Brewing Indigenisation, Filtering Westernisation: A Socio-Historical Study of Locally Brewed Alcoholic Drinks in Bhutan

Let me initiate the discussions in this article by performing serkem for the wellbeing of our forefathers, foremothers, elders, and younger ones from all the knowledge constellations and all the generations across the planet Earth. I have initiated this article by performing this spiritual practice because, according to the traditional Tantric Buddhist culture of Bhutan, every form of discourse should be initiated with a spiritual offering in order to ensure the wellbeing of knowledge production. Serkem is a traditional Buddhist spiritual practice of Bhutan in which alcohol is offered to a deity. After the deity is offered alcohol, it is shared amongst the individuals. As the men and women sit in a circle and get ready to consume their respective bowls of alcohol,

Traditionally, instead in a glass and/or cup, alcohol (especially locally brewed ones) is consumed in a stone/wooden/brass bowl.

The second story is also about Ap Khyung bdud. He had a lake over the valley of Haa from which he wanted to irrigate the paddy fields of Haa. But, Jo bo Brag skyes, who is regarded as the mountain deity and the protector of Paro, tricked Khyung bdud by offering him alcohol. Taking advantage of Khyung bdud's drunken stupor Brag skyes diverted the water from the valley of Haa towards the fields of Paro. When Khyung bdud came back to his senses, he got extremely annoyed that the direction of water had been diverted to Paro. He also threatened Brag skyes that he will overturn the lake and change the direction of the water. This made Jo bo Brag skyes afraid and he pleaded Khyung bdud to forgive him, and in return, he assured that every year the people of Paro will travel to Haa to offer him prayers for the water. Since then, it has become an annual Buddhist ritual, which is conducted on the 15th day of the 11th Bhutanese month every year.

These two stories unpack the various social, cultural, and religious dimensions of consuming locally brewed alcohol in the traditional society of Bhutan. On the one side, it creates misunderstandings, conflicts, and ego clashes, and on the other side, it generates spiritual ethics and values amongst the individuals. In 2016, it was ara, a locally brewed alcohol of Bhutan, that enabled a 48-year old woman from the village of Lhuentse to overcome the curse of being a poison giver. Chencho Dema in her article ‘Tales of How the King of Bhutan Drank Ara from the Hands of Poison Givers to Dispel Superstitions’ (2018) states: ‘To dispel any superstition surrounding Tsheringmo, the king drank ara (local brew) from her hands and declared that she was not a poison giver’. In the article ‘Amazing Stories from the Eastern Part of Bhutan’ (2020) Tshering Denkar mentions: ‘The people of the East are known as “Sharchopas”. Sharchopas drink locally brewed alcohol called “Bangchang” instead of morning tea. During special occasions and festivals, most people drink alcohol instead of traditionally served rice porridge. Decades ago, there were stories that parents would feed their baby a sip of alcohol so that the baby would fall asleep and that the parents would have ample time to work at the field’. As mentioned by Denkar in his article, keeping in consideration the various health problems that these practices have triggered, the different socio-historical contributions of the locally brewed alcoholic drinks to the indigenous communities cannot be denied. Before we probe further into the social, religious, and historical origin of the locally brewed liquors in Bhutan, let us briefly reflect on the socio-cultural importance of brewing, sharing, and consuming alcohol amongst the various indigenous communities across the globe. In the article ‘Alcohol and Culture’ (1965) David G. Mandelbaum argues that ‘it [alcohol] was anciently the most widespread in use, the most widely valued as a ritual and societal artefact, the most deeply embedded in diverse cultures. Tribal peoples of all major parts of the world knew alcoholic drink; it was of considerable interest in the principal civilisations, in most of them from their early beginnings onwards’ (281).

