Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama said India needs to showcase how people with different religious affiliations live harmoniously.
Photographer unknown
PTI
BEIJING, China, 20 March 2017
China on Monday warned India not to go against its “core concerns” to avoid “disruption” in bilateral ties after New Delhi invited the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama to an international Buddhist seminar in Bihar.
“In recent days the Indian side, in total disregard of China’s stern representation and strong opposition, insisted on inviting the 14th Dalai Lama to attend the international conference on Buddhism held by the Indian government,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters here.
“China is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to it,” she said.
“We urge the Indian side to clearly see the anti-China splittist nature of the Dalai group and honour its commitment on Tibet and related questions, respect China’s core concerns and avoid China-India relations from being further disrupted and undermined,” she said.
The 81-year-old Dalai Lama inaugurated an international seminar on Buddhism on March 17 in Rajgir in Bihar’s Nalanda district, about 100 km from the capital Patna.
Buddhist monks and scholars from various countries participated in the seminar ‘Buddhism in 21st Century’.
Earlier this month, China had objected to India permitting the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh which it regards as Southern Tibet.
China is strongly opposed to the Dalai Lama visiting disputed areas, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said.
“China’s position on eastern section of China-India border dispute is consistent and clear. The Dalai clique has long been engaging in anti-China separatist activities and its record on the border question is not that good,” he had said.
His Holiness Dalai Lama is an international celebrity figure and an exceedingly shrewd politician and he wastes no time to propagate love, kindness, and compassion in this materialistic capitalism where greed and competition is the only goal. To my view, Tibetans are intertwined with ignorance, superstition, and Lamaism.
During the Dalai Lama’s visit to India in the winter of 1956-57, China’s Prime minister Zhou Enlai dissuaded the young Dalai Lama from staying in India while the two met in New Delhi. Zhou metaphorically coo-cooed to Kundun that the snow lion belonged to Tibet, not in the tropical plains of India. Unable to get the green light from India’s Pundit Nehru, the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet, and after two years, was forced to flee to India.
Today the Dalai Lama wastes no time in propagating love, peace and compassion in free India and globally. He is the beacon of wisdom and voice for the world’s downtrodden clamoring for cessation of political repression, economic marginalization, ethnic cleansing, and other forms of injustice. As such, Kundun endeavors in the spirit of accentuating moral and ethical values and eliminating all forms of injustices and repressions.
In retrospect, the snow lion is not only for the gangchenpas but for the whole global community.