Bhutan

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The authors wish to thank the various individuals and organizations that provided assistance in the preparation of this book. Allen W. Thrasher, Asian Division, and Lygia M. Ballantyne and the staff of the New Delhi Field Office of the Library of Congress provided useful and timely research materials from Bhutan. Karl Ryavec of the Defense Mapping Agency verified hard-to-locate Nepalese and Bhutanese place-names and spellings. Staff from the Royal Nepalese Embassy in Washington provided photographs, statistical data, and the clarification of information. Staff of the Permanent Mission to the United Nations of the Kingdom of Bhutan kindly provided maps, photographs, and documentary information on Bhutan.

Special thanks goes to Brian C. Shaw for lending his expertise on Nepal and Bhutan in serving as reader of the completed manuscript. Additionally, Thierry Mathou, a member of the staff of the Embassy of France in Washington, who is preparing his own manuscript on Bhutan, reviewed the Bhutan text and provided helpful research materials and insights. Gopal Siwkoti, then an attorney with the Washington-based International Human Rights Law Group, also provided materials and shared his insights on the development of Nepalese politics during the prodemocracy movement. Tshering Dorji, director of the Department of Telecommunications of the Kingdom of Bhutan, graciously allowed the author of the Bhutan chapter to interview him when he visited the Library of Congress and reviewed and suggested corrections to the section on Bhutan's telecommunications. Thanks are also due Ralph K. Benesch, who oversees the Country Studies--Area Handbook Program for the Department of the Army.

Thanks also go to staff members of the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress who directly assisted with the book. Sandra W. Meditz reviewed the entire manuscript and made useful suggestions; David P. Cabitto prepared the layout and graphics; Marilyn Majeska supervised editing and managed production; Andrea Merrill provided invaluable assistance in preparing the tables; Timothy L. Merrill reviewed the maps and geography and telecommunications sections; Ly Burnham reviewed sections on demography; Alberta J. King provided secondary-source research assistance in the preparation of Chapter 6 and bibliographic assistance for other chapters; and Izella Watson and Barbara Edgerton performed word processing.

The following individuals are gratefully acknowledged as well: Harriet R. Blood for preparing the topography and drainage maps; Barbara Harrison and Beverly J. Wolpert for editing the body of the book; Catherine Schwartzstein for prepublication editorial review; Joan C. Cook for preparing the index; Joyce L. Rahim for wordprocessing support; and Linda Peterson of the Printing and Processing Section, Library of Congress for phototypesetting, under the direction of Peggy Pixley.

"IN THE THUNDER DRAGON KINGDOM, adorned with sandalwood, the protector who guards the teachings of the dual system; he, the precious and glorious ruler, causes dominion to spread while his unchanging person abides in constancy, as the doctrine of the Buddha flourishes, may the sun of peace and happiness shine on the people." These few words--the text of the national anthem of Bhutan--sum up much about the spirit and culture of a society that sprang from an aboriginal people and was enriched by Tibetan, Mongol, and Indo-Burman migrants. Buddhism has been a pervasive influence in Bhutan throughout most of its history and has long been the state religion and source of civil law. Unified Bhutan has had two forms of monarchy: from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century, a dual system of shared civil and spiritual rule; and since 1907 the hereditary monarchy of the Wangchuck family.

Once one of the many independent Himalayan kingdoms and principalities, Bhutan, like Nepal, is situated between two Asian powers, India and China, which, at best, have had an uneasy standoff politically and militarily for nearly half a century. Bhutan's independence has long been at issue in the geopolitical maneuverings between Tibet (and later China) and India. In the late twentieth century, Bhutan has fended off this external threat with conscientiously planned economic development. A serious internal threat to Bhutan's traditional identity started peacefully in the 1950s and 1960s among the growing Nepalese minority, which represented 28 percent or more of the population in the early 1990s and emerged as a violent "prodemocracy" movement in the late 1980s. The 1990s promised to be a crucial period for the monarchy as it continued to foster economic and administrative reform amid efforts to retain traditional culture and to assuage minority unrest.

Bhutan - Origins and Early Settlement, A.D. 600-1600

Although knowledge of prehistoric Bhutan has yet to emerge through archaeological study, stone tools and weapons, remnants of large stone structures, and megaliths that may have been used for boundary markers or rituals provide evidence of civilization as early as 2000 B.C. The absence of neolithic mythological legends argues against earlier inhabitation. A more certain prehistoric period has been theorized by historians as that of the state of Lhomon (literally, southern darkness) or Monyul (dark land, a reference to the Monpa aboriginal peoples of Bhutan), possibly a part of Tibet that was then beyond the pale of Buddhist teachings. Monyul is thought to have existed between 500 B.C. and A.D. 600. The names Lhomon Tsendenjong (southern Mon sandalwood country) and Lhomon Khashi (southern Mon country of four approaches), found in ancient Bhutanese and Tibetan chronicles, may also have credence and have been used by some Bhutanese scholars when referring to their homeland. Variations of the Sanskrit words Bhota-ant (end of Bhot, an Indian name for Tibet) or Bhu-uttan (meaning highlands) have been suggested by historians as origins of the name Bhutan, which came into common foreign use in the late nineteenth century and is used in Bhutan only in English-language official correspondence. The traditional name of the country since the seventeenth century has been Drukyul- -country of the Drokpa, the Dragon People, or the Land of the Thunder Dragon--a reference to the country's dominant Buddhist sect.

Some scholars believe that during the early historical period the inhabitants were fierce mountain aborigines, the Monpa, who were of neither the Tibetan or Mongol stock that later overran northern Bhutan. The people of Monyul practiced the shamanistic Bon religion, which emphasized worship of nature and the existence of good and evil spirits. During the latter part of this period, historical legends relate that the mighty king of Monyul invaded a southern region known as the Duars, subduing the regions of modern Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar in India.

Bhutan - Arrival of Buddhism

The introduction of Buddhism occurred in the seventh century A.D., when Tibetan king Srongtsen Gampo (reigned A.D. 627-49), a convert to Buddhism, ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu in the Paro Valley. Buddhism replaced but did not eliminate the Bon religious practices that had also been prevalent in Tibet until the late sixth century. Instead, Buddhism absorbed Bon and its believers. As the country developed in its many fertile valleys, Buddhism matured and became a unifying element. It was Buddhist literature and chronicles that began the recorded history of Bhutan.

In A.D. 747, a Buddhist saint, Padmasambhava (known in Bhutan as Guru Rimpoche and sometimes referred to as the Second Buddha), came to Bhutan from India at the invitation of one of the numerous local kings. After reportedly subduing eight classes of demons and converting the king, Guru Rimpoche moved on to Tibet. Upon his return from Tibet, he oversaw the construction of new monasteries in the Paro Valley and set up his headquarters in Bumthang. According to tradition, he founded the Nyingmapa sect--also known as the "old sect" or Red Hat sect--of Mahayana Buddhism, which became for a time the dominant religion of Bhutan. Guru Rimpoche plays a great historical and religious role as the national patron saint who revealed the tantras--manuals describing forms of devotion to natural energy--to Bhutan. Following the guru's sojourn, Indian influence played a temporary role until increasing Tibetan migrations brought new cultural and religious contributions.

There was no central government during this period. Instead, small independent monarchies began to develop by the early ninth century. Each was ruled by a deb (king), some of whom claimed divine origins. The kingdom of Bumthang was the most prominent among these small entities. At the same time, Tibetan Buddhist monks (lam in Dzongkha, Bhutan's official national language) had firmly rooted their religion and culture in Bhutan, and members of joint Tibetan-Mongol military expeditions settled in fertile valleys. By the eleventh century, all of Bhutan was occupied by Tibetan-Mongol military forces.

Bhutan - Rivalry among the Sects

By the tenth century, Bhutan's political development was heavily influenced by its religious history. Following a period in which Buddhism was in decline in Tibet in the eleventh century, contention among a number of subsects emerged. The Mongol overlords of Tibet and Bhutan patronized a sequence of subsects until their own political decline in the fourteenth century. By that time, the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat school had, after a period of anarchy in Tibet, become a powerful force resulting in the flight to Bhutan of numerous monks of various minor opposing sects. Among these monks was the founder of the Lhapa subsect of the Kargyupa school, to whom is attributed the introduction of strategically built dzong (fortified monasteries). Although the Lhapa subsect had been successfully challenged in the twelfth century by another Kargyupa subsect--the Drukpa--led by Tibetan monk Phajo Drugom Shigpo, it continued to proselytize until the seventeenth century. The Drukpa subsect, an unreformed Nyingmapa group in Tibet, spread throughout Bhutan and eventually became a dominant form of religious practice. Between the twelfth century and the seventeenth century, the two Kargyupa subsects vied with one another from their respective dzong as the older form of Nyingmapa Buddhism was eclipsed.

Bhutan - Theocratic Government, 1616-1907

Consolidation and Defeat of Tibetan Invasions, 1616-51

In the seventeenth century, a theocratic government independent of Tibetan political influence was established, and premodern Bhutan emerged. The theocratic government was founded by an expatriate Drukpa monk, Ngawang Namgyal, who arrived in Bhutan in 1616 seeking freedom from the domination of the Gelugpa subsect led by the Dalai Lama (Ocean Lama) in Lhasa. After a series of victories over rival subsect leaders and Tibetan invaders, Ngawang Namgyal took the title shabdrung (At Whose Feet One Submits, or, in many Western sources, dharma raja), becoming the temporal and spiritual leader of Bhutan. Considered the first great historical figure of Bhutan, he united the leaders of powerful Bhutanese families in a land called Drukyul. He promulgated a code of law and built a network of impregnable dzong, a system that helped bring local lords under centralized control and strengthened the country against Tibetan invasions. Many dzong were extant in the late twentieth century.

Tibetan armies invaded Bhutan around 1629, in 1631, and again in 1639, hoping to throttle Ngawang Namgyal's popularity before it spread too far. The invasions were thwarted, and the Drukpa subsect developed a strong presence in western and central Bhutan, leaving Ngawang Namgyal supreme. In recognition of the power he accrued, goodwill missions were sent to Bhutan from Cooch Behar in the Duars (present-day northeastern West Bengal), Nepal to the west, and Ladakh in western Tibet. The ruler of Ladakh even gave a number of villages in his kingdom to Ngawang Namgyal. During the first war with Tibet, two Portuguese Jesuits--the first recorded Europeans to visit--passed through Bhutan on their way to Tibet. They met with Ngawang Namgyal, presented him with firearms, gunpowder, and a telescope, and offered him their services in the war against Tibet, but the shabdrung declined the offer.

Bhutan's troubles were not over, however. In 1643 a joint Mongol-Tibetan force sought to destroy Nyingmapa refugees who had fled to Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal. The Mongols had seized control of religious and civil power in Tibet in the 1630s and established Gelugpa as the state religion. Bhutanese rivals of Ngawang Namgyal encouraged the Mongol intrusion, but the Mongol force was easily defeated in the humid lowlands of southern Bhutan. Another Tibetan invasion in 1647 also failed.

During Ngawang Namgyal's rule, administration comprised a state monastic body with an elected head, the Je Khenpo (lord abbot), and a theocratic civil government headed by the druk desi (regent of Bhutan, also known as deb raja in Western sources). The druk desi was either a monk or a member of the laity--by the nineteenth century, usually the latter; he was elected for a three-year term, initially by a monastic council and later by the State Council (Lhengye Tshokdu). The State Council was a central administrative organ that included regional rulers, the shabdrung's chamberlains, and the druk desi. In time, the druk desi came under the political control of the State Council's most powerful faction of regional administrators. The shabdrung was the head of state and the ultimate authority in religious and civil matters. The seat of government was at Thimphu, the site of a thirteenth-century dzong, in the spring, summer, and fall. The winter capital was at Punakha, a dzong established northeast of Thimphu in 1527. The kingdom was divided into three regions (east, central, and west), each with an appointed ponlop, or governor, holding a seat in a major dzong. Districts were headed by dzongpon, or district officers, who had their headquarters in lesser dzong. The ponlop were combination tax collectors, judges, military commanders, and procurement agents for the central government. Their major revenues came from the trade between Tibet and India and from land taxes.

Ngawang Namgyal's regime was bound by a legal code called the Tsa Yig, which described the spiritual and civil regime and provided laws for government administration and for social and moral conduct. The duties and virtues inherent in the Buddhist dharma (religious law) played a large role in the new legal code, which remained in force until the 1960s.

Bhutan - Administrative Integration and Conflict with Tibet, 1651- 1728

To keep Bhutan from disintegrating, Ngawang Namgyal's death in 1651 apparently was kept a carefully guarded secret for fifty-four years. Initially, Ngawang Namgyal was said to have entered into a religious retreat, a situation not unprecedented in Bhutan, Sikkim, or Tibet during that time. During the period of Ngawang Namgyal's supposed retreat, appointments of officials were issued in his name, and food was left in front of his locked door.

Ngawang Namgyal's son and stepbrother, in 1651 and 1680, respectively, succeeded him. They started their reigns as minors under the control of religious and civil regents and rarely exercised authority in their own names. For further continuity, the concept of multiple reincarnation of the first shabdrung--in the form of either his body, his speech, or his mind--was invoked by the Je Khenpo and the druk desi, both of whom wanted to retain the power they had accrued through the dual system of government. The last person recognized as the bodily reincarnation of Ngawang Namgyal died in the mid-eighteenth century, but speech and mind reincarnations, embodied by individuals who acceded to the position of shabdrung, were recognized into the early twentieth century. The power of the state religion also increased with a new monastic code that remained in effect in the early 1990s. The compulsory admission to monastic life of at least one son from any family having three or more sons was instituted in the late seventeenth century. In time, however, the State Council became increasingly secular as did the successive druk desi, ponlop, and dzongpon, and intense rivalries developed among the ponlop of Tongsa and Paro and the dzongpon of Punakha, Thimphu, and Wangdiphodrang.

