India, Feb. 4 -- At 90, the Dalai Lama has won his first Grammy in the Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording category. The political and spiritual leader of the Tibetan community, spread across the globe, described the win as "a recognition of our shared universal responsibility". That said, the political overtones of the award, just as the Tibetan diaspora was voting to elect the Central Tibetan Administration, are hard to miss. Which is why Beijing criticised the award as "anti-China political manipulation". All acknowledge China's rise as a global military and economic power. The Dalai Lama speaks only of autonomy and agency for the Tibetan community within the People's Republic of China, not independence. Yet, Beijing is uncomfortable that the Dalai Lama continues to be a global icon - a revered representative figure who stands as the antithesis of China's unitarian and authoritarian worldview. The Dalai Lama exemplifies what the late American political scientist Joseph Nye described as soft power. Ironically, the seat of the Dalai Lama, when it held sway in Lhasa, was viewed as an exotic but despotic office that represented a decaying feudal order. Out of power and in exile in India, the current Dalai Lama reinvented it by practising a moral politics that turned Tibetan Buddhism into a diplomatic instrument. For sure, the western world's discomfort with Communism and its Chinese variant, and the pursuit of alternative lifestyles, helped the global appeal of the Dalai Lama. The Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, a bevy of celebrity disciples, films, lectures, and books reinforced the perception of him as a person of higher ideals and virtues. A chaotic world willed itself to listen to the smiling seer, who turned the love and attention lavished on him into political goodwill for his community. Tibet, thanks to the Dalai Lama, has survived as a nation without a State, a geography etched in memory rather than on the map. Is it then surprising that China is angry each time the world bows to the Dalai Lama?...