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Contemporary South Asia

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A state within a state? Exploring

relations between the Indian state
and the Tibetan community and
government-in-exile
a
Fiona McConnell
a
Trinity College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Version of record first published: 19 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: Fiona McConnell (2011): A state within a state? Exploring relations between the
Indian state and the Tibetan community and government-in-exile, Contemporary South Asia, 19:3,
297-313

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 Contemporary South Asia
Vol. 19, No. 3, September 2011, 297–313

A state within a state? Exploring relations between the Indian state and
the Tibetan community and government-in-exile
Fiona McConnell*

Trinity College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Exiled Tibetans in India are an unusual marginalised community. With their own
government structure operating within the sovereign state of India, albeit without
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legal recognition, they are both de facto refugees from the perspective of the
Indian state and Tibetan ‘citizens’ in the eyes of the Tibetan government-in-exile
(TGiE). Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines the complex,
dynamic and at times contradictory three-way relationship between this
population and the two ‘governments’ which strive to identify, document and
rehabilitate them. After sketching out the context of relations between India and
(exile) Tibet, these interactions are explored through two key sets of state-
population relations: the identification of individuals as citizens and refugees, and
the provision of welfare. Interweaving ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives
on such state–citizen and state–state relations, this paper juxtaposes the rhetoric
of both ‘governments’ with Tibetan citizens’ micro-political interactions with
these state structures and foregrounds the importance of scale for analyses of the
state. The paper concludes by reflecting on how this case can offer a critical
spotlight on broader understandings of the everyday state. It is argued that this
case provides particularly valuable leverage in demonstrating the partial and
processual nature of statehood and powerfully exposes the contingent practices
which underlie the social construction of political power in so-called ‘normal’
states.
Keywords: state; Tibetan government-in-exile; India; citizenship; welfare

Introduction
The history of the Tibetan presence in India is a long and complex one,
comprised of religious exchanges, fluid territorial borders and seasonal trading.
This situation changed dramatically following China’s declaration of the ‘peaceful
liberation’ of Tibet in 1951 and its crushing of the Tibetan national uprising in
Lhasa in 1959. Followed by some 80,000 exiles, Tibet’s spiritual and political
leader the Dalai Lama sought asylum in India. Today, the Tibetan diaspora
numbers approximately 128,000, with 74% residing in self-contained Tibetan
settlements and scattered communities across India (Planning Commission 2010).
With the twin tasks of rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and restoring freedom in
Tibet, the Dalai Lama re-established the Tibetan government in the hill-station of
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh in 1960. Institutionalised according to democratic

*Email: frm24@cam.ac.uk

ISSN 0958-4935 print/ISSN 1469-364X online

Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2011.594160
http://www.informaworld.com
 298 F. McConnell

principles, the current administration consists of an executive (Kashag), legislature

(Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile), constitution (Charter of Tibetans in Exile) and
seven governmental departments.1 As I have explored elsewhere, this case of an
unrecognised government operating within the sovereign space of another state
and yet performing a number of state-like functions for its diaspora raises vital
questions regarding the nature of sovereign authority and the relationship
between sovereignty and territory (McConnell 2009). My focus here is on
unpacking the diverse relations between the government of India (GoI) and
Tibetan community and government-in-exile in order to explore this complex
three-way relationship and the extent to which this case can inform under-
standings of ‘the state’ more generally.
In order to unpack and explore these relationships and constructions of
statehood this paper focuses on both state discourses and quotidian interactions
between individual exile Tibetans and these two administrations, and works
between and across different scales of analysis (see Dowler and Sharp 2001;
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Hyndman 2004). In interweaving ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives on

such state–citizen and state–state relations, this enables Tibetan government-in-
exile’s (TGiE) self-representation to be distinguished from what it means to live
under such a polity ‘on the ground’ in India, thereby providing a nuanced picture
of this state-that-is-not-a-state. Moreover, as I will demonstrate, the contrast
between the representational and the mundane can work to reveal the different
ways in which an administration that remains internationally unrecognised can,
through everyday interactions, objects, and people, attempt to construct itself as a
government (see Mountz 2003). The use of multi-sited ethnographic methods is
crucial to such an approach, and this paper is based on in-depth interviews, focus
groups and archival research undertaken in 2005–2007 in Dharamsala and
Tibetan settlements in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Karnataka.2 As such,
this paper speaks to recent research on exile Tibet which draws on critical
approaches. With extant literature focusing on the strategies adopted to ensure
cultural preservation outside the homeland (e.g. Diehl 2002; Harris 1999) and the
negotiation of Tibetan identity in exile (e.g. Anand 2000; Yeh and Lama 2006),
this paper adds a new angle by turning critical attention to the everyday state-
building practices of TGiE and how the complex relationship between this exile
administration and its host state India is constructed through interactions at a
range of scales (for official narratives of the Indian viewpoint see Kharat 2003;
Mehrotra 2000).
This paper focuses on relations between the Indian state, TGiE and exile Tibetans
from a range of angles. In addition to setting the context of this case, the following
section outlines the historical, legal and political relationships between India and
(exile) Tibet from both national and local perspectives. Relations between these
administrations and exile Tibetans are then explored through two key sets of state–
population relations: the identification of individuals as citizens and refugees and the
provision of welfare. Turning first to the legal status of Tibetans in India, the
bureaucratic systems and identity documents through which their political identities
are established and materialised will be examined in order to illustrate how the GoI
classifies this marginalised population, how Tibetans experience and interact with the
Indian state and the role of the TGiE in constructing state-like political identities for
its exile population. Focusing on the rights and obligations of this nascent state–
citizen relationship and how the TGiE deals with the needs of marginalised
 Contemporary South Asia 299

populations within its community, the subsequent section turns attention to the exile
government’s discourses, policies and practices of welfare provision, and the
expectations and reception of these by Tibetans based in India. The paper concludes
by reflecting on how this case can inform broader understandings of the everyday
state, particularly in terms of the utility of a multi-scalar approach and the exposure
of the partial and processual nature of statehood.

