The Plight of Bhutani Refugees

In the early 1990s more than 80,000 Bhutanese citizens were forced out of their country. These Nepali-speaking Hindus—whose forefathers settled Southern Bhutan in 1880s—had been systematically persecuted by the authoritarian government of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk and the Dzongkha-speaking Northern majority. Arbitrary rules, such as mandating universal adoption of the traditional Northern clothes and customs, and forbidding the official use of the Nepali language, were imposed. New citizenship laws classified most Southerners as non-citizens paving the way to eventual usurpation of their properties. Peaceful protestors of the unjust policies were imprisoned. Many were tortured. The Southerners, fearing their survival, fled, and were settled as refugees in Nepal by the local government and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Though the Bhutan government painstakingly tried to hide the fact, subsequent research by Amnesty International has established the fact that it was a case of meticulously planned religious, cultural and ethnic cleansing.

After almost twenty years, the Bhutanese refugees are still languishing in those makeshift camps in Eastern Nepal—battling difficult living conditions, suffering from mental and physical ailments, and subsisting in handouts from aid agencies—with no hope of ever returning to their homes. Their children were born and raised never knowing life outside the confines of the camps. In the tragic saga of the Bhutanese refugees, the injustice of the repressive government of Bhutan is matched in equal parts by the hypocrisy of India, the ineptitude of Nepal, and the indifference of the international community.

India claimed that the refugee crisis was a bi-lateral issue between Nepal and Bhutan. Their stance was not just inaccurate but also irresponsible for India, a country which sees itself as a regional leader, and besides controlling Bhutan’s foreign policy, also serves as the chief economic benefactor of the Bhutanese government. When the refugees fleeing from Bhutan’s security forces landed on the Indian soil, they were mercilessly nabbed by the Indian police and escorted all the way to Nepal’s border to be released. Such action punctures India’s hypocritical claim of respectable distance from the issue and shows whose side India took. For twenty years, India never used its considerable influence both in Thimpu and Kathmandu, to mediate or help resolve the Bhutanese refugee crisis.

Unity को सनजाल

In my previous post, I tracked down the shady companies that form Unity's pyramid. Now here is a graphical representation of Unity's web of fraud. First, what you see below is a photo from Unity's Website purporting the way to produce diesel from Jatropha plant. As I wrote before, Crystal Bio Energy Nepal, a company owned by Unity, goes around the country asking unsuspecting farmers to buy their seeds and pay for "technical expertise" to harvest Jatropha plants in their fields. Think for yourself if what is seen in this picture seems scientifically possible...

Of course, not. It is easy to see. Now why did Unity set up this bogus company called Crystal Bio Energy Nepal? To understand that look at the following picture depicting Unity को सनजाल:

Now you can see the reason why Crystal Bio and its impossible business of Jatropha diesel exists is to lure unsuspecting new people to give money to Unity's fraudulent Scheme.

How does the Pyramid Scheme of Rs. 600 करोड Work?

(Thank you to all the readers from Sajha. Hope you will browse around and leave comments to share your ideas. -mG.)

(Update on 4/28: Thanks to Khusbu Sarkar for pointing out that Rs. 6 Billion is actually equal to 600 crores and not 60 crores. As you said that is ten times as troubling! I have corrected the record.Thanks. )

Republica has a stunning report on a Nepali company called Unity Life International (ULI) which is apparently making some very, very big noises within the country and abroad. The sheer number on the headline - Rs. 6 Billion (600 करोड !!!) - is enough to attract attention. The full details of Unity's activities that Milan Sharma, the reporter, describes are frightening to read. So it turns out Unity has found its mojo in Nepal selling bogus products like life and health "assurance" plans (these sort of function like the energy drinks in the Quixtar/Amway scheme). Also Unity claims to have opened hospitals to build a network of providers for its health insurance.
Clearly the company is a pyramid scheme and Sharma commendably doesn't hesitate to call it that. Anyone in America who has been involved in the Amway or the Quixtar knows what a pyramid scheme is -- the idea is to use the promise of an easy but wildly profitable business venture (Quixtar sells daily use consumer products) to suck in a network of people whose only way of gaining profit is to help bring in more people to build a bigger and bigger network. The whole thing collapses in the end because the underlying business is a scam.
Sharma mentions in passing that: "Awash in cash, the company is now venturing into any field you care to name, from real estate to airlines to department stores to Direct to Home Satellite TV." So I decided to do a little bit of snooping to fill in the gap. What I found scared me further. Turns out there are not one, but already a extending web of numerous scam/fraud companies under this pyramid of fraud!
First here is Unity's website. Why is the life "assurance" company's first image on its website showing a picture of a rafting boat for a travel and tours company? What has travel and tours got to do with "life and health assurance?" Of course, it is not a crime to have various companies under one roof but why are the they marketed at one place?

नेपाली को हो?

I have been thinking about what is "Nepali." More than ever, I think this question is a vital one for our country.  Not only officially for the legitimacy and effectiveness of a new constitution but also for the social, cultural and national unity, we need to discuss, reflect upon and discover what it means to be a Nepali.

