A delegation from the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs recently returned to Thimphu from its Darjeeling and Kalimpong trip assessing the situation of Bhutanese students who are pursuing their higher education in this hilly town.
The ministry was concerned about the students after the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), the agitating political party for a separate state in the hills, imposed compulsory use of ethnic dress for all students there.
The GJM had prescribed the dress code early this year for general residents. With the announcement, most hill residents began revising their traditional dresses – gunyu-cholo for females and daura-suruwal-topi for males. Bhutanese students boycotted it.
In early October, the party announced that all students must adhere by the prescribed dress code. Bhutanese students studying in various colleges here again rejected the call saying it was not their cultural or ethnic dress. In several occasions, the Bhutanese students, who prefer pant-short over gho and kira in Darjeeling and Kalimpong, submitted letters to the local leaders of GJM and their alliance urging them not to impose the dress code for Bhutanese.
Seeing that all those residents, especially from Bhutan, did not adhere by the order, the GJM cadres have been mobilized in most schools and colleges to monitor to ensure that the students come with the Nepali (rather Gorkhali) dress to study. All those not abiding by the rule were returned from school and college gates.
The panic penetrated throughout the Bhutanese students and it invited emotional fright to their parents. Compulsion to wear a dress that is not traditionally their, is beyond assumption and tolerance. The pains in heart rule so much for the Bhutanese students that it certainly cannot be translated into words, cannot be expressed in voices.
Not aware of the political freedom, right to protests and right to wear any dress as enshrined by the universal principal of human rights, Bhutanese students in Darjeeling and Kalimpong have gone through mental stress and psychological torture. The only option for them is to appeal the agitators.
In fact, primary reasons lie elsewhere. Wearing gunyu-cholo and daura-suruwal is not unfitting for Bhutanese students. It is rather a hatred that Bhutanese society inculcated in them as they grow up. The hatred to this Nepali-dress had reached a peak when Nepali-speaking population opposed the government decision in Bhutan in late 1980s to make gho-and kira as compulsory dress, even in field for the Nepali-speaking population who live in tropical south.
The Bhutanese authorities have already started lobbying the parents to transfer their children to other schools in India if GJM continues to impose the dress code. The Bhutanese authorities have instructed them, indirectly, not to adhere by the dress code as it is not their cultural wear. The hatred continues…
The panic and psychological torture that Nepali-speaking population undergone since 1980s in Bhutan must have been reflected in the hearts of the Bhutanese rulers for now. For decades, Bhutanese rulers did not show any concern on panic that Nepali-speaking southern Bhutan citizens tolerated due to imposition of dress of other ethnic group. The driglam namzha code is still in effect in Bhutan.
The Darjeeling-Kalimpong incident is a minor case. The GJM has not compelled the Bhutanese to follow Hindu rituals and culture. The extent of panic that Bhutanese rulers might feel this time is beyond imagination if the GJM made it compulsory for a certain specific rituals and cultures to be followed by the resident in Gorkhaland hills copying the ideas unveiled by Bhutan some two decades ago.
In fact, the ‘one nation one people’ policy is stricter than this minor imposition of gunyu-cholo-daura-suruwal in Gorkhaland. The Gorkha move is not only for protecting ethnic identity in democratic India but also to teach the tyrants in Bhutan that such imposition has limits to tolerate.
Attachment to culture in which one born cannot be explained in words. Bhutanese leaders must understand this. Learning lessons from the panic they endured by GJM imposition, the government in Bhutan has good opportunity to revise its policy on dress code.
hi, again you are playing politics. it is sense of belongingness. You guys eat salt of Bhutan and paid respect to nepali kings and now you are respecting GJM. You were guys not wanting to faithful to State of hutan and Nepal don’t want you despite your faithfulness.
what fitting story of your own actions.Hehe
Hi IP adhikari
I think you are making a wrong statement. Bhutanese students in Darjeeling are made to wear bhutanese dresses “ghos and kiras” not daura sural topi and gunio choli.
and your comparison of bhutanese being made to wear gorkha dress and lhotsampas made to wear ghos and kiras are not valid.Because, Bhutanese in darjeeling are not Indian citizen whereas Lhotsampas are Bhutanese.
read this if you have missed
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/11/17/bhutan-shangri-la-or-ethnic-cleanser/
thanks
Bhutanese
Woo!
