Fact #04

By Siddharth Jain

Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. The Dalai Lama, an individual said to be an incarnation of the Buddha, was both the political and spiritual leader of the country.

The Communist Chinese invasion in 1950 led to complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 other Tibetans in 1959 to Dehradun (India). Also over a million Tibetans have been killed since then.

Most of the Tibetan plateau lies 14,000 feet above the sea level. Tibet is the source of Asia’s five greatest rivers, on which over 2 billion people depend. Since 1959, over 80% of their forests have been destroyed by Chinese government to extract timber and large amounts nuclear and toxic waste have been disposed of in Tibet, degrading its ecosystem.