It's been over 2 years since I came to Sri Lanka to pursue my undergraduate studies and have lived here ever since. During my stay here, I have had profoundly enriching and sometimes thought-provoking experiences! The most recent of these has been the Sri Lankan parliamentary elections just this past week. It compelled me to think and ponder over the topic of nation building and what it takes to steer a nation towards its destiny, especially in the 21st century. I am not a political pundit or an expert economist (having studied the subject of Economics only briefly during high school nearly half a decade ago) but I present the humble opinions of a common man and a young citizen as I see it based on my experiences and limited knowledge so far.
A village in Bhutan, Sakteng in the eastern district of Trashigang (Photo Courtesy: Her Majesty the Druk Gyaltsuen's Facebook page)
Bhutan and Sri Lanka share many common things. For instance, Buddhism is the dominant form of religion in both nations. Health and education are provided freely by the state in both countries. But there are stark contrasts between them as well. One is a landlocked kingdom high in the Himalayas while the other is a republic island in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka has a long colonial past while Bhutan takes pride in never having been colonized by any power in its years of existence. Sri Lanka was the first country in the world to have a democratically elected female head of government while democracy itself took roots in Bhutan less than a decade ago in 2008. So for a young Bhutanese like myself to live in Sri Lanka has been a great learning opportunity - not only medicine which I am pursuing as my career but in so many other aspects of life. My experiences here compel me to think, and I can't help but compare and contrast the two nations time and again.
The most recent event that stirred my thoughts was the Sri Lankan parliamentary election. The forms of government in the two countries are quite different. Bhutan has a bicameral parliament and is a constitutional monarchy whilst Sri Lanka has a unicameral parliament with a presidential system of governance. But like all nations that resort to "democratic elections" of people's representatives to a parliament, election times bring a palpable sense of the whole country engaged in heated debates with plenty of rumor-mongering and rancor. Such was the case in the island nation of Sri Lanka these last few weeks leading up to the polls on August 17, 2015. It reminded me of the first parliamentary elections held back home in Bhutan in March 2008. It was a historic event for us, the Bhutanese. The peculiarity of it being that the change in the form of government from a traditional monarchy to a democratic constitutional monarchy was initiated by our King Himself, His Majesty the Great Fourth, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. We were very cynical about democracy coming to Bhutan, the general feeling was that we weren't ready yet. And as if to validate this feeling, there were only two political parties that eventually got registered to contest the polls and a one-time special decision to forgo the first round of Primary polls and directly conduct the General round was implemented. We had frowned at and disapproved the divisions that allegiance or preference to political parties had made within our social fabric. For too long we the Bhutanese had been united under our beloved Kings, such divisions along political preferences hitherto unknown to us. We were dismayed by the "dirty politics" that seemed to emerge as the election campaigns caught pace. And just when we had thought that the nation had had enough, the second elections in 2013 brought forth more drama as political parties formed and merged, and candidates (sometimes even party leaders) switched sides. For the Bhutanese, these were sinister acts, only more evidence towards what follies democracy and the accompanying party politics brought with it. But in Sri Lanka, the oldest democracy in South Asia (according to Wikipedia), such events seemed so normal that I was pleasantly surprised by how much at ease the people seemed to be. Perhaps, it was a sign of the maturity of the electorate or simply them having turned callous to such events. There was no fuss about the divisions political parties brought to the society or the sense of hatred it created among the people; or maybe, as an expatriate, I failed to see it clearly. However, I didn't fail to notice the vigor with which supporters of candidates, and in turn the political parties they represented, went about in expressing their allegiance. There were queues of buses, filled to the brim (or the doors rather) with supporters, young and old alike adorning the party-colored T-shirts with smiling faces of the candidates of their liking, flags in hand running up and down the country. I was amazed by the enthusiasm and fervor with which they seemed to rally for their favored side. To a Bhutanese like myself, where our campaigns are much more silent and such loud rallying unheard of (and even prohibited to some extent), I was amused by these happenings. But even back in Bhutan, passions ran high sometimes like during social gatherings when politics was discussed. Of course, often times, the discussions centered around the personas of the party heads rather than ideologies (which in essence were pretty much the same for all parties, just worded differently).
All this made me think about why the common people went to such great lengths to defend their political parties of choice, especially around election time? Well, because the winning party forms the government, some might answer. Indeed, the opportunity to govern is at stake. Being able to form the government means having the paddle of your country's future for at least the next 5 years in most countries including Bhutan and Sri Lanka. But is that so? Is the direction a nation takes really in the hands of the ruling government? To a certain extent, maybe yes but I'm afraid it takes more than a handful of individuals to chart the course of a nation's path. For we must always bear in mind that a nation is a large family, a very large one indeed, and it takes the efforts of every single member to keep it moving forward.
