ITANAGAR, Aug 12: The Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has expressed disappointment over the recent statement of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who during an event at the Goa Institute of Management alleged that former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for the partition of India at the time of independence.
Although the Dalai Lama expressed regret over his controversial comment, the APCC questioned why a Tibetan spiritual leader made such a statement about a leader who took the risk to keep the Tibetans safe from Chinese aggression.
“India is home to more than 1 lakh Tibetans living in 37 settlements and 70 scattered communities spread across different states of India.
For the last 60 years India has supported the Tibetan cause, its settlements and enterprises, and their religious-political structures not only flourished but also gained worldwide attention,” the APCC said in a statement on Sunday.
“India provided a beam of light and hope to the Tibetans remaining in Chinese-dominated Tibet and in the neighbouring Chinese provinces politically cut off from the Tibetan heartland. All these happened only because India had great leaders like Gandhi and Nehru, who took the responsibility of the social burden to shelter thousands of persecuted Tibetans in 1959,” it said.
The APCC said spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama should abstain from “imparting partial and controversial information” to the students, who are the torchbearers of the nation.
“The Dalai Lama’s statement is uncalled for and is an insult to Nehru, who offered asylum to Tibetan refugees in several states of India and also helped to establish a Tibetan government in exile at Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh,” it said.
The Congress party urged the Dalai Lama to refrain from interfering in the internal politics of the country by making such political statements.
