New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Indians are willing to risk worsening ties with China on the issue of human rights in Tibet, as per the findings of the IANS C-Voter Tibet Poll.
This is the most significant finding of this survey. Almost two-third of Indians want to support the issue of Tibet even at the cost of worsening relationship with China. The brand equity of China has taken a beating over last one year and majority of Indians have further become anti-China in their perceptions.
Ironically, the state of human rights in Tibet is not that well formulated among the respondents, as per the survey. Hence, people are unaware of something but want the Indian government to take a strident stand over it.
The very fact that majority of the Indians said they do not know anything about the human rights violations by China in Tibet should be a cause of concern, as per the survey.
Other surveys reflected that majority of them knew about the human rights violations of Muslims in the Uyghur region in China and Hong Kong in general, indicating much better media coverage of the issue and international information campaigns.
But it is ironical to see that the world is not finding the cause of Tibet important enough to be mentioned along with Uyghur or Hong Kong.
There is better than merited opinion of international human rights bodies. In sharp contrast to meddling in Kashmir, most organisations are silent on Tibet. Every third Indian feels they are not doing enough on this front, as per the survey.
Two-third of respondents acknowledged the Dalai Lama as an important cultural and spiritual influencer of modern India. In fact, the qualitative response from the samples suggests that a huge number of them consider the Dalai Lama as an Indian spiritual leader, and not as a foreigner.
On one hand, this could be considered a great achievement of assimilation, but on the other hand it also tells that not being aggressive on the China front has diluted the Tibetan brand identity of the Dalai Lama.
Therefore, a similar number support the conferment of highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna, on the Dalai Lama. This emotion is just an extension of the emotions expressed by the respondents in previous questions.
The survey included a sample size of 3,000 people spread across the country.
