• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 442 0

where the British tea plantations and roads offered plenty of jobs. According to Nari Rustomji’s Sikkim: A Himalayan Tragedy, the immigrants were an energetic group, hungry for land and extremely mobile. Because there was plenty of land, however, the indigenous tribal Lepchas, and the Bhutias of Tibetan origin, did not feel threatened, even when the immigrant population began to grow. “The Nepalese made no attempt to assimilate themselves with the inhabitants of their host country. Due to the rigidities of the Hindu caste system, they could not inter-marry freely with the Lepchas and Bhutias.... Few Nepalese cared to learn the languages of the land....” Under the Buddhist monarchy, which had been established in 1641, the Nepalese felt they were being treated as second-class citizens; though they were now a majority, they were not in a position to aspire to the true political power under the existing system. Their calls for democracy in the 1960s and 1970s were an attempt to establish a government that would reflect the demographic balance and promote their own interests. Relations between India and China were still tense, and increasing political unrest gave India the opportunity to absorb the kingdom under the “sensitive border area” excuse. In 1975, the 334-year rule of the Sikkimese Buddhist kings came to an end.

In Bhutan, the 1958 Citizenship Act gave citizenship to anyone who had lived in Bhutan for at least ten years and owned land. With the implementation of the country’s first economic development plan in 1962, there was plenty of work to be found building roads, schools and hospitals, and Nepali immigrants continued to move into the country. Integration did not seem to be a concern; apparently, travel to northern Bhutan was restricted for the southern Bhutanese until sometime in the 1970s. South was south, north was north.

The south became an issue in 1988, when census records indicated a disproportionate increase in the population in the southern districts. In the neighboring Indian states of Meghalaya and Assam, Nepali immigrants were being evicted. No room, no room, the state governments insisted. Go back home. We can’t help it if there is no room for you there either. You are not our problem. At the same time, the Gorkha National Liberation Front in Darjeeling began calling for the establishment of Gorkhaland, which would spread across northeastern India, including parts of southern Bhutan.

A new exhaustive census was ordered, and local officials in the south were accused of allowing large numbers of illegal immigrants to enter Bhutan and register themselves as Bhutanese citizens. There was mention of unhappiness and dissatisfaction felt in the south over the harshness with which the census was being conducted, but these feelings were put down to rumors.

I don’t know if I am any closer to understanding the Situation. I can see why Bhutan, living in the dark shadow of an annexed Sikkim and Tibet, must be concerned about demographics and sovereignty. But I can also see why the southern Bhutanese feel harassed and afraid. I close up the history books. The historical backdrop does nothing to alleviate the anxiety I feel for my individual students. If anything, it makes it worse.

On my last day, I lock up my house and take my rucksack to the college gate to wait for the vehicle. At Pala’s, Amala calls me over. Her short straight hair is wrapped around pink sponge curlers, and she is carrying a trowel and a bucket of wet cement to repair a wall at the back of the restaurant. I have just eaten lunch, but she insists on feeding me again, and we drink tea out of shot glasses and talk about Amala’s plans for the winter. She will go to her ancestral home, in Sakteng, on the eastern border of Bhutan, where her late father was once a high lama. His reincarnation has not been found, and his temple and house in Sakteng stand empty, except for a caretaker.

“Listen,” Amala says. “Vehicle.” It is my ride, a hi-lux packed full of Tony and Leon and several of their students. I thank Amala and climb in. Amala waves her trowel