The Panchen Lama Controversy

The Panchen Lama Controversy – The 70,000 Character Petition

On July 27, 2010, in The Panchen Lama Controversy, by Wilfried F. Voss

The following is a chapter of

Who will identify the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama?

The “Poisoned Arrow”

In 1950, Chinese forces invaded Tibet. At first, the Communist government in Beijing (Peking) hoped to make use of the influence religious leaders had over their people by forcing them to accept seemingly important positions on various committees. It soon became obvious, however, that the Tibetan figureheads were nothing more than puppets, being used to feign legitimacy for the invaders and their alien policies of radical reform. The Tibetan uprising in 1959, and the brutal military response, dashed the Chinese hopes of using the Dalai Lama, when He and His government escaped into exile in India.

Chinese hopes then shifted to the 10th Panchen Lama. He seemed a likely candidate, because His predecessor had revolted against the government of the Great 13th Dalai Lama, and had hoped for assistance from China, before Mao’s Communists swept the Nationalists from power in that country. He was appointed to the position of acting Chairman of the ‘Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region’, and later as vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Congress.

Three years older than the Dalai Lama, he was, in his own way, just as unconventional. In 1956, he opened a school in Shigatse, which he hoped would provide a modern education to its students, equipping them to face the challenge of Tibet’s new relationship with the outside world. He was a lonely man, little understood in his lifetime, and even considered a traitor by many Tibetans, because of his close association with China. The Chinese, on the other hand, were equally suspicious of him, suspecting him of using the school to train counter-revolutionaries in the 1959 uprising.

His inevitable fall from grace came in 1962, when he addressed a 70,000 character petition to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, documenting the terrible living conditions faced by the people of Tibet, the deaths in forced labour camps, and the harm being done to his country in the name of socialist reform. This audacious criticism of the Chinese occupation touched on all aspects of life in Tibet, from the misguided agricultural reforms to religious persecution and systemic racism.

Predictably, Chairman Mao blew a gasket. He described the petition as “… a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords.”

The Panchen Lama was arrested, and spent 15 years in detention. While in prison, he was subjected to torture and forced to endure the ritual humiliation of thamzing, ‘struggle sessions’, in which victims are forced to dissect their own faults while being verbally abused or beaten by others (often friends or family members), who are in turn judged by their level of enthusiastic participation. He wrote the petition as a young man of 24, and returned to Tibet an old man in ill health at the age of 40.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A644320

The 70,000 Character Petition

Note: I found several online references pointing to www.TibetInfo.net as a source for the complete petition. The link, however, leads nowhere.

Originally titled “A Report on the sufferings of the masses in Tibet and other Tibetan regions and suggestions for future work to the central authorities through the respected Premier Zhou,” the 70,000-character petition included suggestions on how the implementation of Party policy in Tibet could have been improved.

The Panchen Lama displays an excellent knowledge of the Marxist ideology found in the Chinese state Constitution. He begins the report with praises of democratic reform and the greatness of socialism, providing examples of how Tibet has been ameliorated by mobilization of the working masses, improved labor production, and freedom of religion (for example, allowing those who did not wish to be monks to return to the life of a householder).

“The whole of Tibet had a flourishing, auspicious, bright and glorious new appearance, as if spring were coming to the earth.” The conciliatory tone of his introduction is maintained in his critique of the Chinese government. Speaking on the actual implementation of policy, “The democratic reform campaign, which was carried out in conjunction with suppression of the rebellion, was a large-scale, fast-moving, fierce, acute life-and-death class struggle, which overturned heaven and earth, and so it was possible for some unavoidable errors and mistakes to arise. However, some unnecessary and disadvantageous mistakes were also made during the campaign.”

The report on Tibet is divided into eight sections of “problems” which receive the Panchen Lama’s critique and suggestions:

1. Suppression of the Tibetan Rebellion
Chinese repression caused the deaths of up to 10,000 Tibetans during the Lhasa Uprising of March 10, 1959 alone. The Panchen Lama points specifically to the harsh treatment of those who surrendered and apologized, the “vengeful, discriminatory, casual and careless methods” of cadres, and the attempted destruction of the Tibetan religion which “caused the rebellion to be large-scale, to involve many people, to last a long time, to be stubborn in its stance and to rebel to the end.”

