Now here an article for you Indianpakistanfriendship, since you clearly deny that india is following the western lead (US) to criticize china this might make you to rethink:
POLITICS-INDIA: Floundering Over Tibet Policy
Analysis by Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI, Mar 27 (IPS) - Caught between its position recognising Tibet as part of China and growing pressure from pro-Western lobbies within its policy-making elites to support protests by Tibetan separatists, the Indian government is hard put to define a coherent stand on developments across its border.
Since rioting broke out in Lhasa on Mar.14, India has vacillated between expressing "distress" at the "unsettled situation and violence" in Tibet, exerting pressure on the 100,000-strong Tibetan community exiled in India to show restraint, and reassuring Beijing that its stated policy on Tibet remains unchanged.
Besides upholding the One China principle in respect of Tibet, and supporting a negotiated settlement on autonomy for Tibet, the policy pledges to prevent the Dalai Lama and his followers from engaging in "anti-China political activities in India".
The past week witnessed major shifts in the Indian stance. First, New Delhi permitted United States House of Representatives Speaker and Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi to visit the Dalai Lama at his headquarters in Dharamsala and to issue acerbic statements against China from Indian soil.
Then, in sharp contrast to its earlier tough action in halting a march by Tibetan dissidents to the Tibet border through the state of Himachal Pradesh,
it failed last Friday to lay a tight enough security cordon around the Chinese embassy compound in New Delhi.
Young Tibetans wearing T-shirts demanding a boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing tried to scale the embassys walls, causing diplomatic embarrassment. The Indian police arrested 33 protesters and prevented them from entering the compound.
Beijing's reaction was furious. On Saturday, it summoned Nirupama Rao, India's ambassador to China, at 2 a.m. to register its disapproval of the events in Delhi and handed over to her a list of demonstrations the Tibetans are allegedly planning to organise in India.
Beijing also secured an assurance from India that a scheduled "informal" meeting between Vice President Hamid Ansari and the Dalai Lama, who is currently in New Delhi, would be cancelled. It described the leaked news of the meeting as a mere "rumour"
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Clearly, the Indian government committed a series of gaffes out of gross miscalculation," says Anuradha Chenoy, professor at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University here. "It should have known that Pelosis high-profile visit, featuring nine other members of Congress, would cause consternation in Beijing. To top it all, she used strong words: If freedom-loving people do not speak out against China's oppression (in Tibet), we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere
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Last October, China took a dim view of the award of the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal of Honour to the Dalai Lama, which sparked off jubilant demonstrations by Tibetan monks.
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Yet, New Delhi agreed to allow Pelosi to criticise China from Indian soilin the company of the Tibetan spiritual-political leader," adds Chenoy. "Just before Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit to the U.S., India probably wanted to send the U.S. a positive signal to counter the effect of the stalling of the U.S.-India nuclear deal. This was not very astute."
Tactical errors aside, India's position on Tibet is markedly different from that of many Western countries, which too formerly say Tibet is a part of China, but nevertheless support various movements for Tibetan independence, and accuse China of serious human rights violations.
India tends to view all separatist movements with suspicion because of its own problems in Kashmir and the Northeast. Despite periods of tension with Beijing, India has never supported campaigns for Tibetan independence.
India's first reaction to the recent outbreak of protests was to express distress at the "deaths of innocent people" in Lhasa, and call upon "all those involved" to "work to improve the situation". It also asked Beijing to "remove the causes of such trouble in Tibet".
New Delhi is acutely aware that Tibet is an extremely sensitive issue for China, with which it seeks to normalise relations despite unresolved differences on the border issue, in particular, the Tawang Tract in Arunachal Pradesh, to which Beijing lays claim from time to time.
Indian policy-makers are conscious that China has bitter memories of past tensions with India, leading to war in 1962, and the Khampa rebellion of the 1950s, sponsored in Tibets southern Kham province by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and armed via Nepal.
China also sees various recent U.S. moves, including its Ballistic Missile Defence programme, support for Taiwan, and the growing U.S.-India "strategic partnership" as a threat.
Pending a resolution of these issues, India has not used whatever leverage it has with the Chinese government or the Dalai Lama to persuade them to negotiate in earnest their differences over Tibet's autonomy within the Chinese union.
"To put it bluntly, the official Indian position lacks a moral backbone or clarity," says Achin Vanaik, professor of international relations and global politics at Delhi University. "It is largely guided by expediency. For instance, India signed up on a global democracy initiative sponsored by the U.S. to please Washington as part of its growing strategic partnership."
But, adds Vanaik, "India's position on issues like Kosovo or the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe is different. While the U.S. welcomed Kosovos unilateral declaration of independence, India said it would have to further study the legal implications. India knows that the West often deploys double standards on human rights.
The U.S. strongly condemns rights violations in China, but not in Iraq, Turkey or Saudi Arabia."
One reason why India has failed to set a model of consistency on human rights is that its own internal record on these is tainted by draconian laws, police excesses against suspected terrorists, discrimination against the religious and ethnic minorities, and state violence in Jammu and Kashmir and in the Northeast.
At any rate, the Indian government is now coming under pressure from the Right, in particular the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and conservative sections of the media, to take a tough stand vis-a-vis Beijing and support the cause of Tibetan freedom.
But brave talk notwithstanding, the world, including India, cannot do very much to help the Tibetans. China is far too powerful to be pressured or sanctioned into changing its behaviour by other states or the United Nations.
China is also too xenophobic and paranoid to concede autonomy and greater freedom to the Tibetans, unless it can be persuaded to value diversity and respect difference, and recognise that a big country can accommodate and live with differences.
Practically, an independent Tibet is not on the agenda. The Dalai Lama realises this and advocates "the middle way", or autonomy for Tibet. But he is no great strategist. He has never managed, unlike Mahatma Gandhi, to convert non-violence into an instrument of mass mobilisation. Nor has he developed alternative forms of political action.
Unless the exiled Tibetan leadership does some creative strategising, it could find the ground slipping from under its feet even as China advances the process of altering Tibets demography and overruns Tibet culturally, observers here say.
.......dreaming again salim
