Ab Dilli door nahin...

And so the day approaches.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the latest leg of the Torture Relay will take place in New Delhi, capital city of the world's largest democracy.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, over 13,000 security personnel will line the broad expanses of Rajpath down to India Gate, creating a corridor for 70 Indian citizens to carry the torch of shame, each of whom will have hopefully searched their consciences about the moral and ethical implications to have made an informed decision.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, thousands of free Indian citizens and our Tibetan friends will be denied their legal right to protest in the vicinity of the torch, which has now been reduced to nothing more than a crass symbol of authoritarianism and jingoistic nationalism for one of the most tyrannical regimes in today's world.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, thousands will watch across the world as New Delhi delivers, at a governmental level, the greatest slap on the face of democracy and Indian suzerainty, as elite commandos from China's special forces escort the torch on Indian soil.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will watch the Government of the Republic of India, (led by, lets not forget so easily, the only political party in India to have voluntarily suspended the Fundamental Rights of the Indian Citizen through the declaration of an Emergency in 1975) as it genuflects before the Communist Party of China, accompanied in its prostrations by its supporters in the Indian communist parties.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will watch as India turns its back on the greatest opportunity to break out of the shadow of its eastern neighbour and demonstrate to the wider world at large that while the globe can talk of "China & India" in the same breath, the two are fundamentally different countries, cultures and regimes. Tomorrow, the world will watch as the Government of the Republic of India voluntarity subsumes itself to the dictats of Beijing, while absolving itself of any responsibility to uphold freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of political thought, freedom of peaceful dissent, and most of all, freedom of conscience.

But that is not all. Tomorrow may be a day of despair, but it is also a day of glory.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will watch runners cobbled together by the Indian Olympic Committee, but will remember that four Indian citizens chose not to participate in the Torture Relay. The world will watch and will think of Bhaichung Bhutia, Kiran Bedi, Soha Ali Khan Pataudi and Sachin Tendulkar. Only Bhaichung has cited his support for the Tibetan cause, but the gradual withdrawal of the others is yet another moral victory for those of us who would draw attention to the crass politicking of the Chinese Communist Party in its attempt to turn what could have been a great opportunity for change into a despicable attempt at projecting hegemonic glory while seeking political acceptance from the six continents of the world.

Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will also watch as (hopefully) thousands of free Indian citizens and our Tibetans friends will congregate separately to lead a freedom rally, away from the main tunnel of shame. Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will watch as the stands surrounding the tunnel of shame stay nearly empty, with the Government of the State of Delhi announcing today that schoolchildren will not be sent to attend the the Torture Relay. Tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, the world will watch as Delhi and India turns its back on the torch, sending the clear message that even when the Government does not raise its voice in conscientious disagreement, the citizens of India will.

So if you are reading this from India, from Delhi, then go and show your support for the thousands who will follow the torch of freedom, who will stand in solidarity against a mighty military empire with nothing more than the strength of their convictions as their weapons. Go and show the world that India is the world's largest democracy, the only country in the world to have defeated the world's greatest coloniser with the power of the conscience, the land of the Mahatma, of ahimsa, of satyagraha, of the Buddha and Mahavira, of Meera, Ashoka and Parashurama. Go and show the world that even if the rest of the world will capitulate in the face of economic and military power, India will not.

And make sure that tomorrow, on the 17th of April, 2008, your voice is heard.

(The title of this post is taken from vernacular references to the 1847 War of Independence, when sepoys from Meerut headed towards Delhi to crown Bahadur Shah Zafar the Emperor of India. No reference to violent protest is implied, and the author completely disassociates himself from any violent protest - violence is not something that would make The Buddha Smile)

Why Tibet Matters

It's been almost fifty years since the 1959 invasion of Tibet by China, an act of aggression which merely formalised the sustained political, military and social pressure that an increasingly strident Communist government had been applying for several years to the isolated country. The political and religious elite fled soon thereafter, crossing into India where they were granted political asylum, setting the precedent for a stream of over 1 million Tibetan refugees over the years. However, after capturing the attention of the world for a few brief years, the Tibetan struggle for independence soon fell by the wayside, as more and more governments sought to form stronger ties with a China that was growing at a sustained pace never recorded before in world economic history. Who cared about the concerns of a small minority, whose only claim to fame was that their temporal leader was also one of the most influential figures in Buddhism, itself a religion easily relegated by the more rigid of thought to a less than serious status as the manna of a hippie fringe seeking enlightenment?

