Monarchy, the soul of Bhutan
The development of Bhutan in the last 34 years is something that is almost unimaginable for most people. We’re still a developing country, but Bhutan was a different place 30 years ago. Thimphu was like a village – there were no proper roads, everything was dusty and dirty, there was no sanitation, no proper health facilities. One can only imagine what the rest of the country was like.When His Majesty took over I was still in college. Being relatively well-educated, some of us were more worried about Bhutan than others. It was a country at this very early stage of development, with a very young boy at the helm of things who had no experience. We were also at a stage where a King was not supported by a competent bureaucracy. We had a few deputationists from India who helped with development activities, but, by and large, the King relied on a few old ministers.
His Majesty, in spite of his very young age, demonstrated a tremendous amount of maturity and common sense as soon as he took over. It was amazing. I came up to Bhutan in 1973, and His Majesty told me to work with him, so I stayed with His Majesty’s gokha (court). The fourth Druk Gyalpo had a tremendous sense of maturity. He was in the process of finding his own way around, but he did it very wisely. His Majesty did not have an ego as King; he was willing to listen to young people, old people, anybody.
There were groups of people being called to the palace every now and then, where in a very informal setting, he would probe their thoughts. His Majesty would talk about all sorts of activities, and he was so good that these interactions became like brainstorming sessions from which the King learned a lot about the government itself. He was running the government for the first time, so these things enabled him to understand the situation in Bhutan far better.
In the early days of kingship, Kings are usually aloof from everybody else, but the fourth Druk Gyalpo was able to understand because he interacted very intensely with people.
His Majesty had that inborn natural quality of leadership and a tremendous amount of wisdom. He could break a problem down, step by step, and had the ability to see a total picture very quickly. Most of the time people see things in bits and pieces and get very excited, but he was able to see the total picture very quickly, and that is a great quality of the King.
Initially, most of the activities focused on institution building. When we first started development, we built roads, then schools, then hospitals. We didn’t go into any fancy projects. We went into what was basic and necessary, and I think that really helped to sustain a lot of things. The greatest achievement is that, having brought the country this far, His Majesty is introducing democracy. He did everything that needed to be done, slowly but surely and not overnight: development, sovereignty, national security and then handing over his own power to the people of Bhutan.
His Majesty first started talking about Gross National Happiness in the early 1980s. We had started talking about the need to do many things and much about self-reliance. We were so dependent on donors at the time, but I remember His Majesty saying that we should not have illusions of development. It’s good to think about things, but we can’t do everything at the same time with the limited resources and limited capacity that we have. We must move in right path, and the most important thing to remember is that the people of Bhutan should be happy.
The fourth Druk Gyalpo is a wonderful human being; you feel so much peace around him. Monarchy is the soul of Bhutan. This country cannot do without monarchy.
Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, Former Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister
Source: The Legacy of a King