The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas
Series Note Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action Series Series Editors:╇ David N. Gellner, Krishna Hachhethu, Siri Hettige, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Gérard Toffin Volume 1: Local Democracy in South Asia: Microprocesses of Democratization in Nepal and its Neighbours, eds David N. Gellner and Krishna Hachhethu Volume 2: Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia, ed. David N. Gellner Volume 3: Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia, ed. David N. Gellner Volume 4:╇ The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics, eds Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin Volumes in Preparation Development, Governance and Conflict in South Asia, eds Siri Hettige and Eva Gerharz Facing Globalization in the Himalayas: Belonging and the Politics of the Self, eds Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin This volume has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union (EU). The contents of the book are the sole responsibility of the respective authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the EU. The Asia-Link Programme was launched at the beginning of 2002 as an initiative by the EU to foster regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in EU Member States and South Asia, South-East Asia, and China. This five-year programme, which has a total budget of �42.8 million, aims to provide support to European and Asian higher education institutions in the areas of human resource development, curriculum development, and institutional and systems development.
The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action: Volume 4
Edited by Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka Gérard Toffin
Copyright © Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2011 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B1/I-1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044, India www.sagepub.in Sage Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA Sage Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP, United Kingdom Sage Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Published by Vivek Mehra for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, Phototypeset in 10/12pt Sabon by Star Compugraphics Private Limited, Delhi and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The politics of belonging in the Himalayas: local attachments and boundary dynamics/edited by Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Gérard Toffin. ╅╅╅╇ p.╇ cm—(Governance, conflict, and civic action series; v. 4) â•… Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.╇ Ethnic groups—Himalaya Mountains Region.â•… 2.╇ Group identity— Himalaya Mountains Region.â•… 3.╇ Nationalism—Himalaya Mountains Region. 4.╇ National characteristics.â•… 5.╇ Himalaya Mountains Region—Ethnic relations. I.╇ Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna.â•… II.╇ Toffin, Gérard. DS485.H6P65
305.80095496—dc22
2011
2011007105
ISBN:╇ 978-81-321-0524-4 (HB) The Sage Team: Rekha Natarajan, Arpita Dasgupta, Amrita Saha and Deepti Saxena Cover caption: Brahmin extended family, central hill region of Nepal (1980). Photo courtesy: Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
Contents Preface Introduction: Belonging and Multiple Attachments in â•… Contemporary Himalayan Societies Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin
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Part I: Territoriality and Indigeneity Chapter 1 Hamro Gaon: Practices of Belonging in Rural Nepal Anne de Sales Chapter 2 Fluid Belongings: The Weight of Places in a Valley of Western Nepal Gisèle Krauskopff Chapter 3 Belonging, Indigeneity, Rites, and Rights: The Newar Case David N. Gellner Chapter 4 Belonging to the Borders: Uncertain Identities in Northeast India Philippe Ramirez Chapter 5 Politics of Belonging: Identity and State-formation in Nagaland Sanjay Kumar Pandey
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25
45
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Part II: Socio-religious Bonding Chapter 6 To Whom does the Pashupatinath Temple of Nepal Belong? 125 Axel Michaels Chapter 7 Brotherhood and Divine Bonding in the Krishna Pranami Sect Gérard Toffin Chapter 8 Religion, Rituals, and Symbols of Belonging: The Case of Uttarakhand William Sax Chapter 9 The Politics of Encounter: Hindu Belonging in a Multi-faith Pilgrimage Site in Nepal Jessamine Dana
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Part III: Commitments and Conflicts Chapter 10 Emergent Nationalism, Citizenship, and Belonging among Nepalis in Banaras: The Case of Kashi Bahadur Shrestha 201 Martin Gaenszle Chapter 11 Pathways of Place Relation: Moving Contours of Belonging in Central Nepal Ben Campbell Chapter 12 Belonging, Protected Areas, and Participatory Management: The Case of Kaziranga National Park (Assam) and of the Misings’ Shifting Territory Joëlle Smadja
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Chapter 13 Geocultural Identities and Belonging in the Ethnohistory of Central Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India Maheshwar P. Joshi Chapter 14 Trials, Witnesses, and Local Stakes in a District Court of Himachal Pradesh Daniela Berti Glossary and Abbreviations About the Editors and Contributors Name Index Subject Index
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314 323 329 336
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Preface This volume, The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics, is the outcome of an international conference that took place in New Delhi during 20–22 March 2007. All the chapters contained in the book developed out of the presentations during this scientific meeting. Our thanks go the India International Centre, New Delhi, which supported and housed this event, and to the French Centre for Human Sciences, Delhi, and in particular to its then director, Véronique Dupont, as well as to Mallika Hanif and Romain Chappuis, each of whom played a major role in organizing the conference. We are also indebted to our Indian colleagues from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Institute of Economic Growth, and other academic institutes in Delhi, who agreed to participate in the meeting as discussants and greatly contributed to the debate on the concept of belonging. We would like to list all of them here: Ravina Aggarwal, Balveer Arora, Amita Baviskar, Nirja Gopal Jayal, Surinder Jodhka, Ravinder Kaur, and Patricia Oberoi. We would also like to express our thanks to Andre Gingrich from the University of Vienna, Nirmal Tuladhar from Tribhuvan University (Nepal), Christian Bueschges from the University of Bielefeld, and Kanak Dixit of Himal Association for their stimulating role as discussants. This undertaking would not have been possible without the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) through its Collaborative Research Programme (SFB 584) carried out at the Bielefeld University, Germany, the European EU-Asia-Link programme of the European Commission (Brussels), the British Academy, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the French foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH), Paris. Professor Hinnerk Bruhns (MSH), in particular, warmly encouraged the project from the very beginning and has given us useful advice and suggestions for its organization. We are grateful to David Gellner, University of Oxford, who invited us to include this book in MIDEA series, published by SAGE Publications. Finally, our thanks are due to Bernadette Sellers (CNRS, Villejuif) who revised the papers written by
xâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas French researchers, and to David Phelps (Oxford) and Pragya Dhital (London), who edited the final English versions of the book. This book is the fourth and the latest in the ‘Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action’ series. It is the first in a series of two, both focused on the concept of belonging in the Himalayas, and more broadly in South Asia. This first book deals with the various patterns and parameters of belonging and social attachments. A second volume with the title ‘Facing Globalization in the Himalayas: Belonging and Politics of the Self’ will analyse the complex relationships between belonging and globalization in the contemporary world, as far as the Himalayan perspectives are concerned. It is currently being prepared, and will include the papers presented at the conference that took place in Fréjus, France, 20–22 September 2008, a conference organized in collaboration with David Gellner. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin Bielefeld / Villejuif-Paris
Introduction Belonging and Multiple Attachments in Contemporary Himalayan Societies Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin
This book is an account of affinities, affiliations, and attachments as well as of experiences of commonality, connectedness, and cohesion in one specific region of the world: the Himalayas.1 To grasp these phenomena adequately, we propose a new analytical approach, through the concept of belonging. This concept has recently appeared on social and cultural studies agendas, and it increasingly informs scholarly inquiries. The notion of belonging is appealing, allowing us to analyse societal formations in various historical periods and capture the ongoing change in them. Observing the dynamics of human sociability from a different angle than through the notion of identity, it embraces simultaneously the intersecting institutional and relational, as well as the symbolic dimensions of social life. It comprises not only formal membership and labelling, but also imagined and narrated, more or less fluid, we-group constructions related to sameness, unity, and togetherness. We support Anthias’ (2006: 21) claim that to belong is “to share values, networks, and practices” and that belonging “is not just a question of identification”. This publication is a collaborative attempt to go beyond (and beneath) identity constructions and to call into question the idea of permanence implied by this term. It proposes a new framework which will do justice to enhanced human preoccupations with belonging that call for a shift in paradigms and research agendas. Let us take a concrete example of what we mean by belonging. It is often said in Nepal that some castes and ethnic groups demonstrate a very parochial attitude in matters of employment and an extremely acute sense of internal solidarity. When a person belonging to a village, where such groups live, secures a job in a government
xiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas office, it is reported that sooner or later, the whole village will find employment in the office in question. Obviously, the same may be said of many other developing countries (if not of some Western developed countries). It is evident that, in such instances, which reveal potential conflicts between bonds to primordial attachments and the construction of the state, identity matters much less than belonging. Here ties to one’s elementary group or to a group of persons with which we feel we belong to and are indebted to (in Nepali, aphno manche or hamro manche, meaning ‘our own people’) are the central issues. Belonging in many ways is a ‘thicker’ concept than that of collective identities. It allows us to focus on the ways individuals and groups are caught when they want to belong. It covers a number of different circles of attachment: to one’s family; to one’s house and other possessions; locality; lineage; ethnic group; nation-state; religion; professional organization; workplace; and, eventually, perhaps even a sect or a political party, many of them overlapping and intersecting each other. They provide individual persons with networks of links as well as orientations, enabling them to live and engage in society. In consequence, the diverse parameters of belonging—formal and informal memberships; material entitlements; and identifications, as well as social ties—carry with them sources of social and political mobilization. These parameters must be studied through relational approaches. The notion of belonging we therefore propose with this collection is a special property of social practices (see Schatzky et al., 2001) combining: (a) perceptions and performances of commonality; (b) a sense of mutuality and more or less formalized modalities of collective allegiance; as well as (c) material and immaterial attachments and a sense of entitlement. How these dimensions come to intersect, that is, ‘When do we belong?’ is an empirical question once we have agreed on their centrality for grasping this notion. In the first part of this introduction, we develop analytical tools for capturing those dimensions of human sociability that instigate a sense of loyalty and mutual commitment under the conditions of powerful reconfigurations, which are only inadequately grasped through such conceptual short-cuts as ‘modernity’ and ‘globalization’ (Burawoy, 2000; Sassen, 2006). In the second part, we discuss major transformations in the Himalayan societies that impinge upon belonging—as analysed in the chapters of this volume. In the forefront of this endeavour is capturing the multidimensional concept
introductionâ•… xiii
