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MICHAEL HUTT . . BHUTAN: PERSPECTIVES O N CONFLICT AND DISSENT edited by MICHAEL HUTT Kiscadale Asia Research Series No. 4 Published in 1994 by Paul Strachan - Kiscadale Ltd.. Gartmore, Stirlingshire, FK8 3Rj Scotland : as part of the 'Kiscadale Asia Research Series @Michael Hutt, 1994. ISBN 1 870838 02 5 Printed in the United Kingdom. Frontispi-: Traditional enemies - the garuda and lion, conch and makara, otter and fish - crossed into three allegorical hybrids representing 'The Conquest of Discord' (mi-mthun g.yul-wad. Drawing by Robert Beer. Contents Inttoddon Michael Hutt (SOAS) Conplct and Concilrrztion in Traditional Bhutan Michael his (St. Antony's College, Word) Bhutan: A Kingrlom Besirgcd Jigmi Y. Thinley (Ministry of Home Mairs, Royal Government of Bhutan) 43 Bbutani C u m t C tisis: A Viewf iom Tbimphu Kinley Dorji (Editor, Kuenrel, Bhutan) The Dissidrna Christ opher Stram (University of Chicago) L+ and Work in the &gee Gmps of Southeat Nqaf Rachael Reilly (Canterbuy, UK) 129 Apects of the Southem Probh' and Nation-Building in Bhutan Brian C. Shaw (University of Hong Kong) 141 Looking fir Greater Nqal Kanak Mani Dit (Editor, Hid) The RoL of the Monardy in the Cumnt Ethnic G n win B h ~ n Leo E. Rose (University of California) 183 Rrporting Bhutan Nicholas Nugent (BBC World Service) Bhutan: Political Culture and National Dihma Awadhesh Coomar Sinha (North Eastern Hill University, Shillong) Appendices A The Nationality Law of Bhutan, 1958 217 B The Bhutan Citizenship Act, '185 219 C Petition to His Majesty the h r go f Bhutan, 9 April 1988 221 D The 13-point demand of the Bhutan People's Party 225 E Extract from 'guidelines for taking annual census' 227 F Joint communique between the Home Ministers of Nepal and Bhutan, 18 July 1993 229 G Summaries of selected reports on the usouthem problemw 23 1 Map of Bhutan Index Introduction Bhutan, a Himalayan Buddhist kingdom the size of Swimrland, rises like a staircase from the plains of northeast India to the hrgh pluau of Tibet. Topographically, it can be divided into regions from south to north: lowland, hill and mountain. Bhutan docs not have an men- sive lowland belt the hills rise steeply from the North Indian p h , a nd the borders of West Ben$ and Assam arc rardy more than a fcw mila from the foot of the hills. The southernmost region is traditionally known as the Duars, from the Sanskrit duara, meaning 'doorD. Bhutan's foothills are somewhat higher than Nepal's, and here a 'Tibetanderived culture has permeated W e r s outh, down through the hills and high mountains of Bhutan's northern quarters. On an ad- ministrative level, Bhutan is divided into districts dled dzongkhas sub-disuicts d e d d ungkhas and 'blodci of nllaga called gcwog. Bhutan did not subscribe to the doctrines of economic development or confiont the political unccdntics of the world beyond in foothills until the reign of the third Wangchuck king (1952-72). The counuy was politically unified by the Shabdrung, a Buddhist lama of the Drukpa Kagyu sect who fled from Tibet in 1616. From the 17th century until the early 20th) successive Shabdnrngs were the n o d heads of a system with both temporal and spiritual authority, though they lost much of their temporal power to feuding district governors. In 1907, the office of the Shabdrung was eclipsed when Sir Ugycn Wangchuck became the first king, with the approval of the British, whom he had supported during their incursions into Tibet.l Since 1907, Bhutan has been ruled by four kings of the Wangchudc line: the present king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, has reigned sincc 1972. The last properly recogniscd incarnation of the Shabdrung died in 193 1. Bhutan's inhabitants call the kingdom ' D d Yuln, the Land of the Dragon, after the Buddhist sea that first united it. Consequently, the Buddhist peoples who inhabit its highland areas arc known collectively as 'Drukpasn. Some nineteen languages are spoken in Bhutan as a whole, and three main groups of peoples - the Ngalop in the west, - the Sharchhop in the east and ll~eN epalis in the south comprise perhaps 85% of the toul pop,):. riom2 Centnl Bhutan is home to a Bbutan: perspectives on conflict and dissent number of other ethno-linguistic groups, among whom the Bumthap (the of Bumthang) and the Kheng are numeridy the most irn- portant, and d over Bhutan there are pockets of minority peoples who spcak languages such as Uokpu and LC+ The Sharchhop and the ~eopleo f central Bhutan were conquered by the Ngalop, who came under the culnual influence of central Tibet early on in Bhutan's his- tory. The Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism remains important in central and astern Bhutan, while the Drukpa Kagyu school dominates in the western hngkhags. Dapite thae minor smvian differenca, the Buddhist peoples of the north present a fiir measure of cultural unity as 'Drukpasn who profess the same broad fiith and speak doscly- related languagd, though the Ngalop tend to dominate politically and their language, hngkha, is promoted as the national language. The Nepali-spealung people of the south were settled in Bhutan from the late 19th century onward. Most practise Hinduism, though some are Buddhists, and although they originally spoke a variety of languages, the Nepali linguafianca has displaced these, as it has elsewhere. British records a p p t o be the only sources that shed Light on the origins of Bhutan's Nepali population, but the documentation in these sources is somewhat random, because British officials visited Bhutan at irregular intervals and tended to pass quickly through its malarial lowland strip. That Nepalis first entered Bhutan in significant numbers sometime during the late 19th century is generally accepted, bar a few quibbles about the precise date of first enu-y.l However, a contentious question concerns the proportion of the southern Bhutanese population that can trace its presence in Bhutan to this initial migration, and the proportion that came later, particularly after the crucial year of 1958. Leo Rose has described Bhutan as uabout as "data-free" as it is possi- ble for a polity over three hundred years old to beSn5B efore 1969,exi- mates of Bhutan's population varied between 300,000 and 800,000. In 1969, a census revealed a figure of over one million, a figure that the Bhutanese government udelightedly announced to the ~orld"T.