The recent deployment of the Tibetan Special Frontier Force along the Line of Actual Control to counter manoeuvres from the Chinese People’...
The recent deployment of the Tibetan Special Frontier Force along the Line of Actual Control to counter manoeuvres from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has resulted in renewed attention about the Free Tibet movement.
This unit gained attention last week with the announcement of the death of Special Frontier Force member Nyima Tenzin as he stepped on a landmine while patrolling the Line of Actual Control. On social media platforms and in the opinion columns of publications, there was a sudden resurgence of consciousness for the aspirations of the Tibetan community and a surge of concern for their place in India.
This expression of solidarity was accentuated on Monday with the broadcast of images of Tenzin’s funeral, depicting his coffin draped in the Indian and Tibetan flags.
Yet for all this display of sentiment, India’s ambivalence towards the Tibetan cause has greatly weakened its credibility on the issue. This belated reawakening seems rather superficial.
After Tibet’s annexation by China in 1950, a series of aggressive policies executed led to the Dalai Lama – the community’s spiritual and temporal leader – taking refuge in India in 1959. Ever since, ore than one lakh Tibetans have come to call India their home. While the Cultural Revolution in 1960s China attempted to...
