Don't Give Him Asylum
(by Swaran Singh | Outlook | January 24, 2000)
Granting asylum to the Karmapa will serve no purpose other than making Beijing more suspicious of India's intentions. Recent raids at Tsurphu monastery near Lhasa, arrests of monks and Premier Zhu Rongji's call for stricter implementation of religious policies provide enough evidence that such a step might actually delay the resolution of the Tibetan problem by a few more years.
For India, it will create ripples within its already turbulent Tibetan refugee population besides compelling the Dalai Lama to sort out his equations with the two competing Karmapas and their followers.
Those who are advocating that India should use the Karmapa card to deal with China are too optimistic. They need to familiarise themselves with India's record on using the bigger Dalai Lama card during these past four decades. Even theoretically it is absurd to think that India will be able to force upon the Chinese a one-sided solution. This seems especially inane because China has been in full control of Tibet for the past five decades.
The current episode has also strongly invoked memories of the Dalai Lama's arrival in India in March 1959. But it is this comparison that lends credence to insinuations that the Karmapa's arrival may well be a Chinese ploy. As for making comparisons with 1959, it was the result of a decade-long military occupation of Tibet when the Dalai Lama had stood firm against Chinese onslaughts. He had sought asylum during his earlier visit to India in 1956 but had returned when Premier Zhou En-Lai promised that the Mao-inspired social engineering that was ravaging Tibet would be halted for the next five years. India was more justified in extending asylum to the Dalai Lama the second time.
Therefore, if the aim is to seek a final solution to the Tibet question and ensure that Tibetans finally return home, these emotional outbursts cannot be the basis of India's decision on the Karmapa. A cost-benefit analysis tells us that despite the Karmapa being the most influential voice of the Tibetan people (by virtue of the Dalai Lama being in exile and the Panchen Lama being a nine-year-old boy) and despite being the critical intercessor who enjoys equal confidence of both China and the Dalai Lama, Ugyen Trinley Dorje's decision to flee Tibet has further complicated things.
However, with the enhanced level of mutual confidence among these three parties, it should be possible today to come to a better conclusion than the one arrived at in 1959. China has demonstrated patience by keeping silent for nearly a fortnight before indicating that the doors remain open for the Karmapa's return. The Dalai Lama has tried to play it low by declaring it a matter between the Karmapa and India. This provides India a fair amount of leverage to influence the outcome of this apparently complicated affair and New Delhi must work for a solution that can stand the test of time. Asylum for the Karmapa is certainly not the correct decision.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org