Has the fact that you are no longer pushing for full separation resulted in any dissatisfaction among Tibetan exiles?

There are some Tibetans who believe independence is our birthright, and historically speaking, they are right. How we deal with that is that we are a democratic society, and we are all entitled to our own views — we try to maintain it as difference of views, but not divisions.

Do you think there will be a solution to the Tibet issue within the lifetime of the current Dalai Lama?

Yes. Otherwise why would I leave my job at Harvard and go to Dharamsala? You have to always walk with hope that tomorrow will be different and better. If that hope disappears, then I think it’s a very lonely place. You have to believe that he will be able to return to Tibet during his lifetime.

[...]It sounds like you were subject to Chinese phishing attempts via email attachments? Does that happen often?

Yes, all the time. They try to monitor me, destroy my computer, make my life difficult.

It’s where the Buddhist philosophy comes in — don’t have attachments!

[Source]

Earlier this month, the Council on Foreign Relations posted video footage of a lengthy conversation between Sangay and NYU law professor and expert on Chinese law Jerome A. Cohen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In their conversation (0:27:00), Sangay spoke about the constitutional legality of autonomy in the PRC, looking for comparison to the Hong Kong Basic Law that guarantees the “one country, two systems” principle. From the interview transcript:

[...]SANGAY: Because interests of Tibetans inside Tibet is our primary concern. So how to empower them, how to put them in leadership positions so they can administer their own interests, you know, as per the Chinese constitution.

That is — that is what we seek. Now, you raised a very important question, whether Hong Kong be a solution. As per Article 31, a specially administrated region is allowed in the Chinese constitution based on that — basic law was drafted, and one country, two system was allowed. And that is allowed for Macau.

Hence, what I say is that Tibet is not a constitutional challenge for China, because there is already a constitutional provision — Article 31, or even if they want, they can look at Article IV, the minority nationality act or Article XII of the Chinese constitution and be there as a basis of solution.

[Source]

In a recent letter to U.S. Congress appealing for increased pressure on China, Sangay again cited Article 31 of the PRC Constitution and China’s unwillingness to negotiate the Tibet issue as they have other politically sensitive regions:

With foresight and conviction, Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have legislated over the years to help Tibet. This has given political, moral and financial support to the His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s vision of a peaceful solution to the Tibet problem though the “Middle Way” approach that would provide for genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of Chinese constitution. Tibet is not a constitutional or an institutional problem for the government of the People’s Republic of China. As per Article 31 of the PRC Constitution, China has created a separate institutional mechanism of one country, two systems for Hong Kong and Macau. The Chinese leadership has also displayed the political will by forming a cabinet level committee to deal with Taiwan. However, when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese leadership has neither employed the available constitutional mechanism at its disposal, nor has it shown the political will to resolve the issue peacefully.

[Source]

Opposition to the Article 31 policy goal does exist among Tibetans due to concerns over the temporary nature of Hong Kong’s status under the Basic Law.

In a recent interview with C-SPAN, Sangay talked about the structure of the Central Tibetan Administration, his own position within, engagement with the international community, and tensions with China (among other topics):

* This post was edited on May 17 to include the opposition to the Article 31 policy goal.

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The wind-scoured desert valley here, just south of Tibet, was once a famed transit point for the Tibetan yak caravans laden with salt that lumbered over the icy ramparts of the Himalayas. In the 1960s, it became a base for Tibetan guerrillas trained by the C.I.A. to attack Chinese troops occupying their homeland.

These days, it is the Chinese who are showing up in this far tip of the Buddhist kingdom of Mustang, northwest of Katmandu, Nepal. Chinese officials are seeking to stem the flow of disaffected Tibetans fleeing to Nepal and to enlist the help of the Nepalese authorities in cracking down on the political activities of the 20,000 Tibetans already here.

[…] For decades, there had been an understanding that Nepalese border guards would allow refugees they encountered to continue on to sanctuary. But now Tibetans suspect that the low numbers of refugees reaching Katmandu could be in part a result of guards sending back Tibetans they catch, especially since China is now involved in border security training programs.