And so it may have been - for over thirty years, the world turned a blind eye as the population of ethnic Tibetans remained stagnant at just over 5 million, while the number of ethnic Han Chinese in the territory has increased several fold. The world ignored Tianenmen Square, and also the brutal suppression of protests in Lhasa in 1989. The world ignored the Chinese crackdown on Falun Dafa, as it ignores the continued arrest, torture and detention of Chinese human rights activists; the recent imprisonment of Hu Jia is only one of many such acts. In fact, not only did the world ignore these excesses, it was often complicit in them: multinational companies, including Google and Yahoo, were too eager to bend over backwards and provide sensitive information to Chinese authorities regarding political dissidents in their attempts to avoid being kicked out of an increasingly attractive market. Economics, or so it appeared, had won the battle for the world's willingness to engage with China. The manner in which Chinese support for a regime supporting genocide against its own people in Darfur has stymied international intervention over the past two years seemed to indicate that the Red Dragon had won, and nobody would quite be willing to take a stand against what is most likely going to be the hegemon of this century.

So why bother? And does it matter whether or not the world takes up the Tibetan cause?

The answer is that it does matter. In fact, it is of crucial importance that the world engages with China (and when I say China I refer to both its government and its people) if we are to influence the the world we will live in tomorrow. Globalisation is often touted as a recent phenomenon, something that really only became a reality in the latter part of the twentieth century. This is, however, only partially true - the only thing that is recent about globalisation is its democratisation, and the flexibiltiy with which both human and financial capital can now be deployed around the world. Technological advances have made it much easier for individuals to move and travel, while access to information is increasing exponentially (provided you're not sitting behind a Chinese government firewall in Shanxi or Guangzhou).

What is a much older phenomenon is what I could call the authoritarian part of globalisation, where the fates of millions were decided by decision makers in places often thousands of miles away. Jewish populations in Lithuania and Italy were condemned to gas chambers by policies agreed in Berlin; millions of Indians died of famine during World War II thanks to Winston Churchill's economic policies, while Palestinians today live in refugee camps or in ghettos in the West Bank and Ramallah thanks to the Balfour Declaration made in London. Iraq is burning today thanks to decisions made in Washington DC, and even as we speak, it is difficult to guess where Iran will be in the next few years. The impact and influence at any given time that the world's current hegemonic power has over the rest of the globe is immense and often immeasurable; just watch the fascination with which media organisations cover US Presidential elections around the world; elections in which only a few hundred million will vote to choose a leader with the greatest global impact worldwide.

And this is why Tibet matters. IR theorists have been debating whether or not America's role as the world's sole superpower, a position of preeminence that it has enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, is coming to an end or not. What is not being debated is China's inexorable rise as a military and economic power; as time goes by, the extent and strength of the influence it will exert in global discussions will only increase.

And so the question we must ask ourselves is what sort of global power do we want to be active in the world over the next one hundred years? Do we want the worlds that we and our children will live in to be shadowed by the presence of a large, largely democratic state that values human rights, encourages dialogue and freedom of speech, and values the individual's right to life, liberty and property? Or will we be happy to have the greatest influence of global discourse on trade, defence and economy to be an authoritarian state, where torture in prisons continues to be an endemic issue, where arrests are sudden, unprovoked and where shrill government spokespersons are the only sources of information, where free speech does not exist, and where critical thinking is not tolerated?

