The Dalai Lama (Photo: Tenzin Choejor/www.dalailama.com)
For the first time in 369 years the Dalai Lama’s political and administrative powers have been finally transferred to the office of an elected Tibetan leader. In approving the amendments to the 1991 Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, the Dalai Lama has now made his “semi-retirement” more formal. He approved the amendments yesterday in McLeod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh, India, where he lives.
The transfer fulfills a commitment the 75-year-old Tibetan leader made to himself and public decades ago to step back from exercising complete control over Tibetan affairs, such as it is with Tibet having been incorporated into China for more than 50 years.The approval of the amendments may not have any immediate consequence but is potentially important in the event of the 14th Dalai Lama’s death. Now that those powers have been detached from his person and enshrined in an elected government, the transfer empowers the Tibetan administration to take a formal position on the future of Tibet.
It is unlikely that this break from the centuries-old tradition would have any bearing on Beijing’s position on Tibet, the region it considers as a fully integrated territory of China. There is always the theoretical possibility that one day the Chinese government may bypass the Dalai Lama and directly engage the Tibetan administration in India to resolve the question of Tibet. The overriding motivation of such an action would be to negotiate down with an unequal partner, unlike the Dalai Lama whose global stature gives him enormous leverage.
As long as the 14 Dalai Lama is alive, the transfer of political and administrative powers is a largely symbolic decision. Of course, the newly empowered office of the Kalon Tripa or Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay can now legally position itself as the representative of the Tibetans in exile. But there is nothing to suggest that the Dalai Lama’s influence over the broad direction of the Tibetan debate is in decline. On the contrary, now that he is free from some of the constraints of his formal power, he might be in a better position to be be more creative in his approach.
