As exiled Tibetans vote, calls grow for India to help them stand up to China

In the first week of January, Tibetan refugees across the globe, from New York to the freezing heights of Ladakh along the India-China border, cast their votes to elect a new political leader and members of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile – with the Dalai Lama’s advancing age and the global rise of an increasingly assertive Beijing chief among their concerns.

At least three candidates have emerged as clear front-runners to head the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), which has its seat in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala. Among them is a common strand of resolve – to take a hardened stance against China, to win more friends sympathetic to the Tibetan cause, and to prod New Delhi to speak up against Beijing.

Thousands of Tibetans live in India, but New Delhi, afraid of upsetting Beijing, has been reluctant to openly engage with the Tibetan diaspora. In 2018, when the CTA planned public events across India to mark six decades of exile, New Delhi was quick to tell officials to skip the celebrations, forcing the CTA to cancel the events.

Yet the latest strategy to push New Delhi comes as its ties with Beijing have reached a low – the two militaries have been locked in a tense, often violent border stand-off for the past eight months that has brought tens of thousands of soldiers into a face-to-face confrontation. In the process, economic ties between the two have frayed.