Tibet in exile transforms from theocracy to democracy

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 April 2011, 08:38 GMT]
In a significant move, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibetans and the head of the Tibetan government in exile in India, has decided in March this year to step down from politics and to transfer the political power entirely into the hands of democratically elected leadership of Tibetans in exile. His farsighted move will prevent China or any others playing competitive politics with the Tibetan belief of reincarnation of Dalai Lama after his times, political observers think. Political observers also place significance to the election of Harvard-based, Lobsang Sengay, who lived in the USA for 16 years, as the new Prime Minister with full political mandate, while some opinion elements in India that oppose the Eezham struggle also oppose the Tibetan struggle.

In the belief of Tibetan theocracy, the Dalai Lama never dies forever, but takes rebirth. After the death of every Dalai Lama, the other Lamas will search for his rebirth. The search and confirmation are based on many procedures and the child thus brought in will be groomed to become the next Dalai Lama.

The tradition of recognising the reincarnation of Dalai Lama is 536-years-old (from the 2nd Dalai Lama who was born in 1475) and the belief of teacher reincarnation is at least 718-years-old (from the line of the Karmapas) in the recorded history of Tibet.

The traditions owe their philosophical origins to Vajrayana Buddhism that was introduced to Tibet and Bhutan by Padmasambhava who went from Orissa in India in the 8th century CE.

Dalai Lamas wielding political power in Tibet is roughly 370-years-old (since the time of the 5th Dalai Lama).

The present Dalai Lama, who was born in July 1935, was chosen in this way when he was a child, as the reincarnation of his predecessor who died in December 1933. He is the 14th in the line and was enthroned to assume political power of Tibet in 1950. In the same year the country was occupied by military sent by People’s Republic of China.

Earlier in 1904, the British invaded Tibet. The British tested the effect of the machine gun first on the Tibetans. But in the wake of the invasion of Chinese in the early 1910s, the authority of the Dalai Lama was restored, as the British policy was to keep the Himalayan states as buffer between their Indian empire and China.

The present Dalai Lama’s predecessor declared full independence of Tibet in 1912, even though it was not recognized by any sovereign state.

In 1959, when there was a revolt in Tibet against Chinese occupation and the revolt was brutally suppressed, the Dalai Lama came to India and set up a government in exile in Dharamsala in the Himachal Predesh State of India.

A large number of Tibetans who came at that time were settled in different parts of India as south as in Karnataka in exclusive villages, where they maintain their culture and identity as well as their economic independence through cooperative institutions.

Many other diaspora Tibetans live in the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan as well as in the West.

Communist China claimed that it ‘liberated’ Tibet from feudalism. But the Chinese oppression, exploitation, colonization and demographic changes never made the Tibetans to forget their nationalism and quest for independence.

From time to time there were revolts against the Chinese but they were brutally oppressed, as power equations in the world were only exploiting such crises and the international system is not uniformly geared to protect endangered nations.

The personality of the present Dalai Lama has made the national question of the Tibetans to centre-around him and to uphold him as a symbol for more than half a century. The image he was able to create internationally for Tibet is a challenge to the Chinese. All efforts of China to capture his authority and legitimise their occupation through the office of Panchen Lama (the spiritual leader next in rank to Dalai Lama) also failed.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama has long back said that his rebirth will not take place in a country controlled by the People’s Republic of China or in any other country that is not free. Some Indian media ‘speculated’ that his rebirth would be in India.

But the Chinese government in 2007 has said that all monks of Tibet must have government approval, implying that they would control the recognition of the next Dalai Lama. According to tradition, the rebirth of Dalai Lama has to be recognized by the Panchen Lama.

Already the Chinese have chosen a Panchen Lama parallel to the one chosen by the present Dalai Lama, citing that a Golden Pot involved in the procedure of choosing the reincarnation of a Panchen Lama is only in China, even though Tibetans don’t recognize the Chinese choice.

Against such a backdrop, the present Dalai Lama’s decision in his lifetime itself to handover political mandate completely into the hands of a credibly elected leadership puts a full stop to all possible future non-democratic manoeuvrings by China or by any others through the reincarnation institution of Dalai Lama. The institution of Dalai Lama may continue only as spiritual.

The transition to elected democracy among Tibetans in exile should also be viewed in the context of changes in the other Himalayan states, such as removal of monarchy in Nepal and monarchy becoming constitutional in Bhutan.

About 50,000 Tibetans in exile, or 59 percent of eligible voters cast their votes in the election that took place on March 20, in which Mr. Sangay who received 55 percent of the votes among the three contested got elected as the Prime Minister, reports The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday.

Mr. Sangay was born in Darjeeling in India in 1968 and was the youngest among those who contested. He is a senior fellow in international law in Harvard Law School. He is expected to go to Dharamsala in India in August to assume his position.

The office of a directly elected Prime Minister was introduced in 2001 to the Tibetan Government in Exile and Mr. Sangay is the third Prime Minister. But, he will be the first to have full political mandate. The Tibetan Parliament in Exile is expected to bring in the necessary constitutional changes for the transition next month.

Credibly democratic diaspora polity is something the Eezham Tamils are yet to improve in their struggle, commented an Eezham Tamil academic engaged in diaspora studies.

External Links:

WSJ:

Harvard Academic Inherits Dalai Lama's Political Role