Why India must support Tibet, courtesy Acorn
Courtesy Acorn, Â here is one very good reason why India must support Tibet (emphasis added):
Tibetan is the only language to preserve the entire range of the Buddha’s teachings, including the texts on logic and theories of knowledge (epistemology), which we inherited from India’s Nalanda University. This is a system of knowledge governed by reason and logic that has the potential to contribute to the peace and happiness of all beings. Therefore, the policy of undermining such a culture, instead of protecting and developing it, will in the long run amount to the destruction of humanity’s common heritage.
The above is an extract from the Dalai Lama’s speech at Dharamsala earlier this month. Â As Nitin noted:
If the hardware of Nalanda was destroyed many centuries ago, the software lives on in Tibetan culture. This is an important reason for Indian society to support the preservation of Tibetan culture.
While on this, don’t miss the live chat on Arunachal, Tibet and China, this Sunday, 27th March at 930pm. Please register here. Pl note this is a text-only chat.
Related Posts: Â China’s questionable claim over Tibet and Tibet – not always part of China
Image courtesy: John Hill via Wikipedia taken at Kulu, Himachal Pradesh
Shantanuji, How true that the software lies in Tibet, we need to accept they have maintained Dharama over a long period of time, suffering n so should we support them in their cause…
jai hind..Vande Mataram… Time to Reclaim Bharath
Yeah we should interfere in China’s internal affairs and then face the Chinese music in Kashmir.
Wonderful.
@Ranganaathan-ji: “Time to Reclaim Bharath” – Indeed.
@Indian Pundit: We are already facing the “Chinese music in Kashmir” (more accurately, J&K): http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers41/paper4036.html
And does Karakoram Highway ring a bell? Also check
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChineseActivitiesinPoKHighTimeforIndiatoPutitsActTogether_psingh_090910
Shantanu,
The blasphemy of talking about saving any native culture usually rubs our lefty progressives (whose very idea of progress was to mass westernize everything) very wrong way.
And if it comes to Tibet, apparently, the followers of cult of horny fat Chinese dude would be profoundly disturbed. To me, that alone conveys the significance of such discussion.
Its one more example, like Sanskrit, of destruction of heritage.
We being commoners are at loss of being very less useful. What can be done at my level?
How can I help such initiatives?
Jai Bharat
From Between the lines by Kuldip Nayar:
…I do not know whether people on both sides are really familiar with the border dispute between India and China. When the 1962 war ended with our defeat, China unilaterally ceased fire and then indicated the ceasefire line as the possible border. But the line, despite India wanting the delineation of a firm one, was not acceptable to China. It changed its mind and declared the actual line of control as the border and advanced its troops on its own.
This line violated the traditional border both in Ladakh and in the northeast, on the Arunachal side. Even these borders were not sacrosanct for Beijing. The Colombo Plan powers intervened after the 1962 war to ask both India and China to withdraw their forces by 26.5 meters behind the lines where they stood. India withdrew accordingly. But China did not. Even the lines its forces occupy at present are haphazard and favour it all the way.
Beijing’s intrusion (our PM prefers to call it an incident to keep tension down) at Daulat Beg Oldi sector in Ladakh is in the area that China has not allowed to be demarcated. In fact, it has treated the entire disputed area under its overall control without negotiating with New Delhi or even indicating specifically the area that belongs to it. Nor has China offered any explanation for staying in India’s territory (Despang) for 23 days and pitching tents inside India. Beijing wants to tell the world that it owes no explanation to anyone for going into its “own territory.â€
…
The real issue with China is Tibet. Beijing may not say so, but it links the border issue with the future of the Tibetans who have taken shelter in India in thousands under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. Beijing did raise the issue at the India and China conclaves, but kept quiet when it was told that the Dalai Lama was a religious leader, nothing more.
…
Yet, one thing is clear ~ India will have to accelerate the economic growth, which is now 4.6 per cent as compared to a little over 9 per cent three years ago.
…
Even if a war is ruled out, the pressure on India’s security forces will be immense. India need not treat the border as an obsession, but China has seen to it that New Delhi does so.
This is its weakness. India should talk to China about the Tibetans who are a millstone around China’s neck. Even otherwise, the word Tibet is a bugbear for Beijing. It is too late in the day to question its authority. It is under China because of its suzerainty over Tibet. But there is a difference between suzerainty and independence. However, the issue of Tibetans’ human rights is a point that India can take up. It is strange that none in the world has taken notice of dozens of Tibetans who have burnt themselves in the name of freedom and liberation.
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The enunciation that both sides would not attack each other is somewhat like what the late Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai told Prime Minister Nehru. Beijing never kept its word. There is no assurance that it would do so in future.