2. Democratic reform in Tibet
The Panchen Lama suggests that certain aspects of the democratic reform could have been better implemented. He cites the example of innocent Tibetans accused of rebel activity or crimes which are actually fabricated by cadres, saying, “If even I and other well-known, patriotic and progressive people could unexpectedly and groundlessly be labeled as reactionaries, how much less need we speak of anyone else.” He indicates the flawed ramifications of this overzealous implemention of policy, including the systematic confiscation of land and the careless manner in which middle-class Tibetans were classified as “agents of feudal lords” and subjected to recrimination. This further alienates the masses and leads “to the ideological problem becoming much more complicated.”

3. Decline of agricultural production in Tibet
During the transition between the “feudal” system and “voluntary mutual benefit,” agricultural production in Tibet declined to such an extreme that many people were starving to death. The Panchen Lama states pointedly in his critique, “In the past, although Tibet was a society ruled by dark and savage feudalism, there had never been such a shortage of grain… In Tibet during the two years of 1959 and 1960, free exchange of agricultural and animal herding products [i.e., donation to beggars] more or less ceased.”

4. The United Front
The Panchen Lama’s petition is a direct result of the United Front, the fourth problem. The United Front theoretically encouraged non-Chinese nationalities and non-Party members to criticize policy, but this actually led to indiscriminate attacks on the “feudal lords”. Through its refusal to accept apologies or criticism, the United Front’s policy of class-struggle left little recourse to the people besides demoralization and despair. As the Pachen Lama points out, “They no longer retained any hopes about the world, and their situation appeared miserable. Therefore,it was difficult to win over and reform these people.”

5. Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is upheld as a core facet of Party ideology which claims to directly address the hopes and concerns of the people themselves. The Panchen Lama criticizes its “incomplete, non-universal and imperfect implementation” in terms of the basic two tenets of democracy and centralism. Such ideological pretense to democracy is tantamount to a sick man ingesting medicine which gives rise to new ailments instead of curing him; the problem of centralism, on the other hand, is concerned with the complexity of restructuring government administration.

6. Dictatorship in Tibet
Dictatorship can be legitimately used as a tool against the most reactionary counter-revolutionaries. The Panchen Lama deplores the abuse which has resulted in “many good and innocent people (being) unscrupulously charged with offences, maligned, and categorized with criminals.” People can be arbitrarily assigned to vocational training; furthermore, large numbers of people are actually imprisoned and put through forced “labor reform”.

7. Religion in Tibet
The problem of religion is naturally of crucial importance to the Panchen Lama. Personally upholding the freedom of Tibetans to adhere to Buddhism, he would rather let personal choice determine the number of Tibetan monastics rather than some dogmatic leftist force. Furthermore, he promotes the religious reform of monasteries in order to “eliminate all feudal privileges and the systems of oppression and exploitation which are inconsistent with the profound doctrines of Buddhism, not appropriate to the revolutionary spirit and a hindrance to social development.” His argument for the freedom of belief is briefly detailed in Article 88 of the State Constitution: “The policy of the Party and the Constitution of the State can only be the sun for the whole body of citizens, and cannot be a sun which shines on one side. Therefore, so-called freedom of religious belief can only be legal protection for those who do not believe, and it should give similar protection to believers; if those who do not believe in religion use the law on freedom of religious belief as a pretext to obstruct or harm religious belief, this is a serious violation of the law.”

8. Tibetan nationality
The Panchen Lama views the incorporation of Tibet into the “Motherland” as the positive unity of nationalities, notwithstanding dangers of racism, “modernity”, and the assimilation of national characteristics such as language, costumes, and customs. Through his emphasis on the preservation of these characteristics, by reading between the lines, one can almost perceive the challenge of restructuring an autonomous Tibet, able to interface with a distant capital in Beijing through a distinctly Tibetan form of socialism.

Source: http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=181.15;wap2