I started pecking out this piece over a month ago in the garden of Nalanda Koti, my old bungalow in McLeod Ganj. On this particular visit to India I was struck by how the issue of the 2011 Kalon Tripa elections, and additionally the “20 Questions” on Prime Minister Samdong Rimpoche’s resignation, somehow elbowed their way into every conversation…
From Darkness to Dawn
On November 1st 1728, in a meadow on the banks of the Bamari canal, a short distance south-west of the Potala, seventeen Tibetans were put to death by executioners of the Manchu expeditionary force.
Searching for Old Tibet
About a year ago I was driving my two girls (Namkha and Namtso) to school, early one morning, when the languid voice of Salman Rushdie drifted over on National Public Radio. He was being interviewed about his novel, Shalimar the Clown, which is set in Kashmir. Rushdie’s grandparents, on his mother’s side, were born and …
Elliot Sperling on “Serf Emancipation Day”
I think I could not do better than round off the discussion on “Serf Emancipation Day” with the insightful yet refreshingly matter-of-fact observations of Elliot Sperling on the subject. Professor Sperling studied under the late Taktser Rimpoche and is now the director of the Tibetan Studies program at Indiana University’s department of Central Eurasian Studies …
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JN at March 10 Rally in San Francisco (2009)
Tsering Shakya on “SERF EMANCIPATION DAY”
. Tsering Shakya’s discerning analysis of China’s new Tibet offensive delves into his own childhood memories of such propaganda rituals in sixties Lhasa. Hence we have an authoritative yet entertaining and personal narrative of China’s colonial vision and policies “that denies Tibetan voice and agency.” Tsering Shakya is research chair in religion and contemporary society …
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Warren Smith on “SERF EMANCIPATION DAY”
. This Orwellian commemoration appears to be the opening gun in Communist China’s new multi-pronged attack on the resurgence of Tibetan nationalism. To kick of a discussion on this critical development in China’s Tibet strategy I am posting this insightful statement by Dr. Warren Smith (author of Tibetan Nation and China’s Tibet? ) a leading …
Samdong Rinpoche Says Tibet Issue Internal Affair of PRC
Dharamsala, March 13 (ANI): Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, has welcomed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s offer of holding more talks with envoys for the Dalai Lama. Earlier Wen Jiabao accused Western countries of exploiting the Dalai Lama, who is described as a political exile rather than a religious figure. Samdhong …
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March Winds
Three years ago I wrote an article which in large part was a commemoration of this year’s 50th anniversary of the March 10th Uprising. Some might feel I jumped the commemoration gun here, but I have, for a long time now, viewed the Khampa Uprising of 1956 as the opening conflict of the Tibetan revolution that culminated in the Lhasa Uprising of 1959.
The China (Proliferation) Syndrome
The recent news of the release from house arrest of Pakistan’s rogue nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan had, as usual, leaders and commentators in the free world blowing hot and cold. The release was universally condemned as “a blow to international security” but as always the behind-the-scenes role of China as the leading proliferator of nuclear weapons and delivery technology to rogue states, was studiously ignored.
