Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay with His Holiness at the 23rd anniversary of the conferment of the Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness
Photo: OHHDL
Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay was born in 1968 in a Tibetan refugee settlement in northern India. While reflecting on his past during a 2011 interview with ABC, he shared “My parents left Tibet in 1959. My father was a monk. His monastery was you know bombarded….it was reduced to rubble in 1956. So he left the monastery and of all the things he became in charge of arms and ammunitions of the guerilla group which fought against the Chinese army. And my mother was 17 years old and she crossed over to India…And I was born in a small village in Darjeeling. So my parents had an acre of land and two or three cows at any time. So when they finally wanted to send me to Tibetan refugee school they sold one cow to pay off the tuition fees.
Photo: Tibet.net
Selling a cow to cover tuition certainly paid off. Sangay later studied English literature and law at the University of Delhi. In 1995, as a Fulbright Scholar, he moved to the United States where he attended Harvard Law School and received a Master of Laws degree. Subsequently, he received a scholarship and enrolled in Harvard Law School’s PhD program. Graduating in 2004, Dr Sangay became the first Tibetan to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from the institution. He later received a position as a senior fellow at Harvard University and organised conferences between His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Chinese scholars.
Sikyong raises the Tibetan flag in the Main Temple in Dharamsala on March 10
Photo: Phayul/Tentse
In 2011, winning 55% of the votes, Dr Lobsang Sangay was elected Kalön Tripa of the Tibetan Government in Exile. In 2012, the title of Kalön Tripa was officially changed to Sikyong. As Sikyong, he has called for a peaceful resolution of the Tibet issue, supporting His Holiness the 14thDalai Lama’s Middle-Way Approach.
Most recently, during a trip to Lithuania, Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay stated “Yes, we are suffering, but do you give up, get depressed? No. We fight democratically, non-violently and we will succeed.”
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