Along with many of his former monastic brethren, Passang was persuaded to join a Tibetan unit in the Indian army known as the Special Frontier Force, or Sector 22. This secret force was jointly trained by India and the CIA in a camp near Dehra Dun. Like all the other Tibetans, Passang was assured that he and his fellow monks would be parachuted back into Tibet to fight for their country and their faith.
“We were told that we would train for a few months and then be sent back to Tibet to begin a revolution. We signed up as we thought this was the way to get our land back and re-establish the Buddhist dharma. Clearly making handicrafts in Karnataka was not going to do that, and this seemed the help we had been waiting for ever since we fled Lhasa.”
But the promise was never realised. Instead, after many years, first of training under American officers in high-altitude warfare, then guarding the high passes and glaciers for India, and occasionally being sent over the Assam border into Tibet to do low-level intelligence work, Passang and his brethren were sent to fight in the war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
“The first time we really saw action was the 1971 war,” said Passang. “From Dehra Dun they flew us to Guwahati, and then drove us in trucks up into Manipur. We crossed a river into Bangladesh, and managed to surround the Pakistani army from three sides. It was a great victory, at least as far as the Indians were concerned. But for me, it felt like a total defeat.
“I had to shoot and kill other men, even as they were running away in despair. They would make us drink rum and whisky so that we would do these things without hesitation and not worry about the moral consequences of our actions. Every day I saw corpses. Sometimes even now at night I see them—the whole scene: people shooting, others being shot, airplanes dropping bombs and missiles, napalm, houses burning and men and women screaming. War is far worse than you ever imagine it to be. It is the last thing a Buddhist should be involved in.
“Despite all this, we tried to behave as much like monks as we could. We brought our short Buddhist texts with us and recited our mantras, even in battle. In between the fighting we continued praying—when we were marching, when we were fighting. If anything I prayed more in the army than I did as a monk. Even when we were digging trenches in the jungle we carried holy images in our packs, and lit butter lamps to honour them.
“But within my heart, I knew I was going against ahimsa, and the most important Buddhist principles—it was not to fight the Pakistanis that I gave up my monastic vows. I knew that I wouldn’t free Tibet, however many Pakistanis I killed. It was for the Tibetan cause and to defeat China that I joined the army; but it occurred to me that now I was no better than the Chinese. They also blithely shot people with whom they had no argument. It was only their guns and bullets that gave them power. The same was true of us in Bangladesh.
“We weren’t happy doing this fighting, but what could we do? It is almost impossible to leave the army once you are signed up. I used to feel I would not get a good rebirth, as I wasn’t doing any good with my life—just learning to kill, and then putting those skills to use, actually killing people. And I felt sorry, because the war didn’t seem to be about right and wrong, and it certainly wasn’t about the dharma. It was because of some high politicians in Delhi and Islamabad that people had to suffer and to kill.”
I asked if he felt he had been misled by the Indians into joining the army.
“For refugees like us who had no rights, the Indian army was a life commitment, though of course we didn’t really realise that when we first joined up. My conscience was very troubled by what I had seen, and by what I had done in Bangladesh. On my annual leave, in expiation, I had begun touring the Buddhist pilgrimage sites of India and Nepal, searching for peace of mind. I went to Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Sarnath and Lumbini. There I spent my time praying and meditating, performing prostrations in an attempt to gain back some of the merit I had lost. I went to the place where the Lord Buddha lived, to where he was born, to where he attained Enlightenment, and where he preached his first sermon. And I swore that the very day that I was able to leave the army I would try to make up for what I had done as a soldier.
“It was not until 1986 that my papers came. I retired and caught a bus the same day to Dharamsala. As chance would have it, I arrived in the middle of the Monlam ceremony, when the Dalai Lama gives his public teachings—the same ceremony I had seen in Lhasa in 1959, nearly thirty years earlier. As I listened to the sermons, I wondered what I could do to make up for all I had done. Then I saw some prayer flags attached to the temple, and thought, this is something I can do: I can make prayer flags.