Category: Indian Subcontinent

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Foreign Policy Association (US) Indian Subcontinent Journalism

The Tattered Mirage of a South Asian Union is Dying Fast – Pt. 2

This commentary was first published here.

“Cooperation within the framework of the Association shall be based on respect for the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and mutual benefit.” -Point (1) of the ‘Principles’ subset of Article II of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) charter.

‘Respect for territorial integrity’ and ‘non-interference in the internal affairs of other states’, really?

The Indian subcontinent is chequered with a history of border and territory disputes. If there is no shared border, there are prickly issues related to shared ethnic and religious groups in each other’s territories.

Two very topical, and yet, off the cuff, examples here illustrate the intertwining and conflicting interests of the South Asian nations, whether or not with a shared border, and the consequent impact of the same on the functioning of SAARC.

Bangladesh expressed its strong protest against Pakistan’s reaction to the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leader Mir Quasem Ali on September 3.

Ali, a prominent member of the pro-Pakistani militia during Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971, was found guilty of torture and mass murders. Bangladeshi accounts say that the Pakistani army and its supporters in JeI had killed about three million people, though the number varies in other accounts.

Pakistan termed the trial as a ‘flawed judicial process’.

“The act of suppressing the Opposition through flawed trials is completely against the spirit of democracy,” Nafees Zakaria, Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman told the international media.

Quick to retort, Bangladesh called Pakistan’s acting high commissioner in Dhaka, Samina Mehtab,  and handed over a strongly-worded note verbale.

“By repeatedly taking the side of those Bangladesh nationals who are convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide, Pakistan has once again acknowledged its direct involvement and complicity with the mass atrocity crimes committed during Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971,” read the communiqué.

The trial of Islamist leaders who took a violently pro-Pakistani stance in the 1971 war is going on for a while now—and the two countries have sparred all along.

In a different setting, the historical friction between the two nations had taken the turn of a very contemporary fight after the terror attack in Dhaka in July this year.

During the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, gunmen had entered a chic restaurant in the city’s diplomatic enclave on July 2 and killed 21 hostages and two police officers—before the Bangladesh security forces raided the restaurant and ended the standoff. Four terrorists were killed and one was captured alive.

Those killed were from around the globe, including one Indian, nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American and two local Bangladeshis.

Amid talks of the ISIS connection, while Bangladesh blamed the home-grown Islamist terrorists belonging to JeI group for the worst-ever terror attack in the country’s history, it also talked about the radical group’s connection with Pakistan’s spy agency ISI.

“They (Pakistani establishment) are openly supporting war criminals. So, politically they are with Jamaat-e-Islami, politically they are with the militants. So, that is a sad thing in the regional politics,” said Bangladesh Information Minister Hasan-Ul-Haq Inu a day after the attack.

“And recently few diplomats, who were working undercover at the Pakistan Embassy, were thrown out of the country because they were involved in armed networks,” he added.

The issue in his later statement relates to the two Islamic countries expelling each other’s diplomats in a tit for tat fashion in late 2015.

Following the Dhaka attack and the continuing strained relations, the home minister of Bangladesh ‘skipped’ the SAARC Home Ministers Conference held on August 3 and 4 in Islamabad.

This was followed by the finance minister of the country too opting to ‘skip’ SAARC finance ministers meeting in Islamabad on August 25, citing ‘domestic compulsion’.

On the other hand, and even before these latest snubs by Bangladesh, countless experts on Pakistani news channels have dubbed the former, a part of Pakistan for the first 24 years of the latter’s existence, as a colony of India. The view reflects the growing relationship between India and Bangladesh ever since the Sheikh Hasina government has come back in 2010.

That described the current relationship between two SAARC members who were once the same country. Today, leave aside a common goal, they don’t even share a border!

An equally telling example of churning with SAARC relates to two nations that do share borders—India and Nepal.

India’s Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi had the Nepalese lawmakers, and the people of Nepal, eat out of his hands during his rockstar-like visit in August 2014 to the Himalayan nation, and his address to Parliament.

“We have not come here to interfere with your internal matters, but we want to help you develop,” Modi said to his hosts.

