Ellen Bork: The Trouble With Tibet
[Ellen Bork, director of democracy and human rights at the Foreign Policy Initiative, writes frequently about U.S. policy toward Tibet and China.]
Dharamsala, India—Flying from Delhi to Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India, takes about 90 minutes. The plane lands in the valley below the Dhauladar range of the Himalayas, a massive barrier between India and Tibet. From the airport, the road leads up to the former British hill station that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made available in 1960 to the Dalai Lama, who had escaped from Chinese-occupied Tibet the year before. The Dalai Lama lives on one ridge, in the settlement of McLeod Ganj, while on a nearby ridge sit the buildings of the Central Tibet Administration (CTA), which oversees many affairs of the approximately 150,000 Tibetans in exile.
Nehru’s gift of Dharamsala to the Tibetans was both generous and shrewd. Indian sympathy for the Tibetans and hostile posture toward Beijing necessitated hospitality, but isolating the Tibetans in a remote area avoided complicating India’s non-aligned stance by making it harder for the Dalai Lama to pursue an international agenda. As it has turned out, however, Dharamsala’s location has not been a problem for the Dalai Lama.
Despite an initial hesitation about the remote location, the Dalai Lama and his officials embraced Dharamsala, which has been nicknamed Little Lhasa, after the capital of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has become a global figure with nearly universal appeal and one of the world’s most well-traveled men. What’s more, from his perch, he has been able to pursue his twin missions—preserving Tibet’s religion and culture and, more ambitiously, building a Tibetan democracy in exile. These missions pose a challenge not only to China’s communist government, which has long opposed the Dalai Lama. But, increasingly, they also pose a challenge to the United States....
The Dalai Lama’s democracy-building effort is not nearly as well-known as his moral and religious teachings. However, by the time he arrived in India, he had already begun trying to overhaul the existing Tibetan government, which was dominated by aristocratic and monastic elites. He had launched a commission to address land reform, as well as other social and political issues. In India, the Dalai Lama only accelerated his democracy work. Under his direction, a new Tibetan constitution was drafted in 1963. At his insistence, it included a provision authorizing his impeachment. For Tibetans, the idea of removing the Dalai Lama, who is regarded as the Bodhisattva of Compassion, was unthinkable. To the Dalai Lama, however, it was a natural step in his plan to delineate separate political and spiritual roles for himself and eventually turn over responsibility for day-to-day governance to an elected leader, or Kalon Tripa—which he did officially in 2001.
The democratization of Tibetan authority has thus proceeded—and relatively smoothly—over the past several decades. In 1991, there was the creation of an expanded Tibetan parliament, which took responsibility for drafting a new charter to replace the constitution. The charter gave the parliament, or Chiteue, more powers, including approving members of the cabinet, or Kashag, and greater responsibility to legislate in matters over which it has jurisdiction. The Chitue has actively legislated in areas such as finance and administration; the CTA, subject to Indian law, has maintained authority over exile affairs. The constituency of this growing democracy is scattered around the world; Tibetans in exile are eligible to vote for the CTA in the various countries in which they live....
Read entire article at The New Republic
Dharamsala, India—Flying from Delhi to Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India, takes about 90 minutes. The plane lands in the valley below the Dhauladar range of the Himalayas, a massive barrier between India and Tibet. From the airport, the road leads up to the former British hill station that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made available in 1960 to the Dalai Lama, who had escaped from Chinese-occupied Tibet the year before. The Dalai Lama lives on one ridge, in the settlement of McLeod Ganj, while on a nearby ridge sit the buildings of the Central Tibet Administration (CTA), which oversees many affairs of the approximately 150,000 Tibetans in exile.
Nehru’s gift of Dharamsala to the Tibetans was both generous and shrewd. Indian sympathy for the Tibetans and hostile posture toward Beijing necessitated hospitality, but isolating the Tibetans in a remote area avoided complicating India’s non-aligned stance by making it harder for the Dalai Lama to pursue an international agenda. As it has turned out, however, Dharamsala’s location has not been a problem for the Dalai Lama.
Despite an initial hesitation about the remote location, the Dalai Lama and his officials embraced Dharamsala, which has been nicknamed Little Lhasa, after the capital of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has become a global figure with nearly universal appeal and one of the world’s most well-traveled men. What’s more, from his perch, he has been able to pursue his twin missions—preserving Tibet’s religion and culture and, more ambitiously, building a Tibetan democracy in exile. These missions pose a challenge not only to China’s communist government, which has long opposed the Dalai Lama. But, increasingly, they also pose a challenge to the United States....
The Dalai Lama’s democracy-building effort is not nearly as well-known as his moral and religious teachings. However, by the time he arrived in India, he had already begun trying to overhaul the existing Tibetan government, which was dominated by aristocratic and monastic elites. He had launched a commission to address land reform, as well as other social and political issues. In India, the Dalai Lama only accelerated his democracy work. Under his direction, a new Tibetan constitution was drafted in 1963. At his insistence, it included a provision authorizing his impeachment. For Tibetans, the idea of removing the Dalai Lama, who is regarded as the Bodhisattva of Compassion, was unthinkable. To the Dalai Lama, however, it was a natural step in his plan to delineate separate political and spiritual roles for himself and eventually turn over responsibility for day-to-day governance to an elected leader, or Kalon Tripa—which he did officially in 2001.
The democratization of Tibetan authority has thus proceeded—and relatively smoothly—over the past several decades. In 1991, there was the creation of an expanded Tibetan parliament, which took responsibility for drafting a new charter to replace the constitution. The charter gave the parliament, or Chiteue, more powers, including approving members of the cabinet, or Kashag, and greater responsibility to legislate in matters over which it has jurisdiction. The Chitue has actively legislated in areas such as finance and administration; the CTA, subject to Indian law, has maintained authority over exile affairs. The constituency of this growing democracy is scattered around the world; Tibetans in exile are eligible to vote for the CTA in the various countries in which they live....