With a tinge of disappointment, Tibetans prepare to thank India

While leaders in the Tibetan Government-in-exile maintained measured reactions, students and the Central Tibetan Youth Congress struck a more discordant note.

“I will not say I am disappointed by the Indian government order on ‘Thank You India’ and other programmes marking the beginning of 60th anniversary of Dalai Lama coming to India,” said Khenpo Sonam Tenphal, Parliament Speaker of the Tibetan Government in Exile.

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Tenphal is among the key speakers on the National Uprising Day event on Saturday. “We have to respect India’s national policy and foreign policy,” he said. The Dalai Lama will not take part in the event because he has disassociated himself from any political role since 2011. According to Tenphal, the Tibetan community was very grateful to India for giving shelter to them and for being a gracious host but said border issues between India and China would never be resolved unless the issue of Tibet was resolved.

At the secretariat of the Central Tibetan Administration, Secretary for International Relations, Sonam Norbu Dagpo, still appeared hopeful that some Indian political leaders would attend the National Uprising Day event. “The government note was only about ‘Thank You India’ celebrations. The Himachal Pradesh assembly’s budget session is on, so maybe government representatives may not be able to make it,” he said.

“We believe relations between India and China should be good. If there is no mutual suspicion or mistrust between them we feel that the Tibet issue will be resolved,” said Dagpo. He also said that it was reassuring that the Ministry of External Affairs had reiterated that their policy towards the Dalai Lama has not changed. “Many governments have come and gone from Nehru to Modi and more or less India’s Tibet policy has remain the same,” he said.

Following the note, the ‘Thank You India’ programme venue was shifted from New Delhi to Dharamshala and will take place on March 31, the commemoration of the National Uprising Day. The event is being organised sedately by the Tibetan administration at the Dalai Lama’s temple but several organisations of young Tibetans, supported by Tibetan NGOs, are taking out a march on their own.

Rinzin Choeden, a grassroots director for Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) said, “On a very personal level, I feel India should have taken a firm stand. After the Doklam episode, the iron was hot and India should have struck.”
Five organisations — Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women’s Association, Students for Free Tibet, National Democratic Party of Tibet and GUCHUSUN (organisation of former political prisoners in Tibet) — will take the march out from the Dalai Lama’s temple in Mcleodganj, on March 10, to the police grounds in Dharamshala, a few kms downhill.