On the occasion of the 77th anniversary of Indian Independence Day, the Central Tibetan Administration observed a brief ceremony to mark the day. The celebration led by Sikyong Penpa Tsering was attended by the heads of the three pillars of democracy, Kalons, heads of the autonomous bodies, Secretaries and senior officials of the various departments of the Central Tibetan Administration.

As the ceremony began, the tricolor Indian national flag was unfurled by Sikyong followed by the singing of India’s national anthem. After the ceremony, Sikyong addressed the media personnel and expressed his congratulatory greetings to the government and people of India on this historic day.

Sikyong applauded the remarkable achievement of India stating, “India went through turbulent times during the British colonial period for a long time and then gained independence in 1947. In these last 77 years, India has made a lot of progress, economically, militarily, in terms of security, not in terms of being belligerent towards others.”

“I, on behalf of Tibetans inside and outside, wish to congratulate every Indian people to enjoy this day because we are going through a period where we don’t have freedom in our country and you can very well imagine how these conditions were when India was under British colonial rule. And we would like to again congratulate the government of India and people of India and also ask the people of India to cherish this freedom because this doesn’t come itself, you have to work towards the fundamental rights of the people. We are going through a very difficult period now and you have been supporting us throughout. We also look for a day when we go back to Tibet in a free atmosphere.”

In a strong message to the Chinese government, he expressed, “Everybody is born free in this world so we cant expect a government to control every part of an individual’s life so there should be respect for people’s aspirations. Unless you respect people’s aspirations, whoever is the ruling government will not survive for long so there has to be consideration to the wishes and the aspirations of the people.

Source: CTA