Thimphu, the capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan nestles in a sleepy valley walled by high hills. Perched 7,600 ft high, life in winter alternates between sunny days and bitter cold. The city's only airlink with the world, the two-aircraft Druk Air, ferries passengers from Delhi, Bangkok, Dhaka, Kathmandu and Kolkata to Paro, another valley hemmed in by the Himalayas, a good 65 km away. Telephones are few and isd charges are prohibitive. The Internet arrived only two years ago and costs Rs 2 a minute. Newspapers take two days to arrive from Kolkata. Life in Thimphu is peaceful and uneventful.
However, on December 9, citizens of Thimphu were agog with an altogether new expectancy. At Tashichhodzong, the country's administrative and religious headquarters on the bank of Wang Chu river, there was an unusually long queue of cars. Stepping out of these were all the 39 members of the Constitution Drafting Committee set up a year ago by Jigmi Singye Wangchuck, the 47-year-old absolute monarch of Bhutan. The committee members were slightly tense as they were shown into the throne room at the centre of the Dzong building to hand over to the king a 51-page document.

Abdication: The king (above) readies to transfer power to an elected assembly headed by the prime minister (left)

The document was a rare example of dilution of the crown's authority without its being demanded by the subjects. In distant Britain, a king was beheaded 350 years ago before monarchy could be shown its place. In neighbouring Nepal, the reigning monarch condescended to share power with the elected representatives of the people a decade ago after years of public agitation. In Bhutan, as a foreign diplomat remarked, "King Jigmi Singye Wangchuck has been Charles I and Cromwell rolled into one."

"I am accepting this draft from you," the king said, "in the faith that you have shared my belief that a constitution alone shapes the destiny of a nation." He went on to say that monarchy is "not the best form of government" as it puts the nation's "destiny" in the hands of a single person. In November last year, when the king commanded the drafting of the constitution he had said: "The constitution should not be considered as a gift from me to the people. It is my duty to initiate the constitutional process."

The details of the draft will remain a secret until its formal presentation by the king to the six-member Cabinet and the nine-member Royal Advisory Council (rac). But its salient features are circulating at rocket speed. But it was obvious that Druk Yul, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, was poised for a spectacular leap across its Himalayan isolation. The draft bore a strong resemblance to the Indian Constitution, except in the preamble, where "constitutional monarchy" replaced the word "republic".

Four years ago, the king had introduced the cabinet system which is responsible to the Tshogdu (National Assembly) as well as the king. The draft constitution makes the Cabinet answerable to the Tshogdu alone. In other words, if the draft constitution is adopted, the king will no longer be able to dismiss his prime minister, currently Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk, at will.

More changes are in the offing. The draft makes room for general elections in Bhutan, with a five-year tenure for the elected House. The future parliament will be bicameral-as in India-with the upper house taking over the role of the current rac. The nascent electoral system in Bhutan may be strengthened, with the draft proposing universal franchise and a statutory election commission to supervise the polling. "It is democracy coming of age," says rac Chairman Rinzin Gyeltshen, who is a member of the draft committee.

As of now there are no political parties in Bhutan and the elite, perhaps looking across the southern slopes into India, are somewhat contemptuous about multiplicity of political parties. But as Sonam Tobgye, chief justice of the Bhutan High Court, says, "A partyless democracy is a contradiction in terms. We certainly don't want it."

Jigmi Singye Wangchuck was 16 and at school in Britain, when his father, Jigmi Dorji Wangchuck died and he returned to be crowned the king in 1972. His father, the third Druk Gyalpo (Bhutan king), was an early visionary. He instituted the National Assembly, the high court, the rac and guided Bhutan to UN membership in 1971, months before his death.

WE, THE PEOPLE: The Constitutional Draft Committee at Tashichhodzong

The fourth Druk Gyalpo began a decentralisation process as early as 1979; the first milestone was crossed two years later when the Dzonkhags (districts) got their first elected councils. Ten years later, the king took the electoral system further down to the Gewogs (blocks), with elected heads for the councils. In 1998, he sprang another surprise as he dissolved the nominated cabinet and got the National Assembly to elect a new cabinet through secret ballot. He also ordained that the king could be dethroned if a third of the Assembly members moved such a resolution and two thirds supported it. As Foreign Minister Jigme Y. Thinley said, "It is a unique example of a monarch writing provisions for his own impeachment." The king's last surprise was the 2001 declaration on a written constitution.

Delhi has been watching the developments in the kingdom with curiosity rather than anxiety. Unlike in Nepal, China doesn't cast its long shadow on Bhutan. The Indo-Bhutan relationship is founded on the solid rock of the 1949 Indo-Bhutan treaty. Its preamble says that "there shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the two countries". It also says that while India will not exercise influence in Bhutan's internal administration, Thimphu will be guided by India in regard to its external relations.

CONSTITUTIONAL MAKE-OVER
IT WILL	IT WON'T
Make the king a constitutional monarch.	Affect Bhutan's special relations with India delineated in the 1949 Indo-Bhutan treaty.
Create a bicameral parliament, with a nominated upper house.	Alter Bhutan's identity as a Mahayana Buddhist kingdom.
Establish universal adult franchise for elections.	Trigger harsh measures against the religious minorities. The Hindus of Nepalese origin form a quarter of the population after 1,00,000 were deported in 1990.
Make the cabinet answerable to parliament alone.
Leave the king all-powerful on sovereignty and security.

At the back of the king's reformist zeal is his objective of steering Bhutan out of its medieval isolation-even its US-educated ministers are firm believers in the incarnation theory of Mahayana Buddhism-towards a future of meaningful coexistence between cultural heritage and economic prosperity. With a small population of seven lakh and a per capita income of $710 (Rs 34,000), Bhutan is a comfortable laboratory for the king's development ideas. Notably that of his famous theory of Gross Domestic Happiness, a substitute for gdp encompassing not just income but cultural continuity, environment and good governance.
The monarch has borrowed his ideas partly from the precepts of Mahayana Buddhism that have guided Bhutan since the 17th century, partly from his father, but largely from Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, his acknowledged role model. If Singapore is an island secluded by the sea, Bhutan is sequestered by the Himalayas. Both are of manageable size. Singapore has prospered by accepting the essence of democracy without its trappings. The king feels Bhutan will not lag behind.