Over the years I have perfected the art of air travels. Here are some tips from my long experience spanning 30 years, 35 airlines and 34 countries. 😎😎😎

BAGS – Travel light, which, of course, is impossible for many – especially Bhutanese. Avoid checked-in luggage. Seriously. They get lost or damaged. Sometimes you lose your connecting flights too. Traveling with a carry-on is possible. I once travelled for a month in Europe with a carry on, a suit bag and a backpack.

As for your laptops, opt for a backpack instead of the shoulder bag. It is more comfortable and better for your back – especially if you add papers, battery packs, tablets, books, notebooks, stationery etc. like i do.

DRESS WELL – Meaning no shorts, tee shirts or flip-flops – especially if you are travelling for official trips and conferences. You don’t want to give a bad impression to your hosts. Don’t overdress lest you feel uncomfortable. For me, a shirt works just fine. Jeans are best for traveling. They never look dirty. Slip-in shoes are a must – with many airports requiring you to take them out during security checks. Besides, as soon as you get on board, you can throw them away and be more comfortable and put them back on easily.

At times dressing well earns you a seat upgrade to business class if the flight is oversold. Yes, they judge the book by the cover (read as good looks in my case 😜😜😜).

WEAR A SCARF. On long flights, it gets freezing cold up there at 39,000 feet. And add to that the germs-filled cabins you breathe in for tens of hours. You need to protect your throat and neck. Catching cough and cold would be a disaster if you have to speak at your destination. Mind you, it is easy to fall sick from a plane journey. And it is not a nice experience.

You can use the scarf to cover your nose in case the cabin stinks. Not all airlines are Singapore or Cathy Pacific. Some really stink like a public toilet.

GET A NECK POUCH. You can slip in your phone, wallet and passport. When rushing to the airports or pulling them out over and over again at the security, customs and taxis, they can be easily misplaced. For an absent-minded guy like me who keeps forgetting things everywhere, this is a lifesaver.

YOUR EARPHONES. The headphones (and the blankets) that the airlines provide are rarely washed or disinfected, it seems. Be safe. Don’t forget your personal earphones and don’t forget to use them instead of the ones supplied on board. Likewise, your tray table has more germs than a toilet seat. Carry an antibacterial hand-wipe to clean the tray table and the armrest before you start using it.

AISLE SEAT PLEASE. If you have chronic backache like me, flights longer than 3 hours is a torture. Choose an aisle seat so that you can get up and stretch whenever you want – without disturbing others.

LAST AND MOST IMPORTANT. Enjoy the journey, cherish the moment, talk to others, make new friends – even on board, be helpful to strangers. And make a good use of every opportunity by doing your best and letting one journey lead you to the next. Trust me. It works.

Don’t be in a haste to get to your destination. Savour the journey. Cherish the process.

I gave a talk titled, My Childhood Dreams and Role Models, to a group of youths brought together by the Bhutan Sharing & Loving Youth (BSLY) and Generation Y. The message that I wanted to drive hone was the importance of having dreams and role models, and working towards one’s dreams. As parents, I am sure it is extremely frustrating when your children have no dreams, no ambitions and no directions in life. 

I also touched upon the the power of imagination and empathy. Here are some extracts from the talk.

“Growing up, I was a restless kid with multiple dreams and corresponding role models. I wanted to fight like Bruce Lee, sing like Kishore Kumar and Engelbert Humperdinck, play football like Pele, become a pilot and fly to Moon like Neil Armstrong and look cool like Clint Eastwood. I was serious with my dreams too. I did Karate and Kungfu in college – before a shoulder injury forced me out of it. My dream to become a pilot went down when Druk Air didn’t even accept my enquiry – let alone an application. As for football, I barely made it to the college team. In short, I have failed to achieve most of my childhood dreams – except may be become a filmmaker just as Clint did.

Was it all worth then? Can we still dream even when we know that we won’t be achieving them? Yes, of course. Let me  also add that as humans, I believe, that the day you stop dreaming is the day you die. To merely exist without a dream is to wander around like a zombie.

If life is journey, dreams are your maps – and role models, your companion.

