Sri Aurobindo: the Man who saw the Future

Sri Aurobindo

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's Birthday (and India's Independence Day), I republish an old article on the great Rishi, who brought me to India.

"Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul".

The Man who saw the Future  

It was perhaps a coincidence or my good ‘karma’, but traveling from France to India in 1972, I kept a pocketbook in my backpack: the French translation of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical magnum opus. I did not know it, but it was the Great Rishi’s Centenary Year. I have also to admit that I was not able to not decipher much about the Master’s philosophical vision. It was, however, to greatly influence my life and answer a fundamental question: should the ‘outside world’ be transformed into something ‘beautiful’ in the image of the Divine or should the material world be abandoned and all life devoted to reaching ‘higher’ realms?
I had serious reservations about the latter. Traveling in India in the early 1970s was a shock; the dirt, the chaos in the big cities, the lack of ‘modern’ facilities, the blaring loudspeakers, the crowds, the crowds everywhere, everything was a constant reminder that things were not so bad in Europe where trains ran on time, towns were clean, information was easily available to the public, hygiene a way of life.
Somehow Sri Aurobindo’s words struck home. He said: “The affirmation of a divine life upon earth and an immortal sense in mortal existence can have no base unless we recognise not only the eternal Spirit as the inhabitant of this bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutable robe, but accept Matter of which it is made, as a fit and noble material out of which He weaves constantly His garbs, builds recurrently the unending series of His mansions.”
Matter had to be transformed into the image of the Spirit; matter need not (and should not) be abandoned. It is quite a revolutionary statement.
It touched me deeply and I decided to settle in India.
It makes Sri Aurobindo relevant in our ‘modern’ century.
While the ‘Indian renaissance’ has recently been equated to economic growth, a sort of Chinese-model development with a constant GDP growth (a ‘to become rich is glorious’ à la Deng Xiaoping). Though he excluded nothing (‘synthesis’ being the keyword of Sri Aurobindo’s vision), it is certainly not the type of renaissance Sri Aurobindo envisaged for India.
His synthesis never meant to ape the Western model which, according to him, had already failed. He wanted India to rediscover her past, not for the sake of the past, but because “Spirituality is the master-key of the Indian mind”. The ancient seekers had found that “the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; [Ancient India] saw that the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware.”
This knowledge is the key to the true transformation of the bodily mansion of Mother India. Only then will India be able to play her rightful role in the world and truly shine.
In the meantime, planetary civilisation is going through one of the most difficult (and challenging) times of its recorded history. Just read a newspaper, whether published in Delhi, the Himalayas, China or Timbuktu, everywhere headlines are similar: pollution, corruption, poverty, global warming, environment catastrophes, nuclear proliferation, new viruses or the NSA (and Beijing) peeping into your private life…
In 1940, Sri Aurobindo foresaw: “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny... Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites…”
How can we deal with this crisis? Sri Aurobindo’s answer is by a change in consciousness; not only an individual one, but a revolutionary transformation of the entire race. Sri Aurobindo noted: “The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.... The law is the same for the mass as for the individual.”
The planet is today going through this difficult stage. India could help, but will she be able to grasp once more the Spirit which sustained her past achievements and formulate a ‘greater synthesis’?
In 1920, Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barindranath: “The chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or Dharma, but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge… The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge.” Since then, tremendous changes have occurred; the explosion of the Indian IT phenomenon is one of the many signs which could be cited. But is it enough?
To do justice to Sri Aurobindo one should read some of the 35 thick volumes of his philosophical, socio-political and evolutionary thought, as well as Savitri, an epic in 28,000 verses. His socio-political philosophy and how he translated it into action during his life as a revolutionary leader in Bengal and later a Rishi in Pondicherry, are thought-provoking.
Sri Aurobindo, in a chapter of his Foundations of Indian Culture envisioned a three-point program for the ‘renaissance in India’: “The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is its first, most essential work. ...The flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second.
An original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult.
These tasks written a century ago remain unfulfilled.
On August 15, 1947 India obtained independence. It coincided with the 75th birthday of the one who had been the first Indian to ask for Purna Swaraj in the early years of the 20th century. For this occasion, Sri Aurobindo wrote about five dreams he had for India.
The first one was to see India united again: “India today is free but she has not achieved unity.” During the last years of his life he often spoke of the aberration of the Partition. The second dream was to see the “resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia”. His third dream was a “world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.” The fourth dream was a “spiritual gift of India to the world”. The final dream was a new “step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.”
The person that Dr Karan Singh has called the Prophet of Indian Nationalism could already see beyond India’s freedom. Bharat had a larger role to play for the future of humanity.
Though for the sake of his personal sadhana, he lived a secluded life in his room in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo never retired into some sort of Nirvana or beatific splendour. He remained well acquainted with the politics of the sub-continent and the world situation. In 1940, when many Indian leaders were vacillating and would have supported a German victory in World War II, he sent a personal contribution to the British war effort and expressed ‘unswerving sympathy’ to the Allies cause. He wrote: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity.”
Sri Aurobindo opposed the hegemony of any one single ideology. For the planet to survive, every nation, every culture or individual has to find its rightful place according to its own genius.
It is why he took a strong stand when North Korea attacked the South in early 1950; he then foresaw the invasion of Tibet: “The whole affair is as plain as a pike-staff. It is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent - in passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India.”
We see the consequences in Ladakh or Arunachal today.
After visiting Pondicherry in 1928, Tagore said: “Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee! O friend, my country's friend, O Voice incarnate, free, Of India's soul.”  The poet added “You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world. Hearken to me!”
Sri Aurobindo’s Vision is still relatively unknown in India, but his ‘Adventure of Consciousness and Joy’ is the most urgent task at hand for humanity today.

China’s tainted corona

My article China’s tainted corona appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer



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While the contagious phase of COVID-19 may ebb and the communist regime may deny the PLA’s role in the battle, the world may not see it in the same light as before

The sudden apparition of Coronavirus on the world stage was unexpected for Chinese watchers. However, it is bound to have deeper implications than the Tiananmen massacre for the future of the Middle Kingdom. Even if the situation stabilises in the next few months, or by the end of the year, the community of nations may not see it in the same light. Undoubtedly, the role of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will continue to be discussed for long after the contagious phase of COVID-19 is behind us. From day one, a PLA unit, the Joint Logistics Support Force (JLSF), has been at the centrestage of what the communist party of China called the “people’s war” against the “demon” virus.
When I say day one, it means nearly two months after the deadly virus surfaced in Wuhan. The communist authorities were lax between December 1, 2019, when The Lancet’s epidemiological retrospective investigation showed the first confirmed case with symptoms of the novel Coronavirus pneumonia, and January 23, 2020, when the JLSF troops first arrived on the scene.
But what is JLSF? The body was created on January 11, 2016, as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s in-depth military reform measure. According to Xinhua, the JLSF “comprises the support forces for inventory and warehousing, medical services, transport, force projection, oil pipelines, engineering and construction management, reserve assets management and procurement.” Coincidentally, it is based in Wuhan. The first task given to the JLSF of the Central Military Commission (CMC) was to build the Huoshenshan Hospital, an emergency speciality field facility that accommodates 1,000 beds. Believe it or not, it was constructed in just eight days.
At first, 450 Army personnel were flown in to Wuhan. They were joined in by 1,400 military medical staff on February 3 and 2,600 additional medical personnel from the armed forces on February 13. Today more than 10,000 troops (including the militia also serving under the CMC) have been deployed.
Though the Generals were probably reluctant in the beginning, it became clearer to the Communist leadership in Beijing that only the PLA could save China. On January 29, Xi, who is also the CMC Chairman, had to personally intervene to exhort the military to save the nation. And the party. He ordered the military to win the battle, emphasising the importance of “keeping in mind the purpose and carrying the burdens.” He exhorted the troops “to keep the original spirit,” adding, “Our Army is a child soldier of the people, breathing with the people, sharing the same fate and connecting hearts.”
The PLA had to face its own problems.  The crew of the Type 054A multi-role frigate, Changzho, carrying anti-submarine missiles had to be quarantined. The Navy admitted the fear of an outbreak and the captain of the frigate, Yu Song Qiu, and a number of sailors were placed on lockdown. Shore leave rules for crew members aboard the Shandong were tightened to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on China’s second aircraft carrier. By the end of January, there were 54 declared cases of virus in Sanya in Hainan Island where the Shandong is based.
At the same time, the CMC started regulating the relations between the PLA and the civilians: Thirteen forms of activities were banned, including receiving money/securities and asking non-military organisations/individuals to provide money or commodities. Corrupt officers were warned: No illicit enrichment would be permitted.
Probably sensing the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the PLA to participate in the risky operations, the CMC opened a life insurance scheme for those personnel going to the “frontline.” It further declared that those, who would die combating the virus, would be named “martyr” by the Chinese State.
But the real challenge for the JLSF was to control the spread of the virus in Wuhan, which is the strategic hub for the defence industry — it has more than 350 research centres and industrial institutes as well as 1,700 hi-tech enterprises covering aerospace, satellites, rocketry and biotechnology. The future of all these institutions remained undecided.
According to Xinhua, China had to postpone its military recruitment drive, scheduled for the first half of this year to support the country’s epidemic prevention and control work. Wu Qian, the spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defence, asserted: “Approved by the State Council and the CMC, the postponed conscription will be combined with that of the second half, which will run from August 1 to September 30.” Though Wu said that the overall annual recruitment targets would remain unchanged, experts believe that the PLA could be badly affected.
This was also the time when an enigmatic personage appeared on the scene. Chen Wei, a 53-year-old leading Chinese epidemiologist and a Major-General in PLA, is known for developing the world’s first gene-based vaccine on Ebola in 2014. She was also apparently involved in combating the SARS outbreak.
According to the International Business Times, the controversial Major-General injected herself and her six-member team with an untested Coronavirus vaccine. She has created quite a stir on Weibo by her radical approach, especially after she was posted in the Wuhan lab from where the COVID-19 strain could have escaped (the Chinese authorities denied this).
Was this just a gesture to prove her loyalty to Chairman Xi? Just a month ago, Chen had taken over the controversial Wuhan lab, originally a civilian research lab, partly funded by the French Government. When he visited the research facilities in February 2017, Bernard Cazeneuve, the then French Prime Minister, declared: “France is proud and happy to have contributed to the construction of the first P4 high bio-safety laboratory in China. …This cutting-edge tool constitutes a central element in the achievement of the 2004 inter-governmental agreement on Franco-Chinese cooperation in the prevention and fight against emerging infectious diseases.” Something obviously went wrong.
For India, it is important to analyse the implications of the PLA’s involvement in the battle against the virus. Will the JLSF emerge stronger? Can the PLA become a threat to the party, just in case the “people’s war” against the “virus” is won by the Army? Will it re-emerge stronger despite Xi’s efforts to restrict the Army’s influence? What will be the implications for the PLA’s preparedness on the borders with India? It may be too early to answer these questions but even though PLA activities on the Tibetan plateau have reduced due to the outbreak, intrusions were reported recently from Naku-la, south of the watershed in Northern Sikkim, a border said to be “settled” by China. It is quite ominous.

