Misappropriating chattels

The Ministry of Education acquires materials worth millions of rupees in kind every year. They range from personal computers, fax sets, printers to trucks for dumping garbage and tractors for agricultural purposes. Obviously, such materials are donated by foreign missions, international agencies and institutions to this country. Such donated materials would have been undoubtedly very useful for government offices, schools, district development committees and municipalities, had the government realized the importance of their utilities. However, the government officials carry portable ones to their home for personal use, while the non-portables remain unused in the premises of the Ministry of Education since the day the Ministry collects them as donations. What surprises many is that the government authority has maintained no official record of these donated materials. How does the Ministry of Education distribute such materials, and who are the government officials involved in corruption? These questions are yet to be answered.

Seven years ago, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank (WB) donated education materials for primary schools. This donation of educational materials came as part of the primary and basic education project into this country. Unfortunately, such materials worth over ten millions rupees, have still been lying unused at the Ministry of Education. The Ministry has neither distributed them yet to any school, nor has it identified the primary schools which badly need such education materials. However, hundreds of primary schools in remote areas run their classes without teaching equipment, leave aside trained teachers and such education materials as the JICA donated trucks, tractors, iron rods and furniture worth millions of rupees. And these materials have been misused since 1993, the year the government acquired them from the WB and JICA. The twenty three motor cycles donated by JICA went missing from the premises just a few days after the Ministry collected them.

The Ministry of Education, after it had realized the widespread misuse of donated materials, set up a committee to probe the misappropriation of such materials. The committee even submitted its report to the Ministry, explaining anomalies on how the government failed to utilise such materials properly and, how the government officials misused them. The government received such materials in the form of donations, but it did not keep any account. Neither has the Ministry inspected the use of donated materials regularly, nor has it provided such materials to any school for the last two years. Rather, the officials have misappropriated them for their personal use. The government must not continue to take this lightly. The misuse of such materials has cost the country’s credibility more than we have thought. The government should immediately take action against those who have misused donated materials.

The crux of the problem

By Dr DN S Dhakal

A government, that was committed to promoting national integration up until mid 1980s, became vindictive towards Nepali Bhutanese after the peaceful mass demonstration of 1990. The emotional, spontaneous outburst was a surprise for everybody, from ordinary people to the King. Initially, the Government toed an option of soft paddling the demonstrators, possibly redressing cultural and political issues raised by the Nepali Bhutanese. Parsu Dahal, the then National Assembly Member of Gylemphug Dungkhag, was sent as a King’s messenger across the border to tell the ‘boys’ not to repeat demonstrations. The concessions the King perhaps had in mind was permission to teach again Nepali language in schools and to give freedom of choice for dress code except in offices and public functions. Possibly some political concessions were in King’s mind since he is recorded in Indian press that "the people of southern Bhutan are under-represented in the National Assembly, which requires correction".

After a series of meetings among non-Lhotsampa officials and royal family members in Thimphu, the Royal Government instructed all not to participate again in such demonstrations. The undertakings were collected by the respective Dzongdhas and passed on to the royal palace. It appeared at least during the first quarter of 1991 that the situation would turn normal soon, and the royal government was in the process of building a national consensus on how to handle its inbuilt discriminatory policies towards the people of Nepali ethnicity.

The Royal Government made a turnaround after King Jigme Singye Wangchuck met Shabdrung Nawang Jigme Namgyal at Asoka Hotel, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. Reportedly, the meeting took place in early February 1991; Rajiv Gandhi, considered a family friend of Bhutanese royalties, was responsible for arranging it. What transpired in the meeting has remained between the two. Nevertheless, Shabdrung continues to live at Manali, Himachal Pradesh, India, and there are stories of repeated assassinations of reincarnate Shabdrungs in Bhutan after the establishment of the Wangchuck Dynasty in 1907 AD.

Two months later followed the major defection by six senior Lhotsampa officials from Thimphu and the unexpected death of Rajiv Gandhi. Whether it was the meeting between the King and the Shabdrung or the defection of senior officials to exile in Nepal or a mere coincidence of events, the situation did not remain the same for Nepali Bhutanese in Bhutan.

Bhutan began arbitrary arrest in South Bhutan targeting anchor citizens, village headmen, and people with businessess and large movable and immovable property from the second quarter of 1991. The government arrested even those individuals whom it had instructed to collect district-wise undertakings of the people for royal clemency. Essentially, the government unleashed state terror in South Bhutan under the command and control of the Royal Bhutan Army to organize eviction of the Lhotsampas under the bogy of voluntary migration scheme. The testimonies of the refugees to the JVT should be sufficient to construct a scenario of the eviction process, charting out the role of Royal Bhutan Army, Royal Bhutan Police and District Officials.

