[The author is Director of Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Saranath, Varanasi and Speaker, Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies, Dharamsala, India.] The Pioneer, November 28, 1996
For the people of Tibet democracy is not a new principle or system. Our apparent opening up to democratic functioning was prompted by neither the Chinese occupation of Tibet nor our interface with the outside world. His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama, since his childhood and long before taking over the temporal power had the unmistakable will to democratise Tibet.
Unfortunately, he was given the reins of the country when half of its territory was already occupied by China. In spite of this, for nine long years he tried his utmost to introduce democratic reforms but every time the Chinese Communist dictators systematically frustrated these moves. It is only in exile that he has the freedom and a free hand to implement his vision.
There was but an uniqueness about this transformation so characteristic of the leader and his people. In our case the Head of the State himself advocated democratisation and consequent relinquishing of his authority but the people refused to accept it. During the last 37 years in exile, His Holiness gradually persuaded and educated his people to adopt a democratic way of life and translate the ideal into practice so that what is achieved could be a genuine democracy.
The model of Tibetan democracy is fundamentally different from the western democratic principles. Our is based on principles of equality of all sentient beings on the basis of their potential of unlimited development. Such equality can be established in the day to day living through cooperation and not through competition.
Competition invariably leads to some form of confrontation. Love and equality cannot be achieved through competition. Whether in political or economic system, it prevents genuine cooperation and brotherhood. Realising this phenomenon of human behaviours, Lord Buddha had long back recommended a democracy free from competition.
Therefore, a kind of partyless democracy could be an alternative where each individual may have the freedom to deal with every issue according to his or her wisdom, without imposition of any conditions from groups or ideologies. Decentralisation of decision making and implementation process would make each individual responsible and sovereign to act. The individual should think globally and act locally. In our view, when a few persons live on the cost of others it is totalitarianism. On the other hand the principle of live and let live is ordinary democracy. Where everyone would live for others in that model of democracy which we are trying to adopt.
Future of Tibet is to be shaped and built up through genuine and sustained efforts of all the Tibetans. No ready made or final blueprints, nevertheless I put forth three points for a serious consideration:
1. Interdependence has increased to such an extent in today's world that future of any country could not be considered in an isolated manner. The future of Tibet is bound to affect the future of the world in general and its immediate neighbours. China and India, in particular, Tibet's geopolitical situation is such that is inseparable from the course of history of both India and China. For various reasons these two biggest populated countries of the world will, perhaps always position themselves as competitors or adversaries. Therefore the status of Tibet as a buffer state between India and China will be the only determining factor for peace, stability and security in Asia. Geographically, Tibet being the "Roof of the world" from where most of the large rivers of Asia originate, will be decisive factor for the environmental and ecological balance in the world. Scientists believe that the Tibetan plateau will always have a role in determining global climatic changes.
2. With regard to the future of Tibet, in my view, the immediate task is to save it from total annihilation. Tibet has indeed become the testing ground for the efficacy of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. It has to be realised that the future of Tibet is inseparably linked with the future of the world as a whole. The future of Tibet should be viewed from this integrated perspective.
3. The political status of Tibet in terms of sovereignty or autonomy, separation or association, have been debated for decades but the actual situation in Tibet has deteriorated all along. Our basic concern, therefore, should be how to save this country and its unique culture from total destruction. It will be possible only if the ongoing population transfer is stopped forthwith and Chinese civil occupation is vacated. Violation of Tibetan culture, language, religion and environment must be ended.
The question of future Tibet cannot be settled without taking into account the issues mentioned above. Therefore, we should concentrate on how to achieve those objectives. It is high time for the Tibetans to evolve a clearcut programme. I propose a programme for launching a Satyagraha movement. The concept and plan of implementation is explained elsewhere. Knowledgeable people are aware that His Holiness has already initiated a referendum amongst the Tibetan diaspora, to decide the future course of action and we all are awaiting its result. It seem, now that only two options are open before us:
1. Appeal for negotiations with an unwilling party;
2. Start a peaceful non-violent resistance.
Negotiations have been tried for over 14 years but it led us nowhere. There is no sign of Chinese willingness to open a dialogue despite His Holiness's middle path approach which accepts the framework set by Deng Xiaoping for the negotiations. Now let us accept the ground realities and formulate strategies accordingly. We have no future if we are not prepared to make sacrifice for restoring the dignity and security of our people in Tibet. Posterity will never forgive us. Therefore, every plan of action has to be well-conceived, well considered and set within a time frame. Time is running out and it never looks back. We have to run faster to keep pace with time, otherwise, our goal will prove to be a mirage. China has failed to perform the function of a civilised state, viz
1. Protection of the people
2. Promotion of the social, economic and cultural welfare and
3. Representation of their interests.
Therefore, China completely lacks legal moral as well as political legitimacy to govern Tibet. Perhaps no proof is warranted to understand its policy of forcible occupation; gradual destruction of Tibetan people identity and the policy of mindless exploitation of Tibet's natural resources, endangering its environment and ecological balance.
