Dharamshala – My Life – Born in Free Tibet, Served in Exile, the Autobiography of Tashi Wangdi, a seasoned Tibetan diplomat is an interesting ring side view of exiled Tibet’s early history and a document for posterity.
The latest autobiographic book “My Life -- Born in Free Tibet, Served in Exile” by a senior (retired) Tibetan diplomat Tashi Wangdi is yet another monumental addition to an ongoing series of Tibetan autobiographies. A common driving force behind this series is the advice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to all Tibetans, especially those with long public exposure as servants of the Tibetan government-in-exile or as leaders who have been active in various fields, to write down their experience, views and observations to document Tibet’s history in exile. This book by Tashi Wangdi becomes more important from the point of historic documentation of the Tibetan struggle because of his unique position as a translator of the letters and telegrams received by His Holiness the Dalai Lama administration in exile during early days when none of his ‘Kalons’ (ministers) could understand English.
This book is an authentic documentation of many events and developments because of Tashi Wangdi’s four decade long experience in the exile government. Starting from an Upper Division Clerk and gradually rising to the top most ranks he served as a minister in the Dalai Lama’s administration. In the latter part of his career as a minister for seventeen years in almost every department of the government-in-exile he also served as the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi and Brussels. His closeness to His Holiness the Dalai Lama also provided him the unique opportunity of accompanying him and being privy to many historic events during his foreign visits between 1985 and 2011.
This book shows that as a diplomat to the core of his personality, Tashi Wangdi has the ability to look at situations and developments with deep commitment and necessary detachment too. For example, in his concluding remarks he enumerates three main factors which will have a determining impact of the ultimate success of the Tibetan movement. Among these factors he also underlines the importance of the “Goodwill and support of the Chinese people” along with two other factors namely Tibetan people’s unwavering determination and commitment and the international support for Tibetan cause.
Tashi Wangdi has specifically mentioned the two reasons behind writing this monumental and massive autobiography which is spread over 699 pages. One is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice to all senior retired civil servants as well as all other Tibetans to write down a full and honest account of their life story as exiles. His other reason is to share his life story with his own children because he could not spend enough quality time with them during their growing up years because of his own official engagements and frequent travels. But the third reason which he has not mentioned in the introduction chapter of this book is to let his own friends, like me, to understand how important role he and his peers played, with full commitment and devotion, in Tibet’s struggle for its legitimate rights as an occupied nation. This book has done good justice to all of these three reasons.
As a first-hand witness to many one-to-one interactions of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with many world leaders he writes, “He (the Dalai Lama) is consistent, principled and transparent in the views and ideas he himself holds as important and shares with others. He is never one who will say something publicly and do the opposite himself, as one often witnesses in many public figures.”
The author gives an interesting but painful account of how the women in Tibetan society were treated less than equal, especially in activities related to some religious practices. He writes, “I could not understand why women were not allowed to touch certain religious objects meant for protection, why they were not allowed to enter some shrine rooms……………. I remember my mother praying that she may be born as a man in her next life……. There were instances where my mother would stand outside a shrine or deity room when men folks went in to pray.”
This book is divided into 17 chapters, arranged in the chronological order as this autobiographic story moves ahead from Tashi Wangdi’s ‘Happy Childhood in Tibet’ to his retirement from his official work in 2001. Some other chapters like his ‘Journey into Exile’, ‘Delhi Bureau’ (as the Dalai Lama’s Representative in India), ‘Brussels’ (as the Dalai Lama’s Representative in the European Union), ‘Part of Entourage’ (travels with the Dalai Lama) and ‘Dharamsala-Beijing’ (as a senior member of the Dalai Lama’s team for negotiations with China) give lucid details of his personal life as a Tibetan refugee and his role in the ‘Central Tibetan Administration’ which functions as de-facto Tibet’s ‘Government-in-Exile’.
In chapter ‘My Education’ Tashi Wangdi has given interesting details of how the modern education process of Tibetan refugee children started with institutions like the ‘Tibetan-Homes-Foundation’ (THF) to finally emerge as the greatest strength of the Tibetan diaspora.
In chapter ‘Higher Education’ Tashi tells the story of how his college education at Durham in UK became possible, like most other Tibetan youths, due to liberal grants and scholarships provided by donors and institutions who were kind to the Tibetan refugees. His experience of participation in demonstrations on issues like Northern Ireland, war in Vietnam, White apartheid rule in South Africa etc. give a good glimpse of how such international exposure of Tibetan students helped them in developing and refining their political skills for their own national struggle.
As expected, a major part of this book carries a detailed narration of Tashi Wangdi’s years in the Tibetan establishment. Besides details of many major developments depicting the evolution of Tibetan issue on the international scene this book also gives a good glimpse of the nature and intensity of internal politics among the Tibetan exile community. On the one hand many anecdotes reflect on not only the fault lines of traditional regional groupings and newly emerging power groups within this microscopic community, but also successfully underline the extraordinary unity among the Tibetan diaspora which has emerged during the exile years as a result of people’s deep faith in His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his visionary leadership. For example, the evolution of Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) as the biggest and the most dynamic organization of the exile community has proved itself as a unifying force of the diaspora by going beyond the regional identities, sub-religious followings and socio-economic differences. His access to day to day developments in the higher circles of the Tibetan establishment and important documents as a Kalon for 17 years has also helped Tashi Wangdi to make this book, rich from history point of view. Many of the photo copies of such documents are going to prove useful for future researchers and coming generations of Tibetans.
