Flattened out, Bhutan’s landmass might stretch across as much as half of her southern neighbour, India. But Bhutan is a small, remote and mountainous state nestled in the Himalayas. Unsurprisingly, much of Bhutan’s history remains shrouded in mystery, much like the clouds covering the ancient monasteries perched perilously on its mountain slopes, or the accounting methods of the Gross National Happiness Index that claims Bhutan is the happiest place on the planet. Spanning from the ancient period to the present, this book gives readers a glimpse into this remarkable corner of Earth.
The repercussions of the 19th-century ‘Great Game’, Phuntsho notes, were felt as far east as Bhutan, via Tibet. By the turn of the century, however, the angst-ridden mind of British officialdom turned from Russian expansion in Asia to the threat posed by the Chinese reconquest of Tibet and to making Bhutan a buffer-state to India. After 1947 this formed the basis of India’s ‘maternal’ relations with Bhutan, especially as China asserted itself in the Sino-Indian borderlands. Bhutan’s role and agency in regional geopolitics is a pivotal and fascinating, albeit rushed, aspect of Phuntsho’s narrative.