1. When did the people of Nepalese origin come to Bhutan?
The two sides tell quite different stories. Nepalese are all out to rewrite the history of Bhutan to show that their ancestors settled in Bhutan much earlier than they actually did. But historical facts, recorded much earlier than the current regime in Bhutan came into being, do not lie.
According to the paper “Bhutan: A kingdom besieged”, “The first sightings of Nepalese in the southern foothills are reported by Charles Bell in 1904 followed closely by John Claude White in 1905. All Bhutanese records confirm that no Nepalese settled in any part of Bhutan until then.
…The claim that the Nepalese had a role in safeguarding the sovereignty of the country, is clearly baseless since they did not enter southern Bhutan or any part of the duars area of West Bengal or Assam until long after the Sinchula Treaty with the British was signed. This is corroborated by Eden's report which states that his Nepalese porters, "were unwilling to enter Bhutan, the inhabitants of which were not looked upon with favour ... there the coolies left in considerable numbers being afraid to cross the frontier" (Teesta Bridge). Arthur Foning, a Kalimpong Lepcha, writes that this bore testimony to how effectively the Bhutanese territorial interests were guarded.”
However, most of the Nepalese came much later after the first five year plan of Bhutan was initiated in 1961. “Once the 5-year development programmes began to yield results, government effort to control immigration was thwarted by the earlier settlers who colluded with their ethnic kith and kin to prevent detection, falsify records and facilitate infiltration. Free education, free health services, employment opportunities, highly subsidized agriculture inputs, generous rural credit schemes, the security of a politically stable country were the main inducements that led to the influx of Nepalese immigrants in the 1960's and 1970's. In addition to the new arrivals, those who had come in legally as labourers for the many development schemes also began to infiltrate into the villages.”
2. Is Bhutan really a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country as the Nepalese claim?
Nepal Govt. and Bhutanese refugees assert that Bhutan is a “multi-cultural and multi-ethnic” country. And they try to play the old colonists’ trick of “divide-and-rule” by trying to play Sharchops against the Ngalungs.
But so far it has failed. Why?
Because Bhutan really isn’t multicultural or multi-ethnic per se, though we do have different linguistic groups. Bhutanese people in different regions speak different languages (or sometimes closely related dialects), but they look physically quite the same, and their beliefs, customs, festivals, and religious faiths are almost same and uniform throughout. So, excluding the Nepalese, Bhutanese form a cohesive homogenous society.
Now, since we have Lhotshampas who are genuine Bhutanese, Bhutan may be said to be bi-cultural or bi-ethnic country, but not really multi-cultural or multi-ethnic as the Nepali Govt. and the Bhutanese refugees like to believe.
The following is an official statement found on the website of the Foreign Ministry of Nepal:
“Bhutan is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country. Sarchops, Ngalumgs and Lhostsampas are the three main ethnic groups. Bhutan has a significant number of people of Nepalese origin, particularly in the southern part of the country. The Nepalese of southern Bhutan are called Lhotshampas.”
Yet, we are not against multiculturalism per se. What we are against is how it is interpreted as Ruth Lea, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in the UK says:
“ There are two ways in which people interpret multiculturalism.
The first one is the more common way and that is every culture has the right to exist and there is no over-arching thread that holds them together.
That is the multiculturalism we think is so destructive because there's no thread to hold society together. It is that multiculturalism that Trevor Phillips has condemned and, of course, we are totally supportive.
There is another way to define multiculturalism which I would call diversity where people have their own cultural beliefs and they happily coexist - but there is a common thread of Britishness or whatever you want to call it to hold society together." (Source: http://www.bbc.com/)
3. How many people in the refugee camps are actually genuine Bhutanese?
UNHCR confirms around 100,000 refugees in the camps. While the refugee leaders and Nepali Govt. assert that all of them are Bhutanese, Bhutanese in Bhutan believe that many of them are not really refugees from Bhutan.
The Joint Verification Team (JVT) of Bhutan and Nepal presented the following results to the fourteenth meeting of the Ministerial Joint Committee (MJC) in Kathmandu in May 2003 on the verification of the residents of Khudunabari camp:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Category -----------No. of people ------Percentage
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Bonafide Bhutanese ----293------ -------2.5 %
(2) Emigrants -------------8,595------------70.5%
(3) Non-Bhutanese --------2,948------------24.2%
(4) Criminals---------------347--------------2.8%
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Total ---------------------12,183 ------------100
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(Note: Emigrants, the largest group, are those Bhutanese nationals who had signed forms for voluntary emigration despite Bhutan Govt. and the King's advice to stay back. Most of them did so either due to fear of terrorizing members from groups like Bhutan People's Party, or for the hope of promised triumphant return to take over of Bhutan - that was an unhidden political agenda of the refugee leaders and it is still is their hope.)
The two sides tell quite different stories. Nepalese are all out to rewrite the history of Bhutan to show that their ancestors settled in Bhutan much earlier than they actually did. But historical facts, recorded much earlier than the current regime in Bhutan came into being, do not lie.
According to the paper “Bhutan: A kingdom besieged”, “The first sightings of Nepalese in the southern foothills are reported by Charles Bell in 1904 followed closely by John Claude White in 1905. All Bhutanese records confirm that no Nepalese settled in any part of Bhutan until then.
