Despite China's objection, India endorses Dalai Lama's reincarnation decision

New Delhi: India on Thursday endorsed the Tibetan spiritual leader 14th Dalai Lama’s move to rule out any role for China in selecting his reincarnation.

Nobody has the right to decide the 15th Dalai Lama except the incumbent, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju said.

He made the comment a day after the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who would turn 90 on July 6, entrusted the full responsibility of selecting his reincarnation to a trust based in India – a move intended to counter Beijing’s bid to influence the process of selecting the 15th Dalai Lama and use him to fizzle out the global movement against the occupation of Tibet by China.

“All those who follow the Dalai Lama feel that the incarnation is to be decided by the established convention and as per the wish of the Dalai Lama himself,” Rijiju said, adding: “Nobody else has the right to decide it except him and the conventions in place”.

His comment was the first reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in New Delhi to the statement the Dalai Lama made about the process of selecting his reincarnation in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, the seat of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, formally known as the Central Tibetan Administration, in India. New Delhi publicly endorsed the Dalai Lama’s decision on his reincarnation, although it riled Beijing.

Beijing, however, underlined that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must have its approval.

The Tibetan spiritual leader on Wednesday not only confirmed that the institution of the Dalai Lama would continue beyond his lifetime but also announced that no one else but the Gaden Phodrang Trust, which he had set up in India in 2011, would have the sole authority to recognise his future reincarnation.

He made the announcement even as Beijing planned to make Gyaincain Norbu, whom it had declared ‘Panchen Lama’ in 1995 rejecting Dalai Lama’s choice Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, play a key role in selecting the 15th Dalai Lama, using the ‘Golden Urn’ process of lottery, with the approval from the government of China.

He had earlier said that his reincarnation would be found in the ‘free world’, not in Tibet under the occupation of China.

China strongly reacted to the Dalai Lama’s statement on Wednesday. “The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and other great Buddhist figures must be chosen by drawing lots from a golden urn, and approved by the central government,” Mao Ning, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of China, told journalists in Beijing.

The Dalai Lama’s move to resist Beijing’s bid to control the process of selecting his reincarnation came at a time when India and China were trying to add momentum to the bilateral relations, which had nosedived during the more-than-four-year-long military stand-off, which started in April-May 2020 along the disputed boundary between the two neighbours in eastern Ladakh and continued till October 2024.

Modi has been publicly greeting and wishing the Dalai Lama on his birthdays since 2021. Beijing was not amused and asked New Delhi to stop using Tibet-related issues to interfere in the internal affairs of China.

The 14th Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India following his 1959 escape from Tibet, which had been occupied by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1950-51.

The monk, a staunch advocate for non-violence and freedom, has been arguing for “genuine autonomy” – not independence from the Chinese Government’s rule – for Tibet. Beijing, however, still calls him a “separatist” and accuses him of running a campaign to split China.

His meeting with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August 2010 or his visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan on an invitation from then President Pranab Mukherjee in December 2016 had also triggered strong protests from China.

So had New Delhi’s decisions in 2009 and 2017 to let him visit Arunachal Pradesh, where China claims nearly 90000 sq. km of territory of India to be its own. New Delhi, however, maintained that he was an honoured guest and was free to travel to any part of India.

The Dalai Lama had in 2011 transferred his temporal power to the Sikyong, the democratically elected leader of the TGiE. Beijing in the past pressed the Government of India hard to shut down the TGiE (CTA). New Delhi, however, has been allowing it to function, albeit without officially recognising it.