Even monarchs today need to rule in the name of the people. Bhutan’s former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, therefore, decided that there was no point in delaying the inevitable in his tiny Himalayan kingdom. The first-ever democratic elections in the country would seem to achieve two apparently contradictory purposes. They mark the end of absolute monarchy by opening it to political modernity. At the same time, they legitimize constitutional monarchy. The elections are thus not as complete a break from tradition as they appear to be. It is impossible to predict how democracy will evolve in a country that had struggled hard to shut itself out from all foreign — and modern — influences. Despite Monday’s vote, a modern political system such as democracy can long remain a shadowy idea in a land that had its first automobile only in the Sixties and its first television in 1999. Modern politics and economics can be a source of confusion for a people who were told to think more of their “gross national happiness” than of the country’s gross national product. All this is no reason why the Bhutanese should not be given the right to choose their own rulers or to decide how they should be ruled. In fact, the sooner a people get democracy, the faster they learn to live with it.

However, Bhutan’s new democrats would do well to unlearn a few things fast. They need to distance themselves and their electors from the myths about the country. The first of these is the one about Bhutan being the world’s last Shangri-La. It was a myth invented and perpetuated by European adventurers. While it turned Bhutan into a fake idyll, it must have done much damage to its emergence into modernity. The myth kept the world’s attention away from the country’s abject poverty and its outdated social and political systems. Also, the new rulers need to demolish the myth about the Bhutanese being a contented people despite their poverty, illiteracy and primitive healthcare facilities. The vote will not mean much if it does not help the people improve their economic and social conditions. And the freedom to vote would be meaningless if it is denied to ethnic or other minorities. To more than 1,00,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origin, forced to live in exile in Nepal, Monday’s vote must have appeared farcical. It must be a deeply flawed democracy that shuts its doors on pluralism.