OPINION
While the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom is patent and grabs global attention, the one to preserve their idenity and integrity as a people in the face of deep-rooted existing, potentially divisive, causes, and as a result of the conditions of their diasporic existence, remains subdued and is easily overlooked, but still more weighty and critical, for upon it rests the totality of their very future, points out Saurabh Chauhan.*
There are two struggles for Tibetans living in exile. They run side by side, but they are not the same thing. One is the long hope of freedom and of returning one day to the land. That hope is real. It has kept many people going through decades of uncertainty. The other struggle is quieter and, in many ways, heavier. It is the everyday work of remaining a people at all. Staying together when everything pulls apart. Keeping the Tibetan language spoken in ordinary homes and not only on formal occasions. Protecting the religion so that it continues to be practised and lived, not turned into something distant that younger people only hear about. Holding the settlements from slowly emptying. Stopping families scattered across India, Nepal, Europe, America and elsewhere from drifting into separate lives until they no longer feel part of the same story. This second struggle is talked about far less. Yet without it the first hope begins to lose its substance.
This second work is difficult in ways that are easy to overlook if you are not living inside it day after day. There is no territory under our own control. The administration has no army and no independent power to enforce decisions. It works under the laws and changing policies of host countries. Money is always limited. It comes from voluntary contributions of ordinary Tibetans and from external support that can rise or fall without warning. People are spread across many places, some in settled communities, many others living more isolated lives. Children go to local schools where the main language is not Tibetan. They come home with phones and screens full of other worlds, other music, other ambitions. Parents often work long hours in difficult jobs and arrive home tired. It becomes harder to insist on the mother tongue, to tell the old stories, to keep the daily habits that once held identity in place. Regional feelings from U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo remain strong. Differences between the religious traditions are still felt. Distance and the pressures of modern life make it easier for those differences to harden into quiet separation. Frustration builds when years pass and the larger political situation stays frozen. A powerful neighbour sits across the border with time, resources and a clear interest in seeing the exile community weaken. In the middle of all this, simply keeping the community from coming apart requires steady, unglamorous effort year after year. It is the kind of labour that does not produce dramatic news. If it fails, though, everything else becomes weaker.
The way the exile administration has taken shape grew directly out of this hard necessity. It was never free to function like the government of a normal country that has its own land, its own army and full sovereign power. It was shaped by the need to hold a dispersed people together under long strain. Giving formal place to the three traditional regions, keeping representation for the religious traditions and approaching open factional competition with caution — these things come from the practical worry that a small people under continuous pressure cannot easily survive deep and lasting internal splits. These arrangements are not perfect. They can be slow. They sometimes produce deadlock and frustration. They carry the clear marks of limited means and constant external pressure. A large part of the everyday energy still goes into running schools, looking after health needs, supporting cultural preservation and meeting the basic requirements of the settlements. Those are the things that can still be protected and passed on. That quiet, steady protection is what keeps the larger hope of freedom from resting on empty ground.
Difficulties appear, as they do wherever people try to manage their common life under hard conditions. The continued weight of religious tradition remains visible because for many Tibetans it is still closely tied to identity, to education and to a sense of continuity across generations. At certain difficult moments the community has drawn on deep personal moral authority when the formal processes reach their limit. These are simply the realities of a people trying to keep itself intact with the tools available to it.
The old scriptures understand this kind of long, patient responsibility. In the Bodhicaryāvatāra, preserved in the Tengyur (Toh 3871), Śāntideva writes:
“As long as space endures, as long as there are beings to be found, may I continue likewise to remain to drive away the sorrows of the world.”
(Chapter 10, verse 55)
The words are not about sudden victory or perfect systems. They are about staying with the work for as long as the need continues. In the chapters dealing with perseverance he also speaks of enduring hardship when the welfare of others is at stake and of not turning back even when the path is full of difficulty. The Vinaya sections of the Kangyur treat the breaking of a harmonious community as one of the gravest faults. Once the people fracture, both the culture and the political hope grow weaker.
So, the deeper task remains this quiet holding-together. The language still heard in kitchens and courtyards. The religion still practised in the monasteries and in ordinary daily life. People still able to look at one another and know they belong to the same continuing story. That second struggle is slow. It is often frustrating. It rarely feels dramatic or heroic. It receives less attention than the call for freedom. Yet it is the ground on which everything else stands. If the flock remains together, the longer hope stays alive. If the flock begins to scatter for good, the longer hope has already started to fade.
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* Saurabh Chauhan is a journalist and independent researcher based in Himachal Pradesh. He spent nearly eight years with Hindustan Times, reporting from Shimla, Chandigarh and Lucknow, where he covered a wide range of political, social and environmental issues. His work has also appeared in platforms such as The Print, BBC Hindi, Firstpost and several other publications. Currently working independently, Chauhan is engaged in long-form research and writing. He is authoring a forthcoming book, Prayer Wheels in the Cloud, which explores the future of Tibetan culture, religion and political struggle through the lens of technology and a rapidly changing world.