Mumbai, Aug 3 (PTI) Members of the Tibetan community on Monday staged a protest in Mumbai to oppose China’s new ethnic unity law and denounced the controversial legislation as draconian and a part of Beijing’s strategic design to erase native languages.
The ‘Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law’, a fundamental legislation on ethnic affairs in China, was adopted by that country’s Parliament on March 12. The law came into effect on July 1.
Tenzin Tsundue, a coordinator with the community’s outfit Friends of Tibet, said refugees from Tibetan settlements in Mundgod in Karnataka and Bhandara in Maharashtra took part in the protest at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai.
A puja was also conducted at a memorial to Tibetan martyrs in the metropolis and rich tributes were paid to activist Pawo Lobga Rangzen (52), who self-immolated on July 2 in New York standing in front of the UN headquarters to oppose China’s new ethnic unity law.
Tsundue noted that the protest in India’s financial capital was part of a worldwide agitation by Tibetans against China’s new regulation.
“We demand China to decolonise Tibet. We seek independence of Tibet. China’s draconian new law, Ethnic Unity and Progress, mandates all institutes in China to replace all native languages with Chinese, thereby effectively banning teaching Tibetan in Tibet. Their strategic design is to erase native languages,” he asserted.
A similar protest was held at Chaityabhoomi in central Mumbai on August 2 (Sunday).
The Chinese government has said the law aims to create a “shared” national identity among ethnic groups in the Communist nation.
The law also gives legal backing to policies promoting Mandarin, the official state language of the neighbouring country, ideological education and the ‘Sinicisation’ of religion, or aligning religious practices to Chinese laws. PTI PR RSY
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