The Monk Who Sold A Story

On a hot summer afternoon last week, around 700 Tibetan monks sat huddled in Mumbai's Azad Maidan. Somewhere nearby, huge crowds swelled at a massive Dalit rally. The monks in purple robes were on a hunger strike to protest the Chinese crackdown in the streets of Lhasa while the impoverished Dalits looked like they were on a hunger strike though they were not. They were protesting against the discriminations against them.

That the two events were unfolding on the same ground was coincidental, yet a bond developed between the fair and the dark. Tibetan activists, trained in securing support from the most improbable corners of human conscience began a signature campaign. Within a few hours, thousands signed pledging support. The signatures were turned into a memorandum which was later dispatched to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Dalits, as usual, protested and went home without having expanded their constituency.

Few groups can match the Tibetans' ability to network, make friends and milk the friendship. Years of living in exile, in an undying hope of returning to their homeland one day, has taught the refugees the power of perseverance. And also the art of telling their side of the story.

The Tibetans skillfully supply the media with gory tales and images of Chinese aggression whose authenticity cannot be verified independently. Stories of Chinese "oppression" float on several websites. "The situation in Tibet is being monitored round the clock at Dharamsala. Photographs and stories of Chinese atrocity are sourced from our friends in Tibet," says Lobsang, a college student in Mumbai who refuses to give his last name fearing that the Chinese will persecute his relatives in Tibet.

Lobsang is tall and sports luxurious locks tied in a pony tail. He is fluent in English and speaks a smattering of Hindi. He volunteers to lead journalists to Lobsang Dhondup, the leader of the protesting monks in Mumbai. Dhondup was born in Tibet and escaped to India a decade ago.

"I could have become a suicide bomber, but I chose to become a monk and monks are not supposed to kill," says Dhondup. Monks do not have to kill at all to get attention. They just need to network and feed journalists with chosen information. That these monks know very well how to do.

Two days before the monks from a Karnataka monastery assembled in Mumbai, some activists met at the Bandra home of the national coordinator of Friends of Tibet, C A Kalyanpur. "We had to plan the logistics," he says on the phone from Dharamsala, the hub of Tibetan government-in-exile. He is there to secure the release of Tenzin Tsundue and the band of 100 activists who are being held in Jwalamukhi Jail, Kangda (Himachal Pradesh). Tsundue and the other activists were arrested when they left the cool climes of Dharamsala for a long, mountainous journey into Tibet as part of "the Return March" to coincide with the Beijing Olympics in August.

As the Olympics approach, the global media's interest in China is highly cashable. The Tibetans here, of course, see an opportunity.

In February, Tsundue sent a mail to his friends, many in the media. He said that the band of 100 would cross into Tibet from "several points". Tsundue is a media creation. Most of his unconventional attempts to get India's attention have been newsworthy. "On our journey home we will cook and camp in tents on the roadside. There will be dancing and singing, theatre and film shows on the road," wrote Tsundue in the mail. Obviously, he knew that the Indian authorities too will read the mail.

Tsundue is a serial headline-hunter and one of the most potent reminders of the Tibetan trauma. In the past he has accused Indian police of beating him up in custody. Six years ago the bespectacled activist scaled the 14th floor of a five-star hotel in Mumbai and hoisted a "Free Tibet" banner. China's former premier Zhu Rongji was in the hotel then.

Tsundue's friends now routinely copy his antics. They embarrass the Chinese regularly. And in spectacular ways. They plan in advance and are discreet. The Chinese embassy at Chanakyapuri in New Delhi is among the capital's most secured places. Fearing protests this year (30 Tibetan women had stormed it last year), security around the embassy was tightened. Yet on March 15, around 50 activists in a bus duped the security and drove into a backlane. A dozen boys jumped from the bus-roof to the fenced embassy wall and unfurled Tibetan flags. They were eventually arrested but not before their media friends captured the moment.