Druk Yul, the Kingdom of Bhutan, is within striking distance of what all South Asian countries want-development But now it has an unsettling refugee problem on its hands.
Less than a decade ago, Bhutan, the last lamaist Buddhist monarchy in the Himalayas, was considered the ideal locale in which the Sri Lankan government and rebel Tamil militants might negotiate a solution to their violent ethnic conflict. Within a couple of years, however, Bhutan itself had turned into another theatre of ethnic strife, this one pitting the dominant Buddhist communities in northern Bhutan against an immigrant Nepali Hindu community in the southern third of the kingdom. The situation quickly became a stalemate, and for the past five years it has remained the most significant political issue in the country, although it tends to be treated as a problem of law and order.
If one reads the proceedings of Bhutan´s Tshongdu (National Assembly) and speeches by its members, one rarely finds a forward-looking statement that rises above populism and xenophobia. Nor has there been an honest effort to identify issues affecting the body politic. However, the Tshongdu is handicapped as a forum for dissenting voices, and structural reforms in the style of representation are badly needed. Visitors to Bhutan are told that political reforms are on King Jigme Singye Wangchuck´s agenda but that he is unsure about the timing of their introduction and his subjects´ response.
The Tshongdu and most of the national fora are located in Thimphu, the capital. District development councils continue to operate out of district headquarters, but under the benign gaze of the bureaucracy, and village groups appear to suffer from "development fatigue". But, in what seems to be a step in the right direction, villages have been grouped into blocks (geong) for developmental purposes, and it is said that the most important recent development has been ´democratisation´ at the block and village levels. This means that villagers and the gups and mandals (heads of village councils) are now deciding their development priorities without the dzongda (district commissioner). It has reached the point, according to reports, where bureaucrats are now resigning their posts and contesting elections to the Tshongdu. Southern Bhutan, however, is totally paralysed structurally, and development priorities have been adversely affected, if not shelved.