Below is the opening speech of the acting president of IATS, Prof. Françoise Robin (Inalco), delivered online on Monday 24 August, 10.00 am Kathmandu time. In the history of our association, opening speeches have never been uploaded on our website. But our having been forced to shift suddenly to an online conference, we reproduce here in full the 17thIATS Seminar opening speech, which describes the events as they unfolded in the three weeks preceding the opening ceremony.
Dear IATS participants,
It is with mixed feelings that I am opening this 17th Seminar of the IATS. As you all know, we have gone through rough times to make this conference happen in virtual space, as we have faced unprecedented obstacles. But here we are, standing, and making the conference happen, nonetheless.
The board, as you know, has being working hard to transition from in person to online event, and managing this challenging task for 700 participants has kept the IT team busy until the last moment. Ulrike has been on the ball non-stop for the last 2 weeks, and to her I wish to extend my sincere thanks – we should all be grateful to her incredible dedication, patience and efficiency. I would also like to extend my thanks to the original convenors at KU, who unfortunately had to withdraw from organizing our 17th Seminar at a scandalously short notice. The convenors were Prof. Sagar Sharma, director of HiCAS (Himalayan Center for Asian Studies), and Dr. Thomas Doctor at KU Centre for Buddhist Studies. While HiCAS is a young research team, CBS was in fact founded rather early in the history of Kathmandu University. This creation resulted from the unique partnership between the then vice-chancellor and founder of KU, Suresh Sharma, and RYI. The then dean of the school of arts, Prof. Dr. Bhadraman Tuladhar, also played a big part in supporting the Center for Buddhist Studies, and deserves to be mentioned here. The long existence of CBS testifies to the importance of the Buddhist tradition in Nepal, where multiple people with multiple religious beliefs live together, and where Buddhism and Bon have flourished over the centuries, linking the region with the religious traditions of Tibet. The Center for Buddhist Studies has also had the privilege to receive many Nepali students over its 28 years of existence. Since Nepal was chosen to be the location for the 17th Seminar of the IATS, HiCAS and CBS have worked hand in hand to make the event happen, until this was put to a sudden and unfortunate halt. We cannot thank them enough for their engagement and commitment which, we can testify to it, have been exemplary, and more particularly so when it comes to CBS. Besides T. Doctor, J. Stenzel has been a pillar of the original organisation team from the beginning and also deserves our thanks.
Like us, you will have received the news that the conference cannot take place in-person with consternation, and we owe you a word of explanation how the events unfolded in the last three weeks. Things changed so quickly and decisions had to be made so rapidly that we could not update you or inform you as regularly as you would have wished. Your strong feelings about this matter show your attachment to the IATS and I thank you for that. I hope that, as we explain what happened, all unclarities will be lifted. There have been many rumors, many fake news, and I hope that this opening session will help to debunk them.
It was in late 2023 that the IATS board decided upon Nepal for its 17th seminar. It was time to bring back our seminar to Asia, and Nepal, located south of the Himalayan range, was deemed the best place in Asia. I need not stress that Nepal is a meaningful place for Tibetans: Bya rung kha shor, Mustang, or Dolpo – Nepal teems with culturally Tibetan areas and sites. On a personal note, Nepal is the place where I decide in the 1990s to enter into Tibetan studies. Therefore, Nepal holds a special place in my heart, as the country that guided me onto my own academic path. We knew that organizing a large conference like this in Nepal would not be simple, but we were confident that it would work. We were grateful that HiCAS and CBS agreed to be the local convenors, a role which carries the main responsibilities of organizing the event. Charles Ramble, during his regular trips to Nepal, helped to facilitate the planning process. The 2022 IATS Prague team (Jarmila, Daniel, and Martin) also readily helped by sharing their experience and advice, and I thank them for their availability. In April 2025, Ulrike and I paid a visit to KTM to scout several premises, discuss concrete details, and meet the organisers at that time. We also met the then Vice-Chancellor of Kathmandu University to whom we presented the IATS, and its seminar. We reassured him the IATS was a purely academic conference without any political affiliation or agenda. The proof is that, in spite of the critical situation and restrictions that we are all aware of, Tibetan scholars both from the PRC and exile have been able to meet during preceding IATS Seminars. Also at this conference, attendance of Tibetan scholars from the PRC was to be high, as almost 90 had registered, with support from their authorities and institutions.
