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SEPTEMBER 3, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 35
SHANGRI-LA WAKE-UP CALL
Spurred by a modern-minded king, once hermit-like Bhutan is
scrambling to adapt to the 21st century
By ALAN DAVID Thimphu
ON A SUNNY MORNING in Thimphu, possibly the only capital in the world where there are no traffic lights, a group of young men crowd outside a computer shop, goggle-eyed at the reach of the Worldwide Web. Elsewhere in the Bhutan capital, housewife Phub Zham can't tear her eyes away from the images on a television screen: a grainy 1974 Indian documentary on the coronation of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, dubbed into Dzongkha, the local language. "Now I can see what I've always heard about from my parents," she says. "It's wonderful." An excited Bhutanese emails his childhood friend who has settled halfway across the world: "Guess what's happening at home?" Plenty.
A tiny mountainous nation which seemed frozen in time, Bhutan was connected to world by telephone just nine years ago. Now it is racing on the infobahn. Since June, the mainly Buddhist kingdom not only switched on to its own television station, it logged on to the brave new world of the Internet. And it got its first color newspaper too. All this was after the government pumped in $50 million last year for a high-tech digital telephone system using gel-filled copper wires. "The moment I speak about TV and the Internet, everybody starts clapping," King Jigme had joked when more than 15,000 of his subjects gathered at a football stadium to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his rule on June 2.
Change has come quickly. While owning a satellite antenna remains illegal, the people have been allowed to buy TV sets and rent videos for the past two years. It was not long before cheeky underground cable operators sprang up to hook homes to the forbidden pleasures of MTV. Then last year, the king gave permission for temporary satellite dishes to be installed and a large screen to be put up at a Thimphu sports complex to show World Cup matches for hundreds of raucous soccer fans. Some colleges were allowed to beam in foreign educational programs for their students.
There's a palpable sense of excitement in a cramped studio of the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS), where a group of young radio professionals have been entrusted with the country's foray into the world of television. The room is cluttered with computers, TV monitors, video recording equipment, cables and scripts. Instructional posters plaster the walls. One carries the admonishment: Our audience is grandmothers, teenagers, students, civil servants, housewives, shopowners, VIPs and farmers. That's quite an assignment for Tshewang Dendup, 29, who will produce, read, edit and report news for the service. Until now, his only brush with television was as a child in south Bhutan, which was able to receive signals from a Bangladesh station. "Television in Bhutan will make radio and newspaper wake up," says Dendup.
Bhutan's first Internet service provider, the government-owned DrukNet (druk, or dragon, is a popular symbol in the country), expects to pick up 500 subscribers within its first year of operation. Not bad for the Himalayan kingdom, which tries to preserve its culture by insisting that people turn out in ethnic costumes and buildings conform to the traditional style of wood facades, arched windows and sloping roofs. In the long term, the impact of the Internet may be even greater than other media. The king believes his people should have "the best network," says Sangey Tenzing, director of telecommunications. "He aspires a lot for modern communications." And for Bhutan.
Liberalizing info-tech is part of a program initiated by the king to modernize -and decentralize - his administration. The basketball-loving Jigme (he enjoys shooting the hoops with his guards) is still an absolute monarch - almost. He shares power with a council of appointed ministers, the country's chief abbot and a national assembly. But last year, he gave the 154-member legislature the power to elect more than half his Cabinet; he retains the right to appoint 37 people. What's more, he has empowered the assembly to force his abdication in favour of the crown prince if there is a two-thirds majority. Certainly, Jigme, 43, is an accessible monarch. He regularly goes on gruelling cross-country tours - in four-wheel drives, on horseback and even on foot - to meet his subjects. Of late, the king's duties seems to include the embrace of populist principles: "One of my most important responsibilities is to ensure that our people are able to participate in the governance of the country," he says. Kurma Ura, who heads the Centre for Bhutanese Studies in Thimphu, reckons these are "watershed years" for Bhutan. It's very evident that the monarchy is voluntarily giving up its executive powers, he says.
Another example is the transformation of Kuensel (Clarity), a tabloid which began life 32 years ago as a boring government bulletin. Today it is a lively weekly of local and world news, views, with stocks reports and cartoon strips. Circulation has trebled since 1986 to the current 15,000 copies. The king set the changes in motion seven years ago when he hived off the newspaper and the BBS from the government to encourage greater professionalism. To fund its news operations, the publisher has begun commercial printing of books. Recently, the Kuensel has been able to dispense with government subsidy and last month published its first color edition - a hefty 100 pages crammed with ads. "Our society is more demanding now," says editor Kinley Dorji. "We're just responding to the changes."
Even the economy is being shaken out of its lumbering, aid-dependant ways (70% of capital expenditure comes from India and other countries). Two years ago, the powerful Finance Ministry devolved some of its powers to the Royal Monetary Authority, which now fixes interest rates and collaborates with international institutions. Shares of half a dozen public-sector undertakings were sold to the public two years ago to introduce privatization. Now 14 companies trade their scrips in a fledgling stock market in Thimphu. The lucrative tourism industry - the kingdom received a mere 6,207 visitors last year but earned $7.8 million - is also being liberalized. The government handed out 30 new operators' licenses this year, augmenting the 33 existing outfits. The country needs a healthy Gross National Product (GNP) to achieve what the King calls GNH - Gross National Happiness, says Namgyal Lhendup, deputy director of the Planning Commission.
