bout de papier, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2004) — Fall/Winter 2004 // Automne/Hiver 2004, pp. 33–37
As the report reprinted below indicates, some tourists are more observant than others. When he sent this numbered letter to the Department of External Affairs, James George was Canada’s high commissioner in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and consequently a member of the council that supervised the administration of the Colombo Plan for economic development in South Asia. At that time, one of the rare manifestations of an international presence for the Kingdom of Bhutan (or Druk Yul, land of the thunder dragon) had been its application two years earlier to participate in the plan. Bhutan had long considered its physical isolation as its best defence, along with a close relationship with its southern neighbour, first imperial Britain and then India. But that sense of assurance had been seriously eroded after the second world war, as the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet and then clashed with India in a border conflict that threatened Bhutan.
For outsiders, the popular perception of Bhutan was identified with Shangri-La, a romantic image that was fostered by its inaccessibility, its spectacular terrain and its relatively peaceful history. As visitors were rare, there was little to contradict this picture of paradise and foreign influences were largely kept at bay. Thus, George’s visit there at Christmas 1963 was highly unusual and the self-described “tourist” took advantage of this occasion to provide a remarkably complete and insightful commentary on the kingdom. Although there were no political parties in Bhutan, there were significant internal differences complicated by familial relationships. The prime minister (or lonchen) of Bhutan, Jigme Palden Dorji, who was assassinated later in 1964, should not be confused with his brother-in-law, the king (or Druk Gyalpo), Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. The female informant, identified as Miss Tashi Dorji in the report, was likely Ashi (or princess) Kesang Dorji, who was the prime minister’s sister. The present and fourth king, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, has been Druk Gyalpo since 1972.
Though he thus ventured into an unfamiliar part of the world, James George was well qualified to assess what he witnessed. After serving with the Royal Canadian Navy in the second world war, George joined the Department of External Affairs. Before his appointment as Canadian high commissioner in Colombo, he had been posted to Athens, New York and Paris. Subsequent assignments included high commissioner to India, ambassador to Iran and Kuwait, and ambassador to Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This declassified document was provided to bout de papier by Mr. George, to whom we express our thanks.
Hector Mackenzie
Office of the High Com Seeioner for Canada, ambo, Ceylon, to Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa. Canada. No. 42. Secret. dannary 20
Reference: Our letter No. 19 of January 16, 1964.
Subject: Bhutan — A Tourist’s Report on the Survival and Development of Shangri-La.
In my letter under reference I explained how we came to spend Christmas in Bhutan as guests of the Government of Bhutan. Although I must disclaim in advance any authority or competence for reporting on this remote corner of the Indian sub-continent, I am doing so because my hosts were remarkably frank with me, and also because (so far as I know) I was the first Canadian official to visit this country. I am, however, taking the precaution of sending my report through our High Commissioner in Delhi [Chester A. Ronningl, who will, I am sure, correct my mistakes or add his own comments.
2. Bhutan’s policy and Bhutan’s problems can be put in two words: survival and development. Since survival must obviously have priority for any country, I am going to discuss this question first. For many centuries survival for Bhutan has meant survival from India or the British, or whoever were to the south of them. Today of course it means survival from China. But I think we have to bear in mind, as the Bhutanese certainly do, that for most of their history they have looked north, not south. In the 7th Century, Guru Padma Sambhava brought them Tibetan Buddhism, and their life is still moulded in the Mahayana tradition.