India’s China agenda

My article India’s China Agenda appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

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Compared to China, which is assertive and has undertaken innovative developments, India is definitively trailing. Preparation for any eventuality is the way forward to counter its rise

There is no doubt that 2019 has been a special year for China: Lavish events were organised to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 1949, from the rostrum of the Tiananmen Square, Chairman Mao had announced, “China has arisen.” On October 1, 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping was on the same wavelength as his predecessor when he said, “No force can ever shake the status of China or stop the Chinese people and the nation from marching forward.” On that day, Beijing displayed several futuristic military gadgets.
On December 29, the Global Times listed China’s advanced weaponry. It said, “the year 2019” has been a “year of harvest” for China’s military equipment as the country showcased a “massive selection” of the latest, advanced and powerful weapons that operate on land, sea and air. It is not only in the field of advanced armaments that Beijing has been “doing well” but in this domain, the progress is indicative of an assertive China and of the innovative developments undertaken by Beijing. Comparatively, India is definitively trailing. Even though the communist party’s newspaper observed, “These displays of China’s new weapons showed transparency in the country’s military development” and sent a message to the world that China was determined to “safeguard sovereignty and peace,” the fact remains that China is still preparing itself.
Last week, in the Port of Dalian in Liaoning Province, China launched the country’s 23rd Type 052D and the sixth Type 055 destroyer. Experts said “the ship was one of the world’s largest and most powerful destroyers” and was capable of leading a high sea fleet or becoming the “pillar in an aircraft carrier battle group”, said the Global Times.
A few days earlier, China had officially commissioned its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, the Shandong. The CNN reported, “China has officially commissioned its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, a significant step forward in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitions for the country to field a world-class Navy.” Xi attended the commissioning ceremony in the southern province of Hainan where the carrier joined the Chinese Navy. In 2019, China launched the highest number of warships in the world: Nine destroyers, one comprehensive supply ship, one comprehensive landing ship, one amphibious assault ship, 12 light frigates with a total displacement of 200,000 tonnes, surpassing the US by far.
The Global Times quoted military experts as saying, “2019 will not be the end of China’s military equipment development. More weapons are expected in 2020 and beyond.” But there is another side to the coin. President Xi has been facing a rough sea at home. The fourth plenary session of the 19th Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee was held in Beijing from October 28 to 31. The members discussed the work report presented by Xi and adopted it “to uphold and improve the system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics and improve the party’s capacity for law-based governance and law-based exercising of state power.”
The communiqué mentions, the nation is facing “increasing challenges at home and abroad.” The gathering upheld the principle of “one country, two systems,” maintaining lasting prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao, and “promoting the peaceful reunification of China.”
Despite the serious difficulties faced by China, India needs to be prepared to respond to its rise. But first, let’s talk about what India should not do. The two-day meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping at a resort in October in Mamallapuram was an occasion to talk about “civilisation.” But was it of any help?
As it is, during Nehruvian days, India was fond of this hazy concept. The dictionary thus defines the term as “an act or a process of civilising, as by bringing out of a savage, uneducated, or unrefined state, or of being civilised.” Already, in the 1950s, this great “idea” allowed the Indian leadership to “dream” of lofty principles such as peaceful co-existence, while China was quietly consolidating its presence on the Tibetan plateau and preparing for a war with India.
Today, India should look after its own interests and forget about vague idealistic concepts. It should learn from the Chinese leadership, which has always remained pragmatic and down-to-earth. Unfortunately, when India speaks about its past, it does so to avoid talking about the present. This is what may have happened between India and China during the two-day encounter at Mamallapuram. Though it is not known what went on for two-and-a-half hours during the one-to-one dinner composed of exotic Tamil dishes, very few concrete decisions seem to have been taken. The Indian foreign secretary affirmed that the “K” word was not pronounced. This is regrettable for the occasion was opportune to clarify the Indian position.
One positive outcome from the meeting was the decision to establish a high-level economic and trade dialogue mechanism “with the objective of achieving enhanced trade and commercial relations, as well as to better balance the trade between the two countries.” This can, hopefully, help rebalance the trade deficit — today in India’s disfavour.
An example of a positive pragmatic policy for India has been the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). A day before the end of the year, the Government finally nominated Gen Bipin Rawat, outgoing Chief of Army Staff, as the first CDS “to drive the desperately-needed integration among the three services.”
But why did we have to wait for one day before the end of Gen Rawat’s tenure to see his name released? There was probably an intense lobbying from the babus to preserve their turf.  The history of modern India is a Mahabharata between the progressive forces, which want to change “eternal Bharat”, and the entrenched administration sticking to their privileges.
To win this battle would be the best way to counter China. As Rawat was handing over the baton to Gen MM Naravane, his successor, he was asked a question: Is the Army better prepared today to face the security challenges than when he took over? Gen Rawat replied, “Yes, we are better prepared.”
Preparation for any eventuality is the way forward to counter the rise of China. At the same time, India needs to continue investing in infrastructure, telecommunication systems, roads, airports and border areas while also providing a decent living and empowering frontier populations. In the future, Artificial Intelligence (AI), latest telecommunication means and new technologies should be indigenously developed if India does not want to be left behind. Only then will China respect India and will not be tempted to engage in an adventure like it did in 1962.
This is a tough agenda for 2020.

