Security, Sovereignty and Self-reliance

The "security and sovereignty" has always been an important factor for every nation. Moreover, our royals and particularly His Majesty the King reminds every Bhutanese about this in most of his national addresses. When we look back to the history of Bhutan, we will find that Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal has already seen this as paramount importance and started Bhutan's own unique identity through national language and the national dress. For years, every king in the throne has also considered the same and always worked for it. I too believe that security and sovereignty is very important for any citizen and this is one main factor behind the independence of our country, Bhutan.

The unique identity of our language, dress and culture alone cannot safeguard the security and the sovereignty of our country. With the development and challenges of the modern time, we need to look at many other areas of threat from which we need to safeguard. Never forgetting the above mentioned areas, I feel that the country's self-reliance is equally important for the safeguard of the country's security and sovereignty. In the present time, our country is almost fully dependent on other nations for almost everything. For instance, from a simple labour force to equipment for large developmental constructions, from the oil needed for cooking to the chillies for Ama-Datshi, which is the most important Bhutanese dish.

It is good to see that government has already started to work for the self-reliance in the agricultural area. It is the responsibility for each Bhutanese citizen to support and work for it. The nation is facing a huge unemployment problem where we need to import so many foreign workers. If only our youths work productively and develop a sense of being skilful rather than only graduating with high degree, I am sure we can have enough jobs for our youths in the country. We can set up many micro industries to produce our own home goods. I really appreciate those business entrepreneurs who have already started with their business. We as a Bhutanese should support their effort and try to be self-sufficient rather than fully depending upon the foreign goods. Such initiatives also create lots of job vacancies within the country to keep the unemployment rate low. However, it does not mean Bhutan can fully avoid being reliable to other countries. In this global economy era, it does not make a good sense to produce everything within the country neither can our domestic companies run every industry. For instance, to we cannot have our own petroleum companies. The country can yet start to do our best in the best possible way we can and make a strong economy of our own.

The other area which alerts me of safety of our sovereignty is our nation's high debt. Through media, we have learnt that our country has acquired huge sum in debt for the development of our country. Large amount has been used in the hydro-power industries. The turnover of this industry is very good. However, with the increase in pollution and global warming, these industries seem to be in danger before it could repay the debt. We might need to look for other alternative source of income rather than fully depending upon our live supporting rivers.

In my conclusion, I believe that the country's security and sovereignty not only lies in our unique identity of our national dress, language and the culture, we also need to work to make our country self-reliance. I also believe that taking huge debt is not a good option for the country's development.