Sending signal to China, PM Modi wishes Dalai Lama on his 87th birthday

“Conveyed 87th birthday greetings to His Holiness the @DalaiLama over phone earlier today. We pray for his long life and good health,” Modi tweeted. Last year too, Modi had announced that he had wished the Dalai Lama on his birthday.

The phone calls to the Tibetan spiritual leader and the public announcements have diplomatic significance given that Beijing calls the Dalai Lama a “splittist”. India has maintained that the two sides should bemindful of “mutual sensitivities, interests and concerns”.

The fact that Beijing has not bothered about Indian “sensitivities” — on the India-China border, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, status of Jammu and Kashmir — has led New Delhi to recalibrate its position. It signals that India will not hesitate to subtly dial up the rhetoric.

In recent months, there have been some moves by Beijing to put the relationship back on track — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India in March this year. But Delhi has maintained that bilateral ties cannot be back on track until the border standoff is resolved.

Conveyed 87th birthday greetings to His Holiness the @DalaiLama over phone earlier today. We pray for his long life and good health.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2022

In the past, the Modi government has sent out mixed signals on the issue. When Modi came to power in 2014, he invited Lobsang Sangay, then the Sikyong (President) of the Central Tibetan Administration (Tibetan-government-in-exile), for his oath-taking ceremony.

Thereafter, according to sources, he had a “brief meeting” with the Dalai Lama in the first year of his term itself. This meeting was confirmed by the Dalai Lama as well. In September 2015, he thanked the Dalai Lama for wishing him on his birthday.

In December 2016, the Dalai Lama was invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan, where then President Pranab Mukherjee met him and other Nobel laureates at an event dedicated to the welfare of children.

In April 2017, the government allowed him to travel to Tawang, the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama. But, following the border standoff with Chinese troops in Doklam in June 2017, the government became very careful about engaging with the Dalai Lama.

In March 2018, in an unusual departure from its stand on Tibetans in exile, the government sent out a note asking “senior leaders” and “government functionaries” of the Centre and states to stay away from events planned by the “Tibetan leadership in India” to mark the start of 60 years in exile of the Dalai Lama. It underlined that this is a “very sensitive time” for bilateral relations with China. Soon after, Modi held the first informal leaders’ summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan in April 2018.