why Tibet?

Tibet is an occupied country. This is the single, most crucial fact to remember in any work for the movement.

Today, India and China share a border that is almost 4000 kilometres long, one of the most heavily guarded international boundaries in the world. Six decades ago soldiers along this frontier were few and far between. What changed? China invaded Tibet.

Scientific research has revealed the Tibetan glaciers to form the third largest reserve of water after the North and South Pole, hence the name often associated with Tibet: Third Pole. China’s complete disregard for natural resources, as displayed in their rampant mining of minerals in the Tibetan plateau, has caused serious damage to the fragile ecosystem. Some of the most severe cases of global warming are experienced in Tibet. The coercive settlement of nomads, whose thus far sustainable existence allowed them to live in harmony with natural processes, has caused greater soil erosion, depletion of vast expanses of grasslands, and instability in environmental cycles.

for more info on rivers in Tibet, and China's construction of dams visit: http://www.meltdownintibet.com/f_riverbyriver.htm 

The rivers originating in Tibet feed close to 500 billion people in Asia. The direct access to these rivers that China has gained as a result of its illegal occupation of Tibet poses serious threats to not just India, but other South Asian countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. There is not a single water treaty in place to share the waters of these rivers. Global climate change is clearly a danger that the world faces, water shortage, in particular, being a key point of concern. Tibet is a significant component of any dialogue on climate change. Except, no one talks about it.

The issue of Tibet today is not solely the responsibility of the Tibetans. Indeed, it is a reality that all of us have a stake in.

Students for a Free Tibet, India (SFT) is one of the 650 worldwide chapters of the international Not-for-Profit organization Students for a Free Tibet. SFT India was founded in the year 2000 as a loose network of young activists and students based in Dharamsala. Today, it has grown to a nation-wide campaign for the Fundamental Rights of the Tibetan people. The vision of SFT is to make the occupation of Tibet too costly (economically, politically and socially) for Beijing to maintain. We use non-violent direct actions to attain our goals. My involvement with the Delhi chapter of SFT India is very recent: since June 2010. Since then I have been involved in advocacy work, outreach campaigns, action camps and non-violent public protests. As an active member of SFT Delhi, I am engaged in organizational and networking tasks, setting long-term and short-term goals, identifying targets, brainstorming, taking decisions, strategizing, and planning the little details of campaigns to make them most effective. SFT India particularly aims at harnessing wider Indian support.

Working with SFT has revived my hope in change, and made me aware of the great power of non-violence. Growing up in a country that reveres Gandhi (indeed does little else), where most view ideas of non-violence and compassion as outdated and signs of weakness, experiencing the gradual, yet sustained success of non-violent direct actions within the Tibetan freedom struggle is over-whelming.

It is quite reasonable to believe that a fight for a perfectly just society appears to be a utopian ideal. It is the injustices that can easily be resolved that demand our urgent attention. It is such injustices that we question and fight in our support of the Tibetan freedom struggle.