Kartikey Sehgal

–Drugs and economic disparity in the Indian home of the Dalai Lama

(The author travelled to Dharamsala earlier this year.)

“There will be a big vacuum once the Dalai Lama leaves us”, says Sonam Dorjee, a member of the Tibetan Congress in India. Listening to him talk passionately about his love for Tibet, I begin to think that he subscribes to the philosophy of some young Tibetans who feel that violence is the only way to achieve Tibetan independence from China.

“There will be a big vacuum once the Dalai Lama leaves us”, says Sonam Dorjee, a member of the Tibetan Congress in India. “It is the Dalai Lama and non-violence for me, till I die”

“It is the Dalai Lama and non-violence for me, till I die”, he says and bites into another piece of momo, the favourite Tibetan dumpling. Like some other young Tibetans I spoke to, Sonam too wonders if one of the most popular tourist destinations in India will survive the problem of economic disparity and drugs when the Dalai Lama is no more.

I am at McLeodganj in Dharamsala. The rain clouds have designed themselves atop the Dhauladhar Mountains, across the Kangra Valley. The tourists, perched on the narrow trekking paths in the mountains can watch a million drops relieve the ground from the May heat. The rains mark the beginning of the biggest tourist season and foreigners will scan the place for food, clothes and spirituality. The winds are cold and the temples, internet cafes, momo shops, restaurants are huddled together and packed with foreigners and some Indian tourists. But at night, many lodges and hotels announce themselves as closed and the buzzing streets are left almost-empty.

Every night at 10:30-11, police constables walk the streets to ensure the absence of any surreptitious activity or any illegal consumption of drugs. The place shuts by around midnight and there is very little night-life in this popular destination.

…

I meet him one night at the Main Square (central point) of McLeodganj. “Have you eaten yet…there is a party tonight at…Lot of disco… no police problem”. I tell him that I will consider and then leave. He is a Tibetan and can converse in English and Hindi, like many other Tibetans.

At around 11 p.m, I pass by the Main Square again and watch him walk swiftly to a local Himachal boy and take a packet from him; he stuffs the packet inside his trousers. The local boy walks away quickly. The Tibetan then approaches me and asks, “You did not come Sir? Entry fee Rs. 300, for Indian only Rs. 200”. As I walk on he whispers, “You can buy more fun if you want. Open till 3 a.m”.

The Indian home of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, faces a perpetual problem of drug consumption. In 1959, the 14^TH Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso was given refuge at Dharamsala by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and since then this place has garnered International attention. Foreigners come here and see the monastery, the temples, mountains and if they are lucky, the they get to see the Dalai Lama.

“They also come here for new experiences. Easy stay and easy drugs”, says Manoj Kumar, age 34, a shopkeeper of bags and shawls. Manoj was at the party the night before where a local tried to “get fresh” with a foreign girl and was promptly stopped by the other locals. He paid a 100 Rs entry fee and was given free beer by his friends inside.

Manoj is a native of Punjab and has been here for the last twelve years. He now plans to leave Dharamsala and start a new business in Punjab. He agrees to talk to me because he likes my name and because we can talk over a beer.

Manoj is a native of Punjab and has been here for the last twelve years. He now plans to leave Dharamsala and start a new business in Punjab. He believes in the Dalai Lama as much as he believes in the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Then why is he leaving? His business is suffering. There has hardly been any sale today. There are so many shops for the same product and he is finding it tough to vie with the richer shops. He agrees to talk to me because he likes my name and because we can talk over a beer.

Part One to be continued.

Photographs

The rain clouds have designed themselves atop the Dhauladhar Mountains, across the Kangra Valley.

Russian Tourists at the Main Square (central point) of McLeodganj (Concerned about rising vegetable prices). Every night at 10:30-11, police constables walk the streets to ensure the absence of any surreptitious activity or any illegal consumption of drugs.

The rains mark the beginning of the biggest tourist season and foreigners will scan the place for food, clothes and spirituality.

The winds are cold and the temples, internet cafes, momo shops, restaurants are huddled together…

Part One to be continued.

Ananth Venkatesh

The Chinese Government’s inappropriate response to the chiefly peaceful demonstrations in Tibet is indicative of the potency of hard-line Communism in Chinese politics.

