BHUTAN : His Majesty the Son

Even as Crown Prince Wangchuk was being proclaimed king in Thimphu after the abdication of his father Jigme Singye Wangchuk, in Kathmandu the Bhutani human rights activist Tek Nath Rizal was being admitted to hospital. The ailments of Rizal, 59, are said to be related to ill treatment meted out to him during nearly a decade spent in Bhutanese jails, often in shackles and handcuffs.

So on the one hand we have an Oxford-trained, smartly outfitted King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, representing a Druk regime responsible for terrible excesses, receiving greetings from high personages the world over. On the other we have a sick man in poor health in a Kathmandu hospital, representing a dispirited lot of refugees, discarded 16 years ago by Thimphu and disregarded by Kathmandu (which has plenty of problems of its own) and New Delhi (whose motto on Bhutan reads ‘If it aint broke, don’t fix it’).

There is no need to doubt father Jigme’s intention of bringing democracy to Bhutan by the year 2008. The task for the new king – fresh with an education we are sure emphasised all the values of the classical Western liberal philosophy – is to ensure that fundamental freedoms are available to all citizens of Druk Yul regardless of faith, language or origin. At the very least, the new king represents an opportunity for change, because his coronation brings to an end the formal rule of the man known to be the progenitor of the depopulation policy – the ministers Dawa Tshering and Dago Tsering were but King Jigme’s accomplices at the time of the great Lhotshampa exodus a decade and half ago. To an extent we are concerned for King Jigme as he goes into retirement, for he has done so with the burden and blame of depopulation resting squarely on his shoulders.

The new king should, if he can, try to battle the racist, exclusivist noises coming out of the Tsongdu, the Druk Parliament. But he will swim against the tide only if he understands that a new Bhutan will never be democratic if it has been built on the ruination of the lives of a seventh the country’s population. The Bhutani citizens in the refugee camps of Jhapa and Morang must be allowed back.

Meanwhile, the United States’ offer to take in 60,000 of the refugees can be read at two levels. At one level, third-country resettlement is a humanitarian response to the plight of individual refugees rendered stateless for an inconsolably long time, and stark proof of the failure of the international community (and most importantly India) in redressing a wrong. At another level, the US initiative punctures the refugees’ legitimate campaign for return with dignity.

The Bhutanese refugees who are offered third-country settlement in the Untied States, like members of any other Southasian community, are likely to take it up. Half of the refugee lot will thus be headed across the Atlantic, and some others to other Western countries allegedly willing to host the Lhotshampa. That will leave only a few to continue the fight for the right of return.

If third-country resettlement does take place, the happy Ngalong power elites of Thimphu might want to consider the fact that, in a roundabout twist, the refugee problem might suddenly get more prominence than ever before as members of this expanded diaspora find their voices. But, if cruel fate does bring the disappearance of the Bhutani refugees, it will be doubly important for the international and regional community to look out for the interests of the Lhotshampa remaining within Bhutan.

For all that it did not do during the Lhotshampa refugees’ continuing travails in exile, let the New Delhi government commit itself now to looking out for the interests of the Lhotshampa population that remains within Druk Yul – the members of which are already second-class citizens and will now feel more beleagured than ever before.