The letter that Jampel Yeshi wrote before he self-immolated has been translated and is now available at Burning Tibet. Read it as a Tibetan Declaration of Independence; read it as a Tibetan Human Rights document; read it as the last will and testament of a Tibetan patriot; read it as a blueprint of the Tibetan soul.
But read it and remember these words, "Freedom is the basis of happiness for all living beings."
I believe this statement to be universally true, and I believe that the denial of this freedom amounts to nothing more than systemic violence. And I believe, with Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., that systemic violence can only be dismantled through nonviolent direct action.
In June, 2011, my students and I spent time in Majnu Katilla (and in 2008 and 2009 as well), interviewing Tibetans for The TEXT Program, talking to anyone who would talk with us, and absorbing as much information as we could about the current plight of the Tibetans who are living in exile and about those 6 million Tibetans who are living heroically in Tibet. Perhaps we passed Jampel Yeshi in the alleyways. Certainly, Majnu Katilla will never be the same. And our students left utterly changed.
Tibetans from Majnu Katilla and other areas in Delhi have now been rounded up and placed in jail in anticipation of President Hu's arrival, and they are thankful for what King called "the sacrament of incarceration." Majnu KaTilla's narrow walkways are patrolled now by Indian police. (Read a wonderful NYT report here.)
Tenzin Tsundue, who was also arrested on Wednesday, refers to India as his "guru."
"My enemy, my teacher," His Holiness is fond of saying.
Long life to you Tsundue la.
And to Jampel Yeshi, who has now transformed Majnu Katilla into a place of pilgrimage, I have little to say. I can only acknowledge the vast distance that lies between my attempt at homage and your own perfectly realized words.