The Unwelcome Guest

The voice of the quisling sounded last week over the roof of the world. In mountain-locked Lhasa, the tame Panchen Lama parroted the words of his Red Chinese masters, told Tibetans that their only choice was the "building up of a new and socialist Tibet" or preserving "the cruel, dark and backward serf system forever." The Chinese Reds, admitting that the rebellion still continued, ominously suggested that they might set up their notorious People's Courts to try recalcitrant landlords and monks. ("If those who are most hated by the people and whose lives are demanded by them admit their mistakes and decide to turn over a new leaf, we may persuade the masses to spare them.")

Old & Tired. In his exile at Mussoorie in northeast India, Tibet's rightful ruler, the Dalai Lama, declared that "wherever I am accompanied by my ministers, the people of Tibet look upon us as their government." His mild statement of sovereignty was attacked not by the Red Chinese but by his Indian hosts. Nehru's government sharply pointed out that there was no question of a Tibetan government-in-exile "under the Dalai Lama functioning in India," and seemed to concede that Tibet is an internal affair of Red China. Sounding both old and tired of it all, Prime Minister Nehru, 69, said he could appreciate the Dalai Lama's predicament ("He is a young man, 25 years old," who "feels strongly"), but Nehru was not prepared to do more than "sympathize with his feelings very much." Was it Nehru's position that nothing could be done for Tibet or the Tibetans? Snapped Nehru irritably: "I have not reconciled myself to that position or a hundred or a thousand other positions, but I do not pretend to have the authority or power to change the shape of the world."

Storm & Thunder. But if much of the Indian press seemed prepared to write off Tibet as a lost cause, India still had a voice and a conscience. Speaking in Delhi, strong-minded Jayaprakash Narayan, 56 (TIME, July 6). who was long considered Nehru's heir, ripped away the pretense that the Dalai Lama is in India for any reason except "to fight for his country and his people. Any patriot in his position would have done the same thing. Will you please imagine what would have happened if Nehru at the age of 25 had found himself in the place of the Dalai Lama? Imagine the storm and thunder that would have burst upon the world from the hills of Mussoorie!" Remembering the fiery young Nehru, the crowd applauded.

A questioner wanted to know if it was not true that the Chinese Reds were introducing necessary land reforms in feudal Tibet. Yes. said Narayan, and, in the days of empire, the British had introduced valuable reforms in India--railways, telegraphs, administration--"so we should have welcomed them in our country, but we didn't. That is really an amazing question for an Indian to ask.

"There is a view that regards it as futile to do anything about Tibet because the Chinese are firmly established there. This is not only immoral but even politically unwise. If this were the attitude to be adopted toward every so-called accomplished fact of history, this world would become a veritable hell, and every wrong committed by the strong would be perpetuated. If nothing is done about it in the present, if wrong is not even clearly defined, if the conscience of the world is not aroused, the danger is that the present wrong may never be righted."

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