Member of Tibetan Parliament in Exile urges India to counter fake Chinese narrative

 We are minorities in own land, says delegation on awareness-raising Calcutta visit

Geshe Monlam Tharchin, Youdon Aukatsang, and Tashi Dhondup — the three members of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile — during a news conference at the Calcutta Press Club on Saturday afternoon

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, Calcutta, 20.08.23 : A member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile (TpiE) on Saturday urged India to come forward and counter Chinese propaganda that Tibet is historically a part of China, as well as attempts to brand the Tibetans a minority in their own land.

Youdon Aukatsang, a member of the unicameral, the highest legislative organ of the Central Tibetan Administration of the government-in-exile of Tibet, issued the appeal on behalf of a three-member delegation that ended an eight-day advocacy visit to Calcutta.

“We urge you (India) to place it on record and counter China’s false narrative of Tibet being historically a part of China, and labeling Tibetans as a minority there,” said Aukatsang.

Based in Dharamsala of Himachal Pradesh, the 45-member TPiE represents over 60 lakh Tibetans.

Aukatsang, along with fellow members Geshe Monlam Tharchin and Tashi Dhondup, has been trying to highlight the worsening woes of Tibetans in Tibet under the Chinese regime.

The delegation, during their advocacy visit in Calcutta, met politicians, bureaucrats, civil society members and students in a bid to strengthen the appeal to India and to raise awareness for greater support.

On the sidelines of a news meet, Aukatsang said they met over 600 students from Calcutta in three educational institutions, but felt many seemed less aware of the Tibetan crisis than they expected.

In the city, the delegation met leaders from Trinamul, the BJP, CPM and the Congress, but could not secure an appointment with chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

“We are not very happy because we were unable to (meet Mamata),” said Aukatsang.

As part of their Tibet advocacy, the delegation would visit Odisha on Sunday and return next week to Bengal for a trip to Darjeeling, before leaving for Sikkim.

Since the 1951 annexation of Tibet by China, the entire plateau — the highest region on earth — has been under Chinese administration. Led by the current (14th) Dalai Lama, his government was forced to flee to India in 1959, when the government-in-exile was established in Dharamsala.

“We are in a quest for genuine autonomy for Tibet, in which Tibetans will have all the internal autonomy… say, in terms of education, development and the environment,” said Aukatsang.

“Most importantly, we want a totally demilitarised zone, nuclear and otherwise," she added.

The plea of the delegation includes denouncing Chinese interference in the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, seeking immediate release of all Tibetan political prisoners (including the 11th Panchen Lama, missing since 1995), and calling for global climate action for Tibet, in order to urge leaders to recognise the immense significance of the Tibetan Plateau and avoid an ecological catastrophe.

“We ask India to call on China to re-engage in substantive dialogue with the representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, without preconditions, to resolve the Tibet-China conflict,” said Aukatsang.

Human rights groups, globally, have accused the Chinese government of gross violation of human rights in Tibet.

“For instance, Tibet is ranked the least free country in the world (in the Freedom in the World report of the Freedom House)...,” said Aukatsang.

“The situation in Tibet has deteriorated steadily, to the extent of a cultural genocide, and total annihilation of the Tibetan identity,” she added, underscoring the concerns by UN human rights experts over huge boarding schools run by China in Tibet where all aspects of Tibetan identity are erased from the students who stay there.