For the Snow Lion flag
The haunting drone of long trumpets carries solemn prayers across the loftiest of peaks in the land of the Vajrayana, the thunder vehicle. A faraway and mysterious country that remained inaccessible for a long time, often forbidden. It was the curious pundits sent by the British and later members of the Third Reich that revealed to the world the innocent and easy-going happiness of an isolated people, the Tibetans. There was poverty and rampant serfdom authorised by despotic monks, as the current Chinese state would put it, but there was also the all-pervading presence of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of high compassion, in the mortal self of the Dalai Lama, turning the wheel of dharma with non-violence, informing the collective conscience.
In the early 20th century, keeping a close eye on Tibet’s independence of sorts and in order to balance power in the region, the British sent Sir Basil Gould for diplomatic niceties, with a posse of sola topees, to attend the installation ceremonies of the 14th Dalai Lama. However, soon after, World War II was to disrupt the erstwhile world order — the Raj was coming apart and the Tibetans were informed that the British would no longer be able to honour treaties signed earlier, enabled by the likes of Younghusband, which deemed Tibet a separate nation. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in China, Tibet was in effect an independent nation-state. However, history was on the move — 1949, and the Long March had ended. Mao was now ‘urging' the Tibetans to break the chains of feudalism and embrace the Mother Country. Tibet was always to be a province.
On the pretext of the presence of a foreign army and officials, the newly-formed People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet. Poorly armed and without battle plans, the tiny Tibetan army was no match for the invaders. Nothing would ever be the same. What followed was a period of struggled coexistence. Being incessantly pressured with the ‘gifts of communism’ — re-education and cultural cleansing — and the fear that the Dalai Lama would be rendered a mere civil servant serving Beijing, the Tibetans rose up in rebellion in 1959. The Chinese were quick to act, brutally crushing the dissidents, leaving some 1,00,000 dead, as per the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
The ‘illusion’ that Tibet could exist freely with its culture intact was shattered. The Dalai Lama had to escape to India, the country that, in 1956, had shown him the door in terms of diplomatic engagement now had to take in his retinue and later, some 1,00,000 Tibetans as guest refugees. Meanwhile, over 12,00,000 people of the roof of the world were to be oppressed secretly and silently.
The Dalai Lama could never return to Lhasa. However, India was now providing the Tibetans a space to keep the Snow Lion flag flying high. The community, through its experience of the last century, did in fact decide to break those chains of feudalism and adopt a more age-appropriate democratic process in its evolution from a ‘pre-state society’ to a nation aspiring for modernity complemented by an ethical worldview, with Mahakaruna guiding the existential ethos. To this effect, the community-in-exile welcomed its first Parliament of elected members, now known as the Central Tibetan Authority (CTA), on September 2, 1960, in Dharamsala. The day is now observed as the Tibetan Democracy Day. Though not recognised as a sovereign government by any country and operating in the backdrop of an overbearing One China policy, the CTA, with its 45 members representing the three traditional provinces of Tibet — U-Tsang, Dhotoe and Dhomey — and the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, has worked proactively to spread awareness about the Tibetan cause of self-determination globally. Besides deliberating on the role of dialogue with the Chinese to chart the future course of pragmatic coexistence, its work has also ensured US sanctions in case the People’s Republic decides to interfere in the succession of the Dalai Lama — safeguarding an all-important institution that cannot be separated from the lived experience of being a Tibetan.
Lovneet Bhatt
