NEW DELHI: Two-thirds of respondents in the IANS C Voter Tibet poll have endorsed the demand for conferring Indias highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna on the Dalai Lama.
More than 62 per cent respondents (62.4 per cent) support the conferment of highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna to The Dalai Lama. As per the poll, 21.7 per cent respondents said no to this question. Among the age groups, the support is higher in the 55 plus age group with 73.1 per cent supporting the Bharat Ratna for Dalai Lama.
Among the regions, the support is highest in North India with 67.6 per cent supporting the idea. Two third of respondents acknowledge Dalai Lama as an important cultural and spiritual influencer of modern India. In fact, the qualitative response from the sample suggest a huge number of them consider Dalai Lama as an Indian Spiritual leader, not as a foreigner.
On one hand this could be considered a great achievement of assimilation, but on the other hand it also tells that not being aggressive on China front has diluted the Tibetan brand identity of Dalai Lama, the survey said.
Therefore, a similar number support the conferment of highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna to The Dalai Lama. This emotion is just an extension of the emotions expressed in previous question by the respondents.
Indians are willing to risk worsening ties with China on the issue of human rights in Tibet. This is the most significant finding of this survey. Almost two-third of Indians want to support the issue of Tibet even at the cost of worsening relationship with China. The brand equity of China has taken a beating over last one year and majority of Indians have further become anti-China in their perceptions.
Nearly 80% Indians support free Tibet. This is significant and needs no further elaboration. It took just about ten odd questions in the survey and 5 minutes discussion from the respondents to recalibrate the moral compass of the respondents. The good part of this finding is that majority of Indians will support the cause if they are informed enough and start thinking about it. Bad part of this information is that they actually need to be pushed into this conversation. Worst part of this information is to know that virtually nobody if doing it.
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