As a medical student, I can't help but draw a scientific analogy: all higher living beings exist as a result of the successful reproduction of various cells in the right part of the body in the right proportion to form tissues and organs, and their working together. This is possible due to the extremely accurate reproduction of cells day in day out. At the heart of it all lies a chemical compound called deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA that holds the code to all of life's marvelous secrets and wonders! Without the DNA coding, cells cannot be reproduced correctly. Similarly, for a nation to function properly, its DNA must be strengthened too. And I believe that a nation's DNA are the values and principles that her people have. It can be easy for us to listen to the promises that politicians make during their political campaigns and then later blame and grill them for not keeping them. It is easy to sit on the couch at your home, holding the day's newspapers and pass your commentary regarding the pathetic state of the nation, placing all the blame on the politicians. Seldom does one think that maybe we are expecting too much from them. A government is a machinery. And politicians are but one component of that complex machinery. The machine needs to function in sync under various laws, rules and regulations that govern its working. The politicians need to act within the premises of the machinery to serve our needs. One should not expect to replace the wheels of one's car in the garage today and expect it to become a racing car overnight. Whenever we think of the people who run our country, we should think not just of the ruling party who form the set of government ministers but all the people who run all the machineries of the state. The state encompasses not just the parliament, some of its esteemed members eventually forming the cabinet of ministers, but so many others such as the eminent judges of the judiciary, people who man the numerous autonomous government agencies and so many other institutions within the state's purview. All of them together are responsible for running a country. Of course, as they say, money runs the world, or the world runs after money. So the corporations and various business organizations who may not even be run by the state (merely regulated at most) play a vital role in the development of a nation too as they are the powerhouse of a growing economy. Ultimately, the responsibility of running a nation lies with all its citizenry. For all the people who eventually fill these important offices and run these organizations are the citizens of that nation. Therefore, the character and temperament of the citizens will eventually determine the fate of a nation. It means that if we want our country to stand tall among the league of nations in the world, our people must develop first.
Our people...my fellow Bhutanese, that is when my confidence begins to stammer at times. We take pride in being among the happiest nations on earth. But I often wonder how long this happiness will last. Sometimes I even wonder, if this state of happiness which subsequently brings a sense of contentment is our biggest enemy. Our habit of being happy with the status quo is often the source of our complacency. I guess, we can't help ourselves because we are a family of just over 700,000 people living in an area roughly the size of Switzerland; we thus have one of the lowest population densities in the world, we never really had to compete too much among ourselves for anything. This, combined with the Buddhist philosophy of compassion towards others and the need to rid ourselves of jealousy has meant that we Bhutanese usually don't compete fiercely. And where there isn't competition, there never is progress. After all, it takes lifetimes of great pressures and unbearable conditions for the black coal to become diamond. His Majesty the Great Fifth, Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, during an audience granted to students among whom I was a fortunate listener, remarked that there is a word in our language that is probably the worst of them all embedded in our Bhutanese nature which we must rid ourselves of, the word kheymey (Dzongkha: ཁྱད་མེད) - loosely translated as 'it doesn't matter'. This easy going nature has given us the resilience to rise out of many hardships and difficult times but it now threatens to turn us into a bunch of lazy, complacent lot. Whenever we see someone indulge in a corrupt practice in our workplace, we say kheymey, it doesn't matter, (s)he has a family to feed, penalizing him/her harshly will be bad. Whenever a student is caught cheating in exams, we say kheymey, it doesn't matter and shy away from correcting the student with a stern punishment. I am not saying execute a corrupt official or expel a cheating student right away, but these are simple examples of how we fail to set an example and correct our behaviors assuming them to be trivial trespasses not realizing that we are refusing to inculcate the right values and principles within ourselves. If good values were instilled in each of us firmly, then we wouldn't have to worry about the kind of representatives we elect to our parliaments or any other institution. Complacency and tolerance to complacency is what holds us back from moving forward. Investigating corruption cases by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) or discovering lapses by the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) will not eradicate corruption or malpractices, they are just temporary relief for the symptoms (to draw another medical analogy) of a disease whose roots are deeper, within our conscience which must be cleaned through proper values and removing complacency from our work ethics.
