The Dalai Lama celebrates 50 years as Tibetan head of state today -- a golden jubilee marked in Indian exile as temporal leader of a government with no international recognition.
Now 65, the Dalai Lama added the secular title to his position as Tibet's spiritual leader at the tender age of 15. He fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and established a government in exile in the northern Indian hill station of Dharamsala.
The 50-year milestone comes at a crucial and difficult time for the Tibetan freedom movement.
PHOTO: AFP
While international respect for the Dalai Lama and sympathy for the plight of Tibetans under Chinese communist rule both remain strong, official support for the movement has been sacrificed to the necessity of maintaining political and trade relations with Beijing.
For several years, the Chinese government has frozen all direct and indirect contact with the Dalai Lama, issuing regular diatribes against his "separatist" tendencies and castigating any foreign government that champions his cause or allows him to visit.
In Tibet itself, Beijing exercises rigid control over religious practise, and its policy of populating the region with migrants from the majority Han Chinese community continues unabated.
Added to this is growing concern over the fate of the Tibetan movement after the Dalai Lama dies -- a concern which he himself recognizes.
"It will certainly be a great setback," the Dalai Lama said in an interview recently.
"But our struggle is for the six million Tibetans; their rights, their welfare, their future.
"This is a struggle of a nation to survive. Whether one particular leader remains or not, the nation will carry on the struggle."
The fact remains, however, that the Dalai Lama's high profile stewardship of the movement, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize,will leave a leadership vacuum when he dies.
"The Dalai Lama has made it very clear that the Tibetan government in exile should be able to manage without his involvement, and some preparations are already underway," said the exiled administration's information minister, T.C. Tethong.
"It is hard to forecast the future, but it is simply a reality we have to face."
The Dalai Lama's death would not only risk lowering the profile of the Tibetan movement in the international arena, but could also prove very divisive.
Spiritual and secular loyalty to the Tibetan leader is steadfast, and he is the adhesive that binds together the various factions within the movement, some of whom favor a far more radical agenda than the Dalai Lama's non-violent campaign for autonomy within the Chinese state.
The exiled government presents the possible fracture of the movement as a problem for China, arguing that Beijing should negotiate with the Dalai Lama now rather than risk more radical confrontation in the future.
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