People to decide about Dalai Lama's institution

Tawang, April 8: Tibetan Spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Saturday said it was up to his people to decide whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not. A mostery official said the 14th Dalai Lama would hold discussions with senior Lamas the issue of reincartion during his stay at Tawang. “I have left it to the people to decide whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not. It depends entirely on the wishes the Tibetan people,” the Tibetan leader told jourlists at Tawang, the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso.
The Dalai Lama arrived at the Tawang mostery on Friday evening and began his religious discourses on Saturday. He is staying at the Tawang mostery, which belongs to the Gelugpa school of Mahaya Buddhism and has had a religious connection with Lhasa’s Drepung mostery that continued during the British rule. Beijing refers to this connection to claim Tawang as part of Chi after invading and taking over Tibet in 1950. There is speculation that the 15th Dalai Lama could be again from Tawang even as Chi has med a six-year-old boy in Tibet as the reincartion of the Panchen Lama, widely considered the second-holiest monk in Tibetan Buddhism. Asked if the next Dalai Lama could be a woman, the Dalai Lama said: “That might also happen. “Let Chi first come clear on its theory on rebirth (next Dalai Lama),” the 81-year-old said. “I retired from politics in 2011 and all political matters are handled by our government-in-exile. But I am committed to promote and preserve Tibetan culture and ecology.”
Chi on Wednesday lodged a protest with India over the Dalai Lama’s visit to Aruchal Pradesh. Indian Ambassador Vijay Gokhale was summoned in Beijing. The Sino-Indian border along Aruchal Pradesh is separated by the McMahon Line, an imagiry border now known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). India and Chi fought a border war in 1962, with Chinese troops advancing deep into Aruchal Pradesh and inflicting heavy casualties on poorly armed Indian troops. The border dispute with Chi was inherited by India from British rulers, who hosted a 1914 conference with the Tibetan and Chinese governments that set the border in what is now Aruchal Pradesh.
Chi has never recognised the 1914 McMahon Line and claims 90,000 sq km, including nearly all of Aruchal. India accuses Chi of occupying 8,000 sq km in Jammu and Kashmir. After 1962, tensions flared again in 1986 with Indian and Chinese forces clashing in Sumdorong Chu valley of Aruchal Pradesh. Chinese troops reportedly built a helipad in the valley leading to the fresh skirmishes.  Exhorting the European Union for pursuing policies directed at social cohesion, the Dalai Lama suggested that India, Chi and Pakistan could have similar economic and cultural cooperation for greater stability in the sub-continent.
“The exit of Britain (from European Union) was the people’s choice, but EU is something Africa, the America and even Asia can follow. I admire Germany for sticking to EU despite a very strong Deutsche Mark,” he said. The Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. India is also home to some 100,000 Tibetans. (IANS)