Dalai Lama Arunachal trip our internal matter: India to China
TAWANG/BOMDILA: Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on Tuesday began a week-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh, India’s easternmost state that is at the heart of a decades-old dispute with China.
But, while China has been predictable in its warnings against the Dalai Lama’s visit, the weather was not – both in Aruanachal and Assam.
But neither could prevent the 14th Dalai Lama from travelling to the frontier state on Tuesday, albeit with a last-minute change of plan, as a guest of the BJPruled state government.
India also delivered a curt message to China, who had warned of more strain on the shaky bilateral relations.
The external affairs ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that “no additional colour should be ascribed to his religious and spiritual activities and visits to various states of India”. The Indian government, therefore, urges that no “artificial controversy” should be created around his current visit to Arunachal Pradesh, it added,
The statement followed junior home minister’s Kiren Rijiju’s assertion that the visit of the 81-year-old leader was “our internal affair”.
“China should not interfere just as we do not interfere in their internal matters,” Rijiju, who hails from West Kameng district, said in Itanagar on Sunday.
The spiritual leader was scheduled to fly to Tawang, a Buddhist pilgrimage at 10,000 feet, along with chief minister Pema Khandu. But the state-run helicopter could not take off from the airport in Guwahati due to torrential rain.
A convoy of SUVs then brought the Dalai Lama and his entourage to Bomdila, about 320km from Guwahati.
The Buddhist-dominated Bomdila, the headquarters of West Kameng district, is from where the Chinese army began retreating during the 1962 war.
“The weather forced us to take the road. Our tour of Arunachal Pradesh is on course but with a change in schedule,” Tenzin Takhla, the private secretary to the Dalai Lama, told HT.