16th August: According to the Chief Minister of Sikkim, South Block is seriously considering reaching out to the 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje. CM Prem Singh Tamang indicated at a news conference in Gangtok that the Karmapa, who left India without notice in 2017, may return “very soon,” and that the State is prepared to send a delegation to the monk in this regard.

The 17th Karmapa has a sizable following in Sikkim, despite the fact that he has been absent from India for the previous four years. Karmapa used to reside in his monastery located near the Dhauladhar range in Dharamsala. However, because he is the ceremonial leader of the Rumtek monastery, Sikkim has traditionally claimed that he should be based in the state. The 17th Karmapa’s influence is projected to expand, and he is likely to play a part in future discussions to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama.

The Sikkimese government intends to send Minister of Ecclesiastical Department Sonam Lama as the head of a group to meet and bring back the 17th Karmapa. Because Mr. Tamang made the statement a day after seeing Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi, the decision to send Mr. Lama is being regarded as a major U-turn by the Indian establishment.

He was born in Tibet but fled to India in a dramatic manner at the age of 14 in 1999. The Karmapa’s flight from Tibet was a severe defeat for China’s regime. The young monk stayed in India until 2017 but frequently expressed dissatisfaction with travel limitations that prohibited him from traveling across the country and abroad. He had protested that the Indian government’s residency certificate was insufficient because many nations around the world did not recognize the document, which is generally handed to Tibetan refugees in India.

Karmapa vanished from India in May 2017 and was later discovered in Europe and the United States. He was said to have obtained Dominican citizenship. Dominica is a Caribbean island state. According to reports, he had been residing in a farmhouse provided to him by a Chinese-Taiwanese couple in New Jersey. From the start of this tumultuous period, communication was maintained between Indian authorities and Karmapa, who revealed in a 2017 interview with Radio Free Asia that he was in talks with authorities about returning to India.

Photo Credit: REUTERS

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