Homelessness and Uncertain Belonging of the Bhutanese Nepali Diaspora

Bhutanese Nepali Diaspora is a classic example of Nepali transnational community. Started centuries ago, it was massively developed in the 19th and 20th centuries before it was dispersed in the 21st century. Living in Bhutan as an agricultural and free-of-cost-labour community for the Bhutanese regime, they always believed that Nepali culture, language and king were their own. When Bhutan brought the ‘one culture, one nation’ policy in the 1980s, about a hundred thousand Bhutanese Nepalis were expelled and they returned to Nepal with the belief that Nepal as their ancestor’s land would accept them. But, as the diasporic communities mostly experience, Nepal provided them just the status of refugees. Their home and belonging were not sure for about two decades before they were resettled in the West i.e. Europe, America and Oceania. Now, the people of this community are dispersed in eight western countries, Nepal and Bhutan. In Bhutan, they live as a marginalized minority that cannot enjoy their language and culture; in Nepal, they are living as the refugees; and in the western nations, they are living with economic freedom but cultural constraints. Their literary expressions show that, in all these three spaces, they are not happy and are not sure about their real home and belonging. This chapter discusses the history of this dispersion in the light of the theory of transnationalism and diaspora with a special focus on the Bhutanese Nepali community’s homelessness and uncertain belonging. The data have been the historical documents of their migration and experiences along with their literary creations. Interpretation of the selected texts has highlighted the theme of the paper. The lines quoted from the literary texts in Nepali have been put in my free translation.