[Reader-list] The Hindu on Tibet

[S. Jabbar]

Letter to the Editor:

The Hindu's bias in favour of the Chinese Government in its editorial on
Tibet (March 28, 2008) is dismaying.  The reasons behind the recent
demonstrations by Tibetans are transparent. You speak of sustained growth,
omitting the fact that Han Chinese control the economy, Party and
government. Impartial observers have documented the onslaught on natural
resources, the repression of Buddhism, the enforced denunciations of the
Dalai Lama.

The subjugation of Tibet is most evident in re-settlement policy. In 1952
Chairman Mao complained that there were "hardly any Han in Tibet." By 1953
there were 100,000 Chinese in the province of Qinghai, the renamed eastern
Tibetan province of Amdo. In 1985 there were 2.5 million Chinese and 750,000
Tibetans in Qinghai. By the 2000 census only 20% of Qinghai's population was
Tibetan. 
 
 This demographic engineering undermines the comparison you draw between
Tibet and Kashmir. Right-wing groups in India have long demanded the
re-settlement of the Kashmir Valley. However, Article 370 disallows
non-state subjects from buying land; and it is to allay Kashmiri anxieties
that New Delhi has not granted autonomy or separate statehood for Ladakh and
Jammu.
 
Beijing's abusive denunciations of the Dalai Lama and its stonewalling of
his proposals make it difficult to accept their sincerity. A just solution
"within the framework of one China" is precisely what the Dalai Lama has
pursued. 
 
The Hindu's wholesale reproduction of the official Chinese line on Tibet
does it little credit.
 
Yours sincerely,

Sonia Jabbar
Ramachandra Guha
Mukul Kesavan
Madhu Sarin
Jyotirmaya Sharma
Dilip Simeon
Tenzin Sonam
Shashi Tharoor