Reviewing Tsering Wangmo Dhompa’s ‘The Politics of Sorrow’, Wangpo Tethong* asks the Tibetan youth to adopt an open mind in making sense of the bitter, regionally rooted disputes that continue to shape our exile politics today, for it is a misconception to believe that repeated calls for Tibetan unity can replace a deeper inquiry into our shared past.
I was recently quite impressed by a PBS documentary highlighting an NGO committed to bridging political divides through structured dialogue. One key moment in the program involved two persons – a Black liberal social worker and a white entrepreneur – articulating to one another their visible self and invisible self. The latter referred not to political ideologies or strategic affiliations, but to personal experiences—deeply human moments of pain, family histories, and private wounds that lie beneath surface-level disagreements. These inner narratives, often detached from the dominant political discourse, created a space for mutual recognition and vulnerability.
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, in the strongest moments of her narrative, manages to create such spaces for personal sharing. The group of Tibetans who feel marginalized due to their affiliation with the 13 Settlements, consisting mostly of Eastern Tibetan, become visible to us—those of us who are otherwise far removed from them.
The book offers readers a valuable internal perspective, one that is likely unfamiliar to most Tibetans. It becomes clear how painfully they experienced the conflict that reached its peak in the 1980s with the assassination of Gungtang Tsultrim.
The chronological course of Gungtang Tsultrim’s murder is meticulously reconstructed. In addition to the well-known sources from Tibetan Review, important new eyewitness accounts are added. Still, the ultimate certainty about the background remains elusive.
Perhaps even more enlightening to me, as someone interested in history, is her turn to the early days of exile and her depiction of the “Great Oath”—a pledge by Tibetans from all three regions to unite under the leadership of the Dalai Lama—from the perspective of Eastern Tibetans. I learned how unclear and poorly documented this event is—and yet how emotionally important it has been for the founding myth of the exile Tibetan community.
It’s important that Tsering Wangmo Dhompa repeatedly cites Gyari Lodi in this context, who offers his perspective on these events. His father—a prominent leader of the United Group—told his followers from Nyarong after the “Great Oath” that the time of old regional loyalties was over, and that it was now time to integrate into the structures of the CTA and its rehabilitation program. These accounts help us understand which exile-political narratives and myths emerged from this event and what significance they have had for the trajectory and storytelling of the early exile period. For some, it was a turn away from regional thinking toward a national ideology; for others, more a declaration of loyalty without abandoning regional identity and existing regional elite structures.
The author’s theoretical framework—placing the early exile period in the tension between diversity and national unity—leads to some new insights. For integration that allows for diversity, more mutual understanding is needed, and that clearly was lacking. But was it only a lack of understanding, or were there other sources of conflict—such as political interests in preserving traditional hierarchies—that blocked the way to a new future? More concretely: Why should the Eastern Tibetan leaders, including religious ones, have relinquished their traditional leadership roles—and with them, their independent visions of economic development in Indian exile—in favor of a centralized exile Tibetan administration, either partially or entirely?
The 13 Settlements and their economic partner, the Tibetan Industrial Rehabilitation Society (TIRS), faced significant economic difficulties from the start. I would have liked to know more about how discussions around these issues unfolded within the settlements themselves. I had not realized the extent of Brewster’s frustration and burnout—he was a key figure in managing and fundraising for TIRS. The likely victims of this mismanagement were the most socially vulnerable residents of the 13 Settlements, and I would have appreciated more insight into their experiences.
One of the central theses the author puts forward is: “Far from being dismissible as a regional matter or a self-serving attempt to retain traditional power, the Thirteen’s assertions of Tibetaness throw into relief the typology of Tibetan nationalism in exile.”
This framing recurs throughout the book. But one might critically ask whether a different explanation—one that, for example, highlights the role of social entrepreneurs—could be equally valid. Why not tell this as a story of individuals (mostly men, with a few women) navigating the tensions between tradition and modernity? Isn’t it also a struggle over access to economic resources? Or perhaps it can be read as a critical account of leadership failures—both within the exile Tibetan administration and in the 13 Settlements—when it came to developing forward-looking ideas for the future.
