Time passes — also for the Dalai Lama and those closest to him. Last year his elder brother died, and four days ago his youngest brother also passed away. Gyalo Thondup was 97; Tenzin Choegyal had just turned 80. Both left deep marks, not least the large and broad-shouldered Thondup. Yet he ended his days as a disappointed noodle maker in the town of Kalimpong in northern India.
“We human beings need not only the blessings of the gods, but also noodles,” he is said to have remarked in one of his lighter moments.
Gyalo Thondup — usually simply called Thondup — was the second eldest brother of the present Dalai Lama. Unlike his world-famous brother, he did not live as a monk, but as a political actor, diplomat and unofficial envoy for Tibet for more than sixty years. And as a noodle maker.
He was born in 1928 and grew up in modest circumstances. When his younger brother, nine years later, was recognized as the reincarnation of the recently deceased Dalai Lama, the entire family moved to the capital, Lhasa. Thondup was later educated in China, where he came into contact with people high and low — even with the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who governed the country at the time.
“I gradually came to know President Chiang and his wife quite well. I was often invited to dinner at their home, and they treated me like their own son. They were exceptionally warm, and I was greatly impressed by how politely they treated their servants.”
Chiang Kai-shek’s warm reception of Thondup was, of course, no coincidence. As president during a difficult time, he understood that the young man was more than an ordinary Tibetan. A few years later, in 1949, Chiang was forced to capitulate to Mao’s advancing forces, and before the year was over he had fled to Taiwan.
In 1951, Tibet was officially incorporated into the People’s Republic of China. Since China and the United States were bitter enemies, the CIA chose to support the Tibetan guerrillas who gradually began operating from Nepal and India. Weapons and supplies were dropped over Tibet from American aircraft. During the following years, Thondup played a crucial role as a tireless negotiator and intermediary. The guerrilla movement was initially loosely organized but soon coalesced under the name Chushi Gangdruk. Some soldiers received training in the United States, others in Taiwan. Raids into Tibet were launched from bases in India and Nepal.
Since the Dalai Lama was a principled advocate of nonviolence, Thondup’s engagement was not without complications. The Dalai Lama later acknowledged that he knew his brother was involved, but he was not told everything. Thondup believed that was for the best.
At its height, before the Tibetan uprising of 1959, between 10,000 and 20,000 Tibetans took part in various forms of armed resistance. After the Dalai Lama fled to India that same year, many gave up. By the 1960s only a couple of thousand fighters remained, and in 1974 they finally laid down their arms. The order came directly from the Dalai Lama, recorded on tape in his own voice. By then the United States was preoccupied with normalizing relations with China. Talks were more important than war.
“Our situation had become hopeless, so there was nothing else to do,” Thondup admitted. “But I confess that I wept when I heard the struggle was over. We had sacrificed so much, and several of our soldiers reacted by taking their own lives when they received the news.”
In his memoir, The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong (2015), he speaks openly about this period. He concluded that American support for the Tibetans had been motivated solely by the logic of the Cold War, not by any lasting commitment to Tibetan self-rule.
Thondup had early on established himself in Kalimpong, a small Indian town near the border with Sikkim and Tibet. The town clung to the steep slopes of the Himalayas, with Tibet’s snow-clad mountains shining in the background. Though small, it was considered strategically important, for here rumors, reports and analyses concerning developments in Tibet and China circulated constantly. To maintain a legitimate civilian cover, he started a business producing and selling noodles. It became both a source of income and a social meeting place where activists and intelligence agents came and went.
Thondup eventually realized that full independence for Tibet was impossible. Under Mao, China sent ever more soldiers into the mountain realm, and every attempt at opposition was crushed at birth. But the chairman’s death in 1976 opened new possibilities. With the Dalai Lama’s consent, Thondup began working for dialogue with China, and in 1979 he was invited to Beijing by Deng Xiaoping. Deng, then China’s paramount leader, reportedly told him that “everything can be discussed except independence.”
