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Bhutan Political Developments
The political forces that shaped Bhutan after its
seventeenth-
century unification were primarily internal until the
arrival of
the British in the eighteenth century. Thereafter, British
pressure
and protection influenced Bhutan and continued to do so
until
Britain's withdrawal from the mainland of South Asia in
1947. The
nationalist movements that had brought independence to
India had
significant effects on Sikkim and Nepal. Because of its
relative
isolation, however, they left Bhutan largely unaffected
until the
growing Nepalese minority became increasingly exposed to
the
radical politics of Nepalese migrants from India. These
migrants
brought political ideas inspired by Indian democratic
principles
and agitation to the minority community in southern
Bhutan. By 1950
the presence of that community had resulted in government
restrictions on the cultivation of forest lands and on
further
migration.
Expatriate Nepalese, who resettled in West Bengal and
Assam
after leaving Bhutan, formed the Bhutan State Congress in
1952 to
represent the interests of other expatriates in India as
well as
the communities they had left behind. An effort to expand
their
operations into Bhutan with a satyagraha
(nonviolent
resistance) movement in 1954 failed in the face of the
mobilization
of Bhutan's militia and a lack of enthusiasm among those
Nepalese
in Bhutan who did not want to risk their already tenuous
status.
The government further diffused the Bhutan State Congress
movement
by granting concessions to the minority and allowing
Nepalese
representation in the National Assembly. The Bhutan State
Congress
continued to operate in exile until its decline and
gradual
disappearance in the early 1960s. The leaders in exile
were
pardoned in 1969 and permitted to return.
Despite the absence of political parties, political
activities
carried out by elite political factions have played a role
since
the 1960s. These factional politics have generally been
devoid of
ideology, focusing instead on specific issues or events.
Only with
the 1964 assassination of Lonchen Jigme Palden Dorji did
factional
politics cause a national crisis
(see Modernization under Jigme Dorji, 1952-72
, this ch.).
Government decrees promulgated in the 1980s sought to
preserve
Bhutan's cultural identity in a "one nation, one people"
policy
called driglam namzha (national customs and
etiquette). The
government hoped to achieve integration through requiring
national
dress--the kira for women and the gho for
men--in
public places (by a May 1989 decree that was quickly
reversed) and
insisting that individual conduct be based on Buddhist
precepts.
The government stressed standardization and popularization
of
Dzongkha, the primary national language, and even
sponsored such
programs as the preservation of folksongs used in new year
and
marriage celebrations, house blessings, and archery
contests.
Other cultural preservation efforts, especially those
aimed at
traditional Bhutanese arts and crafts that had long been
under
royal family patronage, were embodied in the Sixth
Development
Plan. Bhutan participated in the Olympic Games and in
other
international games, and imported high-tech bows for use
in
national archery tournaments, although for a time only the
simple
traditional bow was permitted in contests within Bhutan.
In 1989
Nepali ceased to be a language of instruction in schools,
and
Dzongkha was mandated to be taught in all schools. In 1989
the
government also moved to implement the Citizenship Act of
1985,
which provided that only those Nepalese immigrants who
could show
they had resided in Bhutan for fifteen or twenty years
(depending
on occupational status), and met other criteria, might be
considered for grants of citizenship by nationalization.
An earlier
law, passed in 1958, had for the first time granted
Bhutanese
citizenship to Nepalese landed settlers who had been in
Bhutan for
at least ten years. To ameliorate some of the differences
between
the ethnic communities, interethnic marriages among
citizens, once
forbidden, were allowed as a means of integrating the
Nepalese.
Bhutan's concern heightened in the late 1980s when
Nepalese
liberation movements emerged in India. In 1988 some ethnic
Nepalese
in Bhutan again began protesting the alleged
discrimination against
them. They demanded exemption from the government decrees
aimed at
enhancing Bhutanese national identity by strengthening
aspects of
traditional culture (under the rubric of driglam
namzha). It
was likely that they were inspired by prodemocracy
activities in
their homeland as well as by democratic, Marxist, and
Indian social
ideas picked up during their migration through or
education in
India
(see Political Parties
, ch. 4).
The reaction to the royal decrees in Nepalese majority
communities surfaced as ethnic strife directed against
non-
Nepalese-origin people. Reactions also took form as
protest
movements in Nepal and India among Nepalese who had fled
Bhutan.
The Druk Gyalpo was accused of "cultural suppression," and
his
government was charged by antigovernment leaders with
human rights
violations, including the torture of prisoners; arbitrary
arrest
and detention; denial of due process; and restrictions of
freedoms
of speech and press, peaceful organization and assembly,
and
workers' rights.
Antigovernment protest marches involved more than
20,000
participants, including some from a movement that had
succeeded in
coercing India into accepting local autonomy for ethnic
Nepalese in
West Bengal, who crossed the border from West Bengal and
Assam into
six Bhutan districts. In February 1990, antigovernment
activists
had detonated a remote-control bomb on a bridge hear
Phuntsholing
and set fire to a seven-vehicle convoy. In September 1990,
clashes
occurred with the Royal Bhutan Army, which was ordered not
to fire
on protesters. The men and women marchers were organized
by S.K.
