Tashi Wanghchuk is a Tibetan language rights activist. He was released from prison in 2021 after serving five years’ prison term on the trumped-up charges of “inciting separatism”. His only fault has been that he is trying to protect the Tibetan language against the forced domination of Mandarin by Chinese authorities in Tibet, a region which it has been occupying forcefully and illegally for almost seven decades.
It is important to know how Tashi is persecuted in detail as he is one amongst many other Tibetan language rights advocates who are being targeted by the Chinese in a similar manner. The targets keep on changing for Chinese authorities but the template of persecution remains the same.
According to Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), which closely monitors the human rights violations by Chinese authorities in Tibet, since his release from unjust imprisonment, Tashi Wangchuk has faced persistent restrictions and limitations on his movement and activities even as he continued to advocate for the promotion and protection of the Tibetan language.
On the evening of 19 August, while travelling from Sershul (Shiqu ) County in Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to Darlag (Dari) County in Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, he was followed by a vehicle. Subsequently, local police issued an order preventing local hotels from accommodating him.
When he attempted to check into a hotel, a group of four or five individuals, with their heads covered, arrived suddenly and started beating him up. As a result, he was denied lodging. Later when he went to seek medical attention for his injuries, he was denied treatment, leaving him without any medical care or accommodation throughout the night.
The following day, yet another group of persons appeared from nowhere and began beating him up before forcibly shoving him into a vehicle where he underwent an intensive two-hour harassment, intimidation and thorough search of his body and belongings.
Although the identities of the criminal gangs involved in the above mentioned incidents remain unknown, it is evident that the local Chinese police and state security agents were involved in this mob-style persecution of Tashi, says TCHRD. Furthermore, Tashi’s movements have been subject to consistent surveillance, allowing law enforcement agencies to maintain awareness of his location. Given these circumstances, it is highly plausible that law enforcement personnel played a pivotal role in orchestrating the collective assault and physical aggression against him, it added.
“The latest persecution faced by the Tibetan language rights advocate demonstrates that Chinese authorities will go to any lengths including engaging in mobster-style tactics to silence human rights defenders and activists,” says TCHRD.
Putonghua Provision
According to a 2022 report, titled ‘Sucked Our Marrow: Tibetan Language And Education Rights Under Xi Jinping’, a forced cultural assimilation policy is being carried out in the garb of ‘ethnic policy in the new era’ with devastating consequences on education and language rights in Tibet. Children and young people have become primary targets under Xi Jinping’s campaign to build a ‘modern’ education system in which Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese based on Beijing dialect) enjoys a higher status and power than minority languages, thus violating constitutional guarantees for regional autonomy and the principle of equality and non-discrimination.
The report further adds, “Non-governmental initiatives to promote Tibetan language and culture have been suppressed, and individuals advocating for Tibetan language and cultural education have been detained and tortured. Private educational institutions, including those previously approved by the party-state, are being closed down while monastic institutions are forced to prioritise Putonghua teaching and propagation.”
The 1982 constitution mandated for the first time in China’s history the national promotion of Putonghua (Article 19). In 2000, the promulgation of the “Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language” (Putonghua promotion law) cemented the dominance of Putonghua over minority languages and encouraged the continued state patronage of Putonghua as the ‘national common language’. Experts have pointed out the “asymmetrical power dynamics” between the Putonghua promotion law and the constitutional provisions on minority language rights. This allows Chinese authorities to introduce a slew of nationwide Putonghua promotional programmes and campaigns in the name of national unity.
Tibetan language learning is already disincentivised in Tibetan areas due to a host of factors, including the fact that Tibetan language proficiency is not required in the job market or for public service examinations. Professions requiring Tibetan language proficiency, like teaching, translation, research, and television studio work, are few and far between.
The lack of employability quotient of the Tibetan language has discouraged its learning and compelled parents to send their children to Chinese medium schools to secure their future. Chinese authorities use this compulsion to justify the closure of Tibetan medium schools and the decreasing number of Tibetans proficient in the Tibetan language.
Enforcement of the ‘national common language’ law in 2000 has spawned policies and laws that pushed Tibetan language and culture to the margins. Tibetan children now learn Mandarin from preschool without the free consent of their parents or legal guardians. Under the pretext of school mergers, Tibetan primary schools located in rural areas are shut down or subsumed into bigger Han Chinese medium schools.
Voluntary initiatives by monks, community leaders and teachers to teach Tibetan language and culture outside the state education system have come under attack and their supporters have been detained. Monastic education also came under fire as the state education system forced all children, including monks between the ages of six and 16, to be enrolled in government schools. Both the state school curriculum and now the private educational institutions exclude lessons on Tibetan history and culture.
According to the report, in 2018, many child monks from Sershul (Shiqu) Monastery in Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture were forcibly taken out of their monastery and enrolled into government boarding schools, away from their monastery and parents. Since then, more Tibetan medium schools have been closed and the amended law on private education has further restricted any private initiatives to promote Tibetan language and cultural education.
Tibetan language rights and freedoms granted in the Chinese legal system are meaningless when Tibetan children are forced to complete a ‘compulsory education’ curriculum in Putonghua in government schools where they have no access to traditional or culturally relevant learning. The national curriculum is heavily influenced by party propaganda and ‘thought remoulding’, including the ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, mandated for all children at all school levels.
The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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