Ngawang Namgyal’s administrative system survived the founder’s death, however, staffed by an ever-expanding class of civil servants who, then as now, shared the dzongs with monks. In the fields around, farmers labored under a feudal system that traded labor for sustenance and protection. In a cashless economy, landless peasants were essentially serfs or even slaves to landowners. Taxes were paid in crops of rice, barley, or buckwheat, supplemented by supplies of wood and butter. The tradition lingers in symbolic ways.
Dasho Rinzin Gyetsen, the dzongda of Tashigang, told me that when he took office in that remote eastern dzong, people walked for as long as five days from distant villages to bring him gifts of butter, hard-boiled eggs, vegetables, and other products of their farms. He in turn was expected to visit their communities. “A dasho takes a vow before the king to serve the people,” he said. “And a dzongda has very close links with them. On my trips to their villages, the people provide food, drink, and horses all along the way. When I arrive, the best house in a village is emptied for me; the family moves away all its possessions and leaves it clean. If there is no suitable house, people construct a shelter of firs or leafy branches and stand guard all night while I sleep. They will roast a pig and ask that the food be served by the dzongda’s own hand.”
Because regional feuds continued to disrupt the otherwise bucolic life of Bhutan well into the twentieth century, the arts of war were not neglected. Every Bhutanese man learned archery and swordsmanship and could be called up at any time to garrison a dzong or march against a troublesome neighboring lord. There were few guns of any kind, so Bhutanese soldiers were able to protect themselves reasonably well with iron helmets and shields made of hide or thickly woven vines or grasses. Battles began with ritual dances and prayers to the guardian deities of a place—much fiercer gods than any in the Buddhist pantheon of incarnations. Soldiers were often barefoot.
It was such an army that took on the British in the hope of saving a valuable belt of rich land that served as a buffer between the Himalayan foothills and the higher elevations of Bhutan. The area, several hundred miles in length, was known as the Duars, literally the “doors” or gates from the plains into the hills running along river valleys. The strip of land, divided into the Bengal Duars and the Assam Duars, corresponding to those Indian states, included not only fertile plains but also a number of hill towns. The British, administrators of an armed commercial empire in India in its early years, quarreled intermittently with the Bhutanese in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries over trade, access to Tibet, and occasional Bhutanese incursions into territory deemed to be under the protection of Calcutta, the headquarters of the East India Company.
Peter Collister, in his excellent book Bhutan and the British, looks to the temper of the age to explain why Britain saw fit to pick fights with this small country, especially in the nineteenth century, when relations dropped to an all-time low. The Victorians, he found, combined a heightened fear of Russia and China (both just over the Himalayan horizon) with “the evangelistic and moralising spirit of the times.” Ashley Eden, one of the least sympathetic of the emissaries sent to deal with the Bhutanese, prepared a report whose language Collister described as superficial and scathing. Eden went so far as to make the suggestion that the country might be successfully colonized.
Meanwhile, the British nibbled away at territory. In 1772 the Bhutanese fought and lost a battle with Britain over the small kingdom of Cooch Behar, now in India’s state of West Bengal. In 1841, the Assam Duars were annexed by the British, setting off two decades of skirmishes with the Bhutanese. Near the end of 1864, the British issued a proclamation of complaints that amounted to a declaration of war on Bhutan. Six hundred elephants and countless bullocks were assembled for the task of breaching the mountain kingdom’s defenses in the Bengal Duars, according to Collister. Artillery was moved into place, and the Anglo-Bhutanese War began with an attack on a Bhutanese fort at Dalingcote, near the forested meeting point of Sikkim, Bhutan, and India. The Bhutanese defended themselves with bows and arrows and rocks.
