Dalai Lama celebrates 90th birthday with followers in north Indian town
Dressed in his traditional yellow and burgundy robe, the Dalai Lama arrived at a Buddhist temple complex to smiles and claps from thousands of monks and followers who had gathered on a rainy Sunday morning in the north Indian hill town of Dharamshala, where he lives.
He waved and greeted them as he walked slowly to the stage with support from monks.
'As far as I am concerned, I have a human life, and as humans, it is quite natural for us to love and help one another. I live my life in the service of other sentient beings,' the Dalai Lama said, flanked on the stage by longtime supporters, including Western diplomats, Indian federal ministers, Hollywood actor Richard Gere, and a monk who is expected to lead the search for his successor.
Fleeing his native Tibet in 1959 in the wake of a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the 14th Dalai Lama, along with hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, took shelter in India and has since advocated for a peaceful 'Middle Way' to seek autonomy and religious freedom for the Tibetan people.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama is regarded as one of the world's most influential religious leaders, with a following that extends well beyond Buddhism – but not by Beijing, which calls him a separatist and has sought to bring the faith under its control.
In a sign of solidarity, Taiwan's President William Lai Ching-te, leaders of Indian states bordering Tibet, and three former United States presidents – Barack Obama, George W Bush, and Bill Clinton – sent video messages which were played during the event.
In the preceding week of celebrations, the Dalai Lama had said he would reincarnate as the leader of the faith upon his death and that his nonprofit institution, the Gaden Phodrang Trust, had the sole authority to recognise his successor.
China has said the succession will have to be approved by its leaders, and the US has called on Beijing to cease what it describes as interference in the succession of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist lamas.
Show of solidarity
Guests gathered at the ceremony took turns to speak, including Indian Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, a practising Buddhist, who had earlier made a rare statement contradicting China by backing the Dalai Lama's position on his successor.
He later clarified that the statement was made in his personal capacity as China warned New Delhi against interfering in its domestic affairs at the expense of bilateral relations.
On Sunday, Rijiju said the Dalai Lama was India's 'most honoured guest'. 'We feel blessed for his presence here in our country,' he said.
Cultural performances were held throughout the morning, including from Bollywood playback singers, while messages from global leaders were read out.
'I join 1.4 billion Indians in extending our warmest wishes to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his 90th birthday. He has been an enduring symbol of love, compassion, patience and moral discipline,' Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X.
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Ha felt isolated as one of the only children from a minority background in his primary school. A different path Within months of the war's end, Vietnam signed diplomatic relations with the GDR, paving a different kind of path for Huong Mai to fly overseas a few years later. At 21, she left Hanoi for Moscow and then travelled to Schonefeld airport in East Berlin. She was among the first groups of contract workers and was soon employed at a factory that made drinking glasses. Now aged 64, Mai has a 27-year-old son and runs a textile shop in the town where she has lived since she arrived in the GDR. On April 30, Vietnam marked 50 years since the end of the war. For the large Vietnamese-German diaspora, who arrived as refugees and contract workers, this year's milestones have stirred a sense of reflection. Mai said she felt joy on the anniversary. 'My father resisted against the French colonialists, and then my older brother fought against the Americans. So, for me, the end of this war is very meaningful because of the blood that was shed by my family in all of these wars,' she said. Her brother followed in her footsteps, bringing his family to Germany in 2009. His daughter, 26-year-old Dieu Ly Hoang, now lives in Prenzlauer Berg, which is coincidentally the same neighbourhood as Ha. It is a sought-after area of the German capital, formerly in the GDR, now home to cosy cafes, posh restaurants, yoga studios and affluent expatriate families where English is heard on the streets more than German. 'It's been a very important aspect for me to see what my family went through, and how resilient they have been. I know I'm very lucky not to have experienced an evacuation and I can't imagine what it was like for my grandparents,' Ly said, as she recalled hearing stories about the wartime rations of rice. 'I acknowledge the sacrifices they made to migrate for a better life so that I could be born and live in peace,' said Ly, an art historian. Ha, now 53 and a father to two sons, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Asian German diaspora at the University of Tubingen and holds a PhD in cultural studies. Friendly, open and knowledgeable of the complex history he is a part of, Ha also said the commemorative events have felt significant. 'There's an intellectual and cultural discussion going on through which we are trying to make sense of this history and what this history means for us living in the German-Vietnamese diaspora,' he said. 'Questions pop up in private and public conversations, articles, books, and artworks. And knowing more about this history will improve our sense of self in German society, because we are able to discover more about a past that we, the younger generations, didn't experience on a personal level. This allows us to connect the past with the present.' An estimated 35,000 refugees arrived in West Germany in 1979, while 70,000 contract workers began to arrive in the GDR in 1980. When Germany unified in 1990, it brought together, at least physically, two communities. 'In the GDR, people were proud to show international solidarity, and this went hand in hand with hatred of the capitalist West, while the West German government saw the Vietnam War as part of the global struggle against communism,' explained German historian Andreas Margara. Ly said some of her relatives still mention it when they hear a southern Vietnamese accent. 'They do not become stressed nor do they act differently, but they notice the accent verbally, like 'Oh, this person is from the south'. They do not go further into details, but I can feel a certain differentiation there because there is this history there. My parents' generation, including people like war veterans, don't have the spaces in the diaspora to meet, share their experiences and understand each other more,' she said. 'Unified Germany, though, can be a space for more reconciliation.' She added that her generation has 'more chances and spaces for dialogue' as she recalled recently meeting a Vietnamese German art history student and having plenty about which to talk. Mai agreed that there are not many opportunities in her life to meet southerners, yet she feels no animosity. 'Even though Vietnam has been damaged a lot, we are all Vietnamese and came to Germany to build a better life for ourselves,' she said.