China, since the commencement of this century, has been increasingly conscious of reaching out to the rest of the globe to bolster its transnational image as a gigantic but sensible power.

Nonetheless, its reactions to the remonstrations in Tibet, championed generally by peaceable monks, are suggestive of the tendency of favouritism for authoritarian measures, still established in the mindsets of consequential Chinese politicians. The international community must condemn this confrontational disposition of China and prevent its hegemonic designs.

The Dalai Lama, on countless occasions, has explicated his sentiment that Tibet must be a significantly self-governing constituent of China. This concession is not in accordance with a majority of the younger Tibetans, who are disinclined towards accepting the solution of autonomy.

The embracement of the aggressive mode of protesting by young Tibetans can be traced back to the previous years of fruitlessness of the Dalai Lama’s method of negotiating, designed to bridge the ideological divide between the Tibetans and Beijing.

The Chinese continually repudiated the Dalai Lama’s peaceful overtures and dubbed him, at various stages, as a splitter, anarchist, liar, one who is deceitful, among other appalling titles.

China aims to consolidate its grip over Tibet through demographic, political and cultural means.

The triumph of the Chinese in this regard is noticeable almost everywhere in Tibet and, more so, after the launch of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, a marvellous engineering feat, connecting the rest of mainland China with Tibet. The railway has streamed thousands of Han Chinese to Tibet ever since its inception. The Han Chinese, being ethnically dissimilar to Tibetans, largely pay obeisance to the diktats to the commands of Beijing.

Beijing is aiming for the elimination of the Tibetan script and language
in Tibetan schools. It wants to bombard the Chinese language, culture and propaganda in the mentalities of impressionable Tibetans.

Thus, an outburst of fierce protests and clashes in Tibet and in other countries during the Olympic torch relay was inevitable and was seen through violent displays like the storming and stoning of embassies.

The international reactions have been mostly predictable. There have been no tough resistances to China.
Boycotting the Olympics is a dynamic notion, but will not be enforced by the relevant nations since they have copious amounts of stakes in the expanding Chinese economy and do not want to be deprived of the benefits of being stakeholders in it.

Morality in politics and foreign policy was decimated abundant years ago. The least the nations could have done was to refuse the attendance at the opening and concluding ceremonies. Some heads of countries seem to have embarked on that route of thinking (Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of England) and have earned plaudits for the same. The Speaker of the U.S. Congress, Nancy Pelosi, on her trip to India, also unequivocally stated her displeasure over the authoritarianism of the Chinese vis-à-vis its handling of the Tibetan issue.

India unfortunately cannot be categorised as a nation that has exemplified intrepidness at the onslaught of Chinese pressure. She has displayed sickening emaciation and helplessness while being asked to retort to the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protestors. The recent summoning of the Indian ambassador to China well after midnight to discuss the security measures taken by India to ensure smooth passage of the torch relay is proof of the ugly reality of India being bulldozed by the Beijing.

The actuality that the UPA Government is beefed up by the Leftists, without whom it would be eliminated, is too pivotal a point to sideline.
The ideological affinity of the Indian Leftists with the Chinese will render them unable to disapprove the tyrannical actions of the Chinese. The UPA cannot afford to irk the Left further by confronting the Chinese on the Tibetan question for its plate of problems with respect to its engagement with the Left is already full.

Though Communism has been modified in China to give it a Chinese flavour, a process that was initiated after the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reign, the Indian Communists still are awed by China, which is evident from their muted replies to the atrocities on Tibetans, not just recently, but ever since the illegitimate conquest of self-ruling Tibet by the Chinese in 1950, led then by the dictator Mao Zedong, who made his distaste for Tibetan traditions quite unambiguous during the Cultural Revolution, when scores of revered Tibetan monasteries were destroyed, monks were mercilessly disrobed and enlightening facets of Tibetan civilisation were heartlessly liquidated.

Unless the Chinese address the grievances of the Tibetans, we should see frequent protests by severely disillusioned Tibetans. India shelters lakhs of Tibetans, who have merged well with Indian society. India must continue doing so and, along with other States, clarify to the Chinese that resolution of the Tibetan crisis satisfactorily is mandatory.
A modicum of moral fabric in foreign policy is obligatory.