Land Confiscation in Southern Bhutan: Legal Mechanisms and Documented Cases

The confiscation of Lhotshampa land in southern Bhutan during the 1988-1993 crisis and its aftermath was facilitated by a series of interlocking legal instruments that provided a veneer of legality to what human rights organizations characterized as systematic dispossession. The broader narrative of land confiscation and reallocation is covered in a companion article. This article focuses specifically on the legal mechanisms employed, the documentation requirements imposed on southern Bhutanese, the "voluntary migration" forms used to formalize dispossession, and specific documented cases that illustrate how these mechanisms operated in practice.^[1]

The 1985 Citizenship Act

The Bhutan Citizenship Act of 1985 replaced the more inclusive 1958 Act and established stringent new criteria for Bhutanese citizenship. Under the 1985 Act, a person was recognized as a citizen only if both parents were Bhutanese nationals — a significant change from the 1958 Act, which had granted citizenship to anyone who had resided in Bhutan for at least 10 years and owned agricultural land. The 1985 Act was applied retroactively, meaning that individuals who had been recognized as citizens under the earlier law could have their status revoked under the new criteria.^[2]

Critically, the 1985 Act included a provision stating that any person whose citizenship was revoked was required to dispose of all immovable property in Bhutan within one year. Failing this, the property would be confiscated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, with the government claiming that "fair and reasonable compensation" would be paid — though in practice, such compensation was rarely if ever provided to expelled families.^[2]

The 1988 Census and the 1958 Tax Receipt Requirement

In 1988, the government launched a special census exclusively in the southern districts, the areas inhabited predominantly by Lhotshampa. Unlike a standard population census, this exercise was designed as a citizenship verification process. Each family was required to present census workers with a tax receipt from the year 1958 — not earlier, not later — as proof of long-standing Bhutanese residence. Alternatively, a "certificate of origin" from one's place of birth could be submitted.^[3]

This requirement posed insurmountable obstacles for many families:

• Tax receipts from 1958 — thirty years prior — were frequently lost, damaged, or never issued in formal written form for illiterate rural families.
• Previously issued citizenship identity cards were no longer accepted as proof of nationality, despite having been issued by the same government.
• The burden of proof was placed entirely on the individual, not the state, despite the fact that government records of land ownership, tax payments, and previous census data existed.
• Census officials exercised broad discretion in classifying individuals, and there were widespread reports of arbitrary or politically motivated decisions.

^[3]

The census classified the southern population into seven categories, ranging from "genuine Bhutanese" (Category F1) to "non-national" (Category F7). Those classified in categories other than F1 were subject to varying degrees of restrictions, and those classified as non-nationals were effectively targeted for expulsion. Their property was automatically deemed subject to forfeiture, since non-nationals had no right to own land in Bhutan.^[1]

The Land Act and Property Forfeiture

Bhutan's land legislation provided the legal framework for state acquisition of property from persons classified as non-nationals or emigrants. Under the Land Act, a Bhutanese citizen who "gives up citizenship and migrates to another country" was required to inform the government one year in advance and, upon receiving approval, could sell the land. In practice, those expelled during the crisis were given no such opportunity. Their departure was coerced, their land documents were confiscated along with other identity papers, and the land was immediately treated as state property available for redistribution.^[4]

The distinction between "voluntary emigration" and forced expulsion was central to the government's legal framework. By characterizing the departure of Lhotshampa as voluntary, the government claimed legal authority to confiscate their property under provisions designed for willing emigrants. The reality — as documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. State Department — was that the departures were coerced through violence, threats, destruction of property, and the creation of conditions making continued residence impossible.^[5]

The "Voluntary Migration" Forms

A key mechanism in the dispossession process was the use of so-called "voluntary migration" forms. During the military and police operations in the southern districts between 1991 and 1993, security forces compelled Lhotshampa families to sign documents declaring that they were leaving Bhutan of their own free will and relinquishing their property and citizenship rights. These forms served multiple purposes:^[6]

• They provided the government with documentation it could present to international observers as evidence that the departures were voluntary.
• They formally extinguished the signatory's property rights, enabling the government to treat the land as abandoned state property.
• They precluded future claims by refugees for repatriation or property restitution, since the individuals had "voluntarily" renounced their ties to Bhutan.

