[ Tongam Rina ]
ITANAGAR, 9 Oct: The proposed visit of Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, to Arunachal Pradesh has been cancelled.
He was supposed to visit the state between October and November this year. Officials did not give a reason for the cancellation of the visit.
Chief Minister Pema Khandu, after a meeting with the Dalai Lama in April, had informed through his social media handles that the spiritual leader would visit the state.
“I am happy that His Holiness has reiterated his assurance to visit Arunachal by October/November this year,” he had tweeted.
The Dalai Lama’s office in Dharamshala has issued a press release stating that his scheduled visit to Sikkim and Salugara in West Bengal has been postponed due to the recent disaster in Sikkim, as he offered prayers for the people of Sikkim who have been devastated by the recent glacial lake outburst flood. The visit was scheduled from 16 to 22 October.
This would have been the eighth visit of the revered spiritual leader to the state, who escaped from Tibet to India via Ken-Dze-Mane, Jemethang, Tawang on 31 March, 1959, where he and his entourage were received by Indian officials and escorted to Bomdila.
He came back to visit the state in March-May, 1983 for the first time after he made Dharamshala the seat of the Tibetans in exile. He also visited the state in December 1996, October 1997, twice in 2003 in May, and December of that year, while his last visit was in 2017, when he was met by a massive crowd.
The spiritual leader is a hugely revered and popular figure in Arunachal.
The visit of the Dalai Lama usually riles the Chinese government, which claims parts of Arunachal as South Tibet.
The latest cancelled visit of the 88-year-old Buddhist spiritual leader may be the result of geopolitical complications, as Chinese and Indian relations have become more than frosty in recent years.
In September this year, the Chinese government had denied permission to Nyeman Wangsu, Mepung Lamgu, and Onilu Tega, three players from Arunachal, barring them from participation in the Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China.
The external affairs ministry had in a statement said, “In line with our longstanding and consistent position, India firmly rejects differential treatment of Indian citizens on the basis of domicile or ethnicity. Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.”
Unlike other occasions when Indian contingents had withdrawn each time China had given stapled visas to Indians, the Indian contingent participated in the event.
Instead of a normal visa which is stamped in the passport pages, Chinese authorities issues a visa affixed to a passport with a staple to Indians from Arunachal, which is not treated as a valid travel paper by the Indian authorities.