End the Culture of Silence

Indian Dak Bungalow in Tibet

My article End the Culture of Silence appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

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It is surprising that successive Indian Governments preferred to remain mum even as China kept on making advances towards the border. If this continues, a new disaster may unfold

Recently, Sun Weidong, the Chinese Ambassador to India, declared that the positive effects of the second informal summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were gradually showing. He further said that China was keen to promote defence and security cooperation with India for regional peace and stability. This declaration, however, does not tally with the facts. Though he asserted that China’s position on Kashmir was “consistent and clear”, Beijing is planning to raise the Kashmir issue when the Special Representatives (SRs) of India and China meet to discuss the boundary issue on December 21.
It is doubtful if any progress can be made during these talks between Ajit Doval, the Indian SR and Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart, especially after China requested the UN Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the situation in the Valley again. According to Reuters, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, “China would like to echo the request of Pakistan and request a briefing of the Council ...on the situation of Jammu & Kashmir.” (On France’s insistence, the move was, however, dropped later).
In these circumstances, it is not only difficult to believe that the effects of the Chennai Connect are positive but to trust its hurtful actions such as internationalising an internal issue of India. Unfortunately, successive Indian Governments have not articulated a proper response to this doublespeak.
Take Tibet with its centuries-old relationship with the Himalayan belt, which faded away at the end of 1950s for no fault of India. It brought unbelievable hardship to the local Indian frontier population. In the years preceding the arrival of the Dalai Lama in March 1959, traditional trade as well as cultural and religious contacts between Tibet and India gradually collapsed due to the harsh Chinese occupation of Tibet. By early 1962, the situation was so bad that India had to refuse to prolong the “Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between Tibet Region of China and India”, infamously known as the Panchsheel Agreement. The principles of the lofty Preamble have never been respected by China. Recently, I came across a telling “Monthly Report from Tibet for October 1960” sent by Apa Pant, the Political Officer (PO) in Sikkim to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. At that time, the Chinese were fast consolidating their presence on the plateau and Indian interests were dismissed. The report says, “The programme of mass settlement of Chinese in Tibet has started. There are rumours in Lhasa that about two-and-a-half lakh Chinese civilians will be brought in and settled in Tibet in the near future. At the moment, the Chinese population, both in Lhasa and Gyantse, has increased considerably.”
While traditional trade with India was progressively stopped, infrastructure along the Indian borders was built on a war-footing (probably to prepare for the border war, which erupted two years later). Though New Delhi pretended to have been taken “by surprise”, reading Pant’s report, one realises that the Indian Government had all the necessary information to see the writing on the wall.
In the report, Pant notes that Chinese cadres continued to pour into Tibet in increasing numbers. Slowly, the demography of the plateau changed and put India and the world in front of a fait accompli. Tibet was Chinese.
Women cadres were also brought in from the mainland: “Lhasa now looks like a Chinese city where Tibetans form only an insignificant minority. The lamas have been taken out of the monasteries and put to work as labourers and the monasteries are being used as public offices by the Chinese.”
If this was the situation in October 1960, one can imagine how the Tibetan capital resembles today. The report continues,  “The Ramoche Monastery in Lhasa is now the headquarters of the traffic police, while the Kundeling Monastery, which had been damaged in the March 1959 struggle (at the time of the uprising against the Chinese occupation), is being utilised to house the Chinese cadres after repairs. The houses vacated by the Kashmiri Muslims have also been occupied by the Chinese cadres.”
Pant asserts that the Chinese “now appear to be in complete control of the administration.” The members of the former Tibetan nobility “are in concentration camps, except for those who had cast their lot with the Chinese Communists prior to the March 1959 conflagration. The latter have been given official positions and can be seen moving about in motor vehicles in Lhasa.” It was a luxury at that time.
What is surprising is that New Delhi kept quiet all these years, trying to negotiate with China an elusive agreement on the border, (still elusive 59 years later). In 1960, the Tibetans in Lhasa were made to adopt the Chinese dress, “the close collar coat and trousers, while the traditional Baku is being discarded… sartorial reforms were being ushered on grounds that they are more economical on clothing material.”
Tibetan children above the age of 12 were sent “in large numbers for education and training to China, which is to last for a period between three and five years… these Tibetan children would be systematically indoctrinated.”
The border trade, formerly carried out by Indian and Nepalese traders, was gradually taken over by the Chinese through restrictive policies and heavy taxation. The Kashmiri Muslims were particularly targetted: “A large number of Kashmiri Muslims have already left Tibet or are on the way out to India,” writes Pant but New Delhi remained silent.
At the same time, troops kept arriving from China: “About 60 vehicles ply each way daily between Lhasa and the Chinese mainland. There are reports of considerable movement of troops on the new Lhasa-Gyantse road. All these troops appear to be fresh arrivals from the mainland. About 10,000 of them have passed through Gyantse during the course of a few days. It is suspected that this movement is towards Bhutan.” Many of the new roads led to Tawang in the North-East Frontier Agency (today Arunachal), says Pant. China was advancing towards the border but probably not to hurt the Chinese feelings, India was keeping mum. When today China continues to hurt Indian interests and feelings, should it continue to keep silent?
It can only lead to a new disaster.

Politics of Reincarnation

China already playing politics with the 9th Panchen Lama (with Chiang Kai-chek on the picture)

My article Politics of Incarnation appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

A few months ago, a board was placed outside a monastery in Tibet; it stated that Government officials and Communist cadres were not allowed to enter the premises of the gompa as the Chinese State was atheistic.
One can understand that the Communist Party of China (CPC), religiously following the precepts of its founding father, is not in favour of any spiritual practices.
More recently, the CCP issued a notice banning retired Tibetan government employees from taking part in any religious activities.
According to Human Rights Watch, the notice required “all Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government and retired government employees – regardless of whether those retirees are party members – to submit a list by August 18 of any ‘retired personnel performing the kora,’ the Tibetan practice of circumambulating a sacred site.”
Though the People’s Republic of China is atheist by definition and does not believe in the return of a soul, it wants now to control the reincarnation of the Tibetan Lamas; read the "Management measures for the reincarnation of Living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism" notified by the State Council on July 13, 2007, you will understand.
Article 1 spoke of “protecting religious concord and social harmony, and protecting the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism.” It asserted that: “Reincarnating Living Buddhas should respect the religious rituals and historically established systems of Tibetan Buddhism;” it insists on an old ritual rarely used, the Golden Urn, which can easily be manipulated …further “Reincarnating living Buddhas shall not be interfered with or be under the dominion of any foreign organization or individual.” In other words, the Dalai Lama is not allowed to be reborn in India.
Is China an atheist or a religious State?
The answer is: it depends on the interests of the Party. When it is convenient, it follows the Marxist orthodoxy, but when its interests differ, the CCP becomes expert in religious practices, particularly in the ‘reincarnation’ process.
Already in 2015, Padma Choling, then Chairman of the Standing Committee of the TAR People's Congress and then the only ‘ethnic’ Tibetan, member of the CPC’s Central Committee, created a flutter when he declared: “It's not up to the Dalai Lama to decide about his own reincarnation.” He objected to an announcement by the Dalai Lama that ‘his traditional religious role should cease with his death’. Padma Choling affirmed that the Dalai Lama’s renouncement was against “the Tibetan Buddhism tradition as the soul of a senior lama is [always] reincarnated in the body of a child on his death.”
Marx would have shuddered in his tomb, had he heard Choling uttering this Marxist blasphemy.
But this does not disturb the Communist leaders ‘in the new era’; today they argue that one can be Marxist and capitalist at the same time.
A recent development has brought some clarity.
On 29 November, the Dalai Lama addressed the issue of his reincarnation at a three-day Tibetan Religious Conference, a gathering of 117 Tibetan Buddhist and Bon senior leaders in Dharamsala.
On the occasion of the closing ceremony, the Tibetan spiritual leader told the rinpoches that there was no hurry to talk about his reincarnation; he affirmed “I am fine physically and mentally — is there any hurry to talk about my reincarnation?” He added that he will consult his advisors to decide on his reincarnation when he turns 90.
This is a welcome change from some contradictory statements made earlier, particularly that he was not keen to ‘return’, that the system was ‘medieval’ or that he will come back as an attractive lady.
On the first day of the Conference, the assembled Lamas had passed an important three-point resolution to counter China. The first point mentioned was the Karmic bond between the Dalai Lamas and the Tibetan people which is ‘unbreakable’; it added that all Tibetans “genuinely wish for the continuation of the Institution and Reincarnation of the Dalai Lama in the future.” The Dalai Lama was supplicated to ‘come back’.
The second point made it clear that “the authority of decision concerning the way and the manner in which the next reincarnation of the XIV Dalai Lama should appear solely rests with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama himself. No government or otherwise will have such authority.”
It was the best way to counteract Beijing’s stance (and religious new ‘skills’). The third point, the monks’ gathering urged that “the same unique Tibetan traditional method, which has been continuously used until now, will be followed.”
Though it says that this method conforms to “the basic philosophy and tenets of the Buddhadharma and originated in Tibet over 800 years ago,” no details were provided, leaving the door opened to possible manipulation by China.
Incidentally, it is regrettable that among the 117 senior monks, the feminine gender was not represented; this is probably one of the reasons why the Dalai Lama terms the system as ‘medieval’.
The Chinese are aware that the reincarnation system is not purely a religious affair; it has always had a political angle. One historical example is the strife between the Ninth Panchen and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama which revolved around taxes to be paid by the Panchen Lama estate to the Dalai Lama’s government. As the result of the dispute, the Panchen took refuge in China in 1923; he was well-looked after by the Kuomintang, who had an eye on Tibet. A Chinese scholar recently wrote that “the treatment of the Ninth Panchen Lama was further enhanced in response to [China’s] needs on the border [with India]. In June 1931, the National Government appointed the Ninth Panchen Lama as an ambassador and set up an agency which was given a hefty monthly budget of 15,000 yuans.”
The Panchen Lama himself received 120,000 yuans monthly; it was not a salary said the scholar, but "for his personal expenses and the living expenses of his followers and monks.”
The fact that the US Congress recently passed a bill on the succession or reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders shows that it is still a highly political issue today.
The Tibetans should be left alone to decide their spiritual future, but even if India does not interfere, Delhi does have high stakes in the issue, particularly in connection with the Himalayan region where Buddhism has so far played a stabilizing role. The Dalai Lama is hopefully aware of this.

