Quote:China's Tibet today, amid widespread modernization, is certainly no romantic Shangri La. What it is, is a gripping documentary of an Asian country's unrelenting effort to get up and be counted among the league of developed nations.

Readers of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn would recall how the eponymous protagonist militates against attempts to "civilize" him because he finds an inherent contradiction between the ways of the world and his existential freedom. That's a sentiment many a Tibetan nurtures in China today, as the Communist Party goes around painting a fresh new scenery of social and economic development across Tibet. Amid widespread modernization, China's Tibet is certainly no romantic Shangri La. Today, this region is a gripping documentary of an Asian country's unrelenting effort to get up and be counted among the league of developed nations. Having long paid attention to its more prosperous parts, China is now reaching out to its less developed regions that are peopled with minority communities like Muslims and Tibetans, aware that development cannot preclude one-eighth of the country's total land area.

Naturally, there are apprehensions that the beast of modernity will consume Tibet's tradition and culture. While not completely unfounded, these fears, however, are often amplified to paranoiac proportions. It is certainly strange to come across herders minding cattle on Honda motorbikes instead of horses, to visit "nomads" residing in pretty little villas equipped with water and electricity, or to chat up a nomad whose kids are in boarding school and who himself moves around the grasslands with a cellphone. But then, as a strong votary of development, one personally has no argument with fewer gypsy tents on the grasslands or more herders with mean machines as long as the locals are able to duly partake of the fruit of China's rapid infrastructure development and open market economy.

Courtesy the Chinese Information Office, one had the unique opportunity recently to sample this new Tibetan way of life, both within Tibet as also outside in certain small and remote counties of the Gannan Tibetan Prefecture in western China's Gansu province, a part of China that barely sees any foreigners come by. Gannan, one of 10 autonomous Tibetan prefectures in China, gave us a comprehensive introduction to quintessential Tibetan lifestyle outside Tibet, complete with heady qingke (barley beer) "gateway welcomes" at county outskirts. Along the way, we visited a 100 percent nomadic county called Maqu, watched a festive ritual at the ancient Labrang monastery in Xiahe county, enjoyed an evening of classical Tibetan dance, and feasted at a traditional Tibetan banquet in the capital Hezou.

Aware of the charge of disturbing and decimating Tibetan culture, our hosts went out of their way to project how Tibetan tradition and culture remain inviolate in China. We were told that in 1996 use of Tibetan language with clear guidelines and regulations was formalized for the prefecture. Officials also pointed to the existence of 121 Buddhist monasteries in Gannan as a measure of the state's religious tolerance.

In Lhasa, while local officials were predictably tight-lipped about Tibet's history of mass exodus led by the Dalai Lama back in 1959, they were extremely vocal about how Tibetan "culture" and "tradition" have been preserved in the many monasteries dotting the Tibetan plateau, in the colorful local streets selling Tibetan fare and food outlets that proudly beckon visitors to local Tibetan cuisine. As part of the state's commitment to protection of Tibetan culture, research on Tibetology has been stepped up. Tibetan opera, folklore and arts and crafts, are being widely showcased for travelers. The language too is being accorded its due through Tibetan newspapers, radio and television.

Politics, of course, finds no place in this development discourse. Asked whether history has been forgotten and if the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) regime is willing to welcome back Tibetan exiles from India, Mr Hao Peng, Deputy Chairman of TAR, minced no words: "Chinese people haven't forgotten that part of history (1959). We have a policy towards Tibetan compatriots overseas. As long as they hold a patriotic attitude towards their homeland, they are welcome back. Even those who've undermined national unity, if they vouch for patriotism are welcome back." And does that include the Dalai Lama? "He is a political exile engaged in separatist activity in the name of religion. His separatist activities have never ceased. He, therefore, lacks the basic foundation to come back," Mr Hao said, settling the matter once and for all.

Amid all this one simply could not ignore the rock-solid embrace of infrastructure on a region they say is one of China's least developed and poorest. The visit opened our eyes to a Tibet we in India know little of, a Tibet that goes beyond the stereotypes of lamas, monasteries, prayer wheels, yak butter tea and barley wine. Traveling over more than 1,400 km across Gansu was a splendid lesson on how a nation prioritizes infrastructure as the sole key to social and economic development. Slogans along the superbly built highways say, "If you want to be prosperous, first build roads." According governance, education and healthcare as much importance, the Government is now encouraging nomads to settle down in state-subsidized dwellings so that their children get access to a better lifestyle with greater exposure to the outside world through education, a facility they cannot avail in their nomadic existence.

And, as the engineering marvel, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, glides into the Lhasa railway station, traveling 30 hours up from Gansu's capital city Lanzhou, through the Gobi desert to the rooftop of the world, one is finally convinced of the extent of Tibet's integration with mainstream China's development.

This Tibet is a crucial part of China's new social and economic fabric, a plan the Chinese Government has undertaken in right earnest only in the last five years. Within this short span, Tibet has been linked by road, air, rail and telecommunication, affording it a hitherto unknown access to the outside world. From a single road between Potala Palace and Norbulingka in 1951, the total length of highways in Tibet, including rural roads, stretches up to 41,302 km linking Lhasa with Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang and Nepal. More than 600,000 vehicles today traverse the length and breadth of Tibet. The Qinghai-Tibet railway has opened up limitless possibilities for the tourism industry all along the majestic route. The once "forbidden zone of flight" over Tibet now has regular traffic between Lhasa and major metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai while Kathmandu provides Tibet with an international connection. With the remotest pastures and settlements linked through telecommunication, Tibet is completely wired today. And no view of the Tibetan grassland or the Gobi desert is complete without electricity poles in the frame - any nature photographer's bane - which actually signal how far and wide power has touched the Tibetan countryside.

Given this infrastructure, tourism is a natural sunshine sector here. Today, there are more than 200 travel companies operating out of Tibet and close to 200 hotels with over 7,500 rooms catering to international tourists. The tourism industry, directly and indirectly, employs around 75,000 Tibetans. Showcasing Tibetan culture is of vital necessity to this project because if local customs and flavors are lost, Tibet would no longer be attractive to those who long to visit the roof of the world to experience that very special Tibetan way of life. In another tourist-friendly move, aware of the restrictions that the special permit currently required to tour Tibet imposes on the average tourist, the Chinese Government is now considering doing away with the irritant altogether. All in all, China is getting more comfortable with outsiders visiting its weaker spots.

For local Tibetans, transportation and telecommunication have meant the opening of industries that now complement Tibet's traditional farming and animal husbandry sectors. With increasing modernization and integration of farming and herding, Tibetans are now being encouraged to produce more than their self-sufficiency limits in a way that they become totally self-reliant. Sketchy statistics suggest that over 1.33 million Tibetan farmers and herdsmen are involved in state-run forestry projects that have greatly enhanced their annual income.

Indeed, this Tibet is a far cry from the mythical Shangri La of James Hilton's Lost Horizon. Here Shangri La is only the name of an Ecological Tourism Zone that the government representatives of Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet together signed a declaration for in 2004 welcoming the world to a 21st century Shangri La.