A blow fell on the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa population of Bhutan as the 1980s turned to the 1990s, during the reign of the Fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk and under his command. The kingdom, which would go on to champion the Gross National Happiness index to widespread international acclaim, forced out 100,000 of its Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa citizens, most of whom lived along the southern hilly belt.
The brutally efficient depopulation exercise under the nationalist ideology of driglam namzha, the state’s “code of discipline” that favours the northwestern elite and royalty, was formally declared through a royal decree in 1989. It earned Bhutan the dubious distinction of being the country to force the largest proportion of its population into statelessness and exile – fully one-seventh.
The Lhotshampa were certainly capable of a democratic awakening, as had happened in nearby Nepal, next-door Darjeeling and elsewhere in Southasia that decade. But beyond murmurings, there had been no organised agitation against the royal Druk regime.
Having conducted a census exercise in 1988 and fearful of a “demographic imbalance”, the regime used coercion and falsehood to evict the Lhotshampa, even though some in the dasho nobility preferred to term it a matter of “reverse migration”. The mass of peasantry from the southern belt was forced to exit into India, from there to be pushed westward into Nepal by colluding Indian authorities.
After three restless decades in the refugee camps of Jhapa and Morang districts of Nepal’s southeastern plains, reluctantly supported by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other organisations, most of the refugees are now settled in eight Western countries. The United States has domiciled more than 96,000 exiles, while Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands took in smaller numbers.
The third-country settlement process began in September 2006 and ended in June 2019, with the UNHCR suspending its work in 2020. Today, nearly 7,000 Lhotshampa and another 100 Sarchop refugees from eastern Bhutan remain in Jhapa, abandoned by Kathmandu’s government and civil society, as well as the “internationals”. Among the refugees are hundreds of elderly who rejected the offer of overseas migration, committed to return to their fields and homesteads in Bhutan.
This is something for the present king, Jigme Khesar Wangchuk, to ponder over: the unalloyed patriotism of citizens willing to forget the trauma of displacement and decades of neglect, committed to return home to the districts of Samchi, Dagana, Chirang, Samdrup Jongkhar and Sarpang.
Prisoners of conscience
Besides forcing so many citizens into exile and statelessness, the Thimphu regime holds another secret close to its chest: the presence of more than 30 political prisoners in its two main prisons, Chamgang and Rabuna, but also in Paro, Mongar and Samdrup Jongkhar. Chamgang, where a majority of the prisoners of conscience are held, is a walled compound plainly visible to city residents high above Thimphu.
The decision-makers of Thimphu would like to believe that life has moved on, that the refugees are now a forgotten past and that the unseen and unheard political prisoners do not represent a political or geopolitical liability. The unspoken consensus is that the demographic problem of a large and restive Nepali-speaking citizenry has been solved, with the remaining Lhotshampa having sublimated themselves to Drukpa authority – and let no spoilsport come to jostle the Bhutanese idyll.
If at all, the dark record of forced exile, political prisoners, torture and life sentences without parole is explained away as a matter of tackling “anti-nationals”.
Thimphu’s younger generation remains ill-informed because the elders maintain radio silence, while the international community prefers to ignore the bursting dossier of inhumanity and abuse. Visiting diplomats, journalists, tourists and development-wallahs prefer to accept the presentation of Bhutan as the last remaining “Shangri La” amidst Southasia’s dirt and grime, Tibet having been annexed by the Chinese.
They are taken in by the royal pomp, silk scarves, clean environment and articulate politicians and bureaucrats. It took a visiting journalist from Karachi to ask, askance, “So, is this a country without dissent?”
For long, the global human rights and humanitarian community had been able to keep tabs on the welfare of political prisoners, relying on biannual visits of the International Committee of the Red Cross, but these visitations have not been renewed since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The news on conditions in Chamgang and Rabuna comes from prisoners who have served out their terms or been released due to poor health and have found their way to Jhapa in Nepal. A sudden sensitisation happened three years ago when audio tapes made by the political prisoners emerged, with follow-up from journalist Devendra Bhattarai of Kathmandu.
