No point in returning to China, I prefer India: Dalai Lama

Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon at the Kangra airport in Himachal Pradesh, the Dalai Lama said: “There is no point in returning to China. I prefer India. Kangra – Pandit Nehru's choice, this place is my permanent residence”.

The Dalai Lama’s remarks came amid increasing border tensions between India and China marked by the recent clash at Arunachal Pradesh’s Line of Control (LAC) in the Tawang sector.

Now 86, he is a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel laureate. He was identified as the 14th incarnation of the ‘Dalai Lama’ two years after his birth. As Chinese soldiers marched into Tibet and resistance to its rule in the region intensified, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. Then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru granted him political asylum and he has been living in Himachal Pradesh’s McLeodganj ever since.

He was traveling to Delhi for a health-check up and other commitments and then he will proceed to Bodhgaya in Bihar for spiritual teachings and other events.