Dasho Tshering Dorji Clarifies

Dasho Tshering Dorji was my teacher in Sherubtse College. I have had the privilege of knowing him since his first days in Kanglung. He joined the college as new teacher in 2003. Since then I have known him more as a friend and neighbor than as a teacher. He is more of a person who speaks more through silence. He contested for the seat of National Council from Haa and went on to become the National Council member representing Haa in 2008 election. 

Coming back to the main point, It took me aback when a very popular blogger Passang PaSsu Tshering brought out this article on his blog. It has a reference to what has transpired between a person named Haap wangchuk and Dasho on a facebook page called Haap Dhoros. 

Here is Dasho Tshering Dorji's version of the story. I think he has now spoken with his words too.

"Thank You Passang PaSsu Tshering! for trying to (un)popularize my response on your blog, although I still do not know with what intention you have chosen to post this particular post in your blog. As you mentioned I have been commenting and sharing my views on many other issues beyond such petty non-issue on our social group sites such as Haaps and Haap Dhoros but it baffles me to find that you found this issue to be worthy of posting in your blog. Anyway, I pray that you may fulfill whatever you intent to achieve by doing so.

Nevertheless, I also wish to make few corrections to your carefully edited version, which has taken the point out of context and blown it out of proportion to mislead readers for reason beyond my understanding. But readers must not be deprived from seeing the whole point.

First, Haap Wangchuk posted his comment on 7th May 2012 and there were couple of likes and a comment by a member of Haap Dhoros (which has been mysteriously withdrawn). My response was posted only on 16th May. This means that my comment was not posted immediately before anyone could reply as you have stated in your blog.

Second, with due respect to you and the question that you have posed as to what is “publicly criticizing and ill-information" about the comment made by Haap Wangchuk. I have posted to you as follows:

Passang Passu Tshering, with due respect first of all may i ask you to always make a comment based on fully understanding the context properly. This is something you may not understand since Wangchuk has made similar comment earlier in different post, which he has mysteriously removed but still I have tried to give my response as dutifully as possible.

This is how I have responded to his comment that has been removed mysteriously.

(Hi Wangchuk, the decision to not involve elected leaders in the assessment of the earthquake damage has emerged from the lessons learnt in the past experience of similar incident in the east….Learning from such unfortunate incidences, the Dzongda has been entrusted with the assessment of the damage on commonly understood parameters. However, in the process of carrying out the assessment, it is possible to have human error crept in resulting in huge disappointment among the people… But we tried to intervene wherever possible and bring it to the notice of dzongda and some genuine cases had been considered as well…Having said this, it does not mean that work done by assessment team is 100% perfect but there is only so much that one can do to improve it.)

Not willing to accept my explanation, he made another comment, which has been removed again. To which my dutiful response was as follows.

(Well, it does not mean that Human error are excusable. If you have solid evidence to prove your words, the door of ACC is open to all. That is why we have enacted law and created institutions so that poor and innocent people's genuine case...s are not ignored in the name of old saying as you have mentioned. However, it is left to the wisdom of the people themselves to pursue the matter further if they are not satisfied. As a representative, I have tried whatever means within my limited power bearing in mind the general picture of the whole issue. But please be assured that unfair and corrupt means can not be excused as human error. there are means and ways to address it. If you have a case to prove it with solid evidence then please go ahead rather than lament over it. If you need my help in this regard, I will do whatever I can).

Deliberately leaving out the details, you have wasted no time in posting only selected comments in your blog to try and make me look scary and threatening. If you are genuinely concerned about Wangchuk, you could have convinced him to take the help that i was offering to solve his grievances. Instead you also further provoked him to make further comment on me.

( ….As a leader you can correct me but you cant charge or warn me. We are not qualified like you but we are not child so we too know what to write n what not)

Even to that I wrote,

(Wangchuk, I think there is a lot of mis-communication and misunderstanding in whatever it is that we are trying to convey. Then there is other who is trying to fuel it further for reason beyond my comprehension. I am sure all of these will go away if we talk in person whenever we cross our path in near future. I hope you will continue to send your comments but more responsibly.

By now embolden by your comment, he does not emit a word even now.

Third, when you barged in the conversation out of blue, I have taken time to explain to you that this is also related to earthquake events at Haa on which you and I very well had protracted exchanges. Making you recall the similar exchanges we have had on another social site (Haaps). During which, I tried to update you with the reality on what the authorities were trying to do after the event contrary to what you think was happening. After that you even stopped commenting further so I was bit taken aback to find a comment from you from nowhere so suddenly after a long time in our social site. But making a headline out of this issue on your blog, which you do not even know well on what could be happening between Wangchuk and me, appears very spiteful and suspicious of your intent.

Anyway, I said that I was happy to listen to your views and comments as long as it is based on fact and reality so that we do no discredit the good things and practices but at the same time leave no room for complacency. I urged you to read the comments that he posted once more carefully in the light of what transpired between Wangchuk and I.

Despite my effort to explain the situation, you went ahead and sensationalize the whole issue by conveniently leaving out the details but copy and pasting only the comments you found suitable to convey what a scary and threatening person I am to the rest of the world. I am not worried so much about how I might appear to them since I know best who I am. But I am more worried about the way in which you have tried to assemble the information to deceive your readers. Don’t you have a responsibility to your readers?

Last but not the least, it is very intriguing to know that you found my response to Wangchuk scary but you did not find merit in me trying to educate him on the responsibility to make responsible comment even when he called me gutless and accused me publicly of not doing anything on complaints of victims of earthquake and pressuring me to intervene in the local government affairs.

He could not have created that page for anybody else, since the creation of the page in the social site (Haap Dhoros) was immediately followed after my exchanges with him in other posting and I don’t know if the other two elected member are even member of this social site.

So between the following scenarios:

A) An elected member explicitly stating the existing provision of penal code of Bhutan pertaining to defamation and Libel without actually distorting it or blowing it out of proportion

B) A voter trying to personally accusing me of doing nothing and coercing me to go beyond the rule of law and not accepting my offering of help to personally look into his grievances.

C) And then Passang PaSsu Tshering, who is also from Haa jumping in between to dramatize and fuel the whole issue by making it a headline on his blog. Imagine if all the reporting both formal and informal operate with such malicious intent, then it is a greatest abuse of the trust of the viewers who has been following you and will greatly corrupt the freedom of expression.

So, Passang PaSsu Tshering, as an apparently sensible and concerned citizen that you seem to be- You tell me who is scarier and more threatening? An MP who is trying to do his job in a politically correct manner, a frustrated voter who has made up his mind not to listen and a presumptuous blogger who shoots his thoughts from his imagination just by sitting in front of the computer and feeding partial information to his viewer to mislead them in certain way.

I hope you will dare not pick and choose comments even from this posting and sensationalize the issue. But again this is not a threat or to make me sound scary. As great blogger as you are, it is a responsibility that you owe and must uphold to your readers."