Development challenges in bhutan perspectives on inequality and gross national happiness (contemporary south asian studies)

Development Challengesin Bhutan Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt Editor Perspectives on Inequality and Gross National Happiness Contemporary South Asian Studies... Development Challenges in Bh

Development Challenges

in Bhutan

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt Editor

Perspectives on Inequality

and Gross National Happiness

Contemporary South Asian Studies

Contemporary South Asian Studies

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economics and changing societies in South Asia Utilizing recent theoretical andempirical advances, this series aims at providing a critical and in-depth analysis ofcontemporary affairs and future developments and challenges in the region Rele-vant topics include, but are not limited to, democratization processes, human rightsconcerns, security issues, terrorism, EU-South Asia relations, regional and eco-nomic cooperation and questions related to the use of natural resources.

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Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt

Department of Political Science

Aalborg University

Aalborg, Denmark

ISSN 2509-4173 ISSN 2509-4181 (electronic)

Contemporary South Asian Studies

ISBN 978-3-319-47924-8 ISBN 978-3-319-47925-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47925-5

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The ideology of Gross National Happiness reflects the aspirations and hopes of thepeople and the elite in Bhutan and has become the modus vivendi in this small land-locked country squeezed between India and China GNH as it is called is a blueprintand social experiment for development and has been presented as an alternative tomainstream strategies It is also a challenge for those responsible for implementingeconomic policies since it may collide with traditional remedies of the state and itsbureaucracy in its endeavours to establish a coherent society and economic growth.This is a daunting task as the problems related with the implementation of GNH insome cases may contradict policies intended to create individual creativity, equityand streamlining culture and tradition at the societal level.

This book represents an attempt to dig into some of the problems inherent inBhutan’s development trajectory and explore a range of historical and contempo-rary issues related to the challenges facing the country The key question is how theruling elite has managed to escape the poverty trap and the chaos seen in some ofthe neighbouring countries Other questions relate to the existing literature whichhas a tendency of celebrating GNH at the ideological level but without exploringthe details, problems and contradictions involved Little is known from independentscholarship about the status of the implementation of this overarching strategy andhow well it plays out with other sectoral policies, institutions and actors inBhutanese society

The essays contained in this volume provide an opportunity to study building and state-building in Bhutan from a critical and interdisciplinary perspec-tive All contributors have conducted extensive fieldwork in the country, and a fewutilize a comparative theoretical edifice in order to provide a more contextualapproach and understanding of society The book grew out of an academic collab-oration between researchers from Denmark and Bhutan which was generouslyfunded by the governments of each country DANIDA, the Danish developmentagency, provided the bulk of the funding, and I would like to show my gratitude andsincere appreciation for this grant Later on, more high-quality researchers wereinvited to give contributions to a workshop where some of the papers have beendiscussed, and others joined upon invitation Opinions expressed are those of theauthors and do not necessarily reflect those of either the funding agencies or theeditor

nation-v

Map 1 Map of Bhutan http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/bhutan_map.htm

vii

Development Challenges in Bhutan: Perspectives on Inequality

and Gross National Happiness 1Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt

Part I Comparing Bhutan’s Development Trajectories

Sociocultural and Political Change in Bhutan Since the 1980s:

Reflections from a Distance 19Michael Hutt

Donor-Assisted Ethno-nationalism and Education Policy in Bhutan 29Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt

Part II GNH, Equality and Inclusion/Exclusion

Gross National Happiness and Inequality 49Winnie Bothe

Distress Migration and Individual Happiness in Bhutan 69Mahmood Ansari

Part III Culture, Legal Issues and the Politics of Change

A Form of “Democratization Project” in Contemporary Bhutan:

Being Apolitical and Being Religious 95Mari Miyamoto

Law, “Tradition” and Legitimacy: Contesting Driglam Namzha 115Richard W Whitecross

Part IV Governance and Integration

Between Hopeful Intentions and Disenchanting Constraints: Lessons

Learned in Bhutan’s Nationwide E-Governance Initiative 137Norbert Wildermuth and Devi Bhakta Suberi

ix

Disaster Governance, Inequality and Poverty Alleviation in Bhutan:

Towards Integrated and Preventive Policies 171Caroline Brassard

Part V Health, Food and Disparities

Regional Disparities and Food Problems in Bhutan 205Mahmood Ansari

Policy Synergies in Health-Promoting Education in Bhutan 235Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Line Kikkenborg Christensen

Index 257

About the Editor

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt is Associate fessor at Aalborg University, Denmark He isSenior Expert at Nordic Institute of Asian Studies(NIAS), Copenhagen University, Denmark Hehas held visiting research fellowships inAustralia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, thePhilippines, and Poland and was recently aVisiting Professor at the Institute for PoliticalEconomy, Carleton University, Canada He has

Pro-a broPro-ad spectrum of resePro-arch interests, vPro-aryingfrom globalization and international division oflabor to social and welfare policy and stateregulations with a focus on Asia His most recentpublications: Schmidt, J D & Rasiah (2011)TheNew Political Economy of Southeast Asia,London and New York, Edward Elgar Publish-ing, and Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh (2002)Globalization andSocial Change, London and New York Routledge

Contributors

Mahmood Ansari Assam University, Silchar, Assam, India

Winnie Bothe Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Caroline Brassard Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Tanglin, SingaporeLine Kikkenborg Christensen Department of Political Science, Aalborg Univer-sity, Aalborg, Denmark

xi

Michael Hutt School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, London,UK

Mari Miyamoto Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt Department of Political Science, Aalborg sity, Aalborg, Denmark

Univer-Devi Bhakta Suberi Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University,Roskilde, Denmark and Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan, Thimphu,Bhutan

Richard W Whitecross Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Science,Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Norbert Wildermuth Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde sity, Roskilde, Denmark

Univer-AADMER ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and

Emergency Response

ANMC21 Asian Network of Major Cities 21

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

CBHFA Community-based health and first aid

CBDRR Community-based disaster risk reduction

CRED Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

DG ECHO Directorate General European Commission’s Humanitarian

Aid and Civil Protection Department

xiii

MoAF Ministry of Agriculture and Forests

MoHCA Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs

SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeUNICEF United Nations International Children Emergency Fund

UNISDR United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

UN-SPIDER United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

Fig 1 Role of natural hazards, exposure, vulnerability in disaster

risk 177Fig 1 GNHC 2012 244

xv

Table 1 Distribution of rural households in Bhutan: happiness-status-wise,

asset-ownership-wise and region-wise, 2005 (in number

and percentage) 88

Table 1 Top ten natural disasters in Bhutan (1985–2011) 175

Table 2 Sector vulnerabilities in Bhutan 175

Table 3 Poverty indicators in Bhutan (2003–2012) 178

Table 4 Sensitivity and adaptive capacity to adverse effects of climate change 184

Table 5 Ministries and national agencies: responsibilities relevant to DRR and poverty alleviation 188

Table 6 Annual budget of the Department of Disaster Management (2010–2014) 190

Table 7 GNH index and indicators relevant to disaster risk 191

Table 1 Governance unit, geographical land and population particulars in Bhutan: eastern and western regions, 1994 and 2005 211

Table 2 Annual imports of animal products in Bhutan: 2002 and 2003 (in metric tons) 225

Table 3 Agricultural ‘net’ import value of Indian eatable products in Bhutan: 2000–2003 (in million rupees) 226

Table 4 Total imports and exports of agriculture products in Bhutan: Years, 2000–2003 (in thousand dollars) 227

xvii

Perspectives on Inequality and Gross

National Happiness

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt

The greatest thing that the Buddha has done is to tell the world that the world cannot be reformed except by the reformation of the mind of man, and the mind of the world.