of belonging and pointing towards its potential utility in assisting us in adopting a fresh perspective on the social dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. We are also interested in the questions why, when, and how collective dimensions of human existence and human attachments, that is, belonging, increasingly lose their tacit, ‘cosy’, and intimate character—a trend possibly rendering the concept of belonging increasingly pertinent nowadays, as we argue at the end of this introduction. The concept of belonging takes up some of the basic preoccupations in social sciences, re-thinking their concepts and assumptions. The renewed interest in intimate attachments—already problematized in the context of modern reconfigurations by such thinkers as Friedrich Nietzsche at the end of the nineteenth century through his concept of ‘Heimatlosigkeit’ (homelessness), along with Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and others—is informed by fundamental intellectual concerns with a sense of place, as well as with the relational ties that bind people together. We take on Töennies’ dichotomy opposing ‘community’ (Gemeinschaft)—considered as constituted by primordial bonds of blood, territory, culture, and/or language—to society (Gesellschaft), highlighting individualization and rationality, particularly as put forward in Max Weber’s ‘disenchantment thesis’ (e.g., Weber, 1921: 308). In this vein, Durkheim’s (1930) distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity is connected to this primeval opposition. This collection inquires into the key dimensions of Himalayan sociability considered ‘traditional’, and reveals their salience under the conditions of modernity. Let us stress from the beginning that our use of the dichotomy ‘traditional vs modern’ is geared merely to ideal types, while our analysis of the social practices of belonging questions such binary oppositions. The notion of belonging is relevant to both: to collectives considered ‘traditional’ such as kinship units and also to ‘modern’ types of sociability such as nations. In other words, it can apply to social categories forged through ascription as well as achievement, to lineages as well as to class assertions, to jatis (castes) as well as to NGOs. This variety and ambiguity is one of its principal features of interest. Belonging emphasizes emotional investments, affective bonds, and desire for attachment. It helps us to understand and analyse what crystallizes a feeling of commitment in such collectives as nationstates (evoking a strong sense of familiarity), or any other strongly bonded unit, either imagined or real. We are interested when sentiments of belonging become socially effective. After all, the desire to
xivâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas belong—to get, to be, and to stay inside—is, in all contexts, deeply rooted in us, as also the fear of separation and exclusion. Belonging, we assume, is one of the central preoccupations in people’s lives. Without belonging, one suffers alienation and rootlessness. The various parameters of belonging are tightly related to experiences of inclusion and exclusion. “To belong is to be accepted as part of a community, to feel safe within it and to have a stake in the future of such a community of membership”, suggests Anthias (2006: 21), putting inclusion at the forefront. On the other hand, not to belong is to stand in the rain, to lack solidarity and recognition. Luhmann rightly stressed, time and again (e.g., Luhmann, 1997), that inclusion and exclusion work simultaneously (see also Schlee and Werner, 1996). So, for instance, national we-group constructions differentiate rights between the insiders and outsiders. In social movements, activists simultaneously operationalize belonging as we-group mobilization, as well as formulas of protest and opposition. The concept of belonging is, therefore, well suited to studying boundary dynamics. But instead of taking social boundaries for granted, it helps us explore the shifting character of borders and frontiers, imagined and real, as well as the possibilities of boundarycrossing, boundary-shifting, and boundary-blurring (see van Schendel, 2005; Wimmer, 2008; Zolberg and Long, 1999). These dimensions are in fact elementary in any politics of belonging implemented by nation-states (see Crowley, 1999; Dieckhoff, 2004; Favell, 1999; Migdal, 2004). In particular, when buttressed by restrictive state policies or jealous exclusionary sentiments of nationalistic we-groups,2 the notion of an ‘Us’ necessitates and implies boundaries and the recognition of an ‘Other’, often categorized as ‘Them’ (Bernot, 2000: 311–24) and depicted in culturally derogatory terms. So far, the concept of belonging has mostly been used in academic research for analysing contemporary Western societies or migrant situations throughout the world. We have chosen to explore these diverse phenomena within various ethnographic contexts and cultural frameworks in the Himalayan region, where both editors have spent many decades as researchers. Interestingly, it is a region where societies and cultures are still deeply entangled in traditional socialties and are still partly associated with pre-modern modes of production. It thus enables us to explore different patterns of belonging pertaining to kinship, religion, small communities, the state, politics, and so forth. We are convinced that the notion of belonging is a
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useful tool to revivify studies on kinship, neighbourhood, religious organizations, identity, and ethnicity, and to broaden our understanding of change in the Himalayas. This collection of texts presents, thorough empirical research and rigorous case studies, a set of analyses that have mostly been written by senior researchers who already have a wide experience of the Himalayan range and its changing social horizons. The aim of the book is thus twofold: to contribute to the conceptualization of belonging in a comparative perspective and to offer a documented collection on Himalayan societies and cultures captured from this specific angle. Our preoccupation with belonging draws upon the recent attempts in cultural and social studies to bring diverse fields of research together. Belonging thrives simultaneously upon symbolization, knowledge, embodiment, human relations to/with artefacts, spatial constellations, ordering, and contestations.3 We acknowledge that, in present-day societies, constructions of belonging come about through a complex interplay of social configurations. Conflicting spatial logics, as well as contentious constellations of state and society are entangled in negotiations over social boundary-making, inclusion, and exclusion (Migdal, 2004). These parameters impinge upon our sense of belonging, rendering it an uncertain condition. What makes this notion so hard to grasp is its complex constitution, the multiple possibilities of its contestation as well as its occasional fluidity. Our preoccupation with belonging raises such issues as: What ties a collective together? Or, concerning the Himalayan region: What makes a Nepali, an Assamese, a Hindu, a Gurung, a Madhesi feel an insider or an outsider? How are individual lived experiences mobilized to belong to some group? How are people related together? When does somebody acquire the sense of being a full-fledged member of a collective? In order to answer these questions, we propose to analyse successively the three dimensions of belonging: commonality, mutuality, and attachment.
