Though they insist that structures are in place to handle his absence, Thubten Samphel, writer and member of the Tibetan bureaucracy, betrays the nervousness when he says: "It is the persona of the current Dalai Lama that worries the Chinese the most."
It is the persona that has won the man a Nobel Peace Prize and Congressional Gold Medal from the US among a plethora of felicitations. Last year he was voted among Time magazine's world's 100 most influential people for the second time.
He set a record in 2003 when he drew a crowd of more than 65,000 people at a speech in Central Park, London. And a German magazine's 2002 poll reported that 37 per cent Catholic Germans listed the Dalai Lama ahead of Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II as the wisest public figure.
These are joined by headline-grabbing Hollywood personalities such as Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, Sharon Stone and Steven Seagal who back him and the Tibetans in their struggle.
Image: Lamps are lit during a candlelight vigil held by exiled Tibetans living in India to mark the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising that prompted Dalai Lama's flight into exile in Mcleodganj. | Photograph: Fayaz Kabli/Reuters
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