India and (exile) Tibet: historical connections, geopolitical strategising and everyday
interactions
Controversy surrounds the legal, territorial and political status of Tibet. Chinese
authorities maintain that Tibet has been and remains an inalienable part of China’s
territory (People’s Republic of China 1992), whilst Tibetans and their supporters
assert that Tibet existed as an independent sovereign state prior to the Chinese
‘occupation’ in 1949 (DIIR 1996; McCorquodale and Orosz 1994). In the initial
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years after Indian independence in 1947, Nehru followed the British government
policy of the time in treating Tibet as a de facto independent state and deplored
China’s ‘invasion’ (Mehrotra 2000). However, through a series of diplomatic
exchanges between 1950 and 1953, and confirmed through India’s signing of the
Panchsheel Agreement with China in April 1954, Nehru’s terminology regarding
Tibet changed significantly, in that Tibet came to be regarded by India as a province
of China (Arpi 2000). According to Chaturvedi, in positioning India as spearheading
a postcolonial intervention into Western dominated international affairs, Nehru saw
China not only as a powerful neighbour which needed to be placated, but as
representing a key ally ‘destined to lead the emancipation of hitherto dependent
Afro-Asian countries’ (2004, 79). However, such optimism was premature, as with
the 1962 Chinese invasion of North-East India and ensuing Indo-Chinese border
war, China violated the principles of the Panchsheel Agreement and it is only
through increasing economic interactions in recent years that Sino-Indian diplomatic
relations have begun to be ‘normalised’ (Mehrotra 2000, 65). Yet, despite these
shifting Sino-Indian relations, India’s position on Tibet has remained unchanged
and India neither interferes with nor assists the TGiE in its dialogue with Beijing
(TPPRC 2006, 88).
In terms of the relationship between the exile Tibetan administration and the
GoI, the latter has been an extraordinarily generous and tolerant host, and exile
Tibetans have been grateful and largely obedient guests (Diehl 2002). The
relationship is founded on the basis of long-standing spiritual and cultural
connections between Tibet and India and the high regard with which the Dalai
Lama is held by the Indian public (French 1991). Moreover, these relations are, in
many ways, mutually beneficial. The TGiE has relied on Indian political and
bureaucratic expertise for the development of its constitution, its election system and
for training its civil servants. The presence of the exile Tibetan community and its
numerous successful institutions has, in turn, instigated a cultural and religious
revival in India’s Buddhist Himalayan regions. Despite such hospitality, India has
never afforded the TGiE formal legal or political recognition as a government, nor
the Dalai Lama the status of a legitimate political leader (Grunfeld 1987). Yet, at the
same time, the GoI provided asylum to the Dalai Lama and grants the TGiE tacit
approval to speak for the Tibetan refugees, manage the exile settlements and engage
with international donor agencies. Such a contradictory position should be seen
 300 F. McConnell

through the lens of geopolitical strategising. Historically perceived as a key buffer

zone between India and China, Tibet has increasingly become a major security
concern for India, especially with the increased Chinese militarisation of the region
(Mehrotra 2000), and the Indian government has thus arguably used the presence of
the TGiE on its territory as a bargaining chip to regulate its relations with Beijing
(Norbu 1996). As such, at a ‘national’ level, this is far from a conventional state–
state relationship. Underpinned by highly unequal power relations and ongoing
geopolitical positioning vis-à-vis China, Indian and Tibetan politicians operating at
this national scale are conspicuously cautious in the terminology they use to describe
the TGiE and its position within India (see TPPRC 2006).
However, a rather different picture of this relationship emerges when we turn to
the scale of the quotidian. It was apparent from interviews with both Tibetan and
Indian officials that a structured and hierarchical set of interactions have been
established, with TGiE departments and the Tibetan Bureau in Delhi dealing directly
with ministries in the Indian central administration, while for day-to-day issues
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arising within the settlements there is regular contact between the Tibetan Settlement
Offices and Indian District Commissioners, municipal councils and local councils
(panchayats). Whilst a rosy picture of good working relations was painted by the
majority of interviewees, interactions between the GoI and the TGiE vary
considerably across India, with relations generally being more cordial in Karnataka
than in the Himalayan states. Indeed, in picking apart this ‘messiness’ it became
apparent that there remain significant sensitivities regarding how Indo-Tibetan
relations are portrayed, with officials on both sides keen to play down inter-
community tensions. At the local scale, Indian officials frequently regarded TGiE
officials as ‘government representatives’ and thus as their official counterparts, with
the latter ‘noting with pride the social status such vocabulary bestows’ (McConnell
2009, 349). Thus, the recognition of the TGiE, which is denied at a national level, is
often present through everyday bureaucratic interactions and personal relations
between Indian and Tibetan officials at a local level. Elsewhere I discuss this
relationship in terms of the idea of tacit sovereignty, which exists through practice
and is assumed through everyday interactions and performances but is never openly
declared or identified (McConnell 2009). Having briefly sketched out the ambiguity
and political sidestepping which characterises the relationship between the TGiE and
the GoI at a ‘governmental’ level, I want to further tease apart these complex and
contradictory relations by turning attention to individual exile Tibetans and their
everyday interactions with these ‘states’.

