Dolma (centre) at the hunger strike in Siliguri’s Indira Maidan on Wednesday. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, April 16: Phurbu Dolma, 90, can easily see the similarities between the recent Chinese crackdown on Tibetans and the experience she had 50 years ago when, as a middle-aged homemaker in Tibet, she was forced to flee to India with many other members of her community.

Phurbu, who now lives in Kalimpong, is taking part in a 24-hour hunger strike, organised under the banner of the Tibetan Solidarity Sub-Committee, which began at Indira Maidan here this afternoon.

She is not alone. Fifty-nine other Tibetans, many of whom were born and brought up in India where they have been in exile since 1959, have joined her in the fast.

“We hardly find any difference in the terror unleashed by the Chinese government since March this year and the oppression we had faced half-a-century ago,” Phurbu said, holding a prayer wheel. “Only the context and the faces have changed and nothing else. The degree of torture inflicted on innocent people has intensified.”

The hunger strike appears to have bridged the generation gap among the Tibetans. The protesters at Indira Maidan include Tashi Csongpa (86) from Salugara and 17-year-old Sampa Legden, arguably the youngest one around. All of them raised anti-Chinese slogans and demanded intervention of the international community to end the crisis in Tibet.

“The young generation is keen to know about our experiences which we often share with them,” Tashi said. “They should understand the reasons behind our 50-year-old movement and our demand for repatriation to an independent Tibet.”

The organisers of the hunger strike clarified their stance on the Olympics. The Olympics torch relay has already seen violent protests in London, Paris and San Francisco and trouble is expected when it comes to Delhi tomorrow.

“We are not against the Olympics, but feel that the Chinese government has failed to respect the spirit of the Games by continuously violating human rights and killing people in Tibet,” said D. Dorjee, the vice-president of the committee. “Fact-finding delegations from international organisations should be sent to Tibet to dig out the truth.”

Palden Dhondup, a welfare officer of the Tibetan government-in-exile at Dharamsala who is posted in Darjeeling, echoed Dorjee.

“Unless the Chinese government stops its aggression and sits with us for a dialogue, our democratic protests in the form of hunger strikes, rallies and demonstrations will continue,” said Dhondup.

The protesters also displayed the photographs of 152 Tibetans who they think have died in Lhasa and other places in the past couple of months. In the evening, a candle prayer was held for the dead.