I just finished the manga by Tetsu Saiwai called The 14th Dalai Lama. It's a biography of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who was chosen as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. The manga pictorially vividly describes the childhood of the Dalai Lama till the point where he sought refuge in India under Nehru's Government in India. But somehow, it feels as if the manga is very one dimensional and tells the story from only one perspective, although there is no doubt that the Chinese incursion did happen and people in Tibet did suffer then. Many took refuge in other countries including India. But, I'd like to read more to get a thorough corroborated history back then.
Can someone please refer me some unbiased books about this topic? Especially by authors who are not dissuaded by Buddhism and/or fans of the Dalai Lama and cite proper resources in their books?
PS. If the referenced any of the books have audiobooks as well, that'd be great! Thanks in advance!
I see this question quite often, especially from people who dip their toes into, shall we say "popular Tibetology" and want to know more about 20th Century Tibet. Usually phase 1 is complete sympathy for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause, followed by phase 2, completely shattered worldview when they find out that Tibet was not a pure Shangri-la, but in fact inhabited by human beings who faced very real (and dare I say, common) problems among developing nations.
That said, among many (if not most) Tibetans, the cause for their humans rights and/or political independence (let's not conflate the two, though they are deeply related) has the same moral certitude, as for example, ending the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide. And we can say the same about the Chinese Communist Party. From that angle, would you, for example, take three books on the Holocaust - one from a KZ survivor, one from a historian born in the 1990s, and one from a Neo-Nazi and HOlocaust denier - and accord them the same weight?
No. Of course not. To do so would be a gross misunderstanding of history, historiography, and be an injustice. In the same way, to take a book denying the Holocaust and a book that carefully documents it, and then throw up our hands and say "Well the truth must lie somewhere in the middle" is no better.
On my shelf I have several books on the modern history of Tibet, including one written in English by two Chinese authors, made for Western consumption, approved by Chinese censors. Highlights of Tibetan History by Wang Furen and Suo Wenqing. The book is mostly fine - it's relatively short - but is plagued by an understanding of history that few Tibetans would support. Again, even where the information itself is accurate, the perspective is skewed with a political angle, and one that veers away from the cause of most Tibetans. That said, the Tibetans themselves are not a monolithic entity, and come from a vast variety of languages, religious traditions, political perspectives, and socio-economic points of view.
When reading sources, especially about a conflicted region, it is best not to equate sources but to investigate the sources themselves and accord them weight knowing what kind of perspective the authors have. The Dalai Lama's memoirs, Freedom in Exile and My Land, My People, for example are quite good. Though we must remember that they are from an individual, who was at the height of Tibet's socio-economic pyramid, written in a position of exile, somewhat under duress, and are from a single perspective. This doesn't make them any less valuable from a historic perspective (or that they are too biased as to be helpful to understand history) but does mean we should take that into account. For example, we are missing the perspective of Kagyu and Nyingma monks and Lamas, who were mostly absent from the Dalai Lama's point of view until he was in exile in India. We do not get the perspective of even the bureaucrats or the officials who signed the Seventeen Point Agreement (as the Dalai Lama had fled Lhasa while they remained behind to parley with the Chinese). We do not get the perspective of the Tibetan Communists who joined the PLA for their own reasons. We do not get any mention of the half-Nepali (Khatsara) or Muslim (Khache) trading communities who were suddenly forced in between a rock and a hard place diplomatically. And to be fair, the Dalai Lama himself does not claim to be the final word on any of these topics, and is very open about the wealth of literature available that covers these many perspectives.
This has been a lot of words for me to point you towards the AH Reading List, most of which in the Tibetan/Himalayan section I've written. I just wanted to caution you against trying to find "the middle ground" of extremes as the "accurate" version of the story. To take one simple problem: Highlights equates the statuses of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas. This promotes a Chinese political point of view. One that, of course, those loyal to the Dalai Lama do not share. What's the truth? Well, in this particular case, it's a bit of a matter of perspective. In the strict legal terms of the Ganden Phodrang (the traditional government of Tibet 1654-1959) it was the Dalai Lama with the regency going to the Panchen Lama. Of course, the Dalai Lamas take this for granted, while the Beijing government (predating that of the Chinese Communist Party) has promoted the equal status of the Lamas. Something which bears out in history, only if we ignore their legal de jure status.