He has spent 45 years in exile from the land of his birth. At 70, the Dalai Lama remains a symbol of hope for Tibetans, but even he has resigned himself to an accommodation with the Chinese overlords, says PRATAP CHAKRAVARTY.
FRIEND to kings and popes, presidents and paupers, the Dalai Lama has long been a symbol of hope for five million Tibetans living in exile or in their homeland occupied by China in 1950.
The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, he is the subject of two major Hollywood movies, Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, author of 40 books and has been feted by world leaders and welcomed by the Holy See.
The adulation has come at the cost of exile. He fled Tibet across the Himalayas to escape Chinese rule in 1959 and was given sanctuary in the Indian city of Dharamsala where he set up a government-in-exile and launched a campaign to reclaim Tibet.
As he celebrates his 70th birthday in his exiled home tomorrow, the man normally clothed in the saffron robes of a monk, with prayer beads around his neck, a hearty laugh and engaging smile set off by oversized eye glasses, is still hopeful he may one day return to Tibet.
Having long ago given up his original demands for Tibetan independence, he wants China to agree to a limited autonomy for his people in Tibet, with him as a spiritual leader having no part in governance.
There have been four rounds of talks between Chinese and Tibetan diplomats on the Dalai’s Lama’s proposal, though many doubt China will loosen its grip.
But his flock of more than five million, in exile and in his homeland, is divided. The moderates within the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dhar- amsala seek a rapprochement with Beijing; radicals, including sections of the Tibetan Youth Congress, oppose any deal outside of independence.
The Dalai Lama, holder of a spiritual title founded in the 14th century, insists his moderate “middle path” approach is in the best interests of Tibetans.
“As long as I am there I can make Tibetans calm. If I am not there, I do not know what will come,” he said in March.
Born into a peasant family in the northeastern Tibetan village of Taksar on July 6, 1935, Lhamo Dhondrub was chosen as the 14th incarnation of Tibetan Buddhism’s supreme religious leader, the Dalai Lama, at the age of four on Feb 22, 1940.
He was given the name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso — Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate Defender of the Faith and Ocean of Wisdom — and was taken to Lhasa’s 1,000-room Potala Palace to be trained to become the leader of his people.
In Seven Years in Tibet, Brad Pitt plays a German mountain climber who escapes from British India during World War II to Tibet and befriends the isolated Dalai Lama and spurs his interest in the outside world and mechanical objects.
He even enjoyed tinkering with cars, one of which he crashed at the palace gate. To this day, the Dalai Lama is transfixed by clocks.
But his days of discovery ended abruptly at age 15 when he was hastily enthroned as Tibet’s new god-king after the Chinese army in 1950 invaded Tibet to “liberate” it from imperialism and religion.
For the next nine years he tried to keep Tibetans out of harm’s way but the effort failed in 1959 when China crushed an uprising and reneged on a 1951 pledge to grant Tibet autonomy.
The Dalai Lama, disguised as a soldier and accompanied by a 37-strong entourage, trekked for 13 days through the Himalayas and crossed into exile in India on March 30, 1959.
When told the Dalai Lama had fled, then-Chinese leader Mao Zedong reportedly said: “In that case, we have lost the battle.”
Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn has labelled China’s invasion of Tibet as the most “brutal and inhuman” act of any communist regime in the world. The Tibetan government-in-exile claims one million Tibetans have been annihilated under Chinese rule.
India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru offered the exiled Tibetans Dharamsala in northern India as a base, and the 24-year-old Dalai Lama immediately set about trying to band together disparate Tibetan groups both in India as well as abroad.
According to officials, more than 150,000 Tibetans now live in exile in India which, after losing in a brief but bloody war with China in 1962, barred the Dalai Lama from using its soil as a springboard for an independence movement in Tibet.
Influential groups among the exiled community such as the Tibetan Women’s Association applaud the pragmatism of the Dalai Lama in seeking a form of limited autonomy and his efforts to keep the diaspora a cohesive community.
“The Dalai Lama has matured and after studying the international scenario as well as the internal political situation in China and its policy on Tibet, he has taken such a stance,” says association president B. Thering.
“His vision of the world having less boundaries and living in harmony has glued together the Tibetans in a cohesive community. He is the wisest one,” she added.
But the Tibetan Youth Congress, which has 55 chapters across India, respectfully disagrees and wants to return to an independent Tibet.
“We stand for Tibet’s independence but there is no question over the important role the Dalai Lama has played to keep the Tibetan people together even while living outside his country for almost 50 years,” said youth congress spokesman Dhondhup Dorjee.
As the Dalai Lama strolls the pathways of Dharamsala, separated from Tibet by the Himalayas which ring the north of the city, younger Buddhists greet him with a smile and a bow.
Other devotees, many of whom have crossed into India from Tibet just to see him, weep openly when the monk makes a public appearance in his home in exile.
