01/04/2026
These two stories on my Kuensel feed made me stop in my tracks. The migration story isn't new, but it hasn't lost its impact. And when our only neurosurgeon resigns for the reasons stated, we must pause.
I know there's been some grumbling about my own departure, so this paragraph is for you: I am away for two years on an Australia Awards Scholarship. Pursuing further education has been a personal dream for a decade. At one point, I had even planned to move permanently to do so. Then GMC happened, and I changed my mind (as I shared on 60 Minutes). This scholarship has given me a wonderful opportunity to realise that personal dream within the frame of our national aspirations. I am fortunate.
But this post isn't about the fortunate ones like me. It's about fellow Bhutanese in these stories.
What is it with us that we enjoy attacking people who pursue their own development, personal and professional? It's as if choosing to put yourself first is the world's greatest crime. Yes, we are a collectivist society and we take pride in that. But as these stories point out, Bhutanese are rarely driven by purely individualistic ambition. Look at our remittances, for instance. One person's success becomes the family's success. It spills over into the community too.
For that to happen, however, the people making decisions about our lives need to be in touch with ground realities, and so many are not. What I see instead is what I'd call *assumed empathy*: confronting someone else's reality through the lens of your own situation, aspirations, and hardships. What we actually need is real empathy, confronting someone else's lived reality without layering our own biases onto it.
We should not be celebrating that the attrition rate of civil servants has fallen from 16 percent to around 6 percent (Kuensel). This is temporary. The ones who could leave have left. The ones who want to leave are not yet in a position to. We can only stem this tide by openly addressing the systemic and institutional rot that is driving people away.
We have progressed so much, and so quickly, but we remain burdened by feudal mindsets. If you're not high enough on the pecking order, you're a serf, expected to fulfil every bidding out of fear of repercussion. It is stifling. It is soul-crushing. No salary increase will keep people in environments like that.
People are speaking up. By resigning. By moving. The greener pastures aren't only green with money. They're green with the freedom to think, to do, and to be genuinely rewarded when you do it well. I don't see how that equates to disloyalty to our country. Only people with a crab mentality would make that argument. As my husband puts it: You can't do it yourself, and you begrudge those who can.
We should be celebrating the courage and success of fellow Bhutanese. And perhaps the important people who play chess with our lives might consider that even pawns have a role to play. Kindly engage with reality as though it isn't your own.
P.S. I have to honour certain rules tied to my scholarship, not unlike a Bhutanese civil servant's obligations, so I will be keeping things very pleasant for the next two years. Please, indulge. 🙏🏻
