Beijing: A Chinese county has banned Tibetan Monks “wrongly educated” in India from teaching Buddhism, fearing that they may spread “separatist” content, according to a state-run media report.
“Monks wrongly educated in India are banned from teaching Buddhism to residents of Litang county in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province,” state-run Global Times quoted an official as saying.
The county conducts patriotic education classes every year for those educated and awarded Gexe Lharampa - the highest academic degree in Tibetan Buddhist studies - in India, an official from Litang’s ethnic and religious affairs bureau said.
Those who behaved improperly at the patriotic classes or showed “any signs of separatist intent” are strictly monitored and banned from teaching Buddhism to the public, the official said. The move was a standard practice every year “in response to the county’s severe separatist situation”, he added.
“As some monks received education overseas from the 14th Dalai Lama clique - whom China regards as separatists - it is necessary to tighten supervision so as to avoid the clique using local Buddhists to conduct separatist activities,” Zhu Weiqun, former head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said. China accuses the Dalai Lama and his associates secessionist activities in Tibet.
“China has its own criteria to award Gexe Lharampa... Those awarded the degree overseas are not acknowledged by China and are not qualified to teach Buddhism in the country,” Zhu said. Some 105 monks in Tibet have been awarded the Chinese Buddhist version of the degree since 2004, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The official did not say how many monks are banned.
