India Program Recap from Professor Douglas Colbert

I arrived in Dharamsala two days ahead of the students. My 15-year old daughter, Abi, and I had left Shimla where we had been holding our law classes for two weeks in our charming Oberoi hotel. Abi had a return flight home that night from Delhi. We traveled by car right after my morning class ended and eight hours later, we had arrived. Abi had become another of the faculty kids who loved her three weeks in India. She attended class every day, liked learning about international human rights, loved the many India desserts, enjoyed the long walks and jogs in the woods, discovered the beauty of India fashion, and fit in beautifully with the law students. I definitely found myself missing her as soon as she disappeared in the airport.

The next day, I flew to Dharamsala along with my colleague, Paul Kibel, who teaches International Environmental Law. I had been warned years ago during my first trip here not to fly to Dharamsala, but the Kingfisher flight was excellent and I highly recommend it. I have always found Dharamsala the highlight of Touro's India program and this year was no exception. From the moment Paul and I arrived, I felt the huge difference of being here. For me, the Tibetan struggle for self-determination and freedom provides an excellent opportunity for teaching and learning. I invited two Tibetan political prisoners to class and the Convention Against Torture took on added meaning. We viewed a documentary about the 2008 Uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule and the Political Convenant and issue of freedom rights became more clear to students and faculty. I have enjoyed this group of law students tremendously.

They are a great group of people to spend time with and have shown time and again that they are a mature, responsible, fun and interesting group. Of the 23 law students, we have 4 law students from Calcutta's law school and 19 from U.S. law schools. I sense that most of the students find Dharamsala to be a very special place, too. Not that they did not enjoy Shimla, which is a beautiful hill station town in the lower Himalayas. It is an easy transition for students to spend time in Shimla first after arriving, and I took advantage of our India hosts to invite an NGO to discuss India's pressing human rights issues and to witness human rights issues in the places we visited. Yet while I praise Shimla's beauty and thank our wonderful friends in Shimla, I find the Dharamsala experience incredibly interesting and thought provoking. Here we see two conflicting cultures: the Tibetans and monks who are searching for a way to return to their country and to hold onto their culture and religion live on one side of town; on the other are the Westerners who seek to find escape from the material and maddening world we live. I find myself fascinated with interviewing young Israeli soldiers who have just completed their three-year tour and who want to find ways to regain their bearings again after a war experience in which they retell many human rights situations.

This week in Dharamsala, we had the great fortune of gaining a personal meeting with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

After our meeting, we attended the Dalai Lama's outside teaching where more than 10,000 attended. Though I found the commentary and translation difficult to follow for the first hour, I soon began to rely on my neighbors who had studied Buddhism for years to make more sense of the scripture. By the second day, I heard the Dalai Lama send a message that certainly rings true for myself and my U.S. friends and colleagues: he encouraged us to use our intelligence and knowledge to help people and all sentient beings, to rid ourselves of the feelings of negativity that interfere with this purpose and path of life, and to see our inter-dependence with others to overcome our self-centered orientation. I began thinking about the legal profession and how it would transform itself to an organization that served all people's legal needs, that is those who cannot afford private counsel. I began imagining the different public view of lawyers if we re-dedicated ourselves to fulfilling the lawyer's pro bono ethical duty. What a difference that would make in the lives of ordinary people's access to justice.

I found the highlight of this year's learning experience was meeting Tibet's new Prime Minister, Lobsang Sangay. I remember reading the announcement in the New York Times, maybe a month before we left for India. I immediately contacted the director of this year's Touro Law program, Professor Marjorie Silver and suggested we invite him to class. Marjorie contacted our India colleague, Trisha Sharma,
who had the fortune of meeting the Prime Minister at an India function. I had already reached out to Lobsang through email and persuaded my Baltimore colleague to interview him on a public radio program. By the time we arrived in Dharamsala, we had exchanged several messages and Trisha had arranged for the Prime Minister to speak to our group, who were joined by another interesting group of people from India and other countries who were studying Buddhism.

