Left to believe as the first case of suicide of a Bhutanese refugee in The Netherlands

‘I have to make you independent. Then it will be good’ ma timilai independent banauna cahanchu. Ani ta bhaihalcha: He said to me;  recalls Menka.

‘Mero babalai dippressie bhako thiyo. Pani ma gayera verdronken hunu bhayecha.  Mero baba ta best kok honi. Universiteit ma pani mero Baba thulo manche ho. Tara aba chainan; recalls Vivika, expressing in mixed Dutch and Bhutanese language, lying on the bed the night she heard that she is now orphaned. “My father was suffering from depression and that he went away, drowned in the river, that he was the best cook and also the best personality in the University, but now no more”.

For these two little children, Vivika and Visaka, aged 7 and 4, he was the best father that they were fond of and very deeply scorn against the reality that made him suffer from ‘depression’ and forced to live with the question; why was it not cured?. The youngest child thinks only of her father and cries within, that one makes out from her tears.

He who wanted to make his wife independent and his children the most lovable and intellectual was Durga Prasad Acharya. He was on this earth from 1^st March 1969 to 18 January 20014 the day only his dead body was found in Berlin floating on a river Spree. It is not clear whether he has left his body earlier than this day.

The first 23 years of the life Durga was most unforgettable having spent in his country of origin, Bhutan; born at Lamidara in Tsirang district. His farming land number was 82 tham and house number LD/10. He relished it for it was lived with pride for being a citizen of Bhutan and also deplored for losing the citizenship due to the tyrannical rule of the Buddhist monarch that forcibly exiled nearly half the population of the ethnic minority Lhotshampa in which Durga also belong. As a reminiscence of that part of Bhutanese life he kept in his wallet One Ngultrum note that has the imprint of the king Jigme Singye Wangchuk until his death.

Durga was exiled along with his parents in 1992 and forced to live as a refugee in Nepal at Goldhap refugee camp set by the UNHCR. The early period of instituting the refugee camps in Nepal was terribly distressing being poor in all aspect of management and supply. As the time took to improve life in the camps, Nepal underwent radical political chauvinism changing the polity from monarchy to democracy and then immediately to communist. This political emancipation swayed across the Bhutanese refugee camps with the drive for repatriation to Bhutan by any means, even with the use of force if the peaceful means fail. In that situation Durga lived there for another 13 years with the trauma of being harassed by the activists that made him feel insecure.

In pursuit of secure living, he appealed the UNHCR on 20 April 2004 to open up possibilities for the susceptible refugees to escape to the safer side of the world. His appeal was unheard. He then left to other parts of Nepal, Kathmandu, where safety was expected. But the survival was still at stake. He then fled to The Netherlands in early 2005 to seek asylum once again, yearning for peace and security. His wife, in the later stage of pregnancy at that time, was left behind in Nepal to fend alone where even the sturdy men were also facing the risk. Such situation was truly worrisome for Durga. A year later on 7 March 2006, the activists burned down the hut number C1-12 in Goldhap, letting him understand that some of our Lhotshampa companions are equally cruel as those few Drukpa elites who forced him out of Bhutan earlier.  

In the Netherlands Durga lived only for the last 8 years. Then he apparently did not want to live further.  What made Durga feel apprehensive in The Netherlands is unknown to me as yet although I could only describe here the incidences I encountered along with him but can’t declare or judge anything that consequent to sad reality seen today.

Across some encountered incidences a line can be drawn that strokes despair in the person like Durga who was truly childlike innocent. Given this analogy, I acknowledge the opinion of a Psychologist who tried to redress his melancholy as fitting.  ‘If someone is in continuous anxiety and is continuously harassed and intimidated, then that only reinforces the paranoid thoughts’ the Psychologist who tended Durga said in an Email. I was also told earlier that: ‘the attitude of a few Bhutanese leaders with whom Durga had to live in contact most of the time led to his depression. But these Bhutanese are not the cause for his depression. The depression began quite earlier, caused probably by the acts of the Bhutan government that implemented forcible exile against these types of people’.

