The Dalai Lama is the face of a complex refugee problem

The Dalai Lama, who completed 60 years of exile in India in March, is usually humorous and candid. Last weekend, however, shortly after World Refugee Day, the Tibetan spiritual leader drew attention for his maladroitness in an interview with the BBC.  

“European countries should take these refugees and give them education and training … and then return [them] to their own land,” he said. “Limited number okay; but the whole Europe eventually become Muslim country? Impossible. Or African country? Also impossible … They themselves, I think, better go to their own land. Better to keep Europe for Europeans.”  

The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, says 70.8 million people have been forced from their homes by conflict or persecution as the world’s migration crisis worsens.  

The Dalai Lama, who turns 84 this Saturday, heads one of the world’s oldest refugee populations. The Tibetans’ government-in-exile, headquartered in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, has with India’s benign support established a quasi-nation, with a large network of NGOs, cultural organizations, and 59 monasteries. The home ministry’s latest annual report says, as of June 30, 2013, the Tibetan population in India totaled 108,005.  

Three generations of Tibetan refugees now live in 45 settlements across 10 states – the largest number is in Karnataka – sustaining themselves on agriculture and handicrafts.  

The Dalai Lama also repeated a controversial comment he made in an earlier interview that if he was succeeded by a woman, she should be attractive, otherwise she would be “not much use”.  

On Tuesday, the Dalai Lama’s office issued a long and convoluted mea culpa in which he said his remarks about refugees may have been ‘misinterpreted’. “He certainly appreciates that many of those who leave their countries may not wish or be able to return, and that Tibetans, who cherish the idea of returning home, would find their country irrevocably altered. However, His Holiness also understands the uncertainties and difficulties of those in countries where refugees and migrants make their new homes.” 

Not Skin-Deep 

The statement also said the remarks about a likely female successor were originally made as a ‘joke’ to the editor of Vogue in 1992 because the Dalai Lama was surrounded by an ‘unfamiliar ambience’. “However, it sometimes happens that off-the-cuff remarks, which might be amusing in one cultural context, lose their humour in translation …”  

There is little to joke about among the Tibetans. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the government-in-exile, lists 153 self-immolations in Tibet and other Chinese provinces since 2009, many of them by monks and nuns protesting against Beijing’s repressive rule.  

The exiles in India have almost no hope of going back to their homeland. Our citizenship laws allow any Tibetan born in India between 1950 and 1987 to apply for citizenship. Younger Tibetans, born to at least one Indian citizen after 1987, are also entitled to citizenship. After the courts upheld these rights several times – lawyer Giriraj Subramanium told me he had secured favorable rulings in at least 150 cases – the Ministry of External Affairs has now streamlined the process. 

The CTA is not happy – every Tibetan acquiring Indian nationality dilutes the exiles’ dream of returning home. India requires these newly-minted citizens to move out of the refugee settlements and give up any benefits and subsidies they enjoyed. But younger Tibetans were chafing at their lack of rights and mobility. They could travel overseas with Identity Certificates, but after much red tape, and had to secure exit and re-entry permits. Refugees educated in Indian schools were barred from government jobs.  

A complex maze of rules made life tougher. I heard about a special army unit based out of Odisha that had many Tibetan personnel. The Election Commission (EC) issued voter IDs to refugees even though they only possessed the distinctive yellow Registration Certificates, so long as they were born in India between 1950 and 1987.  

In October 2014, the Narendra Modi government issued the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy, which set humane and uniform guidelines for all states. They promise 20-year leases for all land being used by refugee settlements; water, electricity and roads; access to government schemes like MGNREGS, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), affordable housing, and the public distribution system (PDS). They also allow professionally qualified Tibetans to work in private-sector jobs. 

Can’t Refuse Refuge 

India has a confusing refugee policy. As I wrote last November (‘Punching Below Our Weight’), India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. Oddly, the home ministry deals directly only with Tibetan and Sri Lankan refugees. The ministry says as of December 31, 2017, there were 62,146 Sri Lankan refugees in 108 camps, nearly all in Tamil Nadu, and another 36,260 Sri Lankan refugees living outside the camps. All of them get assistance from the central government, as do the Tibetans.  

The UNHCR office in Delhi gave me other refugee data:  

About 19,000 Myanmarese refugees, including Rohingya, plus about 1,700 asylum-seekers (who are yet to be granted refugee status);  

About 7,000 Afghan refugees plus 8,000 asylum-seekers;

About 50 Iranian refugees and 30 asylum-seekers.  

As of end-May 2019, UNHCR India had a total of 27,351 refugees and 11,809 asylum seekers on its registers. UNHCR provides cash assistance only to a very small number of the most vulnerable refugees: ₹3,800 a month for the head of household and ₹2,000 for dependants.  

These numbers, of course, do not count undocumented migrants, which the Modi government now wants to put right with a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC). That is a pretty kettle of fish.