Jigme Dorji Wangchuck

Jigme Dorji Wangchuck opened Bhutan to the outside world deliberately and at a pace he chose himself, which is why it was never colonised or absorbed. He was the third king, succeeding in 1952 over a country with no roads, no currency in general use, no hospitals to speak of and no diplomatic relations with anyone except India. He had been educated partly in India and England and understood what had just happened to Tibet: China's occupation in 1950 and the flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959 closed Bhutan's northern trade and demonstrated exactly what happened to an isolated Himalayan state with no international standing. His answer was to acquire one. He abolished serfdom and freed the remaining bonded labourers, redistributed land with a ceiling on holdings, created a national assembly in 1953 and a high court, established a civil service and a small army, and began five-year development plans financed largely by India, which built the first motor road to Thimphu. Bhutan joined the Colombo Plan, the Universal Postal Union and, in 1971, the United Nations. He moved the capital to Thimphu and gave up some of the monarchy's absolute powers on his own initiative, including a provision allowing the assembly to remove the king by a two-thirds vote. His reign also had a political crisis, the assassination of his prime minister and brother-in-law Jigme Palden Dorji in 1964, which was never fully explained. He had a weak heart and died at forty-three in Nairobi. His son Jigme Singye Wangchuck succeeded him at sixteen.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history