By Vidya Vankat June 20, 2018
Sitting in Dekchang’s Koko Restaurant in Majnu
ka Tilla, a Tibetan resettlement colony, it’s easy to forget that you’re in the
middle of New Delhi. Everything about the place evokes nostalgia for a lost
homeland, from the serene Buddhist chant playing to the walls adorned with
paintings capturing everyday scenes from rural Tibet — middle-aged men and
women bent over their barley fields, Tibetan prayer flags fluttering atop a
temple pagoda flanked by tall mountains — except that, as its Tibetan owner
says nonchalantly, “I have never seen Tibet…”
Tenzin Choden, the restaurant’s owner, like
most other second and third generation Tibetans in India, was born and raised
in one of the refugee camps here, Doeguling, in Mundgod near Hubli in
Karnataka. “Every time I hear stories of Tibet from my parents, of their
carefree, self-sufficient life there, I feel the urge to return, but I know
it’s not safe anymore,” he says. Choden arrived at the Delhi colony five years
ago to start this restaurant. “Surviving in the city is not easy, rent is high
and the business is competitive, but I’m scraping through somehow.”
Sixty years ago, when Tibetan refugees started
arriving in India after the Chinese invasion, they came literally empty-handed.
In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin
Gyatso recalls those early days, when in the sweltering heat of the Indian
plains where the Tibetans had camped as refugees, many toiled as daily wage
labourers in road-laying and construction sites to make ends meet, and many
died. Today, the estimated 150,000 Tibetans in exile across India have come a
long way, rebuilding their lives from scratch.
Karten Tsering, president of the Majnu ka
Tilla Residents Welfare Association, chuckles: “I am more Indian now than
Tibetan I have a ration card, I vote, I even have an Aadhaar card.” The
yet-unauthorised colony has 362 registered houses and a mobile population of
4,000 Tibetans. They come from other camps across India for jobs in Delhi.
“My own children who are studying abroad now
talk about returning to this colony to convert it into something like London’s
Chinatown, a mini-Tibet in the middle of Delhi,” he says. Does he ever think of
going back? Tsering is realistic, “There are no facilities for our people to
develop there; it’s also become dangerous due to government repression. In
fact, people in Tibet have been sending their children to India for decades now
in the hope of a better life here.”
Gratitude for their new land reflects in the
board that hangs outside the small Buddhist temple right next to the office of
the Association, which announces that in the holy month of Saka Dawa starting
May 16 (which falls in the fourth month of the Tibetan calendar and is believed
to be the time when the Buddha attained enlightenment) the Tibetans in Delhi
are praying for the wellbeing of India and its people.
****
Travelling through the hilly suburb of McLeod
Ganj in Dharamsala, an overnight bus ride away from Delhi, one gets the feeling
that Tibetans are caught in a time warp. The town is the base of the Tibetan
government-in-exile and the office of the spiritual head of the Tibetans, the
Dalai Lama, functions out of here.
On a Wednesday morning in late May, at the
temple of the Dalai Lama in the Tsuglagkhang complex here, rows and rows of
monks sit chanting in unison a prayer to the Buddha of medicine — Menla —
asking for the good health of all the people in the world. Many local Tibetans
sit around, prayer wheel in hand, joining in the chanting.
A woman worshipper says that at the end of the
ceremony, Tibetan medicinal balls will be distributed to everyone and it will
cure them of all illnesses. “Does it actually work,” I ask. “If you believe in
it, it will,” is her reply.
To the uninitiated such practices may seem
like mumbo jumbo, but a small museum at Men-Tsee-Khang, the Tibetan Medical and
Astroscience Institute in Dharamsala, seeks to establish the scientific basis
of Tibetan medicine. Kelsang Choden, curator of the museum, explains how the medicines
— made from herbs sourced from the high-altitude Himalayas and from minerals
extracted from rocks such as lapis lazuli — have been proven to cure a wide
range of illnesses.
The astroscience, however, is more
metaphysical in nature. The Tibetans believe that spirit beings — Nechung
(oracle) and Palden Lhamo — act through a human medium, who communicates their
predictions in a state of trance. Most Tibetans consult such an astrologer for
all auspicious occasions from marriage to starting a new business, as an
astrologer at the institute explains.
