After 63 years in exile, Tibetans have developed a different sense of belongingness to India, one that solidifies with every new generation
Exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks watch from a balcony in Dharmsala, India, in 2009 during a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. AP
A sword wrapped in a “Khata” (traditional Tibetan white scarf) dangled at the doorstep of Palden Dorjee, a 22-year-old who had moved to Sanjauli, Shimla. In a house with just two beds and a small kitchen, Dorjee thought he’d be living here for a few days, but the events that led to the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 weren’t a one-time incident that can be wrapped overnight. It is a process that went on for six decades and is even more alive now.
Dorjee turned 83 this year. He has renovated his house and has also learned Hindi. Sitting under the sun he plays old Bollywood songs to which his fingers tap involuntarily.
“This is my home now. There is nothing left of me or my family in Tibet, my village won’t be the same, my home is not there anymore”, he says.
His friends with whom he had escaped into exile, thinking that they would at least get to die in Tibet, have passed away over the decades in Sanjauli, taking with them fragments of their shared tales of Tibet. The younger generation, the children of Dorjee’s friend, mostly in their middle age, cannot sit for hours and talk with Dorjee about their native village in Tibet. Dorjee says, “They can’t relate to it”.
They were born in exile.
Back in Tibet, Dorjee was a fighter in Chushi Gangdruk, a Tibetan guerrilla group of the Khampa region — one of the three regions of Tibet; U-Tsang, Amdo and Khampa — organised on 16 June 1958. The group fought against the forces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Tibet from 1956 to 1974.
In India, in the late 1960s, he served in the ITBP (India Tibet Border Police) for four years. “I fought for the sole reason that I could destroy the Chinese PLA and return to Tibet.”
Currently, he claims he does not feel the same and has given up on the hope for Tibet’s freedom. “Yet, I think about Tibet every night.”
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“Karam Chand Ji” calls, a voice from the phone. A Ludhiana lala (businessman) talks to a 60-year-old Tsering Dorjee, updating each other on their business. It has been over 40-years of their relationship and Tsering Dorjee is still referred to as Karam Chand.
Tse Dorjee, born in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, had to go to the local government middle school since his parents were working under the PWD (Public Works Department) constructing highways in the state. In his first grade, his teacher decided to call him Karam Chand because Tsering Dorjee was a name too foreign for her to pronounce. Similarly, his friends, Tsetan has become Chetan, Ngawang Phunstok is Chandra Singh and Ngawang Dorjee is Sher Singh.
“I cannot read my name in Tibetan,” says Tse Dorjee, “but I can speak, read and write in Hindi very well.” At times, his daughter calls him out for speaking in Hindi on the dining table. As he engages himself in the sweater selling business — that majority of the Tibetans survive on — Hindi comes naturally to him.
“This is the price I had to pay for whatever life I am living in India.”
Over 20 years back, he went to “Bharat Jagran Yatra”, a ‘Tibet awareness campaign’ organised by the Tibetan Youth Congress, across Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in India.
He says, “My Hindi and my sense of belongingness with Indians have helped in aggravating Tibet’s political cause and garnering support from the Indians. I am happy with that.” He has a couple of articles on Tibet’s political fight, published in the local Hindi newspapers.
However, as he adds, “Sending my children to Tibetan boarding school is the best decision I have made in my life”.
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Tashi Yangzom, a high schooler in Tibetan Children’s Village School (TCV), Selakui, searches for her father lip-syncing to the Tibetan National Anthem amongst the crowd at the school closing ceremony.
All the 12 TCVs in India, that function under the Department of Education of the Central Tibetan Administration located in Dharamsala, take in students who are born in exile along with those that came directly from Tibet.
Yangzom says, “These two groups are very different because being born in India, I am not the first-hand victim of Chinese torture. So, I am relatively less connected with the larger Tibetan cause.”
She loves Bollywood movies, songs and the diverse Indian culture. “I feel more connected to Indian culture than I would to my culture and it’s okay because that’s where I grew up. Reading Tibetan books and watching Tibetan cultural shows feels more like homework. I have to put the effort in it,” she said.
Currently, 28-year-old Yangzom is in London, working under the National Health Service (NHS). It’s her fourth year there and she says that she feels “more recognised” than she ever did in her over 20 years of existence in India. She adds, “People in London know what Tibet is and who Tibetans are, they know the Dalai Lama, so I feel more represented. But in India, people just assume you are a Nepali or northeastern, so I never bother explaining to them.”
During the holidays, back in her “home” in Shimla, Yangzom, sitting beside her grandpa, in hope to connect with him more, she plays a couple of recent Tibetan songs that were produced in India. Singing each word loudly, she looks at her grandpa, confused. A minute passes by and he says, “I don’t understand a word.”
Dorjee Wangmo is a student from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai
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