The Labs of Boston, Woolwich, Chhattisgarh:

Ruling Anarchy: The Labs of Boston, Woolwich, Chhattisgarh

by Farzana Versey, CounterPunch, June 1-3

“As we heard the instant matters before us, we could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, who perceived darkness at three levels: the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for life and the sublime; (ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and finally (iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to which individual human beings are capable of descending, when supreme and unaccounted force is vested, rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of command...Joseph Conrad describes the grisly, and the macabre states of mind and justifications advanced by men, who secure and wield force without reason, sans humanity, and any sense of balance. The main perpetrator in the novella, Kurtz, breathes his last with the words: ‘The horror! The horror!’”

Blood. Death. Hate spreads. I do not know where sympathy should begin and for whom, anymore. We know the bad guys, with cleavers and rudimentary weapons, talking, walking with ruthless strides, dancing near corpses. That they do not look squishy clean like our sanitised toilet bowl gives us the power to screw up our noses.

The horror

We have seen the horror in the last few weeks, the latest being on May 25 in the tribal belt of India. Why is the quote at the beginning important? It comes from an unlikely source. In its report on the anti-Naxalite organisation, the Supreme Court of India pulled up the government and got the Salwa Judum banned.

The FBI spies on Americans. India sets up a counter-insurgency group against its citizens. They might call it 'necessary evil' but if after decades the problems persist, then it may be implied that the solutions infect the problem, hoping the virus spreads and falls dead. That is not how it works; it never has.

At 5.30 pm on Saturday at Darbha Ghati in the tribal area of Bastar in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh, a state carved out of Madhya Pradesh in central India, Naxalites rained gunfire at a convoy that was on its way to bring about change through its ‘Parivartan Yatra’ before the assembly elections. Over 25 people were shot dead by 200; many were injured. The figures change, but that is not the point.

The point is that this time it was not about innocent civilians.  Political leaders of the Congress Party and, more importantly, Mahendra Karma, who started the Salwa Judum were the targets. Although the Supreme Court disbanded it in 2011, the very idea that the government backed a terrorist outfit to deal with insurgency and got away with it reveals a conscientious and devious manoeuvre to obstruct not only the execution but the very concept of justice.

News channels and papers kept talking about how Karma was tortured. It was indeed brutal, as though the group was performing a ritual sacrifice through this purging. However, in 2010 the same government sent out photographs of a female Maoist’s body carried tied to a pole like an animal. What was the reason for it? I had written then that this does not send out a message to the Naxals, who are ready to die for their cause. And it does not send out any message to civil society. The last thing people need to believe they are safe from terrorism is to see armed soldiers enacting a theatre of the absurd.

The universal

Using a word like terrorism loosely is only giving more teeth to the establishment to pursue innocents, who might turn out to be what they are stereotyped to be. What puts the three incidents in diverse countries on par is that ‘national pride’ was aimed at.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar once wanted to represent the United States, until something changed. They then planned to strike on July 4. The pressure cooker bombs were ready. They did a recce of police stations, looking for officers as possible targets. They could not wait, so on April 15 they struck at the symbol of hope and aspiration, of breasting the tape. The Boston Marathon stood for all that is good – adrenalin throbbing in the muscles of different-coloured bodies, flags fluttering in the background to convey varied ethnicities. This was the mass congregation version of the American Sweetheart.

The U.S. was afraid to bury the dead Tamerlan because it feared the site would become a cult memorial. Something has got to be wrong if this were to happen. But then, has not the superpower’s Department of Defense called all protest “low-level terrorism”? This is how it went about it: “The FBI deemed OWS (Occupy Wall Street) to be a terrorist organization and went into ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mode. Many of the FBI descriptions of possible OWS actions or those of affiliated organizations like Adbusters consistently look to have taken the most inflammatory snippets and presented them out of context.”

In Woolwich, Michael Adebolajo – a ten-year ‘Islamist’ (he converted in 2003) – was sought by M15, even offered cash. Just the sort of guy in whose mouth you can stuff some food so that he does not rant against the system and assists it.  He, along with his accomplice Michael Adebowale, hit at the concept of security in the form of a young soldier, Lee Rigby. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "they are trying to divide us". Hugely ironic, considering it comes from the masters of divide-and-rule policy. Much has been written about the brave white woman who tried to reason with the killer. Perhaps, this is what Cameron meant by ‘they’ and ‘us’.

