Interview with the oldest man picked up in the Delhi protests

Kunchok (Tibetans often have only one name) travelled three days from Kollegal, Karnataka to protest the Olympic Torch in New Delhi. The 61 year old Tibetan native told me, “I came because of our country and our people. It’s important to stand for the Tibetan people.” He got picked up today for wearing a “Torch 4 Tibet” t-shirt near the India Gate area of New Delhi.

He left Tibet at 11 years of age in 1959, the year of the First Tibetan Uprising when the Dalai Lama fled to India. His family followed the path of many other Tibetans when they began doing road work in northeast India before moving to farm land in Karnataka granted by the Indian government. He will return to his home disappointed because “I feel very sad about how India has stopped the protests. When I go back to my settlement, I have nothing to say to my people of doing this or that.