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Identity crisis for Tibetan muslims

The Week

Faiz Malik seated left.The Week/Syed Nazakat/India

In Tibet they were known as khache [Kashmiri Muslims]. In Kashmir they are called Tibetan Muslims. The small Muslim community that fled Tibet after China’s invasion in 1959 are in constant search of their identity in Kashmir. “I don’t like it when people call me Tibetan Muslim. It sounds as if I don’t belong,” says Faiz Malik, whose family fled Tibet in 1959, when he was a child.

After China occupied Tibet in 1959 the Muslim community approached the Indian mission in Lhasa to claim Indian citizenship, citing their Kashmiri ancestry. “The Indian government said that all Tibetan Muslims were Indian nationals,” says Faiz.

Faiz, along with other Tibetan Muslims who crossed over into India to border towns in late 1959, gradually moved to Kashmir. Faiz has relatives in Ladakh, which helped him prove that he belonged to the place. He is former assistant director of the forest department in J&K. “The people from our community don’t have state subject documents. This means though they have Indian citizenship they don’t have the same rights as the other citizens,” says Faiz. Without the state subject document, Tibetan Muslims have no right to higher schooling, health care or property ownership. Nor can they apply for government jobs. The identity crisis that this community feels persists even after 50 years. When families shifted from the Tibetan colony at Eidgah to Hawal, they made it a point not to call it Tibetan colony.

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