IIAS | IIAS Newsletter Online | No. 19 | Regions | South Asia

The Author Replies Thank you for your response to my article 'Bhutanese refugees: Middle of Nowhere.' First of all, my article was not based on the viewpoint of either a historian or anthropologist. I attempted to discuss the issue in humanist as well as political terms. You mentioned that the article was biased, but you forget how reluctant Nepal has been to host over 100,000 people for over eight years. How pitifully these people are forced to spend their lives in the camps! Do you feel anything for these people? About the 'classification problem and about the ethnic groups': Yes indeed I do put them under a complex blanket term, but the tiny country of Nepal has over seventy different spoken languages. In order to simplify such a complicated problem, one necessarily has to use 'a complex blanket term'. Besides, this blanket term was not my invention. I used it because I found it in many reports written by university students and journalists. You say that it is 'a gross misrepresentation' when I wrote that other than members of the ruling feudal class, no person may become a member of the National Assembly. If Lhotshampas (or any others for this matter) were satisfied with the National Assembly, why should they demand democracy? Newsweek and Time might have published on the issue, but are these written in Bhutan? And Kuensel is no different from The Rising Nepal, by and large a mouthpiece of the government. Turning to the language: if Nepalese was used daily and if Lhotshampas were respected, they would never flee from Bhutan. The Bhutanese government banned the use of Nepalese; the language spoken by the majority. Whatever international organizations claim, little has been done to resolve the refugee issue. Up to November 1998, when I sent in my article, no international organizations had been allowed to visit southern Bhutan where people's homes and properties were being demolished by the police and the army. Rajesh Giri University College Utrecht

   IIAS | IIAS Newsletter Online | No. 19 | Regions | South Asia