According to an old urban myth, no one has ever died at Disneyland. In an effort to maintain their sterling reputation as “The Happiest Place on Earth,” some nefarious cabal of high-ranking mouseketeers has supposedly arranged for victims of freak accidents to be taken off park premises before being officially declared dead. As the legend goes, Disney can legitimately claim that there has never been a single death in one of their parks.
While there may or may not be an actual “no-death-at-Disney” policy, it turns out that several deaths have indeed occurred at Disney Parks. The myth is just that, but this strategy of excising misery for a happy image has been surprisingly overlooked and disturbingly effective nearly a world away.
At the Eastern end of the Himalayas in South Asia lays Bhutan, a small land-locked nation situated between the oftentimes turbulent areas of Tibet in Southern China and the Northeast Indian States of Assam and Arunchal-Pradesh.
Bhutan, at a glance, is paradise. In photos, traditionally-garbed smiling faces mill about in the Bhutanese Eden in scenes that almost seem like they have been torn out of some idyllic past. Breathtaking traditional Buddhist Architecture rises out of the verdant forests that blanket an ever-increasing share of the mountainous country. So potent is the lure of ‘the last Shangri-La’ that Bhutan was recently named the top overall destination in Lonely Planet’s 2013 Travelers’ Choice poll despite a $200 USD per day fee visitors and constant government handling imposed on foreign visiters. In many ways, the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon (the local name for Bhutan) is almost like a theme park; in 2006, Bhutan was even named the happiest place in Asia (and 8th happiest place in the world) by Business Week.
Bhutan in this respect is a bit of an anomaly that has captured a lot of international attention and admiration in recent years. Despite its relatively low level of development (Bhutan ranks 140th on the UN’s Human Development Index, which attempts to measure well-being through life expectancy, education, and standard of living), citizens in Bhutan seem to be leading genuinely happy lives.
In fact, after a newly crowned king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, made what was believed to be a passing remark in a Financial Times interview about being more concerned with “Gross National Happiness” than Gross Domestic Product, it became apparent that the modernization and development schema that the 4th Dragon King was to implement would be markedly different than that of Deng Xiaoping in neighboring China. The roots of a happiness agenda in Bhutan actually run far deeper than that: a 1729 legal code stated that laws must advance the happiness of all sentient beings.
The guiding principle of Gross National Happiness has brought much prestige to Bhutan in the international community, and it has even begun evolve from a rosy philosophy to an actual metric for development. In 2011, a resolution was unanimously adopted by the UN that made “happiness” an official development indicator and a concerted effort of economists and social scientists have attempted to develop an actual analytical system to measure the happiness of a society.
“I have no idea what this idea of Gross National Happiness means for people like us,” says Ram Dahl, a refugee from Bhutan who has been living in Austin since 2009.
Ram, who is of ethnic Nepalese decent (Lhotshampas as they’re known), was born in Bhutan but was forced resettle in Nepal only six years later after a spate of interethnic conflict and violence erupted in the wake of increasingly Draconian policy towards the Lhotshampas in the early 1990s. Ram’s flight from Shangri-La was hardly a unique occurrence; between 1990 and 1993, an estimated 105,000-108,000 people, roughly one sixth of the entire population of Bhutan, were effectively kicked out or otherwise coerced to leave their lives and homes in Bhutan.
For a nation so publically and historically committed to fostering the happiness of all sentient beings and modernizing in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha, repressing a major minority group and creating a refugee crisis might seem a bit like a cruel non-sequitur.
According to Centre for Bhutanese Studies, measuring Gross National Happiness requires an analysis of nine “domains.” Among these domains are fairly innocuous things like Health, Education, and Ecological Diversity and Resilience. One domain stands out with regards to policy in Bhutan: Culture.
“The distinctive culture of Bhutan facilitates sovereignty of the country and provides identity to the people. Hence the preservation and promotion of culture has been accorded a high priority both by government and the people. Culture is not only viewed as a resource for establishing identity but also for cushioning Bhutan from some of the negative impacts of modernization and thereby enriching Bhutan spiritually.”
National identity in Bhutan has long been tied to Mahayana Buddhism, and its influence is highly visible throughout much of the country. Thangkas depicting Buddhist deities adorn traditional Buddhist dzongs (or fortresses) and homes. Bhutanese men and women still carry out their day to day business in traditional attire. A cohort of Buddhist monks was instrumental in choosing Ugyen Wangchuck as the first Dragon King of Bhutan in the early 20th century. Buddhism is almost synonymous with Bhutan.
As deeply ingrained as Buddhism is in Bhutan, anywhere from a quarter to a third of the population still presently living there follow Hinduism, most of whom are ethnic Nepalese Lhotshampas in the Southern part of the country. Any visual or cultural influence they might have had on the country has largely been mitigated by laws on the books that propagate Buddhist culture: the traditional garb is actually required to be worn by law for any official business with the state. Despite Bhutan’s official upholding of freedom of religion, schools in the South have been prohibited since the 1980s from teaching in Nepali in lieu of Dzhongkha, the official language.
“This is the main reason [people] leave the country…In the 1990s the government wants to consolidate Hinduism into Buddhism. Hindu people do not like this,” says Ram Dahl. “They used to pay ten thousand ngultrum [Bhutanese currency] to convert to Buddhism."
If bribing people to convert to Buddhism seems like it flies in the face of the largely anti-proselytizing Buddhist Doctrine, it’s only because it does; the practice is an idiosyncratic feature of the Royal Government of Bhutan. In Nepal, the vast Hindu majority seems to have a much more accepting and respectful relationship with the Buddhist minority in the country. Nepal has preserved Buddhist holy sites like Lumbini, and thanks in large part to shared cultural traditions, differences between the two religious groups have been minimal. In Myanmar, Hindu influence is very much present and felt in the mainstream culture despite an overwhelmingly Buddhist population. The Dalai Lama hasn’t been trying to convert the Hindu population in India to Buddhism since being exiled.
