The New Generation Of Tibetan Activists Speaks Out

Photos: Shailendra Pandey

‘People can’t carry their pain everyday’

LOBSANG YESHI, 41 & SHERAB WOESER, 27 Tibetan Youth Congress

SHERAB WOESER’S grandfather was a Tantric who once read that iron birds in the sky were a bad omen. In 1959, in those days of remarkably slow communication, he had heard nothing of what had befallen his country. But when he saw Chinese airplanes he was worried enough by the omen to take his family out of Tibet. He fell ill and died soon after the family arrived in India. Sherab’s grandmother was one among thousands of Tibetan refugees whom the Indian government had deployed to work on roads in the Himalayas. Though poor, Sherab’s father and uncles grew up within the embryonic Tibetan school system. They became the first generation of leaders of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), a group which was formed in 1970 and sets Tibet’s independence, even at the cost of one’s life, as one of its goals.

“When my family told me about the grass, the water, the beautiful land they have left behind, I dreamt of going to Tibet. But I grew up in a Tibetan community and never actually felt the pinch. It was when I went to Chandigarh to college that I realised that not even people with the best intentions in the world could pronounce my name. All my childhood memories of my father being away for months on TYC work finally made sense.”

As the International Relations secretary of the 13,000-strong TYC Sherab was a natural choice to be one of two coordinators of the March to Tibet. He and other youth organisers have seen over and over again that even the most apolitical seeming young Tibetans respond to a call to action. “I would see these young Tibetans who I thought were useless party-goers. But then we called for a protest when the Chinese ambassador came to Chandigarh and every one of them turned up. We hear similar stories from across the border. A friend of ours was telling us how he was in Lhasa in an upmarket club. And he was very depressed to think that young Tibetans had been fooled by all this new affluence. He brought up the Dalai Lama. And these drunk young men turned to him and said, ‘We may not talk of him aloud but he is in our hearts. He gives us strength.’ That was a small incident but it makes me believe. People can’t carry pain all the time. The wounds are there and when the time comes the people will rise and they will rise strong.”

Sherab’s older colleague Lobsang Yeshi is the embodiment of the relaxed watchfulness Sherab talks of. A lifelong activist and the father of three young children, Yeshi’s two favoured sources of amusement are his own guilt at not contributing to the family income, and non-Tibetans who insist that Tibetans ought to be too soft-spoken to even shout a slogan.

“Not only are the Chinese oppressing us, so is the rest of the world,” he laughs. The geniality is present even when he, an obsessive follower of Chinese propaganda, says that very soon after the Olympics the Chinese will move millions of people into Tibet and wipe out their country.

Sherab has been organising workshops for the marchers to stay non-violent even if they are arrested or assaulted. But he shrugs, “As a child when you burst patakhas you pretended you were killing the Chinese. Even now I don’t think that killing the Chinese is the worst thing a Tibetan can do. It’s just that you think a little more about why you are doing things. We have bent down, knelt down before China for a very long time. But now we need Tibetans everywhere to know that China is not impregnable.”

NISHA SUSAN

‘We don’t have much time left’

TENZIN PALKYI, 26 Tibetan Women’s Association

TENZIN PALKYI, a media officer for the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement, says she respects activists who are measured in their speech. But beneath her calmness is a thread of urgency, a need to take the current events at the flood.

When Palkyi went to a US university on a scholarship, there was never any doubt of her coming back to join the movement. “The fact that we had lost our homeland was something we thought of everyday in school. But the big catalyst was seeing Thupten Ngodup’s martyrdom on television. In 1998 I had just finished my Class X exams.

A group of Tibetans had started a hunger strike in Jantar Mantar. After 45 days, when the Indian police came Thupten Ngodup immolated himself. That day, there was a full-day rally in Dharamsala . People were shouting, fainting, writing on their chests with sharp things. The police dispersed us because we were too active. I knew the responsibility for Tibet’s independence lay with each one of us.”

