Bhutanese Democracy - Influence of Ethnic Nepalese

Influence of Ethnic Nepalese

Expatriate Nepalese, who resettled in West Bengal and Assam after leaving Bhutan, formed the Bhutan State Congress in 1952 to represent the interests of other expatriates in India as well as the communities they had left behind.

As noted by the human rights agency Freedom House, "In 1989, a royal kasho (decree) reintroduced the code of traditional dress known as driglam namzha and the requirement to wear the traditional gho and kira when visiting government offices and monasteries, while also emphasizing the use of Dzongkha as the national language." Although it is sometimes claimed that the government also banned the use of the Nepali language, this has never been true, and Bhutanese government broadcasts are made to this day in Nepali, known in Bhutan as Lhotsamkha. In addition to forcing people to speak Dzonghka in public places, the government began to increasingly encroach upon the way of life by enforcing driglam namzha for all people, requiring them to dress in Ngalop robes and follow Drukpa Buddhist practices from attending the temple to their manner of serving tea. This was then followed by oppression and torture against the young and elderly. One tactic employed by the government was to use the lack of land titling as a means to evict Lhotshampa (ethnic Nepali) residents; this and other tactics left Lhotshampa in Bhutan extremely vulnerable. In addition, government agents began to force the ethnic Nepali to leave the country and orchestrated videotaped "affirmations" that individuals were leaving of their own will rather than due to government force. This, along with other limits on the Nepali people, resulted in an estimated 100,000 ethnic Nepalese who fled to refugee camps across the border in Nepal. However, the UNHCR-recognized refugees are not accepted by Bhutan as citizens of Bhutan; they do not have Bhutanese citizenship because jus soli has never operated in Bhutan. Therefore they do not have grounds to claim citizenship even if they were born there.

The loosely organized Bhutanese pro-democracy movement in the United States is located in Austin, Texas. The group claims that its website has been the victim of multiple cyber-attacks and blocks.

The king's call for elections and abdication of power did an end-run around the exiled movement, preempting any existing calls for freedom from outside (or inside) the country. The irony is that the exiled movement will most likely not have any direct participation in the birth of the new democracy which it had been calling for. Although, the refugee issue remains unresolved and will likely need to be addressed by the new government at some point.