1985 Bhutanese Citizenship Act

Overview

The Bhutan Citizenship Act of 1985 replaced the earlier 1958 Nationality Law and imposed dramatically stricter criteria for Bhutanese citizenship.^[1] The Act required individuals to prove that they or their ancestors had been residents of Bhutan on or before December 31, 1958 — a nearly impossible standard for many Lhotshampa families who had lived in Bhutan for generations but lacked formal documentation from that era.

Key Provisions

The Act established two paths to citizenship:

Citizenship by birth: A person whose father was a citizen of Bhutan at the time of their birth. This patrilineal requirement excluded children of Bhutanese mothers married to non-citizens.
Citizenship by registration: Required proof of residency in Bhutan before December 31, 1958, along with evidence of having been registered in the official records during that period.

The Act also introduced provisions for the revocation of citizenship, including for individuals who had "acquired citizenship by fraud, false representation or the concealment of any material fact."

Impact on the Lhotshampa

The 1985 Act had devastating consequences for the Lhotshampa community:

Tens of thousands of southern Bhutanese who had been recognized as citizens under the 1958 law were reclassified as "non-nationals" or "illegal immigrants"^[2]
The burden of proof was placed on individuals, who were required to produce documents from nearly three decades earlier — documents that many rural families never possessed
Government officials conducted arbitrary assessments, and families were frequently categorized differently even when their circumstances were identical
Loss of citizenship meant loss of access to education, healthcare, employment, and the right to own land

Connection to the 1988 Census

The 1985 Act provided the legal framework for the 1988 national census, which categorized the population into groups based on their ability to meet the Act's requirements.^[3] Those who could not prove 1958 residency were classified as "non-nationals" and became targets for expulsion.

International Criticism

Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticized the 1985 Act as a tool of ethnic discrimination deliberately designed to strip citizenship from the Lhotshampa. The retroactive nature of the law — changing the rules decades after the fact — has been described as a violation of international norms against statelessness.^[4]

Current Status

The 1985 Citizenship Act remains in force. The 2008 Constitution of Bhutan incorporated similar citizenship provisions, and the government has shown no indication of reforming these laws to allow displaced Lhotshampa to reclaim citizenship.^[5]