The Tibetan people have chosen well. Prime Minster Sangay, who spent the past 16 years earning different degrees at Harvard Law School presents the ideal image of a people's leader who combines knowledge, intelligence, wit, charm, humor, passion and commitment to meet the huge challenge Tibetans face today. He was impressive in so many ways for engaging his audience while giving a history lesson of his country, by accepting questions from everyone who raised their hand, by giving attention to every person who spoke, by integrating many questions into one comprehensive and informative response, and by joking about the serious matter of what lies ahead for the Tibetan people. Indeed, at one point, the Prime Minister told of his time in Boston only to face the unfriendly comment from someone with a Yankees baseball cap, "Are you a Red Sox fan?" Defending his cherished Red Sox, the Prime Minister began by expressing some negativity toward the Yankees as any baseball fan might, then turned to me (he had asked that I moderate the discussion): "Doug, that was not very Buddhist like, was it?" "No,, I answered gently, "His Holiness would want you to show more generosity of spirit," Sangay then praised the Yankees for their many baseball skills, while adding that the Red Sox also possessed great skills. He used the metaphor of the underdog Red Sox winning a World Series a few years ago for the first time in nearly 100 years with the uphill climb of Gandhi defeating the British against overwhelming odds, and Mandela defeating South African apartheid and escaping from Robbins Island. "We Tibetans have only a tiny chance, too, but what if we were able to succeed. Think of the difference it would make for World Peace." Showing his humility at all times, the Prime Minster explained that he accepted this difficult position of succeeding the Dalai Lama as Prime Minister because "It's my Karma. We all have a job to do. I will do the best I can. I promise I will show no lack of perseverance or will."

I think all of us who were present left feeling certain that Tibetans have chosen a wise and confident leader, someone who will enormous appeal to the Tibetan people, and who will succeed famously before English-speaking audiences.

Professor Douglas Colbert

The Dali Lama

Here is a photo from the India summer program, with His Holiness the Dali Lama, and standing next to him is Professor Marjorie Silver, Director of the India Program for summer 2011. He found a few minutes in his very busy schedule to meet with just the Touro Law contingent and to greet and bless them!! An exciting moment for these young law students.

Meeting with the Karmapa Lama in India

An image of the students who attended the public meeting with the Karmapa Lama in India.

Images from Israel

Here's a pic of the group hearing from some soldiers. These young ladies are with the educational arm of the military. They answer questions about who's buried there and as much details that they provide about the individual soldier. The stories bring tears to your eyes.

Here is everyone having some Halavah.

Rugalach Treats From Our Director!

Croatia: An Excursion to the Kornati Islands

Pictured here are Ian Clark, Blinera Osmani, Prof. Jack Graves, the Tour Guide for the Kornati Excursion and Linda Kalayjian on the boat to the Kornati Archipelago/Islands. The program took a day-long boat trip to the Kornati archipelago, a group of about 130 islands and reefs off the Dalmatian coast, just across from Zadar where the Croatia program has been located from July 17 through August 6. The Kornati islands have no permanent inhabitants, as there is no spring water. Rainwater is collected, and the islands are home to vineyards, olive groves, and grazing sheep. The Adriatic Sea around the islands has a large variety of marine life.

Professor Deborah Post - Farewell Dinner

We have come to the end of our time in China for the summer 2010 abroad program. Here are some photos from our final farewell dinner:

By Professor Deborah Post, Touro Law Summer Abroad Program in China 2010

Professor Marianne Artusio - May 28-30

On the road again! We were up early, bleary-eyed again to board the bus and find our way back to Delhi. The morning was beautiful, warm and clear, but not many of us saw the dawn sky because as soon as most of us hit the bus seat, we were fast asleep again. The countryside had the same drowsy, Indian timeless aura, with animal huts plastered with drying dung patties and water buffalo wallowing in the streams. Here’s a picture of some of them.


