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AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The leader of the Tibetan Buddhist religion, the Dalai Lama, celebrated his 90th birthday today in exile in India. He's the 14th and the longest-lived in more than 600 years of dalai lamas. He said that that after he dies, he will be reincarnated. China's government, however, says it has the final say on his successor. To explain, NPR's Anthony Kuhn joins us from Beijing. Hi, Anthony.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Hey, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So first, what was his birthday celebration like?
KUHN: Thousands of followers packed into a temple complex in the Himalayan mountain city of Dharamshala, India, and the VIPs there included U.S. and Indian officials and one actor, the Dalai Lama's longtime follower Richard Gere. And behind them onstage were pictures of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa to portray the Dalai Lama as part of a tradition of nonviolent resistance and spiritual leadership. And the Dalai Lama himself sent out a birthday message in which he pledged to keep on promoting human values and religious harmony and Tibetan culture.
RASCOE: What was the reaction inside Tibet?
KUHN: Well, let's remember, that's where most Tibetans are. There's 7 million Tibetans in Tibet and neighboring provinces of China and less than 150,000 Tibetans in exile, mostly in India, Nepal and Bhutan. It's hard for foreign journalists to get into Tibet. Online discussions about the Dalai Lama are censored there, but it seems like Tibetans are pretty pleased that the Dalai Lama has reached 90 and that there will continue to be dalai lamas. I spoke to a Tibetan writer based in China called Tsering Woeser, and she told me that Tibetans are very good at getting around the censorship to express themselves.
TSERING WOESER: (Non-English language spoken).
KUHN: She says, "they post pictures online, which are blurred, but everyone knows it's the Dalai Lama, or they play pop tunes, but they use the Dalai Lama's prayer for lyrics."
RASCOE: So, Anthony, can you explain to us this political struggle over the Dalai Lama's reincarnation?
KUHN: Yes. Well, both the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government claim the authority to recognize the next dalai lama. And to avoid China's interference in this matter, the Dalai Lama was considering either not reincarnating at all or naming his reincarnation while he was still alive. But the Dalai Lama said he considered it, and he decided he wanted to be reborn outside China because that's what Tibetans want. The concern is there could be two dalai lamas in future, one backed by Beijing, the other by the Tibetan government in exile. And even if nobody believes the Chinese version of the dalai lama, it could still damage trust in the institution.
RASCOE: Well, what else could the transition to the new dalai lama mean for Tibet?
KUHN: Well, this dalai lama has done some things that'd be pretty impossible for anybody to replicate. After a failed uprising in 1959, he led Tibetans on an exodus to India and set up a government in exile. Also he started out as a god-king. He was both head of the Tibetan government and religion. But in 2011, he gave up his political authority to democratically elected leaders. Now, I spoke to Tsering Woeser's husband, who is Wang Lixiong, who's also a writer and a democracy advocate, and he's concerned that the Dalai Lama's reincarnation could expose problems and divisions within the exile community.
WANG LIXIONG: (Non-English language spoken).
KUHN: "The exiles can't spread democratization into Tibet," he said, "and the legitimacy of 150,000 exiles representing all Tibetans is suspect." So he worries that the current Dalai Lama has basically held unity together in the exile community, and after he reincarnates, the community could be split by factional infighting and populist politics, all of which are just divisions that China's government could exploit to undermine the credibility of the Dalai Lama and the government in exile.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Anthony Kuhn joining us from Beijing. Thank you so much.
KUHN: You're welcome, Ayesha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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