After the visits of the Red Cross ended, say the released prisoners, food allowances were halved. They recount stories of repeated torture, lack of proper clothing to ward off the cold and silence in response to letters seeking royal clemency and commutation of sentence.
Some political prisoners who have been released have gone back to their villages and decided to keep a low profile. Those arriving in Jhapa are confronted with the absence of refugee support and stonewalling by government of Nepal authorities on registration and travel papers.
Against the sustained international disinterest and the growing hesitancy of Nepal’s authorities, it is left to the Bhutanese exile community to keep watch on the refugees still in Jhapa, and the prisoners of conscience in the home country. While the refugee support agencies have all disengaged, among international groups that have continued to pay attention are Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and South Asians for Human Rights.
The US Department of State reported in 2016 on 57 individuals detained under the National Security Act. In 2023, Human Rights Watch documented 37 inmates as political prisoners who were detained between 1990 and 2008. Through interviews with former and current families of prisoners as well as a review of court documents and Bhutanese laws, Human Rights Watch presently identifies 32 individuals as political prisoners, who have been in jail for between 16 and 34 years.
Most of them are serving sentences to life without parole, with only the king having the power of commutation despite the democratic reforms of 2008.
On February 18, 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a report on the representative cases of three Bhutanese prisoners – Birkha Bahadur Chhetri, Kumar Gautam and Sunman Gurung – who became refugees as children and were arrested for treason when they returned to distribute political pamphlets. They were sentenced to life without parole. The Working Group noted that their exercise of the right to freedom of thought and opinion was protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While there may be some who are incarcerated for criminal acts in Chamgang, Rabuna and elsewhere, most are individuals arrested decades ago for distributing leaflets and carrying out other peaceful political activity, while still others are refugees who were arrested as “anti-nationals” for daring to visit family members in the home villages. Many of these prisoners had joined political activity in the early 1990s and have been in prison for three decades. One inmate is said to have spent 43 years at Chamgang.
“Bhutan’s government cultivates an enlightened international image by propounding the theory of Gross National Happiness, but the blatantly abusive treatment of the political prisoners tells a different story,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, who has long followed the plight of Thimphu’s prisoners of conscience. “As Bhutan seeks to develop its international ties, foreign governments and multilateral organisations should push for the release of political prisoners.”
On July 19, 2024, the Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation of Kathmandu invited three political prisoners to speak about their experience in Bhutanese jails as well as the condition of refugees in Jhapa. They were Ram Bahadur Rai, imprisoned for 32 years, Madhukar Monger for 30 years and Man Bahadur Magar, in jail for 20 years.
Ram Bahadur Rai, now 66, became a refugee in 1990 and went back to distribute democracy leaflets in 1994. He was accused of political violence and given a sentence of 32 years. After enduring multiple bouts of torture, he was unable to even write his appeal for royal pardon, which was in any case rejected. With some time reduced for good behaviour, he was released from Chamgang and made his way to Jhapa. The testimony of the three political prisoners who have exited Bhutan can be viewed on YouTube, in the Nepali language:
The Bhutanese legal system is said to have improved in the intervening years, but back when the political prisoners were accosted, they had to confront a hostile state administration, uninterested intelligentsia, fabricated cases and absence of defence lawyers. Ganguly of Human Rights Watch said, “King Jigme Khesar should exercise his unique power to show compassion and end the suffering of these prisoners and their families by releasing them. He could do it with a stroke of his pen.”
Tainted ground
Given the power wielded by the reigning monarch, Bhutan is still an imperfect democracy, even though Jigme Singye Wangchuk ushered a democratic constitution in 2008 and retired from politics. Jigme Thinley, as the first elected prime minister, sought to chart a course independent of the royal palace. However, subsequent governments at the secretariat of Tashichhodzong seem timid in the face of the power and popularity of the royals.