In September 2025, the Gen Z movement unfolded in Nepal and after several weeks of protest, the political scene in Nepal changed at a rapid pace. This did bring uncertainty for a period of time but we decided nonetheless, with the local organisers, that we should maintain the decision to hold the 17th IATS seminar in Kathmandu in 2026. Preparations went ahead accordingly, until the beginning of this month.
But on Monday 3rd August, that is, 3 weeks before the conference was due to start, Prof. Sharma, Dr. Doctor and the Vice-Chancellor of KU were invited to a meeting with the Chief Secretary of Nepal, and an officer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, and were instructed orally not to hold the conference. On the 4th, in the morning, the convenors contacted Ulrike, Charles Ramble and myself for an urgent meeting. Ulrike was in the UK, and I was boarding a plane precisely to come to Nepal to spend three days there, planning to meet the team and take a little rest before proceeding on to Amdo. On Wednesday 5th in the morning, I landed in Kathmandu and joined the team at noon. They confirmed that a request had been made orally to KU not to organize the conference. Although there seemed to be little room for discussion, we were still hopeful that it was a misunderstanding and that KU would be given the permission to go ahead. We could not believe nor accept that Nepalese authorities could compromise such a large-scale conference at such short notice, taking the risk to appear as infringing upon academic freedom, and putting in danger potential academic partnership with so many scholars from almost 40 countries. Unfortunately, the 3 days that followed showed that this was not negotiable. On August 6, Ulrike, online, Prof. Sharma of HiCAS, and myself in person, had an emergency meeting with the then vice-chancellor of KU. During that meeting, the then vice-chancellor repeated that he was sorry and did not support the government’s position but KU authorities could not contravene the informal order emanating from their government, especially since the Prime Minister is also the President of Kathmandu University. Upon my ugent request, the KU vice-chancellor managed to get a last-minute appointment on the next day with the Ministry of Education to discuss the matter. Prof. Sharma and myself were to meet the 2nd most important person in this ministry. Unfortunately, when we arrived there the next day (Friday 7th August), the person who received Prof. Sharma and myself, was a person one rank below. After having listened to Prof. Sharma and making and receiving a few phone calls in the meantime, he refused to listen to our plea to reconsider the order. I tried to put across our arguments, to no avail. He declared first that he did not know about the situation, and in an apparent contradiction, added that due to recent religious conflicts in southern Nepal, the seminar was too sensitive, and KU should not organize it. This same vague explanation had also been given to the KU co-convenors and vice-chancellor on the 4th of August. We insisted on handing a letter to the Minister of Education himself and formally submitted a letter from the IATS Board. This letter, drafted by the board the previous day, has been uploaded on the IATS website, and you are welcome to consult it. In this letter, we demanded transparency and said that we could not possibly ask 700 persons to cancel their long-planned and often expensive trip, and that some participants would be in Kathmandu as originally planned even if we went online, a situation for which we could not take the blame.
Unfortunately, neither the efforts of the local partners, nor of the IATS Board, yielded any result. Until today, despite our repeated requests for clarification and official communication, we never received any formal message from the Nepalese government. In fact, we still do not know what happened behind the scenes, or who pulled the trigger. It appears that different forces in Nepal were pulling in different directions, but we may never know.
During these 2 days (6th and 7th August), we also held 2 emergency online and last-minute meetings with the board: I want to thank all of elected representatives as some of them joined nonetheless in spite of being on holiday. The 2ndmeeting was held after our unfruitful visit to the Ministry of Education, in the afternoon Nepal time. We considered several options: cancellation altogether, postponement and going online. We were aware that no solution would be perfect but we had to reach a decision as time was pressing.
