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Saturday 20 August 2011

The second fight for independence in India.

In India, there is a very effective revolution is going on. This struggle is known by the name of second fight for independence and it aims at bringing freedom to the common citizens from the curse of corrupted government. Triggered by the 74 year old social activist Anna Hazare with a draft called Lokpal Bill, whole nation is boiling with this struggle today. The youth of the country is woken up with their full support towards this revolution. There are demonstrations and strikes across different states making the government stand on a very edgy position. 

Friday 19 August 2011

Many faces of a cause


The age of Charles Dickens, the best of times yet the worst of times, the season of light yet the season of darkness, the spring of hope yet a winter of despair. It is the age of our generation with the replication of the Dickens’s age. We achieved a whole lot yet we have lost a hell lot, there is nothing much for us to rely upon yet there is so much to lose, there is a dusk of fear yet a dawn of confusion threatens us.
We have a story of violent invasion and a fearful escapade. With these stories behind us we are speaking in front of the world that we lost our nation to a deceitful neighbor. We are expressing our determination to struggle for the restoration of the lost honor by nurturing the growing population with the resource of the fading generation. We have made the first blunder of blaming the lost of our nation to a so called deceitful neighbor. The world has always been a platform for challenge and struggle for the survival of the fittest. And now it is doubtful if we are putting the correct effort by pointing to the young generation as the soldiers of an unaccomplished project of rebuilding a nation.
Every person is not so brilliant, every person is not so organized and every person is not genius too. And it is not that simple to educate a generation without the love and care of a family. It is not a cup of tea for everyone to become self reliant. Education is the shaping machine of every human and with the approach of non-violent method in our struggle, there is no spear and shield sharper and thicker than the education itself. This is where we come to the point, a propelling target ahead of us is the giant PRC with significant influence around the world and there is us Tibetans not even strong at personal set up to think about the nation.
College is a huge platform after school for the Tibetan children. Tashi, a freshman at one of the reputed colleges in Delhi just came out into the world for the first time from that confined boundary of his school and he is so curious about the world around him. It is hard for him to get settled and concentrate upon his studies. He came from Tibet in the year 1999 and since then, under the holy grace of His Holiness, he had been staying in Mussoorie, attending his school. He is the first person to come to India from his family in Tibet. Obviously he is the eldest son of his family but now his younger brother is taking the responsibility of his family back in his homeland. So, it is of obvious that he could not get any support from his family for his studies. But he always mentions of his sense of gratitude to his school in Mussoorie that enables him to attend a college under their scholarship. He says “I cannot leave the college; I have many things to do in my life. But I am afraid if I could do well enough at my studies to achieve my commitments.” With this statement, he means that he could not find enough time for his studies because he is doing a part time job at a call center.
“How could you suppose me to meet all the expenses I face? Actually I am supposed to be running my family that my younger brother is doing at the moment.” He says when he was suggested to leave the part time job and put his full effort at his studies. His father had passed away many years ago by over drinking. He came to know of that instance only this year! After fleeing to India, he never had any contact to his family. He was too innocent as well as ignorant to know of staying connected with his family while the family had no idea at all about his contact details.
School life had been a very great opportunity and an easy life for Miss Dickyi. She has always been very cautious of her career options since her school life. Though she was born in Indian and speak Hindi better than Tibetan, she loves to be a Tibetan girl and takes pride to care for the cause of Tibet. The worst time in her life was when she was made to pursue the nursing course after her school. She was one of the most brilliant students from her batch and she was interested in archeology at the first place. However, she could not deny from getting into nursing. Her parents relied on sweater selling business and could not ensure the security of Dickyi’s two younger sisters following her. It is the last year of her nursing course and she will be leaving USA next year, where her uncle will support her to get a job of nursing. So, she desperately needed to start earning on her own to support her family.
What would you expect to hear from a Tibetan college student? “I am almost getting to the realization of my dream.”? It is a word of sun in the night time! This is not a blame game coming into shape but a factual context of our real life in the exile community. There is no point of talking about coming to the realization of their dreams when there are very few people dreaming big and working hard at it. Sometimes even some political tactics played by some master minds in for the quest for many available scholarship opportunities for their loved ones shatters the confidence of some bright seeds of our nation.
The Tibetan community is essentially blessed with an honorable leader His Holiness and his supporters around the world that sustains the community with their generous contributions. There is very low percentage of Tibetan students attending colleges without some scholarships. But when it came to the case of Mr. Yega, again a freshman in Delhi University, attending a degree course in science, he felt the scholarship scheme too cruel. He had made a mistake in choosing his course of study and he needed to change his subject of study very badly. He could not find anyone to talk to about his problem. The scholarship covering him was too rigid to negotiate and he was warned of losing his scholarship if he wanted to change his course. With a background of nomadic family in Tibet and a restaurant table serving brother in New Delhi, he is not able to afford a change of his course. Though it was his mistake of choosing a wrong subject to study, he looked pitiful without anyone around him through in that juncture of his life. He had no family expect a brother who had studied till fifth standard and no one intimate to turn to when he was unsure. When he had no option left in front of him, he is planning to start doing a BPO job with the English he knows and quit his studies. He feels it much better than studying something that does not interest him at all.
When there is confusion about the whereabouts of our famous playboy in Bangalore University, Sangpo, you go to the nearest pub and wait there. He will fall there as the darkness of the night. He is always busy around killing the time of his college life hunting for girls. When it comes to typing a message on the mobile phone, he types with a speed as if he is typing on a key board. It does not matter whether he uses a QWERTY keypad or not, he is expert at it.
In these hustles and bustles of their life, there is something really big missing out of their life. May be there is something going wrong in our system that is breeding out such a generation. There are very rare events in their life after school that reminds them of their commitments and responsibilities. Their connection with our language and culture gets lost so suddenly. They are weaving through the world like a sleeping lion, who once given with the necessary words and support, would roar around the world for the cause of FREE TIBET.
Yet the truth is that, we have a population of a nation, with hopes upon each other, shouldering the responsibility upon each other.

