OPINION
As China marked the 66th anniversary of the launch of its “democratic reform” in Tibet and as the exile Tibetan community commemorated the 66th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising, both with regard to the events of Mar 1959 in Tibet’s capital Lhasa, Aritra Banerjee* finds that the gap in reaching a settlement between the two sides has remained unbridgeable due to the tussle being between Beijing’s insistence on its fictional narrative and the Tibetan people’s refusal to forget the enormity of the tribulations of that time.
On 10 March 1959, the people of Lhasa rose up against a decade of Chinese occupation that had begun with promises of “peaceful liberation” but quickly turned into military control, censorship, and humiliation.
For 21 days, tens of thousands of Tibetans flooded the streets, forming human walls to shield the Dalai Lama’s residence from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). By 31 March, Chinese artillery had pounded the city, monasteries lay in ruins, and the Dalai Lama was forced into exile. It was the beginning of one of the most brutal and enduring occupations of the modern era.
Beijing calls this slaughter a “counter-rebellion.” Its official white papers repeat the lie that the uprising was instigated by “upper-class reactionary forces” clinging to feudal privilege. In truth, it was an unarmed people’s revolt where farmers, monks, merchants, and students stood united against an occupying army.
“My father was among those who fled. He often told me how the Chinese fired on our people without warning,” recalls Tsering, now a vocal activist for the liberation of Tibet from China. His father had escaped to India as a teenager. “They called it liberation. But wasn’t it simply murder for getting power?”
“Now they are calling it Xizang to erase Tibet’s history. There is no Xizang…only Tibet…our Tibet that will be free one day,” he said.
The scale of killing and repression
Independent archives, declassified intelligence reports, and survivor testimony depict a calculated massacre. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) estimates more than 87,000 Tibetans were killed in the crackdown. Eyewitnesses spoke of PLA troops executing monks in the courtyards of monasteries, dragging women into army camps, and using artillery against civilian neighbourhoods. Thousands more were imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared.
The PLA’s assault did not remain limited to a momentary act of suppression. It marked the beginning of a campaign to annihilate Tibetan identity. Monasteries were dynamited. Religious texts were burned. The mere possession of a photograph of the Dalai Lama became a crime punishable by imprisonment.
The world’s muted outrage
Despite China’s propaganda, the United Nations could not ignore the atrocities. In 1959, 1961, and 1965, the UN General Assembly passed resolutions condemning Beijing’s violations of human rights in Tibet and affirming the Tibetan people’s right to self-determination. The 1961 resolution explicitly acknowledged their claim to freedom.
But these words were not backed by action. No UN mission was ever allowed into Tibet, and Beijing dismissed the resolutions as “interference,” secure in the knowledge that its veto power at the Security Council shielded it from consequences.
Long-term consequences: an occupied homeland
The aftermath of 1959 set in motion a demographic and cultural takeover. Waves of Han Chinese settlers, encouraged by state policy, altered the population balance. Tibetans were relegated to second-class status in their own land, their language marginalised in schools, and their religious leaders imprisoned or exiled. Beijing’s so-called “autonomy” under the 1965 statute amounted to rule by Party appointees loyal to the occupiers, not to Tibet’s people.
While in Beijing, the 1959 uprising was whitewashed as a prelude to “democratic reform.” For Tibetans, it was the moment they lost their country.
“They have turned our monasteries into museums, our land into a colony, and our history into their propaganda,” says exiled Tibetan Sangay. “But they cannot erase our memory, and they will not extinguish our will to be free.”
Sixty-six years on, the gap between China’s fiction and Tibet’s truth remains unbridgeable — not because of misunderstanding, but because one side is built on a lie, and the other on the lived experience of a people who refuse to forget the day their homeland was stolen.
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* Aritra Banerjee is a Defence, Foreign Affairs & Aerospace Journalist, Co-Author of the book ‘The Indian Navy @75: Reminiscing the Voyage’ and was the Co-Founder of Mission Victory India (MVI), a new-age military reforms think-tank. He has worked in TV, Print and Digital media, and has been a columnist writing on strategic affairs for national and international publications. His reporting career has seen him covering major Security and Aviation events in Europe and travelling across Kashmir conflict zones. Twitter: @Aritrabanned