Now where from and how the harassment and intimidation continued in The Netherlands is not known clearly, accept a few ugly interlude, I recall, in the life of Durga that may went on to the extent of reinforcing paranoid thoughts in him. The Psychologist said later, ‘people suffering from depression or paranoid thoughts do not know the consequences of what they intend to do’. I agree to this statement, although I do not have a professional insight into such subject matter. A medical doctor from UK who is also a relative of Durga states the symptom of 'depression' that one may sleep long, expresses frustration, sudden anger, may not do the work as instructed, but after hearing the character of Durga from his wife Menka, he was not fully convinced that Durga indeed was suffering from such high level of depression.

In the Spring of 2006 I went to meet Durga Acarya at the Asylum Center in Amersfoort, Netherlands. He looked healthy, clean shaved, reserved personality with friendly smiles; a perfect intellectual against whom I never thought that he may be gradually getting exasperated. He was not much delighted as others to see a country mate in this foreign land. So I just make an appointment to see him next time and invited him to visit my home and stay as long as he would like. The next time I met, he was ready to accomplish our agreement. We came together and he stayed in my home for a week. He liked my children very much and appreciated our spiritual practices; that we chant the holy name and worship the lord as is being done in the temple. I gave him Bhagavad Gita As It Is of Srila Prabhupada. He liked it and began referring it occasionally.  We started making telephone calls quite often and at one moment few years later he informed me that there came another family- Khadka, with a number of grown up children. It was in February, the month my eldest daughter was born, I invited them to my home to celebrate the birthday. Unfortunately, the same night, this Khada’s daughter Rekha stole my telephone set and made secretly numerous international calls and the bill came 1208 Euros. After I approached them in this regard, they have harassed Durga on the ground that he has introduced them to me. Then the contact was then sporadic. In the summer, there was spiritual discourse on Srimad Bhagavatam by Radha Govinda Goswami in Rotterdam, I invited him to attend it and spent the night with us, and he delightedly did it very instantly. Until that time Durga’s wife and child was away in the refugee camp in Nepal. Durga was desperate for the asylum and his position at that time, was only to wait and wait, not knowing what could be the mercy of those in power; inflicted him.  

Forcibly exiled Bhutanese ethnic minority Lhosthampa were compelled to forced migration under a scented name of ‘3^rd country resettlement’ arrangement of UNHCR because the Bhutanese regime, although already declared as transcended from the absolute monarchy to constitutional democracy, denied their repatriation. On this ground the Dutch government invited about 350 Bhutanese so far to reside permanently in The Netherlands. About 12 individuals followed by their spouse and children, came on their own efforts to The Netherlands, for the asylum including Durga. Among them there are already like-minded group based on their political affinity and association they had for example, Bhutan People Party, Youth Organisation of Bhutan - BPP, YOB, SUB etc. These individuals grew influential upon the new comers and were in competition to exert their influence, particularly to maintain a so-called ‘Bhutanese identity’ in an organised way. After few rounds of talks Lakshmi Dhakal rose by all guile to found the organisation called ‘Bhutanese Community in The Netherlands- BCN’ and led the first round of Presidency, a position for which he still hankers.  His guile, to name from the eye witnessed incidences are to suppress others who may oppose him and garner the support formed on the sense of hate. He gave General Secretary Portfolio to a political sycophant Ram Karki who has a position in the political party although such allotment to the politicians was not allowed in the statute of this organisation. He gave the Secretarial position to Durga despite his denial. Later, on the inauguration in a restaurant of Chhatra Rai in Leiden, on 28^th December 2009, Dhakal exhibited his malice from which I believe Durga was severely inflicted, as he was the only person void of hostility.

