Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis

Bhutan, the tiny kingdom that introduced gross national happiness to the world, has a problem: young people are leaving the country in record numbers.

The country boasts free healthcare, free education, an increasing life expectancy and an economy that has grown over the past 30 years – people are still traveling.

Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay believes that it is ironically the success of Gross National Happiness that has made young Bhutanese so sought after abroad.

“It’s an existential crisis,” he said.

Keeps the outside world at bay

Bhutanwhich is about the size of Maryland, was largely isolated from the rest of the world for centuries. The kingdom was so protective of its unique Buddhist culture that it only began allowing foreign tourists to visit in the 1970s and did not introduce television until 1999.

Buddhism is the country’s national religion. Bhutanese, especially older men and women, spend hours spinning prayer wheels full of Buddhist scriptures. Prayer flags flutter on hillsides and in forests, turning nature itself into a sanctuary.

Bhutan’s capital Thimpu still has no traffic lights. The nation’s roads are shared by cars and cows.

Dasho Kinley Dorji, who ran Bhutan’s first newspaper before serving as the government’s minister of information and communications, describes the population as nervous, surrounded as it is by India and China and lacking military or economic power.

“Bhutan’s strength should be our identity, being different from everyone around us,” he said.

Bhutanese wear different clothes and build buildings in a traditional architectural style. The culture remains strong today.

“We came to realize that, you know, what we had in the past, what’s old, is actually very valuable,” Dorji said.

Bhutan was, and is today, largely a subsistence agricultural society. Many families still live in multigenerational farmhouses.

The country was unified by the man who became its first king in 1907. His sons and grandsons – referred to in Bhutan as the second, third, fourth and today fifth kings – have ruled ever since.

Bhutan’s unique path to modernity

It was Bhutan’s fourth king who, as a young, newly crowned ruler in the 1970s, set Bhutan on its path towards modernity. Jigme Singye Wangchuck, on his way home from a summit of non-aligned nations in Cuba, landed at an airport in India, where reporters asked him what Bhutan’s gross domestic product was.

“And the king said, ‘Actually, gross national happiness in Bhutan is much more important to us than gross domestic product,'” Dorji recounted.

The phrase stuck and attracted international attention. Maximizing gross national happiness became a primary responsibility of Bhutan’s government, led today by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.

“Gross National Happiness recognizes that economic growth is important, but that growth must be sustainable. It must … be balanced by the preservation of our unique culture,” Tobgay said. “People matter. Our happiness, our well-being matters. Everything must serve that.”

Every five years, surveyors sweep across Bhutan and measure the nation’s happiness. The results are analyzed and incorporated into public policy.

“Gross national Happiness is not directly equal to happiness in the moment. One happiness is fleeting, it is emotion, it is joy,” Tobgay said.

The other — the kind Bhutan is focused on, Tobgay said — is contentment, being satisfied with life and oneself.

It is also about nature. According to the law, at least 60% of the land must remain under forest cover. And with most of its energy from hydropower, Bhutan was the first and is today one of the only countries in the world to be carbon negative.

It earns foreign revenue by selling excess hydropower to India and from tourism, but there are limits. The country is full of beautiful mountains, but it is not allowed to summit mountain peaks.

“For a Bhutanese, it’s very easy to understand: You know, the mountains are sacred,” Dorji said.

The school is taught in English and it is free, as is the health service.

And although the country has a king, Bhutan is also a democracy.

Introducing Bhutan to Democracy

A quarter of a century after introducing Gross National Happiness, the fourth king decided that the best thing for his country would be to have an elected parliament and a prime minister.

“(It is) the only country where democracy was introduced in a time of peace and stability where democracy was literally gifted, forced upon the people, not just gifted because the people didn’t want it,” Tobgay said.

As a reporter, Dorji covered the king’s travels through Bhutan as he held meetings called consultations to discuss the idea with his subjects. Dorji remembers people pleading with the king not to introduce a democracy.

