Other Face of Bhutan Uncovering the Truth By Dick Chhetri Perfectly presented to the outside world, the Kingdom of Bhutan is known as the land of “Gross National Happiness,” a place where government policy purportedly prioritizes the emotional and spiritual well-being of its citizens above the country's gross domestic product. Not only are individuals impressed when they hear about it, organizations and even entire countries are beginning to discuss the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and how they might apply it at home, though doubts have inevitably been raised about the practicality of how a nation’s happiness might be measured. The United Nations (UN) has discussed at length adopting a “new economic paradigm” based on GNH, and has even declared March 20 the International Day of Happiness. The West seems to have accepted the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck’s Gross National Happiness campaign without question, even though the Bhutanese people have barely heard of it, much less experienced it. It should come as no surprise to find that behind this government-proclaimed happiness lurks a distinctly less rose-colored reality: For the Lhotsampa, a large ethnic minority of Nepali origin who have been the victims of a surprisingly little-known (outside Bhutan) ethnic cleansing campaign, the last three decades have brought little happiness. Beginning in the late 1980s, over 100,000 Lhotsampa—Bhutanese citizens of ethnic Nepali origin majority of whom belonged to Hindu religion—fled or were forced out of Bhutan. Forbidden from using their language, wearing their ethnic dress, and celebrating own traditions as part of the government's edict known as driglamnamza, the Lhotsampa naturally felt that their very culture and identity were under attack. The brutal government policy led to a backlash in which factions of Lhotsampa people—especially youths, their passions running high—burned their government-imposed Drukpa clothing and committed some acts of violence. While the overwhelming majority of Lhotsampa did not advocate violent tactics, the Royal government nevertheless placed both guilty and innocent into one ethnic bandwagon, branded them as anti-nationals and illegal immigrants, and drove them out—a staggering one-sixth of the country's total population— using cruel methods such as public beatings. Most of the Lhotsampa, having nowhere else to go, ended up in UN-operated refugee camps in Nepal. Today after almost 24 years, despite the so called Democracy (2008) and Gross National Happiness, the Lhotsampa who were somehow able to remain in Bhutan continue to be treated as second-class citizens, many remain incarcerated in the Bhutanese jails, and while most of those who fled or were forced to flee have by now found refuge in third countries such as the United States,
