No Meetings in Week 1, No Political Talk: Peek Into Dalai Lama’s Month-Long Stay in Leh

Streets and main market squares in Leh are decorated with banners and confetti to mark the arrival of the Dalai Lama on Friday.

The Buddhist spiritual leader would be in the cold desert for over a month provided his health permits and if there is no change in his itinerary, Thupstan Chewwang, Ladakh’s senior most leader, told News18 from Leh.

The two-time Parliamentarian and chairman of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council had travelled to Dharamshala, the headquarters of Dalai Lama, to extend invitation for his Ladakh visit and deliver teachings to vast number of his followers.

“His Holiness will stay in Leh till second week of August. Arrangements have been done to the dot to make his stay comfortable,” said Chewwang, adding for the first week he will not meet anyone but acclimatise with the weather and altitude of the region.

The Dalai Lama has been a regular to the Buddhist-majority Ladakh region, but in the last four years he chose to give it a miss owing to the Covid-19 situation. Ladakh, too, was shut for travel due to the pandemic.

Festive Mood

Leh is gearing up to receive the spiritual leader on Friday. The city wears a festive look; streets are decorated with posters and decorations dangle from high rises and landmark points.

The Dalai Lama would be accorded a massive welcome on Friday when he touches down at Leh airport. Hundreds of followers will stand on either side of the 10 km road till his Choglamsar residence named Photak.

Businessman Ajaz Ahmad said vehicles carrying the spiritual leader’s posters are moving up and down the main market asking people to make his trip memorable. “I have never seen people so happy. Music praising the leader is blaring everywhere in the city. It seems a big carnival is set out there to receive him,” he said.

Not only markets, the Dalai Lama’s place of stay has also been refurbished. The Ladakh administration has ensured massive security arrangements as well.

“His Holiness has some breathing issues and we have, this time around, added a lift at his Photak residence. He will feel comfortable,” Kaa Chering Lakrook, former cabinet minister and vice-president of Ladakh Buddhist Association told News18.

Lakrook said the Dalia Lama would deliver teachings to his followers only for three days at Jevathal ground where thousands would pour in. “If his health allows, he may visit famous monasteries like Shay and Thiksay in Leh and also travel to Zanskar, but all that will be firmed up later,” he said.

The Dalai Lama met his followers in Jammu on Thursday and will take a flight to Leh on Friday.

Eye on China

The Buddhist leader’s visit comes at a time when the Chinese are indulging in air and land transgressions into Indian territory.

It, however, won’t provoke His Holiness to talk politics, Chewwang clarified. “This trip is solely a religious one where he will preach peace, universal brotherhood, humanity and wellbeing of people.”

Observers, however, point out that Dalai Lama’s visit to northern region of the country automatically takes a political hue given that China has always raised objections.

In the last two years, the Indian and Chinese troops have been in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along the Line of Actual Control ever since PLA troops transgressed into the Indian side at four places, including the Galwan Valley. Tension escalated further in the spring of 2020, when Chinese troops crossed into Galwan and attacked Indian soldiers, killing 20.

An unspecified number of Chinese troops, too, were killed but the number has not been made public by the Chinese government. Ever since the incident, there has been a race to build infrastructure and amass soldiers on the LAC in Ladakh.

New Delhi’s policy to accommodate and accord Dalai Lama, the position of leader of Tibetan people, though in exile, had always riled up China since he questioned China’s complete annexation of Tibet in 1959.

The Dalai Lama had then escaped to India where he continues to advocate for the middle-path approach with China to peacefully resolve the issue of Tibet. That approach may be to grant maximum autonomy to the hill region so that Tibetans could have a say in running their day-to-day affairs.

In Jammu, the Dalai Lama struck a conciliatory note with China. He said the people of China were not against him because “they have come to know that I am not a separatist”.

“I just want autonomy and preservation of the Tibetan culture under the People’s Republic of China. I don’t seek independence and the people in China are now supporting me.”

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