He has set up the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) "to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’...It will also urge Muslim ‘whistleblowers’ to report clerics who act as terrorist apologists to the police". This sort of vigilantism makes everyone a suspect.

The Guardian quoted former British soldier Joe Glenton, who served in the war in Afghanistan:

"While nothing can justify the savage killing in Woolwich yesterday of a man since confirmed to have been a serving British soldier, it should not be hard to explain why the murder happened... It should by now be self-evident that by attacking Muslims overseas, you will occasionally spawn twisted and, as we saw yesterday, even murderous hatred at home. We need to recognise that, given the continued role our government has chosen to play in the US imperial project in the Middle East, we are lucky that these attacks are so few and far between."

How lucky, indeed. And this is heralded as a liberal point of view, whereas it is just more shit hitting the fan. It adds to the pan-Islamic prototype, of every darned Muslim being concerned about every country with a population that follows the faith and could get murderous in adopted lands.

Strangely, nationalistic fervour is a mirror image of the Ummah it so detests. In Chhattisgarh, the government is treating the Naxals as “kufr”, non-believers of poodle democracy.

                                                                          

The Image-makers

The reason the subject has become an even more important issue is because it highlights how the government uses subversive tactics through insidious means. In the major attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) that killed 76 soldiers, the reportage and political drama hinged on ‘embarrassment’ and ‘blot’. It was the image factory at work. No emotions for the dead or the very reasons behind such insurgency,

Swami and Fiends: Agnivesh's Strategy

What can be worse than Swami Nityanand video clips in uncompromising positions? Swami Agnivesh in Bigg Boss. The whole promos-on-television idea has gone completely haywire – every film is pushed till it kills or dies. The same applies to people. While news channels have fake courts to let the same bunch of people come clean and the others have a more circuitous manner of doing so, entertainment channels are now happily permitting this.

It is completely ridiculous. This season’s Bigg Boss already made Shakti Kapoor look like a saint. Now we have a qualified Swami who will enter the fray. Had he said it was just for another experience or not even tried to explain his stand, it would have been okay. I watch the show between other things and to see him do the dishes, rustle up tea, brush his teeth, walk on the treadmill, relax in a bright pink and yellow room, and wake up in the morning, peeping from under a blanket looking on indulgently as women and men in funny clothes do a jig, might have been as much fun as biting into a too sour slice of fruit. But the honourable Swamiji has got a higher purpose. Of course, everyone told him not to do it, but after watching some episodes he thought he had to create awareness:

“The girls inside the house don’t seem to have any social responsibility. I want to make them realize just how many girl children are killed in the womb and how many women are burnt alive in the name of sati.”

Nobody watches shows such as this to get lectures and the participants probably know about these issues – not one of them looks like she’d fall into her husband’s funeral pyre or kill her female child. And what will he teach the guys? These people are not serving time in jail that they need to be reformed, however shrill and irritating they may be. But, then, it is the ‘spontaneous’ script. The swami is going with his own script, too.

“In the past a lot of people have tried to tarnish my image. I will take this show as a test. I shall maintain my integrity and remain transparent inside the house. I am going to the house with a selfish motive. Like former President of India, APJ Kalam says, I want to ignite the youth through this show. The entire society has to come forward.”

I am afraid, the so-called honesty about selfishness is convenient. Maybe he will tell us he did not fly Business Class? The producers of the show have given him a platform because it will help their TRPs. Just imagine a saint among sinners, that too one who wears a saffron robe but is a secularist. I can already see the ‘aware’ Pooja Bedi welcome him as an activist she has always admired and Lakshmi the eunuch – in her past interviews and public appearances she always maintained a regular profile but on this show keeps clapping like any roadside hijra because that will get more attention – who will want to be his student. I can already see that many of them will not change their mode of dress (low slung jeans and cleavage-revealing blouses) and Agnivesh will not comment on these because he will state he believes the atma (the soul) is what matters.

I wonder why no one looks at A. Raja’s soul.

“I am not doing the show for money. I have never been a greedy guy, I was a professor of law in Kolkata when I left everything and came with one aim-- to change the society. Bringing about a change is my sole purpose and I think this is a strong and powerful medium by which I can spread my message. By doing this show I want to pass on the message to our youth to come forward and bring about a change. I was very happy when I got this offer.”