During the first period of succession and further internal consolidation under the druk desi government, there was conflict with Tibet and Sikkim. Internal opposition to the central government resulted in overtures by the opponents of the druk desi to Tibet and Sikkim. In the 1680s, Bhutan invaded Sikkim in pursuit of a rebellious local lord. In 1700 Bhutan again invaded Sikkim, and in 1714 Tibetan forces, aided by Mongolia, invaded Bhutan but were unable to gain control.

Bhutan - Civil Conflict, 1728-72

Civil war ensued when the "first reincarnation" of Ngawang Namgyal, Jigme Dakpa, was recognized as the shabdrung in 1728. A rival claimant, however, was promoted by opposition forces supported by Tibet. The Tibetan-backed forces were defeated by Jigme Dakpa's supporters, but the political system remained unstable. Regional rivalries contributed to the gradual disintegration of Bhutan at the time the first British agents arrived.

In the early eighteenth century, Bhutan had successfully developed control over the principality of Cooch Behar. The raja of Cooch Behar had sought assistance from Bhutan against the Indian Mughals in 1730, and Bhutanese political influence was not long in following. By the mid-1760s, Thimphu considered Cooch Behar its dependency, stationing a garrison force there and directing its civil administration. When the druk desi invaded Sikkim in 1770, Cooch Behari forces joined their Bhutanese counterparts in the offensive. In a succession dispute in Cooch Behar two years later, however, the druk desi's nominee for the throne was opposed by a rival who invited British troops, and, in effect, Cooch Behar became a dependency of the British East India Company.

Bhutan - British Intrusion, 1772-1907

Under the Cooch Behari agreement with the British, a British expeditionary force drove the Bhutanese garrison out of Cooch Behar and invaded Bhutan in 1772-73. The druk desi petitioned Lhasa for assistance from the Panchen Lama, who was serving as regent for the youthful Dalai Lama. In correspondence with the British governor general of India, however, the Panchen Lama instead castigated the druk desi and invoked Tibet's claim of suzerainty over Bhutan.

Failing to receive help from Tibet, the druk desi signed a Treaty of Peace with the British East India Company on April 25, 1774. Bhutan agreed to return to its pre-1730 boundaries, paid a symbolic tribute of five horses to Britain, and, among other concessions, allowed the British to harvest timber in Bhutan. Subsequent missions to Bhutan were made by the British in 1776, 1777, and 1783, and commerce was opened between British India and Bhutan and, for a short time, Tibet. In 1784 the British turned over to Bhutanese control Bengal Duars territory, where boundaries were poorly defined. As in its other foreign territories, Bhutan left administration of the Bengal Duars territory to local officials and collected its revenues. Although major trade and political relations failed to develop between Bhutan and Britain, the British had replaced the Tibetans as the major external threat.

Boundary disputes plagued Bhutanese-British relations. To reconcile their differences, Bhutan sent an emissary to Calcutta in 1787, and the British sent missions to Thimphu in 1815 and 1838. The 1815 mission was inconclusive. The 1838 mission offered a treaty providing for extradition of Bhutanese officials responsible for incursions into Assam, free and unrestricted commerce between India and Bhutan, and settlement of Bhutan's debt to the British. In an attempt to protect its independence, Bhutan rejected the British offer. Despite increasing internal disorder, Bhutan had maintained its control over a portion of the Assam Duars more or less since its reduction of Cooch Behar to a dependency in the 1760s. After the British gained control of Lower Assam in 1826, tension between the countries began to rise as Britain exerted its strength. Bhutanese payments of annual tribute to the British for the Assam Duars gradually fell into arrears, however. The resulting British demands for payment and military incursions into Bhutan in 1834 and 1835 brought about defeat for Bhutan's forces and a temporary loss of territory.

The British proceeded in 1841 to annex the formerly Bhutanesecontrolled Assam Duars, paying a compensation of 10,000 rupees a year to Bhutan. In 1842 Bhutan gave up control to the British of some of the troublesome Bengal Duars territory it had administered since 1784.

Charges and countercharges of border incursions and protection of fugitives led to an unsuccessful Bhutanese mission to Calcutta in 1852. Among other demands, the mission sought increased compensation for its former Duars territories, but instead the British deducted nearly 3,000 rupees from the annual compensation and demanded an apology for alleged plundering of British-protected lands by members of the mission. Following more incidents and the prospect of an anti-Bhutan rebellion in the Bengal Duars, British troops deployed to the frontier in the mid-1850s. The Sepoy Rebellion in India in 1857-58 and the demise of the British East India Company's rule prevented immediate British action. Bhutanese armed forces raided Sikkim and Cooch Behar in 1862, seizing people, property, and money. The British responded by withholding all compensation payments and demanding release of all captives and return of stolen property. Demands to the druk desi went unheeded, as he was alleged to be unaware of his frontier officials' actions against Sikkim and Cooch Behar.

Britain sent a peace mission to Bhutan in early 1864, in the wake of the recent conclusion of a civil war there. The dzongpon of Punakha--who had emerged victorious--had broken with the central government and set up a rival druk desi while the legitimate druk desi sought the protection of the ponlop of Paro and was later deposed. The British mission dealt alternately with the rival ponlop of Paro and the ponlop of Tongsa (the latter acted on behalf of the druk desi), but Bhutan rejected the peace and friendship treaty it offered. Britain declared war in November 1864. Bhutan had no regular army, and what forces existed were composed of dzong guards armed with matchlocks, bows and arrows, swords, knives, and catapults. Some of these dzong guards, carrying shields and wearing chainmail armor, engaged the well-equipped British forces.

The Duar War (1864-65) lasted only five months and, despite some battlefield victories by Bhutanese forces, resulted in Bhutan's defeat, loss of part of its sovereign territory, and forced cession of formerly occupied territories. Under the terms of the Treaty of Sinchula, signed on November 11, 1865, Bhutan ceded territories in the Assam Duars and Bengal Duars, as well as the eighty-three-square-kilometer territory of Dewangiri in southeastern Bhutan, in return for an annual subsidy of 50,000 rupees.

In the 1870s and 1880s, renewed competition among regional rivals--primarily the pro-British ponlop of Tongsa and the anti-British, pro-Tibetan ponlop of Paro--resulted in the ascendancy of Ugyen Wangchuck, the ponlop of Tongsa. From his power base in central Bhutan, Ugyen Wangchuck had defeated his political enemies and united the country following several civil wars and rebellions in 1882-85. His victory came at a time of crisis for the central government, however. British power was becoming more extensive to the south, and in the west Tibet had violated its border with Sikkim, incurring British disfavor. After 1,000 years of close ties with Tibet, Bhutan faced the threat of British military power and was forced to make serious geopolitical decisions. The British, seeking to offset potential Russian advances in Lhasa, wanted to open trade relations with Tibet. Ugyen Wangchuck saw the opportunity to assist the British and in 1903-4 volunteered to accompany a British mission to Lhasa as a mediator. For his services in securing the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904, Ugyen Wangchuck was knighted and thereafter continued to accrue greater power in Bhutan.

Bhutan - Establishment of the Hereditary Monarchy, 1907

Ugyen Wangchuck's emergence as the national leader coincided with the realization that the dual political system was obsolete and ineffective. He had removed his chief rival, the ponlop of Paro, and installed a supporter and relative, a member of the pro-British Dorji family, in his place. When the last shabdrung died in 1903 and a reincarnation had not appeared by 1906, civil administration came under the control of Ugyen Wangchuck. Finally, in 1907, the fifty-fourth and last druk desi was forced to retire, and despite recognitions of subsequent reincarnations of Ngawang Namgyal, the shabdrung system came to an end.

In November 1907, an assembly of leading Buddhist monks, government officials, and heads of important families was held to end the moribund 300-year-old dual system of government and to establish a new absolute monarchy. Ugyen Wangchuck was elected its first hereditary Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King, reigned 1907-26). The Dorji family became hereditary holders of the position of gongzim (chief chamberlain), the top government post. The British, wanting political stability on their northern frontier, approved of the entire development.

Britain's earlier entreaties in Lhasa had unexpected repercussions at this time. The China, concerned that Britain would seize Tibet, invaded Tibet in 1910 and asserted political authority. In the face of the Chinese military occupation, the Dalai Lama fled to India. China laid claim not only to Tibet but also to Bhutan, Nepal, and Sikkim. With these events, BhutaneseBritish interests coalesced.

A new Bhutanese-British agreement, the Treaty of Punakha, was signed on January 8, 1910. It amended two articles of the 1865 treaty: the British agreed to double their annual stipend to 100,000 rupees and "to exercise no interference in the internal administration of Bhutan." In turn, Bhutan agreed "to be guided by the advice of the British Government in regard to its external relations." The Treaty of Punakha guaranteed Bhutan's defense against China; China, in no position to contest British power, conceded the end of the millennium-long Tibetan-Chinese influence.

Much of Bhutan's modern development has been attributed by Bhutanese historians to the first Druk Gyalpo. Internal reforms included introducing Western-style schools, improving internal communications, encouraging trade and commerce with India, and revitalizing the Buddhist monastic system. Toward the end of his life, Ugyen Wangchuck was concerned about the continuity of the family dynasty, and in 1924 he sought British assurance that the Wangchuck family would retain its preeminent position in Bhutan. His request led to an investigation of the legal status of Bhutan vis-�-vis the suzerainty held over Bhutan by Britain and the ambiguity of Bhutan's relationship to India. Both the suzerainty and the ambiguity were maintained.

Bhutan - Development of Centralized Government, 1926-52

Ugyen Wangchuck died in 1926 and was succeeded by his son, Jigme Wangchuck (reigned 1926-52). The second Druk Gyalpo continued his father's centralization and modernization efforts and built more schools, dispensaries, and roads. During Jigme Wangchuck's reign, monasteries and district governments were increasingly brought under royal control. However, Bhutan generally remained isolated from international affairs.

The issue of Bhutan's status vis-�-vis the government of India (was Bhutan a state of India or did it enjoy internal sovereignty?) was reexamined by London in 1932 as part of the issue of the status of India itself. It was decided to leave the decision to join an Indian federation up to Bhutan when the time came. When British rule over India ended in 1947, so too did Britain's association with Bhutan. India succeeded Britain as the de facto protector of the Himalayan kingdom, and Bhutan retained control over its internal government. It was two years, however, before a formal agreement recognized Bhutan's independence.

Following the precedent set by the Treaty of Punakha, on August 8, 1949, Thimphu signed the Treaty of Friendship Between the Government of India and the Government of Bhutan, according to which external affairs, formerly guided by Britain, were to be guided by India. Like Britain, India agreed not to interfere in Bhutan's internal affairs. India also agreed to increase the annual subsidy to 500,000 rupees per year. Important to Bhutan's national pride was the return of Dewangiri. Some historians believe that if India had been at odds with China at this time, as it was to be a decade later, it might not have acceded so easily to Bhutan's request for independent status.

Bhutan - Modernization under Jigme Dorji, 1952-72

The third Druk Gyalpo, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, was enthroned in 1952. Earlier he had married the European-educated cousin of the chogyal (king) of Sikkim and with her support made continual efforts to modernize his nation throughout his twenty-year reign. Among his first reforms was the establishment of the National Assembly--the Tshogdu--in 1953. Although the Druk Gyalpo could issue royal decrees and exercise veto power over resolutions passed by the National Assembly, its establishment was a major move toward a constitutional monarchy.

When the Chinese communists took over Tibet in 1951, Bhutan closed its frontier with Tibet and sided with its powerful neighbor to the south. To offset the chance of Chinese encroachment, Bhutan began a modernization program. Land reform was accompanied by the abolition of slavery and serfdom and the separation of the judiciary from the executive branch of government. Mostly funded by India after China's invasion of Tibet in 1959, the modernization program also included the construction of roads linking the Indian plains with central Bhutan. An all-weather road was completed in 1962 between Thimphu and Phuntsholing, the overland gateway town on the southwest border with India. Dzongkha was made the national language during Jigme Dorji's reign. Additionally, development projects included establishing such institutions as a national museum in Paro and a national library, national archives, and national stadium, as well as buildings to house the National Assembly, the High Court (Thrimkhang Gongma), and other government entities in Thimphu. The position of gongzim, held since 1907 by the Dorji family, was upgraded in 1958 to lonchen (prime minister) and was still in the hands of the Dorji. Jigme Dorji Wangchuck's reforms, however, although lessening the authority of the absolute monarchy, also curbed the traditional decentralization of political authority among regional leaders and strengthened the role of the central government in economic and social programs.

Modernization efforts moved forward in the 1960s under the direction of the lonchen, Jigme Palden Dorji, the Druk Gyalpo's brother-in-law. In 1962, however, Dorji incurred disfavor with the Royal Bhutan Army over the use of military vehicles and the forced retirement of some fifty officers. Religious elements also were antagonized by Dorji's efforts to reduce the power of the state-supported religious institutions. In April 1964, while the Druk Gyalpo was in Switzerland for medical care, Dorji was assassinated in Phuntsholing by an army corporal. The majority of those arrested and accused of the crime were military personnel and included the army chief of operations, Namgyal Bahadur, the Druk Gyalpo's uncle, who was executed for his part in the plot.