We arrived back at our hotel and met the rest of our group, so now there were 26 of us ready to visit Parliament. We were told to bring nothing but our passports and that security would be tight. Well, we were frisked and went through a metal detector, but no one checked our passports, so maybe Parliament knows and trusts Touro by now or security isn't as tight as advertised. The Parliament is a huge, round building (sort of shaped like a drum or a big doughnut) with a large garden in the center "hole". It was built by the British in the early 20th century and has a ponderous feel. After the bombings in Parliament a number of years ago, public visits to Parliament were curtailed, so our invitation to tour the building and meet with officials has always been a special privilege. We were ushered into a large conference room where every seat had a microphone, and we introduced ourselves to a room full of Parliamentary officials. They treated us like we were visiting dignitaries, patiently answered our questions, explained how the Parliament works and then hosted a lovely reception, with Indian delicacies, tiny delicate sandwiches and an elaborate cake. Why we deserve such gracious treatment I don’t know, but Indian hospitality is practically limitless and it was on display. So the world’s largest democracy pampered our small, not-very-important group. The Parliament chambers were huge, dignified and very old - the patina of time and weighty decisions hung about every room. The only modernity that we could see was the electronic voting system. We tried an experimental vote, but most of us had some difficulty mastering the sequence of button clicks to register our vote, so we flopped, sorry to say and the government of India did not get to learn how we voted on the important question of whether we were enjoying our trip to India. Most moving of all was the Joint chamber where both houses of Parliament meet together. It was in this chamber at midnight on August 15, 1947 that Indian independence was declared in a famous and magnificent speech by Nehru. To be in the same spot where Indian independence began and the fulfillment of Gandhi’s campaigns of non-violent protest was realized - well, it was intensely stirring.

The next morning, again, we rose with the dawn and boarded our bus. The trip to Shimla was long, uneventful and blessedly shorter than we anticipated. We drove through the agricultural fields of Harayana, past fields of all sorts of crops and huge chicken barns. Strange, for a mostly vegetarian country, this part of India produces huge numbers of chickens. Finally we got to the hills and then our journey began its winding, switchback, bumpy, jolting progress up into the Himalayan foothills. Arriving at Shimla at night is magical - the lights of the city glow in a rainbow of colors and spill down the hillside, like a cascade of gems. You just catch your breath when Shimla first comes into view. The air is cooler here, the pines are tall and straight and the mountain views stunning. So, a bit bedraggled we were met at our hotel by warm and friendly faces and a large buffet that was waiting for us. Again, the hotel entrance was fronted by a magnometer, spoiling the hotel’s traditional entry. We are so well treated by our hotel staff here in Shimla- it feels like visiting an over-indulgent friend.

Sunday was a day to rest, unpack, explore the city and prepare for classes. So explore we did and most came back with armloads of great bargains. It was the beginning of serious, heavy-duty shopping that never seems to end in Shimla. Our opening reception featured a talk by the Director General of Police for the state of Himachal Pradesh (a good person to know). What a resume! Trisha started to read it and then gave up - it was too long. He had degrees in German, business, physics, yoga and others that I can’t remember. We peppered him with questions, especially our students from India, who pressed him on many points, especially police corruption and disregard of rules, so it was a good discussion.

All of Shimla seems spruced up for our visit. The Gaity Theater has been restored and is now presenting performances and entertainment. It was a theater for musicals and other performances during the British Raj when the British decamped to Shimla to escapee the heat of the plains. But it had crumbled from neglect in recent decades and has been in some state of restoration for the last few years. Now it is glowing. There musts have been a big sale on lavender paint, because it seems that half of Shimla is newly painted with it. The police barracks is a lovely shade of pale lavender, with a bright green roof, and many homes sport this lively shade as well. The YMCA has been painted a bright, clear red, so the building on the hillside can be spotted from miles away. Houses are pale apricot, with electric pink trim or deep blue with traditional red roofs - this has become a very colorful place.

By Professor Marianne Artusio, Touro Law Summer Abroad Program in India 2010