I have been a Tibetan...


If birth be a defining factor of our nationality, I am strongly Tibetan though I have the regret of living in a country rather than Tibet. I am this year turning to my nineteenth birthday but it is a highly humiliating fact that about twelve years from this nineteen has been spent in India despite being a Tibetan! Though it may be a defect of our fate to carry on thus it had been the defect of our basic mindset over the generations. In fact, I have never lived a Tibetan in me and most of others surely won’t have because the basic requirements haven’t been availed! Though my memories of my naïve seven years in Tibet are a bit blurred, I can never go wrong with fact that I never had Tibet in my mind at that time. Though I am only now aware that I had lived in Tibet rather than china but I never learnt Tibetan while Chinese was taught in priority in the school I went there. I probably attended the school for about three years but I didn’t come across even the alphabets of Tibetan over those years. But I remember those long poems in Chinese I had to memorise and I had been a literate in Chinese in fact. Besides I never had a Tibetan teacher but a few Chinese teachers over the years in that school and I was thus, equipped with the patriot of a Chinese lay man rather than a Tibetan. And the perpetual fact of my ignorance lies with my birth into a family of illiterate farmers who were only concerned in fulfilling their religious pursuits. They didn’t take any stress upon the quality of harvest every year while they would put their life forth to succeed in their annual pilgrimage tours against any kind of obstacle. Hence this could have also been a fundamental faulty of our mindset that led to the loss of Tibet.
I have certain obligation that doesn’t let me speak of the exact location of my origin but the truth of my ignorance is a bit regretful. It is a strong pain striking feeling to having been an avid participant in recital of the Chinese national anthem in the school I attended there. It was a time I knew not of the word Tibet and China was conferred as the nation I belonged to. Back in those periods, I never had sight of a Tibetan national flag and owning such a flag with the respect paid as one’s own national flag was not seen at all while I cannot remember that total number I saluted to the star stubbed red flag of china! Though my normal clothing constituted ‘chupa’; the traditional Tibetan costume while the newly exposed style of clothing in shirts, pants and the stylish star stubbed green cap took turn to my dressing on the special occasions. In addition to all these, being able to speak better in Chinese attracted more respect and dignity that alienated the only Tibetan speaking people as the tribes of a certain minority.
In contrary to all those, there was a unique affirmation in me that confirmed that I can never be one of the numerous Chinese strangers in our town and that propelled me to a distinct identity. Later on, as I fled to India, I became aware of the distinct identity that meant Tibetan. Thus I became a fully fledged Tibetan who started shedding his ignorance of his own identity after seeking refugee in India since the early 1998. I got exposed into a society that gave me a sense of security and satisfaction. Though I lived very far away from my parents and the divine home, I have grown in a clean society where I received the teachings I ought to seek. I enjoyed the life in an atmosphere of freedom exception to the times I missed my home many miles away.
I don’t know how my parents fell upon the conclusion of sending me far away from them to India but it was clear that one of the kins I had in India took the charge of my expedition to this foreign land. It was my father whom I had first and last seen lying me. I was totally ignorant of my expedition as my father left me in the hand of stranger uncle, who is found to an escort and a merchant. As per my father that time, I was supposed to be with the uncle till Lhasa but it turned out to be turning point of my life. However, the expedition was not a child’s play and I also underwent the similar strains of walking for several weeks across the Himalayan ranges. Because the expedition was a flee to escape, we had to move in the woods and ranges in secrecy. The expedition consisted of a troop of about thirty people inclusive of the three merchant escorts but me along with my two siblings were the only children. In that troop, four people belonged to the age group of above fifty and they only confronted the hardship of the journey to receive a blessing touch of the His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Besides, there were six monks and two nuns who are studying in monasteries and nunneries in India today. The rest of people were merchants and I have come to know recently about the arrest of one of them a few years ago on one of his regular expeditions. He is said to have hidden many portraits of the His Holiness in his merchandise and it is known that even the image of His Holiness is prohibited in Tibet! Those people had lots of things to take and it was very difficult to cross the ranges easily. There were the times in our journey when we ran out of food in the midst of the mountains and the hunger sued with desperate pains that I could never forget. There were times I refused my escort to go on because I missed my father, my home and hated that sneaking journey. I cried in vain when the escort slapped me upon my misbehaviors and I even attempted to flee back home from the troop while that ended up with fierce slaps and scolding from the escort. I can never forget those travels in the complete darkness and the sleeps in the twilight, which did baffle me in curiosity. But I never knew that I was going to lose the warmth of living with my parents forever.