Refugees and citizens: negotiating political and legal identities in exile

One of the most fundamental relations between an individual and the state is the
construction of political and legal identities. These have conventionally centred on a
binary between the citizen resident in a bounded national community and its
archetypal ‘other’, the refugee (Isin 2008; McConnell forthcoming). Through such a
dualism, the state not only shapes political subjectivities but also delineates
membership of the national body politic. The case of exile Tibetans in India offers
a valuable insight into relations between a state and its population by disrupting and
reconfiguring this citizen–refugee binary. For, although the Indian state plays a
central role in identifying Tibetans as de facto refugees, the TGiE has also established
an identification regime vis-à-vis these individuals, whereby they are constructed as
 Contemporary South Asia 301

Tibetan ‘citizens’. In exploring these parallel systems through which the identities of
‘refugee’ and ‘citizen’ are institutionalised (see Scott 1998), this section again draws
on the complementary strategies of tracing state discourses and attending to
quotidian interactions. Central to this approach are the legal discourses and social
relations associated with the identity documents issued by the GoI and the TGiE (see
Caplan and Torpey 2001; Gordillo 2006). Indeed, as objects which form a key
interface between the state and the individual, it is the everyday processes associated
with GoI and TGiE-issued identity documents which forms one of the primary points
of contact between exile Tibetans and these administrations. Through this lens, I seek
to address broader questions regarding the extent to which legal status is imposed
from above or appropriated from below, the gap between government policy and its
enactment on the ground and how the construction and negotiation of rights
underpins relations between the ‘state’ and the individual.
As neither a signatory of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
nor 1967 Protocol, India has no national legislation regarding refugees and is not
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bound by international norms.3 As a result of the state having the power to decide to
whom hospitality should be extended or denied, India’s treatment of refugees is
somewhat ad hoc and discriminatory (see McConnell forthcoming).4 Due to being
perceived as ‘model refugees’ (Fürer-Haimendorf 1990), Tibetans in India have, in
general, enjoyed preferential treatment from the GoI. Whereas Tibetans fleeing
persecution in Tibet are legally dealt with under the 1946 Foreigners Act, the GoI
informally recognises, and often refers to, Tibetans’ ‘refugee status’. However, only
Tibetans arriving in India between 1959 and 1979 and their children are deemed to
have such de facto ‘refugee status’ (HRLN 2007, 4). The increasing numbers of
Tibetans coming into exile following the liberalisation of Chinese policy in 1979 and
improvements in Sino-Indian relations in the 1980s meant that Tibetans arriving
after this period have not been recognised as ‘refugees’ by the GoI and, although
they are generally allowed to remain in India, have no legal status (McConnell
forthcoming; Garratt 1997). With the distinction between those deemed to be
de facto refugees and those not, and the set of rights which accompany this label,
important external divisions are imposed upon the exile community.
Such legislative complexities are mirrored by the bureaucratic messiness
surrounding the administration of Indian-issued identity documents. Under the
1946 Foreigners Act, Tibetans are required to obtain an ‘Indian Registration
Certificate for Tibetans’ (RC) which enables freedom of movement in India and the
right to reside in the area where the RC is registered. Tibetans with a valid RC are
entitled to apply for a GoI-issued ‘Identity Certificate’ (IC), which is required for
travel purposes but is not a passport.5 However, RCs and ICs are issued only to
Tibetans with de facto ‘refugee status’, meaning that those Tibetans who arrived in
India after 1979 are denied this document and the rights and entitlements that go
with it. Many such individuals spoke of considerable anxiety regarding their
vulnerable position in India (see McConnell forthcoming), especially in terms of
encounters with Indian authorities:

The police, they come to my area and knocked on doors wanting to see RCs but I don’t
have RC yet so every time I have argument and every time I must pay bribes. For this I
am scared (‘newcomer’ refugee, Dharamsala).

Mirroring this differential legal categorising of exile Tibetans are ambiguities

surrounding their legal rights in India. On the one hand, under the Indian
 302 F. McConnell

Constitution Tibetans are entitled to the rights applicable to all non-citizen aliens
residing in India, including freedom to work, access to Indian health and education
facilities and freedom to practice and propagate their own religion. However, on the
other hand, frequent policy changes have led to confusion and arbitrary
implementation of national state policy at state and district levels. Such uncertainty
impinges on a number of aspects of daily life, including gaining admission to
institutions of higher education and opening bank accounts, where declaration of
‘nationality’ is required. Moreover, many Tibetan interviewees in exile settlements
and scattered communities were under the impression that they have few entitlements
in India:

In India we Tibetans aren’t safe . . . we don’t have full rights so we can’t vote, get some
jobs, we can’t have property, the police they don’t protect us. People, they say we
Tibetans are doing well here, we are educated and making money, but really we have no
rights . . . . We’re treated as second-rate and looked down on and so can’t exercise our
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rights (hotel receptionist, Majnuka-Tilla, Delhi).

