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Kathmandu Wednesday December 12, 2001 Marga 27, 2058.
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Bhutan’s
reconciliation approach
By Dr Dhurba Rizal
The third King of Bhutan,
much more liberal to the core, introduced the guided change and various measures to make a
broad based polity. Numerous political, economic and administrative reforms reshaped the
framework of the traditional society within a time span of forty years. The present King
followed the footsteps of the late King during the 1970s and the early 1980s but switched
to repressive rule in the late 1980s and plunged the country into crisis, leading to
exodus of more than hundred thousands people from south and east Bhutan in exile as well
as provided the avenue for the BODO and ULFA insurgents to infiltrate into Bhutan, which
has posed the biggest threat to the integrity and sovereignty of Bhutan.
Bhutan has been undergoing a
period of rapid change. The country’s social structure is diversifying fast and has
become more complex than ever before. A professional middle class, whose avenue is blocked
by elites, is growing mature. Awareness of the avenue through which their influences could
be articulated might lead to the emergence of a new kind of political expression in Bhutan
soon. A large segment of the middle class is becoming alienated from the system and they
might support the opposition in exile. Ordinary people were caught up on the modernization
process that saw the adaptation of western material value as a benchmark of progress.
Intra-elites' scramble for power continues unabated. The new groups have begun to demand
political representation and compete for power. Now, the system conscripts the support as
well as restricts its support to elites and traditional structure. The system has not only
suppressed or exploited the people but also it has kept them in a state of ignorance,
isolation and seclusion. Any form of revolt against the feudalistic, traditional and
autocratic system invites severe actions. The system fails to realize that feudalism in
primitive socio-economic set up, which centered around the tenet of Tsa-Wa-Sum (King,
Country and People) and rotates around the Chho (Dharma), may become counter-productive
and may endanger the very existence of the system in the information-rich, rapidly
changing urban - industrial scientific age of the 21st century. If the system fails to
recognize these crises and dilemmas, the country can further plunge into deep imbroglio.
In whatever way we analyse Bhutan today, it boils down to single point of a state in
crisis. The crux of the problem is the desire of the ruling elites to monopolize
political, economic and military power and to resist all impulses for change in the placid
Bhutanese polity. One Nation One People Policy is a cynical and well-planned approach of
the regime to bring demographic balance as well as to eliminate unwanted demographic
elements and exclusion of other minorities from the political process that did not fit the
profile of true Drukpa and Tsa-Wa-Sum and refugee crisis
is the one of the spillover effects of such rigid policy nurtured by the present system.
To overcome the crisis and to
have the state tailor - made for welfare of the Bhutanese people; time has come for the
government, traditionalist and dissidents in exile to evaluate the present crisis in the
right perspective. The recent move of the King to draft the Constitution is laudable but
how representative is the drafting committee to represent all ethnic groups is the moot
question. Bhutan not only needs constitution but also a system of government, which enjoys
the mandate of the people to provide clean and efficient governance and also an inbuilt
mechanism of check and balance to safeguard our national interest and security. To
materialize this cherished dream, one avenue at this traumatic transitional stage in
Bhutan is to modify the present system of Council to adapt and adjust with the changing
time and aspiration of all sections of the Bhutanese people.
The system should allow the
political parties to function freely. The electoral constituency should be divided on the
basis of population. The Chairman and members of Council of Ministers should be directly
elected by the people themselves rather than through the rubber stamp National Assembly.
They should be made accountable to the people. A mechanism should be developed for mass
social mobilization of all ethnic groups to participate in political and social
institutions and in decision making process, thus broadening the base of political
participation. The system should not ensure the continued influence of Bhutan’s
elites and re-legitimize their power. It should devise a democratization of the economic
order and a corresponding measure of social justice as well as the development of local
level participatory democracy to draw the politically marginalized people in the decision
making process.
It should alter the
distribution of power and wealth and allow the citizens to make decision on every matter
of their interest through peaceful and competitive process. The system should develop
extensive political competition and participation and promote pluralistic atmosphere for
citizens to express their political preferences in a meaningful way, ultimately deciding
the nature of political power itself. The system should develop consensual, pragmatic,
accommodating and democratically committed leadership and incorporate multilingual,
multi-ethnic and culturally pluralistic society. It should protect life, liberty and
property of people, render social justice and maintain internal cohesion. Only the ordered
political participation of people of all ethnic and class groups contributes to the
institutionalization of the democratic spirit. But the modified system of council should
continue only till such time that the basic agencies of democracy: political parties, free
press, an active civil society and a competitive market mechanism, which are responsive to
the needs and demands of the sovereign people are developed fully to transform all
sections of Bhutanese people to absorb the concept of broad political participation on
party lines. Thus, this system should slowly pave the way for true, representative and
liberal multiparty system in future Bhutan, giving birth to a democratic society with
democratic government and the King as a Constitutional head.
This is the only avenue in
Bhutan today to minimize the existing problems, lacuna and uninhibited accumulation of
power and wealth in the society and democratic process for the majority of the people to
combat poverty, corruption, absolutism, alienation, security, moral decay, and ethnic
disintegration and accommodate the highly differentiated interests for the evolution of a
dynamic democratic civil society.
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