The monk

The monk

India and the US back the Dalai Lama’s right to choose his successor, a fact that irks China.

The autonomous region of Tibet is a sensitive spot for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative is the spearhead project of his inroads into Eurasia through this region, and neighbouring Xinjiang. Tibet also reminds China of the bitter fact that the Dalai Lama lives in exile in India even as Tibetans continue their struggle for independence. India touched that sensitive spot the other day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephonic conversation with the Dalai Lama on the latter’s 86th birthday. He made it known openly through a tweet. It was Modi’s first conversation with the Tibetan spiritual leader after 2014, at least one that is acknowledged publicly. Two days earlier, Modi greeted President Joe Biden on the Independence Day of the United States. Both are in contrast to the Prime Minister’s silence on the CCP’s centenary celebrations on July 1. The message was obvious in the context of the ongoing border standoff between India and China and the latter continuing to drag its feet on total disengagement. However, Modi wishing the Dalai Lama “a long and healthy life” carries its own meaning in the context of China’s repeated threats that the Tibetan leader’s successor cannot be anointed without its approval. India has so far not waded into the succession affair and, for the first time, may have let it be known that it has the Tibetan people’s interests in sight on the subject.

Beijing is yet to officially respond to the conversation, but its irritation can be gauged from its past responses. In 2011, for instance, scheduled talks between China and India were deferred possibly over New Delhi’s refusal to cancel an international religious conference the Dalai Lama was scheduled to address. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson obliquely commented, saying that China opposed any country offering a platform to the Dalai Lama. Reports of the Dalai Lama feeling indisposed always triggered a mention in the Chinese State media about Beijing’s role in finding a successor. In 2020, President Donald Trump confronted China on this issue by bringing in the Tibetan Policy and Support Act that stated that only the Dalai Lama can have control over the process of finding his reincarnation. China retaliated by bringing out a white paper — “Tibet Since 1951: Liberation, Development and Prosperity” — in which it referred to the “Imperially Approved Ordinance for Better Governance of Tibet” promulgated in 1793 that stipulated that the “reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other grand Living Buddhas had to follow the procedure of ‘drawing lots from the golden urn’, and the selected candidate would be subject to approval by the Central Government of China”. The questions about reincarnation turn controversial with easing passing birthday even as India and the United States share similar views on the Tibetan leader’s right to choose his successor. The Prime Minister’s tweet is in sync with India’s place in Tibetan affairs and its current relations with China.