In the 1950s, Thích Quảng Độ travelled to India, Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia to further his Buddhist training and serve as an academic at various universities,[3] spending seven years abroad before returning to Saigon in South Vietnam to teach Buddhism.[7] He was a professor at the Van Hanh Buddhist University and Saigon University among other institutions in the 1960s and 1970s.[3] He translated various Buddhist texts into Vietnamese and wrote Buddhist textbooks,[4] notably a two-volume Buddhist dictionary between Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese, and oversaw a nine-volume Vietnamese language Buddhist encyclopedia.[8]
Political opposition
While a member of the leadership of the UBCV, Thích Quảng Độ became an activist, fighting against the anti-Buddhist policies of the Catholic President of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm. After a military raid of Buddhist monasteries in Hue and Saigon, Thích Quảng Độ was arrested on 20 August 1963. He and thousands of other Buddhists endured torture and persecution while imprisoned by the Diem government. He was released after Diem regime was toppled in military coup in November 1963. As a result of imprisonment, Thích Quảng Độ struggled with tuberculosis before having a lung operation in Japan in 1966.[3]
In 1965, Thích Quảng Độ was appointed as the Secretary-General of the Viện Hóa Đạo (Institute for the Dissemination of Dharma) of the UBCV.[4]
In 1975 Vietnam was under communist control, and the UBCV was once again unwelcome in Vietnam. As a result, the UBCV facilities were seized, and documents burned. Thích Quảng Độ was active in protesting the government's actions, and after attempting to gather Buddhists from other regions in non-violent opposition, he was arrested on charges of 'anti-revolutionary activities' and 'undermining national solidarity'.[3] He spent 20 months at the Phan Dang Luu Prison in solitary confinement in a cell approximately 2m2 in size with a hand-sized window,[9] before he was tried and released in December 1978. Later that year he was nominated by Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.[10][7]
In 1982 the Vietnamese Government created a Buddhist alternative, called the Vietnam Buddhist Church, which was state sponsored and controlled by the Vietnam Fatherland Front. Because of Quảng Độ's opposition to the new church, he was again jailed.[3] At one meeting of the Viện Hóa Đạo, he stated to the attendees that 'If you want to pursue glory, then go ahead, but this boat, regardless of whether it is disintegrating, broken or unsteady, let us look after it'.[5] He rejected an approach from the Minister of Public Security Mai Chí Thọ to take up a leadership role in the government-backed Buddhist organisation.[3] Quảng Độ would spend the next 10 years in exile in the village of Vu Doai[10] in Thai Binh Province.[7] His 84-year-old mother was expelled with him, who died in 1985 due to inadequate medical care and malnutrition.[3] In 1992, he returned to the Thanh Minh Pagoda in Saigon.[7]
Yet again in 1995, while attempting to send a fax to overseas Buddhists to expose government abuse by obstructing flood relief efforts,[9] he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison and a further five years of probation on the grounds of 'undermining the policy of unity and exploiting the rights of freedom to impede the interests of the state'.[4] This led to condemnation by the likes of Nobel laureates the 14th Dalai Lama, José Ramos-Horta, Mairead Maguire and Francois Jacob, and the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.[3] He was released in September 1998 in response to international pressure on the communist government, and returned to Thanh Minh Monastery.[4] In October 2000, he led a delegation of monks to provide relief in An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta but they were detained by police, before being forced to return to Saigon after being accused of threatening national security.[7][3]
Thích Quảng Độ became the President of the UBCV's Institute for the Dissemination of the Dharma in 1999, meaning that he was the second-ranking UBCV dignitary after patriarch Thich Huyen Quang.[10]
In February 2001, just before the 9th Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Thích Quảng Độ started a pro-democracy campaign as part of an eight-point program, including free elections as part of a multi-party democracy, trade union membership and 'the abolition of all degrading forms of imported culture and ideologies that pervert Vietnamese spiritual and moral values'.[7] The communist government responded by detaining him, before releasing him in June 2003.[7] In February, he published an open letter advocating multi-party democracy and civil rights.[11] He further stated that they were “more important than economic development” and without them “we cannot make any progress in the real sense.”[9] In a 2003 interview, he stated "People are very afraid of the government ... Only I dare to say what I want to say. That is why they are afraid of me".[9] However, he was again detained in October 2003 after an unauthorised UBCV meeting.[11] He was officially released in 2005, but a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reported that he was still effectively under detention.[9]
In 2008, as one of his last wishes, Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang named Thích Quảng Độ as the new patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, a position he would occupy until his death.[4] Upon succeeding Thich Huyen Quang, Thích Quảng Độ stated that 'The best way to honour our late Patriarch is by putting his words into practice in our daily lives. The Supreme Bicameral Council pledges to do its utmost to re-establish the legal status of the UBCV and maintain its historic tradition of independence'.[3]
After 20 years at Thanh Minh, where he remained under continuous surveillance,[9] he returned north to Thai Binh, before returning to Saigon to stay at Tu Hieu Temple in November 2018.[4][5] Saigon authorities continued to send police to the temple to harass Thích Quảng Độ and abbot Thích Nguyên Lý about the residency status of the former,[5] and tried to restrict access by his disciples.[9]