But now, I know why my parents sent me away and why I felt that I can never be one of those foreign Chinese in my home town. Though my parents sent me away so that I could learn Tibetan and seek security under the Dalai Lama, I have learnt a lot more. I can now understand the reasons of the slaps of the escort, strains of the journey and the hidings in my expeditions about twelve years ago. These days, I am desperately missing my parents and the relatives who were the guardians of my novice human life. There are high restrictions against making contact with them. The telephones are risky medium of contact for us. But recently, I was blessed with an opportunity of a several hours’ long phone talk with my father. It was the first time a son talking to his father after a complete twelve year’s disconnection! Drenching in tears was an irresistible emotion but that was the most important event of life in those twelve years. But it was also a convincing truth to learn that many of my then school mates making a very unsightly living these days. Some of my childhood friends today have assorted to crimes and burglaries to make their living today. Hearing such realities make me feel proud of having a such a father because he is the one who sacrificed for my well being. Today, I can not imagine of assorting to activities like thieveries or crimes while I had been one of these criminals one time. Since my arrival to India, I had been studying at Tibetan Homes School Mussoorie and I am completing my school this year. I can now understand the basic needs of a nation and the important defining factors of distinct nationalities. Thus I can confirm that I had lived my childhood days in Tibet while Chinese have illegally taken shelter in our country. Now I know the basic identities of my own nation and have the spirit to fight for Tibet. Though I have spent my complete school life hearing that Tibet will be freed in the near future, I can never stop waiting for this excitement.
Though Tibet issue is an issue of generations, dreaming of our victory by truth is pleasurable and the spirit of this struggle ever expands. I believe that our struggle has moved to a right direction in these fifty years of exile and I have the faith that Tibet is an issue that should be resolved after all. Taking our political system into consideration, there was a major defect in this system before 1959. There was strict caste differentiation in the pristine Tibet and common people had no role in the ruling of Tibet. Hence Tibet was never a political union though it was the Buddhist religion that bound Tibet as a unified state. The whole geography of Tibet was sparsely populated Tibetans plying in fields or practicing nomadic lives and it promised a difficult political unity. That little population knew little about the Gaden Podrang (the erstwhile government of Tibet) Government based in Lhasa. But the whole population drove to Lhasa at any cost in a given interval of time to fulfill their religious pursuits. Hence they had a very little say in claiming for a governmental post while they preached their religion every minute. But with the advent of democracy by H.H the 14th Dalai Lama, every single Tibetan is given the responsibility in this struggle and thus took to an issue of generations. Though we had a curious political system before 1959 that exempted the common people from their responsibility in politics, we are equipped much better today.
Tibet has been a confusion of the world from several decades before I was born. In fact, this has been confusion at a political level only. I know that majority of countries and their leaders support our cause and they invite the Dalai Lama to their countries as often as possible. Hence this clearly defines the truth of our claims as a refugee else the Dalai Lama is a liar and the world is running after a liar!
But the fact here is something that is unpleasant and unfair. The Chinese has invaded our country, and the Tibetans were propelled to a state of fleeing from one’s own country. Since then, they have been luring the world against our struggles and the reasons we put while the world has also been a kid before its might! Hence might have become the right today.
Aspiration of a free Tibet excites me while the reality today dejects the joy I can attain each day. Being a student, dreaming is an obvious possibility but absence of one’s land contracts the area of dreaming to a much smaller dimension. I have dreams of Tibet standing tall as a nation of the world. I have a dream of seeing the shoe-shaped map of Tibet depicted as separate state in the world map. It is very stimulating to think of a day when I would be back in that home of my birth living not as a refugee but as a countryman. I also have the wish to see our national football team competing for the FIFA world cup and at the same time it would be a sensational moment to see our national flag hoist high along the hundred others I can see today. Thus freeing the chained Tibet is a desperate necessity while this possibility stands quite bleak. Though I had lived totally ignorant in Tibet and quite engrossed with my studies for these twelve years in India, I can never stop being a Tibetan ever and I believe none of other Tibetans does! We Tibetans are making our supreme effort and this is also my humble plea for the international bodies to save this truth.
The world is not stable today. I am not at ease with the world since I have known it. This is an eternal acquaintance of me that I have been concerned about. I saw a hostile attack at the Twin Towers in the 9/11 incident in America that engraved a painful scar in many hearts. I remember the tragic Tsunami disaster of 2006 that washed the lives of thousands of people. There was the 26/11 eruption in Mumbai and yet I have recently come to know of the disturbance in Urumqi. I have also known the fiddling game of North Korea with the nukes that has put the world to a threshold. But the issue of Tibet is not yet forgotten. This is the issue of the Third Pole of the world and the world suffers when it suffers. Thus, I have a strong conviction about the need for liberation of this Third Pole.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Heart of Asia



