A Study of Occupational Structure and Livelihood among Tibetan People in-Exile in India

Tibetans in exile i.e Nepal, Bhutan, India and other parts of the world are those, who along with the Dalai Lama, escaped their own native place after Chinese aggression or occupation of Tibet in the year of 1959. Therefore, they have been forced to move in Exile and with the time span, the people of Tibet community have been settled in 41 Tibetan settlements located in different parts of India like Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal etc. But as far as Nepal and Bhutan is concerned, 17 Tibetans settlements are located in Nepal and 7 in Bhutan, where Tibetan refugees have been resided (survey report of 2019). Whereas Dharamshala is the capital city of Tibetan Govt. in exile and also considered as the largest settlement of North India in Himachal Pradesh having the 8,517 population number comprising 4,424 male and 4,093 female(2019). But as per the survey report of 2019, the present population of Tibetans outside Tibet is 145100, out of which one lakh estimated population of Tibetans residing in India. Apart from India near about 16,000 in Nepal, 1800 in Bhutan and 25,000 Budhist population living in other parts of the world.

Tibetans in exile i.e Nepal, Bhutan, India and other parts of the world are those, who along with the Dalai Lama, escaped their own native place after Chinese aggression or occupation of Tibet in the year of 1959. Therefore, they have been forced to move in Exile and with the time span, the people of Tibet community have been settled in 41 Tibetan settlements located in different parts of India like Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal etc. But as far as Nepal and Bhutan is concerned, 17 Tibetans settlements are located in Nepal and 7 in Bhutan, where Tibetan refugees have been resided (survey report of 2019). Whereas Dharamshala is the capital city of Tibetan Govt. in exile and also considered as the largest settlement of North India in Himachal Pradesh having the 8,517 population number comprising 4,424 male and 4,093 female(2019). But as per the survey report of 2019, the present population of Tibetans outside Tibet is 145100, out of which one lakh estimated population of Tibetans residing in India. Apart from India near about 16,000 in Nepal, 1800 in Bhutan and 25,000 Budhist population living in other parts of the world.

INTRODUCTION
An occupation signifies the actual work that a person is doing. In order to study and analyse the existing occupational structure in the Tibetan community, in which all the workers have been classified according to their economic activity or the involvement of time duration in a particular occupation or profession. On the basis of time involvement workers are classified into three main categories namely marginal, main and non-workers. Marginal workers those who have worked any time at all in the year preceding the enumeration but have not worked for the major part of the year (less than 183 days). The main workers, on the other hand are those who worked in some economic activity over a period of six months (183 days) or more in both the agricultural seasons. A person is categorized as non-worker, when he/she has not participated in any economically productive activity at any time during the reference period. Further, those who worked, were divided into two groups of main workers, and marginal workers. The working force is computed as percentage of workers to total population, which can further be defined as sex specific work force e.g. male working force and female working force. The size of the working force depends upon a variety of demographic social and economic factors. Drawing an inference from the TDS'09, the occupational structure was categorized as workers and non-workers categorized by the Tibetan exiled government officials.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND SOURCE OF DATA
This paper is purely based on the secondary data. The statistical tools like bar graph, comparative bar graph, pie charts and trends are used to measure or show the occupational changes in the Tibetans in exile. The research paper is almost prepared in the basis of secondary data of 2009 but due to some administrative decision of the CTA Tibetan Govt in Exile. The some data of 2019 is not being shared yet for research purpose.

Workforce participation and livelihood source
Before getting into the details of the status of the workforce, it is important to define what work is? as per TDs 09, participation in any economically productive activity is considered as work. Hence, as it is general practise elsewhere, household chores for one's own household is not considered a work. However, if the same domestic activity is performed for another household (for instance as a house maid or as a nanny) in consideration of wages in cash or kind, it is then considered a work. Generally speaking, the population aged 15-64 years is considered as the workforce population as they are most likely to be engaged in economically gainful activities.

Source: Tibetan Demographic Survey, 2009
Economic activity of the workforce The Table 2 shows what kind of economically productive activities, the main and marginal workers engaged in during the reference period. Household schedule of TDS`09 includes the following categories services staff; NGO staff; household industry owners and worker; health service staff; and others. In case of an individual, who is engaged in more than one activity, the activity, which is more important financially, is to be reported by the individual as the economic activity.

I) Cultivators
: TDS'09, defines cultivator as someone, who is engaged as an employer or single worker or as a family worker in the cultivation of land, however, the land need not be owned by the person or the family. As per the TDS' 09, there are 2,673 cultivators amounting to (8.1 present) of the working  (Table-2). Proportionally speaking there are more females engaged as cultivators (10.3%) then males (6.4%) (see Table 3 & 4).

II) Sweaters sellers:
Tibetans are also engaged in the selling of hosiery and garments during winter season of the year in various towns and cities of India. A typical sweater-selling season begins in September and runs through the end of January. Table-2 reveals that near about 15 percent of the total working population engaged in sweater-selling activity in a given year with a higher participation rate among the females (17.4% as compared to 12.1 for males) Table  3 & 4. Even in terms of numbers, there are more females engaged as sweater seller than males.