In a few months, all the Duars were in British hands, and peace was restored with the 1865 Treaty of Sinchu-la. The British turned to other projects. The Bhutanese, bruised and humiliated, retreated to their mountain domain. But Bhutan had escaped colonization; the British were never able to station even a resident political officer in the country. Bhutan could turn to new projects, the most important of which was the stabilizing and reunifying of a country torn by civil strife and foreign wars for nearly two centuries. Jigme Namgyal, penlop of Tongsa, almost completed the task between 1865 and his death in 1885. The final victory was left to his son and heir, Ugyen Wangchuck, who became Bhutan’s first king, the Druk Gyalpo, Precious Ruler of the Dragon People.
Chapter 10
THE DRAGON PEOPLE
WHO ARE the Bhutanese, the people who have the maybe impossible task of saving the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom? Other Himalayan Buddhists think of them as aloof, proud, and generally conservative. Even sympathetic people who share their religion are critical of Bhutan’s initial intolerance in dealing with its southern, mostly Hindu, rebellion, and there is a surprising lack of passion in the region for protecting the sovereignty of Bhutanese Buddhists, who have managed to look after themselves pretty effectively through the centuries. Long years of isolation have apparendy left permanent imprints on Bhutanese thinking, especially in the monasteries, where change is resisted. Throughout the region, there is a sense that the inflexibility of Bhutan’s monastic leadership—not the monks themselves—could endanger the country whose unique religion and royal rule they most want to save.
Although Bhutan’s supreme religious leader, the je khenpo, and the government-subsidized (and -pensioned) monks he leads are followers of the Drukpa Kagyupa school which established a theocratic state in Bhutan in the seventeenth century, many Bhutanese, including royal family members, are Nyingmapa Buddhists or followers of lamas who are Nyingma teachers. Furthermore, the Drukpas are considered a western Bhutanese phenomenon, and are thus resented by many eastern Bhutanese, who see them as a privileged group. Bhutan does not need an east-west division at a time when the north and south are involved in something approaching civil war.
But there is yet a more tragic consequence of Drukpa domination. It prevents Bhutan from using its protected religious environment to lure Buddhist philosophers and scholars to the kingdom, or so monks outside the country say. Logically, this last Himalayan Buddhist realm might well become an intellectual center for the faith. But no, a Bhutanese monk told me in Kathmandu. “I have to come out for new ideas,” he said. “The great lamas from outside are not welcome in Bhutan.” The monk had come to study with Khenpo Rigzin at the Nyingma Institute of Nepal. He saw the Drukpa monastic order not as a force for the vigorous propagation of Buddhism and exciting debates on its philosophy and direction but as a stumbling block to learning among the last people to live in a Buddhist kingdom. Foreign lamas and students are denied visas to Bhutan, the khenpo said. Bhutanese in power deny this, but, whatever the truth may be, there is certainly a perception in the Himalayas that clannishness and exclusivity are perpetuated by the Drukpa monastic hierarchy. Foreign monks insist that as the country and its king modernize, the Bhutanese people’s most important heritage, the Buddhist religion, is officially in Drukpa blinkers.
Attitudes could not be more different among the Bhutanese in secular life—in law, medicine, agriculture, civil administration, and other civilian professions—who have been charged by the king with bringing Bhutan into the contemporary world. They are acutely aware that they are a generation standing somewhere on the frontier between medievalism and modern nationhood. People in their forties and fifties can still remember a country without roads or schools or money; they are the last of the old order, and the creators of the new. This could be exhilarating, if that were a sensation in more general currency in this country where reserve and moderation are more the norm in public life. More
often, a Bhutanese just accepts, matter-of-factly, the extraordinary task of trying to construct an institutional future true to the best of Bhutan’s heritage. Moreover, they do it with a sense of humor.
Sonam Tobgay, chief justice of Bhutan, is one of those citizens whose work could significantly change national life. But he isn’t puffed up or pompous about the prospect of an immortal reputation. Although he can discourse at length about the origins and accretions of Bhutanese common law or about the code of the Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, he is at his most animated when telling rural jokes.
