LEH, Ladakh, India, 29 March 2008 — Tibetan refugee Lodoe Sangpo is on hunger strike, like thousands of monks across India. He will never forget the dangerous journey his parents sent him on when he was barely 13.
“We walked 30 days from Tibet to Nepal to India...some friends died on the way. Some people’s feet were frozen; they had to cut them off in Nepal. Sixty people started, 10 were lost on the way. I cried a lot because I was too young to understand why my father sent me.”
But Sangpo, 29, made it out alive, and now he is determined to draw attention to the plight of Tibetans who remain in his troubled homeland.
“We tried to come with thousands of monks but it was not possible to get permission; we will go now to protest in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, and other cities,” said Sangpo, who is in Mumbai on a three-day hunger strike along with 600 other Buddhist monks from Karnataka.
Elderly Nagwang Dolma remembers walking 60 days to get to safety in Ladakh, as she pauses for breath between prayers during a hunger strike in Leh.
She closes her wrinkled eyes and recounts how the soldiers were in the streets, killing indiscriminately in Tibet in 1959.
“Women, men, children, it didn’t matter. They killed everyone they saw,” Dolma, who is now 70, said. “I remember it was 1959 when we ran away, and it was 1960 when we got to Ladakh.”
Tsering Samdup, 65, hasn’t seen his brothers in 40 years.
“I used to send letters, and sometimes I received a reply, but it was very rare. In between the letters, I waited (hoping) they were alive. Now I don’t know how they are but I will not eat till the situation in Tibet is better.”
Amid twirling prayer wheels and the chanting of prayers, a resolute group of Tibetan refugees is camped in the central chowk square of Leh Market. As the sun relinquishes the sky, the temperature drops to minus seven, the harsh Himalayan cold begins to earn its reputation.
But the voices joined in prayer barely quiver. The chanting raises a few decibels and the hunger strike continues.
Organizer Mingur Durjee, 27, explains: “Tibet is (not) an autonomous region. It is not truly when the people are so oppressed that they cannot freely practice their beliefs and culture. They cannot learn their language, and they have no jobs; so autonomy is a lie. We want a truly autonomous region, as the Dalai Lama said.”
Experts say this peaceful protest, one of many that have rippled across Tibetan refugee communities in India, epitomizes the genius behind the moral high ground that Tibet maintains. They are not belligerently pushing for an independent, free and sovereign Tibet. They want only their rights within the legal framework China claims to guarantee.
Troops have tightened security in Tibetan pockets in provinces around Tibet, where 5.4 million Chinese Tibetans live. Activists say the authorities are continuing to crackdown on civilians they consider potential agitators in Lhasa, where peaceful protests mutated into violent outbursts.
“When you try peaceful methods for ten, twenty, thirty years and you keep trying, you get frustrated and it is the anger of not being able to help your own people that burst out,” said Reverend Thinlay Norby, general secretary of the All Ladakh Gonpa Association.
“We believe that nonviolence is the right way to protest, but it is very hard to keep the young blood quiet. They are sick of peaceful protests, so we arranged a strike, and shut down Leh for a two days on March 16 and 17, along with the candle light vigil.”
A massive chunk of the Tibetan population of Ladakh and the surrounding areas, about 30,000 strong, stood shoulder to shoulder during the peace protest, marching through the streets of Leh, past shuttered stores and restaurants.
In Majnu Tilla, the Tibetan refugee enclave of Delhi, the alleys echoe the silence in Ladakh streets.
Tibetan monks point out gruesome pictures that plaster the walls enclosing the narrow alleys of Aruna Nagar:
“This is proof of the atrocities in Tibet. Do you think the boy with the ripped-up torso did this to himself? How can we celebrate Holi or Eid when Tibetans are suffering so much pain?”
Storekeeper Khan Mohammed, 43, agrees. He celebrated Eid quietly with his family and said extra prayers for the Tibetan community.
“I am Muslim, but I stand with my Tibetan brothers and I closed my shop in solidarity, so did the other Muslims in Majnu Tilla.”
In Ladakh, Mery Kyap leads the Tibetan Youth Congress. At the regional office of the Central Tibetan Administration of the Dalai Lama, he explained that the monks have had no choice but to rise up and demand what they feel will never be theirs under Chinese rule.
“There is no such thing as human rights, and that frustrates us but we must act peacefully, according to the teachings of the Dalai Lama, after his speech, the violent protests have stopped. Once we saw the cruelty in Tibet, protests everywhere in the world became a bit strong, in support of the monks, but we understand we need to be peaceful,” he said.
The “violent” protests China is accusing monks of orchestrating have involved a few clashes between armed police and monks with little to protect them other than the censure of the international community.
India is one country that the Tibetan community in exile is hoping will use its superpower status in the region to clamp down on China’s disregard for human rights in Tibet.
Lama Lobzang Angchuk serves as president of the Ladakh Buddhist Association, which, together with the All Ladakh Gonpa Association works for the human, political and religious rights of Buddhists:
“I don’t know why India doesn’t speak to the Chinese government, it must uphold human rights in the region, it cannot be bowing down to China while China destroys our way of life, suppresses and kills innocent civilians. It is India’s responsibility as a great democracy in the region but I don’t know the exact foreign policy so I cannot say why India won’t act,” He said.
Political commentators say India has not forgotten its humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962. But Karma, one of the organizers of the hunger strike in Leh has a different take on why India is not coming to the aid of Tibetans.
“We all know it is all about their trade relationship with China. They need to see what is more important. Human rights or economics? So far, it is economics,” she said.
Lodoe Sangpo, who is planning the next protest with his monastery in Karnataka, says he knows how economics works in the political arena.
“That is how China controls Tibet. When foreigners look they see development, many nice factories, many nice restaurants, but they don’t see that all employees are Chinese. No Tibetans. The Chinese take all the money, income and resources. We know China is powerful, and India knows also, so it is hard to say no to China officially, but we feel the people of India are with us. I hope that the Indian government will also support us.”
Another monk said: “It is nice that Nancy Pelosi (US House Speaker) agrees that the world should talk to China about oppression in Tibet, but why wont she say that the world should also boycott the Olympics? It is hard for us to keep protesting peacefully when we see no result, only words from strong countries like America.