Refugees as Donors: ‘Rich’ Tibetan Refugees, Evicted Indian Slum Dwellers and a Smart City

Jamyang was 25 years old when he first arrived in McLeod Ganj—a hill station located in Upper Dharamshala, in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Dharamshala is the seat of the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees, and already a popular tourist destination. It was 2001; four years earlier, Jamyang had trudged through the Himalayan passes during his 13-day escape from Tibet. Since he was a monk, the exiled Tibetan administration sent him to a Buddhist monastery in one of the refugee settlements located in the south of India. Today, he cannot even recall what exactly he came to McLeod Ganj for. But he remembers well three children who were foraging for food in a rubbish bin near his guest house. Children who ‘ate moldy bread and rotten vegetables without hesitation’. He also remembers that, the previous evening, somebody had urinated there. Later on, the mother of one child sent it to Jamyang and his monk friend to beg: