H.D.S. GREENWAY Change near for Bhutan http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/06/12/change_near_for_bhutan/
By H.D.S. Greenway | June 12, 2007 THE ONLY trouble with the recent mock elections in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan is that most Bhutanese don't want democracy. They want their king to be in charge. Lest neocons start considering regime change, however, I hasten to add that most Bhutanese trust their king, and will eventually be willing to go along with whatever his majesty decides is best for them. And the king wants democracy. Article Tools - | - Last year King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, great-grandson of the first hereditary ruler whom the British installed 100 years ago, abdicated in favor of his son, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, and decreed that his kingdom would become a parliamentary democracy with elections set for 2008. For the sake of brevity, Bhutanese tend to speak of them in terms of King IV and King V. In April, and again in May, Bhutan held mock elections to show people how democracy works. The clichés about Bhutan have their charm. There are no traffic lights in the land, more people are killed by bears than by automobiles. And until recently there were no lawyers in the Buddhist kingdom. When Jigme IV came to power in 1972 there was no airport, and television was forbidden as a corrupting influence as recently as 10 years ago. Tourism was, and is, limited by making it expensive. The idea was not to forbid the modern world, but to let it seep in slowly in a controlled way. Jigme IV married four sisters who became his queens, completing what some might say is the best poker hand in Asia. And since Bhutan, with scarcely 650,000 people, is squeezed between China and India, skill at poker could prove valuable. Not three years into his reign, Jigme IV saw the overthrow of the royal family of neighboring Sikkim, and the country forceably absorbed by India under the ruthless regime of Indira Gandhi. To achieve this, India stirred up trouble among Sikkim's Nepalese population, which had grown to outnumber the Sikkimese. Then Gandhi used the unrest as an excuse to invade. So when presented with Nepalese pouring into Bhutan, the king took the controversial course of expelling many who were deemed not to be part of Bhutan's legitimate Nepali minority. As many as 100,000 languish in refugee camps in Nepal today. Jigme IV also saw the self destruction of the Nepali royal family, and the rise of a Maoist rebellion -- yet more trouble in the Shangri La lands of the high Himalayas.
From India came rebels from Assam who sought refuge in Bhutan's lowland
jungles. Jigme IV expelled them. With China there is a longstanding border dispute. Until it is settled, Bhutan refuses to have diplomatic relations with China. But in order not to unduly provoke its giant neighbor, Bhutan declines diplomatic relations with any of the remaining permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, France, Britain, and Russia. No Bhutanese has forgotten China's forcible takeover of Tibet, Bhutan's cultural father and geographical neighbor to the north, and the subsequent flood into Tibet of Han Chinese who are to this day destroying Tibet's ancient Buddhist society. The royal family believes that moving toward constitutional democracy will make Bhutan stronger in the long run, hopefully avoiding the fate of its neighbors. Traditionally, well-off Bhutanese have sought educations in India or Britain. But the king and his queens chose the United States for many of their children. Jigme V went to Phillips Academy, Andover, and other American schools before Oxford. He is not the only monarch to be educated in Massachusetts. Abdullah II of Jordan went to Deerfield Academy. Recently, during a visit to India, the new king of Bhutan secured a modification in a 1949 treaty to remove India's guidance over Bhutanese foreign policy. Bhutan is a full member of the United Nations, but no one believes that Bhutan will soon vote against India's interests. In the two mock elections, Bhutanese were given a choice between Dragon Red, Dragon Blue, Dragon Green, and Dragon Yellow. Voting red meant favoring industrial development, green the environment, blue a free and fair society. But voting yellow meant that you favored Bhutanese tradition, which is monarchy, not democracy. Not unexpectedly, Dragon Yellow won both times. It will take a lot of sweet talking by both Kings IV and V to get Bhutan's citizenry to want anything other than their king and his rule over them. But for better or worse, democracy is on the way. H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.
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