In foregrounding the disjuncture between the legal rights of Tibetans in India as

set out in statutory frameworks including the Constitution, and their everyday
enactment on the ground, such observations again highlight the importance of scale
in exploring the nature of relations between a state and individuals. Indeed, the fact
that the confusion regarding the legal status of Tibetans at a national level is
augmented by the erratic practices of Indian officials at a local level adds weight to
assertions that the meaning of ‘the state’ lies as much in everyday interactions as it
does in national policies (see Fuller and Bénéı̈ 2001; Navaro-Yashin 2002). In further
exploring the disjunctures between central policies and local practices, I turn now to
the micro-administrative practices associated with RCs.
The annual renewal of the RC, which must be done in person at the Foreigners’
Registration Office where it was issued, is one of the most regular encounters that
exile Tibetans have with the Indian state. With this procedure being performed at the
discretion of local Indian officials, many interviewees described it as a stressful
experience which could require multiple enquiries and, at times, bribes. In a similar
vein, Tibetan officials in the settlements spoke of frustrations in dealing with the
complexity of Indian officialdom and the caprices of individual administrators:

So much time and hassle we spend with this Indian bureaucracy. So, for example, it
takes two days just to get a stamp or a signature on one document. . . . This for us is
hard to work with every day – for me I think I will never get used to it (Secretary,
Lugsum-Samdupling Welfare Office).

In addition, and echoing observations above regarding the variation of TGiE-GoI

relations across India, there is the geographical unevenness of the administration of
RCs. These documents were frequently described as easier to acquire and renew within
the large agricultural settlements in Karnataka compared to Delhi, Dharamsala or the
settlements around Dehradun where RCs are more likely to be spot-checked. In
eschewing the idea and ideal of a standardised system rolled out across the state, the
administration of these identity documents and the agency of state officials again
reinforces assertions that the state is not a monolithic entity, but rather a series of
individuals who wield different degrees of power (see Mountz 2003).
Of course, agency is far from confined to state officials, and looking at how the
GoI’s identification regime is received and appropriated by individual Tibetans offers
 Contemporary South Asia 303

another important insight into these state–individual relations. For example, denial
of an RC due to an individual’s arrival date in India was frequently circumvented
through attempts to acquire this document by falsely claiming to be born in India
(Patail, 28th November 2002).6 In addition, another important example of Tibetan
agency is the decision made by most Tibetans eligible for Indian citizenship to refuse
this offer. To remain as stateless refugees is a powerful self-declaration of political
identity.7 In the majority of cases this is a choice to forego the practical benefits of
citizenship and to remain de facto refugees, and it is a stance which has been actively
encouraged by the TGiE. The ‘refugee’ label therefore becomes something that is not
simply imposed by the GoI, but is appropriated by individuals and used to define
themselves and their wider project. Intermeshed with the determination to resist
assimilation into the host community, this ‘refugee consciousness’ (McLagan 1996,
204) is therefore ‘affirmed as patriotism in order to emphasise the desire of returning
to Tibet’ (Anand 2000, 275). As such, many interviewees spoke of taking Indian
citizenship as ‘giving up hope of returning home’ and as meaning ‘you have lost some
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of your Tibetan identity. It means you have become part Indian and will start to
think that you are Indian’ (monk, Dharamsala).
Such refusal of Indians citizenship therefore turns on its head the assumption
that the insecurity and marginality of the ‘refugee’ is countered by the ‘citizen’ whose
identity is stable and unproblematic. This distinction is further challenged by the fact
that the TGiE not only encourages Tibetans to retain their refugee status but also
classifies these individuals as Tibetan ‘citizens’. Developed in exile and enshrined in
the 1991 ‘Charter of Tibetans in Exile’, Tibetan citizenship is granted to ‘any person
whose biological mother or biological father is of Tibetan descent’ (Article 8) and is
underpinned by a series of rights and obligations.8 Although this citizenship has no
legal standing due to the TGiE’s lack of law-making abilities, its practical
implications are widely understood and engaged with. Tibetan citizenship is
materialised in the rangzen lagteb or ‘Green Book’, which Tibetans refer to as a
pseudo passport and the annual payment of chatrel or ‘voluntary contributions’ to
the TGiE,9 both of which are essential to functioning in the exiled community. They
enable admission to Tibetan schools, access to TGiE-run welfare services, eligibility
for TGiE stipends and jobs and voting in exile Tibetan elections. In addition, the
confiscation of a Green Book – and thereby loss of citizenship – is the primary
penalty available to the exile judiciary. Not only does the TGiE thus exercise social
coercion and regulation through the implementation of this citizenship; exile
interviewees often spoke of their Green Book with considerable pride and affection.
Indeed, Gordillo’s work on how the indigenous people of the Argentinean Chaco
treat the identity papers long denied to them as highly valued possessions has
resonances with this case (Gordillo 2006). For, whilst the Argentinean documentos
were issued by a recognised state, I argue here that the fetishising of Green Books
likewise represents a state-like fetishism of the institution of the TGiE (Taussig
1997). The preoccupation with the materiality of these identity documents enacts a
reification of state-like power.
Therefore, as a unifying marker of Tibetan identity, citizenship is a key
mechanism through which the TGiE determines and regulates membership of its
exile community and demonstrates its state-like attributes. For, although limited in a
legal sense, Tibetan citizenship is central to the TGiE’s nation-building project in
exile, with the Green Book and chatrel acting as key signifiers of authenticity and
legitimacy through which the TGiE and exile Tibetans reaffirm each other’s status as
 304 F. McConnell

