The Future of Bhutan

Carleton Cole

The Nation

February 24, 2008

The Himalayan kingdom's scholars are returning home with the knowledge of how to gingerly transform a country that has so far resisted globalisation

Poor in terms of infrastructure and investment, Bhutan is rich in good cheer. Yet its famously content citizens also want to see their country developed further.

The World Bank has hailed Bhutan's per-capita Gross Domestic Product as one of the highest in the region, but frets that poverty still grips some 32 per cent of the population.

"The country has made remarkable progress in socio-economic development," it also notes, in a nod to former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck's focus on Gross National Happiness, rather than Gross National Product.

When British social psychologist Adrian White compiled data from Unesco, America's CIA, the New Economics Foundation and the World Health Organisation in 2006 for the first "global map of happiness", Bhutan ranked eighth among the world's nations.

Believing that the average Bhutanese's happiness would rise even further if there were more roads and bridges, electricity, and better gender relations, thousands of its citizens are studying development and social schemes abroad. Many are university students in Thailand, including at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) on the outskirts of Bangkok.

Thanks to its low birth rate and small population, Bhutan has been spared the drastic deforestation that has afflicted other countries, and its scholars share a devotion to green policy.

Yeshey Penjor, who recently earned his master's degree in environmental engineering at AIT, is proud that all major development proposals in Bhutan undergo environmental-impact studies.

Vesraj Bhujel, whose speciality is in electric-power-system management, works for the Bhutan Power Co in remote Dagana district.

"Many parts of the country, especially the rural areas, are still not electrified, and people keep depending on biomass burning or fuels like kerosene and diesel for cooking, heating and lighting," he says. "This contributes lots of undesired gaseous emissions impacting human health and the environment adversely.

"Livelihoods will be elevated through economic-development opportunities, hygiene improvement and the reduction of firewood consumption."

Weaning the populace off fossil fuels and biomass resources is an essential pillar of the Gross National Happiness, Bhujel points out.
Pema Tshering, another AIT master's graduate - in information and communication technologies - says Bhutan Power, for which he also works, strives to ensure that electricity is available, reliable, adequate and affordable to all, which is a "direct link to achieving the national goal of Gross National Happiness".

Bhutan's development also means democratisation - and strengthening the social roles played by women and the poor.

On March 24 Bhutanese will vote in the country's first parliamentary elections, as sanctioned two years ago by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has since abdicated in favour of his son, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck.

Keen to see the country move forward is AIT alumnus Rinzi Pem, who works at the United Nations Development Programme's office in the capital, Thimphu, on gender issues and initiatives. At AIT she evaluated Bhutan's Tarayana Foundation, which aids the disadvantaged in remote communities, and now she assists it.

"The UN has a universal goal - a free and equal world for people," Pem notes. "My master's degree in gender and development studies looked into the goals set forth by the foundation as well as the UN. I'm applying what I learned [at AIT] to help people who are not so fortunate."

Gyeltshen Khengpa, who works for the Finance Ministry's Department of Revenue and Customs, earned an MBA in international business at AIT.
"What I learned is enriching and broadening my knowledge in the various management disciplines, so that I'm contributing to the economy of my country in a meaningful way," he says.

"Since our economy is gradually opening up to embrace the forces of globalisation, there are many sectors that call for constructive reforms sooner than later in order to benefit."

Throughout the 101 years since its founding, Bhutan's Wangchuck Dynasty rulers have gradually - and successfully - allowed dollops of modernity to enter their fragile kingdom.

At a recent Siam Society lecture in Bangkok on the Bhutanese monarchy, Francoise Pommaret of France's National Centre for Scientific Research called the Wangchuck kings a source for positive change, modernisation and, most recently, democratisation.

The first of the dynasty, King Ugyen Wangchuk, she said, opened his subjects' eyes to modernity following his trip to British India, where there were trains, roads and electric lights.

His successor, Jigme Wangchuk, "kept the British out of Bhutan. His biggest achievement was keeping Bhutan independent." Then came Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, who "really made Bhutan move forward" by abolishing serfdom, for which she compared him to Siam's Kings Rama IV and V.

The fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, was "a real visionary. His reign was marked by good relations with India and China."

Having ascended the throne in 2006, 27-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is gradually letting his presence be felt, Pommaret said, particularly in sticking to the democratisation initiated by his father.
Pommaret earned a big laugh when she explained how concerned some Bhutanese are about democracy after seeing what happened to Nepal when it tried it on for size.

If anything went wrong with the experiment in Bhutan, she said, the country might experience "protests for the re-implementation of absolute monarchy".