Home > News Archive > Dalai Lama thanks India for 50 years of shelter

Dalai Lama thanks India for 50 years of shelter

AFP

Muslims offer dry fruits to Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on his visit to Nizamuddin Chillan, a Sufi Shrine, in New Delhi 31 March 2009. The Dalai Lama offered prayers in different places of worship of different faiths for peace in India and the happiness of its people as he marked the 50th anniversary of his arrival into exile in India.Reuters/Adnan Abidi/India

The Dalai Lama thanked India on Monday for sheltering him and thousands of other exiled Tibetans who have been forced to flee their homeland in China over the last 50 years.

The Tibetan exile community has been based in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala since 1959, when the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, escaped over the Himalayas following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

“We are extremely grateful to this country for the past 50 years, for what the Indian government and the Indian public have done for us,” the 73-year-old Buddhist monk told reporters in New Delhi.

“India has extended maximum help to the Tibetan community,” he said at the opening of a photography exhibition to mark the anniversary of the uprising.

Dharamshala serves as the Dalai Lama’s base. It also houses the Tibetan parliament, offices of the government-in-exile, and schools and cultural centres that teach the Tibetan language and traditions.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, after sending in troops to “liberate” it the previous year.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

Published in Google News