It was just a celebration in New Delhi. Unlike the surgical strikes of Operation-Balakot or Operation-Sindoor, there was no air-force, no firing, no border crossing and no noise of any bombing involved. It was only prayers and Buddhist hymns. Why should it shock the Chinese communist establishment over 3500 km away? Is it because of the fear of their Tibetan dreams falling apart or failure of the ploy to lay claim over Buddhist legacy?
Interestingly, despite the Dalai Lama’s calculated absence from this international Buddhist congregation, his stamp remained too dominating to miss throughout the day because the gathering was exclusively dedicated to celebrating his 90th birthday. The gathering of over 500 senior world Buddhist leaders from over 40 countries concluded with the declaration that the system of identifying the next reincarnation of Dalai Lama was a purely Tibetan religious affair and no other country or power had any right to meddle in it. For Xi Jinping, who has been going hoarse by claiming Chinese Communist Party’s exclusive right over the next incarnation of Dalai Lama since the day he assumed China’s supreme office 13 years ago; there could not have been a bigger disappointment. By the time, the international Buddhist gathering of Buddhist Gurus and scholars in New Delhi concluded on Sunday, July 13, Xi could see his dream and plans to grab the reincarnation of present Dalai Lama being shot down by a gathering of humble monks.
China in Frustration
But this IBC declaration does not look like a sudden or any one-time development. Beijing had already been reeling under the shock of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeting the Dalai Lama on his 90th birthday under an earlier unforeseen public glare. The presence of two Cabinet ministers at the Birthday celebrations in Dharamshala too, had their shock value for Beijing. The timing of the conference happening on the eve of Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Beijing for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) too was no less visible. So it was not surprising to watch a frustrated spokesperson of Chinese embassy in New Delhi declaring that, “The Tibet related issue is a thorn in the China-India relationship, becoming a burden for India, and playing the Xizang card will definitely end up shooting oneself in the foot.”
IBC’s current conference is a reflection of changing style and profile of Bharat’s diplomatic force. The response of international Buddhist leadership to Bharat’s initiatives has raised new hopes among the world Buddhist community
Interestingly, the conference happened under the aegis of International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) which is Bharat’s supreme Buddhist forum and the international umbrella body of world’s Buddhist community. New Delhi’s interest in establishing an international umbrella body of the world Buddhist community started in 2010 as a reaction after China launched its own ‘World Buddhist Forum’ in 2006 and started claiming to be the real leader of the Buddhist world. Bharat’s IBC too organised its first such conference in 2011 which saw participation of over 900 Buddhist leaders and scholars from 46 countries. But this interest and tempo has been halfhearted in the following years until a new and aggressive avatar of MEA emerged with the new Modi doctrine. GOI’s quiet but ever ascending eagerness to take China head on was at its best at the IBC’s show at the Ashok Hotel in Bharat’s capital. Before this, the ‘Global Buddhist Summit’ of IBC in April 2023 had 171 attendees from foreign countries in addition to 150 from various parts of Bharat. IBC’s website shows that it has now enrolled active support of more than 320 Buddhist and lay organisations belonging to 39 countries.
As far as China’s enthusiasm to occupy the international Buddhist space is concerned, it appears to have picked up following a short lull during the Covid era. Since its first international congregation of Buddhist leaders and scholars from across the world at Hangzhou and Zhoushan in 2006, Beijing has organised four such massive conferences and many more international events where it provides hospitality and all facilities to participants from most of Buddhist countries. Observers from the Buddhist world are amused to see that China not only keeps the Dalai Lama away from these conferences but it has been trying desperately to present Gianchin Norbu as its own and the ‘real’ 11th Panchen Lama as the ‘supreme’ Buddhist leader of the world. Interestingly Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the other ‘Panchen Lama’ who was approved by the Dalai Lama, a five-year old boy in 1995, was taken away by the Chinese security agencies along with his parents and has since remained missing despite demands and objections from many world governments, parliaments and human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Desperate Attempts At Being Real Buddhist Leader
Beijing’s interest in grabbing world Buddhist leadership has not remained limited only to the religious and political aspects but it has also nearly monopolised the business of consumer goods and other artifacts used by Buddhist temples and individual practitioners across the world. The 20th ‘International Buddhist Items and Crafts Fair’ of Xiamen which attracts suppliers and dealers of Buddhist goods is scheduled to be held from October 16 to 20 later this year. The impact of China’s commercial success in this field can be seen in almost every Buddhist temple, monastery and individual practitioners’ homes across the globe where most of statues, prayer tools, incense and other consumable items are ‘made in China’.
There is no doubt that IBC’s current conference is a reflection of changing style and profile of Bharat’s diplomatic force. The response of international Buddhist leadership to Bharat’s initiatives has raised new hopes among the world Buddhist community who are worried about an atheist and communist China’s aggressive campaign of establishing itself as the real leader of the Buddhist world. But with the given economic, military and diplomatic muscle of China and aggressive dreams of Xi Jinping, it would be naïve to ignore the probabilities of Chinese aggression on the issue of next incarnation of Dalai Lama.
The present congregation of world Buddhist leaders has once again underlined the importance of Dalai Lama and his universal acceptance among the Buddhist world. While the issue next incarnation of Dalai Lama is bound to decide the future of Tibetan struggle against Chinese occupation, it also holds seeds of danger to Bharat’s national sovereignty and that of its 4,000 km long Himalayan belt which is predominantly Buddhist and hence vulnerable to Chinese manipulations in the event of next Dalai Lama falling into the Chinese hands.
The IBC conference has also underlined the fact that Bharat is considered as the land of Buddha by the Buddhist world and the Chinese pressure cannot change this fact. Otherwise also, it was just a peaceful religious gathering, Communist regime in China should not get rattled with the celebration of compassion.
