By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, AUG. 23: The foremost Buddhist Institute in Tibet, Larung Gar Buddhist learning center that has come under intense heavy-handedness in the past year is set to be further clamped down with key management and supervisory positions held by local Communist party members.
The appointment of six party members to the institute’s key position comes after a year long demolition drive flattening houses in the valley and evicting students, most of them clergy from the premier Buddhist learning center in Eastern Tibet’s Serthar County in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
Dharamshala based rights group, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that on 20 August, the Kardze Prefectural authorities announced the appointment of six Tibetan Party members, five male and one female. Three of the appointees have been given the charge to manage Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy (Tib: Ngarig Nangten Lobling). The other three will head the Larung Gar Monastery Management Committee.
The move replaces democratically appointed candidate system to directly appointed party members who are tasked to strengthen the capacity of Party and government organizations. “The creation of MMCs (Monastery Management Committee) effectively ended the little autonomy enjoyed by the erstwhile Democratic Management Committee (DMC) and heralded a much harsher and comprehensive repression of religious institutions in Tibet. Previously it was the DMC that managed and made decisions on the general administration of a monastic institution,” TCHRD said.
The hard pressed move will, the rights group said, “further undermine and erode the influence and authority of the institute’s standing executive committee that is composed of ten highly learned abbots.” Also adding that the broader agenda is to keep the whole valley under the direct supervision of the CCP. “Clearly the members of the standing executive committee will be made subservient to the whims and fancies of the Chinese Communist Party members,” TCHRD said in the report.
Earlier this month, the same organization, which cited undercover sources from Larung Gar, reported that the Buddhist learning Center, which has churned out academics and Buddhist spiritualists, is systematically being turned into a destination for tourists with supporting infrastructures built in and around the locale.
Following the forceful eviction of students and demolition of Larung Gar since mid 2016, the once sprawling Buddhist learning center boasting over 10,000 students as of May 2017 have been reduced by 4828 monks and nuns and 4725 houses flattened to the ground.
