MCLEOD GANGE, INDIA – American feminists have long held beauty contests in contempt, criticizing them for promoting an unrealistic and ultimately disempowering standard of beauty impossible for the majority of women to achieve. While there may well be truth in that assertion, the five contestants in this year’s Miss Tibet beauty pageant see their competition a little differently.They see it as an important step toward personal and political autonomy.

Pretty 20-year-old Metok Lhanze was the only Tibetan native to compete in this year’s contest — and the only one to serve time in jail. Having fled to India in 1999 after struggling through high-altitude mountain passes, she snuck back to her homeland in 2002 in order to be with her dying father. Unfortunately, her father was dead by the time she arrived back home — and her time in India made the Chinese government occupying Tibet suspicious, earning her a month in jail.

Back in India, she vowed, “If I win the pageant, I want to raise my voice about the Tibetan freedom movement.”

Lhanze is not the only contestant who chose to speak out about the need for freedom during the event, which included a Saturday swimwear segment, as well as dance and public speaking competitions. “I believe in a destiny,” one beauty proclaimed before hundreds of excited audience members. “I believe one day Tibet will be free!”

Those hundreds rose to more than 2,000 by Sunday and included children, parents, monks, and American-influenced teens eager to catch sight of the girls, who pushed social boundaries by wearing evening gowns in addition to more modest Tibetan garments, while participating in a question-and-answer period. According to the press, audience response when the women stumbled physically or verbally was not always kind.

Photographer Lobsang Wangyal finances the entire event, designed to provide the world with one more view into the lives of the political refugees who have fled Tibet since its failed 1951 bid for independence from China. Since then, the international powerhouse has tightly controlled Tibetan freedoms, beating and imprisoning those who have agitated against its authority. More than 100,000 Tibetans now live in India.

In addition to the title and about $2,200 in prize money, the winner of the Miss Tibet contest can move on to international pageants, although previous year’s contestants have found themselves further embroiled in controversy, including last year, when the Chinese Embassy demanded that she either wear a sash reading “Miss Tibet-China” or not compete at all. She chose not to compete. The Miss Tourism World competition was the venue for the same fight with the same result.

This year’s winner was Tsering Chungtk of New Delhi, who accepted the tiara, title, and check saying “I have a huge responsibility for my people. I would like to make my country proud of me.”
And Tibet’s spiritual leader and native of Dharamsala, India? What does he have to say about such a frivolity? According to a reporter who spoke with him recently, the Dali Lama laughed and smiled, asking “Why not?” and saying “I think there should be a Mr. Tibet.”