That such a change of perspective is indeed legitimate becomes evident when we consider how the United Group (and the 13 settlements) later sank into irrelevance within the exile community, while new political ideas—no longer influenced by experiences with the Kuomintang (KMT) or Communist Party (CCP), but shaped by Western and host country perspectives—began to permeate the thinking of the Dalai Lama and the broader Tibetan world.
The United Group—a highly interesting yet problematic political construct of our early exile period—has not been sufficiently examined. We know that the United Group drew on ideological fragments or formulas from the KMT. But little is known about what it actually stood for or against. We know that its members were largely drawn from what could be called a middle social stratum. This new exile elite was fueled by a potent mix of resentment and “revolutionary energy” for social change. It opposed aristocratic hierarchies just as much as it opposed anyone unwilling to conform to its rigid concept of a united front. They saw themselves as functional elites, not traditional elites—what mattered was their service to the community, not their social status—putting them at odds with traditional notions of rule. Despite their surface-level modernity, the group lacked the cultural prerequisites to find its footing in the new world of exile. The habitus that the United Group advocated for the CTA was ultimately very much perceived as central Tibetan norms—if only through language—and was essentially value-conservative and not too tolerant. Might we regard the United Group as a kind of Tibetan Jacobinism—an inevitable stage in exile that paved the way for the emergence of new political ideas?
How can we Tibetans prepare for the world of tomorrow? Should we each pursue that individually, or do we need a shared vision? What concrete value does the exile Tibetan community offer beyond the preservation of Tibetan culture? How much freedom, democratic agreements, and coordination should the organizational framework for our common future allow? And who should lead that transformation? These questions are highly relevant today. And they were already faced by the first generation of Tibetan refugees in 1959.
The Tibetan elite system underwent renewal in both content and composition in the early 1960s, attempting to offer answers. These necessary steps toward modernization came at a cost—especially for the traditional elites. Many became obsolete in the new era. We should be, therefore, cautious not to interpret these ruptures solely through the lens of identity politics and popular resentment. After all, there were successful modernization projects: the cooperatives, the monasteries and lamas who globalized Tibetan Buddhism, the many good jobs created by a new generation of Tibetan entrepreneurs, or the Tibetan youth movement, which played a vital role in cultural translation for the broader society.
To that list, I would also add the TIRS concept, which I have always found fascinating. That a refugee group—emerging from conditions nearly medieval—made it over the mountains to India and dared to envision an industrial future for itself is remarkable. To my knowledge, even today there are no genuine industrial projects led by exile Tibetans. Maybe now is the time. The CTA could take a leading role in establishing new forms of economic cooperation that go beyond the well-known sectors like agriculture, trade, crafts, and tourism. Leadership from the CTA—if it wants to remain relevant.
The exile Tibetan community, led by the Dalai Lama, has produced a range of political, social, economic, and cultural innovations that reflect a process of collective adaptation under displacement. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), for all its imperfections, represents a key institutional experiment in stateless governance, social coordination, and identity preservation. These innovations emerged not in ideal conditions, but through negotiation, coercion, conflict, and reinvention. The painful and complex challenges involved in this sociocultural transformation—especially in reconciling traditional structures with the demands of modernity—must not be overlooked.
For younger Tibetans especially, it could be a rewarding experience to approach this period with openness to multiple ways of understanding — through historical reflections, comparisons, imagining alternative economic scenarios, and personal narrative alike. How else can they begin to make sense of the bitter, regionally rooted disputes that continue to shape our exile politics today? It is a misconception to believe that repeated calls for Tibetan unity can replace a deeper inquiry into our shared past. The experience of the 13 Settlements is a vital chapter of our internal exile history. There is much to learn from it. We owe Tsering Wangmo Dhompa gratitude for creating an intellectual space for making some of these stories visible again.
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* Wangpo Tethong has a master’s degree in history from University of Zürich and is the author of a book on Tibetan elites in Exile (Der Wandel in der politischen Elite der Tibeter im Exil: Integrations- & Desintegrationsprozesse in der politischen Elite). He has edited Bhod Shon, a Tibetan Youth Magazine; co-founded Tibetan student circles and the Tibetan Film Festival; and taken many other Tibet initiatives around the world, including the “Future of Tibet” conferences. He has worked with the Green Party (Zurich), Greenpeace Switzerland, and in campaign/communication roles for various Swiss NGOs. He was a member of the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile from Europe.