Happy 85th birthday to His Holiness @DalaiLama. Credit: Reuters Photo
by Kunchok Dhargyal 8 July 2020
The Dalai Lama celebrated his 85th Birthday through a virtual platform on 6th July 2020 in India
due to the pandemic that has spread all over the world. It was widely hailed by news channels
from India to Europe and America, except China as usual when it comes to the Dalai Lama,
the spiritual leader of Tibet. The Central Tibetan Administration was flooded with greetings of
more than 140 prominent figures from around the world following 85 video messages. On 6th
July, a post on official Tibet.Net highlighted “over 140 leaders and prominent figures from
around the world celebrated the 85th Birthday of His Holiness the great 14th Dalai Lama”. A
compiled video message with 38 greetings was published on Tibet TV and it was considerably
watched by the Dalai Lama himself on 6th July, the official birthday celebration at Dharamshala
in the Himachal State of India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the Dalai Lama ten years ago and it was the last
meeting of them till now. In January 2010, an incredible international Buddhist Heritage Seminar
was staged with the Gujarat Chief Minister Modi and the Dalai Lama at Baroda in Gujarat state.
Modi also presented a souvenir to the Dalai Lama and it was followed by Sikyong, the Tibetan
Prime Minister in exile attending the swearing-in ceremony of India’s newly elected Prime
Minister Modi in May 2014 just four years later. It became a pride of many Tibetans in India and
a young Tibetan woman from Himachal Pradesh wrote on her social media “Thank You Modi Ji
and BJP for your respect to the Tibetan Government in exile”. Appearing a few minutes on
television slapped Chinese politicians and India experienced unhappy responses though it’s a
historical victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party which strongly defeated the Congress Party after
30 years in India, one of the largest democratic countries in the world.
By the same token in 2016, President Pranab Mukherjee met the Dalai Lama during a
children’s summit at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and it was completely a non-political event but it
again cracked the tooth of Chinese Dragon and considered meeting as a disrespect against
their core interests and that is very much related to an article written by Dr. Dibyesh Anand, an
Associate Professor of International Relations at Westminster University in London. He said
“India should be proactive, not reactive in maintaining a dynamic Tibetan diaspora and India’s
real security guarantee in the Himalayan border regions”.
Interestingly, on April 1, 2018, at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex, a Thank You India event of the
CTA had become an unsuccessful attempt due to the undesirable growls of Chinese Dragon
against Indian Tiger with the Tibetan lion in between them and constantly having pain of being
eaten by both as their wishes when they get hungry. On 2nd July 2020, an Indian geostrategist
and author, Brahma Chellaney wrote on his twitter “In 2018 Modi ended all official contact with
Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government in exile”. It’s true because the central government had
stopped senior leaders and government functionaries of the centre and states not to mark 60
years of anniversary in exile by Tibetan refugees because India didn’t want to jeopardize their
peaceful atmosphere with China. “whatever we do, we don’t want to cause inconvenience to our
hosts or the person who wants to meet us”, CTA President said on March 28, 2018.
Behind the great game of Hindi-Chin Bhai-Bhai by the Nehru Government and the Mao regime I
think there are more interesting secrets between Tibet and India if we turn our historical pages
from Nehru in 1954, Vajpayee in 2003 and finally Modi from 2014 to 2020. However, in 2020, I
think Indian leaders are gradually starting to break the record of past history after a few decades
of being intervened with Tibet and it’s somehow a good wake up. On 6th July, a lot of Indian
leaders like Kiren Rijiju, Brahma Chellaney, Arvind Kejriwal, and Anupam Kher had personally
greeted the Dalai Lama. It might have been one of the largest loads of greetings from Indian
leaders to the Dalai Lama on his 85th Birthday since 2010 if not longer than that. Since April
2019, Shanta Kurma, a former chief minister and BJP leader followed by Bihar Chief Minister
Nitish Kurma and West Bengal governor Golpalkrishna Gandhi had submitted a letter to the
Union Government recommending Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award to the Dalai Lama
and more than 200 Indian parliamentarians are supporting it.
The former Indian Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao Menon wrote on her Twitter “I feel more and more that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama should be given Bharat Ratna”. She posted it just days after
Indian and Chinese armies had a clash at the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. I think it may be a
right time for Indian leaders to set a new record of saying India and Tibet Border than India and
China Border which contradicts the Simla Convention of 1914. An education reformer Sonam
Wangchuk with his tribal mind from Ladakh has already started a sweeping project, boycott
China with wallet power which he initially started from 1st June of 2020. China lost more
$6million after India officially banned 59 Chinese apps from June 29. India has strategically
started from the ground foundation and it will be a massive thrust to China if India keeps on
marching continuously. Isn’t it how Indian leaders are going to pull out some teeth of Chinese
Dragon while they are trying to kill some Bengal tigers?