Goongtong, Satong, Yuetong

I cannot remember how I ended up being a Member of the UNDP’s SENetwork but already by 2006 - that is roughly 18 years back - I was called upon by the organization to write an article on how the country might prepare itself to meet the challenges that is likely to be posed by the emerging trend of mass movement of pastoral population to urban centers. I refused to do so on the grounds that that was the wrong approach to solving the problem – instead, I submitted an article on “How we might work towards counteracting the problem”.

The UNDP decided that the solution I suggested was just too radical and felt that it would be imprudent on their part to publish the article which would be tantamount to endorsing my idea. Fine - but pussy-footing around an issue is no way to solve a problem. And so, the problem was allowed to fester year after year - unchecked.

The term employed to describe the emerging malice then was: "Rural-Urban Migration".

Sometime around 2010-11, the term “Goongtong” was coined.

Around 2015-16 when I began to frantically push the issue of Goongtong to the fore - I coined one additional term - “Yuetong”.

This year, the Members of the Parliament added one brand new nomenclature to the malice that they now agree has reached alarming proportions - “Satong”.

In 2016, I highlighted the problem of Goongtong with the following two articles, in addition to few others.

https://yesheydorji.blogspot.com/2016/02/rural-urban-migration-impending-crisis.html

https://yesheydorji.blogspot.com/2016/02/rural-urban-migration-impending-danger.html

Beginning January of 2015, I had already authored a series of 10 articles on Goongtong (funded by the BCMD) that was published in the Kuensel – titled “A Malady Called Rural-Urban Migration”:

https://www.google.com/search?q=KUENSEL+A+malady+called+Rural-Urban+Migration&sca_esv=caadd628b09a36ae&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ADLYWIIkyUMO2kekw8dX85YKz2Cr9grxxQ%3A1718506286970&ei=LlNuZuT4OoPg4-EPy7C7gAw&ved=0ahUKEwjkx53mjt-GAxUD8DgGHUvYDsAQ4dUDCBA&oq=KUENSEL+A+malady+called+Rural-Urban+Migration&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiLUtVRU5TRUwgQSBtYWxhZHkgY2FsbGVkIFJ1cmFsLVVyYmFuIE1pZ3JhdGlvbjIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABSKU0UNsPWNsPcAF4AJABAJgB0gGgAbwEqgEFMC4yLjG4AQzIAQD4AQGYAgSgAswEwgILEAAYsAMYogQYiQXCAggQABiiBBiJBZgDAIgGAZAGAZIHBTEuMi4xoAfQBQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

The ongoing discussions in the Parliament on the twin subjects of Education and Farming seems like a good opportunity to see if we may, for a change, transcend the superfluous verbosity and get down to brass tacks! But I suspect that as usual, this too shall be one that flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Ban on commercial harvesting of timber in the country was introduced in 1979, necessitated by compulsion. Nearly half a century has passed us by since - times and situations are no long the same - the country’s physical boundaries have contracted and the Mt. Everest has grown taller - but the Forestry Department has remained immobile and stuck in a time-wrap.

It is heartbreaking how we speak of hundreds of thousands of millions of Ngultrums ….. and yet people in the core areas of the country’s capital city - Babesa - are wailing cries of woe - that they lack a simple daily necessity - drinking water. Imagine the plight of the rural folks far removed from the glare and pomposity of the Dashos and Lyoenpos in Thimphu.

Can we, for a change, shelve the astronomical and the gigantic, so that we are left with time and resources to confront, and tackle, the manageable and the doable? It would help.

Reverse Migration: Restocking The Goongtongs

This is the classic Bhutanese way – showing images of our many problems, bringing up issues that need solving, describing in graphic detail the problems related to our failing infrastructure – BUT NEVER EVER WORKING at solving them.

The problem of youth leaving the country had to happen - it was just a matter of time.

Australia attracts droves of Bhutanese youth

Beginning January of 2015, I wrote a series of eight articles in the KUENSEL – one per week, every Friday - on the problems related to Goongtongs – how villages were being emptied of youth. Six years down the line – nothing has changed – not the problem, not the law and, shamefully, not even the misnomer: “Human-Wildlife Conflict”.

I reproduce below the closing paragraphs of Part II of my article dated January 24, 2015. The problems have aggravated even more, but the rules remain the same. 

The government and the concerned agencies need to revisit its laws and Acts that have so far given complete and total protection to the animals – thereby upsetting the rules of co-habitation between humans and animals. Certain rules and laws may have been necessary during the time they were promulgated. However, we are now dealing with a situation that is no longer the same. All rules must undergo change – to suite a given situation. They must be appropriate.

If annual migrations of rural population out of their homes and villages are to be halted, one of the things we must do is to review and amend the laws that give animals primacy over humans. Let us give the poor villagers a fighting chance. If we don’t, the consequences can be too costly for the country.

