This is the second of a two-part series. Read the first here.
The government in Kathmandu has provided shelter to the lakh-plus Lhotshampa refugees ousted by Bhutan between 1988 and 1992 and transported by India, but its diplomacy has not succeeded in sending them back. Nepal’s polity was preoccupied over the decades by the Maoist insurgency and subsequent peace process, constitution-writing and the continuously unstable domestic politics.
The third-country settlement of the refugees was largely an initiative of the West, very interestingly linked to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US and the drying up of “refugee intake” infrastructure.
While the bulk of the Bhutanese exiles are now overseas, the situation has never been worse for the 7,000-odd remaining in Jhapa, some for lack of registration papers and life support, others wanting only to return to their homes and fields in Bhutan.
However, among Nepal’s political class there were individuals not above trying to make a quick buck on the back of the refugees. Over the past few years, journalists’ investigations uncovered a “refugee scam”. The fraudsters with links to the political parties provided hundreds of Nepali citizens with fake documents as Bhutanese refugees, duping them with the promise of sending them to the US under the settlement exercise.
This scam was activated years after the organisations dealing with refugees and third-country settlement had wrapped up their work.
The skulduggery was fully exposed over the summer of 2023, and the political ramifications would have been so earthshaking that Kathmandu’s political leaders rushed to block police investigations even though some mid-level conspirators are behind bars. The ironic fallout of the scam has been that local authorities in Jhapa have gone cold on the refugees and today provide no bureaucratic support.
Given the despicable level of the conspiracy to make Nepali citizens stateless and give them a false foreign citizenship, the political class and bureaucracy have decided to have nothing to do with the genuine Bhutanese citizens/refugees, the true victims.
While the fake refugee scam has been a titillation for Kathmandu’s commentariat, it has hurt the refugees who remain within Nepal and created conditions for the genuine refugees resettled overseas to be challenged as to their antecedents.
Meanwhile, the political prisoners from Bhutan who have made it to Jhapa are shocked to be denied registration and travel documents required for basic dignity and livelihood. In disbelief, one of them said, “Having left the life of the political prisoner in Bhutan, I feel like I am a prisoner here in Jhapa.”
Nepal should be making life easy for the refugees who remain, and the newly arrived prisoners of conscience. However, the bureaucracy has been scared off, the remaining refugees have been abandoned by the diplomatic community, and Kathmandu’s civil society has long since lost interest.
There is a failure to understand that refugees who refused third-country settlement are even more deserving of support, for their steadfast attachment to their homeland and to the principle of “right of return”.
“These refugees have been deprived of education, healthcare, food and housing; they are left to fend for themselves, engaging in menial work in the informal sector,” said the group South Asians for Human Rights after a monitoring visit to Jhapa in December 2024.
The fallout of the refugee matter was a distancing between Kathmandu and Thimphu that started in the early 1990s when Nepal became burdened with the Lhotshampa. The ever-present reality of the refugees in Jhapa and Morang districts meant that the bilateral relationship remained sour.
This gap between the two capitals has been a great geopolitical, economic and cultural loss for both countries, which should be making common cause in myriad areas. These include the revival of the SAARC – the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – the global climate breakdown and the receding of glaciers, the sensible use of Himalayan water-resources including hydropower production, exchanging notes on migration issues, and the management of relations with the two massive neighbours to the south and north, India and China.
Mindful or mindless
The attitude of the Bhutanese regime in the face of refugee demands for a return and the international calls to release political prisoners has been to stonewall and blame the victims. In Geneva on March 25, Bhutan’s representative denied ethnic discrimination against the Lhotshampa and the very existence of political prisoners in his country. He was responding to challenges from refugees and human rights organisations at the Universal Periodic Review of Bhutan of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.
The prisoners referred to were sentenced for “serious crimes” under national security laws, he said, and all criticism of his government was nothing but the biased position of “vested interest people”.
King Jigme Khesar Wangchuk must know that much of the “jungle” earmarked for the Gelephu Mindfulness City was inhabited by the Lhotshampa peasantry before they were ousted. The GMC is planned as an ecology-friendly technology hub.
The king would also know of the political prisoners who have languished in Chamgang and Rabuna jails for decades, will die in custody unless he commutes their sentence, something only he can do.
Indeed, Jigme Khesar remains the sole authority to take the decision if refugees who refuse to settle overseas are to be welcomed back. If his plan is to lead Bhutan into the future, fraught with geopolitical shoals, the fifth king must address the Thimphu regime’s accountability for statelessness and democratic deficit, represented by the elderly citizens in forced exile or behind bars in Bhutan.
Any visitor to Thimphu will understand that the royal regime does not have to fear rebellion from those who are released or returned.
When it comes to the refugees in southeast Nepal, there could be no better proof of love of country than the women and men in their declining years making the plea: “Allow us to return to hamro ghar-ghaderi, to our plots and homesteads.”
