His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee from Tibet in 1959 for he sensed a threat to his life from the Chinese authority. I joined the Tibetan Resistance Movement in India on September 22, 1971. I experienced threat to my existence on three separate occasions from the Chinese authority that forces the Dalai Lama to live in Exile. The threat posed by China has stolen my freedom.

I have chosen the profile image of my stolen Indian Army picture ID to describe my plight on account of my stolen freedom. My Indian Army picture ID was stolen in 1972 at Cuttack, near Charbatia Air Base operated by Aviation Research Centre (ARC). My Indian Army picture ID was purposefully stolen because of my association with The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW or RAW), the Intelligence Agency of India which formulated my association with The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). My stolen Indian Army ID of 1972 resurfaced in Indian Movie TE3N in 2016. It accounts for the loss of my freedom and the fear it arouses in my heart since 1972.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE-ESTABLISHMENT NO. 22

Am a refugee but I enjoy India’s freedom: Dalai Lama

By: FE Online | Published: October 14, 2019, 4:16:48 PM

Dalai Lama has been living in India since 1959. He had to flee Tibet after he sensed a threat to his life from the Chinese authority in the wake of Tibetan uprising. Former Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru offered Dalai Lama to set up the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. 

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Sunday hailed India for its freedom and said that he has been here for the last 60 years as a refugee but still enjoys the freedom that this country offers. “We already enjoy freedom in India. It’s been 60 years…one way, I am a refugee, but I enjoy India’s freedom,” he said while responding to a question on his freedom struggle for Tibet. When asked about whether he thinks that Tibetans can get freedom by living in India, Dalai Lama said that he had tried to go back to Tibet but that could not happen because there was no freedom to preserve “our own culture”. The spiritual leader said that he had also appealed to the United Nations in this regard.

“At that time Pandit (Jawahar Lal) Nehru advised me that the United Nations can not do much…sooner or later much better to approach Chinese and talk to China. I think that was realistic advice. And in 74, we decide(ed) not to take independence, (we) tried to remain within the Republic of China but we should have got certain rights (from China) for the preservation of our own culture,” he told news agency ANI.