Claim of a rift between Dalai Lama and exile Tibetan administration head dismissed as mischievous

(TibetanReview.net, Dec07, 2018) – The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) has on Dec 5 denied a Nov 27 news report claiming that a major Tibetan religious conference scheduled to be held at Dharamsala at November-end had to be postponed indefinitely due to “serious differences between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and CTA President”. It has called the news article not only a misrepresentation of facts but also highly misleading and accuses its author of having done so “with an ulterior motive to malign His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s image and also to delegitimize the CTA leadership.”

A statement issued by the CTA’s Department of Religion and Culture reiterated its Nov 24 announcement that the ‘13th Religious Conference of the Schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Tradition’ scheduled to take place from Nov 29 to Dec 1 this year in Dharamshala was indefinitely postponed due to the sudden demise on Nov 19 of the supreme head of the Nyingma tradition, Kathok Getse Rinpoche.

The statement pointed out that on Nov 25, upon his return from Japan, the Dalai Lama had said at Gaggal airport that holding the conference despite the passing away of the “very high lama,” the head of Nyingma tradition, the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, would be “inappropriate.”

It said there was no room for any “differences” between His Holiness and the CTA President and that the latter had the highest reverence for the former.

The author of the controversial news article, Rajeev Sharma, has claimed in his southasianmonitor.com report, titled as “Differences between Dalai Lama and CTA president put Tibetan politics in a tailspin”, that insiders, whom he did not name or describe, had revealed that the conference was cancelled by CTA President Lobsang Sangay without consulting the Dalai Lama.

He has claimed that during a telephone conversation on Nov 22, initiated by the Dalai Lama from Japan, furious arguments broke out between the two, with the spiritual leader having allegedly “shouted” at Sangay, using some expletives in Tibetan language the latter could not understand, denying having any plan to make the Karmapa his successor and refusing to be dictated terms by anyone.

Rajeev Sharma, an independent journalist and strategic affairs analyst, previously published what was then refuted as totally untrue report on Nov 6 on thequint.com, claiming the Dalai Lama was suffering from last stage prostate cancer and that the issue of his succession may have to be resolved at the earliest. He has reiterated this claim in his latest report, adding the Dalai Lama’s position vis-à-vis Lobsang Sangay had been weakened by his health condition.