Is he doing this for free? Greed is not restricted to monetary gains, and just how much does a law professor make? Many of these people who ‘give up everything’ are in fact offered a cushier life trying to change others. It is easier than changing oneself. He just wants to be on TV in another format to show his range. And what is his swamihood all about?

“I will teach them yoga and meditation and will give them love. I have seen 2-3 episodes where they have been fighting but that doesn't bother me as they are better than the members of parliament who throw chairs, break micro phones and abuse each other - that's more embarrassing.”

Give them love? Had any other male said it, there would be a huge noise. This man sounds really too patronising. And why did he not try and do something about what happens in parliament?

The worst possible thing he could say is this:

“If I can stay with the Maoists, I can definitely stay with these people.”

What does he mean by these people? And what is he trying to convey through the comparison with the Maoists – that they are difficult to deal with? That he was in a risky situation? This goes against his own support for the movement.

What a dramebaaz. Anna’s People’s Movement has been one big joy ride for its core group, and each a bigger actor than the other.

If only Bigg Boss had a couple of Kapils on the show, too. Sibal and Maharaj.

Gays and Maoists

Courtney and Sarah

When the two American gay women got married in Kathmandu, they probably were not aware that they were fighting Maoists.

Psychologist Courtney Mitchell and lawyer Sarah Welton exchanged vows as a Brahmin priest presided over the ceremony at the Dakshinkali temple.

Of course, westerners love these exotic traditions and part of the reason for the Nepal choice is that their marriage is not recognised in their native Colorado.

So, is Nepal more progressive? There is a more pragmatic reason. A while ago there was a report making it clear:

Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) officials hope that LGBT arrivals will give a boost to the number of visitors to the country as the government mulls new ways to bring in a million foreign tourists every year by 2011.

“Some international companies want to work in tandem with the government and attract LGBTs,” said an NTB official. “The beginning is encouraging.”

The sudden spurt in this niche market was due to the decade-long Maoist insurgency that affected tourism. The 10 per cent that constitutes sexual minorities need a space where they can roam free and not be judged. If a country offers itself openly as such a place, then there are bound to be takers. In fact, in this “first Asian public lesbian wedding”, Nepal’s only gay legislator, Sunil Babu Pant, did not waste any time and kick-started wedding packages for same sex partners with his Pink Mountain Travels and Tours.

The Maoist position on such alliances is not known and one should hope that a targeted group is not being created to deflect the danger elsewhere.

News meeows

Gujarat

The verdict on the Godhra case will be pronounced on Tuesday. 10,000 cops will guard Ahmedabad and 2000 will be posted at Godhra. This is a telling indicator that it is the big city that decides how the tide will swing.

Godhra collector Milind Torawane has banned all TV channels from showing images of the Godhra carnage or the riots that followed, for 12 hours beginning noon of February 22. Joint commissioner Satish Sharma told mediapersons on Saturday that they should refrain from showing or publishing images of Godhra and post-Godhra riots on the verdict day so as not to fuel public emotions. The police have given security cover for families of all the 92 accused booked in the case.

I understand it, but why did the Gujarat government use images of the burning train in its own election campaign? Was it not to fuel public emotions? How selective are these emotions? The locals go on a rampage, the police with the connivance of the government kills over 1200 people – their own people – because of a burnt train coach with 59 passengers they did not know the identities of?

94 accused were rounded up and are in the Sabarmati prison since 2002, whereas Narendra Modi remains the chief minister. Have these accused been given security cover because the verdict will go against some of them or because it won’t? Then the public emotions will again be divided. The post-Godhra riots took place without any photographic evidence. It spread through hate-inducing pamphlets and posters. So, images won’t cause any such reaction unless they are engineered to.

However, I’d agree that they should not be aired because TV channels will sensationalise it for no reason other than to grab attention for themselves. And anyway, the media people do not decide the fate of criminal or civil cases, although they’d like to believe they do.

Orissa

The Orissa government on Saturday seemed to be working to a hush-hush plan to swap abducted Malkangiri collector R Vineel Krishna and junior engineer Pabitra Majhi with a clutch of jailed Maoist leaders. This could be the first such exchange deal since the 1999 IC-814 Kandahar incident in which militant Masood Azhar and others were freed for 190-odd Indian Airlines passengers.

