India’s worry will remain the Doklam package deal, which the Tshering government was on the verge of signing.

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

ON December 20, Home Minister Amit Shah said in Kolkata that the Siliguri corridor is the key link to the Northeast. Given the unfriendly regime change in Bangladesh, Bhutan plays a crucial role towards its security. On December 6, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan was on an unprecedented third official visit to India in the last 20 months.

No King of Bhutan has come to India that frequently, but there was a reason. This year, Bhutan has been relatively silent about border resolution with China, especially after the previous government had signed a three-step roadmap in January 2023, held three expert group (on the 11th, 12th and 13th) and two joint technical group meetings, all packed in 2023, even as the 10th expert group meeting was held in 2021.

The cat was set among the pigeons after the previous PM, Lotay Tshering, in an interview to a Belgian newspaper in March 2023, said: “Soon we will be able to resolve the border issue, including Doklam, as there are no real differences between China and Bhutan.”

The Tshering interview triggered alarm bells in New Delhi and a chain of events, including a virtual air-dash by the King for talks with PM Narendra Modi. Following the joint statement which steered clear of the border issues, the then Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said: “India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interest.”

High-ranking officials believe that Modi did some plain-speaking with the King, emphasising that their border disputes with China were intertwined. In the past, Bhutanese officials consulted their Indian counterparts prior to holding border talks with China. Especially regarding Doklam, where, in 2017, New Delhi invoked the India-Bhutan Treaty of Perpetual Friendship 2007 to intervene on Bhutanese territory (which China claims) to prevent the PLA from constructing a road to Gipmochi — its version of the tri-junction between India, Bhutan and China.

In an interview in October 2023 to an Indian newspaper, Tshering said his government had a month left in office, but “it was inching towards an agreement of the border.”

Also, last October, previous Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji had visited Beijing, a first for any Bhutanese minister, and met his counterpart Wang Yi, signed the Cooperation Agreement on Joint Technical Team for Delimitation and Demarcation of Border and endorsed the One-China policy.

Wang urged Dorji to establish diplomatic relations with China as Thimphu has none with any P5 country. In 2023, the Tshering government was actually racing (not inching) towards a border resolution. Dorji, after his 25th round of talks in Kunming, told journalists in Thimphu that talks with China had been accelerated.

His visit to Beijing and the agreements clinched with China, like the Tshering interviews earlier, shocked India’s security establishment. It forced the King days later to make an unprecedented second visit to India. Being asked to come to New Delhi twice within six months over border issues was plainly discomfiting for the King, though the second visit was disguised as Bhutan’s curtain-raiser for the Gelephu Smart City project. Tshering said: “The first leader the King wanted to discuss Gelephu with was PM Modi.”

In the elections held in November last year, Lotay Tshering’s party was eliminated in the first round and Tshering Tobgay became PM in January 2024. Not a word has been heard about the three-step roadmap since then from the new PM or the Foreign Minister. In 2013, PM Jigme Thinley was defeated by Tobgay in elections after he was seen getting closer to China.

Clearly, the King was in the loop of the policy shift for an early resolution of the border with China, including the Doklam package deal, delinked from its adverse impact on India’s strategic concerns in the Chumbi valley.

‘Kuensel’, a weekly broadsheet from Thimphu, has reported that young and educated Bhutanese have been urging the government to establish diplomatic relations with China and resolve the border issue. During my visit to Thimphu and Paro after Doklam, I felt that people were unhappy over the way Doklam was handled as also the economy and presence of Indian soldiers on Bhutanese soil.

Thimphu’s $3-billion economy supports a population of seven lakh Bhutanese, with hydropower as its main source of revenue, and with India financing all its five-year development plans. In fact, this year, the government doubled the Rs 5,000-crore outlay for the 12th plan to Rs 10,000 crore for the 13th plan.

Half the population is below 30 years and with 30 per cent unemployment, nearly 15,000 persons left Bhutan in 2023 for Australia, Canada and the US. Gelephu, the King believes, will be the open-sesame to get the young and educated Bhutanese to return.

Some believe Gelephu is the King’s idea of a diversion from the vexed border issues and economic hardship. The Gelephu SEZ will have energy and communication connectivity, an international airport, a university, a healthcare facility, etc.

A new dream city on the India-Bhutan border will soon come up with international aid and assistance to address Bhutan’s declining Gross National Happiness. India is a key player in the project.

India’s worry will remain the Doklam package deal, which the Tshering government was on the verge of signing. It would have plunged the Chumbi dagger deeper into the Siliguri corridor, popularly called Chicken’s Neck. While the Tobgay government will go slow on the three-step roadmap, the 26th round of Bhutan-China talks was held quietly at Thimphu in August.

Bhutan and India are the only two countries which have a disputed border with China and Thimphu is in a hurry to settle it. King Wangchuck’s word holds for now.