3. It was the Chinese takeover of Tibet [political takeover in 1951; invasion in 1959] that not only shocked Bhutan to the core but posed, for the first time in an acute form, the question of national survival. Until then it had been enough for the country to isolate itself, refusing to build roads and closing its frontiers to outsiders even more strictly than Tibet itself. To get into the country at all, the very few permitted visitors, mostly Indians, had to travel for a week to ten days by mule, either from Assam in the south or from Sikkim in the west. The shortest route was from Sikkim through a corner of Tibet to Paro, but this mule route was of course denied to Bhutan as soon as the Chinese occupied Tibet. Therefore, even before Mr. [Jawaharlall Nehru [Prime Minister of Indial rode into Paro on a mule in 1959, it had become pretty obvious to the leaders of Bhutan that their inclination would have to be sacrificed in the interests of survival. They therefore agreed with Mr. Nehru that roads linking at least the main centres of Bhutan with India would have to be constructed as a matter of national urgency. In Lhassa the Chinese had for several years been talking ominously about “Tibet’s five fingers” — Ladakh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim and the North]E[ast]F[rontier ]Algencyl. Already, about 1955, the Chinese had occupied the former Bhutanese enclave of Kailash after a combination of Chinese threats and intimidation so terrified the Tibetan wife of the Bhutanese representative in Kailash that they had both fled. A few months later the father of the Bhutanese representative in Kailash, who was the Bhutanese representative in Lhassa, was recalled, largely because the Indians were rather afraid that he might be the channel for a deal between the Chinese and the Bhutanese. Since that time, about 1956, there have been no direct talks between Bhutan and China, though unproductive negotiations have been carried on from time to time through the Indians. Not unnaturally the Chinese intimated to the Bhutanese that if they wished to discuss the Kailash enclave or any other question it would be more profitable to do so directly, rather than through Indian intermediaries, but because of Indian pressure based on mistrust, there have been no further official contacts between the Government of Bhutan and the Chinese. Strategic Roads
4. Since India was worried about a power vacuum in this area, it did not take Delhi long to agree in 1960 to construct three strategic roads from India to the central valleys of Bhutan in the west, middle and east of the country. The understanding was, of course, that no corresponding roads would be constructed from the north, as has been done by the Chinese in Nepal. A fifty- or sixty-mile strip south of the Bhutan-Tibetan border has therefore been left without any kind of road — only mule tracks.
5. Today the road to Paro from Phuntsholing in Assam — that is, the western of the three roads – has been completed so that it is jeepable and can be used in comparative safety by one-ton trucks. In Eastern Bhutan the road to Tashigang has not got quite as far as the road to Paro, but is substantially complete, while the road into the centre of the country is about a year behind the other two. Twelve mobile wireless stations already link the northern and central valleys of Bhutan with India and a telephone line to Paro and Thimphu has been three-quarters completed. Arms and the Men
6. However, on Bhutan’s border with Tibet there is still very little besides the difficult Himalayan country
– the natural barrier to geography — to stop the Chinese. Bhutan’s militia has been expanded from about 3,500 in 1959 to nearly 10,000 today, and about 15 Indian military advisers are training the militia at Wangdi Phodrang in the Sankosh [also known as Puna Tsang Chhu] Valley. Altogether, more than one-half of the annual budget of Bhutan is now spent on defence and there is conscription for military service. But until India can supply arms for the new militia, their training and preparation will not mean very much. Since the Chinese attack in October 1962, Bhutan has naturally been trying desperately to get arms from India (or from anyone else), but the Americans have taken the line that this is India’s problem and India has simply not had enough to go around, so that Bhutan has actually received during the past eighteen months only 5,000 rifles from India, each with the princely allotment of five rounds of ammunition per rifle. So, although the tough Bhutanese soldiery are very skilful as archers and would no doubt be quite a problem for the Chinese in the Himalayan valleys as guerilla fighters, the position today is that the Bhutanese militia could very soon be by-passed or overrun and it would be up to the Indian Army to rush in troops in the event of any further attack along Bhutan’s border. Chinese Attack Expected Further West
7. Here it must be said that the Bhutanese do not expect that there will be a direct Chinese attack on them. They think it will come, but further to the west, either through eastern Nepal or through the main road south from Lhassa through Sikkim, that is, the road coming out at Gangtok [Sikkim] and Kalimpong [West Bengall. Once the Chinese had managed to get through these fairly low passes, there would be no natural barriers to slow their descent onto the plains of West Bengal, going straight down to Calcutta. Indeed such a movement would rapidly cut off the great concentration of Indian forces in NEFA, Assam and North Bengal. We travelled by jeep through the Inner Line (that is, the security zone along the corridor of north Assam between Bhutan and East Pakistan [now Bangladesh]) and we saw for ourselves the enormous camps and great concentrations of motor transport which make both sides of that road look like one continuous camp for about 40 or 50 miles between Phuntsholing and Siliguri. I don’t know what the Bhutanese have said directly to the Indians, but they told me that they were very worried that the Indian Army might be preparing for an attack in the wrong place; that the defeat they had suffered last year in NEFA might cause them to concentrate too much of their strength in that area, whereas in the opinion of the Bhutanese the real threat was the direct route through Sikkim (the Tista Valley) or eastern Nepal (the Kosi Valley).
Chinese Invasion Plans?
