Losar

I came across this video a little while ago. Its not particularly stunning, but I was moved. This maybe because it also happens to be Losar, the Tibetan New Year, traditionally celebrated in Tibet for 15 days to a month. Can you imagine picnic-ing, singing, dancing, drinking chhang and having fun for an entire month with family and friends? 

My Tibetan friends in exile, here in Delhi, are celebrating Losar 2138 (the Iron Rabbit Year) just for three days. 

A little bit of History (courtesy, Wiki):

The celebration of Losar predates Buddhism in Tibet and can be traced back to the pre-Buddhist Bön period. In this early Bön tradition, every winter a spiritual ceremony was held, in which people offered large quantities of incense to appease the local spirits, deities and 'protectors'. This religious festival later evolved into an annual Buddhist festival which is believed to have originated during the reign of the ninth King of Tibet. The festival is said to have begun when an old woman named Belma introduced the measurement of time based on the phases of the moon. This festival took place during the flowering of the apricot trees of the Lhokha Yarla Shampo region in autumn, and it may have been the first celebration of what has become the traditional farmers' festival. It was during this period that the arts of cultivation, irrigation, refining iron from ore and building bridges were first introduced in Tibet. The ceremonies which were instituted to celebrate these new capabilities can be recognized as precursors of the Losar festival. Later when the rudiments of astrology, based on the five elements, were introduced in Tibet, this farmer's festival became what we now call the Losar or New Year's festival.

I wonder how many years it will be before all Tibetans return to their home to celebrate Losar the way it is meant to be celebrated: in the midst of family and friends, with pride and no fear. 

character assassination

The media has gone beserk. Its so frustrating to read and hear baseless accusations flying around like paper planes in a classroom. Claiming the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa to be a Chinese spy based on a large sum of unaccounted-for money obtained from his monastery in Dharamsala is unjustified, apart from being a completely invalid argument. There seems to have been no research whatsoever done on behalf of the journalists. For the first few days I was just in shock: I couldn't believe that people could actually jump at the opportunity to blow an innocuous incident completely out of proportion. The kinds of arguments and facts used by the media to prove the 'Chinese connection' are infuriating. Where is the sensitivity? Knowing the issue to be highly complex, involving the sentiments of over 1 lakh Tibetans, in addition to scores more Buddhists, there should have been careful analysis of all possible scenarios before making such a claim. Questioning the legitimacy of a reincarnate lama on insubstantial grounds is a serious offence. I am so embarrassed, and dont know quite how to make it up to the thousands of Buddhists whose sentiments have been irrevocably hurt. 

HH the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje

The Karmapa's Office of Administration has just released a direct message to Indian media outlets, and the message is, "Back Off!" The complete text is as follows:

The Karmapa Office of Administration firmly denies the published allegations that His Holiness the Karmapa has rallied in support of the communist Chinese government whose oppression he fled 11 years ago. We repeat that the preposterous claim that His Holiness is a Chinese spy or agent is a complete fabrication, utterly baseless and reckless slander.

The Karmapa Office of Administration appeals to the press to cease its character assassination of His Holiness the Karmapa, one of the most revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism, and a spiritual leader to Buddhists worldwide.

The Karmapa Office of Administration respectfully requests the press to refrain from publishing further uncorroborated and unfounded charges. It offers below the phone number and email address of its spokesperson, and beseeches the press to seek confirmation or denial from its spokesperson, in accord with the standards of responsible journalism.

Spokespersons

Karma Topden
Former Indian Ambassador to Mongolia,
Former Member of Parliament
Adviser to Karmapa Office of Administration

Deki Chungyalpa
Adviser to Karmapa Office of Administration
koapress@gmail.com
(91) 8894 502 910

This statement follows yesterday's lengthy statement, which in part addressed the issue of "SIM cards" allegedly taken during police raids at Gyuto Monastery. The complete text of yesterday's statement is as follows:

The Karmapa Office of Administration adamantly denies the baseless fabrications touted by some media claiming that His Holiness the Karmapa is a Chinese spy or agent. Specifically, reports have circulated recently claiming that His Holiness the Karmapa has acquired lands along the Sino-Indian border. We state categorically that His Holiness owns no such property whatsoever, nor does the Karmapa Office of Administration. Additionally, some reports cite an unnamed source claiming that the Enforcement Directorate seized Chinese SIM cards and possess records of conversations between His Holiness the Karmapa and Chinese government officials. Such inaccurate reports constitute fiction masquerading as journalism and slander one of the most highly revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism. Therefore, the Karmapa Office of Administration respectfully requests these media sources to cease and desist its defamation of character of His Holiness the Karmapa.

