Tibetans have hitherto charmed the world as a refugee community with their unique Buddhist culture and societal cohesiveness. We have been praised as the most successful refugee community in the world and have rightly basked in the accolade. The Tibetan children went to their own refugee schools and upon finishing their education returned to serve their exile community. The number of those finishing college and university was not many, and those not returning to serve their exile community thereafter tended to be frowned upon as betrayers of the community’s faith. There was hardly any who after finishing college or university education could not find job placement in the exile community.

However, over the last several years, there was something of a groundswell in the number of Tibetans finishing college. Jobs within the exile Tibetan community have reached a saturation point. The number of school dropouts too have kept pace with the increase in the number of children attending school. The spectre of so many youngsters finishing school and college or dropping out of school with nowhere to go has become a challenge of unprecedented proportion.

The attitude of the educated youngster has also undergone a sea-change. Service to the community is only a part, rather than the only, criterion for seeking a job. Today’s educated youngsters want jobs which assure them careers and conditions of life commensurate with their qualification and comparable to that of their counterparts in the Indian job market. Professionally and technically qualified youngsters want independent working environment where they can use their full potential; they want knowledgeable superiors who can appreciate the nuances of their proposals and technicalities of their achievements. Very, very few in the exile Tibetan community are in a position to fulfill the career aspirations of today’s well educated youngsters.

Tibetans have traditionally not looked for career in the Indian job market. The previously socialist India, of course, offered very limited scope for jobs in the private sector while government jobs were generally not open to non-Indian nationals. Though India after liberalisation has today a booming private sector, the traditional Tibetan refrain remains.

The question is where do the Tibetan youngsters today look for getting on with their lives. There is no denying the fact that most of them look to the West, especially the USA. With only a bare handful being eligible for skilled or unskilled worker’s visa, most opt for the sponsored tourist visa and after reaching there join the rank of illegal immigrants.

High level concerns have been expressed in the exile Tibetan administration circles in recent times over the issue, especially over the manner in which some Tibetans acquire their visa through questionable means. The question, however, remains whether anyone has any better offer for these youngsters. For many, the alternative would be under- or unemployment in India or Nepal with multitude of social deviances, including drug abuse, as potential pitfalls. Being in the USA, even illegally, offers one not only a chance to earn a far, far better living, but also enable one to financially help poor relatives back home, thereby considerably easing the exile administration’s welfare burden. I know several cases of illegal immigrants helping not only their families in straitened circumstances but also being the only source of scholarship money for young relatives going to college.

Sometimes I wonder whether we are not setting for ourselves too unrealistically a high standard of morality. Any time someone does something utterly wrong, the spontaneous refrain is that it tarnishes the good Tibetan name and subverts the Dalai Lama’s noble efforts for Tibet. I am sure no one is going to nitpick the Tibetan community in such a manner without being guilty of having a very debased ulterior motive in doing so. Ultimately, the Tibetan community will be judged by its community achievements, not by acts of individuals. After all, no other country, or nation or people in the world have any phobia about being ill-judged by the acts of its less fortunate or less virtuous fellow citizens.

The exile government too should realise that tethering Tibetan youngsters to India without having any scope for improving their lot, whether financially or otherwise, is ultimately self-defeating. I am, of course, talking about the highly restrictive procedure we have in place for enabling Tibetans to secure our equivalent or counterpart of a passport. It is better to evolve vibrant Tibetan communities in the developed West than to have an army of unemployed or under-employed youngsters in the Indian subcontinent having little hope for improving their lot. Tibetans must still surely be among the very smallest of cultural or racial groups in the USA or elsewhere in the West. There is no reason why efforts for having more Tibetans being accepted for legal resettlement in the USA or Europe should not be made. I am sure more Tibetans in the West can contribute much, much more both to the Tibetan community and to Tibetan individuals, not to speak of contributing to the cultural diversity of these countries.