The greatest beauty about having dreams and failing is that in trying to achieve those dreams, you gather rich skills and experiences that will be useful in other life’s endeavours. Kungfu and soccer gave me a physique that would sustain my professional life as an engineer – trekking to high mountains to build radio and TV stations. Later as a filmmaker I managed to travel to every corner of our country to document places and people. I endured physically demanding walks and works. My flying-to-the-Moon dream, on the other hand, made me fearless of any feats or challenges that normally would be considered impossible. I ventured into the untrodden path – never even doubting my abilities or achieving the targets. Thus, came things like FM radio networks and Bhutan’s first TV channel, which I spearheaded into our once Forbidden Kingdom. Plus I won international awards for documentaries – the first Bhutanese to do and show the way.

Of the several childhood dreams and fascinations, though, I must say that the filmmaker’s dream has been the one that, as I start growing old, is increasingly becoming the most valuable. Not only did I quit a successful engineering career and became a documentary filmmaker but becoming a movie addict as a child opened my world to the power of imagination and creativity. This power, which is either not present or suppressed in our education system, is an important skill. For me it has led to the power of empathy. We need empathy, and more empathy, in this world that is getting cruel by the day.

Basically the power of empathy or imagination is the power to put yourself in the shoes of someone whose life may not be as fortunate as yours.

It is the power that makes you a good human being. The power that drives you to keep striving for a better world. This power served me well when I started volunteering for Tarayana in Athang Rukha in 2007. I continue to be involved in the Olep people even now and we are building the second community temple in Lamga – after we have successfully made them sufficient in food and necessities. For all the imaginative power and empathy that I have developed and have made good use of it, I can only thank one of my childhood role models, Clint Eastwood, for it.

Just as the power of imagination is vital in life, an unimaginative mind can be dangerous and destructive. That’s why people in the government make draconian rules and later rescind them when something unexpected, unimagined and unwanted developments pop up. With some sense of faint  imagination these mishaps can be prevented.

Lastly, disappointments and rejections. (I touched on this topic in the wake of the growing suicide among youth.)  

I know disappointments are hard to handle – especially for a populace that is always on ego swings. There is a general misconception that the country, we have today, has become worse. While my generation often romanticize OUR time and good ole let me tell you that we have had our fair share of hardships and struggles – and failures, disappointments and rejections. I often say that I have failed more than I succeeded in my life. However, now that I have crossed the half-century mark (I am 51) I look back and I realise that more than achievements, disappointments have been my greatest teachers. They are not as bad as it appeared back then. So, if you are going through one just now, wait. Don’t kill yourself. When you are old enough like me, you will look back and see how silly those despairs were.

Let me also share my own experience dealing with both. In triumphs and achievements, I have attracted envies and enemies. It is true. But in disappointments and despair, I have found my true friends and family members. Especially as a Sharchop, I have cherished the extended family culture.”

“Therefore, do not look at disappointments and obstacles with a heavy heart or with a resigned soul. If you can persist, success will surely come your way. 

Whenit does, however,

don’t let the success change you. And don’t let disappointments kill you.

Cry if you must. But don’t keep crying or sulking forever. Shake them off you and tell yourself, “Well! Enough now! Life goes on”.

Don’t be scared to dream. Don’t be shy to say you have a role model or that you admire someone. Sometimes to be able to dream is our only privilege.

I hope you will have many dreams and role models too – and unlike mine, you will be able to fulfil them. If you don’t, well, life goes on.

On the 50th Anniversary of the Foundation of Sherubtse, I wish the Royal University of Bhutan, teachers who taught, and are still teaching, there – and students and alumni a warm Tashi Delek on this impressive milestone.

It was on this day, 26th May 1968, that the Father of Modern Bhutan, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, planted the seed of a place that will be forever etched in many hearts, including mine – besides making a difference in even more lives.

Opening the school (then) His Majesty said,

“While religion alone had been adequate in the past to ensure happiness and well-being of the people, education has become essential in the modern world if independence was to be safeguarded and if it was to achieve prosperity”

Hopefully our people will never forget these words that sum up the essence of Sherubtse, and hopes of our King, which are forgotten or conveniently neglected that it pains me to the core as a citizen. I am not an alumni but I spent a wonderful year and half teaching there. It is a special place. Really.

Anyway, enjoy reading the full account of what happened on 26th May 1968 on this Kuensel report of 30th May 1968.

The Kuensel report also pertains to the opening of the Bank of Bhutan on 28th May in Phuntsholing where His Majesty stated that we should develop the habit of saving. Sadly we don’t do that even now.

The newspaper concludes with the Teacher Training Institute (now College of Education) inauguration in Samtse on 29th May 1968.