It seems the people in Thimphu forgot the past.They must turn the pages of history on how thousands of southern Bhutanese were humilated on the issue of dress.Over hundred thousands were rendered homeless and stateless.They should realise “when in Rome be as Romans”.
I don’t see any thing here ,The Gorkhalis in Darjeeling are trying to keep their identity, this is just the repetition of a “ONE NATION ONE PEOPLE” Slogon coined by regime in Thimphu.
Have any human being in Bhutan felt the pain when thousands of school going children were thrown out from their school when the government velmently closed schools ,thus depriving thousands of southern bhutanese from their right to education.
This is a tit for tat action,Preach what you practice?
Do the regime in Thimphu realise the brave Gorkhaklis are endangered species now,as you guys used to call in early ninties when the regime took the help of Indian Army to Supress the right to Associations??
Hey,
This sounds crazy. I was at St. Pauls when things were taking a turn in Darjeeling long ago. The Bhutanese students always had a a chance to keep themselves different. We spoke in Dzongkha and Sarshop and wore our dress though not in the class. We were highly cared and respected because we were Bhutanese- foreigners to India. Now there is more to the story-there were Bhutanese girls at St. Joseph’s College and loreto who went to College in Kira. There was nothing wrong. Look at the Drukpas, lepchas, sherpas, Bhutias etc. If they stick to their dress traditional dress nobody is going to tell anything.
You young Bhutanese are absurd these days. If you are in the college-just wear gho and kira and go to the class. No body is going to tell you anything. Being Bhutanese and studying with the RGOB money you need to understand what it means to serve the country from the depth of your heart.
If you are a Drukpa and have some respect for Tsawa Sum better wear the gho and kira or quit your studies. We need you at Punatshangchhu Peoject and the government will spend the money that you use for helping the poor village children in the remote districts of Lhuntse of Trashiyangtse.
Let the people in Thimphu know who are these Drukpa students are who hate the gho and kira.
You young guys never will usnderstand how much the government cares you and you say you prefer shirts and trousers over gho. This is shameless.
If you feel that I am wrong and wish to learn more about being true Drukpa, go ahead and vent your fury at [email protected]. I shall be very glad to explain you the meaning of true Drukpa.
Keep warm till you get your winter break. Wear martha gho tomorrow before you go to the college.
You sound damn Sarchog! Rigzin.
You are so angry that we are studying here and you say we are using Bhutanese money. You brag about Lhuntse or monger and what do you think you are doing. Do you know that you sarchogs are not worthy to call yourself Drukpas. Go and ask Karma Ura and he will tell who you are. Only in the sixties you guys were allowed to go to western Bhutan. Now you call yourself Drukpa. You are brokpas and you came from India. Go and jooin the monpas. If you want to know who you are watch the monpa tsenam in youtube.
How can you tell us to wear gho and kira to go to Darjeeling town. Look we can wear what we like and we are richer than you sarchogs and we can afford to buy pants. Some sarchog guys in Indian Colleges are real lo chongsing. They are real rustics. They are not worth calling Bhutanese.
So, you brokpa just keep quiet and wear your yagthra when you go to kholong Tsechu or Tawang. You have no busieness to brag about the Drukpa business.
If the Bhutanese students in the hills are given the choice of using Gho and Kira they should accept using their national dress for which they are proud of. If they are asked to use Guneu and Choli they should because no foreign students in Bhutan are given that choice of using their own dress other then Gho and Kira. You cannot pass bad comments to other for the things which you yourself failed to practice.
