Pasang Tsewang aka Yabchen speaks to journalists in front of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission accusing MP Dawa Tsering of corruption, in Dharamshala, India, on 22 July 2013. Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
By Lobsang Wangyal
MCLEOD GANJ, India, 22 July 2013
Appearing in his role as an anti-corruption crusader, Pasang Tsewang announced the continuation of his fight against Dawa Tsering’s claims of ownership over Yongling Kindergarten.
Mr Tsewang held a press conference in front of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission on the grounds of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), Dharamshala, saying that he would file a case against Dawa Tsering in the District Court of Dharamshala.
He feels that the Department of Education of CTA should take possession of and manage Yongling Kindergarten, since the District court in Dharamshala had judged that the school belongs to the Tibetan community and is not the personal property of Dawa Tsering.
The Yongling Kindergarten was inaugurated on 1 April 1984 at a private home on TIPA road in McLeod Ganj, with one of the founders being Dawa Tsering.
Since Mr Tsering had been running the school as his personal business, in 2001 Pasang Tsewang brought him in front of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission, which decided on 24 September 2004 that the Yongling school belonged not to Dawa Tsering but to the Tibetan community.
Then Dawa Tsering filed a case in Indian High Court in Shimla in 2004 seeking Rs 10,25,000 (Rupees ten lakh twenty five thousand) on account of defamation caused by Pasang Tsewang.
The High Court transferred the case to the District Court in Dharamshala, where it was heard on 6 August 2011. One of the rulings was that Dawa Tsering, the plaintiff, had no right to possess and manage the school property, as the property belonged to the Tibetan community.
Mr Tsewang feels that, in the light of the above judgements by two courts, CTA is duty-bound to take possession and manage Yongling School.
There are a few documents which Pasang Tsewang presented defending his case against Dawa Tsering, which he shared with the journalists during the press conference.
One of them is a letter sent by Kashag secretariat (the Tibetan cabinet secretariat) to Dawa Tsering and his colleague Lodoe Tharchin (late) on 3 June 1983, instructing them to avoid personally possessing the school or making such claims in the future.
The second document is a letter sent by the Council for Tibetan Education (now Department of Education) of CTA, on 11 June 1984 to the members of the Parents’ Association of Yongling school, congratulating them for successfully establishing the school.
The third document is a letter sent on 16 May 1997 by the Department of Education to Dawa Tsering, in his position as Welfare Officer of Tibetans in McLeod Ganj, agreeing to sanction rupees 15,21,000 (rupees fifteen lakh twenty one thousand) towards the construction of a children’s hostel. A Japanese donor, Mrs Yuko Gotoh, provided this fund.
In a short interview, Dawa Tsering said that the District Court in Dharamshala upheld the verdict of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission, but the Commission has no authority to decide on property issues. And the Tibetan Commission had not directed the Department of Education to take over the property of Yongling.
He further stated that Yongling Kindergarten is a registered society and has a governing body, and that it is not owned by one person.
Dawa Tsering has served the exile community with various activities and initiatives over many years. He was an active member of the Tibetan Youth Congress in the 70s and 80s, and served as the Welfare Officer of Dharamshala for a number of years.
In 2001, he was among three people appointed by the Dalai Lama as members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile. He was elected to the Parliament in the 2006 and 2011 elections.
Pasang Tsewang says that he will be needing 20 lakh rupees for court costs to fight the case. He has made a blog page: Yongling Case giving details in both English and Tibetan.
Updated with additional information from Dawa Tsering.
བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ Tibet Sun readers and commenters!
This is the Web Admin for Tibet Sun. I am having a hard time moderating these comments, and am asking you to help me out.
You can speak your mind without being rude or abusive. If you need to vent more freely, there are many places to do that, such as Facebook, other news forums, even your own web page! You can put a link in your comment here, to your page there, and that link will be published, i promise.
Thank you.
All those people who are in support in Dawa Tsering, seems least bothered about the evidence that Pasang Tsewang has presented before us to justify his allegations.
