- Shadows of modernization
- ‘One country, two systems’
- Ethnography and culture
- Tibetan Rebellion and the (…)
- ‘Turn the Body Over’
- A fear above all others
- Rotation of the gods
- Destruction of the temples
- Costs of the Cultural Revoluti
- ‘Redressing the wrongs’
- Tibetanization and instability
- Getting down from the shrine
- Commercialization and supersti
In the current debate on Tibet the two opposing sides see
almost everything in black and white—differing only as to which
is which. But there is one issue that both Chinese authorities
and Tibetan nationalists consistently strive to blur or, better still,
avoid altogether. At the height of the Cultural Revolution hundreds of
thousands of Tibetans turned upon the temples they had treasured for
centuries and tore them to pieces, rejected their religion and became
zealous followers of the Great Han occupier, Mao Zedong. To the
Chinese Communist Party, the episode is part of a social catastrophe—
one that it initiated but has long since disowned and which, it hopes,
the rest of the world will soon forget. For the Tibetan participants, the
memory of that onslaught is a bitter humiliation, one they would rather
not talk about, or which they try to exorcise with the excuse that they
only did it ‘under pressure from the Han’. Foreign critics simply refuse
to accept that the episode ever took place, unable to imagine that the
Tibetans could willingly and consciously have done such a thing. But
careful analysis and a deeper reflection on what was involved in that
trauma may shed light on some of the cultural questions at stake on the
troubled High Plateau.
First, however, a survey of the broader historical background is required.
For many centuries Tibet was an integral political entity, governed by the
local religious leaders and feudal lords. Under the Qing dynasty, China
exercised its jurisdiction over the region through the submission of this
elite and did not interfere directly in local affairs. Between 1727 and 1911,
the principal symbol of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet was the office
of the Residential Commissioner, known as the amban. The imperial
presence in Lhasa, however, consisted ‘solely of the commissioner himself
and a few logistical and military personnel.’ [1] These, together with a handful of civilian staff members, were responsible for carrying out
all the daily administrative routines. Speaking no Tibetan they had to
rely on interpreters and spent most of their time in Lhasa, making only
a few inspection tours a year outside the city. [2] It is inconceivable that
such a tiny apparatus would be able to exercise effective control over
Tibet, an area of more than a million square kilometres. By and large,
the Residential Commissioner could only serve as what I shall call a
‘connector’, mediating between the Qing authorities and the local rulers,
the Dalai Lama and the Kashag. [3] Under this system, Tibetan peasants
submitted solely to Tibetan masters—they ‘only knew the Dalai, not the
Court’. On certain occasions—when the Qing army had helped repel
aggressors, for instance—the Tibetan elite would be full of praise for the
Commissioner’s advice. For the rest of the time, it would be unrealistic
to expect that a few alien officials—linguistically handicapped, militarily
weak, socially and politically isolated—would be obeyed by the local
rulers, who held all the region’s power and resources in their hands.
Consequently, as the Qianlong Emperor admitted, ‘Tibetan local affairs
were left to the wilful actions of the Dalai Lama and the shapes
[Kashag officials]. The Commissioners were not only unable to take
charge, they were also kept uninformed. This reduced the post of the
Residential Commissioner in Tibet to name only.’ [4] In response, the
Qing court issued in 1793 an imperial decree, the Twenty-Nine Articles
on the Reconstruction of Tibetan Domestic Affairs, which consolidated
the Commissioner’s authority over administrative, military and religious
appointments, foreign affairs, finance, taxation and the criminal
justice system. [5] These measures have given rise to the claim that the
power of the Residential Commissioners subsequently ‘exceeded that
of the governors in other provinces’. [6] Nevertheless, when the Imperial
Commissioner Zhang Yintang visited Tibet a century later, he was
greatly distressed to hear the Dalai Lama ridiculing the Qing representatives
as ‘tea-brewing commissioners’. (Tea-brewing is a kind of Tibetan
Buddhist alms-giving ceremony—one of the Commissioner’s duties was
to distribute this largesse to the monasteries on the Emperor’s behalf;
the insinuation was that he did nothing else.) [7] The Commissioner of
the late Qing period, Lian Yu, also complained that ‘the Dalai Lama
arrogated undue importance to himself and wanted to manipulate everything.’
If Tibetan officials appeared to be respectful and deferential,
with an ‘outward display of honesty and simple-mindedness’, he found
their actual behaviour was nothing less than ‘secret resistance’, and ‘very
often they left orders unattended to for months on the pretext of waiting
for the Dalai Lama’s return or for decisions yet to be made, simply ignoring
urgent requests for answers.’ [8]
To some extent, however, this state of affairs was acceptable to both
sides. In terms of state power, the Qing court retained the ability to
occupy Tibet, but did not need to do so; and the connector system
had the merit of being extremely cheap. The crux of the framework
of ancient oriental diplomacy lay in the order of ‘rites’: as long as the
lamas were submissive and posed no threat, they would be tolerated.
Despite the Commissioners’ complaints and the Emperor’s occasional
displeasure, it was only the threat that Tibet might break away from
its orbit that caused serious concern at Court, and entailed some form
of ‘rectification’. This occurred only a few times during the entire 185
years of Qing rule; for the most part, Residential Commissioners were
stationed in Tibet to maintain the Emperor’s symbolic mandate rather
than to govern in fact.
Shadows of modernization
The overthrow of the Qing Empire by the Chinese revolution of 1911 created
a quite new situation. Just before, in one of its last acts of authority,
the dynasty had dispatched an army to occupy Lhasa. But with the collapse
of the imperial order, followed by four decades of turmoil in China
itself, Tibet for the first time in centuries enjoyed virtually complete de
facto independence. The Residential Commissioner and his entourage
were expelled in 1912 and the thirteenth Dalai Lama consolidated his
position as a national leader, expanding and modernizing the Tibetan
Army along British or Japanese lines and setting up banks, mines and
a postal service. Trade was promoted and students sent to study in the
West. Young officers began to imitate the fashions of their polo-playing
counterparts under the British Raj and the military band was taught to
play God Save the King. But the price of the reforms was deemed too
high by the monastic elite. The new officers saw the religious orders as
the cause of Tibetan backwardness: not prayers but guns would make
the country strong. While the Dalai Lama understood the importance
of the Army in securing his secular power and resisting the potential
Chinese threat, he could not tolerate any direct challenge to his authority;
when the military leadership began to target his own position for
reform, instigating a series of private meetings designed to pressure
him to relinquish political power, he moved against them, putting a
halt to Tibet’s modernization. The Army went into decline after the
officers were purged, meeting defeat at the hands of a regional warlord
in Kham—the section of Eastern Tibet that extends into Sichuan province
—in 1931. After this, the Dalai Lama tilted back towards Beijing.
China, meanwhile, had been waging a ceaseless propaganda campaign
within the international arena for its right to sovereignty over Tibet.
This was tacitly granted by the West—the country would be a large and
populous ally during World War II—which nevertheless continued to
treat Tibet as, in practical terms, an independent state. The Tibetan elite,
meanwhile, continued to vacillate: since they already had de facto selfrule,
it was simpler to blockade themselves on their plateau, ringed with
snowy mountains, than to get into arguments with China. As the thirteenth
Dalai Lama told Charles Bell:
Some countries may wish to send representatives to Tibet; the travellers
of other nations may wish to penetrate our country. These representatives
and travellers may press inconvenient questions on myself and the Tibetan
government. Our customs are often different from those of Europe and
America, and we do not wish to change them. Perhaps Christian missionaries
may come to Tibet, and in trying to spread Christianity may speak
against our religion. We could not tolerate that.’ [9]
Arguably, if the forms of oriental diplomacy could have been maintained,
some new system of connectors might have been an acceptable
solution to the problem of mediating between China and Tibet. Once the
Western concept of state sovereignty had been extended to the East, however,
every Chinese regime was compelled to adapt to it; any attempt to
prolong a more ambiguous approach could only encourage local rulers
to move towards independent sovereignty, sooner or later.
