World can learn from India's hosting Tibetan Culture

[Guest guest]

(India, 2nd most populated country on Earth, hosts over 80,000

Tibetans. The World should learn from India, the only real

Democracy on Earth. Instead USA + Allies ignore India and fund its enemies.Vrin)

 

Over 80,000 Tibetans led by their religious and temporal leader,

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, have fled the Chinese occupation

of their country and established a refugee community at

Dharamsala in India.. Facing the destruction of their culture and

religion (of the country's 6,259 monasteries, nunneries and

temples, all but eight have been completely destroyed), they had

a duty which far transcended the need merely to keep body and

soul together: a duty to nurture a whole civilisation in exile. With

help from concerned governments, the UN High Commission for

Refugees, humanitarian organisations, and philanthropic

individuals on the one hand and the sheer tenacity of the

Tibetans themselves on the other hand, the Tibetans have

achieved today what might surely have seemed impossible 36

years ago when they first set foot on Indian soil.

 

The beginning years were expectedly the most difficult. Many

Tibetans, coming from the high Tibetan plateau, succumbed to

tropical diseases and heat. They were divided into road

construction groups and lived in tented camps. With help from

the Government of India and others, 54 agricultural and

agro-industrial based refugee settlements were gradually

established. The idea was to resettle the Tibetans in compact

homogeneous communities where they would be able to

preserve and perpetuate their culture and traditions, while at the

same time enabling them to become self-sufficient in

livelihoods.

 

A democratic administration in exile was set up at Dharamsala,

India, to manage the affairs of the Tibetan refugees. With

assistance from the Government of India, Tibetans schools were

established to impart modern secular education to the Tibetan

children while also emphasising the learning of Tibetan

language and literature, history, culture, religion, arts and crafts.

Today, there are 85 Tibetan schools throughout India, Nepal and

Bhutan with total student strength of 27,585. About 70 percent of

school aged children attend school. Centres for the preservation,

perpetuation and propagation of Tibetan culture and traditions in

different fields of skills and learning were also set up. These

included carpet weaving, wood and metal curving and sculpture,

performing arts, thangka painting, Tibetan medicine, Tibetan

language, history and Buddhism. Primary Health Care centres

exist in almost all the refugee communities. Nearly 200

monasteries and nunneries have been established to revive

religious education and traditions. In short, the Tibetans have

kept alive in India what was almost totally destroyed or sinocised

inside Tibet.

 

Credit for the success of the Tibetan community at Dharamsala

and elsewhere indubitably goes to the democratic vision,

foresight and leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Today,

the Tibetan issue is well known internationally. The Chinese

Government demands that the refugees accept that Tibet was

always an integral part of China as a precondition for negotiation

for the future status of Tibet. While the influx of the Chinese

population endangers the culture and identity of the Tibetan

people in Tibet, those at Dharamsala continue to work for a

peaceful settlement.

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