Bhutan's traditional society has been defined as both patriarchal and
matriarchal, and the member held in highest esteem served as the
family's head. Bhutan also has been described as feudalistic and
characterized by the absence of strong social stratification. In
premodern times, there were three broad classes: the monastic community,
the leadership of which was the nobility; lay civil servants who ran the
government apparatus; and farmers, the largest class, living in
self-sufficient villages. In the more militaristic premodern era, Bhutan
also had an underclass of prisoners of war and their descendants, who
were generally treated as serfs or even as slaves. In modern times,
society was organized around joint family units, and a class division
existed based on occupation and, in time, social status. With the
introduction of foreign practices in recent centuries and increasing job
mobility outside the village, however, emphasis has been placed on
nuclear family units.
Social status is based on a family's economic station. Except among
the Hindu Nepalese in southern Bhutan, there was no caste system.
Although Bhutanese were endogamous by tradition, modern practices and
even royal decrees encouraged ethnic integration in the late twentieth
century. Primogeniture dictated the right of inheritance traditionally,
although in some central areas the eldest daughter was the lawful
successor. In contemporary Bhutan, however, inheritance came to be more
equally distributed among all children of a family.
Except for the royal family and a few other noble families, Bhutanese
do not have surnames. Individuals normally have two names, but neither
is considered a family name or a surname. Some people adopt their
village name, occasionally in abbreviated form, as part of their name,
using it before their given name. Wives keep their own names, and
children frequently have names unconnected to either parent. Some
individuals educated abroad have taken their last name as a surname,
however. A system of titles, depending on age, degree of familiarity,
and social or official status, denotes ranks and relationships among
members of society. The title dasho, for example, is an
honorific used by a prince of the royal house, a commoner who marries a
princess, a nephew of the Druk Gyalpo, a deputy minister, other senior
government officials, and others in positions of authority.
Although adherents of Buddhism, Bhutanese are not vegetarians and
occasionally eat beef, especially in western Bhutan. Pork, poultry, goat
and yak meat, and fish are consumed on a limited scale. Rice and
increasingly corn are staples. Despite a scarcity of milk, dairy
products, such as yak cheese and yak cheese byproducts, are part of the
diet of upland people. Meat soups, rice or corn, and curries spiced with
chilies comprise daily menus; beverages include buttered tea and beer
distilled from cereals. Wild vegetation, such as young ferns, also is
harvested for table food.
Traditional clothing still was commonly worn in the early 1990s, and,
indeed, its use was fostered by government decree. Women wore the kira,
an ankle-length dress made of a rectangular piece of cloth held at the
shoulders with a clip and closed with a woven belt at the waist, over a
long-sleeved blouse. Social status was indicated by the amount of
decorative details and colors of the kira and the quality of
the cloth used. Men wore the gho, a wraparound, coatlike,
knee-length garment, with a narrow belt. Both men and women sometimes
wore elaborate earrings, and both sexes also wore scarves or shawls,
white for commoners and carefully specified colors, designs, and manners
of folding for higher ranking individuals. Only the Druk Gyalpo and the
Je Khenpo were allowed to wear the honorific saffron scarf. Other
officials were distinguished by the color of the scarves they wore:
orange for ministers and deputy ministers, blue for National Assembly
and Royal Advisory Council members, and red or maroon for high religious
and civil officials, district officers, and judges (anyone holding the
title of dasho). Stripes on scarves of the same base color
denoted greater or lesser ranks.
Bhutan - Marriage and Family Life
The traditional practice, arranged marriages based on family and
ethnic ties, has been replaced in the late twentieth century with
marriages based on mutual affection. Marriages were usually arranged by
the partners in contemporary Bhutan, and the minimum age was sixteen for
women and twenty-one for men. The institution of child marriage, once
relatively widespread, had largely declined as Bhutan modernized, and
there were only remnants of the practice in the late twentieth century.
Interethnic marriages, once forbidden, were encouraged in the late 1980s
by an incentive of a Nu10,000 government stipend to willing couples. The
stipend was discontinued in 1991, however. Marriages of Bhutanese
citizens to foreigners, however, have been discouraged. Bhutanese with
foreign spouses were not allowed to obtain civil service positions and
could have their government scholarships cancelled and be required to
repay portions already received. Foreign spouses were not entitled to
citizenship by right but had to apply for naturalization.
Polyandry was abolished and polygamy was restricted in the
midtwentieth century, but the law in the 1990s still allowed a man as
many as three wives, providing he had the first wife's permission. The
first wife also had the power to sue for divorce and alimony if she did
not agree. In the 1980s, divorce was common, and new laws provided
better benefits to women seeking alimony.