The situation therefore call for supreme sacrifices, Mahatma Gandhi the great proponent of Satyagraha once commanded his people "Do or Die". Our situation commands us to alter it little; Do or Die, with this resolve to us to make one final attempt. It demands voluntary cooperation, full co-ordination, tightening of loose ends at all levels and of course, the will power of Satyagrahi. Each one of us has to be clear about our objectives and also about the means to achieve our goal.
Our efforts have to be persistently persuasive. We need not deter from our principled commitments but let commitment to peace and non-violence be also taken as our weakness. No force is stronger than moral and spiritual force. We have the examples of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to name only a few.
We are fortunate to have His Holiness the Dalai as our leader. His sense of direction has been clear and his commitment to democracy and non-violence has been consistent. Inspite of prolonged frustration, He has infused the exiles with his own confidence that some day they will return to Tibet. Let us not fail our leader and our commitment of truth and non-violence. When Gandhiji gave the call to "Do or Die" there was no other choice. As I propose my people to "Do or Die" there is no other choice either.
The return journey back to homeland must commence here and now. Only then we can say "Next year in Lhasa".
by Rahul Bedi
The Indian Express, November 28, 1996
India has a massive security gap which even the best equipped military cannot fill. This is the complete absence of a national security doctrine or institution to formulate a response to security issues.
"Since independence, the Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) have dealt casually with security leading to short-term, ad- hoc decisions," said a senior military officer.
He said India had to take hard military decisions as it was sandwiched between a belligerent Pakistan stockpiling arms and a militarist and nuclear China, the longer term threat for India looming in the background, rapidly modernising its air force and swiftly upgrading much of its naval fleet.
The hiatus on security issues will show, yet again with tedious monotony, in today's visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, in which issues inimical to India are unlikely to be discussed, despite foreign secretary Salman Haider's optimism. At a press conference on the eve of President Jiang's visit, Haider said: "Prior indication of our concern (for contentious Sino-Indian issues) would be premature". Loosely translated, it means that India is unlikely to raise important but uncomfortable issues with the visiting Chinese leader which affect its security.
China, with whom India fought a war in 1962 over a still unresolved border dispute, is rapidly modernising its air force, building a blue water navy and honing its nuclear weapon capabilities.
Chinese naval activity in the region has also multiplied, with the installation of signal intelligence facilities in the Great Cocos island, 30 nautical miles from the Andaman islands.
Beijing is also helping Myanmar modernise two ports and construct a naval base giving rise to fears of enhanced Chinese presence in the Indian ocean for the first time. These fears gained credence last year after a Chinese trawler, equipped with sophisticated tracking and surveillance equipment was detained by India's Coast Guard allegedly for spying, but released under diplomatic pressure from Beijing.
Though relations between the two neighbours have considerably improved since the late '80s and troop pullbacks have been effected on both sides of the Line of Actual Control (LOAC), military officials are sceptical about the future of Chinese intentions and worried that no serious attention is being paid to what could emerge as a threat after 2000. "However good Indo-Chinese relations are today, intentions can change overnight," said former Air Chief Marshal S.K. Kaul. Defence preparedness, however, takes decades of planning, he said.
Military officials complain that none of the major irritants (see chart) are even mentioned by Indian officials during innumerable diplomatic exchanges and reciprocal visits by senior political and military leaders which are part of the confidence building measures (CBM) between the two countries.
All talks with the Chinese are Beijing-driven, said a military officer and expose India's lack of any fixed security doctrine or understanding at the establishment level of future portends in the region. This, he said, was crucial given that India was beset with problems on all its borders:
- to the east, relations with Bangladesh have deteriorated over the old river-water dispute and the infiltration of millions of Bangladesh is across a porous border.
- to the south, the fierce fighting between Tamil Tigers separatists, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army has the potential to spread tension amongst southern India's large Tamil population.
- To the north, even Nepal, long considered an Indian ally, wants to re-negotiate its old treaty with Delhi in a bid to come closer to China, which, in turn wants to increase its sphere of influence in the Himalayan region bordering Tibet.
- Further afield, the bitter struggle for power in Afghanistan between the Islamic Taliban fundamentalist militia is threatening to unwind downwards into Kashmir. Latest intelligence agency estimates maintain that over 1,000 Afghan mercenaries are dominating the insurgency in Kashmir today which, slowly, is picking up momentum.
