Demographic Inundation


Written by Huma Iqbal • Region • February 2011

Being on the bridge-head between two economic, demographic and geo-political giants - India and China, Bhutan has had its fair share of security problems which in turn has had great influence on the country’s perception of security – it keeps changing in responses to internal and external circumstances.

For instance whenever tensions between Indian and Chinese borders heighten, it has become customary for Bhutan to assess the issue from the point of view of its own security. This habit has had a constructive impact. Bhutan has been a politically stable country having been kept out of colonial domination, cold war and regional rivalries.

However, Bhutan has had its share of internal security problems too. The Kingdom had for more than a decade been the safe haven for militants from Assam and West Bengal – India’s northeast states with which Bhutan shares an unfenced 605-km border, chiefly the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO). The three groups had well-entrenched bases in Bhutan since the mid-1990s until 2003 when Bhutan launched a full-scale military offensive code-named Operation All Clear to evict the Indian rebels. The threat however remains. With the recent release of ULFA ideologue Bhimkanta Buragohain, alias Mama, from Guwahati Central Jail after spending nearly seven years behind bars, where he was apprehended by the Royal Bhutan Army during Operation All Clear, international observers say that unless India doesn’t find a peaceful solution to the Indo-Assam political conflict, the Bhutanese jungles can once again be used as sanctuaries to train and equip ULFA and NDFB cadres for their illicit activities, thereby bringing the unrest on the border of the neighboring countries within Bhutan.

Meanwhile, in his recent visit to the northeastern Indian city Guwahati, Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Y. Thinley assured that there were no Indian separatist bases in his country, but also pledged not to allow rebels to enter the country for shelter. “We call for cooperation and support from India in jointly fighting terror”, the premier asserted.

Another problem that Bhutan has faced for long and which still haunts the country is the problem of southern dissidents. The issue started in the1980s, when from its isolated perch in the heights of the Himalayas, the leaders of Bhutan felt that their authority and traditional way of life, preserved by centuries of reclusion from a changing world, were being threatened by people they had allowed to migrate into the Buddhist kingdom for more than a century.

Fearing that this ethnic minority of Nepali ancestry that had planted roots in southern Bhutan in the late 19th century could soon become the majority, the monarchy sent a message loud and clear: the groups were cataloged, counted and forced to prove their citizenship. New laws mandating Bhutanese cultural practices added to the chaos.

This resulted in a large-scale expulsion of these groups, making Bhutan have the distinction of being one of the world’s highest per capita generator of refugees (sixth of its citizens live in exile). And while this refugee crisis has long since been embedded in the social and national life of Bhutan, criticized time and again from neighboring Nepal as well as the international governments, many analysts believe that for the locals it is a question of survival, where many believe that their Kingdom has been silently invaded by an illegal immigrant population. On the other hand, this discriminatory behavior on part of the ethnic groups accumulated in the south of the Kingdom can pose a security threat to Bhutan on similar grounds as that of the Naxalite movements in neighboring India.