‘One country, two systems’
Such was the situation when the Communist Party triumphed over the
KMT in China, and founded the People’s Republic in 1949. Mao made
no move towards Tibet till the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Then
a 40,000-strong contingent of the PLA crossed into territory under the
control of the Kashag, with a show of force that quickly routed the
Tibetan army ranged against it in Chamdo. But Mao was in no hurry to
bring the revolution to Tibet. The intention of the CCP, on the contrary,
was to ‘manage’ the country from afar through something very like the
Qing model. Despite its revolutionary commitments, the CCP did not at
first attempt any social reforms in Tibet. Sovereignty took precedence.
As long as Tibet ‘returned to the arms of the motherland’s big family’,
Beijing was quite willing to tolerate the preservation of the ‘feudal serf
system’ there. Although the number of Chinese military and civilian personnel
stationed in Tibet after 1951 was vastly increased from the Qing
era, political and social relationships were still mediated through de facto
‘connectors’. Local affairs continued to be administered by the Tibetan
authorities, and a ‘one country, two systems’ mechanism was set in
place. The name given to this tactic was the United Front. What it meant
in practice was an alliance between the Communists and the Tibetan
ruling class, who would cooperate in the consolidation of Chinese sovereignty.
The basis for this was the Seventeen-Point Agreement signed by
Li Weihan and Ngawang Jigme Ngapo in May 1951, in which the Dalai
Lama’s government acknowledged that Tibet was part of China, gave
post facto consent to the PLA’s entry and to the eventual integration of
the Tibetan Army into its ranks, and accepted the central government’s
authority to conduct its external affairs. In return, Beijing promised
‘autonomy’ for Tibet, leaving the social and religious system, the Dalai
Lama’s status and the local officials’ positions unchanged, while restoring
the Panchen Lama, driven into exile by the thirteenth Dalai.
The United Front line was followed not only in the areas under the
administration of the Kashag government but also in Chamdo, where
the PLA had established control. A People’s Liberation Committee of
the Chamdo Area was set up, with seven Tibetans among its nine vicechairmen.
Apart from one CCP member, all of these were from local
ruling families, as were the majority of the 35-member Committee.
In the twelve subordinate zong or county-level Liberation Committees,
there were 14 Han officials and 154 Tibetans, all from the elite. Chen
Jingbo, director of the United Front Department of the CCP’s Tibetan
Working Committee at the time, reported:
After the establishment of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibetan
Autonomous Region in 1956, a large number of individuals from the local
upper classes were appointed to various posts under the Committee. At the
time, there were about 6,000 people that belonged to middle and upper
classes (including major clan chiefs) in the whole region (among them, 205
were fourth-rank officials, 2,300 below fifth rank and 2,500 from religious
circles). 2,163 of these were already assigned to posts and the remaining
3,400 are scheduled to receive various appointments by 1960. [10]
The Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama were the paramount focus of the
United Front. When in 1954 they were invited to attend the Assembly
of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, Zhang Jingwu, secretary
of the CCP’s Tibetan Working Committee and the central government’s
highest representative in Lhasa, was specifically instructed by the Central
Committee to look after them on the trip, which he took the utmost pains
to do. [11]
On their arrival at Beijing railway station they were met by Zhou
Enlai and Zhu De, while Deng Xiaoping personally checked their living
quarters and Mao Zedong received and hosted several dinner parties for
them. [12] The Dalai Lama, just nineteen, was made a Vice-Chairman of the
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the Panchen
Lama, even younger, nominated a Standing Committee member.
Beijing was, at this stage, perfectly willing to tolerate the Tibetan authorities’
stalling tactics on the Seventeen-Point Agreement. As Mao explained
in 1952:
Although the establishment of the military and administrative committee
and the reorganization of the Tibetan troops were stipulated in the
Agreement, you had fears, and so I instructed the comrades working in
Tibet to slow down their implementation. The Agreement must be carried
out but, because of your fears, it has to be postponed. If you are scared this
year, it can wait until next year. If you still have fears next year, it can wait
until the year after that. [13]
Indeed, the reorganization of the Tibetan Army had not gone beyond the
issue of new uniforms and conferring of PLA ranks by the time of the
1959 Rebellion, in which a considerable number of its troops and officers
would play an active part.
Ethnography and culture
Historically, ‘Greater Tibet’ had rarely been under the control of the
Kashag government, whose effective rule for the most part never
extended beyond the current boundaries of the Tibetan Autonomous
Region. The situation has persisted under the PRC. The latest available
census figures, for 1990, show a majority of ethnic Tibetans (54.4 per
cent) living in neighbouring provinces (see Table 1 overleaf).
Table 1 Population distribution of ethnic Tibetans
Tibet Autonomous Region | 2,096,000 | 45.6% |
Sichuan | 1,087,000 | 23.0% |
Qinghai | 912,000 | 19.9% |
Gansu | 367,000 | 8.0% |
Yunnan | 111,000 | 2.4% |
1990 Census. Full results of the 2000 census have not yet been released.
These administrative divisions do not correspond to the actual social
landscape. Lhasa is the indubitable political and religious centre of the
whole Tibetan ecumene, but the region of Ü Tsang (‘Central Tibet’)
in which it is situated—often mistaken for the ethnographic land as
a whole—is certainly not on a higher cultural level than the regions
outlying it. Amdo (covering much of Qinghai and Gansu) contains two
out of the six most important Yellow Hat monasteries. Kham (covering
western Sichuan and the north-west corner of Yunnan) contains a variety
of religious schools, and its cultural riches are far beyond those of Ü
Tsang, as can easily be seen by the traveller today. Traditionally, a greater
number of high-rank lamas have come from Amdo and Kham than from
Ü Tsang. If the people of Ü Tsang look down on the Khampas, the prejudices
are mutual. The former regard the latter as ‘uncivilized’, the latter
view the former as ‘hypocritical’—similar stereotypes to those that divide
southerners and northerners in other nations. Socially speaking, the
people of Amdo are mainly nomads, those in Kham farmers. Authority in
Amdo is tribal, but is more chiefly in Kham, where the local chabu—the
Tibetan name means ‘king’—customarily enjoyed quasi-regal powers.
Such social structures were to facilitate collective resistance to the
Chinese authorities; but even without this, the religious factor alone was
tinder capable of arousing the whole population against Han domination.
Nevertheless, when it came to implement the United Front, the CCP in
the fifties took a purely bureaucratic approach, as if provincial borders
mattered more than the cultural integrity of the Tibetan population as
a whole. While those living inside the Autonomous Region—essentially
Ü Tsang—were to be exempted from PRC reforms, Tibetans in Hanmajority
provinces were not. Nationwide collectivization was launched
in 1955, and by 1956 the ‘high tide of socialist construction’—land redistribution,
the creation of local CCP units, class-struggle organization and
the battle against elites—was sweeping the Tibetan areas of Sichuan,
Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan. Work teams mobilized the masses, creating
peasant unions; title deeds were burnt. With their traditional entitlements
under threat, Tibetan landowners took the risk of initiating active
revolts against the CCP. There was fierce fighting in Kham as the PLA
stepped in to put down the rebellion. Refugees from the four provinces—
some 60,000, between 1956 and 1958—fled to Ü Tsang. Epidemics
spread a sense of panic among the uprooted population there.