His popularity hit the stratosphere when he said that India was open to accepting a revised version of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by the two countries in 1950: “Kathmandu had only to bring forth the amendments and New Delhi would sign on the dotted line since it implicitly trusted Nepal“.

At that time, Nepal was busy framing a new Constitution, which was to take into consideration  the concerns of all communities of the nation.

The coming together of all parties for Modi’s speech and the surplus warmth towards the visiting leader suggested an era of good times for the two nations.

The bond of warmth got a shot in the arm after India reacted faster than all to provide expertise and relief material within a matter of hours after a massive earthquake hit Nepal in April-May 2015.

At that time the only sour note seemed to be local Nepalese’s anger towards a section of the Indian media for being patronizing and meddlesome during the rescue operations.

Problems started taking a serious nature after the adoption of a new Constitution by the parliament, followed by a 16-point agreement between the Government and the opposition, which spelled out the roadmap for the new Constitution.

There was an instant and violent rejection of the new Constitution by the various Madhesi (an ethnic group living in the Nepalese south) parties and Janjatis (essentially tribals) because of, what they called, non-representation of their aspirations.

At the same time, India felt that the outcome was contrary to Mr. Modi’s advice for a consensus-driven rather than a numbers-determined approach towards finalisation of the Constitution.

Nepal, on the other hand, viewed India’s reaction to the promulgation of its new Constitution, and a hurried visit by India’s foreign secretary, as a brazen attempt by India to meddle in Nepal’s internal matters.

The new Constitution was formally adopted in September 2015.

The Madheshi groups responded by blockading the border points between India and Nepal. Kathmandu saw it as Indian handiwork and accused its southern neighbour of deliberately worsening the embargo by not allowing vehicles to pass through even those check-points where no protests were held—a charge that was quickly, and predictably, denied by the Indian government.

A four-month border blockade by the Madhesis ended only after amendments to the constitution that sought to address their concerns about ‘rightful’ representation in Nepalese political framework were made.

India welcomed the amendments. It remains to be seen what kind of welcome Modi gets on his next Nepal visit, whenever that happens.

Is there any greater ‘interference in internal affairs’, whether real or perceived, than interference in matters related to judiciary or constitution of one nation by another—as highlighted by the squabbling SAARC members in the two examples?

In an atmosphere of such mistrust and misgivings, it is barely surprising that 95% of  trade of SAARC nations is with non-SAARC nations. The corresponding figure, for example, for the Southeast Asian nations within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is about 25%.

Note: This piece was written prior to a deadly terror attack on an Indian military facility on September 18, which killed 17 Indian army personnel. All the four killed terrorists belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group.

To be continued…

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Foreign Policy Association (US) Indian Subcontinent Journalism

The Tattered Mirage of a South Asian Union is Dying Fast – Pt. 1

This commentary was first published here.

The latest round of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan threatens to add the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit, scheduled to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan, in November 2016, to the long list of failed attempts at cooperation in South Asia.

But there are enough signals suggesting that reasons apart from the historical animosity between the two nations are now pulling SAARC apart.

The Raging Fire

The Association, often accused as a stillborn by its various critics because of the lack of appreciable progress towards stitching together a South Asian Union (à la European Union) by means of trade, diplomacy, and infrastructure, has always been an unfortunate recipient of the tensions between its largest two member nations.

The current round of hostility between the two nuclear-armed neighbours began with the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorist Burhan Wani by the Indian army in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

The 21-year-old militant was a ‘self-proclaimed commander’ of HM, designated as a terrorist organisation by India, the European Union, and the U.S. He was the poster boy for anti-India people and groups in the Kashmir valley of J&K, and openly defied and challenged the Indian state for war, via social media.

Wani’s killing led to widespread protests in the Indian Kashmir. Adding to the temperature was Pakistan’s open and steadfast support to the slain terrorist. Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Nawaz Sharif “expressed shock” at the killing of Wani, and called him ‘martyr’ and a ‘Kashmiri leader’. Pakistan even observed a ‘black day’ on July 19 in solidarity with the victims of violence in Kashmir.

India, predictably, responded quickly and sharply, asking Pakistan to stop “glorifying terrorists”, saying that it makes it abundantly clear where Pakistan’s sympathies lie.

