The meeting was called by Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who has recently admitted that his efforts to secure greater autonomy for the region through negotiation with the Chinese government have failed.

He has urged the November 17-22 forum to consider every aspect of current policy regarding China -- an invitation likely to encourage those Tibetans who favour pushing for full independence.

The meeting will hear "the real opinions and views of the Tibetan people through free and frank discussions," the Dalai Lama said as delegates arrived in Dharamashala, the north Indian town where the government-in-exile is based.

The Nobel peace laureate has spent the last two decades of his exile campaigning for "meaningful autonomy" for his homeland, which he fled in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Many in the exiled community feel that his stance, and its de facto recognition of Chinese sovereignty, should be replaced by a more aggressive pro-independence position.

The Dalai Lama has increasingly voiced his own frustrations with the situation, and has said that he has now given up trying to win concessions from Beijing.

Speaking earlier this month, he said he accepted that his "middle path" approach, which called for autonomy rather than independence, had failed.

There was now "no other alternative than to ask people" about how to proceed, he told an audience in Japan.

The meeting that starts on Monday has no policy-making power -- any recommendations would require the approval of the exiled Tibetan parliament -- but it comes as the Tibetan movement is being forced to confront its future.

Among its concerns is the health of the 73-year-old Dalai Lama, who had to cancel trips abroad after being hospitalised in August and undergoing gallstone surgery last month.

He has since returned to his gruelling schedule, and still commands huge respect from Tibetans and supporters around the world, but he now describes himself as semi-retired.

The speaker of the Tibetan parliament in exile, T.T. Karma Chophel, said the Dalai Lama's age was one key reason for the policy review.

"His Holiness is getting older, and we do not deny that this has brought an urgency to the situation," Chophel told AFP.

"His talks with China have come to a dead end, and restlessness is growing among the young."

The meeting, which will involve hundreds of participants debating in small groups, is also likely to focus on conditions in Tibet.

In March, protests against Chinese rule in the capital, Lhasa, erupted into violence which spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations.

Tibet's government-in-exile said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in the subsequent Chinese crackdown.

The unrest was cited by some Tibetans as further evidence that the Dalai Lama's quest for autonomy had proved ineffective.

"It is time for parliament to shift its policies," said Dhondup Dorjee, vice president of the influential Tibetan Youth Congress, which favours a demand for independence.

But any such policy change would threaten to fragment the Tibetan movement and cost it much of its international support.

A Chinese government spokesman dismissed the Dharamshala talks, saying that "their separatist attempts will get nowhere."

The Dalai Lama will not attend the meeting in an attempt to ensure that its decisions are independent of his own views, offficials say.

The prime minister-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, who will be present, said the push for independence would be "very much open to discussion."

"We will be playing the role of listener," he said.

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