By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, March 12: Gandhian Leader Rajiv Vora today called on Indian Government not to stop the 100 Tibetans from taking “nonviolent march to Tibet”.
Reacting to Indian Government’s order issued Monday to stop the exiled Tibetan from Marching peacefully to their country; Mr Vora said, “India should not stop these Tibetans who are taking a non-violent march to Tibet”.
“Instead, what Indian Government can do is to support Tibetan people in their non-violent struggle for freedom and help them reach a negotiated solution with China,” he said.
The preeminent interpreter of Mahatma Gandhi’s works, Mr Vora, said India being a prominent proponent and birth place of nonviolent principle should support Tibetan nonviolent movement instead of obstructing them.
He said India has duty to support nonviolent movement and described Tibetans as the only people in today’s world who have shown “complete adherence to nonviolence”.
“Today, Tibetans are the only group of people who have maintained complete adherence to non-violence and we must save their deep-rooted culture of non-violence,” Mr Vora said as he briefly joined the Tibetan activists at the end of the third day of the march to express his solidarity.
Mr Vora, said he specifically came down at the activist rest camp to express his solidarity with the Tibetan people’s Non-violent movement.
100 Tibetan marchers, who launched their so called “Return March to Tibet” from the northern Indian town of Dharamsala on Monday, already covered a total distance of more than 60km at the end of their third day walk.
The group on Wednesday relentlessly walked another 20-25kms defying Indian government order issued late Monday night to stop them.
The activists, who have vowed to march into Tibet to challenge China’s illegal occupation of their country, are now camping at a nondescript place on the outskirts of Dharamsala with another 25km or so to walk before they will reach district’s border beyond which they are barred from going.
The group on Wednesday said they are not bothered by the order and are determined to march ahead on their part.
Earlier this morning, members of Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA), based in Dharamsala, gathered at the main Tibetan Temple courtyard in Dharamsala to commemorate the 49th Tibetan Women’s Uprising against China’s illegal occupation of Tibet.
Later, hundreds of Tibetan women, including several Tibetan female students, took a protest march to lower Dharamsala to highlight the issue of Tibet ahead of 2008 Beijing Olympics and speak against atrocities committed by China on Tibetan people.
In Delhi, at least 36 Tibetan women activists were detained by police after staging protests and storming into the Chinese embassy.