8. The Bhutanese seem to think that the attack of October 1962 was mounted by the Chinese initially to correct several deep penetrations which had been made in previous years by the Indian Army north of the McMahon Line [the boundary between Tibet and Assam in British India after the Simla Conference of 1913-14, named for Sir Henry McMahon, Britain’s principal negotiator] in the NEFA (as I shall be explaining presently), and was continued as a means of throwing Indian economic development off-balance and making India lose face — all the explanations that others have given too – but that it could never have been contemplated as a serious military invasion of India itself. Any further Chinese advance in November 1962 would have had to cope with several crossings of the Brahmaputra River in going further into Assam. The Bhutanese point out that there is no such natural obstacle facing the Chinese once they have come out on the West Bengal plain, where they would only have to advance about 20 miles in order to cut India’s supply corridor to NEFA. Therefore the Bhutanese have the rather strong suspicion that the Chinese made their initial attack on NEFA last year knowing, or planning, that this would lead the Indian Army to an injudicious concentration of their forces in NEFA and Assam, which would make it all the easier for the Chinese to cut them off without much of a fight by simply coming through the Sikkim passes and going down as far as the border of East Pakistan. We ourselves observed how vulnerable that narrow corridor through north Assam is, with only one rail line, one highway and many river crossings (with bridges that could be put out of action); and once the road and the railway had been cut, it would be almost impossible to supply an Army in Assam or NEFA. In that situation the Indian forces would perhaps have to fight their way back across the spur of East Pakistan in order to rejoin the main body of Indian forces in North Bengal. However, these are speculations. The main point to be made in this report is that the Bhutanese I spoke to do expect a further attack by China, though they do not expect it to be directed against NEFA, Assam, or Bhutan, but to come, as I have said, through East Nepal or Sikkim and to be aimed at the lower Ganges Valley. They think such an attack might come fairly soon, perhaps this spring, especially if Mr. Nehru is unable to carry on, and there is confusion in India over the succession.
9. Relations between Bhutan and both India and the United States are not as good as one would expect in this political perspective, nor are Bhutan’s relations with China quite as bad as I had supposed they would be. I was given some interesting explanations for this state of affairs. Relations with India
10. Relations with India are difficult for a variety of reasons, but I think mainly because the Indians are already in Bhutan and therefore there are opportunities for daily friction that do not occur with the Chinese, who have kept their distance in spite of earlier threats about the “five fingers of Tibet” that I have mentioned, and have not in fact disturbed Bhutanese territorial integrity at any time. The stories given out in Delhi about the Chinese armies having cut through Northern Bhutan on their way into NEFA are flatly denied by the Bhutanese, who regard them as fabrications of the Indians probably intended to cover up part of the ignominy of their defeat.
11. The Bhutanese know of course that they depend on India’s help and protection. They know very well that not only their military but their development plans would come to a halt the day that India stopped paying for them; and yet it is perhaps partly this dependence that produces some of the sense of irritation that I encountered in Bhutan with India.
12. The focal point of a good deal of this irritation was the senior Indian adviser, Mr. Naril. K. Rustomji [later author of Enchanted Frontiers: Sikkim, Bhutan and India’s North- Eastern Borderland (1971) and Bhutan: the Dragon Kingdom in Crisis (1978)1. Mr. Rustomji enjoys the Prime Minister’s confidence, but perhaps for this very reason a good many leading Bhutanese, including members of the Prime Minister’s family, regard him with suspicion. Although he is serving at the request of the Government of Bhutan, and although his role is supposed to be entirely advisory and not executive, he operates as if he was the Chief Minister and not the Government’s adviser. That is to say, in his planning commission functions he is placing orders and writing plans and specifications, and so on, without always getting the authority of the Government. When this leads to difficulties, the Prime Minister has, so far, backed him up and told him to go ahead. But this again makes others feel upset. Miss Tashi [Ashi Kesang?] Dorji, the Prime Minister’s sister, for example, told me that she and her younger brother, Mr. Lhandup [?] Dorji, who is Secretary-General of the Planning Commission, although they admire Mr. Rustomji’s energy and devotion, feel that he has been behaving in Bhutan as if he were the Dawan or Chief Minister, of the country. In fact, this is a not unnatural attitude for Mr. Rustomji to take, since only a few years ago he was the Indian Dawan for Sikkim. More recently he was the India agent in NEFA responsible for the Indian Army’s adventures north of the MeMahon Line that I shall describe now, since they are very much a part of the Government of Bhutan’s attitude towards India at present. Indian Incursions North of the McMahon Line
13. I was told in confidence that the Bhutanese Government has absolutely reliable information from their own scouts who accompanied the Indian Army, and helped to guide them into the Tibetan regions (which the Bhutanese know so much better than the Indians), that in 1958-59-60 the Indian Army made many penetrations into Tibet, into areas that had always been rather loosely administered from Lhassa but which were definitely north of the McMahon Line. I was told, for example, of one particular operation (under the direction of Mr. Rustomji, as far as the civil authority was concerned) in which the Indian Army went a distance which was described as “ten days’ trek by mule” — in other words, perhaps a zig-zag hundred miles — north of the McMahon Line in the NEFA region, and conducted operations against tribals who have been harassing Indian pilgrims in that area for many years. The object of the operation was apparently to capture or destroy Chinese agents and administrators who the Indians thought, from intelligence sources, were in control of the area. They therefore came in with several hundred men of the Indian Army, and when the tribals hid in the hills the Indians cut off all their food supplies for a couple of weeks. They then dropped salt and rations by parachute into the area and when the tribals came out to get the food they were indiscriminately machine-gunned by the Indian Army, with the result that about four hundred of the tribals perished. Their leader, however, escaped to Lhassa and he was not surprisingly among the scouts who guided the Chinese forces into the NEFA in October 1962.