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According to the exile base of the Kirti Monastery in Dharamshala, Lobsang Namgyal set himself ablaze near the local police building in Zoege at around 6 am (local time). He passed away at the scene of his protest.

“Lobsang Namgyal, engulfed in flames, shouted slogans for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he ran towards the local police building,” Kirti Monastery said in a release citing sources in the region.

[…] “Chinese security personnel bundled away his body from the site and carried out his cremation without informing his family members,” Kirti Monastery said. “Only his ashes were handed over.”

In September 2012, Lobsang Namgyal had all of a sudden gone missing for two weeks prompting frantic searches from his family members and friends. It was later found out that he was taken into custody by Chinese security personnel for unknown reasons.

Coincidentally or otherwise, news of this 100th self-immolation emerged on the 100th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Proclamation of Independence, after a ten-day delay. The organization Free Tibet reported that fear of reprisals from Chinese authorities had slowed confirmation of the event, and that Lobsang Namgyal’s family members have been followed and subjected to phone tapping or detention since his death. Authorities have detained dozens of Tibetans accused of involvement in earlier protests, while others have already received lengthy prison sentences. Other measures include travel restrictions and the confiscation of televisions and satellite dishes, aimed at controlling the flow of information: the delayed news of Lobsang Namgyal’s death, and reports that a Tibetan woman set fire to herself in Beijing in a previously unknown case as long ago as last September, suggest some success in this.

The protests and crackdown have dampened celebrations of Losar, the Tibetan lunar new year, which Tibetan prime-minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay suggested should be marked by prayer instead of festivities. From Ben Blanchard at Reuters:

The Tibetan lunar new year is supposed to be a time for celebration, but many Tibetans who spoke to Reuters in Xiahe said there would be no entertainment this year.

“It really isn’t appropriate because of the self-immolations. So we’re not marking the new year,” said a Tibetan man who gave his name as Dorje. “In Tibet you don’t celebrate new year if you are in mourning.”

[…] Tibetan areas in China have been largely closed to foreign reporters and put under heavy security, making an independent assessment of the situation there hard.

Many of the monks said they were too scared to talk publicly about the Tibet issue. “I’m terrified. People have no idea how bad things are here,” said one monk.

The Associated Press described the self-immolation in Kathmandu on Wednesday:

Witnesses in Nepal said a man in monk’s robes entered a cafe in Katmandu’s Boudhanath district–home to many Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries–and asked to use the bathroom. After spending some time there, he went into the street and lit himself on fire. He ran a few steps, covered in flames and chanting slogans against China, before collapsing in front of the mammoth Boudhanath stupa, one of the holiest Buddhist sites in the country, surrounded by prayer wheels and decorated with colorful streams of flitting prayer flags.

Police official Keshav Adhikari said police and residents were able to put out the flames and rush the man to a hospital. Dozens of baton-wielding police surrounded the hospital where the man lay in critical condition. Adhikari said the man had yet to be identified, but appeared to be about 21 years old.

[…] Prasant Tamang, a waiter at the Golden Eye Cafe, said he found a gasoline bottle, a jacket and a bag in the cafe’s bathroom. Tamang said the man appeared normal and calm.

Some 20,000 Tibetan exiles live in Nepal, but some say they feel “suffocated” by growing Chinese influence. Local authorities have forbidden protests against China, and in February last year border guards reportedly turned a blind eye to plain-clothed Chinese men obstructing a CNN crew filming on the Nepalese side.

The Kathmandu protest has also been described as the 100th self-immolation, but officials from the Central Tibetan Administration told the AP that it was the 101st worldwide since 2009. This figure appears not to include Lobsang Namgyal. The International Campaign for Tibet counts five previous cases outside China’s borders since April 2008, including one earlier incident in the same part of Kathmandu. Two more possible cases within Tibet are excluded from both organizations’ tallies because accidental death could not be definitively ruled out.

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Sources have identified the Tibetan man as Wangdhen Khar, 21 years of age.