But neither Pakistan’s official support nor the angry protests in India’s Kashmir valley saw any abating even after a month of Wani’s killing. For weeks, the belligerent crowd made up of angry local youth pelted stones at Indian security forces. In response, the men in uniform used pellet guns, causing over 50 deaths and countless injuries among the protestors.

At the same time more than 3,300 security personnel were injured, many seriously, in about 1000 incidents of violence. A few of them later succumbed to the injuries.

As a result, the entire Indian Kashmir valley region was put under curfew for over 50 days in the July-August period. After lifting it for a couple of days, curfew was re-imposed on many parts at the time of writing this report because of further violence.

India continuously accused Pakistan of fanning the trouble by sending financial, logistical, political, and armed support to the protesting crowds.

With Pakistan going all out to support the violent protestors, India, for the first time ever in its history, chose to officially respond in kind to Pakistan’s long-running commentary on the issue of self-right of Kashmiri people in India.

Addressing the nation on its Independence Day on August 15, India’s Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi mentioned the support and good wishes of people of Pakistan’s largest province Balochistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) areas of Kashmir. Balochistan, it may be noted, is home to many political and extremist groups that is demanding independence from Pakistan.

Pakistan was quick to call Mr. Modi’s speech as the vindication of its charges of an Indian hand in the violence in the restive province of Balochistan.

Both India and Pakistan have since upped the ante.

The Indian government approved a proposal to air programs in Balochi and Sindhi (the primary language of Pakistan’s second biggest province, Sindh, where, again, some groups demand an independent Sindhu Desh) via its official radio service.

Taking the clue, the Indian media is currently flush with news about and views from Balochi rebels sitting in the UK and elsewhere. Talks of political asylum to leaders fighting the ‘Balochistan Independence’ battle with Pakistan—in line with that to the Tibetan spiritual guru HH Dalai Lama—are heard with increased frequency in news outlets.

Beyond the talk, the Indian government also approved Rs. 2,000 Crore ($ 300 million) package for displaced people of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan and PoK regions living in the country. 36,348 such families have been identified for distribution of the package.

To counter India’s communication blitzkrieg, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on August 27 nominated 22 parliamentarians as special envoys who will ‘highlight the Indian brutalities and human rights abuses in the occupied Kashmir’ in key parts of the world.

And there stands currently the ‘peacetime scenario’ in South Asia.

Can it change in the next 60 days for a fruitful SAARC summit in Islamabad? Well, 69 years of history doesn’t suggest it.

Note: This piece was written prior to a deadly terror attack on an Indian military facility on September 18, which killed 17 Indian army personnel. All the four killed terrorists belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group.

To be continued…

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So Long, Sabeen Mahmud

sabeen

‘Friend’ is a rather strong word, but I believe Sabeen Mahmud and I considered each other almost that – despite not being in touch lately. We had first got talking in 2006 due to our common links then with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

A few years into my own business, I was just about testing TiE organization waters via ‘a mere’ ordinary membership of TiE Ahmedabad (India) Chapter, while she was already, among other things, a guiding light of the Karachi (Pakistan) Chapter. But that didn’t stop her from signing off her first email in her uniquely unassuming, unpretentious style: “32 – non-procrastinating female bachelor (what in the hell is a politically correct alternative to spinster, btw?)”

Last night (April 24), two gunmen on motorcycle pumped five bullets into her body while she was on her way home in Karachi. The attack took place shortly after she hosted a talk event titled ‘Unsilencing Baluchistan’, about the issue of human rights in the province that has played host to a bloody separatist insurgency for many years.

As per the New York Times, Sabeen agreed to host the discussion after it had been canceled at a private university in Lahore, “reportedly at the behest of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate”.

But this piece is not about the politics surrounding the tragedy. Reflecting the DNA of this platform, this remembrance is about Sabeen’s unshackled entrepreneurial spirit.

Though she was already established as COO of Beyond Information Technology Solutions – b.i.t.s, a J Walter Thomson (JWT) associate company, her fierce independent streak reflected in no form better than the place she nonchalantly named The Second Floor (T2F) – “because it was housed on the second floor of a nondescript office building”.

