Minorities and nation-building
UNBECOMING CITIZENS — Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan: Michael Hutt; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, I Floor, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 595.
HUTAN REMAINS one of the least known countries of the world. Even South Asia specialists generally tend to ignore this fascinating frontier land where the Indian and the Tibetan cultural and demographic spheres converge.
The exotic treatment meted out to Bhutan by scholars and journalists from the western world is evident from the following quotation in the Independent on Sunday (published from London) in December 1992: "In a faraway land, there lives a handsome king married to four beautiful sisters. In his kingdom there are snow leopards, unexplored mountains that rise higher than the clouds, and a woman in the east who says that she has made love to the Yeti. You find many such curiosities in Bhutan, a rare and forested kingdom which, over the past 30 years, has had to leap the same cultural distance that Europe has travelled unsteadily over three centuries."
In this absorbing book, Michael Hutt provides a cogent analysis of the problems and challenges of nation-building facing a small land locked state and its repercussions on minority groups.
King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, in his determination to maintain and preserve a distinctive Bhutanese way of life, adopted on crucial issues relating to citizenship, education and culture, policies, which not only upheld the way of life of the majority community, but also excluded and marginalised the Nepali community.
The Nepalis (Lhotshampas as they are referred to) were faced with two difficult choices, either remain in Bhutan as second class citizens or flee to Nepal as refugees.
In the early part of the book, the author provides a brief history of Bhutan, the origin of Nepali migration, their contribution to the development of the country and the impact of the British rule on the sub-continent. In the second part, the author gives an in-depth account of the Lhotshampa society in the first half of the 20th Century. The third describes the encounter between the predominantly Nepali part of Southern Bhutan and the attempts made by the Bhutanese state to modernise itself. In the final section controversial issues like citizenship, culture, language and demography are analysed.
Based on Bhutanese government publications and the testimonies of the refugees, the author highlights the ethnic politics in the backdrop of the wider questions of cultural identity and nationhood. Strange as it may sound, even the exact population of Nepal is a subject matter of controversy. In 1985, Bhutan reported a figure of 1.3 million. Subsequently in 1990, it reduced the figure to 0.6 million. According to the U.S. State Department, the population in 1999/2000 was 2.1 million. However, the Royal Government of Bhutan estimates the population in 2000 to be 800,000.
Before the ethnic cleansing in the 1990's, the Nepali minority constituted 42 per cent of the population. Today, they number only 27 per cent. It is estimated that there are about 1,20,000 Lhotshampas, ethnic Nepalese refugees, in Nepal. Bhutanese refugees first came to India, as Bhutan does not have a common border with Nepal. India was the "first country of asylum".
Unfortunately, because of the pressure exerted by the Left front government in West Bengal, the relief camps in India were closed down and these unfortunate people were forced to leave for Nepal. What is more distressing, India has not played a constructive role in finding a solution to this problem. As one which maintains cordial relations with both Nepal and Bhutan, India could have persuaded the Royal Government in Bhutan to be more sensitive and sympathetic to the aspirations of the Nepalese minority. Bhutan should not be allowed to get away with the inhuman practice of ethnic cleansing.
What is more, since the subject is closely intertwined with the complex issues of security in the Northeast, all concerned should try to find a permanent solution to the problem on a regional basis.
V. SURYANARAYAN
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