(Ambedkar 1956 cf Lokamitra 2004 : 472)

1 Introducing the Issues

In the last decade, the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan orDruk Yul—Land of theThunder Dragon has received worldwide attention With a population of 740,000,landlocked and nestled in between the two giants, India and China, the country hasboth topographical, geographical, and infrastructural challenges and beautiful scen-ery Despite its low resource base, more than 67 % of the workforce depending onagriculture, and being one of the world’s smallest economies, Bhutan has achievedaverage growth rates of almost 8 % per year since 1996 Overall economic expan-sion based on exchange earnings from tourism and profits from exports of hydro-power electricity generation reveals a fairly positive future scenario The sameoptimism emerges from official figures of social and human development such aslife expectancy that has risen by over 20 years in less than two decades

The relative success has been explained by at least three salient features: GrossNational Happiness (GNH orgyel yong gakid pelzom) which has replaced GNP as ameasurement of well-being of the individual and the nation This developmentphilosophy has received international appraisal, and in June 2012, the UnitedNation’s General Assembly voted unanimously in favor of a UN-declared Inter-national Day of Happiness as a way to celebrate, generalize, and universalize theobjectives and values behind the promotion of happiness and well-being of all

J.D Schmidt ( *)

Department of Political Science, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

e-mail: jds@dps.aau.dk

# Springer International Publishing AG 2017

J.D Schmidt (ed.), Development Challenges in Bhutan, Contemporary South Asian

Studies, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47925-5_1

1

citizens in a secure and peaceful environment Another explanation refers to thepeaceful transition from absolutist monarchy to democracy exposing the country tointernational spotlight as a potential role model of peace and harmony in contrast tosome of its neighboring countries in South Asia, not least Nepal, where a similartransition has been chaotic, violent, and still contains features of autocratic gover-nance The third reason is related to Bhutan’s social system By having a quiteeffective free delivery of public social services, not least education and health uni-versally accessible to the whole population, it has become one of the most success-ful nations in the region in terms of social achievements and an example for others

to follow

A more intimate look into Bhutan’s recent economic and cultural evolution discloses a more nuanced and contradictory picture GNH, demo-cracy, and the universal delivery of social services have its flaws

political-In recent historical perspective, the government’s attempt to create a nationalidentity based on homogeneity and a uniform political-cultural matrix denoting andpromoting one dominant ideology may be related to the expulsion and marginali-zation of “the other.” Ethnic nationalism1has been the denominator, and “collectiveexclusiveness” (Smith 1971,1994: 190) created the space for establishing a dis-course relying on ethnic purity and the pretention of cultural affinity or “sharedamnesia” (Gellner 1987: 6) of nonexistence of minorities in general and morespecifically of the Nepali Bhutanese ethnic entity (Hutt1996: 399–400,2003) It

is interesting to note the sequence: First step was the denial of Bhutanese ship and the subsequent exodus of more than 100,000 Nepali Bhutanese(Lhotshampas in Dzongkha meaning Southerners) This laid the foundation forthe creation of an “ethnic clean sheet” or in other words Buddhist hegemony and theroyally sanctioned imposition of “one nation, one people” as the overarching ideo-logy of the country The “one nation, one people” strategy is well described in thegovernment’s vision 2020: “The emergence of Bhutan as a nation state has beendependent upon the articulation of a distinct Bhutanese identity, founded upon ourBuddhist beliefs and values, and the promotion of a common language These havebeen defining elements in our history and they have made it possible to unify thecountry and to achieve national homogeneity and cohesion among various linguis-tic and ethnic groups This identity, manifest in the concept ‘one nation, onepeople’, has engendered in us the will to survive as a nation state as well as thestrength to defend it in the face of treats and dangers It is a unity that binds us alltogether and enables us to share a common sense of destiny” (Planning Commission

citizen-1999b: 18) There are various disputes about the number of people who left, andalso about the questions, who left voluntarily and who fled the country, but itremains a fact that many Nepalese Bhutanese have resettled in the United Statesand European countries after having spent years in refugee camps in Nepal’s Terai

1 However, all newly emerging states share the same point of departure where nation-building “is the basic Third World ideology and project ” (Smith 1986 : 231).

districts (HRW2007; Frelick2011).2Second step was the introduction of GNH bythe throne as the overall encompassing ideology based on what Johns and Ormerod(2007: 70) denotes as “at least one country in the world has decided that culturalhomogeneity is a vital part of its citizen’s happiness.” Third step was the gradualintroduction of “guided democracy” under the fifth King Jigme Khesar NamgyelWangchuck Although the backbone of the emerging constitutional democraticmonarchy formally rests on a multiparty system and separation of powers andcheck and balances, it is probably more accurate to see it as “democracy by decree”(Turner et al.2011) or “a gift from above” (Bothe2012) But the democratizationprocess has so far not let to a situation where the multiethnic composition ofBhutanese society and GNH can be questioned or debated in public.3This “silence”and “invisibility” of opposition or competing views is a major characteristic ofpresent-day politics in Bhutan.

In this way, GNH becomes an ideological instrument utilized by political ities, i.e., those in power,4to install one, and only one, development trajectory of thecountry leaving virtually no space for opposition, competing discourses or alter-native visions for directions of Bhutan’s future This is of course a contradiction initself and can also be interpreted as an antagonism of democracy and pluralism andattempts to organize interest-based alternatives by societal agents and institutions(for instance, other ethnic groups, the private sector, or civil society)

author-Another inherent paradox is the contrast between the promises of GNH that itupholds strong principles of equality of all human beings by promoting welfare forthe disadvantaged and poor and on the other hand the government provision of freeeducation and health to the population In theory, it would inevitably enhanceequity and equality in the country, but the evidence shows the opposite that incomeinequality and spatial uneven development especially in rural areas graduallyincrease at a quite dramatic rate If this trend continues, it may undermine thegoals and objectives of GNH as a guiding principle for nation-building and thetransition toward democracy and may indeed threaten the Thimphu-based Drukpaelite’s grab over the future direction of the country GNH has become a vehicle forthe transformation of the country away from autocracy toward a hybrid democraticsystem, but it remains “monarchical guided” (Wolf2013) or a “constrained demo-cracy” (Shneiderman and Turin2012) where the King has informal decision-makingpower of last resort in most important decisions related to defense, foreign policy,

2 It is also important to acknowledge that the government and the King in connection with the first national population census in 1988 was frightened by the number and then decided to “securitize” the problem as “illegal immigration” and “a serious threat to the Drukpa culture” (Basu 1996 : 96).

3 Although the government does recognize the existence of three separate ethnic groups: the Ngalong, the Lhotshampa, and the Sharchop, officially there is only one national language Dzongkha (meaning “language of the palace/Dzong”), besides English, which is the language of administration and medium of instruction in the education system (also Wolf 2013 : 8) However,

up to 15 other languages are spoken in the country, and English has become the de facto medium for cultural and linguistic assimilation.

4 The elite and the King belong to the Ngalong ethnic community, who speak Dzongkha.

the safeguard of GNH, and not least appointment and nomination of governmentofficials.

Although poverty has been halved and several millennium goals have beenachieved, there still is some dispute about the actual levels of poverty reduction,and levels of inequality are very worrying (Bhutan News Services, May 8,2013).The official figures show that approximately 30 % of the rural population remainspoor, while urban poverty is about 1.5 %, while ADB figures (2013: 2) reveal ageneral poverty incidence of 11.5 % in 2012, and there is a widening gap betweenthe top 10 % and bottom 10 % brackets in Gini income index (Dhakal2013: 3).These issues are closely related to the nation-building strategies pursued over thepast decades, the developmental and ideological role of the “organic state,” and theway education and schooling have been used as overall instruments to enhancenationalism and national identity As will become clear, this mixture may run intoproblems because of the GNH philosophy’s implicit emphasis on an anti-developmental ethos (the Middle Path) or what may be termed a “developmentdilemma” ensuring culture, environment, and history more than economic progress

In general, “given the developmental nature of contemporary nation-buildingstrategies, i.e dual goal of creating nations and of ensuring self-sufficient growth,which are so heavily intertwined, any failure in performance for one goal is bound

to diminish the chances in the other” (Smith1986: 243)

2 Understanding Nation-Building in Bhutan

In order to explain the most important policy changes in Bhutan in recent historicalperspective, it is not unreasonable to claim that they were externally invoked andnot homegrown or conditioned by domestic affairs Government-sanctioned histo-riography in Bhutan5in many cases presents these policy changes as deliberateindividual decision-making and choices made by various benevolent Kings andadvisors, but other research reveals that they were forced by what may be calledgeopolitical dilemmas and aggression including war, occupation, and annexation inTibet and Sikkim, threats to Buddhism, and the neutralization of monarchies in theimmediate neighborhood (Basu1996; Gulati2003) These external events extendedpressure on the monarchy and elite to open the country, introduce economicreforms, and gradually introduce a political reform process including citizenshiprights to some and none to others, and finally this way make an end to the “ethnicquestion” or what the government in some cases in “securitized” terms referred to

as the Southern illegal immigration problem and on other occasions “unnaturalpopulation increase” (UPR2009: 14; Evans2010: 29) This also meant an end to a

5 The most important exponent of what may be called “government blueprint” research is to a certain degree produced by Centre for Bhutan Studies (see, e.g., Ura and Galay 2004 ; Ura 2013 ).