Nevertheless, the initial reaction in Beijing was still to continue
the United Front tactic within the TAR. When the Tibetan Working
Committee, in 1956, made a move to step up social and economic
reforms in the region, dispatching more than 2,000 Han cadres to Tibet
for the purpose, Beijing swiftly reversed the decision and sent Zhang
Jingwu—by then Director of the PRC President’s General Office—to
stabilize the situation, announcing that there would be no reforms for
the next six years. In March 1957 the Central Committee’s Secretariat
decided to cut back significantly on the Party’s work in the TAR, reducing
local administrative personnel from 45,000 to 3,700, with Han streamlined
by 92 per cent, while troop levels were brought down from 50,000
to 18,000, and the number of military bases reduced; all facts testifying
to the central government’s willingness to continue the connector-model
United Front. [14] Zhou Enlai went so far as to assure the Dalai Lama that,
if the region was still not ready for reform, the waiting period could be
extended for another fifty years. [15]
Tibetan Rebellion and the Dalai’s flight
The situation in Tibet, however, was growing increasingly turbulent,
and the contradictions of the ‘one country, two systems’ approach ever
more stark. Even the most trivial changes constituted a threat to the
Tibetan upper classes and could cause major disturbance within such a
highly traditional society. Wage payments to Tibetans working on roadconstruction
schemes were seen as an assault on the centuries-old ulag
service system. Free schools impinged on the monastic monopoly of
education. Training of cadres with serf backgrounds upset the existing
social hierarchy. In 1957, a serf in Shannan was beaten up by his lord
for failing to perform his ulag service—an unconditional duty, whose
dereliction customarily received brutal punishment. In this instance,
the victim was a CCP activist who had been assigned a cadre position
at grass-roots level. The case became a touchstone for Party policy in
Tibet. United Front tactics demanded non-interference, but this would
both dishearten peasant activists and encourage elite attempts to prevent
the masses cooperating with the CCP. On the other hand, to discipline
the assailant would cause trouble with the authorities’ feudal partners.
Nevertheless, the CCP gave the instruction to relieve all Tibetan cadres
of their ulag duties. [16]
Ultimately the United Front tactic could be no more than an expedient
measure. Support for the Communists would always come from the
poorest layers, but the United Front was unable to provide these with
any clear prospect. As one commentator put it:
The mass of Tibetans was steadfastly tied to the status quo without the
slightest knowledge of, or experience of, any other way of life. Confused
by the new ways offered by the Han, fearful of the Han who simultaneously
urged ‘liberation’ of the serfs from the feudal masters while
creating alliances with these masters, they did not join their ‘liberators’ in
large numbers. [17]
At the same time, despite all the compromises and conciliatory gestures,
the United Front would never win the good faith of the Tibetan elite,
who saw it rather as a game of cat and mouse in which, sooner or later,
the mouse would inevitably be killed. Gradually, Beijing realized that
the United Front—one of its three ‘big magic weapons’—not only failed
to guarantee the lamas’ loyalty but would not garner the support of the
masses, either—the biggest magic weapon of all. If Tibetan peasants could
not be won away from their traditional deference, they would inevitably
side with their local rulers in any uprising against the CCP, and Beijing
would never be able to ensure lasting sovereignty over the region.
There was ample evidence for this in the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion. The
PLA initially demanded that the Kashag government punish the Khampa
‘bandits’ who had fled to Ü Tsang in 1956 and 57; in 1958 its own
troops entered the TAR, travelling in 60-truck convoys through the hostile
countryside. Lhasa itself, surrounded by refugee tents, provided
no sanctuary: the tension in the city had grown explosive. The detonating
spark was a rumour that the PLA was planning to abduct the
Dalai Lama. Kashag officials and Khampa rebels united in the call for
an uprising. For days on end, thousands of demonstrators surrounded
the Dalai’s Summer Palace, throwing up barricades against the troops
and shouting ‘Kick out the Han’. Fierce fighting ensued before the
Red Flag was hoisted over the Potala. The Dalai fled to India. Beijing
assumed direct control.
‘Turn the Body Over’
The vast mass of lower-class Tibetans would have been genuine beneficiaries
of Beijing’s initial reforms, yet they rose against them. Why?
Many perceived only one distinction: between themselves and the Han.
The long history of deference to monastic authority and tribal leaders
ensured that, when their masters raised the twin banners of religion
and nationality, Tibetan workers and peasants would rally to them. The
conclusion drawn in Beijing was that ‘the fundamental improvement of
national relations, in the final analysis, depends on the complete emancipation
of the working classes within each nationality.’ [18] Translated into
plain language, this meant the abandonment of the United Front and
a turn to class struggle, aimed directly at the overthrow of the local
elite. Within every nationality, it was now argued, there would invariably
be rich and poor, oppression and exploitation. The poor everywhere
belonged to one family; the rich were all the same, as black as crows.
Hoisting the class-struggle flag, the CCP proclaimed itself no longer
a party of the Han but a leader and spokesman of poor people everywhere.
It now set out to win over the poverty-stricken Tibetans from
their national and religious allegiance to the elite.
As soon as the fighting in Lhasa came to an end, work teams composed
of tens of thousands of military personnel and civilian cadres were sent
to every village and rural area to launch ‘democratic reforms’ and to
determine ‘class status’ among Tibetans as a whole. The first step was to
induce the Tibetan masses to ‘vent their grievances’ and ‘find the roots
of their misery’, asking questions such as, ‘Who is feeding whom?’. The
work teams guided the discussions: ‘Why did generations of peasants
suffer, while the owners of serfs lived in luxury from birth, with the best
food and clothes?’; ‘Who was the Tibetan government protecting and
serving?’; ‘Suffering was not predestined’. The goal was to convince the
fatalistic Tibetans of the existence—and the injustice—of class exploitation.
The new concept of classes was vividly depicted as fan shen, ‘flip
the body over’: it turned previous criteria upside down. Now the poorer
one was, the higher one’s social status. Work teams recruited a layer of
activists from amongst the peasantry in order to expand their operations.
This group became the backbone of the political regime at grass-roots
level. The majority of them had never received any education, so there
was much controversy when they were installed in leading positions.
The work teams countered this with discussions around the questions of
‘Who were the most educated in the old society?’, ‘Who understood the
poor best?’, and ‘Would somebody help the poor in their fan shen if he
had administrative experience but harboured evil intentions?’. Step by
step, a loyal contingent of Party supporters was trained. [19]
Winning over the poor required tangible benefits, which could only
come from a redistribution of wealth. This would have a double effect:
not only earning the CCP the gratitude of the impoverished masses,
but destroying the elite’s capacity to initiate revolt. Monasteries had
been used as military bases during the Rebellion—the monks taking up
arms—and the PLA had bombed them as it re-established control. [20] Mao
now raised the slogan, ‘Lamas must go back home’. Monks and nuns
were forcibly married, 97 per cent of monasteries were closed down,
93 per cent of their inmates—104,000 out of 110,000—dispersed, and
monastic land was confiscated and redistributed among the poor. The
property of all ruling-class participants in the Rebellion—some 73 per
cent, or 462 out of the 634 noble households, according to the statistics
of the time—was also seized and redistributed (those who had not
rebelled being compensated when their land was nationalized). [21]]] The
CCP found it harder, however, to win allies among the peasantry in Tibet
than in China proper—work teams often found the level of class consciousness
regrettably low. Many of the poorest herdsmen, for example,
were apparently hired hands, but were reluctant to admit it, pretending
instead to be the sons or daughters of the herd owners. Their response
when the work teams tried to classify them as hired herdsmen—the
highest rank in the new hierarchy—was resentful: ‘Why are you trying
to force me to admit I’m a hired hand?’ [22]
A fear above all others
One of the unique characteristics of traditional Tibetan society was that,
despite a considerable degree of social and economic polarization, there
was hardly any history of actual class confrontation. Conflict was generally
between upper-class factions, or between Tibetans and other ethnic
groups. What explains such an unusual degree of deference and obedience?