In the Asian maps, Tibet is located as a part of the china. Actually, Tibet had been a full sovereign country! It has been naturally endowed with wide ranges of mountains covered with forests, natural seas and springs, great rivers and highly verified species of animals. Due to these characters, Tibet had been playing the heart role of the Asian continent. I am not telling it because it is my country but due to the truth of it, I am made to express it, due to the pride of its rich and pure environment, I am made to exhale the breath of truth. Tibetan natural resources had remained pure and undisturbed until the rule of china over Tibet. But from that reign of the Chinese, every thing started excavating and exploitation of our nature took place in Tibet.

At a glance to the Tibetan country, it has many rivers that flow out to many other countries in Asia, it has very rich minerals and mines like borax, uranium, copper and it has very rich forests. For the most, it is the home of very large number of different kinds of species which are mostly not found in the other parts of the world. But now it is being very highly degraded and it due to the great exploitation of resources like; forests, water and minerals by the government of the china. Due to this great exploitation, many other part of Asia to be affected is a clear view in every sight! Decades before Chinese have started exporting large amount of metals and woods from Tibet. Due to the construction of this railway to Lhasa it has taken the homes   of many Tibetan settlers and many mountains had been exploited. If we destroy a forest, it has the equal affect on the other forms of resources since they are all inter-linked and inter-depended.

Tibet is the principle watershed for the Asian countries. Tibet is mountainous and much of the terrain is very steep, so that many rivers have enormous drops in elevation.  Countries like India, Pakistan and many others are depending for the water resource to Tibet, and those are mostly developing countries, so, if the source of the energy to these countries if averted, there is assurance of occurring unpredicted threat to these countries on account to the way of development of it. Besides, India has a great problem due to the shortage of the water and electricity. Main Indian natural rivers like Brahamaputra, Ganga Sutlej and many more are initiated from Tibet. If the sources of the rivers are avoided, the problem in the other countries would become from bad to worse. There in Tibet is being constructed huge dams at a very high number and it is being used for the generation of hydro-electricity, and there by, the flow of those rivers out of the country is cut off. And we should always remember that these can be dried or lost with excess of spoilt. Everything is not permanent on this world! Having isn’t and losing isn’t permanent. Everything will not remain same if not cared, if not preserved. Besides, there are more than fifteen hundred lakes scattered every where in Tibet. Those lakes filled with fish and surrounded by great grasslands, provided ideal space for the purpose of animal husbandry.

