Chinese officials criticise the Dalai Lama as an anti-motherland conspiratorial politician, ‘a wolf in monk’s robes’, while many Tibetan exiles are exasperated with the failure of his ‘middle way’ (appealing for genuine autonomy within China). His ‘strategy’ has been one that is neither anti-China nor anti-Chinese. He seeks to make a moral appeal to the conscience of the Chinese people and government. Nevertheless, his constant assurances and watering down of demands has failed to win him anything but distrust and opprobrium from China. The 1.3 billion plus Chinese people do not even know what he stands for except that he is a ‘splittist’. That ‘the Dalai clique fans separatism’ is a commonsense even among non-Communist Chinese people for their knowledge of him is filtered through a censored media. While Han Chinese often exoticise and sometimes appreciate Tibetan Buddhism and culture, they are not even aware of the Dalai Lama’s compromises and appeals to their conscience.So how can non-violence really work as a political strategy to gain genuine autonomy within China? One can ascribe the Dalai Lama’s hope for and reliance on a change of heart inside China to four things. One, pragmatism, since a violent Tibetan national struggle would be suicidal, go against Tibetan cultural identity, and is unlikely to find widespread support among Tibetans inside China. Two, Buddhism interpreted in a universalist and compassionate manner. We should note that Buddhism does not necessarily lead to pacifism and we can look to Sinhalese chauvinism as a good example of how Buddhists may have no compunction in dehumanising their enemies. Three, a personal philosophy that is resolutely anti-violence and focuses on humanity. Those who criticise the Dalai Lama for weakening the Tibetan cause should realise that the very fact that ‘Free Tibet’ attracts more sympathetic attention globally than say ‘Free Kurds’ or ‘Free Uyghuristan’ is a direct result of his popularity as an apostle of peace. Four, his ideas of politics have been shaped significantly by an admiration for Gandhi. We may recall that when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the committee chairman said that this was ‘in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi’. The Tibetan leader’s anxieties about violence and insistence that his people should protest Chinese state atrocities but not hate the Chinese people, is very Gandhian. The Dalai Lama’s threat to resign from his political role (for he cannot resign as the Dalai Lama) and appeal to ‘both sides’ to stop the violence reminds one of Gandhi’s insistence on ending the non-cooperation movement in 1922 after the violence at Chauri Chaura. One cannot expect the Dalai Lama to opportunistically strike the iron when it is hot, to make it really unpleasant for the Chinese by adopting a harder stance in the run-up to Olympics. The pathological China-bashers (and there are many in India and the west) will jump onto the bandwagon of ‘Free Tibet’ only to embarrass China. But what is the point of morality if it is based solely on the calculus of cost and benefit? The Dalai Lama’s moral leadership is untarnished. How about his political leadership at this time of crisis? The Tibetan government in exile of which he is the leader has shown itself to be uncreative and bankrupt when it comes to finding a way forward. Appeals to the international community, a euphemism for western states (since the non-western ones remain concerned only with their own backyard), do not work beyond a point, since power and not fraternity is what marks this ‘community’. In any case, the Gandhian analogy is not really relevant. Gandhi’s insistence on non-violence as moral as well as political force — his argument was that mass mobilisation is only possible if the nationalist movement steers clear of violence — worked in a different context. Had Gandhi solely appealed to the British sense of justice and morality, we would not even be knowing who he was. Non-violence works as a strategy only when it can mobilise people. Gandhi lived among the people he mobilised. The British were numerically minuscule vis-à-vis Indians in the country and Indians were never seen as part of British national identity. Demographically, the parallel does not hold in the case of China and Tibet. The Tibetans are part of Chinese nationalism. The Dalai Lama’s exile offers him no means to influence the majority of Tibetans living inside Tibet except through his own symbolism. Diasporic Tibetans know that this symbolism imposes its own limitations on the options available to them to shape their political present. They cannot wait until the XIVth Dalai Lama’s demise to think of an alternative future (for there is someone else waiting for him to go away too). If they so decide after democratic discussions, they relieve him of the burden of leading Tibetans politically. He can provide moral and spiritual guidance to those who look up to him. Maybe he can then convince China to let him go to Tibet. A dynamic and radicalised exile leadership without the Dalai Lama will provide greater clarity but will it be able to overcome four main obstacles? One, intolerance of their activities by India and Nepal. Two, drying up of sympathy and attention given to Tibetans in the west. Three, divisions among Tibetans on various issues. Four, China’s overwhelming authority. And what if ‘Free Tibet’ for many inside China’s Tibet means something very different from their diasporic counterparts? What if most Tibetans inside Tibet have neither the appetite nor the desire to really free Tibet from China? What if they are reconciled to being part of China so long as religious freedom is allowed? So long as they get to worship the Dalai Lama!Dibyesh Anand, a reader in international relations at Westminster University, London, is author of ‘Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination’ d.anand@wmin.ac.uk
