Miss Tibet pageant in New York now

RK Prashar

Launched 15 years ago in 2002 amid a lot of ballyhoo and razzmatazz, garnering media coverage the world over, the popular annual event, the Miss Tibet pageant, will no longer be held in Dharamsala from now on. The cause of its end is ostensibly being attributed to the de rigueur skimpy swimsuit round in the Miss Tibet contest.

Though it would be happy tidings for a section of conservative Tibetans for whom the pageant was an anathema and who opposed the swimsuit segment tooth and nail, the aficionados of the event, including the modern and the younger generation of Tibetans, feel crestfallen over the closure of the event at the headquarters of the exiled community.  

What went wrong with this mega entertainment event hitherto hosted in McLeodganj (Dharamsala) in Himachal Pradesh since 2002? Perhaps the organisers of this event never expected that they would be constrained to shift the popular event to another country over hushed grumblings. 

No doubt, the rumblings of disapproval among the elderly Tibetan community about the swimsuit round began on the day one the pageant was launched in 2002. They strongly believed that the bikini round had a ‘bawdy’ suggestion, which violated social mores and cultural values of the Tibetans and the community felt hurt. 

As a sequel to the purported whispering campaign and malicious diatribe against the event organisers, the pageant could draw only a single participant four times. For four years - in 2003, 2005, 2013 and 2014 - the crown was won uncontested by the participant concerned. Only in 2017, it had a maximum number of nine contestants. 

It was only in the wake of growing unrest in Tibet and to pay homage to those who laid down their lives for the Tibetan cause in Tibet that the 2012 Miss Tibet pageant was cancelled.  

Every year, the event was organised in the wintry month of October on the premises of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA), McLeodganj (Dharamsala). Later, with a view to attracting more crowds aiming at generating funds, the event was advanced and held in the month of June till its last show in 2017.

There is every likelihood that the event would get an edge in New York, as people living there are already aware of the Miss Tibet Pageant since a documentary film, “Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile”, was premiered at the film festival DOC at New York in 2014.

Lobsang said, “I was struggling alone, but now I entered into a tie-up with an entertainment company with the help of a few Tibetan friends who don’t want me to give up.” Lobsang dares to debate if beauty pageants are “western culture”. 

(The writer is a school principal in Dharamsala)