Buddhism & Democracy

"For the Dalai Lama, democracy was the rare, happy place where Buddhist principles and real-world political systems converged. Nothing could speak better to his sense that each of us has a power in ourselves and an equal right to put forward his opinion and then be challenged in turn. Nothing could better represent his idea of independent choices within an interdependent network, each person thinking of his role in the larger whole, and debating giving everyone a say. For many Tibetans, though, especially in exile, what democracy really meant was giving up the very system and line of power that had held them up in Tibet and was all they had to cling to now. 

During only his fourth year in exile, the Dalai Lama had drawn up a new constitution, both for exiled Tibet and for Tibet once it was free, taking care to write in a clause that allowed for his own impeachment. His Cabinet - almost inevitably - had taken it out, and he, in a rare exercise of executive power, had put it in again. 

More recently, in 1996, he had held a referendum, so that his exiled people could choose what form of government they would like to see. No doubt reluctantly, and perhaps in deference to others' wishes, he had added one final option - that power be left in the hands of the Dalai Lama. Almost inevitably again, the majority of Tibetans chose that the Dalai Lama be in charge of everything and, in honouring the principle of democracy, he was obliged to accept a nondemocratic system."  

The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Pico Iyer