Headline on Kuensel, 19 May 2018

This headline might bring excitement in some people – and solace in others. A pay raise? Yes, of course, why not? It is about time. When was the last raise, anyway? With living standards increasing month by month – and not even by year-by-year, it is absolutely necessary. Right?

Well, think again.

Did the last pay revision leave us in a better position? I don’t think so. In fact, some of us might be in a worse situation than before. What guarantee is there then, that this time around, we would be able to solve our financial woes – once and for all? Are we not stuck in this vicious cycle of salary-increase-everything-increase zero sum game? Won’t it cause another increase in cost-push inflation of basic commodities in the market?

I say we, although I am no longer a civil servant now. But for much of my career spanning over 25 years I have been in the government or in a state-owned corporation. I won’t be surprised if the talk of pay raise in the government has already prompted some unscrupulous owners to increase the rent from next month. Jaigaon merchants would have acted on it for sure.

I started my career in 1986 in the civil service with Nu. 875 as my take-home salary. And with that, not only did I have a comfortable life, I used to also send money to help my parents educate my two younger siblings and my cousins. My last salary with allowances when I left the government in 2013 was Nu. 45,000. Honestly, let me say that I was relatively ‘poorer’ in 2013 than I used to be in 1986. Meaning, I had very little spare cash. I don’t deny that life now is more comfortable than it used to be in 1986. But the cost of living in Bhutan now is ridiculously high for the size of our economy that, at times, it can be very stressful for everyone. Hence, I am not sure if we are happier now.

Rich gets richer – and poor poorer

For some decades now, regardless of the pay revisions and promises of the so-called hydropower wealth, most of us are, in fact, stuck in the hand-to-mouth doldrums with no savings – and living under the illusion that we are better off than before, while in effect we are not. Instead, we unwittingly continue to fill the pockets of merchants and manufacturers from across the border – and the cash rooms of our banks. Offsetting the higher living cost through pay raise has, as a matter of fact, proven time and again, to be a complete failure.
Not only.

The gap between rich and poor is further widened with each raise. This is because of the flat-percentage pay raise, which sounds fair but is an illusion. Phrases like across-the-board are often used, which are a total eyewash. For example, 30% hike for a 5,000 basic salary is just 1,500. But a 30% of Nu. 50,000 comes to a whopping 15,000. The flat-percentage model is, therefore, seriously flawed. The new basic pay goes from 5,000 to 6,500 for lower rung, and from 50,000 to 65,000 for a dasho, thereby increasing the huge gap even further. Any surprises then that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer? The grocery store will not, however, discriminate between the ‘servant’ and the ‘master’.

Furthermore, while the salary increase for many doesn’t even cover a week’s vegetable supply, for the high-income group it leaves a sizable disposable income. This additional liquidity triggers spending on imported goods and fuels massive foreign currency flights – especially on luxury items such as cars, iPhones, flatscreens and holidays and pilgrimage in foreign destinations. Ever heard of the Rupee crunch? Now you know one reason why it happened.

Meanwhile land prices in the urban areas of Thimphu has shot up by 10,000 times between 1986 and 2018.

A plot of land that I eyed in 1986 for Nu. 4,000 (which I didn’t have and so I didn’t buy) is now valued at 40 million or 4 crore (US$ 600,000). It is cheaper to buy an island off the coast of Fiji in the South Pacific than a plot in Norzin Lam. It is impossible for our salaried working-class to buy a house in Thimphu, or in any major urban areas with their monthly income. Hence, the mass exodus of educated Bhutanese people to Australia – especially from the teaching cadre.

Another point.

If the flat-percentage model creates disparity, a flat-sum-for-all, say Nu. 10,000 for everyone irrespective of grade, is not the solution either. It narrows the gap, no doubt. And if I have to advise, I would choose the flat-sum version. However, the cost-pull inflation will still be there, as traders and landlords will raise the prices anyway.

The solution

The answer to the rising cost of living is not another pay raise for civil servants.

The way to go about this is, first, to control inflation – especially the rents. Invest in a serious study to understand the root cause of high rents – and make adequate policies and enact stronger legislations. Start with a dialogue with the banks, building owners and builders. Experience from other countries have shown that if you control the housing rentals in an economy, everything will fall in place.

I am not a banker or a real estate dealer. But I did engineering in college and practised it for ten years, and dare I say that our construction techniques are outdated, and inefficient and the industry is ridden with wastes, thefts, corruption and arrogance. All these have huge bearing on the final cost of the buildings. It is not only the interest rates on the loans.