“Martyr Wande Khar set himself on fire on Wednesday, November 28 at around 7 pm (local time) in Tsoe region of Kanlho, eastern Tibet,” Zoegey Kangtsa Jampa, an exiled Tibetan told Phayul citing sources in the region. “He later succumbed to his injuries,”

[…] Also yesterday, around 500 Tibetans in Tsolho, eastern Tibet, publicly displayed a photograph of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and carried out a mass prayer service for the Tibetan spiritual leader’s long life and for all the Tibetans who have self-immolated.

Sources have identified the Tibetan as Tsering Namgyal, 31, a father of two, from Zamtsa Lotso Dewa region of Luchu.

“Tsering Namgyal set himself on fire near the local Chinese government office in Luchu earlier today for the cause of Tibet,” Sonam, a Tibetan monk living in south India told Phayul, citing sources in the region. “Tsering Namgyal passed in his fiery protest.”

[…] Tsering Namgyal is survived by his wife Choekyong Tso, their two children, Dorjee Kyi, 7, and Kalsang Dolma, 3, and his parents.

As in previous cases, sparse coverage by state media and government restrictions on foreign reporters stand in the way of independent verification. The total of 89 excludes five self-immolations carried out in India and Nepal and two disputed cases in Sichuan.

The protests have placed a growing strain on the Central Tibetan Administration’s (or government in exile’s) ‘Middle Way’ approach of seeking genuine autonomy rather than full independence. U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher wrote in a letter to prime minister Lobsang Sangay last week that “the 75 Tibetans who have self-immolated did not do so for the right to become a minority group within Communist China; the policy you are advocating. They are killing themselves for their right to freedom and self-determination and the end of the illegal Chinese occupation.” The congressman is otherwise known for his advocacy of measures to limit the number of U.S. visas granted to journalists for Chinese state media.

The controversy has been further stirred up by the removal of Ngapo Jigme as head of U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan service on November 1st. Critics, including Rohrabacher, say that this was engineered by the CTA in order to stifle dissent, charges the Tibetan Parliament has described as “baseless”. Influential Tibetan writer Woeser also responded that she was “shocked” by Rohrabacher’s criticisms, and hoped that he would redirect them. From Chander Suta Dogra at The Hindu:

The crux of the dispute lies in the increasing discomfort within the government-in-exile over the self-immolations by Tibetans inside Tibet (almost 80 till the beginning of this week) that has triggered a debate in the exile community about the usefulness of continuing with the Dalai Lama’s middle way approach. Most of those who immolated themselves had been demanding complete independence and the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. Those opposed to the Dalai Lama’s policy said Mr. Ngabo irked the government-in-exile by encouraging open discussions on various options for Tibet’s future, including outright independence.

His removal was preceded by several interactions between government-in-exile officials and RFA head Libby Liu.

Jamyang Norbu, a prominent Tibetan intellectual whose contract with the RFA was also cancelled, wrote in his blog this week: “It is an article of faith in the Central Tibetan Administration that if somehow all independence activism and discussion were halted or contained, then Beijing would agree to the “genuine autonomy” solution proposed in the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way policy; or would, at least, resume the negotiations it terminated two year ago.” He went on to say that given the extremely sensitive situation prevailing in Tibet as a result of the immolations “it would not be unreasonable to assume that Beijing wants Dharamsala to stop the “splittist” messaging from exile, particularly from RFA broadcasts, which it firmly believes is fuelling the immolations and protests within Tibet. Dharamsala in turn probably shares Beijing’s concerns as the self-immolation crisis in Tibet and the resignations of the Tibetan envoys have placed extreme pressure on the TGIE leadership’s signature Middle Way policy.”

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“Sangay Tashi, 18, set himself on fire at around 12 midnight Tuesday, November 27 in Sangkhog town,” an exiled Tibetan monk Sonam told Phayul citing contacts in the region. “He passed away at the site of his protest.”

[…] Sangay Tashi arrived in Sangkhog town earlier that day with his friends. Before setting himself on fire, he reportedly called one of his relatives and told him that he had decided to set himself on fire for the cause of Tibet. Before his relative could carry on the conversation, Sangay Tashi hung up the phone and switched it off.

By the time Sangay Tashi’s family members arrived in Sangkhog, he had already carried out his self-immolation protest.

