India backs Dalai Lama s position on successor contradicting China
India backs Dalai Lama’s position on successor, contradicting China
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alt="FILE PHOTO: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama addresses via a video message at the inaugural session at the 15th Tibetan Religious Conference at the Dalai Lama Library and Archive near Tsuglagkhang, also known as Dalai Lamas Temple complex, in the northern hill town of Dharamshala, India, July 2, 2025. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File photo"/>The Dalai Lama said that he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader, who would be born outside China.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Dalai LamaDHARAMSHALA (India) - A senior Indian minister has said that only the Dalai Lama and the organisation he has set up have the authority to identify his successor as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, in a rare comment contradicting rival China’s long-held position.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, said on July 2 that upon his death, he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader and that only the Gaden Phodrang Trust would be able to identify his successor
He previously said the person will be born outside China
Beijing says it has the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor as a legacy from imperial times.
Mr Kiren Rijiju, India’s minister of parliamentary and minority affairs, made a rare statement on the matter on July 3, ahead of visiting the Dalai Lama’s base in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala for the religious leader’s 90th birthday on July 6.
“No one has the right to interfere or decide who the successor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be,” Indian media quoted Mr Rijiju as telling reporters.
“Only he or his institution has the authority to make that decision. His
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