Family life, both traditionally and in the contemporary period, was
likely to provide for a fair amount of self-sufficiency. Families, for
example, often made their own clothing, bedding, floor and seat covers,
tablecloths, and decorative items for daily and religious use. Wool was
the primary material, but domestic silk and imported cotton were also
used in weaving colorful cloth, often featuring elaborate geometric,
floral, and animal designs. Although weaving was normally done by women
of all ages using family-owned looms, monks sometimes did embroidery and
appliqu� work. In the twentieth century, weaving was possibly as
predominant a feature of daily life as it was at the time of Bhutan's
unification in the seventeenth century.
Landholdings varied depending on the wealth and size of individual
families, but most families had as much land as they could farm using
traditional techniques. A key element of family life was the
availability of labor. Thus, the choice of the home of newlyweds was
determined by which parental unit had the greatest need of supplemental
labor. If both families had a sufficient supply of labor, then a bride
and groom might elect to set up their own home.
Bhutan - Role of Women
Although officially the government has encouraged greater
participation of women in political and administrative life, male
members of the traditional aristocracy dominate the social system.
Economic development has increased opportunities for women to
participate in fields such as medicine, both as physicians and nurses;
teaching; and administration. By 1989 nearly 10 percent of government
employees were women, and the top civil service examination graduate in
1989 was a woman. During their government careers, women civil servants
were allowed three months maternity leave with full pay for three
deliveries and leave without pay for any additional deliveries.
Reflecting the dominance of males in society, girls were outnumbered
three to two in primary and secondary-level schools.
Women in the 1980s played a significant role in the agricultural work
force, where they outnumbered men, who were leaving for the service
sector and other urban industrial and commercial activities. In the
mid-1980s, 95 percent of all Bhutanese women from the ages of fifteen to
sixty-four years were involved in agricultural work, compared with only
78 percent of men in the same age range. Foreign observers have noted
that women shared equally with men in farm labor. Overall, women were
providing more labor than men in all sectors of the economy. Less than 4
percent of the total female work force was unemployed, compared with
nearly 10 percent of men who had no occupation.
The government founded the National Women's Association of Bhutan in
1981 primarily to improve the socioeconomic status of women,
particularly those in rural areas. The association, at its inaugural
session, declared that it would not push for equal rights for women
because the women of Bhutan had already come to "enjoy equal status
with men politically, economically, and socially." To give
prominence to the association, the Druk Gyalpo's sister, Ashi Sonam
Chhoden Wangchuck, was appointed its president. Starting in 1985, the
association became a line item in the government budget and was funded
at Nu2.4 million in fiscal year 1992. The association has organized
annual beauty contests featuring traditional arts and culture, fostered
training in health and hygiene, distributed yarn and vegetable seeds,
and introduced smokeless stoves in villages.
Bhutan - Housing
Mahayana Buddhism was the state religion, and Buddhists comprised
about 70 percent of the population in the early 1990s. Although
originating from Tibetan Buddhism, Bhutanese Buddhism differs
significantly in its rituals, liturgy, and monastic organization. The
state religion has long been supported financially by the government
through annual subsidies to monasteries, shrines, monks, and nuns. In
the modern era, support of the state religion during the reign of Jigme
Dorji Wangchuck included the manufacture of 10,000 gilded bronze images
of the Buddha, publication of elegant calligraphied editions of the 108-
volume Kanjur (Collection of the Words of the Buddha) and the
225-volume Tenjur (Collection of Commentaries), and the
construction of numerous chorten (stupas) throughout the
country. Guaranteed representation in the National Assembly and the
Royal Advisory Council, Buddhists constituted the majority of society
and were assured an influential voice in public policy.
In 1989 some 1,000 monks (lam, or gelong, novices)
belonged to the Central Monastic Body in Thimphu and Punakha, and some
4,000 monks belonged to district monastic bodies. The hierarchy was
headed by the Je Khenpo, who was assisted by four lonpon or
masters, each in charge of religious tradition, liturgy, lexicography,
or logic. The lonpon, one of whom, the Dorji Lonpon, normally
succeeded the current Je Khenpo, had under them religious administrators
and junior monastic officials in charge of art, music, and other areas.
Gelugpa monks were celibate, but Nyingmapa monks were not so restricted
and could marry, raise families, and work in secular occupations while
performing liturgical functions in temples and homes. In all, there were
some 12,000 monks in Bhutan in the late 1980s. There were also active
congregations of nuns, but no figures were readily available.
