Tibetans in Karnataka: Hope and despair, far from home

Rows of whitewashed houses and bright red-and-gold monastery spires rise above the fields in Bylakuppe, about 220 km from Bengaluru. Their architecture is reminiscent of the monasteries in Tibet. The air carries the nutty aroma of tsampa and butter tea, faintly mingling with the incense wafting from the temple courtyards. Monks in maroon and saffron turn prayer wheels in the distance. Local families run handicraft shops, and schools teach Tibetan culture alongside the Indian curriculum.

On a visit, I was struck by how, despite living far from the windswept plateaus of Tibet for over six decades, their daily lives still carry the echoes of their homeland. Ngawang Gyatso has been researching Tibetan settlements in Karnataka and provides a broad perspective on how life has played out for his community here. He is a second-generation Tibetan refugee born in Himachal Pradesh. He serves as the dean of regular studies at the Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education located on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

We begin with tsampa, a roasted flour made from barley or wheat. A staple in Tibetan households, it is typically eaten as a dough or porridge along with tea. This humble, calorie-dense food has come to symbolise survival and a portable piece of home. When Gyatso’s parents fled Tibet in 1980, they mostly carried on their backs photographs of the Dalai Lama, rosaries, Buddhist texts, clothes, and “of course, tsampa”. Back in Tibet, sugar or dry cheese was sometimes added to tsampa for a touch of indulgence. “In the south, we even add dry fruits to it,” says Gyatso, who moved to Bengaluru in 2012. He lives with his wife and father here.

Difficult goodbye

In 1995, Gyatso was just 12 when his mother, gripped by homesickness, made the difficult decision to return to Tibet. She left him with his father, a decision made in consultation with the family. Gyatso never saw her again. She has since passed, but he finds comfort in knowing that she spent her final years among familiar faces, in a place she called home. They stayed in touch through occasional phone calls, though the conversations never went beyond pleasantries. “Phone calls are monitored. They are just too risky,” explains the 40-year-old academic. Even now, international phone calls remain the only link to relatives in Tibet; Gmail, WhatsApp, and Facebook are blocked behind what is known as the ‘Great Firewall of China’. According to Gyatso, other Tibetans who made the journey back found their villages erased and landscapes unrecognisable under relentless Chinese ‘development’. Some were denied entry as they didn’t have a ‘valid’ Chinese visa, and came back broken-hearted.

Long walk to India

In 1949, China invaded Tibet and claimed it as its own territory. China’s actions were driven by “expansionist ambitions, strategic security concerns, and the desire to control the remote region’s vast mineral resources”. Ten years later, on March 10, 1959, thousands of Tibetans in Lhasa rose up against the Chinese occupation. The uprising was brutally crushed, though Beijing refers to the action as the ‘Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’. Amid fears of an attack on the Potala Palace, the historic residence and seat of power of Tibet’s spiritual and political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, then 23, slipped out of Lhasa on March 17. He was accompanied by a 37-member entourage. They travelled incognito, with the Dalai Lama disguised in a soldier’s uniform.

They journeyed on foot across the Himalayas, crossing the Lhoka region, the Tsona Dzong town, and even fording a 500-metre stretch of the Tsangpo river (the upper course of the Brahmaputra), before entering India via the Khenzimane Pass on March 31. They found refuge in the scenic Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh. The Indian government, under Jawaharlal Nehru, facilitated the setting up of a Tibetan government-in-exile, first in Mussoorie and later in Dharamshala. The move came at a geopolitical cost, with China accusing India of interference.

The migration has since continued. Tibetans seek freedom to preserve their culture and faith, pursue education and speak for the voiceless on the international stage. The Chinese, I learn, forbid them even from keeping a photograph of the Dalai Lama. According to sources, about 2,000 Tibetans fled to India each year in the early 2000s. By 2015-2020, the number had fallen below 100, and now it is down to a single digit or zero because of tighter border security.

Today India hosts 35 Tibetan settlements across 10 states and two union territories. India does not officially recognise Tibetans as refugees. They are classified as foreigners and, unless born in the country, they must renew their registration certificates every year. Tibetans can travel abroad using Identity Certificates, but obtaining travel documents from the Chinese embassy in Delhi for travel to Tibet remains difficult. Tibetans born between 1950 and 1987 are entitled to Indian citizenship by birth. This grants them the right to obtain passports and enrol on the voters’ list (though this right is rarely exercised). Most choose not to take up Indian citizenship, fearing it would mean giving up on their Tibetan identity and commitment to a free Tibet. Their legal status is restricted — they cannot own land or hold government jobs — but most describe India as generous.

Restarting in Karnataka

Karnataka led the way in providing refuge to the first stream of Tibetan exiles, granting 15,175 acres of agricultural land for their rehabilitation. The first settlement was established in Bylakuppe in the early 1960s, followed by a second later that decade. By the mid 1970s, other colonies had come up in Mundgod, Hunsur and Kollegal. These settlements include schools, monastic institutions, primary and specialised healthcare centres, cooperative societies, old age homes, and offices for ex-servicemen. The Sera monasteries in Bylakuppe and the Drepung and Ganden monasteries in Mundgod are closely modelled on their counterparts in Lhasa. As per information shared by Gyatso, Karnataka is home to around 21,570 Tibetans today.

