Lhotshampa

The Lhotshampas have the following factors encouraging rebellion or protest: territorial concentration in southern Bhutan, where they constitute a majority of the population, and significant political, economic, and cultural discrimination. As of the end of 2006, the leaders of Nepal and Bhutan remained in talks regarding the repatriation of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. Bhutan, a land-locked territory the size of Switzerland, is located in the eastern Himalayas. The Wangchuck dynasty from the Drukpa ethnic group has ruled Bhutan since 1907. King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck (1952-72), considered the father of modern Bhutan, began a program to move the kingdom into the modern world from medieval seclusion. Although he retained strong executive powers, the King created several important institutions, including the National Assembly (1953), the Royal Advisory Council (1965), and the Council of Ministers (1968) to provide broader participation. Land and legal reforms were also initiated. His son expanded upon those policies while emphasizing Bhutan's traditions and seeking to limit Western influences on the small, isolated country. Bhutan crowned a new king, 28-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, and held its first parliamentary elections in 2008. In 1952, ethnic Nepalese set up the Bhutan State Congress (BSC), reportedly following the example of Nepal's Congress Party. The BSC, Bhutan's first political party, pressed for democratization and the provision of citizenship rights and political representation for Nepali settlers. The Drukpa majority refers to this period as the "first anti-national revolt." The Congress parties in India and Nepal are alleged to have provided support to this Bhutanese campaign. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Nepali laborers reportedly entered Bhutan and never left. Ethnic Nepalis were estimated to constitute around 30 percent of Bhutan's population by the 1980s. The Buddhist Drukpas began to fear that they would lose their majority status in the tiny kingdom. Two other events also likely heightened their perceptions. Nepali migration to the independent Himalayan state of Sikkim led this group to outnumber the Buddhist Sikkimese and was seen as critical in leading the state to become part of India in 1975. Further, an ethnic Nepalese campaign to establish a separate state in India arose in the mid-1980s (led by the Gurkha National Liberation Front). The Drukpa-dominated government worried that Bhutan would soon be faced with a similar situation. Ethnic conflict began to sharpen in Bhutan in 1985 when the citizenship law was retroactively applied. Under this law, anyone born after 1958 who had only one Bhutanese parent had to apply for citizenship, demonstrate fluency in the national language of Dzongkha, and produce evidence of 15-20 years of residence in the country. In 1988, the law was followed by a census to identify Bhutanese nationals. The census reclassified as "illegal" about 100,000 Nepalese who had arrived in recent decades. Many Lhotshampas were reported to be falsely registered for years as "southern Bhutanese" citizens. In addition, a 1988 edict required Bhutanese to wear national dress on public occasions. Another enjoined a code of conduct based on Buddhist precepts and the teaching of Dzongkha, the national language, in schools. Schooling in the Nepali language was stopped in 1989. In 1990, many primary schools in southern areas heavily populated by ethnic Nepalese were (and still remain) closed. Today, discrimination is widely prevalent against Nepali-speaking Bhutanese in education, seeking employment and obtaining business licenses (ECDIS06 = 4). Bhutanese language laws require the use of Drukpa for all official purposes and positions, and these laws also explicitly ban the use of Napalese in education, business, and government. Moreover, the Nepalese names of places in southern Bhutan have been replaced officially with Drukpa names (CULPO206 = 3). While Bhutanese la