Successive parliamentary reports have lamented the absence of a security doctrine and the reality that any potentially serious military situation could throw India's defence planning into disarray. The most recent one said that the "absence of clearly defined national security objectives/military aims to led to proposals being examined on a general basis." Senior military officials said the absence of a security doctrine affected not only their operational planning but also in establishing a credible deterrence and pursuing an organised equipment policy for the military.
Ironically, India must be one of the few countries where the military has the least input into whatever little planning exists in security matters. None of the service chiefs was reportedly consulted during the protracted negotiations at the disarmament Conference at Geneva for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Neither has their opinion been invited on the mechanisms of India keeping its nuclear options open after it opted out from the CTBT.
The 1962 was with China was a classic example of India's ad hoc approach to matters military. For, when China advanced into Indian territory in the north - which it still holds - a joint secretary in the defence ministry wrote a terse note to the Army chief asking him to "evict" Chinese troops from Indian territory. Adhocism persists even in internal security issues.
India has no tradition of any National Security Council (NSC) or body. After independence, a Defence Committee of the Cabinet, presided over the prime minister, which included the three service-chiefs, was replaced in the mid-60s by the CCPA with a wider, albeit diffused, role. But military officers no longer formed the core of CCPA committees and never have since.
But CCPA members admit there was never any effective coordination between the defence and foreign ministries, intelligence agencies and the scientific and economic ministries. Bureaucratic control over security issues progressively .. related the military from defence matters leaving novices to deal with delicate security measures.
In 1986, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi tried to initiate change by constituting Policy Advisory Committee which included junior ministers from the foreign defence and home ministries, the Cabinet Secretary, head of Research and Analysis wing. India's external intelligence gathering agency and director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. The three service chiefs, however, were again excluded from this committee but within three years, it wound up with the failure of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka as its biggest blunder.
The IPKF's Operation Pawar led to the death of 1.155 Indian soldiers, including scores of officers but failed to end the LTTE's fight for an independent homeland which is continuing. Senior military officers involved in the IPKF say it was an "unmitigated" but avoidable disaster, provided some national security planing mechanism existed.
But in 1990, Prime Minister V.P. Singh's National Front government announced the setting up of an NSC comprising the prime minister, foreign and defence ministers who were to be assisted by an advisory Strategic Core Group headed by the Cabinet Secretary along with the service chiefs, senior bureaucrats and intelligence officials. But there was to be no national security adviser nor any dedicated staff concentrating on formulating policy to deal with internal and external threats.
The Front government collapsed and the experiment remained untested till in 1993, P.V. Narashima Rao told Parliament that an NSC would soon be established. A year later, he reiterated that the NSC was still in the process of being set up but nothing has been heard of it since.
Analysts say the approach to national security matters is so casual that for the past nine years, India has had five defence secretaries and between 1992 and 1996, Narasimha Road held the defence portfolio, along with heading some 15 other ministers. "Ad hocism in defence planning had the counter-productive effect on other policies as resources were allocated without long-term considerations," says Lt. General K.K. Hazari, former vice-chief of army staff.
Military officers said India's vacillation over initiating the serial production and deployment of Prithvi, the indigenous surface-to-surface missile, reportedly at the behest of the US, was yet another example of a non-existent national security doctrine.
For months, senior Pentagon officials confidently claimed Prithvi had not crossed the threshold of serial production under Washington's "persuasion", a position corroborated by senior Indian officials including M. Malikarjun, former junior defence minister, despite opposition by military officials pointing to a belligerent Pakistan and China.
The Indian Express, November 29, 1996
President Jiang Zemin is here with a fresh agenda, but India does not seem to be in a mood to change the subject. As usual, discussions will open with a reappraisal of the age-old ties between the two nations. The ghosts of Hiuen Tsang and Fa Hien will be dusted off and paraded. Platitudes voiced and the fossil record duly examined, the meet will then be open for business. Business as usual, that is.
Though the Ministry of External Affairs has hinted that it will be much blather about the ethics of M 11 missile exports and whether the Dalai Lama is better defined as a religious leader or a political exile. Some of the best minds in the country will be applied to the fate of the Indians in Hong Kong post-1997. It will be quite pointless because the Chinese will do what they are best at - sit through the monologue in inscrutable, completely receptive silence and then go ahead regardless with their original plans.
There is a perception problem about these visits that Indian foreign affairs pundits can never seem to deal with. Jaing's visit is not on the same level as the Rajiv-Deng talks in Beijing in 1988. This time, when India and China get together, it will be more on the lines of a couple of traders dickering in the marketplace. China, without access to the WTO, is looking to direct diplomacy to develop new market in Asia. Besides, with or without the sanction of trade communities elsewhere, it aims to become the trade leader of the region. It has the wherewithal to do so; all it needs now is new markets to fuel growth. So it would be naive to imagine that the Chinese delegation would be even remotely interested in moralistic option on its contribution to the Pakistani nuclear programme. Bill Clinton steered clear of human rights. Warren Christopher kept his own counsel on controversial issues on his last official visit to Beijing. Indian opinion should learn from them.
It is time to take a more pragmatic view of India-China relations. It should be realised that China favours Pakistan only because it saves a lot of bothersome strategic thinking about India. Besides, the Chinese are in the weapon trade mainly with the profit motive. Whether they sell to Pakistan, Iran or Iraq is not primarily determined by the quality of the bid. The rhetoric of the past has outlived its usefulness. Now, as China realises, it is more appropriate to fight battles in the marketplace. But should business have no relation to ethics? Should India not put its point across on Tiananmen, Tibet and disarmament? It should indeed, but not here and and now. Today, India exports steel, chrome ore, soyabeans and castor oil to China. When the exports list also includes railway bogeys, ships, TV sets and trucks - and in a positive trade balance situation - it will be time to talk human rights. For now, pragmatism will serve Indian interests far better.
The Indian Express, November 29, 1996
(Anil K. Jha): In his latest book on China, Keneth Liberthal writes: "While uncertainties abound, it appears that on balance, China in the late 1990's will grow more open, decentralised, corrupt, regionally and socially diverse, militarily powerful and socially tempestuous."
This prognosis is definitely on test in China today. In fact, it is a state in transition which has wide ramifications for both China and the outside world, including India. Thus, to understand the ' Chinese enigma' would be the first step towards gearing up ourselves for a better Sino-Indian dialogue. It is precisely the lack of understanding on this front which, to a large extent, is responsible for mutual distrust and suspicion for all these years.
Take the case of openness. The economic freedom has injected a lifeblood of openness among the Chinese today. It is not spans the whole range of activities affecting people's lives. In the old China, it was not so much the state but the employer who controlled people's lives.
This openness, no doubt, is visible everywhere. The economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping in December 19978 were not intended at all to create this sort of openness or individuality. The original reforms were based on the 'household ' responsibility system. It was rather intended to strike a balance between the rigidity of a command economy and the chaos of a command economy and the chaos of a free market.
There is no doubt that the reforms carried out from 1978 to 1989 by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his disciples Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang had a moderating influence on the harsh authoritarianism and over-assertiveness of the Maoist Legacy. Deng actually did manage an enormous confidence trick, using the fruits of prosperity to buy off those opposed to abandoning Marxism. Though, on the surface, all augured well as many intellectuals, reformers, businessmen were led into the belief that China is slowly moving along a democratic path. An equal number still reserved their opinion on this. Nevertheless, Deng did play the gamble of tying up the legitimacy of his regime to its ability to produce prosperity.
A vibrant economy is not without its unintended complications. Pressures in Chinese society today are enormously varied and complex. There are innumerable references made, both within and outside China, about China's experience during the Twenties to project a similar fate for China. Such advocates take recourse to history. After the founder of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-Sen, failed to established rule over the entire country, a situation developed when region-based warlords. For this reason, Chiang Kai-Shek was able to swiftly oust these warlords from power again at the beginning of the Thirties.
It would be unfair to draw a similarity between the two situation and belittle today's China. As a matter of fact, there is no provincial governor today who wants to free himself from the other provinces or from the central government. It is purely the economic agenda which addresses any 'conflict Zone'. At the most, one could talk in terms of an economic regionalism.
Like India, China too is grappling with immediate problems such as corruption, regional disparity, inflation, social disorder, nepotism, provincial resistance to Central control, rural discontent, urban unemployment etc. An important point of convergence would be to understand each other completely in order to fashion a new era of mutual trust and cooperation. The "conflict zone" between the two would be reduced to a large extent if both the parties understand each other's civilizational and social matrix.
Under Jiang Zemin, China and its historical march into 21st century is faced with many challenges, both on the domestic and international fronts. Though the Chinese leadership has repeatedly claimed that the political transition from Deng to Jiang is complete, it still remains to be seen how effectively this first non-Long March generation handles the Chinese affairs. Jiang's step towards the Sino-Indian deadlylock is definitely welcome, but let us not forget that China's military is likely to put him and his management of security issues and foreign affairs to test if it is found too soft.
(The writer is a lecturer at the Delhi University)
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