Second, is to subsidise some 10-12 essential items that people need to survive – fuel, electricity, rice, flour, milk, egg, oil, chilli, tea, soap, sugar etc. This way the basic needs for a decent life are secured for everyone – including the civil servants, and the benefits of the State resources are spread evenly across the whole nation – irrespective of whether you are a farmer, civil servant or a private sector employee. Once the prices of essential items are under control, the cost of other goods and services will stabilise on their own.
More importantly, a cheap, clean and reliable public transport system needs to be introduced so that people don’t have to own, or use, cars. Whether it is done in form of a state subsidy, tax breaks or through public-private partnerships, this ought to be done – lest the much-touted revenues from hydropower export are returned to the sender in entirety for the petroleum products that flow in from there.

Of course, such bold moves from the elected government will not necessarily translate into votes at the polling stations because it won’t be visible. Both the voters and politicians seek instant gratifications nowadays. Visibility is what we all care for – in this era of selfies and social media. Nonetheless, I have faith in my compatriots that there would be leaders someday who will dare to embrace this inclusive concept without caring much about polls or promotions – or for the civil servants caucus that determines whether your party wins or loses the general elections.

In proposing this, I am neither a genius nor crazy. The above ideas are tried-and-tested formulas in many countries. In the UK and France, milk is cheaper than bottled water. Farm products are highly subsidised there. In Italy, city buses and tram rides are almost free. In Macau every citizen receives an annual check from the government when there is a surplus budget or high inflation. Kuwait gives 75 litres of free petrol per month to every citizen.

Even in India, from where we get all our inspirations, the Food Corporation of India takes the role of providing essential food items at subsidised rates, while house rents there are strictly regulated by the Rental Act. Ever heard of the famous Ration Card?
Market controls won’t be a novelty in Bhutan either. Some of these were in place in the 1980s. Those days the Department of National Properties (DNP) would fix the rents of private houses after measuring the livable area. No private or government houses can be rented out without their approval. For instance, in 1987, my rent for a two-room hut in Kala Bazar was fixed at Nu. 120, which was one eighth of my gross salary. Yes, I lived in Kala Bazar.

Nowadays more than two third of your salary goes into house rent. What a sin? Why was the DNP system discontinued? Was it because the decision-makers were also the house owners?
Until the 1980s, our own FCB – Food Corporation of Bhutan, had below-the-MRP food and home items sold and advertised (see picture below). But again, I guess, somewhere along the way, someone must have come up with a brilliant idea that FCB should sustain on its own because it is a “corporation”. In Bhutan, there is no such thing as institutional memory. FCB was established to redistribute food and sell at subsidised rates – and not to compete with grocery stores or make profits. It is supposed to stock up food while buying surplus productions to stabilise the market prices – and release them during poor harvests or in case of natural or man-made calamities.

Recently I ran into the CEO of FCB and he did mention about reinstating those food schemes. Perhaps again, he must have lost out to the many cannot-do people that flood our government and bureaucracy.

Inequalities and consequences

The salary raise for 27,000 civil servants is funded mainly from the revenues of the hydro-power export. Firstly, isn’t the country’s wealth supposed to be distributed equitably as per the Constitution? How sustainable is it to spend 60% of our annual budget on 4% of our population? Is that not happening at the expense of other sectors such as culture or manufacturing? It is not enough for the government to fall back on free health and education while dishing out endless perks and privileges to a small section of the population, at the expense of the State funds. Little wonder then that there is a growing resentment against the system among the private sector.

The scarier thing is that values such as a sense of belonging to the nation, patriotism, ownership or social responsibility will decline once people don’t have physical place to call home. For Bhutanese, who are descendants of highlanders, farmers and forest dwellers, identity is a physical place. Distancing and alienation are already happening as more and more children of the Bhutanese diaspora make Australia and the US their home.

Secondly, our market is largely state-driven and hence the civil service, and whatever happens around it or in it, has huge bearing on the economy. This aspect is often underestimated, sidelined or not understood at all. We are then dismayed that the private sector is never taking off.

The thing to note is that human history has not been kind to large social inequalities, and glaring divisions between haves-and-have-nots.

This can be really dangerous for a nation. More so now when information and fake news travel from finger to finger without passing through the brain. That’s why in Japan, the ratio between the highest and the lowest salary is maintained at less than four. And that’s the reason you don’t hear about “poor Japanese people”. They don’t exist in a country of 130 million. So Japan will never face a social upheaval like in the UK with this Brexit thing – or like in the US with ongoing White Nationalism. Popular discontent will manifest in strange ways, mind you.

