Web Page No 2610

24^th August 2019

The Dalai Lama

1st Picture. The Dalai Lama on the trek

 2nd Picture. The Potala Palace in Lhasa

3^rd Picture. With Neru

4^th Picture. The Dalai Lama today

Here’s the story of the epic journey from Tibet to India of the Dalai Lama, a journey that took him across some of the most rugged terrain in the Himalayas. The year was 1959 and guerrilla war had been raging for years between Tibetan rebels and the Chinese forces in Tibet, a land that China considered to be its territory. On March 10^th , the Dalai Lama, received a seemingly innocuous invitation: Chinese General Zhang Chenwu asked if the 14th Dalai Lama would like to see a performance by a Chinese dance troupe. Soon after, he received a message asking him to come to the Chinese military headquarters without soldiers or armed bodyguards.

The Tibetans, who had already been suspicious of the sudden friendly overture, sensed a trap. On the day of the performance, thousands of Tibetan protesters surrounded Norbulingka (part of Potala Palace, Dalai Lama’s residence in Lhasa) to keep their young leader from being abducted, arrested or killed. As a cautionary measure, Dalai Lama’s closest advisers also asked him to escape from Tibet. Filled with despair, he eventually did.

On the night of March 17th, 1959, Tibet’s 23-year-old spiritual and political head disguised himself as a soldier and quietly slipped through the crowds surrounding his summer palace a place that he would never see again. Accompanying him were 20 of his officials and his mother and younger siblings.

Thus began his perilous journey to asylum. Traveling only at night to avoid detection by Chinese sentries, the group made their way across the Himalayan region on foot, included a crossing the 500-yard-wide Brahmaputra river. During the day, they would hide in tiny villages and encampments of the native Khamba tribe. For the next two weeks, there was no word of the Tibetan leader and people around the world feared that he had been killed. In Tibet, rumours floated about that the Dalai Lama “had been screened off from the view of Chinese planes by mist and low clouds conjured up by the prayers of the Buddhist holy men.”

Meanwhile, back in Lhasa, the Chinese had imposed a curfew and nearly 2000 lives were lost in the ensuing battle between the locals and the Chinese forces. Soon after, close to 800 artillery shells were fired into Norbulingka. A day later, China dissolved the Tibetan governing body and announced the establishment of a Tibetan autonomous region within the People’s Republic of China. By this time, furious Chinese troops were in hot pursuit of the escaping Tibetan leader. They had gradually started closing on him when on March 26th, 1959, his fleeing caravan finally reached Lhuntse Dzong — a few days march from the McMahon Line, the border between India and Tibet.

From here, he sent an urgent letter to Jawahar Lal Nehru (the then-Indian Prime Minister) seeking refuge in India. Forewarned, the Indian government immediately took measures to welcome and ensure the protection of Dalai Lama and his party. From Lhuntse Dzong they passed to the small village of Jhora and from there to the Karpo pass, the last before the border. Just as they were nearing the highest point of the track they received a bad shock. Out of nowhere, an aeroplane appeared and flew directly overhead. It passed quickly – too quickly for anyone to be able to see what markings it had – but not so fast that the people on board could have missed spotting the party.

If it was Chinese there was a good chance that they now knew where the party were. With this information they could return to attack from the air, against which there was no protection. India was their only hope.

On March 31^st , 1959, the Dalai Lama fought his way through wind-whipped peaks and snow-covered plateaus. Clad in weather-beaten clothes yet instantly recognizable among the small entourage, the Tibetan leader was welcomed by Indian officials who handed him a telegram from the Indian Prime Minister Neru.

Soon after, the Dalai Lama and his family were escorted to Tawang to rest and recuperate. A few weeks later, the Dalai Lama travelled to Mussoorie, where he was met by Nehru who formally welcomed him and offered him asylum. The two of them also discussed the future of the nearly 80000 Tibetan refugees who had followed their leader into exile.

Soon after, the Dalai Lama established the Tibetan government-in-exile. For the Tibetans who had followed him, it was a bittersweet moment they would remember for a long time, they had escaped Chinese occupation but had also lost their beloved homeland.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Dalai Lama has since never gone back to Tibet and continues to be the centre of the Tibetan community, the person to whom the Tibetans look for guidance in practically all matters. Even today, visitors to Lhasa report that the residents turn south and bow to offer salutations to their revered leader.

As Dalai Lama himself has often pointed out, he is the “longest guest of the Indian government.”

Interestingly, during his visit to northeast India in April 2017, the 81-year-old Dalai Lama came face to face with 79-year-old Naren Chandra Dasan, an Indian soldier who had been a part of the team that escorted him to safety inside India. Thanking the former soldier for his assistance nearly 60 years ago, he said, “Looking at your face, I now realise I must be very old too.”

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Peter

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