Print — criticism-of-gelephu-mindfulness-city — BhutanWiki

Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) is a planned Special Administrative Region in Sarpang District, southern Bhutan, announced by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck on 17 December 2023. Its reported area varies between sources. Time gave it as 1,000 square miles (about 2,600 square kilometres), three times the size of Singapore.^[1] ABC News reported 1,000 square kilometres in February 2024.^[19] At the UN General Assembly in September 2026, Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay called it a "4,000-square-kilometre startup" more than five times the size of Singapore.^[20] The project envisions a city of up to one million residents built over 21 years at an estimated cost of $100 billion, roughly 30 times Bhutan's current GDP.^[1] While promoted internationally as a model of sustainable "mindful capitalism," the project has attracted substantial criticism from human rights organisations, displaced communities, environmental advocates, economists, and governance analysts.

Land, Displacement, and the Lhotshampa Question

The most fundamental criticism of GMC concerns its location in southern Bhutan — the very region from which over 100,000 ethnic Nepali Lhotshampa were forcibly expelled between the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Sarpang District, where Gelephu is located, was one of the areas most heavily affected by the expulsions. Critics argue that the project amounts to commercial development on confiscated land.^[2]

Estimates of how many remaining camp residents come from Gelephu originate with refugees themselves. Tankanath Bhujel, a 70-year-old resident of Beldangi camp, told Inkstick Media in November 2024 that "around 40% of the Beldangi camp residents are from Gelephu".^[4] Nepali Times reported in December 2024 that of about 6,577 people still in the camps, at least 40 per cent "are said to be from Gelephu", and that "eleven of the households even have their land holding titles".^[17] Kanak Mani Dixit, a Kathmandu-based journalist, gave a different figure in Scroll.in in April 2025: citing refugee leaders, he wrote that 11 per cent of the Gelephu-origin refugees in Nepal hold deeds for property in the area.^[21] CB Dahal, a 65-year-old former Bhutanese civil servant now living in New Zealand, stated that his family holds 8 acres of ancestral land in southern Bhutan that was partially reallocated to others by the government. "This is our stolen land," Dahal told the South China Morning Post, adding, "we will go to the international court if we have to."^[2]

Suraj Budathoki, a former refugee elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in November 2024, documented individual cases in a March 2025 article for Sapan News, later republished by Scroll.in.^[3] Hari Adhikari, a National Assembly member from Gelephu between 1977 and 1983, told him that his family lost about 14 acres of farmland, the three-storey Ashok Hotel, a grocery store and three homes, and said: "We received no compensation." The article states that nearly 16 acres were seized within Gelephu municipality in 1990. Shiva Lal Adhikari, now living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said he was paid Nu 7,000 (about USD 80, the article's conversion) for his land and home and accepted it under duress. That figure is one family's account, not a documented general rate.^[3] Human Rights Watch, citing a 1994 Amnesty International report, wrote that some refugees received money for their land but that "frequently the compensation represented only a fraction of the value of the land".^[22] The Diplomat reported in October 2026 that Adhikari, now living in Colorado, has valued his family's lost property, business assets and foregone income at Nu 29.4 million at 1990 prices.^[23]

The claim that vacated land went to settlers from the north comes mainly from refugee advocates. Ratan Gazmere and Dilip Bishwo of the refugee rights group AHURA Bhutan wrote in Forced Migration Review around 2000 that prime lands in most of the six southern districts had been "reallocated to northerners, most of whom are ex-servicemen and their relatives", and that "strategic and commercially valuable land has been given to senior officials serving the present regime".^[24]

Present-day acquisition for GMC concerns current registered owners. BBS reported that 552 thram (land title) holders with about 1,400 acres in Samtenling gewog would make way for Gelephu International Airport, with options including replacement land in any of the 19 dzongkhags other than Sarpang, tokenisation (described as similar to leasing) or cash.^[25] Domestic coverage of the acquisition does not discuss the land's earlier ownership.

Diaspora writers, Budathoki among them, have argued that developing disputed land without resolving property claims contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Pinheiro Principles.^[3] The Pinheiro Principles, formally the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17), were endorsed by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in 2005. They state that refugees have a right to restitution of property of which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, or to compensation where restitution is impossible. They are soft law, not a treaty, and do not bind Bhutan of their own force.^[26] In an open letter to King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who chairs GMC, Dixit asked whether "GMC Chairman Jigme Khesar" would "order an investigation" into the land.^[21] No property restitution process has been initiated by the Bhutanese government. The Bhutanese Prime Minister's Office did not respond to media requests for comment regarding the Lhotshampa population's inclusion in GMC plans.^[4]

The naming history of Gelephu itself reflects these tensions. The town was originally known as "Hatisar" or "Hati Sahar" — Nepali for "elephant place" — before being renamed Gaylegphug in 1959 under the third King's policy of replacing non-Bhutanese place names with Dzongkha alternatives.^[5] Critics view GMC as a continuation of the erasure of Lhotshampa cultural presence in southern Bhutan.

