Religious meet slams Dalai Lama
The Kathmandu Post, 23 May
NEW DELHI, India, March 22 – The Third Millennium Human Rights and Religious Freedom Summit, which started here Tuesday ended with a declaration that renounced the tendency of “dual leadership” – both spiritual and political – in Tibetan Buddhism. The declaration is aimed squarely at the Dalai Lama who heads both the spiritual and political movements of Tibetan Buddhism.
During the concluding day of the three-day summit, which was participated by over 200 delegates from all over the world, the representatives denounced the alleged suppression and abuses meted against the devotees of the Dorje Shugden by followers of the Dalai Lama.
Known world-wide for his compassion and peaceful persona, Nobel Peace laureate Dalai Lama is, however, reviled in some branches of Tibetan Buddhism. Devotees of Dorje Shugden say that the Dalai Lama has angered the community by banning the worship of their deity since 1996.
By imposing the ban, Tibetan monks and Indian activists here say, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzing Gyatso), has not only attacked the Tibetan people’s basic human rights of religious freedom but also violated the law of the ‘world’s largest democracy’, where the Tibetan Government-in-Exile is based.
Angry devotees of Dorje Shugden and Indian lawyers are considering to file petition against Dalai Lama in the Supreme Court of India. The devotees and lawyers Thursday said they would knock the Supreme Court’s door “within a week”
Followers of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism venerate Dorje Shugden, the Tibetan deity who lived in the 15th century during the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, but things have gone wrong after the Dalai Lama imposed an abrupt ban on the worship on March 7, 1996. Dalai Lama is also the head of the Gelugpa lineage.
Dalai Lama who has earned a celebrity status the world over including Hollywood, lives in India along with his 100,000-odd fellow countrymen as refugees. He is the head of the Dharmashala (Kangra)-based Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
Said Prof. Dr. Lobsang Yeshi Jampel Gyatso, who is the 13th Kundeling Rimpoche: “We shall drag him (the Dalai Lama) to the Supreme Court soon. He has imposed the abrupt ban on the worship of Dorje Shugden, subjected Dorje Shugden devotees to mental as well as physical torture, and even gone on to issue orders to eliminate some of them.”
An Indian national of Tibetan origin, Kundeling Rimpoche is considered as the spokesperson of the anti-Dalai Lama campaign that began soon after the ban came. But the Dalai Lama’s Government-in-Exile has branded him as ‘Dalai Lama’s One Number Enemy’, a ‘Chinese agent’ and so on. The Rimpoche denies the charges.
Said Senior Advocate L K Thakur, a Supreme Court of India lawyer: “We unequivocally condemn the ban on any kind of religion anywhere in the world…And for the removal of the Dalai Lama’s 1996 ban we are going to the Supreme Court of India. We are going to file a petition demanding actions against the rights violators shortly, may be within a week.”
The ban on Dorje Shugden imposed by the Dalai Lama is punishable under Indian laws.
“It is against the spirit of Article 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution, which ensures total religious freedom,” he told The Kathmandu Post.
Western Shugden Society does not necessarily endorse views expressed in this article.