The flight of Urgyen Trinley Dorje in early January from the Tsurphu monastery outside Lhasa, dodging Chinese border guards and braving the icy Himalayan winter was nothing short of miraculous. But neither Chinese nor Indian officials are impressed by the feat. After all the defection by the 17th incarnation of the Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the ´red- hatted´ Kagyupa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, was the most important one since the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959.
India´s trepidation at the sudden appearance of the Karmapa at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, headquarters of the Dalai Lama´s government-in-exile is understandable, given that the refuge given to the Tibetan religious leader and hundreds of thousands of his followers has always been a sore point in relations between Beijing and New Delhi. Relations between Beijing and New Delhi are yet to mend fully after the 1962 war, and in recent times they have been bedeviled by India´s belief that Beijing has materially supported Pakistan´s nuclear and missile programmes. And just when relations begun to warm up, in 1998, had come Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes' claim that China was India's prime potential enemy.
Beijing, obviously embarrassed by the defection of the lama they had nurtured, first reacted by saying hopefully that the 14-year-old Urgyen Trinley had gone to India to collect musical instruments and black hats left behind by his previous incarnation. But after Trinley indicated that he preferred to stay on in India, China issued veiled warnings against allowing the Karmapa from being allowed to engage in political activity. The Indian government has so far maintained a studied silence on the Karmapa and committed itself to nothing.
There is thus, so far, no saying if the Karmapa will be accorded refugee status, or if he will be given travel papers. Or, most important, whether he will be allowed to travel to the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, the Kagyupa headquarters established in 1962, and claim the "flying crown" and other fabulous accoutrements of the sect.