Paper short abstract:

Tibetans in the diaspora in India are engaged in complex emotional processes connecting moral notions of harmony, exemplified in this paper by polyandry, with a mythologised Tibet as homeland, yet also involving aesthetics and historicity shaped through coexistence with the Indian environment.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents Tibetans in the diaspora in India as significantly engaged in complex emotional processes connecting different central themes of their lives: Tibetan moral notions, a mythologized Tibet as homeland, as well as the shaping of aesthetics and sensibilities through the "creative coexistence" with their Indian social environment (Clifford 1997:276).

Although Tibetans in India overwhelmingly evaluate Indian persons in negative terms, Indian popular film, music and television are ubiquitous and well-loved in Tibetan everyday life. While the former process represents an important aspect of the discursive creation and maintenance of Tibetan identity in the diasporic setting, the latter influences are important in shaping Tibetan diasporic sensibilities. This paper will illustrate this in relation to Tibetan diasporic aesthetics and historicity.

Further, the important Tibetan emotional concepts surrounding harmony and unity in sociality and marriage are drawn out from their central place in older Tibetans' narratives surrounding fraternal polyandry as the ultimate form of marriage and an essentially Tibetan practice. These narratives tell us about ideals of Tibetan sociality, but they also reveal the role of such emotional concepts in relating to Tibet as idealised place of origin, and of the understanding of the 'Indian present' in relationship to the Tibetan past and cosmological time: In an age of moral decline which is perceived in the present in India, Tibet is represented as unchanged and uncorrupted in relationship with the moral notions surrounding polyandry. Representations of marriage are thus shown to be relevant to emotional expressions of attachment to the mythologized homeland of Tibet, and of evaluations of the perceived dis-located present.

Finally, younger Tibetans' attitudes regarding romance and marriage, the present in India and their relationship to Tibet reveal the relevance of the third generation of Tibetans in India. This paper tries to sketch the development of sensibilities specific to the generation of Tibetans born and raised in India, and their negotiation of emotional attachments to the mythos of Tibet, and to life in India.

Clifford, James. 1997. Routes - Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass. And London: Harvard University Press.