So the issue of Tibet is now much more than how China chooses to engage with demonstrators in the territory. While the protests surrounding the Torture Relay are as much about the brutal crackdown on clergy and laity alike in Tibet and China's western provinces, the issues has magnified into something much less tangible, but with far greater repercussions on all of our lives. How China deals with Tibet has become part of a broader discussion of the shape and form of the world that we want to live in. Tibet is no longer an issue between two Asian countries. And if you think that Tibet is someone else's problem, you only need to look at the streets of London yesterday, where a large Chinese security detail, part of the government machinery that uses brutal methods against its population, jogged with impunity through the streets, while protestors wearing "Free Tibet" t-shirts were ordered to leave the area. Democracy is a very fragile institution, and it does not take much to descend into authoritarianism (and if you disagree with that, I'd only point you towards Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib). The question is, at what point does it become important to speak out?

So, dear reader, if you live in a country where you will not be jailed for raising your voice, for wearing your beliefs on your t-shirt, where it is legal to stand in the street and chant, "Tibet will be free", and if you are in a city through which the Torture Relay is scheduled to pass, then as a citizen of the world, as a friend to those millions who cannot wave a simple cloth without fear of detention, torture and summary execution, in solidarity with the people of a country where it is illegal to have a photograph of the Dalai Lama, go and protest. Do so nonviolently, because violence only begets violence. Go and stand in peace, in harmony and in solidarity. Go and protest the rally, not just for your Tibetan brethren, but for the millions of Chinese citizens who are currently locked up in prison for having the courage to express their views in public, for challenging their regime through peaceful protest and dialogue. Go and protest to send a message to your government and that of China's, and other authoritarian regimes like it, that the voice of millions cannot be discounted. Do not despair - it was after all the student protests of the 1980's that finally forced an economic embargo onto the apartheid regime in South Africa, which crumbled in the following decade.

Do not be silent, because that is another name for complicity. Protest, for the millions in bondage around the world. Protest, but not just for the millions in bondage around the world.

Do it for yourself, and do it for your children.

Torture Relay

Almost a month after protests to commemorate the 1959 invasion of Tibet by China turned violent in Lhasa, we are seeing no resolution to either the tension within the territory, nor to the growing complexity of international politics surrounding China, Tibet and the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Activists and supporters of many causes, including Darfur, Falun Gong, the environment and general human rights, had so far struggled to broadly link the Beijing Olympics with China's generally dismal record of not respecting individual civil liberties, while supporting regimes that indulged in the genocide of their own populations. Darfur was perhaps the strongest rallying point for activists worldwide, in no small way due to the tireless efforts of celebrity campaigners including, among others, Mia Farrow. China has been able to avoid significant censure from governments on the strength of its economy.







But Tibet is proving to be a thornier issue to resolve. Perhaps as a result of, or directly due to, the stature of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, China has struggled to both brutally prevent protests in Tibet and to present a less than completely negative image in the international press. A carefully choreographed visit by foreign journalists to the Jokhang temple complex in Lhasa backfired badly when resident Tibetan monks, at no small risk to personal safety, chose to break through and directly address the journalists in an attempt to present their side of the story.



And the protests continued today in London, as the Olympic Torch completed its 31 mile tour of the city. Protestors lined the streets along the circuit, starting from Wembley Stadium, through West London, across the heart into the East. News reports suggest that over 35 protestors were arrested.

I went to the protest at Queensway station, just down the road from Notting Hill and the more exciting events of the morning, where protestors attempted to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher at Holland Park. Queensway was a surprisingly bourgeois scene, where pacific middle-aged professionals lined the streets, huddled under umbrellas while waving Tibetan flags. Some more dedicated protestors had loudspeakers and led the slogans, while a handful of Metropolitan policemen (approximately 10) were designated to control a crowd of well over 100.

A few memorable moments:

1) A Dominican friar, out in full regalia, including hood and cassock, distributing Free Tibet lapel pins

2) A family with a baby waving small Free Tibet flags

3) A woman with two dogs, both of whom followed the sloganeering with great interest

4) A police photographer openly videotaping all protesters...

I will write a further post about what I believe needs to be done as the Torch wends its way across the globe, most notably in India, but for now, I leave you with some photographs from the demonstration this morning...