Environmental Concerns

GMC's footprint places it adjacent to two of Bhutan's most significant biodiversity reserves: the Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary and Royal Manas National Park, one of Asia's most biodiverse protected areas. The project area sits within identified corridors for Asian elephant migration and tiger movement between these reserves.^[6]

While the BIG masterplan claims to retain all existing forests and integrate ecological corridors, critics question whether a development designed for up to one million residents can realistically coexist with sensitive wildlife habitats. Gelephu already faces significant human-elephant conflict, with elephants targeting cash crops in the area.^[7] The development of infrastructure, housing, and commercial zones at the planned scale would substantially increase human activity in and around these corridors.

Gelephu's subtropical location presents additional challenges. The area receives between 4,000 and 7,500 millimeters of rainfall annually, with intense monsoons from June through September that regularly cause flooding. The flat alluvial terrain is inherently flood-prone, formed by riverine deposits from Himalayan rivers carrying high sediment loads.^[8] As of 2025, no comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment for the full GMC project has been publicly released, though individual infrastructure components such as the Gelephu-Tareythang Road have undergone separate environmental review.

Critics have also noted a potential contradiction between GMC and Bhutan's international brand as the world's only carbon-negative country. While the masterplan mandates carbon-negative buildings and renewable energy, the construction phase alone — for a $100 billion development — would generate substantial embodied carbon from materials, transportation, and construction activities. The question of whether a mega-city can be built while maintaining carbon negativity remains unaddressed in GMC's public documentation.

Economic Feasibility

The scale of GMC relative to Bhutan's economy is a central point of skepticism. Bhutan's nominal GDP stood at approximately $3.4 billion in 2025, making the $100 billion estimated cost of GMC roughly 30 times the national economic output.^[1] The country's total public debt already stood at Nu 303.9 billion (approximately $3.45 billion) as of June 2025 — equivalent to 100.5 percent of GDP — driven largely by hydropower loans from India that account for 60.9 percent of external borrowings.^[9]

Bhutan's track record of attracting foreign direct investment is modest. Between 2002 and 2024, the country approved 121 FDI projects valued at $692 million total — an average of roughly $31 million per year. FDI averaged only 0.3 percent of GDP from 2021 to 2023.^[10] Attracting investment on the scale required for GMC would represent an increase of several orders of magnitude over historical levels.

Funding mechanisms announced to date include a "Bitcoin Development Pledge" of up to 10,000 Bitcoin (approximately $1 billion) from national reserves announced in December 2025, a domestic "Nation Building Bond," and a gold-backed digital token (TER) launched on the Solana blockchain platform. Whether these mechanisms — which rely heavily on volatile cryptocurrency assets — constitute a viable funding base for a $100 billion development has been questioned by observers.^[11]

The labour supply question is also significant. Bhutan's total population is approximately 780,000. Hundreds of workers from the Indian city of Cooch Behar were already working on initial construction as of 2025, and much of the labour and materials for the project is expected to come from India.^[1] For a country that has already experienced significant emigration — over 12,000 young Bhutanese moved to Australia in 2023 alone — the challenge of staffing a mega-city while retaining domestic workforce capacity is considerable.

Governance and Democratic Accountability

GMC has been designated a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with its own executive, legislative, and judicial systems, operating under a legal framework distinct from the rest of Bhutan. On 26 December 2024, the Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority (GMCA) enacted its first law — the Application of Laws Act 2024 — which adopted 18 Singaporean laws and 10 Abu Dhabi Global Market financial regulations as the primary legal framework for the zone.^[12]

Critics have raised concerns about this governance model on multiple grounds. The SAR structure removes GMC from Bhutan's existing democratic institutions, including the National Assembly and National Council. The GMCA has full authority to enact laws covering land, taxation, crime, and other areas without the legislative oversight that applies to the rest of the country. The adoption of foreign legal frameworks — particularly from Singapore, a city-state with its own record of restricted press freedom and limited political opposition, and Abu Dhabi, an absolute monarchy — raises questions about the civil liberties and democratic protections that will apply within GMC's borders.

The tax structure, which offers incentives including potential zero-rate capital gains tax, indefinite loss carry-forward, and tax holidays of up to ten years, has drawn comparisons to tax haven jurisdictions. While designed to attract investment, such arrangements may disproportionately benefit foreign capital while reducing revenue that could fund domestic services. The question of who ultimately benefits — Bhutanese citizens or international investors — remains central to the governance critique.

Architectural Critique and the BIG Masterplan

The masterplan was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), a Danish architectural firm known for visually ambitious projects. BIG has faced broader criticism for what detractors describe as "greenwashing" — producing aesthetically striking designs that emphasise sustainability messaging while delivering superficial ecological benefits.^[13] Billy Fleming of the University of Pennsylvania has described BIG as "a design firm that is very disinterested in any kind of political questions" and therefore "not accountable to anyone or any community."

