Posted on 03/24/2008 11:44:42 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
THIMPU: When its big brother Tibet was invaded by China in 1950, the lesson was not lost on the rulers of the tiny hermit kingdom of Bhutan.
Isolation did not pay, and a gradual process of opening up and modernisation culminated on Monday with the first parliamentary elections in the history of the last independent Himalayan kingdom.
( Watch: Bhutan: The transition to democracy )
Sandwiched by giant neighbours India and China, Bhutan had always felt very vulnerable, said Kinley Dorji, managing director of the state-owned Kuensel newspaper.
"Our strategy was to hide up in the mountains," he said. "That worked until 1960."
It was then, just a year after the Dalai Lama fled into exile, that Bhutan's third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, opened the doors just a crack.
Shortly after the Chinese invasion, Wangchuck also began to gradually establish more democratic forms of governance.
Bhutan wanted to avoid what it saw as the mistake of Tibet -- having few diplomatic friends and shouldered with a feudal society that gave China the excuse to "liberate" it from serfdom.
Modernisation was a process brought to fruition by Wangchuck's son and grandson, who forced the people of Bhutan on Monday to let the royalty stand aside and democracy take its place.
To head off the Chinese threat, the third king also developed close and friendly ties with India, whose soldiers help defend Bhutan's northern border and build its roads.
But modernisation has been a slow and tightly controlled process. When the first jeep arrived in the capital Thimpu in the 1960s, locals ran in fear of the fire-breathing dragon. Others brought it water and cattle feed.
In 1971, Bhutan did what Tibet had never done, joined the United Nations.
A COUNTRY BESIEGED
The next big trauma and lesson for Bhutan's rulers came in 1975 when the Buddhist kings of Sikkim, Bhutan's little sister and even smaller western neighbour, were deposed and their country swallowed up by India.
Ethnic Nepalis, mainly Hindus, had been settled in Sikkim by the British in the nineteenth century and soon outnumbered the Buddhists. Apparently encouraged by India they rose up in the 1970s, won democracy and ousted the monarchy.
Bhutan learned its own lesson, clamping down on its own ethnic Nepali minority.
After the government imposed compulsory national dress and closed down Nepali language schools, the Nepali minority protested and demanded democracy.
Tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalis were then forced or fled into exile and languish still in refugee camps in Nepal.
"In Bhutan today the perceived threat is demographic," said Dorji. "We are half a million people with two fifths of mankind all around. This population can disappear.
"That is why we have very strong immigration and citizenship rules, and this fear of being swamped by one ethnic group."
To the west, the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh had also been swallowed up by Britain and then by India, settled by Muslims and invaded by backpacking tourists.
In those days the government talked about Bhutan as a "country besieged". It is how many Bhutanese still feel.
"We had close ties with Sikkim, we have a close affinity with Ladakh, we have seen what happened to Tibet," said one official, who declined to be named while talking about what are seen as sensitive issues of national security.
"It has left a deep scar on Bhutanese minds," he said. "We have a minority complex. We feel we have to be careful."
Bhutan's conservative Buddhist majority share close religious, linguistic and racial ties with the people of Tibet.
A few thousand Tibetans fled into Bhutan in 1959, and most still live as refugees inside the country.
But ironically, Bhutan has been so reclusive most of its people were not aware of the Chinese invasion nearly sixty years ago, and today few seem to care about the protests taking place in their northern neighbour.
"This is one place where people don't seem to know what is happening," said Dorji. "Psychologically we are that cut off."
Thanks for posting this.
I was in Bhutan in 2005 after visiting Tibet. Both are very beautiful countries. In Bhutan the King declared that everybody in the country had to be happy.....and they seem to be.
It should be noted that, despite being very young, the current Dali Lama actually was attempting to open up Tibet and establish relationships with foreign powers. He was well aware that Tibet could not remain isolated and free.
The rest of the world chose to stay on the sidelines.
China grabs Tibet; India grabs Sikkim. This is very much a case of big fish eating little fish. This is one of those things that makes me wonder about India - along with the invasion of Goa, among other things.
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In early 1970 the anti-monarchy Sikkim National Congress Party demanded fresh elections and greater representation for the Nepalese.
