by Stephen Coan
The Witness Features
Red bandana around his head, a red ribbon threaded into his single plait – there is no missing Tibetan poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue currently participating in the Poetry Africa festival hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts. An initial impression of fierceness is dispelled as soon as he speaks – with humour, insight and enthusiasm.
“The bandana is a symbol of my own personal pledge to work for a free Tibet,” he says. “I’ve been wearing it for three years. I have vowed to wear it until Tibet is an independent country. The red colour represents my zeal in working for a free Tibet.”
This zeal was famously exhibited in January 2002 when Tsundue climbed up scaffolding to the 14th floor of the Oberoi Towers Hotel in Mumbai and unfurled a Tibetan flag and a “Free Tibet” banner. This while the then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji was inside addressing a business conference.
Tsundue’s protest drew worldwide media attention. It even attracted the fashion gurus and he laughs when I mention his selection by Elle magazine in July 2002 as one of “India’s Most Stylish People”.
“There were only two Tibetans on the list – the Dalai Lama and me! All the other people were film stars or models.”
Although somewhat nonplussed by the Elle award Tsundue confesses to being “touched” by the recognition. “It was something that sustained me in my work for Tibet.”
Tsundue was born into a Tibetan refugee family. “My parents worked as road labourers in North India in the sixties and seventies. They lived by the roadside in small tents.”
Tsundue was born in one of these tents under such hectic conditions that there was no time to record his birth. He was given a date of birth when he first went to school. “At three different offices three different records were made. Now I have three dates of birth, but I have never celebrated my birthday.”
Being born in exile, for Tsundue, Tibet was a l and of the imagination. “It was always beyond the hills. It was part of the condition of being an exile. My parents would say ‘beyond those hills is Tibet, we belong there’. There was this strong love for what was beyond those hills, but you were never there.”
Tsundue says that being an activist and writer came out of these conditions. “It’s a reflection of my life, all the time you are growing up into it. You are always finding that nothing is yours – your house, your bed, your school, the table. Even the land; everything belongs to someone else.”
Today, Tsundue has few belongings of his own. “I keep my life very simple. I own two shirts, two pairs of jeans and a radio. And I live in a rented house in Dharamsala.”
Tsundue was educated at the Tibetan Children’s Village School in Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile and a focal point for the Tibetan diaspora. He then did a bachelor of arts degree at Madras University followed by a masters in literature and philosophy at Mumbai University.
Crossing Borders, Tsundue’s first book of poems, was published with money begged and borrowed from friends in Mumbai. He has since published another book of poems and essays, Kora, which includes his 2001 essay My Kind of Exile, which won the first All-India Outlook-Picador Award for Non-Fiction. His work has also appeared in several newspapers and magazines including International PEN, the Indian PEN, The Times of India and Gandhi Marg.
For Tsundue, writing and activism are a natural combination. “The way I grew up gave me a strong determination to do something for my country, to free it from the Chinese. And I knew that if I wanted to communicate what was happening in Tibet to the rest of the world I must improve my English.”
At school Tsundue read the “big poets” such as Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Byron but studying in Madras he encountered other poets – from Asia and Africa, from former colonial countries. “I found many things I could relate to – the voices of peoples that had been repressed really spoke to me. I thought, I can write like this, reflecting on the experience of Tibetans in exile.”
In 1997 while studying in Mumbai Tsundue met poets Dom Moraes, Nissem Ezekiel and Adil Jussawall. “These poets, as well as other people who wrote for newspapers and magazines, encouraged me to write. They gave me useful tips and gradually I came closer to writing.”
The year 1997 also marked the point at which Tsundue decided to visit Tibet. “Up until then Tibet had been a land of the imagination. An imagination fed by songs and stories from my parents; by pictures from foreign tourists.”
“I had this romantic notion that I would go there and take part in the freedom struggle. So I took the risk and walked across the Himalayas. It was such a poetic moment. I was a young man of 22 and I walked into Tibet by myself, across the border. ‘This is my country’, I thought.”
Tsundue had arranged to meet some businessmen on the border. “I was hoping I could get some work, any work, become a servant and gradually get involved in the freedom struggle.” A delay saw him get to the meeting point late. There was no one there.
“I was alone in the mountains. I spent four days walking in the mountains. I almost didn’t make it. I had no food, no water. I sucked ice from the river beds.”
His wanderings ended in arrest by the Chinese border police who took Tsundue to Ngari where he was beaten. “They wouldn’t believe my story; they thought I was an Indian spy.”
After two weeks of interrogation he was taken to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and placed in the Seidru detention camp. “I thought I would spend the rest of my life there or be taken out and shot.”
In the event he spent three months there. An inquiry regarding Tsundue’s fate was received from the authorities in India and he was sent back to India. “I remember being taken to the border. I felt a strong sense of humiliation. I had been to my country, I was actually there, and now here I was being thrown out – by the Chinese.”
In detention at Lhasa Tsundue had met many political prisoners. “They were an inspiration to me. Many had never even seen the Dalai Lama but they were so dedicated to the freedom of their country.”
Tsundue joined the Friends of Tibet (India) and is now national secretary. He believes India is crucial to the Tibetan struggle as the two countries share a border. India is also host to the Tibetan government-in-exile.
“It’s important to keep speaking to India, to keep people informed and to maintain awareness. We can do this in India because it is a free democracy. In Tibet, if people protest they are killed.”
Tsundue’s flag-unfurling protest came at a critical time when China and India were secretly negotiating over borders. “If China and India decide on a border, where will Tibet be?” Tsundue staged a repeat perfor mance in April this year when Chinese prime minister Wen Jia-Bao visited the south Indian city of Bangalore.
On both occasions his protest was part of a larger protest but devised solely by himself. “I don’t involve others in things that have a high risk. I do it on my own and I take responsibility.”
“The most beautiful part of this is that it is a completely non-violent protest. No harm was caused to anybody, yet it brought Tibet to the attention of the world media.”
It attracted attention but did it do anything more? In one of his essays Tsundue commented that while “Buddhism and the colourful Tibetan culture may be selling in the West, there are no takers for the real issue: Tibet’s freedom.”
Tsundue believes the West’s fascination with all things Tibetan is due mainly to the international profile of the Dalai Lama. “My only problem with this is that we are not getting support for the freedom struggle. We continue to feed the West, but nothing is reall y coming back. Our country is still occupied by China and that is not being resolved.”
Although Tsundue speaks with great respect for the Dalai Lama, he differs on method.
“The Dalai Lama advocates autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule. He is more accommodating; he looks for mutual benefits. But I and others want a clear statement. What we want is independence from China.”
Tsundue believes that freedom has to be achieved, not asked for. “We have to stand and make our demands. While the Dalai Lama advocates a non-violent approach. I take a Gandhian approach – one of continued, engaged non-violent protest.”
Although Tibet remains unrecognised by any government, Tsundue feels there is popular support for the Tibetan cause. He accepted the invitation to come to South Africa – his first trip overseas – because he felt “it was important that people here should know of our freedom struggle. You have experienced repression here and should be able to relate.
“Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have been inspirational figures for us. It was Tutu who said that people get freedom once they believe they are free in themselves. Then if they demand freedom they will get it – no one can stop them.”