14. These stories of Indian Army atrocities against the Tibetans carry a lot of weight in Bhutan because the people are cousins of the Tibetans, they write Tibetan, and they speak a dialect of Tibetan. So they really share the sense of outrage that the Tibetans themselves feel when they hear stories such as I have just recounted. Of course there are much worse atrocity stories of what the Chinese have perpetrated against the Tibetans, especially amongst the monasteries, and this is all the more shocking because the Bhutanese are a deeply religious people. But they expect more of the Indians than they do of the Chinese, and therefore the effect of these stories contributes to the surprisingly widespread feeling which I encountered that the Indians are necessary for them but are not all that welcome.
Indian Aid on Paper
15. No doubt there are economic reasons for this feeling also. The Indian merchants have begun to send in cheap cloth in competition with Bhutanese handlooms. The shops that are beginning to come up (in a country that had no shops until the roads went through) are mostly run by Indians and Nepalese. Then at the Government level, as I shall explain in greater detail when discussing their economic development problems, there is a certain feeling that, although the Indians have promised a great deal of aid for economic development, all they have really done so far is to build the roads and write a lot of economic development plans which require a hundred or so Indian experts in the country. that, too, is a sort of minor irritant in their relations. Expectations have been raised that are not being fulfilled as quickly as the Bhutanese had hoped, and these hopes are therefore turning a little sour. Relations with the United States
16. Nor can I report that relations between Bhutan and the United States are really much better. This seems to be mainly because the Americans, in their official dealings with Bhutan through the Embassy in New Delhi, have been almost too careful to avoid anything that the Indian Government might not favour. This was understandable enough at the time the Bhutanese Prime Minister, Mr. Jigme [Palden] Dorji, was trying to get arms from the Americans in New Delhi when India was being attacked by China, but it is less understandable and excusable to the Bhutanese today. When Mr. Dorji called on Mr. [John Kenneth] Galbraith [Ambassador of the United States to India, March 1961 to July 1963] in New Delhi in October 1962, he explained the defence requirements of Bhutan — how they wanted arms desperately to give them a chance to give a good account of themselves if they were attacked, how they had even spontaneously offered India free access to their country with whatever forces the Indian Army wished to send in, in spite of the risks involved in the circumstances to the territorial integrity of Bhutan. All that Mr. Galbraith was able to tell Mr. Dorji at that time was that he thought it was better for India to continue to supply Bhutan with whatever arms could be spared; Bhutan should retain a neutral posture as far as possible, and if the Chinese did come in, Mr. Galbraith concluded,, “the Bhutanese would have the sympathy of the whole world”. Mr. Dorji was furious — furious because he wanted a chance to fight the Chinese on at least possible terms if they did come, and he was being told to be neutral and expect the sympathy of the world for their corpse. This line was all the more galling to the Prime Minister because of the background, which perhaps Mr. Galbraith himself did not know. There is an account of this and a later encounter with Dorji in Galbraith’s Ambassador’s Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (1969)]
CIA Deal Falls Through
17. While the American Embassy in Delhi was discreetly fending off contacts with the Bhutanese, for the sake of their more important relations with India, the CIA in Calcutta had, in the years 1959-1962, been in secret contact with the trade representatives of Bhutan in Calcutta, with Miss Tashi Dorji and with the Prime Minister himself. Through these channels the CIA said to Bhutan, in effect, that they wanted (without upsetting the Indians) to have closer relations with Bhutan. They hoped Bhutan would maintain its anti-Communist stand and would have nothing to do with the Chinese, and if they fulfilled these expectations of the Americans they could expect from the CIA secret funds for the furtherance of their economic development plans. It was even suggested to Mr. Dorji that he should make arrangements for an economic survey through a Swedish firm that was indicated, and that the CIA would pick up the bill.
