The building of the road into Doka La/ Doklam, a disputed tri-Junction by PLA (People’s Libration Army) towards Bhutanese Army camp in Zom Pelri has brought about a lot of views within and outside the country. The incident caught the attentions of the Indian Media houses like a wildfire Hindustan Reports, the Hindu Reports]while the western human right activists sympathise the act, but Bhutanese people especially anonymous social media users gained a hot ground to politicise the position to publicise their hidden agenda political and personal while common people expressed their genuine concerns. Surprisingly the media houses in the country maintained their silence for whatever reasons it may be.
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| Exact location of Doklam |
Personally, I feel it’s politically and morally incorrect to start a political hypocrisy and mud sliding taking advantage of such situation. The forum seems saturated with all cooked up stories, immature confrontations, conspired hypothesis and of course some worthy points, which I gladly take note of.
Historically this problem prevailed ever since Chinese took over of Tibet occurred in 1950’s, towards the dawn of 1960 Bhutan withdrew all its bilateral ties with Lhasa, closing doors with China and sided with the big brother to the south. Portions of the land bordering China hang about un-demarked ever since, 24 rounds of border talks were held with China between 1984 and 2016 without a concrete outcome and it may last until it’s resolved, hopefully, sooner. All correspondence with Beijing is done through New Delhi Embassy as we don’t have direct bilateral ties to the north, therefore almost everything that goes around on social media is laboured in Indian media houses and not all from embassies.
The reality of the moment is, tense has heightened at the tri-junction and Royal Government of Bhutan has issued a press release through Ministry of Foreign Affairs for upholding of the STATUS QUO of the area under conflict in line with the border agreement signed between the two countries, which is a clear sign of government’s immediate push for a peaceful negotiation and successful resolve of the issue through a more diplomatic route whilst we must know international relations do not go a layman’s way. There’s no doubt any government under the benevolent guidance of His Majesty the King would prioritise resolving border issues to the north at the earliest for international peace and of course the well-being of people on both ends.
The hue and cry makers on the social media must know that the national interest lies above party, politics or personal agenda, therefore, it would be so wise on their part if they could use alternative approaches like enquiring with licensed media houses, relevant agencies or humbly approach the government through phone, social media or personally to clear their doubts if genuinely concern rather than being so opportunist with agenda and media on finger tips. A small country like ours deserve more socially constructive citizens and not disruptive ones, I do not mean I am being constructive but I am not the other one either.
One thing I am not sure why the media houses maintain silence, hopefully, its for a good cause but the causes of social media pour down could be down to it, if otherwise.
Note: this is my personal take on the issue especially on social media pour down and not of the institution I work for or my profession, and I must make it very clear that it’s written with all good intention and nothing else, in case it hurts or cause any undesired problem to an individual or institution please forgive me, it purely unintentional and a complete coincidence.