But, with the inception of European colonisation across different moments of time and space, the indigenous practices of consuming and sharing locally brewed alcoholic drinks were strictly forbidden. Their act of forbiddance was underpinned with the sole intention of disrupting this de-hierarchical, pluriversal, collective and co-creative indigenous socio-cultural practice and appropriates the white-European-colonial-Christian-centric ideologies of the Old Testament (Snipe 2001). Through seduction as well as coercion, as the Christian missionaries proselytised the various indigenous communities across the globe, they identified the consumption of locally brewed alcohol, especially on different socio-religious occasions, as unreligious, unethical, and unhealthy. As a result, they imposed a strict ban on the consumption of locally brewed alcohol. But, ironically, with the arrival of the European traders, alcohol was used as a ‘chemical weapon of warfare in their genocidal and ethnic cleansing mistreatment and exploitation of indigenous peoples’ (Dahlheimer 2009). In fact, in some Native American communities alcohol was exclusively introduced by the European traders. In ‘What's Behind the Myth of Native American Colonialism?’ (2016), Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker argue: ‘Europeans introduced alcohol to American Indians as an instrument of trade and diplomacy. By the time the Great Plains was being settled by Europeans, virtually all treaty negotiations included complex and subtle uses of alcohol, and alcohol even became a bargaining chip’. This process of control took place by forcing the natives to stop brewing their traditional forms of alcohol on the one side and by introducing European alcoholic drinks on the other. The adverse impact of introducing European alcoholic drinks at the cost of locally brewed alcoholic drinks at the time of European colonisation is experienced even today. This act not only killed a set of indigenous social, cultural, and religious practices but also systematically, epistemically, and ontologically uprooted the rich constellation of depolarised plural knowledge systems (De Sousa Santos 2008, 249) that were once imbibed by the indigenous communities from their respective foremothers and forefathers. This is why, in the contemporary era, through various pseudo-logical narratives of religion, society, culture, and medical sciences, European and American brands of alcoholic drinks are promoted as superior (in terms of quality, health, and socio-economic values) than the locally brewed branded and non-branded alcoholic drinks. It is due to the same reasons that western-branded alcoholic drinks are gradually replacing the culture of brewing, consuming, and sharing the locally brewed alcoholic drinks in contemporary Bhutan. This act of replacement is negatively impacting the locals in a social, cultural, and economic manner. These aspects will be elaborately discussed in the later part of this article.

This article has been divided into four sections. The first section, titled ‘Introduction: a journey towards collaborations and co-creation’, sets the thematic and the theoretical tone of this article in a story-telling manner. To bring forth the various collaborative and co-creative socio-religious practices of the local Bhutanese that centre on the production and consumption of local alcohol, this section starts with a couple of folk tales. Both the tales are based on the consumption of alcohol by Ap Khyung bdud. Besides these folk tales, the section also briefly talks about some of the socio-religious rituals of consuming locally brewed alcohol amongst several indigenous communities across the globe and how these rituals were disrupted by the European colonisers.

The second section, titled “Jinlab: a socio-cultural history of locally brewed alcohol,” begins with the social, cultural, and religious origins of the consumption of locally brewed alcoholic drinks in Bhutan. It also talks about the different ways through which locally brewed alcohol contributes towards building community relationship and performing religious rituals in the contemporary era.

The third section, titled ‘Dewa: brewing indigenisation and filtering westernisation’, talks about how modernity in contemporary Bhutan, through brewing, consuming, and sharing local alcoholic drinks like ara, bangchang, singchang, etc., is trying to preserve the indigenous social, cultural, and religious practices on the one side and resist the invasion of Euro-North American/colonial cultural influences on the other. The section also unfurls the various social, cultural, medical, and legal challenges that the country is experiencing in the process and the various possibilities to overcome them.

The final section, titled ‘Conclusion’, summarises the theoretical and the thematic findings of this article.

This article is underlined by the following research questions: (1)

What are the cultural and spiritual significance of locally brewed alcoholic drinks in Bhutan?

The research methodology that has been used for this article is qualitative research methodology. As a part of the qualitative research methodology the research methods that have been used are personal conversations and critical diversity literacy. Personal conversation is a form of research method where the researchers and the participants engage in conversation with each other about diverse topics and the conversations are documented with due permission from the participants. In the context of this article, as the article was written during my tenure at the Yonphula Centenary College, the research participants of my article were the villagers in Yonphula and other parts of East Bhutan. The participants were chosen on the basis of their interest to participate and therefore no specific gender dynamics could be maintained. Altogether, 12 participants (7 male and 5 female participants between 18 years and 40 years old) participated in the conversations and they were asked the following question: according to you, which alcoholic drinks are better – western-branded alcoholic drinks or locally brewed alcoholic drinks?

