EVENTS

This presentation explores the evolving political agency of Tibetan youth in India as they navigate the contested terrain of statelessness and citizenship. China’s 1959 occupation of Tibet forced the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans into exile in India. India granted asylum but aligned with the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in opposing naturalisation, positioning statelessness as essential to the Tibetan struggle. Paradoxically, while resisting Indian citizenship claims, the CTA encouraged Tibetan migration to the West, expecting the diaspora to advocate for Tibet internationally.

This contradiction has fuelled tensions within the exile community. Second-and third-generation Tibetans, born and raised in India, increasingly challenge the CTA’s stance, highlighting the material and political constraints of statelessness. While some seek Indian citizenship as a means of securing rights and mobility, others remain committed to the exile identity but demand greater socio-economic opportunities.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, this presentation discusses how Tibetan youth are reshaping exile politics through activism, legal battles, and transnational engagement. Their efforts reveal a critical shift in Tibetan nationalism—one that moves beyond state-centric paradigms to negotiate belonging in multiple political spaces. It also examines these dynamics to reveal broader implications for refugee governance, identity formation, and the evolving meaning of political membership in exile.

Speaker

Kalyani Yeola is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies. She recently submitted her PhD thesis, "Negotiating Nation and Citizenship: An Ethnographic Study of Tibetan Youth-in-Exile in India," at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus, where she was a UGC-JRF candidate. She earned her BA and MA in Political Science and International Studies from Savitribai Phule Pune University. Her research focuses on geopolitics, foreign policy, nationalism, citizenship, and the evolving dynamics of the new world order. She also engages with critical perspectives on human rights, migration, and refugee policies. Her work has been published in The Diplomat, The Financial Express, Modern Diplomacy, Deccan Herald, and Raisina House.

Chair

Tshering Chonzom Bhutia is an Associate Professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She completed her Doctoral studies from the same Centre. Prior to her current position, Dr Bhutia served as an Associate Editor, India Quarterly for a period of about 5 years. Alongside, she was at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) providing inputs to the Ministry of Education (GoI) on bilateral and multilateral education cooperation. And before that, she spent considerable time as an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS). Her areas of interest include negotiation theory, Sino-Tibetan negotiation, domestic sources of China’s foreign and security policy, the ‘Tibet question’ in China and internationally, and China’s nationality policy, among others. She has written and spoken on these issues at various national and international forums. She has been a recipient of a major ICSSR Project and a China India Scholar-Leaders Initiative (CISLI) Fellowship. She has also been a recipient of other short-term fellowships in China, US and Taiwan.

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