Dharamsala, March 10 (IANS) Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, Tuesday thanked India for hosting him and thousands of his Tibetan followers in its territory for the past 50 years.
“This has been our home for the past 50 years. This is the land from where Buddhism originated. We were homeless people in 1959 and found a new home here. The government of India provided maximum help,” the Dalai Lama told media here on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
But the Dalai Lama added that the Indian government had been “over cautious” on the Tibet issue due to its own limitations with China.
“India being over cautious is understandable. It has a long border (with China). A big portion of that is still not settled. Understandably, there is limitation to what the government of India can do,” he said.
India and China fought a war in 1962 over territory issues, three years after India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama and his nearly 80,000 followers who fled Tibet after Chinese forces took control.
India is home to over 100,000 of the 140,000 Tibetans living in exile worldwide.