a legitimate government and ‘bonafide Tibetans’ respectively (Department of

Finance 2005, 2). This establishment of a social contract between exile Tibetans and
the TGiE through the rights and obligations of Tibetan citizenship in effect creates
state-like political subjects and provides a degree of security for the exile community.
For example, the Indian administration relies on the TGiE’s literal and metaphorical
‘stamp’ of approval to verify a Tibetan’s identity before RCs or travel documents
will be issued. Whilst not an endorsement of the TGiE as a government per se, this
reliance on the exile administration does indicate that the GoI has a significant
degree of trust in the TGiE, viewing it as a partner in particular security issues and
the ultimate guarantor for its exiled population.
In summary, the issue of political identity construction around labels of ‘refugee’
and ‘citizen’ therefore offers an important lens through which to view complex and
often ambiguous relations between the TGiE, GoI and exile Tibetans, and to analyse
the state-like practices and discourses of the exile administration. Emerging as a
central theme underlying these relationships is the issue of rights. As I have
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illustrated, the exile Tibetan case disrupts the general assumption that citizen rights
are solely enshrined in and protected by the state (Kibreab 1999) and that stateless
refugees effectively have no ‘rights to rights’ (Arendt 1967). Through its construction
of Tibetan citizenship and the rights and obligations which accompany this
citizenship, the TGiE is attempting to create and preserve rights for its ‘citizens’ and
render them as rights-bearing individuals to the international community. Despite
the fact that its lack of legal standing means that the protection which the TGiE can
offer these individuals is limited, this exile administration has nevertheless
constructed an alternative register of pseudo-legal status for its diaspora. As such,
this case exposes the variation and the ambiguity of rights and begins to blur the
boundaries between citizen and refugee, statehood and statelessness (see McConnell
forthcoming).

Constructing state(like) responsibilities and citizen rights: rhetoric and realities of

welfare provision
Whereas legal and political identities are central to the discursive construction of
rights vis-à-vis the state, it is through access to welfare support that citizen rights are
conventionally framed in material terms. Though the increasing devolvement of
services to voluntary organisations and private corporations means that in many
cases welfare is no longer the sole responsibility of the state (see Gould 1993), welfare
provision is nevertheless often seen as a basic state function, with the state having a
moral obligation to look after its people (Taylor 1994). Moreover, following work on
anthropologies of the state (Das and Poole 2004; Hansen and Stepputat 2001), it is
through mundane and everyday exchanges regarding healthcare, entitlements,
education provision and sanitation facilities that individuals – and in particular
poorer individuals – see the ‘state’ most directly (see Corbridge et al. 2005). As such,
the TGiE’s discourses, institutions, practices and materialities relating to welfare are
a key arena in which to observe the state-like interaction between the TGiE and its
exiled community at a range of scales. Focusing on the institutional geographies of
welfare, the state–citizen relations established and the TGiE’s relationship with other
welfare providers therefore opens up a number of important questions: what does
the TGiE see as its remit and responsibility with regards to the exile community and
to what extent are these framed as state-like obligations to ‘citizens’? How is the
 Contemporary South Asia 305

provision of welfare constrained by the TGiE’s territorial limitations? And how does
the TGiE use welfare relations to distinguish itself as a government?
The Tibetan population based in India is characterised by fluctuating numbers,
high mobility, a sizeable transient population and a high proportion of monks and
nuns.10 Due to these demographic characteristics, there is a high dependency ratio11
and a number of vulnerable cohorts within the exile community, including recent
exiles who have uncertain legal status and lack family support networks, young
graduates who struggle to gain employment within the competitive Indian job
market and those living under the TGiE’s poverty line of 30 Indian Rupees per
person per day (Planning Commission 2004, 85). However, whilst in general Tibetan
exiles ‘do not qualify for welfare, dole, social security, pension systems or other
supports in host countries’ (CTRC 2003, 10), as McGukin (1997, 68) and Klieger
(1992, 102) observe, ‘Tibetans have established an increasingly democratic welfare
state in exile that provides employment, education and medical care for many of the
refugees’, resulting in Tibetans in India today benefiting ‘from an almost cradle to
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grave welfare system’. At the core of the TGiE’s welfare provision is the Department
of Home, which receives and distributes donations from foreign aid agencies for its
projects. These projects include old people’s homes, handicraft centres, infrastruc-
ture projects and stipends for impoverished families. In addition, the Department of
Education administers, to varying degrees, 77 schools in India, Nepal and Bhutan,
serving around 28,000 Tibetan children. Meanwhile the Department of Health
operates six hospitals, 60 public health centres and 36 clinics offering traditional
Tibetan medicine. Through a series of ‘Integrated Development Plans’ (e.g. Planning
Council 1994) the TGiE has attempted to universalise and standardise the provision
of welfare for its ‘citizens’ in India and Nepal. As an official at the Department of
Home explained:

[W]herever possible we are trying to provide . . . at least in the case of welfare activities
and education it’s almost standard everywhere. They may not have school there in that
locality but they can send the student to the residential schools. In the welfare activities
we almost provide the same for everywhere . . . standard like that.

This expansion of welfare facilities across the settlements can be regarded not only
as a strategy for integrating exile Tibetan society, but also as an attempt by the TGiE
to extend its pastoral responsibility for its citizens as comprehensively as possible.
Indeed, the idea of welfare provision as a duty and responsibility which the TGiE has
to ‘its people’, as well as the idea that welfare should be applied universally to citizens
as a ‘right’, was articulated both in TGiE publications and interviews with Tibetan
officials at a range of scales. According to the Secretary of the Department of Home,
the exile government is ‘mandated to look after the socio-economic welfare and
development of the Tibetan community in exile’. Such sentiments were echoed on a
local level with, for example, the Settlement Officer at Dekyiling explaining that ‘our
settlement people must be settled down . . . all facilities they must be provided and our
people must face no problems living here. This is our important duty’. Interestingly,
there is also an increasing trend for the TGiE supporting, both financially and
administratively, welfare and religious projects in and for Indian Himalayan tribal
populations. This includes educational and healthcare projects in Ladakh and Spiti,
and the admission of Himalayan tribal students to exile Tibetan schools and
monasteries. Paradoxically, although they are Indian citizens and therefore have a
more secure legal status than Tibetans, these tribal populations – who are Tibetan
 306 F. McConnell

