Dalai Lama turns 89; Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang attends birthday celebrations in Dharamsala

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, July 6

The Dalai Lama, the supreme spiritual leader of the Tibetans, turned 89 on Saturday.

The Tibetan establishment is exile and Tibetans in exile celebrated the occasion in the main temple of the Dalai Lama in Mcleodganj.

Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang attended the celebrations of the 14th Dalai Lama’s birth anniversary organised by the Central Tibetan Administration as a chief guest at the courtyard of Thekchen Choeling Tsuglakhang in the main temple in Dharamsala today.

The Dalai Lama was in US recovering from his knee transplant surgery. His personal physician had issued a statement that the Dalai Lama was recovering well. He had been moved from the hospital to outskirts of New York.

The birthday of the Dalai Lama was a special occasion for Tibetans living in Tibet and exile. They offered prayers for his long life and danced to cultural songs by the artists from Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts.

The admirers from across the world including world leaders greeted the Dalai Lama on the occasion.

Since his self-imposed retirement as temporal head of Tibetans, the Dalai Lama does not give any political message on the occasion of his birthday. In 2011, the Dalai Lama had devolved his temporal authority over the Tibetan government in exile to the elected government.

With age catching up, the Dalai Lama remains a symbol of Tibetan resistance against the Chinese rule. The Tibetan government in exile was pushing for a Middle Way policy propagated by the Dalai Lama in 2011, which he had demanded for a meaningful autonomy under the Chinese sovereignty. However, the policy has not evoked any response.

With the Dalai Lama ageing, concerns are being expressed over his successor. The Tibetans in exile fear that owing to large following of the Dalai Lama despite the fact that he has been in exile for more than 60 years now, the Chinese government might try to install its own Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan government in exile has time and again maintained that the Dalai Lama reserves the right to name his successor. Recently held convention of world parliamentarians in the US also supported the right of the Dalai Lama to name his successor.

For Dharamsala, which has been a home for the Dalai Lama since he fled into exile from China in 1959, he was a revered and loved religious leader. Under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, Mcleodganj has come up as little Lhasa (the capital of Tibet).

The Tibetan government in exile, under the Dalai Lama, brought up many institutions and monasteries in Mcleodganj and Dharamsala. The Tibetan Children Villages are schools that have helped preserve the language and arts.

Due to his presence, Mcleodganj is an international tourist destination as people from across the world come here to see the Tibetan monasteries and study Tibetan Buddhism.