Hard times for the Dalai Lama

With tensions in Tibet rising amid a Chinese crackdown, the Tibetan leader is being criticized as both an instigator and an appeaser. What role will he play in Tibet’s future? The Week Daily
Who is the Dalai Lama?
He is the exiled head of state and religious leader of the 6 million Tibetans, as well as spiritual torchbearer to 8 million Buddhists around the world who adhere to his branch of Buddhism. Considered the 14th reincarnation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, he is part of a chain that stretches back more than 600 years. His official title is Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Eloquent, Compassionate, Learned Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom). Yet he calls himself “a simple monk.”

How did he get to be Dalai Lama?
It was an unlikely journey. He was born Lhamo Dhondup in 1935 to a peasant family in the Tibetan village of Taktser. When he was just 2 years old, a delegation of Tibetan spiritual leaders called lamas arrived in his village, declaring that a prophecy had led them there. Soon, they were drawn to young Lhamo, whom they felt might be the living manifestation of the recently deceased 13th Dalai Lama. They established this to their satisfaction by presenting him with several of their late leader’s possessions, along with some authentic-looking replicas. The boy, the lamas said, unhesitatingly picked out all the genuine articles. Buddhists say he also bore eight distinguishing physical marks, including tiger-like stripes on his legs. The joyous lamas soon installed him in the 1,000-room Potala Palace, in the capital city of Lhasa, where he was schooled in many disciplines, including medicine and metaphysics.

How did he become a world figure?
When China invaded Tibet in 1950 and occupied two of its eastern provinces, the Dalai Lama—though only 15—was invested with full powers as head of state. For the next nine years, he negotiated with Beijing to try to somehow maintain Tibet’s national integrity. But when Tibetans launched a major uprising in 1959, the violence gave China an excuse to complete its takeover. The Dalai Lama and 100,000 followers fled on horseback and, after 46 days, made it over the Himalayas and into India. Ever since, though no government recognizes his authority, he has led an international movement to end the brutal Chinese occupation, which over the years has killed some 1 million Tibetans. Some human-rights activists consider him a moral leader on a par with Mahatma Gandhi.

Why is he so popular?
In part, it’s due to his compelling message of peace, tolerance, and love. But he also has become an international celebrity on the strength of his personal charm and willingness to embrace modern culture if it helps his cause. He is no doubt the only person ever to have won the Nobel Peace Prize and guest-edited French Vogue. Recently, he’s provided help to Western scientists researching the effect of meditation on the brain. In person, the Dalai Lama is disarming and humble, often greeting visitors with a cheerful, “What would you like to talk about?” He also has a puckish sense of humor (“I think a real precise answer is, ‘I don’t know,’” he once told a questioner), and he revels in his own human foibles. He admits he’s lazy, loves such material objects as watch straps and prayer beads, and despite his celibacy, is known to have an eye for the ladies.

Canvas up for show

SILIGURI, April 3: A contemporary painting and sculpture exhibition would be opened at the Ramkinkar Art Gallery within the Siliguri Information Centre on 12 April. It would continue up to 15 April. The North Bengal Contemporary Artists’ Circle would organise the show. According to the organisers, the panoramic nature with a superabundance of unique splendors throughout the north Bengal region would figure both in the contemporary paintings and in sculptures to be exhibited here. On behalf of the organisers, Mr Aniruddha Palit said that the objective of the exhibition would be to project and popularise the works of the artists and the sculptors hailing from different parts of north Bengal, to the aesthetically inclined people of the second largest city after Kolkata. “In future we would hold exhibitions in New Delhi and Kolkata to acquaint the people of the two metropolises with the special artistic flavour of our aesthetically rich region,” he added. Expressing grief over the lack of facilities for the manifestation of the artistic talents in the region Mr Palit said it was unfortunate that there was yet no Art College in the entire region of north Bengal. “There is no dearth of talent in our region, yet we have no infrastructure to boost them,” he said. Mr Biswajay Kundu, another spokesperson for the organisers also expressed unhappiness with the prolonged state indifference towards the aesthetic aspect of the collective life of the region. “Several medical, engineering and law colleges are coming up in north Bengal, but nobody is thinking about an Art College for the region,” Mr Kundu complained.  [The Statesman]

Rs 230 cr for tea sector

Siliguri, April 3: In a bid to augment the production and the quality of tea across the country, the Union government has sanctioned Rs 230 crore to be spent during the current Five Year Plan (2007-2012).

In a letter dated March 27 and addressed to the stakeholders, C.S. Mitra, the assistant director (tea development) of the Tea Board of India, has specifically mentioned that the funds have been set aside for Quality Upgradation & Product Diversification Scheme.

