'Great Wall of Tibet' separates China and India

Chinese President Xi Jinping must have returned home with some unique (if not fond) memories, as well as some bitter, after his three-day India visit.

The trip, which started amid media speculations that Jinping would outdo Japanese regime’s commitment for investment to the tune of $38 billion in India, began in Ahmedabad with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ignoring protocols to welcome arguably the world’s most powerful leader in traditional Gujarati way in the land of Mahatma Gandhi. All through the Chinese leader’s visit, there were protests by Tibetans, who have been living in India as refugees for years. A group could achieve some success by breaching the security cordon as it tried to barge into the Hyderabad House in New Delhi while the one-to-one and delegation level talks were on.

Demanding independence is their right. But why at the cost of India, which has been sheltering over 150,000 Tibetans in exile for decades?

Even as the border disputes in Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh are often seen as the immediate provocation for the escalation in tension, diplomatic experts agree that Tibetans residing in India is the key reason behind the bitterness of its relationship with China.

The protests hogged the limelight despite the fact that the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama called Jinping an open-minded and realistic.

The Dalai Lama

Shouldn’t the 79-year-old Buddhist monk, who has been honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize 25 years ago, have appealed to his followers not to resort to the tactics that they did?

I have great respect for the Dalai Lama and sympathy towards the Tibetans who have been struggling for independence. But a visit to Dharamsala town in Himachal Pradesh, which is very much a part of India (and there is no boundary dispute over it with China or Tibet), a few years ago was an eye-opener to me.

Dharamsala is considered one of the biggest refuges for the Tibetans in exile in India with the 14th Dalai Lama himself having his abode in the McLeod Ganj suburb. But it was shocking to find that the Tibetan eateries or road side vendors would rather prefer not to entertain Indian customers as they looked forward to foreigners who might be the potential high spenders.

My experience reminded me of an Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster in which the villain says "dogs and Indians are not allowed" inside a club.
Had it been outside India, probably it wouldn't have hurt me so badly, but discrimination in India for being an Indian was a rude shock to me and the fellow visitors.
Coming back to the Tibetan agitation and about 70-year-old movement, the protesters shouted slogans against the Chinese president and urged the host prime minister not to hold talks with the former.
The protests, which were witnessed in various parts of the Indian capital, especially the areas dominated by Tibetans and the places visited by Jinping, do not conform to the comparatively softer stand taken be the Dalai Lama.
It is time India should make it clear that no community should take undue advantage of its liberal behaviour and cause it an irreparable loss.
Of course we still stand by our age old tradition of "atithi devo bhaw (a guest is like a god), but that doesn't allow the guests freedom to dent the host's own interests.