Keep Religion and Politics Separate

By Jigme Duntak

Tibetan Parliament in Exile

After reading Samten G. Karmay’s article “Tibetan Religion and Politics” his statement about a secular state being “neutral when it deals with religion by not supporting or opposing any particular sect [and also not giving] any preferential treatment for a citizen who belongs to a particular religion”, I thought about how this would relate to the Shugden issue, which I just previously wrote a post on (see here).

In June of 1996 the Tibetan Parliament in Exile passed a resolution concerning the Shugden issue that was passed unanimously (see here). The resolution’s first clause had the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies and the Parliament of the Tibetans in Exile pledge to abide by his His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s every advice against the propitiation of Shugden. In addition, the other seven clauses within the resolution encouraged all Tibetans to follow suite with this announcement.

The question that came to my mind after reading this was why was this resolution passed by a supposed secular government?