Commonality: ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Beyond and Beneath Identity Constructions The concept of belonging drives our attention to the diversity of social practices forging commonality. We suggest widening the scope of analysis beyond identity constructions. While proposing the
xviâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas ‘belonging-approach’, we by no means intend to discard the term ‘identity’, which continues to be the major narrative for expressing commonality. These two notions of identity and belonging overlap in many ways. They are not mutually exclusive. We claim that the concept of ‘collective identity’ untenably narrows down the range of modalities through which commonalities come into existence. Furthermore, whereas identity focuses too much on the individual, and talk of ‘collective identity’ always raises the question of how far particular individuals actually share or buy into the postulated collective identities, belonging, on the other hand, implies already, from the start, relationships—not just with people, but with places and things. In spite of fierce critiques of essentialist and reified understandings of identity, even in the prevailing constructive approaches, and even when theorized in a multiple, fragmented, and fluid manner,4 the word ‘identity’, mainly in its plural form, is still widely and appropriately used in anthropological and sociological studies. We argue that belongingness encompasses the notion of identity (it includes more markers) and differs from ‘identity’ in its meaning. You may identify, but not feel that you belong, in the sense of being accepted or being a full member. Alternatively, you may feel that you are accepted and belong, but may not fully identify, or your allegiance may be split (Anthias, 2006: 19). Belonging focuses less on sameness among members of a group or category, and stresses more the feeling of common fate, mutuality, and purpose (this last recently evoked by Barack Obama, with his slogan ‘Yes, we can’). It involves both a felt solidarity, or oneness with fellow group-members, and a distance vis-à-vis the others. Identity matters, and so does belonging. Both notions privilege different dimensions of commonality and put their stress upon different parameters. But they are closely intertwined.5 Belonging is inward-oriented (inside-out-orientation): it starts off from subjects as focal points or knots, located at junctions or intersections of relational ties. In the forefront is the sense of having a common core. What is outside a given horizon of relating may not matter, unless intrusions obtain. On the other hand, identity relies for its formation, confrontations with ‘the other’. It cannot exist without the other, without a boundary created vis-à-vis the other and the resulting binary opposition. It is therefore oriented from outside to inside (outside-in-orientation); besides, clear-cut boundaries are drawn.
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Furthermore, with culture understood as a set of symbols at the root of a people’s sense of identity, as for instance in ethnic activism (see Gellner, 2009), neat boundaries instigate homogeneity and explicitness within collective units. Both notions denote the central dimensions of human existence, but identity tends to be more overwhelming and exclusive. Turkish migrants to Germany, when asked about their identity, may be caught in an either/or dilemma, with hyphenated identities (Turkish–German) often not seeming an appropriate option for self-identification. At the same time, they may feel comfortable in asserting their belonging to a neighbourhood in Berlin (White, 2004). Also belonging can exert extreme power on people when patriotism calls them to war, but identity seems to be more overwhelming—whereas belonging does not preclude intersecting allegiances or shifting attachments. In consequence, the horizons of identity are likely to be broader, whereas belonging requires more intimacy, pertains to smaller units of sociability, and tends to be cosier. Without empirical evidence, it is impossible to assess when social constellations shift in scope and how tacit differences and porous boundaries become exclusionary. The proposed approach helps to answer such questions with more precision. Both identity and belonging rely heavily on symbolization, but identity constructions often resort to practices of representation, whereas belonging is performed and embodied in localized contexts (though, as we argue below, the politics of belonging increasingly has recourse to representations as well). Here, intimate lived experiences acquire their bonding force in everyday practices. In this vein, Butler’s (1993) concept of performativity is important for our understanding of belonging. In situations of co-presence, for instance, when villagers or migrants meet in a common space, they engage in practices that simultaneously express religious or quasi-religious allegiance, mutual acknowledgement of jointly ‘being there’, and commonality of purpose.6 What binds them together is not merely a sense of unity, not merely routine or the reiteration of practices. Nor is reiteration simply replication ‘of the same’. Butler (1993) argues that it is ‘through the invocation’ of convention that such common acts derive their binding power. Performing commonality may be based upon reiterations of norms that precede and exceed the actors, only gradually revealing
xviiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas their constraining power. The subtle embodiment of belonging affords it the quality of ‘what goes without saying’ and builds upon ‘common-knowledge’ repertoires.7 However, given the prominence of identity in political communication, belonging is currently also becoming more and more explicit—which may be the main reason for its recent success in academic agendas. Given the overpowering strength of political boundary-making, legal limits, and identity assertions, a tacit sense of belonging is increasingly giving way to explicit demonstrations of social boundedness. This is precisely one of the reasons why belonging cannot be fully grasped without taking identity constructions into account. Like identity, belonging relies upon collective boundary-constructions. But at least initially their understanding does not require overt demonstrations: individuals and groups simply ‘know’ who does and who does not belong.