Different opinions were expressed. The reason why we decided against cancellation is that it would have felt like defeat or resignation on our part. Postponement was not an option either, as a conference of that scale takes at least 2 years of preparation. We had already let 4 years pass since the previous seminar and we thought it would send a wrong signal if 6 years in total would separate the 16th and 17th seminar. Finally, only the option of going online remained. We are enormously pleased that despite less-than-ideal solution, only a limited number of participants dropped out, and 508 participants are going to take part. I want to thank those of you who decided to stay, while I fully understand that some had to step back for various reasons. The strong attendance, despite the disruption caused by the government of Nepal, is a sign of our determination to keep our precious Tibetan and Himalayan studies carry on, against unfavorable winds.
Some of you may have wondered whether the IATS could not have held the conference in person as planned, rather than going online. I can assure you that we did not just drop the conference on the basis of a simple phone call. We did fight to make it possible, but in the end, we also had to make quick decisions and we also had to take into consideration both our convenors, CBS and HiCAS, and the local venues hosting us. If we decided to go ahead nonetheless, they would have to bear the brunt of the consequences once the conference is over and we all return to our respective countries. In this context I also need to demystify some of the fake news that spread by the press: Contrary to some reports, there was no CTA delegation that had signed up and then withdrew, because there are no delegations anyway.
A final word: the developments around this conference indicate that academic freedom is a fragile and precious asset for us, academics. Nepal has sent a wrong signal, which we deeply resent. As IATS members and participants, we must stand as strong as ever in our determination to keep studying the various aspects of the civilization of Tibet and the Himalayas. At a time when the name of “Tibet” is being challenged and, in some instances, erased, much against the Tibetan people’s will, we must maintain its viability. At a time when the Tibetan language, be it spoken or written, is in a perilous situation, either because of national policies or because of the precariousness of exile, we must defend it. I wish to remind us all that the Tibetan script is the 2nd oldest script used in the PRC. It belongs to the exclusive club of 15 writing systems in the world that have been in use without interruption for more than 1000 years, as Prof. Tournadre has shown. It is also a very precious tool for exploring Tibetan culture in all its richness, from the most mundane to the most arcane dimensions of human society in the highlands of Asia. We must cherish it and keep researching, discussing, and collaborating, and encourage the next generation who will pick up the baton. We must be undeterred by the obstacles we are facing, and these obstacles can serve both as a warning that we should be vigilant and as an incentive to be more determined than ever in the pursuit of the study of the civilization of Tibet and the Himalaya.
In addition to the scientific insights we gain from attending IATS conferences, our field of Tibetan and Himalayan studies is, for most of us, an extended group of friends, whom we are pleased to catch up with. Before leaving the floor to our General Secretary, Professor Ulrike Roesler, and as is customary, we are going to recall the memory of friends and colleagues who, sadly, passed away since the last seminar took place in Prague, in 2022. The names I am going to read are a testimony to the variety of countries, profiles, specialties and expertise that characterize Tibetan studies.
In 2022, we lost 4 colleagues:
Dr Isrun Engelhardt (1941–2022), a specialist of German-Tibetan relation and of the newspaper “Melong”, Chen Qingying (1941- 2022), a historian of Tibetan empire, as well as Erberto Lo Bue (1946-2022), an art historian and Yangga (1964-2022), an expert in Tibetan medicine.
2023 saw the passing away of Zuihō Yamaguchi (1926–2023), and of our French colleague Mireille Helffer (1928-2023). Also, Pema Tseden (1969-2023), was not technically a Tibetan studies scholar but he was one of our keynote speakers in 2019 at the 15th IATS Seminar and he passed away that year too.
In 2024, we lost Jeffrey Hopkins (1940–2024), who dedicated his academic life to Tibetan Buddhism.
In 2025, the Gyalrong Kuzhap, Professor Tsanlha Ngawang Tsultrim (1930–2025), as well as Lopen Tenzin Namdak (1926-2025) passed away. Although not IATS members, both played an important role for the community of scholars in Tibetan studies and deserve to be mentioned. Vladimir Uspensky (1954–2025) also left us. Two young colleagues died prematurely: Shannon Mary Ward (1990–2025) and Michael Ium (1984–2025).
In 2026, Professor Bob Thurman, Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, also passed away.
Let us observe one minute of silence for those colleagues who, as the Tibetan expression says, have departed for heavenly fields.
I will now leave the floor to our IATS General Secretary, Professor Ulrike Roesler.
