In my role as the Dalai Lama, I was trying to mitigate the disaster for my people. On October 26, 1951, approximately three thousand troops from the People’s Liberation Army’s Eighteenth Route Army entered Lhasa. Soon after, a further large detachment of soldiers arrived, and combined with a large influx of horses, this led to a serious food shortage. Lhasa in 1951 had a local population of just over thirty thousand, so one can imagine the impact of such a massive influx of Chinese troops in the city. This situation came to worsen further as thousands of Tibetans came as refugees from eastern Tibet.
The period between 1951 and 1959 proved to be one of the most challenging times of my life. In part, I was still studying intensively for my final Geshe Lharam degree. Geshe Lharam is the highest academic degree one can obtain within the formal scholarly training of the great monastic universities of the Geluk school, analogous to a doctorate in divinity, which would culminate in February 1959. In part, I was going through a massive learning curve as a young man in the complexities of politics, having received no formal training in any of these matters.
Of course, the rigorous education I was receiving in Buddhist philosophy and psychology did help me immensely in maintaining my sanity against the complex political challenges I had no choice but to face as the leader of the Tibetan people. And my on-the-job education meant dealing with the very real disagreements between my government and the Chinese generals who were stationed in Lhasa and had all the guns. I was often caught between the extremely reluctant and at times confrontational Tibetan officials, on the one hand, and the increasing heavy-handedness and haughty attitudes of the Chinese generals, on the other. Ultimately, in 1952, my two prime ministers (one lay and one monastic) were forced to resign by the Chinese. I made the decision not to appoint replacements to these posts since they would simply be scapegoats, and it was better that I accept the responsibilities myself. The situation in Lhasa was getting more tense by the day.
I also still had to govern, and one of my priorities was to improve our system and society. I set up a reform committee to help create a more equitable system with explicit attention paid to the needs of the ordinary people and the poor. As a child growing up, I learned a lot from sweepers at my residence, who were often my playmates, about the problem of injustice and abuse by the powerful. But I faced major obstacles from the Chinese since they wanted reforms according to their own system, along lines introduced in mainland China. They probably felt that if changes were initiated by the Tibetans themselves, it might hinder their own agenda.
So, when in 1954 the Chinese government invited me to Beijing, I felt it was the only option left to me to attempt to improve my people’s deteriorating situation. In June, I received a telegram from Deng Xiaoping, then the senior figure responsible for Tibetan affairs in the Chinese leadership, inviting me to attend the inaugural National People’s Congress in Beijing in September 1954. The same invitation was extended to the Panchen Lama. Although the Tibetans in Lhasa were deeply concerned about my trip to Beijing, I decided that it was best that I go for the sake of my people. To assuage their fear, during a large gathering of Tibetans at a religious ceremony at Norbulingka, my summer residence, I reassured them and promised to be back within a year.
To this day, I remember when I left Lhasa for Beijing, there were so many people crying. I heard some of the older women shouting, “Please don’t go! It would be not good!” As there was no bridge over the Kyichu River at the time, we had to cross it in the traditional Tibetan coracles, made out of yak hide stretched over a willow frame. On the sides of the river there were so many people crying; some even seemed they might jump into the river. Later I heard that some fainted and even died.
On September 4, 1954, Panchen Lama and I, with our delegations, finally arrived in Beijing by train from Xi’an. We were received at the station by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai; Vice Chairman Zhu De, who was also the commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army and a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo; and other Chinese officials. A few days later, I met Chairman Mao Zedong himself for the first time. He was sixty-one years old to my nineteen. He was warm and welcoming.
This meeting, joined by other top leaders, including Zhao Enlai and Liu Shaoqi, took place at the house of reception, a former imperial garden adjacent to the Forbidden City and later transformed into a compound that houses government offices as well as residences for senior leadership. The setting of this meeting was quite majestic with its opulent imperial legacy unmistakable. Here we were, myself only nineteen years old and the Panchen Lama sixteen years old, in a formal meeting with Chairman Mao himself, flanked by Communist China’s most senior leaders. That we felt awed and somewhat nervous would be an understatement. At this first meeting, only Chairman Mao and I spoke. Mao said that he and the Central Government were very happy about my first visit to Beijing, and that the relationship between the Chinese and Tibetans was very important. He also assured me that in the future the Central Government would make great efforts to help develop Tibet. On my part, I responded to Mao, saying I was very happy to have the opportunity to meet him and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.
The meeting lasted about an hour. As we left, Mao and other leaders accompanied us out of the house, and Mao himself opened the car door for me. As I was getting into the car, Mao shook my hand and said, “Your coming to Beijing is coming back to your own home. Whenever you come to Beijing, you can call on me… Don’t be shy; if you need anything, just tell me directly.”
I came out of that meeting impressed with Mao and encouraged at the possibility that things could improve in Tibet. With me in the car was Phuntsok Wangyal, a rare Tibetan Communist, who was my official interpreter during my stay in Beijing. I was so relieved that this first meeting with Mao and other Chinese leaders went well – in fact, I hugged Phuntsok Wangyal and told him that Mao was truly unlike anyone I had met. The success of this first meeting also reassured my Tibetan entourage, including especially my senior tutor, Ling Rinpoche, who had been feeling quite worried about me. Phuntsok Wangyal was a true believer in Communism in its original Marxist internationalist sense. And at the time he believed, later to his disappointment, that the Chinese Communists also shared this internationalist vision of Marxism. (Decades later, when Phuntsok Wangyal was allowed to visit Europe, I was able to speak with him by phone. I asked him, “What happened to your dream of true socialism?” He just laughed.)
On September 16, I addressed the first National People’s Congress, noting that the draft constitution of the People’s Republic of China states, in particular, that all nationalities may draw up their rules governing the exercise of autonomy and separate regulations in accordance with the special features of the development so that they can exercise full autonomy. By then, I had been made a vice president of the steering committee of the People’s Republic of China.
Excerpted with permission from Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People, the Dalai Lama, HarperCollins.