An exception to this type of representation is bluntly explained in the key document Bhutan 2020 (Planning Commission 1999b : 8).

vibrant civil society and political opposition not only among the BhutaneseNepalese but also other ethnic groups like the Sharchop The Bhutanese Nepalesewere perceived by Thimphu as having created havoc, anarchy, and “terror,” and thisreinforced the Drukpa elite’s fear of civil war in Bhutan and the Himalayan region.Neighboring Tibet, Sikkim, and especially Nepal were perceived as worst-casescenarios where Buddhism, the monarchy and feudal elite’s power grab, had beendestroyed and occupation and civil war had led to instability.

When this is said, the influential Bhutanese scholar Karma Ura notes that “it hasbecome somewhat customary to assess issues [in Bhutan,JDS] from the point ofview of security because of the heightened and staunch sense of security in thecountry” (2001: 113), and he proposes polemically that “this habit has had aconstructive impact” (ibid) Already in 1993, the then Minister of Home AffairsJigme Thinley (who later on became the country’s first elected prime minister)noted that “The rich and splendorous culture of the Great Wheel of Buddhism,which once flourished in Sikkim, Tibet, Ladakh, Lahau, and Spiti, is well on thepath of extinction Today, Bhutan the last bastion of this rich culture, is in a state ofsiege,” and he added “that the Drukpas were faced with a real threat to theirsurvival” (Hazarika2011: 311) Due to Bhutan’s strategic location, it seems thatgeopolitics and security-related issues have had a determining influence on keydecisions over the last century or more Gulati (2003: 223) refers to a speech byKing Jigme Singye Wangchuck at the fifth SAARC Summit in Maldives in 1990where he said: “Terrorism has become one of the growing threats to peace andstability in our region Even in Bhutan, the spectre of terrorism has intruded onpeace and tranquility that has remained undisturbed.”

Opening up a previously isolated country and economy6and introducing ratherrapid political and social changes within a few decades was only possible due to theestablishment and accomplishments of what looks like an “organic state” in conjunc-tion with a specific understanding of ethno-nationalism The way the “organic state”

is defined relies on a romanticized and spiritual conceptualization of territory and thepeople It puts the “collective over the individual” in a sense very much resemblingthe way GNH functions in Bhutanese society.7A nebulous or paternalist notion of

“nation-building” takes on a hegemonic position over individual citizens with cific characteristics that create an identity and a vocabulary which makes it distin-guishable in comparison to other nations This closely follows the design of the EastAsian developmental state as Denman and Namgyel (2008: 488) note that in Bhutan

spe-“ the state, not economic institutions, is the principal shaper of social structures.”The new nation-building strategy was articulated through the imposition of

6 The term “isolated” may be misleading and a convenient myth since there were trade relations with India and Tibet going back to the seventh century A.D (Basu 1996 : 14).

7 Here “the organic state” is understood in its original version presented by Plato who “identifies the interests of the ideal state with the objective interests of the citizens” (Neu 1971 : 238).

Dzongkha as national language,8uniform customs (Driglam Namzha—the Way ofHarmony), an imagined history, new institutions, descent, and Buddhism and wasfurther exacerbated through the execution of exclusionary moves toward minorities’cultural and political institutions The people draw on the historical and ancestralroots created by the domestic and dominant ethnic (minority) elite and governmentrepresenting the “spirit” of the nation, and the roots hold the parts together, meldingthe individuals into a whole physical nation in which all the parts are interconnected.The Bhutanese model is based on an ethnic-cultural matrix or to be more precise

a Mahayana Buddhist state that “assumes primary responsibility for the creation of

a society” (Thinley 1999: 17–18; Mancall 2004: 37) In this version, Drukpanationalism was not dependent on the existence of a nation-state but insteaddepended on genealogical ties among the Ngalong elite, one vernacular culturebased on two languages, customs based on perceived or invented roots of Drukpaculture, religion and arts, “a belief in the virtues of indigenous history and itsspecial interpretation of the history of the nation and its place in the world,” and

a belief in “the people” and the need to mobilize them to create a national identity(Smith2008: 17) This is further complemented by well-defined boundaries with afixed center—the capital Thimphu—emerging in Bhutan One legal and politicalsystem disseminated to society and increasingly accepted by consent of the masses.One mass popular culture and national identity disseminated by means of a public,standardized education system embedded in GNH as the psychological, mental, andcharismatic political and cultural matrix The only exception and question iswhether Bhutan has the ability to defend itself (and be recognized by other nations

as being able to do this) and participate in the international community (Smith

2008: 13) The latter is complicated by Bhutan’s dependency on India’s hegemonicstatus in the country’s domestic as well as external affairs and India’s financial andmoral support to sustain the model and implicitly accept the ability of the elite topursue an alternative on the fringe of its northeastern frontiers

3 Situating Education as Main Driver for Nationalism

and GNH

A useful way to understand education as the key device for obtaining nationalistobjectives is to differentiate between “primary” and “secondary” nationalism wherethe first refers to original nationalism and is concerned with creating nationalidentity where the latter is meant to preserve and enhance national identity in analready established nation Primary nationalism normally attaches enormousimportance to formal education conducted and controlled by the state The schooland education itself is the most powerful agent for injecting national spirit, “and thestate inculcates national values through formal education Primary cultural

8 The third King decided already in 1971 that Dzongkha should become the nation’s language, but its use was reinforced by the government during the uprising by the Bhutanese Nepalese in the South.

nationalism usually occurs as part of nation-building which involves the process ofabsorbing individuals into the organic state, the politicized aspect of the nationalspirit” (Van Horne1997: 137) In this way, the education system has functioned as

an assimilation mechanism by institutionalizing a state and Drukpa elite polized version of ethnicity, and at the same time, the construction of citizenshiphas been the major policy device for exclusion The aim of education is amongother things to instill awareness of the nation’s unique cultural heritage and values,both traditional and universal (Planning Commission 1999a: 19) In discursiveterms, this objective may be more explicitly defined as Bhutanese citizenshipeducational programs as an implicit vehicle for “cultural homogenization” (Bothe

mono-2011: 533) or “Bhutanization” of school curricula which started in the 1980s andcontinued in subsequent decades It was not only a consequence of the deliberations

in Thimphu but came hand in hand with the “nationalization of Heads” with theresult that Bhutanese became headmasters of all schools and a general Bhutan-ization of curriculum and extracurricular values and cultural activities took place(Namgyel2011: 94).9

The government and royal sanctioned GNH Commission have the power toapprove or disapprove all education policies before “they are allowed or enacted”(Schuelka2012: 149) This overall guidance and regulation through Bhutanizationand GNH is mirrored in the fact that the dominant view of the elite contemplatesBhutan in an asymmetric situation “where massive external cultural influencescould literally overwhelm local cultural values when the borders open wide underthe onslaught of globalization—hence the need for a vigorous promotion of indige-nous cultures as a context for making available true choice to individuals Webelieve that a state which does not preserve its cultural richness is one where thechoices and well-being of its citizens are diminished and greatly constrained”(Thinley2005)

It is also interesting to note that besides the academic skills and functionalobjectives of the national curriculum for primary schools, there is almost unilateralfocus on the injection of knowledge about mental and physical health, hygiene, andsocial studies, in particular, the geography and history of Bhutan and “a deep sense

of respect and pride in being Bhutanese, and in being citizens who are loyal,dedicated, productive, contented, and happy with a high standard of morals andethics” (Chhoeda 2007: 60) These policies emerged after the closing down ofNepalese Bhutanese schools in the end of the 1980s leading to more than 30,000children deprived of education It also spelled the end of teaching in Nepalese andthe end of Nepalese curriculums in the Bhutanese education system

The most difficult issue in Bhutan was and is till today how to deal with thecontradictions between state-sanctioned hegemony in education and the reality of a

9 Bhutanization of education came at the same time as the expulsion of the 104,000 Bhutanese Nepalese in the South and was a follow-up on new citizenship laws, a nationwide census and the enactment of the Driglam Namzha as a cultural policy aimed at homogenization of traditionalism with one national uniform dress code and one uniform national architectural design, and public codes of social conduct.

“multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual” society (Mathou 2000: 245) andcultural preservation at the same time The former Prime Minister Thinley hasstated that Buddhism and education for happiness go hand in hand (Spring2013:201), but at the same time, it contradicts the requirements and effects of thestructural or so-called modern British-inspired curriculum and Western skill-based teaching which still overshadow the relatively speaking small culturaldoses coming with GNH formal and informal teaching and curriculum and extra-curriculum activities In this way, the objective of education becomes the assimi-lation of all cultures into one national culture and identity, a task with dauntingchallenges ahead but also probably the only way to create meaning, identification,and loyalty based on oneethnie (Smith1986: 237, 243).

Seen from the government’s point of view, education “is the glue that holds thewhole enterprise together” (Thinley2009: 14) with GNH and happiness understoodnot as “a fleeting, pleasurable ‘feel good’ but true abiding happiness cannot existwhile others suffer, and comes only from serving others, living in harmony withnature, and realizing our innate wisdom and the true and brilliant nature of our ownminds” (ibid) The teacher should be seen as a guru, not just a facilitator: “On thecontrary, a teacher who truly embodies GNH principles and values is also anauthentic and natural authority figure, to whom respect and even reverence aredue” (op cit 17) By attempting to install such virtues, the idea to promote honor,valor, loyalty, allegiance, and devotion should be encouraged and be part and parcel

of the educating for GNH values and principles In one way or the other, theBhutanese government attempts to assume the role of an “ethical state” (Basu

1996: 111) or an “organic state” implementing specific moral and cultural ideals

to the people either by force as a control mechanism or preferably by consent

In fact, one may argue that the original ethno-nationalist Bhutanization strategygradually has been replaced with a cultural nationalist direction where educationand the “GNH school” plays the main role in terms of creating a vertical organicprocess where women and men and girls and boys interact and influence each otherwithin a specific social horizontal and localized setting At the same time, educationbecomes the vehicle to effect the “transmission of the cultural heritage from onegeneration to the next, as the means of ensuring the historical consciousness of thepeople” (Herder cf Wiborg2000: 240) The Bhutanese government has changedboth monastic and modern education in an evolutionary manner and implemented aunifying approach supported by “a ‘nation-culture’ identity that is uniquely pre-served by its ruling class” (Denman and Namgyel2008: 488), and nation-buildinghas been rather successful if these are the criteria

4 Development Challenges in Contemporary Bhutan

Bhutan’s socioeconomic development was kick-started in the early 1960s Since the

“first five-year plan” in 1961, governments have given priority to education andhealth and emphasized free delivery in these areas, and in 2008 it became a consti-tutional right for the people when Bhutan became a democracy This evolution has

arisen in tandem with the opening up of the country to outside influences, ideas, andinstitutions but always with the King stressing introvert strategies like “self-reli-ance” (Mancall2004: 9), and according to the 2008 Constitution, the governmentmust “secure ecologically balanced sustainable development while promotingjustifiable economic and social development” (RGOB2008) Although the combi-nation of GNH and probably the best-preserved environment in the world arelaudable, there are several hazards and challenges ahead Among the most impor-tant are those related to the environment and climate change: “High demographicgrowth, unplanned urban migrations, increased population density in cities, rapidrise in imports of cars, and increasing demand for fuel wood, roads, buildingconstruction” (Poissonnier-Lescuras and Gemenne 2013: 7) The environmentand climate related problems are obviously key issues for future generations andclosely related to awareness campaigns and teaching in schools which links wellwith GNH ideology.

In the “tenth five-year plan” (2008–2013), the government has made clear thateducation and health are still major priorities for the government According to thePlanning Commission, the population of Bhutan has growing expectations to thedelivery of better quality social services and also a clean environment and disaster-free lifestyle The government recognizes that investment in education and healthwill have both immediate and long-term benefits for the country, and these effortsmay furthermore lead the country into what Mathou (2000: 245) calls “a post-ethnicconsciousness” by “modernizing the minds of the people.” Education and povertyreduction remains the main objective of government policy and deemed vital forachieving Bhutan’s socioeconomic goals but is also a mechanism to solve theinherent contradictions within the ethnie and polity

Although efficient service delivery to the entire population is still a challengedue to the physiographical and geographical obstacles, there has been a gradualshift of focus toward more quality improvement and participatory inclusion notonly in education but also in general due to the democratization process The area ofhealth has gone through a similar development, and introduction of ICT is seen asone way to overcome some of these obstacles

There are still many constraints facing decision-makers and policy-makers.Government resources are restrained and dependent on Overseas DevelopmentAssistance (ODA) which needs to be allocated more efficiently and appropriately

to increase quality and especially to link up with the promises of GNH related toequity and just and fair distribution ODA is being phased out, and the governmentwith Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay who took office in 2013 has realized that one

of the main problems has been misuse of public resources in the name of GNH andeven referred to the overemphasis on GNH as distracting awareness and moneyaway from the real issues related to unemployment, poverty, corruption, and also acommon sense among the general populace that politicians are too remote He evendenoted himself as a “happiness skeptic” (Hindustan Times, 2 August,2013).Key constraints hampering development can be identified within:

• The inability of the government and donors to provide more adequateinfrastructure

• A narrow fiscal base related to fluctuating income from electricity exports toIndia and heavy reliance on foreign donors willingness to keep up the provision

of grants and loans

• A miniscule private sector and lack of credit support for small- and scale enterprises

medium-• Price interventions and government regulation hampering competition anddiversification

• A relatively well-functioning primary education and health system but weak andunequal access to secondary and tertiary, including vocational, training facilities

• A fragile job situation (ADB2013)

These constraints are furthermore linked to the challenges and expectations from

a better educated and enlightened population toward state-sanctioned developmentgoals which may or may not collide with the wishes of the so-called Googlegeneration Growing inequalities and uneven development may also hamper theexecution of proper government policies, and together this has become a majorburden and challenge for the new democratic political system in Bhutan

One way to cope with these challenges and constraints is to provide better, moretransparent, and efficient government services across all sectors More efficient use

of e-governance and information and communications technology (ICT) as a toolfor development, education, and democratization has become an option for thegovernment but is very expensive and may not necessarily add new jobs as it is alsoseen as a way to enhance productivity and efficiency

5 Aim and Approach of the Book

The objective of this volume is to give an overall critical insight into historical andcontemporary issues related to nation-building, GNH, and inequality understoodnot only as a material or socioeconomic term relating to income, assets, land,resources, health, and gender but also as a political-cultural construct relating toethnicity, religion, participation, influence, and collective and individual rights.Inequality may be related to human capabilities (Sen 1992), durable inequality(Tilly 1998), existential inequality relating to recognition and redistribution(Honneth1995) and respect (Sennett2002), and intra-ethnic cultural stratification(Bourdieu1984).10

What is interesting in a sociological perspective is the focus on how educationimpacts mobility, access to the labor market, and class structure Education as aninstitution may be overcome by symbolic violence as its mediating structuresdetermine the allocation of status and power Even if education is said to overcome

10 See Therborn ( 2006 ).

inequality, it may cement it more into society However, change through resistance

is possible, and the right reforms may also change class and status differentiationcaused by education In addition, there are four mechanisms producing inequality:distantiation, hierarchization, exclusion, and exploitation—“they are all producedand sustained by distributive action, individual as well as collective, and by socialsystemic arrangements and processes” (Therborn2006: 11)

Parts of this book consist of comparative perspectives of the interplay betweenthe domestic and external policy environment as denominator for the ongoingcreation of national identity including values and norms pertaining to the construc-tion of Bhutan’s development model Other contributions explore how existingresources, ideas, and knowledge are formed within human and social developmentactivities such as education, ICT policies, and practices and to a lesser degree healthand investigate how they have been utilized to meet the short-term and long-termdevelopment challenges in Bhutan It furthermore analyzes the visible and invisiblesynergies occurring in policy flows from center to local levels in the implementa-tion of labor market regulation (migration), land distribution, the environment anddisaster management and how these flows impact levels of equity as well Theobjective is also to focus on democracy, law, legitimacy, and cultural factors such

as the use of the “cultural etiquette” (Driglam Namzha) and royal social servicesproviding “property rights to land” (Kidu) as a way to enhance legitimacy of theoverall development model of the organic state

