By Kaydor Aukatsang
The struggle for our homeland must be financed by us. If we don’t, no one will.
In 1921, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Tilak Swaraj Fund, which raised around one crore rupees in six months through mass small donations. Worth close to ₹1,000 crore (roughly US$105 million) in today’s terms, the money financed his Non-Cooperation Movement against British colonial rule in India.
Other independence movements were sustained in much the same way. Michael Collins launched the Dáil Loan bonds in 1919 to finance the Irish independence movement. Sun Yat-sen raised much of his funding from overseas Chinese communities to fuel the 1911 Revolution. The Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) levied a “revolutionary tax” on Algerian workers in France and the wider diaspora to fund its armed struggle against French colonial rule from 1954 to 1962. The American Revolution, too, relied on public donations, war bonds, and citizen loans to finance its war of independence. José Martí financed the Cuban independence struggle against Spain in the 1890s largely through Cuban exile cigar workers in Florida, many of whom pledged a day’s wages to the cause on a regular basis.
Every freedom movement is different, but what many of these shared was a simple foundation: community members — ordinary people and the well-to-do alike — bankrolled their own struggles.
What sets the Tibetan freedom movement apart is that Tibetans have largely avoided taking financial responsibility for their own struggle. In fact, we have all been free-riding. Tibetans in exile have participated in the Green Book system (Dhanglang Chatrel), a voluntary contribution program, since 1972. But the annual dues are modest, accounting for less than 10% of the Central Tibetan Administration’s (CTA) annual revenue. Moreover, a significant portion of eligible adults do not contribute consistently or at all.
Why It Is Time for Tibetans to Fund Our Own Freedom
The era of dependence is over.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is ninety-one years old. For nearly seven decades, he and the CTA together have carried both our community and our cause on their shoulders. By taking up the financial burden of our own struggle, we repay the debt we owe them. More importantly, a struggle financed primarily by its own people carries a legitimacy that one dependent on others’ money cannot.
Insulation from geopolitics.
Foreign government support rises and falls with relations with Beijing. When a movement’s survival is linked to the China policies of Washington, New Delhi, or Brussels, a thaw in relations, a change of administration, or a strategic pivot can lead to an abrupt reduction or cancellation of aid. Tibetans experienced this when the United States cut foreign aid in 2025. Although the U.S. Congress restored funding for Tibetan programs in 2026, the Trump administration has yet to release most of the funds. Development assistance and other support from foreign governments should continue to be sought. But it would be far more realistic — and much more sustainable — to finance as much of our freedom struggle and political advocacy as possible ourselves.
Countering Beijing’s narrative.
China has long portrayed the Tibetan freedom movement as a foreign-instigated project. A movement financed predominantly by Tibetans themselves directly challenges that narrative. It demonstrates that Tibetans are not proxies for foreign governments; we are investing our own resources in our own future.
A budget with no room for the struggle.
When the CTA was established in 1959, it was saddled with the immediate task of caring for the newly arrived refugees, and welfare has crowded out political advocacy ever since. Sixty-five years later, little has changed: over 70% of the CTA’s annual budget still goes toward development, health, and education — even as the exile population in South Asia shrinks and a growing share of the community becomes financially self-reliant. The demands of caring for the community have simply never left room to fund the struggle itself.
A new capacity.
The Tibetan community that arrived as destitute refugees in South Asia in 1959 is not the community of today. The exile and diaspora population now includes a prosperous, educated, professional generation across North America, Europe, and Australasia, alongside established business communities in South Asia.
History shows that ordinary people financing their own liberation is the norm, not the exception. If Tibetans are serious not merely about sustaining the struggle but about bringing it closer to a timely and just resolution, we can no longer depend primarily on external support and other people’s money.
The Struggle as Your Child
In an ideal world, every Tibetan would see the freedom struggle as the collective child of the Tibetan people.
Just as parents provide for their children without being asked, every Tibetan should be willing to sustain the struggle because what becomes of this collective child will determine whether our actual children inherit a language, a land, a name, and a homeland to return to.
Ask any Tibetan parent what it costs to raise a child, and most cannot truly say, because they never counted. Over eighteen years, a family will spend the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars or more on a single child in America; roughly ₹30-40 lakh in India; some £250,000 in the United Kingdom; about C$293,000 in Canada; and roughly A$300,000 in Australia. These figures assume a child attends free public schools.
No one is suggesting that Tibetans budget anything close to those sums for the freedom struggle. The point is not the amount. It is the principle. A child is the one cost no parent thinks of outsourcing. We bear it ourselves because the child is ours. The sacrifice required is enormous, yet we make it willingly because we believe our children’s future is worth it.
Funding the struggle is, in the same sense, an investment in the future of our children. If the struggle is lost, and Tibet with it, the child we spent everything to raise inherits a future with no Tibet at all — no language, no name, no land, and no possibility of returning to a free homeland. Even the word “Tibet” might be erased: Beijing is already replacing it with “Xizang” in official English-language usage.
Life, Blood, or Money
On July 2, 2026, Lobga Rangzen planted a Tibetan flag outside the United Nations and lit up his body in flames — the first Tibetan to self-immolate on American and Western soil, and one day after
Beijing’s “Law for Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” entered into force. For a freedom struggle to succeed, a community must be willing to sacrifice life, blood, or money.
To date, more than 170 Tibetans have given their lives through self-immolation, inside Tibet and beyond. But very few can follow the example of brave souls like Lobga Rangzen — and, importantly, they need not. Every Tibetan life is precious. It must be preserved so that it can serve the long-term struggle for Tibet.
