The Enemy Within

Regionalism continues to be the main disease afflicting the Tibetan society in exile. Whether or not the restoration of our independence is at sight—and more particularly if it is—unity of the entire Tibetan people is of vital importance. Mankind is famous for forgetting the lessons of history—and Tibetans are no exception. By now majority of them are educated after a fashion, and one would imagine they are aware of enormous pain and suffering caused to each other by separate groups of the same people in other societies. The unsavoury incidents which followed the independence of India and creation of Bangladesh are perhaps two example of most familiar to Tibetans. Such events should have demonstrated to them that in the absence of total unity, even if we managed to drive away the Chinese one day, we may only find outselves at each other’s throats for reasons which should not have been there in the first place. It is difficult to see what special profit or pleasure one can derive from describing oneself as a U-pa, a Khampa or a Amdo rather than as a plain Tibetan.

While we remain in exile, regionalism does not pose that much threat to our internal peace, as being guests of a foreign country, we will, mercifully, not be permitted to indulge in wanton acts of mutual destruction for whatever holy reason. Neither the feeling of regionalism all-pervasive. On the contrary, the problem exists only because of one or two small groups which form a negligible percentage of the exiled population, Tibetans from central Tibet vastly outnumber those from Kham and Amdo. This is because it was easier to escape from regions nearest to the Indian border than from the interior; and most of the Khampa and Amdos who did manage to escape in and after 1959 are those who were at that time residing in central Tibet. Considering this fact, there is quite a fair representation of Khampas and Amdos in exiled government al along its hierarchy starting from the Cabinet level.