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I met Dalai Lama under coercion: Nepal MP

Telegraph Nepal

Rukmini Chaudhary (right), a Nepalese parliamentarian of Loktantrik Rastriya Manch-Democratic National Front, along with other member of Nepal parliament during a meeting with the Dalai Lama at his residence on 24 June 2009 in Dharamshala, India.File photo/Photographer unknown

A thrilling story indeed which could be equated with a Hollywood thriller.

However, this is not a man made story but things have happened just like that.

It is time to chew your tongue. Perhaps that will not be enough because the story is such that one is forced to conclude that any thing could happen in Nepal’s political sector if some interested quarters so desire.

The one such victim of Himalayan political fraudulence came to see us at the office of this website yesterday evening, 18 July 2009.

She took some five to ten minutes and drank at least a liter of water to bring her composure back.

Later tea was served to warm her this distinguished political lady.

She did not cry but internally she was practically shaken and nervous. She was at loss on how to begin the story in order to clarify her stance? But after some time, she divulged these details.

“I began receiving telephone calls from an unknown person beginning 18 June 2009 onwards on a regular basis and the person calling me was advising me to be a participant in the so called seminar on Buddhism to be held in New Delhi on 22 June 2009, recalls Rukmini Chaudhary, the Constituent Assembly member from the Loktantrik Rastriya Manch-Democratic National Front.

What was surprising for me is that the person neither told his name nor provided me with the details of the so called seminar to be held in New Delhi, Rukmini continues.

For a few days, I declined to participate in such a seminar about which I have had no idea at all.

“But the anonymous caller remained undeterred and continued calling me over phone insisting that I must be a participant in the said Seminar which was of great importance for us all the Nepalese…said the unidentified caller to me”, remembers Rukmini.

Now enters Bisendra Paswan, a CA member into the scene.

Of Bisendra Paswan, Rukmini tells this website, is a friend of her as both are the members of the Nepal Constituent Assembly.

Bisendra some how or the other tried to convince me that one Siddhartha Gautam had arranged this Delhi trip and when in Delhi, we will also attend a seminar on Buddhism.

Internally though I was scared yet I asked Bisendra, “who is the other lady participant in this group that is heading for New Delhi”?

Bisendra convinced me not to panic as one lady from Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, Mrs. Sardar, too was going to Delhi with the same group.

Later, I too had to provide a positive nod to this Delhi trip. It is here that I perhaps committed a blunder.

Who the other participants were in the group, I could see them right inside the airport on 21 June 2009 morning.

I was glad that one lady with her newly born baby was present at the airport.

I could see the face of the main man, Mr. Siddhartha Gautam only at the airport.

Mr. Gautam claims that he is the chairman of Lumbini Foundation.

We flew to Delhi at about 8:30 in the morning.

By 9:30, we had already landed at the New Delhi airport.

To my Himalayan surprise and astonishment, outside the Delhi airport, two vehicles were reserved for our group which took us all not to the town but headed towards Haryana which is located outside the New Delhi Township.

I enquired from the group leader(s), says a panicked Rukmini, “where are we heading for…Delhi is in different direction and you people are carrying us to different destination?

“Where are the seminar details and the schedule,” Rukmini recalls to have asked.

But there was no answer to her questions.

After a long uninterrupted drive of some thirteen hours plus from the Delhi airport, recalls Rukmini, they landed in Shimla and entered into a Hotel that was specially booked for the Nepali group in advance.

“The seminar venue is Dharamshala and we will attend the seminar tomorrow morning”, is how the group leader, including Bisendra Paswan assured the terrified two political ladies.

Next morning, says Rukmini, a small group of trained Tibetans escorted this Nepali group for a pre-scheduled meet with the 14th Dalai Lama.

Rukmini now got the point.

This event scared her more. She wanted not to enter the room where the Dalai Lama was seated but had to.

Most of the fake “seminar” participants were from the MJF and some Nepali Congress men as well.

“I had never heard of Dalai Lama in my entire life”, claims Rukmini.

Most of the Madhesi leaders in the group told the Dalai about their effort in fighting for One Madhesh-One province in Madhesh and also told him about the political events now unfolding in Nepal.

It was my turn now to speak to the Dalai. I also told him that we are the Tharus and struggling for a Tharuhat autonomous region right inside the Nepali territories.

Says Rukmini, “neither I am a Buddhist nor the attending participants in the said group were the followers of Buddhism and thus why we landed in Dharamshala is what puzzles me”.

However, Rukmini says that initially the Tharus were the followers of Buddhist ideologies but now they practice Hinduism.

To recall, the Tharu community beamingly declares that Lord Buddha was basically a Tharu by birth.

The Dalai wished all the best for the success for the Tharu struggle, opines Rukmini.

Next morning, the key members of the group vanished from the scene but I found Bisendra Paswan, Rukmini recalls, and forced him to return back to Kathmandu at the earliest.

When I landed in Kathmandu, we were hitting the media headlines.

“But I just want to tell the Nepalese people that I was deceived very badly. I did not know that I will be meeting the Dalai Lama. I and my party still stick to Nepal’s One China Policy”, Rukmini clarifies her shaky position now.

She further says that through organising a press conference in Kathmandu soon, she will divulge the inner details on how she was misguided and who were the ones who tried to tarnish the very image of her party.

Rukmini claims that such heinous acts may have been done deliberately in order to weaken the ongoing struggle of the Tharu community.

Back in Kathmandu, upon the happening of this event in Dharamshala, the MJF president, Upendra Yadav, opined that his CA members may have gone to see the Dalai on a private basis, however, his party remains determined on Nepal’s structured One China Policy.

However, one of the male CA members from the MJF told Rukmini that he enjoyed the nod of his party president prior to the visit to Dharamshala.

“I go by the policy of Nepal government on China”, Rukmini concludes.

Now the question arises as to which force on earth could have so cleverly misguided the distinguished Tharu lady?

Does it smell of a grand design? Is some one trying to create a dangerous rift in Nepal’s “trouble free and all weather good” bilateral relations with China?

There is a design indeed. But who is the designer? Intelligent brains perhaps understand the designer better.

Rukmini has assured this website that she will provide some more details time permitting.

Copyright © 2009 Telegraph Weekly

Published in Telegraph Nepal