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Regular-article-logo Thursday, 12 June 2025

DELHI TIPTOES ON KARMAPA TIGHTROPE 

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FROM PRANAY SHARMA Published 05.02.01, 12:00 AM
New Delhi, Feb. 5 :    New Delhi, Feb. 5:  The fear of either angering China or falling into a Beijing-laid trap has forced India to tread carefully on the issue of Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorjee, who was given a Tibetan refugee status last week. New Delhi is cautious because it has yet to ascertain all the facts about the Karmapa who made a controversial escape from his homeland in Tibet and arrived here more than a year ago. In the post-Dalai Lama scenario, the Karmapa can be an important card for India to hold against China. But if India were to recognise him as the Karmapa now, it runs the risk of rubbing China the wrong way and derailing the process of normalising bilateral ties. Equally, if the Karmapa is part of a 'Chinese gameplan', it would prove embarrassing for the country if it were to recognise Dorjee as the Karmapa. Though Dorjee arrived in India after his 'dramatic escape'' from the monastery in Tibet where Chinese officials had kept a close watch on him, he was granted the status of a 'Tibetan refugee' only last week (the information was made public yesterday). But Delhi has not removed certain restrictions on his movements and made it clear that the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim is out of bounds for him. It took South Block some days to formulate its carefully-drafted statement on publicly confirming the decision to grant him the status of a Tibetan refugee. Care was taken to ensure it does not send out a wrong signal to China or to members of the Tibetan-government-in-exile based in Dharamsala and other parts of the country. 'We can confirm that Ugyen Trinley Dorjee is to be treated as a Tibetan refugee,' foreign ministry spokesman R.S. Jassal said. But couching his statement in diplomatese, he added: 'He is free to move in India subject to rules and regulations enforced from time to time.' This was essentially an assertion that Rumtek was one of the places which the Karmapa will not be able to visit, at least for the time being. In private, China has lauded 'the maturity with which India dealt with the Karmapa issue'. Caught in a spot over his 'escape', Beijing continued to maintain that the Karmapa had not fled, but was visiting India to look for some essential items for the religious ceremony of his Buddhist sect. South Block realised China's discomfiture over the issue, but instead of publicly crowing over the flight, it decided to play down the issue and allowed the controversy to die a quite death. Though the Dalai Lama and a number of his supporters live in India, South Block' policy on Tibet has lacked clarity, especially in the context of its overall bilateral relations with China. Off and on, the Tibetans are allowed to hold demonstrations and agitations to run down the leadership in Beijing.    
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