IV) CTA/Allied services:
This category includes all the civil servants of central Tibetan Administration (C.T.A) at the main station and its allied/affiliated offices include the settlement offices etc. CTA and its allied/affiliated offices have been the most significant employers of Tibetan working population. A total of 3,173 dividends are working in CTA and its allied offices are mounting to almost 10% of the entire working population (see Table-2). There are more males as compared to females working in the C.T.A a and its allied offices as shown in table 2 proportionally speaking the female participation rate in this work category is near about 6% whereas among the male working populations it is more than 12% (Table 3&4).  Vol. 1, No. 8, 2022: 1663-1672 1667 V) NGO services: There are number of non-governmental organisation (NGOs) employing many Tibetans in various settlement location. A close to (3%) of the total working Tibetan population is working in NGOs in various capacities. The participation rate of males is higher in this work category 3% when compared with that of the females 2.2% (Table 3&4).

VI). Household industry:
As per TDS'09 a household industry must fulfil the four criteria i) run by the head of the household and by members of the household ii) located within the premises of the settlements or within the premises of the residential houses iii) majority of the workers must consist of the household members and iv) should not be the run on the scale of registered factory. The detail of the household industry and finding all show that rest around 4% of the total working population are engaged in the household industry work (Table-2). Proportionally speaking there are more females participating in this work category (4.3%) as compared to only 3.6% among the male working population (see Table 3&4). VII). Health services: As the name suggests, this category of work includes; doctors, nurses and health workers. There are 1,680 people engaged in this work category amounting to more than 5% of the entire working population. Nursing is one of the most popular job among the Tibetan women and as such there are  (Table 3 & 4) and also in terms of proportion to the working population 6.4% for females as against 4% for male working population.

VIII). Others:
This set of workers includes all those who are not covered under the aforementioned category for workers for instance traders or merchants, professionals, shop and restaurants owners and workers, travel agents etc. not included in the household industry category. Almost 35% of the entire working population belongs to this set of category of workers with around 38% participation rate among males and 31% among the female working population ( Table 3&4).

Categories of non-workers
Five categories of non-workers identify in TDS 09 include (i) students (ii) household workers (iii) dependent's (iv) pensioners and (v) others. As much as 15% of the total non workers have either not reported what they are doing at the time of TDS'09 or the information provided is not clear. Further information provided by around 1% of the total non working population has been misreported of the total non working population almost half of them are students (49.7%) followed by dependents (12 .8%) and household workers (12.7%). Fig. 2 shows the male females distribution of the status of the non-working population. Table 5 shows the distribution of categories of non-workers among the Tibetan population

Class category of workers
Following four categories of workers have been identified; (i). Employer (ii). Employee (iii). Single worker and (iv) family worker. An employer is defined as someone who employs other workers for the proper functioning of the establishment. An employee on the other hand is "a person who has been employed by someone for wages in cash or kind (Instruction manual). Single worker is defined as "a person working by himself/herself. And finally family workers include those persons who work for family run business without receiving wages in cash or kind".

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
In this paper, the demographic attributes like population distribution and their work force composition of Tibetan community in exile like India, Nepal and Bhutan have been shown through simple statistical techniques like bar graph, pie chart and statistical tables etc. The findings of the study show that 62 Tibetan settlements of different categories are located in exile. The finding of the research shows much of the earlier resettlement programs which are built primarily on agricultural activities, have now seen a major shift towards more diversified tertiary sector. As per the TDS' 2009 the Tibetan work force population is over 75000 strong, which constitutes around 69% of the total population residing in South Asian countries.
This constitutes 27540 as main workers (36 percent) and 5525 as marginal workers (ie those who did not work for at least 183 days in the preceding 12 months to the survey) (7.36 percent). There are as many as 36755 non workers which make up 34% of the total population out of which 15.5% are unemployed in exile. In comparison to 1998 status, the workforce participation after a decade has improved remarkably by 52.2% in both main and marginal workers categories. Though the workforce participation rates are satisfactory as compared to the nation with similar situations, but further analysis reveals that a large part of manpower either remains idlel or do not engage in meaningful livelihood activities. They make up as high as 35% of the total work force.
This invariably poses serious social, economic and political challenges to the Tibetan community in exile. In comparison to TDS' 1998 there is a significant occupational shift of those main workers in primary agricultural activities to move diversified tertiary sector. In 1998 there were 22.5% of main workers in farming and cultivation activities whereas by 2009 only 8.1% of them have retained farming as their primary activity changes in occupational structure is closely related to generational changes with the passage of time. The mindset, literacy level, the know-how and the external exposure of present generation is different from the previous generation. Between the two surveys, a significant number of wide spread civil society movements have been recorded which resulted in the growth of NGO's in unprecedented fashion. During the period more numbers of educated person have joined these societies and so called NGO's than the CTA and its affiliated organisations. A study growth is also recorded in household industries informal business (mainly sweater business and teaching professions). There are number of non-governmental organization NGO's employing many Tibetans in various settlement locations. A very near to 3% of the total working Tibetan population is working in NGO's in various capacities. The participation rate of males is higher in this work category (3%) when compared with that of the females (2.2%).