India Likely To Allow 17th Karmapa
(tibet.com | March 30, 2000)
The Dalai Lama said Thursday India appears ready to grant the 17th Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorje, refugee status, although India has yet to make a formal response to his request.
"I asked the (Indian) government to allow him to stay on for studies. In principle, the government of India seems to have no problem. But a formal sort of response has not yet come," the Tibetan spiritual leader told Japanese media ahead of his April visit to Tokyo.
The Dalai Lama said it was his "moral responsibility and obligation" to look after the needs of the Karmapa because the 14-year-old boy wants to stay in India.
Declining to comment on whether the request was for a political asylum, the Dalai Lama said the Karmapa wants to be permitted to remain in India like thousands of Tibetan students and monks who stay in the country to pursue studies.
The Dalai Lama sought to play down the political implications of refugee status, saying the Karmapa simply wants to study. He said there was little opportunity to do that in Chinese-controlled Tibet. The Karmapa, spiritual leader of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism and considered the No 3 leader of Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, fled from China in late December last year.
The Dalai Lama said the Karmapa issue has become "too politicized" and has led to "problems."
India has been silent on granting political asylum to the 14-year-old Karmapa, saying there had been no formal request. In reply to another query on whether the teenager will take his seat in Rumtek, a village in India's northeastern state Sikkim, the Dalai Lama said ideally the Karmapa, as head of the Kagyu sect, should occupy the throne.
However, the Dalai Lama admitted there are "technical problems" preventing the Karmapa from occupying the seat. But he refused to elaborate on the obstacles, saying they are issues to be dealt with by the central and state governments.
If the Karmapa is allowed to stay in India he may eventually settle in Rumtek. The 16th Karmapa, who fled Tibet in 1959, built a lavish monastery near the Sikkim capital Gangtok. There are other claimants to the throne of one of the oldest branches of Tibetan Buddhism and the accession issue led to violence among supporters of various factions in Sikkim more than two years ago.
The Dalai Lama denied the 17th Karmapa will succeed him as Tibet's leader, noting the boy "is just one of the several important lamas." He said the future of the institution of Dalai Lama depends upon his people. "At the time of my death, if a majority of the people feel that the Dalai Lama is no longer relevant, then this institution will automatically cease."
He said if ever the day of his return to Tibet comes, he would hand over the reins of Tibetan leadership to a democratically elected government. While in India, the Dalai Lama said he will continue his freedom struggle and look after the welfare of his people in exile.
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