The bus leaves Delhi at around 5 o'clock P.M. (maybe). There are two kinds of passengers: Tibetan monks and occidental backpackers. The road north from Delhi appears to be full of completely chaotic traffic. The trip is said to provide wonderful sights of the mighty Himalayan Mountains. However, when we arrive it is pitch-black and we had spent a long time dozing leaning on one another's shoulders. When I sometimes awake, I can't see much more than rock-faces running away either to the right or the left in erratic beams of light. One thing is sure, Indian bus drivers really do know how to manage on serpentine roads…

After thirteen hours of bus riding, I arrive at Dharamsala, which is a religious, political and cultural centre for a couple of hundred thousand exiled Tibetans and lies at a height of 1300 metres in the Himalayas. In the chilly darkness I wrap myself in a special khadi-blanket I bought in Delhi's Gandhi Museum with thoughts of the cold in the mountains. I start walking on a narrow mountain way with no street-lights at all but with locked-up hovels alongside. Suddenly an unobserved shawl-clad figure emerges from the obscurity and asks where I'm going to. "To Kashmere House", I reply and five minutes later a mini cab is driving me to the place. This is where I and my friends from Danish Centre for Conflict Resolution shall teach young, exiled Tibetans how to analyse and handle situations of conflict and how the big, outside world - which they have good reasons to feel deserted by - actually works.

 
Photo Jan Oberg, © TFF 2001

Bus Square in Dharamsala

Dharamsala is divided in topographical levels. Dharamsala proper, with the hospital, the municipal administration and the Tibetan cultural centre (Nobulinka Institute) is situated in the beautiful and impressive Kanga valley, above which there are always huge dark birds of prey circulating. That is some 10 kilometres from Lower Dharamsala, through rice fields and wonderful nature. Lower Dharmsala, where I had arrived, consists mainly of dwelling houses, bazaar-crowded streets and two Internet cafés.

I knock on the windows and doors to Kashmere House, a fairy-tale-like building of colonial origin, and finally a night watchman appears. I get a couple hours of normal sleep. Then it is time to explore a bit. On the narrow bumpy road it is about 5 kilometres uphill to Gangchen Kyishong, the government block housing the Tibetan Parliament, various departments and the security office. However, I choose to walk and climb for about half an hour along one of the many slippery shortcuts, sometimes wandering all alone, sometimes encountering small groups of cottages and poultry-farms, and sometimes meeting shepherds, old women, cows and goats. It takes another hour of walking to reach a height of 1768 metres and to find Upper Dharamsala, or McLeod Ganj - the local tourists' Mecca with restaurants, temples, shops, handicrafts, museums, post offices, book-sellers and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's amazingly plain and architecturally dull temple, Tsuglagkang.

David McLeod was a "lieutenant governor" in the 1850s when the town was a British barracks. The small colonial shop looks as if McLeod will step through the door at any minute. In those days Dharamsala was inhabited by the half nomadic Gaddi people who were neither "Indians" nor Tibetans.

I am very proud of having been invited to assist these eager-to -learn and humorous young Tibetans. But why do they want to establish their first-ever Tibetan centre for handling conflicts? The answer might be found in the topic of a lecture I have been asked to give at the exile-government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs: how to settle conflicts when the counterpart is mightier and shows no interest in carrying on a dialogue.

Because this is what is troubling the Tibetans in a nutshell: 5-6 million people were occupied - as they see it - by a superior force. 6-8 million Chinese people have since moved to Tibet, where the Tibetans are themselves now a minority in their own historically independent country. Furthermore, the Chinese have based the larger part of their nuclear weapon program in Tibet, thus polluting the globally unique fauna and flora - depleting them or so they outright disappear.

Having said that much I think I should also emphasise that I haven't been either in Tibet or visited Beijing in order to study and comprehend the entire matter of Tibet. I actually would love to do that. Books on Tibet and the Internet have taught me that sound arguments can be found on all sides.

Another reason why Tibetans in India wish to learn how to settle conflicts is that there is a conflict between the Tibetans born in India, who look upon themselves as better educated and more "civilised", and those born on the other side of the mountains in Tibet, who the former consider to be more "primitive". Conflicts even exist between the group of young people who appreciate the Dalai Lama and non-violence, and the more revolutionary group that believes that - at least after him - there must be an armed revolution since non-violence has not achieved anything. Moreover, there are also conflicts between Tibetans and Indians within the local societies.

Instead of traditional instructing or lecturing, we had a dialogue that was to the benefit of both parties. It's hard to imagine anything more meaningful than cooperating with these 20 to 30-year-old people. They and their families have gone through a lot of hardship, are all refugees, deeply religious and yet they have kept their tolerance, their curiosity and their dignity intact. In their company I felt very happy about being a peace researcher and activist. We parted as the best of friends.

It strikes me that, as things are now, they don't have much of a chance to see a free Tibet during their lifetimes. If there will be an independent Tibet, it must be shared between the Tibetans and all the Chinese residents, who themselves are victims of a big power game. Not an ethnically cleansed Tibet. I never saw any hate in the eyes of these youths, nor heard them say anything malevolent.

Photo Jan Oberg, © TFF 2001

Monk in Dharamsala

Tibetans are generally very positive and deeply religious. They believe both in respect and, just like the Dalai Lama, in laughter! Buddhism is all about how to overcome suffering, attain happiness, tolerance and empathy, as well as about striving for "mindfulness" and "loving kindness" - to live wholly attentive and with the friendliness of love. That's not a bad start for a conflict settlement and reconciliation philosophy!

If I succeeded in giving them anything at all in exchange for what they taught me about the Tibetan conflict, then it was widening their views on Gandhi and non-violence as an active, not passive, philosophy and policy. There are many similarities between the Lama and the Mahatma, but the latter was even a political and strategic fighter.

Translated by Alice Moncada
Translation edited by Sara E. Ellis

Other articles about India, "Following Gandhi's Path" and picture galleries

© TFF 2002  

Tell a friend about this article

Send to:

From:

Message and your name

Home

New

PressInfo

TFF

Forums

Features

Publications

Kalejdoskop

Links