The Archives of Leh

My article The Archives of Leh appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.


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It is perhaps not too late to put the history of India in its proper perspective and undo the blunders committed in the 1950s and 1960s

As an aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the former State of Jammu & Kashmir has been reorganised into the new Union Territories (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The latter consists of two districts: Kargil and Leh. Subsequently, new maps have been prepared by the Surveyor-General of India showing the geographical outline of the new UTs; it is a welcome move by the Government to educate the people of India and the media (and hopefully, the biased foreign Press).
Interestingly, the Leh district of Ladakh includes the districts of Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilhas and Tribal Territory of 1947, in addition to the known areas of Leh and, of course, the Aksai Chin, illegally occupied by China since the mid-1950s.
For several reasons, it is important that these maps have been updated. First there was often a discrepancy in the length of the Indo-China border on some Indian websites. Was the length 4,056 or 3,488 km?  The first figure is the only valid one as Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly the Gilgit agency) is legally a part of India. The Indo-China boundary starts at the trijunction of Afghanistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Xinjiang to reach the Karakoram Pass and further runs through the Karakoram and Karatagh passes and along the Kunlun in the north, and through Lanak La and across the western part of the Pangong Lake and then along the ridge parallel to the Indus, before crossing the Indus south-east of Demchok. Hopefully the wrong figures will now be rectified.
The fact that large parts of Ladakh are today occupied by China explain Beijing’s aggressive stance. Speaking of the creation of the two UTs, Geng Shuang, a spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media: “China deplores and firmly opposes this. This is unlawful and void and this is not effective in any way and will not change the fact that the area is under Chinese actual control.” He urged India to “earnestly respect Chinese territorial sovereignty and uphold peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs did not leave the unwarranted attack unanswered: “We do not expect other countries, including China, to comment on matters that are internal to India, just as India refrains from commenting on the internal issues of other countries,” declared India’s Ministry for External Affairs spokesman. Referring to the Shaksgam Valley, he pointed out that China “illegally” acquired Indian territories from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir through the 1963 China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement. That infamous pact was signed by Pakistan’s Minister of External Affairs and his Chinese counterpart. The new maps will irritate China no end, as it virtually opens another sector along the Indo-Chinese disputed boundary.

Map of the 1987 Survey of the areas 'donated' to China

A secret note prepared by the historical division of the Ministry of External Affairs mentioned that “any such agreement will be ab initio illegal and invalid and will not bind India in any respect.” The note observed that the preamble states that the parties have agreed to formally delimit and demarcate the boundary between Xinjiang and the contiguous areas of Pakistan, the defence of which was under  the actual control of Karachi; Pakistan based its right on the fact that these areas were under her “actual control.” However,  the Indian note explained: “Under international law, the right of entering into treaties and agreements is an attribute of sovereignty. Furthermore, a sovereign cannot presume to exercise sovereign functions in respect of territory other than its own. Having regard to the UN resolutions of January 17, 1948, August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949 (UNCIP Resolutions) it is clear that Pakistan cannot (and does not) claim to exercise sovereignty in respect of Jammu and Kashmir.”
Very few, even in India, realise the importance of this point. On March 5, 1963, speaking about China during a Calling Attention Motion in the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister said: “In spite of its professions that it has never involved itself in the dispute over Kashmir or its absurd claim that the boundary negotiations have promoted friendship between the Chinese and Pakistani people and are in the interests of Asia and world peace, it is directly interfering in Indo-Pakistan relations. By doing this, China is seeking to exploit differences between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir question to further its own expansionist policy.”
Of course, since then, China has become Pakistan’s Iron brother, but the motivations have remained the same. Today’s publication of proper maps should only be a first step.
The logical follow-up should be to repatriate all the archives pertaining to Ladakh and the Gilgit Wazarat, to Leh, where a place should be dedicated to their preservation; it is crucial as the history of large chunks of the border with China lies in these records.
During the negotiations of “the Officials of India and China” in 1960, the Indian side noted: “A systematic settlement of revenue for the whole of Ladakh up to the traditional alignment was made during the time of Mehta Mangal who was Wazir or Governor between 1860 and 1865; and this settlement was revised during the period of his successor Johnson (1870-1881) and Radha Kishen Kaul (1882). The lists of villages in both the Revenue Assessment Report of 1902 and the Settlement Report of 1908 mentioned 108 villages, including Tanktse, Demchok, Chushul and Minsar... The Preliminary Report of Ladakh Settlement of 1908 made clear that these areas were part of Ladakh.”
The Indian side submitted a large quantity of such documents. These records will show that India exercised control over the various frontier areas and collected revenues from the border villages till Independence.
These records should be kept in Leh; it should also include the history of the Gilgit Wazarat and other territories now shown under the Ladakh district and how Shaksgam Valley was illegally offered to Communist China.
This would greatly help the project of the Ministry of Defence to write the history of India’s borders, the project for which was recently announced: “The work will cover various aspects of borders, including tracing its making; making and unmaking and shifting of borders; role of security forces; role of borderland people encompassing their ethnicity, culture and socio-economic aspects of their lives.”
It is perhaps not too late to put the history of India in its proper perspective and undo the blunders committed in the 1950s and 1960s.

China’s weak spot

My article China’s weak spot appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.


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The nation is mighty but also fragile because it has not been able to take the masses and the world along. Xi’s dream of a new era will remain if people are not granted some freedoms

