Constructing a Tibetan demos in exile

Abstract

This article explores how displaced Tibetans demarcate and characterize the Tibetan demos in the process of building a democratic community and a government-in-exile. In this democracy-in-exile, defining the demos is not only a means of representing a people, but also a means of regaining a lost homeland. Two specific instances of the construction of a transnational exile demos are investigated: citizenship and political representation. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile's formalized idea of citizenship builds upon ideals of equal and loyal members who form a single unit bounded by a common cause. This also constitutes the foundation for Tibetan citizens' political representation in the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. The parliament's definition of the demos enhances regional and religious adherence as essentials for determining who the Tibetan people are. The article refers to problems regarding how this construct, which defines who is included into the demos, inevitably means that some are excluded as well.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• demos
• exclusion
• exile
• loyalty
• political representation
• Tibet

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Frida Hastrup and Daria Morgounova for feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Acknowledgements are also due to the editors and the three anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments and suggestions greatly influenced the final form of this article.

Notes

 1. Apart from the two Greek notions demos (people) and kratos (rule), italicised words appearing in this article are transliterated Tibetan words. Standard Tibetan terms and names, such as lama and Gelug, are transcribed without italics. All translations from Tibetan are the author's own.

 2. Fine studies on Tibetan exile-communities include Diehl (2002), Frechette (2002) and Hess (2009).

 3. For an introduction to the Tibetan Government pre-1951, see Goldstein (1993).

 4. The Delhi high court established the right to Indian citizenship for Tibetans born in India before July 1987 in December 2010, the date when the right to citizenship by birth was removed from the Citizenship Act (Tibetan Review 2011). Time will tell to which extent Tibetans will claim this right and the ways in which the freedom struggle will be affected.

 5. For example, there are several online discussions on citizenship issues at http://www.forums.phayul.com under headings such as ‘Indian Citizenship for Tibetans born in India’, ‘Anyone looking for citizenship?’ and ‘Vote for Gyari Dolma if you want to remain a refugee for the next 50 years in exile’.

 6. One example of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile's perception of the Shugden controversy as detrimental to political unity is its exposition of the controversy entitled Dorje Shugden Versus Pluralism and National Unity (DRC 1998, p. 3–15). Dreyfus (1998) and Mills (2003) have provided valuable insights into this controversy.

 7. The 2001–2011 Prime Minister-in-Exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, once likened ‘Shugden perpetrators’ to ‘terrorists’ in an Aljazeera news item (http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2008/09/200893014344405483.html).

 8. See, for instance, the Dorje Shugden Devotee's Charitable & Religious Society based in Delhi (www.shugdensociety.info) or the London-based Western Shugden Society (www.westernshugdensociety.org). The latter claims to be ‘freeing Buddhism from political pollution’ and ‘protecting Shugden practitioners from persecution by the Dalai Lama’.

 9. I will speculate and suggest that if we also take into account that the Communist Chinese used the term dmangs gtso to coin their own version of democracy in Tibetan language, the shift from dmangs gtso to mang gtso may function as a measure to distinguish between ‘democracy the Chinese way’ (dmangs gtso) and ‘democracy the Tibetan way’ (mang gtso). This would be similar to the distinction that exile-Tibetan officials has made between Chinese ‘culture’ (Tib. rig gnas, Chi. wénhuà) and Tibetan ‘culture’ (Tib. rig gzhung) (Brox 2006). See also the fascinating debate in 1991 on the spelling and thus the meaning of democracy and demos in the Tibetan language magazine ‘Young Shoots’ (lJang gzhon) volumes 2 and 3, by intellectuals Pema Bhum, Ragra Trethong and Samdhong Rinpoche.

10. What I have translated as ‘spiritual law’ and ‘politics’ is in the Tibetan original chos and srid. When Tibetans pair spiritual law with politics, it usually points to the historical ideology of the traditional Tibetan state, in which there was a close relationship between chos and srid. For more details on this Tibetan maxim see Brox (2012).

11. Religious and regional adherences have been yardsticks for the Tibetan demos from the beginning of exile (TPPRC (Tibetan Parliamentary & Policy Research Centre) 2003). The quota system underwent transformations in the 10 parliaments emerging from 1960 to 1990, which were made up by 12–17 members. For example, in the first parliament established in 1960, there were only three representatives from each of the three provinces and one from each of the four major Buddhist traditions. In the second and third parliaments, however, one seat was reserved for a female representative (this seat was lost again in 1974) and in addition, the Dalai Lama could nominate one prominent Tibetan. The seat reserved for a representative of the Bon religion was established in 1977. The number of MPs was fixed to 43 plus 3 members in 1991, and increased by 1 in 2010 with an additional North-American seat. Interestingly, Tibetans outside South Asia are supposed to disregard religious and regional loyalties and instead vote for members who are responsible to their constituencies by electing two North American and two European representatives.

12. Devoe (1983, 157ff.) has given details of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile's exclusion policy to secure loyalty, and how ‘renegade settlements’ have suffered from this. See also Tibetan Review (1978) and Ström (1995).

13. Some Tibetan Christians and Muslims also perceive the freedom struggle as an undertaking for Tibetan Buddhists only. One Christian woman expressed it like this: ‘I am a Tibetan, but for me he [the Dalai Lama] is not God. For me he is a very righteous king, the king of my country… If it is God's will, then I will go to Tibet, but the freedom struggle is not mine’.

14. In lack of any precise data on the sizes of these groups, the available characteristics of 82,629 exile-Tibetans aged 18 and above, who had registered as eligible voters prior to the 2006 MP election, may indicate the proportions of the different groups: The Utsang electorate constituted 51.88% of all registered voters, compared to Kham with only 22.29% and Amdo 5.03%. North-America had 3.39% and Europe 2.73%. Among the religious traditions, the Gelug electorate comprised the biggest religious group by 9.43%, followed by Nyingma 2.32%, Kagyu 1.58%, Sakya 0.99% and Bon 0.35%. These data were provided by the Election Commission in an unpublished document entitled Bod mi mang spyi 'thus skabs so so'i 'os bsdu chen mo'i skabs ming gzhung deb bkod dang/ dngos su 'os 'phen ji byung/ brgya cha bcas kyi re'u mig gsham gsal/ [‘The below table cites in percent the registered voters and the actual voting participation on the occasion of the general elections for individual Tibetan members of parliament’].