The Dalai Lama

Doomed leader of a doomed nation

George Patterson

The first ever visit of a Dalai Lama (god-king) of Tibet to the West began in Europe in September and culminates in Britain this Month. The present exiled Dalai Lama is the fourteenth in succession, and there is an ancient Tibetan prophecy which foretold that there would never be a fourteenth Dalai Lama Iii Tibet. The fourteenth Dalai Lama the West Will see has never ruled freely in an indepensera Tibet, and for the past fourteen years has peen a muted exile outside it.

.,On June 6, 1973, the Dalai Lama was nirtY-nine years old. The Chinese Communist 'IrmY over-ran his country when he was only sixteen. When a Dalai Lama dies a Regent is appointed to govern the country until a reincarnation is tound and grows to maturity at eighteen. So the present Dalai Lama was installed in Tibet under Chinese Communist supervision, was allowed to function under Chinese Communist tolerance until his dramatic escape in 1959, and has been in exile 'n India with some 100,000 followers ever since. And inside Tibet the leaderless struggle goes on. So the brooding prophecy sits darkly on the nation of five million deeply religious Tibetans 110 have lost almost 100,000 people in a `Wenty-year war for freedom against an °PPressive and athOstic Chinese Communist 1:egime. Yet almost every Tibetan subject, 1.Pc1uding the deadly Khamba guerrilla "Lghters, carries a picture of their exiled god'cing in expectation of his return to Tibet. The birth and discovery of the fourteenth ualai Lama was surrounded by auspicious SignS and great expectations. When the thirteenth Dalai Lama "departed Tor the heavenly fields" unusual cloud formaWere reported in the north-east from

nasa, the capital of Tibet. It was then Zailed by Tibetan seers that at the time of "le Dalai Lama's death, although his body as placed seated on a throne facing south a Lew days later the head was found

TYsteriously to have turned to face the east. 'el‘nd on a wooden pillar on the north-eastern Side of the shrine where the body sat a great star-shaped fungus suddenly appeared. Then in the 'Wood-Hog' Year of 1935 the I.Pgent saw in a vision three letters of the betan alphabet, a monastery with a roof of lade-green and gold, and a house with

°,rcluoise tiles. A detailed description of the v'ion was written down and kept secret. When Tibet's wise men from the west of Tibet travelled eastwards in search of their

new-born babe they found him in the village %),f, Taktser, in Amdo Province in North-East "bet, in a turquoise-tiled house next to a green-and-gold-roofed monastery. But the real test for a reincarnation is W_ ether he can recall men and matters from !' Previous life, thereby demonstrating the triumphant transmigration of the soul. 00 the leader of Tibet's wise men disguised Irnself as a servant, and his servant as the

leader, and entered "the house of the turquoise roof." The unsuspecting parents invited the 'leader' of the party into their respected altar-room while the' servant 'went to the kitchen — where a two-year-old child was playing. The disguised leader was wearing a rosary round his neck that had belonged to the thirteenth Dalai Lama, and the child asked to be given it. Surprised but alert the leader promised to give it to the boy-child if he could guess who he was. The toddler replied that he was "Seraaga," which, in the local dialect, meant a Lama of .Sera Monastery in Lhasa. This was correct, and to the mounting excitement of the search party he proceeded to name them all correctly. In his autobiography the Dalai Lama describes how he was then presented with several objects belonging to his predecessor:

When they offered them both to me, I took the one which was his and — so I am told — put it round my own neck. The same test was made with two yellow rosaries. Next, they offered me two drums, a very small drum which the Dalai Lama had used for calling attendants, and a larger and much more ornate and attractive drum with golden straps. I chose the little drum, and began to beat it in the way that drums are beaten during prayers. Lastly they presented two walking sticks. I touched the " false " walking-stick, and then paused and looked at it for some time; and then I took the other, which had belonged to the Dalai Lama, and held it in my hand. And later, when they wondered at my hesitation, they found that the first walking-stick had also been used at one time by the Dalai Lama, and that he had given it to a lama who in turn had given it to Kewsang Rimpoche (the leader)....