Buddhists and have a shared ancestry – are increasingly dependent on the Tibetan
administration and exiled monasteries for welfare and cultural revival.
Such rhetoric of responsibility, duty and an ethic of care, along with the state-like
connotations of the repeated use of ‘welfare’ and ‘entitlements’ rather than terms
such as ‘charity’ or ‘aid’ (Smith 1995, 191) indicates that, from the TGiE perspective
at least, this is a state–citizen rather than NGO–recipient relationship. Looking at
the story from below in terms of how Tibetans in India perceive and make use of the
TGiE’s welfare provision, many interviewees, though not expressing it in the
language of ‘rights’ per se, did generally expect their government to provide basic
welfare services. Indeed, one interviewee recently arrived from Tibet described how
‘parents [in Tibet] put all their faith in the Dalai Lama to look after their children in
India – they close their eyes, they also close their hearts and send their children to
India’. Many respondents were impressed by what the exile government had
achieved, comparing the better standard of life in India to that of many in Tibet, and
appreciating that their access to education and healthcare was in many cases superior
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to their Indian counterparts.

However, there are important and stark differentiations within this state–citizen
relationship, as not only is welfare provision restricted to Tibetans residing in India
and Nepal, but within this section of the population access to welfare services is
highly uneven. Central to this is the role and geography of exile institutions. Not
only do 25% of the exiled Tibetan population live in residential institutions such as
monasteries and schools (Planning Commission 2004), but, rather than ‘demarcated
spaces to which . . . socially dependent populations have been more or less forcefully
‘‘exiled’’’ (Philo and Parr 2000, 513), these institutions are a central and vibrant part
of the community and, crucially, constitute the spatial concentration of welfare and
governmental dependency. For, unlike a conventional welfare state established
within the bounded territory of a nation-state, it is because the TGiE lacks authority
over the spaces between institutions and settlements, that the role of these
establishments is so heightened in this case.
Illustrating this is the case of newcomer refugees, a cohort which is often
highly dependent on the TGiE, certainly for the first few years after coming into
exile. A chain of institutions has been established by the TGiE to deal with these
new arrivals from Tibet, the majority of who take an increasingly established
route into exile. Registration takes place at the TGiE’s refugee reception centres
in Kathmandu, Delhi and Dharamsala, the latter of which seeks admission for
individuals into a range of exile institutions including schools, monasteries and
handicraft centres across India. However, after newcomers graduate from or leave
these institutions they face significant problems. For a start, the isolation and
strict rules at many Tibetan schools and monasteries means that residents there
often have little experience of ‘living in India’. With few savings, often no family
in exile and a lack of recognised qualifications, newcomer refugees frequently
spoke of their insecurity and vulnerability within India, difficulties integrating
into the exile Tibetan community and a lack of support from the TGiE once
‘outside’ Tibetan institutions. As an unemployed young man in Dharamsala
explained:
After Transit School12 you are on your own two feet . . . . The government they do not
help. People don’t go to Welfare Office if they have problems – they have to sort things
themselves. No-one else helps. Officials work honestly but maybe they have no power to
help . . . with our government we always have less power.
 Contemporary South Asia 307

Two contrasting pictures of a Tibetan ‘welfare state’ in exile therefore emerge:

one of a state-like welfare ethos planning to roll out standardised welfare support;
the other of uneven access to services with welfare provision concentrated in isolated
Tibetan institutions and designated settlements. Therefore, whilst those beneficiaries
of TGiE support within the settlements spoke of their government as a source of
security in the otherwise vulnerable situation of exile, at the same time a number of
government interviewees expressed frustration that they could not do more for ‘their
people’. On the one hand, the TGiE’s aspiration to a universal welfare state structure
within exile is hampered by the legal limitations faced by this unrecognised
government and its lack of a contiguous territorial base. On the other hand,
everyday, practical limitations include the TGiE’s dependence on external funding,
the fact that any construction project has to be authorised by Indian state
governments, Tibetan schools having to conform to the Indian curriculum (albeit
with additional Tibetan language classes) and the TGiE’s limited job creation
capabilities. Indeed, expanding our view beyond the relationship between the TGiE
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and its ‘citizens’ in exile, it is crucial to acknowledge that the exile government does
not have a monopoly on welfare provision for its diaspora. Rather, welfare support
is provided by a complex array of actors, each of which vies for responsibility for the
exile population. These include international donors upon which the TGiE’s welfare
programmes are heavily dependent, remittances from overseas Tibetans (see Prost
2006), Tibetan NGOs and the GoI.
Framed by Indian interviewees in terms of discourses of guesthood, hospitality
and humanitarianism, the GoI was instrumental in establishing and funding the
Tibetan settlements and in providing basic housing and rations in the early years.13
Although there has been a transition of administrative authority and responsibility
for schools, clinics and settlements from the GoI to the TGiE, fuzzy boundaries
remain, with Tibetan health and education facilities open to local Indians, and
Indian facilities available to Tibetans.14 The overlapping of Indian and Tibetan
welfare services, and indeed service users, therefore means that the Tibetan ‘welfare
state’ is not a hermetically bounded entity, with the TGiE struggling to rule on issues
of inclusion and exclusion. From the perspective of individual Tibetans in India, the
range of welfare providers has the obvious effect of providing a choice of welfare
services with, for example, some with the financial means choosing to access private
Indian medical facilities and send their children to private Indian and international
schools. However, it should also be noted that the TGiE’s ‘welfare state’ aspirations
are themselves controversial, with some individuals arguing that the TGiE has over-
prioritised the welfare needs of the exile population at the expense of the freedom
struggle and the ultimate aim of returning to Tibet. As a student in Majnuka Tilla
Tibetan colony in Delhi put it:

What is the purpose of our government? What are they doing for our cause? All they do
is talk. We don’t need this government, these schools, these hospitals. All we need is [a]
bed and food and to work for our cause. There is too much time wasting going on here.
Our people shouldn’t be owning buildings, restaurants here – this isn’t our country.