The unstable situation continued under Dorji's successor as acting lonchen, his brother Lhendup Dorji, and for a time under the Druk Gyalpo's brother, Namgyal Wangchuck, as head of the army. According to some sources, a power struggle ensued between pro-Wangchuck loyalists and "modernist" Dorji supporters. The main issue was not an end to or lessening of the power of the monarchy but "full freedom from Indian interference." Other observers believe the 1964 crisis was not so much a policy struggle as competition for influence on the palace between the Dorji family and the Druk Gyalpo's Tibetan mistress, Yangki, and her father. Nevertheless, with the concurrence of the National Assembly, Lhendup Dorji and other family members were exiled in 1965. The tense political situation continued, however, with an assassination attempt on the Druk Gyalpo himself in July 1965. The Dorjis were not implicated in the attempt, and the would-be assassins were pardoned by the Druk Gyalpo.

In 1966, to increase the efficiency of government administration, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck made Thimphu the year-round capital. In May 1968, the comprehensive Rules and Regulations of the National Assembly revised the legal basis of the power granted to the National Assembly. The Druk Gyalpo decreed that henceforth sovereign power, including the power to remove government ministers and the Druk Gyalpo himself, would reside with the National Assembly. The following November, the Druk Gyalpo renounced his veto power over National Assembly bills and said he would step down if two-thirds of the legislature passed a no-confidence vote. Although he did nothing to undermine the retention of the Wangchuck dynasty, the Druk Gyalpo in 1969 called for a triennial vote of confidence by the National Assembly (later abolished by his successor) to renew the Druk Gyalpo's mandate to rule.

Diplomatic overtures also were made during Jigme Dorji Wangchuck's reign. Although always seeking to be formally neutral and nonaligned in relations with China and India, Bhutan also sought more direct links internationally than had occurred previously under the foreign-policy guidance of India. Consequently, in 1962 Bhutan joined the Colombo Plan for Cooperative, Economic, and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific known as the Colombo Plan, and in 1966 notified India of its desire to become a member of the United Nations (UN). In 1971 after holding observer status for three years, Bhutan was admitted to the UN. In an effort to maintain Bhutan as a stable buffer state, India continued to provide substantial amounts of development aid.

Jigme Dorji Wangchuck ruled until his death in July 1972 and was succeeded by his seventeen-year-old son, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. The close ties of the Wangchuck and Dorji families were reemphasized in the person of the new king, whose mother, Ashi Kesang Dorji (ashi means princess), was the sister of the lonchen, Jigme Palden Dorji. Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who had been educated in India and Britain, had been appointed ponlop of Tongsa in May 1972 and by July that year had become the Druk Gyalpo. With his mother and two elder sisters as advisers, the new Druk Gyalpo was thrust into the affairs of state. He was often seen among the people, in the countryside, at festivals, and, as his reign progressed, meeting with foreign dignitaries in Bhutan and abroad. His formal coronation took place in June 1974, and soon thereafter the strains between the Wangchucks and Dorjis were relieved with the return that year of the exiled members of the latter family. The reconciliation, however, was preceded by reports of a plot to assassinate the new Druk Gyalpo before his coronation could take place and to set fire to the Tashichhodzong (Fortress of the Glorious Religion, the seat of government in Thimphu). Yangki was the alleged force behind the plot, which was uncovered three months before the coronation; thirty persons were arrested, including high government and police officials.

Bhutan - Entering the Outside World, 1972-86

When civil war broke out in Pakistan in 1971, Bhutan was among the first nations to recognize the new government of Bangladesh, and formal diplomatic relations were established in 1973. An event in 1975 may have served as a major impetus to Bhutan to speed up reform and modernization. In that year, neighboring Sikkim's monarchy, which had endured for more than 300 years, was ousted following a plebiscite in which the Nepalese majority outvoted the Sikkimese minority. Sikkim, long a protectorate of India, became India's twenty-second state.

To further ensure its independence and international position, Bhutan gradually established diplomatic relations with other nations and joined greater numbers of regional and international organizations. Many of the countries with which Bhutan established relations provided development aid. Moderization life brought new problems to Bhutan in the late 1980s.

Bhutan - GEOGRAPHY

Landlocked Bhutan is situated in the eastern Himalayas and is mostly mountainous and heavily forested. It is bordered for 470 kilometers by Tibet (China's Xizang Autonomous Region) to the north and northwest and for 605 kilometers by India's states of Sikkim to the west, West Bengal to the southwest, Assam to the south and southeast, and Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North-East Frontier Agency) to the east. Sikkim, an eighty-eight-kilometer-wide territory, divides Bhutan from Nepal, while West Bengal separates Bhutan from Bangladesh by only sixty kilometers. At its longest east-west dimension, Bhutan stretches around 300 kilometers; it measures 170 kilometers at its maximum north-south dimension, forming a total of 46,500 square kilometers, an area one-third the size of Nepal. In the mid-1980s, about 70 percent of Bhutan was covered with forests; 10 percent was covered with year-round snow and glaciers; nearly 6 percent was permanently cultivated or used for human habitation; another 3 percent was used for shifting cultivation (tsheri), a practice banned by the government; and 5 percent was used as meadows and pastures. The rest of the land was either barren rocky areas or scrubland.

Early British visitors to Bhutan reported "dark and steep glens, and the high tops of mountains lost in the clouds, constitut[ing] altogether a scene of extraordinary magnificence and sublimity." One of the most rugged mountain terrains in the world, it has elevations ranging from 160 meters to more than 7,000 meters above sea level, in some cases within distances of less than 100 kilometers of each other. Bhutan's highest peak, at 7,554 meters above sea level, is north-central Kulha Gangri, close to the border with China; the second highest peak, Chomo Lhari, overlooking the Chumbi Valley in the west, is 7,314 meters above sea level; nineteen other peaks exceed 7,000 meters.

In the north, the snowcapped Great Himalayan Range reaches heights of over 7,500 meters above sea level and extends along the Bhutan-China border. The northern region consists of an arc of glaciated mountain peaks with an arctic climate at the highest elevations. Watered by snow-fed rivers, alpine valleys in this region provide pasturage for livestock tended by a sparse population of migratory shepherds.

The Inner Himalayas are southward spurs of the Great Himayalan Range. The Black Mountains, in central Bhutan, form a watershed between two major river systems, the Mo Chhu and the Drangme Chhu (chhu means river). Peaks in the Black Mountains range between 1,500 meters and 2,700 meters above sea level, and the fast-flowing rivers have carved out spectacular gorges in the lower mountain areas. The woodlands of the central region provide most of Bhutan's valuable forest production. Eastern Bhutan is divided by another southward spur, the Donga Range. Western Bhutan has fertile, cultivated valleys and terraced river basins.

In the south, the Southern Hills, or Siwalik Hills, the foothills of the Himalayas, are covered with dense deciduous forest, alluvial lowland river valleys, and mountains that reach to around 1,500 meters above sea level. The foothills descend into the subtropical Duars Plain. Most of the Duars Plain proper is located in India, and ten to fifteen kilometers penetrate inside Bhutan. The Bhutan Duars has two parts. The northern Duars, which abuts the Himalayan foothills, has rugged, slopping terrain and dry porous soil with dense vegetation and abundant wildlife. The southern Duars has moderately fertile soil, heavy savanna grass, dense mixed jungle, and freshwater springs. Taken as a whole, the Duars provides the greatest amount of fertile flatlands in Bhutan. Rice and other crops are grown on the plains and mountainsides up to 1,200 meters. Bhutan's most important commercial centers-- Phuntsholing, Geylegphug, and Samdrup Jongkhar--are located in the Duars, reflecting the meaning of the name, which is derived from the Hindi dwar and means gateway. Rhinoceros, tigers, leopards, elephants, and other wildlife inhabit the region.

affected by monsoons that bring between 60 and 90 percent of the region's rainfall. The climate is humid and subtropical in the southern plains and foothills, temperate in the inner Himalayan valleys of the southern and central regions, and cold in the north, with year-round snow on the main Himalayan summits.

Temperatures vary according to elevation. Temperatures in Thimphu, located at 2,200 meters above sea level in west-central Bhutan, range from approximately 15� C to 26� C during the monsoon season of June through September but drop to between about -4� C and 16� C in January. Most of the central portion of the country experiences a cool, temperate climate yearround . In the south, a hot, humid climate helps maintain a fairly even temperature range of between 15� C and 30� C year-round, although temperatures sometimes reach 40� C in the valleys during the summer.

Annual precipitation ranges widely in various parts of the country. In the severe climate of the north, there is only about forty millimeters of annual precipitation--primarily snow. In the temperate central regions, a yearly average of around 1,000 millimeters is more common, and 7,800 millimeters per year has been registered at some locations in the humid, subtropical south, ensuring the thick tropical forest, or savanna. Thimphu experiences dry winter months (December through February) and almost no precipitation until March, when rainfall averages 20 millimeters a month and increases steadily thereafter to a high of 220 millimeters in August for a total annual rainfall of nearly 650 millimeters.

Bhutan's generally dry spring starts in early March and lasts until mid-April. Summer weather commences in mid-April with occasional showers and continues through the premonsoon rains of late June. The summer monsoon lasts from late June through late September with heavy rains from the southwest. The monsoon weather, blocked from its northward progress by the Himalayas, brings heavy rains, high humidity, flash floods and landslides, and numerous misty, overcast days. Autumn, from late September or early October to late November, follows the rainy season. It is characterized by bright, sunny days and some early snowfalls at higher elevations. From late November until March, winter sets in, with frost throughout much of the country and snowfall common above elevations of 3,000 meters. The winter northeast monsoon brings gale-force winds down through high mountain passes, giving Bhutan its name-- Drukyul, which in the Dzongkha language mean Land of the Thunder Dragon.

Bhutan - River Systems

Bhutan has four major river systems: the Drangme Chhu; the Puna Tsang Chhu, also called the Sankosh; the Wang Chhu; and the Amo Chhu. Each flows swiftly out of the Himalayas, southerly through the Duars to join the Brahmaputra River in India, and thence through Bangladesh where the Brahmaputra (or Jamuna in Bangladesh) joins the mighty Ganges (or Padma in Bangladesh) to flow into the Bay of Bengal. The largest river system, the Drangme Chhu, flows southwesterly from India's state of Arunachal Pradesh and has three major branches: the Drangme Chhu, Mangde Chhu, and Bumthang Chhu. These branches form the Drangme Chhu basin, which spreads over most of eastern Bhutan and drains the Tongsa and Bumthang valleys. In the Duars, where eight tributaries join it, the Drangme Chhu is called the Manas Chhu. The 320-kilometer-long Puna Tsang Chhu rises in northwestern Bhutan as the Mo Chhu and Pho Chhu, which are fed by the snows from the Great Himalayan Range. They flow southerly to Punakha, where they join to form the Puna Tsang Chhu, which flows southerly into India's state of West Bengal. The tributaries of the 370-kilometer-long Wang Chhu rise in Tibet. The Wang Chhu itself flows southeasterly through west-central Bhutan, drains the Ha, Paro, and Thimphu valleys, and continues into the Duars, where it enters West Bengal as the Raigye Chhu. The smallest river system, the Torsa Chhu, known as the Amo Chhu in its northern reaches, also flows out of Tibet into the Chumbi Valley and swiftly through western Bhutan before broadening near Phuntsholing and then flowing into India.

Bhutan - Glaciers

Glaciers in northern Bhutan, which cover about 10 percent of the total surface area, are an important renewable source of water for Bhutan's rivers. Fed by fresh snow each winter and slow melting in the summer, the glaciers bring millions of liters of fresh water to Bhutan and downriver areas each year. Glacial melt added to monsoon-swollen rivers, however, also contributes to flooding and potential disaster.

Bhutan - Population

Size, Structure, and Settlement Patterns

When Bhutan's first national census was conducted in 1969, the population officially stood at 930,614 persons. Before 1969 population estimates had ranged between 300,000 and 800,000 people. The 1969 census has been criticized as inaccurate. By the time the 1980 census was held, the population reportedly had increased to approximately 1,165,000 persons. The results of the 1988 census had not been released as of 1991, but preliminary government projections in 1988 set the total population at 1,375,400 persons, whereas UN estimates stood at 1,451,000 people in 1988. Other foreign projections put the population at 1,598,216 persons in July 1991. It is likely, however, that Bhutan's real population was less than 1 million and probably as little as 600,000 in 1990. Moreover, the government itself began to use the figure of "about 600,000 citizens" in late 1990.

The annual growth rate in 1990 was 2 percent. Although the wide variation in population size makes all projections flawed, experts believe that the population growth rate is valid. The birth rate was 37 per 1,000, and the death rate was 17 per 1,000. In 1988 UN experts had estimated Bhutan would have a population of 1.9 million by 2000 and 3 million by 2025. The average annual population growth rate was estimated at 1.9 percent during the period from 1965 to 1970 and 1.8 percent during the period 1980 to 1985. Rates of change were projected to increase to 2.1 percent by 1990 and 2.3 percent by 2000 and to decrease to 1.41 percent by 2025. Total fertility rates (the average number of children born during a woman's reproductive years) have declined since the 1950s, however. The rate stood at 6.0 in 1955 and 5.5 in 1985 and was expected to decline to 3.7 by 2005 and 2.5 by 2025. The infant mortality rate was the highest in South Asia in 1990: 137 deaths per 1,000 live births. Despite the declining population growth most of Bhutan's people were young. By the late 1980s, 45 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age. However, the greater number of female infant deaths resulted in one of the world's lowest malefemale ratios (97.2 females to 100 males).

