The Dalai Lama is the head of Tibetan Buddhism, because Tibet is (was) a theocracy, much like the Pope is the head of the Papal State and the Catholic Church. (Though this is not an exact parallel due to to the distributed nature of the Tibetan Schools)<p>And, if you read the article, you would see that one of the major points is that the Dalai Lama has dissolved that connection (head of religion - head of state) only relatively recently.<p>Calling Tibet a &#x27;tribe&#x27; is also a little bit strange, and smacks of the way Chinese propaganda reduces the legitimacy of Tibet&#x27;s claim to nationhood (and even legitimate personhood), despite Tibet&#x27;s governmental and territorial sovereignty from at least 1200 AD onward. Your claim that the &quot;[Dalai Lama] is succeeding...at conflating religion and politics&quot; is the direct Communist Party line, even though that is being directly contradicted by the source article.<p>My personal reading of the article is that the Dalai Lama gave up on statehood in the 80s, and is primarily focused on preserving Tibetan culture, despite the persistent claim that he is a &quot;wolf in sheep&#x27;s clothing&quot;, and that &quot;every word he speaks is a lie&quot;.