Can a pacifist religious belief be changed when survival is at stake?

Yusuf

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Undue criticism does no good. India has always followed an independent foreign policy. We are taking orders from no one.

India was a young nation trying to build itself in the 50s. It was not in our interest to get entangled in another conflict apart from Kashmir. But yes covert support was possible. India didn't have the resources to march into china then nor does it have now. We can stop any mis adventure from the chinese and we can't undertake any adventure against china ourselves. militarily not possible. Only covert support to an internal uprising was possible back then and even now.
 

MANISH123

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And yusuf please read history, india did have the wherewhethal to take on the chinese. Even if nothing else we could have captured at least 1/2 or 1/3 of tibet and set the dalai lama back.Then he would have been able do something for the rest of tibet as opposed to now and this is not undue criticism from my POV, you can take it or throw it that is up to you. Peace.
 

Yusuf

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Vinod a massive movement didn't come at all from them. Forget violence. They did not undertake any massive non violent struggle against china. The greatest mistake was the Dalai Lama fleeing to india. If he had stayed there and given orders to resist, he would have become a rallying point in the tibetans struggle for their country. if he was captured and killed, it would have led to even more serious action from the tibetans and also from other more powerful countries.
 

Yusuf

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Manish, I advice you to go through threads here on 62. War and also threads discussing potential war with china. That would give you a fair idea of what the reality is. Just like the Chinese can't take Arunachal from us, we cant take tibet. Forget half of tibet, we would not advance too far into tibet at all,
 

MANISH123

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china had enemies like russia japan and america.Their economy was similar to ours. so I dont understand your comments but will take ur advise and go through the threads here and revert back in a few days.cheers.
 

Vinod2070

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If Dalai Lama had stayed, all that would have happened was that he would have been butchered with all his supporters and a fake Dalai Lama installed in his place.

There would be no Tibetan issue now, something that the Dalai has kept alive for decades just by his personality and the grit of his followers with no violence.
 

Yusuf

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Well our own independence movement was brutally dealt with by the british. Those who died became martyrs who became a rallying point. slogans like inquilab zindabad became war cries.
 

Vinod2070

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Yes but the numbers were on our side.

We were 400 million against just 90,000 British in India. They controlled India as long as Indians helped them do that. After the navy mutiny and WW-II weakening of Britain, that became impossible.

PS: Not to take anything away from the bravery of the freedom fighters.
 
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MANISH123

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I think yousuf, instead of bringing any coherent arguement u proceed to always have the last word on evrything.I did agreee that I would go through the thread in this forum but to me it seems u are hell bent on putting all blame on the dalai lama.What about our interests.Is the indian economy better served now that we have china brething down our neck in tibet and pakistan sending in terrosists day in and day out.No economy can flourish and no delopment can take place until our borders are secure and safe. Neither was nehru able to counter china, nor contain pakistan from seizing kasmir nor did he achieve some miracle growth rate.In fact we had such a poor growth rate that it degenerated to being called the hindu growth rate of two to three percent. Even then u make abnoxious claims of why india should never be aggressive.I find it very odd.
 
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Manish what you said could have been done by India in aiding the Tibetans or taking Tibetan territory that in reality is really Indian territory. But there are two limiting factors to this the first one is Nehru and the second is india's stance in the cold war. I will start with the first and major factor-Nehru who was not committed in anyway to preserving the sovereign Indian territory he was in many ways a total failure ,who had a policy of giving up land he demonstrated this over and over again ;starting with the Partition creating Pakistan, he repeated this when he gave up Tibet to the Chinese, then he demonstrated this again in Aksai Chin/Ladhak and he also demonstrated this in his own state of Kashmir with POK and article 370, so here we have 4 clear examples of Nehru's policy of giving up Indian territory, his policy answer to the 1962 China war was Hindi chini bhai bhai a joke of a policy from our leader. The second factor was India's political stance we were Nonalligned but more alligned with Russia in the cold war. Russia could have helped but to a very limited extent and any Russian-Indian alliance against China would have had USA possibly siding with China making that whole stance fruitless. The possibilty of Japan helping is close to nonexistant being a world war 2 loser and stripped of any military and humiliated they wanted no involvement in any wars. USA had an adverserial view with India especially with Nehru's lean toward Russia in the cold war, USA was the one country that could have changed everything , this was a golden opportuninty for USA and one that they will regret not using for a long time,currently with China trying to knock USA out of the top spot in the scheme of things this was a major mistake in history for USA.
 
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MANISH123

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Exactly that is why it is said that if u want peace be prepared for war.Unforfunately the leaders of our country especially nehru never believed in it but always were shafting india. Even today instead of giving the pakistanis a fitting reply our leaders our more interested in making money for themselves and ignoring the massive bloodshed our country has to face from pakistan, needless to say greatly abetted by china.Even after being invaded and colonized it seems Indians dont want to wake up to the true nature of our ruling elite.
 
