A day with the Dalai Lama.

I’d been trying since January to get a meeting with the Dalai Lama. I wanted to interview him for The Hindu on the 50^th anniversary of his journey from Lhasa to India. I got a call out of the blue on a Friday evening and his adviser asked if I could come to Delhi on that Monday (March 3oth) – the DL was spending two days there to mark the anniversary.

I got to Delhi Sunday and had an interesting dinner that evening with Samdong Rimpoche. He’s the exiled government’s leader (and also a philosopher and historian). We spoke extensively about the problem, mainly looking at the future and what it would take to go forward. I met the DL on Monday in the hotel he was staying at in New Delhi. The lobby was crowded with many young exiled Tibetans, who had travelled from all over north India and had waited for hours to see him. Many were moved to tears, and wept uncontrollably when they finally met him.

I was surprised by how easy-going and laid back he was, in both mannerisms and conversation. He was surprised by my age (and started laughing out loudly when I was introduced to him, guess he expected someone a lot older). He asked me a lot about my experiences in China and my travels through Xinjiang, and the Tibetan areas of Yunnan and Sichuan, and what I thought in general of China's minority policies.

He invited me to sit with him through his meetings with some of India’s well-known spiritual leaders, and then we had a one hour conversation in his room, first off-the-record. He became markedly more stiff and wary when I turned the recordeer on. I asked him about the last (eighth) round of talks with the Chinese, and what went wrong, and the simple question of what he thinks needs to be done to move forward. He was unequivocal about two things: Firstly, going forward would require an international, objective settlement of the question of history. Secondly, he still believes a mutually beneficial solution is possible.

He was less clear – as expected – about more nuanced questions. The biggest obstacle is figuring out a system that would ensure his view of genuine autonomy. The Chinese government rejected the suggestion made in the Memorandum submitted after the last talks. This proposal involved a Central Tibetan Administration that would be responsible for educational and cultural matters, but would accept the Chinese Communist Party’s political authority. The Chinese government says the CTA is unconstitutional and is disguised independence. That, in a nutshell, is the problem.

But the positive thing is there is some solid common ground the two sides can work on, if there is resolve from Beijing to take talks forward (yes, a big if). While the DL said the Tibetans were not prepared to give any more ground on their proposal, he did leave a lot of wiggle-room for himself when he said he’d reconsider it “if the opinions of the Tibetan people changed” and that it wasn’t his decision.

Here’s a link to the interview which appeared in The Hindu.

A week after my interview, the Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan wrote a lengthy Op-ed in The Hindu. In it he expressed the Chinese government’s often-repeated position that “they watch the DL’s deeds, not words,” implying that they didn’t seriously believe the DL’s position that he accepted Chinese rule and only sought autonomy, not independence.

My two cents: Honestly, it is difficult to buy the Chinese government's views and its vague and often blindly-repeated assertion that the DL is not showing "sincerity". It is unreasonable for them to link every violent act in Lhasa to Dharamshala (they still have not publicised their "evidence" showing his planning of the March riots). I think it is in China’s interests to come forward as soon as possible with a concrete proposal that suits both parties. It makes most sense for China to try and achieve some sort of settlement while the DL is alive, if they want a settlement that is stable and sustainable in the long-term, which is of course in Beijing's own interests, both from the point of view of internal stability and its increasing sensitivity to international criticism. We don’t know how fragmented the Tibetan movement might become in the future, and talks will be easier while the Tibetans have one clear leader with a strong voice. Of course, all this is assuming we're taking for granted Beijing's words - and not its deeds - on how sincere it is on achieving a sustainable solution.