The answer surely lies in the deeply rooted religious traditions of
Tibet. Even if aware of their suppressed and exploited status, the poor
would resign themselves to their fate, seeing it as retribution for their
previous lives. According to Buddhist doctrine, their hope of freedom
from suffering lay entirely in the hereafter: only by resigning themselves
to their present condition and enduring its misery might they hope
to win the favours of the deities, and the chance of being born into a
better afterlife. Any resistance was disobedience to the divine will and
would be met with suitable punishment. This staunch belief moulded
the Tibetans’ attitude of passive submission. The benefits of reform in
this world could never match the happiness of the afterlife; if they committed
the crime of ‘defying their superiors’ or ‘enriching themselves
with dubious wealth’, the dreadful punishment that awaited them would
far outweigh any earthly gains. This was why so many felt uncertain
about class struggle, and why they not only joined their masters in the
Rebellion but also followed them into exile and continued to serve them
there. It was thus impossible for the CCP to win over the peasantry without
tackling the problem of religion.
This was no easy matter. It would have been quite unfeasible simply to
convert the Tibetans into atheists. If the highly evolved doctrines of the
lamaist tradition are almost impossibly abstruse, the faith of the masses
is far more comprehensible. The roots of their intense religiosity lie in
the terrors of their natural environment—the explanation, surely, for
the extraordinary proliferation of deities and monsters within Tibetan
Buddhism, differentiating it from Indian and Chinese variants. Fear is
the key factor. To find oneself in the harsh surroundings of the Tibetan
plateau is to experience the mercilessness of nature, the arduous task of
survival, the loneliness of the heart. Settlements on any scale could not
subsist in most of the region, resulting in tiny human colonies that have
clung on in the face of the vast, raging forces of nature. Encountering,
alone, this savage expanse of earth and sky inevitably produced a feeling
of being overwhelmed by such preponderance, a terrifying sense of isolation
and helplessness, repeated down the generations. Fear provoked
awe, and awe gave rise to the totem of deities and monsters:
The Tibetans were living in a state of apprehension and anxiety. Every perturbation,
either physical or spiritual, every illness, every susceptible or
dangerous situation, would drive them to search feverishly for its causes,
and for preventative measures. [23]
But the search for solutions only reinforced the anxiety: the more
thought and explanation was lavished upon it, the deeper it grew. Faced
with a fear that they could neither escape nor conquer, Tibetans were in
need of a larger fear, clearly defined and structured, one that exceeded all
others and which, so long as one obeyed it totally, would keep at bay all
the lesser fears, lifting the intolerable psychological burden.
Fear formed the core of the Tibetans’ spiritual world. Only by propitiating
their terror, by offering sacrifices to it in complicated ceremonies, by
worshipping and obeying it, could one feel safe and free, reassured by
its vast dominion and tremendous power. Such a fear already possessed,
at a certain level, the nature of divinity; the origins of the vast number
of ferocious and terrifying objects worshipped in Tibetan religion—
including those of the Bon shamanism that predated the eighth-century
introduction of Buddhism from India—can surely be traced back here. [24]
In that frightful environment, humankind can scarcely persevere without
some sense of divine guidance and support. From this perspective
it might be argued that, even if all other religions were on their
way to extinction, the Tibetan creed would probably be preserved to
the very last day.
Tibetan Buddhism exacts an exorbitant price from its followers. The
hope of a better life hereafter demands a punishing regime of forbearance,
asceticism and sacrifice in the present. Tibetans also have to
contribute a considerable part of their personal wealth to religious activity
—building monasteries, providing for monks and nuns, performing
ceremonies, making pilgrimages and so forth. Under the Dalai Lama’s
government, 92 per cent of the budget was devoted to religious expenditure.
[25] Even today, according to some estimates, the Tibetans pay about
a third of their annual income to the monasteries. This was money
that would not be transformed into productive investment nor used to
improve the people’s lives. For over a thousand years, the sweat and
toil of the Tibetans had gone to encrust the monasteries, while the
governing monks formed an enormous parasitic social stratum. In the
eighteenth century, according to Melvyn Goldstein’s estimate, about 13
per cent of the population were monks—in other words, around 26
per cent of Tibetan males. [26] The Chinese scholar Li Anzhai, in his
1947 sample survey of the Gede area of Xikang, found that the proportion
of monks reached as high as 33.25 per cent—the highest in the
world. [27] This unproductive layer was a heavy burden on Tibetan society,
intensifying the existing shortage of labour. In addition, the celibacy
lamaism enjoined contributed to the depletion of the population, one
of the major problems in the region. Tibetan scholars themselves have
attributed the decline of the Tufan dynasty to the effects of the religious
system. [28] In the ninth century Langdarma, last of the Tufan kings, tried
to force the monks to resume the tasks of secular life in an effort to
reverse the decline.
Rotation of the gods
The Tibetans’ submission to a religion that apparently runs contrary to
their material interests becomes prefectly comprehensible in the context
of their worship of fear. Faced with a choice between a short spell
of suffering in this world followed by a blissful hereafter, or an eternity
of torture, the peasants inevitably remained in thrall to the monks who
held the keys to heaven. But if it is impossible for Tibetans to live without
a god, nevertheless their religion allowed for a reincarnation of the
deity. What if a new god appeared who was not only more powerful and
awe-inspiring than the old, but who also told Tibetans that this life was
everything, that their suffering was injustice, and that they should seek
happiness in the here and now? Would they still be willing to deny their
own human needs?
As to who had more actual power between the Dalai Lama and Mao
Zedong, there could scarcely be any doubt. At the Battle of Chamdo in
1950 the crack troops of the Tibetan Army were totally overwhelmed by
the PLA; the Dalai Lama had to take refuge in Yatung. In 1959, with
tens of thousands of rebels demonstrating in the streets of Lhasa, it
took the PLA only 20 hours or so to prevail, and the Dalai fled into
exile. The Tibetans were inevitably disturbed by the disparity. The divinity
before whom they had prostrated themselves turned out to be less
invincible than they thought. A god for them was, by definition, capable
of defeating all with his overwhelming strength, of making clear
demands and using stern, indisputable measures to reward and punish.
This mentality permeated other aspects of Tibetan life, as evidenced in
their submission to autocracy, their tolerance of suffering, their respect
for winners and cruelty to enemies. In a thousand subtle ways the power
of Mao Zedong corresponded to these needs; the same forms of worship
could be extended towards him.
It is unlikely that Beijing understood the issue in terms of religion. The
support of the ‘emancipated serfs’ was perceived rather as evidence of
Marxism’s universal validity. In reality, however, it was impossible to
overthrow centuries of worship without playing the role of a new god
who came trampling on the old one, proclaiming the dawn of a new era
and instituting a new system of punishment and rewards. Mao Zedong
fitted the part perfectly. His rule could satisfy both the religious and
the human needs of the Tibetans peasants—for, however deeply the
concept of the afterlife had been instilled in their minds, the natural
instinct to ‘seek gains and avoid losses’ still remained. Once ‘converted’,
they took Maoism to extremes, smashing the old world and declaring
their loyalty to the new with all the zeal of their traditional faith. The
period of 1960 to 1966—from the final suppression of the Rebellion
to the start of the Cultural Revolution—saw a movement from ‘awakening’
to overall mobilization in the region. The predominant image of
the time was of Mao waving his red-starred military cap from a distant,
temple-like building; Tibetans were only too familiar with the strong
religious flavour of such a sight, which had always evoked in them
a powerful emotional response. They plunged into the frenzy of the
Cultural Revolution fired up both by fideistic fervour and material interest.
Yet even as they shouted ‘atheist’ slogans against the monasteries,
the underlying pulse was still there; it was simply that Mao had replaced
the Dalai Lama as the god in their minds.