The costly consequences that I spoke of in my article above are now a stark reality. The rural youth are leaving their rural homes – in search of jobs and livelihood in the urban centers – leaving fertile lands fallow and, even worst, subjecting their old parents to unimaginable hardships.

The urban youth are leaving the urban centers – in search of jobs outside the country – bringing in its wake a demographic imbalance that is not good for the country’s aspirations for growth and development. His Majesty is rightly worried and concerned about the exodus of Bhutanese youth.

It is now a double whammy. And yet, the lawmakers are still debating the issue – meaning talking about it – but not doing anything about it.

In a number of articles on my Blog, I suggested that we could work on what I called the “reverse-migration” process. This idea promoted the shutting down of government schools in the urban centers – by selling them to private promoters. With the money thus raised, the government could open up to six large Central Schools in the rural areas – with minimum of 6,000 students, teachers and support staff in each of them. Imagine what economic opportunities such an initiative would generate. Imagine how many bakers will be needed to serve breakfast to 36,000 mouth every morning – how many poultry and dairy farms, vegetable growers, butchers, flour grinding mills – I mean the possibilities are endless. Once you have the numbers, everything will fall into place.

Best of all – imagine how many jobs will be created – all sorts of jobs to fit all sorts of skills and none-skills - in the process halting the economic migrants from leaving the country.

The process of reverse-migration will begin. The Goongtongs will be restocked with young able hands – old parents will be cared for – the greening of Bhutan will begin. One other prospect I see is that administrative services in the rural areas will improve – because parents of the students will want to move back to the areas close to the schools – right now people do not want to be posted in rural settings. Rich parents can enroll their children in the urban schools run by the private operators, in schools bought by them from the government.

Free Seeds To Grow Fodder For Wildlife

According to what The Journalist newspaper reported in their 1st May issue, the gewog official of Tashicholing is supposed to have said that the government do not offer any monetary compensation to the farmers for damage caused by wild life but that they do distribute free seeds.

In effect, what the gewog official is saying is – that the government distributes free seeds to grow fodder for the wildlife. Small wonder then that the government is clueless about the nomenclature “human-wildlife conflict”. This is truly appalling!

Rural-urban migration is causing villages to be emptied of young people - old and the infirm now mostly populate the village homes

Villagers are forced to use stuffed tigers from China to keep vigil over their crop during day, while they try and catch some sleep and respite from night-long vigil in an attempt to ward off wildlife

Fertile farmlands are left fallow and whole villages are overgrown with bushes

It is time we forget huge hydroelectric projects and massive road widening works. They are destined to cause us problems that we are in no position to handle. Instead, let us focus on manageable issues that are fundamental to our survival as a nation state.

Lets get serious about the long term effects of Goontongs!

Rural-Urban Migration: The Impending Crisis II

One and a half decades back when a Thimphu-based UN Consultant requested me to do a paper on “How to be prepared for Rural-urban Migration”, one of my principal recommendations was that all government schools in Thimphu municipal area - Primary to Higher Secondary - should be auctioned off to private operators and the money raised from it should be used to establish large central schools in remote Dzongkhags. My paper never saw the light of day - it got dumped in the digital dustbin, on grounds that it was too radical.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since, but my recommendations are as valid today as it was fifteen years ago. The situation hasn’t improved - infact, it has gotten worst. Today the pace of rural-urban migration has increased by leaps and bounds. As a result, every classroom in Thimphu schools are packed like cans of Sardines. The situation is so bad that some Head Teachers of Thimphu schools resort to switching off their phones during admission time. And yet, succeeding governments refuse to be decisive about the issue and, instead, continue to take the bull by the rump. Schools after school are built in Thimphu Thromde to keep pace with the burgeoning demand. As a result, Thimphu Municipality today outstrips every other Thromde, Gewog and Dzongkhag - in number of schools and student enrolment. Take a look at the following:

Thimphu Thromde (municipality) has a total of 32 schools (whole of Thimphu Dzongkhag has 45). By contrast, whole of Zhemgang Dzongkhag has only 31 schools. The overall student strength of schools under Thimphu Thromde outnumber all of Bumthang, Dagana, Gasa, Haa, Lhuentse and Trongsa Dzongkhags put together!

Trashigang, Bhutan’s most populous Dzongkhag has student enrollment of only 11,598, while Thimphu Thromde has a staggering enrollment of 24,067 students – that is more than double the student strength of entire Trashigang Dzongkhag. As a percentage of enrollment, Thimphu Thromde is miles ahead of every other Dzongkhag - at 13.9% of the national total, while the next highest - Samtse Dzongkhag - trails at 9.1%.

So then, why am I bringing up this issue? Trust me it is not to expose the colossal investment in educational facilities in one city, as opposed to the rest of the country, although it beats me why our planners and lawmakers do not see this immense disparity. My father did - when he visited Thimphu few years back. Ten minutes of being driven around the town, he exclaimed:

“My God, I now understand why there is no money for developmental activities in the rest of the Dzongkhags. There cannot be enough money in the Gyalpoi Baangzoe to finance all the fanciful activities that are happening in and around Thimphu”.

