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'Beijing trying to demonise Dalai Lama'

By Gautam Siddharth | TNN

Maura Moynihan during a demonstration denouncing China’s new public holiday to celebrate “Serf Emancipation Day” on 28 March in Tibet to mark the dissolution of the Government of Tibet, in Dharamshala, India, 28 March 2009.File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

As the Dalai Lama rose to speak at the IIC’s fountain lawn on the occasion of ‘Fifty Years of Tibetans in Exile’ on Sunday afternoon, Maura Moynihan, the daughter of former US ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, turned aside to say, “India is trying to distance itself from the Dalai Lama. This is not how Communist China — and I don’t mean the Chinese people — can be countered.”

Maura is a Buddhist and her affair with India began during 1973-75 when ambassador Moynihan — four-time Democrat senator from New York between 1976-94 — was posted here. Maura runs the Rubin Museum of Art in New York and, over the years, has become a passionate advocate of ‘Free Tibet’.

Rangzen, or ‘Free tibet’, was a sentiment nearly everybody else among the 1,000-odd people gathered under the white shamiana flagged with red, blue and yellow ‘chortens’ shared, including the stand-in compere for the inter-faith service, Rajiv Mehrotra. He concluded his moderation with, “Wish the Dalai Lama a quick farewell to Tibet.”

But farewell was not on his mind when the spiritual leader of six million Tibetans spoke. For, what seemed to animate him was the future of Tibetans in exile — nearly 145,000 of them who completed 50 years of living out of their homeland. With a rare glint of urgency in his eyes, he said, “Many of young Tibetans here have only heard about Tibet. You must remain Tibetan in spirit. Keep the Tibetan values intact along with modern education and skills.”

In a tribute to his followers back home, he said, “Tourists visiting Tibet find that Tibetans live there as victims, but they are still smiling. And the Han people, who are the rulers there, are less smiling.” India’s tolerance was underlined by Rabi Ezekiel, who said, “The Jews have lived in India for 2,000 years and never faced persecution.”

Is Maura hopeful of the Dalai Lama’s return to Lhasa? “The Chinese fear some one like him. Beijing clings to an obsolete worldview that demonises Dalai Lama instead of engaging the statesman in dialogue on Tibet and China’s future,” she says.

Copyright © 2010 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.

Published in The Times of India