Blowback from India’s strategic blunder in Bhutan?

By:Bhim Bhurtel
New Delhi was rattled by Bhutan’s October 18 general election, the outcome of which may soon accelerate the decline of India’s influence over the Himalayan kingdom.
The center-left Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT, Bhutan United Party) won 30 seats out of 47 in the National Assembly, Bhutan’s lower house of parliament, in the second round of the election.Focusing on Bhutan’s ties with domineering India was not permitted during the election campaign – violators faced fines and reprimands. However, the so-called pro-Indian ex-prime minister Tshering Tobgay’s People’s Democratic Party(PDP) lost in the first round on September 15.Consequently, Indian strategic analysts worried that New Delhi’s influence over the northern frontier nation would be further diminished over the next five years as a result of India’s friend Tobgay being ousted. The Bhutanese people endorsed the DNT’s election manifesto and newly elected Prime Minister Tshering Loaty said he was firmly committed to honoring his party’s election promises.

This recent development in Bhutanese politics matters for India. The DNT’s election manifesto outlines three fundamental policies. First, it aims to diversify Bhutan’s economy to reduce the Indian monopsony of its hydroelectricity.

Second, the DNT emphasizes the reduction of Bhutan’s external debt of US$2.5 billion. The DNT surmises that unless Bhutan reduces its foreign debt vouched by India, it will remain subject to overbearing New Delhi’s influence in the future.

Third, the DNT’s manifesto also underscores private-sector investment for sustainable economic growth and Lotay’s economic policy goal is to attract foreign investment from sources other than India. If the Bhutanese economy starts to diversify, India cannot offset China’s foreign direct investment in Bhutan.

These three critical economic policies aim to free Bhutan from India’s domination. Therefore, Bhutan’s new government will continue its efforts to achieve the status of an independent country in the days to come, and India’s influence will decline further.

Many analysts believe India’s influence in Bhutan began to wane after the Doklam standoff in the summer of 2017. However, the tipping point for diminishing Indian hegemony in Bhutan goes back to 1990 when India used scaremongering tactics to get the government to exile more than 110,000 Nepali-speaking-Hindu Bhutanese (one-fifth of Bhutan’s total population at that time) called Lhotshapasas from Bhutan.
India’s strategists and intelligence officials feared that the popular uprising that overthrew the Nepalese king’s despotic regime in early 1990 could happen elsewhere. They miscalculated the likelihood of a collective demand for a separate independent nation by the Nepalese-speaking people of Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kalingpong, Duars, and southern Bhutan because the Lhotshapas were already demanding respect for human rights and democracy in late 1989.

Driven by paranoia, India used scare tactics to persuade Bhutan to drive out the Lhotshampas. Hari Sharma, an aide to then-prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala (1992-95) and  then-president Ram Baran Yadav (2008-15), quoted Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the Nepalese daily Naya Patrika on October 27: “Lhotshampas were exiled due to Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi’s pressure, and Indian intelligence also paid for ULFA (United Liberation Front for Assam) to exile them from Bhutan.”

Similarly, Balaram Paudel, the Bhutanese People’s Party’s exiled leader, wrote in Kantipur, a leading Nepalese daily, on July 22: “The Bhutanese king suppressed the Lhotshampas with the slogan of ‘one nation, one nationality’ and India indisputably backed up the King of Bhutan.”

The Hindus believe in the notion of moksha, emancipation from the cog of life and rebirth; all their karmas (actions) and the dharmas (rectitude) aim to secure moksha or rebirth in heaven. One of the key karmas and dharmas of Hindu is to go on a pilgrimage to Char-Dhams (Four Abodes), which are situated in India. For Hindus, India is crucial for not only this life but also for life after death.

Thus, if the Lhotshapas had not been driven out of Bhutan, they would have been represented in the political life of Bhutan, and they would, because of their Hindu beliefs, been more inclined toward India than the Drukpa people. However, the Indian foreign-policy mandarins ignored this Hindu factor and persuaded the Bhutanese king to exile the Lhotshapas to prevent a separatist movement they feared would emerge in the Indian Chicken’s Neck in 1990.

Bhutan is an India-locked country, and the nearest Nepal-India border is about 350 kilometers by road from the Bhutan-India boundary. The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and the West Bengal Police kept trucks at the Bhutan-India border to take Bhutanese refugees forcibly into Nepal. Moreover, the BSF did not permit Bhutanese refugees to re-enter India when they tried to return to Bhutan several times using the same route, repeatedly expelling them to Nepal.

WFP transition from in-kind food to cash assistance to refugees from Bhutan

KATHMANDU – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will shift its support from in-kind food assistance to distributions of cash to refugees from Bhutan located in Nepal starting mid-2018; this is in line with refugees’ preference and will ensure the dignity of choice for assisted people, who will be able to purchase the food they like.

In June 2018 there will be a shift towards a so-called “basic needs approach” which will ensure WFP’s continued support through 2018 for all Bhutanese refugees residing in the camps. Under this approach, especially vulnerable refugees, as defined by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) (for example the elderly, those with disabilities, and vulnerable female headed households), will receive a cash entitlement equivalent to the full food ration, whereas other refugees will receive the cash equivalent of their current ration.

WFP will provide the cash equivalent to the full rations (US$13 per person per month) to around 1,000 refugees deemed especially vulnerable, enabling them to purchase food of their choice in local markets. (This would add up to the 15 kilograms full ration, composed of a daily ration of 440 grams of rice, 90 grams of varied pulses and 25 grams of vegetable oil and equivalent of 2,100 calories per person per day.) All other refugees will receive the cash equivalent to the in kind reduced ration of 10 kg of rice per month (US$6.5 per person per month).

“After 25 years of humanitarian assistance, WFP will shift from in kind food assistance to cash distributions until the end of 2018” said Pippa Bradford, WFP Representative and Country Director. “WFP has sought a special allocation to ensure that for 2018 it can continue to provide full support to the refugees. WFP will also promote the expansion of vegetable gardens with tools, seeds and guidance, in order to complement the refugees’ food basket and promote self-reliance” she added.

Since 1992, WFP has provided food assistance to Bhutanese refugees living in camps in eastern Nepal since 1992, thanks to generous funding from international donors. The original population of around 107,000 people has decreased steadily since 2007 as people have been resettled in other countries.  Many donors including Australia, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the United States, have contributed generously over the years.

However, the world faces unprecedented humanitarian needs, and donors have to make tough decisions. Many have shifted their priorities to major refugee crises in other parts of the world, meaning no donor countries have contributed to WFP’s operation in support of these refugees since 2016. 

The changes that WFP plans to introduce starting mid-2018 are part of a long-term WFP/UNHCR strategy that includes WFP transitioning out of the assistance to the refugees from Bhutan by the end of 2018.

WFP listens to the refugees and works to address their concerns.

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The United Nations World Food Programme - saving lives in emergencies and changing lives for millions through sustainable development. WFP works in more than 80 countries around the world, feeding people caught in conflict and disasters, and laying the foundations for a better future.
Source:http://www.wfp.org

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