This article examines why India must openly endorse the Dalai Lama’s succession wishes, linking national interest, Himalayan identity, and religious freedom. Ahead of his 90th birthday on 6 July, the still-youthful Fourteenth Dalai Lama put to rest (some of) the speculation about the future of his office after him. The Tibetan Buddhist leader, revered as an emanation of Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, confirmed that “the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue” after him. The statement, dated 21 May 2025, was released on 2 July at the start of the Fifteenth Tibetan Religious Conference in Dharamsala. There have been, in recent times, some doubts about the continuity of fthe institution. Since the 1960s, the Dalai Lama (b. 1935) had himself,