Sonam, an exile Tibetan living in Switzerland, told Phayul that Tsegyu set himself ablaze at around 7pm (local time) on November 7, in Tingser village of Bekar town in Driru (Ch: Biru) region of Nagchu, in an apparent protest against China’s continued occupation of Tibet.

[…] Confirming the reports, Dharamshala based rights group Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in a release today said Tsegyu received no medical treatment while in detention at a local police station in Nagchu.

“For less than two weeks, from November 7 to 18, Tsegyal received no treatment for his burns while being held at the local police station in Nagchu town,” TCHRD said citing sources. “Tsegyal died in the evening of November 18 in police custody.”

Heavy restrictions on journalists in Tibetan areas make independent verification of these reports difficult or impossible. As Kristin Jones wrote at the Committee to Protect Journalists in February, “by preventing reporters from doing their jobs, Chinese officials all but guarantee that activists are the ones reporting the news.”

The Associated Press’ Christopher Bodeen examined the protests’ tactics and escalation, and Beijing’s uncertain response.

“I think the problem will just escalate over time. The government shows no inclination to respond positively to recommendations for reform from the outside or Tibetans,” said Michael Davis, a law professor and expert on Tibet at the University of Hong Kong.

[…] The surge in self-immolations represents an awareness of the impact they are having among the Tibetan community and internationally, said Robbie Barnett, a Tibet expert at New York’s Columbia University. That would likely inspire further protests, increasing the numbers of Tibetans willing to take their lives for the sake of their community, he said.

[…] While local authorities have cracked down hard following the self-immolations and other protests, authorities in Beijing have said relatively little other than to issue routine denunciations of the Dalai Lama and his followers. That indicates they are uncertain how to respond in a way that would bolster their authority and prevent the acts of defiance snow-balling into a full-blown protest movement, Barnett said.

U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke discussed the self-immolations with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday:

Christiane Amanpour: We want to know from your perspective whether the new leader Xi Jinping will be any different on Tibet, for instance, because there have been many burnings by ethnic Tibetans, another four reported just today in China; I know you’ve met with some ethnic Tibetans. What do you think is the prospect for any different kind of relationship, Ambassador?

Gary Locke: Well, we’re just going to have to wait and see, but obviously the United States is very concerned about the situation, the heightened tensions in the Tibetan areas, the deplorable self-immolations and of course just the policies of the Chinese government at all levels. And we’re publicly and privately constantly urging the Chinese to re-examine some of their policies that threaten the linguistic identity, cultural identity, and religious identity of the Tibetan people.

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[…] “Half a million men are eyeball to eyeball,” says Mohan Guruswamy, a China expert in Delhi. He sees diminishing prospects for settling the border dispute. Despite well-established routines between the two sides’ infantry patrols to avoid clashes, he worries about a persistent risk of accidental conflict.

A deal over the border has for years been self-evident: China gets to keep Aksai Chin in the west and India gets to keep the 80,000 square kilometres of Arunachal Pradesh, which China informally calls “South Tibet”. In the past China has signalled a readiness to settle the dispute along just such lines. But Indian leaders and parliament have always balked, saying voters would not tolerate losing an inch of territory, even when no settled populations are involved.

[…] Broader relations have improved over the past couple of years, though with no progress on the border. Occasional plans for joint military operations are announced and then quickly forgotten. Formal border talks exist—a 16th round is due between special representatives—but no one expects anything to follow from them.

As the years slip by, China may grow less interested in a quiet border. Observers in India worry that if either China’s generals or its nationalist social-media activists and editors gained sway over border discussions, Chinese diplomats would struggle to propose compromises.

The Economist’s Banyan blog includes an account of the two-day journey to Tawang, and explains how the 1962 conflict came about:

The war, 50 years ago, was the result in the short-term of Indian assertiveness, especially in the face of Chinese expansion farther to the west, in Kashmir. The mutual border was (and is) a disputed line drawn by colonial authorities with a thick nib, known as the McMahon line, after the Indian foreign secretary of 1914. China refused to recognise India’s sovereignty over the territory it drew in. Rather than assuage its northern neighbour, however, India chose to push soldiers—and frontier posts—farther and farther forward, even north of the McMahon border.

