an excerpt from 'the kingdom at the centre of the world

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14. Gorkhaland—the FirstRevolution

The fall of Sikkim set off alarm bells in Bhutan. Not onlywere the royal families related to each other by marriage

(the Queen of Bhutan’s sister was the last Chogyal’s mother),but Sikkim was the only buffer between Bhutan and Nepal—a country whose population was fifty times greater thanBhutan’s. The fear was that Nepali-origin people in Sikkimhad overthrown a Bhutia monarchy to take over the country.Could they do the same to Bhutan?

The end results of this fear were the refugee camps inNepal where about a hundred thousand people have livedfor the last two decades, without a country they can callhome. Most of them are, or say they are, from southernBhutan. Considering that the population of Bhutan is lessthan seven hundred thousand, Bhutan has produced morerefugees per capita than any other country in the world.

Or so it is claimed.The Bhutanese refugee problem is a difficult story to

decipher. I have seen Nepalese go red in the face as theyspeak about the viciousness of the Bhutanese and the FourthKing. On the other hand I have heard Bhutanese speak in

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almost lyrical joy about their Fourth King, and at the sametime spit poison at any mention of Bhutanese refugees. Atthe Bhutan Literary Festival in 2010, when I was only a fewmonths into the writing of this book, I was asked by onemember of the audience whether I would only focus on‘one part of Bhutan’s story’.

I could guess what she meant, but wasn’t sure, so I askedher to clarify.

Struggling to express herself, she said that sometimesauthors only looked at one issue and failed to give the fullpicture.

‘Every author edits,’ I replied. ‘Nobody can give you thewhole picture, or promise to. My book won’t covereverything, just what I managed to pick up, and what Ithought I could use.’

Exasperated, she finally named the problem. ‘But so manypeople just write about the Nepali issue,’ she said plaintively.

A number of books have been written on the topic.When I began my research, the first two I read were ThakurPrasad Mishra’s Becoming a Journalist in Exile, published inKathmandu in 2009, and Bhutan: A Movement in Exile,co-authored by D.N.S. Dhakal and Christopher Strawn,which had been published from Delhi in the mid 1990s.Probably the best-known account of the issue is a booktitled Torture Killing Me Softly by Tek Nath Rizal, a prominentleader of the Nepalese in exile. Considered Rizal’s majorwork, the book focuses on Bhutan’s use of sophisticatedmind-control techniques of torture that employ ultrasonicsound waves and electromagnetism. Frankly, it sounds morelike something from the X Files rather than the work of acredible human rights activist.

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The ‘Nepali issue’ has a long history; its origins predateBhutan’s monarchy. It grew and seethed at the borders ofthe kingdom for more than a century before it finallyexploded. The Gurkha state of Nepal had risen dramaticallyin the early 1800s, clawing territory from Sikkim, raidinginto Tibet and north India. Although these raids werebeaten back by China, and then by the British East IndiaCompany, the spread of the Nepalese could not be contained.Border control in the lightly populated, heavily forestedmountains of the Himalayas—where nobody really knewwhere the borders were—was an illusion, at best. Citizenshiphad little meaning in those days. There were no passports,no border check posts, and no identity cards that forcedpeople into one identity or the other.

The expanding British empire in South Asia only addedto this flow of Nepalese immigrants. The principal meansby which the British expanded their power—and collectedtaxes—was by developing large areas into revenue generatingdistricts. This was done by building roads and other forms ofinfrastructure, as well as by encouraging the large-scaleplantation of cash crops—such as tea. These newly-createddistricts were lightly populated and the manpower for mostof the British projects there came from Nepal. As roads andtrade routes opened up, large Nepali populations settleddown along them, although some of them were alsooccasional residents—herdsmen, casual labour andlumbermen who were all needed to draw the mountainsinto the civilizational embrace of the Raj.

As the Nepali community spread across this region itcreated a ‘Gorkhaland’ of trade and labour within whichNepali was the lingua franca of commerce. The religious


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and cultural traditions looked west—towards Kathmandu,where the Nepali king ruled as both the head of state andhead of the Hindu community, until the monarchy wasabolished on 28 May 2008.

Of course the Nepalese, certainly those who settled inthese lands, would have been aware that they were in othercountries. This would have been especially obvious inBhutan, where each small province—or dzhonkhag—had adzhongpon who collected the revenue for the district. Butas there were no real rules for citizenship, the Nepalicommunity could continue to pay their taxes to theBhutanese state, while at the same time maintaining theirown cultural traditions. If they were prominent landownersand close to the centre of power in northern Bhutan, theyoften found that their loyalty lay closer to the king ofBhutan and his court than to their country of origin, andthus they had no problem adopting the manners of thenorthern Bhutanese.

