The recent Tibet crisis has brought about a strange change in India's stance on this issue, regarding India's foreign policy. Since the time of Nehru India has followed a middle path. That is it has considered Tibet as an autonomous region within China but officially forbidding the Tibetan people from carrying out any anti-China protests. This middle path has mainly been followed because India never did really want to snap its ties with China regarding the issue of autonomy of Tibet, while on the other hand it also wanted to maintain cordial relationship with the Tibetan people and that is why India has been recognizing Tibet as an independent part of China India "s relationship with Tibet has been extremely fruitful as Tibet acts as a barrier or a buffer between India and China, thus preventing any maligned interests of the Chinese army of advancing towards the Indian borders.
This is the precise reason why New Delhi has given asylum to Dalai Lama and allowed him to carry on his administrative and governing works from Dharamshala.But it has also been seen that in these years of long history India has particularly avoided in going in to a direct confrontation with China and has always tiptoed its line on the issue of Tibet.
However, as is evident, India has historically ensured that it avoids really irking the Chinese on the issue of Tibet.
Moreover, with the changing times, there has also been a change in the tough stance of Dalai Lama. For example, the spiritual leader has reframed his position on Tibet - from claims for independence to concerns about economic welfare.
Hence, it makes little strategic sense for the Indian government to take such a drastic step of censuring him.
Many have attributed this step as a "grand bargain' to win China's support for the nuclear deal and underlined New Delhi's desire not to risk its growing ties with Beijing.
But India has to be concerned over the economic and political stability of her northern Himalayan border region, where China's track record has been far from clean.
India must reinforce her inner buffers like Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim to check any unfavorable step from China.
Deng Xiaoping had said: "If China and India are developed, we can say that we have made our contributions to mankind."
And perhaps Manmohan Singh has taken Xiaoping too seriously; it seems that he has ventured out to serve mankind even though it is at the cost of the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.
