The Himalayan Arc

by Namita Gokhale

  Again he returned to his main theme of GNH and GDP which, he said, could not just be centred around prosperity. ‘We have to make people happy and include the Bhutanese traditional culture… We will have to modernize, open up, but it has to be clearly blended with our tradition and culture…All a question of using educational institutions to mould the characters of students and how they behave… We want to mould the ideal Bhutanese citizen… Every individual must be nationalistic, patriotic, skilled.’

  On India, the king praised Rajiv Gandhi, then the prime minister and ten years older than him, as ‘the best prime minister India and [its] neighbours can have’. But, he added,

  One thing we don’t like is that the opposition in India’s aim is solely to pull the government down, and to obstruct the government from doing well, even if it realizes [that] the aim of the government is [doing] good for the country. We have no objection to political parties. The problem of democracy in the Third World is it only operates if all the people are literate and can know what the government does – in the Third World most people are not aware of what government does, so participation of people is not so great.

  If Bhutan had a ‘capable government’ there was nothing that could not be achieved. ‘Being a very small country, we can’t afford failures or problems [that have] not [been] overcome – but we have no choice but to have a very clear view… Today we have a major advantage of time and opportunity which we can either use or waste. We are at a crossroads where we can achieve any objective – social harmony, political stability, economic development. Otherwise we can dig a very deep hole for ourselves, which would create very serious problems for our country,’ the king said at the end of the interview.

  Looking back over the thirty years since then, it is clear how significant these thoughts were, and how sharp the king’s analysis. I am sure he never dreamed that GNH would now be adopted and discussed around the world, nor would he have probably wanted it to be. At first, people elsewhere thought the idea rather quaint and unreal, but now it is being embraced in a search for a better and more sustainable way to manage affairs.This was evident in November 2015 at a GNH conference in Paro that was attended by around 750 international delegates and organized by Dasho Karma Ura, president of the Centre for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research. Ideas discussed ranged from the protection of the environment to worker participation in companies, and from organic farming and corporate social responsibility to governments’ purchasing policies.

  The aim in the 1980s was to find a middle development road, a drive now continued by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who was crowned in 2008, and by the government. Tshering Tobgay, the prime minister, told the Paro conference: ‘We need to understand that the notion of progress goes well beyond lack of income or consumption to include non-monetary aspects such as weak social connections, the psychological costs of alienation and isolation, the exposure to risks and the experience of vulnerability.’ The prime minister is now introducing a GNH certification system for business, based on a company’s ethics and its care for its workers and customers and the community.

  Inevitably, the pressures of modernization have created fresh stresses and challenges that have prevented many of the ideas aired in my interview from being achieved. A survey conducted in 2015 by the Centre for Bhutan Studies found that people in remote villages were less happy than those who had moved to cities, because they felt they were missing out on what was available in urban areas, and were also suffering from a lack of labour to work the land. There are criticisms, and many Bhutanese are sceptical and sometimes even scornful of a creed that is often broken in practice.

  Bhutan would, however, almost certainly have had far more problems now if it had not started the GNH trend that has influenced at least part of the government’s approach to development work. If King Jigme Singye Wangchuck were to talk to me now (he rarely appears in public these days and never gives interviews), he would no doubt say that not enough has been achieved, and would feel the need to remind the country of his remark that ‘if we chart our course carefully, we can get economic prosperity and political stability and social harmony’.

  GANGKAR PUNSUM

  The World’s Highest Unclimbed Mountain

  Tshering Tashi

  Bhutan has the unique distinction of being one of the few countries in the world that enforces a total ban on mountaineering. This was imposed in 1987, during the 65th session of the National Assembly of Bhutan.

