Dalai Lama asking a young boy to ‘suck my tongue’: a Tibetan tradition or abuse?

In the clip, the Dalai Lama is approached by a boy – whose identity remains unknown – for a hug. He then asks the child to kiss him on the cheek, holds the boy’s chin and kisses him on the lips. He then says “suck my tongue” and sticks his tongue out. The crowd laughs and the leader hugs the child again.

The incident happened at an event in February in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, from where the Dalai Lama has been running a government-in-exile since 1959.

After the video spread like wildfire – with many social-media users terming his behaviour as “inappropriate”, “creepy”, “disgusting” and “alarming” – Tibetans across the world have come together to share feelings of dismay and distress, stating that the video had been misinterpreted by people with no understanding of their culture.

Bangalore-based journalist Tenzin Pema, in a long social-media post, said Tibetan culture had been misconstrued and hypersexualised to create a false narrative against the Dalai Lama.

She pointed to some gestures and customs that might be unknown to the rest of the world but were considered by Tibetans to be “pure unadulterated acts of love, faith, and compassion”. Examples include the oothuk, where two people put their foreheads together, and the po – a kiss on the lips given by elders to children and vice versa – as signs of respect and love.

The words nge che le jip were a common, playful refrain by Tibetan elders and innocent-sounding in Tibetan but did not seem that way when translated into English as “suck my tongue”, she said.