By IANS,
New Delhi : More than 250 Tibetan students from across the country gathered in the heart of the capital Wednesday demanding that the Chinese government come forward for a concrete dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Norbu Dolma, one of the students from the Osmania university in Hyderabad who is here for the 15-day protest which started May 19, said that it was a collaborative effort of the Tibetan students living in India for a cause they all subscribe to.
“We have Tibetan students from 14 places in India, including Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi, who have come here for the protests. Our message is clear – the Chinese government should come forward for concrete talks with the Dalai Lama,” Dolma told IANS.
These students, under the banner of All India Tibetan College Students Mass Movement, had arrived in the capital nearly a month back. It was around that time when there were large scale protests here, like elsewhere in the country, against the Beijing Olympic torch relay.
“We arrived in Delhi April 23 and have been staying here since then. We planned our protest during that period,” Dolma said.
Although most of these students didn’t know one another before they came together in the capital, they got in touch through common friends and the Internet – a tool they used to the hilt to mobilize support and involvement.
After the 10-day protest at Jantar Mantar, the group will Thursday stage street plays at Majnu ka Tila, a Tibetan settlement in Delhi, and then go on a peace march from there to the Vidhan Sabha, the seat of state government in Delhi.
“We will stage a play at Majnu ka Tila depicting the sequence of events from the Tibetan uprising in 1959 and the Chinese invasion till the events in 2008. After that we will go on a peace march,” Dolma said.