Forced Cultural Assimilation in Bhutan (Driglam Namzha)

Forced cultural assimilation in Bhutan refers to the Bhutanese government's implementation of Driglam Namzha (literally "the way of conscious discipline") as a compulsory national code beginning with a royal decree in June 1989. Under the banner of "One Nation, One People," the policy mandated that all citizens adopt the dress, language, and customs of the Ngalop majority, regardless of ethnic background. For the Lhotshampa (ethnic Nepali) communities of southern Bhutan, this meant abandoning their own clothing, language, and cultural practices under threat of fines, imprisonment, or expulsion. The policy is widely regarded by human rights organizations and scholars as a central instrument in the ethnic cleansing that displaced over 100,000 people from Bhutan in the early 1990s.

Background and Origins

Driglam Namzha has roots in traditional Bhutanese Buddhist etiquette codes dating to the 17th century under Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who unified Bhutan and established norms of dress and behavior for the Ngalop-dominated Buddhist state. For centuries, these norms governed conduct primarily within monasteries and government settings.

Beginning in the 1980s, the government of the Fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, grew increasingly concerned about demographic shifts in southern Bhutan, where the Lhotshampa population was growing rapidly. A 1988 census in the south reclassified many longtime residents as illegal immigrants. Against this backdrop, the June 1989 royal decree elevated Driglam Namzha from a recommended set of customs to a mandatory national code, requiring all citizens to observe northern Bhutanese dress and etiquette in public and during business hours.^[1]

Key Provisions and Enforcement

The 1989 decree and subsequent regulations imposed several requirements on all citizens:

Violations were punishable by fines, denial of government services, and in some cases imprisonment. Human rights organizations documented cases of Lhotshampa being turned away from schools, hospitals, and government offices for not wearing national dress. Amnesty International reported that those who protested or failed to comply faced arrest and detention.^[2]

Connection to Ethnic Cleansing

The enforcement of Driglam Namzha coincided with and reinforced a broader campaign to reduce the Lhotshampa population. Between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, over 100,000 Lhotshampa were expelled or pressured to leave Bhutan. The process involved a combination of denaturalization (through the amended 1985 Citizenship Act), forced signing of "voluntary migration" forms, demolition of homes, and physical violence by security forces.

Scholars have characterized Driglam Namzha as providing the cultural justification for what was fundamentally a campaign of ethnic expulsion. As the academic journal Social Identities noted in a 2021 analysis, "the emphasis on Driglam Namzha shows both that social cohesion is accepted as an important element in Bhutanese society and that a strong emphasis on uniformity silences ethnicity." The policy framed Lhotshampa cultural practices as inherently foreign and incompatible with Bhutanese national identity, creating a rationale for exclusion.^[3]

Amnesty International described the expulsion as "one of the largest ethnic expulsions in modern history" relative to Bhutan's population size. The displaced Lhotshampa spent years, and in many cases decades, in refugee camps in eastern Nepal before the majority were resettled through a UNHCR program to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries beginning in 2007.^[4]

Comparative Context

Scholars and human rights commentators have drawn comparisons between Bhutan's forced cultural assimilation and other state-directed campaigns to suppress minority identities, including Canada and Australia's residential school systems targeting Indigenous children, Turkey's suppression of Kurdish language and cultural expression, and China's policies in Xinjiang and Tibet. While each case has distinct historical dynamics and scale, the common thread is a state's use of dress codes, language policy, and educational control to impose a dominant ethnic group's norms on minorities, with punitive consequences for noncompliance.^[5]

These comparisons remain contested. Bhutanese government supporters argue that Driglam Namzha is a unifying cultural code rather than an instrument of ethnic suppression, and that it applies equally to all citizens, including Ngalop. Critics respond that "applying equally" to all ethnic groups a code rooted in one group's customs is itself the mechanism of assimilation.

Current Status

Driglam Namzha remains in force. National dress is mandatory in government offices, schools, and formal settings. In August 2024, nationwide training was launched for teachers to integrate Driglam Namzha instruction into the broader curriculum, and early childhood programs introduced etiquette and Dzongkha to young children.

Whether enforcement has relaxed for remaining Lhotshampa communities is disputed. The Bhutanese government has not publicly revisited the 1989 decree or acknowledged its role in the displacement of the Lhotshampa. International assessments, including the 2024 Human Rights Watch submission to the Universal Periodic Review, continued to cite Driglam Namzha as a source of ongoing discrimination against ethnic minorities in Bhutan.^[6]

See Also

• Driglam Namzha
• Bhutanese Refugees
• Lhotshampa
• Religious Freedom in Bhutan
• Citizenship Act of 1985

References

1. Driglam namzha — Wikipedia
2. Bhutan's shame: why the world must continue to remember the expulsion of ethnic Nepalis — The Record (Nepal)
3. Driglam Namzha and silenced ethnicity in Bhutan's monarchical democracy — Social Identities, Vol. 27, No. 6 (2021)
4. Bhutanese refugees — Wikipedia
5. Driglam Namzha and silenced ethnicity — ResearchGate
6. Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Bhutan — Human Rights Watch (2024)