For this there are two opinions among Bhutan experts. One group suggests a scenario in which the royal government wanted to create refugee exodus to convert essentially a political problem into a humanitarian crisis. By doing this, it wanted to have adequate time at hands to silence the call for human rights and democracy in Bhutan. In this, the royal government would scare the people from Chirang, Dagana, Sarbhang, Samdrupzongkher and Samchi districts by perpetrating atrocities or by making them sign the so called voluntary migration form. If compelled, it would bring back politically docile population to settle them in geographically isolated reengineered mosaic community for effective monitoring and political control. This was perhaps one reason why the royal government wanted to categorize the people into four groups, thus placing in an inbuilt filtering mechanism to leave behind politically conscious people. If true, this obviously was a clever move to thwart the wave of human rights and democracy of 1990s, and certainly Bhutan has succeeded to some extent.

In an alternative scenario, expert opinions give credence to ‘ethnic cleansing’ as its strategy to achieve a lasting solution to the Lhotsampa problem in Bhutan. In it, the hardliners in Cabinet Council and Royal Bhutan Army had assured the King that ethnic cleansing in Bhutan was a possibility so long as India remained neutral on the refugee issue. The group believed that Bhutan could easily control initial gusto of negative international publicity by whipping the bogy of illegal economic immigrants and the conspiracy of Greater Nepal. The agreement on categorization was a ploy to engage the HMG Nepal in the dialogue; it never wanted to field a verification team in the camps, let alone taking back any refugees to Bhutan. Once the refugee issue meets its natural death with natural assimilation in Nepal, it can easily push those Nepali Bhutanese, who are still residing inside the country, to opt for voluntary migration by using different pressure tactics.

India’s position has remained a black box; once revealed, it will determine the scenario in which the Bhutanese refugees emerge. The proposed secretary level bilateral talk is the barometer to indicate where the whole process is heading towards. Here, the issue of category two is the bone of contention. About 60% of the total population in the camps fall in this category. There is a need for Nepal to stick to the point that ‘people could not have left Bhutan in 1000s unless there was coercion’. This would enable category two to return Bhutan under the JMC framework, as the question on their Bhutanese citizenship does not arise at all.

For this Nepal must approach India with open mind, requesting it to speak out its conscience. Each country has its own national interest, many compelling issues at hand, and there could be many other issues requiring immediate response. Nevertheless, the Bhutanese refugee issue does demand critical inputs from India as it is already 10 years old, and it is happening at its backyard in Bhutan. Unless India supports the thesis that "the innocent villagers could not have signed the form in 1000s without coercion", no amount of international effort would compel Bhutan to accept responsibility towards all genuine Bhutanese citizens, whom it has deprived of a normal life for over a decade.

The honeymoon was over

By Sarita Bahety

I always used to look at people on wheels in awe. Specially, the breed that could multitask while driving, that is with one hand steer the car on the turns, with another attend the calls on the mobiles and, at the same time, their feet engaged in accelerating the vehicle. And my burning desire was to learn driving, and to be at least able to take myself on roads independently. So, I practised on my sleek Maruti car for the driving test and, one fine day, I actually passed the trial. After that began my ordeal of getting the license made by the government officials. In this due course of time there was a lot of sweating out, endless trips to the administrative office in the Ghantaghar, but all in vain. Luckily after lurking around for nearly a month, I finally got the much-wanted license, which I immediately got laminated. Then I thought of having a drive around the valley all by myself. So I washed and waxed the car until it shone brilliantly and got ready for my maiden drive. I was excited like four year-old who had just worn a new party dress. The honeymoon had begun.

As I set out from the house I was slightly nervous, suffering from what is aptly called as "the first time syndrome". And to add to my anxiety I saw a number of cows strolling right on the middle of road. Even after honking the horn for quite sometime, the birds didn’t show any sign of budging. I was getting very restless; meanwhile a number of vehicles had queued up behind my car, almost deafening me with their never ending din. Having no clue as to what to do the next, I helplessly looked around. Then much to my relief there came a daring pedestrian who chased the cows away with a stick. Only then could I proceed further.

As I cruised my ways through the busy roads, there were a couple of guys loitering around asking for a lift in a rather adventurous style. Here I was struggling to keep away from the animals, and there were the chaps distracting me even more. I felt like hitting them all with the hood of the car but I had to control myself. As I moved further I saw howling canines standing near a dead dog. I drove the vehicle faster to avoid the stench only to find out that they instead began chasing me. Not knowing where I was going, I pressed the accelerator even more to escape from the disgusting surroundings, and happened to take an unknown alley. Once again I sighed in relief, but sadly this time around also it was short-lived. This was not a pitched road, with the construction material, the sharp stones heaped on all the sides. Before I could proceed further, I sensed some difficulty in gearing the vehicle forward. I stepped out and much to my shock found that, one of the front tyres had gone flat! I wondered if I could fix it. Although I had never tried accomplishing the flat tyre mending process, I still managed to put up a smile on my face and groped in to locate a jack. As I positioned myself to put the jack under the car, I had to face the fury of monsoon. The sky, which was clear all this while had suddenly changed its colours. It started raining cats and dogs and in that moment of sheer confusion I was soaked to skin. I sat inside and said a prayer silently. Perhaps, God had realized that this damsel was in distress. Suddenly my eyes spotted a rickety, otherwise an invisible board, which read: "Punctures repaired here". Thanking my stars, I rushed inside and after nearly half an hour the car was in a movable condition. With all my dampened spirit I again started the car, but this time drove it in the reverse direction, back to home. The honeymoon had ended.

