Dalai Lama slams Beijing’s move to name his successor
Dalai Lama said on Saturday that Beijing’s bid to name his successor to undermine the Tibetan cause was “nonsense” and added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s China policy was “more or less the same” as the earlier Congress governments.
Beijing had years ago confined the Dalai Lama-nominated Panchen Lama, a monk immediately below the Tibetan spirtitual head, and projected its own Panchen Lama. The communist regime in China now wants to have its own Dalai Lama.
“As early as 1969, I had said that the Tibetan people will decide if this very institution of Dalai Lama should continue or not. If this institution is no longer relevant, it should stop,” the 82-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said.
“Nobody knows who or where the next Dalai Lama will be born or come from. Some indication (about his reincarnation) might come at the time of my death, but (as of) now there is no such indication,” he said, not ruling out the possibility of the next Dalai Lama being a woman.
He also dismissed the Chinese government’s attempts to name his successor. “That I say is nonsense. In the past, Chinese emperors did have involvement in the reincarnation of some lamas but they were disciples of certain Tibetan lamas,” he said.
On whether his visit to Tawang, a place Beijing claims as its own, will affect IndiaChina ties, he said: “We will have to wait and see. But it is normal for China to give political colour to my spiritual visits.” On the BJP-led NDA government’s China policy, the Tibetan leader said: “It is more or less the same as that of the Congress from the days of Narasimha Rao… but I admire Modi, he is active and seeks development.”
He also hit out at US president Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policy saying, “I disagree with the America First policy, it is not becoming of a country that encourages free thinking.”
Rather than pursue anti-immigration and protectionism, the world should follow the European Union for better economy and social cohesion, he said.