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Gyalo Thondup

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Gyalo Thondup
Thondup in 2009
Born(1928-11-05)5 November 1928
Takster, Qinghai, China
Died8 February 2025(2025-02-08) (aged 96)
Kalimpong, West Bengal, India
Gyalo Thondup in 1948 or 1949, standing in front of a large window of the Dalai Lama's family house, Yabshi Taktser, in Lhasa. He is wearing a woollen robe and felt boots.

Gyalo Thondup (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ལོ་དོན་འགྲུབ, Wylie: rgyal lo don 'grub; Chinese: 嘉乐顿珠; pinyin: Jiālè Dùnzhū; 5 November 1928 – 8 February 2025) was a Tibetan political operator in exile. The second-eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, he was his closest advisor. From 1952 onward, he was based in India. Through the 1950s and 1960s, he worked with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States during its unsuccessful campaign to use armed Tibetan rebels against China.[1]

Thondup helped to negotiate the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India following his escape from Lhasa in 1959.[2][2] After US support of the Tibetan resistance ended in the 1970s, he often acted as the Dalai Lama's unofficial envoy to China and attempted to negotiate his return.[1]

His bestselling memoir, The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet, was published in 2015. Following his death at age 96, The Washington Post said Thondup was "arguably the second-most important figure in modern Tibetan history", viewed by many governments around the world as a de facto political leader of Tibet.[1]

Early life and education

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On 5 November 1928,[3][4] Gyalo Thondup was born in the village of Taktser,[5] Amdo (Ping'an District, Qinghai province). He was the third child of Choekyong Tsering and Diki Tsering.[6] The second of five sons, he was their only male child who did not become a monk; his father had intended for him to become a farmer and carry on the family estate.[6]

In 1939, he moved with his family to Lhasa after his younger brother Lhamo Thondup was recognised as the 14th Dalai Lama.[6] As the family settled into its new position as the first family of Tibet, Thondup received training to become the lead advisor to the Dalai Lama.[6] The Reting Rinpoche sent Gyalo to a private school for a traditional Tibetan education, and appointed Ma Bao, a Chinese Muslim, to tutor him in the Chinese language.[6]

In 1942, at the age of 14, Thondup went to Nanjing, the capital of Republican China, to study Standard Chinese and the history of China. From April 1947 to the summer of 1949, he often visited Chiang Kai-shek at his home, ate at his family table, and was educated by tutors selected by Chiang himself.[7][8] In 1948, he married Zhu Dan, the daughter of a Kuomintang general; she had a degree in social work.[6]

Political involvement

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In 1949, before the Communist revolution of that year in China, Thondup left Nanjing for Tibet with his wife, who became known by the Tibetan name Diki Dolkar.[1] After Chinese troops asserted control over Lhasa, Thondup fled by horseback to India in 1952.[1]

Fluent in Chinese, Tibetan and English,[8] in subsequent decades, Thondup traveled between New Delhi, Taipei, Washington, Hong Kong, and Beijing as an unofficial envoy.[1][9]

United States activities

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In 1951, he traveled to America and became the main source of information on Tibet for the United States Department of State.[10] The Central Intelligence Agency promised to make Tibet independent from China in exchange for Thondup's support in organizing guerrilla units to fight against the People's Liberation Army, an offer that Thondup accepted.[7][11][12]

Thondup helped to recruit approximately 300 fighters to be trained at Camp Hale, Colorado, who in turn trained thousands of others in the Tibetan resistance.[1] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the CIA provided the resistance with an estimated 700,000 pounds of rifles, ammunition, grenades, and radio equipment, and airdropped them into Tibet, but their missions were unsuccessful.[1]

In 1959, Thondup helped to orchestrate the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India after his escape from Tibet, where he was being held by Chinese authorities.[2] Thondup maintained that he did not inform the 14th Dalai Lama about the CIA's actions, out of respect for his pacifist stance.[1][13] To his disappointment, US support ended after the 1972 Nixon visit to China.[1]

Later career

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With the permission of the Dalai Lama, Thondup met Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 for peaceful political talks, to negotiate terms for his brother's return to Tibet.[7][1] Thondup terminated the discussions in 1993, feeling them to be useless.[7] In the 1990s, Thondup made several official visits to China, acting as the Dalai Lama's unofficial envoy.[14]