The majority of Bhutan's Buddhists are adherents of the Drukpa
subsect of the Kargyupa (literally, oral transmission) school, one of
the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, which is itself a
combination of the Theravada (monastic), Mahayana (messianic), and
Tantrayana (apocalyptic) forms of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism holds that
salvation can be achieved through the intercession of compassionate
bodhisattvas (enlightened ones) who have delayed their own entry into a
state of nibbana, or nirvana, enlightenment and selfless bliss, to save
others. Emphasis is put on the doctrine of the cosmic Buddha, of whom
the historical Buddha--Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-ca. 483 B.C.)--was
only one of many manifestations. Bodhisattvas are in practice treated
more as deities than as enlightened human beings and occupy the center
of a richly polytheistic universe of subordinate deities; opposing,
converted, and reformed demons; wandering ghosts; and saintly humans
that reflects the shamanistic folk religion of the regions into which
Buddhism expanded. Tantrism contributed esoteric techniques of
meditation and a repertoire of sacred icons, phrases, gestures, and
rituals that easily lent themselves to practical (rather than
transcendental) and magical interpretation.
The Kargyupa school was introduced into Tibet from India and into
Bhutan from Tibet in the eleventh century. The central teaching of the
Kargyupa school is meditation on mahamudra (Sanskrit for great
seal), a concept tying the realization of emptiness to freedom from
reincarnation. Also central to the Kargyupa school are the dharma (laws
of nature, all that exists, real or imaginary), which consist of six
Tantric meditative practices teaching bodily self-control so as to
achieve nirvana. One of the key aspects of the Kargyupa school is the
direct transmission of the tenets of the faith from teacher to disciple.
The Drukpa subsect, which grew out of one of the four Kargyupa sects,
was the preeminent religious belief in Bhutan by the end of the twelfth
century.
Monasteries and convents were common throughout Bhutan in the late
twentieth century. Both monks and nuns kept their heads shaved and wore
distinguishing maroon robes. Their days were spent in study and
meditation but also in the performance of rituals honoring various
bodhisattvas, praying for the dead, and seeking divine intercession on
behalf of the ill. Some of their prayers involved chants and singing
accompanied by conch shell trumpets, thighbone trumpets (made from human
thighbones), metal horns up to three meters long, large standing drums
and cymbals, hand bells, temple bells, gongs, and wooden sticks. Such
monastic music and singing, not normally heard by the general public,
has been reported to have "great virility" and to be more
melodious than its Tibetan monotone counterparts.
To bring Buddhism to the people, numerous symbols and structures are
employed. Religious monuments, prayer walls, prayer flags, and sacred
mantras carved in stone hillsides were prevalent in the early 1990s.
Among the religious monuments are chorten, the Bhutanese
version of the Indian stupa. They range from simple rectangular
"house" chorten to complex edifices with ornate
steps, doors, domes, and spires. Some are decorated with the Buddha's
eyes that see in all directions simultaneously. These earth, brick, or
stone structures commemorate deceased kings, Buddhist saints, venerable
monks, and other notables, and sometimes they serve as reliquaries.
Prayer walls are made of laid or piled stone and inscribed with Tantric
prayers. Prayers printed with woodblocks on cloth are made into tall,
narrow, colorful prayer flags, which are then mounted on long poles and
placed both at holy sites and at dangerous locations to ward off demons
and to benefit the spirits of the dead. To help propagate the faith,
itinerant monks travel from village to village carrying portable shrines
with many small doors, which open to reveal statues and images of the
Buddha, bodhisattavas, and notable lamas.
Bhutan - Bon
Western-style education was introduced to Bhutan during the reign of
Ugyen Wangchuck (1907-26). Until the 1950s, the only formal education
available to Bhutanese students, except for private schools in Ha and
Bumthang, was through Buddhist monasteries. In the 1950s, several
private secular schools were established without government support, and
several others were established in major district towns with government
backing. By the late 1950s, there were twenty-nine government and thirty
private primary schools, but only about 2,500 children were enrolled.
Secondary education was available only in India. Eventually, the private
schools were taken under government supervision to raise the quality of
education provided. Although some primary schools in remote areas had to
be closed because of low attendance, the most significant modern
developments in education came during the period of the First
Development Plan (1961-66), when some 108 schools were operating and
15,000 students were enrolled.
The First Development Plan provided for a central education
authority--in the form of a director of education appointed in 1961--and
an organized, modern school system with free and universal primary
education. Since that time, following one year of preschool begun at age
four, children attended school in the primary grades--one through five.