Moving mountains

By Jug Suraiya

The sky seemed blissfully unaware that for it to be so unequivocally blue was a post-modernist cliche. Knees drawn up under the green rug of the forest, the surrounding hills reposed in dreamless siesta. Along the winding trail brilliantly hued butterflies flitted like fragments of a rainbow artlessly deconstructed by a passing zephyr. On either side of the ridge twin valleys dropped away in terraced ledges like a giant staircase carved in the lost childhood of the earth when the titans were young. In the sparkling air the paddy fields gleamed green and gold like...

"Shit!" said Bunny emphatically, cutting short my reverie and the steady pace we had maintained. We had come to that anathema of anathemas which one tends to encounter when walking in the mountains — an upward incline.

Like me, Bunny loves the hills. But unlike me, she reserves her enthusiasm for the downward bits only. In Bunny’s ideal universe, the ideal mountain would be a one-way escalator going from top to bottom, and no return trips the other way round. In such an ideal state of affairs, Bunny would certainly come into her own as the mountaineer par excellence which she is in essence, conquering all and sundry peaks in sight and leaving rewritten history to ask itself the bemused question: Tenzing who?

Unfortunately, as Newton discovered when the apple that fell on his head was revealed to have a worm in it, we do not live in an ideal universe. And in our contrary cosmos, mountains which go downwards must first go upwards.

However, always the optimist, Bunny adopts the position taken by Thomas Aquinas vis-a-vis the Perfect Good in his famous ontological argument: The Perfect must necessarily exist since non-existence implies a lack of perfection which, per se, the Perfect cannot possess, QED.

Armed with this theological certitude we have searched high and low, far and near, for Bunny’s Perfect Mountain: in the Shivaliks and the Satpuras, in the Adirondacks of New York State and along the white cliffs of Dover, in the Spanish Pyrenees and in the whipped cream fantasy of the Swiss Alps. No dice. All the mountains we met had their downside, but it was a downside which a priori postulated a preceding upside. "Rats", said Bunny, and gave T Aquinas the heave-ho as an unreliable accomplice.

So it was with some trepidation that I suggested, during our visit to Nepal, that she join AD and me on a half-day trek, from Nagarkot to Changu Narayan.

AD of course is Rik AD Sherpa, who took the photographs and did the research for Dubby’s bestselling book Peak Hour. AD knows the Nepal Himalayas better than most people know the backs of their hands, but Bunny still looked dubious. "Will there be climbs?" she asked warily. AD pointed out that since Nagarkot, our starting point, was 7,500 feet high, and Changu Narayan, our destination, was 6,000 feet, the route would be downhill, barring a few minor ascents. So Bunny agreed to join the expedition.

But what we hadn’t bargained for was the Sherpa proclivity for making molehills out of mountains. Those who have gone walk-about with a Sherpa in hilly terrain will know where of I speak. There you are, ambling along, tame Sherpa in tow, humming Edelweiss like an off-key Julie Andrews, and suddenly you run smack into something that looks like a transplanted Empire State Building right in your path. Before you can say Gawdhelpus! there is a zoooot! like the sound barrier being broken and your accompanying Sherpa has gained the top of the eminence while you’re still adjusting your hernia truss. I believe it’s something to do with the magnetic cushion on which the French TGV superfast trains run: Sherpas don’t walk on mountains; they walk on a thin layer of air which enables them to zooot! where angels fear to tread.

And so it proved to be. The downhill trek turned out to involve more uphill work than Sisyphus doing the Cresta Run in reverse. As we toiled up one endless slope after another, I proffered the consolation of philosophy.

"Faith moves mountains", I suggested. "Shaddup", said Bunny. Zooot! went AD.

Three bedraggled hours later we reached Changu Narayan, where we found our waiting car — and the final slope up to the temple. "No way", said Bunny, and parked herself in the vehicle.

I trudged up the last incline to the shrine where the legendary architect Arniko is said to have designed the first pagoda roof in the world. A traveller from China saw the roof and took Arniko with him to the emperor’s court in the Forbidden City of Peking. And that was how the pagoda migrated from its high abode in Nepal to the cities of the plain of the Middle Kingdom.

As I looked at the pagoda, the glissade of roofs seemed to flow down like a frozen symphony thawed by sight, a plummeting pinnacle of pure descent.

"Why, that’s it," I said to myself. "That’s the Perfect Mountain."

Huffing back to the car I told Bunny: "I’ve found the Perfect Mountain"! "So have I", she replied: "It’s the one I sit at the foot of and watch you walk up before going downhill myself". And with that she signalled the driver to take us back to Kathmandu, perfectly downwards all the way.

(The author is an associate editor of The Times of India)