In Bhutan the salary ratio between the highest and the lowest salary used to be around 8 times in 1986 but has drastically gone up to 30 times with the last two salary hikes. As a consolation we are, of course, much better than the Americans whose top CEOs earn as high as 400 times compared to their lowest-earning employees. This is one single big reason why there is some much resentment in the US against the traditional political class.

The glaring social gap that I saw there (I was a visiting scholar in University of California at Berkeley in 2014) was the reason why I predicted that Donald Trump would win when he announced his nomination. Every polls and pundits were for Hillary Clinton.
In conclusion,

if we still decide to go ahead with the pay raise for civil servants, please do not forget to re-read this post after a decade (with few more raises by then) and ask yourself, if you are better off. I can bet anything that you won’t be – and lesser still will be those who are not in this rarefied and privileged world of civil service.
Conversely, how about that we all benefit equally? Maybe some of us will get lesser than anticipated but we can all be better. And above all, above all, the most important thing is that, we don’t have to take anybody’s drin (favour) as a nation.

**********

NB:

1. I have not mentioned the negative impact on the growth of the private sector by civil service pay rise each time. It might sound more as a sour grape but the fact is, the salary increase in the civil service has clipped the wings of the private sector. Ask anyone from BCCI.

2. Not to boast but when I handled the pay raise for BBS in the early 2000s (we had to do our own because we were SOE), we went for a flat rate and not on flat percentage. Low ranking staff in BBS, especially, still remember me for that even to this day. TA/DA for drivers were raised to the level of junior officers on the argument that drivers have the same human body and physiological needs.

FCB price list. They did their job back then. Where did they lose the plot? (Photo : Kuensel page, 1987)

The massive investments in connectivity – of roads and air links, that the government has undertaken in recent years is perhaps the best thing that has happened in Bhutan in recent memory. I hope this continues to the next decade. Coming from an era when it took me once 13 days to reach Tashigang from Thimphu in 1982*, it gives me a chucklesome and nostalgic smile that now you could do it in a day. Not only.

With good and reliable air and land transport systems, trade, commerce, manufacturing, and movement of goods and services will ensue. If we can get these basic infrastructures right, people and businesses will organise themselves and progress on their own without the need for much hand-holding or dole-outs by the government. Malaysia boomed after they emptied their state coffer and put all their bet on the north-south highway in the late 1980s.

Complemented by the recently-launched RMA’s priority lending schemes, I can even foresee some decline in the rate of rural-Thimphu migration within the next few years – but only if we can keep this pace and wisdoms in action. The immediate aim of the national road network project should be make all dzongkhag centres within one-day driving time from the capital or from the country’s only international airport. This would not only enable access to the biggest market for local produces but also secure the country – and bring the nation closer.

The new highway

The construction of the newly-opened Gyeposhing-Nganglam highway itself was an impossible dream to begin with. The road will, firstly, benefit lower Mongar and Pema Gatsel of places such Kengkhar, Jurmey and especially Gongdue, Yangbari, Mikuri, which happens to be the poorest region of Bhutan. My immediate thought was, at least, the farmer I stayed in Gongdue Pam would now be able to sell his oranges which were rotting on the tree for lack of market. They can now dream a better life.

News reports, social media comments and vox populi have lauded the highway for the faster access through, and to India, for the three dzongkhags of Pema Gatsel, Mongar and Lhuentse. I would rather think that the bigger catch is that we are connecting the two districts of Pema Gatsel and Samdrup Jongkhar directly to Thimphu – inland. 

Isn’t it high time that our mindset is inward-looking and not outward-seeking?

More than the region

The Gyalposhing-Nganglam highway will not just benefit the people in the region but the whole kingdom if our people get little more innovative and dare to dream. For example, a closer look from the Google Earth suggests that the Kuri-Gongri is probably navigable between Yangbari and Panbang. It flows gently from East to West (see map above) in that stretch instead of rushing down from north to south.  Yangbari is flat and has enough space for a domestic airport. That region can truly develop as the winter getaway of Bhutan. Hopefully we can delve deeper and explore into the range of opportunities offered by the new dynamism that has just been created beyond the hydropower project planned there. This highway and the beautiful airport that was reopened at Yonphula few months back should excite people more than just as another front page news.