18. Mr. Dorji in fact went to Sweden and hired these expensive economic consultants, who came and made a survey, recommending that Bhutan should develop its potential pulp and paper industry. Then the Swedish firm submitted their bill for the equivalent of Rs. [Rupees] 200,000. Instead of settling the account, as they had undertaken to do, the new head of CIA in Calcutta told the Prime Minister that, unless he could undertake that his Government would be more obviously anti- Communist than it had been in the recent past, the CIA saw no reason to subsidise them in the way which had been discussed. Mr. Dorji, in reply, said that he thought it would be an unwise policy for Bhutan to be more openly and even provocatively anti- Communist than they already were, and that if Bhutan’s present policy was not good enough for the CIA, they could lump it. The Swedish bill has still not been paid, although Miss Dorji told me that the Government have undertaken to pay it off in instalments in rupees, which is of course unsatisfactory to the Swedish consultants.
19. I suppose there is, in addition, a great deal in the American way of life which quite unconsciously offends the traditional attitudes and susceptibilities of a people who have been sheltered for so many centuries as the Bhutanese; and this, together with the background I have given, may account for the otherwise remarkable statement made to me by the Quartermaster-General of Paro, who had been the Bhutanese representative in Lhassa. He said to me that if Bhutan was slated to be run by outsiders in the future, it would be “better to have the Chinese than the Americans.” I suppose his attitude was that at least the Chinese were Asians and might not disrupt the Bhutanese way of life so violently as the Americans could. Of course this is an illusion, yet I report it as a pointer to the way these border people feel about their neighbours to the north, and their friends to the south, as well as the friends of their friends – the Americans. Bhutan’s Degree of Independence
20. In discussing Bhutan’s survival and its relations with the Chinese, Indians and Americans I have clearly been making the assumption that Bhutan is an independent state. This is, as the Indians would be quick to point out, overstating the present facts. Bhutan is really in a “grey zone” between full independence and the dependence of an Indian state. As reported in my letter under reference, the Indian High Commissioner here, Mr. Kapur, who ten years ago was the Indian political officer in Sikkim and Bhutan, was of the opinion personally that it would be a mistake for Bhutan to have any official relations with outside countries, except India. He conceded that India itself has sponsored Bhutan’s application for membership in the Colombo Plan in 1962, but he clearly did not think that this should lead to Bhutan receiving aid directly from other countries. His conception was that any aid given to Bhutan should go through the Indian Government. Although his attitude may be out of date, and he told me that he was speaking quite personally, I expect that this is at the back of the minds of most Indians who are dealing with Bhutanese affairs, and helps to account for the reaction they get in Bhutan.
21. The Treaty of [Friendship of] 1949, signed in Darjeeling between India and Bhutan, clearly states “The Government of India undertake to exercise no interference in the internal administration of Bhutan; on its part the Government of Bhutan agrees to be guided by the advice of the Government of India in regard to its external relations.” Then follow clauses providing for an annual subsidy for Bhutan of half a million rupees; and statements that there shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the two Governments, and free trade and commerce between the two territories, except that India will be the sole supplier of arms, ammunition, machinery, warlike material or stores for the strength and welfare of Bhutan; and this whole Treaty, it is said, shall last indefinitely and be terminated or modified only by mutual consent. The terms of the Treaty are based on the earlier Treaty of [Punakha of] 1910 between the United Kingdom and Bhutan.
22. Although the terms of the Treaty state that Bhutan agrees to be guided by the advice of India on foreign affairs, in fact this is now disputed in Bhutan. They concede only that India has the right to advise them, in spite of the much more specific language of the Treaty I have just quoted. But whatever they may think about the legalities of the situation, the Indians have the good sense not to press Bhutan too hard on the strict interpretation of the Treaty, and to give them a good deal of rope in foreign affairs. The prime example is India’s support for Bhutan as a member of the Colombo Plan. The contacts that have followed, including the visits to Bhutan of Colombo Plan officials and of the Australian High Commissioner and the Japanese Ambassador in New Delhi, have for the most part been arranged through Miss Tashi Dorji, but I think I am the first member of the Colombo Plan Council whom she has invited to Bhutan.
