Rongthong's release

If there was some reaction to his arrest, Rongthong Kunley Dorji’s release on bail by the Delhi High Court on 12 June was a much muted affair, with the news reduced to a one-column bit in the lesser pages of the Indian English national dailies.

But what does this release of the Bhutanese dissident leader after spending a little over a year in Delhi’s Tihar Jail signify? A strategic shift in South Block’s policy towards the Bhutanese state? An agreement between Thimphu and New Delhi to allow an act of judicial travesty to be corrected? A move to help old friends in the wilderness by the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes, who before the high appointment had been actively opposing the refugee-creating Bhutan government? None of the above, most likely. The release on bail of Dorji seems merely the end-result of a court system which could not justify incarcerating him any longer. The proof just was not there to extradite Dorji to Bhutan as a criminal, as Thimphu claims. Sending back this political prisoner (which is what he was) would have brought on the wrath of even those reporters and diplomats in Delhi who have insisted on treating the Bhutanese government with kid gloves, and on turning away from its policy of turning a seventh of its population into refugees.

Perhaps Dorji’s release will act as a shot in the arm for the Druk National Congress, the five-party Bhutanese democracy group which he heads. But, going by earlier practice, this is unlikely. The refugee leadership is a divided house, and in the past it has been unable to take advantage of events in its favour.

So, for the moment, all that can be said is that Rongthong Kunley Dorji was unfairly in jail in New Delhi, and now he is out (albeit still having to remain in the Indian capital and report to the Delhi Police). He also now has the badge of having served as a "political prisoner", which always proves useful to other politicians who are known to be more street savvy than Dorji. What a pity, though, that he was jailed in a third country, India, rather than in his own.

Which reminds us to remind the world that there is a certain Tek Nath Rizal still behind bars in Thimphu, a political prisoner who has by now stayed almost a decade in jail. There is no judicial embarrass-ment in Thimphu to keep him firmly where he is.