Amnesty International's 1994 report "Bhutan: Forcible Exile" documented cases in which these forms were signed under direct physical coercion — with soldiers standing over families, sometimes after beatings or threats of violence. Some families who refused to sign had their homes burned. Others signed after being detained for days or weeks without food or medical care. The "voluntary" nature of these documents was, in the assessment of multiple international organizations, a fiction maintained for legal convenience.^[6]

Confiscation of Documentation

A critical element of the dispossession was the systematic confiscation of identity and property documents from departing families. During expulsion operations, security forces seized:

• Citizenship identity cards
• Land ownership certificates (thram records)
• Tax receipts and payment records
• School certificates and educational records
• Any other documents that could establish the individual's identity as a Bhutanese citizen or property owner

This document confiscation served a dual purpose: it stripped refugees of evidence they could use to assert their nationality or property rights, and it allowed the government to claim that the expelled individuals had never been legitimate citizens or landowners. During the subsequent bilateral negotiations between Bhutan and Nepal, the absence of documentation became a primary obstacle to verifying refugees' claims.^[7]

Scale of Confiscation

The precise amount of land confiscated is difficult to quantify, in part because Bhutan does not publish detailed land records and because the refugees' own documents were destroyed. However, the scale can be inferred from the demographics of displacement. Over 100,000 Lhotshampa — representing approximately one-sixth of Bhutan's total population at the time and approximately 40 percent of the Lhotshampa population — were expelled from the six southern districts (Samtse, Chukha, Dagana, Tsirang, Sarpang, and Samdrup Jongkhar). These districts contained some of Bhutan's most productive agricultural land.^[8]

AHURA Bhutan's Documentation of Bhutanese Refugees project compiled a digitized database of refugee property claims, establishing a record of the specific land parcels, locations, and approximate sizes of confiscated holdings. This database was intended to serve as evidence for future restitution claims, though no restitution process has been initiated.^[8]

Redistribution to Northern Settlers

Beginning in 1998, the government launched a formal program to redistribute confiscated Lhotshampa land to settlers from northern Bhutan, including landless families, retired military personnel, and government officials. The incentive package included free land, free building materials, cash grants, ten-year tax exemptions, and — notably — the requirement that remaining southern Bhutanese provide labor to help the new settlers build homes and transport timber. The redistribution program is covered in detail in the companion article on land confiscation and reallocation.^[8]

Current Status and Restitution Demands

As of 2025, no restitution of confiscated land has occurred, nor has the Bhutanese government acknowledged any obligation to compensate displaced families. The land remains in the hands of the settlers who received it through the government redistribution program, with government-backed titles that postdate the original Lhotshampa ownership.

The announcement of the Gelephu Mindfulness City project in 2023 — a major international development initiative located in southern Bhutan on land that was formerly inhabited by Lhotshampa families — has renewed attention to the land confiscation issue. Exile organizations including Bhutan Watch have called for historical land claims to be addressed before the project proceeds, arguing that building an international showcase on confiscated land raises fundamental questions of justice.^[9]

For the over 113,000 Bhutanese refugees who were resettled to third countries through the UNHCR program between 2007 and 2023, the practical possibility of reclaiming confiscated land has become increasingly remote. Most have established new lives in the United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, and the land they once owned has been occupied and farmed by new residents for over three decades.

See Also

• Land Confiscation and Reallocation in Southern Bhutan
• 1988 Census in Southern Bhutan
• Voluntary Migration Forms
• Gelephu Mindfulness City
• Legal framework of Gelephu Mindfulness City
• Bhutanese Diaspora Citizenship and Legal Status Challenges
• The 1990 Southern Bhutan Protests
• The Government Crackdown in Southern Bhutan (1990-1993)

References

1. Bhutan: Recent Developments — WRITENET / Refworld, 1995
2. Bhutan Citizenship Act, 1985 — Refworld
3. The Conditions for Belonging — in Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan — Oxford Academic
4. Land Act of Bhutan — FAO Legal Database
5. Bhutan: Human rights violations against the Nepali-speaking population in the south — Amnesty International, 1992
6. Bhutan: Forcible Exile — Amnesty International / Refworld, 1994
7. Last Hope: The Need for Durable Solutions for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal and India — Human Rights Watch, May 2007
8. Bhutanese refugees: rights to nationality, return and property — Forced Migration Review
9. Bhutan Watch exposes deepening Human Rights crisis in Bhutan in 2025 report — myRepublica