There is a huge difference. The plane was hijacked by Harkat ul Mujahideen, a Pakistani militant outfit, and demanded the release of its members. The lives of 190 people were at stake. In Orissa, the kidnapping is against the Indian establishment. It is an indigenous hostage situation.

From reports one gathers that the cops helped in putting up the bail pleas for the Maoists, but the lawyer says it has to be done the proper judicial way. Apparently, the reasons for the arrests are flimsy. The government may well go the quiet way because it can be questioned regarding its policies. I do wonder, though, why the Maoists have not kidnapped policemen or politicians.

Mumbai/Dharamshala

The Dalai Lama gave a lecture in Mumbai on “Ancient Wisdom and Modern Thoughts”, but he did sneak in politics:

“Now in China, genuine socialism is no longer there; a communist party without communist ideology. Capitalist communism: this is new. I heard that the life of some Indian communists and a few leaders of the Indian communist party is more bourgeois than socialist.”

True. Just as the life of some spiritual leaders who check into five-star hotels while their people sit for hours in protest. The Dalai Lama has consistently played a dog and the bone game with China. The problem is this tussle on his part takes place in India. And he does it so subtly, so 'spiritually', that we don’t even realise what is happening”

“I describe Indians as the guru, we (Tibetans) are chelas (students) of Indian guru. Essentially we learn from you.”

And then he said:

“Caste, dowry, discrimination, these may be a part of your tradition but they are outdated, and must change. The youth must change some of these…. From your chela, this is constructive criticism. Sometimes, you are a little bit lazy. You must be more hardworking; work with full self-confidence.”

Did anyone object? Of course, these are evils but where was the BJP that starts getting all hot and bothered everytime someone talks about our ‘tradition’?

Forget Indians, may we know in what manner the Tibetan youth can be self-confident and hardworking when they don’t even have their own land? How many of them have access to the huge amount of donated money from overseas by foreign supporters? Does the Indian government not have limits on this?

He made a rather curious comment:

"Modern education system does not pay attention to wholeheartedness. Teaching ethics without touching the religious space is important."

Is he conceding that ethics is antithetical to religion? And if it is important and 'wholehearted', then why must it not infringe into the religious space?

Arunachal

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev got a taste of politics on Saturday at his yoga camp in Arunachal’s Pasighat where he was allegedly called a “bloody Indian dog” by Congress MP Ninong Ering. Taking exception to the insult, the yoga guru’s spokesperson S K Tijarawala threatened that Ering wouldn’t be allowed to come to Delhi to attend Parliament. Ering, who has denied the charge, has been asked by the Congress to explain his conduct.

1. This should tell the Congress that, if true, its own party is completely removed from Arunachal. 
2. Who is Swami Ramdev to disallow an elected MP from attending Parliament? File a case against such libellous language. Simple.

Life of and for Comrade Binayak Sen

Dr. Binayak Sen has been awarded a life sentence. There is no evidence to nail him down. I will not go into the details of this case that will stand up for scrutiny only in a banana republic, not in a democracy.

The war against the state is a convenient ploy. Dr. Sen, an award winning doctor and national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) was arrested in Bilaspur on May 14, 2007. He has been behind bars ever since. And it was not a fashionable ‘statement’ arrest.

His crime is that he passed letters to the Maoist ideologue, Narayan Sanyal. Together with a young businessman, Piyush Guha, they are seen as a triumvirate. The letters were apparently to “establish an urban network of the banned extremist group CPI (Maoist)”.

The charges are drawn from the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and the IPC for conspiracy for war against the state and treason, apart from being the accused as members of a banned organisation.

Let us go along for a minute with the charges. What war has been fought against the state due to the efforts of Dr. Sen? How many politicians are arrested for creating wars within their own states? What is treason here? To speak out, to believe that a people have the right to seek a space? The moot point is: have they got it? As regards being members of a banned organisation, may I know how it is possible when an organisation that is banned becomes irrelevant, a persona non grata, so to speak? Therefore, his being a part of it is a non sequiter.

Apparently, the prosecution has problems with him being addressed as ‘Comrade’ in two postcards. “Comrade usi ko kahaa jaata hai jo Maowadi hai,” (Only a Maoist is called comrade) said prosecutor Pandya who is probably a comrade-in-arms with the state machinery and a whole ideology based on idiocy. If you refer to someone as 'Bhai', does it mean the person is an underworld don? Communist leaders still use the term comrade. Even so, he has every right to be a Maoist, just as people can be Bajrang Dali or Jamaatis; at least he is not using obfuscation.