It seems either these people approves or ignores the nefarious act of galloping public property by a man. I am shocked to learn that people’s personal interest can override public interest this way, all those people who support Dawa Tsering must be his relatives or someone close enough who has benefited from his sinister act of galloping public property.
It remind me of Bihar, where Lalu Yadav despite being accused to embezzling huge public money, still people support him.
Nothing but respect to you Mr. Pasang Tsewang La.
We need more people like yourself in our society. We need to get rid of any corrupted people […]. More Kudos for your selfless work!
Thupten la, from Tibetan Refugee:
You have written clearly you are a good Tibetan who care about our society. First thing: you seem unbiased which we love. We Tibetans always being biased which is very wrong thing please grow up as we are educated enough. See the article, it is true as I was in Dhasa, lived there and studied politics. I feel very sad that some Tibetans are still are biased and support just the same phayul [province] same caste. Are we still [following] old bad Indian customs [of] voting and supporting in the name of same caste!! Please even young educated Indians are waking up and making their elders realize their mistakes and we Tibetans can’t let go this mistake till now. This is not what His Holiness Kundun is teaching.
And someone shameless in the blog talking about main target is Chinese leader. I feel that is top priority but we have to clean our dirty politics within also as they represent us, sometimes is very wrong way!!
Please wake up. Our own people suffer due to our corrupt politicians within, and we have to support the good ones.
Hi Chime la –
Lobsang Wangyal does not edit or post the comments. I do. I am not Lobsang Wangyal 🙂
If you want to understand how the decision is made, please read the Tibet Sun comment policy, and read the other discussions on this page which explain it.
It is easy: “Be nice whenever possible. it is always possible.”
Contribution towards community is good, and the duty of every citizen. But in return claiming and acquiring public property is unethical and immoral.
All written evidence depicts that, this sole property is not belonging to any individual.
Time has come now to prove Dawa Tsering la himself, if he has worked honest with sincere motivation so far, then he should voluntarily hand over the school to the Department of Education, and should respect the direction of both the court of India and the Tibetan supreme justice commission.
We are not debating who is good or bad, nor who sacrifices or dedicates — it is a question of truth.
Without claiming and expecting once deed is called sincere motivation and sacrificing towards the community.
I[f he is ] depending his whole family livelihood and enjoying luxury live of his children on public property, [then this would be] called corruption.
My direct question is: is he a businessman? Where is all the money coming from to purchase all the properties? Also the glass bid project, how does it come to him? It is huge amount of business. [If] he has taken all this during he is in welfare officer post, it is also a misuse of his power.
[Whether we are for him or against him, it is better to look for the truth.]
If Mr. Pasang Tsewang is a true anti-corruption crusader, then I think first he has to fight against himself, or clear all money he may have corrupted.
[It is my understanding that] he has collected million rupees from public and foreign to establish a Ganjong Tibetan Youth Tailoring Centre in 1993, and also he has collected millions of rupees to build a labrang [monastery] for his sun who is a tulku. Besides this [i believe that] he had taken four lakh from the Dalai Lama Office, Rs 30000 from Tse Chokling Chagzoe Thupten la, and more than that he has taken three lakh from Indian merchant in Bangalore, which was witnessed by a Banglore Tibetan sweater seller. Besides this, [I believe that] he has corrupted many individual money in Dharamshala and Bylakupee. [Because of these things, i think that] before going to clean up the others, first clean your self.
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
Whether Lobsang writes or you write, for us it’s you.
Pasang appears as a crusader and you narrate him as the same, but [to me it seems that] the real thing is that he doesn’t know the meaning of corruption. If a person like Dawa la, whose life is fully dedicated and committed to school and its existence is corruption, then what about those who ran with lacs n lacs of rupees and no one is able to catch them. At that time where was Mr Pasang who appears as an anti-corruption crusader.
So don’t misguide the younger generation of Tibet and confuse them with dirty politics.
Thanks [Lobsang Wangyal], for letting my comments on your website.
[I have heard things about Pasang Tsewang that i do not like.]
