Date: March 10th, 1959
On this day, in 1959, the Tibetans banded together in revolt and surrounded the summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces. Nearly a decade before, in the fall of 1950, the Chinese occupation of Tibet began when troops from its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country. This was just barely a year after the Communists had gained full control of the Chinese mainland. The Tibetan government gave into Chinese pressure, signing a treaty that ensured the power of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is the country’s spiritual leader, over Tibet’s domestic affairs. Over the next several years, resistance to the Chinese occupation built, this included the revolt in several areas of eastern Tibet in 1956. By December 1958, rebellion was simmering in Lhasa, the capital, and the PLA command threatened to bomb the city if order was not maintained.
The uprising that occurred in March of 1959 was triggered by fears of a plot by the Chinese to kidnap the Dalai Lama and take him to Beijing. The suspicions arose after the Chinese military invited him to visit the PLA headquarters, but requested he come alone. After 300,000 loyal Tibetans surrounded the Palace, preventing the Dalai Lama from accepting the PLA’s invitation, things escalated leading to fighting between the Chinese and the Tibetans, resulting in thousands of deaths.
China’s stranglehold on Tibet and its brutal suppression of separatist activity has continued in the decades following the unsuccessful uprising. Ten of thousands of Tibetans followed their leader to India, where the Dalai Lama has long maintained a government-in-exile in the foothills of the Himalayas.
—Alexandra Grant