Dalai Lama in His
Youth
On the day before the opera festival in the summer
of 1950, His Holiness was just coming out of the bathroom at the Norbulingka
when he felt the earth beneath begin to move. As the scale of this natural phenomenon
began to sink in, people naturally began to say that this was more than a
simple earthquake: it was an omen.
Two days later, Regent Tathag received
a telegram from the Governor of Kham, based in Chamdo, reporting a raid on a
Tibetan post by Chinese soldiers. Already the previous autumn there had been
cross-border incursions by Chinese Communists, who stated their intention of
liberating Tibet from the hands of imperialist aggressors. It now looked as if
the Chinese were making good their threat. If that were so, I was well aware
that Tibet was in grave danger for our army mustered no more than 8,500
officers and men. It would be no match for the recently victorious People's
Liberation Army (PLA).
Two months later, in October, news
reached Lhasa that an army of 80,000 soldiers of the PLA had crossed the Drichu
river east of Chamdo. So the axe had fallen. And soon, Lhasa must fall. As the
winter drew on and the news got worse, people began to advocate that His
Holiness be given his majority, his full temporal power. The Government
consulted the Nechung Oracle, a very tense moment, who came over to where His
Holiness was seated and laid a kata, a white offering scarf, on His Holiness's
lap with the words 'Thu-la bap', His time has come. At the young age of
fifteen, His Holiness was on 17 November 1950 officially enthroned as the
temporal leader of Tibet in a ceremony held at the Norbulingka Palace.
At the beginning of November, about a
fortnight before the day of His Holiness's investiture, his eldest brother
arrived in Lhasa. As soon as I set eyes on him, I knew that he had suffered
greatly. Because Amdo, the province where we were both born, and in which
Kumbum is situated, lies so close to China, it had quickly fallen under control
of the Communists. He himself was kept virtual prisoner in his monastery. At
the same time, the Chinese endeavoured to indoctrinate him in the new Communist
way of thinking and try to subvert him. They had a plan whereby they would set
him free to go to Lhasa if he would undertake to persuade me to accept Chinese
rule. If I resisted, he was to kill me. They would then reward him.
To mark the occasion of his ascension
to power, His Holiness granted general amnesty whereby all the prisoners were
set free. I was pleased to have this opportunity, although there were times
that I regretted it. When I trained my telescope on the compound, it was empty
save for a few dogs scavenging for scraps. It was as if something was missing
from my life.
Shortly after the 15-year-old Dalai
Lama found himself the undisputed leader of six million people facing the
threat of a full-scale war, His Holiness appointed two new Prime Ministers.
Lobsang Tashi became the monk Prime Minister and an experienced lay
administrator, Lukhangwa, the lay Prime Minister.
That done, I decided in consultation
with them and the Kashag to send delegations abroad to America, Great Britain
and Nepal in the hope of persuading these countries to intervene on our behalf.
Another was to go to China in the hope of negotiating a withdrawal. These
missions left towards the end of the year. Shortly afterwards, with the Chinese
consolidating their forces in the east, we decided that I should move to
southern Tibet with the most senior members of the Government. That way, if the
situation deteriorated, I could easily seek exile across the border with India.
Meanwhile, Lobsang Tashi and Lunkhangwa were to remain in an acting capacity.
While His Holiness was in Dromo, which lay just inside the border with
Sikkim, His Holiness received the news that while the delegation to China had
reached its destination, each of the others had been turned back. So it was
almost impossible to believe that the British Government was now agreeing that
China had some claim to authority over Tibet. His Holiness was equally saddened
by America's reluctance to help. I remember feeling great sorrow when I
realised what this really meant: Tibet must expect to face the entire might of
Communist China alone.