But there was no nonchalance involved with the purpose of the space. Sabeen was clear about what she wanted T2F to be: ‘A community space for open dialogue’.

To gather context about the initiative, read this by NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston:

“If you were in Greenwich Village or SoHo in New York, this would sound like more of the same. But this being Pakistan, the Second Floor is unusual. When lawyers demonstrated after then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf fired dozens of senior judges in 2007, demonstrators planned their next moves at the Second Floor.”

One of the more notable recent events of T2F was Pakistan’s first ‘Hackathon’ in 2013 – a weekend-long event with about ten teams focusing on solutions to civic problems in Pakistan.

Organised a few months ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections, the event featured a diverse group of people, from coders, civic planners to private sector executives.  After brainstorming about Pakistan’s three dozen odd problem areas, the selected participants got down to working on nine targeted issues that could be solved with workable, effective apps.

Such was the aura of the enterprise that the administration was more than excited to be a part of it – especially since some of the apps were about identifying, tabulating and reporting government infrastructure and delivery inefficiencies.  Other solutions ranged from crime mapping to emergency services.

Yes, apps for governance delivery – in a region where the latter is still largely non-existent!

But then that’s what set her apart.

A self-confessed ‘tech addict’, she was a ‘Mac snob’ to such an extent that she often gave Steve Jobs credit for shaping her “anti-establishment, anti-war, pro-freedom worldview”. It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that design and technology were an extension of her body.

Once during a visit to her maternal uncle (‘Mamoo’) in London, she found herself without connectivity for some reason. “Didn’t mean to not respond – have been in London with no Internet access. […] I tried dialup but his phone line felt like it was from the sub-continent… Any other city and I would have fallen ill but London!!!!!!!! So much to do and see that didn’t miss the lack of connectivity much,” she wrote to me a few days later.

Over a period of 8 years, T2F hosted over 800 events – reaching the current average frequency of about four events a week. The events include corner meetings for independent political candidates, symposia on culture, technology and society, tele-conferencing with exiled leaders and thought leaders from across the world, talks, readings, standup comedy, film screenings, concerts, technology workshops, art exhibitions and pretty much everything that it was approached for. A large number of those events were streamed live, tweeted in real time and digitally recorded for archives.

But it is not about numbers. It is about entrepreneurial spirit being put to effective use in the social sphere.  She once told me, “Street art adds colour and intelligence into a city, without changing the infrastructure”. The context was our conversation about mixing her expertise in design and technology and my understanding of civil engineering and media to good use towards a better society.

With tributes pouring in from New York Times, Pakistan’s current and past leaders and countless admirers on the social and mainstream media, one thing is clear – she added an awful lot of colour and intelligence to her society, despite her abridged stay therein.

“Hatred is inexplicable yet so rampant and accelerating at an appalling pace. You’re right, film/cinema is a potent medium. I’d love to try my hand at it – soon, hopefully” – she once wrote to me.

“It was good to hear that you’re open to the idea of making cinema. Maybe one day we can make a joint production – a lavish musical. What say ya? 🙂” – I had joked back.

Maybe some other time; so long, Sabeen Mahmud!

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Foreign Policy Association (US) Journalism

China saw Modi coming but not Modi’s India

The article was first published on the Foreign Policy Association network here.

Before Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India, some observers in China believed that he could well be “the Deng Xiaoping of India,” comparing him with the Chinese leader who led the economic reform that has transformed China to a global power from a Third World country.

Modi visited China three times during his days as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat (west coast of India) and was always accorded red carpet treatment by the Chinese. During his last such visit in 2011, he was met by but four Chinese politburo members. Though not a norm, most chief ministers get to meet just one. China clearly saw Modi coming.

More importantly, the Chinese also experienced firsthand the probable tenor of future discourse with Modi’s India when he in his discussion with Chinese administrators, including the mayor of Beijing, not only pointed “Chinese activities in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)” but also about Pakistan “using China against India.”

While being a provincial leader, Modi was said to have warned China of damage to bilateral ties if China continued to play tango with Pakistan – before going on to tell the hosts that when in India, the Chinese should use Indian maps and not theirs, in a reference to the heat generated in India about Chinese company TBEA having distributed the map of India without some parts of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the entire Arunachal Pradesh (both Indian states bordering China), at a business function in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

If the Chinese had seen Modi coming, they should’ve seen Modi’s India coming. But, it seems, they didn’t.

