Dear Guardian News & Media (GNM) Internal Ombudsman,
I write today to make a formal complaint about The Long Read article published by you yesterday:
As an inveterate reader of your publication, during the thirteen years of my residing at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and ever since, I am extremely surprised and dismayed that this article on the rise of Buddhist extremism is illustrated by a photograph of the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso in Tsuglakhang Temple of Dharamshala, the Dalai Lama’s own Temple complex.
I am filing this serious complaint under the ‘Accuracy’ area of GNM’s editorial code of practice, as it is my reasoned contention that the Dalai Lama’s image – as the most well-known Buddhist figure in the world today – is used purely to garner attention for the article and its author. This image and illustration has no bearing on the contents of the article and its use to gain the attention of readers / lure a readership is particularly objectionable as the Dalai Lama is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, as well as a global icon for compassion and peace.
Indeed, as I teach in my undergraduate course, ‘Great Powers and Non-Violence as Principle and Strategy’, the use of the Dalai Lama’s image to illustrate this article is especially curious, unethical and objectionable, as he has held his people to a principled non-violent stance in the face of all the genocidal violence they have faced and are facing since the 1950s at the hands of a Great Power, even proposing a Middle Way Approach that reflects such a lived worldview. Ironically, the author’s specious argument about the 13th Dalai Lama gathering a rag-tag army was actually to be able to defend their country against an invasion, in which they never succeeded and which younger generations of Tibetans blame precisely on the non-violent stance of their Buddhist religious rulers!
I have other comments on objectionable arguments, to do with the author’s specious use of the terribly tragic self-immolations of Tibetans in a way that suits her a priori thesis and argumentation about other geographies and countries, but I will limit my complaint here to the use of the Dalai Lama’s image in his Temple for no reason other than what I have suggested above, filed under the area of ‘Accuracy’.
I would request The Guardian to uphold the ethical standards it is known for, against all odds, and withdraw this image with immediate effect, as well as request the author to issue a public apology. This is a serious breach in the editorial publication standards for which your paper is globally renowned, as the last bastion of ethics upheld by the Fourth Estate.
Best wishes,
Professor Kaveri Gill
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Centre for Excellence in Himalayan Studies
Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR
2 Responses
“This article was amended on 4 December 2025 to remove an image for editorial reasons”.
In response to my complaint above, The Guardian has responded and taken down the image of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to illustrate this excerpt, from a book about Buddhist extremism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
Good of The Guardian and good reason why they remain my favourite broadsheet in the whole world!
Beside that, that Guardian article is very bias against Buddhism and wrote something wrongly about Buddhism too.