Patna: On the day His Holiness began his yearly lectures in Bodh Gaya, returning to the pilgrim town after a two-year absence, media sources in Bihar screamed: ‘Mysterious Chinese woman accused of spying on the Dalai Lama’.
When news spread that the police had issued drawings of Song Xiaolan, who was skinny and had her scalp covered in severely cropped hair, along with her passport and visa numbers, headline seekers could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled across something ‘huge’. Police discovered, however, after a careful examination that the situation was a straightforward one involving a woman who unintentionally overstayed her visa and entered the country.
The recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize is still regarded with contempt in China, with which India has a protracted border conflict. Since he fled Tibet in 1959 when the Chinese brutally put down a rebellion in the ‘Roof of the World,’ security worries have followed the messenger of peace everywhere he travels. Several years ago, a low-intensity bomb carried out by a terror group with ties to Bangladesh commemorated his visit to Bodh Gaya.
Even though Song is obviously not a frequent traveller from outside India and only arrived on Indian territory for routine purposes, a statement released by the Gaya police makes it quite plain that she was never suspected of spying, let alone terrorist actions.
Woman claimed to be on a spiritual journey;
The woman arrived in the land of the Buddha back in October 2019, and according to the Gaya police, she simply forgot that visas are things of the world, governed by laws established by nations, because she was self-willed enough to have fallen in love with spirituality despite being born in a country that is avowedly atheist.
She should not have stayed for more than three months, according to the police. However, she has been in place for more than three years. She then made a quick trip to Nepal, ostensibly on a spiritual journey, where she made friends with a local woman and then travelled back to India with her.
The two ladies admitted to moving to Mc Leodganj, a town in the Dharamshala region of Himachal Pradesh that is sometimes referred to as a ‘mini Tibet,’ after being apprehended by the police in Bodh Gaya. It appears that they did so because they wanted to be near the Dalai Lama. They arrived at Bodh Gaya on December 22, the same day the Dalai Lama began his yearly retreat, but by the time the police arrived, the foreign department had alerted them that Xiaolan was a persona non grata.
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