Ashok K. Mehta
The Pioneer
July 24, 2013
A country which India has taken for granted, requires special consideration to prevent it from becoming a ‘Nepal’. To begin with, let’s take Thimphu out of the unwritten reciprocity clause.
India’s coercive diplomacy in Bhutan has presumably worked to stem the overtures made by the latter towards China and the latent but unprecedented anti-India sentiment whipped up by the withdrawal of subsidy on cooking gas and kerosene, which was restored last week.
The regime change following the second multi-party election has produced a landslide victory for Prime Minister-designate Tshering Tobgay who has pledged to preserve the special relation with India. For Bhutan, India had employed a carrot-but-no-stick policy so far in maintaining their genuinely special relations. The dramatic transformation of Bhutan from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and then a multi-party democracy has been compressed into all of five years, creating problems and irritants for its seven lakh people. In my numerous travels across Bhutan, one heard in the early nineties of ‘population rebalancing’ that democracy could not take root in a country with less than one million people and that it would spell disaster. The prophets of doom have been proved wrong.
Bhutan’s national strategy comprises keeping the population balance in favour of the local Drukpas to avoid a ‘Sikkim’; being unabashedly pro-India (the King would say we have put all our eggs in India’s basket); keep a distance from China (no trade or diplomatic ties, only an office in Beijing); negotiate its border dispute with China in consultation with India, and enjoy the fruits of water power to achieve a high per capita income leading to Gross National Happiness.
The drivers of change in Bhutan were the assimilation of Sikkim in the Union of India in 1974; the movement for restoration of democracy in Nepal and the violence perpetrated by Bhupalese dissident groups in 1990; the 2000 palace massacre and the Maoist-spurred jan andolan in 2006 in Nepal. Historically, India has preferred regime stability to democracy in Bhutan. Relations with Thimphu were framed according to the Treaty of Perpetual Peace and Friendship Between the Government of India and Government of Bhutan in 1949 which is derived from the Treaty of Punakha in 1910. Article 2 of the Punakha treaty on guidance and advice of the British Government was retained by India, though intuitively in 2007 New Delhi, unilaterally, altered ‘guidance’ to ‘cooperation’. Lately though the buzz in Thimphu is: Bhutan is India-locked and why should it refer to New Delhi for its external relations?
Not only had India advised regulating the pace of democracy but had also turned a Nelson’s eye during the population rebalancing (some call it downsizing Nepalese) in 1990-1991 when around 1,00,000 Bhutanese of Nepalese origin were allegedly systematically pushed out of the country. In the early eighties, Drukpas were in a minority with Nepalese comprising around 53 per cent of the population. Their expulsion, for which anti-national elements (read: Dissident Bhupanese and Nepalese) were responsible, according to the Bhutan Government, involved the bloodshed at Samchi on September 21, 1990. The King of Nepal though did not protest against the mistreatment of the Bhupalese.
A number of spoken agreements are in place, especially the King’s commitment to becoming a part of India’s security architecture. The defence of Bhutan is a key component of the unwritten portion of the 1949 treaty. The Royal Bhutanese Army played a crucial role in assisting the remnants of the Indian army evacuating from Towang and Sela in 1962. The 1,000 member strong Indian Military Training and Assistance Team was deployed in Bhutan in 1962 and has detachments in Ha, Thimphu and in the east for training of the RBA and other Bhutanese military units. Defence cooperation is of such exemplary order that in 2003 the two Armies launched a joint operation to flush out Bodo and Ulfa insurgents numbering about 3,000 in 10 major camps. Admittedly, the King prevaricated due to the blowback he feared from military operations.
Project Dantak of the Border Roads Organisation has done sterling work in connecting Bhutan with roads and bridges that others would shy away from constructing in difficult and complex terrain. The BRO has lost 100 lives in the battle for connectivity. Dantak is a household word spreading goodwill and increasing GNH.
The complex border dispute is a legacy of history. After 28 years and 19 rounds of border talks, the last in 2010, China offered a package deal — it would trade 900 sqkm of territory in the north for 400 sqkm in the west in Chumbi valley. The Chinese are employing familiar encroachment tactics using graziers to establish claim over the strategic Dolam plateau, Sinchula and Draman in Chumbi valley which is a dagger targeting the Siliguri corridor. Sinchula is the tri-junction where India, Bhutan and China’s borders meet and any adjustment in border alignment would become a trilateral, not a bilateral, issue. This is where coordination of external relations for national interest comes into play.
At the heart of relations is the mutual benefit enjoyed by the two countries on the use of hydro power — simply ‘water gold’. Bhutan’s current level of prosperity has trebled its per capita income from $600 in 2005 to $2,200, the second highest in South Asia after Maldives. Three power projects worth nearly 2,000 megawatts are on stream and another 10 projects are expected in a decade’s time to produce 10,000 megawatt of Bhutan’s capacity of 30,000 megawatts. India buys back cheap electricity — approximately `2 a unit —allowing sufficient electricity for Bhutan’s own domestic consumption. Soon, Bhutan could become the Laos of South East Asia, a net provider of power to the region. This will further boost GNH, the mantra of prosperity which Bhutan advocates at home and abroad.
How will democracy affect the royals and the elite? The vision of the Kings, especially the Fourth, who abdicated in favour of the present constitutional monarch will help adjust to ground reality, though the Constitution protects their privileges.
No one expects royalty in Bhutan to go the Nepal way. New Delhi has to brace up to changing Bhutan as it seeks greater autonomy. Mr Topgay admitted he was fully cognisant of India’s sensibilities and interests and will not undermine them.
A country India has taken for granted requires ‘special handling’ to prevent it from becoming a ‘Nepal’, however unlikely that may be. To start with, take Thimphu out of the unwritten reciprocity clause.
