How India should approach Dalai Lama’s succession issue

After a weeklong celebration of his 90th birthday, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in Leh preaching and relaxing. Did India miss an opportunity to test, if not reset, its Tibet policy over the succession of the Dalai Lama? Ahead of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s first visit to China after the Galwan clashes and pro forma normalisation of bilateral relations, China noted that “Tibet-related issues, including the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, are a thorn in India-China relations”.

Beijing’s pincer attacks came in quick barrages from its embassy in Delhi and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing before and after the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday, ignoring Tibet’s history, religion, and traditions and letting its invasion and occupation of Tibet in 1950 do the speaking. India’s silence is due to China’s military and economic power and Delhi’s constraint to reset its Tibet policy. This has allowed Beijing to salami slice in East Ladakh, freeze progress on border settlement, and act adversarially during Op Sindoor. The Sikyong (President) of the Central Tibetan Administration (Government in Exile), Penpa Tsering, had offered ideas on succession last year.

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On 2 July, in a recorded video statement, His Holiness Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso said that the Gaden Phodrang Trust will search and find his successor, which Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju endorsed: “No one has the right to interfere or decide who the successor will be; only he or his institution has the authority to make the decision.”

China immediately protested Rijiju’s statement, warning India against interfering in its internal affairs at the expense of bilateral relations. Delhi did not push the matter further. India’s Foreign Ministry said, “India does not take any position or speak on matters concerning faith and religion but will continue to uphold freedom of religion.”

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Rijiju also clarified he was echoing feelings of Tibetans, speaking for himself and not the government. It is India’s moral and cultural right and responsibility to prevent China from usurping Tibetan Buddhism from its homeland. On July 5, on the eve of his birthday, the Dalai Lama said that he will live more than 130 years of age and that he would reincarnate in a free country, adding his reincarnation could be found in Ladakh, Dharamsala, or Arunachal Pradesh. On July 6, his birthday, the Dalai Lama gave a purely spiritual speech. Prime Minister Modi congratulated the Dalai Lama on his birthday. China protested against PM Modi’s greetings, fired volleys at the US for endorsing the Dalai Lama, and issued its own interpretation of succession, asserting China’s prerogative to anoint the 15th Dalai Lama.

The problem in reincarnation is the longevity of regency when leadership may be exercised by the Sikyong, CTA, or a Council of Elders. Secondly, long overdue is a reset in India’s Tibet and One China policy. India accepted TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) as part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2003 for China accepting the international border in Sikkim. Neither the delineation of the LAC nor the Political Framework for a Border Resolution 2005, which skips delineation, has materialised; but instead, China has been salami slicing in East Ladakh. Further, it never implemented autonomy (Dalai Lama’s Middle Path) for Tibet but indulged in wholesale Sinicisation of Tibet (69 per cent of people in Tibet are non-Tibetan Buddhists). Delhi has many reasons to reconsider its Tibet policy. It cannot do so on its own and needs a willing strategic partner like the US.

The US Tibet Policy Act (2002) was amended in 2020 to the Tibet Policy and Support Act, which is complemented by the Resolve Tibet Act (2024), which has several important issues, including reincarnation and Tibet not being the TAR created in 1965. The CTA, which shifted from Lhasa to Dharamsala in 1959, will next year be releasing the new map of Tibet highlighting this cartographic fraud.

Next, the boundary issue. While Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Pema Khandu, who attended the Dalai Lama’s birthday, has said that his state has a border with Tibet, not China, US Congressional legislation of 2020 has recognised the McMahon Line as the boundary between “Arunachal Pradesh, which belongs to India, and China,” refuting Beijing’s claim on South Tibet. Tsering and his predecessor, Lobsang Sangay, have consistently said Tibet, not China, has a border with India and recalled the name of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, advising India to desist from using TAR. The CTA and Tibetan Buddhists have been expecting India to greenlight the succession and reincarnation outlined by the Dalai Lama.

India strategist and China expert Pravin Sawhney has said that the Dalai Lama has raked up sensitive issues for China, which could open a Pandora’s box and even lead to war even as Delhi seems unable and unwilling to reset its Tibet policy. Jaishankar had told ANI last year, “I don’t want war with China; it has five times larger economy”. Tibetans outside and inside Tibet are likely to be disappointed by India’s silence. Tsering says, ”India is our parent. We’re nobody without India.”

Calling His Holiness ‘honoured guest and spiritual leader’ is one thing; backing his succession plan is quite another. Given Tibet’s geo-strategic vitality, Beijing squashing its autonomy, and blatantly violating its treaties and agreements with Delhi, India can and should have taken a more nuanced position on the succession issue. For starters, the Dalai Lama can be awarded the Bharat Ratna, which is supported by about 100 sitting MPs, and his birthday can be commemorated during the monsoon session of Parliament. The Tibet issue was raised as a Private Member’s Bill earlier by Sujeet Kumar, a member of the Biju Janata Dal, who was requested to withdraw it.

The ‘thorn’ has existed since 1962; still, India has been lured into normalising relations with just “cosmetic disengagement” not vacation of encroachment by China. Jaishankar said in 2024, “[It is] impossible to normalise ties without the situation at the border being resolved, including demobilisation of troops that amassed there in 2020.” China is unlikely to de-escalate, but we keep talking like it does over the boundary question without settling the issue. India is displaying extraordinary strategic patience with China.

The author is former GOC IPKF South Sri Lanka and founder member Defence Planning Staff, now Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.