India, April 5 -- The conventional debate over India's Tibet policy has been conducted almost entirely in the language of hard geopolitics-borders, buffer zones, and military deterrence. This framing, while not wrong, is dangerously incomplete. India's interest in the Tibetan cause is not merely a matter of strategic depth or diplomatic leverage against Beijing. It is rooted in two existential stakes that go far deeper than any line on a map: the ecological survival of the Indian subcontinent, and the civilizational integrity of a tradition that was born on Indian soil. To abandon the Tibetan cause would be to surrender not just territory, but the very water that feeds India's rivers and the very soul of its oldest spiritual heritage.

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