Life expectancy at birth had increased significantly since the 1950s, when it stood at only 36.3 years. By the early 1980s, life expectancy had reached 45.9 years. In 1989 the UN projected that life expectancy at birth in Bhutan would reach 55.5 years by 2005 and 61.8 years by 2025, still low compared with other South Asian countries and with the other least developed nations of the world.

Overall population density was thirty-one persons per square kilometer in the late 1980s, but because of the rugged terrain distribution was more dense in settled areas. The regions in the southern Duars valleys and eastern Bhutan around the fertile Tashigang Valley were the most populous areas. As was common among the least developed nations, there was a trend, albeit small, toward urbanization. Whereas in 1970 only 3 percent of the population lived in urban settings, the percentage had increased to 5 percent in 1985. UN specialists projected the urban population would reach 8 percent by 2000. With the exception of Tuvalu, Bhutan had the lowest urban population of any country among the forty-one least developed nations of the world.

Thimphu, the capital, the largest urban area, had a population of 27,000 persons in 1990. Most employed residents of Thimphu, some 2,860 in 1990, were government employees. Another 2,200 persons worked in private businesses and cottage industries. The city advanced toward modernization in 1987 with the installation of meters to regulate water consumption, the naming of its streets, and the erection of street signs. The only other urban area with a population of more than 10,000 residents was Phuntsholing in Chhukha District.

Bhutan's society is made up of four broad but not necessarily exclusive groups: the Ngalop, the Sharchop, several aboriginal peoples, and Nepalese. The Ngalop (a term thought to mean the earliest risen or first converted) are people of Tibetan origin who migrated to Bhutan as early as the ninth century. For this reason, they are often referred to in foreign literature as Bhote (people of Bhotia or Tibet). The Ngalop are concentrated in western and northern districts. They introduced Tibetan culture and Buddhism to Bhutan and comprised the dominant political and cultural element in modern Bhutan.

The Sharchop (the word means easterner), an Indo-Mongoloid people who are thought to have migrated from Assam or possibly Burma during the past millennium, comprise most of the population of eastern Bhutan. Although long the biggest ethnic group in Bhutan, the Sharchop have been largely assimilated into the Tibetan-Ngalop culture. Because of their proximity to India, some speak Assamese or Hindi. They practice slash-and-burn and tsheri agriculture, planting dry rice crops for three or four years until the soil is exhausted and then moving on.

The third group consists of small aboriginal or indigenous tribal peoples living in scattered villages throughout Bhutan. Culturally and linguistically part of the populations of West Bengal or Assam, they embrace the Hindu system of endogamous groups ranked by hierarchy and practice wet-rice and dry-rice agriculture. They include the Drokpa, Lepcha, and Doya tribes as well as the descendants of slaves who were brought to Bhutan from similar tribal areas in India. The ex-slave communities tended to be near traditional population centers because it was there that they had been pressed into service to the state. Together, the Ngalop, Sharchop, and tribal groups were thought to constitute up to 72 percent of the population in the late 1980s.

The remaining 28 percent of the population were of Nepalese origin. Officially, the government stated that 28 percent of the national population was Nepalese in the late 1980s, but unofficial estimates ran as high as 30 to 40 percent, and Nepalese were estimated to constitute a majority in southern Bhutan. The number of legal permanent Nepalese residents in the late 1980s may have been as few as 15 percent of the total population, however. The first small groups of Nepalese, the most recent major groups to arrive in Bhutan, emigrated primarily from eastern Nepal under Indian auspices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mostly Hindus, the Nepalese settled in the southern foothills and are sometimes referred to as southern Bhutanese. Traditionally, they have been involved mostly in sedentary agriculture, although some have cleared forest cover and conducted tsheri agriculture. The most divisive issue in Bhutan in the 1980s and early 1990s was the accommodation of the Nepalese Hindu minority. The government traditionally attempted to limit immigration and restrict residence and employment of Nepalese to the southern region. Liberalization measures in the 1970s and 1980s encouraged intermarriage and provided increasing opportunities for public service. More in-country migration by Nepalese seeking better education and business opportunities was allowed.

Bhutan also had a sizable modern Tibetan refugee population, which stood at 10,000 persons in 1987. The major influx of 6,000 persons came in 1959 in the wake of the Chinese army's invasion and occupation of Tibet. The Tibetan expatriates became only partially integrated into Bhutanese society, however, and many were unwilling to accept citizenship. Perceiving a lack of allegiance to the state on the part of Tibetans, the government decided in 1979 to expel to India those who refused citizenship. India, after some reluctance, acceded to the move and accepted more than 3,100 Tibetans between 1980 and 1985. Another 4,200 Tibetans requested and received Bhutanese citizenship. Although Bhutan traditionally welcomed refugees--and still accepted a few new ones fleeing the 1989 imposition of martial law in Tibet--government policy in the late 1980s was to refuse more Tibetan refugees.

Bhutanese speak one or more of four major, mutually unintelligible languages. Traditionally, public and private communications, religious materials, and official documents were written in chhokey, the classical Tibetan script, and a Bhutanese adaptive cursive script was developed for correspondence. In modern times, as in the past, chhokey, which exists only in written form, was understood only by the well educated. The official national language, Dzongkha (language of the dzong), has developed since the seventeenth century. A sophisticated form of the Tibetan dialect spoken by Ngalop villagers in western Bhutan, it is based primarily on the vernacular speech of the Punakha Valley. In its written form, Dzongkha uses an adaptive cursive script based on chhokey to express the Ngalop spoken language. Ngalopkha is spoken in six regional dialects with variations from valley to valley and village to village; Dzongkha, however, through vigorous government education programs, was becoming widely understood throughout Bhutan by the 1970s.

The other languages include Sharchopkha, or Tsangla, a Mon language spoken in eastern districts; Bumthangkha, an aboriginal Khen language spoken in central Bhutan; and Nepali, or Lhotsam, predominantly spoken in the south. Seven other Khen and Mon languages also are spoken in Bhutan. Hindi is understood among Bhutanese educated in India and was the language of instruction in the schools at Ha and Bumthang in the early 1930s as well as in the first schools in the "formal" education system from the beginning of the 1960s.

Along with Dzongkha and English, Nepali was once one of the three official languages used in Bhutan. Dzongkha was taught in grades one through twelve in the 1980s. English was widely understood and was the medium of instruction in secondary and higher-level schools. Starting in the 1980s, college-level textbooks in Dzongkha were published, and in 1988 a proposal was made to standardize Dzongkha script. Sharchopkha, Bumthangkha, and Nepali also were used in primary schools in areas where speakers of those languages predominated. In 1989, however, Nepali was dropped from school curricula.

Part of the government's effort to preserve traditional culture and to strengthen the contemporary sense of national identity (driglam namzha--national customs and etiquette) has been its emphasis on Dzongkha-language study. The Department of Education declared in 1979 that because Dzongkha was the national language, it was "the responsibility of each and every Bhutanese to learn Dzongkha." To aid in language study, the department also published a Dzongkha dictionary in 1986.

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

Bhutanese housing has a distinct character from that of other Himalayan countries. Relatively spacious compared with those of neighboring societies, houses took advantage of natural light and, because of the steep terrain, were usually built in clusters rather than in rows. Timber, stone, clay, and brick were typical construction materials in upland Ngalop areas. Family residences frequently had three stories, with room for livestock on the first or ground story, living quarters on the second story, additional living quarters and storage on the third story, and an open space between the third story and the roof for open-air storage. Large stones were used to weigh down wooden roofs against fierce Himalayan storms. Among Buddhism's contributions to Bhutan were its rich architectural embellishments. The walls of residences and public buildings, inside and outside, were subject to colorful decoration, as were furniture, cupboards, stairs, window frames, doors, and fences. Wooden shutters rather than scarce glass were used throughout the 1980s. Buddhist motifs and symbolic colors also were extensively used. Sharchop houses of stone and timber were sometimes built on hillsides. In the southern areas inhabited by Nepalese, Assamese, and Bengalis, housing was more likely to consist of bamboo and thatched roof houses and mud and thatch dwellings. The construction of housing often was a cooperative task of the community.

Bhutan - Festivals

Bhutan has numerous public holidays, most of which center around traditional seasonal, secular, and religious festivals. They include winter solstice (around January 1, depending on the lunar calendar), lunar new year (January or February), the Druk Gyalpo's birthday and the anniversary of his coronation, the official start of monsoon season (September 22), National Day (December 17), and various Buddhist and Hindu celebrations. Even the secular holidays have religious overtones, including religious dances and prayers used to bless the day.

Masked dances and dance dramas are common traditional features at festivals. Energetic dancers wearing colorful wooden or composition face masks employ special costumes and music to depict a panoply of heroes, demons, death heads, animals, gods, and caricatures of common people. The dances enjoy royal patronage and preserve not only ancient folk and religious customs but also perpetuate the art of mask making.

Bhutan - Buddhism

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

Before the introduction of Buddhism, animistic worship, generally categorized as Bon in the Himalayas, was prevalent in Bhutan. The sun, moon, sky, and other natural elements were worshiped, and doctrine was transmitted orally from generation to generation. Bon, from a Tibetan word meaning invocation or recitation, has priests--bonpo--who perform exorcisms, burial rites, and divinations to tame threatening demons and to understand the wishes of the gods. Imported from Tibet and India, perhaps in the eighth century, Bon doctrine became so strongly reinvigorated by Buddhism that by the eleventh century it reasserted itself as an independent school apart from Buddhism. Conversely, Bon influenced popular Buddhism, infusing it with an appreciation for omens and demons felt to influence daily life profoundly. Bon established a canon of teachings and continued to be practiced in modern Bhutan.

Bhutan - Hinduism and Islam

The minority religion of Bhutan is Hinduism, whose adherents-- those of Nepalese origin--officially constitute 28 percent of the population. Despite Buddhism's status as the state religion, Hindus had de facto freedom of religion. The Druk Gyalpo decreed major Hindu festivals as national holidays, and the royal family participated in them. An even smaller religious minority--about 5 percent of the population in 1989--practiced Islam. Although foreign religious personnel were permitted to work in Bhutan, primarily as educators, they were not allowed to proselytize.

Bhutan - Education

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.

Bhutan - THE ECONOMY - Role of the Government

Planning and Reform

Government played a pervasive role in Bhutan's economy. Since 1961 the economy has been guided through development plans, which the Development Secretariat and later the Planning Commission directed, subject to the National Assembly's approval. In the World Bank's 1989 appraisal, "Coming late to the development scene, Bhutan was eager to avoid mistakes committed elsewhere. Although strongly dependent on foreign aid, it was determined to follow its own set of priorities, keep public finance on an even keel, build up a well trained but lean bureaucracy, and prevent environmental damage from overexploitation of the forests or uncontrolled growth of tourism." To help avoid further mistakes, the government used traditional social institutions and involved people at the local level in planning and implementation for their own district, subdistrict, or village. "As a result of these factors," said the World Bank, "development in Bhutan has been remarkably free from seeing economic, social, or cultural disruption."

India fully funded the First Development Plan (1961-66). The first plan, for which Nu107.2 million was allocated, and the Second Development Plan (1966-71), for which Nu202.2 million was allocated, focused primarily on developing modern budgeting techniques. According to some foreign observers, the first two plans failed to set priorities and achieve economic-sector integration as might be expected of genuine development planning. The major economic-planning emphasis was on public works, primarily roads; forestry; health care; and education.

To make planning more effective, the Planning Commission was established to formulate the Third Development Plan (1971-76), and the Druk Gyalpo served as its chairman until 1991. Under the third plan, public works, still primarily roads, continued to take a significant share of the Nu475.2 million development budget (17.8 percent) but had decreased from its 58.7 percent share in the first plan and its 34.9 percent share in the second plan. Education gradually increased (from 8.8 to 18.9 percent) in the first three plans. The second and third plans were paid for primarily by India, although about 3 percent of total funding became available through the UN, starting with the third plan. Despite amounts budgeted for planned development, there were additional capital expenditures outside the formal development plan, including public works (mostly road construction) and hydroelectric plants.

One of the major achievements of the Fourth Development Plan (1976-81) was the establishment of district (or dzongkhag) planning committees to stimulate greater local involvement, awareness of government development policies, and local development proposals. The committees, however, had no decision-making powers. Nevertheless, agricultural and animal husbandry came to the fore, taking 29 percent of the Nu1.106 billion allocated for the fourth plan. It was during the fourth plan that Bhutan made its first effort to establish the value of the GDP, which in 1977 amounted to Nu1.0 billion. In that year, GDP was distributed among agricultural and related activities, 63.2 percent; services, 13.1 percent; government administration, 10.4 percent; rental income, 8.1 percent; and manufacturing and mining, 5.2 percent. Per capita GDP was estimated at US$105.

The Fifth Development Plan (1981-87) sought the expansion of farmland to increase the production of staple crops, such as rice, corn, wheat, barley, buckwheat, and millet. The plan also emphasized improvements in livestock, soil fertility, plant protection, and farm mechanization. Its total planned allocation was Nu4.3 billion, but the actual outlay came to Nu4.7 billion. Financing the planning process grew increasingly complex, as indicated by the fifth plan's multilateral funding sources. However, domestic revenue sources for development planning had increased significantly, and the fifth plan included development projects that would further decrease dependence on external assistance. Such concepts as self-reliance in each district, decentralization of the development administration, greater public input in decision making, better control of maintenance expenditures, and more efficient and effective use of internal resources became increasingly important.