The interview was conducted in person and the responses were hand-written and recorded. After the responses to the abovementioned questions were received, they were thematically sampled through using the thematic network analysis. The responses were divided into two thematic groups – participants in favour of locally brewed alcoholic drinks and participants in favour of western-branded alcoholic drinks. Out of the twelve participants, eight responded in favour of western-branded alcoholic drinks and four participants responded in favour of locally brewed alcoholic drinks. In order to maintain the anonymity of the participants, the participants have been named A, B, C, D, etc. The interviews were conducted in English and Hindi languages. The interviews in Hindi were translated into English by the author. The transcripts have been personally archived by the author and the author is happy to share it with scholars at any point of time. Selected excerpts from the interviews in a consolidated manner are documented in the following Table 1. The responses of the interviewees reveal that a majority (eight) of the respondents are in favour of consuming western-branded alcoholic drinks. Out of the eight interviewees, who have spoken in favour of western-branded alcoholic drinks, five interviewees believed that the western-branded alcoholic drinks are healthier and more hygienic than the locally brewed alcoholic drinks. The rest of the three interviewees believe that the consumption of western-branded alcoholic drinks gives them a high-status identity in the society. The four respondents, who have voiced in favour of consuming locally brewed alcoholic drinks, shared that the consumption of locally brewed alcoholic drinks is a way of preserving ancestral cultural traditions and are healthier than western-branded alcoholic drinks because they are prepared with natural grains. Though the consumption of both western-branded alcoholic drinks and locally brewed alcoholic drinks is harmful, the preference of western-branded alcoholic drinks over locally brewed alcoholic drinks maps the historical and cultural shifts that Bhutan has undergone with time and how the cultural rituals that are centred on the locally brewed alcoholic drinks are under threat. Based on the responses, the following sections of the article socio-historically trace the spiritual and cultural significance of the locally brewed alcoholic drinks in Bhutan and how the native cultural practices around locally brewed alcoholic drinks can be maintained without violating any health protocols.

Besides personal conversation, the method of critical diversity literacy also contributed towards the development of this article. The critical diversity method notes how the world is a socially, culturally, and politically complex and entangled space where ‘differences of many varieties increasingly coexist’ (Steyn 2015, 279). The critical diversity method in this article has been applied through a detailed historical analysis of the diverse spiritual and cultural circumstances in which locally brewed alcoholic drinks are consumed. The differences in preferences (locally brewed alcoholic drinks and western-branded alcoholic drinks) of alcohol unpack the simultaneous co-existence and conflict between various consumption patterns on the one side, and the decadence of native cultural practices due to the blind adaptation of Euromodern cultural practices on the other. The application of critical diversity method can also be understood through the analysis of the consumption and other usages of locally brewed alcoholic drinks in Bhutan from the diverse disciplinary perspectives of sociology, history, anthropology and postcolonial studies.

Before we try to understand the various ways through which locally brewed alcoholic drinks are allowing Bhutan to socially, culturally, religiously, and economically combat the western (Europe and North America) designs of capitalism/colonialism, it is important for us to briefly analyse the culture of brewing and consuming various forms of alcoholic beverages amongst the different indigenous communities in South Asia. So, let us look into some of the traditional alcoholic beverages that are consumed across India in the contemporary era and their contexts of use. Since time immemorial, varieties of locally brewed alcoholic drinks are consumed in North East India. Jyoti Prakash Tamang in his article ‘Diversity of fermented beverages and alcoholic drinks’ (2010) notes that ‘more than 250 types of ethnic fermented food and alcoholic beverages are produced and consumed in North East India’ (98). For instance, the preparation and consumption of rice beers are very common among the indigenous tribal communities of North East India (Ghosh and Das 2004, 378). For the Dimasa ethnic group, who mostly reside in the Sikkim Himalayas, Judima is an integral part of their life. The article ‘Indigenous technology for food processing by the tribes of Dima Masao (North Cachar Hills) district of Assam for social security’ (2013) outlines: ‘During religious festivals, freshly prepared judima is offered to the family gods and goddesses. During birth, a drop of judima is administered to the lips of the new born baby to protect from any evil force. Judima is essential to solemnise marriage ceremonies. Traditionally, the newly wedded bride visits her parents’ house once in a year, and when she returns to her husband's house she carries judima’ (Chakravarty, Sharma, and Tamang 2013, 38).