“The outlay earmarked for the scheme for the five years duration is Rs 230 crores, of which Rs 130 crores would be towards quality upgradation and Rs 100 crores towards orthodox production subsidy,” reads the letter.

Rafi songs set for new life - Tribute to the master

Siliguri, April 3: Twenty-eight years after his death, Md Rafi’s legendary voice is set to make a fresh splash with a new album, Teri Ada, thanks to a music director from Siliguri.

Ashutosh, who gave up his family business in Siliguri to make it big in the Mumbai music industry, has helped restore six unreleased songs by Rafi recorded more than 30 years ago for Dilip Bose’s Hindi film, Sorry Madam, which never got made.

According to Bose’s son Dipankar, Sorry Madam was supposed to be the Hindi remake of a hit Bengali film by the same name starring Biswajit.

“We even moved to Mumbai from Calcutta in the early 70s to make the film. My father got the music recorded, but the film never happened. In his later years, he even thought of releasing the music as a tribute to Md Rafi, but that too did not happen,” said Dipankar. [Inset: Rafi (top) and Ashutosh (in a Telegraph picture)]

Now Dipankar and his brother Dibakar have decided to give shape to their father’s unfinished dream.

“As a tribute to both our father and Md Rafi, we decided to release the songs in the form of an album,” said Dipankar. “We have also decided to make the film, Sorry Madam, in Hindi, which we plan to shoot entirely in Darjeeling and the neighbouring hills.”

Siliguri Blast!

NBU to offer MTech from August

Siliguri, April 3: North Bengal University (NBU) plans to offer MTech courses in five subjects from the coming academic session in August.

Food-processing, biotechnology, bio-informatics, pharmaceutical chemistry and chemical engineering are the subjects for the courses. [Inset: North Bengal University]

“One of the proposals we have taken up for the 11th Five-Year Plan is the introduction of these courses,” said B.N Chakraborty, dean, faculty of science.

Currently, NBU offers MSc degree in biotechnology. “MSc courses are more academic and open up possibilities in teaching and research. But the MTech courses are more industry-based and technology-oriented and are aimed at transferring lab-based technology to the industry,” Chakraborty said.

Likewise, the subjects chosen for the courses have a bearing on the region’s industrialisation process. “Food processing is an emerging area in north Bengal with immense growth potential and the government is keen to promote this sector here,” the dean said. “The MTech in food-processing will mainly include tea, fruit and mushroom,” he added.

Morcha for civic shutdown till floor test

Kalimpong, April 3: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today forced an indefinite closure of the Kalimpong Municipality to seek the resignation of the C.K. Kumai-headed GNLF board.

Women activists of the Morcha here laid siege to the municipality office since morning, shouting slogans against Kumai and demanding his resignation. Later, the Morcha decided to close the office till Kumai resigned or a fresh floor test against the present board held.

However, civic employees will be able to collect their salaries till noon tomorrow. Emergency services like health and garbage collection have been exempted from the purview of the closure.

Harka Bahadur Chhetri, a central committee member of the Morcha, said: “We fear that if the present board is allowed to function, it would provide elements loyal to the GNLF the opportunity to remove important files.”

Kumai resumed office yesterday after over one-and-half months of absence, ostensibly on “medical” grounds. Kumai’s “leave” had started the same time in February when other senior GNLF leaders left town in the wake of the Morcha agitation against Subash Ghisingh and the Sixth Schedule bill.

Morcha caught in blast ripples

Darjeeling, April 3: The circumstances leading to the blasts in Siliguri have sent ripples in the hills as the incident could have serious ramifications in the political arena.

The explosions come close on the heels of Bengal urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya’s statement that “foreign powers are trying to take advantage of the situation in the hills”.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which has been demanding that Siliguri be made part of the proposed Gorkhaland along with the Dooars, said the explosions are part of a bigger plan to destabilise the democratic movement of the party in the plains.

Lifestyle pointer to terror outfit link

Siliguri, April 3: The three victims of the blast in Champasari today are believed to have been active members of a militant group who were clandestinely putting together improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and planning a strike which police and intelligence agencies are yet to lock on to.

The manner in which the three youths and the woman stayed in the tin-roofed house, keeping to themselves and not mixing with either their neighbours or their landlord was typical of such behaviour, police sources said.  [Inset: Police officials inspect IEDs kept in buckets. A Telegraph picture]c

The discovery of timer devices and two plastic jars with the live IEDs points to the intentions of the group. “There is absolutely no doubt that these men and the woman were linked with an insurgent outfit,” an investigating official said.

Scent of human in leopard death

Mechpara Tea Estate (Alipurduar), April 3: A leopard found dead here yesterday might have succumbed to injuries suffered during a fight with a worker of a neighbouring tea garden last week.

