The Tibetan leader’s anxieties about violence and insistence that his people should protest Chinese state atrocities but not hate the Chinese people, is very Gandhian. The Dalai Lama’s threat to resign from his political role (for he cannot resign as the Dalai Lama) and appeal to ‘both sides’ to stop the violence reminds one of Gandhi’s insistence on ending the non-cooperation movement in 1922 after the violence at Chauri Chaura. One cannot expect the Dalai Lama to opportunistically strike the iron when it is hot, to make it really unpleasant for the Chinese by adopting a harder stance in the run-up to Olympics. The pathological China-bashers (and there are many in India and the west) will jump onto the bandwagon of ‘Free Tibet’ only to embarrass China. But what is the point of morality if it is based solely on the calculus of cost and benefit? The Dalai Lama’s moral leadership is untarnished.

How about his political leadership at this time of crisis? The

Tibetan government in exile of which he is the leader has shown itself to be uncreative and bankrupt when it comes to finding a way forward. Appeals to the international community, a euphemism for western states (since the non-western ones remain concerned only with their own backyard), do not work beyond a point, since power and not fraternity is what marks this ‘community’.

In any case, the Gandhian analogy is not really relevant. Gandhi’s insistence on non-violence as moral as well as political force — his argument was that mass mobilisation is only possible if the nationalist movement steers clear of violence — worked in a different context. Had Gandhi solely appealed to the British sense of justice and morality, we would not even be knowing who he was.

... contd.