Other than language, there was one particular aspect ofthe cultural traditions of the Nepali community that madeintegration into the Bhutanese state difficult: religion. Bhutanwas established as Druk Yul by the Shabdrung, a TibetanBuddhist state with its identity rooted in the Drukpa Kagyuschool of thought. At its centre was the Tsa Yig Chenmothat functioned as the Constitution of the Bhutanese stateuntil 2008. The Tsa Yig Chenmo is deeply imbued withBuddhist thought. However, the Nepali community wasoverwhelmingly Hindu. It would have been difficult for theNepalese to immerse themselves into a Buddhist system oflaws. Nevertheless Hinduism and Buddhism share strongphilosophical roots, and the moral codes taught by Buddhism


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are not hugely dissimilar to those taught in most Hinduschools of thought. Unfortunately, there was anothercomplication. There existed a rival for the affections andloyalty of the Nepalese. Nepal was a Hindu state, and itsking was considered an incarnation of the god Vishnu, to beworshipped by his people—as no king of Bhutan could beworshipped. Most of the Nepalese who could afford to doso, had a picture of the Nepali king in their homes, andrarely one of the king of Bhutan—certainly not one thatthey could worship.

If this was not enough there was one further consideration.As Hindus the Nepalese were also bound by the rules ofcaste. This affected social interaction in a host of ways, mostimportantly in marriage. Inter-community marriages,between members of the Bhutia community and the Nepalicommunity, were rare. Instead it was a truth universallyacknowledged in southern Bhutan that a single man inpossession of a decent livelihood must be in want of a wife,from Nepal proper. This swelled the numbers of thecommunity, and kept it isolated from the local culture.

Until the middle of the twentieth century this divide didnot matter too much. The Bhutanese state was happy tomerely collect revenue and the Nepali-origin people werehappy to continue working on development projects, clearforests, and maintain their separate traditions.Then Gandhiand the Indian independence movement changed the faceof India and South Asian politics forever. They ousted theBritish from India, undoing the crucial link around whichthe British Empire was built, and without which it wouldswiftly fall apart.

One of the first people to be affected by Gandhi’s ideas


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and style of politics was a young Nepali named BishweshwarPrasad Koirala, who grew up in India. He joined the IndianNational Congress in 1934, and after the fall of Britishpower in India, heturned his attention to the monarchy inhis native Nepal. He founded the Nepali National Congressin 1947, and was arrested when he returned to Nepal tostart a labour movement. In 1950 he changed the name ofthe party to the Nepali Congress Party. It must have been alucky name, because the next year he led an armed uprisingthat managed to overthrow the Rana clan that had ruled asthe prime ministers in Nepal for more than a century.Koirala went on to become Nepal’s first elected primeminister. His brother, Girijia Prasad Koirala, also went on tobecome prime minister of Nepal—four times, to be precise—and he has a role in Bhutan’s story too.

In 1952 G.P. Koirala became one of the founding membersof the Bhutan State Congress—its name and purposeremarkably similar to the Nepali National Congress and theSikkim State Congress. Unlike the other two movements,however, the Bhutan State Congress (BSC) was almostcompletely a movement in exile. It also faced a far morecompetent opponent: the Third King of Bhutan, JigmeDorji Wangchuck.

The BSC tried to mobilize the millions of Nepali-originpeople living on the borders of Bhutan, in the Indian statesof West Bengal and Assam, into a non-violent non-cooperation movement against Bhutan’s monarchy. It wasmeant to be along the lines of Gandhi’s struggle against theBritish, except that in this case it looked remarkably like aninvasion. Moreover, the Nepal-origin people living withinBhutan had no wish to risk their status in a country where


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they had been living happily enough for many years.The Third King responded swiftly. He had ascended the

throne in October 1952 and his first step was the abolitionof serfdom in Bhutan, putting an end to the feudal traditiononce for all, and giving full citizenship to all the peopleliving in the country. In 1953, in a nod to the BSC, he setup the Tshogdu—or National Assembly—and made surethat there was representation of the Nepali-origin Bhutanese.As the BSC mobilized the Nepali-origin communitysurrounding Bhutan, the king mobilized Bhutan’s traditionalmilitia. Bhutan had never had a standing army, but eachdzhongpon was allowed to mobilize the people within hisauthority into a fighting force. This was the way that theShabdrung had fought the Tibetans, and how Jigme Namgyalfought the British.