Ganesh Gurung, an employee of Bhatpara Tea Estate, had spotted the animal lying on the road last Thursday. Mistaking it for a dog, he tried to shoo it away with stones when the leopard pounced on him. [Inset: Gurung in hospital. Picture by Anirban Choudhury]

Gurung, 35, grappled with the big cat for nearly half an hour, locking his hands around the animal’s neck to shake off the animal. But the moment Gurung loosened his grip, the leopard sprang back to attack him.

Siliguri blasts kill 3 in house of arms

 

 

Siliguri, April 3: Two explosions in quick succession at a house in Siliguri this afternoon killed three persons, suspected to be members of a Nepalese militant outfit.

A fourth person, identified as Dipen Rai, was later arrested from the Naxalbari area close to the Nepal border in the evening. He was accompanied by two persons, suspected to have come from Nepal to whisk him to safety, who have been detained.

Rai, said to be from Nepal, was held on the basis of an injury that matched the account of an eyewitness who said a person bleeding from the forehead was seen running away from the damaged house.

A fully loaded 9mm pistol, two live explosive devices and three SIM cards have been seized from the house owned by a vegetable vendor at Champasari, 3km from Siliguri.

Preliminary investigations suggest mishandling of an explosive device might have triggered the blasts.

“The first explosion occurred around 1pm, the second three minutes later. Four persons, including a woman, were inside the room,” said Rahul Srivastava, the Darjeeling superintendent of police. The three, said to be between 25 and 30, died later.

“The nature of the blasts suggests that high-quality explosives were used, which is uncommon among petty criminals,” the police chief added.

The vegetable vendor, Ramapadi Sha, told the police: “Three youths were brought to me by a local youth about two months ago. They wanted to rent a room and said they were computer students from Sikkim. The girl did not stay here but came every day and went back at night.” Sha has been detained.

“I saw a youth with blood on his forehead and arms running out from the house shouting that a gas cylinder had burst,” said Sangram Dey Das, who was in a school nearby when the explosions occurred.

The blasts came close on the heels of urban development minister Ashok Bhattacharya’s statement that “foreign powers are trying to take advantage of the situation in the hills”.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which wants Siliguri and Dooars added to the Gorkhaland they have been demanding, said the blasts were part of a bigger plan to destabilise the democratic movement of the party in the plains. [The Telegraph]

Dalai Lama’s Realpolitik: Gold Medals versus Human Rights

By Satis Shroff

The Chinese poet Dong Guanfu writes in his blog: “We cannot win the heart of the Tibetans if we only develop their economy. If we cannot manage to understand this, then many other conflicts will follow. There’s no denying that one of the reasons of staging the Olympic Games is that we want to make money. But the greater value of the Games is to strengthen and rejuvenate the spirit of a nation. How many spiritual values can we convey by way of the Olympic torch? This is a question that has to be weighed by the whole Chinese folk, especially the ruling part members (in Beijing). ”

The Dalai Lama has threatened to resign as the political leader of the Tibetans in Tibet and the diaspora (USA, India, Nepal and Switzerland), but the protests within Tibet has been rising although Tibet has been hermetically sealed for foreign journalists, and the nabbed demonstrators have been put to show as terrorists, their own outmoded arms on display (Royal Enfield rifles from World War II), knives and a few cartridges. A young monk was shown on TV welcoming and thanking the Chinese Army soldiers as ‘saviours’ by putting the traditional khada scarves on their heads.

Never before was a farce staged so badly. It was sickening to watch it, propaganda at its worst. The foreign journalists were obliged to leave Lhasa so that the Chinese propaganda could function without democratic impediments. And the views that have emerged through Xinhuan and Chinese TV are conspicuous through their slanted reporting to the benefit of the rulers in Beijing. The selected foreign-press was invited to Lhasa but this time the younger generation of Tibetan lamas were shown in tears with the words in their mouths, “Tibet is not free!” You could only feel a numbness and a lump in your throat.

The world knew already in 2001 that Peking put not only the Tibetans under pressure but consequently cracked down on intellectuals and other Tibetan people, and went even so far as to hang them en masse as political criminals. It is ironical that the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing. One hopes that this will be a lesson to the Olympic Committee, if they are ever in a dilemma of staging the Games in similar countries, where the rights of the individuals are suppressed, and human rights are trampled upon. This goes against the Olympic spirit. But the question of morality and ethics doesn’t seem to arise when political lobbyists are at work, and economic and commercial gains are also a part of the game, in this case, Games. The privileged party elite of Peking and the organisers of many western countries seem to have a common opinion as far as the Olympic Games are concerned, and they all come up with: how could be punish our own sportsmen and women by not letting them take part in the competitions? Think of the gold medal possibilities that might be lost.