The GMC masterplan features concepts such as "inhabitable bridges," a temple-dam on the Sankosh River, and neighbourhoods arranged in ribbon-like forms following natural contours. While praised in architectural media, critics note that such utopian renderings have a poor track record of translating into livable reality. The gap between architectural visualization and built outcome has been a recurring pattern in mega-city projects globally, from Songdo in South Korea to Forest City in Malaysia.

Comparisons with Failed Mega-City Projects

Observers have compared GMC to several other ambitious planned city projects in Asia, many of which have fallen short of their stated goals:

Forest City, Malaysia: A $100 billion project designed for 700,000 residents that by 2024 housed approximately 2,000 people, primarily maintenance workers, earning the label "ghost city."^[14]
Neom/The Line, Saudi Arabia: Originally planned as a 170-kilometre linear city, scaled back to 2.4 kilometres by 2025, with documented human rights abuses against the displaced Howeitat tribe including forced evictions and death sentences.^[15]
Nusantara, Indonesia: Indonesia's new capital, which saw state funding drop from $2.4 billion in 2024 to $850 million in 2025, and was quietly reclassified from a full capital to merely a "political capital."^[16]

Common patterns in these cases — overambitious timelines, dependence on uncertain foreign investment, governance gaps, and displacement of existing communities — are present in GMC's current trajectory.

Refugee Community Response

Responses from the Lhotshampa diaspora and refugee community have ranged from outrage to cautious engagement. Some, like the refugees quoted in South China Morning Post reporting, view GMC as development on "stolen land" and demand restitution.^[2] Others have expressed interest in taking part. DJ Khaling, a resettled businessman and US citizen, told Inkstick Media that "we are particularly interested in the tourism sector of the new Gelephu Mindfulness City", and described plans to offer expertise in IT, education and healthcare.^[4]

Krishna Bir Tamang, a 54-year-old refugee who has lived in camps in Nepal for over 30 years, told the South China Morning Post: "We still have our land there and possess legal documents." He chose not to resettle in a third country, stating, "We didn't resettle in a third country because we are bona fide citizens of Bhutan."^[2]

Reaction to the 2026 UN General Assembly address

On 22 September 2026 Tobgay told the 81st UN General Assembly that he was addressing it as "a salesman" for GMC. He described the city as "an institutional blank slate" and said of its forests and wildlife: "This is not empty land. It is a living carbon negative landscape, a biodiversity hotspot." The speech did not mention refugees or land claims.^[20] Rights groups' output that week took the form of written statements on other issues. Human Rights Watch urged world leaders on 21 September to press Tobgay to release "at least 28 political prisoners".^[27] On 22 September the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan and the Bhutan Independent Peoples Forum issued a joint statement calling for "a voluntary, safe, and dignified repatriation process" and the release of the remaining prisoners.^[28] Neither statement referred to GMC or land.

On 5 October 2026 The Diplomat published a feature by TP Mishra and Ramesh Gautam, two diaspora writers who were children when their families were forced out of Bhutan. They argued that "the language of a blank slate can obscure the history of the land".^[23] Three people they quoted:

Chet Nath Timsina, evicted at 20 and resettled in New York in 2009, said he "saw him just talk about GMC, which I feel is another way to disturb the living places of the Nepali-speaking population in Bhutan".
Bhanu Adhikari, 76, of Adelaide, said officials forged documents to take his family's seven acres for "a fabricated price of just 51,000 ngultrum". He added: "If foreign investors are involved in the GMC project, we will try to seek legal counsel to hold them accountable and pursue compensation for the land the Bhutanese government looted from us."
Tilak Rai, chair of the Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee in Beldangi camp, said: "The BRRRC appeals to the international community to prevent Bhutan from turning seized ancestral land into a high-tech façade designed to erase our history."^[23]

The authors wrote that they were "not arguing against development or investment in the south". They proposed an accessible historical record of the southern districts affected by the 1990s displacement, a transparent process for documenting property claims, and inclusion of the region's history in GMC's cultural and educational institutions.^[23]

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional advocacy organisation, has called attention to the conditions of remaining refugees, noting that they "have been deprived of education, healthcare, food and housing." UNHCR and the World Food Programme withdrew support from the Nepal camps in 2016, leaving refugees without institutional assistance.^[17]

Defenders' Perspective

Proponents of GMC argue that the project represents Bhutan's best opportunity to diversify its economy beyond hydropower dependency, attract global talent, and create employment for its young population. The Bhutanese government has positioned GMC as consistent with its Gross National Happiness philosophy, emphasising environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and holistic development. WWF Bhutan has described the project as a "blueprint for resilience."^[18] The BIG masterplan won a Holcim Foundation Award in 2025 for sustainable construction. Officials have estimated that GMC could double Bhutan's GDP within five years and expand the economy tenfold over 25 years.

Criticism of Gelephu Mindfulness City