Frustrated by the indifference showed
to Tibet's case by Great Britain and America, His Holiness, in his last bid to
avoid a full-scale Chinese invasion, sent Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, governor of
Kham, to Beijing to open a dialogue with the Chinese. The delegation hadn't
been given the power to reach at any settlement, apart from its entrusted task
of convincing the Chinese leadership against invading Tibet. However, one
evening, as I sat alone A harsh, crackling voice announced that a
Seventeen-Point 'Agreement' for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet had that day (May
23, 1951) been signed by representatives of the Government of the People's
Republic of China and what they called the Local Government of Tibet. As it
turned out, the Chinese who even forged the Tibetan seal had forced the
delegation headed by Ngabo into signing the agreement. The Chinese had in
effect secured a major coup by winning Tibetan compliance, albeit at gunpoint,
to their terms of returning Tibet to the fold of the motherland. His Holiness
returned to Lhasa in the middle of August 1951
Countdown to Escape
The next nine years saw His Holiness trying to evade a full-scale
military takeover of Tibet by China on one hand and placating the growing
resentment among Tibetan resistance fighters against the Chinese aggressors on
the other. His Holiness made a historic visit to China from July 1954 to June
1955 for peace talks and met with Mao Zadong and other Chinese leaders,
including Chou En-lai, Chu Teh and Deng Xiaoping. From November 1956 to March
1957 His Holiness visited India to participate in the 2500th Buddha Jayanti
celebrations. But disheartening reports of increasing brutality towards his own
people continued to pour in when the young Dalai Lama was giving his final
monastic examinations in Lhasa in the winter of 1958/59.
Escape into Exile
One winter day of 1959 (March 10)
General Chiang Chin-wu of Communist China extended a seemingly innocent
invitation to the Tibetan leader to attend a theatrical show by a Chinese dance
troupe. When the invitation was repeated with new conditions that no Tibetan
soldiers was to accompany the Dalai Lama and that his bodyguards be unarmed, an
acute anxiety befell the Lhasa populace. Soon a crowd of tens of thousands of
Tibetans gathered around the Norbulingka Palace, determined to thwart any
threat to their young leader's life.
On 17 March 1959 during a consultation
with Nechung Oracle, His Holiness was given an explicit instruction to leave
the country. The Oracle's decision was further confirmed when a divinity
performed by His Holiness produced the same answer, even though the odds
against making a successful break seemed terrifyingly high.
A few minutes before ten o'clock His
Holiness, now disguised as a common soldier, slipped past the massive throng of
people along with a small escort and proceeded towards Kyichu river, where He
was joined by the rest of the entourage, including his immediate family
members.
Three weeks after leaving Lhasa, His Holiness and
his entourage reached the Indian border from where they were escorted by Indian
guards to Bomdila. The Indian government had already agreed to provide asylum
to His Holiness and his followers in India. It was in Mussoorie that His
Holiness met with the Indian Prime Minister and the two talked about
rehabilitating the Tibetan refugees.
Realising the importance of modern
education for the children of Tibetan refugees, His Holiness impressed upon
Nehru to undertake the formation of an independent Society for Tibetan
Education within the Indian Ministry of Education. The Indian Government was to
bear all the expenses for setting up the schools for the Tibetan children.
Thinking the time is ripe for me to
break my elected silence', His Holiness called a press conference on 20 June
1959 when His Holiness formally repudiated the Seventeen-Point Agreement. In
the field of administration, too, I was able to make radical changes. For
example, His Holiness saw the creation of various new Tibetan government
departments. These included Departments of Information, Education, Home,
Security, Religious Affairs and Economic Affairs. Most of the Tibetan refugees,
whose number had grown to almost 30,000, were moved to road camps in the hills
of northern India.
On 10 March 1960 just before leaving
for Dharamsala with the eighty or so officials who comprised the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile, His Holiness began what is now a tradition by making a
statement on the anniversary of the Tibetan People's Uprising. On this first
occasion, I stressed the need for my people to take a long-term view of the
situation in Tibet. For those of us in exile, I said that our priority must be
resettlement and the continuity of our cultural traditions. As to the future, I
stated my belief that, with Truth, Justice and Courage as our weapons, we
Tibetans would eventually prevail in regaining freedom for Tibet.
TO BE CONTINUED
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