hardline policies seem to be adding to the simmering discontent and resentment among Tibetans. Beijing’s use of Tibet as a nuclear dumping ground causes indignation. Above all, China’s policy of mixing repression with liberal central-government money, most of which benefits ethnic-Chinese immigrants, has set the 2.4 million Tibetans all the more resolutely against Chinese rule. The constant denigration of the Dalai Lama threatens to be the final straw.
The spiritual leader knows that China can do what it wants to in Tibet. He has absolutely no power to stop that. But, as he grows older, his urge to return home and be among his people strengthens. He is willing to offer concessions that will let Beijing lift the ban on his entry into Tibet. He has already made it clear, perhaps much to his own anguish and that of his people, that he is willing to accept greater autonomy for Tibet and forgo demands for total freedom. In essence, he will affirm China’s sovereignty over Tibet and is ready to bring Tibetans around to this line of thought. That is a brave position, for it involves abandoning the grand goal of many Tibetans and their chic Hollywood supporters. It also rules out any temporal role for himself.
One might think that, with the Dalai Lama having gone more than halfway politically, Beijing should cease its policy of humiliation and confrontation. More than 600 Tibetans, most of them are monks and nuns, are jailed. They must be freed. China should scrap its policy of destroying the Tibetan language, which must be reintroduced in schools in Tibet.
Greater peace in Tibet will not only reassure Taiwan that China is a responsible guardian of its territories but also facilitate a more voluminous flow of trade between India and China. Already, a trade route has been established between the two via Tibet. Even smoother commerce would undoubtedly help New Delhi and Beijing find a quicker solution to their own border problem. After all, economics and commerce rule ties between nations today. Tibet could well be the platform for a free flow of goods and services between the world’s two most populous nations.
B. Gautam writes for a leading Indian newspaper.
