By Shashi Tharoor / July 6, 2015
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| Dr. Shashi Tharoor with a delegation with Tibetan MPs |
When the United Nations convened a
Millennium World Peace Summit of religious leaders at its headquarters in 2000,
one major religious figure was conspicuous by his absence. The Dalai Lama, the
spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhism, had not been asked to come.
The implacable hostility of a permanent member of the UN Security Council,
China, has made it impossible for him to set foot in a UN building anywhere, or
to be received by any official of the UN, let alone its Secretary-General.
Where millions see a revered seeker of peace and an admired advocate of love
and reconciliation, the Government in Beijing sees only a
"splittist," a secessionist rebel who threatens Chinese sovereignty
over his homeland.
This dichotomy has always been
inherent in the role of the Dalai Lama. He is simultaneously the most visible
spiritual leader of a worldwide community of believers, and (till a few years
ago) the political head of a government in exile. As a Buddhist, he preaches
non-attachment, self-realization, inner actualization and non-violence; as a
Tibetan, he is looked up to by a people fiercely attached to their homeland,
most seeking its independence from China, many determined to fight for
it.
The Dalai Lama has been a refugee
for five decades, but is the most recognized worldwide symbol of a country he
has not seen in half a century. His message of peace, love and reconciliation
has found adherents amongst Hollywood movie stars and pony-tailed hippies,
Irish rock musicians and Indian politicians, but he has made no headway at all
with the regime that rules his homeland, and has been unable to prevent Tibet's
inexorable transformation into one more Chinese province. His sermons fill
football stadiums and he has won a Nobel Prize, but political leaders around
the world shirk from meeting him openly for fear of causing costly offence to
the Chinese.
As the Dalai Lama turns 80 today,
the world sees him as a public figure, viewed, heard and admired at religious
gatherings and official meetings; as a private person, usually through the
accounts of others, reflecting in conversations with various prominent people
on the values and concerns that animate his life; and, somewhat less, as a
politician on the global stage. The last is a role the Dalai Lama has
officially relinquished, by giving up the leadership of the Tibetan Government
in exile and permitting the election, by the Tibetan diaspora, of Lobsang
Sangay to that responsibility. But though formally the Dalai Lama is out of
politics, it is impossible for him to escape the burden of symbolizing the
political aspirations of the Tibetan people. These he describes now as
autonomy, cultural and administrative rather than political, and within the
Chinese state, rather than the independence he acknowledges to be impossible to
attain.
I first met the Dalai Lama in 1979
or 1980 in Geneva, when he had come to address the Diplomatic Club there. I was
a young UN official in the early years of my career - no one of any consequence
whatsoever. As he came down the aisle, he shook my hand and we exchanged a few
words. I was overwhelmed by the gesture: here was a man whose followers would
cherish the mere grazing of the hem of his robe, and he was holding my hand and
talking to me! My admiration began then, and has been reinforced by many
encounters over the years, mostly on public occasions or from a distance,
though I have been privileged to enjoy two private audiences with him as well.
The Dalai Lama's easy grace upon entering a room, his infectiously loud
laughter, his profound compassion and humanity all leap forth from his
presence. So does his sense of being anchored in the present, and in
"reality".
To one author, Pico Iyer, even the
Dalai Lama's polishing his glasses suggests "a metaphor for what he's
encouraging all of us to do" - to polish our mental glasses and see the
world around us, and beyond us, more clearly.
The Dalai Lama calls himself
"a simple Buddhist monk" bound by 253 different vows, but he has
proven himself to be anything but simple and so much more than a monk. To most
Tibetans, he incarnates their homeland, as well as their faith, and even their
sense of selfhood. His fame, too, is a worldly asset. To quote Iyer again:
"in a world where celebrity is ever more a global currency, the spiritual
celebrity is the one who can actually change the coin of the realm into
something more precious or sustaining."
The Dalai Lama does not pretend to
have all the answers; but he has an astonishing talent for raising the right
questions, and forcing us to interrogate ourselves in the same way. His
spiritual message -- to build one's home within oneself - is all the more
relevant when one can no longer rebuild the external home that one has been
forced to flee. Some impatient young Tibetans want freedom in this world rather
than freedom from this world, but the Dalai Lama has long realized that the
only transformation that is possible for his people is within themselves.
Beijing does not seem to realize that the reviled secessionist is more
interested in sovereignty over the self than in the sovereignty of his
now-vanished state.
One of the striking things about
the Dalai Lama is that his mind is always focused on the future, which after
all can be changed, rather than to the past, which cannot. The fact that,
thanks to him, Tibetan Buddhists have created a global networked community to
substitute for the indigenous one they are unable to sustain at home might well
assure that future.
As he turns 80, one cannot but
marvel at all he has done to make that future possible, and to wish him health
and peace as he continues his tireless journey towards a better world for all
who listen to his wisdom.
(Dr Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP
from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee
on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs
and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He
has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On
the Nation in Our Time.)
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