The Sixth Development Plan (1987-92) focused on industry, mining, trade, and commerce (13.3 percent) and power generation projects (13.1 percent), with education's allocation decreasing slightly to 8.1 percent from 11.2 percent during the fifth plan. At Nu9.5 billion, the sixth plan was considerably more expensive than its predecessor. It included programs that, if successfully implemented, would mean far-reaching reforms. The goals included strengthening government administration, promoting the national identity, mobilizing internal resources, enhancing rural incomes, improving rural housing and resettlement, consolidating and improving services, developing human resources, promoting public involvement in development plans and strategies, and promoting national self-reliance. Perhaps the key ingredient, self-reliance, promised to provide for more popular participation in the development process and to result in improved rural conditions and services as well as better government administration and humanresource development. With greater self-reliance, it was hoped that Bhutan would begin exploiting markets in neighboring countries with manufacturing, mining, and hydroelectric projects in the 1990s. Faced with rising costs, Bhutan postponed some projects requiring large inputs of capital until the Seventh Development Plan (1992- 96).

No major changes were expected in overall sectoral development in the seventh plan. Preliminary planning indicated emphasis on "consolidation and rehabilitation" of developments achieved under previous plans, more attention to environmental concerns, and enhancement of women's role in economic and social development.

From their inception, the development plans have been aimed at energizing the rest of the economy and promoting economic selfreliance . Windfall revenues from export receipts normally were used to reduce foreign debt and dependence on foreign aid. Planners also sought to involve the immediate beneficiaries of economic development. Representatives in the National Assembly and district officials were encouraged to become involved in projects, such as roads and bridges, schools, health care facilities, and irrigation works, in their district. Some costs for the projects were borne through self-help, such as households providing labor. Government planners also have endeavored to increase rural income through initiatives in the farming sector, such as stock-breeding programs, promotion of cash crops, and advanced agro-technology. Central government efforts also were aimed at increasing the quality of life by providing electrification, modern water and sanitation systems, better cooking equipment, and insulation for houses.

Bhutan - THE ECONOMY - Budgets

Key to the budgetary process since 1949 has been the annual subsidy given to Bhutan by the Indian government. In the late 1980s, the subsidy stood at 40 percent of total revenue, but this proportion was significantly less than the nearly 100 percent New Delhi once provided. The rest was funded by international aid organizations and a few domestic sources.

During most of the 1980s, the budget ran a deficit. Only in 1984, out of the four years between 1983 and 1986, did government revenues exceed expenditures, and revenues depended heavily on foreign aid. In other years, revenue shortfalls reached as much as Nu207 million (in 1985). In FY 1989, Bhutan's revenues of nearly Nu1.7 billion (US$99 million) were exceeded by expenditures of nearly Nu2.2 billion (US$128 million, of which US$65 million were for capital expenditures).

Bhutan - Monetary System

The monetary system in the early 1990s was based on the decimal-system ngultrum, which was established as the nation's currency and first used to keep financial accounts in 1974. Prior to 1957, a nondecimal system using both Indian and Bhutanese rupees was employed, and the decimal-based rupee was the standard currency between 1957 and 1974. Since at least the eighteenth century, Bhutan had had its own coinage system, and the Indian rupee also freely circulated as a medium of exchange. Until the 1960s, however, most financial transactions were carried out using barter arrangements. Although Indian rupee notes were used extensively, in 1971 the government had to withdraw some 350,000 tikchung (a Bhutanese coin worth half a rupee) from circulation because of the inconvenience of using them in large financial transactions. In 1991 the Indian rupee continued to be legal tender in Bhutan, and the ngultrum was at par with it. The Reserve Bank of India determined the exchange rate between the ngultrum and other foreign currencies. External transactions were handled by Bhutan's Ministry of Finance, which provided foreign exchange for most currency and capital transactions. The ministry also had approval authority over all capital transactions. Starting in 1985, the ministry delegated most foreign-exchange transactions to the Royal Monetary Authority.

Bhutan - Banking and Credit

The Royal Monetary Authority, since its establishment in 1982, has served as the central bank of Bhutan and maintained its headquarters in Thimphu. The authority was responsible for issuing currency, implementing monetary policy, coordinating financial institution activities, and holding the government's foreignexchange earnings. Among its initial duties was the administration of financial assistance to rural development, a duty later delegated to the Bhutan Development Finance Corporation when it was founded in 1988.

The Bank of Bhutan, the nation's commercial bank, was established in 1968 as a joint venture with the Chartered Bank of India, which owned 25 percent of the bank. In 1970 the State Bank of India took over the Bhutanese assets controlled by the Chartered Bank of India. Since its establishment, the Bank of Bhutan's board of directors, has been composed of key officials from the economic ministries and departments and two officials from the Indian banks. The bank was restructured in 1971. To ensure that it would have sufficient funds at its disposal, government departments were required to deposit all of their accounts with the government-run bank until 1982, when the Royal Monetary Authority was established. Since 1982 the Bank of Bhutan has served as the retail banking agent for the Royal Monetary Authority. The bank's principal office was in Phuntsholing; in 1991 there were twenty-six branch offices throughout the country. The Bank of Bhutan was able to give relatively large loans for capital programs, such as irrigation projects in the south-central region. Among its retail banking activities was the issuance of rupee-denomination travelers' cheques; this activity was started in 1974.

The Bhutan Development Finance Corporation, upon its establishment in 1988, took over the administration of rural financial assistance from the Royal Monetary Authority. Loans were granted for improving farmlands, acquiring livestock, and meeting short-term, seasonal requirements. At least some of the funding for the corporation came from the Asian Development Bank, including an initial US$2.5 million loan in 1988 for the expansion of small- and medium-sized, private-sector industrial development. By 1991 the corporation had been privatized.

Nonbank financial institutions also were set up as part of the economic modernization process. Insurance was offered by the Royal Insurance Corporation of Bhutan, which was established in 1975 with its headquarters in Phuntsholing. Starting in 1980, individuals could invest their savings in the newly established Unit Trust of Bhutan. The trust, with its main office in Phuntsholing, channeled invested funds, for which it issued shares called units, into industrial and commercial development. The Government Employees' Provident Fund, established in 1986; the Bhutan Development Finance Corporation; and other nonbank institutions were small and constrained by the rudimentary use of money in the economy.

Bhutan - Government-Owned Corporations

The government owned several trading corporations. The Food Corporation of Bhutan in Phuntsholing was involved in retailing, marketing, storage, importing and exporting agricultural products, regulating agricultural commerce and processing, and managing rural finance through loans from the Bank of Bhutan and the Royal Insurance Corporation. The National Commission for Trade and Industry in Thimphu provided quality control for proposed industrial projects, and the State Trading Corporation of Bhutan in Phuntsholing was the government's import and export management agency.

Bhutan - Foreign Economic Relations

Aid

Whereas Bhutan was once nearly totally dependent on India not only for its development assistance but also for its entire government revenue, it increasingly turned to various international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Colombo Plan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, for loans. Since the 1960s, Bhutan, through the Colombo Plan, has received aid from several countries in the form of farm machinery, motor vehicles, school books and laboratory equipment, livestock, seeds, dairy equipment, medicine, and refrigeration and irrigation systems. Participating countries included Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Austria, Switzerland, West Germany, and Canada. The World Bank granted a US$9 million interest-free loan to help with the development of a calcium carbide plant near Phuntsholing. As of 1990, total Asian Development Bank loans to Bhutan since the latter joined in 1982 amounted to US$30 million. In 1987 and 1988 alone, the bank approved loans totalling more than US$6.9 million to cover the modernization of industrial estates and to provide foreign currency for the Bhutan Development Finance Corporation, which in turn provided credit for agricultural projects and private-sector businesses. Asian Development Bank loans to Bhutan for 1990-93 were projected at US$35 million, plus a grant of more than US$4.85 million; the aid was for technical assistance.

The Sixth Development Plan saw increased involvement of aid both through UN auspices and the non-profit Swiss organization Helvetas (Swiss Association for Technical Assistance). Helvetas began providing funding to Bhutan in 1975 through contributions from association members and the Swiss government. In 1990, for example, Helvetas contributed Nu32.8 million (69 percent of total foreign aid) to establish the Natural Resources Training Institute, a two-year technical training school. The Japanese government gave Nu74 million in grants for agricultural development and audio training equipment in 1990-91.

In 1989 the World Food Programme approved a two-year US$700,000 project to establish food reserves that would help Bhutan handle local emergencies and interruptions of food supplies. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sponsored a program to assist Bhutan in achieving food self-sufficiency by 1992.

Another form of aid received by Bhutan was through international and foreign volunteer programs. A UN volunteer program initiated in 1980 brought foreign specialists in to assist and advise in the areas of education, health, engineering, animal husbandry, agriculture, and urban planning. By 1990 Japan, New Zealand, Britain, and Canada also were operating volunteer programs in Bhutan.

In addition to the substantial aid it received, Bhutan was itself an aid giver. For example, in 1987 Bhutan provided disaster relief aid to the Maldives (Nu1 million), Bangladesh (Nu0.5 million), and India (Nu5 million).

Bhutan - Trade

Traditionally, most foreign trade was with Tibet. By 1960, however, following the closing of the Bhutan-China border and the development of closer ties with India, formal trade with India replaced that with Tibet. Although banned by the Bhutan government by 1961, barter trade with Tibet has persisted. Since 1960 nearly all of Bhutan's exports (93 percent in 1989) and the majority of its imports (67 percent in 1989) have been with India. Payments for imports in the 1980s were usually made with Indian rupees. There were no import duties on Indian imports, but customs fees had to be paid on imports from other nations.

Both imports and exports increased steadily during the 1980s, from a total of Nu805.9 million in 1983 to more than Nu2.9 billion in 1990. The balance of trade also improved as the decade progressed. In 1983, for example, only 20 percent of trade was in exported goods, whereas 80 percent was imports; this negative trade balance improved markedly by 1990, however, when exports accounted for 40.2 percent and imports for 59.8 percent of foreign trade. Although there was little trade with the United States, in recognition of its economic status Bhutan was granted an exemption in 1985 from the competitive trade requirements provided by the United States' Generalized System of Preferences.

Exports, which reached almost Nu1.2 billion in 1990, consisted primarily of cement, talc, fruit (mostly oranges) and fruit products, alcoholic beverages, resin, cardamom, lumber products, potatoes, and handicrafts. Although most trade was with India, such specialties as timber, cardamom, and liquor were exported to Bangladesh, Singapore, and countries in the Middle East and Western Europe. The opening of thirteen border crossings with customs facilities for Bhutan's exports and imports also eased trade with Nepal and Bangladesh. An increasingly important export to India was surplus power from Bhutan's Chhukha Hydel Project, which earned Bhutan Nu22.3 million in FY 1988; that figure increased to nearly Nu399 million only two years later.

Imports amounted to nearly Nu1.8 billion in 1990. They consisted of raw materials; textiles; cereals; fuel; investment goods, including motor vehicles; and other consumer goods, primarily from India.

Bhutan - Agriculture

Bhutan was traditionally self-sufficient in food production. Most of Bhutan's citizens and a significant amount of its GDP were devoted to the agricultural sector in the late 1980s. About 87 percent of the population was involved in agriculture, and a projected 30.5 percent of GDP was expected to be produced through farming, animal husbandry, and fishing in 1991. Most agriculture was carried out with traditional methods and at the subsistence level. Faced with constraints of a shortage of cultivable and pasture land, lack of technical knowledge, logistical difficulties, and a shortage of skilled labor and managerial expertise, agricultural development was difficult. Grain production had not met demand, and imports were rising in the late 1980s. Shortages of feed contributed to low livestock productivity. Cash crops, such as oranges, apples, and cardamom, were significant, but they produced too little income to influence the overall economy. Government interest in agriculture was ensured during the First Development Plan (1961-66), with the establishment of agriculture and animal husbandry departments to oversee model farms, research, and crop and herd improvement, a trend which continued through subsequent development plans.

Bhutan - Farming

Crop farming was projected to produce 20.3 percent of GDP in 1991. Only about 15 percent of Bhutan's extremely mountainous land was arable, and less than 6 percent was under permanent cultivation. Because rainfall and temperatures changed radically from one valley to the next, there were significant variations in the kinds of crops that were raised in neighboring communities. Most farms were small, with 90 percent of nearly 65,000 landholders having less than five hectares. Nearly 50 percent of those farms used terraced cultivation; another 18 percent were in valleys. Although banned by the government, tsheri cultivation accounted for 32 percent of the agricultural land use and about 3 percent of the total land in the early to mid-1980s.

The major cereal crops in the 1980s were corn, rice, wheat and barley, buckwheat, and millet. Other major annual crops were potatoes, chilies, vegetables, soya beans, pulses, and mustard. Horticultural crops included oranges, apples, and cardamom. Corn and rice were by far the most prevalent crops, producing 81,000 tons and 80,000 tons, respectively, in 1988. In the same year, a total of 51,000 tons of oranges, 50,000 tons of potatoes, 16,000 tons of wheat, 7,000 tons of millet, 4,000 tons of barley, and 4,000 tons of apples were produced. Total cereal production, however, only increased from 154,000 tons in 1979 to 205,000 tons in 1987.

Despite increases in paddy production, with 26,000 hectares under cultivation in 1989, rice was imported. Bhutan had once been an exporter of rice to Tibet, but its growing urban population plus the nonfarm immigrant and migrant population put a severe constraint on previous self-sufficiency in rice production. With a total cereal demand of 200,000 tons by 1987, some 20,000 tons of rice and 12,000 tons of wheat were being imported from India annually. Nonfood crops, such as jute, which was produced by fewer than 2 percent of Bhutan's farmers, also were grown. A small amount of tobacco was produced, with a reported crop of 100 tons in 1987, the same amount produced annually for nearly a decade.