In this psychology, the rotation of deities meant the recreation of the universe: the dominion of this more powerful ruler would endure forever,
the old one would be eternally damned. It was entirely rational, then,
from the viewpoint of traditional Tibetan culture, to switch sides, submit
to the new order and tear down the remnants of the old. Looking back at
this process of ‘god creation’ during the Mao era, one notices religious
echoes almost everywhere: supreme ideology corresponding to faith; the
ultimate goal of communism, to heaven; unconditional obedience to the
teacher and leader, to worship of God; political studies, to preaching,
reforming one’s world outlook, to purifying one’s consciousness; selfcriticism,
to confession; strict Party discipline and sacrifice for the cause,
to asceticism. If the actual ceremonies of Mao worship were slightly different,
their spiritual essence was close enough to lamaism to make it
an easy switch. To hang Mao’s picture in a cottage and bow to it daily, to
recite his ‘highest instructions’ while clasping the Little Red Book, was
not so far removed from the accustomed daily prayers and prostrations
before the household image of the Dalai Lama.
As long as the need for a powerful deterrent force and for the corresponding
placatory rituals was met, the actual religious content was far
less important. The prayer-stone piles by the roadsides and on moun-
tain passes were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and stone or
cement billboards with Mao’s quotations erected in their place: the peasants
circled them when they passed by, just as they had with the prayer
piles. In the traditional Ongkor festival at the start of the harvest season,
they used to carry Buddhist images, chant scripts and sing Buddhist
songs. During the Cultural Revolution, they carried Mao’s picture,
recited his quotations and sang ‘The East is Red’. Historically, Chinese
emperors had been seen in Tibet as the embodiment of the Bodhisattva
Buddha, with a higher status than the Goddess of Mercy, incarnated in
the Dalai Lama; many Tibetans now accorded Mao the same honour.
Clearly, Mao might be a better choice for the peasantry, the Communist
heaven preferable to the ‘paradise in the west’ and revolutionary organizations
a substitute for monasteries—as long as the new rituals satisfied
the ceremonial demands of their religion. Beijing’s harsh leftist policies
were now principally targeted at the aristocracy; in a reversal of the previous
relationship, in which the minority’s privileges had been maintained
by the majority’s misery, it was the top 10 per cent that henceforward
suffered most from the repression. The powerful new god was not only
capable of inflicting the most brutal punishment on its enemies, it also
took care of the impoverished masses, bestowing extraordinary favours
on them: the abolition of the ulag and of taxation, airborne disaster
relief, mobile medical treatment, the enrolment of peasant children at
the universities. At the same time, the rules for differentiation were clear
cut: everything depended on class. This philosophy of a fate predetermined
by one’s birthright was almost identical to Tibetan Buddhism’s
traditional account.
Destruction of the temples
The clearest manifestation of this rotation-of-the-gods in the minds of
the Tibetan peasants was their active participation in levelling the very
temples and monasteries they had once held most sacred. The Dalai
camp and Western public opinion have always attributed this to Han
Red Guards coming in from China proper, after the Cultural Revolution
was launched in 1966. They have seen it as part of the CCP’s ‘systematic,
methodical, calculated, planned and comprehensive destruction’
of Tibetan religion. [29] The truth is that, because of poor transportation
and the huge distances involved, only a limited number of Han Red
Guards actually reached Tibet. Even if some of them did participate
in pulling down the temples, their action could only have been symbolic.
Hundreds of shrines were scattered in villages, pastures and on
rugged mountainsides: no one would have been capable of destroying
them without the participation of the local people. Furthermore, most of
the Red Guards who did reach the TAR were Tibetan students, returning
from universities elsewhere. The fact that they often retained their
organizations’ original names—Capital Red Guards, for instance—is
one reason for the confusion over this. With the gradual return of these
Tibetan Red Guards—who often combined their revolutionary work with
visits to their families—the sparks of the Cultural Revolution spread
across villages and pastures over the entire Tibetan plateau; followed by
the rampage of destruction.
It is true that tension at the time was so high that no one dared voice
any dissent; nevertheless, the rulers alone could not have created the sort
of social atmosphere that then prevailed without the participation of the
masses, who sometimes played a leading role. The authorities in Tibet
often tried to restrain radical actions, with the PLA, for example, consistently
supporting the more conservative factions against the rebels.
Temples and monasteries survived best in the central cities and areas
where the authorities could still exercise some control. In contrast, the
Gandan Monastery, some 60 kilometres outside Lhasa and one of the
three major centres of the Yellow Hat sect, was reduced to ruins.
To point out that it was largely the Tibetans themselves who destroyed
the monasteries and temples is not to exonerate the Han; but it does
raise broader questions, beyond the issue of responsibility. Why did the
Tibetans, who for centuries had regarded religion as the centre of their
lives, smash the Buddhist statues with their own hands? How did they
dare pull down the temples and use the timbers for their own homes?
Why did they ravage the religious artefacts so recklessly, and why were
they not afraid of retribution when they denounced the deities at the tops
of their voices and abused the lamas they had so long obeyed? Surely
these actions are evidence that, once they realized they could control
their own fate, the Tibetan peasantry, in an unequivocally liberating gesture,
cast off the spectre of the afterlife that had hung over them for so
long and forcefully asserted that they would rather be men in this life
than souls in the next.
In 1969 an armed ‘revolt’ broke out against the introduction of People’s
Communes into Tibet, which had been spared them in the period of the
Great Leap Forward; this eventually spread to over forty counties. The
Dalai’s camp saw this ‘Second Tibetan Rebellion’ as a continuation of the
resistance of the fifties. In reality, the two were very different. During the
earlier uprising, the peasants were fighting, in a sense, for the interests
of the aristocracy. In 1969, they fought for their own. They did not want
the pastures and livestock that had been redistributed among them from
the old landowners to be appropriated by the People’s Communes. At the
time a few of these protests, provoked by the Cultural Revolution, were
actually intensified into genuine ‘revolts’ by the authorities’ repression. [30]
The turbulence was quickly quelled once they realized their mistake.
In comparison with the factional rivalries and armed conflicts in other
parts of China, Tibet at the time remained relatively stable. In short,
Maoism appeared to have achieved an overall victory in the sixties and
seventies: China’s sovereignty over Tibet looked unprecedentedly effective
and secure. The ‘nationality question’, later the cause of so much
trouble, seemed scarcely worth consideration. Tibetans seemed on generally
calm terms with the Han and the Dalai Lama almost forgotten,
both in Tibet and in the West.
Costs of the Cultural Revolution
The reality was otherwise. The ideological success of Maoism in overturning
lamaism was not matched by any comparable achievement in
improving the material conditions of ordinary Tibetans. The ultra-leftist
policies of the Cultural Revolution inflicted tremendous human and
economic damage on Tibet, as everywhere in the PRC. Excesses on a
massive scale had already been committed during the earlier campaigns
for ‘democratic reform’ and the suppression of the 1959 Rebellion, many
of which were discussed in the Panchen Lama’s Seventy-Thousand
Character Petition of 1962. The prevailing situation was, indeed, clearly
mirrored in the Panchen Lama’s fate. If any sense of the United Front
approach had persisted within the CCP, he would not have been so mercilessly
punished just for an internal petition. As it was, in 1964 he
was classified as an enemy and removed from his posts, subjected to
mass-struggle sessions and jailed for nearly ten years. Another important
Tibetan religious figure, Geshe Sherab Gyatso, was sent back to
his home town in Dunhua county, Qinghai province, where he was tortured
to death. Political movements were launched across Tibet, one
after another: the Three Educations, the Four Clean-ups, One Strike
and Three Antis, Cleaning Ranks, Socialist Reforms, Double Strikes,
Basic Lines Education, Purging Capitalist Factions, Criticizing Smaller
Panchens. The 1980 Rehabilitation Conference held in the TAR after the
Cultural Revolution revealed that, ‘According to a rough estimate, more
than one hundred thousand people in the region were either implicated
or affected by unjust and wrong cases, which accounted for more than
10 per cent of the entire population.’ [31]
During the entire period from the Tenth Plenary Session of the Central
Committee in 1962, which reintroduced the class-struggle theme, to Hu
Yaobang’s inspection tour of Tibet in 1980, CCP policy had been based
on the thesis that ‘the nationality question is in essence a class question’.
