Competing visions: schooling the nation and the “revolt” at the Ockenden Tibetan school

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the incident of a “revolt” in the Ockenden Tibetan refugee school in the early 1960s. By analyzing this previously unknown incident of “revolt” in the Tibetan refugee school within the broader historical context of early years in exile, this article aims to underline the contested and contingent process of nation-building in exile. I argue that the Ockenden incident, as forgotten fragments of the Tibetan past, provides us a rare glimpse into the early history of contestation over the production of national history and discourse on Tibet, where exiled Bonpos, a non-Buddhist minority, attempted to renegotiate their marginality by producing alternative history and discourse on Tibet. By focusing on the history of the Ockenden incident as a forgotten fragment from the exile Tibetan past, this article aims to decenter the teleology of Tibetan nationalism by bringing to light one of the unrealized alternative future agendas different groups of exiled Tibetans had in those early moments of discursive formation.