Letter to the EditorIn response to Outlook’s article on Tibetan community in exile By Dhondup Gyalpo
This
is in response to the article titled “Tocsin On Mount Exile” by Chander
Suta Dogra published in the latest issue of your esteemed magazine (7th
June).By quoting tidbits from stray ideas of handful few
individuals, Dogra has taken full liberty in making sweeping
assumptions on issues related with the Tibetan community in exile,
especially their relations with the Indian people.The
profundity of Tibetan sense of gratitude towards the generosity of
Indian Government and people is candidly clear in the series of “Thank
you India” events hosted by Tibetans across the world since last year.
In fact, this voluntary expression of popular Tibetan gratitude towards
India has irked China so much that they have been bashing it as an act
of sycophancy, meant for pandering the “Indian overlords”. Maintaining
cordial and friendly relations with Indians became a cause for Tibetans
since some years back when intelligence sources revealed that in order
to undermine the Tibetan community in exile, “foreign elements” are
actively exploring all various modes of engineering and instigating
tensions and conflicts within the Tibetan community, and between
Tibetan and Indian people.The shenanigans of foreign elements
have thus far drawn a blank in their cause, especially in terms of
disturbing the relations between Tibetans and Indians in not only
Dharamshala, but across the country as well. The fact that
Dharamshala has seen development, “unimaginable even a decade ago”, as
Dogra put it, should speak volumes about the prevailing social
conditions. To say that “a new kind of low-intensity conflict between
Tibetans and locals is evident in and around Dharamsala” is therefore a
gross misrepresentation of the actual truth.Furthermore,
singling out the recent Tibetan refugees by profiling them as
“aggressive and violent” and heaping the blame squarely and entirely on
them, is not only unfair, but could also serve as a cause for creating
divisions within the Tibetan community in exile. It is quite natural
that, as in all other communities, occasional brawls between
individuals or groups of individuals have occurred and are bound to
occur in the future also.In fact, the instances of fisticuffs
between Tibetan and Indian peoples are far fewer than those that have
occurred within Tibetan or Indian people themselves. There is as such
no need to communalise these brawls, which are being tackled
successfully within the existing provisions for maintaining law and
order. If only Dogra had made some effort in scratching
beyond the surfaces of two communities, or even, examined the hawkers
or the nature of petty businesses done by majority of Tibetans and
Indians, she would have found them to be quite different and separate,
and as such, complimentary, rather than competitive.In order to
prove her point, Dogra has also liberally adapted the epithet of “the
world’s most successful community in exile” which has been attributed
to the Tibetans in India, into “the world’s richest refugees”. The
Tibetan refugees are not known for their ability to mint cash, but for
their building a vibrant, cohesive community in exile that has
successfully preserved and promoted their cultural heritage and
identity. None of these, of course, would have been possible without
the generous support from the Indian government and people.Dogra
also appears to have been misguided by an exaggerated notion about the
affluence of Tibetan people and the generosity of “foreign aid”. She
noted that the Dharamshala Tibetans are “well-dressed” and have “plenty
of money to spend” because, she says, they are “flush with foreign
aid”! She does not elucidate further on exactly how and what kind of
“foreign aid” makes a refugee community have “plenty of money” to
squander. Her revelation otherwise could have been of tremendous help
in alleviating the rampant problem of unemployment among Tibetan youth
or the harsh living conditions of impoverished recent refugees. These
social issues are of course too boring and usual to make for
sensational headlines.It was also extremely irresponsible to
generalise the fancy ideas of few individuals and say that “a large
number of Tibetans now want Indian citizenship” without corroborating
it with valid figures and sources. Because, as Kalon Tripa Prof.
Samdhong Rinpoche reportedly told Dogra, there is no need for seeking
Indian citizenship. “Except for voting and electoral rights, we enjoy
all the facilities and benefits that any Indian citizen enjoys.” At
a time when we Tibetans have been reflecting on and expressing our deep
sense of gratitude for over half a century of generous assistance and
support from the Indian government and people, it is therefore
extremely disheartening to come across this article saying that we
Tibetans view ourselves as “second-class” citizens of India. Nothing
could be further from the truth.The absurdity of this notion is
in fact dispelled by Dogra herself. On the one hand, she conveys the
Tibetan perception of being “second-class” citizens. On other hand, she
also conveys that it is doubtful whether many of the Tibetans in India
would want to go back to their homeland once the Tibet issue is
resolved. As a Tibetan born and bred in India, I always felt
that I am “a Tibetan Indian”, even though I don’t have Indian
citizenship. Despite being born a refugee in India, I have had all the
opportunities and freedoms that the citizens of India enjoy. Thus,
considering the plight of my people in Tibet, suffering unimaginable
oppression of a repressive regime, or for that matter, the fact that
about 42% of Indian people still live below poverty line, we Tibetans
in India have never failed in counting our blessings.