The rationale of the book is to critically engage with challenges related to theimplementation of GNH not only in relation to education but also democratization,unemployment, migration, legal aspects, environment, and climate prevention andrelate to growing inequalities and uneven development The book is divided intofive sections each consisting of two chapters

The first section relates to a comparison of Bhutan’s development trajectories inhistorical and contemporary perspective with focus on political culture, the role ofdonors, ethno-nationalism, and education In his contribution Chap.1, Michael Huttgives what he calls reflections from a distance The paper presents the argument thatthe government has implemented a number of reforms and has been forced tosharpen questions of national identity, loyalty, and belonging The paper dwells intoissues related to monarchy and democratization, language, and religion and endswith a note about participation and exclusion Professor Hutt ends his contributionwith moderate optimism concerning the evolution of democracy in Bhutan Thesecond chapter by Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt deals with the links betweenexternal donors and reforms It asks why donors have treated the Bhutanesemodel with such enthusiasm and points to the geopolitical angle as part of thereason It furthermore deals with the establishment of ethno-nationalism,Bhutanization, and GNH and argues that education is utilized to create a newGNH citizen however with varying success

The second section deals with GNH, equality, and inclusion versus exclusion Itfocuses on a variety of aspects such as the Kidu, ethnic inequality, and migration;Chap.3written by Winnie Bothe explores the links between GNH and inequality.The approach builds on Pierre Bourdieu’s distinction between material and

symbolic violence and inequality The paper traces the historical origins of ity and GNH in Bhutan, then deals with material inequality, and finally moves intothe realm of symbolic inequality The paper concludes that GNH remains elusivefor egalitarianism, and the focus of GNH on tradition and values may even promotenew forms of inequalities Chapter4Distress Migration and Individual Happiness

inequal-by Mahmood Ansari deals with the political economy of demographic change,migration, and happiness The author deals at length with the incomplete andunreliable data and statistics in the country and doubts the official claims abouthappiness of the population The paper analyzes the missing civil society andindependent critical voice in Bhutan who might have questioned claims from thegovernment The paper then discusses migration and individual and collectivehappiness and doubts the official figures because of the display of structural asym-metries and regional unevenness

Section 3 is devoted to culture, legal issues, and politics of change MariMiyamoto is the author of Chap 5 A Form of Democratization Project—BeingApolitical and Being Religious The focus lies on institutional changes withinmonastery, monarchy, and parliament since 2007 and how these changes haveinfluenced social and cultural structures The paper starts with changes in parlia-ment, moves to party politics, and situates the role for the king and the monarchy inthe new era of democratic reforms Then the perspective turns to religion inelections, the role of the election committee, and finally media and discursivespace The paper criticizes the restraints to maintain society apolitical and thefact that monasteries and Buddhist monks are deprived of their rights to vote, butstill Bhutan may move into a different or alternative type of democracy Chapter6

by Richard Whitecross is titled Law, “Tradition” and Legitimacy: ContestingDriglam Namzha This chapter focuses on law and legal institutions in the process

of state-building and more specifically the code of discipline or conduct DriglamNamzha which is introduced in the beginning of the contribution Then ProfessorWhitecross deals with state promotion of Driglam Namzha and how it has beenpoliticized The third part deals with the role of law and legal institutions in theprocess of cultural identity formation Finally, the last section focuses on recentchanges and argues that state promotion of the social etiquette has weakenedrecently and is in reality a contested domain open for public debate

Section 4 is focusing on Governance and Integration Chapter 7 by NorbertWildermuth and Devi Bhakta Suberi is titled Between Hopeful Intentions andDisenchanting Constraints: Lessons Learned in Bhutan’s Nationwide E-governanceInitiative The digitalization of the public sector in Bhutan is still in an infant stageand it is a challenge for the government to integrate ICT into governance as asupportive tool for democratization This contribution is a critical assessment ofe-governance and participation and a study of the Bhutanese ongoing conceptuali-zation and implementation of the government-to-citizen (G2C) e-governance plat-form The paper deals with two core research issues Whether there is a role forinclusion with ICT as a tool for the majority of the rural population Secondly, can itpromote public service delivery and further the development goals of GNH?Illiteracy in rural areas in itself narrows the chances of digital inclusion and

peasant’s communicative opportunities It gives a low utilization of G2C services,and furthermore the anonymity of the communication with authorities contradictsthe humble and what is regarded appropriate way Therefore, it is expected that thevillage headman takes the lead which makes it a continuing challenge to providesufficient services Chapter8Disaster Governance, Inequality and Poverty Allevi-ation by Caroline Brassard highlights the links between disaster governance andcoping strategies from the impact of climate change and argues for a more integra-tive and preventive policy-making based on a people-centered approach ProfessorBrassard traces discourses about disaster governance and then analyzes disaster risk

in a development perspective The paper argues that there are immediate and term benefits associated with linking disaster preparedness and poverty alleviation,but due to the fact that the institutions are relatively recent, they therefore havedifficulties in tackling inequities and inequalities in the country The paper proposesfor cooperative and people-centered empowerment to increase resilience at locallevels but also as an integral part of the governance system

long-Section 5 of the book focuses on health, food, and disparities Chapter 9 byMahmood Ansari is titled Regional Disparities and Food Problems The papertraces the historical roots of regional disparities and food shortages in the easternregion and notes that these deprivations and contradictions can also be seen alongethnic lines The east has been a historic victim or a periphery to the center.However, there are also other explanations related to the fact that the westernregion has had more arable and fertile land compared to the east both in terms ofland, labor, livestock, and machinery Although Bhutan has had what resembles adevelopmental and dirigiste state and planned economy, it has failed to addressregional disparities, poverty, and food insecurity It is foreign development aidwhich has been utilized in improving nutrition and livelihood and created a culture

of what professor Ansari describes as a “parasitic aid syndrome.” The author urgesthe government to address the asymmetries in the distribution of land, water, andfood across households, villages, and regions The last chapter Policy Synergies inHealth-Promoting Education has been coauthored by Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidtand Line Kikkenborg Christensen The paper analyzes how the intentions of socialdevelopment activities within health promotion through education are in conflictwith outcomes on the ground It focuses on the discrepancies between policies ofintention at central level and the implementation at local levels and synergies inpolicy flows The paper concludes that there is a certain degree of realization andefficiency in terms of delivering physical health, preventing diseases, and providingmental capabilities not least by utilizing meditation and mindfulness However,there are critical problems involved in advocacy work and “educating for GNH”and lack of training for teachers Therefore, knowledge and skill training andupgrading are serious challenges for effective implementation

The book applies a plurality of perspectives, but the majority of the contributionsrely on a mixture of policy study, anthropology, political economy, and socialstudies The book compiles a critical, eclectic, and interdisciplinary approach to addvalue to the understanding of Bhutan’s development model As mentioned above,there is a growing interest among scholars, media, and people in general about the

“GNH miracle” in Bhutan but little comprehensive scholarly literature covering thedetails The literature which does exist is either scattered in articles in journals andall very recent—since Bhutan didn’t open up to the outside world more than10–15 years ago—or it consists of more or less government-approved books andother research with reference to official versions of what is happening This may begradually changing in the past few years, but still there is no real comprehensivebook which tries to explain in a scholarly manner the details, background, and cases

of Bhutan’s development trajectory

The contributions of this book reflect an attempt to fill this gap and try to fulfillthe objective of providing insights into some of the crucial aspects related toBhutan’s recent development challenges It scrutinizes and investigates the impor-tance of understanding the epistemology and ontology of GNH, the genealogy ofthe country’s development approach, unpacking and deconstructing ideational andpolitico-cultural aspects of knowledge production, and to give an overall assess-ment of the political economy and social and cultural aspects of various policylayers and practices involved and relate these aspects to equality, equity, and egali-tarianism—all implicit and explicit promises of the GNH both understood as aphilosophy, ideology, and real politics with ramifications for the societal rubric

Bothe W (2011) Forming local citizens in Bhutan: the traditionalization of participation— empowerment, domination or subjugation? PhD Dissertation, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen

Bothe W (2012) The monarch’s gift: critical notes on the constitutional process in Bhutan Eur Bull Himal Res 40:27–58 http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ebhr/ pdf/EBHR_40_02.pdf

Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: social critique of the judgement and taste Routledge & Kegan, London

Chhoeda T (2007) Schooling in Bhutan In: Gupta A (ed) Going to school in South Asia Greenwood Press, Westport, CT

Denman BD, Namgyel S (2008) Convergence of monastic and modern education in Bhutan? Int Rev Educ 54(3–4):475–491

Dhakal DNS (2013) Country report 2013 Bhutan, South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE), Kathmandu, Nepal

Evans R (2010) The perils of being borderland people: on the Lhotshampas of Bhutan Contemp S Asia 18(1):25–42

Frelick B (2011) For Bhutan’s refugees, there’s no place like home Global Post, 30 Mar 2011.