They wouldn’t have bargained for the entire South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leadership to be present at Prime Minister Modi’s swearing in ceremony – not Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at least. But before they could come out with the final analysis, Modi was already on a whirlwind charm offensive to Bhutan, Nepal (twice), China’s bête noire Japan, and its bitter rival, the United States.

It was more than exchange of business cards: In January, Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the man who had decisively – and brutally – pulled the island nation out of long and bloody civil war, towards robust economic growth of seven percent a year, was quite remarkably put out of office by the country’s electorate.

Immediately after the election results, the region was awash with talks about the change having been engineered by India’s intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). India, of course, denied having anything to do with it but many neutrals pointed out to the uncanny coincidence of the expulsion of a RAW official by Sri Lanka during the run-up of the Jan. 8, 2015, Lankan elections. The official was recalled by India in December 2014 amid accusations that he helped shape the campaign of join opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena – after persuading him to suddenly dump Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa had long been upsetting India with his overtures to China and allowing the dragon to treat his country as a de facto strategic base – by means of pouring in billions of dollars for massive construction projects. The Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka in September 2014 to lay stone for a USD 1.5 billion port project, something that elicited a quick and unhappy reaction from India.

Despite his allowing China a strategic foothold in the Indian Ocean and despite pressure from the global community, especially the UNHRC, for alleged war crimes, India was cautious in going hard at Rajapaksa – because it could have perhaps him pushed even further closer to China.

But Indian officials believe he pushed things way too far when he allowed in September 2014 a Chinese submarine to dock in Colombo. Sri Lanka is bound by an existing agreement with India to inform the latter if any such actions are taken place. But it did not. And it did not when the submarine was docked again in November.

The Sirisena government has said that India is “the first concern” and has talked of reviewing all projects awarded to Chinese firms. This was a massive round to have won by Modi’s India, but there were many other battles that wherein India has now started pushing China back – at least in South Asia.

While Bhutan has reinforced its stand vis-à-vis India’s concerns, Modi’s two visits to Nepal in double-quick time — his initial visit being the first by an Indian PM after 17 years — has earned him a handle that can help him key in India’s interests into Nepal’s own social, economic and strategic interests. An early reflector of the convergence between the two is the signing of Power Trade Agreement (PTA), which allows exchange of electricity between the two neighbors while opening up other avenues in the hydropower sector.

In Bangladesh, where the China Harbour Engineering Company was expected to walk away with the tender for a $8 billion port power project India has suddenly found itself staring nervously at a rival bid by an Indian company from Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

Most recently, Modi’s India put out a strategic U.S.-India joint statement on “advancing shared security in Asia Pacific region” during the recent Barack Obama visit to New Delhi. China was left seething when Obama, in reference to the South China Sea issue, said that U.S. welcomes a greater role for India in the Asia Pacific, where “the freedom of navigation must be upheld and disputes must be resolved peacefully.” Much to China’s wariness, Obama also showed agreement with India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

All of that maneuvering by and in Modi’s India seems to have got under the skin of the notoriously reticent Chinese. An article in the Communist Party of China (CPC) controlled Global Times remarked, “The seemingly enthusiastic approach of the US and India and the romance between the two leaders do not suggest any substantial improvement in the bilateral ties of the two countries.”

The game is on.

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Repatriation Still a Far Cry in Bhutan: Exiled Journo

Evicted from Bhutan at the age of 11, Vidhyapati Mishra spent two decades in U.N.-funded Bhutanese refugee camp in eastern Nepal before resettling in the United States. Just a week before his departure from Nepal to Charlotte of North Carolina, self-learned journalist Mishra also featured in the New York Times with his powerful narrative story exposing the other side of the Bhutan’s gross national happiness.

In conversation with Anshuman Rawat, he talks about the plight of exiled Bhutanese and the prospects of their repatriation:
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Vidhyapati-Mishra-small-300x300-150x150Your story plays on a note that is very different from the happy piece of music that the world associates with Bhutan. Can you inform our readers of Bhutan’s lost narrative about the pain and displacement of nearly one-sixth of its people – including your own family?

