Since modern China came into existence as “Republic of China” in 1912 under its
great leader Sun Yatsen, it has expanded its geographic area to more than double of its original
size. After occupation and assimilation of South Mongolia (1919), Manchuria (1945), East
Turkistan viz. ‘Xinjiang’ (1946-49) and Tibet(1950-51) into the present day “People’s Republic
of China” these regions account for far above two thirds of entire China’s natural resources. Since
Manchuria stands almost completely absorbed, both ethnically as well as linguistically, into
China’s Han identity, the rest of three countries account for only 2.1percent of China’s total
population. As per PRC’s own official demographic accounts the Hans accounts for about 92
percent of Chinese 1.4 billion population today while the remaining 55 ‘nationalities’ account for
little less than 8 percent – all put together.
Going by common human nature, the rulers of China should have been very ‘happy’, ‘content’ and
‘proud’ over such a ‘great achievement’. But still, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its
supreme leader Xi Jinping find this size of ‘minorities’ in today’s China as too big and too
threatening. For past many years they are going overdrive in crushing and erasing these identities
with the aim of establishing a “strong and united” dominion of “one language, one culture and one
people under a one-party rule”. Recent international alarms over widespread establishment of mass
incarceration and brain washing camps across Xinjiang and ban on teaching of Tibetan language
across Tibet schools were only the initial signs of the new zeal of President Xi and his CPCto
ensure a ‘united’ and ‘homogenous’ society with ‘Chinese socialist characters’.
Latest news about China establishing a vast network of boarding schools in Tibet have raised new
alarms where Tibetan children, as young as four years, are being forced to be admitted and kept
away from their parents and community in order to mold them into Chinese speaking and Chinese
cultured ‘patriotic’ citizens of future China. The latest report, titled “Separated From Their
Families, Hidden From the World : China’s Vast system of Colonial Boarding Schools Inside
Tibet” has been released by Tibet Action Institute, a Dharamshala based intelligence center. This
center’sspecializations includes compiling of information on latest developments from across
Tibet and China. It says that the new policy of Chinese administration in Tibet aims at “forcing
three out of every four Tibetan students into a vast network of colonial boarding schools.” The
state run schools are especially focused on separating Tibetan children from their families and the
Tibetan social environment from the earliest possible age. According to this report about 800
thousand (8 lac) to 900 thousand (9 lac) Tibetan students, aged between six and 18 are already
admitted in these special schools. In many cases the families have been coerced to part with their
four year old children on the promises of ‘good education’.
On 31st October the local Chinese authorities demolished a Tibetan Buddhist school in the Drakgo
(Chinese name ‘Luhuo’) county and all school children, belonging to poor family of villages
around the school, were forced to return to their homes. The school management’s only fault was
that they were parting education in Tibetan language and dunning it privately on people’s
contributions.
For past seven decades, since China occupied Tibet in 1951, especially after Dalai Lama was
forced to escape to India following a popular uprising of Tibetan people against the Chinese rule
in 1959, bosses of CPC and their official ruling Tibet had a free hand to implement their policies.
But it has been a matter concern for the communist masters of Tibet that Tibetan masses are still
under the influence of Buddhism and Dalai Lama still remains the greatest binding force among
the Tibetan masses. It was in late 1980s, following the latest bout of mass uprisings in Lhasa and
other places across Tibet against the Chinese rule, that the CPC and its United Front Work
Department decided to change their strategy. The new policy focused on controlling Tibetan
Buddhism from within and use it to tame the Tibetan masses. In the Chinese communist system it
is mainly the responsibility of the United Front to deal with all colonized societies and minorities
of China and to keep them under discipline.
Prior to this realization about the Tibetan mind the CPC and Chinese rulers of Tibet have been
working religiously on late Chairman Mao’s maxim that a Tibetan minus his or her faith in religion
would produce a patriotic Chinese citizen. Following this policy most of the Tibetan monasteries
were destroyed and religious practices, even visiting a temple or holding a prayer wheel and beads
was strictly banned among ordinary Tibetans across Tibet for decades. It was following the
adoption of the new policy on religion that such rules about religious practice were made less
rigorous. In 1992 and 1995 the CPC and the United Front sponsored two search teams of Tibetan
Buddhist monks to find out the reincarnations of two prominent late Tibetan Gurus – the Karma
Pa and the Panchen Lama respectively. Each of this search team worked under the command of a
senior communist official.
Later in 2007 the Chinese government introduced a new law, titled ‘Order-5’, in the Chinese
constitution which has placed the process of search and enthronement of every incarnate Tibetan
Lama, termed as ‘Living Buddha’ in Chinese parlance and ‘Tulku’ in the Tibetan system, under
the exclusive domain of the CPC. In practical terms each ‘Living Buddha’ will have to seek written
official permission and approval of the CPC before the process of his birth, search and installation
starts. Under this law China has already declared that the next incarnation of present Dalai Lama
will be the exclusive prerogative of CPC. Since Comrade Xi Jinping took over China’s leadership
he has extended this policy of mind control to the education of Tibetan children also.
In July this year when President Xi made a surprise visit to Tibet to oversee China’s military
preparations along Indian borders and to inaugurate the new Lhasa-Nyingchi section of railway
connecting Chengdu to Lhasa, he instructed the Chinese and Tibetan cadres to pay special attention
to education in Tibet. As the People’s Daily later reported, Xi asked the cadres and officials in
Tibet to “implement the party’s strategy for governing Tibet in the new era and write a new chapter
in long-term stability” of Tibet.
Xi called for the ‘Sinicization’ of Tibetan Buddhism to replace it with ‘Tibetan Buddhism with
socialist character’. In persuasion of Xi’s instructions, all steps are being taken to erase the Tibetan
identity, represented by Tibetan language, culture, education and Buddhism. It is under this context
that the Chinese rulers in Tibet have put new emphasis on controlling the minds of new Tibetan
generation through a new education policy.
TIBET : EDUCATION AS A TOOL OF COLONIALISM
