The paper draws attention to the severity of the issue of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and describes possible ways that Nepal can adopt to address it. In the backdrop of the poor economic situation in Nepal, the paper argues that Nepal is not in a position to absorb the large influx of refugees. Moreover, Nepal is also not able to successfully repatriate them back to their home country, mainly because of King Jigme’s accusation of Nepal for providing shelter to ‘anti-regime Bhutanese’ or ‘anti-nationals’; the belief that the people are illegal migrants and not Bhutan government’s liability; and the disinterest of King Jigme in resolving this problem. The paper argues that the persistence of this crisis can result in severe political problems between the home country and host country, refugee groups and host country, and among refugee groups, and also trigger possibilities of refugee groups being used for terrorism. The author focuses on three ways to address this problem: direct leadership contact, active support of India, and regionalisation of this issue at the SAARC level.

Kumar, D. 1993. Contributions to Nepalese Studies. 20:2, 213-219.