What is it about?
This study assesses the present situation of deinstitutionalisation and alternative care arrangements in the exile settlement concerning various cultural and socio-structural factors. It explores how elements of social structure and culture operate to transform the residential care institutions to community-based alternative care arrangements for 10,000 young Tibetans enrooted from Tibet and presently settled in India. Their day-to-day problems of repatriation and resettlement in an unfamiliar demography with distinct ethnic values are pushing them to the margins. The dependence of these children on their exile government, the host community and the uncertainty of going back to their country makes them depressed, dependent and vulnerable to trauma and negligence.
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Why is it important?
According to a report on transition from institutional to community-based care published in 2009 by Ad Hoc Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care of European Commission (EU), 8 million children across the world live in care institutions and half of them are at the risk of being traffic and to fall in the system because of fluid care programmes and policies. A number of countries have already started winding up the care institutions and reuniting the children to their parents or alternative systems. This has been criticized due to lack of a back-up plan for children with no families and no home. The critiques believe that removing children from care institutions is not the best thing to do. At the same time the care givers and child right activists believe that family based care is the best care for the children. But, the question is how to initiate the deinstitutionalisation of care institutions as it is a complex and long-term process and there is less understanding of the term ‘deinstitutionalisation’ itself (Morrison, 1977).
Perspectives
Deinstitutionalisation cannot be possible without alternative care system and strengthening of the care process at family and community level. The Tibetans as an exiled community spread over 44 residential settlements across 10 states in India. McLeodganj, Dharamshala being the home of the Dalai Lama, is one of the most important exiled settlements in India and is a place for hundreds of Tibetan children migrating to India. Due to an uncertain future and the sinocized status of Tibet, the settlement is over-whelmed by a growing influx of refugees. The exiled settlement as a diasporic group is facing the challenge of integration to gain access to the culture of the host society (here Indian) without losing their own cultural identity. The persisting ethnic identities and vanishing cultural differences in last 60 years have created a fear among the young Tibetan generation in Dharamshala of getting assimilated into the host community. This has slowed down the process of carrying cultural continuity form one generation to another and has created hesitation among the care givers to go for a sustained transition from institutional care to family-based and community-based alternatives as they are multi-cultural and radical whereas the formal institutions governed by the Tibetan exile government is internally homogenous.
Prof. Pradeep Nair
Central University of Himachal Pradesh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Children Displaced: Deinstitutionalisation of Child Care Institutions in Tibetan Exile Settlements in Dharamshala, India, Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, March 2020, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/2349300319894863.
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