China's loss, India's gain

December 26, 2010   9:13:40 AM

SUNANDA K DATTA-RAY

With the rumoured retirement of the Dalai Lama from playing an active role, the Karmapa Lama could take on ‘additional responsibilities'

When the Darjeeling road was being laid, an old Tibetan remarked that the blasting could be heard in Lhasa. Similarly, there is little doubt that before coming to India, Mr Wen Jiabao heard in Beijing the mass chanting in Bodh Gaya marking the start of the year-long celebrations for 900 years of the Karmapa Lama, head of the Karma Kagyu Buddhist sect. It should have reminded him, like the voice of the jailed Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, that the power of faith does not need the barrel of a gun.

Orgyen Thinley Dorjee, the 26-year-old 17th Karmapa, enjoys the unique distinction of being recognised by Beijing, the Dalai Lama and by three of the four highest-ranking Karma Kagyu rinpoches as well as most monasteries of the sect. He finds it “funny” that Communist leaders who didn’t believe in god recognised an incarnation. But having done so, they cannot derecognise him. They are saddled with a Karmapa they acknowledge but who had rejected them by fleeing Tibet.

China’s humiliation over a lost asset explains the fantasies conjured up around him. Some suspect he could not have escaped without Chinese connivance and that China still secretly supports him. Others feed India’s dormant paranoia about the Foreign Hand by accusing the American Central Intelligence Agency of planning the exercise with or without Beijing’s acquiescence. It is also whispered that Beijing’s pressure forces New Delhi to treat the Karmapa more like a state prisoner than a state guest.

Such comments could also apply to the Dalai Lama and his flight in 1959 but speculation is seldom logical. Official silence only encourages wild theories. But though politics did not cast a shadow over the riot of colour under the huge marquee in Bodh Gaya, the throng of more than 5,000 devotees, including many from China, made clear that no Pope ever had as many or as fervently loyal divisions.

Underlying the religious pageantry lurked the inescapable question: Can culture and politics be separated in determining identity? It arose unbidden as the Karmapa’s infinitely lonely figure stood watching a gaily bedecked palanquin bearing away a small metal statue of the first of his line, Dusum Khyenpa, to the timeless wail of “Karmapa Chenno! Karmapa listen to us!” He had just launched the image on a journey round the world. The 900th anniversary celebration will end next December when the image returns to Delhi.

Someone asked if the Karmapa would follow Dusum Khyenpa's statue on its global peregrination. He replied through an interpreter that everything depended on “events and circumstances”. It could have been shorthand for a new Great Game. A German Buddhist identified the Government of India, China, and the Dalai Lama's administration in Dharamsala as the key players whose interaction determines the Karmapa’s movements.

If the Karmapa cut a lonely figure, the crowd around him confirmed the far-reaching impact of his person and position at a time when Mr Wen’s visit and India’s refusal to boycott the ceremony to honour Mr Liu Xiaobo underline the delicate balance of China-Indian relations. Tibet, whose historic connection with India the Karmapa mentioned, remains central to that equation. Asked if the connection would extend into the future, he expatiated on the student-teacher relationship between the two countries, India’s contribution to Tibet’s culture, religion and lifestyle, and on the warmth with which India’s people and Government had received Tibetan refugees. Grateful Tibetans are trying to hold on to what they have received from India and give something back in return. “We hope to preserve and continue the relationship in a very live way” may have suggested more than continuing the ancient guru-shishya bond to which the Dalai Lama also pays tribute.

He also said that the Dalai Lama had repeatedly reminded Beijing that Tibet’s culture, religion and way of life face “great danger”. The Karmapa’s own contribution to that discourse was to wonder if ordinary Chinese people were aware of the damage being done to Tibet. But while he claimed no insight into official Chinese thinking, Samdhong Rimpoche, Prime Minister in the Tibetan administration in exile, who sat next to the Karmapa on the stage, throws some light on Chinese motives. Claiming in a recent interview that “in the absence of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, China wants to make use of him (the Karmapa) for their own purposes”, he explained that “with the rumoured retirement of the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa will take on additional responsibilities” even if Dharamsala continues to “take care of administrative governance”.

That forces the exiled administration — the third player in this Great Game — to do some hard thinking. The Karmapa hasn’t been disappointed in linking his post-China existence to the Dalai Lama’s. But the rumours that Samdhong Rimpoche mentioned could indicate a more independent future role. Orgyen Thinley Dorjee denies temporal ambition, saying his spiritual responsibilities are heavy enough for one person. But he also recognises the material component of spiritual wellbeing and has just given Bodh Gaya a high-tech filter that supplies 500 litres of potable water per hour. He must know that modern young Tibetans drawn to his vision of peace and harmony beyond doctrinal definition need a leader. The “events and circumstances” he mentions may not leave him much choice.

Behind the Karmapa at the Bodh Gaya ceremony, the stage rose in a pyramid of yellow cloaks on maroon robes to a large golden Buddha. I thought the cross-legged figure in a black hat immediately below was a senior monk in deep meditation but, no, it was another image of Dusum Khyenpa. The four yellow-draped sentries around it were human though they, too, might have been waxworks in their stillness. There was no immobility, however, about the lithe young men in brocades brandishing dummy swords or the pretty girls in flowing silk waving long shimmering sleeves. Or RS Nandkumar’s musicians singing in praise of the Buddha in Sanskrit after Tilopa, the sect’s 10th century Indian founder.

No Indian crowd is ever so disciplined; no choreography so impeccably orchestrated. His Holiness had personally ensured that the ceremonial umbrellas with appliqué designs were of exactly the same height, that the timing, movement and steps of the dancers were perfectly matched. He would have made a superb stage manager if millions of Buddhists had not looked to him to manage their destiny. China’s loss could be India’s gain.

source:Pioneer