Once Again, Prime Minister Modi Calls Up Dalai Lama on His Birthday
New Delhi: For the second consecutive year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed birthday wishes to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, even as the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers are preparing to meet this week in Indonesia.
In a tweet, Modi announced that he had spoken with the Tibetan leader and wished him on his 87th birthday. "We pray for his long life and good health," he posted.
Conveyed 87th birthday greetings to His Holiness the @DalaiLama over phone earlier today. We pray for his long life and good health.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2022
Last year, Modi also tweeted a similar message. It was significant as Prime Minister Modi had not met or spoken with the Dalai Lama since taking office.
Before his call in July 2021, Modi’s previous greeting to Dalai Lama on his birthday was in 2013 – a year before the BJP leader romped to victory in general elections and became India’s prime minister.
The outreach was notable as it took place after Chinese troops came across the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh in May 2020, which has resulted in a military stand-off yet to be fully resolved. While several friction points have been resolved, there is still not much movement on Depsang and Hot Springs, where the two militaries are still eyeball-to-eyeball.
China has repeatedly urged India not to let the LAC stand-off cast a shadow over the rest of the relations. New Delhi has asserted that the eastern Ladakh stand-off must be resolved first to normalise the relationship.
This week, the two foreign ministers will likely meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had already visited India in March this year.
The Dalai Lama has been residing in India since 1959 after he fled in a dramatic escape following the People’s Republic of China taking over full control of Tibet. Following his arrival in India, a substantial Tibetan diaspora settled in the South Asian country, with a large number of monasteries and educational institutions established to preserve their cultural and religious heritage.
China has denunciated the Dalai Lama as a "splittist", while New Delhi has stated that the Indian government perceives him as a spiritual leader.
The well-known India-based French expert on Tibet and Sino-Indian foreign policy, Claude Arpi, said that a phone call by the Indian PM was "definitely a signal to China".
He was pessimistic about any compromise from China on the stand-off with India ahead of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese communist party in November this year. Chinese President Xi Jinping will likely be ‘re-elected’ for the third time as the party’s general secretary.
"While Xi is likely to be 99% elected, he would not like to be seen to be soft on such matters, so there is no possibility of any movement towards resolution right now from China," asserted Arpi.
The Indian government's playing of the so-called "Tibet card" has been inconsistent in the last decade.
In 2014, the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile was invited to Modi’s official swearing-in ceremony at the Presidential Palace. The following year, India permitted a US-based dissident Chinese to hold a conference about the status of minorities in China at Dharamshala. However, India eventually cancelled several attendees' visas, including Uighur and Hong Kong pro-democracy activists. China had officially protested the granting of visas to prominent Uighur activists.
The Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh in April 2017, which led to an official protest from China. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had claimed that "no additional colour should be ascribed to his religious and spiritual activities and visits to various states of India".
Later that year, the Indian and Chinese armies started an unprecedented stand-off on Bhutanese territory over the construction of a road in the Doklam region.
In March 2018, the Central Tibet Administration (CTA) announced a series of events to mark 60 years of Dalai Lama’s escape to India. However, the Indian government instructed official functionaries to avoid the CTA’s events, which led the whole programme to be modified and turned into a more low-profile commemoration.
Four years later, the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Jairam Thakur, was scheduled to be the chief guest at the official birthday celebrations in Dharamsala on Wednesday. But, torrential rains disrupted his plans, and he attended the function virtually.
This article went live on July sixth, two thousand twenty two, at fifteen minutes past eight in the evening.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
