Hope of Returning Home Springs Eternal in the Breasts of Tibetan Exiles in Dharmshala

The atrocity of silence is worse than the atrocity itself”. This statement by the makers of the BBC documentary Murder in the Snow, which shows the shooting of Tibetan refugees as they attempted to flee across the Himalayas into Nepal, captures the feelings of Tibetans in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh about the plight of their country, which has been occupied by China since 1950.

The 2006 documentary, the first recorded footage of Tibetan refugees trying to cross the border, was screened at the Hope and Stories Café in Mcleodganj, home to the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, and the Tibetan government-in-exile. The town of 11,000 – many of them saffron-robed monks and refugees – is a mini Tibet with the large Tsuglagkhang complex. At its heart lies Namgyal Monastery, the personal retreat of the Dalai Lama. It is a magnificent structure that houses a community of dedicated monks. The melodious chants and rhythmic sounds of ceremonial instruments that echo through its walls offer a glimpse of the deep spiritual practices that have flourished here for centuries.

Kundang Tenzin, a Tibetan photographer who founded the Hope Café in 2017, is a man with a mission: to preserve and promote Tibetan culture and to record, document and expose the oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese government. He calls his café Hope because he came to India with the hope of returning to Tibet.

“I still have that hope,” the soft-spoken, gentle man with an engaging smile told Politics Today. “We always talk about harmony, humility, peace, love and compassion. Our cause [freedom from Chinese oppression and respect for the human rights of the Tibetan people] is based on these ideals”.

The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for promoting peaceful solutions based on tolerance and mutual respect to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the Tibetan people.

“The nonviolent movement works,” said Tenzin with confidence and pride.  It is not just a fairy tale. Most of the news is about war, terrorist attacks, robbery and rape.  The younger generation may think that violence works, but the awarding of the Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama shows that non-violence works.

Following China’s communist revolution in 1948, it invaded Tibet in 1950. Overwhelmed, Tibet was forced to surrender its independence. After a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama – Tibet’s political and spiritual leader – fled into exile in Dharamshala, India, followed by tens of thousands of Tibetans. Since 1959, the Chinese government has exercised total political control over Tibet, using all means of repression, including forced abortion and sterilization, to deter and punish Tibetan resistance.

In this haven of peace, a tireless, dedicated team of five run a weekly program. Monday is the day for sharing stories. Niyma Samdup described his hometown of Meto Junga, near Lhasa in Tibet. “It was where the mountains touched the sky. I lived there with my two sisters and my parents. My father had a small bicycle and he went to Lhasa to look for work to feed the family. He did some cleaning, but there was no steady work, so we decided to flee with a kettle, a blanket and some clothes. I was five years old. It took us six months to walk to Nepal.

On Wednesdays, visitors to the café can spend a day living as a Tibetan.  Each morning, Nyima Samdup leads a fascinating walk through Tibetan culture, starting with donning a traditional costume and visiting the Dalai Lama’s monastery, where the 89-year-old leader gives public lectures.  Near the monastery is a chilling photo exhibition of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in protest at the Chinese occupation. According to the Free Tibet Campaign, more than 150 people have set themselves on fire inside Tibet since March 2009. The number dropped in 2012 when the Dalai Lama said he did not condone the practice but praised the courage of those who had made the ultimate sacrifice for Tibet.

Friday is the day of documentaries and discussion. Tenzin and his colleagues are handing out leaflets about the event in Mcleodganj and have a personal message for those who come to the café in support of Tibet. Murder in the Snow tells the story of more than 70 young people who travelled for three nights in the back of a lorry as it climbed into the mountains. The refugees then walked for another 10 nights, with inadequate clothing and limited food and water, to the foot of the infamous 6000m Nangpa Pass, an ancient trade route to Nepal. As they made their way up the snow-covered pass, a group of mountaineers from a nearby camp watched in horror as Chinese border police opened fire on the refugees. The story went global when American mountain guide Luis Benitez emailed his account of the shooting to a popular climbing website. In 2006, about 100 Tibetans a month were fleeing their country. Today, only about ten a year are able to make the treacherous journey, as the Chinese have stepped up surveillance following demonstrations against their rule in Tibet in 2008.

Like the flight over the mountains, preserving Tibetan culture is an uphill struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds, but Tenzin is undeterred. “Good things are difficult to achieve,” he says philosophically, stressing that preserving the Tibetan language is essential to keeping the culture alive.

In August last year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, citing a recent UN report on the ‘forced assimilation’ of one million Tibetan children forced into Mandarin-speaking state boarding schools far from their homes and families, called on China to stop trying to erase Tibet’s distinct identity. In December, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on China to immediately abolish the boarding schools.

According to reports in various Tibetan-language news media monitored by ChinaAid, an international human rights organization working to promote religious freedom in China, students in Tibetan regions will be required to take full Mandarin Chinese classes from March 2023.

In his first address to the US Congress, Penpa Tsering, the head of Tibet’s government-in-exile based in India, known as the Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), said his country was dying a ‘slow death’ under Chinese rule. “We are often asked why we don’t hear about Tibet anymore,” Tsering said.

He blamed this silence on China’s “Orwellian gridlock system, using all means of artificial intelligence to monitor people, control the flow of information and close Tibet to the outside world”.

The Chinese government continues to spread disinformation about Tibet through official statements and propaganda, paid online commentators and even fake social media accounts.

The United Nations has repeatedly challenged China over human rights abuses in Tibet, including finding that Tibet is the worst area in China for child malnutrition. In 2023, the watchdog group Freedom House again ranked Tibet as the least free country in the world, tied with South Sudan and Syria. It was the third year in a row that Tibet was at the bottom of Freedom House’s rankings, with an overall global freedom score of 1 out of 100.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2024 Annual Report, released on May 1, highlights the deterioration of religious freedom in Tibet due to the Chinese government’s intensified repression and “Sinicization” of Tibetan Buddhism – a policy aimed at bringing Tibetan Buddhism under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese government has consistently objected to the Dalai Lama’s visits to other countries, particularly his trips to Arunachal Pradesh, a north-eastern Indian state over which China claims territorial sovereignty. Countries that host the Dalai Lama often face repercussions from China. When he visited Mongolia in 2016, Beijing responded by imposing an economic blockade on the landlocked country. It also unsuccessfully pressured Sri Lanka not to invite the Dalai Lama in April this year.

Although King Charles held an informal meeting with the Dalai Lama during his European tour in June 2012, the Dalai Lama did not attend the coronation. In light of this, senior Conservative MPs have described the presence of China’s Vice President as ‘outrageous’.

From chanting ‘Tibet needs freedom’ in the streets to participating in protests and political lobbying, Tibetans around the world are resisting China’s policies despite 70 years of occupation.  The voice of the Tibetan people is carried to the outside world by a number of vocal pressure groups such as the Free Tibet Campaign.