A Toast For Free Tibet

Tibetan monks taking part in anti-Chinese rally

I marched for the Tibetan cause today...

Let me explain. I was on duty, but I walked the length of the march and walked next to the marchers.

‘Tis true that I walked about five kilometres in the baking Delhi sun, covering the Tibetan march against the official Chinese Olympic torch relay. But I did it for my love for the greenbucks. I was part of a Canadian news team which is in India to cover the Olympic torch relay story. I was paid to do it, just as Amir Khan was paid by Coke and Saif by Lenovo to run with the official Olympic torch.

Having said that, I was quite happy to do it. Happy to be part of the Tibetan rally, that is. Between the Chinese and Tibetans, it is not too difficult (at least for me and a very large number of people) to choose sides.

Can’t say if Amir or Saif were as happy to run with the Olympic torch. On the other hand, they -- the two Khans, that is -- do earn heaps of money from Coke and Lenovo. So, who knows, may be the Khans were quite happy, the heat (political and otherwise) notwithstanding, to take part in the torch relay.

It has been fun watching the Indian government’s reaction to, and handling of, the torch relay issue. Every time the official spokesman has opened his mouth on the subject, you got the impression that he knew he was between a rock and a hard place.

The Indian government knows any overt support for the Tibetans would piss off the only country India is seriously scared of. Besides there is always the fear of the Chinese beating India with the Kashmir stick, in retaliation.

On the other hand, the authorities here are painfully aware how idiotic their attempt to appear politically correct (the Tibet issue is an internal matter of the Chinese) looks in the eyes of the Tibetan people in particular, and the international community, in general.

The last couple of days, the Indian foreign ministry has tried its best to pass off the issue as a sports event. It washed its hands off (at least, officially) the torch relay and instead asked the Indian Olympic Association to organize the whole event.

Even as the Indian authorities walked a diplomatic tightrope and made extravagant security arrangements to ensure there were no untoward incidents during the Olympic torch relay, the Tibetan anti-torch rally was a smashing success. It got serious international media coverage, it’s the only torch relay that the people of Delhi got to see. The official one was open to a very select group of invitees.

India’s Tibet policy was framed during the time of Pundit Nehru and the days of Non Alignment. Nehru has been dead for a while, and so has the Non-Alignment movement. And even before he died, India’s first prime minister did witness China’s less than lukewarm response to his offers of friendship. Much before the Chinese attacked India in 1962, Nehru had been described by the Chinese as “a running dog of British imperialism.”

May be, it is time we allowed the older foreign policy towards China (and Tibet) to die a natural death and take a fresh look at the whole issue.

Chairman Mao once said power flows from the barrel of a gun. Well, so does diplomacy. There is little point in conducting it from a point of weakness. China has seldom bothered about India's stand on several issues, including Tibet and done pretty much as it pleases, as befits its stature as the region's number one bully.

At periodic intervals, it has made claims on territory that legitimately belongs to India. It gave up claims on Sikkim one day only to lay claims on large parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Even today China continues to hold on to large chunks of Indian territory it occupied in 1962.

Irrespective of India's stand on Tibet (or the lack of it), China would rake up the Kashmir issue as and when it feels the need to do so. In recent years as the US has shown some reluctance to supply arms to Pakistan, China has been quick to step in and offer offer vast military aid to Pakistan.

Under the circumstances, one can't help but feel Indian government's spineless response on Tibet is going to be as successful in placating the Chinese as the Hindi Chini bhai bhai slogan was in preventing the 1962 war.

Tibetans are by and large a bunch of rather friendly people (even if they were not, they still have a right to be free). My earliest, and rather limited, interaction with them was in my Delhi University days when I would often land up at the Tibetan settlement near the University campus with my friends to have chhang or rice beer. The beer packed a nice kick and crucially was dirt cheap.

As we sipped the chhang and ate our momos in a restaurant strangely named as Monastery, we would often get into discussions about life in Tibet, about the Chinese occupation (yes, Mr. Karat it IS occupation) of Tibet. We got to hear horror stories of illegal detentions, suppression of the most basic human rights. On occasions we met a few Tibetans who had fled Chinese rule and escaped to India. Each one had a different story to tell, yet each story was achingly, painfully similar.

Our generation is lucky enough to live in a free land. Perhaps we don't fully appreciate the value of this freedom. I often saw that value in the eyes of Tibetan men and women I chatted with.

Living in a shabby ghetto thousands of miles away from their homeland, you could see in their eyes both despair and hope. I don't know about my other friends, but I remember as I sat there I felt more than a little guilty about living a life of freedom.

Facebook, the social networking site that I believe is now a rage among Martians too, is hosting several online campaigns and protests against Chinese rule of Tibet. On the day the Beijing Olympics begin, Facebook is trying to get at least one hundred million people to light candles in support of the Tibetans.

I haven't yet made up my mind what I should do. May be, I will drive up to that area near the Delhi University campus where Tibetans live, get high on chhang and abuse the Chinese to my heart's content.