The ageing Dalai Lama, China and India’s options

On July 6, the 14th Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday, followed by year-long celebrations across the world. The day is expected to mark a critical juncture in the Tibetan exiled leader’s 70-year-long campaign to resolve the Tibet question through what he has called a “middle way approach” — meaningful autonomy within the ambit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Notably, he is widely expected to make a statement on his reincarnation, a key question for the Tibetan exile community’s future leadership due to his advanced age.

While the Dalai Lama faces a dilemma between making a compromise on China’s terms and ensuring that his successor is born in a “free world”, the occasion raises questions for Indian policymakers. What position should India take? That depends on whether and why China may make a deal with the Dalai Lama.

Clash of two competing visions of Tibet

China has vehemently insisted that the Dalai Lama’s successor will be born in the PRC and that the process of finding him must be with the approval of Chinese authorities. For China, the reincarnation and succession of religious figures are not simple matters of tradition. It is about China’s sovereign claim over Tibet. 

China has tightened its control over Tibet with continuous investment in enhancing its capabilities to exercise control over the Tibetan population. However, that grip remains slippery due to the lack of wider legitimacy of its rule among the Tibetan populace. A deal with the Dalai Lama may help China to make up for its legitimacy deficit. 

Years of dialogue between Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama’s representatives have yielded no substantial results – it is low-ranking officials from the bureau handling ethnic minorities within the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department that constitute the Chinese negotiating team. Thus, the Communist Party’s ideological and institutional rigidity, that any religious figure cannot operate outside the purview of the Communist Party’s ideological and organisational folds, is a significant barrier to making a deal with the Tibetan exiles. Add to this, accepting ideologically driven Tibetan exiles may be even difficult. 

Further, the Dalai Lama has stated in his latest autobiography, Voice for the Voiceless, that he aims to achieve a “democratic Tibet” within the ambit of the PRC, which presumes some political reforms in China. The implication that such reforms are required itself poses an existential and ideological challenge to the Communist Party’s rule. Furthermore, he states his successor will be born in “the free world”. This approach is not new, but it clashes with an increasingly hardened approach by China in Tibet, especially in the post-2008 period, where it has doubled down on creating Zhonghua minzu, a unified Chinese national identity, which constrains the political space for compromises. Complicating these dynamics is the rise of Han nationalism, which sustains the idea of a unified nation-state, which makes any articulations of Tibetan identity, even within the legal parameters of the Chinese constitution, difficult and a challenge to China’s sovereignty in Tibet. 

For the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetans, choosing his successor is a case of hope for “meaningful autonomy”. However, all odds seem to be against them. While China has tightened its grip on Tibet, selective support from the international community, particularly the United States, has also blunted pressure on the PRC.

Tibet remains a political issue, however, and political solutions to such problems can always be a possibility and are perhaps the only long-term paths to resolve complexities of this scale. One key factor facilitating such political solutions is how Tibetans inside the PRC respond. In particular, ethnic Tibetan leadership within the PRC may be a potential factor, strengthening the hands of the Chinese central leadership. Take, for example, the case of the recognition of the 11th Panchen Lama in the early 1990s. It took five years to recognise two alternative Panchen Lamas after the 10th Panchen Lama died in May 1989. Initially, the Chinese government were open to the choices made by the Dalai Lama, but provincial ethnic Tibetan leaders opposed that choice, and the rest is history. 

The dynamics have changed with a new generation of ethnic Tibetan leaders taking over from leaders in the 1990s who emerged during radical and politically chaotic periods such as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The new generations of Tibetan officials are ideologically agnostic and more likely to go with the choices of central leadership, thus freeing the latter’s hands if they decide to make a deal with the exile community.

Options for India

In all likelihood, the search for the Dalai Lama’s successor will be a long-drawn affair. What happens during that period will have consequences for Tibetans within and outside the PRC and, more importantly, for India. While the Dalai Lama has hinted at three possibilities over a period, i.e., reincarnation, no reincarnation, and emanation. Regardless of his choice, the PRC has insisted that there will be his successor.

India is faced with a difficult choice. India recognised Tibet as a part of Chinese territory in 2003. Despite that, what happens in Tibet and to the institution of the Dalai Lama directly impacts India. It shares a disputed border with Tibet, with China’s irredentist claims over Indian territory hinging upon Chinese historical claims over Tibet. Moreover, not only does India have a large Tibetan diaspora, but large sections of the population in the Indian Himalayas follow various strands of Tibetan Buddhism. 

Above all, humanitarian concerns have driven India’s policy towards Tibet since the 1950s rather than using it as a “card” to settle geopolitical scores. Consistent with this, India has stated in the past that China needs to resolve the root causes of the Tibetan grievance, such as during the 2008 protests. 

Therefore, India’s interests lie in the Dalai Lama’s orderly and peaceful succession. India’s positions on the Tibet question, particularly the Dalai Lama’s succession issue, have been vague and ambiguous in an attempt to adhere to the non-interference principle. However, India is not required to renege on that principle and abandon the “one China policy” to articulate its interests and positions. New Delhi should declare that while India is not interested in interfering in China’s problems, it cannot be a silent spectator either due to historical connections or contingent factors such as unresolved borders with Tibet. For policymakers, the challenge lies in crafting a suitable way to communicate this approach to Beijing rather than a hands-off and ambiguous stand. 

(The writer is an associate fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan
Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR)