World Tibet Day Is An Excellent Illustration Of The Solidarity Of The Global Community: Sethu Das Discusses His Travels And Friends Of Tibet

World Tibet Day Is An Excellent Illustration Of The Solidarity Of The Global Community

Sethu Das traveled to Srinagar for a job after graduating from the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara and ended up in Dharamshala, which is home to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. and discovered his purpose in life. He created the Friends of Tibet, a pressure group, with one member in 1999 after being moved by the tales of Chinese atrocities in Tibet that the former political prisoners of Tibet told him. He never registered the group. Sethu Das co-founded Design & People in 2003, with the tagline “Design For People In Need.” In order to conduct and publish research on the heritage, legacies, and history of Tibet in conjunction with academics, scholars, sociologists, and practitioners of holistic health education, he established the Friends of Tibet [Research] in 2019.

1: Could you give us the history of how Friends of Tibet was founded and how things have gone thus far?

A: The only things I had in common with Tibet were a book a friend gave me and an old video where I witnessed His Holiness the Dalai Lama fixing a watch. But nothing occurs for no purpose. Years later, I unintentionally visited Dharamshala, which helped me get to know the Tibetan people and their exiled spiritual leader.
After all my attempts to join a Tibet Support Group in India failed, Friends of Tibet was formally established on March 9, 1999, during an unofficial gathering in Dharamshala. I have no experience managing organizations since I am not an organizational man. Therefore, I decided that joining an established organization would be preferable to founding one from scratch in order to demonstrate my support and offer my expertise. I was unimpressed by my initial interactions with several of the top Tibet Support Groups. Instead of whining, I made the decision to launch a platform or organization in Bombay, where I formerly resided. We found it simple to view the Tibetan predicament via the organization’s lens because activists like Tenzin Tsundue played a significant role.
1) Once the Tibet issue is addressed, we will never register the organization since we do not wish to endure for any additional time. 2) The organization won’t have any assets and won’t employ any paid activists, but it will welcome everyone (from any background) to join and give their knowledge and abilities to the cause of Tibet. 3) The group will support Tibetans (both in Tibet and in exile), but it will continue to support the continuing independence movement in Tibet.
Long-term, we anticipate that our modest efforts will result in bigger spiritual advantages and accomplishments for this cause.

2: The Tibetan identity has been tirelessly preserved, protected, and promoted by Tibetans living in exile. What best describes the spirit and resilience of the Tibetan people?

A: There is no question that the Tibetan people are one of the most prosperous refugee groups and that the Tibetan Government in Exile is a legitimate and efficient exile government. The community is fortunate to have a fatherly figure like His Holiness the Dalai Lama who has guided the community’s struggle for freedom for many years and continues to encourage them. At a time when China was actively attempting to demolish and erase the culture, the Dalai Lama and the first generation of Tibetans in exile have done an incredible job of conserving the Tibetan identity.
We are proud of the many positive aspects of the exiled community. However, this is only one aspect of the conflict. The true battle of liberating an oppressed country while living in exile and with the assistance and support of the world community is no longer remembered. No community can afford to ignore the risks surrounding them and live in complacency. The Tibetans have a compelling argument and every justification to reclaim their lost independence. And at no cost could the Tibetan community condense their struggle for justice and truth against a powerful empire to a conflict over information or scholarly rivalry with China. To fully participate, the neighborhood needs to realize its potential and concentrate on pressing challenges.
3: One of the things we have been working on is the notion of incorporating compassion education into the curriculum of contemporary schools. This is a vision that HH the 14th Dalai Lama frequently expresses. How have the Dalai Lama’s teachings on compassion and peace—values that our society urgently needs right now—influenced you? Do you think compassion has the ability to transform the world?

A: Due to my personal ignorance and lack of familiarity with the topic, I would refrain from responding to this issue.

4: It’s amazing to see how well-liked the Tibet Pavilion is at the Kochi Biennale venue, where Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam are exhibiting Shadow Circus. Would you please elaborate on the exhibition?

A: Around 1999, Friends of Tibet began working with Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam to talk about their involvement in the “Festival of Tibet” that we planned for Bombay the following year. The filmmaker couple managed to fly all the way to Bombay in order to take part in the month-long celebration that the Dalai Lama had inaugurated, even though Lhamo Tsering, the father of Tenzing Sonam, had already passed away by that point. Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam addressed the possibility of working with Friends of Tibet after they received the invitation to take part in the fifth iteration of the Kochi Muziris Biennale. We decided to work with the “Shadow Circus: A Personal Archive of Tibetan Resistance” initiative after a few discussions in order to reach the greatest number of supporters possible from around the globe. Even though hosting such an event for four months was fraught with logistical challenges, we were incredibly pleased to learn that the exhibition brought in more than four lakh visitors during that time, which is unusual and unthinkable for Tibet-related events. It was The Shadow Circus.

The Shadow Circus served as a wake-up call for academics and researchers as well as newcomers and supporters, many of whom were unaware of the valiant armed struggle of the peace-loving Tibetans who resisted the occupying forces from 1957 to 1974 with the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

5: Why do you think the world should talk about Tibet and Tibet-related topics more? Doesn’t the problem merit additional consideration? Should Tibet and the rest of us not be friends? 😊 What can we do to spread the word about Tibet? For instance, World Tibet Day is observed in an effort to raise awareness of the Tibet issue.

