The Impact of Resettlement on the Bhutanese Refugees: A Critical Reflection

Abstract

In the early 1990s, there was a mass exodus of the ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan that led to the creation of what we today refer to as the ‘Bhutanese refugees’. While some were outright expelled or denied their Bhutanese citizenship, tens of thousands of Nepalis, called the ‘Lhotsampas’ were compelled to flee the country to escape the arbitrary political arrest, detainment and increasing repression against anti-government activities as perceived by the Government of Bhutan (GoB). For about three decades, these Bhutanese refugees have been temporarily kept in seven refugee camps in Nepal with no political resolution for their return back to Bhutan despite the bilateral talks between the GoB and Nepal. Rather resettlement processes have started to resettle the Bhutanese refugees in different ‘third’ countries across the globe. The third country resettlement process raised hope of Bhutanese refugees but not without generating tensions and dilemmas of its own kind such as the lack of proper prior information about resettlement, their increased vulnerability of social exclusion in the host countries, difficulties of integration and so on. The chapter probes how the re-settlement journey of this particular community has had an adverse effect on their welfare as much as on their existence and identity as a collective entity. It also tries to bring to light the narrative of how the Lhotsampas have struggled vis-a-vis the brutal exodus from Bhutan to re-settle and rehabilitate elsewhere.