In summary, though not universally experienced nor exclusively administered,

the TGiE’s aim of providing a safety net of minimum welfare for its population in
exile is significant. For, whilst lacking a police and military means that the TGiE
cannot provide conventional security for its exile population and therefore cannot
fulfil the ‘state-as-protector’ role, through the apparatus of welfare it does to an
 308 F. McConnell

extent perform the role of provider. Thus, as a governmental function the TGiE can
perform, it is in the realm of welfare provision and the construction of relations of
rights and responsibilities with its ‘citizens’ that the possibilities of a Tibetan ‘state’
in exile are most apparent. Indeed, it is both through its own provision of welfare
and through negotiating relationships with non-‘state’ welfare providers including
the GoI that the TGiE attempts to construct itself as a government.

Conclusion
By focusing both on governmental discourses and the everyday practices associated
with legal and political identities of Tibetans in India and the provision of welfare
to this population, this paper has begun to unpack the complex web of
relationships between individual Tibetan exiles and each of the two ‘states’ which
strive to identify, document and rehabilitate them. Such an approach has been
essential to uncovering what is a highly complex and contradictory relationship
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between these two ‘governments’ where, crucially, what is said and what is done
are often very different. Indeed, in both empirical arenas discussed above the
boundaries of responsibility, authority and legitimacy are constantly being
negotiated. So, while for legal issues the GoI has the last say, Tibetan citizenship
also plays a fundamental role in defining the legal and political identities of exile
Tibetans. For welfare, though the primary responsibility is taken by the TGiE,
authorisation and funding is often contingent on the GoI. Therefore, with regards
to whose responsibility Tibetans in India are, who has exclusive rights over this
population and who has a ‘duty of care’, the answer is both complex and
contradictory, and varies across time and space.
As such, whilst the conventional ‘seat’ of sovereign authority within this three-
way relationship – the recognised state of India – has a significant role, it is far from
omnipotent. On the one hand, albeit highly differentiated by socio-economic
positionalities and the length of time that they have been in exile, many Tibetans in
India are actively negotiating their relationship with these two ‘states’, constructing
complex identities as both displaced refugees seeking to return to their homeland and
as citizens towards whom their government has duties and obligations. On the other
hand, the TGiE has notable legitimacy and authority, both with regards to its own
community and in relation to the GoI, when it monitors development projects and
vouches for its citizens. Therefore, far from a stateless nation, the Tibetan
community in exile has established not only an institutionalised government-in-
exile, but also a state-like polity in exile. Moreover, it can be argued that such an
achievement says as much about the pluralist nature of the Indian state as that of the
exile Tibetan community. For, although there are significant uncertainties regarding
the future of the Tibetan community and government based in India, especially when
the Dalai Lama has gone, the TGiE’s construction of socio-cultural boundaries
between Tibetans and the host society corroborates and enacts India’s liberal ‘non-
assimilative’ framework (Goldstein 1978), with Tibetans broadly regarded as a
pseudo-caste community which can maintain its cultural identity and practices
(Norbu 2004).
Thinking beyond this case, this paper has sought to offer a critical spotlight on
the nature of statehood and the everyday state. Under conventional definitions of
the state (e.g. Weber 1967), the TGiE’s seemingly insurmountable barriers to
achieving recognised sovereign statehood and struggles to protect or defend its own
 Contemporary South Asia 309

population given its restricted law-making abilities means that this entity would
never qualify as a state. However, in attending to how the TGiE is constituted
through discourses and texts (such as the 1991 Charter, Integrated Development
Plans), everyday practices (the payment of chatrel, distribution of welfare stipends)
and materialities (the Green Book), this paper concurs with and contributes to
critical approaches which perceive the state as a structural effect (Abrams 1988;
Mitchell 1991) and ‘set of practices enacted through relationships between people,
places, and institutions’ (Desbiens, Mountz, and Walton-Roberts 2004, 242).
Central to this broadening of definitions of the state has been an ethnographic
focus on agency and the bureaucratic messiness of state practices (Mountz 2003).
For, it is at the local level and through everyday interactions, objects and people
that both the GoI and TGiE are ‘magicked into existence’ as governments
(Sidaway 2002, xi).
However, an ethnographic exploration of the exceptional case of the TGiE does
more than simply refute the state as a monolithic institution. In offering grounded
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examples of how the state as an ‘effect’ is constituted, this paper has foregrounded
the importance of relationships and a multi-scalar approach to our understandings
of the state. For example, the empirical snapshots of relations between exile Tibetans
and the Indian state in the administration of RCs and the role of Tibetan institutions
in delivering TGiE welfare demonstrates the geographical contingency of state
power. In revealing the contradictions between what is declared at a national scale
and yet refuted or rescinded at a local scale, the utility of an integrative approach is
demonstrated: one where attention is paid both to the material and the symbolic,
practices and discourse, the bottom-up and the top-down. In addition, grounded in
state discourses of citizenship and welfare, it is through the calling into existence of
an ephemeral set of obligations and rights between the TGiE and its (quasi) citizens
that the exile government emerges as a legitimate state(like) institution. Crucially, as
illustrated by the sacrificing of the material advantages of Indian citizenship in order
to retain the ‘refugee’ label and the strong attachment to the Green Book, these
relationships are based on trust and belief in the TGiE, which in turn goes some way
to legitimising it as a government. In turn, the exile government’s efforts to establish
and delineate a welfare state in exile demonstrates how this polity strives to reify
itself as a legitimate governing entity separate from civil society and thus offers a
valuable glimpse of the state ‘effect’ in action. As an exceptional and nascent
example of state-building, this case thus offers particularly valuable leverage in
demonstrating the partial and processual nature of statehood and powerfully
exposes the contingent practices which underlie the social construction of political
power in so-called ‘normal’ states.

