Early years Lhalu's father was
Lungsharwa Dorje Tsegyel, an influential official in the
Lhasa government and a favourite of the
13th Dalai Lama's. His mother was Yangdzon Tsering, the Shatra family's youngest daughter, with whom Lungshar had been having an affair. Lungshar was born into the noble
Lhalu family whose ancestors lived in Tana of the
Tsang region at the time of the
5th Dalai Lama. He is famous for taking four noble youths – "
the Rugby Four" – to the United Kingdom to receive a modern education (for the first time in Tibet's history). As a child, Lhalu attended a private school at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. He then went on to a school for children of secular officials at
Jokhang monastery.
Earlier official positions Following the Dalai Lama's death in 1934, Lungshar Dorje Tsegyel, a moderate reformist who advocated replacing lifelong tenure for the government ministers (
Kalon) with a vote for a four-year term, was outmanœuvred by the more conservative minister
Trimön; Lungshar was arrested and punished by blinding. All of Lungshar's descendants were then banned from government service. Lhalu had entered government service as a boy in 1927, but he was dismissed from his position after his father's arrest. Lhalu was later adopted into the wealthy family of Lungshar's common law wife, the
Lhalu family, which lacked a male heir. By making the public claim that Lungshar was not his biological father, and by applying in the name of Lhalu se and paying large bribes, he was able to become an official again in 1937, after which he became increasingly influential. The Lhalu family had attained nobility by producing two incarnations of the Dalai Lama but did not belong to the old nobility that traces back its lineage to ancient Tibetan kings. In 1940, Lhalu married a daughter of the Labrang Nyingpa (Thonpa) family. In 1941, he was promoted to 4th rank and made a
tsepön. In 1946, he was appointed a
shape, i.e. a member of
cabinet, by the regent,
Taktra. He played an active role in the arrest of the former regent,
Reting Rinpoche, when Reting was charged with attempting to assassinate Taktra.
Governor of Kham Shortly after the Reting incident, Lhalu was appointed governor of
Kham, with his headquarters in
Chamdo. He was serving in this position in 1949 when the
People's Republic of China consolidated its control of
China proper and began a build-up of troops in the provinces bordering Tibet. Lhalu began preparations to resist Chinese forces, but he was replaced by
Ngabö Ngawang Jigme before the invasion actually occurred.
Robert W. Ford's testimony In his book
Captured in Tibet,
Robert W. Ford, a former British radio operator in Kham, portrays Lhalu "as typical of the more progressive Tibetan officials. They knew they were backward, and genuinely wanted to learn and to modernize their country - so long as no harm was done to their religion." Although Lhalu had never left Tibet (unlike his father, who "was one of the very few Tibetans who ever went to Britain"), he "was keenly interested in the outside world and studied the pictures in [Ford's] illustrated magazines. He wanted to know about tractors and other agricultural machinery and about industrial processes in the West."
Commander-in-chief of the 1959 uprising Lhalu returned to Lhasa in July 1951. After Tibet was
annexed by the People's Republic of China, the Tibetan government was reorganised. He was dismissed from government service in May 1952 (on account of his maladministration of Kham during his tenure as Governor) but was allowed to retain his rank. In 1955, he headed a delegation to Beijing and met
Mao Zedong and
Zhou Enlai. In 1957, he was appointed "Governor of the grain supply". According to American journalist and Marxist writer
Anna Louise Strong, unlike some of the sincere signers of the 17-point agreement, Lhalu continued plotting for Tibet's secession from China. In 1959, he participated in the
Tibetan uprising, and would later describe himself as having been the commander-in-chief of the rebel forces. He was captured, subjected to
struggle sessions (known in Tibetan as
thamzing), and imprisoned in
Drapchi Prison. At a mass meeting of ten thousand people in Lhasa circa 1959, he was implicated in the murders of former Regent Reting and tulku Geda, both supposedly sympathetic to the Chinese. He narrowly escaped being beaten up thanks to the protection of PLA soldiers.
Anna Louise Strong's testimony In 1959, Anna Louise Strong was allowed to travel to Tibet to report on the political situation there. In a book published the following year,
When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet, she described a hearing on Lhalu's treatment of his local serfs organized by the Fourth Inhabitants' Committee of the Western District of Lhasa. Lhalu, then 43 years old, was to reply to the accusations levelled at him by former serfs and slaves from one of his 24 manorial estates: mistreatment, non respect of his peasants and servants' rights, imprisonment in the manor's jail. Lhalu is forced to admit that he had been "too harsh", had "a touchy temper", had "made mistakes" or "gone to excess". The accusation meeting ends with the burning of his titles of debts (All "feudal debts" had been outlawed by the resolution passed 17 July by the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region).
Political rehabilitation After he was set free on special amnesty in 1965, Lhalu took up farming. With Deng Xiaoping's return to office and the abandonment of the class-struggle line, he was given a job in 1977 and was eventually politically rehabilitated in 1983,
Political stances He has praised the Chinese government's policies in Tibet and has been strongly critical of the old Tibetan government and of the
Dalai Lama. He said in an interview, "I have become disappointed with the Dalai Lama," and "[h]e does not behave like a reincarnated living Buddha but is a stooge of the Westerners." Lhalu's recollections of his life appear in his book,
Recalling the Road I Took.
His children He has one daughter and five sons (three of which are reincarnated Lamas, so called "
Tulkus"). In 2003, his son
Gyai'ra Losang Dainzin (Jagra Lobsang Tenzin) became vice-chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region government. ==His published work==