Like the United States of America, Bhutan is a country of immigrants. Among other ethnic groups, the Nepali-speaking citizens, whom the regime called as Lhotshampas, are the only people that Bhutan accepted for permanent settlement through formal written agreement with Nepal. The first lot of Nepalese had arrived in Bhutan in 1624. The migration of these people into Bhutan started after the formal agreement between the then rulers of Bhutan and Gorkha (now Nepal). However, the Bhutanese rulers treated them as second-class citizens until they were accepted as citizens by granting citizenship certificates in 1958.

The citizenship act of 1958 became the basis for evicting over one-sixth of the country’s population as it willfully divided even members of the same family into various classes, thereby arbitrarily tagging some members as “non-Bhutanese.” The state imposed various policies and mechanisms including martial laws to terrorize and suppress citizens. The government shut down schools, later they were turned into military barracks, where innocent citizens were tortured, women gang-raped and even killed. Lhotshampas and their supporters like Scharlops from eastern Bhutan were unlawfully fired from their jobs, and were refrained from all kinds of public services. Restrictions on Hindu culture and celebration of festivals and were imposed along with a ban on properties sale. The state authority implemented the ‘One Nation, One People Policy’ sternly warning all citizens to follow just Buddhism. The when such activities became rampant, Lhotsampas and their supporters organized mass protests and demonstrations.

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and many killed arbitrarily. The government labeled participants of those mass demonstrations as “anti-national agents,” and were later evicted.  The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) arrested citizens en mass. They were brought to school-turned-military barracks and tortured inhumanly, forcing them to sign Voluntary Migration Forms (VMFs) in order to leave the homeland by abandoning everything.

RBA arrested my father, and he was tortured in a military barrack for 91 days. When all options to save his life failed, he decided to sign the VMF that gave us an ultimatum of just one week to quit the nation. And, it was the Hobson’s choice for my family to leave the hometown, and accordingly we arrived at Bhutan-India border, from where Indian lorry trucks loaded us and dropped in eastern part of Nepal.

How much of Bhutan’s actions, in your opinion, can be compared with the Buddhist majority aggression against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka? In other words, do you believe that a part reason of the plight of the Lhotshampas can be ascribed to a gradual rise of assertive political Buddhism in the region?

The Buddhist majority aggressions against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lank do have some common parallels. However, Bhutan’s intention to create purely a Buddhist state by evicting majority of Hindu citizens has different version.  It simply wants a typical Buddhist society without the existence of other religions like Hinduism or Christianity.  As even claimed by regional analysts, the Bhutanese regime was not happy with growing number of Nepali-speaking citizens in public services and educational opportunities availed by Lhotshampas, who are hardworking and patriotic by nature. Further, democratic movements in Indian territories operated by Indian Nepalese added more fears to the regime, and eventually exercised the ethnic cleaning. But, Bhutan clearly knows that the suppressed groups like Lhotshampas and Scharlops are not fighting for a separate state or power capture, but what they want is justice, equality and same participation as enjoyed by the ruling elites in the national building process.

What is the current status of the issue in terms of internationally accepted statistics about the number of refugees, their locations and the means of sustenance?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that has been overseeing the ongoing third country resettlement, the agency has received over 100,000 submissions for resettlement. Of them, over 80,000 refugees have already started leading new lives in various western countries. The United States of America has alone accepted over 65,000 persons, and even assured of accepting more. Canada and Australia have ranked second and third respectively in accepting refugees for resettlement. Similarly, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and the United Kingdom have also resettled the Bhutanese refugees, but their number in each country is below 1,000. Each country has its own legal provisions for ensuring sustenance of humanitarian immigrants like refugees. They receive cash, housing and material supports for a certain period, which could be months or years depending on circumstances. The refugees become acquainted with the new environment and society, eventually start entry-level jobs, and plan their education, and career. It is a matter of pride that some of those who were resettled in early 2008 have already become citizens in America and Australia.

India can, arguably, do the most about the issue. But given its historical and special relations with Bhutan, do you ever see it taking a tough stand? What can force India to do that?