I was in the inauguration function hoping to get turn to speak with the audience as I have asked earlier too, to Dhakal and his subordinates to provide five minutes for me. Dhakal rejected cunningly. He called his fans, Karki, Loknath and Durga to another room before the inauguration and decided, perhaps under duress, how to put me out of the audience. So it was done. Durga felt guilty for agreeing to his treachery and came back to me with sad face, for apology. I said, ‘ok’ but it is imperative that one uses their own conscience also. From that day onward, accept with Dhakal as long his tenure and influence continued, Durga limited his communication with others, including me. As pre-planned, Dhakal initiated balloting in the evening meeting where attendants were terribly afraid to speak out. Durga was shivering in fear. In this same restaurant Dhakal and Durga worked, and in one evening Durga fell down unconscious. Dhakal saw this. A Nepali worker named Damber also saw this and asked Dhakal to help him as he is a medical doctor. But Dhakal ignored and went to another room. This pained Menka and sees him as the cruellest neighbour and a relative whose actions she thinks, most of which not told to me, led to acute trauma. Menka’s relatives from America condemned Dr. Lakshmi P Dhakal and Chhatra Rai for whatever reasons they know best and asked them not to attend the funeral. This they mentioned in an email to them, ‘for the peace of the departing soul’ of Durga.

It is also to be understood that the organisation named Bhutanese Community in The Netherlands- BCN failed in its social responsibility despite the fact that a human rights foundation named GHRD committed 15000 Euros on the inauguration day and perhaps subsidies from other sources too, from which people like Durga could have been helped out from trauma if these leaders have humane perseverance. Dutch Bhutanese are divided with the prejudices of siding with one protagonist or the other and fear from ‘being left alone’. If BCN was in favour of the Bhutanese in distress, it could have helped Menka search her husband without waiting any longer, but it did not do it.  It was already late to know for me as I was away to India during that time.

What led Durga go away to Berlin from the moment he went out of his home on 12 December 2013 with his bicycle for shopping while his wife was away to bring her children from school is something strange that may remain unanswered. The German police were alerted by two villagers who saw the dead body on the river Spree, nearby a park on 18^th January 2014?. According to the Dutch police in Amsterdam, from whom some information was received, the German police identified the body of Durga from the finger prints match taken up during the asylum procedures earlier. The process took till 24^th January on which day the Dutch police informed about it to the family what the German police have said. A few days later, when asked, the Dutch police received more information based on the German police report and communicated further that: ‘Cause of death was determined by a pathologist attached to the police of Germany. Crime or accident is excluded. Seeking insight into the report is not possible’.

Given this little information in hand, we have no other way than to think for ourselves that this is probably a ‘suicide’ case,the first case as such among the Bhutanese refugees in The Netherlands.

The German police released the body to the Dutch team on 29^th January and was brought to the Hindu crematorium in The Hague same evening. The body was sealed with a thick plastic bag stretched straight and was smelling. The next day, on 30^th January the funeral was held in the Vedic traditional way. The belonging that was with the body was shown to all the mourners. There were train tickets, photos of the little children Vivika and Visaka, a purse, cigarettes, lighter, a number of papers, a bunch of key with the photo and a note of Bhutanese currency etc. It was very emotional to see this; that I cried. The train tickets showed that he was in The Netherlands the first week he left home, and if people were immediately dispatched to search for him one could have got him.

However it is a saddest moment that should not happen to anyone, a tinge of spiritual inclination that late Durga had by reading the Bhagavad Gita and associating with the devotees in the Bhagavatam gave the benefit for his soul to rest in peace. As the benefit of that spiritual enthusiasm the final ceremony was opportune with holy Ganga water, auspicious items, offered tulasi, maha Prasad and dust of Vrindavan platform BVCN has secured for him. This surely help his soul get rid of the inauspiciousness and qualify him to enter in to the spiritual planet where once admitted will never have to return on earth where the cycle of birth, disease, ageing and death continues.  I pray that the soul of Durga get shelter in the lotus feet of the lord Sri Krishna.

Nanda Gautam