Nothing highlights Tibet’s tragedy more starkly than the parliamentary exchange between Pranab Mukherjee and V.K. Malhotra. When the latter expressed dissatisfaction with government policy, the former shot back, “What did they (the Bharatiya Janata Party) do when they were in power from 1998 to 2004? Or in 1977?”

If it’s not one-upmanship, it’s tit-for-tat. Tibet is a football on the soccer field of international politics, kicked around by whoever has an axe to grind. An American president bumps “accidentally” into the Dalai Lama — more would look like serious intention and affect Washington’s options — when he wants to thumb his nose at China for being obstreperous over trade. Sliding ratings prompt showbiz personalities to romanticize Tibet. The Nobel committee’s peace prize countered the world’s horror over the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Does India also exploit distress? When I asked P.V. Narasimha Rao, he retorted angrily, “What other country has given a home to the Dalai Lama and 85,000 Tibetans?” That hospitality is often forgotten. Or, perhaps, it places a responsibility on India to do more as the current crisis underlines. Instead of comparing the Congress and BJP records, India has to examine the moral issue and its own national self-interest to determine the scope for a useful response. Wen Jiabao’s cunning “appreciation” complicates the task by suggesting that Beijing and New Delhi are on the same side, and that the demonstrators were restrained to assist China. Honour and practical politics demand that it be made unambiguously clear that the restraint was for reasons of domestic civil order and in no way indicates endorsement of Chinese methods in Tibet.

It is too late in the day to cite history. The issues now are autonomy, saving Tibet’s demographic identity from Han settlement, preserving its lifestyle, avoiding economic exploitation and — of greatest immediate importance — preventing cruel Chinese reprisals. Younger Tibetans might denounce the Dalai Lama’s pragmatism as negation of principle, but even the Drepung monastery monks, who sparked the disturbances on March 10 and whose protest soon spread to Lhasa and thence to the separated provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, cannot realistically expect more.

This is not to deny the evidence of the three stone pillars (one is lost) engraved with the words “Chinese shall be happy in the land of China and Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet” to commemorate the 821 AD peace treaty. Nor the international commission of jurists’ report that Tibet “demonstrated from 1913 to 1950 the conditions of statehood as generally accepted under international law” and that “in 1950, there was a people and a territory, and a government which functioned in that territory, conducting its own domestic affairs free from any outside authority”. The report went on to say that Tibet enjoyed exclusive control of its foreign relations between 1913 and 1950, “and countries with whom Tibet had foreign relations are shown by official documents to have treated Tibet in practice as an independent state”. Lhasa levied tax, issued currency and stamps, ran a postal system and commanded an army. Exchanges with the United States of America in 1943 indicated Washington’s acceptance of the status conveyed by Tibet’s separate flag and anthem.

But history is not a good guide because there were so many swings of fortune between 763 AD when Tibetan troops stormed what is today Xian, home of the terracotta warriors, and exacted annual tribute from the Chinese emperor, to 1951 when China forced the 17-point agreement on the Tibetans (an “unequal treaty” if ever there was one) that you can take your pick to suit your case. The brutal regime Tibetans are pitted against recognizes no law save its own convenience, and there exists no international authority to compel it to conform to a civilized code of conduct. Tibet is a colony. That defines its Chinese connection. It is a country with an identity, clear geographical boundaries and an identifiable people ruled by the Han Chinese, who do not consider themselves Tibetan. No Tibetan is considered a Chinese. China is not India where one is Malayali or Assamese and Indian. China and Tibet are separate entities like Portugal and pre-1961 Goa. The Tibetan language, written or spoken, bears no resemblance to Mandarin or any Chinese dialect.

It is unfortunate that the protest’s timing should link it with the Beijing Olympics. However momentous the games might be for some, linkage with razzmatazz of that order trivializes a nation’s struggle to survive by suggesting that the protesters are cashing in on the publicity. There is a danger, too, of people judging the protest’s success or failure (which means for the lay mind whether it is right or wrong) by whether or not the games are boycotted. The Americans, Europeans and Australians quickly endorsed the announcement by Jacques Rogge, the international Olympic committee president, that they will not be. Participating nations have medals to win, money to make and prestige to garner. Greece will not be done out of the mumbo-jumbo of high priestess and flame. But since even self-serving token gestures help to keep alive the flame of hope, the French foreign minister’s suggestion of a symbolic absence from the inaugural ceremonies might be a small fly in the ointment of Chinese self-satisfaction at having bagged a prized international event.

The danger now is of a bloodbath. Even China’s ethnic apologists in Singapore are muttering, “One must hope a Tiananmen-type crackdown will not be necessary.” According to independent foreigners who were hastily bundled out, the crackdown has already begun. Qiangba Puncog of the Tibet Autonomous Region government promises to treat dissidents “harshly”, but will be “more lenient” if they squeal on comrades. The Tibetan Daily demands “a people’s war”. Wen was clearly rattled at his press conference on the last day of China’s annual legislative tamasha and as Tiananmen showed, rattled Chinese leaders are ruthless with defenceless critics.

The moral issue is above debate. If China had been white and Western like Britain or France, it would long ago have been hauled up before the decolonization committee. India can say so, going beyond expressions of “distress” over the “unsettled situation and violence”. In addition to calling on “all those involved” to “improve the situation and remove causes of such trouble in Tibet”, India can extend wholehearted support to the protesters. It could also take the opposite course, go the whole hog and agree that Tibet has been an integral part of China since time immemorial and that Tibetan freedom-fighters are only a “clique” of “splittists” instigated by the Dalai Lama.

Would China reward such ingratiation by surrendering Aksai Chin, accepting the McMahon Line, withdrawing its claim to Arunachal Pradesh and handing over the slice of Kashmir given by Pakistan? Would it also support India’s security council and Nuclear Suppliers Group hopes? Can we expect major trade concessions? South Block’s pundits know the answer to that one. Would the first option once again provoke China to mobilize troops across the Himalayas to teach India a lesson, incite Pakistan to further mischief, arm India’s ethnic secessionists and make common cause with the Organization of Islamic Conference which is again breathing fire over Kashmir? Would China cut off budding trade and investment links? South Block’s pundits must also know there is nothing China could do to hurt India without hurting itself more just when it wants to be accepted as a responsible status quo power.

Either way then, India has little to lose — or gain. If nothing else is achieved, a strong and united international stand might — just might — dissuade the Chinese from taking harsh measures on the eve of their great Olympic sales pitch. Not having any other stake, India can afford to take a decision on the merits of the case once it has conquered what a great American called the fear of fear itself.