By B.Raman, C3S Paper
No: 1099 dated February 11, 2013
As
in previous years, the Tibetans are not celebrating their New Year’s Day this
year too which falls this month.
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| B Raman |
2.Tibetans
in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR),Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan as
well as the Tibetan diaspora abroad, including in India, are observing their
New Year’s Day as a day of mourning and prayers in memory of 99 Tibetans who
have so far committed self-immolation ( 80 of them fatal) in the Tibetan areas
of China to demand their freedom and the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
to Lhasa.
3.Their
hopes that the advent of a new Chinese leadership headed by Mr.Xi Jinping could
mark a relaxation of the suppression in the Tibetan areas and a willingness to
address the grievances of the Tibetans have been belied so far.
4.Since
Xi took over as the Party General Secretary from Mr.Hu Jintao in November last
year, the Party has shown no inclination to re-consider its policies of
suppression and forcible integration of the Tibetans which has driven many
young Tibetan monks and others to take the desperate step of self-immolation to
draw the attention of the international community to their plight.
4.Instead
of recognizing the continuing self-immolations as an expression of desperation
and anguish, the Chinese have been projecting them as part of a conspiracy
against Beijing mounted by His Holiness and the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC)
and other external organizations such as the Voice of America and Radio Free
Asia.
5.Instead
of sympathising with the relatives and friends of those who committed
self-immolation, they have been rounding them up and prosecuting them on a
charge of instigating the self-immolations. Eight of them have already been
sentenced after sham trials to various terms of imprisonment, including one of
suspended death sentence.
6.
In the face of this wave of suppression to put down the self-immolations, the
Tibetans in India observed five days of solidarity with the Tibetan struggle
for freedom. They observed a day of prayers on February 1 at New Delhi that was
attended by about 1000 people including many Indian opposition leaders.
7.Lobsang
Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, has said the
convictions were unfortunate because “repression is the cause” of the
self-immolations.
8.Sangay
said it was unfortunate that the Chinese government had resorted to “sham”
trials that had “no basis or legal process.”
9.He
said he had asked Tibetans around the world not to celebrate the Lunar New Year
this month out of respect for those who have died from the self-immolations.
10.“As
a form of condolences and solidarity to all those Tibetans inside Tibet … I
have asked Tibetans not to celebrate, not to organize any festivals, but to
wear traditional dress and go to monasteries and pray for all those who have
died and continue to suffer in Tibet,” he said.
11.It
was gratifying to note the greater public interest in the Tibetan cause in New
Delhi this year, but it has to spread to other parts of India, which are hardly
aware of the continuing tragedy in Tibet.
(The
writer, Mr B.Raman, is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt
of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. Twitter:
@SORBONNE75)
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