It is coming into its 54th year since the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetans found asylum in India. In the last 50 years a lot of major shifts as the world embraces progress and positive changes. Yuri Gagarin went to space and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; we see the break up of the USSR and the end to a once feared Soviet era; Nelson Mandela was released and became the first black President of South Africa; the Berlin Wall came down and East and West Germany became a federal republic. And we see China going from a country that was brought to the brink of it's own destruction by its Cultural Revolution to becoming the new super-power of the world. Even the Congo gained its independence from a colonial master during the same time.
But what has the Tibetan government in exile achieved in the same 50-year period?Politically, the [lack of] system of governance practiced by first TGIE and now the CTA is probably the biggest irony as it has been taking place on the same soil as that of the largest democracy in the world. The closing down of independent newspapers that will not toe the official line; the recent intervention in Radio Free Asia – supposedly a voice of democracy; the earlier attempt to mount a coup d’état over all Tibetan Buddhist Schools and usurp their monasteries and hard earned assets in order to consolidate power under a single authority; and the banning of 360-year old Dorje Shugden practice, which goes against virtually every single Constitution in any democratic country in the world (including India’s own), all indicate that the leadership in the exiled community are still behaving more like overlords than people elected by the community to serve the community. Also ironically, as the leaders of the exiled Tibetan people continue to manipulate, divide and rule them, those left behind in Tibet who were previously serfs began to harvest for themselves, for the first time in their lives, what they sowed.
The words “Tibet” and “politics” should never be allowed to appear in the same sentence because when they do, it turns whatever land it is on, unknowingly into a petri dish of deadly virus that will infect the peace on that land. Surely one of the biggest political mistake India has ever brought on itself was to give asylum to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees. In the 1950’s there was an overt closeness between India and China that there was even a slogan for it known as
“Hindi-Chinni bhai bhai” meaning Indians and Chinese are brothers. In 1962, three short years after playing host to the stateless Tibetans, the two Asian giants said bye-bye to
Hindi-Chinni bhai bhai, and India and China went to war and things have never been the same ever since. As long as the CTA continues to take advantage of the generosity of its host, India will never be rid of the thorn at it's side and today more than ever China and India views each other with even greater suspicion, whilst the CTA continue to play their self-serving and grotesquely undemocratic games and tricks.
As for the spread of the Buddhist religion, the exiled Tibetan leadership has fared no better. Splitting and dividing monasteries by force into parts is not the equivalent in value to genuinely fostering the growth of more monasteries and schools in India. The holy presence of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has not led to a new renaissance of the religion that was borne out of India itself. Instead because of its religious persecutions and meddling in spiritual affairs, the leadership of the exiled people caused Tibetan Buddhist lamas, wanting no bar of the politics to interfere with their practice, to explore fairer opportunities overseas. Meanwhile the CCP that was accused by the Tibetan government in exile to be the death of Buddhism in Tibet is instead restoring monasteries, funding and building new ones, allowing the Chinese population to receive Tibetan Buddhist education and even funding a Tibetan Buddhist dictionary. In other words, they are supporting the growth of the Dharma. However at the same time, the leadership in Dharamsala continues to stir up more controversies as they interfere with the traditions of ancient lineages, as we see in the Karmapa issue. Buddhism has taken a few steps back as the result of their callousness.
The CTA accuse China of pursuing a policy of cultural-genocide but how true is that claim really? Barry Sautman, Associate Professor of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, spoke at UCLA recently (Dec 2, 2012) to show that the claim is greatly exaggerated. To quote Professor Sautman,
“ 92-94% of ethnic Tibetans speak Tibetan. The only exception is places in Qinghai and Amdo where the Tibetan population is very small compared with the broader population. Instruction in primary school is pretty universally in Tibetan. Chinese is bilingual from secondary school onward. All middle schools in the TAR also teach Tibetan. In Lhasa there are about equal time given to Chinese, Tibetan, and English." In contrast, Sautman said, "Tibetan exile leaders in India used English as the sole language until 1994 and only became bilingual in 1994. Schools in Tibet promote the Tibetan language more than Indian schools do in ethnic Tibetan areas--in Ladakh, India, instruction is in Urdu, with a high dropout rate from Tibetans, but India is never accused of cultural genocide against Tibetans. “ [Source:
http://www.international.ucla.edu]
Why would the Chinese promote the language when they are supposed to have embarked upon a policy to kill off the Tibetan culture? Surely a society’s culture is intricately linked to its language. If we care to admit it, all cultures suffer the same “genocide” introduced by modernization spurred by the West as jeans and T-shirts replace traditional clothes and baseball caps are put on instead of straw hats. Other then the most primitive tribes, is there a modern community of people who have managed not to evolve in the face of progress driven by the phenomena of globalization?
Other than the occasional politically motivated unrest, it would appear that the Tibetan people are getting along just fine back in the motherland. Their culture is being preserved albeit accompanied by the assurance of nationalistic education, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is thriving in Tibet as it is in the West, driven by lamas chased away by religious persecutions in Dharamsala. And better livelihoods are being developed and experienced by Tibetans like they have never done before.
So what actual good is the CTA for now? How can the CTA be telling us that they can do better for Tibet with a population of over 3million people (90% ethnic Tibetans) when they have not done any good for a mere 130,000 people who have become so disillusioned that they are resorting to committing suicide? How can the CTA led by a man who has never been to Tibet, a man who proclaims to be a Human Rights expert who doesn't uphold the values of the rights on his own people do better than the Chinese? Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay claims to be able to bring Tibetans into freedom and yet by the primitive and feudal nature of his government, the CTA oppresses its own people based on religious belief till this day. And today, despite having all the necessary authority to reverse an unjust situation, the Dr Lobsang Sangay is still refusing to remove the ban although it serves no purpose other than creating more suffering? The game has been long over and everyone has left the field but Dr. Lobsang Sangay and his bunch are still cheering their own goals. It is quite evident that the CTA has squandered a lot of its opportunities over five decades and as the world marches into the future, the CTA has caused a whole community of people to lag so irreversibly behind. What has the Tibetan government in exile done for its people and what values have they brought to the world and how badly have they portrayed the image of Tibetan Buddhism and and what did they do with all the time and assistance to be a true democracy?