Hazarika S (2011) Strangers of the mist Tales of war and peace from India’s Northeast Penguin Books, New Delhi

Hindustan Times (2013) Bhutan’s new prime minister is a ‘happiness’ sceptic, 2 August, New Delhi.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/bhutan-s-new-prime-minister-is-a-happiness-sceptic/ article1-1102277.aspx#sthash.xbLlGqTU.dpuf

Honneth A (1995) The struggle for recognition: the moral grammar of social conflicts Polity Press, Cambridge

HRW (2007) Human rights watch: last hope The need for durable solutions for Bhutanese refugees

in Nepal and India, vol 19, no 7, Washington, DC

Hutt M (1996) Ethnic nationalism, refugees and Bhutan J Refug Stud 9(4):397–420

Hutt M (2003) Unbecoming citizens Culture, nationhood, and the flight of refugees from Bhutan Oxford University Press, New Delhi

John H, Ormerod P (2007) Happiness, economics and public policy The Institute of Economic Affairs, London

Lokamitra D (2004) The centrality of Buddhism and education in developing gross national ness In: Ura K, Galay K (eds) Gross national happiness and development (proceedings of the first international seminar on operationalization of gross national happiness) The Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimphu

happi-Mancall M (2004) Gross national happiness and development: an essay In: Ura K, Galay K (eds) Gross national happiness and development (proceedings of the first international seminar on operationalization of gross national happiness) The Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimphu Mathou T (2000) The politics of Bhutan: change in continuity J Bhutan Stud 2(2):250–262, Winter

Namgyel S (2011) Quality of education in Bhutan: historical and theoretical understanding matters DSB, Thimphu

Neu J (1971) Plato’s analogy of state and individual: “the republic” and the organic theory of the state J Philos 46(177):238–254

Planning Commission, Royal Government of Bhutan (1999a) Bhutan 2020: a vision for peace, prosperity and happiness (part I) http://www.gnhc.gov.bt/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ Bhutan2020_1.pdf

Planning Commission, Royal Government of Bhutan (1999b) Bhutan 2020: a vision for peace, prosperity and happiness (part II) http://www.gnhc.gov.bt/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ Bhutan2020_2.pdf

Poissonnier-Lescuras, Maud and Franc¸ois Gemenne (2013) Bhutan Case study in the framework

of the project ClimMig: climate-related migration and the need for new normative and tutional frameworks The Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, IDDRI, Paris http://www.humanrights.at/climmig/wp-content/uploads/Bhutan-ClimMig.pdf

insti-Royal Government of Bhutan (2008) The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan http://www constitution.bt/TsaThrim%20Eng%20%28A5%29.pdf

Schuelka MJ (2012) Inclusive education in Bhutan: a small state with alternative priorities, current issues in comparative education Teachers College, Columbia University http://files eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1000220.pdf

Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Sennett R (2002) Respect in a world of inequality Norton, New York

Shneiderman S, Turin M (2012) Nepal and Bhutan in 2011 Cautious Optimism Asian Surv 52(1): 138–146

Smith AD (1971) Theories of nationalism Duckworth, London

Smith AD (1986) State-making and nation-building In: Hall JA (ed) States in history Basil Blackwell, Oxford

Smith AD (1994) Ethnic nationalism and the plight of minorities J Refug Stud 7(2–3):186–198 Smith AD (2008) The cultural foundations of nations: hierarchy, covenant, and republic Blackwell, Malden, MA

Spring J (2013) Corporatism, social control, and cultural domination in education From the radical right to globalization The selected works of Joel Spring Routledge, New York Therborn G (2006) Inequalities of the world New theoretical frameworks, multiple empirical approaches Verso, London

Thinley LJY (1999) Values and development: gross national happiness in gross national ness Centre For Bhutan Studies, Thimphu

happi-Thinley LJY (2005) What does gross national happiness (GNH) mean? Keynote at the second national conference on gross national happiness, rethinking development, local pathways to global wellbeing, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, 20–25 June

inter-2005 http://www.gpiatlantic.org/conference/proceedings/thinley.htm

Thinley LJY (2009) Keynote address at the “educating for gross national happiness workshop”, Thimphu, 7–12 December

Tilly C (1998) Durable inequality University of California Press, Berkely

Turner M, Chuki S, Tshering J (2011) Democratization by decree: the case of Bhutan zation 18(1):184–210

Democrati-UPR (2009) National report submitted in accordance with paragraph 15 (A) of the annex to human rights council resolution 5/1, July, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thimphu http://www mfa.gov.bt/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/upr-report-final.pdf

Ura K (2001) Perceptions of security J Bhutan Stud 5:113–139 http://www.bhutanstudies.org.bt/ journal/vol5/v5-9.pdf

Ura K (2013) The Bhutanese development story The Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimphu http:// www.bhutanstudies.org.bt/publicationFiles/Monograph/mono-1en-bt-dev-stry.pdf

Ura K, Galay K (eds) (2004) Gross national happiness and development (proceedings of the first international seminar on operationalization of gross national happiness) The Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimphu

Van Horne W (ed) (1997) Global convulsions Race, ethnicity, and nationalism at the end of the twentieth century State University of New York Press, New York

Wiborg S (2000) Political and cultural nationalism in education The ideas of Rousseau and Herder concerning national education J Comp Educ 36(2):235–243

Wolf S (2013) Bhutan’s political transition Between ethnic conflict and democracy, paper no 2, spotlight on South Asia University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg

Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt is Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark He is Senior Expert at Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen University, Denmark He has held visiting research fellowships in Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Poland and was recently a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Political Economy, Carleton University, Canada He has a broad spectrum of research interests, varying from globalization and international division of labor to social and welfare policy and state regulations with a focus on Asia His most recent publications: Schmidt,

J D & Rasiah (2011) The New Political Economy of east Asia, London and New York, Edward Elgar Publish- ing, and Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt and Jacques Hersh (2002) Globalization and Social Change, London and New York Routledge.

South-Part I Comparing Bhutan’s Development

Trajectories

in Bhutan Since the 1980s: Reflections from

to its internal conversation with itself However, reflecting from a distance can alsohave some advantages For instance, it is easier to write about sensitive andcontroversial topics when there is no risk of losing the privilege of access, which

in the case of Bhutan is granted only to a relatively small number of foreignresearchers

If you perform a Google search on the present author’s name plus ‘Bhutan’, youwill quickly come across a page frombhutanstory.blogspot.comheaded ‘The Story

of Bhutanese Refugees’, on which the very first item is titled ‘five reasons why not

to believe Michael Hutt’ The first reason offered for not believing the presentauthor is that he has not done research in Bhutan or ‘probably’ even visited thecountry This is not quite true: I spent 2 weeks in Bhutan in 1992, during which Ihad a 90-min audience with King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, met the home, foreignand education ministers and travelled as far east as Bumthang and as far south asChirang The following year, I convened the first ever international academicconference on Bhutan at SOAS in London, at which the Royal Government wasrepresented by Jigmi Y Thinley, who was then secretary to the Ministry of Home.The proceedings of this conference were published in two volumes edited byMichael Aris and myself (Aris and Hutt1994; Hutt1994)

The second reason offered for not believing me on Bhutan is that I have spentmost of my academic career studying Nepali language and literature and most of the

students ‘in my lab’ are Nepalese The first of these is of course true, though thesecond is not, though it would be very nice if it was (I would love to have a ‘lab’,and if I did, I would welcome Nepalese students into it and Bhutanese students too.)However, this assertion contains an interesting assumption This is that someonewho has spent many years studying Nepal is not merely unqualified to speak orwrite about Bhutan but is also in a sense disqualified from doing so That is, that noone who has any linguistic or cultural empathy with the Nepali-speaking world canpossibly be trusted if they write about Bhutan.

