Free As Can Be

The Dalai Lama may have given up his quest for an independent Tibet, but his followers in exile are still trying to prove Tibet’s once independent status. The Friends of Tibet (FOT) have retrieved what is possibly the only ‘Tibetan’ passport to have survived since the nation was overrun by the Chinese. It has raised US $10,000 to pay for a rare passport recovered from a Kathmandu antique dealer. The passport was issued by the Tibetan government in 1947 to then Tibetan finance secretary, Tsepong Shakabpa, who was leading a trade delegation to China, the US and Britain. It had been given by Shakabpa to an Indian friend in Kalimpong in 1992. It’s now in safe-keeping with the Dalai Lama.