China is a mighty country. We have seen it on October 1 on Tiananmen Square.
On the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), President Xi Jinping was on the same wavelength as his predecessor Mao Zedong 70 years ago, when he announced the foundation of the PRC; the morale of the parade was ‘power comes from the barrel of the gun’: “No force can ever undermine China's status, or stop the Chinese people and nation from marching forward,” said President Xi Jinping from the rostrum of Tiananmen Square.
Xi reminded that those who watched the function that “seventy years ago, Comrade Mao Zedong solemnly declared to the world that the PRC was founded and the Chinese people had stood up. This great event completely reversed China's miserable fate born from poverty and weakness and being bullied and humiliated."
The Chinese State media was ecstatic as “China had reaffirmed its commitment to global peace and development”, and added: “we will continue to work with people from all countries to push for jointly building a community with a shared future for humanity.”
Many doubted as they watched in awe the DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missile (a hypersonic glide vehicle that can deliver both nuclear and conventional payloads) or the new-generation road-mobile DF-41, which made their debut in an official parade.
Some 15,000 troops from 59 units, 47 belonging to the ground forces and a dozen airborne squadrons, participated in the display. Xi inspected 580 new weapon systems, almost all of them were ‘made in China’, proving that Beijing’s military industry is truly becoming self-sufficient. It is a lesson that India has hopefully noted a few days before the visit of the Chinese President in Mahabalipuram.
However a backlash to China’s might has started to manifest.
A few days before the parade in Beijing, a telling incident took place in France; it showed that it is not only China’s neighbours and the United States which have difficulties to accept China’s so-called peaceful rise.
It looked innocuous but at the start of French Ligue One’s football match between Olympique Lyonnais (OL) and Nantes, an entire wing of the Gerland stadium in Lyon displayed a tifo, a gigantic graphic display organized by thousands (or tifosis).
A Tibetan flag? Why? Simply because China is the club’s second shareholder and the OL management had decided to rescheduled the match to 13:30 hrs …for a broadcast in China (matches usually take place at 17:30 or 21:00 hrs). China is simply mighty.
The supporters, known as the ‘Bad Gones’ (‘Gones’ is the OL supporters’ nickname) wrote on their Facebook page: “At the kick-off, we deployed a tifo representing the Tibetan flag accompanied by a Free Tibet banner. Beyond the crypto-politic aspect of this tifo, our objective was to remind everyone that the spectators and supporters are also actors of the match and respect is due to them, as much as to a few hundred thousand viewers at the other end of the planet.” The message to Beijing continued: “these Tibetan flags can piss off the League and its new shareholders which are under the control of the Chinese State, but we will be delighted to renew the experience…”
It is perhaps a sign of what the Financial Review calls a dangerous decade ahead ‘as China's rise falters’: “Economists, defence planners and security strategists have begun testing the consensus around China's inevitable rise and have come up with some surprising predictions.”
ANI said it in different words: “China exhibits Cold War mentality with huge military parade”, adding: “China regularly likes to point the finger at the US for harbouring a ‘Cold War mentality’, but nothing speaks of militaristic ambitions and martial glory as a large military parade. And no military spectacle comes close to the size of the event held in Tiananmen Square on October 1.”
It is not only the Gaulish tribes which are revolting against the Chinese hegemonic mindset, in Hong Kong, lakhs of young people refused to slip under the yoke of Beijing. The former British colony has witnessed defiant protesters for several weeks; interestingly, the Hong Kongers took their campaign against Beijing to their Stadium, booing the Chinese national anthem before the city's soccer team lost to Iran in its first home qualifier for the 2022 World Cup.
The EU recently issued a statement: “The escalation of violence and continuing unrest in Hong Kong, including the use of live ammunition, resulting in critical injuries to at least one person, are deeply troubling. The European Union maintains its position that restraint, de-escalation and dialogue are the only way forward,” it further observed: “Fundamental freedoms, including the right of assembly of Hong Kongers must continue to be upheld and the possibility to hold peaceful demonstrations must be ensured. These rights must be exercised peacefully.”
It is clear that the World will not accept another Tiananmen massacre.
Though the regime in Beijing praised “Foreign officials and experts [who] applauded a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Beijing reaffirmed its commitment to world peace and development,” one can’t forget that Communism killed millions of its own citizens during the past 70 years.
A French book (‘The Black Book of Communism’) calculated that more than 94 million were killed by the different Communist governments around the world since 1917. The statistics of victims include deaths through executions, man-made hunger, famine, war, deportations and forced labour. In China alone, 65 millions died, while the Soviet Union accounted for 20 millions in Cambodia and North Korea for 2 million each. The list is long.
In the meantime, the propaganda machine of the Communist regime in Beijing works full steam. Beijing published a White Paper entitled ‘Seeking Happiness for People: 70 Years of Progress on Human Rights in China’.
One of the chapters is on the “Splendid History of China’s Human Rights Protection.”
The restive population of the Western Muslim province of Xinjiang or the Tibetans, whose religious freedom has been ruthlessly stifled, will tell you another story.
All this should be kept in mind when President Xi Jinping arrives in South India to ‘informally’ meet Prime Minister Modi; China is mighty and innovative, but China is fragile, simply because it is unable to take the masses and the world along. Xi’s Dream of a new era will remain a dream, as long as the Middle Kingdom does not allow a minimum freedom to its own people.

The Real Consequence

My article The Real Consequence appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.

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The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution has triggered a lot of typing on the keyboards of the Indian as well as the foreign journalists. Most of the scribes were ill-informed about the legality of the issue, but generally the Indian press dealt with the subject more decently, taking into consideration the situation on the ground, including Ladakh where the ‘liberation’ of the mountainous division was celebrated as in Jammu too; it also mentioned the tragic fate of the Kashmiri Pandits, how the Article fuelled terrorist acts, which for decades have plagued the Valley. Even the Supreme Court, who sometime does not mind stepping in the role of the executive, has handled the issue with restrain and care in the higher interests of the population concerned.
It has not been the case of the foreign press, which has once more shown not only its partisanship, its often-violently ‘anti-Modi’ bias (they hate the ‘Modi’ phenomenon which eludes their understanding), but also its abysmal ignorance of the historical background of the Kashmir issue.
Take the example of the French press: following the August 5 decision, it is difficult to say that it was the worst, because the British and the American were really bad too (particularly the BBC). In their offices beyond the seas, editorialists are stuck in their old clichés, they love to portray Modi’s India as having only one objective: to massacre as many Muslims as possible. Due to sheer ‘white’ arrogance, most of these ‘grand reporters’ do not need to study the issue before writing on it, as ‘they know’.
After the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to UAE, one French publication even wrote: “Modi has managed to escape the Muslim ire …for now”.
The Chinese factor and their indecent claims over Ladakh have also been brushed aside; the Buddhists of Ladakh and the Pandits are not worth a word. It is ironic that at the same time, the Indo-French bilateral relations have been blossoming (but journalists will probably say, “Modi has bought Macron on his side by promising to buy a few Rafales more”).
Who is responsible for this constant misinformation or disinformation?
As I said, it is not possible to change the ideological slant of the press (foreign or French), so one should let it be.
Where the Government of India failed is that it should have ‘educated’ the press by giving a full historical briefing on all the facets of the issue.
One problem is that the Ministry of External affairs functions today without a Historical Division, (in the 1990s, some smart mandarins thought they knew everything and that a division was not required); before the announcement, South Block should have prepared a “background note on the Kashmir issue and the history of the temporary Article 370 of Indian Constitution”, but nobody had probably time for such niceties.
Foreign embassies could have given this note and in turn informed their ‘all-knowing’ press; it is part of the bilateral relations, no?
The foreign press could have been told: “you are free to use the briefing, and check the facts, if you want.” One of the problems is the sacrosanct ‘freedom of the press’ which allows anybody to write anything!
These who object to this are ‘fascists’.
Now what are the facts?
A few years ago, I came across a Top Secret note entitled “Background to the Kashmir Issue: Facts of the case”, written in the early 1950s, in the Nehru Papers (the JN Collections at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library). It makes fascinating reading. It starts by a historical dateline: “Invasion of the State by tribesmen and Pakistan nationals through or from Pakistan territory on October 20, 1947; ruler’s offer of accession of the State to India supported by the National Conference, a predominantly Muslim though non-communal political organization, on October 26, 1947; acceptance of accession by the British Governor-General of India on October 27, 1947, under this accession, the State became an integral part of India; expression of a wish by Lord Mountbatten in a separate letter to the Ruler the fulfillment of which was to take place at a future date when law and order had been restored and the soil of the State cleared of the invader, the people of the State were given the right to decide whether they should remain in India or not.”
Then the note mentioned “[the] invasion of the State by Pakistan Regular Forces on May 8, 1948, in contravention of international law. One of the grounds for this military operation, as disclosed by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister himself, was a recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan that an easy victory for the Indian Army was almost certain to arouse the anger of the invading tribesmen against Pakistan.”
Pakistan was not interested in the plebiscite, further they wanted to grab …Buddhist Ladakh too. At some other point, the note observed “Pakistan, not content with assisting the invader, has itself become an invader and its army is still occupying a large part of the soil of Kashmir, thus committing a continuing breach of international law.”
This was noticed by Sir Owen Dixon, the UN Representative.
Pakistani politicians (and others) often quote the UN Resolutions; very few have read them. Has Imran Khan ever looked at them? I bet not.
Following the ceasefire of January 1, 1949, the military representatives of India and Pakistan met in Karachi between July 18 and 27, 1949, under the auspices of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan. Before leaving for Karachi, the delegates had a briefing from Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, the Secretary General of the MEA, who explained the legal position in detail to the delegates. He told them that the resolution of August 13, 1948 "had conceded the legality of Kashmir's accession to India and as such no man's land, if any, should be controlled by India during the period of ceasefire and truce.” Thus, the Line of Cease Fire (now LOC) was drawn and accepted by Pakistan on this principle.
Who remembers the August 1948 Resolution today?
Similarly for Article 370, the temporary background should have been explained, particularly how it deprived Jammu and Ladakh of their administrative freedom, how it helped fuel terrorism from across the LOC; how gender-biased it was. This should be been done. It would not have removed the bias of the foreign ‘secular’ press, but they could not have said they did not know.

The Historical Note mentioned in the article. can be downloaded here.