Bhutan - Forestry

One of Bhutan's significant natural resources in the late twentieth century was its rich forests and natural vegetation. Bhutan's location in the eastern Himalayas, with its subtropical plains and alpine terrain, gives it more rainfall than its neighbors to the west, a factor greatly facilitating forest growth. The forests contain numerous deciduous and evergreen species, ranging from tropical hardwoods to predominantly oak and pine forests.

The small population and the general absence of overdevelopment in Bhutan contributed to forest preservation. Because of the terrain, the more accessible forests had been overcut whereas remote forests remained largely in their natural state. A progressive government-sponsored forestry conservation policy strove to balance revenue needs with ecological considerations, water management, and soil preservation. Success in managing its forest resources had long been critical to the local environment and economy and also affected downstream floodplains in India and Bangladesh.

The Department of Forestry was established in 1952 to oversee conservation and exploitation of the country's significant forestry resources. After an initial decade of development, forestryresource exploitation increased with the start of the First Development Plan in 1961. Uncontrolled felling of trees in the 1970s by private companies in logging areas and by rural populations along roads and in main valleys stripped hillsides and caused serious erosion. Tsheri cultivation, forest fires, and overgrazing also contributed to the degradation of the forestry resource.

In 1971 the Forestry School was established at Kalikhola in southern Bhutan. It was moved to Taba in the northern Thimphu Valley in 1977. The school provided basic instruction in forestry and forest management and trained foresters and Forest Guards.

In 1981 some 3.3 million hectares, or between 70 and 74 percent of the land, were forested, but in 1991 foreign estimates indicated a shrinking forest of only 60 to 64 percent of the land. Even more conservative estimates indicated that closer to 50 percent of Bhutan's territory still was forested in the late 1980s, and about 15 percent of GDP was produced through the nation's important forest industry.

According to UN statistics, in the decade between 1978 and 1987 Bhutan harvested an average of nearly 3.2 million cubic meters of roundwood and produced 5,000 cubic meters of sawn wood per year. Of this total, nearly 80 percent was for commercial use (paper pulp, veneers, plywood, particle board, and firewood), and the remainder was for housing construction and public works.

Before hydroelectric power and other modern energy sources were available, wood was the almost exclusive source of fuel for heating, cooking, and lighting. The provision of electricity, as well as better regulation of fuelwood collectors and more aggressive reforestation projects, was seen in the 1980s as a key factor in forest conservation. Because affordable electricity was not available throughout the country, the government established fuelwood plantations near villages to accommodate daily needs and to promote forest conservation.

Recognizing the potential value of its forestry resource, Bhutan became increasingly conscientious about forestry management in the 1970s. Starting in 1977, the World Wildlife Fund began supporting Bhutan's forest management through organizing forest ranger training programs, supplying funds for forest boundary demarcation, building guard posts, and constructing a patrol road for what was later to be designated the Royal Manas National Park. Bhutan rejected World Bank aid to build a major dam on the Manas Chhu in 1986 that would have flooded this major conservation area on the southern Bhutan-India border. By 1989 Bhutan had developed nine other forest and wildlife preserves, also mostly along the southern border with India.

In the face of increasing denuded hillsides, private logging was banned, and strict standards for public-sector logging operations were established in 1979. Farmers were warned against burning off forests to clear land for tsheri cultivation, and Forest Guards were trained in increasing numbers to help preserve the valuable resources. Surveying, demarcation, conservation, and management plans for harvesting forest products were part of the Fifth Development Plan's focus on forestry preservation. Wildlife sanctuaries also were developed. One of the immediate results of forestry sector regulation, however, was a sharp decrease in revenues since the late 1970s. In 1991 the government, with assistance from UNDP and the World Wildlife Fund, established a trust fund for environmental conservation. Initially in the amount of US$20 million, the UNDP-administered fund was aimed at producing up to US$1 million per year for training in forestry and ecology, surveying forests, reviewing and implementing management plans for protected areas, and supporting government environmental offices, public awareness programs, and integrated conservation and development programs.

Bhutan - Industry, Mining, Energy, and Commerce

Only 1 percent or less of the work force was involved in industry and construction in the late 1980s, and industrial production and construction represented only 14.2 percent of GDP projected for 1991. Handicrafts, cement, food processing, wood milling, and distilling were the major industries. In the late 1980s, there about 400 small-scale cottage and industrial units. There also were two cement plants under the Penden Cement Authority; a joint venture (the government-sponsored Tashi Commercial Corporation in conjunction with the World Bank, Norway, and Kuwait), a Bhutan Carbide and Chemicals calcium carbide plant (near Phuntsholing), and factories for processing fruit, for manufacturing paper pulp, wood veneers, and particle board (Gedu Wood Manufacturing Corporation and Bhutan Board Products), and for producing resin and turpentine. Additionally, there were three distilleries and a salt iodization plant. Other small industrial enterprises manufactured such consumer goods as soap, confectionaries, and furniture. Most of the larger industries, established since Bhutan's economic modernization began in the 1960s, were themselves modern and used a considerable amount of labor-saving technology. The largest industries employed no more than sixty or seventy workers. Many of the newly developing industries began making public stock offerings in the late 1980s.

The mining and quarrying industry was projected to produce 1.5 percent of GDP in 1991. Limestone--used in cement production--and clay were the major minerals being extracted in the mid-1980s. Mineral production also has included marble, dolomite, graphite, and slate. In addition, deposits of copper, gypsum, lead, tin, tungsten, zinc, coal, beryl, mica, pyrites, tufa, and talc have been found, primarily through an exploration program operated initially by the Geological Survey of India and, starting in 1982, in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Bhutan. Although not being exploited as much as other minerals, Bhutan's slate deposits have been described by experts as some of the best in the world. Bhutan's high-quality limestone deposits and energy resources were expected to take on increasing importance in the 1990s because of the contributions they could make to the ferro-silicon industry, which the government hoped to invest in through Bhutan Carbide and Chemicals.

Electricity and gas production was expected by the government to account for 10.7 percent of GDP in 1991. Hydroelectric power has long been a very important aspect of Bhutan's economic development as a low-cost energy source supporting more capital-intensive industries, such as forestry, mining, and cement and calcium carbide production. Bhutan's steep mountains, deep gorges, and fast-flowing rivers create abundant hydroelectric potential, which the government began to develop in the early 1960s with India's assistance. In 1981 Bhutan generated 22 million kilowatt-hours of energy from hydroelectric sources. A major plant in southwest Bhutan--the 18,000-kilowatt Jaldhaka hydroelectric plant--furnished electricity locally and exported the balance to India's West Bengal. The major expansion of hydroelectric facilities started in 1975 on the Wang Chhu between Thimphu and Phuntsholing. Known as the Chhukha Hydel Project, it helped boost the nation's fledgling industrial development. The 336-megawatt Chhukha plant came on line in 1986 and was synchronized with the Indian grid that same year, and additional capacity became available in 1988. The Nu2.44 billion Chhukha project was 60 percent paid for by India and budgeted outside the normal development plan process. It was planned that Bhutan would sell at low cost all power to West Bengal that it did not consume itself. At the same cost, Bhutan also hoped to re-import some of that power through the Indian power grid into southern districts. The Chhukha project was important not only because it supplied electric power to western and southern districts but also because it provided a major source of income for the government. The project's gross annual income was projected at Nu380 million in 1989. In 1989 nearly 95 percent of Bhutan's government-installed power generation--a total of 355 megawatts-- was supplied by Chhukha, and a total of some 20 principal towns and 170 villages had been electrified. By 1990 Thimphu's commercial district had an underground cable system for its power supply.

Besides the Chhukha project, government installations included seven minihydroelectric plants, each averaging 7,350 kilowatts capacity; twelve microhydroelectric plants, each averaging 340 kilowatts capacity; and eight diesel-powered generation stations, each averaging 6,000 kilowatts capacity. Because domestic consumption was low (just over 16 megawatts, more than 80 percent of which was consumed by industry), ample power could be exported to India. The project not only cut domestic electricity costs in half, but also revenues from electricity sold to India were nearly equal to the total government revenue from all domestic sources. Smaller enterprises, such as the 1.5-megawatt Gyetsha Mini-Hydel, which was inaugurated in 1989, brought badly needed power to Bumthang and was expected to provide additional power to neighboring districts by 1993. Another major plant, a proposed 60- megawatt plant at Kurichu in eastern Bhutan, was included in the Sixth Development Plan (1987-92).

Other sources of energy included biogas, which was used in some districts for lighting and cooking and was primarily generated from cow dung. Solar energy was used for a variety of purposes, including heating dwellings and greenhouses and lighting hospitals. Despite the potential solar energy that might be produced, Bhutan's mountainous terrain prevents maximum use. The same mountains are funnels for powerful winds, however, providing another viable renewable energy source. High-technology windmills were installed in Wangdiphodrang in 1987 to produce electricity to run irrigation pumps.

Still another source of fuel in the 1980s was wood. Although Bhutanese had greater access to electric power than they had had previously, traditional methods of cooking and heating required readily available fuel. In the mid-1980s, Bhutan produced a coal equivalent of 982,000 tons of fuelwood per year to meet domestic needs. Coal itself was available in reserve in some 1.3 million tons, but recovery was difficult and the quality was poor.

Commercial services were projected to generate 7.4 percent of GDP in 1991. Much of Bhutan's commerce revolved around touristoriented hotels and restaurants, and wholesale and retail trade made up the balance. The Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry served as a formal conduit between government and private-sector businesses. The chamber was established with government sanction and leadership in 1980, but it made a slow start. In 1984 the first meeting was held between chamber members and heads of government departments, and the Trade Information Centre was established as a unit of the Department of Trade and Commerce to provide trade and commercial information to both the public and private sectors. Despite these initiatives, the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry had to be reorganized in 1987; the intent was that the chamber would play a "vital role" in coordinating activities in the government and private sectors and promoting socioeconomic development. The Druk Gyalpo himself criticized the chamber in 1988 for its "extremely poor and disappointing performance" and urged it to take on a greater role in national development and to help build a strong and dynamic economy. Despite these initiatives, the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry had only forty members in 1989.

Bhutan - Labor Force

"The economy of Bhutan is characterized by the predominance of people engaged in self-employment," reported the government's Planning Commission in 1989, "particularly those working their own land." Statistics available for the mid-1980s revealed that 87 percent of the working-age population was involved in agricultural work, another 3.4 percent in government services, 0.9 percent in business, 2 percent in "other" occupations, and 6.5 percent--mostly teenagers and young adults--that had no stated occupation. In the late 1980s, there was a serious shortage of indigenous nonagricultural labor and, in the government's view, an overabundance of foreign laborers. To carry out the construction of roads, hydropower plants, and other infrastructure development so important to modernization, the government, however, has had to depend upon foreign laborers. Low wages for laborers, ties to agricultural work, and a dispersed population led to the influx of migrant labor, estimated to have reached 100,000 Nepalese laborers from India in 1988.

Foreign laborers in Bhutan increased during the 1980s, compelling the government to identify and expel the growing number of those without work permits. In a government crackdown starting in 1986, some 1,000 illegal foreigners were expelled. Most were Nepalese; Bangladeshis and Indians made up the balance. By 1988 the crackdown had reduced the number of foreign workers and provided opportunities for some 4,000 unemployed Bhutanese to join the work force.

Trade union activity was not legalized until 1991. There was no collective bargaining, and labor-related issues were nil in a society in which less than 1 percent of the population was involved in industrial work. Bhutan was not a member of the International Labour Organisation.

Bhutan - Tourism

Tourism has been an important industry and the country's largest foreign-exchange earner since its inception in 1974. Most tourists visit cultural sites--particularly dzong and temples--and observe seasonal festivals featuring masked dances and archery contests (archery is the national sport of Bhutan) or go on trekking expeditions on foot or mounted on horses or yaks. Limited to land travelers from India until Druk-Air's international service became operational in 1983, tourism was closely controlled by the state-run tourism agency, the Bhutan Tourism Corporation. Tourism reaped increasing foreign exchange in its first decade, ranging from US$300,000 from 390 visitors in 1976 to US$1.4 million from 1,325 visitors in 1982. By 1984 some 2,000 tourists visited Bhutan annually. By 1987 revenues had risen to more than US$2 million earned from the 2,524 tourists who visited the country that year. The government then decided to limit the number of tourists to around 2,000 a year and restricted access seasonally and to certain historical, cultural, and scenic sites. These restrictions resulted in decreases to 2,199 tourists and to revenues of US$1.9 million in 1988. In 1991, however, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism announced plans to gradually double the number of entry visas granted and to reduce the charges levied on tour operators. The changes provided for the privatization of the Bhutan Tourism Corporation. In addition, whereas only group tours were allowed before 1991, after that date individual tourists were franted visas for prearranged tours. Visited from 1987 to 1990 by only a few travelers, many of Bhutan's religious sites were becoming more accessible to tourists in 1991. However, a substantial per person tariff, ranging from US$80 to US$200 per day depending on the time of year and type of package visit, was kept and helped boost revenues.

Opened to increasing tourism, Bhutan planned to turn over its government-run hotels to private management to improve its lodging accommodations. The largest number of tourists from a single nation, nearly 600 in 1988, came from the United States, and tourists from West Germany and Japan were close behind in numbers.

