ABSTRACT
Central to the discourse on Bhutanese democracy is the idea of democracy and the Constitution as a “gift” from the throne. The Fourth King had commanded the drafting of the Constitution in September 2001. After five years, a copy each was distributed to every household. The King and Crown Prince then travelled to every district to conduct public discussions of the Constitution, where people would voice concern for premature introduction of democracy. The first question faced by parliamentarians was whether to promulgate the Constitution intact or have a debate. Some argued that it was wrong to debate on a royal gift, which would be tantamount to questioning and defiling it. They said that a larger popular debate had already been conducted by the people of the 20 districts when the Constitution was presented for open discussions. Then there were those who argued that holding a debate does not in any way construe an act of defiling a sacred gift like the Constitution. It was eventually adopted through a debate in parliament. In this chapter, I dissect how this difficult question was resolved. I also show how the perceived sanctity of the Constitution was tested in the first five years of democracy.
