Dalai Lama's Tibetan Destiny

“The simple fact is no one likes their home being taken over by uninvited guests with guns,” writes Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in his latest book Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People.

- CHINTAN GIRISH MODI

“The simple fact is no one likes their home being taken over by uninvited guests with guns,” writes Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in his latest book Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People. It demands to be read from cover to cover, especially by people who feel let down by the Tibetan Buddhist monk for being too soft towards the Chinese government. His stance here is absolutely clear: Acting out of compassion does not mean staying silent in the face of injustice and oppression.

“The policies of Xi Jinping…seem to be focused on the tightening of control and intensification of measures aimed at assimilation,” he notes, drawing attention to reports about close to a million Tibetan children being admitted to Mandarin-only boarding schools against their parents’ wishes to create a generation of Tibetans whose first language will be Chinese. He also expresses his worries about the surveillance of monasteries and nunneries, and new rules that require these institutions to teach courses favouring Chinese authorities.