The hermit kingdom is not that isolated these days. At remote hillside eateries, Titanic posters decorate the walls. There are more lights and bigger crowds on Thimphu's streets. Musty shops sell anything from Indian noodles to Korean kerosene heaters and cheap Taiwan-made cellphones. The town's only cinema, the Lugar, screens Jackie Chan blockbusters. For more eclectic entertainment, the locals turn to the 25 video rental shops. At the Ex disco - so named because the owners are all divorced - teenagers can dance to the beat of the latest boy bands. College student Dawa Gyeltshen, 20, appreciates the difference. "We have more entertainment," he says. "And we can play basketball - I love Michael Jordan - and go to picnics with our partners."
"Society is getting modernized very fast," says Karma Tshering, the kingdom's first career film director. "The way young people are talking, behaving and dressing these days is very global, very American." A group of teenagers hanging out at Sangyegang ridge just outside Thimphu are evidence. Away from adult eyes, they shed their goh robes and kira scarves for the ubiquitous baseball caps and T-shirts.
Tshering himself is an example of how Bhutan is being transformed. Having run an imported-goods shop in Thimphu for three years, he gave it up to take a crash course on video production in India. "I wanted to make Bhutan's first film," he says. And he did. After his return, Tshering raised $20,700 and completed Jigdrel (Not Afraid To Die) within six months. The video feature drew full houses at the Lugar for a fortnight. Encouraged by the modest success of his "romantic tragedy," Tshering plans to make three films this year - a comedy, a rework of Romeo and Juliet and a thriller based on a real-life tragedy. "It's a good time to do something new, like making films," he says.
Or become a local teen idol like Nirup Dorji. The soft-spoken former radio announcer, who studied Buddhist philosophy at university, is an unlikely pop pin-up. But these days he is hot property. While working for the BBS, Dorji cut more than 40 songs, blending traditional zhungda tunes with catchy rigsar (pop) rhythms. The 28-year-old's fusion tunes were instant hits - and consistently topped music charts in Bhutan for the past three years. With his boyish good looks, Dorji also became the kingdom's first actor - he played the lead in Tshering's film. "I enjoy singing and acting," he says. "But I'm not sure if they will give me a steady career."
And out of the half a dozen music and video production shacks that have sprung up over the past few years have emerged Bhutan's first entertainment entrepreneurs. Consider Ugyen Dorji, a ruddy-cheeked fortyish hotelier. Sensing the appetite for homegrown material, he set up a small studio in 1987 to record local singers. Today, Norling Sound and Vision has made 73 albums, all by Bhutanese. Its total sales so far: 50,000 plus copies. Not bad for a country of about 600,000 people. Last year, Dorji plunged into video production with Jigdrel and plans to produce three more films this year. "I am not in film to make money - yet," says Dorji. "I want to get a headstart and capture the market in the future." Another would-be film mogul: Ugyen Wangdi. The graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India started in 1989 with a 90-minute folksy love story, which sank without a trace. Undeterred, he launched a communications company, which has since completed 57 documentaries. Now Wangdi is raising funds to make a full-length 16-mm feature.
Bhutan has long been wary of the outside world, if nothing else because of fears that global influences will swamp the tiny country's culture and identity. Says director Wangdi of wiring up his country: "We will have to lose something, especially because of external cultural influences." That's why Tshering's films are shot in Dzongkha and the performers are togged out in goh and kira. DrukNet promises to block sites that contain pornography and are "against national security." When Pepsi distributed 43,000 discount drinks coupons to schoolchildren last year, the locals fretted about a burgeoning "junk-food" culture. And when dish antennae began to sprout up along the low-slung Thimphu skyline this year ahead of the arrival of television, the Kuensel expressed regret at their "tragic" impact on the Bhutanese landscape. Say editor Dorji: "I can't help feeling that we are being wrenched open by the information age."
The nation is still working out how to reconcile consumer culture with its hermetic way of life, modernity with tradition, and economic growth with gross national happiness. One example: Officials are under immense pressure from international alpine clubs to open the 7,239-metre Gangkarpeunsun, the highest unexplored peak in the world, to visitors. The move will bring in more foreign income, but some locals worry that it may be at the expense of the environment as has happened in parts of Nepal. Thuji Dorji Nadik, deputy chief of the tourism authority, insists that "money has never been the motivating factor" for promoting the kingdom to foreign visitors. Indeed, thanks to a strong conservation policy, forest cover in Bhutan has increased considerably. Officials are at least concerned enough about fulfilling both GNP and GNH that they held workshops to find an answer to the conundrum. At one recent session, participants tried to identify ways to measure GNH and the "level of contentment" in Bhutan society - a refreshing perspective from economists. The Bhutanese, who receive free primary education and health care, live longer and earn more. "We are still grappling with the proper definition of GNH in these fast-changing times," says deputy planning director Lhendup. "It is difficult to put a cap on aspirations."
Although Bhutan registered an enviable growth rate of about 6% last year (the country's fortunes are inevitably linked to India's), inflation raced ahead at 12%. Literacy, officially estimated at 54%, is improving, but many academics believe that the rate for full reading and writing skills is lower. Infrastructure is limited and expensive to build in the mountain kingdom. Fewer than half the 40,000-plus people in Thimphu can afford television. Still, the winds of change have never blown more swiftly in the Land of the Thunder Dragon. Only about 5,000 Thimphu residents have a telephone connection, but a third of them are likely to be linked to the Internet by the end of the year. "What is important to ensure is equity," says Kuensel's Dorji, "so there are fewer disparities between the rich and poor." That is as much a challenge as preparing this Shangri-La for the 21st century.
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