Imposition of Bhutanese dress code to southern Bhutanese of Nepali origin is the fact known to the world and the concern raised by the Bhutanese student in Hills is the reflection of pinch felt by southern Bhutanese two decade back. The dress code law inforce by the Bhutanese regime was not acceptable to Bhutanese, which was reflected from the POLICE chasing to arrest people who are without Gho OR Kira and the Current life style of Bhutanese in the urban towns.
This law doesnot meet the international standard which bestowed the right to every community to mantain their own identity irrespective of their nationality. This was just a strategy of the regime to make hundred thousand people stateless.
Dear Readers,
The pain, agony and the sufferings surface back in my heart, when I read the plight of the dear Bhutanese students in the hills. I can’t say it is tit for tat coz the present students were not the one who imposed the cultural code to that extent who has to lose everything including properties even lives, but it is the King, his Hench men and perhaps, their parents who made it mandatory for the southerners without any valid reason. It was sheer ethnic cleansing hatred and nothing more.
You know the world is round and everybody, at one point of time has to undergo through the same tribulation, maybe it is just the beginning, the more is yet to come.
It was the southerners who suffered untold misery in the fists of the RGOB. Can anyone wear the shoes of the Lhotshampa for some time and contemplate the agony that was meted to them by jigme regime? I like sobbing, when I think of the time that I was forced to flee the country, where I was born and brought up so dearly. Every bit of my body turned sour and pale when I think of June 1992(that was the month that we were forced to flee the county with coercion) and I was saddened to the extent where I almost forgets to smile at times.
Due to this imposition of the cultural ethics many mothers became widows ,children became orphans and the wife lost the husband and vice -versa. That was a untold suffering and irreparable loss to the family and to the community.
Oh! Dictator did you turn back even for a fraction of second and look with sympathy to the brethren who were undergoing human misery because of the deliberate action of your own?
The long suffering in the refugee camps, more than 18 years is unthinkable, most grueling experience we ever went. That was another holocaust, mini but no less painful than the Nazi’s concentration camps. Now it is shame to say that you promote “Gross National Happiness”(GNH)when more than one fifth of the population are in the refugee camps without any future.
I think Dorji and Hila has no right to rejoice upon the sufferings meted to the Lhotshampas by the State. Sooner or later you guys have to face the same consequences, unless otherwise you had your hands in the state sponsored terrorism. The tiger that ate me will not spare you for any reason.
hahaha Dorji Tenzing pretending to be a hardcore Ngalong Drukpa huh.Im laughing my ass off. No Ngalong calls Sharchops as Sarchog nor do they say LO CHONGSING.I think you meant Lo Tsong Mi.
Noone is fool here Dorji.
It does not make any difference to you Aha the light hearted trivial inbetween who can not define where he belongs to. It is of national interest if you can understand what it means. Sincerely Ngalongs have and will continue to have an upper hand in the way each of us in the country desrve to be addressed. By your lines I read ignorance. You have never had the oppertunity to learn the language well and you need to go to Simtoka Rigney School or take up Dzongkha honors in Kanglung. I want to make things clear that our language is dynamic and it is heading to a status where witten and spoken are different. If the words Sarchog, Lhochog, Nubchog and Jangchog dont mean to make any sense to you Aha there is something wrong. Your questining attitude will one day brew trouble and disrupt the peace and harmony. Now there is nothing wrong in whatever way we call you. Please give seerious thought about what you like to say.
no no what do these students have to do with aginy of southern bhutanese
we are behaving like the then rulers of bhutan did for us
my sincere prayers that the bhutanese students in the hills are allowed their free dress
Hope this incident will be a eye opener to the those northern bhutanese who think narrowly
most of them are good
we should not generalise any situation
This pressure on the students is an “ism”. The students can happily wear the prescribed dress. The coercion will implant enmity between the concerned parties more than doing anything good to the school or to the local community.
Why Gorkhali wants to be another Jigme………. why should they impose compulsory ethnic dress????
Dont immitate Jigme……..he did that…………………..try to make your own history.It will ruin your image………………………….no one loves dictatorial design.