Dibyesh Anand - Geopolitical Exotica

As the much-studied Lhasa demonstrations that took place more than a decade ago indicate, religion still plays an important role in the assertion of national identity by the Tibetans. Most demonstrations started at the initiative of monks and nuns [59]and most centered on the Jokhang temple in the Barkhor area of Lhasa. However, something fundamental has changed. While earlier revolts broke out for explicitly religious purposes, now a more instrumentalist and activist view of religion is taken (see Schwartz 1996; for a different view on the significance of the political in these protests, see Mills 2001). The official policy of religious tolerance is used to make political demands. The priority of many monks and nuns who participate in the demonstrations, often at high costs (including arrest, torture, expulsion from their institutions, and in extreme cases, execution) seems to be the political struggle for independence (see Barnett and Akiner 1996). [60]They are willing to risk the religious freedom granted to them for their political demands. Even in the name of religion, what is emphasized is not aspects of Buddhism (which is limiting for any nationalist aspiration on account of its universalistic dimensions) but specifically Tibetan elements of the religion.

The religious/cultural revival as well as instances of political protests inside Tibet exemplifies a rich mixture of traditional and innovative strategies in Tibet's struggle for survival against an authoritarian state system. The Chinese official rhetoric of a "multinational" state has offered the opportunity to Tibetans to reclaim, in part, a heterodox vision of history in which separateness and Tibetanness are highlighted and valorized. Often, the target of sporadic protests in Lhasa and elsewhere are the Western tourists who are considered potential supporters for the Tibetan cause. The main factor influencing the political protests and assertion of national identity in Tibet, therefore, is not religion per se or its suppression but Chinese political occupation.

In all these struggles over national identity, the key symbol for Tibetans has been, not surprisingly, the Dalai Lama. The Chinese realized the potential subversiveness of allowing Tibetans the religious freedom to worship his figure. They have thus tried to ban his worship and "encourage" other Tibetan lamas to denounce him as a "splittist" (one who is trying to split Tibet from its motherland, China). The Dalai Lama's traditional dual role as the head of religious and political systems has indeed been important. However, the political side of chos srid gnyis Idan is increasingly identified with democracy, and young Tibetans look upon the Dalai Lama as a world leader and as a symbol of democracy and human rights (Schwartz 1996). As happened to former imperial powers, such as the British in India, the nationalists to a large extent have taken the discourses of the dominant power and used it against them. China's claim that it is modernizing Tibet is questioned by those who have developed an alternative vocabulary (and alternative meanings) on the basis of a continuing flow of information and ideas from China as well as the outside world on democracy, human rights, and national struggles (see Sperling 1996). Observers of Tibet are increasingly recognizing this resilience among the Tibetans and the various innovative uses to which traditions have been put in the service of national identity. Such critical endeavors are certainly a way forward as compared to the idea and practice of Exotica Tibet, of a

"lost horizon," a Shangri-la lost forever to the world, as espoused in most popular literature in the West.

A repressive state regime is not the only limitation on articulations of national identity within Tibet. Lack of organized opposition to China may also be attributed to the fact that significant numbers of religious and lay elite of traditional Tibet (along with the Dalai Lama) fled across the border to India. Since 1959 more than a hundred thousand Tibetans have become refugees. Most of them live in various settlements in India and Nepal. Others have dispersed to several countries, including Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. The nerve center of the refugee community, however, is Dharamsala, which is the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The Dalai Lama's government from the outset has sought to project itself as a continuation of the pre – 1959 Lhasa government. Though this government is not recognized by any state in the international community, for all practical purposes the Tibetans living in the diaspora, and many inside Tibet, consider it the legitimate authority. Continuity with the traditional Tibetan state (pre-1950) is stressed. The authoritarian state apparatus in Chinese-occupied Tibet, combined with censorship of information, ensures that Tibetan nationalism is far more developed in the diasporic community. The discourses of international human rights, democracy, decolonization, and self-determination have allowed sophisticated articulations of national identity among the Tibetans in exile. The idea in the world media of what constitutes Tibetanness often comes from the words and actions of the exile community.

Tibetanness, as many observers of Tibetan diasporic communities realize, is a highly contested and pluralistic identity. Tibetanness is articulated, in theory and in praxis, at several hierarchical as well as overlapping levels. It is a discursive product of many complementary and contesting dynamics such as the policy pronouncements of Dharamsala, the politics of more radical elements, gendered and generational practices, Exotica Tibet, and so on. Several factors influence and shape it, some of these directly related to the politics of representation. These include refugee status, [61]space-time projections of homeland, [62]the personality of the Dalai Lama, the overriding need for the preservation of culture, Western audiences with preconceived notions about Tibet and Tibetans (Exotica Tibet), self-perception, and most important, the desire to project a sense of continuity in a changing external environment. In order to understand what the category "Tibetan" means, it is important to look at some of these factors. Discussion of Exotica Tibet as a major factor foregrounds the productive role played by representational practices.

A very important dynamic shaping Tibetan political identity has been interaction with Western audiences. The role of the West can be examined as within rather than outside the Tibet question by looking at the theme of Western representations of Tibet and its interface with Tibetan (trans)national identity. Scholars like Lopez (1998) show that Tibetans are "prisoners of Shangri-la"-constrained by their image as a religious, peaceful, exotic, and idyllic community. The dominant representation of Tibetans in the West in the early twenty-first century is as peaceful, nonviolent, religious, spiritual, compassionate, and close to nature. A corollary to this representation is the idea that the inherently good-natured Tibetans are victims of forced modernization brought about by Chinese rule. The emphasis is both on the uniqueness of the Tibetan culture and on its universal relevance.

Exotica Tibet, presenting Tibetans as victims, has helped mobilize many non-Tibetans for the "Save Tibet" cause. The Tibet movement, referring to the transnational efforts made on the part of Tibetans and their non- Tibetan supporters to demand the right of self-determination for the Tibetan people, has gained some high profile support, including Hollywood stars, U.S. Congress members, and members of European parliaments. The worldwide network of Tibet Support Groups (TSG) is unique in this respect (see Ven-turino 1997). They include organizations focusing on a wide range of themes-Tibetan Buddhism, human rights, spreading awareness about the situation in Tibet, and demand for independence (rangzen is the term used for this). The presence of support for Tibet is particularly significant in the virtual world where most of the Internet sites related to Tibet are pro-Tibetan. In fact, there is an increasing realization within the Tibetan diaspora of the possibilities offered by the Internet as a means for disseminating information and mobilizing support. Though the motives of participants in the Tibet movement vary, [63]what seems to unite them is a broadly defined Tibet cause. When the Tibetans went in exile they found that "Tibet" already existed in the Western imagination, and given their limited options, they conformed to that image in order to gain support (see Lopez 1998). Tibetans, Tibetophiles, and Tibetologists all have contributed to the romance of Tibet-to Exotica Tibet-which paradoxically renders problematic the struggle for independence from Chinese occupation. Moran, on the basis of his study of Tibetan diaspora in Nepal, warns against an Orientalist valorization of Tibetans, for "there is also the danger that if Tibetans fail to deliver the uni-dimensional spiritualized goods, there is no basis through which to approach them except through scorn" (2004, 6-7). Even though Western patronage offers an important source of symbolic and economic capital for individual Tibetan refugees, it remains precarious (see Prost 2006).