No Longer the Ploughman's Song: A Layman's Description of Aspects of Change in a Bhutanese Village

Abstract

Three decades ago the people of Tshangkha in Trongsa struggled for food. For many in the village had harvests always meant increased amount of work on other people's field in exchange for food. People talked about empty granaries in each other's homes without compunction. Wild fruit, yam, mushroom and fiddle head provided an occasional relief to many during hard times. Children died of unknown diseases; cattle and domestic fowl were slaughtered and their flesh offered to local deities through appeasement rituals. Most households owned large herds of cattle and sheep, yet many had little or no money to buy food to supplement poor harvests. Barter was the dominant exchange model and monetization was non-existent or negligible. Mutual aid among the village folk was spontaneous and reciprocal and dependence on external markets was minimal. Subsistence agriculture was a way of life and commercial cropping was non-existent. All the nine varieties of cereal crops, collectively known as 'bru sna dgu-red' (rice), 'dkar' (wheat), 'nag' (barley), 'ge za' (corn), 'rgya red' (sweet buckwheat), 'by'o' (bitter buckwheat), 'mon 'bya' (millet), 'gyang red' (finger millet), and 'sranm' (pulses), were grown in the fields, Most households in the village owned flocks of sheep whose wool provided enough yarn for the handloom, yet many in the village wore patched cloths. Economic vitalization in the last three decades has changed the village's social and economic landscape. Its story provides an interesting case study of rural transformation in Bhutan.