06-07-2025
CIA radios and yak butter, and hours to spare: How a 23-year-old monk outwitted the Dragon empire
Picture this: Lhasa, March 1959. Bitter cold. Gunfire echoing through the hills. A 23-year-old monk steps out of his summer palace dressed as a low-ranking guard. Except he's not just any monk, he's the 14th
Dalai Lama
, spiritual and political heartbeat of
Tibet
.
The stakes? Life or death. Freedom or capture. And a whole nation's fate balancing on his young shoulders.
An invitation that smelled like a trap
It didn't happen overnight. China's grip on Tibet had been tightening since 1950. The Seventeen Point Agreement was meant to guarantee Tibetan autonomy under Chinese sovereignty. On paper, it did. In reality? 'It may happen that here in Tibet, religion and government will be attacked both from without and from within,' the 13th Dalai Lama had warned decades earlier, as recorded by The
Tibet Journal
in 2008.
by Taboola
by Taboola
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Undo
By 1959, the attacks were no longer just feared. They were daily life.
Then came the so-called invitation. Chinese General Zhang Chenwu asked the Dalai Lama to attend a dance show at military HQ. The catch? 'No guards.' Tibetans knew exactly what that meant. Abduction. Or worse.
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On 10 March 1959, tens of thousands of Tibetans surrounded Norbulingka Palace, forming a human barricade. Clashes with Chinese soldiers flared. Shells rained down. The State Oracle was consulted, three times. His advice: 'Leave. Now.'
Slipping into the night
On 17 March, just before 10pm, the Dalai Lama, disguised in a soldier's uniform, slipped through the palace gates. He was joined by his mother, siblings, tutors, senior ministers. 'A few minutes before 10 o'clock in the evening, His Holiness, disguised as an ordinary soldier, slipped past the massive throng of people along with a small escort,' noted TIME back then.
They crossed the Kyichu River, slipped into the Himalayas, travelling by night, hiding by day. There were no detailed maps. Only whispered directions, local guides, and prayers. According to folklore, monks' prayers conjured clouds and mist that hid them from Chinese planes. Maybe true, maybe not, but they made it.
A letter and a line crossed
By 26 March, the Dalai Lama reached Lhuntse Dzong, days away from India's border. He wrote to India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru
, 'Ever since Tibet went under the control of Red China... I, my Government officers and citizens have been trying to maintain peace... but the Chinese Government has been gradually subduing the Tibetan Government.'
Then he asked for asylum: 'In this critical situation we are entering India via Tsona... I hope that you will please make necessary arrangements for us.'
Nehru's gamble
Back in Delhi, Nehru had his own storm to weather. Welcoming the Dalai Lama meant infuriating Beijing. Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon and others were sceptical. But Nehru held his ground.
'The Dalai Lama had to undertake a very big and difficult journey and the circumstances of the journey were also painful to the Dalai Lama,' Nehru told Parliament later. 'So it is only proper that the Dalai Lama should get an opportunity in a peaceful atmosphere to consult his colleagues... and get over the mental strain.'
On 31 March, the Dalai Lama and his party crossed the McMahon Line at Khenzimane Pass in present-day Arunachal Pradesh. Havildar Naren Chandra Das of the Assam Rifles saluted the exhausted young monk. Decades later, in 2017, the Dalai Lama told the ageing soldier: 'Looking at your face, I now realise I must be very old too... Thank you very much.'
A new home in the hills
From the Assam Rifles post at Chutangmu, the Dalai Lama was taken to
Tawang Monastery
, then Tezpur in Assam. There, on 18 April, he spoke for the first time on Indian soil. He condemned China's aggression. He thanked India. And he set the record straight: 'The Dalai Lama wishes to categorically state that he left Lhasa and Tibet and came to India of his own free will and not by force.'
China fumed. Demanded his return. Nehru refused. By 1960, the Dalai Lama had settled in
McLeodganj
, Dharamshala, what would become 'Little Lhasa', home to Tibet's government-in-exile. Schools, monasteries, cultural centres rose from scratch. In 1989, the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent struggle.
Today he's 90. Still living in Dharamshala. Still speaking of compassion and dialogue. Still a thorn in Beijing's side. China's grip on Tibet has only tightened, but so has
Tibetan identity
in exile.
Looking back, it started with a suspicious invite. A young monk slipping away in the dark. And a journey through snow and fear to a fragile freedom on the other side of the Himalayas.