Anyone unfamiliar with the political jargon of the time would have a
hard time understanding this. The nation itself was of no significance—
‘the workers have no motherland’; the essential distinction was that of
class. There was thus no need to select leading cadres on a national or
ethnic basis: as long as they were revolutionaries, they could lead the
masses anywhere. To request leaders from one’s own community would
be to commit the error of ‘narrow-minded nationalism’—tantamount
to sabotaging the class camp. During the Cultural Revolution, the
Revolutionary Committee—the highest political organ in Tibet—had a
Han chairman and only four Tibetans among its thirteen vice chairmen.
In 1973, Tibetans made up only 35.2 per cent of Party Committee
members; in 1975, they accounted for a mere 23 per cent of leading
cadres at district level. [32]
For the peasantry, the introduction of the People’s Communes—initiated
in 1964, and covering 99 per cent of villages by 1975—meant an unprecedented
degree of centralized control. If a Commune member wanted
to get half a kilo of butter he had to report to his production team in
advance and then work his way through a series of procedures involving
team leaders, accountants and warehouse keepers. The remaining
private elements of the economy were almost totally wiped out. Before
1966 there had been over 1,200 small retailers in Lhasa. By 1975, only
67 remained. In Jalung county 3,000 privately owned wool-looms and
spinning-wheels were done away with in the name of ‘cutting off the
capitalist tails’. [33] The organization of the People’s Communes killed off
any enthusiasm for production; in conjunction with the political assaults
of the Cultural Revolution this led to a stagnation of living standards,
especially among the farmers and herdsmen. Although the suffering
could be temporarily concealed by the high revolutionary energy of the
time and by the introduction of other benefits, such as medical care and
social promotion, according to the 1980 figures half a million of the
already impoverished Tibetans—over a quarter of the population—were
worse off after the mutual-aid groups were communized, and about
200,000 were rendered destitute. [34]
‘Redressing the wrongs’
The Great Helmsman responsible for these disasters passed away in
1976. It was another two years before Deng Xiaoping became supreme
leader. The process of ‘redressing the wrongs’ in Tibet began right from
the start of the new Reform Era. On December 28, 1978, less than a
week after taking power, Deng gave an interview to the Associated Press
in which he indicated his willingness to start a dialogue with the Dalai
Lama; he received the Dalai’s representative in Beijing the following
March. The 376 participants in the 1959 Rebellion still serving prison
sentences were freed. Over 6,000 others who had been released after
completing their sentences but were still branded as ‘rebels’ and kept
under ‘supervised reform’ had these labels removed. Party management
of Tibet made an about-turn once more.
On March 14, 1980, Hu Yaobang presided over the first Tibetan Work
Forum of the Central Committee Secretariat; its proposals were released
to the whole Party under the title Central Committee Document Number
Thirty One. Two months later, Hu made an inspection tour of Tibet,
accompanied by leading officials including then Vice Premier Wan Li,
Ngawang Jigme Ngapo and Yang Jingren. Hu stayed in Lhasa for nine
days, meeting people from various circles. The day before his departure,
he called an extraordinary TAR Party Committee meeting of more than
4,500 cadres, including all those above county and regiment level from
the CCP, government and PLA. Hu’s speech to the meeting was considered
a turning point in Tibetan history, its significance comparable to the
extrusion of the Residential Commissioner in 1912, the PLA’s entry in
1951 or the post-1959 reforms. It has determined the approach to Tibet
ever since. Hu made six major proposals:
1. Tibet should enjoy autonomous rule, and Tibetan cadres should have
the courage to protect their own national interests;
2. Tibetan farmers and herdsmen should be exempt from taxation and
purchase quotas;
3. Ideologically oriented economic policies should be changed to
practical ones, geared to local circumstances;
4. Central government’s financial allocations to Tibet should be greatly
increased;
5. Tibetan culture should be strengthened;
6. Han cadres should step aside in favour of Tibetan ones. [35]
This was a striking departure from both the Qing court’s Twenty-Nine
Articles and the CCP’s Seventeen-Point Agreement concluded in 1954,
both of which had been intended to strengthen Beijing’s position of control
over Tibet. The Twenty-Nine Articles had been imposed by imperial
decree and, while the Seventeen-Point Agreement made various promises,
the Tibetans had been forced to sign it after their military defeat,
which it sealed. By contrast, Hu’s initiative proposed to restore Tibetan
rights and pledged substantial aid.
The Six Proposals were unquestionably of benefit to Tibet. The tax
and purchase exemptions initiated in 1980 were naturally welcome,
as were the pro-privatization policies and the abolition of the People’s
Communes. Beijing’s financial allocations to Tibet soared from 500
million RMB in 1979 to close on 2.9 billion RMB in 1994, while investment
in Tibet’s infrastructure increased from around 100 million RMB
in 1979 to over 900 million RMB in 1993. [36] The real turning-points for
the Tibetans, however, were the proposals to strengthen autonomous
rule, indigenous culture and Tibetanization—points one, five and six.
Even before Hu’s visit to Tibet, Document Number Thirty One had
already made the dramatic announcement that:
Among all the general and specific policies drawn up by the Central
Committee and its various departments as well as all the documents,
instructions and regulations issued nationwide, those that do not fit Tibet’s
circumstances may not be carried out or may be implemented after modification
by the leading organs of Tibetan party, administrative and mass
organizations. [37]
Historically, the central government had always sought the passive submission
of the minority peoples of the borderlands. Now for the first
time the authorities were, on their own initiative, urging the minorities
to question their orders or even to resist them. In the past it would
have been simply unimaginable that such a document could be issued
to the whole Party. Hu made a further call at the mass Party Committee
meeting:
Are all the secretaries at the level of county and above present here today?
You should, according to the characteristics of your own areas, draft concrete
laws, decrees and regulations to protect the special interests of your
nationality. You really should do this. In the future we would criticize you
if you still just copy indiscriminately the stuff from the Central Committee.
Do not copy indiscriminately the experience of other places nor that of the
Central Committee. Copying indiscriminately is only fit for lazybones. [38]
While Hu’s speech did not touch directly on lifting the ban on religion,
it put great stress on strengthening Tibetan culture, of which Buddhism
was the core. Document Thirty One demanded ‘respect for people’s
normal religious practices’. Following Hu’s speech, the TAR Party
Committee and the regional government also issued decrees requiring
the use of the Tibetan language in official documents and public
speeches, and applying ‘competence in the Tibetan language as one
of the major criteria for admission to school, employment and transferring
one’s status to that of cadre, as well as for using, promoting
and selecting cadres.’ [39] Historically, dominant ethnic groups had always
tried to force minorities to give up their own languages—Nationalist
officials had even attempted to impose a Chinese-language exam on
Tibetan ‘incarnates’ before they could accede to living Buddha status. [40]
It was commendable that the central government now took measures to
strengthen an indigenous tongue.