  The people of the high country of Laya and Lunana initiated the ban after they found mountaineers traversing the sacred mountains. Since we believe the mountains to be the abodes of deities who protect us and worship them as living beings, mountaineering is considered sacrilegious. The mountain people urged their representative who accordingly took up the matter in the country’s highest legislative body to stop the profanity:

  … if firm and timely measures are not taken to protect the aura of sanctity that still pervades most of our sacred places of worship, not only will our reverence and faith be undermined but the belief and faith of our children in our own religion and culture will be placed in great jeopardy.

  The ban was triggered by a British expedition’s attempt to scale Gangkar Punsum in 1986.

  Locally known as the Three-Sibling Mountain, the summit sits majestically on the border of Bhutan and China. While two of the peaks fall within the boundary of China, the two countries share the tallest peak. At 7,570 metres above sea level, it is now the tallest mountain in the country and has earned the reputation of being the world’s highest unclimbed mountain.

  So far, there have been four expeditions to summit Gangkar Punsum but none have succeeded. The British expedition, led by Steven Berry, was the last group to make that attempt.

  One of the first things the British mountaineer did was to raise money. In order to solicit sponsorship, he wrote several letters. One such letter confirms the mountain to be the highest unclimbed mountain: ‘The British Expedition is the first British mountaineering team to ever be allowed into Bhutan, where we will be attempting to climb the highest unclimbed mountain in the world available to Western mountaineers.’

  Berry was successful in mobilizing money. From the 39,940 pounds that he raised, 61 per cent had to be paid to the Bhutan government as a fee. The levy included the climbing fees of 3,300 pounds and the rest was the charge for the visas for the seven mountaineers for sixty days. The expedition used the remainder of the money for travel, equipment, special food, medicine, insurance, office expenses and other contingencies.

  Summiting mountains in the Himalayas is the draw of luck. Mountaineers will tell you that the success of a climb is anchored on the exigencies of the weather, and it is normal for it to be unpredictable. When the British expedition reached the last camp they ran out of luck, as it snowed heavily and the expedition narrowly missed the chance to summit. Eventually they had to be bailed using helicopters.

  On 8 November 1986, the Bhutanese newspaper Kuensel carried the story of this last attempt under the headline, ‘Climbers Enjoy Attempt’: ‘The climbers had reached the last camp before the summit at 22,000 feet. However, they had to call off the attempt because of the harsh weather.’

  Despite the unsuccessful attempt and the numerous difficulties, the whole group reached a consensus that the expedition was ‘great, especially being out in the wilderness’ and a happy one with remarkable adventure stories.

  Most of the members expressed to Kuensel their desire to make another attempt in Bhutan. But what they did not realize was that they would be the last Westerners to make that attempt as, in the following year, a general ban on mountaineering was enforced as a result of their expedition.

  Despite the ban on mountaineering, local authorities managed to keep the three mountains under the government’s radar, thanks to a regulation. When the government learnt of the Bhutan Mountaineering Regulation of 1992 in the same year, that allowed mountaineering of the three peaks of Masagang, Jitchu Drake and Khang
bum, it was immediately revoked and total ban was enforced. The licences of the travel agents that profited from this illegal activity was retracted.

  The mountaineers knew that Bhutan would not allow them to climb the Gangkar Punsum. So a Japanese team approached the Chinese, who agreed to allow them to summit it from the China side.

  In 1998, a Japanese well-wisher informed the government of Bhutan of this permission. On 8 December, Kenichi Shindo from Marco Polo Inc. sent a fax to Dasho Nob Tshering, stating that the Japanese mountaineering team had obtained permission to ascend Gangkar Punsum from the China side in 1999.

  The fax mentioned details about the climb such as the royalty, USD 30–50,000. It also said that the Japanese mountaineers attempting to ascend Gangkar Punsum were the ones who had earlier climbed Mount Jhomolhari from the Tibetan side. In the fax, Mr Shindo confirmed Gangkar Punsum as the highest un-climbed peak in the world and valued it as equivalent to or more than Mount Everest.