Gyelposhing – Nganglam highway, therefore, is not just another road.

It is a celebration of the impossible achieved and a consecration of the possibiles that are poised to emerge. I guess, the significance of the good things to come is best symbolised by His Majesty the King gracing the inauguration in person – and blessed by the universe with the magical and auspicious halo that appeared around the Sun on the day.

My homage to all those who worked, and are still working, to make these dreams a reality.

~~~

*  My fateful 13-day ordeal. Day 1 – Thimphu to Chukha (landslide near the bridge). Day 2 – Chukha to Sorchen then walk to Phuntsholing with the luggage. Day 3 – Phuntsholing (no bus ticket). Day 4-6 – Phuntsholing (Ticket yes but Assam strike. Highway closed). Day 7 – Phuntsholing to Barobisa and turned back (Wrong information. Strike still on). Day 8 (Phuntsholing. Driver didn’t want to go). Day 9 – Phuntsholing – Samdrup Jongkhar. Day 10 — Samdrup Jongkhar (no seat on the bus again). Day 11 – Samdrup Jongkhar to Narphung (traffic closed. Flooding near Moshi or Tshelingkhor). Day 12 – Narphung to Khaling (bus broke down). Day 13 – Khaling to Tashigang. Finally home

My earlier two posts on food garnered a huge response. I am bit surprised because I thought that I was giving out obvious facts and information. In this article, I will delve into the red rice not only for its nutritional value but also for its broader sociological and national importance.

The red rice 

In terms of nutrients and minerals, red rice is way ahead of white rice. Among others, it is rich in antioxidant called anthocyanins, which gives it the red colour. Now antioxidants are important because our body produces toxic materials such as free radicals. Free radicals causes, among many serious health conditions, the most dreaded cancer, while also altering our DNA. So eating red rice could help in reducing such risks. Red rice is also a source of magnesium, which our body loses and we need to replenish. Magnesium helps in preventing migraine, blood pressure, muscle spasm and cardiac arrests. Magnesium also regulates the calcium in maintaining healthy bones and teeth, and prevents risks of arthritis and osteoporosis. Red rice has more fibre and so it goes easy with our digestive system. Eating red rice, therefore, is much healthier as compared to eating white rice or puri-roti.  

However, our rice production, and red rice in particular, is under threat from rapid urbanisation. Farmlands are going away at an exponential rate. In the best case scenario, we will still be producing, but a decreased quantity of red rice that will make this important resources inaccessible to the mass. Isn’t this bit crazy? Now against this background, it is imperative that our paddy fields in Paro, Punakha and Wangdue, the heartlands of red rice, are protected against so-called urban development.

Protecting our farmlands

Now one might think of private owners as the defaulters when we talk of uncontrolled development. Well, that’s not always the case. In fact the biggest defaulter has been the government. Just look at Changjiji in Thimphu where thousands of acres of farmland were turned into public housing. Was it not possible to build those on the slopes above Samizingkha? Similar destructions were happened in Khuruthang (Punakha) and Bajothang (Wangdue). That may be in the past. Gone. But there is now an attempt to repeat the same blunder in Paro where a large area in Hungrel Gewog (the area in the picture) is declared as Thromde. Was there a real need or a political greeds here?

My own village, Pam, in Tashigang and my land in Rangjung went down to this urbanisation madness. My poor aunt was enticed by promising higher price for the land, unrestricted loan from the banks and water, drainage, bright street lights if our village became part of the township. “Merbu nangka rang cholay mo?” (do you want to stay in darkness?) was the argument given by the proponents from Dzongkhag administration.

How many valleys and villages do we want to destroy in the name of development? Is this development by any definition? What do we eat if we replace the rice fields with concrete jungles? Cement? Japan has 130 million people but since 1952, not an inch of paddy field has gone into so-called development. Rice fields are protected by law. Ours is protected too but it seems in Bhutan the government is above the law, which is weird. If the intent is to protect rice production, whether the defaulter is government or private, the damage is the same. In China, some farmlands in Yunan and Sichuam are protected as national heritage sites. Shouldn’t we too? Protect Paro and Punakha as natural-national heritage sites? 

The sociology of rice farming 

Loss of paddy fields will not only affect the production and the price. There is far greater consequences to these unscrupulous actions.

Asian societies are celebrated for cohesiveness, community and collectivism where we are all live, work and grow old together. There is a growing acceptance among sociologists that one factor that influenced our collective mindset is our culture of rice growing. Rice farming requires many hands to come together during plantation as well as in harvesting. This forces people to be in social harmony and avoid conflicts and confrontations – as far as possible. By and large, communities stick with one another – because of this interdependence nature of life.

Now imagine if all farmlands are gone. Not only we would suffer from food shortage, the essence of being Bhutanese, where life revolves around the concepts of mutual trust and dependence is gone. In any case how much can we depend on the cheap unhealthy imports? 

