Therefore, the real danger in Tibet is not the political status of the land, except to the extent that a change there would mitigate that danger. The real danger is the systematic, and automatic, erasure of what has for long been the face and soul of Tibet. One day, even China may forget that Tibet existed.

Paradoxically, when the state makes you forget, you often suffer a reactionary total recall someday when the state itself undergoes deep structural changes. Witness the Czarist nostalgia in Russia or the tears for Marie Antoinette. Thus while you may be tempted to laugh the devil’s laughter at the meaninglessness of it all, as Mr Kundera (who couldn’t take the enforced forgetting any longer) would say, the Chinese, like the Soviet establishment, laugh like the angel who knows the usefulness of remembering, only in order to make others forget.

China is afraid about Tibet, it is also afraid of Tibet. It will not cease till it has made Tibet as irrelevant as its own characterless new cities. Since language is the first marker of cultural identity and it remains the primary link of a people to their past, its loss seals a cultural death — and a political death. And since it is difficult to destroy, the victor invariably aims to destroy it. Tibet will become an integral part of China when, finally, its myriad languages are no longer spoken within its territory.

History is a skeleton lurking in our cupboards which will out. China should beware of that skeleton. It should relearn its own recent history, unlocking the floodgates on the Cultural Revolution. Then it can begin to learn those of others so as to respect them. History is a powerful political tool. That is why the Tyrant fears it, but learns and remembers enough to destroy it. That is why democratic India must allow Tibetan exiles their anniversaries and protests so that others don’t forget.

... contd.