The BSC attempted a Gandhian-style satyagrahamovement in March 1954. The plan was to march to thetown of Sarbhang—in the present-day district of Gelephu—and fill the jails of Bhutan. Gandhi’s marches drew peoplefrom the areas where the protest marches were held, but inthis case the protestors had to cross the border to protest inanother country. They had not calculated how difficult thiswould be. Once they did cross the border, they ran into themilitia under the command of J.B. Pradhan, the DistrictCommissioner of Southern Bhutan, and of Nepali originhimself. Faced with the incoming protestors, Pradhan’sforces opened fire. Approximately 25 people died, and afew dozen were wounded. The rest fled. The movementcollapsed. (Strawn 1994)

Nevertheless, just to be safe, the Third King decided tocreate Bhutan’s first standing army to make sure that any


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future threat would be easily met. The Nepali-origin southernBhutanese were among the recruits. They also found positionsin the police, bureaucracy and judiciary.

In 1958 the king granted parcels of land to the formerserfs. These were also distributed to those members of theNepali-origin community in the south who had previouslynot owned land. Simultaneously, the National Assemblypassed the National Law of Bhutan and in 1959 the kingimposed a ban on open immigration. The National Lawalso stated that anybody already resident in Bhutan waseligible for citizenship, and set down clear rules for this:

4. (1) If any foreigner who has reached the age of majorityand is otherwise eligible presents a petition to an officialappointed by His Majesty and takes an oath of loyaltyaccording to the rules laid down by [the] official, he maybe enrolled as a Bhutanese National, provided that:

a) The person is a resident of the Kingdom of Bhutan formore than ten years, and

b) Owns agricultural land within the Kingdom.

(2) If a woman, married to a Bhutanese National, submitsa petition and takes the oath of loyalty as stated above tothe satisfaction of the concerned official and that she hasreached the age of majority and is otherwise eligible, hername may be enrolled as a Bhutanese National.

5. (1) If any foreigner submits [a] petition to His Majestyaccording to rules described in the above sections, andprovided the person has reached the age of majority andis otherwise eligible, and has served satisfactorily inGovernment service for at least five years and has beenresiding in the Kingdom of Bhutan for at least 10 years,


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he may receive a Bhutanese Nationality Certificate. Oncethe certificate is received, such a person has to take theoath of loyalty according to rules laid down by theGovernment and from that day onwards, his name will beenrolled as a Bhutanese National. (Amnesty International1992)

The BSC shifted its demands to the revocation of this newlaw. Obviously the Nepali-origin people within Bhutan didnot share the BSC’s point of view, as this law codified theircitizenship rights for the first time. The difference betweenthe desires of those living inside a country and a free-floating Nepali population that could exercise rights inmultiple states was stark. Within a few years the BSC hadcollapsed completely, and in 1969 the Third King pardonedall its members, allowing them to re-enter Bhutan if they sowanted. They jumped at the chance, and the BSC neverrose again.

The victory, however, was ephemeral. The conflict overthe character of the Bhutanese state, and who had the rightto define it, had only been postponed. It would erupt muchmore ferociously two decades later, with murder, torture,rape, and tens of thousands of people with no place to callhome.

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15. The Tibetan Refugees

From Expulsion to Expulsion

The early threat from the south had been adroitlyneutralized by the Third King, and it did not flare up

again in his lifetime. Nevertheless the idea of citizenshipwould continue to plague Bhutan in one form or the otherduring the rule of his son, the Fourth King, Jigme SingyeWangchuck.

It started with the Tibetan refugees.March 10 is celebrated as National Uprising Day by

Tibetans in exile. On this day in 1959, the Tibetans rose upin revolt against the Chinese authorities. Although theChinese suppressed the uprising in a matter of days, theFourteenth Dalai Lama, Tensin Gyatso, used the chaos toescape to India, along with approximately 80,000 followers.Some of the Tibetans escaped through Bhutan, but in 1961,as relations between India and China soured, India sealed offits northern borders and approximately 3,000 refugees weretrapped in transit within Bhutan’s borders. The governmentof Bhutan set aside land for seven settlements for therefugees—financed by the Indian government—and afterthe short India-China war of 1962, Bhutan permanently

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