If we lose our sense of community, we will become like any other western nation – individualistic, capitalistic and profit-oriented where human relations will be purely transactional – and where every man is for himself.

I am not sure this is what we want. Or what GNH stands for.

May 3 is the World Press Freedom Day, whatever that means. As a former journalist-broadcaster I assume it is a day of celebration of the modern mass media. So, let me share some quick passing thoughts on this industry that has hosted me for over three decades.

Media then

The Bhutanese mass media in the pre-2008 era served a different purpose and thus, any comparison with today’s media is not even remotely possible. Although there was the move towards an autonomous media, which gained momentum after 1998, the development communication model still prevailed. The other comparison often made used to be between Kuensel and BBS that served different audiences with different levels of education and exposure.

What I can share, nevertheless, is what was it like to be a media person. Let me say that it was anything but glamorous. No one knew what the purpose of BBS was – other than to play songs and weather report of the day that was already gone. We also worked under a different kind of pressure from every corner of the officialdom – being a part of the government machinery. It was as if everyone had the license to scold us. To our credits, though, we did our jobs well and since people had to find faults anyway, even trivial mistakes like not getting titles or designations right were objects of ridicules and rebukes. I was even criticized officially for not wearing woven gho on TV (My passion for navy gho goes so far back in time).

While development journalism was the model we adopted in BBS, it was still journalism nevertheless and slowly we crawled into the area of truth-seeking and highlighting developmental issues. We worked hard, had fun, stood our ground when we were right and apologised when we made mistakes. And gradually we won the confidence of the government as people around the country started talking about same topics or singing the same song. Still, getting people to come on shows was more difficult than making your child take antibiotics. So the talk-show format, which is common these days, failed twice before it finally succeeded when we made a third attempt with Q&A with Dorji Wangchuk. The series ran for 112 episodes from 2003 to 2005. 

Sometimes we went hungry when we miscalculated our food stock on long production trips in rural areas. No mobile phones, no ATMs. Sometimes we walked out of office under the scorching Sun or a pouring rain to get a 30-second recorded statement and rushed back to the studio to meet the deadline. No enough cars, no complaints – only some childish sense of delights to hear yourself on the radio or bully your friends and family to watch you on TV. 

In the greater scheme of things, though, we played our part. The TV talk shows planted the seeds for political debates while Kuensel’s editorials and reportages set the culture of public discourse and scrutiny of public policies. The efforts of both the BBS and Kuensel – joined by new voices such as Bhutan Times and Bhutan Observer in 2006 laid the important democratic fundaments as we headed to the polls for the first time in 2008. Furthermore, radio, continued to bring the country together every evening for a round of news, public service announcements and programs ranging from new farming techniques to music request shows. In fact the slogan, which my friends and I coined for BBS back then, was Bringing the Nation Together. They changed it later to a less meaningful, The Bhutanese Expression. In the pre-cellphone era, radio requests went something like, “This request goes from Dorji in Thimphu to his parents in Minjay Kurtoe that he is coming by bus on 3 April and to send horses to pick him from the road head.” We did bring the country together.

Nation-building is a process whereby a society with diverse cultures, traditions, languages, ethnicities and religions come together towards a shared common goal and aspiration. Mass media, I always believed, is a great tool to help achieve it. In creating a shared experience of watching and listening to the same news, same songs and speaking the same language, we kept the nation glued together from Tendruk to Tashigang. Until then, I assume, everyone returned home when the Sun set – to their own lives, issues or ara bottles. And those who had a radio, listened to foreign broadcasts. In fact, as late as 1985, my last schooling year, we were listening to All India Radio and Radio Nepal and singing Bollywood songs – and had absolutely no idea of what was happening in Thimphu or elsewhere in the country. Looking back I feel proud to have been part of the team that turned that huge tide around – and thus helping to create a sense of nationhood and national identity. While BBS and Kuensel targeted different audiences, the key message was the same: we are a Bhutanese nation.

In my opinion, no other agency has done more than BBS to propagate Dzongkha, the national language. 

Media now

Media today plays the dual role of nation-building and creating a public space for meaningful debates and discussions within the overall process of democracy. The traditional Bhutanese media – radio, TV and newspapers, however, face a new set of challenges brought about by the changing time, contexts and circumstances. New emerging power centers may be exerting new kinds of pressure, while the existing powerful bureaucracy and its closed mind-set has primarily remained as it is. Then there is the discerning and more demanding public that has set an unrealistic benchmark by watching CNN or NDTV.

