Gyalo Thondup, the eldest brother of the Dalai Lama and a political operator in Tibet and the larger area, has died, the Dalai Lama’s workplace confirmed in a press release. He died on Sunday in Kalimpong in West Bengal, India, in keeping with Tibetan media. He was 97.
“He was a superb man who did his greatest for the Tibetan trigger,” the Dalai Lama stated within the assertion. “I pray that he’ll take a superb rebirth as a Tibetan once more and that he’ll be capable to serve the Tibetan administration that may be a mixture of spirituality and politics as soon as extra,” he stated, referring to the Buddhist perception within the cycle of rebirth.
A outstanding determine in Tibetan society and politics, Mr. Thondup has been called the second-most influential particular person within the small Himalayan territory, eclipsed solely by his brother, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and head of Tibetan Buddhism.
Collectively, the brothers defined a political era in Tibet, the more and more remoted territory nestled within the Himalayas that has lengthy battled Chinese language affect and management. Whereas the Dalai Lama has typically been extra public-facing, courting worldwide consideration and accolades, Mr. Thondup was seen as a reserved, geopolitical operator who was extra comfy away from the highlight.
For many years, Mr. Thondup advocated for paths to permit his brother — exiled since 1959 — to return to the territory. He stored the corporate of worldwide leaders, hoping to leverage varied stakeholders within the service of Tibetan independence.
One among six kids born to farmers within the Chinese language city of Takster, Mr. Thondup served as a lifelong adviser and advocate for his youthful brother. Despatched overseas to check, he was the one one among his siblings not destined for non secular life.
Free of non secular obligations, Mr. Thondup spent his life working for Tibetan autonomy, typically extra aggressively than others.
Mr. Thondup settled in India in 1952 and was an early mediator when the Dalai Lama fled there after the failed 1959 Tibetan rebellion towards Chinese language rule. Mr. Thondup would later name his brother’s protected passage to India one among his best achievements.
Mr. Thondup would go on to domesticate among the first official Tibetan contacts with Indian and American authorities within the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, asking for his or her help. Within the Fifties, he aided the C.I.A. in an ill-fated try and arm Tibetan separatists towards the Communist Chinese language authorities.
Mr. Thondup periodically met with Chinese language leaders in efforts to ease Chinese language affect over Tibet. At the same time as talks broke down in recent times, he urged Tibetans to remain engaged.
“It’s important for Tibetan individuals to not lose hope in pleading for our rights to the Chinese language authorities,” Mr. Thondup stated at a information convention in 2008. He revealed an autobiography in 2015, “The Noodlemaker of Kalimpong,” about his lifetime of activism and the Tibetan wrestle towards Chinese language rule.
The Dalai Lama led a prayer service on Sunday for his brother, his workplace stated.
After the service, because the recitation concluded, the Dalai Lama rose from his seat, saluted a photograph of his late brother and returned to his dwelling house, the assertion from his workplace stated.
Mujib Mashal contributed reporting.
Source link