Yet the longer-term causes of the fighting were messier. China, in the 1950s, had quashed an uprising by Tibetans north of the border. It had also stolen into territory in Jammu and Kashmir state, which India’s considered to be its own land. In 1959 the Dalai Lama, Tibetans’ spiritual leader, fled into India, taking refuge at the monastery in Tawang. He was greeted warmly by India’s politicians and public. Many thousands of other Tibetans followed, forming a government in exile. Arguably the conflict of 1962 was in part a belated, vindictive, reaction by Mao to punish his neighbour for granting asylum to an internal opponent.

Newly unearthed official documents shed additional light on the start of the war. From The Hindu’s Ananth Krishnan:

Three months before China launched its offensive against India on October 20, 1962, a top Chinese official warned at a meeting with an Indian diplomat that China would take military action if India did not cease its continuing troop advancements in the west — a warning that went unheeded — according to recently declassified Chinese documents.

The documents, which include internal memos sent from Chinese officials in New Delhi to Beijing and notes of negotiations from 1950 to 1962, provide fresh insights into Chinese decision-making in the decade leading up to 1962 and shed light on missed opportunities to resolve the boundary issue — both during the ill-fated visit by Premier Zhou Enlai to New Delhi in 1960 and in the last-ditch talks held just three months before the war started.

At TIME, discussing Tibet’s place in Sino-Indian relations, Nilanjana Bhowmick argues that a repeat of the 1962 war is now unlikely:

While the dispute remains frozen over glacial passes and rounds of border talks yield pitiful results, the narrative of India-China ties has moved on. The last ten years have been shaped by growing, significant economic links. In 2005, the two countries agreed to a “strategic and cooperative partnership” after a meeting between Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and Indian PM Manmohan Singh. Last June, Chinese vice premier Li Keqiang proclaimed Sino-Indian ties to be the most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century. “India and China are not in competition,” Singh said in 2009. “There is enough economic space for us both.”

[…] Given the political and economic stakes, both sides are likely to grudgingly preserve the status quo, at least for now. “There is a certain trend of animosity [in China] towards India, which is continuous,” Mohan Guruswamy of the Observer Research Foundation says. “And we have to live with that just the way they have to live with our growing friendship with other countries and the Tibet issue. 1962, however, will never happen again.”

But a recent Pew survey previously covered on CDT shows a deepening mutual wariness between the Chinese and Indian publics, reports Tom Wright at India Real Time:

[…] The Pew Research Center report, released Tuesday, shows that two-thirds of Chinese respondents viewed India unfavorably and 23% favorably. By comparison, 43% of Chinese involved in the survey said they viewed the U.S. favorably.

[…] What’s perhaps most notable in the report is that only 39% of respondents said they viewed Beijing’s relationship with India as one of cooperation, down significantly from 53% in 2010.

Only 23% of Indians term their nation’s relationship with China as one of cooperation; only 24% think China’s growing economy is a good thing, Pew research shows.

These negative attitudes mean it’ll be hard for China and India to take bold measures needed to forge a long-lasting thaw in relations.

Meanwhile, writes Rajat Pandit at The Times of India, Indian military officers eye China with suspicion, claiming that lessons have been learned from 1962, and that “we can punch back now”:

Pakistan has always been the more in-your-face threat for India, stoking militancies, launching incursions and rattling its nuclear sabre. “But Pakistan can be managed,” says a senior military officer.

“China is the actual long-term threat. Its strategic intentions remain unclear. We have to constructively engage with Beijing but also keep our powder dry for all eventualities,” he adds.

[…] China has systematically built military infrastructure all along the unresolved 4,056-km Line of Actual Control (LAC), with five airbases, an extensive rail network and over 58,000-km of roads in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Apart from deploying medium-range ballistic missiles and fighters on the Tibetan plateau, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has now also taken to holding a series of high-end air and ground combat exercises near the Indian borders.