The statement was interpreted as a signal that China might be willing to discuss issues important to Tibetans. Could they obtain greater freedom? In daily life, in temples and monasteries? Might Beijing allow the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet? A thousand questions hung in the air.
China at the time was experiencing a political thaw, and in Beijing ordinary citizens were allowed to post wall posters criticizing the party leadership. But before the year was out, the critics were driven home or arrested, and the wall was washed clean. In the following years several Tibetan delegations traveled to Beijing, but without achieving significant concessions.
In 1987 the Dalai Lama presented a five-point plan for a peaceful resolution of the Tibet question. Instead of demanding full independence, he called for “genuine” Tibetan autonomy. The proposal attracted wide attention, but Chinese leaders rejected it, claiming that Tibetans had long since been granted autonomy.
“What?” Thondup asked. “How could that be possible? The Chinese communists in Tibet decided absolutely everything.”
China’s dismissive response triggered large demonstrations in Lhasa. The unrest continued for a year and a half and ended only when martial law was imposed in March 1989. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of thousands of residents in Beijing also poured into the streets, demanding freedom and democracy. Once again they were stopped by weapons and tanks.
Since then, party leaders have come and gone, but none has shown willingness to accommodate the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans. From exile in India, Thondup became a disappointed witness as China tightened its grip. The mountain realm was to be “modernized.” Within a few years modest Lhasa was transformed into a noisy city of bank palaces, department stores and broad boulevards — and profit-seeking Han Chinese arrived in their thousands.
In 2002 Thondup was invited to visit Tibet, and he accepted.
“Everything had changed; only the mountains and rivers were the same. I was numb and felt nothing. The Chinese escorted me from place to place and never allowed me to speak with anyone. I was permitted to stay in my home village for only three hours, and the house I grew up in had been demolished.”
It was then a comfort to have family to lean on — and the noodle shop, which for many years prospered. While the Dalai Lama was committed to celibacy, Thondup married a Han Chinese woman who, moreover, was Muslim. Many Tibetans frowned upon this, but Thondup, independent as he was, brushed off the criticism and said he was a happy man. Was that not what mattered most?
It is said that Thondup could be a shrewd negotiator, but no one doubted that his commitment to Tibet was genuine. Not even the Dalai Lama. Now and then they disagreed, but after each small quarrel they became best friends again. Perhaps it is fair to say they complemented one another. While the Dalai Lama felt obliged to be peaceful and gentle, the worldly Thondup could allow himself to be sharper around the edges — when necessary.
The Dalai Lama had fifteen siblings, but only seven reached adulthood, including the Dalai Lama himself. Tenzin Choegyal, who died a few days ago, was ordained as a monk early in life. In exile he worked as a teacher for young Tibetans and as an official in the exile administration. One of his most important tasks was to hold together the scattered Tibetan exile community. Around 150,000 Tibetans live in exile, most in India. Others reside in Nepal and Bhutan, in the United States and Europe — a small number also in Norway.
After these recent deaths, the Dalai Lama has only one surviving sister, 86-year-old Jetsun Pema. She is best known as the founder and long-time head of Tibetan Children’s Villages (TCV) in India — an extensive school and care system for children who fled from Tibet, many of them orphans.
For the Dalai Lama, his siblings have been both support and corrective throughout a long life in exile. Tenzin Choegyal was often described as calm, loyal and discreet — less politically outspoken than Gyalo Thondup, but with strong personal authority.
In July, the Tibetan spiritual leader turns ninety-one. Though no longer as vigorous as before, he appears to be in good health, considering his age. But he travels less than in earlier years, and in Norway we have probably seen him for the last time. Moreover, our own government no longer wishes to receive him, preoccupied as it is with maintaining relations with the regime in Beijing.
“Since we all must die, it is best to be compassionate while we live,” runs one of his sayings.
But who will fill his role when he is gone? No one knows. The only certainty is that China plans to appoint its own Dalai Lama. The exile Tibetans will do the same. In a few years, Tibetans may therefore be forced to choose between two rival religious authorities.
