[“Bhutan is an exceptional success story,” said Sekhar Bonu of the Asian Development Bank. “It’s a ray of hope in South Asia, and it sets a new benchmark when we talk to other countries.”]
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Kuni
Takahashi for The New York Times
"The bottom line is that we have to work
harder," said Tshering Tobgay,
Bhutan's newly elected prime
minister. "We need to grow our own food,
build our own homes.”
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THIMPHU,
Bhutan — “I think I can take President Obama one on one in basketball,”
Bhutan’s newly elected prime minister said recently in an interview. “I’ve got
some special moves.”
The prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, is four
inches shorter than Mr. Obama, so beating the American president in hoops might
be a stretch. But after his surprise election this summer, almost no one in
South Asia doubts that he has special moves. And he is renowned for his grit.
Four years ago while competing in the first Tour of the
Dragon, billed as the most difficult one-day mountain bike race in
the world, he fell and broke his jaw after riding 42 miles. In searing pain, he
got up and rode the rest of the race — 124 more miles.
Mr. Tobgay, 48, was one of just two opposition
members chosen by voters in Bhutan’s first parliamentary elections, in 2008,
and few gave him better than even odds at toppling the governing Bhutan Peace
and Prosperity Party in the country’s second set of national elections in July.
Several factors went his way, including a
currency crisis last year and threats from India just before the vote to
withdraw vital financial support. But many analysts credit Mr. Tobgay with
running an unusually disciplined campaign that included a long manifesto of
specific promises. His People’s Democratic Party won 32 of 47 seats, a
resounding victory.
The son of a soldier, Mr. Tobgay was sent to
boarding school near Darjeeling, India, when he was 5. After graduating from
high school, he won a government scholarship to attend the University of
Pittsburgh, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1991, he
became a civil servant in Bhutan’s education department, but left government
service in 2007 to dive into politics. He is married and has two children.
Now, he is overseeing a country of 725,000
people in the midst of one of the most thorough transformations in the world.
Bhutan’s feudal system continued until 1953, and its first road was built in
1962.
“In the last few years, we have transformed
beyond recognition — politically, economically and socially,” Mr. Tobgay said.
HE has largely abandoned the country’s signature
gross national happiness measure, its alternative to gross national product.
Introduced in 1972 by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, gross national happiness was seen as
a way to balance the country’s gradual embrace of modernity with an effort to
preserve its traditions.
Mr. Tobgay’s predecessor, Jigme Thinley, had
traveled the world promoting the happiness measure, making him a popular figure
among Western academics and literati but less so among his constituents.
Mr. Tobgay’s catalog of modest promises during
the election campaign included a motorized rototiller for every village and a
utility vehicle for each district. Happiness was not on his list.
“Rather than talking about happiness, we want to
work on reducing the obstacles to happiness,” he said.
Those obstacles remain substantial, including a
growing national debt and high unemployment. Bhutan’s infrastructure, still
woefully inadequate, has been built almost entirely by Indian companies and
laborers. At first, Bhutan relied on Indians because few Bhutanese possessed
the necessary skills. Now, a more educated and urbanized younger generation is
refusing construction work as beneath it.
“The bottom line is that we have to work
harder,” Mr. Tobgay said. “We need to grow our own food, build our own homes.”
He lamented that so many of Bhutan’s youths are
voluntarily unemployed, saying, “If we can restructure the construction sector
to make it more attractive, that should provide a lot of jobs.”
The country’s major industries are hydroelectric
power, which it exports to India, and tourism. While most of the population is
still involved in subsistence farming, a growing number of people are
abandoning their traditional single-family mud-and-wood homes in isolated
villages and moving to the country’s towns and cities.
“Who wants to do subsistence farming and get up
at 4 in the morning and carry water if you don’t have to?” asked Paljor Dorji,
a member of the royal family and a longtime close adviser to the former king.
“Once you educate the people, nobody is going to live the same miserable life
their parents did.”
Between 2005 and 2012, more than 1,300 apartment
buildings were built in Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, and they now house nearly
two-thirds of the city’s 116,000 residents.
Unlike most cities in South Asia, Thimphu is
being developed within strict guidelines, which include adequate roads, sewers
and schools. The city requires every building to incorporate elements from
traditional Bhutanese architecture like pitched roofs, distinctive windows and
upper-story projections, making the town feel like a downscale Vail, Colo.
Thimphu is a pleasant walking city, with none of
the chaotic warrens present in many Indian cities. Its people are cheerful, its
merchants show none of the pushiness common in South Asia, and even its stray
dogs seem benign. There are no slums.
Mr. Tobgay has eliminated some of the
restrictive customs enforced by the previous government, including occasional
bans on vehicular traffic and a dress code requiring men to wear ghos, a
dresslike traditional garment. He acknowledged that preserving the country’s
traditional culture would be challenging in an era of rapid urbanization.
Bhutan’s royal family is revered, and criticism
of royalty remains unthinkable. But the national news media are lively, and the
country’s many and growing democratic and educational institutions have made
Bhutan the darling of development and nongovernmental funding organizations.
“Bhutan is an exceptional success story,” said
Sekhar Bonu of the Asian Development Bank. “It’s a ray of
hope in South Asia, and it sets a new benchmark when we talk to other
countries.”
MR. TOBGAY said one of his top priorities was to
crack down on growing political corruption. The previous government was
considering measures that would have weakened the country’s anticorruption
agency, but Mr. Tobgay, who has shunned his predecessor’s limousine and luxury
accommodations, said that he planned to strengthen it.
“If corruption creeps in and takes root, we have
had it,” Mr. Tobgay said. “We need to ensure that rule of law prevails.”
He plans to host a weekly call-in radio program,
hold monthly news conferences and have public office hours when anyone can come
and complain. He has a blog and a Twitter account and is active on
Facebook.
“Friend me,” he said with a mischievous smile.
Mr. Thinley, the previous prime minister,
lobbied for a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, opened
new embassies and held discussions with China, efforts that alarmed India. Mr.
Tobgay has promised to end much of that international outreach.
“Opening embassies is expensive,” he said. “We
have to understand how poor we are.”
He expressed a clear preference for India, which
gives Bhutan considerable financial assistance, over China.
“The friendship between India and Bhutan
transcends party politics and personalities,” he said with some warmth. When
asked about the country’s eastern neighbor, his face fell. “We engage with
China. That is a reality.”
And while he intends to spend little time on
international affairs, he said, he would make an exception to play basketball
with Mr. Obama.
“I need to practice my 3-pointers, sharpen my
elbows and strengthen my shoulders,” he said with a clear understanding of
foreign diplomacy. “You’re a superpower, so my only chance is going one on
one.”
