Dharamsala, Jan. 29 – The Central Association for Panchen Lama and the office of Tashi Lhunpo yesterday marked 20 years since the passing away of the 10th Panchen Lama. Starting yesterday, a year will be dedicated to the 10th Panchen Lama through various campaigns and activities, a press release issued by the Central Association for Panchen Lama and the office of Tashi Lhunpo said.
While China yesterday lauded the second most prominent figure in Tibetan Buddhism as an enemy of ‘separatism’ the Tibetans remembered him as a champion of Tibetan people’s rights and an obstacle to China’s ambition to sinicize Tibet.
10th Panchen Lama wrote a 70,000-character petition about the Tibetan people’s plight and submitted it to the Chinese government in 1962. He was put under house arrest for nine years for criticizing the Chinese government. In 1978, he was freed after which he traveled extensively throughout Tibet working to preserve the Tibetan culture, and improve the lives of the Tibetan people.
The 10th Panchen Lama breathed his last on Jan. 28, 1989. In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized a young boy Gendun Choekyi Nima as the 11th Panchen Lama, but Beijing kidnapped him and installed its own choice, Gyaltsen Norbu, who is spurned by most Tibetans. The whereabouts of the Gendn Choekyi Nima and his parents are still unknown.
“The Panchen Lama has become increasingly important as a symbolic figure for Tibetans since his death because Beijing’s policies increasingly seem focused on undoing everything he struggled for,” Tibetologist Robert Barnett of Columbia University told Reuters.
Asked to comment on the 10th Panchen Lama’s legacy, his only child, Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, now studying in Beijing, told Reuters: “My father never wavered in his convictions to do everything possible to broadly support Tibetan culture and Tibetans everywhere.”
