The well meaning fools

April-1983

One of the favourite arguments of anti-Tibetan writers is that Tibetan struggle for independence is only meant to benefit the Dalai Lama and his followers—at best, all the Tibetans in exile. They are in the habit of stressing that Tibetan refugees are those who “chose” to flee with the Dalai Lama in 1959, implying that the remaining “chose” to stay behind. What they are saying in effect is that Tibetans in Tibet are happy under the Chinese rule, and the fight for independence is only waged by the Dalai Lama and his fellow exiles in order to have their lost privileges restored.

And the Tibetans, especially those in the highest level of administration, are helping in a big way to perpetuate this misrepresentation of fact. Just by looking at the names of the offices in the exile administration, the uninformed might be led to believe that they are concerned only with the Dalai Lama and not with Tibet as a whole. The “Information Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”, the “Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama” and all such designation are perfectly suited to give the impression that they represent the interests of only one person.

A Tibetan business venture housed in the same building as this journal operates under the pompous name of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust Handicraft Exports. It’s work and aims are not different from those of many similar firms that are more modestly styled. However, many customers of the former seem to believe that by purchasing carpets here they are providing some money to the Tibetan leader directly. Some even hope to come into contact with him in these premises. At least a few expect to see Mr. D.L. himself seated behind a table, busily counting his day’s accumulation of rupees. Once when I was in the corridor that divides the export office and my own, a gentleman, obviously from an Eastern European embassy, asked me, pointing to a monk walking up the stairs, “Dalai Lama, yeah?” Good for business, yes, but is it proper?

I know that those responsible for inventing these names had the purest of motives, namely, to honour the most respected person in our society. They also believe that an office or representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama” carries an extra amount of prestige uncommanded by a mere Council for Tibetan Education or a Tibetan Welfare Officer. Such is indeed the case among Tibetans and outsiders familiar with the Tibetan set-up. However, those who are not familiar with Tibetan set-up or are familiar but do not think much of it for reasons of their own can cause enormous harm to our national cause by citing these names and designations as proof positive of the issue of Tibet being the issue of one man.

The office complex in Dharamsala is correctly named the Central Tibetan Secretariat, although some pious bureaucrats insist on tagging the Dalai Lama’s name after this too. Why not make everything easier, simpler, less time-consuming and more truthful by removing this bit of tautology from every day usage? Thus all offices of Dharamsala will become “of the Central Tibetan Secretariat,” all major offices outside will be called “Offices of Tibet as the ones in Switzerland and New York already are: and heads of these offices can be redisignated “Directors”. And as for my next-door neighbour, it can simply become Tibet Handicraft Exports, divulging it’s holy association only on the letterheads and in discreet, small types.