Besides North East India and the Sikkim Himalayas, varied forms of alcoholic drinks are consumed in the South Asian regions, like rice wine, cereal wine, palm wine, flower-based wine, and fruit wines combined with jaggery (Thakur, Savitri, and Bhalla 2004, 330). In India, Nepal, and Indonesia several alcoholic beverages are consumed as starters during lunch and/or dinner. Some of the alcoholic starters that are prepared from varieties of plants and cereals are as follows:

Ragi: It is an ethnic starter that is highly common in Indonesia. It is made from rice, millets, cassava, or any other starch-based cereal. A starch-based cereal is powdered and then it is mixed with different types of herbs and spices. After the mixing is thoroughly done, the mixture is roasted and then mixed with water. Then, the watery mixture is thickened with ragi

Here the word ragi refers to a kind of millet. In other parts of the paragraph, the word ragi refers to the name of the alcoholic beverage, which is consumed as a starter in different parts of Indonesia.

Despite the high consumption of western (Europe and North America) brands of alcoholic drinks, these indigenous communities have successfully countered the influence of western-branded alcoholic drinks. This resistance has not only enabled them to remain connected to their social, cultural, geographical, economic, communal, and religious roots but also helped them to successfully evade the toxic forces of ‘modernity/rationality’ (Quijano 2007, 169). Through brewing various types of local alcoholic drinks, Bhutan also makes an effort to resist the influence of western-branded alcoholic beverages and widely the encroachment of the metaphysical empires of capitalism in an identical manner. Concerning metaphysical colonial empires, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni says that ‘if you remove colonialism without removing it epistemically, it will not disappear’ (2020). Through the introduction of western-branded alcoholic drinks, many commercial organisations in Bhutan have been making an effort to perform ‘a double cultural decapitation’ (wa Thiong’o 2009, 64) in Bhutan by trying to disengage the Bhutanese from their indigenous social, cultural, religious and economic practices on the one side and by trying to uproot their traditional systems of knowledge on the other. These forms of double cultural decapitation ultimately lead to ‘mnemonic decapitation’ (Zerubavel 2004, 84). As mnemonic decapitation takes place, it becomes easy for the metaphysical empire of capitalism to perform various forms of ‘epistemicides,

Killing and replacing the indigenous systems of knowledge.

Altogether, this article makes an effort to unfurl the various social, cultural, and religious practices that are associated with the traditional culture of producing, consuming, and sharing local alcohol in Bhutan. The article begins in a storytelling manner and through a couple of stories it briefly reflects on the socio-cultural history of locally brewed alcoholic drinks in Bhutan. Then, the socio-cultural history is elaborated further by identifying the varieties of locally brewed alcoholic drinks and by understanding the different social, cultural, and religious contexts in which they are consumed. The article brings forth the various challenges that have been created through importing western-branded alcoholic drinks and also by manufacturing them in Bhutan. In the process of discussing these aspects, the article also outlines how, based on health and medical sciences, several imagined narratives have been manufactured to justify the superiority of the western-branded alcoholic drinks and the inferiority of the locally brewed ones.

This article serves as a possible resistance to such problematic narratives and therefore concludes by analysing the various initiatives that have already been taken and can be taken in the near future to resist the western-branded alcoholic drinks and to revive and diversify the alcohol-centric indigenous social, cultural, religious and economic practices of/in Bhutan. Without violating the health and legal restrictions, the proposals for the revival of alcohol-centric indigenous socio-cultural practices are also a reminder for every indigenous community across the world to challenge the Eurocentric self-profiting social, cultural, health, and economic narratives that centre on alcohol productions and consumptions and revive the native socio-cultural practices that centre on the locally brewed alcoholic drinks.