The succession challenge

The Chinese Panchen Lama (here near Mt Kailash)
is used by Beijing's propaganda

My article The succession challenge appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

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The Lama had made it clear in 2011 that he shall leave clear instructions about who should succeed him. This should clear doubts and cut out the Chinese propaganda

China has mastered the Art of Information Warfare.
We saw it during the Doklam episode, though caught on the wrong foot on the ridge at the border of Sikkim and Bhutan, the Chinese spokespersons managed to convince many Indian scribes of the validity of a defunct 1890 Convention between the Manchus and British India.
More recently, the Dalai Lama was the victim of the Chinese propaganda; for the purpose, Beijing used some Indian journalists ‘invited’ to Tibet for a trip, to ‘see the facts’ for themselves.
On their return, one of the correspondents, quoting the Chinese authorities, wrote: “The successor of the Dalai Lama has to be decided within China and any interference by India on the issue will impact bilateral ties.”
The message that Beijing wanted to pass was faithfully reported by the gullible Indian scribe who quoted one Wang Neng Sheng, Director General (of Propaganda) in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s administration: “The current Dalai Lama was recognized by Beijing and his successor must be found through the ‘draw of lots in golden urn process’ within China. The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation is not decided by his personal wish or by some group of people living in other countries.”
The ignorant Wang was probably unaware that no golden urn was used for the selection of the present Dalai Lama; but propaganda does not need to stick to facts.
Another official, Zha Luo, director of the China Tibetology Research Centre in Beijing confirmed that “any refusal by India to recognise the next Dalai Lama to be chosen within China will impact bilateral ties.”
In other words, if Delhi does not kowtow to Beijing’s choice, there will be ‘consequences’.
It was enough to provoke a flurry of reactions from Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Central Tibetan Administration and from elsewhere India.
A Tibetan official, Tsewang Gyalpo Arya stated: “The Chinese officials pointed out two things as important historical criteria for the selection of the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. First, the selection should be within China based on the 200-year old historical process. Second, it should have the approval of the Chinese Central government.”
Arya argued that the Golden Urn procedure and the approval of Chinese central government were not mandatory for the recognition of a Dalai Lama: “It is an aggressive and ignominious attempt on the part of the Chinese leadership to distort the ancient religious tradition of Tibet to serve its current political agenda.”
The problem is that the sometimes mischievous Dalai Lama has in the past given ‘controversial’ statements to the press. One, which recently made the headlines, was to Rajini Vaidynathan, a BBC journalist, who was obviously more interested by her audience rating than by a deeper understanding of a complicated question.
When Vaidyanathan asked the Tibetan leader about ‘returning’ as a female, the Dalai Lama said with his characteristic humour that his successor could be a woman, but she ought to be ‘attractive’.
Vaidyanathan used her Twitter account to spread excerpts of the ‘controversial’ video in the social media; the Tibetan leader had to sadly apologize for his ‘misogynist’ remarks.
I remember asking him this question about a female Dalai Lama more than 15 years ago; he had smiled and explained that it was possible, there was no bar on this in Tibetan Buddhism and he had added that if it was useful for the Buddha Dharma and the Tibetan cause, “why not?”
The issue remains that his Office should be aware that the world has changed, and today rogue journalists are only interested in sensationalism.
In any case, Chinese propaganda and ‘modern’ journalism do not help to clarify the complicate issue. The succession is indeed a serious affair, not only for China which has been working hard to prepare a post Dalai Lama scenario with a few pliable Tibetan Lamas presently living in Tibet, but it is also crucial for the Tibetans (in exile and in Tibet) and for India as well.
The succession process could go two-ways, first a ‘traditional’ reincarnation with the huge problem of having a child and later a teenager for two decades at the helm; the other solution would be an ‘emanation’; the latter system is favoured by many as it would bring some stability in the system (and disarm the Chinese ‘religious fervours’); it practically means that the Dalai Lama would ‘emanate’ in a young boy and groom him as his successor.
Though the Indian government would probably not interfere, it still has vital stakes in the outcome (particularly in relation to the Himalayan populations from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh).
After the BBC incident, the Dalai Lama declared: “One day you will hear that the Dalai Lama has passed away, but I will come back, even if the institution of Dalai Lama is no longer recognised. I will be back.”
That is the real question: will Tenzin Gyatso come back as a Dalai Lama?
In another statement to The Week, he said that the rule-by-reincarnation system is feudal and may be discontinued.
The result of all these declarations is that the Chinese are confused; but for them to bank on their own Dalai Lama may be risky.
They should also remember the case of the Tenth Panchen Lama, who in May 1951 was forced on a weak Tibetan government by China, against a candidate selected by Lhasa. From his early years, the boy was groomed by Communist China as a ‘model lama’. But slowly over the years, he became his own man. In 1964, a few years after the Dalai Lama had taken refuge in India, in a speech in Lhasa, the so-called puppet Panchen Lama told a large audience: “Long Live to His Holiness the Dalai Lama”. He was immediately arrested and only released in 1978 with the help of Xi Zhongxun …President Xi Jinping’s father.
Again in 1989, while visiting his monastery near Shigatse, he questioned the 30-year occupation of China; a few days later, he died of a heart attack.
The case of the Tenth Panchen Lama proves that China would be wrong to take a Tibetan for granted, even if he is chosen by the Party.
In 2011, the Dalai Lama had clearly stated: “I shall leave clear written instructions about this.”
It is perhaps time that he announces that instructions about his ‘succession’ have already been given, thus removing the doubt in everybody’s minds and cutting out the Chinese propaganda.

Lambs before the dragon

My article Lambs before the dragon appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.

In other continents, too, nations have to kowtow to China in return for investment and debt funding, though they are slowly waking up to the fact that all is not rosy

China has managed to tame the wild Tibetans yaks, according to Xinhua: “Under the touch of the petite scientist Yan Ping, the tall and powerful black yak, weighing over 400 kg, is as obedient as a lamb.” And the news agency adds: “Unlike other yaks, this one has no horns.”
Yan, who works for the Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Sciences explained: "The Ashidan yak has no horns and has a mild temperament, easy to keep and feed.”
Beijing seems to have developed some expertise in taming humans and nations too.
The Taiwan News reported “Manila kowtows to Beijing, cedes Exclusive Economic Zone in South China Sea.”
The once-wild President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte is said to have ceded “ground in the South China Sea through an ‘informal’ and ‘undocumented’ [agreement] with President Xi Jinping.”
The Taiwanese newspaper noted that many citizens of the Philippines were “already concerned over the government’s unwillingness to safeguard the territory of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).” The article concluded that this makes the Duterte government appear even weaker on protecting the nation’s maritime territory.
But it is not only the Philippines which have been tamed and have accepted Beijing’s diktats. India’s Northern neighbour, Nepal, seems to have fallen in the trap.
Newsgram, an independent media agency, recently pointed out that it is the Nepal Government in Kathmandu which forces local journalists to avoid critical reporting on China, the largest investor of the Himalayan land-locked nation.
Anil Giri, the foreign affairs correspondent for The Kathmandu Post, told Voice of America that “journalists are discouraged from covering Tibetan affairs to mollify China and that government officials shy away from commenting on China-related issues. China sponsors junkets for Nepalese journalists and that’s why probably we don’t see lots of criticism about China’s growing investment in Nepal, Chinese doing business in Nepal and China’s growing political clout in Nepal.”
The lamb-lamb attitude in Kathmandu appeared in an incident which recently took place at the Tribhuvan International airport in Kathmandu; The Himalayan Times reported: “Man labelled Dalai Lama’s agent, deported to US”.
Apparently the Nepal immigration mistook a Tibetan called Penpa Tsering, holding a US passport and arriving from the US, with his homonym the former Dalai Lama’s Representative in the US; Nepali officials argued that the man was ‘on China’s most-wanted list’. In Dharamsala, the former Tibetan Representative observed: “It clearly shows that the Chinese government’s pressure on Nepal is working.”
Nepal’s Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa affirmed that the deportation was only an act “of honouring the ‘One-China’ policy.”
A few weeks earlier, two members of Nepal’s Parliament, Ekwal Miyan and Pradip Yadav had to apologize for having attended the 7th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet, which was held in Latvia’s capital Riga between May 7 and 10, after Beijing pressurized Kathmandu.
In a joint press statement, the two MPs declared that they “happened to inadvertently attend the conference …due to wrong information …when they were on a private visit to Turkey, Switzerland and Latvia.”
They had even given speeches by mistake!
It shows how China can today dictate terms to ‘small’ countries like Nepal.
At the same time, Xinhua proudly reminded its readers that in the summer of 1921: “a dozen Communist Party of China (CPC) members were forced to leave a small building in the French concession area of Shanghai, and boarded a boat on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, concluding the first National Congress of the CPC. …Since then, the [Communist] Party has managed to lead a vulnerable country to move closer toward the world's center stage.”
The news agency asserted: “The Chinese nation has stood up, grown rich and is becoming strong. …Socialism with Chinese characteristics have maintained stability and vitality in the tide of global changes.”
The Tibetans, who have been tamed more than 60 years ago, are an easy prey. A couple of weeks ago, a Tibetan minister in the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala was denied a visa to attend a conference in Mongolia. Karma Gelek Yuthok, Minister of Religion and Culture was to attend the Asian Buddhist Conference in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar. The minister could only say that it was “the clearest sign yet of China’s aggressive campaign of undermining core democratic freedoms across the world.”
On the Roof of the World, China has now all the cards in hand to nominate its own 15th Dalai Lama. Gyaltsen Norbu, the Panchen Lama selected and groomed by Beijing has been elected as the President of Tibet’s Branch of the Buddhist Association of China. Gyaltsen Norbu recently visited Thailand; on his return to Beijing, he affirmed “We are fortunate to be in the era of the development and rise of New China, and thank the Communist Party of China for leading the Chinese people in achieving the tremendous transformation of standing up, growing rich, and becoming strong.”
In other continents too, nations have to kowtow, though they are slowly waking to the fact that all is not rosy; the examples of Sri Lanka and the Maldives are often cited, but in Africa too.
The Ethiopian Business Review recently had a cover-story: “Africa falling into debt-trap” while The African Exponent, an online outlet for African news dared to write: “Horror Awaits African Leaders as China Withdraws Debt Funding”. It explained: “After an impressive run of a good relationship with China, scooping up at least $9.8bn between 2006 and 2017, making it Africa’s third-largest recipient of Chinese loans, the good ‘friendship’ between the two countries seems to have come to a snag,” commented the Review.
The reporter noted that in September, China promised another $60bn in aid and loans to the continent: “Xi Jinping promised the money would come with no political strings attached’.”
But all good things have an end. When Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan President visited to China in May “the atmosphere that greeted him was unfamiliar to the China of old. Questions were raised about corruption, as well as the figures and sums [that Kenya] had proposed.” Kenyatta did not like it.
The Chinese even wanted to know if he planned to stand for office again in 2022: “It was like talking to the World Bank,” observed an aide to the Kenyan leader.
All this, as well as the recent events in Hong Kong, show that the taming of humans or nations cannot be taken for granted; nobody remains a lamb forever.

