Chasing The Old Monk

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Dalai Lama means different things to different people. To some it means that I am a living Buddha, the earthly manifestation of Avolokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion. To others it means that I am a "god-king". During the late 1950s it meant that I was a Vice President of The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. Then when I escaped into exile, I was called a counter-revolutionary and a parasite. But none of these are my ideas. To me 'Dalai Lama' is a title that signifies the office I hold. I myself am just a human being, and incidentally a Tibetan, who chooses to be a Buddhist monk.

Freedom In Exile--Dalai Lama

In March 1959, a new batch of IFS probationers were escorted by K Natwar Singh for a meeting with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in South Block. Midway the meeting stopped. Natwar Singh recalls in his book, My China Diary that then foreign secretary S Dutt walked in to whisper something into Nehru's ear. Nehru announced something urgent had come up and got up to leave. The Dalai Lama had crossed into India. It had taken two weeks for him to reach India. As Peter Jackson, then correspondent of Reuters recalls, on 17 March 1959, the Dalai Lama dressed as a Tibetan layman, with a rifle slung over his shoulder escaped the Potala Palace. With a dust storm providing cover, he walked out, unrecognized, from Lhasa. The Dalai Lama's first stop across the border into India was the Galden Namgey Lhatse Monastery also known as the Tawang monastery. As the Dalai Lama visits Tawang again, in the 50th year of the Indo-Tibetan friendship India's stand on the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan-Government-in-exile has mostly been consistent. India has been firm enough to maintain that the Dalai Lama is a religious leader. Something that China probably finds difficult to accept. So China's objections to his visits to Tawang, are rather shrill. This time, also China has dubbed the Dalai Lama as a liar and a separatist, one who is driving a wedge between the relations of India and China. However, one welcome note has been a not-much-noticed or talked about editorial of the Peoples' Daily that came out on November 4. It mentions the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in the resort city in Thailand with a name Hua Hin, that almost every Indian noticed. The editorial mentioned, that "the consensus between Premier Wen and Indian PM Singh is just like a gentle breeze, clearing up all the suspicion and misunderstanding that have hindered bilateral relations over the past decades". An editorial that seems to agree with the Indian position, that the world is indeed enough for both India and China. Yet, somehow, when it comes to the Dalai Lama and Tawang, maps change, Google Images are tampered, and the gentle breeze that the Peoples' Daily editorial mentions seems to vanish.

This is the Dalai Lama's 5th visit to Tawang. But this is a special visit. So half the media world are trying to catch a glimpse of the great man. And we are traveling as well. My friends from other media networks keep mentioning that he is a rare Nobel Peace Prize winner. Not to mention that another Nobel Peace Prize Winner President Obama being the first US President who refused to meet him. He has a sense of humor, I am told to overcome all rebuffs. He remembers faces. He went to watch a cricket match in Dharamshala once and got lost in the rules and yet kept smiling. Some say he is not liked by his some of his fellow people for talking about a middle path and some even whisper we are angry with him for asking the CIA and Tibetans to put an end to the guerilla war in the late 70s and early 80s. Yet Dalai Lama is one who has introduced democratic reforms in the Tibetan-government-in-exile and he has single handedly resettled the exiled Tibetan community, giving them healthcare and education. He would not agree to all this and probably smile. I am looking forward to meeting him in Tawang and also remembering what my friend from Reuters told me, "he gives horrible soundbites". The Dalai Lama would probably laugh if he heard this.