Compromise as nirvana

As the Dalai Lama’s designated envoys—his representative in Washington, Lodi Gyari, and in Brussels, Kelsang Gyaltsen—prepare to travel to China for the talks (two rounds of ‘‘talks about talks’’ took place in May and September 2003), Chinese and Tibet watchers point that a historical moment could be at hand.

For a start, the impending discussions will take place in the wake of a ‘White Paper’ on Tibet released by Beijing on May 23, which rejects the very idea of a special deal with Tibet on the lines of the ‘‘one country, two systems’’ compromise that Beijing has reached with Hong Kong and Macau. It points out that while the latter territories were once occupied by imperialist powers like Britain and Portugal, Tibet has been an integral part of China for at least the last 700 years.

Back in Dharamsala, ‘Prime Minister’ Samdhong Rimpoche of the Tibetan government-in-exile has laid his cards on the table. Indicating that time could be running out for the Chinese as well as the exiled Tibetan community, if only because the Dalai Lama was getting older, he said Beijing should stop being ‘‘suspicious and afraid’’ of his popularity.

‘‘We are absolutely sure that the Tibet issue would be resolved within the lifetime of the Dalai Lama. No one would dare disobey his Middle Path approach to non-violence. After him, the Tibetan leadership cannot give any assurance,’’ Rimpoche told IANS.

Indicating that the time to cut a deal was now, the Tibetan leader pointed out that younger Tibetans were already chafing at the Dalai Lama’s restraining presence. Moreover, as the senior leadership grew older, the urge to return ‘‘home’’ grew stronger. In an earlier interview with this correspondent, Rimpoche said the Dalai Lama would not go back in his capacity as the temporal leader of all Tibetans, but only as a spiritual guide. Tibet’s Tibetans also needn’t fear that their Dharamsala counterparts would usurp their jobs.

Growing up in India, members of the Tibetan Youth Congress have openly accused the Dalai Lama of ‘‘betraying’’ the cause of ‘Free Tibet’ and colluding with New Delhi to taking a much softer approach. But even they have drawn the line at questioning the authority of the Dalai Lama.

Yet the Dalai Lama’s mortality (he was 69 on July 6) is beginning to cause concern in a number of quarters. Within China too, the top leadership seems divided on how to deal with the ageing Tibetan leader. One view is to simply let him pass on so that the movement-in-exile loses its most powerful leader and is split into smaller factions that can be controlled. Others believe that would be a recipe for disaster.

The Chinese have always maintained that the Dalai Lama must accept that Tibet was an inalienable part of China and had always been, stop his ‘‘splittist’’ activities and recognise Taiwan as a part of China. On his part, the Tibetan leader has been indicating his readiness for compromise ever since he formulated his ‘Middle Path’ approach to Tibet just over a decade ago. During a recent tour of London, he reiterated: ‘‘I am not asking for separation from China or independence for Tibet. What I want is meaningful autonomy…We want to work with today’s new China to achieve our goal of the preservation of Tibetan culture and the environment. That is my dream.’’ The battle for the Tibetan mind, within China and without, is thus in full flow.

Back in New Delhi, silence reigned, both on the Chinese White Paper as well as to the Dalai Lama’s meetings with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. It was privately conceded that the Congress government was ‘‘studying the situation’’, especially in the wake of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to China and the setting up of the institution of Special Representatives on the Sino-Indian border issue. The third meeting of the border talks is to take place on July 26-27 and would give new New Delhi an opportunity to size up the situation.

Meanwhile, an unhappy Dharamsala finally issued a half-hearted reaction to the White Paper. It ‘‘contains much ultra-Leftist rhetoric’’, the Kashag (Tibetan Parliament) said. ‘‘Periodic white papers cannot hide the true sad state of affairs in Tibet.’’ Nevertheless, the process of dialogue and reconciliation had to go on, it was far too important to be tampered with.

The Tibetan dilemma can be summed thus: on one hand, the big powers have abandoned all pretence of the so-called inviolability of human rights records and scrambled to trade with a rising China. On the other the BJP government had ‘‘signed away what was left of the Tibet card’’ when it conceded last year that the Tibetan Autonomous Region was a part of the PRC. Now that India is engaged in direct border talks with Beijing, the Tibetans realise its best to directly cut a deal with the Chinese.

In the space of 45 years, since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet to seek refuge in India, new escapees from Tibet continue to stream in into Dharamsala. As the carefully nurtured dream of a ‘Free Tibet’ receded behind the Dhauladhar ranges, the Dalai Lama kept alive the notion of an ancient historical culture. He called it the Middle Path approach. The idea of independence for Tibet would be abandoned, in exchange for Tibetans being allowed to keep their educational, cultural and religious customs and traditions.

Over the years, the 14th Dalai Lama ‘‘democratised’’ the Tibetan government-in-exile, instituting elections among the diaspora across India and worldwide for a ‘Kashag’ or ‘Parliament.’ As ‘God-King’ of all the Tibetan people, he knew his role in exile was to reinvent Tibetan dharma. And so the ‘‘simple monk’’ with the ready laugh began to log frequent flier miles with a vengeance, lobbying with leaders like US President George Bush and Prince Charles and the Pope. When Russia refused him a visa, he didn’t give up. He couldn’t afford to.

Still, the irony of Tibet-in-exile caught up with the Tibetan leader on his birthday in Dharamsala last fortnight. As thousands of Tibetans chanted prayers for his long life, the Dalai Lama lay ill in bed, exhausted by his serial travels. It was a perfect metaphor for the increasing fragility of the Tibetan struggle.