India invoking Buddha to counter China

Why Modi should meet Dalai Lama and get Karmapa back

Since New Delhi cannot militarily reverse the border situation, it is now demonstrating Buddhism as a native religion to India, even though there are more followers in China.

Jyoti Malhotra

26 April, 2023

   At the Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi last week, the 87-year-old Dalai Lama exhorted his audience of monks from all over the world as well as the lay audience to focus on the heart of Buddha’s teachings “a combination of compassion and wisdom”, and invoked great Indian Buddhist scholars like Chandrakirti, Kamalashila and Shantideva to point to the enormous storehouse of philosophy and logic that still makes Buddhism one of the most attractive religions in the world.

   Only a few noticed that the Buddhist summit was held in the same cruel month of April—with due credit to T S Eliot—which marks the third anniversary of the standoff between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. So just as the first Covid wave was taking over the country and Indian doctors were trying to deal with it, Chinese troops were climbing the plateau that ends in the LAC.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama addressing the congregation at the Global Buddhist Summit 2023 at the Ashok Hotel in New Delhi, India on April 21, 2023. Photo by Tenzin Choejor

   We know all this by now. We also know that the Chinese have been building major infrastructure, including a hot-mix plant that mixes up various materials to build roads, including an 11 kilometre-road on the its own side of the Depsang Plains. But it seems the Chinese are now unwilling to make any more concessions, which is why Indian troops can no longer patrol beyond the “bottleneck” in Depsang, which they used to do at least until 2014.

   This is also probably why the 18th India-China corps commander-level talks that took place this Sunday on the Chinese side of the Chushul-Moldo meeting point have yielded no results.

1959 Claim Line

   All eyes are now on the defence minister-level meeting under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on 27 April, where defence minister Rajnath Singh is expected to hold bilateral talks with Chinese defence minister Gen Li Shangfu. Officials say Singh is expected to forcibly raise the issue of the restoration of peace and stability on the Depsang Plains.

   Nothing much is expected to come from that conversation too. According to ThePrint columnist, Gen H S Panag, former army commander of the 14 Corps which is stationed in Ladakh, by disallowing Indian patrols in Depsang and insisting on buffer zones on the Indian side of the LAC, the Chinese have reached the “1959 claim line” that Chinese premier Chou-en Lai had then offered Jawaharlal Nehru as part of the border compromise.

The 16th Karmapa and Dalai Lama

   Nehru’s outright refusal gave way to the 1962 border conflict. Now, 60 years later, the Chinese seem to have achieved their aims on the ground, without bothering too much about the LAC and its various perceptions. Not that they are occupying “Indian territory,” or at least India’s perception of its territory—the Chinese are much too smart to do that. They have established control and they will rest for the time being. The buffer zones that have been established are intended to save face for India. The 1959 Claim Line was always intended to protect Aksai Chin and other areas that the Chinese forcefully took in 1962 and have kept ever since.

   Since it will be difficult for India to militarily reverse this situation, it has now decided to shift course and take a leaf out of Buddha’s teachings and marry them with ‘ahimsa‘ (active non-violence). Some would say that India has no alternative but to do this, which is true. It may not even amount to very much, unless Delhi takes other measures—such as taking the Dalai Lama into confidence and plan a few next moves. So last week’s Summit demonstrated that Buddhism is a native religion to India, even though there are more followers inside China. And as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out during his remarks at the Global Buddhist Summit, the policy of ahimsa is a far better bet than the powerful moves made by the Communist Party of China globally.

   It’s not a bad strategy. Instead of allowing the Chinese to rudely underline its military manoeuvres, including in Ladakh, India is trying to shift global perceptions in favour of its traditional strengths – not just democracy, but also the democracy of religions.

   For two days at the Ashoka hotel last week, the jury was out in favour of the New Delhi-based International Buddhist Confederation. Monks in saffron and maroon and burgundy robes from all over the Buddhist world – from Mongolia to South Korea to Russia (about one million Buddhists are in Buryatia province) to the South-East Asian nations to Mexico, the US, Canada and Elsewhere – nodded and smiled and exchanged compassionate greetings. Only the Chinese, predictably, didn’t show up.

The Dalai Lama and the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinlay Dorji

   Over lunch on the second day, where the Dalai Lama sat at the centre of the long table, all the global orders exchanged notes with each other. Clearly, the Dalai Lama is a star—even though he is ageing, everyone wants a piece of him. Perhaps, it’s because he’s the only man the Chinese don’t really know what to make of. They can come right up to their 1959 Claim Line in Depsang and tie up the loose ends of History after nearly 60 years, but they cannot understand why this laughing monk commands so much influence not just inside India, but all over the world.

   Certainly, when the Dalai Lama passes on, the Chinese will produce their own man. That’s what they have done with the Gelugpa order’s second-most important monk, the Panchen Lama – which is a bit odd, considering the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t even acknowledge the idea of religion, let alone its place in the universe.

   PM Modi made sure that he and the Dalai Lama didn’t attend the meeting on the same day, and definitely not at the same time – perhaps Modi didn’t want to poke the Chinese too directly in the eye. The PM and the Dalai Lama have, indeed, met once, in 2015, and by all accounts the meeting didn’t go so well. Eight years later, though, as the third anniversary of the standoff in Ladakh is marked this April, it might not be a bad idea if Modi drops in on this very special Buddhist monk in Dharamsala – and ask him to lead the way towards world peace.

Missing Karma Kagyu link

  There was one big hole at the Buddhist summit last week – the absence of the Karmapa Lama, Ogyen Trinley Dorji, who left India in a huff some years ago and now lives in Germany or the US or both. It is high time that he is persuaded to return, and all the controversies related to him over the last few years should be settled amicably. If India is to become the leading light of Buddhist nations worldwide, the head of the Karma Kagyu sect cannot be missing.

   So, what’s it to be? Om mani padme hum, or Om bhur bhuva swaha – the Buddhist invocation or the Sanskrit one? Modi’s presence at the Buddhist summit demonstrated that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come to terms with the egalitarian nature of Buddhism. And since “unity in diversity” is India’s motto, both these prayers – and indeed, others – should not just be par for the course, but also on the same menu.

(Jyoti Malhotra is a senior consulting editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Views are personal.)