Lhotshampa

Lhotshampa
ल्होत्साम्पा
ལྷོ་མཚམས་པ་
Lhotshampa refugees in Beldangi camp in Nepal. The man is holding a Bhutanese passport.
Total population
242,000[1][2][3][4]
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Religion
(Minority)
Related ethnic groups
Indo-Aryans:
Bahun, Chhetri, Khas people, Newar people
Tibeto-Burman:
Newar people, Kirati people

The Lhotshampa or Lhotsampa (Nepali: ल्होत्साम्पा; Tibetan: ལྷོ་མཚམས་པ་, Wylie: lho-mtshams-pa) people are a heterogeneous Bhutanese people of Nepali descent.[5] The Lhotshampa were estimated to comprise around 35% of the Bhutan's population by the U.S. Department of State as of 2008.[6] The Lhotshampa are predominantly Hindu and Buddhist too, who speak the Nepali language.[7]

People of Nepali origin started to settle in uninhabited areas of southern Bhutan in the 19th century.[8] The term "Lhotshampa", which means "southern borderlanders" in Dzongkha, began to be used by the Bhutanese state in the second half of the twentieth century to refer to the population of Nepali origin in the south of the country.[9] By the 1990s, over 100,000 Lhotshampa had been forcibly displaced and removed from Bhutan.[10]

After being displaced as a result of the state-run ethnic cleansing and living in refugee camps in eastern parts of Nepal, starting in 2007 most of the Bhutanese refugees were resettled to various countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other European countries. As of 2021, the number of Lhotshampa in Nepal is significantly lower than that in the United States and other countries where they have resettled.[11][failed verification]

  1. ^ "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  2. ^ Adelman, Howard (2008). Protracted Displacement in Asia: No Place to Call Home. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-7238-8.
  3. ^ Frelick, Bill (1 February 2008). "Bhutan's Ethnic Cleansing". New Statesman, Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  4. ^ Mishra, Vidhyapati (28 June 2013). "Bhutan Is No Shangri-La". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  5. ^ Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Worden, Robert L. (1991). Savada, Andrea Matles (ed.). Bhutan: A Country Study. Federal Research Division. Bhutan - Ethnic Groups.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ ""We Don't Want to Be Refugees Again": HRW Briefing Paper for the Fourteenth Ministerial Joint Committee of Bhutan and Nepal: II. Background". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 12 June 2024. Bhutan is home to three major ethnic groups: the ruling Ngalongs live in the west, speak Dzongkha, and practice Buddhism; the eastern Sarchops speak Tsangla and practice Buddhism; and the southern Lhotshampas speak Nepali, and are primarily Hindu.
  8. ^ "Background and History: Settlement of the Southern Bhutanese". Bhutanese Refugees: The Story of a Forgotten People. Archived from the original on 10 October 2010. Retrieved 3 October 2010.
  9. ^ Nelson, Andrew; Stam, Kathryn (11 August 2021). "Bhutanese or Nepali? The Politics of Ethnonym Ambiguity". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 44 (4): 772–789. doi:10.1080/00856401.2021.1951460. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
  10. ^ Rimal, Prasansha (3 February 2022). "Bhutan's shame: why the world must continue to remember the expulsion of ethnic Nepalis". The Record. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
  11. ^ Aris, Michael (1979). Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom. Aris & Phillips. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-85668-199-8.