The question arises as to why Jigme Khesar, known to be sensitive and capable, has not acted on the matter of political prisoners or the “right of return”. Why would he want the state and royalty of Bhutan to forever have to carry the legacy of the “damned spot” of political prisoners and refugees?
Given that the king seems to have approved the providing of citizenship papers to Lhotshampa citizens that had been denied for two decades and more, why not go one step further to release political prisoners and rescue elderly exiles living in statelessness? Could it be that the fifth king is unprepared to displease his father, who was responsible for the policy of depopulating the southern hills?
The king has the power to commute the sentences of the prisoners of conscience and take back the refugees in Jhapa. There seems no political risk in doing this, for the injustice against the Lhotshampa has become a fait accompli without a dissenting population.
The king, as chairman of the Gelephu Mindfulness City, will also need to consider the fact that there are dozens of refugees still in Nepal who hold land deeds for where the tech centre is proposed.
Even as Bhutan has stonewalled all efforts over the years to ensure the “right of return” of the Bhutanese refugees, incongruously, it is the re-elected Donald Trump administration in Washington DC that seems to have a clearer understanding of the matter of “citizenship at of origin” than Thimphu, its “protector” on the matter New Delhi, or feckless Kathmandu.
As part of Trump’s possibly illegal attempt to deport legal non-citizens who have been involved in criminal activities, the Immigration and Customs of Enforcement department has rounded up 40 Bhutanese who arrived more than a decade ago as part of the refugee settlement programme.
Last week, the US government deported 10 individuals to Paro airport, with the agreement of the detainees and of the Thimphu government. Kathmandu-based investigative journalist Devendra Bhattarai reports that the Bhutanese authorities gave refugees a meal, handed them Rs 30,000 per person, and immediately dropped them off at the Jaigaon border point with India.
From Jaigaon, continuing a decades-long tradition of helping Bhutan rid of its citizens, the Indian authorities facilitated the movement of the individuals westward towards Panitanki, next to the Nepal border point of Kakadbhitta.
At the last reporting, four of the deported Bhutanese had found their way into the refugee camps of Jhapa, while the Thimphu government continues to evade its responsibilities towards its own citizens.
In a press release dated March 31, the Asian Refugees United organisation, speaking for the refugees settled in the US, wrote: “This recent wave of ICE enforcement echoes our history of displacement and trauma, devastating families and communities that worked hard to rebuild their lives in America. Among the disappeared are dedicated heads of their household, promising young people, respected elders, cherished friends, spouses, parents and caregivers.”
Echoing these words, member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives Suraj Budathoki said: “The deported Bhutanese Americans are trapped in a stateless limbo between four countries: the United States, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. As members of a refugee community who have been pushed from country to country, they’re deeply vulnerable to getting lost in the cracks, as all of these governments try to avoid responsibility.”
Story of one family
The struggles of the couple Padam Lal and Dhanmaya Timelsina encapsulate the story of exile and political marginalisation of the Lhotshampa, both of whom declined the offer for settlement in the West.
Amidst the fears generated by Jigme Singye’s regime and local administrators, the family, including Padam Lal’s mother and three young boys, joined the exodus from Gelephu in early 1992, carrying with them a tin box with papers including Bhutanese laws and regulations, land records, receipts and bills.
The family ended up in the refugee camp at Beldangi, Jhapa.
Padam Lal’s mother died many years ago at the age of 95, one of his sons has migrated, the youngest lives a listless life without papers in Jhapa, while the middle son disappeared on a visit to Bhutan 20 years ago – his wife and children, meanwhile, are overseas under the settlement scheme.
Padam Lal died at the age of 91 in July 2024, his dream of a return to Gelephu tragically unfulfilled. He died a few days after having requested a visiting SAHR team to find the whereabouts of his disappeared son.
There would be few who would not want Bhutan to succeed in its plans to bring prosperity to its population and promote “mindfulness”, and also for its desire to chart an independent path away from the overwhelming Indian geopolitical orbit. Becoming a robust polity from the inside requires Thimphu to make peace with its legacy of depopulation and respecting the “right of return” of those in forced exile.
The life and death of Padam Lal Timelsina, and what it says about the past, present and future of Bhutan, must penetrate the conscience of the royal regime in Thimphu and the managers of the Gelephu Mindfulness City, which the king chairs. Jigme Khesar Wangchuk has a choice, to exhibit or not to exhibit humanity, empathy and mindfulness by releasing all political prisoners in his prisons and allowing refugees wanting to return to do so.
Kanak Mani Dixit is a writer and publisher in Kathmandu, and founding editor of Himal Southasian magazine. His first article on Bhutan’s refugees, “The Dragon Bites Its Tail”, was published in July 1992 in Himal.
