Draw a moral line

Indian Express

16 hours ago

On July 6, this coming Sunday, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, will turn 90. The world must pause, not just to offer a birthday greeting, but to ask a question that strikes at the heart of Asia's spiritual and strategic future: Who gets to decide who leads Tibetan Buddhism after him?
His Holiness has now made that answer emphatically clear. The Gaden Phodrang Trust, which he established and imbued with his moral authority, will oversee the identification of his reincarnation. It is a spiritual masterstroke and a political gauntlet thrown before Beijing's long-standing ambition to manufacture a successor.
Make no mistake: This is not just a Buddhist matter. This is a battle between a sacred civilisational legacy and the crude apparatus of authoritarian control. This is Tibet versus totalitarianism. Dharma versus dictatorship.
I have met His Holiness many times over the years. Each encounter has left me transformed. There is an aura that envelops him, yes, but more than that, a deeply disarming presence. A man of boundless humour and unshakeable calm, he carries within him the accumulated wisdom of centuries and the clarity of a physicist.
And yet, he has never been just a relic of the past. He has been a visionary of the present. In every one of my offices over the decades, I have kept thangkas, gifted and signed by His Holiness, not as ornamentation, but as quiet testimony to the spiritual and civilisational power he embodies. They remind me, daily, that moral authority still walks this earth in human form.
That moral authority has now been exercised with profound foresight.
China's obsession with the Dalai Lama is as irrational as it is revealing. Having crushed the 1959 Tibetan uprising, desecrated monasteries during the Cultural Revolution, and abducted the legitimate Panchen Lama in 1995, replacing him with a compliant imposter, Beijing now wants to write the final chapter: To appoint the next Dalai Lama.
The absurdity is almost comic. A Marxist-Maoist-Leninist Xi-led regime claiming the right to anoint a reincarnated lama? It would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.
This isn't religion. It's control. It is the erasure of a people by capturing their soul.
And the method is predictable: Fabricate legitimacy through an ancient-sounding ritual ('Golden Urn'), prop up a state-approved child, and use diplomatic muscle to coerce acceptance. But Beijing has made a fatal miscalculation. Legitimacy cannot be forged in a Party committee. Faith cannot be coerced at gunpoint.
A child selected by the CCP will not be the Dalai Lama. He will be a spiritual mannequin in a gilded cage.
What China fears is not just the man, but the institution.
Since the 17th century, the Dalai Lamas have represented a rare synthesis of spiritual depth and civilisational authority. Their reincarnation is not hereditary but karmic, recognised through dreams, signs, and devotion. It is an institution rooted in introspection, not imposition.
By pre-empting Beijing with the Gaden Phodrang Trust, His Holiness has ensured that no foreign power can hijack this sacred lineage. In one quiet, resolute move, he has reminded us all: You may occupy a land, but you cannot colonise the soul of a people.
India has a historic, civilisational stake in this unfolding drama.
We gave refuge to His Holiness in 1959. Dharamshala became the new Lhasa. We offered hospitality but too often fell silent when moral clarity was needed. In 1954, we conceded Chinese sovereignty over Tibet in a moment of strategic naïveté. In the decades since, we have tiptoed around the Dalai Lama question, wary of provoking Beijing.
That era of ambiguity must end.
India must now unequivocally support the Tibetan people's right to determine their spiritual future. Not just privately, not just symbolically, but publicly and forcefully. Anything less would be a betrayal, not only of the trust reposed in us by Tibetans, but of our own dharmic foundations.
This is not merely an ethical imperative. It is also cold, hard realpolitik. A Chinese-appointed Dalai Lama will bring Beijing's writ closer to our borders, destabilise Himalayan communities, and weaponise religion in the service of authoritarian geopolitics.
At 90, His Holiness has done more than most statesmen, philosophers, and warriors put together. He has carried the weight of a nation in exile, resisted hatred with humour, and stared down a superpower with serenity. In a world bereft of heroes, he stands tall, a monk in exile, a prophet of compassion.
The least we can do is ensure that his legacy is not buried under the rubble of silence. We must say, clearly and collectively: The Dalai Lama's reincarnation will not be decided in Zhongnanhai. It will not be decided by Politburos or Party cadres. It will be decided by Tibetans, through Tibetan tradition, in Tibetan time.
This is the moral line. This is the civilisational frontier.
India must stand on the right side of it. So must the world.
As His Holiness once told me, with that unmistakable twinkle in his eye, 'We are all just visitors on this planet, for 90, maybe 100 years… we must use our time meaningfully.'
He has. Now it's our turn.
The writer is dean and professor at the School of International Studies, JNU. He is honorary professor at the University of Melbourne and a former member of India's National Security Advisory Board