Mutuality: The Social Relations of Belonging Having identified commonality as an important aspect of belonging, we are now turning to the second element, that is, to the question, in what ways belonging is tied to specific social formations. Scholars have discerned a wide range of possibilities in human sociability. As the German sociologist Georg Simmel (1908) argued, people relate socially in such ephemeral situations as while going for a walk, and when entering into short-term contracts as much as through the durable ties of family life, the guilds of the Middle Ages, and shared nationality. According to Max Weber (1921: 13), humans relate to each other through fights, enmity, bodily love, friendship, and market transactions, and in other ways. Weber’s notion of ‘social relation’ denotes a minimal standard of mutual orientation (‘Aufeinanderbezogensein’) and acting jointly (‘Zusammenhandeln’) (ibid.). However, he warns, different actors may place a different meaning (‘Sinngehalt’) on their social relations and have divergent mutual expectations. Therefore, mutuality cannot be taken for granted, neither in love, nor in contract relations. It then becomes of interest when and how mutuality evolves and when and how it crystallizes into bonds of belonging. When dealing with modern social systems, sociology privileges either interactions or social relations that rely upon formalization, on
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clear-cut role differentiation, as well as on contracts (see Wimmer, 2007). Luhmann’s (1970) analysis of human sociability in modern societies distinguished between interaction, organization, and society. Salient forms of sociability in the contemporary Himalayas fall only partly under this tripartite typology. Obviously, interactions play a very important part in everyday life; and so do organizations, and old-established organizational forms, such as the religious guthis (Toffin, 2005), along with the collectives that are more and more frequently called into life through external interventions, such as ‘youth groups’ and ‘women’s groups’, ‘user groups’, and ‘saving associations’. In addition, a number of other organizational forms such as state agencies, development organizations, political parties, and ethnic organizations, as well as migrant organizations, form part of contemporary social life. Yet Himalayan social lives still thrive in such important social forms as family and neighbourhood, as well as ‘local community’, in the sense of corporate units, characterized by physical closeness, sharing common goods, and endorsing, at least to some extent, customary law. In anthropological terms, these social relations oscillate with regard to their duration and salience, their density and volume between Gluckman’s (1955) concepts of ‘multiplex social ties’ and ‘simplex social ties’. The former are certainly more likely to instigate the sense of belonging than the latter; and the former are certainly more prominent in ‘traditional’ social formations. Treating them as residual categories in the realm of contemporary societies is certainly inappropriate—as is documented in the chapters of this volume. Before we proceed, we need to differentiate between the individual’s relation to a collective, on the one hand, and collective belonging, on the other. The German language makes here a clear distinction that is not immediately discernible in the English word ‘belonging’ (the German language itself being in want of any single word that would translate ‘belonging’). The German term Zugehörigkeit denotes an individual’s belonging to a collective (as does the French term ‘appartenance’); whereas Zusammengehörigkeit stands for ‘togetherness’. This distinction becomes of interest when we shift our perspective as observers from the group dynamics that are geared to maintaining the existence of a collective to a consideration of an individual who is seeking to gain or to maintain her/his membership of a collective.
xxâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas While Himalayan anthropology brings the salience of traditional collective ties into contrast with modern social configurations, some sociologists8 dealing with contemporary Western societies have called for including in Luhmann’s typology the concept of a ‘group’, which reveals important dimensions of contemporary sociability. The notion of a group—which we apply to such Himalayan formations as kin units, or neighbourhoods—is of interest to our inquiry since it carries forward the conceptualization of belonging. The ideal of group life is that everybody knows everybody and engages in faceto-face interactions. Unlike groups, for which members’ belonging is essential,9 organizations need not rely upon a fixed membership, given their standardized goals, structures, and positions. Unlike organizations, groups expect from their members commitment that often needs to be expressed either through generous donations, or through sufficient time-allocation, or both.10 Groups scrutinize jealously whether their members partake in interactions and whether they are sufficiently committed. For this reason, they design devices to deal with absence and distance—which is not a trivial problem given the current transnationalization of Himalayan lives.11 Repeated absence is likely to be noticed by other group members. Belonging is therefore not merely a privilege, but also entails mutual compulsion—an effort in which all ‘insiders’ need to partake. Groups’ existence is, for instance, seriously threatened when contacts between their members loosen, and particularly so, when individual members withdraw. Periodic get-togethers and the performance of collective belonging12 play a significant role in maintaining their continuity. It is through repeated interactions of (ideally) all the members that dense group processes evolve. The current challenges groups are facing through the enhanced scope of transnationality are only to some extent mitigated through networking, given the availability of new communications media. This topic will be pursued in our next volume. Yet another aspect requires our attention. For forging (and for understanding) belonging, the temporal dimensions of group processes are crucial. Different temporalities are at stake here. On the one hand, groups are stabilized through interactions, and on the other hand, common memories and horizons of expectation are constructed through perceived trajectories and ties to the past. These trajectories between the past and the future are also shaped in significant ways through material and immaterial attachments.
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Attachments In her book The Values of Belonging, Carol Lee Flinders (2002) postulates the importance of rediscovering balance, mutuality, intuition, and wholeness in a competitive world.13 She evokes a ‘culture of belonging’ as one in which there is—as she puts it—intimate connection with the land to which one belongs, emphatic relationship to animals, self-restraint, custodial conservation, deliberateness, balance, expressiveness, generosity, egalitarianism, mutuality, affinity for alternative forms of knowing, playfulness, inclusiveness, nonviolent conflict resolution, and openness to spirit. bell hooks (2009) endorses the importance of these elements, highlighting the force of attachments, describing in emotional terms her return to the places of her childhood in the small rural world of Kentucky State (US)— which she comes to perceive and depict as perennially inscribed in her mind and body. Even if Flinders’s list is buttressed by specific personal experience and a great deal of spirituality that not everyone would share, it reveals that belonging is obviously stabilized through attachments of diverse kinds. In the forefront is the intimate connection to one’s own surroundings that the body and mind remember, even after long spans of time, and the ensuing immediacy, kinship, and friendship ties, as well as the urge to protect such small worlds. The sense of place is reinforced through dense contacts with a not too large number of people who are likely to share experiences and knowledge as well as common memories. The attachments are intensified through material possessions (one’s own belongings) as well as through immaterial connections—for instance, to fields, pastures, houses, and ritual sites. The link to a place is often reinforced through formal membership.14 Intimacy and collective memory, on the one hand, as well as entitlements and regulations, on the other, forge very strong ties to places. These ties can evoke a strong sense of urgency when one’s living space is threatened (indigenous populations fighting timber or oil entrepreneurs encroaching on their territories), but also hold people back from leaving their precious homes behind, even when exile seems to be an urgent matter.15 Time and again people have experienced the power of their attachments and possessions in situations of danger. In fact, people were often possessed by things and attachments, remaining where they were, while risking their lives.
xxiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Life in a diaspora appears to be the reverse of belonging: abandoning roots and attachments is its pre-condition. Given the tremendous power the original places exert upon people (including those in exile), forging new ties seems an almost impossible act. Still, as is well known, the creation of belonging in new places is part of translocal and transnational experience. As the numerous recent studies in the field of transnationality reveal, mobility does not preclude practices of localization (Glick Schiller, 2007). Migrants encounter manifold forms of exclusion, but they are often able to recreate their relations in new places and forge new rootedness. Churches, neighbourhoods, public meeting places, shops, and discos, as well as private homes, can all be ‘taken possession of’ by newcomers. Common performative acts render new territories intimate and meaningful. New entitlements, as well as participation in local politics buttress the sense of ownership and engagement. New symbolic markers, new elements of ‘local knowledge’, as well as an intensifying density of social relations (see, Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2005), all link people to new meaningful geographies of the heart. Flinders’ list therefore resonates throughout the narrated experiences in our volume (de Sales, Krauskopff, Smadja, and Campbell), with attachments of diverse kinds instigating mutuality, participation, and engagement.