Tibetanization and instability
But the most significant of the Six Proposals was the insistence that Han
cadres should step aside in favour of Tibetans. Hu argued that:
As the result of our discussion yesterday, in the next two or three years
(in my opinion, two years is better), among state non-production cadres—
here I am not talking about production cadres, who should be entirely
Tibetans, but about non-production cadres, including teachers—Tibetan
cadres should make up more than two thirds of the total. [Wan Li adds:
I proposed an eight-to-two ratio the other day.] He was even more radical
than I am and I also agree. He wants 80 per cent for Tibetan cadres and 20
per cent for Han cadres. [Wan Li: What I meant was an eight-to-two ratio for
the county cadres. As for the prefecture cadres, it should be 100 per cent.] [41]
This last proposal encountered great resistance from Han officials in the
TAR but Hu’s instructions were: ‘Carry out the policy even if you do not
understand; make decisions first and straighten out later’. Fifteen days
later, the transfer plan was announced. The total Han population of the
TAR stood at 122,400 at the time, of which 92,000—75 per cent—were
scheduled to depart within the next two to three years. Among these
were 21,000 Han cadres (of a total 55,000 TAR cadres, of whom 31,000
were Han) and 25,000 Han workers (of a total 80,000 TAR workers,
of whom 40,000 were Han). [42] The plan was later modified because the
departure of so many trained Han workers brought many organizations
in Tibet almost to a standstill. Nevertheless, between 1980 and 1985 the
Han population was reduced by 42 per cent.
The transfers vacated more than ten thousand cadre quotas and a similar
number of ‘iron rice-bowls’ in the state-owned enterprises; Tibetans
were the beneficiaries of this. The implementation of new legislation
on ‘Autonomous Rule in the Nationality Regions’ subsequently ensured
that all key positions in the governing bodies were held by officials from
the local region; Han officials could only hold deputy positions. Tibetan
cadres thus not only comprised the statistical majority but also controlled
most of the leading government positions, including the crucial
departments of finance, public security and justice. By 1989, Tibetans
accounted for 66.6 per cent of total cadres in the TAR, 72 per cent at
provincial level and 68.4 per cent at prefectural level. All ‘number one’
administrative leaders at provincial and prefectural levels were Tibetans,
as were the Party Secretaries in 63 out of the 75 counties. [43] ‘Redressing
the wrongs’ also brought tremendous improvements in living standards.
In 1979 the average income of Tibetan farmers and herdsmen was 147
RMB; in 1990 it was 484 RMB and in 1994, 903.29 RMB. In 1992, the
TAR’s total agriculture output was up 69.8 per cent from 1978—and
460 per cent up from its 1952 level. In the cities the improvement
was even greater. [44]
Under the new policy, religious practices in both the TAR and the Tibetan
areas of the neighbouring provinces were revived to a level comparable
to pre-1959—barring only the restoration of the old monastic economy
and ‘unity of monastery and state’. The clergy were once again given special
‘United Front’ treatment; the number of monks and nuns increased
to 46,000—2 per cent of the Tibetan population—by 1994. Temples
were under construction everywhere. The decision of the Second Tibetan
Work Forum of 1984 to ‘gradually restore about 200 temples by the end
of the eighties’ was vastly exceeded, with 1,480 temples and monasteries
reopened by 1992, and over 300 more by 1994. [45] A considerable part of
the capital involved came from local government, while the TAR authorities
allocated 260 million RMB for rebuilding between 1980 and 1992.
The provincial governments in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai
also contributed a sizeable amount of money to religious projects in
their Tibetan areas. The central government disbursed over 53 million
RMB for the renovation of the Potala Palace, as well as 64 million RMB
and 614 kilos of gold to construct a tomb pagoda for the Tenth Panchen
Lama. [46] In the spirit of promoting the religious revival, Wu Jinghua, the
first secretary of the TAR Party Committee, participated—in full Tibetan
costume—in a Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa which was broadcast to the
entire region on TV. The few remaining restrictions were mainly applied
to clerical organizations, and even they were largely lip-service; there
was hardly any interference in the religious practices of the laity.
Deng Xiaoping’s policy in the region was, in all these respects, an essentially
open and enlightened one. For most Tibetans, it might have been
thought, the situation should have appeared the best in their history.
These apparently optimal conditions, however, saw an unprecedented
outbreak of discord and social instability. On September 21, 1987 the
Dalai Lama appeared before the US Congress. Six days later Lhasa saw
its first street demonstration since 1959. Big rallies demanded independence
and raised the banned national flag. Arrests immediately
followed, and when people heard the screams of monks being beaten
in the central police station, crowds besieged the building and started
throwing stones. The authorities were caught by surprise and the situation
quickly deteriorated as buildings and vehicles were torched and
Han were lynched. Troops opened fire as the confrontations escalated.
The next seventeen months saw an increasingly bloody pattern of disturbances,
leading ultimately to the imposition of martial law in March
1989, which remained in effect for 419 days. At the same time, the
Tibetan question came under more intense international scrutiny, with
Beijing’s policies eliciting an increasingly wide range of criticism in the
West—as if the eighties’ turn had been retrogressive. Tibet became a bargaining
chip with which to put pressure on China, and the Dalai Lama
acquired unprecedented influence.
Getting down from the shrine
In secular terms, the Tibetans’ reaction to the liberalization of the eighties
is hard to understand. Another form of analysis is required. Within
the terms of Tibetan Buddhism, ‘redressing the wrongs’ destroyed the
divine status Mao had been accorded. God did not make mistakes. Even
if they could not understand his cruelty and his punishments, he would
have his own reasons and did not need to explain—if he did, it would be
incomprehensible anyway, like a book from heaven. God did not need
to curry favour; he could order people to do whatever he desired. More
importantly, he would never admit to any errors. That would reduce
him to the status of human. Once that happened, people could settle
accounts over all the past cruelties, and demand even more admissions
and compensation.
The Tibetans did not necessarily feel grateful, therefore, when they got
government money for restoring the temples. On the contrary, they saw
it as an admission that the holy buildings had been destroyed by the Han
authorities—the standard account now among Tibetan exiles as well as
in the West. If the money was to be a compensation for these crimes,
no sum could be large enough to earn their praise. In the past, when a
new god appeared and demanded they destroy the old religion, they had
obeyed. Now, all of a sudden, after they had smashed the monasteries
and temples to pieces, they were told that the new god did not exist. It
was all an unfortunate mistake and the previous religion needed to be
restored. It is not hard to imagine how they felt; and such a feeling could
hardly be commuted into gratitude by government grants.
This was also one of the crucial factors in the strong rebound of traditional
religion. To all who had once sided with the Great Han atheist and
taken part in the destruction of the monasteries, the resurrection of the
old religion connoted that they had betrayed their god and would face
the most horrifying punishments. Terrified by what awaited them they
tried, on the one hand, to explain that they had had no choice and, on
the other, to ‘atone for their crimes’ through redoubled, fanatical devotion
to the traditional religious regime. It was common to find that those
working hardest to rebuild the temples were the very ones who had led
the way in tearing them down. Some officials also tried to ‘wash off’
their guilt by playing up ethno-national sentiments, resisting instructions
from their superiors, and discriminating against the Han.
Maoism had fractured the Tibetan national entity through class polarization.
Freed from the control of their old masters, the peasants had
been the foundation of the communist regime. Under Deng, the classstruggle
line was abandoned, and the old aristocrats, clan chiefs and
lamas once again were invited to the National People’s Congress and
the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Lhalu Tsewang
Dorje, commander of the Tibetan forces in the 1959 Rebellion, was
released from prison in 1979 and is currently a Vice Chairman of the
regional Political Consultative Conference; his wife is a member of its
standing committee and his son is Deputy Director of the regional
Nationality and Religions Bureau. Meanwhile, Tibetan ‘activists’ who
were once in the vanguard of the ‘Rebellion suppression’, the ‘democratic
reforms,’ the struggle against the landowners and the destruction of the
monasteries have now been cast aside. [47] The majority of such militants
had been production-brigade cadres in People’s Communes. With the
Communes gone, they have lost their previous status and are reduced to
ordinary farmers and herdsmen. Many of them languish in poverty, with
no help for their old age. According to the Organization Department
of the Tibetan Party Committee, the majority of previous ‘activists’
have sunk into this poverty-stricken stratum. Based on his survey
on pastures in Western Tibet, Melvyn Goldstein also points out that:
all the former wealthy households are among those with the largest herds
and most secure income. On the other hand, all of today’s poor are from
households that were very poor in the old society . . . The former commune
cadres fall between these poles . . . In 1987, ten households (18 per cent)
received welfare from the county . . . It is interesting to note that all ten
households who received welfare in 1987 were poor in the old society. [48]
On top of everything else, these ‘activists’ now also have to carry the
burden of being seen as traitors to their nation, while their misfortune
is perceived by others as well-deserved retribution.
