Many fleeing Chinese rule to follow the Dalai Lama seek linguistic, religious and cultural freedom
March 20, 2008
SONYA FATAH
THE TORONTO STAR
DHARAMSALA, India–Tsering Norbu arrived here from Tibet five days ago.
Hiding between stacks of mail in a delivery van for a courier company, the 14-year-old left his hometown not far from Lhasa and set off to cross the least policed section of the border between China and Nepal.
His parents, who sell Tibetan medicine, paid 7,000 yuan (nearly $1,000) to smuggle him across the border into Nepal, bidding farewell to their eldest child.
Officially registered as a Tibetan refugee by the UN agency in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, Norbu has been safely transported to India, where he is one of several dozen recent arrivals at the refugee reception centre in the village of McLeod Ganj in Dharamsala, a short walk from where the Dalai Lama lives.
Chinese authorities say the recently built railway to Lhasa and the city’s glitzy new malls and high-rises signal new economic opportunities for Tibetans in its Tibetan Autonomous Region, or TAR.
But at the reception centre here in Dharamsala, that sort of progress isn’t stopping the influx of refugees from risking their lives and their freedom to send their young children over into India.
Between 2,500 and 3,000 Tibetans have entered India every year since the early 1990s, according to the Office of the Reception Centres in Dharamsala. They cross the border into Nepal mostly on foot before being transported to India, where many settle in refugee resettlement centres.
Since the failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese government in 1959, almost 130,000 Tibetans have followed the Tibetan spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama, settling mostly in India but also in the United States, Canada and Switzerland.
Last year 2,337 Tibetans arrived in Dharamsala, and more than 300 have made it here this year.
“The people who make it out here become representatives overseas for the 6 million who are inside Tibet,” said Dorjee, the director of the refugee centre, who came to India in 1965 and has been an official in the Central Tibetan Administration for over two decades. More than 6 million Tibetans are said to live inside TAR and the Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo.
Those who enter India say that China’s claim about increasing economic opportunities hasn’t really affected them. Still, coming to India isn’t just about access to financial betterment. It’s mostly about ties to language and religion that many say are easier to cultivate in India than in Tibet.
“It was very expensive for my parents to send me here,” said Norbu, recalling his frightening trip into Nepal.
“My parents sent me here because I wasn’t learning much about my own culture in school. After six years I could barely write the Tibetan alphabet.”
Once in India, Tibetan refugees are sent to schools where they learn Tibetan, English and Hindi, and become familiar with Buddhism.
Indeed, religious and linguistic freedom have guided many people to this hill-station.
Jampa Tashi, 39, understands why. Once a monk in Pashi Dzong, Tashi was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 1994 for pasting Tibetan independence flyers outside Chinese government offices.
“They used all sorts of torture devices on us – electrical shock, hanging, kicking us with boots,” recalled Tashi, who escaped to Lhasa and stayed there under cover for five months after he was released in 2006. He paid the equivalent of $950 to escape to India and arrived in Dharamsala in December last year.
“I was in Lhasa and I saw all the development, but everything that is nice and new and developed is owned by the Chinese.”
For men like Tashi, being in India is a real treat.
“This is a true democracy. Here you can do anything you want, there is no fear, no pressure, even if you want to protest,” he said, referring to the demonstrations in the streets of Dharamsala.
“In China, when we decided to protest, we had decided that we were willing to pay with our lives for it.”
At Dharamsala’s refugee reception centre, there aren’t many political prisoners. Some, like Rinchen Tundup, 30, have been here before.
“I came to India in 2001 and studied Tibetan at the Transit School until 2003. Then I decided to go back and spread the message back home.” Tundup, who comes from Amdo province, said he travelled to many parts of Tibet distributing CDs to raise awareness about the Tibet issue.
“I returned to India because I thought I’d get caught soon, and I figured I could do more good from here as the Olympics draws near.”
Most of those who were at the refugee reception centre were youths like Norbu, whose parents sent them away with a heavy heart.
“I feed very sad and I miss my family but I know it’s good for me to be here,” the 14-year-old said. “I saw that the Tibetans back home were always the employees in the malls, not the owners,” said Norbu. “My mother told me to study hard and to make sure that I get the blessings of His Holiness.”
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