We reiterate that the presence of Chinese Yuan among the 20-plus other currencies found by police has been put forward by some media stories as indicative of spy activity. In response to this preposterous claim, we wish to point out that the currency used in Tibet is the Chinese Yuan, and therefore Tibetans from Tibet often make donations in Yuan, as do Buddhists from mainland China. We further stress that the donations in Yuan formed less than 10% of the total cash amount. The notes came in multiple denominations, ranging from one-Yuan notes upward, clearly reflecting their origin as donation from multiple individual sources. Some of the Yuan were new notes bundled together, reflecting a practice among Chinese and other cultures of offering only new currency notes to high abbots or spiritual leaders. Furthermore, disciples from Chinese cultures often visit India in groups, pool their offerings and make a single collective donation. The Karmapa Office of administration maintains records of all visitors who receive private audience with His Holiness the Karmapa, and these lists record numerous groups of individuals visiting together from Tibet as well as from mainland China.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has publicly expressed his confidence in His Holiness the Karmapa. The Tibetan government itself unequivocally demonstrated its support of His Holiness the Karmapa, who is the revered head of a 900-year old order within Tibetan Buddhism. Members of groups across Tibetan society have voiced unwavering support for His Holiness the Karmapa. His Holiness himself stated yesterday in public that he had faith in the Indian rule of law and that the truth will prevail in time. He emphasized that India is a second homeland to Tibetans.

thoughts on migration

The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti says, ‘Your consciousness as an individual represents the consciousness of humanity’. I thought I had comprehended the meaning of this statement when I first encountered it in high school, and volunteered to teach English to rural children. I realized how naïve my understanding was when I spent one month this summer in Dharamsala. 

Who is a person? What is consciousness? Such philosophical questions have frequently visited debates and discussions in my class. My exposure to the Tibetan community has helped me engage with the concept of an individual’s identity, how this identity is constituted, and ways in which identities undergo change in relation to external and internal environments.

I had earlier taken the connection between being a citizen of a free country and individual identity for granted. Having myself always felt a sense of belonging to a family, a nation, a culture, I was jolted out of my comfortable cocoon. Tibetans who have been born and brought up in India, whose idea of ‘home’ is grounded on the recollections of their elders, experience an uneasy sense of loss. Where are they from, and where do they belong? I observed that the Tibetans, having been forcefully displaced from their land, experience a greater urge to preserve their culture and identity as Tibetans. It then becomes critical to understand the complexity through which identities are constituted, especially for those in exile. The poignancy of this human condition is captured by poet and political activist Tenzin Tsundue, “I have nowhere to call home and in the world at large all I’ll ever be is a ‘political refugee’”.

The physical movement of people globally, and the fluidity of such movement, results in flexible and often fragmented identities. In my understanding, the premise for a phenomenon like migration (whether forced or voluntary) to exist is Krishnamurti’s statement, ‘you are the world’. In other words, the universality of the human experience allows the global movement of people. A study of migration is then a study of this global consciousness in its various manifestations be they economic, political, or social-anthropological. 

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.  

Mining and the Brahmaputra

Beginning in 1999, the Chinese Government conducted a secret 7 year survey of the Tibetan plateau in search of mineral deposits. With an investment of $44 million, the survey led to the discovery of many deposit sites including a seam of copper and gold deposits along the Yarlung Tsangpo (the Brahmaputra in India) gorge.

The Chinese government set about facilitating contracts for extracting deposits from this site (Shethongmon mine). A property option agreement was signed between China NetTV Holdings and a Canadian Company, Continental Minerals.

DIRECT CONSEQUENCES

The primary process of copper and gold mining requires large quantities of water of which the obvious source would be the Yarlung Tsangpo.

The ore is found in conjunction with arsenic laden pyrite. After grinding, the rock is washed with acid that helps separate the ore from the rock. The remnant of this process is a highly acidic mixture consisting of arsenic and cyanide. At times, the process of ore separation is not completely successful with portions of the ore being left behind. This will cause copper contamination when it reaches the groundwater.

INDIRECT CONSEQUENCES

Siltation –An excess of siltation leads to flooding, a problem already existing in areas along the Brahmaputra. In this project, siltation will happen in the following two ways: first, 300 million tonnes of rock have to be first removed, before reaching the 182 million tonnes of ore, and second, in order to carry out mining, intense deforestation is required to get to the rock containing ore.

Melting of glaciers (Deglaciation) – The Brahmaputra is only one of the two rivers that are perennial because of their origin in glaciers. Intense mining activities indirectly lead to environmental changes that speed up the melting of glaciers immensely. As the glaciers retreat, the volume of water in the rivers will increase at first causing widespread flooding. They will then go in to a rapid decline reducing the volume and flow of the rivers, making them merely seasonal. According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) climate report, at the current rate of temperature rise the Himalayan glaciers could completely disappear by 2035.

Any industrial mining activity involves the usage of machinery over a long period, and thus the use of fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are a major source of greenhouse gases.

The second largest contributor to global warming, Black Carbon has already caused a 7% increase in glacial retreat a year. Black Carbon emissions originate from coal powered stations and diesel engines. A railway line has been built through the Shethongmon mine to carry the ore from the mine site to the smelter. An estimate has been made that approximately 210,000 tonnes of ore will be transported to the smelter. With a single train being able to carry a maximum of 5,000 tonnes at once, this will mean 42 trains a year or one train a week will be required to carry the ore. Once functional, the fuel will lead to the emission of large amounts of black carbon and thus glacial melting.

Other environmental changes – The Tibetan plateau serves as an "airshed" for the Asian continent. The northern jetstreams flowing over the Plateau determine the timing and force of the seasonal South Asian monsoons in India. Deforestation on the Plateau will delay and weaken the summer monsoon, endangering the livelihood of millions of farmers who depend on these rains. 

(with inputs from Reecha Das and Ananya Ramani, SFT India interns)