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Who was 11th Panchen Lama, Tibetan leader US cited to push China back on Dalai Lama successor

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, was kidnapped by Chinese authorities in 1995 when he was six-year-old. He has not been seen since.

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New Delhi: The US State Department Wednesday cited the second-highest ranking figure in Tibetan Buddhism — the 11th Panchen Lama — who was kidnapped by the Chinese government, 26 years ago, as it said the Chinese government should have no role in the succession process of the Dalai Lama.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, was abducted by Chinese authorities in 1995 when he was six years old. Beijing had then appointed a proxy child in his place, Gyaltsen Norbu.

There has been no sign of Nyima since but in May 2020, China had said that he was a college graduate with a job, and that neither he nor his family wished to be disturbed in their “current normal lives.”

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the time had called on China to immediately make his whereabouts public.

Meanwhile, Norbu, now 30, and not recognised by most Tibetans, announced Thursday that Tibetan Buddhism will be moving towards ‘sinicisation’, which broadly refers to bringing non-Chinese communities under Chinese culture and political system.

ThePrint takes a look at the curious case of the 11th Panchen Lama.


Also read: China’s parliament approves Five-Year Plan to build dam on Brahmaputra in Tibet region


What happened to 11th Panchen Lama in 1995?

The Dalai and Panchen Lamas were supreme figures of spiritual authority in Tibet’s former religious government. At present, the 14th Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile in Northern India since fleeing Beijing-controlled Tibet in 1959, is the supreme religious authority on Tibetan Buddhism.

Since the 16th century, Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas have been involved in identifying each other’s reincarnations.

On 14 May 1995, the current Dalai Lama recognised Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the reincarnation of the previous Panchem Lama who died under suspicious circumstances in 1989.

However, the Chinese government rejected the Dalai Lama’s candidate.

Three days later, the six-year-old and his family were kidnapped by Chinese authorities and taken into custody — a move that was denounced by the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

The Chinese authorities then forced another group of monks in Tibet to identify a different child of the same age, Gyaltsen Norbu, according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Two years before the incident, the then PM Narasimha Rao had visited Beijing to sign an agreement to maintain peace along the Line of Actual Control.

B. Raman, former additional secretary of the government, once wrote that Rao maintained distance from the Dalai Lama at the time in order to avoid aggravating Beijing.

In 1996, a year after the incident, the Indian government made headlines for blocking permission for the shooting of two films based on the life of the Dalai Lama.


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World’s reaction to kidnapping

In January 1996, Amnesty International expressed concern over the child’s disappearance. That year in May, Beijing admitted that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family were being held at a secret location.

In recent years, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the UN Working Group of Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), US Congress, parliaments in Canada and UK have also urged the immediate release of the 11th Panchen Lama.

Yet, Beijing has refused to reveal the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima saying it is necessary to protect him from being “kidnapped by separatists”. There are also doubts as to whether he is alive at all.

Meanwhile, Gyaltsen Norbu has been called a “stooge of the atheist Chinese Communist Party government” by Tibetans in exile.

He is often accompanied by police and officials, is held under house arrest in Beijing and not allowed to travel or speak to foreigners.

In 2019, he conducted an ‘inspection tour’ of Western Tibet, including a village bordering Ladakh.

Why China wants to control Dalai Lama’s succession

Buddhism has been a major presence in Tibet since the 8th century CE.

After the Chinese government occupied Tibet in 1950, it has made attempts to eradicate the Dalai Lama from the lives of Tibetans by bringing the religious institution under its control.

A law passed by the Chinese government in 2007 made it clear that the reincarnation of a living Buddha is “subject to an application for approval.”

Last December, US President Donald Trump issued a law which called for establishing a US consulate in Tibet and building an international coalition to ensure that the next Dalai Lama is appointed by the Tibetan Buddhist community without interference from China.

The present Dalai Lama, 85, has said that he will decide whether he should be reincarnated upon turning 90.

In 2011, Lobsang Sangay was elected Sikyong, head of the executive branch of the Tibetan government in exile in India. He assumed the political functions of the Dalai Lama who had earlier said he wanted to hand over the responsibility to an elected official.

(Edited by Rachel John)


Also read: Tibet back as fulcrum of new Cold War as US-China tension grows


 

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