Geshe Jampa

I found opportunity to see and listen to the Tibetan community around me living in Sarnath. In monk's clothes, in modern clothes, in traditional clothes too, roaming on the roads of Sarnath, moving in groups towards the Tibetan Bauddh Temple to participate in Kalchakra Pooja, involved in preserving their language and culture in monasteries and institutions or selling shawls and sweaters on the footpath in the winter season, these Tibetans are seen, associating themselves with Indian culture so firmly as river Yamuna meets with river Ganga but their separate identity has never disappeared.

Having an almost similar look in face-cutting and personality with our Laddakhi or Manipuri brothers and sisters of India, these Tibetans made me curious to know or write something about them once when I found a Tibetan lady as schoolteacher wearing a red-bordered white Saree1 in the annual function of a children's school in Sarnath. She was singing the national-anthem of India. I was astonished and on that very day I felt once again the pleasure of Independence and grief of bondage and dependence.

There are a large number of Tibetans who are living in India but as refugees and on the other hand our relation with China comes in the way. A policy-matter that is going on for a long time. India does not consider the exiled-Government of Tibetans under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama situated in Dharmshala of Himachal Pradesh of India. India considers it only as their place of shelter as a matter of policy. A shelter to Tibetan refugees on humanitarian grounds. But whenever the fire of revolution enflamed in Tibet, the flame of the fire effected the relation of India and China also because the Tibetan community living in India is the biggest source of energy for Tibetan revolutionaries.

On the other hand, China and the exiled government of Tibet have their own evidence and historical facts regarding Tibet on the basis of which they give the logic of their being true. But it is also a fact that in history, the relation of China and Tibet is found up to fifteen hundred years only. Till the last decade of 19th Century Tibet was free. Relations between China and Tibet were not heard of during the period. There were many struggles heard at the end of 19 century and in 1959 its climax was seen.

In this total episode India, having sympathetic attitude for Tibet too, never objected officially to the political attitude of China but considered it as an internal matter of China. This very policy was adopted almost by the other countries of the world too and in such a scenario on the other hand the Tibetans are constantly involved in their non-violent-freedom movement. Tibet is a country that has its own separate religious and cultural identity with its traditions faiths and rituals, in the crowd of the secular countries of the world. Tibetan movement is the only alive movement at present.

This novel is a small effort to break the silence on the issue of Tibetan's cultural and religious restlessness and their non-violent freedom movement. --- Neerja Madhav