Acknowledgements
This paper is based on doctoral research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
(studentship PTA-031-2004-00028), fieldwork supported by a grant from the University of
London Central Research Fund and an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (PTA-026-27-2536)
based at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University. Earlier
versions of this paper were presented at the ‘Experiencing the state: marginalised people and
the politics of development in India’ workshops held at the Department of Geography,
University of Cambridge in 2008 and 2009. I would like to thank the organisers, participants
and discussants at these workshops, Professor Miles Ogborn and the two anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments, and the Tibetan and Indian interviewees for their
kind cooperation in this research.
 310 F. McConnell

Notes
1. These are the Departments of Home, Health, Religion and Culture, Information and
International Relations, Security, Education, and Finance.
2. In-depth interviews and focus groups were undertaken with 28 TGiE officials, 17 Tibetan
non-governmental organisation (NGO) staff, and a cross-section of over 100 exile
Tibetans in these settlements. The latter included both male and female, monk and lay
interviewees, and a range of occupations, age groups, those born in exile and individuals
who had sought refuge in India at different periods in their lives. Indian journalists,
lawyers and local government officials were also interviewed. Archives of the exile
Tibetan government and community were consulted in Dharamsala.
3. Chimni (2003, 444) suggests three reasons behind India’s refusal to sign the Convention
and Protocol: these international agreements were perceived to be Eurocentric and thus
potentially threatening to India’s non-aligned status; the regime contained in the
Convention is too burdensome for developing countries like India to implement and;
once India becomes a party to the Convention it would allow intrusive supervision by the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an organisation perceived
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as acting on the behest of Western donor countries.

4. This ranges from mandate refugees who come under the UNHCR’s remit (including
individuals from Afghanistan, Burma, Sudan and Iraq) to groups who are recognised as
de facto refugees by the GoI (e.g. Sri Lankan Tamils and Tibetans).
5. Visas can be issued on the IC and a ‘no objection to return to India’ (NORI) stamp is
required in order to re-enter India.
6. However, though demonstrating Tibetan agency, such fraudulent practices have
arguably led to the GoI’s imposition of more stringent conditions for newcomer
refugees (Indian advocate, Dharamsala).
7. Section 3 of the Indian Citizenship Act (1955) stipulates that a person ‘born in India on
or after 26th January 1950 but before 1st July, 1987’ is a citizen of India ‘irrespective of
the nationality of his parents’ and a person born between 1st July 1987 and 2nd
December 2004 is a citizen of India if one of the parents is a citizen of India at the time of
the birth. A person born in India after 2nd December 2004 is a citizen by birth if both
parents are citizens of India at the time of the birth or if one of the parents is a citizen and
the other ‘is not an illegal migrant at the time of birth’. Only 1–4% of Tibetans in India
have taken up Indian Citizenship (The Hindu, 26th May 2005).
8. Whilst in theory Tibetan citizenship extends to all Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile, in
practice it is only those in exile who are able to enact the obligations and enjoy the rights
of this citizenship. For a full list of rights and obligations see the Charter of Tibetans in
Exile (Tibetan Government-in-Exile 1991).
9. The Green Book and chatrel system were started by a group of Tibetan monks and lay
people in 1972 who established the ‘Tibetan Freedom Movement’ to administer the
contributions. However, the enshrinement of the Green Book and chatrel in the 1991
Charter has seen a shift from civil society to government administration. It should be
noted that whilst chatrel payments are technically voluntary, as there is no legal means of
enforcing payment and to call for mandatory taxes within India would have been
unlawful, the TGiE is careful to stress that this is not a ‘donation’, as this connotes a
different form of relationship, and crucially one not based on obligation and duty
(Department of Finance 2005).
10. According to interviews at the TGiE’s Department of Religion and Culture, monks and
nuns account for around 30% of Tibetans in South Asia.
11. The 2009 Demographic Survey of Tibetans in Exile calculated the total dependency ratio
to be 41% (Planning Commission 2010).
12. Run by the TGiE’s Department of Education, the Tibetan Transit School provides
newcomers aged 18–30 with residential classes in English, Tibetan and computer studies
for 1–3 years.
13. The GoI spent almost 182 million Rupees up to December 2006 on resettlement of
Tibetan refugees (Ministry of Home Affairs 2008, 123) and such funding is ongoing.
14. For example, 29% of the exile Tibetans questioned in the TGiE’s Planning Commission’s
socio-economic survey (2000) used Indian hospitals (Planning Commission 2004, 59).
 Contemporary South Asia 311

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