IN THE WINTER of 1996, Sonam Dendrup left his family's tent in the grasslands of north Tibet and began an arduous six-week trek across the Himalayas to India. Four years later, he came back the same way. 'I went to India to get an education and to see His Holiness, the Dalai Lama,' he says. 'But my whole family is back here in Tibet. I never planned to stay in exile.'
Sonam is one of a new generation of Tibetans for whom the door to exile quietly swings both ways. From 1959 through to the 1970s, the vast majority of refugees who settled in India, Nepal and further afield were fleeing political persecution. Today, although dissatisfaction with Chinese rule continues, motives for leaving Tibet are more mixed.
'About 10 to 15 per cent of new arrivals nowadays are released prisoners and other people with political problems,' says Dorjee, director of the Refugee Reception Centre in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. 'They usually come here for good. Another 25 per cent come only to see His Holiness, tour the Buddhist pilgrimage sights and visit relatives here - they usually go home after a few months.' The number coming to fulfil their lifetime aspiration of an audience with the Dalai Lama, now in his 70th year, increases annually.
The rest - some 60 to 65 per cent of refugees - come to India mainly for education, either secular or monastic. Unlike in Tibet, where education is still an unaffordable luxury for many inhabitants of remote areas, education for children and adults is free in Dharamsala and other exile settlements. And it's not in Chinese.
'It's a chance for us to get a good grounding in our own language and culture, as well as to learn English,' says Sonam, who had only a primary education before going to India at the age of 20. With an abundance of foreign tourists and volunteer teachers in Dharamsala, many refugees become fluent in English.
Whether they go back to Tibet after completing their studies depends largely on family commitments. 'We encourage them to go back, but there's no way of monitoring how many make it,' says Dorjee. For their own safety, returned refugees are urged not to communicate with the exile authorities.