Indian supporter for Free Tibet Suresh from Manali joining the Tibetan Youth Congress motorcycle rally for Tibet waves as he leaves for the three-day long ride to Kinnaur on 18 November 2020. Suresh is among 55 TYC members taking part in the rally to highlight the Tibetan cause. Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
By Lobsang Wangyal
McLEOD GANJ, India, 18 November 2020
Fifty-six Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) members left McLeod Ganj on a three-day motorcycle rally to highlight and seek support for the Tibetan cause.
TYC is the biggest Tibetan organisation standing for an independent Tibet. The rally is being held to seek India’s recognition for an independent Tibet, to seek the release of political prisoners in Tibet, and to campaign for boycott of products made in China.“The rally is to particularly highlight the grim human rights situation in Driru in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region. China has clampdown in the area in the recent times with cases of Tibetans being imprisoned, tortured and the communications have been severed that the news is not heard in the outside world,” TYC President Gonpo Dhondup said.
India’s member of parliament and well-known local politician Kishan Kapoor attended the function to show his support for the Tibetan cause, and flagged off the rally. One Indian supporter for the Tibetan cause, Suresh from Manali, also joined the rally.
A police escort truck led the bikers down the hill. It is one of the rare occasions that a Tibetan rally has been given police escort. Dhondup said that that Himachal Pradesh police will provide police escort to the bikers until the end of the rally in Kinnaur. Police in every district will take turns to escort the rally.
The bikers will cover a distance of 450 kilometres, and will end their rally at Shongtong bridge, close to the Tibetan border, just outside the town of Kalpa on the Sutlej River on National Highway or Hindustan Tibet road in Kinnaur.
“Our first halt is in Bilaspur town. All the 56 bikers reached here well and safe,” Dhondup, who is accompanying the bikers, told Tibet Sun.
Its painful to see the TYC’s image diminished owing to some over zealous Tibetan politician. His short sighted and sycophantic subservience to the CCP led to the disowning and even demonizing the most important and active NGO in exile.
Samdhong Rinpoche’s demonization of the Rangzen advocates killed two birds with one stone. It not only demonized people like Jamyang Norbu and Lhasang Tsering but with it blasted the TYC to smithereens.
After the shocking diatribe, parents of RTYC Presidents or even members of TYC chapters across the world faced rejection and abandonment by their parents. The parents asked their children to withdraw from their local chapters and admonished them if they didn’t.
Probably at the behest of SR even HH Dalai Lama kept the TYC at an arms length. This had a devastating impact on the standing of the TYC in the eyes of the community and alienated the TYC from the larger Tibetan diaspora.
It seems, our leaders were over enthusiastic about sealing a deal on the lines of the official policy of U-lam without understanding the intentions of the communist regime.
The Chinese will backdown only when they are cornered. They will ride roughshod over the Tibetans until they feel powerful. This is a war of attrition between communist China and Tibet.
Tibetans must prepare for the long haul until the regime will collapse through internal strife or international pressure.
It’s great to see the TYC once again regaining its lost stature against the back drop of failed talks between Tibetan Government and China. Nobody can now blame that Rangzen advocates were somehow responsible for the talks not to materialize.
Rangzen advocates went underground for twelve years after the demonization and nothing has happened all these long years.
I have been always an admirer and supporter of TYC since its inception in 1970. I wish it some success in it’s motor cycle rally from Dharamshala to Kalpa on Indo-Tibet border to spread awareness among Indians, individually and particularly in some section of Indian media which seem to take some interest in Tibetan affairs in the wake of Chinese aggression on Indo-Tibet border. (though illegally called Sino-Indian border) these days.
If TYC can persuade these Indian media especially the electronic media to talk about the things going in Chinese occupied Tibet, the range of reach is far greater than we can do ourselves. We can supply accurate and honest content to these media outlets so that what they say carry creditability if scutinisend seriously. I noticed often the media lack enough and accurate knowledge of situation in Tibet and even in exile Tibetan community.
If the willing Indian media are also willing to accept us to supplying their contents (of course they can examine and edit our information. It is not like the Chinese government supplying information about China or Tibet and it’s other colonies) then the hard put in this rally can achieve a satisfactory outcome.
Good luck to rallyists. Bod Gyalo!!