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Our current situation is a little different , we are more focused on the economy all out war would set us back many years, we may fight that war in the future but it will be a time of our choosing not something we are forced into as a reply or a reaction. The Chinese - Pakistan alliance has in many ways placed us in a better position it has shifted us toward a more Pro US policy which has helped us economically and in our energy needs with the Bush nuke deal, it also gives us access to the top weaponry in the world.
 
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amoy

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Clearly I have totally different views from u about the history, present and future of Tibet, perhaps in part attributed to your thinking of Tibet as a 'buffer zone' between India and China, like Nehru generation 50years ago. Whenever u refer to Tibet u see it in a Sino-India geopolitics context.

Never mind. Instead of debating the above would u answer two questions -
1) do u support the separation of religion and politics (universally)?
2) what do u foresee of Tibet after this HH Dalai Lama's nirvana (no offensive, as everybody follows the law of nature regardless of personal religious affinity)?

As u probably are more in reach of overseas Tibetans incl. in India, your observation is from another angle for Q.2.
 

Yusuf

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Manish, no I don't need to have the last word. This forum is for discussing various ideas. Yes I am very much bothered by indias security threats. No we could not do anything until the tibetans themselves did anything and asked for indias help. All they did was run to india and let the Chinese maraud their country.
The topic of this thread is precisely to discuss the tibetan beliefs and why they failed to do anything to protect their land.

And yes its only out of self interest that I want tibet to be an independent country as it acts as a buffer for india from the Chinese. It could have been used for doing what china does to us using pakistan.
 

Yusuf

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Ohimalya, I said in my earlier post how a mix of religion and politics is a recipe for disaster.

As for your second question, nothing much would change after the current Dalai Lama. The tibetans here would hunt for a new one and the Chinese would proclaim their own one to be used as a puppet. Nothing would change on map. China will continue to occupy tibet. Unless off course the new Dalai Lama thinks its time to do something. But maybe China is now powerful enough to make sure other countries don't help tibet.
 

Vinod2070

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I think that after his holiness Dalai Lama's death, Tibetan issue may become mostly dormant. It may also become militant if the new generation of leaders are not as pacifist.

I have no doubt that it will never die down completely and keep on resurfacing after every Chinese atrocity or every large protest. It may not lead to much.

It is too difficult to try to predict the future. This whole Chinese Imperial exercise may crumble, however unlikely it appears now.

The Tibetan issue is not a religious issue so separation of religion from politics is not really applicable here.
 

Yusuf

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Vinod, but it is a political issue which has suffered because of religious beliefs. That is the point of this thread.
 

Vinod2070

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^^ Yusuf, I agree with the premise. I think the issue is still a bit more complicated than a simple matter of a pacifist religion.

We saw the example of non pacifist Buddhists in Japan and non pacifist Uighurs meeting more or less the same fate.

I still commend you on starting this thread. I hope we get different views on the issue.

Personally, I think the pacifism aspects of the religion have to fall on a fertile soil to really make an impact. India and Tibet provided that soil, Japan (and Mongolia earlier) didn't provide that.
 

Yusuf

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I am hoping that some of our Tibetan friends too could shed light on this.
 

amoy

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it is a political issue which has suffered because of religious beliefs. That is the point of this thread.
Our divergence results from the fundamentally different views of history and reality - I see Tibet as an internal problem within China, an epitome of some of China's dilemma. In contrast many Indians in DFI see it as a leverage in Indo-China geopolitics.

Separation of Religion from Politics - Why was this question raised? Because many things get entangled with this point
1) HH Dalai Lama's theocratic regime was /and is (in exile) a combination of R and P , plus economic domination on basis of monastaries+aristocrate reign (let's be objective here- no need to romanticize Tibet's past as a Shangri La)
2) During the last riot Tibetan protesters even tried to attack a Mosque in Lhasa. A bitter fight happened there. There're probably thousands of Muslims in Lhasa - some have been there generations, but majority are immigrants from Muslim areas (Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia etc. - Ningxia is a Hui Muslim Autonomous Region). Tibetan rioters regarded them as a threat to their livelihood. Political INcorrectness - Muslim immigrants are more diligent and mercantile. the Mayor of Lhasa is half-breed Muslim half Tibetan
3) In history China's Dynasties have used religion as a way of ruling Tibet. Like in the last Qing Dynasty (founded by Manchurian+Mongolian) emporers (Shunzhi and Kangxi in particular) elevated Dalai Lama and Pancheng Lama's standing among numerous denominations /factions of Lamaism in Tibet. The royal family even converted themself to Lamaism as part of their tactics. Thereafter a incarnation procedure was established for the central government (emporers) to confer Lamas - I believe Beijing won't miss the opportunity to steer that again upon HH's nirvana!!

So u see actually religion and politics are interwoven in this case.

----- only trying to provide u with one more angle of viewpoint --- and recommend u develop a 'spatial' view of Tibet + Religion + 'Pacifist', in addition to your obsession with 'buffer zone' .
 
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