Apart from China itself, the Tibetan question concerns no other country more than it does India. It is at the root of our problems with China. The dilemmas and confusion that have marked our policy towards China over decades affect our response even today to the ongoing Tibetan unrest. If we support it in some way, we earn China’s ire and invite a hardening of China’s position on the border issue. If we do not, we assist China in further tightening its grip on Tibet, and still face China’s claims on our land as an extension of its occupation of Tibet. Should we act in our interest or end up by acting in China’s interest?

For others, Tibet is essentially a humanitarian question, one of protecting the identity of a distinctive cultural, religious and linguistic ethnic group threatened by repressive Chinese policies. Even during the height of the West’s ideological confrontation with communism, the liberation of Tibet from Chinese rule was not on the agenda. The West showed little interest, too, in the humanitarian plight of the Tibetans until fairly recently. Far more attention has been paid to the issue of human rights in China at large, and to the plight of prominent political dissidents there, than to the condition of the hapless Tibetans. Weighing in Western calculations would have been the consideration that supporting human rights in China was only charge-sheeting the Chinese political system, not undermining the country’s territorial integrity, which support to the Tibetan cause could imply.

The Chinese have succeeded brilliantly in extracting political support from the rest of the world, including India, for their territorial integrity. Witness the way in which, in communiqué after communiqué, foreign leaders endorse the One China policy and take a position on Taiwan’s status. While Chinese authoritarianism is decried, there is general readiness to spurn Taiwanese democracy by denying it any political future outside China.

There is a lesson for India in this. Besides the fact that by making claims on Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese show scant regard for India’s integrity, long-standing Western support for some change of status quo in Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan’s favour shows how little attached the West has been to the idea of India’s territorial integrity. India’s practice of democracy has not politically shielded it from pressure to accord self-determination to a section of its population. Western governments do not seem to think, however, that the principle of self-determination need apply to the disaffected populations of China. India’s geography can be rearranged, not China’s.

For long years, the Dalai Lama has ploughed his furrow with great composure and dignity. He has played his role remarkably well, impressing others with his humility and grace. In a world full of violence, he has continued to preach and practise his message of non-violence. His profile and his acceptance as Tibet’s spiritual leader have steadily risen internationally, without, however, getting translated into any serious political pressure on China regarding Tibet. His spiritualism and sincerity have had limited success in a hardened world where violence is justified by the weak to obtain rights and by the strong to enforce them.

From the start, no country has backed the cause of Tibetan independence. Even the Dalai Lama’s plea for genuine autonomy within the ambit of Chinese sovereignty has not found open Western backing. The Chinese, of course, have summarily rejected it. Six rounds of talks between his representatives and the Chinese have yielded little result. The Dalai Lama has made all the possible concessions he could, and that too in advance. He has accepted China’s sovereignty over Tibet; he only seeks the autonomy to which China is legally committed; he has abjured violence.

The Chinese are not interested in negotiating with him; they wish to humiliate him. They want him to falsify history by conceding that Tibet was historically an integral part of China. He must acknowledge that for Taiwan too. It is clear that once he is forced to lose dignity, he loses the will to be forceful in negotiations. There is an instructive difference in the way a democratic country like India negotiates with its adversaries and the way China does. The contemptuous attitude of China contrasts with the basic civility with which India deals with opponents. Such contempt denotes a lack of willingness to compromise. Our moderate language reflects moderation in policies. The abusive vocabulary used by the Chinese leadership to describe the Dalai Lama is a disquieting insight into its mind, which remains unmellowed by China’s remarkable economic success. The world cannot ignore the gap between China’s anachronistic political language and its economic modernization, and what this contradiction bodes for the future.

Tibet, for India, is a vital strategic issue, affecting us politically and militarily. Our territorial integrity is threatened by China’s claims based on purported Chinese historical sovereignty over Tibet. Unresolved differences over Tibet have put our foreign policy under strain. The biggest strategic blow inflicted by China on us has been the transfer of nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan, thereby permanently endangering our security from within our region. The expansion of our political dialogue and economic ties with China, as well as points of convergence on some international issues, should not mislead us about the underlying reality of our problems with China.

We have all along ceded too much ground to China on Tibet. We gave asylum to the Dalai Lama, but on the understanding that he would not engage in political activity on Indian soil. The unpretentiousness of his approach towards China is in some measure on account of the host country, India, distancing itself from him politically. What meaning would he have drawn from our joint documents with China reiterating our position on putting political curbs on him and the Chinese lauding us for it? He would have concluded that his political agenda must be adjusted to Indian interests and sensitivities about China, and that his demands must be pitched at the minimum. But the Chinese do not recognize that we have, in effect, helped them consolidate their position in Tibet by keeping the Dalai Lama in check. They continue to lay claim to Arunachal Pradesh and fuel our distrust of their intentions.

Tibet is currently in turmoil. The issue has caught international attention in ways it has not before. The Olympic torch relay has been disrupted in many cities. The Olympic spirit sits ill with Chinese repressive policies in Tibet. True, many countries have internal problems and Western policies in various parts of the world argue for less sanctimoniousness about China. But such countries allow debate and dissent, unbridled criticism of government policies and anti-government rallies. What sets China apart is the throttling of all dissent within the country and manipulation of information in the absence of a free press.

We ought not to submit ourselves to Chinese pressure on the right of the Tibetans to stage peaceful demonstrations in India. If large-scale demonstrations can be allowed elsewhere, their suppression here would send the terrible message that we protect Chinese interests more than we do our own with regard to Tibet. We should not be embarrassed by China’s embarrassment on the Tibetan question, which is at the root of our own problems with that country.