But even though he was an illustrious reincarnation the education of a Dalai Lama is a complex and never-ending process. The fourteenth Dalai Lama began his primary education at six, studying Tibetan, multitudinous Buddhist texts, dialectical debates and discussions. At twelve (shades of Jesus!) he took part in learned debates with abbots in the presence of hundreds of dignitaries. Yet in this isolated feudal setting, living in the spectacular gold-roofed Potala Palace towering over the world's most remote city, and yet itself dwarfed by the majestic near-30,000 foot snow mountains — the boy Dalai Lama became fascinated by machines, especially cameras and projectors, and secretly dreamed of making Tibet a "modern" state. At twenty-five he took the degree of Master of Metaphysics with honours. But at this time the Dalai Lama writes: "I knew nothing about the world, and had no experience of politics; and yet I was old enough to know how ignorant I was and how much I had still to learn."

In 1950, when the Dalai Lama was sixteen, the Chinese occupied Tibet and the Dalai Lama was inaugurated under their supervision. His first act was to set free all prisoners in Tibet. This was followed by the establishing of a "Reform Committee," the im mediate measures of which included the total abolition of debts with interest which were more than eight years old; and in the case of debts of less than eight years only the original debts were to be paid without interest. He reformed the administration to eliminate the possibility of the traditional exploitation of the people by officials. When even more radical reforms were approved by the new young Dalai Lama — such as the purchase by government of all the huge feudal manorial and monastic estates and their distribution to the peasants — it was the Chinese who opposed the reforms, for obvious reasons.

From 1950 to 1959 the young Dalai Lama tried to resolve these and other problems with China in a peaceful manner. He wrote ot his dilemma:

I reasoned that if we continued to oppose and anger the Chinese authorities, it could only lead us further along the vicious circle of repression and popular resentment. In the end it was certain to lead to outbreaks of physical violence. Yet violence was useless, we could not possibly get rid of the Chinese by violent means. They would always win if we fought them, and our own unarmed and any unorganised people would be the victims. Our only hone was to persuade the Chinese peacably to fulfil tho promises they had made in their agreement. Nonviolence was the only course which might win us back a degree of freedom in the end, perhaps after years of patience. That meant co-operation whenever it was possible, and passive resistance whenever it was not.

In March, 1958, when all forms of cooperation and resistance had failed, the Dalai Lama and leading members of his Govern ment made a dramatic escape from Lhasa with the help of his Khamba guerrillas, who took him from the midst of 40,000 Chinese occupation troops in Lhasa and escorted him safely three weeks across the mountains of Tibet to India.

When he arrived there in 1959, after his dramatic escape from a Chinese-occupied Lhasa, he was accompanied by about twenty leading members of his government and followed by about 80,000 of his people. This number did not take into account the tens oi thousands who had lived in India for many years, nor the many thousands who crossed the borders at remote places and did not register with the Indian authorities, so the figure of Tibetans in India is probably around 150,000.

The Indian Government made generous provision for them, after the initial shock of ruptured relations with China over "the Tibet question." But a combination of lack of knowledgeable personnel, lack of Tibetanspeaking contacts and lack of properly supervised organisation allowed a problem of horrendous proportions to develop. The Tibet question became lost in the Tibet destruction.

The 'Tibet question' had been left in India to Prime Minister Nehru and Nehru's definitive statement on the subject after the Dalai Lama's arrival was: "He (Premier Chou Enlai) told me that while Tibet had long been a part of China they did not consider Tibet as a Province of China. The people were different from the people of China proper. Therefore, they considered Tibet as an autonomous region which would enjoy autonomy."

The Dalai Lama's first mistake in India was to reject the advice of the men who had planned the Tibetan revolt in the early 1950s and who wanted him to appeal to the UN or any other source for aid, whatever the consequences, and, instead, to accept the advice of family, priests and some wealthy aristocrats who had vested interests in agreeing with and remaining in India.

The Dalai .Lama's second mistake was to appoint as his representative a member of his family who had spent more time in China than he had in Tibet, who had taken no part in the years of revolt, who had no following among the Tibetans, — feudal aristocrats or tribal guerrillas — and who proceeded to build up a following by nepotism and graft, through

the machinery of national and international refugee organisations.