In various occasions, refugees trying to enter into Bhutan through India were blocked, detained and even killed. India has direct hand in dumping the refugees in Nepal by loading them in its lorry trucks while they were driven out of Bhutan in 1990s. Miraculously, India doesn’t allow refugees to use the same route for returning home now. India, one of the bystanders to the atrocities in Bhutan, in fact keeps on supporting regime, which is of crucial concern not only for the refugees, but also for the international community. The resettled refugees from various western countries should make their voices aloud and urge India to assist in repatriation of willing refugees from Nepal, and abroad. The Indian media, and civil society could be other powers for pressing the Indian government as regards to repatriation of Bhutanese refugees with dignity and honor.

Outside the region, how would you describe the efforts of the Lhotshampas to get their rights? Also, what has been the response of and actions, if any, by the international community?

The repeated failures of refugees to enter Bhutan have evoked frustrations among them, who were later compelled to abandon all campaigns by choosing to start new life in the West through their resettlement. This has empowered the regime, to a greater extent, for becoming more rigid towards the refugees’ calls for dignified return. The Bhutanese authorities always wanted to shadow the issue of repatriation, and resettlement package has helped them achieved this. This is why the so-called democratic government of Bhutan has turn deaf ears to genuine demands of the refugees. The government’s version on repatriation has still remained intact. Around 80,000 Nepali-speaking citizens are deprived of citizenship certificates, and voter’s identity cards inside the country that prepares to hold the second general elections later this year. For those citizens, their fellow friends in refugee camps are more privileged as they can opt to begin their new lives in developed western countries. On the other way, the resettlement has also helped Bhutanese refugees to expose all forms of atrocities the regime carried out in early and late 1990s while carrying out a well-perpetrated mass exodus, and educate the international community. The failure of the international community in convincing Bhutan to accept its citizens back home has given enough rooms for refugees to make a judgment that their dreams to return to their homeland are shattered due to the third country resettlement program.

Finally, what do you think are the prospects for repatriation?

Several rounds of high-level bilateral talks between governments of Bhutan and Nepal yielded no better results at end of the day. Bhutan continued applying numerous delaying tactics in the name of repatriation. Until recently, the Bhutanese government maintained that it was serious towards repatriating its citizens camped in Nepal, yet to no avail. Bhutan continues to play with lies. For the ruling elites in Bhutan, the resettlement has, more or less, resolved the longstanding refugee imbroglio on humanitarian basis. It can’t be denied that the existing model of democracy, defined by the Bhutanese ruling elites to simply suit them, still awaits major transformations to an inclusive citizens’ platform. This is possible only through major political changes, aimed at bringing ongoing state-sponsored suppressions on ethnic and religious groups to an end. Citing Bhutan’s continued lies; it’s indeed going to be a big miracle if by any chance repatriation takes place. I must not be wrong to mention here that the repatriation of exiled Bhutanese is still a far cry.

The article first appeared on the Foreign Policy Association blogs network site here

 

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India Just Scored a Self Goal

[The analysis was first published here on the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) blog network site]

Engineering of election results in Bhutan falls much short of a diplomatic victory of India

At the peak of campaigning by Bhutan’s two political parties for the recently concluded National Assembly (NA) elections, word spread that India was unhappy with the shrill nature of arguments – and their counters – related to India. Almost immediately, the said conversation was cooled down by both the parties and the campaigning from thereon stayed clear of it.

But the mood of the electorate was already set by opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which spearheaded a pitched call to bring Bhutan deeper into India’s political sphere of influence, for the sake of India’s strategic and financial support.

The ruling Druk Phuensum Tshogpa Party (DPT), on the other hand, struggled to dispel the PDP charge that the closeness of the previous prime minister Jigme Thinley with China was pushing India towards withdrawing economic oxygen to Thimpu.

India’s stalling of kerosene and cooking gas subsidy grants to Bhutan on July 1, just weeks before the election date, which pushed up prices by three times, was seen by most ordinary Bhutanese affected by the price rise as an argument in favour of the PDP charge.

It did not matter that India officially dubbed the subsidy reduction as a “procedural issue” and that some Bhutanese thinkers equated the Indian action with a business tit-for-tat against revised power export rate from Bhutan.”