Re-constructing Belonging in the Changing Worlds of the Himalayas It is not possible, today, to imagine social worlds as stable, and as detached from other worlds and their entanglements. Even the remotest places in the Himalayan region are at present full of communications (Ardener, 1989) with very distant places. Colonial rule in India, its indirect influence in Nepal, nation-state integration, development and humanitarian aid interventions, and market expansion, as well as enhanced mass communication, have brought forceful transformations to this region. These dynamics are by no means new, but the last decades have significantly affected human interactions, in terms of mobility as well as of communicative horizons. New are also the ‘local’ perceptions of the ongoing change: an increasing number of Himalayan people live with the idea that they act and make meanings in a globalized world. In consequence, the shifting
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constellations of belonging become an important object of human reflexivity. This collection reflects many of its major trends. Himalayan history can be written as a succession of external interventions causing processes of disembedding (Giddens, 1991). ‘Traditional’ social relations based on direct interaction between people living close to each other have been increasingly affected by measures taken by rulers and governments deploying new communicative and transport technologies. ‘Disembedding mechanisms’ such as money and modern administrative devices ‘have lifted out’ decisions affecting persons in specific localities from their smallscale and intimate contexts. In their respective chapters, Smadja and Campbell document measures affecting local relations in their immediate contexts and with their own logics. Viewed from the local perspective, it makes a big difference whether decisions concerning one’s immediate environment are reached through local negotiations, or whether they are compelled to follow some uniform policies designed in remote centres that leave little room for manoeuvre in local decision-making. The imposition of ‘external’ political orders brought with it new categories of social ordering, impinging upon the local perceptions of commonality, on relations of mutuality, and even upon local attachments. As land-tillers, as political subjects, and eventually as citizens, and as ‘objects’ of development interventions,16 members of local Himalayan societies were increasingly confronted with new formulas defining their status, membership, and allegiance within larger societal formations, in particular within the framework of the nation-state. With the modernization of state administration, the local population was counted and divided into uniform administrative units—which often did not coincide with the earlier boundaries of the local social realms. Their material belongings, such as land, were measured according to new metric standards and defined through new (and often more precise) territorial delineations. Modern forms of law, regulating offences as well as ownership, have contributed decisively to moulding social relations (see Berti and Michaels in this volume). New communicative devices additionally transformed the sense of spatial logic and of temporality, especially enhancing the speed of long-distance interactions. Entering the modern era had contradictory effects on the local societies. Incorporation into broader societal units meant, throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, undergoing mobilization for the sake
xxivâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas of an abstract larger good, that is, the ‘national interest’ or ‘national well-being’. Even today, local populations suffering eviction at construction sites of large infrastructural projects, such as dams, are told that they need to make a sacrifice for the sake of national prosperity, seen as relying upon progress and growth. Being denied the use of forest products that were formerly open to them, members of ethnic groups are expected to contribute to protection of nature (see Smadja, this volume). Such instances of modernist rationalization have greatly shaken the local sense of belonging, lifting the authority out of the hands of the local subjects. Consequently, local populations were kept subjugated under the remote rule of their governments and discouraged from engaging in political action—which caused resentment and resistance. Since the late 1980s onwards, slogans deployed by development agents, such as ‘small is beautiful’ and ‘thinking globally, acting locally’ have partly reversed this trend, acknowledging the need for a sense of immediacy and the importance of local collective forms. Furthermore, the introduction of participatory models of action to local societies by development agents has instigated a sense of local agency. Measures aimed at including formerly marginalized population groups in the political process through quotas, etc., have also strengthened participatory forms. These dynamics had substantial effects upon the sense of belonging in the local Himalayan worlds, in yet another sense, translating into social and political mobilization all the more. Systemic (state, market) colonization of local life-worlds (Habermas, 1981) resulted in rearranged relations, attachments, and aspirations. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that the local Himalayan social formations partly underwent striking dynamics of change and phases of self-assertion and/or resistance. ‘Revolutionary’ movements carried by the Maoists and the Naxalites, in particular the former, have substantially altered the outlook of rural societies, their allegiance, and their social fabric (see de Sales, this volume). Large infrastructural projects—along with capitalist interventions, like the encroachment upon forest resources that was challenged by the Chipko movement—have brought massive forms of protest as well as supra-local and supra-national civil society networking to the fore (see Gellner 2009, 2010). Again, these forms of protest have shifted the horizons of local solidarities, by creating new interest
