May 11, 1998

The protest by Tibetans puts Delhi in an awkward position in relation to Beijing.

By Manoj Joshi and Sayantan Chakravarty

A suicide is a stunning, if tragic, personal event. But when Thupten Ngodup set himself ablaze on April 27 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, his action was a public protest to draw the world's attention to the plight of his homeland Tibet, a part of China. It was also a collective cry of despair from the 1.5 lakh-strong Tibetan refugee community that has lived in India since 1959 when they or their parents followed their spiritual and temporal leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile. Shortly before midnight on April 28, Ngodup died at Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, a few hours after a visit from the Dalai Lama.

Ngodup's act came as a searing climax to a grim 47-day hunger strike by six of his countrymen: Dawa Gyalpo, 50, Dawa Tsering, 53, Kunsang, 70, Yundung Tsering, 28, Karma Sichoe, 25, and the lone woman, Palzom, 68. They had been demanding the reopening of the UN debate on the status of Tibet. It came on the morning of the day when Delhi was to receive General Fu Quanyou, chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) which re-established Chinese authority over Tibet in 1950 -- 37 years after the 13th Dalai Lama declared this region's independence from Chinese rule.

The Government of India is clearly embarrassed by the developments. The decision to evict the protestors on the very day of General Fu's visit was, as an mea official acknowledges, "ill-timed". However, he maintains that there was no connection between the two events, much less an official direction. An mea spokesman said that the removal of the hunger strikers, the act that triggered Ngodup's action, was a "humanitarian gesture", occasioned by medical reports on the strikers. This position was endorsed by the Dalai Lama as well. mea officials discount media reports that the Chinese or the Dalai Lama are upset. "In fact, both have been quite understanding," says an official on condition of anonymity.

There are straws in the wind suggesting that the hunger strike, the self-immolation and the increasing emotional pitch of the Tibetan protest are signs of frustration at Dalai Lama's non-violent "middle path" in dealing with the Chinese. During his two visits to the hunger strikers in the past month, the Dalai Lama made it clear that he does not support the idea of a "fast-unto-death" since he believes that it is also an act of violence, albeit against one's self. He has been trying for the past 20 years to get the Chinese to negotiate some form of autonomy for his people within the framework of Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama more or less confirmed this when, speaking to reporters outside the hospital, he acknowledged "it is clear that a sense of frustration and urgency is building up among many Tibetans". Though he criticised the fast-unto-death as an "act of violence" which he could not support, he added, "I have no alternative solution to offer."

The protest organised by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), however, was not specifically aimed at General Fu but at the UN. The appointment of a special rapporteur to investigate the civil liberties situation in Tibet and an exclusive special envoy to deal with Tibet by the UN are the other demands. According to TYC Secretary-General C. Wangchuk, the indefinite hunger strike will continue in "true Gandhian non-violent fashion" until a UN-monitored plebiscite is held in Tibet. "This is another effort to secure our rights," says Wangchuk, who says that since 1950 when the Chinese occupied Tibet, more than 12 lakh people have been killed.

While the Tibetans have been protesting against the Chinese occupation and policies in their homeland, the current protest stands out for its timing. For a variety of reasons, not all altruistic, the cause of the Tibetans has gained important supporters in the western elite like actor Richard Gere. The upcoming visit of President Bill Clinton to China has made the issue of human rights in China into a major political issue in the US. There is strong support for Tibet in the US Congress and recently, Senator Diane Feinstein of California, considered to be pro-Beijing, declared that the Tibetan question was "central" to US-China relations.

The vast Tibetan plateau has always been a central issue between India and China. From 1946-1950, the Nehru government followed the British policy of treating Tibet as a buffer between India and China, that is, accepting Chinese suzerainty over Tibet though not quite endorsing its sovereignty. When the PLA marched in to "liberate" Tibet in October 1950, the Government of India formally protested to China. In a prescient letter to the prime minister, Sardar Patel charged the Chinese with "perfidy" and said "for the first time after centuries, India's defence has to concentrate on two fronts simultaneously".

A little over a month later on December 15, 1950, Patel died and Nehru threw all caution to the wind in his dealing with the Chinese. Through an agreement on trade and intercourse in 1954, India formally accepted that Tibet was a "region of China". According to Dawa Norbu, associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, once its full legal claims were established, China began to raise the question of the Indo-Tibetan border, culminating in the war that led to the Indian military defeat of 1962. The border is now defined by a Line of Actual Control, and talks to resolve the problem and normalise Sino-Indian relations are moving along at a "reasonable pace."

The Tibetan refugees in India are making sure that they are not forgotten in any rapprochement between the two countries. As a result of the hunger strike in Delhi, the European Union has obtained Chinese acquiescence for sending a delegation of its ambassadors to Tibet between May 1 and 10. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has told the Tibetans that their actions had focused the attention of the world community to their cause and that she would take up the subject during her visit to Beijing in September.

Delhi's task is more complex. Till now, the mea has followed the Nehruvian line that India needed to assuage China's insecurities regarding Tibet. But the new Government, which has members and allies known to be strongly sympathetic to the Tibetan cause, is a new factor. The impact of this remains to be seen, coming as it does in the backdrop of other Sino-Indian problems such as the question of Chinese nuclear and missile aid to Pakistan. The Indian elite too may be suddenly "discovering" Tibet and adding to the mea and China's headaches.

Even as the backroom boys in Delhi and Beijing sat down to analyse the events, Tibetans mourned Ngodup's death. Signalling their determination to continue with their protest, a second group comprising, among others, two farmers Tsering Gonkyab, 55, and Kalden Norbu, 47, from the refugee encampment in Kollegal, Karnataka, began another hunger strike. They are not familiar with the UN resolutions, but as Kalden Norbu puts it stoically, "I am willing to die. It will be for a cause that I want fulfilled for my country."

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