One of interesting and important subjects which emerged as an important development during Tashi’s tenure as the Kalon of Religion and Culture Department is related to the ordination of Nuns, which was initiated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself. Similarly, the controversy related to the incarnation of 17th Karma Pa Rinpoche has been dealt with in details in this book. Photo copies of some important letters related to this issue should be quite useful for those who intend to study this issue in details.
Besides many more important developments, Tashi has also described the formation of a Tibetan lobbying group at Washington DC, in 1988, which has emerged as one of the most effective lobby groups of Tibet in the form of ‘International Campaign for Tibet’ (ICT). He has described how a clear distinction between this public action group was kept insulated from the Representative Office of Tibet in New York. It is interesting to note that present day Tibet’s three most reputed diplomats namely Gyari Lodi Gyaltse, Tenzin Namgyal Tethong and Tashi Wangdi served the Tibetan cause in tandem and in continuity in the same era in the USA, which proved to be the most successful watershed era in the history of Tibet’s national struggle. Tashi’s detailed descriptions of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visits to various countries and within India when he accompanied him are interesting and will prove useful to those who have interest in understanding present His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s quality of bonding with new people and communities.
Another major attraction of this book is its chapter ‘Dharamsala-Beijing’ which deals with the history of contacts and the long dialogue process between Dharamsala and Beijing that started in 1979 with the contact between some Beijing functionaries and Gyalo Thondup, the elder brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who operated from Hong Kong at that time. In addition to giving some details about this contact Tashi has also shared his experience and views about this process as a senior member of Dharamsala’s ‘Task Force for Negotiations’ in its different Avtars.
In this chapter, Tashi has quoted some interesting internal statements by two prominent Tibetan leaders, 10th Panchen Lama and Comrade Bawa Phuntsog Wangyal, who both stayed back in Tibet and collaborated with the occupying Chinese masters in their own respective ways. One interesting quote is from Panchen Lama’s speech given to the members of the TAR Standing Committee, who were attending the National People’s Congress in Beijing on March 28th, 1987. He said, “In the State Planning Commission’s report, there were many proposals for poverty alleviation in many areas. But the proposals did not say a word on the minority regions. Raising this point in the Standing Committee meetings I said, “There is nothing wrong in you becoming prosperous first. We (Tibetans) will wear threadbare garments and beg for food. But does that make you proud?” (p-607)
Tracing the history of dialogue between Dharamshala and Beijing, Tashi has underlined the Chinese game of deception by pointing out how the Chinese government went against the assurance given by its own paramount leader Deng Xiaoping who had offered His Holiness the Dalai Lama to resolve the Tibetan issue through discussion on all issues except independence of Tibet. Listing all five points of the new policy document of Beijing government in November 1984 about Tibet, he writes, “….the latest policy document had reduced the whole issue to His Holiness’ return to Tibet and his future status.” (p-601)
It is interesting to note that since then Beijing has formally restricted the entire dialogue process only to the return of the Dalai Lama. In addition to this China also offered an attractive bait of good jobs and living conditions to the Dalai Lama’s associates with specific mention that these conditions “will be better than before”. It is notable that while the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile rejected this Chinese offer in its statement on February 5, 1985, the Chinese also out rightly rejected the Tibetan memorandum and closed its doors for any further discussions in 2010.
Before concluding his book on the chapter titled ‘Retirement,’ Tashi Wangdi has given an interesting description of how His Holiness the Dalai Lama decided to give away his own political powers in chapter ‘Kalon Tripa Election’. It was in 2011 that His Holiness the Dalai Lama finally concluded the process of converting the Tibetan system from its traditional theocratic one to a democratic one, which he had started in 1960 soon after escaping from Tibet and taking asylum in India. It was under the new constitution, announced by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2011, that he transferred his temporal authority to the elected representatives and the statutory bodies of Tibet in 2011, while keeping his own role limited only to spiritual matters. The more interesting part of the first ever election for the new KalonTripa (Prime Minister) as a result of this constitutional change was that the winner would eventually take over the political and other temporal powers from His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the first ever ‘Sikyong’ (President) of Tibet.
Tashi Wangdi has given elaborate details of the election process starting with the results of the first phase of polling, in which all ordinary voters nominate candidates of their choice. It is on the basis of this voting that the election commission announces the list of top three contestants for final voting. This exercise left Dr LobsangSangay, Tenzin Namgyal Tethong and Tashi Wangdi in the final fray. Giving a detailed description of his own election strategy Tashi also politely exposes the well-planned and organized practice of character assassination of rival candidates in Tibetan elections. He has painfully described how some bad words and baseless allegations were used against him to tarnish his image and his poll prospects during the election campaign. Sadly one finds today that this tendency has gained further momentum and dimensions with increasing use of social media in Tibetan elections. The final result of the elections was on the obvious and expected lines in the form of victory of Dr Lobsang Sangay, who introduced the US Presidential election type publicity blitz campaigns and defeated the other two candidates with an impressive margin of votes.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said in his foreword to this book, “This book shines a light on contemporary Tibetan history through the eyes of an individual who actively participated in its development.”
(This book review is by Vijay Kranti, a senior Indian journalist, a veteran Tibetologist and a close friend of Tibetan people. Currently he is Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies and Engagement (CHASE) in New Delhi, India.)