Beijing also continues to systematically widen its arc of influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by forging extensive maritime linkages with eastern Africa, Seychelles, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan, among others. “China may be doing all this to protect its sea lanes supplying energy but it also strategically encircles India,” says a naval officer.

This latter arena, complicated by energy supplies and trade routes, may play a more central role in future than the two countries’ Himalayan border. From Rajeev Sharma at China’s Global Times:

[…] China is not an Indian Ocean power and yet it is investing a lot of diplomatic and military capital into becoming one. In retaliation, India, which is not a power in the South China Sea or East China Sea, is working overtime to project itself as one. This is the crux of Sino-Indian strategic rivalries.

[…] In many ways, the South China Sea and Indian Ocean are strategically interrelated. The presence of a maritime power in one international water body inevitably increases its leverage in the other international water body. While China has been arguing that, despite the name, the Indian Ocean doesn’t belong to India alone, India and other countries can equally contend that South China Sea too does not belong to China alone.

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For decades, Nepal has been a safe haven for Tibetans fleeing China but activists say their people’s peaceful existence is at threat because of Beijing’s growing influence over its Himalayan neighbour ….

In February, Nepal police arrested 13 students protesting in front of the United Nations headquarters in Kathmandu, releasing them only after they had spent two weeks in jail.

“They were just taking part in a human rights protest and they were arrested. Before, when people got arrested they would be released on the same night,” said Dolma, who has been detained twice in recent months.

“We get information that they got orders from China to be kept in detention for so long.”

Last month, a CNN team was harassed on the Nepalese side of the border by plain-clothed Chinese men while reporting on the same issue, as Nepalese guards looked on.

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“Since China has given Nepal a lot of money, the Nepali government doesn’t let Tibetans do much of anything. They don’t let us gather to mourn, or protest. They even pick up Tibetans while they are walking on the street and send them to jail,” Sonam Choden alleged.

The video report includes scenes of a near-scuffle on the Nepalese side of the border between the CNN crew and plain-clothed Chinese men. The incident recalls recent attacks on journalists in and around the Zhejiang village of Panhe.

We were approached by several men in plain clothes, who put their hands over the camera as we tried to film on the border. The men were speaking Chinese to one another and were clearly on the Nepalese side of the border.

Nepal’s border police were also there. Their security forces had warned us that if the uniformed Chinese police came over the bridge, we’d better watch out because our camera would likely get broken.

However, the Nepalese forces didn’t try to stop us from filming; nor did they stop the Chinese men from following us deep into Nepal’s territory.

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A 43-year-old Harvard law scholar and son of a guerrilla fighter was sworn in as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile, taking charge of the Tibetan freedom movement from the Dalai Lama, who announced his retirement from his political role in March ….

Mr. Sangay’s appointment is troubling for China because he once belonged to a radical Tibetan youth organization that has advocated violence and still seeks full independence, rather than the autonomy that the Dalai Lama has pursued through nonviolence ….

Mr. Sangay said he personally did not espouse violence, because he thought it was “futile,” but added that he had advocated independence and joined “confrontational” protests during his involvement with the Tibetan Youth Congress.

It is not only the Chinese who are troubled by the transition, however. The Financial Times quoted an unidentified member of the Central Tibetan Administration as saying that “Mr Sangay had attracted resentment by running a cash-fuelled, ‘all-American-style election campaign’ to win office“, reflecting wider anxieties about cultural changes in the diasporic community.

China Real Time posted a set of photos of the ceremony, while a report from Al Jazeera English is available on YouTube:

Read more about Lobsang Sangay, and a recent interview with the Dalai Lama in which he discusses his retirement from politics, via CDT.

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1. The Nature of the Movement

This modest movement called Lhakar comes from the fact that I am Tibetan, and it is like a note reminding us that we are Tibetan in our daily life. Through this movement, we restore, renovate and keep our language, culture, identity and tradition.

Through this technique we can keep the people of the Snowland’s soul language till the end of humankind. This technique helps us retain Tibetan culture, Tibetan good morals and the traditions which are born from our soul language. This technique is easy and it is meaningful ….

I am Tibetan, from today I will remind myself every day that I am a Tibetan till I die.