“Because when they looked around the world, their horizon was India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan: Democracy,” Dorji said. “Which is really synonymous with violence, with corruption. So they said, ‘No thanks. We don’t really need that. We’re fine’.”

The king was not swayed by their arguments and argued in response that a leader chosen by birth and not by merit could one day lead the country to disaster. Then, aged just 51, he abdicated and passed the crown on to his 26-year-old son, the fifth and current king. Bhutanese went to the polls for the first time ever in 2008.

Today, the fifth king is 44. He is adored in the country and works closely with the prime minister.

So why are young Bhutanese leaving the country in record numbers?

Bhutan is currently facing what is known in the country as an emigration crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic hit Bhutan’s economy hard, shutting down tourism. Recovery has been slow.

Many Bhutanese, with their excellent English, found higher paying jobs in Australia, even doing menial work. Word of opportunity spread quickly on social media and now a devastating 9% of the country’s population, most of them young, have left.

“This is a very difficult situation for Bhutan,” Tobgay said.

Lure people back with a City of Mindfulness

Bhutan’s government has mobilized and the king launched a bold, high-stakes plan to lure people back. Prime Minister Tobgay is trying to attract more business and tourists to Bhutan, highlighting landmarks such as a centuries-old suspension bridge, part of an ancient 250-mile trail from one end of the country to the other, which is now open to trekking tourists.

But tourism can only do so much, and Bhutan’s king knows it, so he has decided to create a new city in southern Bhutan with different rules than the rest of the country. It will be an attempt at a new model of robust economic development while still holding onto Bhutanese values.

The king calls it Gelephu Mindfulness City.

He approached a Danish architect Bjarke Ingels to design it. The new city will have neighborhoods located between the area’s many rivers, connected by a series of unusual bridges. The bridges will also serve as public buildings, with one home to a Buddhist center, another to health facilities and yet another a university. There will be no skyscrapers, and everything will be built with local materials.

Right now, the area – located in Bhutan’s lowlands – is largely undeveloped. Dr. Lotay Tshering, a former prime minister tapped by the king to lead the new city, said it will be built in stages over the next two decades, with no polluting industries allowed.

The area is also home to a lot of wildlife, including elephants. The new city will have wildlife corridors to protect the animals.

The king has said that the project’s success will shape Bhutan’s future.

“When we say that we follow the principles of Gross National Happiness, it does not mean that we are satisfied with less… We also want to be rich. We also want to be technologically of a high standard,” said Dr. Tshering. “We want the Bhutanese to be at the head of multi-million dollar companies, multinational companies.”

A Bhutanese team is collaborating with experts around the world and seeking investors to help build the city, the cost of which is likely to run into the billions. The city will have its own legal framework modeled after Singapore’s and will run on clean hydropower with hopes of attracting technology companies, particularly AI.

Decides to stay

Ingels presented his plans to the king, and the king then presented them to the nation last December.

Namgay Zam, a journalist who used to anchor Bhutan’s nightly news broadcast, was present. She had been planning a move to Australia with her family when she went to hear the King in a packed stadium that day.

“He did what no king had done before. He asked the people to help him directly. And he said, ‘Will you help me?’ And there was shocked silence,” Zam said. “Even to me, I froze. And I thought, ‘Did he just ask us to help him?’ And then he said, ‘Will you help me’ a second time.

For Zam, it was a yes.

“I got home and I told my husband, ‘We can’t go,'” Zam said. “And he said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘I’ve signed a social contract with His Majesty because I said yes’.”

Zam and her husband did not go to Australia, but the king and his family did. He visited the country last month to bring his vision for the new Gelephu Mindfulness City and the future of Bhutan to packed stadiums of more than 20,000 Bhutanese living in Australia now, all in the hope of one day luring them home.

“If successful, we can show that you can create a city that does not displace nature, that is anchored and rooted in the local heritage and culture, and that still allows for growth and prosperity,” Ingels said. “It’s a struggle many places in the world are struggling with.”