Bhutan - GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

The hereditary monarchy of Bhutan was established in 1907 after 300 years of dual theocratic-civil government. The Druk Gyalpo--the king--is both head of state and head of government. In the process of coming to power, the first Druk Gyalpo, Ugyen Wangchuck, who reigned from 1907 to 1926, unified the nation, established friendly relations with Britain, and set his dynasty's political agenda. As of 1991, there had been three other hereditary monarchs: Jigme Wangchuck (1926-52), Jigme Dorji Wangchuck (1952-72), and Jigme Singye Wangchuck (since 1972). December 17, the anniversary of the day Ugyen Wangchuck became the first hereditary monarch in 1907, is Bhutan's National Day.

Established as an absolute monarchy in 1907, Bhutan first moved toward a constitutional monarchy in 1953 with the foundation of its National Assembly. In 1963 the monarch's title was changed from "His Highness" to "His Majesty the Druk Gyalpo" in a move to assert a distinct Bhutanese identity. The Druk Gyalpo retained veto power over actions of the National Assembly until 1969 when the National Assembly, following his 1968 decree, became the kingdom's sovereign institution. After 1969, the National Assembly could remove the Druk Gyalpo the through a no-confidence vote, and he no longer had veto power. To secure the Wangchuck Dynasty, however, should the Druk Gyalpo be dethroned through a no-confidence vote, the Wangchuck family member next in line of succession would automatically take the throne. Also beginning in 1969, at the insistence of the Druk Gyalpo a "democratic monarchy" was to be determined through triennial votes of confidence in the Druk Gyalpo's rule.

In 1972 Jigme Singye Wangchuck succeeded his father, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, who had involved the young prince in the work of government and had appointed him crown prince and ponlop of Tongsa only a few months before dying. After his accession to the throne in 1972, the new Druk Gyalpo was assisted by his uncle, Dasho (Prince) Namgyal Wangchuck, and his elder sisters, Ashi Sonam Chhoden Wangchuck and Ashi Dechen Wangmo Wangchuck, who served in the ministries of finance and development as the Druk Gyalpo's representatives. (Ashi Sonam Chhoden Wangchuck later became minister of finance.) Jigme Singye Wangchuck was formally enthroned in June 1974.

In 1979 Jigme Singye Wangchuck privately married four sisters who were descendants of two of the shabdrung, the rulers of the old dual system of government. In 1988, in order to legitimize the eventual succession to the throne for his oldest son, Dasho Jigme Gesar Namgyal Wangchuck, the Druk Gyalpo and his four sisterqueens were married again in a public ceremony in Punakha. At the time of the public wedding, it was reported that the Druk Gyalpo lived in a small, simply furnished house, across from the Tashichhodzong (Fortress of the Glorious Religion), the year-round central government complex in Thimphu. His four queens each maintained separate residences. The Druk Gyalpo's mother, the Dowager Queen Pemadechen (Ashi Kesang Dorji), continued to reside in the royal palace at Dechenchholing, living as a Buddhist nun. The Tashichhodzong, a stone-and-timber structure, has thick whitewashed walls, seven towers covered with red roofs, and a series of interior courtyards. The entire structure is richly ornamented. The current Tashichhodzong complex, which has more than 100 rooms, was completed in 1969 after seven years of construction on the site of an older dzong of the same name. Originally built in the twelfth century, the Tashichhodzong had been rebuilt in the eighteenth century and required the 1962-69 reconstruction because of damage over the centuries from fires and earthquakes. It also was the residence of the spiritual leader of Bhutan, the Je Khenpo, during the summer.

After coming to the throne in 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck became increasingly interested in economic development and traveled extensively throughout the country. He also has traveled a great deal outside of Bhutan, attending international meetings and personally representing his country in New Delhi on frequent occasions. A young, vigorous head of state unafraid to break from the bureaucracy and constraints of his office--including his trips to the countryside where the Druk Gyalpo could be seen "serving the people"--Jigme Singye Wangchuck presented the monarchy as progressive and symbolic of national unity.

Bhutan does not have a written constitution or organic laws. The 1907 document submitted by the monastic and government leaders was an agreement only to establish an absolute hereditary monarchy. Bhutan's only legal or constitutional basis is the 1953 royal decree for the Constitution of the National Assembly. The 1953 constitution set forth eighteen succinct "rules" for the procedures of the National Assembly and the conduct of its members. The May 1968 revision reiterated and elucidated some of the eighteen rules but revised others. Beginning in 1969, the powers of the speaker of the National Assembly were strengthened, and the Druk Gyalpo's veto power was eliminated.

The unicameral National Assembly--the Tshogdu--comprises the legislative branch of government. The National Assembly has the power to enact civil, criminal, and property laws; to appoint and remove ministers; to debate policy issues as a means of providing input to government decision making; and to control the auditor general, who has approval authority over government expenditures.

Since its establishment in 1953, the National Assembly has varied in size from 140 to 200 members. According to Rule 7 of the Constitution of the National Assembly, the legislature sets its size every five years. The National Assembly has three categories of members: representatives of the people elected by indirect vote every three years and comprising between half and two-thirds of the National Assembly membership; monastic representatives, also appointed for three-year terms and constituting about one-third of the membership; and government officials nominated by the Druk Gyalpo. The first woman member of the National Assembly was seated in 1979.

In 1989 there were 150 members in the National Assembly, 100 of whom were representatives of the general public. Under 1981 rules, qualified citizens over twenty-five years of age can be nominated at general public meetings by village heads and adult representatives of each household (gung) and "joint family." Once nominations are certified by village heads and local government officials, they are forwarded to the speaker of the National Assembly for "final declaration of the nominee as a member of the National Assembly." The other fifty members are made up of monastic representatives nominated by the Central Monastic Body in Thimphu (or Punakha in the winter) and eight district monastic bodies, members of the Council of Ministers (Lhengye Shungtsong), members of the Royal Advisory Council (Lodoi Tsokde), secretaries of various government departments, district heads, others nominated by the government, and a representative nominated by the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The National Assembly meets at least once and sometimes twice a year--in May and June and again in October and November; each session lasts about four weeks. Emergency sessions can also be called by the Druk Gyalpo.

The National Assembly elects a speaker from among its members and is authorized to enact laws, advise the government on constitutional and political matters, and hold debates on important issues. Executive-branch organizations are responsible to the National Assembly. Powers of the National Assembly include directly questioning government officials and forcing ministers to resign if there is a two-thirds no-confidence vote.

National Assembly votes are secret in principle, but in practice decisions are almost always made by reaching a public consensus. The National Assembly, housed in the Tashichhodzong, provides a forum for presenting grievances and redressing administrative problems. The Druk Gyalpo cannot formally veto bills that the National Assembly passes, but he can refer them back for reconsideration. Although criticism of the Druk Gyalpo was not permitted in the public media, it was allowed and took place in National Assembly debates in the 1980s.

At the apex of the executive branch is the Druk Gyalpo, who is both head of state and head of the government. Responsible to him are two advisory and executive organizations: the Royal Advisory Council and the Council of Ministers. There also is the Royal Secretariat, which serves as an intermediary between the Druk Gyalpo and the Council of Ministers.

The Royal Advisory Council was mentioned in the 1953 constitution of the National Assembly (members of the council are concurrently members of the National Assembly), but it took on greater importance in 1965 when the Druk Gyalpo installed representatives elected by the monastic bodies and the National Assembly. In 1989 the council's membership included a representative of the government, two representatives of the monasteries, six regional representatives, and a chairperson, all for five-year terms. The chairperson and the government representative are appointed by the Druk Gyalpo; the two monks represent the central and district monastic bodies. Monk representatives, according to 1979 regulations for council membership, are required to be literate and "highly knowledgeable about the Drukpa Kargyupa religion." Monk nominees are subject to the approval of the speaker of the National Assembly. The regional representatives are elected by the National Assembly from a list endorsed by village assemblies. Representing the southeastern, southwestern, western, eastern, central, and the Thimphu-Paro-Ha regions, they are required to be literate, knowledgeable about Bhutanese traditional culture and customs with "some knowledge of modern customs and etiquette," "well-behaved and able to speak well," "able to shoulder responsibility, and far-sighted." As the principal consulting body to the Druk Gyalpo, the Royal Advisory Council is a key state organization and interacts most directly with the National Assembly.

Chaired by the Druk Gyalpo, the Council of Ministers was established in 1968 with the approval of the National Assembly. In 1991 it comprised seven ministers and the Druk Gyalpo's representative in each ministry (agriculture; communications; finance; foreign affairs; home affairs; social services; and trade, industry, and tourism). The largest ministry by far was the Ministry of Social Services, which ran the nation's education and health systems and included nearly 26 percent of all civil service employees. Two of the ministers in 1990--the minister of finance (Ashi Sonam Chhoden Wangchuck) and the minister of home affairs (Dasho Namgyal Wangchuck)--were members of the royal family.

Until the 1960s, the Royal Secretariat played a major role in government affairs. The key officials of the Royal Secretariat were the Druk Gyalpo's representative in the Royal Bhutan Army, the royal chief secretary, and the royal finance secretary. After the establishment of the Council of Ministers and subsequent shift of administrative and financial matters out of the palace, however, the Royal Secretariat's day-to-day role diminished in importance. Relations between the two bodies have been described as cordial, nevertheless, and ministers usually were selected from among Royal Secretariat personnel.

The highest-level court is the Supreme Court of Appeal--the Druk Gyalpo himself. The Supreme Court of Appeal hears appeals of decisions emanating from the High Court (Thrimkhang Gongma). In 1989 the High Court, which was established in 1968 to review lowercourt appeals, had six justices (including a chief justice), two of whom were elected by the National Assembly and four of whom were appointed by the Druk Gyalpo, for five-year terms. Each district has a magistrate's court (Dzongkhag Thrimkhang), headed by a magistrate or thrimpon, from which appeals can be made to the High Court. Minor civil disputes are adjudicated by a village head. All citizens have been granted the right to make informal petitions to the Druk Gyalpo, some of which have been made reportedly by citizens who flagged down the Druk Gyalpo's automobile as he toured the nation.

Bhutan's government employees have been under the authority of the Royal Civil Service Commission since its establishment in 1982. Part of the commission's mandate was to reform government service. With assistance from the UNDP, the commission held a conference in 1986 and assessed the civil service. Plans were laid out for providing in-country and foreign training, improving training effectiveness, and organizing a system by which personnel and training management would be linked within departments. Civil service rules adopted in 1989 established procedures for government employment and prohibited civil servants from being assigned to their home districts. Starting in 1989, candidates for government service were given only one opportunity to pass the civil service selection examination. Once they were selected, promotions were available through seventeen grades, from the lowest clerk to just below the deputy minister level.

In an efficiency drive in the late 1980s, the civil service was reduced through reorganization (the government was scaled down from thirty-three entities at and above the department level in 1985 to nineteen in 1989), reassignment to local government, retirements, and "voluntary resignations." In 1987 there were 13,182 civil service workers, but by 1989 the number of regular civil service employees had dropped to 11,099. An additional 3,855 persons worked under government contract or as "wage" employees throughout all parts of the government. More than 1,650 of them, however, were employed by government-run industries, and another 848 worked for the Chhukha Hydel Project. The total number of persons working under the civil service in July 1989 was 15,802. Later in 1989, however, all public and joint sector corporation employees were removed from the civil service rolls. Because of the national shortage of skilled workers, 3,137 members of the civil service in 1989 were reportedly "nonnationals," mostly ethnic Nepalese.

Local government in 1991 was organized into four zones, or dzongdey, and eighteen districts, or dzongkhag. Before the zonal administration system was established beginning in 1988 and 1989, the central government interacted directly with district governments. The new level of administration was established, according to official sources, to "bring administration closer to the people" and to "expedite projects without having to refer constantly to the ministry." In other words, the zonal setup was to provide a more efficient distribution of personnel and administrative and technical skills. The zonal boundaries were said to be dictated by geophysical and agroclimatic considerations. Zonal administrators responsible for coordinating central policies and plans acted as a liaisons between the central ministries and departments and district governments. Each zonal headquarters had nine divisions: administration, accounts, agriculture, animal husbandry, education, engineering, health, irrigation, and planning. The divisions were staffed with former civil service employees of the Ministry of Home Affairs and with technical personnel from the various sectors in the districts. Four zones were established in 1988 and 1989: Zone I, including four western districts, seated at Chhukha; Zone II, including four central districts, seated at Chirang; Zone III, including four central districts, seated at Geylegphug; and Zone IV, including five eastern districts, seated at Yonphula. Although Thimphu District and Thimphu Municipality were within the boundaries of Zone I, they remained outside the zonal system. By 1991, however, only Zone IV was fully functioning.

Eighteen districts comprised local government at the next echelon. Each district was headed by an appointed district officer, (dzongda, assisted by a deputy district officer, dzongda wongmo or dzongrab), who was responsible for development planning and civil administration. Formerly appointed by the Druk Gyalpo, district officers have been appointed by the Royal Civil Service Commission since 1982. Each district also had a district development committee comprising elected representatives and government officials.

Districts were further subdivided into subdistricts (dungkhag) and village blocks or groups (gewog). Ten of the eighteen districts had subdistricts, which were further subdivided into village groups. The subdistrict served as an intermediate level of administration between district government and some villages in larger districts. These same districts also had village groups that were immediately subordinate to the district government. In the remaining eight smaller districts, village groups were directly subordinate to the district government. In 1989 there were 191 village groups, 67 of which were organized into 18 subdistricts and 124 of which were immediately subordinate to the district government. Subdistrict officers (dungpa) led the subdistricts, and village heads (gup in the north, mandal in the south) were in charge of the village groups. Despite greater central government involvement with economic development programs since the 1960s, villages continued to have broad local autonomy. There were 4,500 villages and settlements in 1991.