How do you imagine Dr. Binayak Sen is linked to international terror groups? The sessions court in Chhattisgarh said that his wife Ilina was corresponding with Pakistan’s ISI based on some letters written by her to “some Fernandes of the ISI”.

Here is the report from the TOI:

The email said: “There is a chimpanzee in the White House.” Pandya said: “This may be code language... this perhaps means terrorists are annoyed with the US... We do not know who this Fernandes is, but ISI, as we all know, means Pakistan.”

TOI spoke to Walter Fernandes, currently director of the North Eastern Social Research Institute in Guwahati. “Ilina and I are good friends and we frequently exchanged correspondence on development-induced displacement among tribals, which has been my subject for the last 20 years,” he said. He described the prosecution’s attempt to interpret ISI (Indian Social Institute) as Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence wing and link it to Binayak Sen as “either ignorance or bad will”.

I am currently writing about Indian Stupid Insecurity (ISI). The imagination of the prosecution aside, I have issues with the use of ‘perhaps’ in a case of this nature, that involves the life of a person and the life of civil liberties. The prosecution is supposed to verify its claims before charging a person. If it is a code word, then decode it; if it is terror groups, snoop around and check the IP address. We don’t live in the stone age that this is not possible.

There will be an appeal against this judgement. But, it is a sad state of affairs when after 1000 pages of the charge-sheet, the Indian courts come out the worse for the wear. There is nothing that reveals that Comrade Binayak Sen has betrayed the country. The judiciary has.

- - -

Updated here

Not just patriotism of a kind

Why the heck is it so important to be a patriot of any kind? This reveals the utter desperation and inability to deny a stratified concept completely.

Here is what the newspapers say:

Writer-activist Arundhati Roy on Sunday described Maoists as "patriot of a kind" and accused the prime minister and home minister of "violating the Constitution and Panchayat (Extension of Scheduled Areas) Act by allowing corporates to use tribal land". "Patriot of a kind, they (Maoists) are. But here patriotism is very complicated. So at the moment what people are fighting for is to keep this country from falling apart," Roy said after addressing a meet on Cultural Resistance to War on People in Corporate Interest, organised by a magazine.

Patriotism is not complicated if you know your mind and the minds of the people on whose behalf you speak. There are indeed different kinds of fidelity – whether to the nation or in relationships or from your pet dog. The whole credo of ‘someone’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’ has been going on for years and it is understood as a complex theory.

However, to say that they are fighting to keep this country from falling apart is a stretch. These are insurgency movements and they are protesting against the policies of various governments and the establishment; they are not sewing patches and not one separatist movement has any alliance with another in any part of the country. All those verbal pebbles in Kashmir did not cause even a minor ripple in the Naxal forest lakes.

"The whole world has been intently watching the poor tribal people of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Lalgarh (West Bengal). Nowhere in the world have movements (against corporate invasion) so big, beautiful and successful been carried," she said.

The whole world does not care and we should not be concerned about how the whole world is viewing movements within our country that are truly fighting for space and a say. I am quite certain that for Ms. Roy the world does not mean what Papua New Guinea or Burkina Faso or even Bangladesh and Nepal think; it is the huge conglomerate nations, the G-Summiteers who need to be impressed. That’s where the big-ticket seminars are held.

There is no doubt that the poor have raised their voices but it has come at a huge cost. There is nothing “beautiful” about it, unless you want to print glossy pamphlets that show up clotted blood in high resolution pixels. Quit romanticising the travails of the poor.

Was the magazine that organised the lecture a tribal one or sponsored by the poor? No. This is a business sector, and Ms. Roy is a part of it. Let us just say this too is corporatisation of a kind.

Another ceasefire drumroll

You create a scenario where there is enough space to meddle and then when you are asked to close that space, you renege. Why does Arundhati Roy do that?

She has been clear about her verbalised opinions on the Maoist issues with a few tantalising ifs and buts thrown in. It reveals the paucity of thinking in the electronic media that she is asked if she’d take on the role of mediator between the government and the Naxals. What prompted that query?

