Dalai Lama apologises for asking boy to suck his tongue
- Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, 87, has said sorry after video, which has gone viral, showed him sticking his tongue out and asking the youngster to suck it
- Sticking tongue out can be a form of greeting in Tibet; statement said the monk ‘regrets incident’, ‘often teases people he meets in innocent and playful way’
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The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama apologised on Monday after a video which showed him asking a young boy to suck his tongue triggered a backlash on social media.
The video, which has gone viral, shows the Dalai Lama, 87, planting a kiss on the boy’s lips as he leaned in to pay his respects.
The Buddhist monk is then seen sticking his tongue out as he asked the child to suck it. “Can you suck my tongue,” he is heard asking the boy in the video.
The footage is from an event in McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala city in northern India, on February 28.
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Dalai Lama apologies after video for asking young boy to ‘suck his tongue’
“His Holiness wishes to apologise to the boy and his family, as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused,” said a statement posted on the monk’s verified Twitter account.
“His Holiness often teases the people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras,” it added. “He regrets the incident.”
Twitter users slammed the video, calling it “disgusting” and “absolutely sick” after it started trending on Sunday.
“Utterly shocked to see this display by the #DalaiLama. In the past too, he’s had to apologise for his sexist comments. But saying – Now suck my tongue to a small boy is disgusting,” wrote user Sangita.
Another poster, Rakhi Tripathi, said: “What did I just see? What that child must be feeling? Disgusting.”
The Dalai Lama remains the universally recognised face of the movement for Tibetan autonomy.
But the global spotlight he enjoyed after winning the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize has dimmed and the deluge of invitations to hobnob with world leaders and Hollywood stars has slowed, partly because the ageing leader has cut back on his punishing travel schedule, but also due to China’s growing economic and political clout.
Beijing accuses him of wanting to split China, and has referred to him as a “wolf in a monk’s robe”.
In 2019, the Dalai Lama apologised for saying that if his successor were to be a woman, she would have to be “attractive”. The comments, which were criticised around the world, were made in a BBC interview.
Sticking one’s tongue out can be a form of greeting in Tibet, the BBC reported on Monday.
The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.
He has worked for decades to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote, mountainous homeland.
He now lives in a compound next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains in Dharamsala.
Additional reporting by Reuters
