The Karmapa conundrum

THE KARMAPA LAMA, 14-year-old chief of the Kagyu sect of Buddhism, has fled Tibet and surfaced in India. His action is reminiscent of the Dalai Lama's flight in 1959 from Tibet. Just as his stay in India since then hurt relations between India and China with calamitous consequences of the 1962 war, the Karmapa Lama's arrival has the potential for straining the ties which have not fully mended as yet. China has said if India gives political asylum or shelter to the Karmapa Lama, the act would be a violation of the Pancha Sheel. However, the same five principles of peaceful co-existence, enunciated by the two countries in the 1950s, were not able to prevent the 1962 war.

Down the ages, India has given refuge and succour to all those who were persecuted. Christians from Syria, Jews from Palestine and Zoroastrians (Parsis) from Persia (Iran) fled their tormentors. They have been given shelter and land to settle down; they have become India's honoured citizens and are living in dignity and enjoying unfettered freedom to practise their faith and ways of worship. It would be repugnant to India's traditions to refuse shelter to the Karmapa Lama. However, nations with political ideologies and adversarial relationships are a reality, which complicates the question of his being given political asylum what with the Chinese sensitivities and possible hostility.

At this very time, there is a similar problem in the United States. A six-year-old boy, along with his mother and others, was fleeing Cuba in a boat which however capsized. The child is the sole survivor, picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard in Florida. Should this boy be returned to the country as demanded by communist Cuba and by his stepfather? Just as the large Tibetan population in India is worked up over the Karmapa Lama issue, the tens of thousands of Cubans living in exile in Florida are in a state of anxiety and excitement. They want the boy given asylum in the U.S. Meanwhile the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) of the U.S. has decided that he be returned to Cuba, on the ground that the stepfather has legal custody of the boy. There is a strong political opinion in the U.S., just as in India, that the boy, (like the Karmapa Lama) should not be sent back to Cuba (to China).

Another incident disturbing nations on another continent is the death sentence on the leader of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan. He was to be hanged as per a court judgment but on a petition from a human rights group, the European Court of Justice is seized of the matter. Turkey stayed the execution just in time. The European public opinion is so strong as to block its entry into the European Community. The Europeans express horror at the human rights violations in Turkey. However, within Turkey itself there is a strong public opinion in favour of executing Ocalan. Thus the issues concerning individuals on the three continents cannot be decided solely on their merit but are influenced by international relations, especially between not so- well disposed neighbours.

India cannot afford to enrage China. As the Karmapa Lama is only a minor and is engaged in studies to qualify himself to be the leader of his sect, New Delhi and Beijing can agree that, without referring to the issues of his flight from China and seeking political asylum in India, he be given a long-term, temporary, student visa for studies in monasteries and universities. This arrangement could continue until he becomes a major, four years hence. Meanwhile, we should expect wiser counsel and better understanding to prevail between India and China to work out a permanent and mutually satisfactory solution. Nations which want human rights as well as peaceful co-existence between neighbours and which do not want any aggravation of ill-will can use their influence and goodwill to help India and China adopt this pragmatic and innocuous solution. After all, time is a great healer.

T. H. CHOWDARY

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