Tibetan diaspora

The Tibetan diaspora or Tibetan exodus refers to the exodus of the Tibetan people that followed the 1959 Tibetan uprising. Tibetans are living outside their original homelands in Greater Tibet, as a result of the Chinese invasion in Tibet.

From 1959 to 1960, about 80,000 Tibetans crossed the Himalaya for India. Continued flights, estimated in the numbers of 1,000 to 2,500 a year with survival rates ranging from 10 to 40 per cent, depending on the year, have resulted in these numbers increasing to 100,000 for those who have succeeded in crossing the Himalayas and about the same number of those who have died or been shot on their way southward. A 2008 documentary indicated that there are about 130,000 Tibetan refugees living in Dharamsala, India and that their numbers are increasing every year by about 3,000-4,500. Most new immigrants are children and monks, who have secretly crossed over to Nepal through the Himalayas and then to India. The children have often been sent to Dharamsala by their parents in Tibet so that the original Tibetan culture, still preserved in the exile community, can be passed down to them.

According to a United Nations Resolution, passed in 1961, the large-scale exodus of Tibetan people is linked to a violation of its human rights and the suppression of its culture and religion.

Second Tibetan Exodus

After the opening of Tibet in the 1980s to trade and tourism, a second Tibetan exodus, took place due to increasing political repression. From 1986 to 1996, 25,000 Tibetans joined and increased by 18% their exiled community in India.

Origins and Numbers

Following the 1959 invasion of the Chinese People's Liberation Army of Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama and his government fled to India. This was followed by a mass emigration southward from Tibet, which lasted until the mid 1960s and to a lesser degree continues until now. These people fled from Chinese persecution and sinicization without papers through the Himalayas.

It is estimated by SIL Ethnologue that ca. 220,000 Tibetan speaking people live now dispersed worldwide, more than half of whom are in India (ca. 125,000), one fourth in Nepal (ca. 60,000) and about 5,000 in Bhutan. These numbers however include natives of border areas, citizens of the three countries, who are not in fact members of the diaspora.

The Central Tibetan Administration provides a Green Book - a kind of Tibetan citizenship identity certificate - to Tibetan refugees. Based on CTA data there are approximately 145,150 Tibetans in the diaspora: in India 101,242; in Nepal 16,313; in Bhutan 1,883; and in rest of the world 25,712. The larger communities are present in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, France, Taiwan and Australia.

The UNHCR Refworld website lists 968 documents relating to Tibetan refugees, as of June 28, 2009.

Organisations

The main organisation of the Tibetan diaspora is the Central Tibetan Administration with its seat in McLeod Ganj at Dharamsala in India. It is the Tibetan Government in Exile, headed by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetans. Recognizing that the Chinese government will likely involve itself politically in the search for his reincarnated successor after his death if that search is done in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama has said that he may instead choose to be reincarnated from within the Tibetan exile community in India, from another nation or maybe even not at all. The CTA maintains Tibet Offices in 10 countries. These act as de facto embassies of the CTA, offices of culture and information and effectively provide a kind of consular help to Tibetans. They are based in New Delhi, India; New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; London, UK; Canberra, Australia; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Pretoria, South Africa; and Taipei, Taiwan.

The Tibetan NGOs deal mostly with the cultural and social life of the diaspora and especially the preservation of the cultural heritage. The Tibet cause, aiming to restore respect for human rights and freedom of Tibetans under the Chinese law in Tibet, is supported by several Tibetan non-political organizations, most based in India. As the discussion between the Tibetan Government in Exile and the Chinese Government has failed to progress, more and more of these associations have been attracted by the Tibetan independence movement.

Education

The Central Tibetan Schools Administration with a seat in New Delhi is an autonomous organization established in 1961 with the objective to establish, manage and assist schools in India for the education of Tibetan children living in India while preserving and promoting their culture and heritage. According to information on its own website, as of 2009 the Administration was running 71 schools in the areas of concentration of Tibetan population, with about 10,000 students on the roll from pre-primary to class XII, and with 554 teaching staff. According to the information on the website of the CTA, as of 2009.01.13. there were 28 CTSA schools whose enrollment was 9,991 students.

In 2009, The Tibetan Children's Villages established the first Tibetan higher college in exile in Bangalore (India) which was named “The Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education”. The goals of this college is to teach Tibetan language and Tibetan culture, but also science, the arts, counseling and information technology to Tibetan students in exile.

International Help

One of the people to organize the functioning of Tibetan refugee camps in India and to transform the life of Tibetan refugees into the ways of a diaspora was Polish born Wanda Dynowska (1888–1971), called Umadevi, recalled by the 14th Dalai Lama as the "Polish Mother", along with her friend, Indian citizen of Polish origin, Maurycy Frydman.

See also

• List of organizations of Tibetans in exile
• Refugees in India#Tibetan refugees
• Tibetan American

Walking on the Sky: A Tibetan Refugee's Himalayan Escape