A: Let me consider this from a slightly different angle. I don’t think the Tibet problem has gone unnoticed by the international community. The world has continued to support the Tibetan people because of His Holiness and his undeniable leadership. There are a lot of people who are sympathetic to the plight of the Tibetans, even within China.

A good illustration of the global community’s solidarity is World Tibet Day. Richard Rosenkranz (1942-2014), a Jewish history Pulitzer Prize nominee and former US Senate journalist whom I regard as a mentor, founded the event. I worked with him on his Foundation after we first met in Berlin in 2003 and continued to do so until his passing. When he began experiencing health issues, Richard, a polio survivor, asked Friends of Tibet Foundation to take over the World Tibet Day-related events. He was a very charismatic leader with a walking stick who socialised with the wealthy, well-known, and influential. Tendzin Choegyal, the younger brother of the Dalai Lama, and Richard first met informally in 1997, and this is when World.

Richard had a key role in establishing World Tibet Day as a significant occasion in the Tibetan calendar, which began in 1997 at a casual gathering between Tendzin Choegyal, the younger brother of the Dalai Lama. His Holiness’ birthday, World Tibet Day, was celebrated in more than 78 nations around the world in 2021. We are honored to be one of the event’s main organisers on a global scale.

6: Could you elaborate on your relationship with Tushar Gandhi, a writer and the great-grandson of Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi?

A: We initially connected while working on a project for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He is Friends of Tibet’s close friend and advisor. Additionally, he had a good relationship with my father, a political cartoonist, and a mentor to our organization. I consider Tushar Gandhi and his late father, Arun Manilal Gandhi, to be sincere proponents of the cause of Tibet. The Chinese Embassy refused to grant Arun Gandhi ji a visa in 2015 after discovering a photo of him with the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King III taken in Washington, DC, in 2011. However, in order to obtain his visa, Arun Gandhi refused to apologise and defame His Holiness the Dalai Lama and instead decided to stand up for the truth. I told His Holiness the Dalai Lama about the Chinese visa incident during a Friends of Tibet meeting with him in 2018. He expressed sincere regret for what had occurred to Arun Gandhi ji.

7: There has been much debate about Chinese meddling in His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet’s reincarnation process. What are your thoughts on the matter?

A nation of paradoxes and contradictions, China. Both the best and the worst will come out of China. It has the capacity to both create disease-causing pathogens for use in state-sponsored biowarfare programmes and deploy the full task force to combat the same diseases. Both the best and worst consumer goods in the world are made in China.
Conflicts cause the balance to become unstable. Marxism and capitalism, as well as atheism and religious beliefs, are all in conflict in contemporary China. Take a look at the Chinese economy. China is attempting to open its economic while maintaining a closed society, unaware that doing so may ultimately cause the country to sacrifice either its economy or its society. Even in the selection of the next Dalai Lama, we observe similar conflict. Ironically, a nation that does not practise religion is more eager to “appoint” the next Dalai Lama based on Buddhist reincarnation concepts than Tibetan Buddhists are. Anyone can be appointed by China’s military dictatorship, even the next Pope!

8: How crucial, in your opinion, is it to talk about the climatic catastrophe in Tibet? How, in your opinion, can CCP be made to answer for its environmental crimes in the Third Pole and greenwashing?

A: I was rereading Jared Diamond’s book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” The book is more of a collection of studies on the political, economic, and social aspects that individually contributed to the demise of some of the most influential nations and legendary civilizations. The ‘factory of the world’, China, is the subject of one of the chapters.

India and other nearby nations are currently dealing with severe repercussions of China’s illegal activities inside of occupied Tibet. Self-inflicted environmental issues in China are having a negative impact on the rest of the world and are contributing to the current climate disaster. It is simpler to stop climate change than to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) responsible for the environmental and human rights abuses that it has committed.

9: You did well by supporting The Mask Lab and Friends of Tibet Foundation’s Spreading Masks campaign. Would you please elaborate on the campaign?

A: The ‘Spreading Masks’ initiative was started in 2020 by The Mask Lab (India) in collaboration with Friends of Tibet Foundation, the organization’s charitable arm. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few boxes of facemasks of the highest quality were given away without charge. At the start of the pandemic, no nation possessed the necessary technology or resources to create disposable medical masks, with the exception of China, which is now suspected of intentionally producing COVID as a bioweapon. At a time when wealthy nations were instructing their populace on how to construct masks using two rubber bands and a handkerchief, The Mask Lab’s Himachal Pradesh facility was creating high-quality medical masks.

The Spreading Masks campaign was soon launched by Friends of Tibet Foundation in collaboration with The Mask Lab. In some of the most distant areas of India, where people had access to export-quality masks, we were able to provide a significant number of N95 masks gratis by extending our relationship with the Men-Tsee-Khang, the Tibetan Medical and Astro-Science Institute of HH the Dalai Lama. According to Control Print, approximately 19,00,000 free masks worth 3.3 crore had been issued in India by March 2022.

10: If the world could do one thing for Tibet, what would it be?

A famous saying by Albert Camus is, “In a world of conflicts, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners!” I would just like to remind everyone of this.

Bharat Express English