For instance, there was this backwater town where panic had set in over the imminent visit of a high-ranking government official. The rustic folk, certain they would commit crass infractions of etiquette, sought advice from an elder in the vicinity who was a shade more worldly-wise. Don’t get worked up, they were told. Just turn out for the visit properly dressed in your best clothes and then watch what I do and imitate my every act. The day arrived, and so did the great dasho. The townsfolk came out to line the road in respectful welcome, all eyes on the elder, who was making an extravagant show of knowing the correct ritual. But in his zeal, the elder overdid it. In a grand gesture, he accidentally managed to shake loose the shallow wood-and-silver drinking cup that every well-accounted Bhutanese carries in the folds of his robe. Since the village was on a steep slope, the hapless elder was unable to stop his little bowl from rolling to the edge of the road and plunging merrily down the hill, gathering speed as it went. The rustics waited only a second before pulling their treasured cups from their ghos and bowling them down the same incline, proud of not having missed a cue.
Before the short, stocky justice reaches the end of the story, he is convulsed in laughter. Not necessarily because the joke is such a ribtickling thigh-slapper, but because it is a beautiful example of a tale designed to illustrate the extreme stupidity of a region of Bhutan notorious for breeding dimwits. He launches directly into another joke about the same region. Two men went hunting. When they first spotted their prey (I think it was a handsome deer) some distance away, they chose arrows and drew their bows to shoot. One hunter, anticipating a feast, asked his companion, Did you bring the salt, pepper, and chilis? The second, focused on the deer, said, What? Did you bring the salt, pepper, and chilis? the first asked again, a little louder, worried about a lack of seasoning for their barbecue. What did you say? asked the second once more. Did you bring the salt, pepper, and chilis? the salivating first hunter shouted. The animal heard the outburst, of course, and, warned of its danger, ran away.
“There are in every country, every place, always some jokes,” Justice Tobgay said during a chat in his chambers at Bhutan’s High Court, as he digressed into an exposition on the importance of humor in understanding a country’s psychology. The High Court is no ordinary courthouse, but a magnificent traditional structure built not long ago in pure Bhutanese Buddhist style, right up to the loose-shingled roof held down by rocks. The main courtoom is a riot of color, with familiar paintings on Buddhist themes covering the low desks behind which the nine justices sit at the bench, the pillars holding up the ceiling, and whatever other spaces were available to the artists’ brushes. The bench itself is a raised platform covered by Bhutanese rugs in bright primary hues. Trials are conducted in one of the three official languages, English, Dzongkha, or Nepali; the choice is made by the principals in each case. The justices take pains to make this clear, since ethnic Nepali exiles have charged disingenuously that the use of their language is banned or curtailed in Bhutan. The chief justice studied the principles of human rights in Australia and international law in London, and he is aware of the need to keep the High Court, an appellate court of last resort (with the king the only higher authority), as objective as possible in a climate of ethnic tensions. Justice Sonam Tobgay describes himself as “the most independent man in the kingdom.”
I had heard around town that he had begun an oral history collection of the life and folklore of Bhutan in his spare time. That was an exaggerated rumor, he told me with a rueful smile. He certainly wanted to promote the collection of folklore, both jokes and moral tales, but he was too busy computerizing court records, reviewing the country’s legal codes, and putting centuries of customary and religious law into new contexts to do much collecting himself. Where jokes are concerned, there is only a brief moment left in history to record this gentle humor, before videos blanket the land with the slapstick of Indian cinema and sophisticated (and not so sophisticated) sitcom silliness of Hollywood. The Bhutanese have a wry, understated sense of humor, a knack for seeing the amusing or absurd in many ordinary situations, and good timing when telling funny stories. People seem to smile and laugh easily, habits toddlers learn as parents and grandparents play cheerfully with them.
