China’s continuous strengthening of its decades-long crackdown on monasteries, language, schools and public gatherings in Tibet means that its persistent, often murky and disturbing, efforts to sideline the Dalai Lama, and his enduring presence in Tibetan consciousness, has been an abject failure even as the exile spiritual leader heads towards his 91st birthday, writes Saurabh Chauhan.*
As His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama approaches his 91st birthday, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy’s Annual Report 2025 offers a sobering snapshot of life under tightening Chinese control. The document details another year of intensified surveillance, l...





