Bhutan

---

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-à-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-à-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 appliqué 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).