Itanagar, October 27: Despite objections from China, New Delhi has cleared Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s week-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh, which will take him to the 300-year-old Tawang monastery among other places, from November 8.
Showing a copy of the External Affairs Ministry’s letter to reporters, the chairperson of the state level reception committee, TG Rinpoche, said on Monday that the ministry had cleared the visit on October 19 and it was conveyed the next day.
However, Rinpoche explained, the files containing the ministry’s clearance were not handed over to Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu because of the model code of conduct in force for the Assembly elections.
Also, letters signed by Director of the External Affairs Ministry, Monica Jain, directing for adequate security arrangement were sent to the Chief Secretaries of West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, he said.
Khandu had told the media on Sunday that the state had not received the clearance of the External Affairs Ministry, though the Deputy Commissioner of Tawang had received a communication in this regard from Dharamsala.
Rinpoche welcomed all, including devotees, interested to attend the Dalai Lama’s discourses at Tawang from November 9 to 11, at Dirang on November 12, Bomdial on November 13 and Itanagar on November 14.
The Dalai Lama will leave from Dharamshala for Japan on October 29 and arrive in Guwahati on November 8 via Kolkata. He will leave for Tawang via a helicopter.
The state level committee and local committees are making arrangements for issue of inner-line permits for people coming from elsewhere in India and restricted area permits for foreigners.
The spiritual leader will deliver his discourses from Yidga Choszin Tawang where he will inaugurate a modern hospital for which he had donated Rs 20 lakh.
This will be his fifth visit to the town since he fled Tibet in 1959 to India via the Tawang route. He had visited the place in 1983, 1997 and 2003.
Overall, this will be his sixth visit to the state. During a visit in 2003 he had skipped Tawang and went to the western side, dominated by the Mahayana sect Buddhists, and again to the eastern part inhabited by people belonging to the Theravagda sect.
Meanwhile, Rinpoche, a close aide of the Dalai Lama from Tawang, described the clearnce of the spiritual leader’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh as a ‘right step’.
”We treat the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of ‘Avaloktaswara’, the God of compassion, and even a glimpse of His Holiness purifies the soul which is the goal of every human being.”
”We have been holding mass prayers in the famed Gaden Namgyel Lhaste, commonly known as Tawang monastery, and in every household in the entire Mon region comprising three districts in western Arunachal since last one year for the clearance,” Rinpoche, a monk turned politician, said.
–Agencies