The sacrifice of blood and limb is likewise not an option for most Tibetans. The Tibetan freedom struggle is inherently non-violent, and we have renounced armed struggle. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has laid down an approach built on dialogue, mutual understanding, and a peaceful resolution with the Chinese government.
That leaves one option open to everyone — whether one favors complete independence or the Middle Way Approach, which envisions Tibet remaining part of China with genuine autonomy: to give financial support, and to make the Tibetan freedom struggle fully self-reliant. If we cannot give our lives, and will not give our blood, then what remains to give is our money — and money, given faithfully, is no small thing.
A Budget Line-Item
No one needs to match the cost of a child. Nor will a single donation, however generous, serve us best. What the struggle needs is something steadier.
Every household sets aside money for rent or a mortgage, groceries, school fees, health insurance, and the other recurring expenses of life. There should also be a fixed line in every Tibetan’s budget, set aside monthly or annually, for the freedom struggle.
The freedom of Tibet is not a cause we support only when we are moved by it. It is a standing responsibility of being Tibetan. A commitment like this gives the struggle what it has never had: revenue it can count on, and therefore build on. A standing line item is not a charity that you perform from time to time. It is an identity you live by. Sustaining the Tibetan freedom struggle becomes simply one of the costs of being Tibetan.
Lobga gave his life in a single act. The rest of us are asked only to give steadily, for as long as the struggle lasts. This is the smallest thing we can do — which is exactly why we must.
The Arithmetic of Self-Reliance
Take the working-age Tibetan adults of the Western diaspora — roughly 61,500 in all: about 35,000 in North America, 24,000 in Western Europe, and 2,500 in Australasia. Count only 35,000 of them as earners and set the rest aside.
Now give each a single, modest line item:
$50 a month — roughly the price of a mobile phone plan — raises about $21 million a year.
Now take the working-age Tibetan adults across South Asia – roughly 50,000. Count only 25,000 as earners.
Give each a smaller line item:
$20 a month — roughly the cost of a tank of petrol for a two-wheeler — raises about $6 million a year.
Put the two together and, even on these deliberately conservative assumptions, the community could raise a minimum of US$27 million every year to fund its own freedom struggle — and that is the floor. Wider participation, and support from within Tibet itself one day, could push it far higher.
Money is not the obstacle. It never was. The obstacle is a habit of mind — the quiet assumption that someone else will pay. That is the habit we must break.
The Tibetan Freedom Fund
Ideally, the entire $27 million would be pooled into a single restricted fund, held within an existing institution. For various reasons, that may not be feasible. And creating an entirely new organization simply to receive these contributions is neither necessary nor realistic.
The next best approach is for a small number of trusted organizations, each operating in a specific country, to establish a Tibetan Freedom Fund — a designated account whose contributions are restricted solely to activities and campaigns that advance the Tibetan freedom struggle. Contributors would give to whichever participating organization is most accessible in their country of residence. Every Tibetan who is able should establish a recurring monthly or annual contribution to one of these funds.
Organizations well placed to host such a fund include the CTA and the Tibetan Youth Congress in India and Nepal; Students for a Free Tibet and the International Tibet Network in the United States; the Canada Tibet Committee in Canada; and major Tibetan associations in cities such as New York, Toronto, Zurich, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Melbourne.
If you would rather not give through one of these organizations, you may instead give directly to trusted individuals or legitimate campaigns working to counter the Chinese government’s policies and advance the Tibetan freedom struggle.
The principle matters more than the particular recipient: Tibetans should begin financing the struggle ourselves.
The Pledge: A Line for Tibet
You can agree with every word in this essay and Tibet will be no freer for it. Agreement is not the point. Action is.
We began by asking what it costs to raise a child — a quarter of a million dollars or more, given without hesitation, because the child is ours. Tibet is the child of us all. The only question left is simple:
Will you give it a line in your life?
Make this pledge, in whatever words are yours, and mean it:
I cannot give my life, and my people do not ask me to. We are not asked to give our blood, for ours is a struggle of peace. But I can give my share, and I will. I pledge to set aside ____ every month for the freedom of Tibet — not as charity when I am moved, but as a standing line in my budget, beside my rent, my food, and my children’s schooling, because sustaining Tibet is a cost of being Tibetan. I make this pledge for as long as Tibet is not free. This is the least I can do, and therefore the very least I must.
Then do three things to make it real:
Choose your number and automate it. A fixed sum or a fixed share of what you earn — whatever you can sustain year after year.
Automate it. Set it as a stan
ding transfer to one of the suggested organizations or give it directly to an individual activist or a campaign. Make the decision once and keep it going.
Name it aloud, to other Tibetans. A commitment witnessed is a commitment kept — and every person you tell is a person you may move to pledge beside you.
Lobga gave everything in his sacrifice outside the United Nations. He asked nothing of us in return but that we not let the fire he started be for nothing. We answer him not by following him into the flames, but by carrying the struggle he died for — steadily, quietly, together, and at last on our own shoulders.
It is time to pay for a free Tibet — not with our lives, and not with our blood, but with our means, steadily and faithfully, together. That is the cost of being a Tibetan, and it is the least we can pay for the one thing worth any cost: a free Tibet. Let it begin with a single line, in a single budget, today: yours. Mine began in July 2026, the month Lobga Rangzen gave his life for Tibet — a monthly contribution of $100. I ask you to join me.
(Views expressed are his own)
The author is a former Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to North America and has served the Central Tibetan Administration as the Chief Resilience Officer and Director of SARD under the Department of Finance.
