‘DALAI LAMA PATH FOR THE CHINESE’

An online petition addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been launched for the renaming of Panchsheel Marg outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri “as the Dalai Lama Marg.”

The petition has been initiated by a senior bureaucrat, O.P. Mishra in his personal capacity as a citizen, as per information on Facebook; he is currently posted in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep as Secretary.

The Chinese Embassy has three roads around it, Shanti Path, Panchsheel Marg and Nayaya Marg. Mishra’s petition says that “Panchsheel” was the treaty between India and China in 1954. The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru advocated this treaty. “We named one of the most important roads in Chanakyapuri to mark the importance of the treaty as Panchsheel Marg. Panchsheel means the five principles which formed the basis of Indo-sino relationship—mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. Sadly, this treaty survived only on paper.”

“Panchsheel was the basis of the Non-aligned Movement. But China never had any respect for the treaty, while India made big publicity about the Panchsheel,” says Mishra, pointing out that China violated time and again the territorial integrity of India and waged wars. “We continue with a failed Nehruvian legacy, the name of the road, Panchsheel Marg. It is about time we renamed this road as Dalai Lama Marg to honour the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.”

There are some who feel that it would be better to rename Shanti Path as Dalai Lama Marg. That way, the Chinese embassy’s address will be “50-D, Dalai Lama Path, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021”. Whenever the Chinese will have to give directions, they will have to say “We are on the Dalai Lama Path”!