Neupane and other members of the illegal Bhutan People's
Party,
which reportedly urged the marchers to demand democracy
and human
rights for all Bhutanese citizens. Some villagers
willingly joined
the protests; others did so under duress. The government
branded
the party, reportedly established by antimonarchists and
backed by
the Nepali Congress Party and the Marxist-Leninist faction
of the
Communist Party of Nepal, as a terrorist organization. The
party
allegedly led its members--said to be armed with rifles,
muzzle-
loading guns, knives, and homemade grenades--in raids on
villages
in southern Bhutan, disrobing people wearing traditional
Bhutanese
garb; extorting money; and robbing, kidnapping, and
killing people.
Reportedly, there were hundreds of casualties, although
the
government admitted to only two deaths among security
forces. Other
sources indicated that more than 300 persons were killed,
500
wounded, and 2,000 arrested in clashes with security
forces. Along
with the above-mentioned violence, vehicle hijackings,
kidnappings,
extortions, ambushes, and bombings took place, schools
were closed
(some were destroyed), and post offices, police, health,
forest,
customs, and agricultural posts were destroyed. For their
part,
security forces were charged by the Bhutan People's Party,
in
protests made to Amnesty International and the
International Human
Rights Commission, with murder and rape and carrying out a
"reign
of terror." In support of the expatriate Nepalese, the
general
secretary of the Nepali Congress Party, the ruling party
in Nepal,
called on the Druk Gyalpo to establish a multiparty
democracy.
The Bhutanese government admitted only to the arrest of
forty-
two people involved in "anti-national" activities in late
1989,
plus three additional individuals who had been extradited
from
Nepal. All but six were reportedly later released; those
remaining
in jail were charged with treason. By September 1990, more
than 300
additional prisoners held in the south were released
following the
Druk Gyalpo's tour of southern districts.
In the face of government resistance to demands that
would
institutionalize separate identities within the nation,
protesters
in the south insisted that the Bhutan People's Party flag
be flown
in front of administrative headquarters and that party
members be
allowed to carry the kukri, a traditional Nepalese
curved
knife, at all times. They also called for the right not to
wear the
Bhutanese national dress and insisted that schools and
government
offices stay closed until their demands were met. The
unmet demands
were accompanied by additional violence and deaths in
October 1990.
At the same time, India pledged "all possible assistance
that the
royal government might seek in dealing with this problem"
and
assured that it would protect the frontier against groups
seeking
illegal entry to Bhutan.
By early 1991, the press in Nepal was referring to
insurgents
in southern Bhutan as "freedom fighters." The Bhutan
People's Party
claimed that more than 4,000 advocates of democracy had
been
arrested by the Royal Bhutan Army. Charges were made that
some of
those arrested had been murdered outside Bhutanese police
stations
and that some 4,200 persons had been deported.
Supporting the antigovernment activities were
expatriate
Nepalese political groups and supporters in Nepal and
India.
Between 2,000 and 12,000 Nepalese were reported to have
fled Bhutan
in the late 1980s, and according to a 1991 report, even
high-level
Bhutanese government officials of Nepalese origin had
resigned
their positions and moved to Nepal. Some 5 million
Nepalese were
living in settlements in India along the Bhutan border in
1990.
Nepalese were not necessarily welcome in India, where
ethnic strife
conspired to push them back through the largely unguarded
Bhutanese
frontier. The Bhutan People's Party operated among the
large
Nepalese community in northern India. A second group, the
Bhutan
People's Forum for Human Rights (a counterpart of the
Nepal
People's Forum for Human Rights), was established in Nepal
by a
former member of Bhutan's National Assembly, Teknath
Rizal. In
November 1989, Rizal was allegedly abducted in eastern
Nepal by
Bhutanese police and returned to Thimphu, where he was
imprisoned
on charges of conspiracy and treason. The Bhutan Students
Union and
the Bhutan Aid Group-Nepal also were involved in political
activism.
The government explained its cultural identity programs
as a
defense against the first political problems since the
Wangchuck
Dynasty was established in 1907 and the greatest threat to
the
nation's survival since the seventeenth century. Its major
concern
was to avoid a repeat of events that had occurred in 1975
when the
monarchy in Sikkim was ousted by a Nepalese majority in a
plebiscite and Sikkim was absorbed into India. In an
effort to
resolve the interethnic strife, the Druk Gyalpo made
frequent
visits to the troubled southern districts, and he ordered
the
release of hundreds of arrested "antinationals." He also
expressed
the fear that the large influx of Nepalese might lead to
their
demand for a separate state in the next ten to twenty
years, in
much the same way as happened in the once-independent
monarchy of
Sikkim in the 1970s. To deter and regulate Nepalese
migration into
Bhutan from India, the Druk Gyalpo ordered more regular
censuses,
improved border checks, and better government
administration in the
southern districts. The more immediate action of forming
citizens'
militias took place in October 1990 as a backlash to the
demonstrations. Internal travel regulations were made more
strict
with the issue of new multipurpose identification cards by
the
Ministry of Home Affairs in January 1990.
By the end of 1990, the government admitted the serious
effects
of the antigovernment violence. It was announced that
foreign-
exchange earnings had dropped and that the GDP had
decreased
significantly because of terrorist activities.
Ethnic problems were not Bhutan's only political
concern in the
early 1990s. Rumors persisted that the exiled family of
Yangki, the
late Druk Gyalpo's mistress, including an illegitimate
pretender to
the throne, were garnering support among conservative
forces in
Bhutan to return to a position of authority.
Data as of September 1991
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