How a deeply Buddhist Bhutan keeps religion and politics from mixing

In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, reminders of Buddhism, the majority faith, can be found just about everywhere. 

Colorful prayer flags sway in the breeze along roadsides, while giant prayer wheels — cylindrical drums inscribed with mantras — adorn public squares. And in the mountains, dozens of miniature stupas, or Buddhist votive offerings, are tucked into crevices near the highways. 

Buddhism is intertwined with all aspects of life in Bhutan where the king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, is the head of state, from architectural design to environmental conservation, which mandates that 60% of the land be covered by forest. Even the country’s overarching development policy is informed by the Buddhist emphasis on happiness. Bhutan famously measures gross national happiness which it considers a more holistic indicator than gross domestic product.

“We have championed in the world about how less material[istic] we are, how much value we give to social harmony and well-being,” said Dr. Lotay Tshering, Bhutan’s former prime minister.

But Bhutan has implemented policies to keep the government secular despite the country’s strong religious identity. In 2008, when Bhutan became a democracy, its constitution laid out a strict separation between religion and politics. 

“The constitution does state that religion or the religious people must be above politics,” said Karma Ura, president of the Centre for Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Studies, who was part of the committee that drafted the constitution, which effectively bans Bhutan’s religious community from voting or running in elections.

“Formally registered monks and priests cannot become politicians. Elected posts are beyond them,” Ura said.

Ura estimated that the rule affects upward of 17,000 people — a significant number given that Bhutan’s entire population is just around 750,000. This kind of exclusion is almost unheard of in the modern democratic world. 

Kinley Tshering, managing editor of Kuensel, Bhutan’s national newspaper, said the rule is important. 

“We want to clearly separate religion from politics,” Tshering said. “We have seen, learning from the world, from our neighbors, how mixing politics and religion can be very dangerous to the political stability, communal harmony and peace of the country.”

Lopen Gembo, former adviser to Bhutan’s central monastic body, said that monks do not feel disenfranchised because, for them, religious practice takes precedence over everything else.

“There is no inclination to actually take part in the process of voting,” he said.

Tshewang Nidup, a tour guide and devout Buddhist, said that’s because Buddhism teaches people to let go of all worldly desires. 

“For a Buddhist person, a secular system or the power or the money is just momentary,” he said. “So, for the monastic order, this momentary pleasure is not attractive.”

Tshering, the journalist, said that the monastic community generally stays out of government matters, but tensions do arise sometimes, such as over livestock farming.

“It’s anti-Buddhist almost because we are raising animals, killing animals,” Tshering said. “The spiritual leaders also have sometimes written to the government saying that we should not be doing this.”

Bhutan has also been criticized for restricting minority faiths. The constitution guarantees religious freedom, but proselytization is banned for all non-Buddhist religions. That means there are no churches in Bhutan to serve the small Christian minority. Meanwhile, Buddhism is recognized in the constitution as the nation’s “spiritual heritage.” 

So, can Bhutan be labeled a “secular” country? Maybe not in the Western sense of the word, said Ura, the academic.

“In the hardened secular sense of being atheist or agnostic, in the sense of no one believing in anything transcendent, I don’t think these kinds of concepts really apply to the Bhutanese situation,” he said.

Instead, the tiny nation has its own hybrid form of secularism, said Dorine van Norren, associate researcher at Leiden University, who has written about religion and politics in Bhutan. 

“They’re very aware that they’re a very Buddhist country, and they’re very aware that it’s also a danger to mobilize religion as a political factor — in that sense, they have made very stringent checks and balances. And at the same time, they have said Buddhist happiness is our ideology of government policy,” van Norren said.

In Bhutan, Buddhism functions less as a state religion and more as a philosophy or value system, she said. And that, in and of itself, is not unusual.

“Every state and every constitution have some kind of underlying values, even if we’re not acknowledging it,” she said.

Throughout the Western world, too, the line between majority religion and politics often gets blurred. In the United States, the role of Christianity in national politics and identity is a topic of passionate, ongoing debate. In France, expressions of personal faith — like the Muslim hijab — have been banned in some settings in the name of secularism.

Bhutan’s model may not be flawless, but it could offer lessons for others, including across the border in India, where Hindu nationalism is rising. 

“I think it can serve as an inspiration for India of keeping the religious sentiments, giving space for it and at the same time keeping it in check and having tolerance and diversity,” van Norren said.