She said in a television interview that a ceasefire between the security forces and the Maoists was "urgent" and "unconditional". Have the security forces been given a carte blanche to make such announcements? Will the Maoists who have been waging this war for many years and many reasons suddenly give up their conditions? And if all this is urgent then why dilly-dally?

When asked if she would like to make a statement calling upon the Maoists to come forward for talks, she said, “No. Not when there are two lakh paramilitary forces closing in on the villages.”

Did she not mention unconditional? Why does she not wish to put her mouth where her mouth is?

“I would not like to be (a mediator or part of people’s committee to mediate between the government and Maoists). I don’t think I have those skills... I don’t think I am good at it. I am a maverick... I’ll try. I don’t know how to think about it.”

If she is good enough to go on lecture tours, meet the comrades, question the government, then why not? And she forgets that she is not the real maverick here – it is the Maoists who are, the ones she thinks should call for a ceasefire as though they can be herded like sheep for someone else’s intellectual high.

“I don’t think it should be one person. I think there should be a group of people who are used to taking decisions collectively…If you studied the peace talks process in Andhra, you see that this business of picking one person and announcing it to the media... both sides have done it. Home minister P Chidambaram has arbitrarily picked Swami Agnivesh. Maoists arbitrarily announced that they want this one or that one. That is not how it works.”

Indeed. For one, collective decisions can be taken when there is uniformity in thought and action. This has not been the case. Two, there will be individuals chosen arbitrarily because they are either the face of the movement or have a record of such mediatory roles. Interestingly, she herself has suggested that rights activity B D Sharma should be included in such a committee. And isn’t she the spokesperson of several causes? Whose arbitrary decisions are those?

If the Maoists send a peace envoy and he gets killed, then she believes the government does not want peace. So, why is she asking for this committee to be formed and why this sudden ceasefire talks?

Are the Maoists getting out of hand and doing their own thing, not quite concerned about who says what at seminars?

Oh Shirt!

How absolutely ridiculous to even imagine that George W. Bush wiped his hands on Bill Clinton’s shirt after shaking hands with a Haitian during their aid tour.



Is this how political leaders wipe hands? And how clean would he expect Clinton’s shirt to be?

I read somewhere it could either be an insult to the people of Haiti or to Clinton. The Haitians have been insulted enough already by history; as for Bill, a light pat of the back would not even register. He is accustomed to a lot more.

There is a tendency to read myriad meanings in such gestures and while it is fun we want them to show us the money.

- - -

What?

“I would like a short, simple statement from the CPI (Maoist) saying we will abjure violence and we are prepared for talks. I would like no ifs, no buts and no conditions. I would like the statement to be faxed to 011-23093155. Once I receive the statement, I shall consult the Prime Minister and other colleagues and respond promptly.”

- P Chidambaram

So, our home minister thinks he will get a fax message by a group that has been fighting for years, that has a political ethos, that is disaffected in many ways to let him know that they are ready to give up violence so they can have chai-biscuit with him and get “prepared for talks”?

If the Centre has to take action, then they must do it. This business of faxing and no ifs and buts sounds like some tired old macho stuff in an echo chamber.

The Dalai Lama's Subtle Politics

Why was such a noise made about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh?

He is in exile. But from his utterances it does not appear so. He first fled to Tawang from Tibet in 1959; his attachment to the place is understandable. However, he ought to understand that he should not speak about Indian politics:

“My stand that Tawang is an integral part of India has not changed.”

The report has called it his defence of the host country. In all likelihood this will work as mocking China, not because of the Tibetan issue but the Maoist one. It probably suits the central government’s purpose.

His statement:

“It’s usual for China to oppose my visit. It’s baseless to say my trip is anti-China. My visit is not political at all”

reeks of politics. Right from the start a statement is being made.

Even more surprising is his stand on Tibetans in India:

“The other reason why I am happy is that the people here take genuine interest in Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist culture. Right from Ladakh to Tawang, Tibetan Buddhism is practised traditionally.”

Buddhism, yes. But Tibetan Buddhism? The Dalai Lama was given a place to set up home with his followers; it is only natural that they will go out for work opportunities. Hasn’t it struck anyone as rather naïve of us to let the Tibetan version spread?

The Tibetan right to a homeland is valid, but the Dalai Lama’s idea of being a travelling salesman to “promote human values, and promote harmony” needs a rain check.

- - -

There’s more here on India and the Dalai Lama’s Middling Path