The Dalai Lama Succession Row Is China's Headache - And India's Too

NDTV

08-07-2025

On the eve of his 90th birthday, the Dalai Lama, in a statement, finally revealed his succession plan, confirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue and the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non-profit organisation founded by the Office of the Dalai Lama in 2015, would carry out the procedure, and that "no-one else has any authority to interfere in this matter". China rejected the statement, stressing that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, etc., must be chosen by drawing lots from a golden urn, and approved by the central government in Beijing. She further added that Tibetan Buddhism was born in China and that it is a religion with Chinese characteristics. Soon, India's position on the issue was also made clear as Union Minister Kiren Rijiju stated that only the current Dalai Lama and the conventions established by him can determine his successor. Both Rijiju and Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh attended the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday celebrations in Dharamshala on July 6.
There is no doubt that the Dalai Lama succession issue will add yet another layer of complexity to the already complex India-China relations. Chinese state media has long threatened India against using the 'Tibet card' by using the 'Northeast card' as a counter to 'hit India's pain points'. Over the past few years, as China-India relations remained tense, certain Indian stakeholders have highlighted the role of 'invisible hands fuelling violence' in Northeastern states. Some Chinese accounts even hint at Chinese interest in collaborating with Pakistan and Bangladesh to foment insurgency and separatism in the region. The recently held trilateral between China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Kunming, could be seen as a subtle message to India in this regard.
Clearly, for India, on the Dalai Lama succession issue, the stakes are high, even if the options remain limited. That, however, should not stop India's strategic community from calling out and seeking to form a global consensus on China's contradicting stance on the Tibet issue. For example, China's official discourse has always vilified 'the feudal serf system of old Tibet, which combined politics and religion' and often called it 'the darkest, most reactionary, backward and cruellest rule in human history', 'incompatible with the requirements of the development of human civilisation…contrary to the general trend of world development, the historical trend of human democratic progress.' By 'liberating Tibet', the Chinese side claimed that the 'Communist Party of China has completely buried the feudal serf system" and established the socialist system of people's democracy and created the premise for Tibet's democratic reform, development and progress.
The narrative is much in sync with Chinese communist leaders' overall disdain for Buddhism, with various high-profile leaders of the New Culture Movement such as Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu openly condemning the religion and philosophy of Buddhism and its deep Indian roots as a 'great misfortune for China and a serious obstacle to the progress of Chinese thought and society'. Today, it is the same communist party that claims to be the self-appointed custodian of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama lineage.
Equally problematic is China's claims of Tibet's development stride under the party state. China's propaganda departments have deftly built up a narrative in the past few decades that Tibet is an epitome of development, a 'different planet' when compared to the rest of South Asia, so much so that Tibet can now provide the 'gift of development' to select South Asian nations. However, in China's internal debates and discussions, this narrative is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, it is 'Tibet's severe development challenge' that seems to be the dominant theme within China. Chinese research highlights how Tibet's per capita GDP and local fiscal revenue continue to lag behind all other provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China, and how the urban-rural income gap remains the highest in Tibet, despite multiple high-profile interventions by the Chinese government.
They have since long flagged the issue of how Tibet's problematic economic model has turned it into an unsustainable low-efficiency economy - a 'dependency economy' - and how Tibet has been entrapped in a circle where 'the state invests in development, and development requires more investment'. Since the early 2000s, Chinese scholars have been consistently highlighting the need to open up Tibet for foreign trade through the construction of a South Asia Trade Corridor. Since India is at the core of South Asia and shares the longest border with Tibet, Tibet's opening up for foreign trade, in the Chinese scheme of things, is all about ensuring that the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is able to access and benefit from the vast markets and superior geographical location of India, directly or via other South Asian nations.
The issue of Tibet is embedded in two sets of contradictions: the region's unbalanced and inadequate economic development, which China sees as the primary contradiction, and the religious ethnic tension, the Dalai Lama issue, etc, which is seen in China as Tibet's secondary contradiction. It is believed by many that Tibet's special contradiction can be mitigated to a great extent if China successfully addresses its primary contradiction by constructing an economic corridor through South Asia. Our future countermeasures vis-à-vis China - in terms of border negotiation with China, restarting of border trade or tourism, and even the issue of Dalai Lama's succession - must take into consideration this complete and complex picture of the Tibet Autonomous Region.