Wanted: Historian’s office

My article Wanted: Historian’s office appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer.

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It’s high time that India re-organises its historical records. A revamp is crucial in this domain, as also others, especially if we want to become a respected world player Since the Lok Sabha results were announced, the Indian media has been speaking about rebooting, something you do when you change your..

Since the results of the Legislative Elections were announced, the Indian media have been speaking of re-booting, something you do when you change your Operating System (OS); new and high expectations about the new government probably explain the term and Modi 2.0.
Though analysts usually think is in terms of better control about internal security (with General Amit Shah in command) or improvement of defence preparedness with the trusted No 2 as Rashtra Mantri, many other fields need ‘rebooting’ too.
There is, however, one domain which is never mentioned by the commentators; it is the opening and reorganization of India’s historical records; a re-boot or revamp is absolutely crucial in this domain too, especially if India wants to become a respected world player.
Remember the standoff at the trijunction between Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan, during June-August 2017.
Day after day, Beijing used a historical argument, the 1890 Convention signed between the British and the Manchus, without reference to the main stake-holders, the Tibetans. For Beijing, it was the occasion to conveniently ‘erase’ several posterior agreements, particularly the 1914 Simla Convention, during which the northeastern border of India was defined (McMahon Line).
At that time, nobody countered China on the 1890 Convention, which spoke of an un-surveyed place called ‘Gipmochi’, but it was only in 1956 that a trijunction was demarked on a map, after a bold officer from the Indian Frontier Administrative Service, TS Murty, accompanied by staff from the Survey of India, found out that the tripoint was at Batang-la and not at all Gyemochen located a few miles south of the physical trijunction (Gipmochi was a misspelling for Gyemochen).
The Chinese could bluff the Indian media for nearly three months with their 1890 Convention. With the current re-booting, one can only hope that deep changes will soon take place in this domain.
A telling example is the Sikkim Papers.
Soon after the merger in 1975, the responsibility for the Himalayan State shifted from the Ministry of External Affairs to the Ministry of Home Affairs. An acquaintance, who as a young diplomat was posted in Gangtok in the Political Officer’s office recalled that at the end of 1975 he spent months going through all the historical records kept in Gangtok relating to the period between 1885 to 1975; it was indeed the Memory of the Himalaya.
Once his work over, the officer was told to dispatch the Papers to Delhi; four lakhs of precious files moved in six trucks to Delhi under CRPF escort.
South Block was keen to keep the Papers, but other officers, probably from the Intelligence Bureau prevailed and the corpus was taken away. Since then, these Sikkim Papers are missing in action; they would have an immense historical value today to prove that India and Tibet had a different relation than the one portrayed by China.
It is just symptomatic of a lack of interest in historical issues in India.
What can be done?
Leaving the Sikkim Papers aside for a moment, the first thing to do is to reopen the Historical Division in the Ministry of External Affairs. It existed till the 1990s when an officer decided to close it down, “we don’t need one more division”. As a result the MEA has today only a ‘Boundary Cell’ manned by a Lt Col from the Survey of India. It is insufficient when the country is facing so many boundary disputes (and will face more in the months and years to come).
The Division needs to be headed a professional historian, not a Foreign Service officer, bound by short tenures. When one reads some of the notes prepared the Historical Division available in the National Archives of India (NAI), one is surprised by the in-depth historical background material provided to the deciders to take decisions …and inform better the Indian public.
The Ministry of Defence faces a similar problem. The records of the Army for example, can’t be kept by a few officers posted for a short term, even if these officers are extremely dedicated. Only a professional from outside the Army hierarchy, can provide the professionalism and continuity required.
The same argument applies to other ministries, particularly Home Affairs.
One of the problems is that very few scholars have the necessary knowledge to go through the files to decide if there is anything which could jeopardise India’s ‘security’ or ‘national interests’. In my experience of years of working in the archives, particularly with the Nehru Papers at the Nehru Memorial Library (NMML), very few documents (perhaps one out of tens of thousands) would need to remain ‘classified’.
Of course, there are the ‘glamourous’ cases, i.e. the Henderson-Brooks-Bhagat report on 1962 or the report into the mysterious death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966 in Tashkent.
In the later case, the Government was ordered by the Chief Information Commissioner to “consider the fundamental right to know and demand of the people, (and) to declassify (them), either through an expert committee or by any other process, to get the mystery probed and resolved”. Nothing happened.
The ‘right to know’ applies to all papers more than 25-years-old. It is not that India has no law; the Public Records Act exists, but unfortunately laws seem to have been made more for the ‘common man’, than for the Government offices. It is sad!
Apart from separate divisions in important ministries, what is today required is an Office of the Historian, directly under the Prime Minister’s Office, with a large oversight over the different historical divisions, sections or desks. It needs to be headed by a senior reputed historian, with a team of scholars who will make sure that the different divisions work properly and follow the laws about declassification. This would of course have to be closely coordinated with the National Archives of India and other State Archives.
The Historian or whatever name is given to the officer, should be of Secretary to the Government rank and able to coordinate with other ministries and supervise digitalization of records, joint indexing and timely transfer to the NAI.
The Historian should be supported by an advisory board of senior historians, diplomats, bureaucrats, army generals who could help him to decide for difficult cases.
Would this happen, it would be great re-booting; it would show that India has become a mature Republic and the ‘right to know’ is respected.

China-Nepal love affair

My article China-Nepal love affair appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer
 
Here is the link...

The deepening of ties between Kathmandu and Beijing is a serious setback for New Delhi. China scored one more goal but it’s difficult to say how far this story will continue

