Why 9309 Tibetans have left India for the West

I am not sure how the dangerous journey across the mountains from Lhasa to Nepal and into India in 1959 went down with Hishi Doma, my grandmother.u00a0

What did it mean to throw away statues she had prayed to into a river because Chinese troops were defecating on them. To forsake family, friends and a home to find refuge from Chinese guards who were shotting down fleeing Tibetans.u00a0

What I am certain of is that when she got here, she made India as close to home as possible.

In a little hillock called Kalimpong on the eastern part of the Darjeeling Himalayas, my grandmother, a happy content woman with seven children, and a group of Tibetans helped establish cultural centres, schools, businesses and hotels. The community celebrated every festival with uncompromised pomp, as if they never left home.u00a0

The exodus that had led to their arrival saw 80,000 Tibetans follow the Dalai Lama into India, and the steady flow of Tibetans seeking political asylum in India continued. The community grew steadily by 2.8 per cent every year.u00a0

But between 1998 and 2008, something changed. A recent census report by the Tibetan government-in-exile found that the decade saw the population growth rate dip to 1.96 per cent.u00a0

What the report highlighted was a second exodus. The Tibetans were moving again. This time to the West.u00a0

Around 9,309 Tibetans left India for western countries, the census revealed. There are currently 94,203 Tibetans in India, 13,514 in Nepal, 1,298 in Bhutan and 18,920 elsewhere.

Tibetan-Delhi resident Hishi Choden lived with her Afghani husband and daughter in the capital before they moved to Germany, and later to London in 1997. She later had a son in London. The struggle for identity began right at home. "My in-laws were upset I had told my kids they were Tibetan, not Afghani. They wanted them to speak Persian, but the kids were always more fluent in Tibetan," she says.

Choden moved to London with her husband before the two separated. She remembers how "in those early years, I missed home terribly. I could not find a single Tibetan in London."u00a0

Eight years later, she was at a mall when she spotted a woman in Tibetan garb. "I walked up to her and asked if she was Tibetan. When she nodded I couldn't stop smiling. Years of trying to find a Tibetan, and there she was doing her grocery shopping in a mall."u00a0

Through her, Choden met 500 Tibetan Londoners, and is is now part of the Tibetan Community in Britain.u00a0

In America, Section 134 of the Immigration Act of 1990 ended up providing a major fillip to the exodus since it sets aside 1,000 immigrant visas specifically for Tibetans living in India and Nepal.u00a0

In the 1990s, a chain migration ensued, and those granted citizenship pulled in their relatives. By 1998, the Tibetan-American population had grown to around 5,500 (according to a survey conducted by the Tibetan government-in-exile). Many more unaccounted Tibetans reside illegally in the US.

Kelsang Shakya and her husband Tenzing Kunkhen are part of this chain. After becoming a US citizen in 2003, Kunchen, a resident of Delhi joined her in the US in 2010. "The jobs are better-paying here but I didn't move for economic reasons alone," says Shakya. "I was granted citizenship. I was being given rights. I was not going to be a refugee anymore."u00a0

Dawa Tshering, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, says the trend kicked off with the US government granting 1,000 immigrant visas to the Tibetans. "At the time, many Tibetans did not want to move. They were happy settling in a foreign land. But when those who returned to India on vacation vouched for the good life and the financial security they were enjoying, it spurred a rush to move there."u00a0

The Tibetan Youth Hostel in Vivek Nagar, Bengaluru, houses young Tibetans with a dream like Shakya's.u00a0

Nineteen year-old Tenzin Dadon, originally from Dharmshala, is a student of Oxford College of Science. A degree in genetics means she must move countries. "I grew up in an environment where moving to the West was a natural choice," she says. As a child, her holidays were packed with stories from relatives about another land. "It was fascinating."u00a0

And for some like Gelek Passang, 30, a Bengaluru-based Tibetan lawyer, a journey to the West is a precursor to serve the community here on his return. "I want to study Corporate law. I have already been granted a scholarship by the Tibetan government. But I will return," he promises.

As for my grandmother, a few years before she passed away in 2010, she visited the US on vacation. She said of her trip: "The people at the US airport escorted me in a wheelchair with care and respect, when in fact, I could easily have walked."u00a0