23. Her understanding of the real meaning of Bhutan’s independence is of course much broader than the interpretation that would be accepted in Delhi. She tells me that the Prime Minister and the Government have no doubt at all that they have every right to talk to representatives of other countries without giving an account of themselves to India, either before or afterwards. As a matter of courtesy they tell India what they are doing in general terms, but not necessarily in detail, and they hope for economic aid directly from other countries who are members of the Colombo Plan.
24. In fact, Miss Dorji told me that her Government are seriously thinking of making some approach to the Commonwealth countries with a view to seeking membership in the Commonwealth. She admitted that this is partly because they could not, in any case, cope with the expenses and complications of membership in the United Nations [Bhutan became a member of the United Nations in 1971, after 3 years as an observer), yet they feel that they would like to have more direct contacts with other countries than are at present feasible. Therefore they would like to start these broadening contacts with the limited circle of friends in the Commonwealth. One of their people had been in touch with the Secretariat, I believe, at the last Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, and they would like to develop this possible expansion of their contacts with other countries during the coming year. She even asked me how to go about such an objective, and I told her, of course quite personally, that I thought there should perhaps be contacts first with the Indian Government about the general proposition, and subsequently a letter should be sent by her Government to all Governments of the Commonwealth advising them of Bhutan’s intention to seek membership.
25. When I asked her what the Indians would think of such a move, she conceded that they might not like it very much but she thought they were now broad-minded enough not to object. At one time, before the 1949 Treaty had been signed, she told me that there was a strong body of opinion in Delhi that thought Bhutan should accede to the Indian Union, and they wanted to get the Maharajah (now called the King) of Bhutan to accede to India. When this proved out of the question, India had sensibly recognized the situation and even permitted Bhutan to proceed with such acts of national sovereignty as the creation of their own passports (which India has tacitly accepted by putting visas on them) and with a partial system of coinage (although Indian rupees are still the main notes in circulation with small change in Bhutanese coins), and with new Bhutanese postage stamps, which have just been issued (an application for their acceptance has been made to the International Postal Union).
26. All these attributes of sovereignty distinguish Bhutan from Sikkim, which does not possess any of them. The Treaty governing relations between India and Sikkim is quite specific in reserving not only external affairs but also defence for India, and in practice the Chief Minister of Sikkim is the Indian Dawan. Nothing of the sort would be tolerated in Bhutan. Although at present they may accept even quite large numbers of Indian advisers the roads and economic planning), the Bhutanese certainly run their own administration internally.
27. As far as their external status is concerned, while the Bhutanese have in practice been guided by Indian advice in such matters as not having further contacts with China in recent years, and not opening diplomatic relations with (I believe) two Western countries who had been approached by the Bhutanese, still the King of Bhutan was quite specific on his visit to Delhi about two years ago, saying emphatically that “Bhutan is a sovereign, independent state.” In line with this thinking, which is certainly supported by public opinion in Bhutan, as expressed in the National Assembly, or Tshogdu, the Prime Minister, Mr. Jigme Dorji, had also a few years ago wished to be associated with Mr. Nehru when he was negotiating on the Himalayan border with Mr. Chou En-Lai [Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Chinal. However, Mr. Nehru turned down the Bhutanese request and has subsequently managed to keep the Bhutanese from having any official talks with the Chinese on their own.
28. Here again the guiding thread of Bhutan’s policy is survival. If they need India’s friendship and help, as they obviously do in order to have a fair chance of surviving, then they must as a practical matter accept India’s advice and hope that over the years the Indians will allow them gradually more and more rope, as in fact seems to be the case. Although the Treaty with India of 1949 does not specifically pledge India to defend Bhutan if attacked, Mr. Nehru has done so in no uncertain terms in 1959 and 1960, and that pledge is regarded by the Government of Bhutan as sufficient for their present purposes.
29. Apart from the question of survival and the relations of Bhutan with its neighbours and with other countries, the great question for the Government of Bhutan is of course economic development. However, as the defence and political sections of this report have already made it longer than I had intended, I shall send you a separate letter on Bhutan’s economic development.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2004) — Fall/Winter 2004 // Automne/Hiver 2004, pp. 33–37. Read the rest of this issue →