This amalgam of ignorance, duplicity and deceit was further compounded by the Tibet refugee societies in several countries attracting old-school, retired government 'establish ment' figures. Their establishment status gave respectability to those Tibetans who were unscrupulously using the refugee association framework to further their personal ambitions by sending friends, families and children abroad to various countries in exchange for support in the contentious rivalries among the 'government-in-exile' in India.

When the Dalai Lama was persuaded to accept asylum and political silence in India in 1959 it was on the advice of a small coterie which included one of the Dalai Lama's brothers, Gyalu Thondup. This group later became the power core of the delegation to the UN (under very restricted conditions) and all politically influenced 'pork-barrel' refugee activities.

Several key members of the old Tibetan Government felt the revolution was being betrayed by these activities and left the government in protest. The most influential were two senior Cabinet Ministers, Surkhang and Yuthok. Surkhang went to England and, later, the United States, while Yuthok went to Taiwan. From there they have kept in touch with the activist elements. Surkhang especially (the man named by China as the key figure in the revolt) has been free to move about the world for discussions with Tibetans and others.

But as long as the coterie of advisers surrounding the Dalai Lama held effective power over decisions made in India, and was pleasing to the Indian Government, there was no possibility of developing a coherent, unified policy for Tibet. The inevitable result was fragmentation. The lowest common denominator of association among the fac tional Tibetans was survival. The elements permitting survival were with the Indian Government and Dalai Lama's brother's group, who controlled the_purse-strings.

From 1960 to 1970 there was a continuing deterioration in relationships between the various groups. The "Dalai Lama's treasure," which had been smuggled out of Tibet with great secrecy shortly after the Chinese oc cupation, became the focal point of disagreement as different Tibetan officials gave varying accounts of its value and their stewardship — and then was dissipated in a series of disastrous investments.

The flagrant nepotism and graft infuriated the Khamba tribesmen whose relatives were carrying the brunt of the guerrilla warfare inside Tibet and by the mid-'sixties the Dalai Lama had to make a personal appearance and intervention at a large gathering in Bodh Gaya, near Benares, to defuse the situation.

By this time, the Indian Government, following on the humiliating defeat by the

Chinese in the 1962 border conflict, had relaxed their restrictions on Tibetan political activities in India and even began recruiting Tibetans for military service in the moun' tamous border areas. Aid was also provided for the five thousand Khambas operating against the Chinese convoys from their hideouts in the High Himalayas of northern Nepal.

Inside Tibet the Chinese were having an increasingly difficult time in controlling the population as the Panchen Lama (Tibet second most respected spiritual leader) publicly repudiated China's claims of peaceful progress in Tibet and condemned their methods. He was first rebuked by the Chinese authorities, then spirited away out of Lhasa and public view. This left the Chinese without a reputable Tibetan quisling and exacerbated the restlessness of the Tibetan people. In 1970 factional rivalries among th.e quarrelling Tibetan groups in India precipl. tated another crisis, with angry an disillusioned younger Tibetans documenting and publicly printing allegations of nepotism, graft and corruption against leading Tibetans! including the Dalai Lama's family. The Dalai Lama later accepted responsibility for this. Since 1970 a schism has appeared between a majority of the Indian-based Tibetans demanding some form of positive action. am' the Gyalu Thondup (Dalai Lama's brother) faction satisfied with the status quo. Tile younger Tibetans, who had either been educated in India or had been trained abroad, had no desire to remain permanently under-, employed or unemployed in India. The.). demanded that the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile produce a new and constructive policy. The Dalai Lama's arrival in India had, precipitated the end of India's policy Hindi-Chini-bhat-bhai ' (India and China are, brothers) and begun the decline of a betraye.° and disillusioned Prime Minister Nehru. In,lts attempts to salvage the situation the Indian Government agreed to give the Dalai Lama sanctuary but insisted on his remaining silent and refraining from political activities.

Those same conditions are still imposed on

the Dalai Lama by India during his present visit to the West, when he had to agree t.° deliver religious sermons but make no Poh. tical speeches. So the fourteenth Dalai Lanla remains a victim still of that anciencli prophecy, which will not allow a very gift.!t, temporal and spiritual leader to return Wl'." his people to Tibet.