As in other parts of Southasia, politicians are vilified in present-day Thimphu, but while elsewhere populist newcomers take advantage, here it is all to Jigme Khesar’s benefit. Here, all officials profess their love and respect for the king, and despite the de rigueur placement of portraits of the royal family on public buildings, it is hard to believe that resentment is not brewing.
Perhaps this aspect is not lost on Jigme Khesar, described as more amiable than his standoffish father but equally dynamic. He has opened up a large part of Thimphu for public parks, knows how to keep New Delhi’s leaders happy (even taking a dip at the Kumbh Mela’s microbial polluted waters in the company of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath), and has reached out to the Bhutanese diaspora in Australia in town hall-style meetings. He has also staked his reputation in a multi-billion dollar project in the central plains, known as the Gelephu Mindfulness City or GMC.
Transitioning from “Gross National Happiness”, which had become dated, the Bhutanese authorities moved on to the next fad to catch attention of the affluent West, “mindfulness”, and using it to describe the otherwise dull “Special Administrative Zone” that is GMC. The city is to be developed as an ecology-friendly technology hub with its own international airport, attracting international investors to establish data hubs, bitcoin farming, and other IT-related activities.
The professed goal is to energise the economy of Bhutan and the neighbouring region, including North East India and Bangladesh and the larger South and Southeast Asia. In an article titled “GDP, GNH, GMC”, the Nepali Times wrote, “The audacious Gelephu Mindfulness City mega-project is a risky gamble on the future.”
GMC is intended to diversify Bhutan’s economy beyond tourism and hydropower, where it is presently locked. It is also an attempt to stem the departure of young citizens to Australia for study and employment and bring back those who have gone.
The loss of citizens to Australia has brought more disquiet to Thimphu’s planners and nobility than the eviction of a hundred thousand citizens three decades ago and the continuing pain of refugees in exile. As Bhutan loses its young citizens to Australia, the royal regime may rue the ouster of the Lhotshampa, given the shortage of human power in Druk Yul. One way to repopulate the land is to create grand and risky projects like the Gelephu Mindfulness City, the other would be to welcome back the citizens who were pushed out.
Jigme Khesar chairs the Gelephu Mindfulness City, which has a charter to run independently of the government of Bhutan (“administratively, judicially, legislatively”) even though the exact nature of this bifurcation is not yet clear amidst the dubious technocratic jargon of “diversion” from the mainland for the sake of a future “convergence”. As GMC managers talked blithely of creating a city of “one or two million” in a country of 700,000, it is not clear how far down the road New Delhi’s establishment will support the project, given the cross-border proximity to a region it considers politically volatile and geopolitically sensitive.
But there is one crucial humanitarian factor that Jigme Khesar cannot ignore: much of the “mindfulness city” is planned to be built on supposed wildlands but owned by Lhotshampa villagers, most of them sent into refugee-hood. Even of the 7,000 refugees remaining in Nepal, 40% are said to come from Gelephu. How will an urban development project, touting empathy and compassion, push spade unto tainted ground is a question for the king to consider, as well as project staffers who loudly celebrate “His Majesty’s love and guidance.”
If there is one thing that refugee leaders in Jhapa did over the years, it is gather all kinds of government of Bhutan documents, including land records. And today, they are able to provide land deeds for many displaced Lhotshampa that fall within the area set aside for the GMC. Much of what project officials blithely point to as pristine woodlands are untended agricultural holdings that have reverted to jungle over the course of three decades. Many of the elderly refugees who remain in Nepal, awaiting to exercise their “right of return”, are from Gelephu. Among them, 11% hold land deeds for property within those “jungles”, say refugee leaders. Will GMC Chairman Jigme Khesar order an investigation, or will his shining city be built on a pyramid of injustice and exclusion?
This is the first of a two-part series. Read the second part here.
Kanak Mani Dixit is a writer and publisher in Kathmandu, and founding editor of Himal Southasian magazine. He first reported on the eviction of Lhotshampas in July 1992, in an article in Himal magazine titled “The Dragon Bites Its Tail”.
