Nearly 600 delegates of exile Tibetans decided to follow the Dalai Lama's long-held moderate approach of the Middle Way after a week-long 'special meeting' that concluded in Dharamsala on 22 November. "There was a unanimous decision of the 15 committees that we should follow the Middle Path," said the speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, Karma Chophel, during the concluding session of the meeting. Despite the potential anticlimax inherent in this decision, however, the reaffirmation did come with a caveat. "We have also decided not to send our envoys for further talks with China," added Deputy Speaker Dolma Gyari. The meeting thus concluded that the Dalai Lama's envoys, which have conducted eight rounds of talks with China since 2002, would not go for further talks until there is an attitude shift in Beijing. It was the failure of these talks that had prompted the Dalai Lama to call for this special meeting in the first place – only the third such event ever to take place.
The meeting had been called to collect opinions of the Tibetan exiles on what future course should be adopted on the Tibetan issue. The meeting provided a platform for exiles to put forward dissenting views, which are rarely stated very loudly in the staid hill station of Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile and home to the Dalai Lama. A week earlier, high on a ridge overlooking the town, at the auditorium of the Tibetan Children's Village school, Prime Minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche carried incense as monks blew horns in a small ceremonial procession marking the beginning of the meeting, during which a portrait of the Dalai Lama was carried to a throne on the stage (see pic). The meeting began with a band playing the Tibetan national anthem, followed by a subsequent one-minute silence to pay homage to those Tibetans who had lost their lives since this past spring. It was, after all, in March of this year that the massive uprising in Tibet refocused international attention not only on the exile community around the world, but more particularly on that community for which the exile community continues to fight – Tibetans within Tibet.
One way or another, this meeting was an extension of the emotion-laden spring, and the focus seems to still be focused on that time. Karma Chophel said that, in the run-up to the special meeting, thousands of opinions had been collected from within Tibet. "Our Tibetan administration has been successful in collecting information inside Tibet, from all over Tibet," he reported. "Out of the 17,000 people who were consulted in Tibet, about 8000 people have said that they would follow whatever decision is made by the Dalai Lama for a future solution to the Tibetan issue." That leaves some 9000 people, however, and it was, essentially, this majority for whom the special meeting had been called. Chophel continued: "About 5000 have given the opinion that the present Middle Way policy should be changed, and that the Tibetan government-in-exile and the Tibetan people should work towards complete independence. About 2000 people said that the Middle Way approach should continue." (The remaining 2000, perhaps, had no strong feelings one way or the other.)
Bearing in mind this spread of opinion, for the next five days the delegates, broken into groups of 30 to 50 individuals, brainstormed on the question of Tibet. The ultimate goal was to create a report that would be presented to the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile, which was to review the data and, if the majority opinions were different from the official government policy – that of the Middle Way – a referendum could be called. Ostensibly, this could have included a reversal of longstanding policy to call for outright rangzen, or independence, an issue that has gained an increasing number of adherents as the negotiations with Beijing have dragged on, with little to show. "Any change in our policy would require a clear mandate of the Tibetan people," said Prime Minister Rinpoche, who confirmed that that his government was indeed willing to discuss independence in the Parliament, if the majority so dictated.