Part of what I would like to argue here is that this assumption is unsafe.Scholarship on socio-political change in Bhutan does have things to learn fromscholarship on socio-political change in Nepal Although there are significantdifferences between the history and culture of the two countries, the peoples andgovernments of both have faced similar challenges and problems over the past 60 or

so years These include their relationships with neighbouring states (especiallyIndia), the treatment of ethnic and cultural diversity within their respective country,attitudes to political dissent, challenges to the environment and so on I think it isalso safe to say that the course charted by Bhutan’s political leadership over the past

30 years has taken full account of events and developments in that other Himalayanstate, whose eastern border lies just a few score miles to the west The Bhutaneseleadership has been greatly concerned to avoid the conflict and instability that hasbedevilled Nepal for decades Thus, well-informed comparisons with Nepal areuseful for anyone who wishes to understand recent and contemporary developments

in Bhutan

2 Bhutan Since the 1980s

I would identify three crucial processes of sociocultural and political change inBhutan since the 1980s

The first was the government’s adoption of a clearer and more exclusive tion of Bhutanese national identity (expressed in the phrase ‘one nation onepeople’) and a more restrictive conception of Bhutanese citizenship and nationality.These changes were signalled by a new Marriage Act in 1980, new citizenshiplegislation in 1985, the extension of the Driglam Namzha cultural code and thecensus operations conducted from the late 1980s onwards All of these measureswere controversial, and even provocative, in the Nepali-speaking south, but theywere much less so for the rest of the country My sense (and again I must stress thatthis is a view from a distance) is that there is now a broad consensus in favour of theproduction and maintenance of a single national identity The new cultural conceptsand policies have been expertly analysed by scholars such as Karma Phuntsho(2000,2004), and I will have little more to say about them here

defini-The second process was the flight or expulsion of a substantial portion of thecountry’s Nepali-speaking population, which travelled first to refugee camps inNepal during the early 1990s and 20 years later to the USA, Australia, New Zealandand a number of European countries, including Denmark and the UK I do

understand that the Royal Government disputes many of the refugees’ claims, but Istand by the findings I published in my bookUnbecoming Citizens (2003) which arebased on archival research and many weeks of conversations with people in theBhutanese refugee camps in the Morang and Jhapa districts of eastern Nepal.

I believe there was a direct causal link between the process of national definition and the flight of Bhutanese Nepalis from the country’s southern districts

re-self-I also believe that both were preconditions for the third process, which includes thedrafting and promulgation of a national constitution, the introduction of a system ofdemocracy that I would describe as both guided and limited (though I also see thepossibility of it evolving into a more fully fledged culture of democratic participa-tion if conditions allow) and the development of the concept of Gross NationalHappiness

What I mean by this is that the Royal Government would not have had thepolitical space to conduct these reforms if it had not first sharpened questions ofnational identity, loyalty and belonging Once political opposition to the newpolicies, which sprang largely from the ethnic Nepali population, had beendisplaced to outside the country’s borders, an environment developed in whichthe Royal Government could raise the level of democratic participation withoutprovoking ethnicised oppositional activity or unleashing unquenchable demandsfor more political reform

3 Monarchy and Democratisation

Both Bhutan and Nepal contain complex societies of considerable historical depth.Many forces, both internal and external, have contributed to the shaping of theircultural and political development, and it would be wrong to reduce their historicalnarratives to simplistic accounts that focus on only one kind of player However, I

do think there is something to be learned from a comparison of the role and fate oftheir respective monarchies I have argued this at length elsewhere (Hutt2014) andwill not reiterate the more detailed argument here

However, I think it is important to consider the possibility that the future of theBhutanese monarchy may not have been as secure as it seemed before the politicalreforms were introduced In the Panchayat-period Nepal (1962–1990), the peopleexpressed their love for the monarchy whenever the occasion arose If foreign andBhutanese media reports are to be believed, they continue to do so in present-dayBhutan Butancient regimes collapse when their natural supporters are no longerbound by ideas of divine right, and no longer see monarchs as acting in theirinterests As the Nepali experience shows, republican arguments can gain forcewith great rapidity (especially when the monarch himself fulfils republicanprophecies with the alacrity of Gyanendra Shah) Public sentiment (and, moreimportantly, thepublic articulation of private sentiment) can quickly change In

1992, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck told me that in future the world would besurprised by the changes he was going to introduce And now Bhutan’s monarchy,which understands its own country much better than the last Shah king of Nepal did,

does indeed appear to have secured a long-term future for itself through a sponsored process of democratisation.

palace-This democratisation remains limited, however A special feature of the newBhutanese constitution is that while it allows for the establishment and registration

of political parties for the very first time, and allows these parties to contest the firststage of general elections, it allows only the two parties that garner the highestnumber of votes to move through to stage two The party that wins the highestnumber of votes then forms the government, while the runner-up forms the opposi-tion Another feature of the system that has provoked comment is the requirementthat all candidates standing for election should be university graduates It is difficult

to ascertain the number of graduates in Bhutan, butKuensel records that attendance

at the National Graduate Orientation Program has been growing every year, fromjust 272 in 2001 to 2404 in 2013 The cumulative total over this 12-year period is14,574.1If Bhutan’s total population is 753,900 (the World Bank figure for 2013),this represents just under 2 %

If media reports are to be believed, in 2007 rural Bhutanese voters were notwholly convinced that democracy was what their country needed, partly becausethey knew that in neighbouring Nepal, the reintroduction of multiparty democracy

in 1990 was followed by widespread corruption, a 10-year civil war and theprobable abolition of the Shah monarchy It is also very possible that when ordinaryBhutanese voters were asked a question such as ‘do you want democracy?’ whatthey heard was the question, ‘do you want to reduce the powers of the king?’ Duringthe 1980 national referendum in Nepal, when Nepali voters were asked whetherthey wished to replace the Panchayat system (in which the king held much of theexecutive power) with a multiparty democracy, this was very much the way inwhich the campaign played out in rural areas

During the first Bhutanese general elections, the monarchy loomed large in bothparties’ manifestos, and it is clear that it was, and is, still a vital source oflegitimation Indeed, it is difficult to discern any kind of republican agenda inBhutan beyond the odd posting in obscure corners of the worldwide web However,the popular media’s account of a benevolent and progressive monarch imposingprogress and democracy on his unwilling subjects is surely a romantic simplifica-tion These changes were probably prompted, at least in part, by the ruling elite’srecognition that the Bhutanese population is becoming increasingly educated,globalised and politically aware and that political control will be more easilysustained if reforms are granted before they are too strongly demanded

1 ‘Graduate’s [sic] orientation begins tomorrow’ Kuensel 28 September 2013 http://www kuenselonline.com/graduates-orientation-begins-tomorrow/#.U8psZyhCesE , accessed 19 July 2014.

4 Language and Religion

Let me now move to briefly consider two other aspects of sociocultural identity inBhutan that have instructive parallels in Nepal

4.1 Language

In both Bhutan and Nepal, the state has striven to construct a culturally homogenousmodel of the nation, despite the objective reality of its ethnic, linguistic and culturaldiversity In his much-cited article, Burghart (1984) identifies the designation ofNepali as the official language of Nepal, which he dates to c.1930, as the thirdepisode in the process that led to the emergence of the concept of the nation state inNepal During the Panchayat period in Nepal (1962–1990), Nepali was stronglypromoted as one of the three pillars of Nepali nationhood, alongside the monarchyand Hinduism This monolingual model of what is so obviously a multilingualnation has come under sustained attack in Nepal since 1990 In contrast, Bhutan’sgovernment has chosen to adopt Dzongkha as its national language, but tacitlyrecognises that it is unlikely ever to perform all of the functions expected of it, notleast because it remains the mother tongue of only about a third of the populationand little more than a school subject for the rest Its promotion of Dzongkha istherefore mainly of symbolic importance, as a marker of Bhutan’s distinct andunique identity In practice, much of the kingdom’s business is conducted inEnglish, which is also the medium of all state education; this pragmatic approachgreatly reduces the risk of opposition arising to national language policy fromBhutan’s many linguistic minorities

4.2 Religion

Nepal was invested with a Hindu religious identity during the period of Gorkhali

‘unification’, and this was used to assert its distinctiveness vis-a`-vis India or

‘Muglan’ The government’s attempts to promote a more sanskritised form ofHinduism during the last years of the Panchayat regime alienated minority ethnichill groups, with the result that Nepal’s status as a Hindu kingdom became acontentious issue in the aftermath of the 1990 ‘People’s Movement’ (jan andolan),and it was declared a secular state in 2006