In 1973, anti-royalty riots in front of the palace led to a formal request for protection from India. India worried that an unstable Sikkim would invite Chinese to act on its claims that Sikkim was part of Tibet, and therefore part of China.
Frosty relations between the Chogyal and the elected Kazi (Prime Minister) Lendup Dorji resulted in an attempt to block the meeting of the legislature. The Kazi was elected by the Council of Ministers which was unanimous in its opposition to the retention of the Monarchy. Matters came to a head in 1975 when the Kazi appealed to the Indian Parliament for representation and change of status to statehood. On April 14, 1975, a referendum merged Sikkim with the union of India. Sikkim became the 22nd Indian State on April 26, 1975. On May 16, 1975 Sikkim officially became a state of the Indian Union and Lendup Dorji became head of State (chief minister). This was promptly recognised by the United Nations and all countries except China.
The position of Chogyal was thus abolished, ending the monarchy. In 1982, Palden Thondup succumbed to cancer in the United States. “
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As for Goa, the Portuguese had no right to occupy a land where the people were overwhelmingly in favour of re-union.
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Lastly, India is not a country based on a single or a majority-ethnic group. You would have had a better argument had you mentioned the revolts in the Muslim 1/3rd of Kashmir, though. However the Treaty of Accession, signed as a precondition to how India and Pakistan would be formed out of British India, automatically grants Kashmir to India.
38 years ago the Indian government invaded my country Goa and promised the indigenous goan people a referendum on autonomy or independence. People like us have been persistently asking for a referendum on Goa, to be decided by indigenous Goans, on autonomy or independence. The people of Goa are a passive and friendly race who does not have a tradition or culture of violence. We will respect the outcome of the referendum. The United Nations has never recognised the invasion/annexation of Goa. Will the Indian government who claims to be the largest democracy please afford my people, a democratic choice?
FreeGoa?
Lol!
Check this link out:
http://www.freegoa.com/faq.htm#q2
Must’ve been made by some P.O’d Portuguese/ Goan.
Even Kashmir has an active, and widespread separatist political (not military) movement, in the form of the Hurriyat and the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front.
What equivalent does Goa have, if the Goan people are so motivated for independence?
Sikkim’s was by referendum. The Sikkimese voted themselves in. If India was that determined, what stopped Nepal and Bhutan from following suit?
China?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/freegoa.com
It looks like the website was not created before yesterday, lol!
China?
Bhutan is practically under Indian occupation, although benign, and limited to the frontiers of the country.
Nepal is quite anti-India, as well as anti-China. That said, travellers from India and Nepal do not need a visa to enter each other’s country. The Chinese do, though.
It’s been around for a while - it’s just that it’s not getting a lot of traffic. I suspect the ones who’ve gone to Portugal are happy where they are, whereas others don’t really see themselves getting out from under the Indian thumb. I don’t know the first thing about the pre-invasion Goanese economy, but if it was anything like Macau’s, they’ve got a lot to be angry about. C’est la guerre.
As far as I can tell, the Chinese don't recognize the accession of Sikkim, but they have put up with it under the principle of "one for you, one for me". If India had annexed Bhutan or Nepal, I expect the Chinese would have taken the opportunity to snag another province under the pretext of rescuing them from Indian expansionism.
As far as I can tell, the Chinese don't recognize the accession of Sikkim, but they have put up with it under the principle of "one for you, one for me". If India had annexed Bhutan or Nepal, I expect the Chinese would have taken the opportunity to snag another province under the pretext of rescuing them from Indian expansionism.
If the Goans ever felt oppressed by India, the least they could do would be to launch an open independence movement, like those in Kashmir, who are even provided personal security by the Indian government.
Even border towns in India’s north-east have been able to do that.
Goa is/was nothing like Macau; neither did it have a Las Vegas-esque gambling economy, nor does it have a suitable harbour. It is probably among the more prosperous states, owing to the massive amounts of tourism that the state attracts.
There is no way for either India or China to sustainably occupy Nepal. The terrain and the people are perfectly conducive for either invading force to become trapped in a war of attrition, a la Soviet-Afghanistan / China-Vietnam.
As for Bhutan, like I said earlier, they are a sovereign state, which the Indian military assumes as an internally-independent protectorate.
bttt
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