As a small developing nation, we rely heavily on donor funds. In fact, more than half our development activities are funded through external sources. Of late, most of these donor countries have announced that they will phase out of our country in the coming few years, and with that, we've been forced to face a grim, inevitable fact - that some day we will be on our own. I do not run the nation but I know how that feels because I stand at a similar juncture in my personal life as a young undergraduate. For years, I have depended on my parents to take care of all my needs and the prospect of having to start a job and be independent in a few years is a daunting thought. Our nation perhaps is at a similar crossroads. But unlike me who's being trained as a doctor and feel pretty confident of being able to earn my living eventually, I'm less confident in the training that our nation is getting. Let's face it, if all the donor countries (including our bestie down south) were to leave tomorrow, we face a very grim prospect of surviving on our own. We barely have any resources to rely on. The best gamble we have at our disposal is our human resource which I fear is far from strong enough to shoulder the responsibility of steering our country forward. With a population that is dwarfed in comparison to our two ginormous neighbors, we have very few options but to strive for excellence in everything that we do as our Beloved Monarch often points out. But excellence is far from what we Bhutanese strive for most of the time. Besides the kheymey that we use as a pathetic mantra to justify our incompetence, we often rely too heavily on the government - the noble Bhutanese tradition of expecting some form of kidu (Dzongkha: སྐྱིད་སྡུག) , translating as 'welfare' from our "rich" government. As an example, I won the Royal Government scholarship to pursue my medical degree here in Sri Lanka. As part of the scholarship entitlements, the Royal Government pays my annual tuition fees, a handsome amount of monthly stipends to cover my living expenses and an annual sum as book allowance. Besides this I'm also entitled to claim the reimbursement for my annual residence visa fees which I pay to the Sri Lankan government; I dutifully and without fail always submit my receipts to claim the sum from the scholarship office back in Bhutan. I never thought much about it for I believed I had earned it through my hard work during school days and winning the scholarship. In contrast, during my second year of studies here, a few of my Lankan friends went to represent the University at an international quiz competition in physiology held in Malaysia. Imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that they had paid from their own pockets for the air fare and also the expenses for their stay there. I asked my friend why was it so? Shouldn't the University have funded it all, after all they were representing the University (by the way, our University is state run) or perhaps even the Lankan government should have funded them for they represented Lanka too? To this, my dear Lankan friend calmly replied "Oh no, our University isn't that rich and their funds are spread too thin as it is providing free education to us all! And our government isn't in a much different condition either". I was truly ashamed of myself on that day. Here I was (the writer of such articles and future professional-to-be) with such narrow minded, selfish thoughts. I can't help myself, I'm a Bhutanese after all, it is in my blood to expect everything to be done by the government. If you want more evidence, then just switch onto the the national television, BBS right after some natural calamity has struck a part of the country and listen to the bereaved families, you'll know what I mean. Until the day we change this very Bhutanese attitude of the expecting the government to clean our mess up for us, we are bound to remain perpetually shackled to the tag of being a developing nation.
Unemployment, and in particular youth unemployment is a hot topic of discussion during election times. Such was the case in both of our elections in Bhutan. Every young citizen, be it a degree holder or a high school dropout, clung onto their seats to listen to what each party had on offer. And if what I said about corporations and business organizations being the powerhouse of an economy is true, then I'm afraid our Bhutanese powerhouse is like a steam engine full of cold, wet coal that wouldn't burn easily or even if it did, it would burn inefficiently producing more smoke than actual fire. I say this because in any economy, the corporations and businesses are enterprises which are run by entrepreneurs. Generally speaking, Bhutanese are the worst kind of entrepreneurs, mostly because of our complacency and unwillingness to work hard, and our contentment with the status quo. Walk into any Bhutanese shop and one shouldn't be surprised to be met with cold indifference by the shopkeeper, hardly even acknowledging your arrival in their shop, as if you were there not to buy something but rather to steal. Owing to our close proximity to India, most of us are very fond of Indian television and are fluent in Hindi. Ironically enough, while we have learnt lots of things from our giant neighbor, we have failed to learn the art of entrepreneurship from them, Indians being renowned for this very vital skill. In fact, I myself am guilty of being a bad entrepreneur, having helped my mother run a small grocery store a couple of years back, I hardly treated my customers more differently than my description above. (But then again, I could argue that enterprise was not my thing and I was destined to become a man of science). Although clichéd, it might be most appropriate to quote former American President John F. Kennedy when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Self employment and enterprise will be what will eventually draw us out of our present predicament.
View of Sri Lankan hills in Kandy, Cental Province (Photo by author)
Living in a different country has often helped me realize and strengthen my Bhutanese identity. It has made me see things from a different perspective sometimes, and question some of the things we take for granted. There have been times when I've been proud of some of the way we do things in Bhutan too. I guess this is what my teachers often meant by exposure when they spoke of travel and living abroad. But for this piece, I have chosen to highlight a few of the many problems I see facing my motherland while utterly disregarding all the positive facets of our country and our people. I did this because, like I said earlier, we are too comfortable with ourselves and many before me have already exalted the many good virtues of us, Bhutanese. I wish to take a more critical stand and hope to evoke a few minds. The rise of nations such as South Korea and Singapore from the ashes to become the Asian tiger economies within the past few decades serve as living sources of motivation for our country. Our time has come, and it is time to answer this great calling, especially the younger lot of Bhutanese!
