India must revive case for Tibet’s full autonomy

US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Uzra Zeya and White House National Security Council’s Kelly Razzouk recently met the Dalai Lama, who was in New York for a knee-replacement surgery. China was quick to condemn the meeting, accusing the Dalai Lama of being “a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the guise of religion”.

While the US’s Resolve Tibet Act, 2024, has sought to catalyse talks between the Dalai Lama’s envoy and China — which are being held through the backchannel, though denied by Beijing — India is not uttering the ‘T’ word, hoping that a leaders’ summit can lead to full disengagement in eastern Ladakh. Indian restraint and patience need to be replaced with building leverage and deterrence.

New Delhi has been unusually vocal about Beijing’s attempts to alter the status quo in the West Philippine Sea and Taiwan. Equally, China’s coercive activities in the South China Sea and the Himalayas, along with its ‘no limits’ support for Russia, have drawn considerable international opprobrium. The time is ripe for New Delhi to revive the case for Tibet’s full autonomy as a lever against China to settle the border issue. India has stopped saying that the ‘Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of China’ since 2010. But India needs to strengthen its Tibet stance at home and internationally. It is time to reactivate the All-Party Indian Parliamentary Forum for Tibet to start a discussion on the region and the Dalai Lama succession issue in Parliament. Restlessness among Tibetan youth in Dharamsala is growing over the succession to the 14th Dalai Lama in view of internal contradictions.

Another matter that warrants action is the confusion over India’s border: is it with Tibet or China? While Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu has consistently stated that his state shares a border with Tibet, not China, the US Senate recently passed a bipartisan resolution declaring the McMahon Line as the border between China and Arunachal Pradesh. This contradiction can unhinge Tibet’s legal stand on sovereignty. Besides, there are other matters that the Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) needs to resolve with the office of the Dalai Lama.

The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) had been vocal on Tibet, but since it began to get involved in major policy decisions with the BJP’s ruling establishment, it has remained silent on the matter. Civil society organisations need to be mobilised to speak out against the gross human rights violations in Tibet and the adverse impact of its Sinicisation on the ecology.

India needs to revitalise its contact and protocol arrangements with the Dalai Lama. A liaison officer from the Ministry of External Affairs is based in Dharamsala. He should be at least a Joint Secretary-level officer. The East Asia Division handles the subject of Tibet and works with the CTA through the liaison officer and coordinates the movements of the Dalai Lama with his office. A new map of Tibet, the Dalai Lama’s succession and other political matters are being discussed.

The Foreign Secretary usually visits Dharamsala at least once a year and seeks an audience with the Dalai Lama, who, in turn, is supposed to come to Delhi periodically to meet the Prime Minister. Of late, there have been no meetings.

Regarding his succession and the selection process, the Dalai Lama wrote a long letter in 1986 to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He told his followers in 2011 that he would live to the age of 104 and leave it to his people to decide whether they wanted a new Dalai Lama or abandon the institution, for which a referendum was mooted. He would appoint his successor at an appropriate time.

Earlier this year, the current head (Sikyong) of the CTA, Penpa Tsering, urged China to release the Panchen Lama, who is second only to the Dalai Lama.

At the age of six years, Tenzin Phuntsok was anointed the Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama, according to the tradition of reincarnation. But in 1995, Tenzin and his parents ‘disappeared’. The Chinese appointed their own Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu. It is almost certain that the Chinese will appoint their own Dalai Lama once the incumbent achieves nirvana.

It is imperative that the Indian government discuss the succession issue with the Dalai Lama so that Beijing does not preempt his appointment.

In July 2014, then Sikyong Lobsang Sangay said in New Delhi that during the Simla Convention of 1914, China and British India had accepted that, as per international law, Tibet had the capacity to enter into a treaty. An agreement was signed to demarcate the border (McMahon Line) between Tibet and India, and a sovereign Tibet legally ceded part of its territory to British India. A separate trade pact was signed between India and Tibet. Sangay added that Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, while Tibet was forcibly incorporated into China after the invasion of October 1950. Michael Waltz, a legal luminary, has established that China exercised suzerainty over Tibet, never sovereignty, till its military occupation.

It is Beijing’s insecurity that makes it push other countries to state that Tibet is a part of China. China’s aggression in eastern Ladakh is a result of the failure of Indian deterrence. Had India not vacated the Kailash heights or gone on to occupy territory across the Line of Actual Control, the deterrence would have had some balance.