Bhutan also has two municipal corporations--Thimphu and Phuntsholing--headed by mayors (thrompon). Thimphu's municipal corporation was set up in 1974 as an experiment in local self-government. Headed by a chairperson, the corporation concentrated on sanitation and beautification projects. A superintending engineer, an administrative officer, a plant protection officer, and a tax collector served under a chief executive officer. Ward councillors carried out local representation in the city's seven wards. In subsequent years, municipal boards were set up in the larger towns.

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.

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.

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.

Bhutan - The Media

In 1986 a weekly government news bulletin, Kuensel, was reformatted under the same title and also published weekly as Bhutan's only newspaper. Published by the Ministry of Communications' Department of Information, Kuensel had a total circulation in 1988 of 12,500 and was published in Dzongkha, Nepali, and English. Indian and other foreign newspapers also were available. Bhutan's low literacy rate, however, means that the majority of the population is not affected by the print media. Oral tradition is very strong, however, and radio broadcasts are widely listened to.

Bhutan Broadcasting Service, established in 1973 and given its current name in 1986, operated under the auspices of the Department of Information; it offered thirty hours a week of shortwave radio programming in Dzongkha, Sharchopkha, Nepali, and English. There was daily FM programming in Thimphu and shortwave reception throughout the rest of the nation in the early 1990s. In 1991 there were thirty-nine public radio stations for internal communications. There were also two stations used exclusively for communications with Bhutan's embassies in New Delhi and Dhaka and thirteen stations used by hydrologists and meteorologists. There were no television stations in Bhutan in the early 1990s, and a 1989 royal decree ended the viewing of foreign television by mandating the dismantling of antennas. The government wanted to prevent Indian and Bangladeshi broadcasts from reaching Bhutan's citizens.

Bhutan - Foreign Relations

Historically, Bhutan's foreign policies were greatly influenced by Tibet. Bhutan acknowledged Tibet's influence over it until 1860 and continued to pay a nominal tribute to Tibet until the mid1940s , although not necessarily on a friendly basis. Despite religious and cultural affinities, most of Bhutan's elite were refugees who had fled Tibet for religious reasons over the centuries. From 1865 to 1947, Britain guided Bhutan's foreign affairs. Thereafter Bhutan's foreign relations until the early 1970s were under the guidance of India, with which Bhutan had had official diplomatic relations from 1949. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, Bhutan became a member of the UN and its affiliated agencies; established formal diplomatic relations with fifteen other nations, primarily in South Asia and Scandinavia; actively participated in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement; spoke out against, among other subjects, nuclear proliferation and terrorism; and had a peripatetic head of state who traveled abroad widely. By the early 1990s, Bhutan's foreign policies were effectively autonomous.

A shortage of diplomatic officials limited Thimphu's missions in New York and Geneva (established in 1985) and meant that the nation could only staff embassies in New Delhi, Dhaka, and Kuwait. Bhutan had only one employee, a computer programmer, at the SAARC headquarters in Kathmandu in late 1990. Only India and Bangladesh had representatives in Thimphu in 1991; other nations generally gave dual accreditation to their ambassadors in New Delhi to enable them to represent their countries' interests in Thimphu. Similarly, because of the shortage of diplomatic personnel, the head of the Bhutanese UN mission in Geneva, for example, also served as ambassador to Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the European Economic Community (EEC), and several UN affiliates. The ambassador to Kuwait is accredited to Switzerland because of Swiss rules that disallow the UN representative in Geneva to also be accredited to Switzerland. Honorary consuls represented Bhutan in Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, Osaka, and Seoul, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) had an honorary counsel in Thimphu.

Bhutan had no formal diplomatic relations with the United States as of 1991. It was one of only seven sovereign nations in the world with which the United States did not maintain formal representation. Informal contact was maintained, however, between the embassies of Bhutan and the United States in New Delhi, and Bhutan's permanent mission at the United Nations in New York had consular jurisdiction in the United States. It has been speculated that Bhutan, in light of India's close relations with the Soviet Union, had elected to keep equidistant from both superpowers. Nevertheless, during a visit with a United States senator in 1985, the Druk Gyalpo personally expressed strong support for the United States as the principal bulwark against the Soviet Union in South Asia. The United States ambassador to New Delhi was among numerous emissaries of nations without diplomatic ties to pay courtesy calls in Thimphu in the 1980s. Contacts with the Soviet Union and other communist countries were nil.

Bhutan - India

Bhutan is bounded on three sides by India. From east to west, the Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North-East Frontier Agency) border Bhutan. In view of the long-standing political disputes and border confrontations between India and China, Bhutan has long been part of India's strategic defense plan. In the view of some Indian strategists, Bhutan was a weak link in India's defense against China.

The key document guiding relations with India is the Treaty of Friendship Between the Government of India and the Government of Bhutan of 1949. The ten-article treaty, in force in perpetuity, calls for peace between the two countries and assures Indian noninterference in Bhutan's internal affairs in return for Bhutan's agreeing "to be guided by the advice of the Government of India in regard to its external relations" (Article 2). The treaty provides for compensation by India at a higher rate than provided in the 1865 and 1910 British treaties, and it returned Bhutan's Dewangiri territory seized by Britain in the Duar War. It also guarantees free trade between the countries and duty-free transit across India of Bhutan's imports. Furthermore, the treaty assures the rights of citizens of each country and the extradition of criminals seeking refuge in either country.

Events in Tibet have had causal effects on Bhutan-Indian relations. When the Chinese communists took over Tibet in 1951, Bhutan braced itself against a renewed external threat with a modernization program and a new defense posture. In his first visit to Bhutan in 1958, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru reiterated India's wish that Bhutan remain an independent country, "taking the path of progress according to your will." Following precedent, Bhutan sided with India when the Chinese army occupied Tibet in 1959 and a border dispute emerged between China and India. Nehru declared in the Indian parliament in November 1959 that "any aggression against Bhutan . . . would be regarded as an aggression against India." A de facto alliance developed between Bhutan and India by 1960, and Indian aid increasingly bolstered Bhutan's strategic infrastructure development. In times of crisis between India and China or between Bhutan and China, India was quick to assure Bhutan of military assistance. Concerns were raised by Bhutan, however, during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War when there were doubts about India's ability to protect Bhutan against China (which sided with Pakistan) while fighting a two-front war.

In 1960 the Druk Gyalpo had said that Bhutan was not 100 percent independent because of the 1949 treaty, and until Bhutan emerged into the world of international diplomacy by joining the UN in 1971, Article 2 of the treaty seemed intact. Admission to the UN, however, changed Bhutan's perspective on the world beyond India and Thimphu's traditional dependence on New Delhi. Two years later, Bhutan and Bangladesh exchanged diplomatic recognition, hinting further at Thimphu's independent attitude. A new interpretation of the relationship emerged in 1974 when Bhutan's minister of foreign affairs said that whether or not Bhutan followed India's advice and guidance on foreign policy matters was optional. Bhutan had raised its representation in India to the ambassadorial level in 1971 and in 1978 changed the name of its diplomatic office in New Delhi from the Royal Bhutan Mission to the Royal Bhutan Embassy to further reflect its sovereign status. A new trade agreement between Bhutan and India in 1972 provided an exemption from export duties for goods from Bhutan to third countries.

The Druk Gyalpo's statement in 1979 that the 1949 treaty needed to be "updated" was still another move asserting independence. Members of the National Assembly speaking just before the Druk Gyalpo's "update" announcement made the interpretation that Article 2 only required Bhutan to seek India's advice and guidance on matters of external affairs. Bhutan exerted its independent stance at the Non-Aligned Movement summit conference in Havana, also in 1979, by voting with China and some Southeast Asian countries rather than with India on the issue of allowing Cambodia's Khmer Rouge to be seated at the conference. Bhutan's votes in the UN on such issues as the status of landlocked nations also did not follow India's leads.

Despite a history of good relations between Bhutan and India, bilateral border issues went long unresolved. Indo-Bhutanese borders had been delineated in the Treaty of Peace of 1865 between Bhutan and Britain, but it was not until the period between 1973 and 1984 that a detailed delineation and demarcation was made. Border demarcation talks with India generally resolved disagreements except for several small sectors, including the middle zone between Sarbhang and Geylegphug and the eastern frontier with Arunachal Pradesh.

Bhutan - China

The other nation that borders Bhutan is China, with which Bhutan had no diplomatic relations as of mid-1991. Bhutan and China have long had differences with respect to the delineation of their common border, which follows natural features--the watershed of the Chumbi Valley in the northwest and the crest of the Great Himalayan Range of mountains in the north. The part of China that borders Bhutan--Tibet, or the Xizang Autonomous Region--has important historical, cultural, and religious ties to Bhutan. China had been heavily involved in Tibetan affairs since the 1720s, and it was through this involvement that Bhutan and China had their first direct relations. Bhutanese delegations to the Dalai Lama came into contact with the Chinese representatives in Lhasa, but there never was a tributary relationship with Beijing. Relations with Tibet itself, never particularly good, were strained considerably when Bhutan sided with Britain in the early 1900s. Trying to secure its southwestern flank against increasing foreign aggression, China claimed a vague suzerainty over Bhutan in the period just before the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The new Republic of China let the claim lapse, however, and it never again was raised publicly.

Tension in Bhutan-China relations increased with the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1951 and again rose with the anti-Chinese revolts in eastern and central Tibet between 1954 and 1958. The massive Tibetan uprisings in 1959 and the flight to India of the Dalai Lama, as well as the heightened presence of Chinese forces on the ill-defined frontier, alerted Bhutan to the potential threat it faced, and its representative in Tibet was withdrawn. Included in the territory occupied by the Chinese People's Liberation Army were the eight western Tibetan enclaves administered by Bhutan since the seventeenth century. New Delhi intervened with Beijing on behalf of Thimphu regarding the enclaves, but the Chinese refused to discuss what they considered a matter between China and Bhutan. Another problem with China emerged at this time as the result of the flight to Bhutan of some 6,000 Tibetan refugees. The specter of renewed Chinese claims to Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal was raised after China published a map in 1961 that showed alterations of traditional Sino-Bhutanese and other Himalayan borders in Beijing's favor. Bhutan responded with an embargo on cross-border trade and closer links with India.

During this period, Thimphu continued to withstand Beijing's mixture of threats and offers of conciliation in the form of economic aid and assurance of independence. Tension was renewed during the 1962 Sino-Indian border war when the Chinese army outflanked Indian troops, who, with permission of Bhutanese authorities, retreated through southeastern Bhutan. More fearful of China than confident of India's ability to defend it, Bhutan formally maintained a policy of neutrality while quietly expanding its relations with India. Cross-border incursions by Chinese soldiers and Tibetan herders occurred in 1966, but tensions generally lessened thereafter and during the 1970s. In 1979 a larger than usual annual intrusion by Tibetan herders into Bhutan brought protests to Beijing from both Thimphu and New Delhi. China, again seeking a direct approach with Bhutan, ignored the Indian protest but responded to the one from Bhutan. As part of its policy of asserting its independence from India, Bhutan was open to direct talks, whereas India continued to see the Sino-Bhutan boundary issue as intimately related to the Sino-Indian border dispute. A series of border talks has been held annually since 1984 between the ministers of foreign of affairs of Bhutan and China, leading to relations that have been characterized by the two sides as "very good."

Bhutan - Participation in International Organizations

Historically, Bhutan's foreign relations had been limited primarily to contacts with Tibet, India, and Britain. A major achievement was made in the 1960s as Bhutan began to join international organizations. It first became a member of the Colombo Plan in 1962, which put the kingdom into contact with member states throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia for purposes of fostering cooperative economic development. Bhutan joined the Universal Postal Union in 1969, putting it into contact with some 137 countries. UN membership was achieved in 1971, followed by the gaining of seats in the UN's specialized and related agencies, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. A founding member of SAARC in 1983, Bhutan had also established relations with the Coordination Bureau of the Nonaligned Countries (the headquarters of the Nonaligned Movement), the Group of 77, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Community. By 1990, Bhutan belonged to 119 international, regional, and special interest organizations.

In 1975 Bhutan and four other landlocked Asian countries (Afghanistan, Laos, Mongolia, and Nepal) were granted a special status as "least developed landlocked countries" by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in coordination with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and UNDP. Despite these organizations' intentions to assist Bhutan and the other countries in dealing with international transit problems, Bhutan declined to participate in their work.

Perhaps the most significant international participation Bhutan embarked on in the 1980s was membership in SAARC. SAARC's agenda excluded bilateral issues and political programs from the organization's debates and confined committee and summit discussions to areas where member nations must find common ground for achieving mutual economic benefit. Bhutan became involved in useful working group discussions on agriculture and livestock, rural development, meteorology, telecommunications, science and technology, health and population, transportation, postal cooperation, and trade and industrial cooperation.

Heads-of-state meetings of SAARC have taken Jigme Singye Wangchuck abroad on several occasions. The integration of Bhutan into SAARC activities also involved the country with a variety of issues of concern to poor undeveloped nations as well as increasing its participation in the Non-Aligned Movement. In Bhutan's extensive multilateral diplomatic activities in the 1980s, officials saw their country emerging as an "Eastern Geneva" providing a "venue for peace-making efforts in South Asia."

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