Palkyi dreams of working for the emancipation of women and children in Tibet. In this her desires coincide with those of the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA), an organisation first formed in Lhasa in 1959 to protest the Chinese occupation. Of the five groups now part of the Uprising, the TWA is the only one who chose autonomy within China. “A decade ago when our referendum took place, the TWA did not pick the four options available — middle path, independence, self determination and satyagraha — but decided to follow the Dalai Lama’s choices.”

This is where Palkyi differs sharply. “Everybody knows the Dalai Lama is holding it all together. But when His Holiness is no longer with us, shall we wait for him to be reincarnated? For the next Dalai Lama to grow up and lead a movement? We don’t have that much time. Even the Buddha asked us to follow his teachings only after thinking them through. So we can revere the Dalai Lama but we can respectfully disagree on political issues.” This, she says, is too radical an idea for many Tibetans. “I cannot discuss this with my parents or anyone from their generation. Even for some younger people this is a difficult idea.”

“The Chinese government is dying to call us a terrorist group and crack down on us. They only need the smallest excuse. We cannot afford violence. But neither can we afford to let this year go while the spotlight is on China.”

NISHA SUSAN

‘We need to show our fist now’

TENZIN CHOEYING, 27 President, Students for Free Tibet, India

TENZING CHOEYING, like other Tibetan activists, thinks that this generation of Tibetan exiles may be the only one able to make Independence possible. The first generation of refugees had more immediate concerns of survival. The next generation may not find a Tibet intact to fight for.

“We have a long struggle ahead of us but we also know that the Chinese are moving more and more of their people into Tibet. We need to move now and show our fist.” As a student of law and history, Tenzin Choeying places the predicament of the Tibetan community squarely within the discourse of colonisation. But as the member of an organisation that has 600 chapters in universities around the world, his stance on the Dalai Lama’s role in the movement has to be expressed with tact and respect.

He says carefully, “There are two ways of looking at it. We are unified under one government, under one leader and yes there will be problems if his Holiness passes away. But at the same time, because of His presence, there is a reluctance among our people to establish a movement of the common people. If other nations have done it, why not us?

So I tell the young people I meet education is really about making decisions on the basis of your own thinking. But it is difficult. My father calls me a Communist.” Choeying and Tsering Choedup, coordinator of the International Tibet Support Network, both say that they draw inspiration and strength from the examples of Gandhi and Mandela. But they add that they have learnt the creative use of media and technology from lobbying groups such as Greenpeace. With a sudden sardonic note Choeying adds, “The Dalai Lama’s establishment is 600 years old, but Tibetans have been around for 5,000 years. We have the ability to continue beyond the Dalai Lama’s establishment.”

NISHA SUSAN

‘We must end the status quo’

NGAWANG WOEBER, 38 Gu-Chu-Sum (A former political prisoners group)

A POLITICALLY ACTIVE monk, Ngawang Woeber was jailed thrice inside Lhasa. The torture, he says, is not something you can describe to another human being. Dogs set loose on naked bodies, beatings with electric batons. Physical humiliation is not enough, the Chinese police want to colonise the mind.

In April 1991, he crossed over to India and, with 35 others, started the Gu-Chu-Sum, the former political prisoners’ association. Today, there are 450 members, resolutely committed to winning independence for Tibet, even if that is at odds with the Dalai Lama’s goal. “Our people are still languishing in jail. I cannot sleep sometimes thinking of them. They were all fighting for independence, not autonomy.

As a Tibetan, as a monk, I have complete reverence for His Holiness,” says Ngawang. “But in a democracy it is fine to disagree. If every young Tibetan starts demanding freedom, His Holiness will change his stand.”

Ngawang is consumed by a sense of urgency. “This is a very significant moment in our history. There is a new awakening. We cannot let it pass by. We have to break the status quo. This year a big change must happen because China has a specific plan to resettle two million Chinese in Lhasa in 2009. This population transfer will have a huge impact on Asia.”

SHOMA CHAUDHURY