New Delhi: India has been on the receiving end of the support from a small group of Tibetan refugees who are staying in Leh. Small yet uplifting, this groundswell speakvolumes about India’s strength and courage in standing against China.
The Tibetans came forward with theirsupport amidst the rise in tensions along the Line of Actual Control between India and China.
Leh’s Tibetan refugee camps and market is being managed by displaced people from Tibet. During the nineteen sixties, their ancestors had migrated from Tibet to Leh.
Out of the hundreds of people earning a livelihood through running readymade good stores in Leh,Yagchin is one among them. She says she wants to return to Tibet. With the hopes of getting her dream fulfilled someday, she is working in her shop with her parents in LeLe
“I was born in India, my parents came from Tibet. They have died now, but we are hopeful that we will return to Tibet one day,” she said.
Yagchin says China is an expansionist power and an epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.
“China has spread coronavirus to the world, now they are inflicting cruelty on small countries like Hong Kong,” she said.
She further said that she feels it is high time for the world to realize the gravity of the situation in her hometown. Moreover, she also hoped for the all the countries to help Tibet in getting it’s independence from China.
She said Indian soldiers have bore a huge loss in form of its clash with China and that it should be dealt with sternly now. “We should seek revenge from China,” she said.
Lupsang, who also runs a readymade garment outlet, said it is time to boycott Chinese goods and products.
“China did very wrong, they stabbed India from the back. We must boycott the products and goods of China,” she said.
The market of Tibetan refugees started in the 1980s. It has 145 shops, but majority of these stores shut down after the coronavirus outbreak.
Sonam, the President of the Tibetan Market Association, said that the government must work towards realising the idea of ‘Make in India’ by giving prime importance to local production and manufacture. He added that Indians also need to stop using Chinese products and discouraged it’s trade.
“We appeal to the government, please work on the idea of ‘Make in India’. The reality is that 80 per cent of the materials in this market are Chinese. It is very difficult for us to get Indian goods,” he said.
He said Chinese transgressions are nothing new. These have been happening every year, but the Indian reaction is always subdued.
Furthermore, he said that the utter wrong-doings and sheer transgressions of China don’t come as something new. Similar incidences have been taking place each year. However, in the past, India dint react to this in the way that it should have. It dint even get the kind of attention that it had to.
“Every year China takes a few kilometres, but India does not react. Now India has realised the gravity of the situation by losing 20 soldiers,” he said.
“We consider India as our mother. We are born and brought up in India, we are Indians first. If we are asked to defend the Indian borders, we will gladly do that,” he said.