Lhakpa Tsering, who runs a modest Tibetan restaurant in Bengaluru, shares stories of Bylakuppe’s earliest settlers, including his parents, and clearly remembers the name of then-chief minister, S Nijalingappa. “Our people cut trees with the help of local workers to clear the forest for what would become the settlement. They were also given maize fields to farm,” he says, speaking on behalf of his reticent mother seated next to him. In the early days, Gyatso adds, the refugees survived on food donations and faced challenges because of wild animals like elephants.

Acclimatisation woes

Lhakpa’s parents first arrived in Kalimpong in West Bengal, then moved further north before being sent to Karnataka by train. One of their earliest challenges was the tropical heat and “many fell sick in the early days”. They arrived with thick woollens but had to soon adapt to light cottons. “The rotis here were thin, but back home, our breads were thick,” he says. Over time, his mother grew fond of set dosa and rasam, and he of ragi mudde and chow chow bath. However, she says thukpa (noodle soup) has never tasted like it did in Tibet. “The taste was in the organic vegetables of the mountains,” adds Lhakpa, who is in his 50s.

Amid rustling coconut palms and fluttering prayer flags, generations have now grown up speaking Tibetan, English, and some Kannada and Hindi. Though the numbers are very few, intermarriage with communities across India is another marker of their integration.

Scholars regard the Tibetan exile community in India as a model for displaced populations worldwide, one that has adapted amicably without losing its socio-cultural identity or showing signs of emotional trauma. Gyatso attributes this resilience to their religious teachings, a positive upbringing, and the tightly knit community where exile was experienced not in isolation, but as a collective story. They celebrate Losar, the Tibetan New Year, with as much enthusiasm as they observe March 10, the anniversary of the 1959 uprising, with peace marches. “Our identity is our compass; it guides us through the uncertainties of exile,” reminds Gyatso.

Country vs concept

Some Tibetans haven’t still opened the bags they fled with. Once carried on the backs of mules, across mountains and forests, through hunger and fear, these bags have become symbols of hope that they will one day return home. Some families sent their children to India with relatives or guides to keep their education going, believing the situation at home would improve within a few years. Decades have since rolled by.

Elders speak of escaping across frozen rivers, hiding from soldiers, and catching the first glimpse of India that looked strange yet merciful, as if it all happened yesterday. They carry a dream bigger than themselves: to see the Dalai Lama return to the Potala Palace. For the younger generation, the refugee settlements are the only home they have ever known. Still, the responsibility of carrying their cause forward rests firmly on their shoulders. As Gyatso puts it, “Many Tibetans see Tibet not as a country, but a concept.” Writer-activist Tenzin Tsundue reflects in an award-winning essay published in his book ‘Kora’:

Money plants crept in through the window,
our house seems to have grown roots,
the fences have grown into a jungle,
now how can I tell my children where
we came from?

In Tibetan schools, children learn their history, language, and religion. They also speak Kannada and English to balance preservation and assimilation. They dance to Bollywood beats, yet on the college stage, they perform traditional dances in Tibetan costumes. They discuss Bengaluru’s potholes and India’s geopolitical equations too. “We hope India uses its improving tie with China to advance discussions on Tibet,” says Gyatso.

Tsundue captures the burden of exile in the same essay. His nation cannot march under its flag in its national dress at the Olympics. He was born in a makeshift tent to road construction labourers — government offices assigned him three different birthdates; he celebrates none.

He recounts moments when the distance from home feels most stark. A Tibetan youth died in New York and nobody in the group knew the traditional cremation rites. Or, when a friend sent him this letter: “Tsundue, I don’t know whether to rejoice that I am finally going to meet my parents or cry because I can’t remember their faces. I was only a child when I was sent to India with my uncle. It has been twenty years.”

Cultural continuity

Tibetan refugees today run crafts and food businesses, work in agriculture, join the corporate and service sectors, teach in community schools, and take up jobs with their government-in-exile. Increasingly, many are moving abroad, not just to create a better life for themselves, but also to support their families and communities back home through remittances. However, migration to the West poses a dilemma. In India, settlements help families stay together, care for one another, and maintain cultural continuity. Abroad, scattered communities risk losing the cohesion that sustains their stories, and their struggle for a free Tibet. Gyatso emphasises that India remains the Tibetans’ closest link to home. The community is also facing a declining birth rate.

Take me home

Their roots have grown deep in India, intertwined with new lives, yet for many Tibetans in their youth and middle age, their grandparents’ stories tug at their hearts. They long to visit Tibet to see the Potala Palace, to ride horses across open plains, and to eat the large mountain potatoes and beans. Above all, they wish to honour the sacrifices their elders made for the free life they live in India.

Tenzin Tema, a psychology student, says, “My grandparents fled as children, walking through deep snow, hiding from soldiers, and enduring frostbite and paralysis along the way.” Tenzin Nordon, 23, adds that seeing Tibet would connect her more deeply to her heritage; she is currently working in an old-age home to give back to her community. For Tsering Dolma, another college student, “freedom means living with dignity and our own identity, something our ancestors risked their lives for”.

However, most do not know the exact location of their ancestral homes; their grandparents have passed on, and their parents were too young to remember. Many families in Karnataka live with baggage still unpacked, physically and metaphorically. The thought of returning to Tibet lingers alongside many anxieties: But what if it is too late? What if the Tibet they remember, or imagine, no longer exists? What if there is no one waiting for them?

Amid this weight of exile, hope persists. Dolma says: “Being a refugee means carrying the memory and spirit of a homeland I have never seen but feel connected to. It means living with gratitude for the freedom we have in India, while still holding the dream of returning to a free Tibet. It is a reminder of both the loss of a homeland and the strength in never giving up on identity.”

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