Swamy's Championship of Ram Sethu and the Chief's Take on Tibet (Again)

I am a little intrigued by the Hindu's unexpected willingness to support the campaign against the Ramar Sethu. It has given a fair amount of coverage to the ongoing proceedings in the Supreme Court on this question but more importantly, to the views of Subramanyam Swamy who took the case to the court in the first place. Today it published a long news item on what Swamy thinks of the issue. Swamy and the Chief seem to have been quite chummy for some time. The two appear to go way back. Both have visited China and upon return, heaped encomiums on their hosts (did the Chief organize Swamy's trip in the first place? Someone ought to throw light on this). Swamy even wrote a book asking India to give up the Tibet cause (India's China Perspective) and the two in fact authored articles upon the subject in the same issue of Frontline. Swamy's attempts to now curry favor with the Sangh Parivar, most recently through his newfound love for Lord Ram does not appear to have affected this bonhomie in any way. In fact, there is at least one item every other day on what he said on some matter. Wonder what's cooking.

In the latest issue of Frontline, the Chief has authored one more article on Tibet, this time in more detail than his previous editorialization in the Hindu. He repeats much of the same stuff but in addition points out the various 'falsehoods' in the Western press relying upon the ultimate source of God's very own word (oops! Should I say Mao/Deng's very own word?) - the Chinese government owned news service, the China daily. There are also some other notable assertions:

So what was the provocation for the violence in Lhasa and some Tibetan ethnic areas outside TAR? What is the cause for which these pro-Dalai Lama agitators are fighting? It cannot be economic because the economy of the Tibet Autonomous Region, as virtually everyone who has been there recognises, is on a roll. Nobody in their right mind has accused the Chinese government – with its sights set firmly on economic development, political stability, and a ‘harmonious society’ and just ahead of the August Beijing Olympics – of any new set of suppressive measures, political, economic, social, or cultural, against the 2.6 million ethnic Tibetans who constitute more than 92 per cent of the 2.8 million population of the Tibet Autonomous Region or against the 3.9 million Tibetans who live in other Chinese provinces and regions outside TAR.

So he is saying that the oppression cannot be a reason for the riots because it is not new! By this brilliant argument, most popular movements are unjustified since uprisings do not happen upon the first instance of provocation but only when the people are tired of it and see no other recourse to change.

...it is Mao Zedong’s portrait that you will find in a large number of ordinary Tibetan homes – because he continues to be seen as the liberator of a million serfs from the old feudal regime of landowning aristocrats and upper class monks. During my 2007 visit, I noticed that a growing number of Tibetan families also appeared to see no contradiction in displaying pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama, typically besides smaller portraits of the 10th and 11th Panchen Lamas, inside their homes. These moderate demonstrations of reverence for the Dalai Lama as a religious leader, which I did not witness during my 2000 visit to Tibet, seemed to reflect a more relaxed socio-political situation in TAR as well as in more developed Tibetan autonomous areas outside the region. But the riots and disturbances of March-April 2008 have obviously brought about a change in this situation.

So, in Tibet as Ram understands it, Mao Zedong's potrait is the one that is predominant in ordinary Tibetan homes. Are we supposed to believe this? Are the recent reports of those keeping pictures of the Dalai Lama being arrested false? There have been too many of them from authentic sources that are not easily refuted to believe that to be the case. Ram does not explicitly say so and seems to be actually surprised that people would want to put up his potrait calling it 'moderate demonstrations of reverence'. Of course their greatest reverence has to be to Mao Zedong for who else could have inflicted such devastation upon them during the cultural revolution?

...most troubling from a progressive Indian standpoint, the reality of a continuing Indian base of operations for the ‘Tibetan government-in-exile.’

This is a point he and other communists have never failed to make - that the Indian government must rein in the Dalai Lama. I thought progressive meant greater freedom and the right to strive for self-rule. Apparently, the rules of the game are different when the adversary is the Communist Party.

On the past failure of dialogue between the two sides, here is his take:

This, in fact, is an acknowledgement of the big gap – which cannot be narrowed unless the Dalai Lama and his establishment radically modify their stand on two core issues.

So it can only be successful if the Dalai Lama surrenders unconditionally. Why beat around the bush with phrases such as 'radically modify their stand' instead of being honest and upfront about it? Apart from the fact that the Chinese constitution does not allow for Tibetan autonomy, he adds another reason it cannot happen.

The law, it has been pointed out, defines national regional autonomy as the basic political system of the Communist Party of China to solve the country’s ethnic issues using Marxism-Leninism. The content of autonomy, which in the Chinese constitutional and political context essentially means self-administering opportunities and subsidies and preferential policies from the state to help the autonomous region overcome historical backwardness, can certainly be improved.

However, the kind of autonomy that the Dalai Lama demanded in November 2005 – “the Central Government should take care of defence and foreign affairs, because the Tibetans have no experience in this regard, but the Tibetans should have full responsibility for education, economic development, environmental protection, and religion” – cannot possibly be accommodated within the Chinese Constitution. Further, his demand that “a Tibetan government should be set up in Lhasa and should have an elected administrative chief and possess a bicameral legislative organ and an independent judicial system” is ruled out of court. Beijing’s 2004 white paper, ‘National Regional Autonomy in Tibet,’ is emphatic that, in contrast to Hong Kong and Macao that follow the capitalist system, Tibet does not face the possibility of introducing another social system.

So autonomy is not possible not only because the Chinese constitution cannot be amended (being the word of God (or whatever else that takes its place in the Marxist lingo), the Constitution is clearly immutable) but because it would amount to having to give up communism! What could be more outrageous than that!

Then comes this gem of 'reasonableness':

The talks will continue, as they should. Civility, open-mindedness, flexibility, and a positive attitude to resolving the Tibet question will certainly help, on both sides.

Civility, open-mindedness, flexibility and positive attitude will all help. Of course, these only apply to the Dalai Lama's side which in order to fulfil these requirements must commit itself voluntarily and without conditions of any kind to total surrender.

Finally comes this word of advice.

For those who espouse ‘independence for Tibet’ – organisations like the ‘Tibetan Youth Congress,’ the ‘National Democratic Party of Tibet,’ and the ‘International Tibet Support Network’ – the future looks bleak indeed. One thing is absolutely clear: as much as the future of Goa, Sikkim, and Kashmir belongs to India, the future of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the extensive Tibetan autonomous areas that form part of four major provinces will reside – in their differentiated and distinctive ways – within one China.

Yes, the future of the Tibet autonomous region must be like Goa, Kashmir or Sikkim. Goa never had an independence movement that took off seriously. Sikkim voluntarily joined the Indian Union after being under its protection for a long time and is governed by the special state-specific provision Art. 371F in the Constitution of India. As for Kashmir which is the only one of the three states that has had a strong and comparable streak of independence, it already has autonomy guaranteed under Art. 370. Besides, people in all of these states elect their governments, a right denied to Tibetans. In light of these differences, I admire the audacity of the Chief in attempting to appeal to his readers' sense of equity and fairplay by making such a preposterous comparison.

Apart from one mention of his visit to Tibet, there is little evidence of any real disclosure. Still, one must admire his unswerving loyalty to China and his determined efforts to aggressively promote Chinese propoganda employing every mephistophelean method at his disposal. Seeing the extent of mendacity involved and his willingness to stake his paper's and his reputation all in dogged pursuit of this goal, I wonder what the reward in exchange for these efforts must be.