I am Tibetan, from today I will wear only Tibetan traditional dress, chuba, every Wednesday.

I am Tibetan, from today I will stop eating meat and only eat a vegetarian diet and gain more merit every Wednesday.

I am Tibetan, from today I will only use Tibetan and speak Tibetan when I call or send a message to Tibetans.

Though the movement started in Tibet itself, it has also taken root abroad. On the Lhakar Diaries blog, for example, a group of young diasporic Tibetans is recording their expressions of cultural identity, such as exploring the history of Tibetan literature:

It wasn’t long ago that I thought Tibetan writing consisted largely of Buddhist scriptures, and some very recent poems and stories from Tibet and exile. But in the spring of this year, I took a course on this subject taught by Lauran Hartley (one of the pioneers in Tibetan literature studies) at Columbia and learned quickly of the immense scope and diversity of our nation’s canon.

Over the coming weeks, I will explore and learn more about everything from the history of Tibetan novels to the influence of Indian literature to autobiographies to corpse tales to avant garde poetry in the 1980s and more. I’ll share what I learn here not as an expert but as student of literature and an aspiring writer.

So let’s get started…what did the beginning of Tibetan literature look like?

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Following elections in March, Mr Sangay emerged as the surprise front-runner to become Kalon Tripa – a position often referred to as “prime minister” of a “Tibetan government-in-exile” headed by the Dalai Lama.

But the new Kalon Tripa is expected to have to shoulder much of the authority previously borne by the Dalai Lama, who, at the age of 75, has announced he is to give up his political role.

He will have to lead a global movement that campaigns for Tibetan rights and freedoms under Chinese rule. He’ll also manage the ramshackle “government-in-exile” that sits on a dusty hillside in northern India, in the town of Dharamsala.

But his “government” has neither country nor international recognition. And the exiled Tibetans appear to have elected a man who has almost no experience of his homeland, and none of government.

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This means that a 350-year era of Tibetan history will come to an end, and Dalai Lamas will no longer be the political leaders of the Tibetan people.

Instead, the leader of the Tibetan government, which now exists only in exile in India and is charged with “rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and restoring freedom and happiness in Tibet,” will be their prime minister. The last two prime ministers have been chosen democratically by the 150,000 exiles, and an election was held to choose the next one on March 20. (The front-runner is a 42-year-old Tibetan named Lobsang Sangay who graduated from Harvard Law School; however, the final results won’t be announced until late April.) The winner would become the ultimate leader of Tibetan exiles if this proposal is accepted by the exile parliament, which alone has authority to change the exile constitution. But so far 42 of the 43 exile parliamentarians, meeting in northern India this week, are still insisting that the Dalai Lama remain in power, though they have agreed to set up a committee to examine the issue.

Then again, the most important reaction to the Dalai Lama’s statement will come not from the exiles, but from the 5.5 million Tibetans in China, whose willingness to accept Chinese rule is at the root of the China-Tibet question. They constitute just .4 percent of China’s population, but, like Mongols in Inner Mongolia and Uighurs in Xinjiang, inhabit vast areas of China where the central government’s territorial claims are weakest. Each of these peoples has supporters in large numbers among fellow ethnics living just across China’s borders with India, Nepal, Central Asia, Mongolia, and elsewhere. As a result, their ability to draw the worried glance of Beijing and so impact Chinese politics is far out of proportion to their actual numbers. The authorities respond to even slight indications of dissent among these nationalities with disproportionate force and angry rhetoric.

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Post tags: Dalai Lama, tibet politics, Tibetan exiles
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In a speech posted on the internet and delivered in the northern Indian hilltown of Dharamasala, where the Tibetan community in India is principally based, the veteran Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said that he would ask the Tibetan parliament in exile to make the necessary constitutional changes to relieve him of his “formal authority” as head of the Tibetan community outside China.

The assembly, which meets early next week, is expected to approve his request. Though long-anticipated, the move away from the limelight by one of the world’s best known political figures signals a dramatic change.

Analysts and supporters have described the decision of the Dalai Lama, whose office traditionally combines spiritual and temporal roles, as “historic”.