…The claim that the Nepalese had a role in safeguarding the sovereignty of the country, is clearly baseless since they did not enter southern Bhutan or any part of the duars area of West Bengal or Assam until long after the Sinchula Treaty with the British was signed. This is corroborated by Eden's report which states that his Nepalese porters, "were unwilling to enter Bhutan, the inhabitants of which were not looked upon with favour ... there the coolies left in considerable numbers being afraid to cross the frontier" (Teesta Bridge). Arthur Foning, a Kalimpong Lepcha, writes that this bore testimony to how effectively the Bhutanese territorial interests were guarded.”
However, most of the Nepalese came much later after the first five year plan of Bhutan was initiated in 1961. “Once the 5-year development programmes began to yield results, government effort to control immigration was thwarted by the earlier settlers who colluded with their ethnic kith and kin to prevent detection, falsify records and facilitate infiltration. Free education, free health services, employment opportunities, highly subsidized agriculture inputs, generous rural credit schemes, the security of a politically stable country were the main inducements that led to the influx of Nepalese immigrants in the 1960's and 1970's. In addition to the new arrivals, those who had come in legally as labourers for the many development schemes also began to infiltrate into the villages.”
2. Is Bhutan really a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country as the Nepalese claim?
Nepal Govt. and Bhutanese refugees assert that Bhutan is a “multi-cultural and multi-ethnic” country. And they try to play the old colonists’ trick of “divide-and-rule” by trying to play Sharchops against the Ngalungs.
But so far it has failed. Why?
Because Bhutan really isn’t multicultural or multi-ethnic per se, though we do have different linguistic groups. Bhutanese people in different regions speak different languages (or sometimes closely related dialects), but they look physically quite the same, and their beliefs, customs, festivals, and religious faiths are almost same and uniform throughout. So, excluding the Nepalese, Bhutanese form a cohesive homogenous society.
Now, since we have Lhotshampas who are genuine Bhutanese, Bhutan may be said to be bi-cultural or bi-ethnic country, but not really multi-cultural or multi-ethnic as the Nepali Govt. and the Bhutanese refugees like to believe.
The following is an official statement found on the website of the Foreign Ministry of Nepal:
“Bhutan is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country. Sarchops, Ngalumgs and Lhostsampas are the three main ethnic groups. Bhutan has a significant number of people of Nepalese origin, particularly in the southern part of the country. The Nepalese of southern Bhutan are called Lhotshampas.”
Yet, we are not against multiculturalism per se. What we are against is how it is interpreted as Ruth Lea, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in the UK says:
“ There are two ways in which people interpret multiculturalism.
The first one is the more common way and that is every culture has the right to exist and there is no over-arching thread that holds them together.
That is the multiculturalism we think is so destructive because there's no thread to hold society together. It is that multiculturalism that Trevor Phillips has condemned and, of course, we are totally supportive.
There is another way to define multiculturalism which I would call diversity where people have their own cultural beliefs and they happily coexist - but there is a common thread of Britishness or whatever you want to call it to hold society together." (Source: http://www.bbc.com/)
3. How many people in the refugee camps are actually genuine Bhutanese?
UNHCR confirms around 100,000 refugees in the camps. While the refugee leaders and Nepali Govt. assert that all of them are Bhutanese, Bhutanese in Bhutan believe that many of them are not really refugees from Bhutan.
The Joint Verification Team (JVT) of Bhutan and Nepal presented the following results to the fourteenth meeting of the Ministerial Joint Committee (MJC) in Kathmandu in May 2003 on the verification of the residents of Khudunabari camp:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Category -----------No. of people ------Percentage
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Bonafide Bhutanese ----293------ -------2.5 %
(2) Emigrants -------------8,595------------70.5%
(3) Non-Bhutanese --------2,948------------24.2%
(4) Criminals---------------347--------------2.8%
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Total ---------------------12,183 ------------100
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(Note: Emigrants, the largest group, are those Bhutanese nationals who had signed forms for voluntary emigration despite Bhutan Govt. and the King's advice to stay back. Most of them did so either due to fear of terrorizing members from groups like Bhutan People's Party, or for the hope of promised triumphant return to take over of Bhutan - that was an unhidden political agenda of the refugee leaders and it is still is their hope.)
The figures above may be taken only as an indicative figure and not as representative of the whole refugee population. This is because Khudunabari camp is one of the smaller camps established much later.
According the foreign minister’s report to the 82nd National Assembly in 2004, “It was only in July, 1993, that proper screening procedures for people claiming to be Bhutanese refugees were introduced. Until then the screening of such people were given to the people in the camps who were themselves claiming to be refugees. Once proper screening procedures were introduced there was a dramatic drop in the entry of people into the camps.”
Conclusion:
The refugee issue is a festering problem for Bhutan. It is one we cannot avoid indefinitely. Now that we have elected govt. in place, it will be even harder to find leaders who are willing to tackle the problem squarely because of the risks of losing the votes of Southern Bhutanese.
However, this is a problem in which all of us have a stake in. It is important for us to understand the different perspectives the two sides have. Until these fundamental differences in the perspectives are not settled, the refugee issue may be difficult to solve.
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