Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Wednesday said China has no business telling India what to do with regard to the Dalai Lama‘s movement in the country.
“China has no business telling us what to do and what not to do (regarding the Dalai Lama’s movement). It is not our next-door neighbour. India shares boundary with Tibet, not with China,” he told reporters here. “In reality, the McMahon Line demarcates the boundary between India and Tibet,” he said.
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Khandu, who accompanied the Dalai Lama during an eight-hour-long drive from Guwahati to Bomdila yesterday, said it was a brave decision on the part of the Tibetan spiritual leader to undertake the arduous trip. “He wanted to reach Tawang anyhow and the weather could not deter him. Let us hope that his followers here get satisfaction from his discourses,” he said.
The Nobel laureate, he said, was the country’s most respected guest since 1959 and Arunachal Pradesh deserves his visit more than any other place. This is the Dalai Lama’s sixth visit to Arunachal Pradesh as a state guest since 1983 and he has been to Tawang every time except in December 1996.
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His last visit in 2009 was planned exactly 50 years after he had crossed through Arunachal Pradesh, then North East Frontier Agency, after escaping from Lhasa.