  The well-wisher’s fax prompted the Bhutanese government to pursue the matter through diplomatic channels. Bhutan’s ambassador to India was instructed to convey the sentiments of the people of Bhutan and also to remind the Japanese mountaineers that ascending Gangkar Punsum would be considered sacrilegious. The Bhutanese ambassador took up the matter with his Japanese counterpart, who was most cooperative.

  In a fax dated 16 February 1999, the Bhutanese ambassador to India filed the report of his meeting with the Japanese ambassador in Thimphu. The fax stated that the Japanese ambassador had informed the office of Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, president of the Japan Mountaineering Association, who had reported this matter to their foreign ministry in Tokyo. The Japanese said that on 13 February, two days prior to the meeting, the government of China had withdrawn the permit to climb Mt Gangkar Punsum.

  The Bhutanese were relieved that the permission was withdrawn and pleased by the cooperation shown by the two governments of Japan and China. However, Japanese reporter Tsuguyasu Itami produced a report ‘Gankarpunzum & First Ascent of Liankang Kangri, Mountain in dispute on China–Bhutan Border’ that revealed the other side of the story.

  On the occasion of the 40th celebration of Chinese Mountaineering Association (CMA) on May 1998 held at Beijing, JAC sounded a possibility of a permit for mountaineering in the vicinity of the borderland of China and Bhutan. Shortly after JAC secured the permit from CMA to climb Gankarpunsum, the highest peak of Bhutan, from Tibetan side in 1999. Consequently JAC took immediate steps for the expedition and sent a recce party in October 1998. The party brought back an information[sic]sufficient for the climbing expedition in the next year and then JAC accelerated a preparation in full swing. To their surprise, however, JAC received an unexpected notice from CMA that the climbing permit to Gankarpunsum must be postponed due to a certain political issue as the mountain locates[sic] in a very sensitive borderland between China and Bhutan.

  Itami’s report also confirmed Gangkar Punsum as the highest unclimbed mountain.

  In front the glorious Gankarpunzum remaining as the highest unclimbed peak but now a forbidding mountain because of a political barrier pertaining to a border problem was glittering immaculate[sic].

  The Japanese mountaineers still have their eyes set on the Three-Sibling Mountain. In 2006, in Tokyo, the president of the Japan Alpine Club verbally proposed, to the secretary-general of the Association for Bhutan Tour Operators, an expedition to climb Gangkar Punsum.

  The Alpine Club were ready to pay USD 1 million to the Bhutanese government and also promised to train some Bhutanese in mountaineering techniques and include them in the expedition. The Tourism Council is inundated with such requests and proposals to climb mountains in Bhutan.

  The 1987 ban on mountaineering was prompted by the respect of our people’s sentiments for the mountains. The enforcement is inspired by our country’s commitment to conserving the environment and the understanding that the cost of the ecological imbalance created by mountaineers was far greater than the revenues generated by allowing mountaineers to scale the Three-Sibling Mountain. So as long as the value system of our country does not change, climbing Mount Gangkar Punsum will remain a dream for the mountaineers. It will remain the world’s highest unclimbed mountain.

  A POET’S IMPRESSIONS OF NEPAL AND BHUTAN

  Abhay K.

  I lived in Nepal for three-and-a-half years and have written a whole poetic sequence on the country, titled ‘The Eight-Eyed Lord of Kathmandu’. I was inspired to write the poem on Ghandruk during my trek to this sleepy town nestled in the Annapurnas, an hour and a half’s drive from the lake town of Pokhara. Then in August 2015, I was in Bhutan to attend the Mountain Echoes Literature Festival. I stole some time away from the festival in Thimphu to explore the land of happiness. Both ‘Going to Thimphu’ and ‘The Bhutanese Himalayas’ were inspired by this trip.

  GHANDRUK

  Steep climb in the Himalayas

  Mules and men walk together

  Each with their own burden

  In a house converted into a hotel

  A Gurung girl smells of spice

  And smoke, her eyes shine

  With desire. She sweats

  Her breasts covered

  By a sky-blue scarf

  Lost in the Annapurnas

  She wanders along the ancient trails

  Listening to eternal birdsong.

