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India won't give asylum to Lama

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

With India-China relations at stake, the Vajpayee government has decided not to grant political asylum to the 17th Karmapa Lama who crossed over to India last week.

However, it is examining whether Karmapa can be given refugee status or sent to a third country, according to top officials of the ministry of external affairs.

"The government is of the view that bilateral relations between New Delhi and Beijing is improving and everything should be done by the two countries to keep it that way," senior officials told rediff.com. They indicated that the Tibetan card, which had been used by India in the past, was not worth staking if Indo-China relations, especially at this juncture, stood to be damaged.

"The world scenario today is entirely different from the bygone era and we don't want New Delhi-Beijing ties to be strained," they pointed out.

The officials underscored that if the 17th Karmapa Lama, 14-year-old Urgyen Trinley Dorje, who also heads the Kagyu Buddhist sect, keeps insisting on being granted political asylum in India, he could be sent to a third country. "Obviously, the third country has to be a Buddhist country and Japan might be his most likely destination," they pointed out, adding that decisions pertaining to the Tibetan spiritual leader were still being finalised.

It was indicated that the authorities in Beijing are considerably exercised over the Tibetan spiritual leader's escape to India and they have been consistently exerting pressure that the Lama not be given political asylum in India.

Yesterday, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao indicated that India's granting political asylum to Karmapa Lama would "violate the five principles of peaceful coexistence" which form the basis for bilateral relations between the two countries.

In McLeodganj in Dharamshala, the police are still awaiting the government's green signal to begin the process of registering the Karmapa Lama as a refugee. Senior superintendent of police K C Sadyal pointed out that the Tibetan spiritual leader could not stay there indefinitely without a registration certificate.

Meanwhile, Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi today refused to comment on the Karmapa Lama, saying that his party did not have the details of the case. "We have not been taken into confidence by the government on the matter and its assessment on it is not known," Jogi pointed out.

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