In the tireless drive of the Dalai Lama and his admirers to promote the Tibetan struggle as a wholly non-violent affair conducted by a race of uniquely spiritual people (who would rather give up their country than commit any act of violence) truth has, unfortunately, become the first of casualties. However pious and arguably necessary, this mission to project Tibetan history and contemporary events through the rose-tinted lens of official pacifist ideology ignores the sacrifice and courage of the many thousands of Tibetan freedom fighters (monks and lamas included) who took up arms to fight for the freedom of their country. But I have commented at length on this in a couple of other articles and it is perhaps unnecessary to go into it again.
I touch on the subject here primarily to bring to the reader’s attention some observations on "truth" and "non-violence" by a person eminently qualified to pronounce on them. Mahatma Gandhi believed that the love of truth was a more important human quality than non-violence. He called his methods Satyagraha or "firmness in truth", and felt that terms like "pacifism" or "non-violence" did not fully convey the essential spirit of his philosophy of action.
At the beginning of World War II, Gandhi supported a resolution for recruiting Indians into the war effort. He even went around raising recruits himself, though many people were upset by this. "You are a votary of ahimsa," some of his followers protested. "How can you ask us to take up arms?" Gandhi’s reply reveals how he considered a person’s social responsibility and his duty to his country to sometimes override even a powerful moral conviction as non-violence. He said: "I recognise that in the hour of its danger we must give, as we have decided to give, ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire of which we aspire in the near future to be partners in the same sense as the Dominions overseas … I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment, and I know that India by this very act, would become the most favoured partner in the Empire, and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past."
When Pakistani raiders invaded Kashmir and began to approach Srinagar — after Kashmir’s accession to India on October 26, 1947 — appeals were made to Prime Minister Nehru by leaders of Kashmir, including the Maharajah and the popular Muslim leader, Sheikh Abdullah, but Nehru dithered. Finally, at the insistence of Patel, Nehru ordered military help to proceed. Patel, through a broadcast over All India Radio, commandeered all aircraft available in India and started air operations. A relieved Gandhi told Patel, "At one time I was feeling very miserable and oppressed when I heard this [the Pakistan invasion]. But when the Kashmir operation began, I began to feel proud of them, and every aeroplane that goes with materials and arms and ammunition and requirements of the Army, I feel proud."
Gandhi justified his view, "Any injustice on our land, any encroachment on our land should be defended by violence, if not by non-violence… If you can defend by non-violence, by all means do it; that is the first thing I should like. If it is for me to do, I would not touch anything, either a pistol or revolver or anything. But I would not see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless." (’Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: India’s Iron Man’, B Krishna, Harper Collins India, 1996.)
Tibetan ideas on non-violence are, by comparison, confused, naive, and in certain cases seem to derive from magical beliefs inherent in traditional Tibetan thinking. For instance, the speaker of the Tibetan People’s Assembly, Samdhong Rinpoche, who has come out with his own version of Gandhi’s Satyagraha doctrine (but which Rinpoche has translated somewhat awkwardly as "Truth Insistence"), once made the somewhat fantastic pronouncement that if fifty percent of the Tibetan people were able to comprehend Rinpoche’s doctrine of "Truth Insistence", the Chinese would be compelled to leave Tibet in less than three months. The Dalai Lama does not make as extravagant a claim for the efficacy of his Middle Way doctrine. Both views, however, reflect their roots in traditional metaphysical thinking and clearly reveal an imperfect understanding of the politics of nation states and the Darwinian reality of our modern world.
Certainly, peace is preferable to war, and non-violence to violence. Only someone with serious mental or moral shortcomings would dispute the general rightness, even righteousness, of the proposition. But people and nations are sometimes confronted with problems where violent action seems to be not only the only possible solution but the heroic and wise one as well.
Was the illusory peace that Chamberlain and Daladier bartered from Hitler at Munich worth the price of betraying Czechoslovakia? On the other hand, were President Roosevelt’s efforts to push a reluctant America into World War II the evil machinations of a Jew-loving warmonger, as the German propaganda ministry might have put it, or an act that probably saved mankind from Nazi domination?