“Jokes are entertaining, and should be laughed at,” the justice said. “But they also can have tremendous meaning. Those that do, I think, should be preserved. No one here has written on that. Our jokes are very short, basically five, ten lines, which we can laugh about.” The chief justice then slipped inadvertently into one of those Bhutanese tangles with numbers. “There are two kinds of jokes or funny stories,” he said. “One popular one written in Tibetan. Number two, advice and moral values taken from the various religious textbooks. Third, and basically it is in this area I have interest, which can be bifurcated into two: A—which is seemingly truly Bhutanese. B—it must tell certain things about that place. Now, for instance, some stories of a stone, of a place, gives names which neither exist in our Tibetan classical working grammar or in the dictionary. This speaks a lot about the language and the culture that once existed. The Himalayan range was the abode of aboriginals who had distinct culture, language, unwritten language. If I can find and save these old stories it will be a service to the country, to a future generation.
“We all talk about culture and tradition, and the richness of culture and traditions,” Sonam Tobgay continued. “But it would be an empty tribute unaccompanied by any action. Our oral folk tales or stories all have moral values. And tremendous rationality. At a certain stage in life you tend to mock these tales. But you learn. For instance, the trees near the source of the river or the stream: we were constantly drummed at a younger age that there are gods in them. Not really gods, but guardian deities. If you cut that tree, the nagas will be very angry. This was basically a deterrent measure propounded or expressed in folk tales. It was just a tale, but in retrospect—and, also if you analyze it—it has the scientific values for the environment. And anything that has value I think must be treasured.”
The justice is fascinated to see what still-living folktales reveal about the subtle social or political messages conveyed, especially to children. “Now, for instance, last year the Dzongkha Development Commission conducted a survey. They have asked the children to submit folk tales, to write folk tales. Some of them—it was three hundred and something they got—had certain messages to pass. The kings were always venerated. But they were writing about a time when we did not have the kings. The concept of king was not there. A lot of light that throws.”
The chief justice’s more pressing task now is the rationalization of the legal system and the computerization and analysis of court records—no small challenge, since, like everything else in Bhutan, some of the historical lawgivers’ lives and deeds are obscured by a mythological overlay. His casual account of his source material is astonishing. “The first codified law of Bhutan was in 1651 or 1652—the dates are disputed,” he said. “That was in Shabdrung’s time, in his last days. But if you look into those documents, they have drawn sources from the laws of Lord Buddha, which were pronounced in 1913 B.C. Those are the treatises of Lord Buddha. Of course, you may ask, in 1913 Lord Buddha was not born. According to Buddhist philosophy, Lord Buddha was born five hundred times good life and five hundred times difficult life. And in one of his five hundred times, in the kingdom of Madgadanya Bodhgaya, presently called Bihar, there was a king called Mirputchinand, and Lord
Buddha was a reincarnation of that. So it appears that the first material source of law was based on that law.
“Secondly, the fifteenth king of Tibet, who was born in around 627 A.D. or 629, he had done one of the best and most elaborate code of laws,” he went on. “In fact, those laws are better than those of the ten tables of Cicero and Augustine and others. They are very elaborate. Then Guru Padmasambhava also had made some laws—somebody asked Guru Padmasambhava: ’You have taught everything to us. Would you say something about law?’ And Guru Padmasambhava then relates certain laws.
“In 1951, when the third king ascended the throne, the National Assembly was instituted. From 1952 onward there were discussions on the various provisions of the laws of Bhutan, which we call the General Law Book. We have yet to do a search to try to draw similarities on sources of each article of the law, comparing and contrasting with some of the articles or principles initiated by the persons or sources that I have mentioned. We have yet to do that. However, the General Law Book is a very good law book. There were extensive discussions from 1952 until 1959; it was not enacted in one session. It came in 1959. Therefore we called it the General Law Book of 1959.”
The 1959 code combines local customary law for civil procedures with internationally accepted criminal codes, the chief justice said. “There seems to be a lot of similarities with the British penal code.” He added that Bhutan does have the death penalty on its books, contrary to Buddhist precepts, but that it has not been applied, though there have been calls for capital punishment for terrorists. There are some other dark spots. When leaders of Amnesty International, on a visit to Bhutan, raised objections to the shackling of prisoners, the Bhutanese were chagrined, a minister told me, because they weren’t aware that shackling was not common everywhere. A new prison was built to meet many of Amnesty’s standards.
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