Tibetan community in exile

Abstract

The successful settlement of Tibetan refugees, who are often remarked as ‘model refugees’, installed by the Indian state, is usually contrasted with the rise in extremism in other countries by virtue of refugee influx and settlement. As an exception, both Indian state as well as Tibetan community are usually posed and extolled as figurations of harmony and accord, where the Indian state is eulogized for its humanitarian stance; while Tibetan refugees’ relationship with the locals is presumed to be non-violent and passive by virtue of government’s deployment of an effective approach for the settlement or reterritorialization of Tibetan community. The passivity of Tibetan refugees as well as presumed non-conflictual relations between the two communities, refugee community, and local host community, is also attributed to Tibetan’s religion of Buddhism and its cultural affinities with Hinduism, Tibetan communities’ contribution to Indian economy through rise in tourism, and Indian state’s constructive approach for reterritorialization of these refugees. Such a picture of the Indian state’s relation to and response to Tibetan community presents more of an idealistic account of state nature and politics, emerging as an ostensible exception among other cases of modern state’s conduct of refugee migration. While dealing with the refugee situation, the international refugee law offers three major solutions – repatriation, integration, and resettlement in third country – where repatriation remains the favoured solution and, then integration in case of no chance of return. The Tibetan community emerges as an exception where with less likelihood of return in near future, the community has neither repatriated or integrated into the Indian society, rather their culture has also been appraised by the Indian population itself. The occurrence of dispute between the host population and the refugee population also remains minimal. With the establishment of its own government in exile, the community has been successful in managing its own affairs and retaining its own identity with the help of self-established administrative, cultural, and educational institutions. Such institutions have been fruitful in not only managing refugee aids and grants but also in providing a space where the grievances of community members could be understood and well addressed. It remains a community that follows the Indian laws as well as is governed by CTA (Central Tibetan Administration). Although there is no denying the fact that not all refugee communities have an exilic government but the question is whether or not establishment of a sub-institution like CTA in host country for different communities could prove beneficial for that particular refugee community. The present chapter would attempt to trace the factors which contributed to the success of Tibetan community resettlement in India and thereby would focus on the possibility of usage of Tibetan community as a model in order to provide a new solution or such characteristics that could be proved helpful for different refugee communities. Various studies have been done to understand the plight of refugees and shed light on their conditions. Although these studies have proved productive in improving the functioning of UNHCR, what seem lacking are practical experiments and amendments in ways of tackling the refugee situation. The study of Tibetan administrative system in exile gives the inkling of how presence of a sub-institution, despite already existing agency of refugees i.e. UNHCR, could address the issues and manage the funds without breaching the sovereignty of state and significance of UNHCR. The present chapter would properly discuss the steps to construct such an institution, and would try to accentuate the need for the agency that not only make direct links of refugees with international actors but also work as a decentralized subordinate unit of UNHCR.