Or closer home, was it wrong for the people of Lhasa to rise up in armed rebellion to protect the life of the Dalai Lama? Was it wrong of the Dalai Lama to use the armed escort of resistance fighters to escape from Lhasa? What would have happened had he remained? He might have been killed in the fighting, or suffered imprisonment, torture and public humiliation like the Tenth Panchen Lama. In the opinion of the Dalai Lama’s youngest brother, Tenzin Choegyal, had the Dalai Lama remained in Tibet "…they (the Chinese) would have used His Holiness just as the Japanese used poor Pu Yi (the last Manchu Emperor). That’s what he would have become, another Pu Yi." (Kundun, Mary Craig, Harper Collins, 1997).
So, in a sense, the Dalai Lama owes his freedom, his present international stature and maybe even his Nobel Peace Prize to violent men who rescued him not only from physical danger but from a situation that was politically and morally compromising. They also freed him from a relationship with the Communist Chinese that was not only hopeless but unhealthy as well.
This article does not seek to advocate that Tibetans take up arms here and now, but to point out to our leaders and friends that the complexities of human affairs call for a more eclectic and robust approach to the Tibetan problem than the current pacifist inertia. Even if, let us say, we eventually adopt a non-violent strategy this decision should come through study, discussion and appreciation of realities, not merely as an article of divine faith nor because it is being applauded by celebrities and world leaders for whom peace, trade with China, and maintenance of the status quo, is definitely more important than Tibetan freedom.
But getting back to Gandhi. When all’s said and done, the Mahatma’s brand of non-violence towers above ours because his was a doctrine of sacrifice, courage and above all action; qualities, which in the Tibetan non-violent movement are conspicuous only by their absence — unless one counts the heroic courage of some lone activists inside Tibet. Otherwise, in the rank and leadership of the movement in exile, non-violent activism seems to have become entirely an affair of celebrities, religious ceremonies, rock concerts, Hollywood movies, conferences, careers and conveniences. The ultimate convenience being the giving up of our main goal of independence in order to save "Tibetan Buddhist culture" — a euphemism, if I have ever heard one, for the power of the theocracy. We should also remember that Gandhi led by example. The genuine simplicity of the Mahatma’s lifestyle (Sarojini Naidu’s crack about the cost of supporting the Mahatma’s poverty is more witty than substantial), his readiness to face police batons, endure imprisonment, even face death for his convictions were doubtless more inspirational to his followers than just teachings and initiations. Such fearlessness and integrity is, to be brutally frank, non-existent in our leadership circles.
But the Tibetan "Truth Insistence" movement seems to have discovered a substitute. In a document I have received, which seems to be a manifesto of the movement, Samdhong Rinpoche expresses the conviction of being able to instil the requisite qualities of courage, endurance, forbearance and compassion in his followers through the wonderfully vague yet impressive sounding method of "philosophical understanding".
If I know anything about how things are done in Dharamshala we are definitely in for more nebulous, "feel-good" conferences (with silk-lined folders and expensive colour souvenir magazines for delegates), seminars and workshops, all of which will probably be underwritten by some well-meaning foreign foundation with more enthusiasm and money than awareness of the real and frightening dangers assailing Tibetan society.
Inside Tibet courageous souls still defy Chinese might with courage worthy of Gandhi. Still the question must be asked whether any of those brave activists are, in any true sense, non-violent activists. In conversations with a number of new arrivals in Dharamshala, I received the definite impression that nearly all of the demonstrators and activists in Tibet adopted non-violent methods (up to a point, they threw stones and burnt down a police station) because they were not in a position to do anything else; and that if the time came where violent insurrection were possible against the Chinese they would welcome it.
Orville Schell, who secretly interviewed a number of activists inside Tibet for the film Red Flag Over Tibet, told me that an important Tibetan Lama he interviewed had said that the only way to stop the Chinese was through violence.
And this is beginning to happen, albeit in a modest way. Judging by the few bombs that went off in Tibet in recent years, some stubborn Tibetans definitely seem to lack appreciation of our official non-violent philosophy. If Gandhi were still around, one might suppose that he would, as a matter of course, condemn our bombers and applaud the exile peace movement. But I am not sure. In the August 11, 1920 issue of Young India he wrote:
"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I could advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms than she should become a helpless witness to her own dishonour."
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, in the conclusion of his Political Testament, did not mince words on the question of defending Tibetan sovereignty against Chinese aggression: "…we should make every effort to safeguard ourselves against this impending disaster. Use peaceful means where they are appropriate; but where they are not appropriate, do not hesitate to resort to more forceful means."