~hi s figure was subsequently adjusted to 930,614, of whom 57% were said to reside in eastern Bhutan, 28% in western Bhutan and 15% (137,5 18) in the south.' Nowadays it is admitted that the figure of one million was notional, and was settled upon when Bhutan applied for United Nations membership.8 In 1990, the king announced in an in- t e ~ e wto a Calcutta magazine that the total population of Bhutan was 6 Introduction d y 600, 000.~A lthough some school textbooks still give totah of over a million, the new figure has b a m e the conventional wisdom and appears in the seventh Five-Year Plan documents. Unfortunately, no breakdown of this figurc on the basis of region, sex, occupauon, Ian- guage, religion etc. is generally available. It is probable that none of the main ethnic groups is in a majority. Estimates for the Ngalop vary from 10% to 28%, for the Sharchhop 30%44%, and for the Nepalis 25% 53%. Demographic statistics arc controversial in Bhutan at present, and all such figures should be treated with caution. Bhutan's Buddhist culture evolved over the centuries and dcvdoped its own distinct chancteristics. Nonetheless, its founding principla came originally from 'Tibet, bone first, according to local legend, by Guru Rimpoche (Padmarnbhava), and later by successive lamas from the north, including the Shabdrung himself. Therefore, it was toward Iibet that Bhutan was orientated until the early 20th ctntury. The majority of the kingdom's trade was carried out over the Himalayan passes to the north, and the south of Bhutan, bordering the Indian plains, remained a hinterland behind the rulers' backs. This remained the case until the British began to make their presence felt and Bhutan had to begin to reorientate itself. Bhutan's monarchy is unlike those of most other monarchical states. The first king was elected in 1907 by the civil and religious elites, who swore a legally-binding oath of allegiance to the ruler and his heirs, but until the coronation of the third king in 1952 powerful families continued to govern the districts, with little interference fiom the centre. This flexible arrangement could not ensure Bhutan's survival afier India's in- dependence and China's invasion of Tibet, and the third king began a process of gradual modernisation that has continued to this day. In 1953 a National Assembly (Tlhogdu) was created, and has met once or Nvice a year ever since. Loca elites began to be replaccd by centrally- appointed officers, many of whom had been drawn fiom humble back- grounds and sent for education to India. In 1958 the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited Bhutan for the first time, offering Indian development aid and urging de-isolation, and in 1959 the Chintre crackdown in Xbet pushed Bhutan further towards India. In a treaty signed in 1910, Rhutan had agreed to accept British guidance in its external relati01 md the British had promised not to interfere in Bhutan's internal atMrs. In 1949 a similar agreement was 7 Bbutan: perspectives on conflirt and dissent formalixd with independent India, and the relationship has been an intimate one ever since. Bhutan's emergence into the wider world ha been marked by pragmatism and caution, but since the 1970s there have been signs of a desire to move out a little fiom under India's wing. Caution is also evident in Bhutan's efforts to earn the maximum amount of foreign currency fiom the minimum number of tourists. The Political Crisis Bhutan is very often portrayed as a kingdom that is moving cautiously and out of its m e d i d isolation into the modem world, while maintaining its unique culture and way of life intact. However, since 1990 it has been engulfed in a growing politid crisis. This has led to the presence (in January 1994) of over 80,000 refugees in UNHCR-administered camps in Nepal, to insecurity and violence in southern Bhutan, and to the growth of a dissident movement led by southern Bhutanese in d e w ho are demanding radical changes in the kingdom's ~oliticals ystem. To attempt to understand how this has come about, it is useful to consider the issue within broader pararne- ten. The positions of the Lines that divide one nation-state from another in South Asia in the late 20th century arc the legacy of colonialism, and of the various kinds of nationalism ("the desire of a nation to have a state of its ownn1O) that brought the colonial period to an end Many of the nations created by postcolonial nationalism are still seeking to de- fine themselves. In India, for example, the existence of a secular nation- state glosses over a host of nascent or assertive sub-nationalisms that are based on differences in language or religion, to name but two variables. This is perhaps to be expected in a nation that comprises over eight hundred million people; what is surprising is that similar fissures, either actual or potential, exist in the smaller states that neighbour India. Concomitant with the emergence of new nation-states, there has also arisen a phenomenon that has been labelled "nationism" and de- fined as "the desire of a state to have a nation of its own".l l That is to uy, the state seeks to create in reality what has up until that point ex- ,, . isted partly, to use a fYhionable term, as an "imagined community 12 The government of newly-indepenclent India sought to submerge re- gional and sectarian differences in a secular whole with Hindi cast in the role of national language. Similarly, every government of Nepal 8