New Delhi
India is gearing up to counter a “belligerent” China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown his deep respect for the Buddhist monk, by calling to wish the 14th Dalai Lama on his 88th birthday. He later posted the birthday greetings on Twitter.
He thus tacitly sent out a clear-cut message to China, which had objected to PM Modi’s call to the Dalai Lama on the Tibetan Buddhist monk’s birthday last year. The communist government’s spokesperson had then said that China would firmly oppose “all forms of contact” between foreign officials and the Dalai Lama. “India needs to fully understand the anti-China and separatist nature of the 14th Dalai Lama,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian had said.
“PM Modi again called the Dalai Lala to wish him on his birthday this year, too. It was a very appropriate gesture by PM Modi in public,” highly-placed diplomats told The Sunday Guardian. “Spoke to His Holiness @DalaiLama and conveyed heartfelt greetings to him on his 88th birthday. Wishing him a long and healthy life,” the Prime Minister had tweeted.
According to sources, India is losing patience over the PRC’s propagandist advances and illegal claims to Arunachal Pradesh and at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh region.
Officials aware of the Prime Minister’s firmness in maintaining the independence of Indian policy told The Sunday Guardian that it is very likely that the Dalai Lama visits the northeastern frontiers of India this year. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu and Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang have been requested by the Buddhists in both the states to “put all preparations in place” to welcome the Dalai Lama should His Holiness (HH) come in the next two months. Top sources said senior diplomats are in communication with the office of the Buddhist monk in case he visits the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim soon after the rains are over. “Officials of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh are also in touch with Central Tibetan Administration (CAT) for this purpose,” sources said. The Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim CMs have already extended invitations to the Dalai Lama to visit their states. Pema Khandu had a meeting with the Dalai Lama in New Delhi in April. The Buddhist monk is said to have assured him of his desire to visit the northeastern states in October or November. Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang too had a meeting with the Dalai Lama, during which he extended an invitation to His Holiness to visit Sikkim. Both CMs met the Dalai Lama when he was in Delhi to attend the Global Buddhist Summit held by the Government of India.
PM Modi had inaugurated the global Buddhist conclave on 20 April, while the Tibetan Buddhist monk addressed it a day later, on 21 April. The meeting between Khandu and the Dalai Lama had come less than three weeks after China sought to buttress its claim on the northeastern state of India by assigning new names in Tibetan and Mandarin languages to 11 more places there. Such a move has been seen as provocative and wholly unjustified by India.
China is upset even as PM Modi has been consecutively wishing the Dalai Lama since 2021 on his birthday. Diplomatic officials here say that “While China continues to assert its claim on certain places in Arunachal Pradesh and several regions along the LAC, India should give it a befitting reply in similar language”.
The Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh in April 2017 triggering strong protests from Beijing. He visited Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh then, following which the Chinese foreign ministry summoned India’s then-ambassador in Beijing to lodge a protest. India’s response was that it treats him as an honoured guest in India and as a respected religious leader who enjoys a large following in India and that he is absolutely free to travel any part of the country.
India has been home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile community for nearly 65 years. Now, India’s diplomatic campaign to corner China on Tibet has gained momentum even as PM Modi set the tone for the same. PM Modi’s meeting with American Buddhist scholar Bob Thurman and his public hug to Hollywood star Richard Gere, both vocal and staunch supporters of human rights in Tibet and close to the Dalai Lama was already a clear message on the plan of India, sources said. Pictures of Gere, chairperson of the International Campaign for Tibet, doing yoga next to PM Modi on 21 June at the UN headquarters in New York went viral on social media. In August last year, India flew the Dalai Lama in an Indian Air Force helicopter from Leh to the remote Himalayan village of Lingshed. The pictures of the same had been shared by India’s Ministry of Defence. India had unilaterally committed to a “One China policy” back in the mid-1950s. But it has since neither clarified the details nor reaffirmed such a commitment publicly or in bilateral documents for over a decade. China has been urging India to reaffirm support for One China policy. However, India says that “New Delhi’s relevant policies are well known and consistent. They do not require reiteration.” It may be pointed out that several air, sea and land spaces belonging to other countries are being claimed by China, a fact that needs to be taken into account where the “One China” policy is discussed by the rest of the world. The US for example, experts say, has only backed the “One China Principle”, which is not the same as the “One China Policy”. As for India, Prime Minister Modi has been firm that no part of Indian territory will be ceded to any other country, and he matched this firmness in his policy of acting independently of pressure from its northern neighbour.