Bhutan’s constitution stops short of defining Bhutan as a Buddhist state oridentifying Buddhism as the state religion Instead, it describes Buddhism as the

‘spiritual heritage’ of Bhutan (Art 3.1) and describes the Druk Gyalpo (the king) as

‘the protector of all religions in Bhutan’ (Art 3.2) The linkages between politicsand religion are emphasised in its exposition of thechoe-sid-nyi or ‘dual system’.For instance, Article 2.1 declares ‘The Chhoe-sid-nyi of Bhutan shall be unified inthe person of the Druk Gyalpo [King of Bhutan] who, as a Buddhist, shall be theupholder of the Chhoe-sid’ There has also been some blurring of Bhutan’s national

identity with the concept of the Buddhist trinity The most important formulationexpressing Bhutan’s national commonality is that of theTsa Wa Sum, the ‘ThreeRoots’ or ‘Three Foundations’, which mirrors the Buddhist trinity of the Buddha,the Dharma and the Sangha in which a Buddhist takes refuge The Tsa Wa Sumformulation dates back to the reign of Jigme Dorji Wangchuck and was originallyintended to signify ‘Government, Country and People’ (Phuntsho2004: 576), butduring the early 1990s, it was increasingly rendered as ‘King, Country and People’,

an entity to which the loyalty of Bhutan’s Nepali population came increasingly intoquestion

However, although it is clear that the king of Bhutan is a Buddhist, he is clearlynot a ‘Buddhist king’ in a formal sense in the same way that the Shahs were Hindukings In Bhutan, the Central Monk Body, not the king, is the sole arbiter onreligious matters, and the Je Khenpo who sits at its head is the only individualaccorded the same rank as the king

5 Participation and Exclusion

I said earlier that I could see the possibility of Bhutan’s new guided democracyevolving into a more fully fledged culture of democratic participation if conditionsallow This begs a number of questions that cannot be answered very easily from adistance First, to what extent does this remain an elite phenomenon? Given thatonly a tiny slice of Bhutan’s population possesses the necessary qualifications tostand in these elections, is Bhutan seeing increasing participation from othersections of society? Second, if it is true that 82,000 people were classified asnon-nationals by the 2005 Census and debarred from voting in the first generalelections, as alleged by the Norwegian Refugee Council in its 2008 report ‘Bhutan:Land of Happiness for the Selected’, does this remain the case?

The parties that were formed either during the crisis in the south or subsequently

in exile are never likely to be allowed to participate in general elections, given thattheir membership consists almost entirely of exiles with a political agenda that willnever be given any space by the government At least one of these parties has alsoengaged in violent and destructive activities inside Bhutan But their existence is apart of the ongoing legacy of the events of the early 1990s, which are now playingout in societies thousands of miles from Bhutan

Over a 60- or 70-year period that began in or around 1865, hill farmers wereencouraged by the Paro P€onlop and the Dorjis to move eastwards across the newlydrawn border of Nepal into the jungles of southern Bhutan and make the land fit forthe cultivation of rice, oranges, apples, ginger and cardamom No one much knewthey were there until two or three generations later, when about 90,000 of theirdescendants took refuge in Nepal Now, 20 years on, none have been repatriated toBhutan, but all but some 15,000 have accepted offers of resettlement in thirdcountries The process of third country resettlement is well advanced, with65,000 resettled in a large number of scattered locations across the USA and smallernumbers in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway

and the UK The Bhutanese presence in these countries consists almost entirely ofresettled refugees.2

The countries and communities in which these people have arrived are oftenperplexed Whether they welcome them or not, they understand the reasons for theflight of people from countries such as Iraq or Somalia—but Bhutan? In 2013 aBoston magazine, the ‘Atlantic’, carried an article on a wave of Bhutanese refugeesuicides in the USA, of which there were 16 over a 3-year period, causing conster-nation among resettlement agencies.3A number of people who posted commentsonline were mystified as to why the USA was accepting refugees from a land ofGross National Happiness, as this quote shows:

Now: why are there refugees from the happiest country on earth here in the US (which is getting more miserable by the day)? What are they fleeing, why are we letting them in, when we’re generally rather opposed to doing so for our darker-skinned brothers and sisters?

6 Conclusion

Independent research on the political culture of Bhutan is difficult inside thecountry I do not wish to suggest that the warm welcome accorded to foreignresearchers in Bhutan is not genuine or sincere, because I believe it is, and in myown limited experience, Bhutanese officials are both accessible and forthcoming.However, there are some very clearly demarcated no-go areas, and much of theliterature on Bhutan produced by authors with access to the country avoids the moresensitive issues In fact, the international discourse on Bhutanese issues isconducted in two very different spheres, each of which has its own distinct terms

of reference

In the first sphere, Bhutan is constructed primarily as a Buddhist land wherehappiness is prized more highly than material prosperity and where an enlightenedmonarchy is persuading a doubtful public to accept a democratic political system.Its record on development, environmental conservation and democratic reform isseen as little short of exemplary

In the other sphere, Bhutan is constructed primarily as a country that hasexpelled a sixth of its population in a process described (wrongly) as ‘ethniccleansing’.4 This discourse holds that Bhutan’s political reforms and the GNH

2 See European Bulletin of Himalayan Research No 43 (Autumn/Winter 2013), which is a special issue on ‘The Bhutanese Refugee Resettlement Experience’.

3 Priess, Danielle, ‘Bhutanese Refugees Are Killing Themselves at an Astonishing Rate’ The Atlantic, Boston, 13 April 2013 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/ bhutanese-refugees-are-killing-themselves-at-an-astonishing-rate/274959/ Accessed 19 July 2014.

4 I say ‘wrongly’ not only because I find this term objectionable but also because a substantial portion of the Nepali Bhutanese population still remains within Bhutan.

rhetoric amount to nothing more than window dressing It says that the country’sruling elite is staging an elaborate show for the international community in order topreserve its own hegemony.

If we foreigners perceive Bhutan as in some sense extraordinary, this is afunction of the ideological prism through which we are perceiving Bhutan, rathermore than of anything that is empirically true of Bhutan itself The jaded Euro-American has a sense of his own lost authenticity, and he feels the need to believethat somewhere in the world there is a society that is following a path that is wiserand more sustainable than his own But he and his Bhutanese counterparts wantpretty much the same things from life: happiness, security, a good future for theirchildren And this is true wherever they may be—whether they are working in thefields of the Paro valley or attending a Manchester jobseeker’s centre All places areordinary for those who live in them

My hope is that some overlap may in time begin to appear between the twospheres of the international discourse on Bhutan I myself recognise a number oftruths, falsehoods, exaggerations and (most importantly) silences in both Tosuggest that the ‘truth’ about Bhutan is somewhere in between these two extremeswould be fatuous, because they represent a false dichotomy Indeed, several foreigngovernments—including Denmark’s—engage with Bhutan in both of the spheres Ihave identified here: they support the development effort inside the country whilesimultaneously providing resettlement opportunities for those who have beenexcluded from it We do not have to subscribe wholly to either of theseconstructions of Bhutan, nor do we have to choose any point along the line betweenthem I hope that the new democratic environment in Bhutan will encouragescholars and researchers who have access to Bhutanese ground realities to build amore nuanced, complex and holistic picture of this fascinating society and thechallenges that face it

References

Aris M, Hutt M (eds) (1994) Bhutan: aspects of culture and development Kiscadale, Gartmore Burghart R (1984) The formation of the concept of nation-state in Nepal J Asian Stud 44 (1):101–125

Hutt M (ed) (1994) Bhutan: perspectives on conflict and dissent Kiscadale, Gartmore

Hutt M (2003) Unbecoming citizens: culture, nationhood and the flight of refugees from Bhutan Oxford University Press, New Delhi

Hutt, M (2014) The last Himalayan monarchies In: Toffin G, Pfaff-Czarnecka J (eds) Facing globalization in the Himalayas: belonging and the politics of the self Sage, New Delhi, pp 419–443 (Governance, conflict and civic action: vol 5)

Phuntsho K (2000) On the two ways of learning in Bhutan J Bhutan Stud 2(2):96–126 http:// www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/jbs/nonjavascript.php

Phuntsho K (2004) Echoes of ancient ethos: reflections on some popular Bhutanese social themes In: The spider and the piglet: proceedings of the first international seminar on Bhutanese studies Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimphu, pp 564–579