The UPA government’s decision to bar its ministers and officials from attending a felicitation of the Dalai Lama in the Capital last week reinforces the growing perception that the Congress Party does not even pretend any more to stand up for the national interest. Having signalled its lack of political will to do what is “manifestly obvious”, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s words, on the nuclear question, the Congress appears to have succumbed to the CPM and Beijing on Tibet.

No one denies Tibet’s sensitive role in Sino-Indian relations. Nor the need for due deliberation in handling the Dalai Lama’s presence in India. That, however, has been true since the Dalai Lama sought refuge in India from Chinese repression nearly five decades ago. India has always argued that the Dalai Lama was a lot more than a political dissident. New Delhi had rightly insisted that the Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader widely revered in India. It is this fine but consequential nuance, crafted by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, that the Congress government has abandoned in decreeing against official presence at the Dalai Lama’s function. The Congress’s egregious error stands in contrast to the great dignity with which the Dalai Lama has conducted himself in India. Never once has he sought to undermine New Delhi’s attempts to build good relations with Beijing.

The betrayal of the Congress also comes amidst the Dalai Lama’s recent effort to engage Beijing in a purposeful dialogue on the Tibet question. New Delhi is surely aware that it is the Chinese Communist Party that has trashed all the political concessions offered by the Tibetan negotiators and has stepped up vicious personal attacks on the Dalai Lama. New Delhi’s decision to boycott the Dalai Lama, then, can only be interpreted as a deliberate departure from the diplomatic legacy of Nehru. That the Indian Communists have been more abusive than Beijing of the Dalai Lama is well-recorded. The Congress dithering on the nuclear deal, in the face of Left pressure at home and China’s opposition abroad, is an error of omission; its shameful approach to the Dalai Lama is a sin of commission. If the Congress cannot safeguard its own precious political inheritance from the Communists, any hope that it will defend national interest appears increasingly unrealistic.