Live on Kungo Dawa la…you are doing a wonderful job…do keep up the spirit….we support you…..
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comments policy. Please repost your ideas in a polite and constructive way, so we can publish them! Or give a link to your ideas on another site.
Having lived in Dharamshala for 20 years, i have never seen Passang Tsewang to stand up for something for the community, and by the words of others and self experienced, Mr Dawa Tsering is a true noble man. Not only because he was directly appointed by the Dalai Lama as MP, but for what he has sacrificed for the community. […] I don’t think there is any case at all. Rather we should be thankful to Dawa Tsering that because of the school many kids got an opportunity to study. Thank you Gen Dawa Tsering lak.
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
I fully agree with Thupten N Chakrishar above. “This (story does not seem valid to me) given the track record of Dawa Tsering la and all his sacrifices and this is the gift for all his work? If (this) continues, honestly no-one will be interested to serve the Tibetan community with complete dedication.” And then on the other hand, i would say, check the track record of Pasang Tsewang. What do we know of him?
Please Gen Dawa Tsering la, continue your good work towards our community, we salute your dedication. And don’t let such post or lame accusations deter you from continuing the good job.
I must say Gen Dawa Tsering la has spent the best years of his life contributing to the community. How many of us can say the same thing about ourself ???
[I feel that] Dawa Tsering is a man who pretends to be doing lots for the society but if you research properly then you will realise how corrupted this man is. Lets make our Tibetan society a more transparent and Corruption-free one…
Hi Tibet Sun creator — I don’t understand that your web does censor those people who speak truth. Comments can be written in any form, and it should not be censored by an open website like Tibet Sun. I always read your news articles, which are very informative. So if you censor our comments then I feel it’s one-sided and will never dig the truth in any form. I read other comments too, so make sure next time, and hope you will backup my comments.
Thanks, and never be biased!
Hi Tsering – This is the Web Admin. I very much appreciate this comment, and i will try to explain.
First thing:
> Hi tibet sun creator …
The creator of Tibet Sun, Mr Lobsang Wangyal la, decided what the comments policy should be. But i, the Web Admin, am the one who daily approves, edits, or denies the comments. So you can blame me! 😀
Second thing:
> Comments can be write in any form n it should not be censor …
If someone writes an article on their own website, of course they can say anything they want. If someone makes a speech in a public place, of course they can say anything they want. Government should not stop them, and other people should not block them. Those are public spaces, and there we do worry about “censorship”.
Comments or a forum on a website, are not a public space. They are private space. It’s same as if we are sitting in tea shop, or in someone’s room. There we try to be polite to each other, even when we are angry, right? Even if it is Excite or Seeds, where it is fine to yell a bit and dance around — if we start abusing each other (hitting and throwing things) we will get “censored”, right? Right out the door, right? I think so!
We can tell truth, and disagree, without being hurtful. You did it yourself in your comment. 🙂
Tibet Sun wants to publish other views! That’s what this is for. All the comments that i don’t publish, or that i edit and change the words, were not because of their ideas. Their ideas were fine. They disagreed, and that is good! But they were saying their ideas in rude and abusive ways.
I even often put a note, saying “Please re-post your ideas, in a nicer way, so that i can publish your comment.” And they never do. So then i think, they don’t really care about giving their ideas — they just want to yell.
As it says in the comments policy: “Comments which are rude, entirely negative, or attacking people, will be edited — or may not be published at all.” Those are the house rules for this house.
There are many many other “houses” on the web, with other rules. So no problem! And you can always yell there, and put a link to it in your useful, opposing comment here. I will publish the link. Just as we published link to Dawa Tsering’s page in this article. See?
Hope that all makes sense!
Again, thank you, and hope we have lots more discussion. (And i think i just broke another of the House Rules — this comment is too long, isn’t it?! 😀 )
— your Web Admin
It was quite long. Anyway but in the report you said Pasang is appearing in his role as an anti-corruption crusader — so how he can be a reformer as anti-corruption in Tibetan society, that seems little big word for such kind of person. How he can be at least that reformer should have more clean image in the past, and more of his life should be dedicated to the well-being of our society. If you go more deeper in Pasang you will definitely get more sensational stories than this one.
