Minority within a minority: being Bonpo in the Tibetan community in exile
Abstract
This thesis presents a study of the Bonpo in Dolanji, a Tibetan refugee settlement in
North India. The Bonpo are a distinctive religious minority within the Tibetan
refugee population. In the 1950s, Chinese Communist forces occupied Tibet and, in
1959, the fourteenth Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India. In 1960, the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile was established in Dharamsala, and emphasised a ‘shared’
Buddhist heritage as being central to the Tibetan national identity. This discourse,
which represents the Tibetans as being homogeneously Buddhist, effectively
marginalised followers of non-Buddhist religions, including the Bonpo. As a result,
the Bonpo have been compelled to adapt, whilst resisting the marginalisation of their
religious identity and the constraints embedded in their refugee status.
Based on
twelve months of fieldwork carried out in 2007-2008 in Dolanji, this thesis explores
the ways in which the Bonpo engage with their marginality and manipulate the
constraints applied to their situation in order to empower themselves. It argues that
on the margins, where the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion are contested
and negotiable, the Bonpo are permitted some flexibility to create their identity with
different ‘others,’ and to develop new affiliations in order to modify their situation.
This thesis unpicks the ‘dialogues’ the Bonpo have established with the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile, including their discourse on ‘the Bon traditions’, the
participation of the Bonpo in the Tibetan national community, their relationship with
foreign patrons and the Chinese Government, and the representation of the Bon
religion in school textbooks. It is contended that the margins provide a consistent
energy which feeds the dynamics of social relationships, informing cultural and
social change. Today’s Bonpo remain situated on the margins of the Tibetan refugee
population. However, this thesis demonstrates that in the past decades of exile, the
Bonpo have utilised the marginalisation that was forced upon them by multiple
‘others’ to develop what they claim to be ‘Bon traditions’, in order to illustrate their
distinctive, but equally important, status in contrast to Buddhism within the Tibetan
‘national’ identity.