Candle lit processions

Every evening hundreds of Tibetans circle around McCloud Ganj with candles, chanting an endless prayer for the Tibetan martyrs who have so recently died from self-immolation. The procession heads down to the temple, where a Tibetan speaks to the people. On the evening when I joined the procession someone (not a  Tibetan) had lit a fire just outside the temple and the smoke filled the air where the Tibetans stood. They paid no attention to this. Twenty five Tibetans, most of them monks, have so far set light to themselves, in protest against the Chinese government's decision to force, not only the schools, but also the monasteries, to teach, pray and perform rituals in Chinese. 

In conversation with a young Tibetan refugee, I learned that some Tibetans in Tibet had already forgotten their Tibetan language because they had gone to school, where only Chinese is spoken and written. The aim of the Chinese is to eliminate Tibetan culture, religion, language: in short to eliminate the Tibetan nation. As long as the Dalai Lama is alive they can never succeed. Tibetans continue to protest in Tibet and to make the perilous journey across the Himalayas to see His Holiness, to learn Tibetan and English and to practice their religion. The young man I was talking to walked out of Tibet with a group of young men and a guide. They travelled by night and hid in caves or in the snow, huddled together for warmth by day, hoping that the Chinese would not discover them. It took them twenty six days to reach Nepal, where they were met by a Tibetan refugee reception committee, who provided them with food and somewhere to sleep, until they could arrange transport out of Nepal to India.  “I slept so well when I reached Nepal” he said. Although the journey out of Tibet is perilous, Tibetans continue to leave, but returning seems to be much more difficult. It would appear that the Chinese are happy to allow Tibetans to leave, though they do not make it easy for them, but they try much harder to stop them crossing the border back into Tibet.

Life in India is not easy for the Tibetans. As refugees they cannot apply for a passport, buy land or property and very few jobs are available to them.