Tibet had been very rich in the forest resource, there were forest filled with animals and tress. Beside there were found a lot of minerals that had a very high economic value. But the Tibetans had never been mining it since! But for instance, it could have been an imaginable useful matter for the development of anything if developed for the use in the particular purpose. With the northern part of India, Tibetans even had exported wool of sheep and goat in trade! With china, Tibetans usually had medicinal commerce but it had been mostly by individuals that meant to be illegal (plants those having medicinal property collected from the forests by oneself). However it had a big role in the betterment of the both peoples of both countries. Tibetans had a very huge number of cattle and its production also had a great commercial value with high production. Many illegal traders from Tibet are out of their laws but they traded animal skins and animal products which had felt use for the livelihood of both the traders. But I don’t appreciate their attitude. Genuinely, it had supported. Many of Tibetans use to sell woods and agricultural products in the market abroad. Those woods have been cut by those Tibetans from the naturally occurring forests and those use to be cheap for the consumers! The main product of Tibetan farm is mostly wheat and barley etc.

Minerals like uranium, which have a very high value economically is found abundant in Tibet. It is now being exported to china and it has played the heart role in the up bringing of the economic of china. This also has the main part in the nuclear power stations. This has served much. The forest resource exported from Tibet to china is said that it had estimate worth of $54 billion of trees felled. With such ruthless and deliberate deforestation, Tibet’s ecosystem has deteriorated rapidly. Central Tibet alone has more than 5760 varieties of plants of which 3000 have economic value. Besides, there are over 1000 varieties of medicinal herbs. Most of them had high economic value and easy to collect, as their growth is concentrated! So, how much that would cost! Minerals like copper, gold, silver, aluminum are now going to extract in large quantities from Tibet. The deposits of uranium and borax are the biggest in the world! The deposits of lithium constitute half the world’s supply! Tibet’s copper deposit is the second largest of Asia and its reserves of the iron and chrome are larger than any in china! These are not fair. But this would help many helpless countries for their development.  Many explorations regarding the search for new elements are taking place in Tibet by the Chinese. These steps have reduced the purity and the efficiency of nature in Tibet, and now it has reduced and polluted. The resource of Tibet is of this Asia and of this world; this is for the natural development of this world. But it should not be exploited! Then the real value of this natural world can be witnessed.

For the great surprise, in Tibet those animals which are meant to be a rare species on the world are easily found and those had not been hunted in a large scale until the year of 1959. So people and the animals have been living hand by hand. There was a perfect peace and means of prosperity among humans and all the sentient beings! As a heredity culture, Tibetans considered it has a religious act in saving the lives and the nature. They believed that the prosperity of the country lies on the relationship between human beings, animals and the prestigious nature. As long as the nature of the region is healthy, the harmony of the country isn’t a dream. The reputed earth has been help for the survival of everything, but how can we human beings be that much ignorant and destructive? Tibet is going on degrading and the species are becoming extinct from there and they are also being migrated! Even these animals have understood the evil heart of the destroyer, how can they be so still! It is the Chinese policy and it should be unveiled in front of the world so that they won’t be that foolish by thinking that they are the only one!

We Tibetans are the native people of Tibet but we had been expelled due to the invasion of Chinese over Tibetans. We should spread the case of the Chinese exploitation of natural resources in Tibet world wide to make the people abroad to understand the carelessness, ruthlessness, selfishness of the Chinese. We can establish anti-Chinese policy organizations and try to cease the ruthless deteriorations of the nature. We have to do what we can and the rest is to be left on our faith to the gods. We have to make the U.N. organization to know about our poor environmental exploitations led by the Chinese. The environmental orgs should drag this case of Tibet without any disintegration. The Chinese people have to realize about their wrong deeds that is causing damage to the various live forms and the nature. 
    
As far as we Tibetans are concerned, the whole people of the world are equally responsible for the protection of the Tibet’s nature. It is genuinely of the world only!