In Dharamsala, a small town at the foot of the great Himalayas, some 7,000 Tibetans await better times. They await the day when they can return to their homeland. More than 100,000 compatriots live scattered throughout India. Many were exiled while others were born there.

In 1950, Mao’s Communist China invaded Tibet, a region of 2.5 million square kilometers or one quarter of the surface of Chinese geostrategic value. Tibetans have had experience at various times in their history of how invasions go – by the armies of the Manchu Emperor Kangxi in 1720, by the British Empire in 1904, as well as by the Russians. The regime of Mao reasserted a historical claim to expand China’s eastern border and finally achieved it.

Tibetans increased their protests at the United Nations, but the international community refused to intervene and, thus, the communist leader imposed authority over the land of the monks.

Prior to this date, Tibet was a feudal society where the majority of the population revolved around the monasteries, and survived without major resources. The first communist obsession was to secularize the public and the communists did not hesitate to plunder temples. The Tibetans were displaced and began to sink under the hostility that is caught between nationalism and xenophobia towards the Chinese.

The situation became untenable. In 1959, the population of Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, rose in a failed insurrection that ended with the Dalai Lama fleeing to India, followed by some 150,000 people. The rebellion left behind some 10,000 dead.

From that time onwards, Tibet was virtually divided in two. In exile, Tibetans have a government led by the Dalai Lama in a territory ceded to India, Dharamsala. The Dalai Lama is head of state but the administration is in the hands of the prime minister and seven other ministers. They also have a judiciary and a parliament which is elected every five years by the registered voters in exile. The exile government may be organized but it sorely lacks international recognition.

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Via Reuters