I hope this time i’m not that rude as per your norms. Reporter should be more like an independent and free of every bias in this exile community. I hope you will not censor my comment this time.
Hi Tsering – thank you for replying! This is great.
> you said Pasang is appearing in his role as an
> anti-corruption crusader — so how he can be a
> reformer as anti-corruption in Tibetan society …
First i must clarify: i didn’t say. I don’t write the articles. Everything you see on this site is the work of Lobsang Wangyal. I only handle the comments and code.
So — i think this is a misunderstanding — maybe a language thing. The article doesn’t say that Pasang la is a crusader or a reformer. It says that he appeared at the press conference “in his role as an anti-corruption crusader”. which means: that is how he was presenting himself.
The writer is only reporting what he saw: what Pasang said and what Pasang did. I don’t see anywhere in the article, where the writer is saying whether he supports it or not.
> I hope this time i’m not that rude as per
> your norms.
hehehe. I think it is just human norms! How do you talk when you are sitting with your friends?
[I believe things about Pasang Tsewang that put him in a very bad light.]
Is Tibet Sun colluding with vested interest group to defame Dawa Tsering.
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
Please convey my Tashi Delek to Pa Pasang Tsewang la,
Always remember our fight is with Chinese Government. And not with Kungoe Dawa Tsering. Don’t waste your money, energy or time. Court dispute is very long way. Almost decade from now, hope still 90% of the Tibetans owe land in Dharamshala area are in dispute with Himachal Pradesh Government (which is benami case). Which is long stories — even Yongling School too. Maybe be your home also. But we are guests in India. Don’t worry Indian government will never kick us out.
So if you have time please fight for that with Himachal Government. That will be more helpful for the community.
Community will develop when there are lot more Non-Government Organisations (NGO). Their main aim and objective are community service. Like Yongling School which is also society/trust Register under the Government of India. Don’t worry, Kungoe will never keep all assets, but he can utilize whatever suits to him. Because he is the Chairman.
I am being surprised at the negative reaction in most of the comments. It’s like “shooting the messenger”!
I had to read the article again to verify to myself — yes to me it seems to be written objectively. It’s just reporting what Pasang Tsewang says he is doing.
What can be bad about shedding light on things — even if they are bad things? Is it better to hide our heads in the sand and pretend they aren’t happening? Wouldn’t it be better to see them and talk about them openly, with compassion and intelligence? so we can see them clearly, and then can make clear decision if needed to do something about them?
I don’t see what is helpful about saying bad things about people in a rude way.
I don’t understand.
[[ Tsering la, you have good points in your comment, but the
[[ way you are saying them does not follow the comment policies
[[ of this website.
[[ Please read the Tibet Sun comment policy
[[ — and post again and keep the conversation going!
[[ thank you,
[[ Web Admin
Many faces of truth, which shall we defend and which shall we oppose, we can’t pick and choose for sure….corruption infests in abundance….some petty, some outrageous…we seems following the Indian modern social evil…instead of following the virtues from Indian Gurus
I’m sad to see the dirt of our society being displayed.
It seems to me someone stood in front of cameras and media people promising that he will wear a green bandana on his forehead and not to take it off until Tibet will be free – only to take it off without further explanation after 3 days! I feel he is trying to create a problem within our society with a person, who has sacrificed and dedicated his whole life to serve the needs of our community. Shame on Pasang Tsewang. If anything, our society needs more people as dedicated and committed as Dawa Tering-la. I am not happy with this story.
Our society seems to start suffering from the sickness of pulling away the ground under the feet of the bravest and most dedicated amongst us. If you choose to highlight cases like this, please endeavor to shine the light from both sides — that at least would be fair.
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
This [story does not seem valid to me] given the track record of Dawa Tsering la and all his sacrifices and this is the gift for all his work? If [this] continues, honestly, no-one will be interested to serve the Tibetan community with complete dedication.