In recent years, Thondup urged Tibetans to remain politically engaged, repeatedly stating that dialogue was the only way to achieve progress with China.[2][15] In 1998, the Central Tibetan Administration in exile criticized Thondup for not letting the Dalai Lama know about the CIA's involvement in Tibet.[13] Over a decade later, Thondup accused his sister-in-law's father of embezzling money from the Central Tibetan Administration.[16]

Personal life and death

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Thundap and his wife Diki Dolkar had a daughter (who died in the early 1980s), as well as two sons. His wife Dolkar died in 1986. [1][1] In 2002, Thondup visited Lhasa briefly by invitation of the Chinese government.[1]

In retirement, Thondup started a noodle factory in West Bengal, India.[1] In 2015, he published his memoir, The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet, which became a bestseller.[1]

Thondup died at his residence in Kalimpong, West Bengal, India, on 8 February 2025, at the age of 96.[17][18]

Publications

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  • (with Anne F. Thurston), The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of the Dalai Lama and the Secret Struggle for Tibet, PublicAffairs, 2015

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Johnson, Tim (9 February 2025). "Gyalo Thondup, Dalai Lama's brother and towering figure in Tibet, dies". The Washington Post. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d Watkins, Ali (10 February 2025). "Gyalo Thondup, Political Operator and Brother of the Dalai Lama, Dies at 96". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  3. ^ Thurston, Anne F. (2015). The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet (1st ed.). Gurgaon: Random House India. p. 16. ISBN 978-81-8400-387-1.
  4. ^ "本刊祝贺嘉乐顿珠93岁生日". Voice of Freedom in Tokyo. 11 December 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
  5. ^ Thurston, Anne F. (2015). The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle Tibet (1st ed.). Gurgaon: Random House India. p. 11. ISBN 978-81-8400-387-1.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Jain, Sandip C. (9 February 2025). "Gyalo Thondup And His Place In Modern Tibetan History". The Darjeeling Chronicle. Retrieved 11 February 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d "Gyalo Thondup: Interview Excerpts". The Wall Street Journal. 20 February 2009.
  8. ^ a b Laird, Thomas (2006). The story of Tibet : conversations with the Dalai Lama. Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, 1935– (1st ed.). New York: Grove Press. p. 288. ISBN 9780802143273. OCLC 63165009. "From the 1950s until today, Gyalo Thondup, who speaks fluent Chinese, Tibetan, and English, has occasionally been sought out by Taiwanese, Chinese, British, and American officials in an attempt to contact the Dalai Lama. Beginning in 1946, Chiang Kai-shel groomed him for this role. In fact, young Gyalo Thondup ate his meals at the Chiang family table, from April 1947 until the summer of 1949, and tutors selected by Chiang educated the boy.
  9. ^ Dotson, Brandon; Gurung, Kalsang Norbu; Halkias, Georgios; Myatt, Tim, eds. (2009). Contemporary visions in Tibetan studies: Proceedings of the First International Seminar of Young Tibetologists. Chicago: Serindia Publications. p. 158. ISBN 9781932476453. Gyalo Thondup... was the first officially acknowledged Tibetan to visit Taiwan since 1949. Taipei Radio announced the meeting between President Chang Kai-shek on 21 May 1950.
  10. ^ Goldstein, Melvyn (2007). A History of Modern Tibet: The Calm Before the Storm, 1951–1955. University of California Press. pp. 236–240.
  11. ^ On the CIA's links to the Dalai Lama and his family and entourage, see Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).
  12. ^ Sautman, Barry (1 March 2010). "Tibet's Putative Statehood and International Law". Chinese Journal of International Law. 9 (1). Oxford University Press: 127–142. doi:10.1093/chinesejil/jmq003. Indeed, after the 1962 war, B.N. Mullik, India's Intelligence Bureau Chief, told Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's brother and a top CIA asset, that India supported Tibet's "eventual liberation".
  13. ^ a b "Tibet rules out Lama links with CIA". The Indian Express. 3 October 1998. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013.
  14. ^ "Dalai Lama's Older Brother Visits China". Voice of America. 26 October 2009.
  15. ^ "Former Minister Gyalo Thondup Says Weiqun Ignorant of Deng's statement on Tibet". Voice of America. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  16. ^ Mishra, Pankaj (1 December 2015). "The Last Dalai Lama?". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  17. ^ "Dalai Lama's elder brother, who led several rounds of talks with China, dies at 96". AP News. 9 February 2025. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
  18. ^ "Gyalo Thondup, elder brother of the Dalai Lama passes away at 96". Phayul. 8 February 2025. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
Political offices
Preceded by
Kalsang Yeshi
 Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration
1991–1993 		Succeeded by
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