Bhutan: The valley of peace and tranquility

Possibly Bhutan is the SAARC nation where peace and tranquility live in. Except Nepalese refuge issue, there is no topic in this country that could be mentioned as conflict. Bhutan, situated in the Great Himalayan range, has deep green valley with farmers, cattle-herders, orchard owners and gardeners from a very long period of its existence.

Presently a group of businessmen and executives, in terms of government and private sector, have emerged in the social domain of the land. In contrary to the other volatile nations of South Asia, Bhutan is the valley of peace and tranquility.

In the myths of the South Asia, Bhutan is almost absent while Manipur and Banga those are very far away from Aryabarta, having a glorious presence. It is yet more or less a mystery to the scholars deal with ancient history that Bhutan has no presence in ancient books i.e. in puranas and epics. As of available information, presence of human being in Bhutan may have been from 2000 BC. However, ancient civilization of Bhutan was recorded after the Tibetan invasion in 9th century.

Though modern Bhutan emerged at the age of British rule in India, the nation was never been govern by external force. As of history, the country was being taking a shape of a nation from 1616. That time Bhutanese protected themselves from Tibetan invasion though the leader of human flock was also a Tibetan monk. Up to the last part of 19th century, the human flock was running through the process of grouping and regrouping in terms of Buddhist schools of thoughts and socio-political power.

In 1885 Ugyen Wangchuck was able to consolidate political power and had scope to be closer to the British in India. Ugyen Wangchuck became hereditary king of the Himalayan state on 17 December 1907. It could be said that it is the beginning of modern Bhutan. Once a British protectorate, now a days a nation state with a democratic government and a ceremonial king and substantial level of external relations. It could be stated that, in 1971 Bhutan stepped in to sovereign foreign relationship by recognizing Bangladesh as sovereign nation.

One thing must be taken in to discussion that Bhutanese are a little bit hard liner about their religion belief. Drukpa, the son of dragon, is a bit chauvinistic school of Buddhist philosophy so far. Any way, it is not a political or administrative problem; rather it is very much related to socio-religious structure.

Bhutan has only two major problems to be addressed. One is threat from the militant belong to north-east India and another is persons in the camp that is the Nepali minority issue. Indian militant issue is yet a threat to the tiny Himalayan nation as the country has no sufficient fire power to resist the militant, though the militants including ULFA was driven out from the land of Bhutan with the cooperation of Indian security force. As of current information, there is no militant base in Bhutan, but it is a stress for the administration and bordering people that there may be a comeback of the issue.

In 80s of last century was the beginning of Nepali minority problem in this tiny kingdom that had been emerged from religion based social structure, which pushes the administration taken in to account. The result was the confinement of Nepali minorities in a number of Camps and a significant number of those people flew a way to Nepal. Those people are now living in UNHCR camps.

Only silent feature of Bhutan is the changing socio-political power structure. Emergent business groups, executives from both government and private organizations are getting more grips on socio-political power centers. The democracy is providing extra impetus only. It could be commented that if social, political and religion leaders of this nation could manage the changing phenomena, Bhutan will remain as the valley of tranquility that is also a desire for the entire South Asia.