Education continued with the equivalent of grades six through eight at
the junior high level and grades nine through eleven at the high school
level. The Department of Education administered the All-Bhutan
Examinations nationwide to determine promotion from one level of
schooling to the next. Examinations at the tenth-grade level were
conducted by the Indian School Certificate Council. The Department of
Education also was responsible for producing textbooks; preparing course
syllabi and in-service training for teachers; arranging training and
study abroad; organizing interschool tournaments; procuring foreign
assistance for education programs; and recruiting, testing, and
promoting teachers, among other duties.
The core curriculum set by the National Board of Secondary Education
included English, mathematics, and Dzongkha. Although English was used
as the language of instruction throughout the junior high and high
school system, Dzongkha and, in southern Bhutan until 1989, Nepali, were
compulsory subjects. Students also studied English literature, social
studies, history, geography, general science, biology, chemistry,
physics, and religion. Curriculum development often has come from
external forces, as was the case with historical studies. Most Bhutanese
history is based on oral traditions rather than on written histories or
administrative records. A project sponsored by the United Nations
Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the
University of London developed a ten-module curriculum, which included
four courses on Bhutanese history and culture and six courses on Indian
and world history and political ideas. Subjects with an immediate
practical application, such as elementary agriculture, animal husbandry,
and forestry, also were taught.
Bhutan's coeducational school system in 1988 encompassed a reported
42,446 students and 1,513 teachers in 150 primary schools, 11,835
students and 447 teachers in 21 junior high schools, and 4,515 students
and 248 teachers in 9 high schools. Males accounted for 63 percent of
all primary and secondary students. Most teachers at these levels--70
percent--also were males. There also were 1,761 students and 150
teachers in technical, vocational, and special schools in 1988.
Despite increasing student enrollments, which went from 36,705
students in 1981 to 58,796 students in 1988, education was not
compulsory. In 1988 only about 25 percent of primary-school-age children
attended school, an extremely low percentage by all standards. Although
the government set enrollment quotas for high schools, in no instance
did they come close to being met in the 1980s. Only about 8 percent of
junior high-school-age and less than 3 percent of high-school-age
children were enrolled in 1988.
Bhutan's literacy rate in the early 1990s, estimated at 30 percent
for males and 10 percent for females by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), ranked lowest among all least developed countries.
Other sources ranked the literacy rate as low as 12 to 18 percent.
Some primary schools and all junior high and high schools were
boarding schools. The school year in the 1980s ran from March through
December. Tuition, books, stationery, athletic equipment, and food were
free for all boarding schools in the 1980s, and some high schools also
provided clothing. With the assistance of the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization's World Food Programme, free midday meals were
provided in some primary schools.
Higher education was provided by Royal Bhutan Polytechnic just
outside the village of Deothang, Samdrup Jongkhar District, and by
Kharbandi Technical School in Kharbandi, Chhukha District. Founded in
1973, Royal Bhutan Polytechnic offered courses in civil, mechanical, and
electrical engineering; surveying; and drafting. Kharbandi Technical
School was established in the 1970s with UNDP and International Labour
Organisation assistance. Bhutan's only junior college--Sherubtse College
in Kanglung, Tashigang District-- was established in 1983 as a
three-year degree-granting college affiliated with the University of
Delhi. In the year it was established with UNDP assistance, the college
enrolled 278 students, and seventeen faculty members taught courses in
arts, sciences, and commerce leading to a bachelor's degree. Starting in
1990, junior college classes also were taught at the Yanchenphug High
School in Thimphu and were to be extended to other high schools
thereafter.
Education programs were given a boost in 1990 when the Asian
Development Bank granted a US$7.13 million loan for staff training and
development, specialist services, equipment and furniture purchases,
salaries and other recurrent costs, and facility rehabilitation and
construction at Royal Bhutan Polytechnic. The Department of Education
and its Technical and Vocational Education Division were given a
US$750,000 Asian Development Bank grant for improving the technical,
vocational, and training sectors. The New Approach to Primary Education,
started in 1985, was extended to all primary and junior high schools in
1990 and stressed self-reliance and awareness of Bhutan's unique
national culture and environment.
Most Bhutanese students being educated abroad received technical
training in India, Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Britain,
the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and the United States.
English-speaking countries attracted the majority of Bhutanese students.
The vast majority returned to their homeland.