The old rich have become rich again, and the poor have become poor.
To the fatalistic Tibetans, this is an omen of God’s will. Consciously or
unconsciously, many have already started to adjust their behaviour. A
cadre with more than 20 years’ experience at grass-roots level in the
Dingqing County of northern Tibet told me of one small change. During
the Cultural Revolution, if an old landowner met emancipated serfs
on the road he would stand to the side, at a distance, putting a sleeve
over his shoulder, bowing down and sticking out his tongue—a courtesy
paid by those of lower status to their superiors—and would only dare
to resume his journey after the former serfs had passed by. Now things
have changed back: the former serfs stand at the side of the road, bow
and stick out their tongues, making way for their old lords. This has
been a subtle process, completely voluntary, neither imposed by anyone
nor explained. Although the pre-revolutionary era has not made a real
comeback, the former serfs have sensed the change in the social atmosphere
and feel it would be safer to show their repentance for holding
their heads high in the past. This tiny change in conduct reflects the tremendous
metamorphosis that has taken place.
Commercialization and superstition
Annual economic growth in Tibet was over 10 per cent between 1991
and 1999—higher than in China proper. Per capita income for farmers
and herders has grown by 9.3 per cent per year, for urban residents by
19.6 per cent. These are not just empty figures. On a visit to Tibet in
2000, rising living standards were visible everywhere, in rural areas as
well as the towns, with a lot of new construction taking place. Material
conditions are currently comparable with those of inland—not coastal—
China. Tibet is more prosperous now than ever before in its history.
However, this has not gained the PRC the allegiance of the Tibetans,
more and more of whom have become attached to the Dalai Lama, who
has never given them a penny. There have been no recent street riots,
and things look peaceful on the surface. But there is no difficulty in sensing
where their feelings lie. Virtually all Tibetans have the Dalai in their
hearts. Every year thousands of ordinary Tibetans risk their lives crossing
the Himalayas to join him in India. Not infrequently, CCP functionaries
themselves, PLA officers included, become Buddhists right after
retirement. Meanwhile, many of the young Tibetans sent to China to
be educated become the most radical oppositionists, with the strongest
national sentiments. Chen Kuiyuan, the current CCP First Secretary in
Tibet, complained in September 1996: ‘How many traitors were nursed
by us’. It would be wrong to regard the present situation as more stable
than in 1987. At that time, it was mainly monks and disoriented youth
who led the riots. Nowadays, opposition lurks among cadres, intellectuals,
state employees. In the words of one retired official: ‘The current
stabilization is only on the surface. One day people will riot in much
greater numbers than in the late eighties’.
The Han presence has become more variegated. Han cadres were resentful
of Hu’s policy in the eighties: Tibetans gained a lot of ground in
local life, and the Han felt marginalized. Later they turned their grudges
against Zhao Ziyang, who blamed the 87–89 riots on ‘Han ultra-leftism’
in Tibet. Han officials, on the contrary, felt that the situation had got out
of hand because of the incorrect Beijing line of laying all the blame for
unrest in Tibet on the Party there, so justifying Tibetan trouble-makers
and undermining their own ability to keep order in the TAR. They felt
condemned to a passive stance, without instructions. In the nineties,
however, the policies of Hu and Zhao were reversed: the official line now
blames ‘the Dalai clique and Western intervention’ for the riots, and local
Han power-holders feel thoroughly vindicated, viewing the retrospective
change as a significant rectification. They are thoroughly comfortable
with the ‘key point is stabilization’ line of the current CCP leadership.
But there has been a new influx of Han over the past decade. Some of
these—prostitutes, cobblers, tailors, clock-repairers, vegetable farmers,
grocers—have been drawn by the magnet of money-making. They are to
be found along the highways, running small roadside restaurants, bidding
for construction contracts, flocking to gold rushes, hunting rare
species. Even Chinese beggars can make a living in Lhasa. As to their
number, the TAR authorities have no idea. They are, of course, concentrated in the towns and along the main roads, giving them a more
visible presence than the statistics may justify. A second type of newcomer
is the tourist or adventurer, mainly from the Han elite—people
such as journalists, writers, painters, photographers, students, and not a
few officials, ostensibly on missions, but actually on travel jaunts. These
Han differ from earlier cadres in that they don’t look to local political
power for protection—nor do they get near the core of Tibetan society.
They retain their outsider identities; few intend to stay. The first type
are similar to the ‘floating population’ in the big PRC cities, and will
leave when conditions cease to be profitable. The second group come
and go anyway. But both bring secularization and commercialization to
Tibetan society; the blow they represent to the traditional order is not
to be underestimated.
What headway has secularization made in twenty-first century Tibet? A
tiny minority—mainly younger urban people with higher education—
may view the Dalai Lama in a more detached way, as a human being
rather than a god, and embodying the attractions of Western liberalism
and capitalist prosperity rather than reincarnated divinity. But within
the TAR, those with college education comprised only 0.57 per cent of
the population in 1990—including Han living in Tibet, who are better
educated. The overwhelming majority of Tibetans are peasants, nomads
and poorly educated town-dwellers who have never heard of the Nobel
Prize or Hollywood. They worship the Dalai Lama with the same awe as
they do the gods whom they would never be lucky enough to meet. It is
common enough in Tibet today to see a crowd form and bow down to
worship a little boy, merely because he is a reincarnated Buddha.
The Deng era renounced the class line, restored traditional Tibetan religion,
and re-engaged the upper classes in a ‘united front.’ This turn
greatly improved the living conditions of the Tibetans, but it forfeited
the capacity of the CCP to intervene within Tibetan society, and led to
its reintegration as a national community. If China had still remained
closed, as in the past, the re-emergence of the Tibetans as one nationality
might not have caused major problems for the regime in Beijing. But
China was now opened up to the world, and could not insulate Tibet
from changes in the international environment—among them the disintegration
of the Soviet system, and new interventionist attitudes in
the West. In earlier years, the rationale behind the policy shift from
the ‘United Front’ to the class line was precisely that the two banners
of religion and nationality had been monopolized by the upper classes,
and outsiders were not allowed to play any role in the country. Today,
the person who controls the two banners is none other than the Dalai
Lama, who enjoys the status both of the highest spiritual leader and
the internationally recognized symbol of Tibetan nationhood. With the
Tibetan populace coalesced behind these banners, there existed no opposition
force that could counter the exiled deity. Only Mao had succeeded
in dissolving the religious and ethnic unity of the Tibetans, by introducing
the element of class struggle. Renouncing this without creating
any new ideology has left a vacuum that can only be filled by a combination
of lamaist tradition and ethnic nationalism. Undeniably, the
process of ‘redressing the wrongs’ has brought many positive changes
to the Tibetan people, and even if it were desirable, the Mao era could
not be reduplicated. Historically and morally, the reforms were absolutely
necessary. But they have not solved the Tibetan question to the
satisfaction of anyone, and today all the parties to the conflict over it
have reason to fear for the future. New ways of approaching the problem
must be found.