Indian Parliamentary Forum on Tibet reiterates their demand to honour His Holiness with Bharat Ratna
DHARAMSALA, 16 April: The campaign demanding the government of India to honour His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Bharat Ratna Award gains momentum as Indian Parliamentary Forum on Tibet reiterates their call for the same.
The All Party Indian Parliamentary Forum on Tibet has demanded that His Holiness the Dalai Lama be bestowed with the highest civilian award of India on Monday, reports the United News of India.
The forum headed by former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar has requested Home Minister Raj Nath Singh in a letter signed by 200 sitting MPs of diverse political parties to confer Bharat Ratna to the Dalai Lama as the forum reiterated their demand.
The forum initially made the demand after it met on 6 December 2016 at Delhi under the Chairmanship of the former Chief Minister by unanimously passing a resolution urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to honour His Holiness with the Bharat Ratna.
The Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister first urged the New Delhi for the same at his book launch held at the main temple in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala on 1 Nov. 2016 which was also attended by the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Those who joined the Bharat Ratna for Dalai Lama chorus includes Bihar Chief Minister Nitesh Kumar who backed Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi’s article published in a Hindi daily earlier on Saturday that strongly called on the government of India to honour the Dalai Lama with Bharat Ratna Award while the Tibet Support Group of Arunachal Pradesh (TSGAP) made the same appeal to the government of India earlier in November of 2016. The Rashtriya Syawamsevak Sangh (RSS) has also launched a campaign demanding the same in April 2017.
Till date, the highest civilian award of India has been conferred to only two non-Indians, Baloch leader Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela.
