Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is photographed during an event at Tsuglakhang Temple in McLeod Ganj, India, on 17 May 2019. File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
By Manjeet Sehgal | India Today
NEW DELHI, India, 18 July 2019
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has slammed China for raking up his successor issue and has said his successor will be decided by the people of Tibet.
Talking about his successor, Chinese authorities said the same has to be decided within China. If India tries to interfere, it will impact bilateral ties.
In 1959, following a crackdown on an uprising by the local population in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled to India.
He was granted political asylum here and the Tibetan government-in-exile is based in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh since then.
The Dalai Lama is 84 years old now and the issue of his successor has gained prominence in the last couple of years.
Senior Chinese officials and experts said the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must be approved by the Chinese government and the selection should take place within the country based on an over 200-year old historical process.
“The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is a historical, religious and political issue. There are established historical institutions and formalities for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama,” Wang Neng Sheng, an official in the rank of vice minister in Tibet, told a small group of Indian journalists in Lhasa.
“The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation is not decided by his personal wish or by some group of people living in other countries,” he added.
Wang, the director general at the government of Tibet Autonomous Region, said the current Dalai Lama was recognized by Beijing and his successor must be found through the “draw of lots in golden urn process” within China.
On the one hand, China wants to destroy Tibetan Buddhism and on the other, is trying to meddle with reincarnations a purely religious event, to try and control the people. However His Holiness decides to incarnate, China’s hold on the Tibetan political movement is now slipping. Tibetans in Tibet and exile are well aware that His Holiness of his free will, has withdrawn from the Tibetan secular politics, and given his temporal powers back to the people. Therefore, no matter how hard China tries to control our revered Lamas, their effort to control the people is doomed to failure. Tibetan people now hold their destiny in their hands.
We also know that China invaded Tibet to steal the land and plunder her resources. They did not come – to free the slaves from tyrannical aristocrats and brutish monastic rule.
The bottom line is China cannot decide or select the next Dalai Lama. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has put the matter in a nutshell. Period.
Rather than commiserate over the vicissitudes in the selection of the 15th Dalai Lama, it is imperative that we commensurate the selection process in line with our religious and cultural process. Only then will the Tibetan people be HAPPY.
Mila Rangwang