In March this year, an unprecedented series of demonstrations erupted across Tibet. Forty-nine years after the escape of the Dalai Lama into exile following their country's takeover by China, Tibetans were united in their demands. They called for the return of their leader, but more surprisingly they also defiantly declared Tibet's independence. Both the Beijing government and the exile establishment in Dharamsala were taken by surprise at the extent and passion of the uprising. China, predictably, blamed the insurrection on the Dalai Lama.
In an effort to counter China's accusations, the Dalai Lama repeatedly reiterated his position: that he had given up asking for independence, that he only wanted 'genuine autonomy', and that he was not behind the demonstrations. During his first trip outside India after the uprising in Tibet, he met with a group of Chinese journalists in Seattle. To them, he emphatically declared, "We are not seeking independence. We are happy to be a part of the People's Republic of China."
Earlier in the year, in January, during a visit to Drepung Monastery in the Tibetan refugee settlement of Mundgod in Karnataka, the Dalai Lama addressed a gathering of pilgrims from Ladakh, Spiti, Kinnaur, Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh. He told them, "Should the culture and the people of Tibet, the Land of Snows, face a catastrophe, then the responsibility of preserving, at any cost, this world heritage, this pristine spiritual lineage of Tibet, which is in the tradition of the ancient university of Nalanda, will rest with you, the trans-Himalayan people living in free countries."
These two statements by the Dalai Lama underpin the historical contradiction of Tibet's relationship with her two giant neighbours. Politically, China has always had more influence on the internal affairs on the high plateau; but culturally and spiritually, the Tibetans have always looked south, to the land of the Buddha, for inspiration and spiritual succour. Realpolitik demands that the Dalai Lama try to find some accommodation within the People's Republic of China. But reality suggests that the long-term survival of Tibet's spiritual traditions and political hopes may lie with people of the trans-Himalayan regions, in India, Nepal and Bhutan.