[...] “As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power. Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect,” the 76-year-old was set to tell an audience at his traditional appearance to mark the anniversary of the Tibetan people’s uprising of 1959 against Communist Chinese authorities in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and his own escape to India.

In the same speech, the Dalai Lama called on China’s leaders to respect free expression and a free press. From the BBC:

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said China needed to show freedom of expression and freedom of the press to earn the world’s respect and trust.

[...] “China, with the world’s largest population, is an emerging world power and I admire the economic development it has made,” he said.

“It also has huge potential to contribute to human progress and world peace. But to do that, China must earn the international community’s respect and trust. In order to earn such respect China’s leaders must develop greater transparency, their actions corresponding to their words. To ensure this, freedom of expression and freedom of the press are essential.”

March 10 marks the 52nd anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet which led the Dalai Lama to flee to India, where he has resided ever since. In 2008, the anniversary was marked with widespread protests and riots throughout Tibet.

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Post tags: Dalai Lama, tibet politics, Tibetan exiles
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Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Mario Otero, who also serves as the White House’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues, visited Tibetan refugee centers in Nepal and southern India last week during a week-long trip to South Asia. During her visit, Otero showed the US’s solidarity to Tibetan exiles, even pressing Nepalese authorities to soften their stance on refugees. She also held bilateral meetings with senior government officials in New Delhi, Nepal and Bhutan.

Otero was accompanied with Scott H DeLisi, the US ambassadorto Nepal, and other US diplomats. They met with Nepalese Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal and raised issues relating to challenges faced by Tibetan refugees. “We made it clear that this is an important issue for us,” Otero told Nepalese media.

The envoy called on the Nepalese government to honor the United Nations-brokered “gentlemen’s agreement” between Nepal and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to provide safe transit to Tibetan refugees who wish to travel through Nepal to Dharamsala, India, the capital of exiled Tibetans. She also raised the issue of free passage for refugees from Tibet who face problems in Nepal due to their lack of identity cards. “There is a stable practice while dealing with Tibetan issues which ensures providing them free passage to India,” the US envoy was quoted by Kantipur online.

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Post tags: human rights diplomacy, Tibet, Tibetan exiles
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The 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, could be a Chinese “plant”, suspect Indian intelligence agencies looking into the spiritual leader’s affairs after raids on his transit home at Sidhbari near Dharamshala on Thursday night. Rs 8.5 crore worth foreign currency was recovered.

Intelligence agencies say the Karmapa may be part of a Chinese plan to control monasteries along the Sino-Indian border. The exact circumstances of Dorje’s “escape” from Tibet in 2000 have always puzzled Indian agencies. He claimed to have hoodwinked Chinese authorities by going into exclusion and reaching Nepal.

A source said the agencies have information to suggest the Karmapa has links with China, including funding. “The huge recovery, including 11 lakh Chinese yuan, substantiates what we have always suspected. The Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax authorities have been asked to probe this,” said an intelligence official. He added Dorje may be questioned.

And from MSN:

The raids on the Karmapa monastery in Sidhbari were conducted Thursday after the police arrested two people at Mehatpur in Una district a day before and seized unaccounted Rs.1 crore from them.

Police believe the money was meant for some ‘illegal’ land deal in Dharamsala in Kangra district with the involvement of Karmapa’s aide Rubgi Chosang.

Chosang, who was an accountant in the monastery, was arrested Friday. He was sent to police custody for nine days by a Una court.

Update: The Karmapa has denied any wrongdoing. From Sify:

In a statement issued here Saturday evening, a spokesman of the Karmapa said: ‘The cash in question, under current investigation by the police is offerings received for charitable purposes from local and international disciples from many different countries wishing to support His Holiness Karmapa’s various charitable activities.’

The statement denied any China-link to any activities of the Karmapa or his office.

‘At this point, we can say that His Holiness Karmapa has a large following of Tibetans from Tibet, who make donations in Chinese currency,’ the statement said.

See also a report about the raid from AP.

Read more about the Karmapa via CDT.

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Post tags: India, Karmapa, tibetan buddhism, Tibetan exiles
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