As Lhakar becomes increasingly popular and transforms itself into a nationwide movement, it is bound to face certain obstacles. One such emerging obstacle is China’s crackdown on Lhakar. But this heavy-handed crackdown on people speaking Tibetan, wearing traditional attire, and abstaining from eating non-vegetarian food mirrors China’s spiralling down confidence and growing insecurity. Such crackdown will backfire on the regime and only end up strengthening Lhakar in the long run. Every dictatorship, at some point in its final days, activates its entire apparatus of oppression in a last-ditch attempt to maintain the status quo.
It has been a while since I started writing the series on Lhakar movement. My humble attempt has been to capture the essence of our rich culture and the sense of being Tibetan, the common feeling rekindled on this day through the lenses of my camera accompanied by few words.
We live in a digital age where most of our communication happens on this massive intertwined online platform. As I have been trying to share what I have captured, I was wondering how the Tibetans, especially the younger generations with access and technology know-how are spearheading the Lhakar movement in their own ways.
Browsing through a various platform, I found a site called lhakar.org. A site informing about the Lhakar movement and presenting awards to individuals giving their best in preservation and promotion of Lhakar. This site has been jointly released by a creative group of individuals comprising of activists, writers, a musician, a comedian, a blogger and a publisher.
Apart from this particular site, Tibetans across the world have created pages on Facebook. Let us look at the following pages and observe on how they engage.