So it was a nice surprise to read the special edition of Himal Khabarpatrika where a number of articles start that discussion in an effort to try and answer what "Nepalipan" is. Must read for all Nepalis everywhere. Of the many gems from the articles, this from C K Lal: "नश्लवाद (रेसिज्म) नेपालीपन अवधारणासँग जोडिएर आउँछ। सोच-प्रयोगका लागि एकछिनलाई कल्पना गरौं; केन्याली बाबु एवं नेपाली आमाको कुनै सन्तान जनकपुरमा जन्मिन्छ र परिबन्दले उसको पालनपोषण जकार्तामा हुन पुग्दछ। नेपालीपनको जति नै उदार व्याख्या गरे पनि त्यस्तो व्यक्ति कहिल्यै नेपालमा बाराक 'वामा बन्न सक्दैन। नेपालमा त्यस्तो व्यक्तिले कर्म गर्दै फलको आशा राख्ने होइन, पुनर्जन्मको प्रतीक्षा गर्नुपर्ने छ।"

The Rinpoche and the Kumari

While the buzz on the Nepali online community was all about the PBS documentary, "The Buddha" for allegedly reporting that Buddha was born in India, I was much more taken in by the Independent Lens feature shown immediately afterwards in our local station.

The feature titled "Unmistaken Child" follows the story of Tenzin Zopa, a young Tibetan Buddhist monk from Kopan Monastary in Kathmandu, as he journeys to small villages and hamlets of Tibet in search of a little boy. Zopa's guru Geshe Lama has passed away due to old age and now the devotee is tasked with finding the reincarnation of his guru.

It is a arduous process of walking from village to village and performing tests on each little boy between the ages of one to one and a half that Zopa finds. While the villagers are generally helpful, the young boys, shy or even afraid of the stranger (and of course the camera crew of foreigners), only succumb to the test when bribed with balloons or toffee.

The test to determine true reincarnation, hence the "unmistaken," basically involves asking a boy to choose among a couple of prayer beads. Most children are more enamored of candy to pay much attention to the beads. So the Zopa continues his search to the next village and the next in the elusive search. When he finally finds a boy who he believes to be the reincarnation of his Guru, the story changes from a search to the tale of accommodating the little kid to his new role of a famous guru at the ripe old age of a year and a half.

It looked to me that the one characteristic that determines who gets chosen is the fortitude of character. The new Rinpoche shows a hardiness and fearlessness when he first meets the Zopa. He is curious and less shy that the other boys. And he wants the shiny beads, along with the toy cars and other trinkets.

Overall it is a good enough story, especially because of the exhaustive privilege of access enjoyed by the filmmakers (they get to film the scene where the Dalai Lama blesses the little boy as the new Rinpoche). The parts where the parents are asked to give up their young son to the monastery is so truly heart touching that no amount of invasion by the camera is able to cloak the basic grief in the mother and father's eyes.

At the end of the documentary, we leave the little boy, now about four years old, to his daily life of service and prayer and play, with the Lamas at Kopan, far away from his home in the tiny Tibetan hamlet, away from his mother, father and beloved grandma. Although he is too young to know it now, his whole life is changed merely by a chance encounter. I couldn't help feeling lonely for him.

The institution of the Kumari is much more well-known compared to the story of baby Rinpoche. When watching how the little boy was installed as the reincarnation of a Lama, I immediately made the connection to  the tradition of Kumari. (The journalist Deepak Adhikari elegantly describes one slice of that story in "The Goddess' Exam.") Of course, seen as the social and religious practice of installing a child to be a surrogate for a deity, the Rinpoche is the natural kin of the Kumari. So it is not surprising that both the traditions are linked to the Buddhist heritage in Kathmandu and Tibet.

GPK's Death and the Politics of Personality and Informality

(Thanks to Surath for spurring me to write after some absence.)

The recent death of Girija Prashad Koirala and the subsequent sense of vacuum in Nepali politics brought to fore the innate problematic nature of our political culture: the system of patrimony. 

Rishikesh Shaha in one of his political histories of Nepal, recounts how the the patrimonial elites have ruled the country through a politics of personal influence, proximity to the center of power, and informality. Shaha was describing the scene after the takeover of the country by King Mahendra on 1950 and subsequently as the Panchayati politics of chakadi and bribery flourished. The national politicians competed mightily to become closer to the palace, near the ear of the king, who in turn rewarded or punished public officials based on little more than his personal whim. This corruption of public power through informality extended from the king all the down to the local Panchayat leaders. 

Of course, these features of informality and unchecked power of personality in the political realm are derived from the same cultural notions in the larger society. No wonder, the same modes of behavior has continued to this day, two decades after the fall of the Panchayat System. In every level of society we can find the similar disregard for laws and norms in favor of informality. Whoever occupies a formal position, commands the level of power and influence that his personality and circumstance accords. Thus, legitimacy of action is provided not by the position held, but the personality holding the position.

Hence, it is not a surprise to see the emerging disputes in the Nepali Congress Party in the wake of GPK's death. Despite Ashutosh Tiwari's posthumous prescriptions about how to ably manage succession in the future, one suspects the party leaders vying to fill Girija's position are hardly in a advice-taking mode. Rather, all three potential successors, Deuba, Paudel and Koirala, are acting as rational actors by trying to flout their personal influence and seek support of the party members through informal channels. If our society was run by rules and laws and not by men like GPK, there would no issues with succession, the members of the party would simply vote for the person they trusted to be their leader.