Tibet, China and the soul of India

the debate about the issue of Tibet and Chinese tactics there has raised some disturbing questions which show how less some Indians understand India and our national positions and goals.

B Raman addresses some of them in his open letter to Amir Khan

Excerpt:

...You and others, who have written on this subject, are correct in their references to Kashmir, our northeast, the grievances and anger of Khalistanis and Muslims etc. We too have been having problems with our religious and ethnic minorities just as the Chinese have problems with their minorities. No country in the world is free of such problems.

The question to be asked is not whether we have the same problems as China, but what has been our approach to these problems. Do we deal with these problems in the same way as the Chinese do or do we follow a different approach?

The religious and ethnic minorities in India, who have taken to arms against the government, have accused the government and its policy-makers of rigging elections, political, economic and social discrimination, lack of adequate political powers to manage their own affairs etc. They have accused the security forces of being prejudiced against the minorities, of excessive use of force against the minorities, of police torture etc. Has any group in India accused our government and policy-makers of indulging in cultural genocide of the minorities as the Dalai Lama and the leaders of the Uighur Muslim community in China have accused the Chinese government?

In India, since we became independent in 1947, no government -- whether of the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party or any other party -- has ever even thought of settling members of the majority community in areas where the minorities are in a majority. Pakistan has systematically settled Punjabi ex-servicemen in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) in order to reduce the ethnic Kashmiris to a minority in their traditional homeland. It has systematically settled Wahabised Sunnis in the Northern Areas in order to reduce the Shias to a minority. China has systematically settled Hans from mainland China and the Hui Muslims from central China in Tibet in order to reduce ethnic Tibetans to a minority and dilute the majority status of Buddhism. It has similarly settled Hans in Xinjiang in order to reduce the Uighurs to a minority and dilute the impact of Islam. In our country, our laws will not permit such abuses.

In Jammu and Kashmir, no non-Kashmiri has ever been chief minister. Same is the case in Nagaland and Mizoram. Can you cite an instance since the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese in 1951 when an ethnic Tibetan has headed the local party and government set-up?

We have been fairly regularly holding elections in the northeast and Kashmir except during periods when serious insurgency situations did not permit the holding of elections. In Kashmir, there were allegations of rigging of the elections. Because of this, in recent elections, we allowed foreign diplomats and journalists to visit Kashmir before and during the elections to satisfy for themselves that the polls were free and fair.

Has China ever held a single democratic election in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia since the Communists captured power in 1949?

We have many insurgent and terrorist organisations purporting to speak for the religious and ethnic minorities, which have taken to arms against the government. Have you ever seen our political leaders and policy-makers indulge in a campaign of demonisation and personal vilification similar to the Chinese campaign against the Dalai Lama? Beijing calls him 'a liar, a conspirator, a cheat, a terrorist' and so on. Even the Chinese Red Guards, who ran amok in China during the days of Mao, never used such expressions against political dissidents...

... A highly-respected religious leader of the world has been insulted and demonised like no other religious leader of the world has ever been demonised...

...The way we handle our problems in the minority areas is totally different from the way the Chinese handle them. We handle them like civilised, democratic people. The Chinese handle them like Hitler and Stalin used to do. It is, therefore, totally unfair and incorrect to project as you have sought to do and as many leftist-minded intellectuals in India have sought to do, as if China is more sinned against than sinning and that its negative human rights record is no different from that of many other countries, including India.