Opinions

The First National Conference of Tibetan Writers took place in Dharamshala in 1995 (March 15-17). Hosted by the Amnye Machen Institute (AMI), sixty-two writers and other delegates from India, Nepal, Switzerland, UK and USA took part in this first ever gathering of its kind in the Tibetan world. It was, without exaggeration,

Some years ago, the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) organized a gender sensitization workshop for Tibetan youth in Chennai, India. The student leader working with the TWA, a well-meaning young man who was president of the Tibetan Students’ Association of Madras, had a question before the workshop.

One of the more depressing things about being a spokesperson for the Rangzen cause, even in the unofficial “of sorts” way that I am, is being obliged to participate in the occasional Middle Way Approach (MWA) vs Rangzen debate, organized by some SFT or TYC chapter or the other.

If recent public comments on Tibet made by Chinese academics and officials are anything to go by, two sharply differing views are developing in China on how it should deal with the issue of Tibet. How these views play out and which view will emerge as actual policy will determine China’s attitude to how the issue of Tibet should be resolved, with ramifications for the future of all China.

Our democracy is well and alive. We have reached a juncture in the development of democratic practices in governance where the person elected by the people holds the highest political authority after H.H. the Dalai Lama gracefully chose to retire from his pre-eminent position as the most beloved and revered temporal leader of the Tibetan people.

China Tibet Online recently published an article in Tibetan, titled “Valuing Life and Upholding Law”, which was authored by a fictitious character. As I started reading the article, what jumped out at me was the absurd irony that those who claim to be atheists are now preaching to us on how self-immolation (as an act of protest) goes against the cardinal principles and values of Buddhism

During the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to the United States he met a group of Tibetan students in Madison, Wisconsin. One of them asked a question that, to put it mildly, made him very upset. The student stumbled over his words and was generally so awkward that it seemed to me he had been set-up by someone (probably older, definitely a politician) to pose this loaded question. But I could be wrong. The question concerned a member of the exile parliament, who the questioner said he would not name.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC on May 8, 2013, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay made three startling statements: a) democracy for Tibet was out and Communist Party rule was okay, b) genuine autonomy for Tibet could be for a limited duration, and c) China would have discretion over military deployment in Tibet. Specifically, the Sikyong stated:

The next phase of Communist China’s destruction of Lhasa came innocuously enough with Deng Xiaoping’s “Liberalization”, starting from the turn of the eighties. In the groundbreaking cartographic study published by the Amnye Machen Institute, Map and Index of Lhasa City by Christophe Besuchet, a more specific time period is provided in the introduction.

Regardless of the clarion call made by Dr. Yangchen Dolkar a decade ago, then serving at one of the largest Tibetan settlements in South India, the general approach and perception of the Tibetan community towards the virus oscillate between callous indifference to frantic intensity. Ironically this paradoxical mix of approach persists despite gradual swell in HIV/AIDS infection instances and a decade long awareness campaigns spearheaded by the Department of Health (CTA), CHOICE and other NGOs, community leaders and individual volunteers.