JAWALAMUKHI: More then 500 hundred Tibetans are coming to Jawalamukhi from Dharamsala to gherao the Yatri Niwas.Coming via foot , they are reaching here on Sunday morning to protest against the arrests of Tibetans by Indian authorities recently.
The march, defying Indian government’s order banning peaceful protests against China, was re-launched in wake of China’s brutal crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators going on inside Tibet.Tension prevails in Jawalamukhi. More police personal deployed by the authority in and outside the Yatri Niwas on Nadaun Road.Electricity of the campus was shut down fearing attack of Tibetans.
Tibetan People’s Deputies also stood up today in solidarity with the movement and called members to sit on a hunger strike. They called all the members to initiate the release of the marchers of the ‘Return March to Tibet’ currently held in judicial remand in Yatri Nivas at Jawalamukhi. They appealed the Indian Government to allow the ‘Return March to Tibet‘.
Photo by Prem Sood.
Let us accept the fact – the Indian govt does NOT support the Tibetan cause. Individual Indians do. That the refugees are here is a different matter. That’s because in 1956 already the Dalai Lama was warning Nehru of China’s bad intentions. In fact he didn’t want to go back to Lhasa even then, but Nehru practically forced him to go back. The DL was young and impressionable (all of 21) and looked up to him, and Nehru was of course Nehru. Well, then came March 10, 1959 and the rest is history. When the DL escaped to India, Nehru could not very well have refused him shelter anymore. That’s why the Tibetans are here, Nehru’s guilt-complex. The Indian govt would just as well they all moved en-masse to Antarctica, so that NOTHING comes in the way off “Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai”!. Besides China can anytime start embarrassing India on Kashmir issue if Indian Govt were to come out openly in support of the Tibetans.
But sadly, even the DL is trying to appease China, with his “Middle Way” demand for “autonomy” instead of actual independence – a change of position from his early days in exile. This has caused confusion and distress among a lot of Tibetans. They are thus torn between two powerful emotions, and any Indian who examines his own country’s history and its freedom struggle should be sympathetic to the individuals who are caught in these conflicting currents.
Trying to reason with the Chinese about Tibet is like discussing algebra with a cobra!!!
I don’t see a reason why the Indian Govt should ban the Tibetans march. Rather we should support them in whichever ways possible…