If some of you read my 10-articles series on rural-urban migration published in the Kuensel few months back, you would have read that I blame our education system as the No. 2 cause - after wildlife predation - that trigger rural-urban migration. However, I also believe that same school system can come to our rescue - not only to halt rural-urban migration, but to reverse the trend and, over time, restock the villages with farmers and farm hands who will go on to bring about a revolution in farm production.

But for that we need the will to take the bull by the horn, and set into motion the first baby steps! The baby steps can begin at schools, colleges and other institutions of learning.

Rural-Urban Migration: The Impending Crisis

The spectacle of the avalanche is a sight to behold - it starts with a fluffy ball of snow coming dislodged and rolling down the mountainside. As it cascades downhill, the ball grows bigger and bigger while at the same time gaining velocity and mass. Within minutes, the whole mountainside begins to hurtle down with a thunderous roar that can be heard hundreds of miles away, in the aftermath, bringing ruin and destruction to everything in its path. The landscape is laid asunder and the geography of the land is altered beyond recognition.

That is exactly how the rural-urban migration starts: it begins with a trickle but slowly builds up into an exodus, in its wake, altering demographics and turning producers into consumers.

While porcupines merrily raise families in a labyrinth of burrows built underneath the ground of fertile lands abandoned by migrating farmers, most of these migrants end up eking out a living by the roadside - inside shanty ramshackles, tinkered together with metal sheets salvaged from castaway asphalt drums. Equal numbers of these escapees become burdens to relatives in urban centers, who are themselves buckling under a lifestyle and a system that denominates everything in terms of money. Some are forced into that shadowy zone between the honorable and the doubtful. Young, muscular hands that should be commandeering plough handles in rural farms, now don water spray guns in carwash centers and grip and navigate steering wheels of trucks and buses. At the end of day, they lumber back to their shanties and crawl into their beds - tired and spent - to dream fretful dreams of their urban dreams gone sour. But I fear that they still think that they are better off - from a life that is even worst than that they have now.

The allure of the glitz and the glitter of life in urban centers is not the reason why the strong and the mobile have chosen to move away from their traditional rural homes and way of life. It wasn't a choice that they made willingly. It was an option that was open to them - an option they chose to prefer over the meaningless toil and struggle that had become their daily, and nightly routine.

This swelling number of forced migrants to the urban centers represents an important and critical human capital gone to waste. From being producers, they have now become consumers thereby putting pressure on our already scares resources and infrastructure. Over time, they will lose their most important life skill and their inherent strength - farming and farm work. Their locked and barricaded homes in the villages will rot and crumble - their fallow lands will be overgrown with trees and bushes. The possibility of reverse migration will become harder, if not entirely impossible. A whole lot of homeless, landless floating population will be created that will see no reason for hope or optimism.

The old, the infirm and the weak occupy most of the village homes that are still inhabited. They grow what little they can but there is no guarantee that they will harvest the yield of their toil and hardship. They will bang empty tins and rattle bamboo bells all night long – to ward off wild boar and deer and porcupine. During day they will holler and howl curses at the marauding monkeys. They will buy stuffed tigers from China to scare off the monkeys, which will eventually get shredded to smithereens, once they become wise to the falsehood. The monkeys are reported to have become so daring that they walk into village homes in broad daylight and walk away with bundles of corn hung out to dry. All that the old ladies in the homes can do is shriek with fright.

This pathetic and almost surrealistic condition in the villages and urban centers is caused by a malady called “rural-urban migration” - a man-made sickness brought about and perpetuated by a misnomer called “human-wildlife conflict”. It is the result of a conservation policy that is out of tune with the changing times and one that got stuck in a time warp.

Rural-urban migration is not a trend that is unique to Bhutan. It happens elsewhere in the world. But what causes it in the land of the GNH is pretty unique and unparalleled!

Bhutan's case of human displacement as a result of encroachment by wildlife must be the first of its kind in the world. It provably goes down well with the chilips - in tune with our unfailing claim to uniqueness, in everything we do or say. Elsewhere in the world opposite it true - human encroaching into the habitat of wildlife, thereby causing conflict and endangerment. Bhutan's record of shrinking cultivation of farmlands is proof that there is no encroachment into wildlife habitat.

In Bhutan whole villages are emptied as a result of rampant and uncontrolled predation by wildlife. And conflict is not allowed - by law! Our laws give primacy to wildlife, over human life and well-being. The country is already paying the price - and it will get worst over the years.

It is time that we end our apathy and do what we must - to halt, if not reverse, the rural-urban migration. We are in no position to afford the consequences that are not too difficult to imagine. If we do not do something now, it may be too late for us.