At the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives
in Dharamsala, over 10,000 manuscripts from the Buddhist religious text
Tripitaka have been preserved for posterity. Lobsang Kelsang, a staff member,
says some of the wooden manuscripts here date back to 6 CE. “When the Chinese
invaded Tibet, the monks feared that these precious manuscripts may be
destroyed by them, so the Dalai Lama and his staff brought them to India for
safekeeping,” he explains. The museum has murals from now-demolished
monasteries in Tibet compiled into a massive book titled Murals of
Tibet, by American photographer Thomas Laird.
Education has been another major way to preserve
Buddhist cultural values. At the Tibetan Children’s Village in Upper
Dharamsala, the principal, Ngawang Lhamo, says the students are taught regular
school subjects alongside Buddhist value education. “One whole period is
dedicated to teaching secular ethics and human values of love, kindness and
compassion.” The non-profit residential school, which originally started in
1960 with 50 children picked up from refugee camps by Tsering Dolma, the 14th
Dalai Lama’s older sister, today has 8,000 children across the country in
various branches.
“We are preparing our children so that one day
when we finally return to Tibet, they will be ready to take over social and
administrative responsibilities,” says Lhamo. And how soon does she think that
day will come? “Even India took 200 years to attain freedom, didn’t it,” she
says.
****
While many ordinary Tibetans dream of a ‘Free
Tibet,’ the official position is one of autonomy for Tibet while remaining
within the People’s Republic of China.Lobsang
Sangay, 49, is the President of the Tibetan government-in-exile, a Harvard law
graduate who has initiated the Five-Fifty Policy that aims to push for genuine
autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the Chinese Constitution in the next
five years. “If repression of our people ends, we will not seek political
separation from China. For that we need to have a dialogue with the Chinese
government. At the same time we need a 50-year plan so that we know how to deal
with the situation if we don’t gain autonomy soon enough,” he says.
The long-term strategy of the
government-in-exile is to maintain political solidarity with their compatriots
inside Tibet, while continuing to seek external support from sympathetic
nations. “Monks and nuns have come forward to resist the systematic destruction
of monasteries in Tibet. There have also been several cases of self-immolation
by young Tibetans [agitating] for freedom from Chinese rule,” says Sangay. The
Tibetan museum inside the Tsuglagkhang complex commemorates 152 Tibetans who
self-immolated in the past several years. “The fact that they are doing this
shows their determination and desperation for a better life. Even after 60
years, the Tibetans’ sense of patriotism and longing for the return of the
Dalai Lama has not declined,” he says.
However, seeking solidarity from other
countries for their cause hasn’t been easy. “I have faced a lot of hostility
from representatives of the Chinese government during my foreign tours. My
talks have been cancelled and I have faced protests on several occasions,” he
says.
Many young Tibetans are convinced that the
‘middle way’ of seeking autonomy within China is not going to bring justice.
Some young activists have come together since 2012 to organise the Rangzen
(freedom) Conference to arrive at a consensus on how to steer the movement for
an independent Tibet.
When I am in Dharamsala, the fifth Rangzen
Conference is organised, and Tibetan poet-activist Tenzin Tsundue, speaking on
its sidelines, says the effort is to not only push for a Free Tibet but to also
help the local community assume political responsibility for liberation, which
so far was handled by the office of the Dalai Lama.
“We have been projected as rebels, who are
opposed to the political position endorsed by the government-in-exile and the
office of the Dalai Lama, but all we are doing is offering a different
approach,” he says.
The Rangzen Conference is also aligned with
the anti-globalisation movement because, as Tsundue explains, China’s takeover
of Tibet ought to be seen from the lens of globally prevalent exploitation of
resource-rich countries. He cites the example of Tibet being mined rampantly
for lithium to manufacture cell phone batteries in China.
Passang Dolma studies history at Ramjas
College in New Delhi, and is here to participate in the Conference. He says:
“Though I was born and brought up in India, I know I don’t belong here. Like
how you say with pride ‘I’m an Indian,’ I too await the day when I can
represent my country and say with pride ‘I’m Tibetan’.”
NOTE: The above article is originally published on The Hindu.
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