  THE BHUTANESE HIMALAYAS

  White axes of snow

  Slash the sky

  It bleeds

  A sea of clouds

  An expanse of blue and white

  Like gossamer

  Transient, fragile

  Filled with light.

  GOING TO THIMPHU

  Wind batters car windows

  As I travel along the Paro river

  Intricately painted houses as carved marmalade

  Black wooden windows, painted walls

  Men in gho, women in kira

  Play with bow and arrows

  Two girls sit along the highway, combing their hair

  Newly-wed lovebirds smile from giant billboards

  Stray dogs and cows linger along the road

  A ceremonial gate welcomes me to Thimphu

  A sculpture of a monkey riding an elephant

  Four-five storied houses painted in muted colours

  Snooker billboards, car service centres

  Furniture shops dominate the street

  The city shuts at dusk,

  Only Tashichho Dzong shines bright at night.

  TIBET, INDIA, AND CHINA

  An Overview

  Manoj Joshi

  Modern India and China are historical entities with substantial cultural interaction in the past. But physically, they only bumped into each other in the 1950s, following China’s annexation of Tibet and India’s move to fill out the frontier areas that had been left largely un-administered by the British. Both are products of the empires they had been ruled by – the Chinese insist on maintaining the boundaries set by the Qing empire, and India sees itself as the legal successor state to the British empire.

  At the heart of the Sino–Indian interaction is the vast Himalayan region. Located where they are, between two great civilizational entities, the Himalayan states have had a chequered history. Some of them like Tibet and Sikkim have been assimilated into the larger polities, while others have managed to reach the twenty-first century as sovereign, independent entities, though not without a nervous tic on account of their big neighbours.

  Tibet has had historical links with both India and China. Religion, culture, and trade linked Tibet to India, while religion and politics formed the China–Tibet bond. These ties must be seen as being sui generis – efforts to fit them into today’s Westphalian system of state boundaries and sovereignty does not quite explain them. But the dominant factor has been, and is, geography, which has both limited the interaction and shaped it in a variety of ways.

  Tibet lies across the Indian border from Burma in the east, spreading to Ka
shmir in the west. This border is broken today by small states like Bhutan, Sikkim (now part of India) and Nepal, which have had ties of religion and politics with Tibet as well. Given its spread, the centrality of religion in its culture and the relative ease of communication across the high plateau, Tibet was a significant presence across the Himalayas, and played an economic and often political role in the cis-Himalayan region from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. Though the border trade was insignificant as compared to the other regions of India, it was a lifeline through the mountainous regions and generated wealth for the communities in the Himalayas.

  The Tibetan rebellion of 1959 and the Sino–Indian war of 1962 closed off this area. Trade came to a grinding halt and many frontier communities lost their occupations, leading to a trend of depopulation in certain remote regions.

  The boundary between India and Tibet was largely established through custom and usage. India maintains that the high Himalayan crest is the border; China today broadly accepts this in the west, except for some local differences; but in the east, Beijing claims the entire area between the Himalayan crest and the Assam plains. However, it is clear from the record that the interaction between the Qing and British empires left behind a messy notion of just where the boundary really lies, an issue that continues to haunt India and China today.

  Though there is an emerging oceanic dimension arising through the resurgence of China in the Indian Ocean, we will discuss only the Himalayan aspect of the Sino–Indian interaction. From the 1950s itself, China and Pakistan were able to establish a connection through the Karakorams, based on their mutual distrust of India. But over the years this has become an ‘iron-clad’ friendship, perhaps the deepest the Chinese have with anyone. It involved the building of the Karakoram Highway, a significant breach of the mountain chains that separate India and China. It also meant an ‘all-weather’ military partnership aimed at offsetting Indian primacy in South Asia. In its latest iteration, Pakistan has become a major component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as a springboard for Beijing’s ambitions in the Persian Gulf.