Shobhan Saxena

The monk was unsmiling as he sat in the lotus position, legs crossed and back straightened up in nervous tension. And when the Dalai Lama stroked his furrowed brow, a collective shiver passed through the group of people sitting in front of him in the banquet hall of a Delhi hotel. An almost immediate, disquieting hush fell on the crowd as Tenzin Gyatso began to speak.

"I am worried. My mind is in Lhasa,'' he said. "It's just like those days in March 1959, when Chinese army convoys kept coming into Lhasa. But there's one difference . In 1959, there was risk to my life. I am quite safe now in this country." This was March 2008: the Olympic torch was on its global journey and Tibet was on a boil, with dead bodies piling up on Lhasa's streets.

In the past 17 months since that day in Delhi, the infectious smile - which has become his trademark - has left the Dalai Lama's face many times. Now with his visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh inching closer by the day, and the Chinese government badgering India on the border issue - an indirect way, most Tibet watchers agree, of pressuring New Delhi to shut for good the Dalai Lama's seat at Dharamsala - questions are being raised about the future of the Tibetan spiritual master who is also the political head of six million people both inside and outside his troubled country.

In fact, the Dalai Lama himself sparked this debate in 2007 when he told a Japanese newspaper that he might select his successor in his lifetime. Since then there has been endless talk and speculation on the multiple ways in which the incarnation of the Dalai Lama could be selected, on what he is up to and if he is going to pick a successor himself. Is he going to make it an elected position on the lines of the Catholic Pope? Is he going to give his seat to a little girl who may grow up to become the Dalai? Or is he going to hold a referendum in Tibetan society on whether he should be reborn at all and if it is time that the institution of the Dalai Lama came to an end?

There are no easy answers.

Choosing the Dalai Lama has never been easy. Tenzin Gyatso was himself found amid mystical signs and dreams way back in 1937. First, a regent at the Potala Palace saw three Tibetan alphabets floating in a turquoise lake. Then a small house with blue-tiled roof near a mountain with a monastery on top appeared in the dreams of a senior abbot. Simultaneously, a huge star-shaped fungus began to grow on a pillar in the eastern side of the hall in the Potala where the 13th Dalai Lama's embalmed body was kept. And one day the deceased monk's head turned towards the east. All these pointed at a hamlet in the east where the 14th Dalai Lama was later born in 1935. The latest incarnation had been found, keeping the wheels of dharma turning as it had been since 1391 when Gendun Drup became the first Dalai Lama - believed to be an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Since then, his successors have been discovered by high lamas following a complex process of dreams and signs. Not that political machinations haven't played their part in what's possibly the biggest event for a Tibetan anywhere in the world.

Now, though, the signs are of a different kind, with nothing to suggest that any of it would put the smile back on the Dalai Lama's face. The biggest worry is the faint rumble of young Tibetans born in exile growing into a roar for independence. Already, in November 2008, it was decided during a special conclave called by the Dalai Lama that his 'middle path for autonomy within China' would be given just a little more time before independence began being considered an option for the near future. "If the middle path fails in the short term, we will be forced to opt for complete independence or selfdetermination as per the UN charter," said Dolma Gyari, deputy speaker of the parliament-in-exile , as international media representatives gasped aloud and wondered if the Young Turks, whose loud noises didn't go unnoticed at the conclave, were putting the monk's policy towards China on notice.

"I have nothing to say," the Dalai Lama simply said the next morning. Then, after a deep breath, he said everything indicated it was time to pass on the political role to the Tibetans in exile and choose his successor, probably a young girl, in his life time.

Nobody knows where and when the Dalai Lama would make this decision, but everybody agrees that the Tibetan leader's talk of choosing his successor has something to do with the growing disillusionment among young Tibetans. Last year, amid the Olympic frenzy, as the new leaders' 'Return march to Tibet' received an overwhelming response from the exiled community, there were fears that a new generation of Tibetans might be turning to radical elements within the movement who don't want anything short of "complete independence" . The Chinese even talked of terrorism and the Tibetan Youth Congress's links with Al Qaeda.

Still, poet-activist Tenzin Tsundue says violence is not an option for them. "We may not agree with him on everything but the Dalai Lama is our leader and nonviolence is our path." His position in the community may be unchallenged but there are things that are bothering the Dalai Lama like never before, the biggest of them being the Chinese government's diktat last year which says all future incarnations of living Buddhas related to Tibetan Buddhism, including the Dalai Lama, "must get government approval" . China has also barred any "outside source" from wielding influence in the selection process. To the Dalai Lama, it is more than apparent that the target of this new attack by the Chinese is not just him but his future reincarnation as well.

Alarm bells, in fact, began to ring in Dharamsala in 1995 when the Dalai Lama chose six-year-old Gendun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, but learnt of the monk's mysterious disappearance soon after the announcement. The Panchen Lama plays the most important role in the selection of the Dalai Lama. In his place, the Chinese planted Gyaltsen Norbu, the son of a Communist party official in Tibet.

Though all the talk about choosing his successor or making it an elected position may probably be the Dalai Lama's way of getting out of the Panchen dilemma , and the options he has talked of sound appealing, the Tibetan community at large doesn't want to see the Dalai Lama - the present incarnation as well as the institution - fade away. Writer and scholar Jamyang Norbu, for one, wants it to continue. He also hopes the manner in which the incarnation is selected remains unchanged. "I can think of a number of reasons, historical, psychological, even sentimental, why we should do this. But the most important reason right now would be that the Dalai Lama is the living symbol of a free and independent Tibet," the US-based writer said.

As the "symbol of Tibet's freedom" goes to Tawang, the Chinese would be watching closely all the expressions on his face.


TWISTS AND TURNS IN TIBET

1949:

After victory in the civil war, Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People's Republic of China and threatens Tibet with "liberation"

1951:

China draws up a 17-point agreement legitimizing Tibet's incorporation into China

1959:

Full-scale uprising against the Chinese in Lhasa. Thousands die in the Chinese crackdown. The Dalai Lama and most of his ministers flee to India, followed by some 80,000 other Tibetans

1962:

As tension mounts between India and China over border dispute, PLA attacks India and occupies the Aksai Chin area in Jammu & Kashmir's Ladakh region

1966:

Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution reaches Tibet and results in the destruction of hundreds of monasteries. Thousands of Tibetans are killed in the ten-year period (1966-76 )

1978:

Cultural Revolution comes to an end, Mao dies and Deng Xiaoping takes charge of China. Repression in Tibet eases somewhat though the large-scale relocation of Han Chinese to Tibet continues

1987:

The Dalai Lama calls for Tibet to be declared a zone of peace and continues to seek dialogue with China, with the aim of achieving "genuine selfrule" for Tibet within China

1988:

China imposes martial law after riots break out

1989:

Tiananmen Square massacre by the PLA. The Dalai Lama is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace

1996:

China names its own Panchen Lama and the boy selected by the Dalai Lama disappears from public view

2000:

The Karmapa Lama escapes to India and takes shelter at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh

2007:

The Dalai Lama says he is considering breaking with centuries of tradition and naming his own successor, instead of awaiting rebirth

March 2008:

Anti-China protests escalate into the worst violence Tibet has seen in 20 years, just five months before Beijing hosts the Olympics

November 2008:

A special conclave of Tibetan representatives called by the Dalai Lama puts his middlepath approach on notice, saying the exiled community may go for "complete independence" in future

October 2009:

The Dalai Lama announces plan to visit Arunachal Pradesh. China turns heat on India on the border issue