Bhutan - Health
Bhutan's health-care development accelerated in the early 1960s with
the establishment of the Department of Public Health and the opening of
new hospitals and dispensaries throughout the country. By the early
1990s, health care was provided through some twentynine general
hospitals (including five leprosy hospitals, three army hospitals, and
one mobile hospital), forty-six dispensaries, sixty-seven basic health
units, four indigenous-medicine dispensaries, and fifteen malaria
eradication centers. The major hospitals were in Thimphu, Geylegphug,
and Tashigang. Hospital beds in 1988 totaled 932. There was a severe
shortage of health-care personnel with official statistics reporting
only 142 physicians and 678 paramedics, about one health-care
professional for every 2,000 people, or only one physician for almost
10,000 people. Training for health-care assistants, nurses' aides,
midwives, and primary health-care workers was provided at Thimphu
General Hospital's Health School, which was established in 1974.
Graduates of the school were the core of the national public health
system and helped staff the primary care basic health units throughout
the country. Additional health-care workers were recruited from among
volunteers in villages to supplement primary health care.
The most common diseases in the 1980s were gastrointestinal
infections caused by waterborne parasites, mostly attributable to the
lack of clean drinking water. The most frequently treated diseases were
respiratory tract infections, diarrhea and dysentery, worms, skin
infections, malaria, nutritional deficiencies, and conjunctivitis. In
1977 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Bhutan a smallpox-free
zone. In 1979 a nationwide immunization program was established. In
1987, with WHO support, the government envisioned plans to immunize all
children against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis,
and measles by 1990. The government's major medical objective by 2000
was to eliminate waterborne parasites, diarrhea and dysentery, malaria,
tuberculosis, pneumonia, and goiter. Progress in leprosy eradication was
made in the 1970s and 1980s, during which time the number of patients
had decreased by more than half, and by 1988 the government was
optimistic that the disease could be eliminated by 2000.
It was estimated in 1988 that only 8 persons per 1,000 had access to
potable water. Despite improved amenities provided to the people through
government economic development programs, Bhutan still faced basic
health problems. Factors in the country's high morbidity and death rates
included the severe climate, less than hygienic living conditions, for
example long-closed-up living quarters during the winter, a situation
that contributes to the high incidence of leprosy, and smoke inhalation
from inadequately ventilated cooking equipment. Nevertheless, in 1980 it
was estimated that 90 percent of Bhutanese received an adequate daily
caloric intake.
Although there were no reported cases of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS), the Department of Public Health set up a public
awareness program in 1987. With the encouragement of the WHO, a
"reference laboratory" was established at the Thimphu General
Hospital to test for AIDS and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a
precautionary measure. To further enhance awareness, representatives of
the National Institute of Family Health were sent to Bangladesh in 1990
for training in AIDS awareness and treatment measures.
Bhutan - THE ECONOMY
Bhutan, recognized by international aid agencies as one of the
poorest of the least developed countries of the world, had a primarily
subsistence agricultural economy in the early 1990s. In the late 1980s,
around 95 percent of the work force was involved in the agricultural
sector (agriculture, livestock, forestry and logging, and fishing). The
government projected that the agriculture sector would produce 46.2
percent of the nation's gross domestic product for 1991, representing a
decade-long slight decline as government services and electric power
generation increased. Manufacturing and construction, although
important, were expected to contribute only 14.2 percent of the
projected total GDP (nearly Nu4.1 billion) for 1991. The gross national
product was nearly Nu3.9 billion in 1988, and in the same year, the GDP
had risen to Nu3.4 billion. The World Bank calculated Bhutan's 1989 per
capita GNP, based on revised population estimates (600,000 persons), at
US$440.
Despite these seemingly bleak economic indicators, the actual quality
of life was comparatively better than that of countries to the north and
south. World Bank analysts believed the numbers were low because of
inaccurate population estimates and differences in measuring subsistence
output and barter transactions, as well as the difficulties in
reconciling the differences between fiscal-year and calendar-year
accounts. Nutritional intakes, and the availability of housing, land,
livestock, and fuel, all pointed to higher per capita income. And, when
measured in 1980 constant prices, according to Bhutanese government
statistics, the economy experienced a highly respectable .8 percent
annual growth rate during the 1980s.
Although Bhutan has a minuscule private sector, it was growing in the
late twentieth century in conjunction with government development plans.
It was controlled, however, by a small sector of society, members of the
royal family, and individuals or families with government ties. The
Companies Act of 1989 provided for the separation of all public and
joint sector corporations from the civil service by mid-1990, and, as a
result, certain key enterprises became independent of the government.
