We the Tibetans really need to hit the reset button to steer the fight of our sinking cause 

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Hundreds of Tibetans and Indian supporters protesting at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on the 55th Tibetan National Uprising Day on March 10, 2014. Photo: TPI/Yeshe Choesang

Hundreds of Tibetans and Indian supporters protesting at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on the 55th Tibetan National Uprising Day on March 10, 2014. Photo: TPI/Yeshe Choesang

by Ugyen Gyalpo    14 September 2020

Xi Jinping, the undisputed, authoritarian dictator of the world, with over millions of deaths under his belt, knocking out the freedom of everyone and true reincarnate of Mao, standing in the red corner soaked with pools of blood is said to be visiting Tibet soon amidst the escalating tension between China and India. Xi Jinping, aka Xitler has vowed to build an impregnable fortress around Tibet and at the same time intensify the sinicisation of Tibetan Buddhism and its civilization and culture as a whole that is already forced to the brink of extinction.

He has vowed to plant “seeds of loving China” in the depths of the hearts of every Tibetan youth. Ironically until now, for over six decades, the CCP has been harvesting nothing but mounting disapproval, suspicion, ire, and protest of the Tibetan people from the seed of relentless pain and suffering they have sowed.

And many of the Tibetan youth Xi Jinping aims to target to sow seeds upon are probably the orphans of CCP’s ruthless regimes, whose parents have long been evaporated into thin air after arbitrary arrest in their deep sleep and many still languishing behind the bars of the darkest Chinese gulags, tilling lands like yoked farm animals and scavenging on rats for food, true accounts coming out of former Tibetan political prisoner who miraculously survived one of those vicious Chinese Gulags. So much so for sowing seeds of loving China, when ironically all that CCP has done is that they have made these very youth orphans and beggars on their own streets.

China has a ten year, twenty years, thirty-year plan to totally erase and evaporate the Tibetan culture, civilization and language. What plan does the Central Tibetan Administration(CTA) have besides being a role model of democracy without a country? What plan does the CTA have to further dialogue with China that is stuck at a dead-end for decades at a time when even talking and the manifestation of any support for the Middle Way policy is deemed illegitimate and is a punishable crime inside of Tibet? Why is the Middle Way Policy still considered the most “viable policy” and a solution within the framework of the People’s Republic of China, when Tibetans and their way of life are brutally under relentless attack and when over 160 self-immolations inside of Tibet manifested the endless and brutal suffering of the Tibetan inside of Tibet? Why is there such a disconnect between the ground reality in Tibet and the aspirations of the CTA? Why does the CTA still believe in settling for “One country Two systems” when the democracy, autonomy, and freedom of the people of Hong Kong that we aspire to achieve is also raped by the draconian national security law under the open eyes of the world?

India has always calibrated the Tibet issue cautiously with China starting from the days of Nehru’s era. Now with the growing hostility and bitter stand-off at the gateways of the Tibetan plateau, now with a rising India, bold, determined India, faced off with an expansionist China hovering around their necks,  India must and should, first of all, play a defining role to help stop cinicisation of India-China border by calling the disputed region as the Indo-Tibetan borders and secondly, India must also rise, declare and recognize Tibet as an independent country, which would help further resurrect Tibet’s historical sovereignty and also restore the dishonored demarcation line between India and Tibet based on the McMohan line signed between the then-independent Tibet and British India back in 1914, Simla convention.

Today Ladakh is at the forefront of a major escalation between the two Asian giants. If there is a war in this border region, it will be the last straw that will break the camel’s back of ushering the end of the Chinese Communist Party. China’s erratic expansionist craze has drawn the ire of the world. A miscalculation here or an accident there at the South China Sea would be very very costly for the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore India’s change of policy towards Tibet will be forthcoming. Tibet as a historical buffer state between the two will be resurrected into a crescendo that will shape the new discourse on the border dispute. The world will follow suit starting from the United States in recognizing Tibet as an independent country. A Bill by a senator has already been laid in the U.S House of Congress to that recognizing Tibet as an independent country.

n our end in conjunction with an expectation from India, we really need to hit the reset button to steer the fight for our cause. We really need to wake up from our self-induced coma. We really need a “new referendum to change our political path” given the favorable political climate and the nonchalant political mood of the western bloc towards malicious China, changing the geopolitical dynamics when China is thrown at the anvil of judgment.

We really need “true democracy” to amplify the suppressed voices of the Tibetan people, to amplify the inner conscience of the Tibetan people that are shriveled in fear to speak out for the fear of being vilified and abhorred, as it was evidently clear in many cases with the stigmatization of Tibetans supporting the Rangzen movement as an anti-Dalai Lama clique.

In order to reignite Tibet’s fight for freedom and independence, the initiative has to come from our side, even though all the other variables for a perfect storm that is brewing and is bound to destroy the already hollowed CCP from within is building gusto and strength. In order for us to capitalize on such favorable grounds, in all honesty, I truly think that we lack a legitimate, passionate, shrewd leader, who can propel and galvanize the movement of Rangzen without hurting the sentiments of the Tibetan people. An astute leader, who can walk and balance the fine delicate line of the religiously influenced politics of the Tibetan world and yet is able to galvanize the Tibetan people and help them free from their mental prison, to rise up and support the sacred Rangzen movement for Tibet as it is. A leader who can unite Tibetans free from the regional clinging, sectarian divide, and tribal wars. Very few that I know who can mobilize such a task are basking like fat alligators in their old glories of fame. Let me remind them that activism for Tibet is an unfinished job until we see real closure to our cause that is on a ventilator right now. Activism for Tibet goes beyond one’s term of an organization. It is our moral duty and obligation that shouldn’t have an expiration date.

Now with the rapid sinicisation of Buddhism and distortion of historical facts, the survival of Tibetan Buddhism inside of Tibet and also the Tibetan way of life is forced into the threshold of permanent cataclysmic extinction.

To quote His Holiness “if we want to keep the excellent tradition of Buddhism developed in Tibet alive, it will depend on the existence of freedom in Tibet” But sadly, this freedom has been choked for so long and as a matter of fact, the destruction has only intensified even after we gave up our historical independence and were and still are, willing to become one of the ethnic minority within the framework of the Chinese Constitution given our demands of genuine autonomy are met. Speaking about Chinese constitutional framework, a Tibetan language rights activists by the name of Tashi Wangchuk, who wanted to play by the rule of that framework we aspire to achieve as an ethnic minority, in his fight for Tibetan language rights through the legal course of action in accordance with the law was arrested for “Separatism charges” back in 2016 and was imprisoned for five years. For the past four decades, with our Middle Way Policy, we have compromised everything. We have nothing to lose now. China has already raped us repeatedly to the core. We have lost everything. The greatest pain is the pain to see the death of a nation. No one is bigger and dearer than a nation. Braves, cowards, patriots, traitors all die just like their ancestors did, but a nation will always live on even through treacherous times, as long as the fire of patriotism, faith, and unflinching hope remains.

Therefore a fresh referendum to steer the course of our sinking ship should be our call of duty. To quote Miguel Cervantes, “to be prepared is half the victory” I want to add a caveat to that “to be prepared for a new strategy on the face of defeat is half the battle won”