Redrawing boundaries of belonging among Indian Himalayan Buddhists

ABSTRACT As the world speculates about a post-Dalai Lama scenario, what is the response among India’s borderland Buddhists? In this paper, I show that there is a growing need among Tibetan Buddhist people of the Indian Himalayan borderlands to forge a cultural unity that is Buddhist but removed from Tibet. With the decline of Tibet as a spiritual and cultural centre for Tibetan Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhist communities of India are strategically cohering around new identities and spaces that are firmly rooted in India. Given an impending future, when Buddhists around the world, and particularly in Asia, will no longer be able to depend on the figure of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama for guidance, there are concerted efforts underfoot to unite the Himalayan Buddhists of Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and other border regions of India under a common platform. In this regard, research organizations, cultural associations, and educational institutions are assuming a key role. While many scholarly works have studied the role of associations and institutional spaces in the formation of a transnational identity for Indian Buddhists, this paper focuses on the transregional networks forged through cultural and educational institutions in the Himalayan border regions of India, focusing on the Delhi-based Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association (HBCA) and other new organizations working for an Indian Himalayan Buddhist unity. I draw on my ethnographic work in Monyul, a Tibetan Buddhist cultural region in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India, to show how the Buddhist Monpas of Monyul are drawn into the pan-regional networks of Indian Himalayan Buddhism.