PDP won 32 seats in the 47-member NA in the July 13 elections – up exponentially from a mere two seats in the previous assembly.

It was the result that India wanted, except that it may not have factored in the long-term cost of the “perceived means” to the end.

The subsidy issue right ahead of elections invited accusations from certain sections of India’s dishonesty, manipulation and gross interference in Bhutan’s election process.

Speaking, perhaps for a growing community in his nation, Wangcha Sangey, a legal consultant based in capital Thimpu, wrote in his blog: “National interests of Bhutan have to rise over and above the politics of always playing the Indian tune. […] Bhutan and Bhutanese are sovereignty unto our self. Therefore Bhutan’s paramount national interests and affairs just cannot be only pleasing India. We have to please ourselves too!”

Reflecting the extent of his anger at India’s perceived high-handedness, he then went on to write: “We are not paid sex workers that benefactors need to know when our eyelashes and asses move and in which direction.”

By “national interest” and “the direction” in which Bhutan needs to move, he was alluding to the furor caused by Thinley’s May 2012 meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Rio de Janeiro at the sidelines of Rio+20 summit in Brazil.

While on one hand abuse was heaped upon him by fellow Bhutanese for “endangering historical ties with India” by being cordial with the latter’s bitter rival, India saw Thinley government’s import order of 20 buses from China during the Rio meeting as strengthening of Thimpu’s commercial relationship with China at the cost of India.

More than that one meeting, India’s heightened sensitivity rested on Thinley government’s decision to go on a diplomatic overdrive and establish diplomatic relations with a whopping 32 countries during its five-year reign – up to 53 countries in 2013 from the 21 that existed in 2008.

Indians saw the frenzy as undue haste in acting upon a 2007 revision of the 1949 India-Bhutan Treaty of Friendship, which till then allowed India to “guide” Bhutan’s foreign policy, and had a provision wherein both nations needed to consult each other closely on foreign and defence affairs.

The new treaty replaced the provision requiring Bhutan to take India’s “guidance” on foreign policy with broader “sovereignty” and enabled Bhutan to not require India’s permission over arms imports.

Already uncomfortable with Bhutan’s urgency in spreading out, what got India’s goat eventually were reports that Bhutan was preparing to establish diplomatic relations with the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – including, and most worryingly, China.

Bhutan remains the only one of China’s 14 neighbors with which the dragon doesn’t have diplomatic relations. In the long-drawn battle for supremacy between China and India, New Delhi has always suspected Beijing of trying to win over Bhutan from India’s ambit.

But the big questions doing round in Bhutan and amidst many policy corners of India is whether that fear of India should be reason enough for India to go for the sledgehammer – especially against the backdrop of historical and geopolitical realities.

Bhutan shares a 605-kilometer (376-mile) border with India, which is its largest trading partner, accounting for 98 percent of its exports and 90 percent of its imports. Also, Bhutan’s only means of doing trade with the rest of the world so far is via 16 entry and exit points that India allows.

Against the seemingly claustrophobic arrangement, India has invested over $1 billion on the construction of three hydropower projects in Bhutan and has agreed to import at least 5,000 megawatts of electricity from Bhutan by 2020. Sale of electricity to India is one of the major exchange earners for Bhutan.

Bhutan also hosts an estimated 200,000 Indians – including Indian troops, which help Bhutan stay clear of and secure from terrorism and sectarian extremism.

It is because of this intertwined nature of relations that even at this discomforting hour writers like Kinley Dorji, the managing editor of Bhutan’s news daily Kuensel, argue: “Sovereignty – which India’s critics in the kingdom cite – works not in the abstract, but in daily lives as well. Bhutan and India, he notes, share a symbiotic relationship and it is in Bhutan’s interests to have closer relations with India than with China.”

Of course, and reflecting the general mood, he also carried on and advised in the same vein that it is in India’s interest to offer financial and technical help to Bhutan.

One of Sangey’s angry posts was titled: “India-Bhutan: Friend or Master.” Unless India begins to come across as the former – again – in the eyes of the hurting Bhutanese, it may not be able to hold on to its geopolitical need to be the latter.