I would say leave Dawa Tsering la alone, he has and continues to contribute to the Tibetan community much more than any of us possibly can.
Shouldn’t the media that published the piece ask for Dawa Tsering la’s clarification before publishing [something that seems to me like] a “random-guy-accusing-people” story?
Tibet Sun comment policy
Dawa Tsering la dedicated his life to public service, he still continues to do so. Under his care hundreds of children and adults (free adult english classes) have been educated. He has sacrificed enough for the Tibetan struggle as well as to society throughout his life, and by all means he is not “rich” as it is presented here. Our community has much more pressing issues to worry about than such individual defaming claims.
The evidence provided seems to be a series of letters sent to Dawa Tsering la, and none back. That doesn’t prove anything. If I write three letters to the White House on three different occasions claiming the White House is mine, it doesn’t become mine. I trust the rule of law and whatever truth is, it will prevail. However please do give the man a breathing space and much deserved respect.
This is a fight against poor and rich… poor man fights for the rights of thousand people’s children… and other side a politics man with money and the power. Let’s see what our administration will do on it … i hope our Tibetan elected PM will open his eyes on this case and bring the truth in front of people of exile.
I’m sorry, i don’t agree with your comment.
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
Hello Tenzin la,
It is ok that you don’t agree on my point, as this is own individual thinking way. Since you are staying in USA and i am here in India… and i know what is happening behind the curtain.
It’s not that i am against with Dawa Tsering or i am with Pasang la…. I respect the service and work done by Dawa Tsering… If Dawa Tsering has honestly done his work then he should clear this allegation by Pasang la in the media or any way to the public that he has honestly done the work. I hope that ex-MP Dawa Tsering will come on VOA to clear this allegation.
Regarding the fight against the poor and rich, it is true that Pasang la is from a middle-class family and Dawa Tsering is wealthy and well-known in society and having good links with Indian officials. Now how Dawa Tsering became wealthy — this is not my business. But if you search the history then you will know.
By the way: The smell of money can make people behave unethically.
Good day
Tashi Delek Thupten la from Tibetan Refugee.
Did you know Pasang Tsewang has a list of many Tibetan non-government organisations, and wants to sue all directors, like he did to Kungoe Dawa Tsering. [I have heard other bad things about him.]
I am not from USA, but living in Lhasa, Tibet. I was in Dharamshala for 20 years.
Tenzin from Tibet..
Very much Tashi Deleck to you… yes a few dirty people are there in politics in exile administration but i can’t forget that there also good people in exile administration who work with hard work and honesty. If this corruption can not be controlled now in exile administration, then tomorrow it will become worse to us.
Hi Thupten la — It’s ok if you support Pasang la, but [i feel that] your description of poor and rich is [much different than mine]. Do you think Pasang la is not corrupted and that’s why he is poor? Or his life is devoted to social service and that’s why he is poor? [If you] dig Mr Pasang’s history like you do with Dawa la, then [i think that you may] get a [different] answer, […] about rich and poor, [that seems more real to me].
Edited by Web Admin to meet the Tibet Sun comment policy.
Tsering la,
As i wrote that i won’t support Pasang la or Dawa Tsering la, my point of rich and poor is fact, as you are in Dharamshala and you know it well.
[In my view,] Pasang la has also done lots of mistakes in his life, but now at the age to die he is doing a good thing for society. Yes i also heard about the Pasang la what he has done is past, but the point in this case is, who is right.
As i also mentioned that i respect the work given by Dawa Tsering to society.
If i have given all my life to serve society and then at the age to die people are pointing like that to me, then it hurts so badly, and i explain to people with clarity which i am hoping from Dawa Tsering la.
Have a good day… With regards
Hello
Could you please give me the address of Pasang la’s blog on which we can access the detail information of Yongling School property
hi kunsang – the link to Pasang la’s blog is there in the last paragraph of the article. you can move the mouse over the link to see the address, and click on the link to go to the blog.