Buddha's birthplace and India-China rivalry

China is keen to choose a successor to the 14th Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India, and New Delhi needs to be alert and play the Tibet-Dalai Lama card adroitly

"The birthplace of Lord Shakyamuni Buddha in Lumbini, one of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is the abode of peace and an ultimate pilgrimage to the Buddhist devotees and peace lovers from around the world."

Thus reads the website of the Lumbini Development Trust that the Nepalese government has constituted to oversee the implementation of the masterplan for the development of Lord Buddha's birthplace.

Ironically, this abode of peace has also become the focus of intense geopolitical rivalry between the two Asian giants, India and China, as they jostle for strategic influence in the Himalayan nation and beyond via Buddhism.

While China has had a head-start in using Buddhism as a soft power tool to expand its footprints in India's neighbourhood and the larger Southeast Asia region, India is now making belated efforts to own its Buddhist heritage and use it to its strategic advantage.

These efforts need to gather pace. Last year, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) announced India would host the first Global Buddhist Conference in November, but it was postponed due to the raging Covid-19 pandemic. No fresh dates have been announced for the meet so far.

However, the attempt to forge stronger linkages with Buddhism will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi head for Lumbini on May 16, a day on which Buddha Purnima will also be celebrated.

A lecture and a 'shilanyas' (foundation laying) ceremony – the word shilanyas has been used by the Ministry of External Affairs in its statement announcing the visit – for a Buddhist culture and heritage centre are part of the PM's programme in Lumbini.

The visit to Lord Buddha's birthplace will perhaps be the strongest signalling yet by New Delhi to Beijing that it cannot just go unchallenged in its attempts to make Buddhism its own and use it for geopolitical gains. The Chinese have had their eyes trained on Lumbini for many years, having helped Nepal develop an international airport nearby and built the Zhong Hua Chinese Buddhist monastery there.

The visit will also be an opportunity for the two sides to engage closely at the prime ministerial level for a second time within a period of just six weeks. While Sher Bahadur Deuba was in New Delhi in early April for the first time after becoming PM, this will be Modi's first visit to the Himalayan nation after his re-election in 2019. Under PM Deuba, there has been a reset in bilateral ties after they went into a tailspin under his predecessor K P Sharma Oli over the Kalapani territorial dispute.

The India-China geopolitical rivalry to have greater sway and also develop strong linkages with Buddhist heritage sites is already at play in Nepal. So, instead of landing at the Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa in Nepal, which is just a few kilometres away from Lumbini, PM Modi will take a chopper ride from Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh to a place also on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

There's a reason why PM Modi won't use the Bhairahawa airport – it was developed by the Chinese, who began assisting Nepal in the development of Lumbini long before India. It was way back in 2011 that China promised assistance to Nepal to develop Lumbini, which included an airport.

Playing catch up with China, India has developed the international airport in Kushinagar, which is close to the India-Nepal border and not too far away from Lumbini. Inaugurated in October last year, the airport has been developed as part of Indian efforts to reinforce its Buddhist heritage and linkages as a counter to Chinese moves.

India also ensured the inaugural flight to this airport was from Buddhist majority Sri Lanka, another country in India's neighbourhood where China has made deep inroads. The then PM Mahinda Rajapaksa's son Namal, himself a cabinet minister, had led a heavyweight delegation of other ministers and monks on this flight.

As New Delhi takes steps to counter Beijing's moves to appropriate Buddhism and use its soft power in its outreach to Nepal, China has been unrelenting in its moves that clearly have motives other than merely the spiritual or altruistic.

Take, for instance, China's push for a trans-Himalayan railway line that will see the extension of the Lhasa-Shigatse railway line in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to Keyrung near the Nepal border and onward to Kathmandu and eventually Lumbini.

While this project will face huge challenges owing to the Himalayan terrain, New Delhi cannot afford to take its eyes off the ball, given both the resources and the foresight Beijing has at its command and the fact that Nepal is also part of China's expansionist Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

And then, of course, inextricably tied to the Chinese quest for primacy in Buddhism is the issue of Tibet, its people and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. With TAR sharing a long border with Nepal, the Himalayan nation, over the years, has sheltered thousands of Tibetan refugees.

The presence of these refugees and their activities has always been a cause of concern for China. Consequently, China has pressured Nepal to keep a close watch on them and restrict their activities on its soil. But Beijing was unable to persuade Kathmandu to sign an extradition treaty during President Xi Jinping's visit to Nepal in 2019 – a treaty that was perceived as aimed at Tibetan refugees carrying out "anti-China activities" in Nepal.

Linked to Beijing's calculated moves is the question of who will be the next Dalai Lama. China is keen to choose a successor to the 14th Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India ever since he fled Tibet in 1959. India needs to be alert and play the Tibet-Dalai Lama card adroitly if required.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)