In politics, there is little difference between love and sycophancy — the case of Nepal is particularly telling. The social media was recently buzzing with news that some Tibetans had protested “against an utterly ridiculous demand from Nepal’s China sycophant politicians to ban the use of the khata, the traditional Tibetan white scarf, because it was hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.” Whether true or not, the sensitivity of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” is nowadays prevalent all over the world with Nepali politicians at the vanguard of the movement.
The “love” has increased further after Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari spent nine days in China on a State visit. The invitation had come from Chinese President Xi Jinping himself. The first part of the visit coincided with the Second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on April 27. President Bhandari held high-level meetings with the top Chinese leadership; they “exchanged substantive views on further strengthening and consolidating the ties of co-operative friendship and mutually beneficial partnership subsisting between the two countries,” according to an official communique.
More importantly, the Himalayan nation signed seven agreements with its giant northern neighbour; it included a protocol for an Agreement on Transit Transport; an accord on Cooperation and Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters and one on strengthening assistance and cooperation in the field of livelihood in the Northern Region of Nepal (ie the border with Tibet).
The ruling Nepal Communist Party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, was quick to assert that a railway line will connect Kathmandu to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) “within his lifetime.” Prachanda also affirmed that the railway will be later extended to Lumbini and Pokhara. It will be “a milestone in Nepal’s economic development and growth of the tourism sector”, he said.
The Government of Nepal had announced earlier that technical studies for the construction of railway lines linking Nepal with India and China have been completed. Bhandari specifically told the Parliament: “The Rasuwagadhi-Kathmandu railways will be started within two years.” Rasuwa is the border post town with Tibet (Kyirong). The line between Shigatse and Kyirong was much delayed due to the 2015 earthquake but now it is expected to be completed by 2023.
In May 2017, Beijing had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kathmandu for roads, railways, ports and aviation as well as hydropower and energy projects, finance and tourism as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Xi assured Bhandari of China’s support to make a “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali.” Before returning to Kathmandu, the Nepali President spent a day in Lhasa; the main purpose of the visit was re-emphasising Nepal’s commitment to the “One China” policy.
As the Japanese newspaper The Nikkei wrote, “The price is paid in diplomatic support for Beijing: The Nepalese consulate in Lhasa, the only foreign diplomatic mission in the Tibetan capital, recently reiterated unwavering support for Beijing’s claims to both Tibet and Taiwan.”
Incidentally, India had a full-fledged mission in Lhasa till 1952 and a Consulate-General till 1962. Today, Beijing adamantly refuses to reopen it, wanting India to go through Nepal authorities for trans-border trade. Examples abound to show the ongoing love story. Nepal has chosen a railway track gauge used by China as standard for its network; Kathmandu justifies the choice by the lower Chinese costs. The move is a serious setback for Delhi, which has failed to limit Beijing’s control over Nepal.
Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Raghubir Mahaseth told Reuters that his Government will ask India to use the Chinese gauge: “Standard gauge is less expensive,” was the rationale.
Even Nepal’s borders with Tibet are looked after by Beijing. According to The Kathmandu Post, Kathmandu has permitted the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) to provide development assistance in 15 northern districts of Nepal “to meet their developmental needs”; these districts share a common border with Tibet. The agency was set up in August 2018 in order to strengthen “the strategic planning and overall coordination of the Chinese aid to Nepal.”
One unsaid objective is to stop Tibetans fleeing their native land and taking refuge in India. It has been remarkably efficient. On May 12, the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board signed with Tibet Fuli Construction Group, a Chinese company, an agreement to construct the inland container depot in Timure in Rasuwa district. Built with Chinese aid, the project is expected to cost $20 million and is expected to be completed in 30 months. The Chinese Government will construct the dry port on five hectares of land provided by Nepal; a parking yard with a capacity to park 350 trucks and containers will be built.
In another news, more on the ridiculous side, according to The Kathmandu Post, Nepal’s leading English language newspaper, three journalists working for the Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS), Nepal’s national news agency, are being probed for disseminating a news item regarding the Dalai Lama.
What is their crime? The journalists “translated and disseminated” a wire report about the Lama’s return to Dharamsala on April 27, after he was discharged from a hospital in New Delhi. Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Baskota confirmed to The Post that an investigation was on; Baskota said that the Tibet issue was sensitive for China and dissemination of a report regarding the Dalai Lama’s health by a state-run news agency was against Nepal’s commitment to “One-China policy.” Sycophancy of the first order!
Also in the tragi-comedy category, Pradip Yadav of the Samajbadi Party and Iqabal Miya of the Rastriya Janata Party, two Members of the Nepali Parliament, recently participated in an event organised by the Latvian Parliamentary Support Group for Tibet and the International Network of Parliamentarians for Tibet.
The convention in Riga was attended by Lobsang Sangay, president of the Central Tibetan Administration, along with other members of the Tibetan Parliament. Soon after, an official at the Parliament Secretariat pretended that “the two leaders said they were visiting Latvia for personal reasons and they did not disclose the details and purpose of their visit.” But finally, the Nepali parliamentarian “regretted” their participation and declared that they inadvertently attended the conference because of misinformation and it was a “mistake.”
China scored one more goal; but for how long the love story can continue is difficult to say. Buddha had said “everything is impermanent” …even China’s great “loan” friendship?

Fading Memories

A Forgotten Student Revolution

My article Fading memories appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer


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While remembering the events of 1919 and seeking to better integrate the spirit of May 4 into the party’s narrative, the student revolt of 1989 has been completely blacked out
China is suffering from a strange disease, a sort of selective amnesia — certain things from the past are clearly remembered, while other events seem to have been completely erased from the nation’s collective memory (or at least from the party’s annals). Take the May Fourth Movement, which was recently celebrated with much fanfare in every corner of the Middle Kingdom. In this case, the memory of the event, which occurred a hundred years ago, is absolutely clear.
Following the 1911 Revolution in China, the Manchu (Qing) dynasty disintegrated, triggering the fall of imperial rule. Eight years later, the May Fourth Movement took place in the Chinese capital where students started protesting against the nationalist Government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, allowing Japan to control the territories surrendered by Germany in Shandong.
On the morning of May 4, 1919, student representatives from 13 different local universities met in Beijing and drafted five resolutions, in particular, to oppose the granting of Shandong to the Japanese and the creation of a Beijing student union. Later in the afternoon, some 3,000 students of Beijing University marched to Tiananmen Square, shouting slogans such as “struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home” and “don’t sign the Versailles Treaty.”
Nobody can deny that it was a true revolution. Hundred years later, Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed that patriotism was the core spirit of the 1919 event. He added that the May Fourth Movement inspired the ambition and confidence of the Chinese people and the nation to realise national rejuvenation. “It was also a great enlightenment and new cultural movement of disseminating new thought, new culture and new knowledge,” Xi said.
The President urged Chinese youth “in the new era” to love the country, the party and adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC)…by the way, where was the party in 1919? Seventy years later, another student revolution took place on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and the Communist Party has no remembrance of it.
The aspiration of the students may have been very similar: A craving for a fairer world, more freedom for the youth to express themselves, a more democratic system (termed the ‘Fifth Modernisation’) and greater transparency and participation in the state’s affairs. A power struggle at the top of the party ended with the decision to send tanks on to the Square on June 4, 1989, which  resulted in the death of some 3,000 youths.
The Tiananmen papers, prefaced by a Chinese scholar, Andrew Nathan, gave a clear picture of the decision process inside the Politburo, which led to the massacre. Nathan wrote: “For the first time ever, reports and minutes have surfaced that provide a revealing and potentially explosive view of decision-making at the highest levels of the Government and party in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)…the protests were ultimately ended by force, including the bloody clearing of Beijing streets by troops using live ammunition. The tragic event was one of the most important in the history of communist China and its consequences are still being felt.”
This has completely been blacked out by Beijing. In May 1968, students in France and elsewhere in Europe also dreamt of a better world, but the two-month revolution, often violent, did not result in any casualty, neither from the students nor the police side.
Wang Xiangwei, a former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, wrote an editorial piece for the Hong-Kong newspaper. After mentioning the similarities between the student movement in 1919 and 1989, he commented: “But the Government will disregard the 30th anniversary of another student demonstration in 1989 that preceded its bloody crackdown on June 4. The latter protest may be less seminal in China’s modern history, but its core spirit should not be obscured.”
Wang also noted that before the beginning of the May 4 celebrations, Xi chaired a meeting of the Politburo “to discuss ways to enhance study into the movement’s history and significance. The President seeks to better integrate the spirit of May 4 into the party’s narrative that only it can lead the country’s youth to his goal of national rejuvenation.”
The sad fact is that today, China is probably worse off than in 1989. Sycophancy and repression have reached new heights. Recently, the regime re-established an alliance of nine colleges, called the “Yanhe University Talent Training Alliance,” in order to perpetuate what is called the Yan’an Red DNA. Yan’an was the place where the Long March ended; it later became the centre of the Chinese communist revolution. In the early years, nine university institutions were set up to train the next generation of communist cadres. It was called the ‘Red DNA college’, responsible for spreading the “fire of the Chinese revolution” to the whole country.
Another instance, during the cultural revolution, party committees in universities made the students report on the anti-party faculty members.
After the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the regime systematically established student informants in key Chinese universities. In 2005, the arrangement was expanded to almost every university and even some high schools explained the well-informed site Chinascope: “Although on the surface, the purpose is to collect information on academic activities, the student informants are the ears and eyes of the communist party authorities in the universities.” One could multiply the examples. One can just guess that China’s freedom-loving students will again revolt one day.
Incidentally, in 1989, the Indian Government ordered the state television to pare down the Tiananmen coverage to the barest minimum. Analyst C Raja Mohan explained: “The Government’s monopoly over television helped Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signal Beijing that India would not revel in China’s domestic troubles and offer some political empathy instead.”
Rajiv Gandhi had travelled to China barely six months earlier. Sometimes, it is easier to be Alzeimerish.