The increased demand is further aggravated by the fragmentation of the audience by the social media and mobile phones – making the traditional media look slow, irrelevant and outdated.

However, what the public and the government need to understand is that there is a huge difference between noise and information, and between information and message.

The social media is too much noice with very little information out there – let alone the message. For example, what is the message from all the Facebook updates and outpour of love and gratitude to teachers? What remains of the big celebration that we had yesterday in Changlingmithang, which through the marvel of technology, I could watch the livecast – some thousands of miles away, here in Macau. This is where the good old traditional media comes in. They provide the message and that is, that the voices of, and for, the teachers are finally being heard. Left to the social media, we would got only selfies without any substance.

Journalism is a profession and behind every profession there is either art or science. Journalism has both. It is a serious field.

Hence, one should not live under the illusion that Tweeter feeds, Facebook updates and Snapchat flashes suffice as information – lesser still as the message. If one does that, one is headed for a serious existence ridden with with superficiality and shallowness.

Finally, the audience should be careful with the basic difference between activism and journalism and between hate speech and free speech. These untoward behaviours have found a fertile ground in the social media. And under no circumstances the traditional media should dance to these tunes. 

The way forward

Good journalism remains an absolute necessity to create a vibrant mass media, which in turn, as a cliché goes, is an important element of a strong democracy. This is vital in this era of a pervasive and noisy social media and fake news. Local populations can be swayed by hostile foreign powers or corporations. Of all the countries, the US has learnt it the hard way in recent times. After a spell of euphoria of the new media and death-of-newspaper narrative, agencies like New York Times and Washington Post have registered a million plus new subscribers in the first year of the current administration. 

So much is being done in our country to build the necessary democratic institutions so that our experiment with this new system of governance succeeds. However, I don’t see a vibrant democracy happening with a weak media or an inexistent civil society or academia. Imagine a hypothetical situation where the government and the people are on polar opposites? It is not improbable. After all, as I pointed out on a FB update, ‘If you put two Bhutanese together these days, you will get three opinions.” There is the need to build a strong third voice to bring the two to the middle ground. Most importantly, in the era of post-truth and fake news, traditional mass media as a credible source of information should be further developed, sustained and celebrated as a national institution – and not scoffed at or scorned upon as business entities

There is a real threat to the harmony, security and sovereignty if the whole population gets its news, and form their opinions, from the social media. Not to mention the potential of mass manipulation campaign that can be conducted by foreign powers through Facebook and other SNSs – as it has happened in the US and UK.

Now, it is not nation-building anymore. It is national security.

Another issue that will never go away will be press freedom and censorship. Here, media persons in Bhutan should not assume that just because the Constitution guarantees freedom of press, that people will let them do their job. What is written on paper remains on, well, paper. One has to claim the space or keep asserting. It is like land records. Having the thram is only a necessary condition but not a sufficient one to own a land. If you don’t occupy your land, you will lose it – because someone will encroach in it.

Finally, media and democracy are a process. It is continuous journey and dynamic undertaking of contestation, negotiation and compromise. It will be in the hands of the new generation of media persons to forge the new purpose as per new societal demands and changing circumstances. It will be a difficult choice, though – between credibility and visibility, between depth and trivial and between social and substance. Old hands, like me, can only advice.

The Bhutanese mass media has, all said and done, come a very long way and has fulfilled its fair share in the overall process of nation-building, democracy and development communication. In the age of DTH channels, BBS TV continues to galvanise the country with programs such as Ngagay Drendur and Druk Superstar. Meanwhile Kuensel keeps playing the role of the nation’s conscience. 

There is every reason to celebrate this day.

(Disclaimer: Having grown professionally in the broadcasting world, my article could be more biased towards BBS. However, I am pleased to say that I am working on the roles and contributions of Kuensel and the film industry on the discursive construction and creation of national identity. More on the contribution of these agencies in future articles and academic papers)

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