Chetan Adhikari

The sound of charkhas (spinning wheels) pervaded the Beldangi-based Bhutanese refuge camp until a few years ago. It was a time when almost every hut inside the camp had a charkha; usually a female family member operating the wheel to spin thread.

After the UN High Commissioner for Refugees introduced the third country resettlement programme for the refugees, charkha spinning that used to fetch the refugee families a few hundred rupees has virtually ceased. With over a 48,000 refugee population resettled in other countries under the programme, the number of charkha spinning families has witnessed a significant fall. “Nowadays, most of the families in the camp have some members in third countries and these resettled kin are sending money here on a regular basis. Refugees here no longer need to spin charkha to earn money,” said Naradmuni Sanyasi, a former refugee camp secretary.

Only a handful of refugee families such as that of Ramolal Gautam, which do not wish to be resettled in third countries or are still undecided, have given continuity to the trade. Gautam has not decided as yet whether he will apply for the resettlement programme. Neither has anyone from his family.

“These days you can see charkhas only inside the huts of those people who do not wish to be resettled,” he said.

There was a time when the sound of spinning charkhas inside the camp resembled a helicopter rotor. Companies from Kathmandu and Biratnagar paid up to Rs 110 for spinning one kilogram of thread. These days charkha has become a symbol of those refugee families which are not included in the resettlement plan, said Nandu Poudel of Relief Deprived Refugee Group.

For 65-year-old Dikmaya Magar, spinning the charkha is part and parcel of her life as it is a trade that she has been plying for the last 18 years.

“My life itself has become like a charkha wheel. First, Bhutan and then Nepal. Who knows in which corner of the world my life is going to revolve in the future,” she reflected

Published on: 19 July 2011 | The Kathmandu Post