By IANS
Coimbatore : Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat Monday warned that supporting an independent Tibet would be a “great disservice” to India, which faced many separatist movements.
“Those who want to join this chorus for an independent Tibet in India will be doing a great disservice to our own country. Are we going to support a free Nagaland? Or a free Jammu and Kashmir? Or those other secessionist demands?”
Talking to reporters on the second day of the 19th CPI-M party congress here, Karat said the Indian government’s ‘One China policy’ was the “correct position” vis-à-vis Tibet.
The CPI-M leader’s comments follow violent disturbances in Tibet in March against Chinese rule that have led to, according to Beijing, the death of around 20 people. Tibetan sources say over 140 people have been killed.
Pointing out that there had been many demands for breaking up big nation states, Karat said: “There are views not only in China, around the world and in Western parts that national sovereignty can be amended in the name of human rights and in the name of ethnic minority rights. There are forces who say that big states, which are multi-national states, they can be broken up.”
He said the US and some European countries were prepared to break up other states.
But he added: “Our party does not support any of such demands whether it is in China or in Europe or in India.
“It is amazing that in our country there are politicians toeing the line of certain Western powers which say recognise separate ethnic and region identities leading to the break up of existing nation states.”
Karat went on: “It is a different matter altogether that in all parts of the world there are legitimate grievances (regarding) the rights of minorities, and democratic solutions should be found to that.”
The communist leader also criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) attack on United Progressive Alliance (UPA) stance on Tibet. The BJP has attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government for not opposing human rights violations in Tibet.
“Are they interested in spoiling India-China relations? It was the (former BJP prime minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee government that signed the declaration that Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of People’s Republic of China.”
However, Karat added that the Chinese government and the representatives of the Dalai Lama, who lives in India, should discuss Tibet to resolve the issue.
Representatives of the Communist Party of China are among those attending the CPI-M congress in this Tamil Nadu town.