A Nepalese population has been present in Bhutan since the early 1600s, around the time Himalayan nation was first unified as a political entity and roughly three centuries prior to the creation of the modern monarchy. While it would follow that the deep-seated Nepalese population would have contributed to the culture the Royal Government of Bhutan promotes as a pillar of happiness, the exact opposite has been true. Since the onset of Bhutan’s modernization agenda in the mid 20th century, the sizable Lhotshampa population has continually been repressed and marginalized.
As is the case for many developing countries, accurate census data is somewhat hard to come by for Bhutan. According to the government, the Lhotshampas officially accounted for 28% of the overall population of Bhutan in the late 1980s, but unofficial estimates range anywhere from 40-51%. While the actual figure is uncertain, what is certain is that the Lhotshampa population had grown to a size that was seen as a political threat to the Royal Government by the mid 1980s.
In 1988, Bhutan launched a census operation in the southern part of the country that required people to present official documentation to prove their citizenship. The documentation that was demanded was specifically a land tax receipt from 1958, when Bhutan had passed its first Citizenship Act which granted full citizenship to those living to the South. Again, as is the case in many developing countries, official records are a notoriously scarce commodity in Bhutan. According to some refugees, their citizenship was still forcibly revoked despite having presented the thirty year old document. A new Citizenship Act passed that had passed in 1985 was the basis for the census operation. The 1985 Act was commonly referred to as the notoriously familiar sounding “One Nation, One People Act,” and included new criteria for citizenship and Draconian precepts for which it could be revoked.
In addition to the probes and forced evictions, peoples in the south of Bhutan, who had historically been left to their own devices, became legally subject to the to the cultural norms of the Buddhists in the North. It was in 1989 that the laws aimed at cultural consolidation made walking around in anything other than the traditional Buddhist attire of the north liable for punishment. It was in 1989 that Nepali language was officially outlawed from being taught in schools. Many view these policies as much as an attempt by the Royal Government of Bhutan to coerce members of the minority group to self-deport as they were an attempt to preserve the mainstream culture.
Unsurprisingly, the harsh antagonizing of the Southern Nepalese during the late 1980s led to violent protest and conflict in the early 1990s that had a catalyzing effect on the stream of refugees fleeing the country. By the mid 1990s, it’s estimated that well over 100,000 people had been driven out of Bhutan, including a huge number of children who had been born there.
After being denied refuge in neighboring India, the tens of thousands of refugees were eventually settled in seven UNHCR camps in Nepal. Although they are of Nepalese origin, and therefore, according to Bhutan, Nepal’s problem, the refugees were not accorded Nepalese citizenship and many have languished in the limbo of the refugee camps for the last two decades. More recently, several nations including the United States, agreed to take in some of the refugees as part of a resettlement program mitigated by the U.N. and other international organizations after it became apparent that talks between Nepal and Bhutan were not progressing after nearly two decades.
Ram and his family were among the refugees who were resettled in the United States. While he considers the U.S. his new home, Ram made it clear that life in the U.S. wasn’t on his mind for the 18 years he spent living in a refugee camp.
“We hadn’t thought about coming to this country…We tried to go home, but the government of Bhutan [and] the Government of India…they didn’t allow us,” sats Ram Dahl.
Since the intense strife of the early 1990s, Bhutan has transitioned into a constitutional monarchy and Jigme Wagye Wangchuck has abdicated the thrown. In 2008, his son was officially coronated and Bhutanese voters elected a parliament. 44 of the 47 parliamentary seats were won by the pro-monarchy party in the first round of elections. Setting aside the weight of tens of thousands of potential voters in refugee camps, there is still pervasive support for the monarchy amongst the Bhutanese populace. While Bhutan has stopped using direct means to evict people, it is still widely believed by many activists and human rights observers that the government is till marginalizing and pressuring the remaining Lhotshampa population to leave.
The last question I had for Ram was whether or not there was reason to be optimistic about a resolution to the situation. He doesn’t seem to think so for good reason, and he's far from alone in the sentiment. Since third country resettlement began being facilitated by the UNHCR, Bhutanese refugees have nearly unanimously opted for a life in a new country. Nearly 80,000 of the initial refugees have already been settled, and a large majority of those remaining have expressed interest in taking part in the program. Over 66,000 Bhutanese refugees have settled in the United States alone.
It’s hard to be critical of a government more concerned with the well-being of all ‘sentient beings’ than cold economic figures. ‘Money isn’t everything’ the old adage goes, but Bhutan clearly falls short of being a truly benevolent state. If Bhutan has been successful at raising the aggregate level of happiness, they’ve done it by exporting misery.
The Royal Government of Bhutan has committed itself the governmental equivalent of the bodhisattva ideal, but the engendering of over 100,000 refugees and its failure to rectify the situation stand as a stark testament to their hypocrisy. With Tibet languishing under Chinese control and Sikkim an Indian state since the 1970s, Bhutan is the last autonomous Mahayana Buddhist state in the world, and although they follow a different spiritual leader, the global face of Mahayana Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, has never formally been invited to the ‘Last Shangri-La.’ The recently crowned Fifth Dragon King of the Wangchuk Dynasty should heed the example of the exiled religious leader as he continues pursuing the philosophy of Gross National Happiness:
“As a Buddhist monk my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.”
-The Dalai Lama