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groups and by linking up political formations that earlier were well beyond the scope of local vision. Asymmetries of belonging based upon power differentials are increasingly becoming the object of contestations throughout the Himalayas, given the enhanced civic sensitivity towards negative depictions of underprivileged groups and the resulting critique of exclusionary practices. “The dirty work of boundary maintenance” (Crowley, 1999) by those involved in elitist and exclusionary practices has come under scrutiny, time and again. Individuals, collectives, and their sympathizers as well as their supporters joined forces—not always successfully—in challenging established social orders and rigid forms of social classifications. Enhanced media participation opens space for self-representations and for shaping common plans of action. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that those measures currently labelled as ‘social inclusion’, brought into the Himalayan space in particular through the think-tanks of the World Bank, touch upon the question of belonging. Practices of ‘empowerment’ as well as ‘social upliftment’ fall under this category, informing the current political and development discourse in large parts of the Himalayas. ‘Grassroot’ mobilization as well as civic activism (see Gellner 2009, 2010) has greatly buttressed the critique of the persisting inequalities and the salience of caste and ethnic boundary-making. But notwithstanding the positive appeal of the current measures aiming at ‘social inclusion’ of formerly excluded and marginalized population sections, this notion tends to blur important social facts. Above all, this sympathetic term draws our attention away from the salience of the persisting striking asymmetries in contemporary Himalayan societies. Those ‘who belong’, being located at the upper levels of societal hierarchies, jealously guard their elevated positions and their resources. They seek to keep those trying to enter their ranks at bay and at a distance, knowing that ‘inclusion’ entails sharing and opening up the ranks. Such terms as ‘social inclusion’ as well as ‘empowerment’ are problematic, by discursively neglecting the significant power differentials and tensions entailed in the politics of belonging when individuals and collectives seek access to restricted positions. They draw our attention away from the highly contested nature of practices aimed at social inclusion. Our approach reveals furthermore that power differentials are all the more pronounced as
xxviâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas those who are excluded do not belong. ‘Not belonging’ means here not fitting into institutional arrangements (as is always the case with minorities) as well as not sharing established cultural codes. The tacit understanding of belonging, its subtle mechanisms, may therefore lead to uncovering the powerful effects of social exclusion. Himalayan societies are characterized today by a broad scope of social movements and protests challenging the main thrust of modern nation-building, that is, a doctrine of cultural unity and uniformity as necessary preconditions for achieving societal progress. Over the last decades, ethnic activists have successfully challenged the homogenizing narratives of modernist assimilation practices, claiming diversity as an alternative mode of the modern condition. Global communication played an important role here, since all over the world ethnic activism has significantly gained momentum. Processes of ethnicization coupled with the ‘third democratisation wave’ (Huntington) and with the enhanced value stress put by development practitioners on ‘the local’ established the legitimacy of small-scale participatory forms carried by cultural collectives. While resistant to centralist interventions, ethnic and regional actors have repeatedly made a great point of having more command over their ‘own’ life-worlds. Constitutional reforms provided more and more space to religious, linguistic, and ethnic diversity, and they allow for significantly more autonomy for minority populations. Ethnic self-assertion instigated reflections on the desired forms of sociability, drawing new territorial demarcations and creating new collective representations through ethnic identity markers (see Sax, this volume). It is impossible to grasp the shifting modalities and sense of belonging without taking the increased scope of human mobility under consideration (we will deal with this issue in more detail in our next volume). While only a few of the contributions collected here concentrate on human movement as their major topic, the consequences of migrations and travel show up in almost every chapter. For instance, throughout the Himalayan range, local societies are characterized by a more or less thorough caste and ethnic intermixing (see especially Ramirez, this volume). The movement of people goes hand-in-hand with the movement of ideas—as for instance Dana’s chapter discusses. Migration also provides opportunities to observe one’s own society from afar as well as to evaluate its culture(s) in comparison to forms and repertoires encountered away from home.
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Gaenszle’s contribution provides a very good example of how migrants contribute to shaping social and cultural life ‘at home’. Visions of cultural reforms are even probably more likely to develop in distant contexts, when longing for the place of origin is paired with an urge to ‘contribute something’ meaningful—in exchange for being absent. The quest to render the distant home more perfect is buttressed by an exposure to new possibilities of engagement. Glick Schiller and Fouron (2001) speak of such situations as ‘long-distance nationalism’. Against the backdrop of these general trends, we now turn to the individual chapters of this volume.
Presentation of the Book The basic understanding of belonging is common to all contributors although each author has focused on a different angle or a different topic. The book has been organized into three different sections corresponding to various patterns and forms of belonging prevailing in the Himalayas. The first section, ‘Territoriality and Indigeneity’, examines ‘primordial’ loyalties and particularistic forms of belonging as dealt with mainly by anthropologists. It explores ways in which the interconnected questions of local territorial communities and ethnicity merge and are mobilized, maintained, and modified over time. These two fundamental types of attachment, based respectively on territory and blood, are crucial markers throughout the Himalayas, particularly among the so-called tribes—Janajati, Adivasi, Vanvasi, Vanyajati, ‘Scheduled Tribes’ (STs), or Tribal (‘taybol’). They create a substantive link with ancestral land and with a set of relatives, which is often enforced by ritual practices. The ties thus created extend beyond individual experience and produce strong collective identities. They are frequently strengthened, manipulated, or modified by the state or other political agencies to suit their own aims or for political gains. We have chosen to start with Anne de Sales’s study of a distant Kham-Magar village, south of Dhaulagiri, in western Nepal. The author accurately pinpoints the importance of the imagined bonds constructed around co-residence within a clustered Himalayan village and indicates how the abstract notion of belonging resonates in local parlance. She shows how the notion of hamro gaon, ‘our village’,
xxviiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas familiar to most localities in the Nepalese middle hills, generates a strong feeling of attachment and a sense of cohesion which still prevails even after frequent journeys or migrations to the southern plains or beyond. The image of an integrated whole is given to outsiders, even if village life is marked by chronic factionalism. As a matter of fact, this idealized notion of community (or commonality) of the soil often hinders local conflicts. Only the best part is remembered and stands up to the hardship of daily life. In such cases, territoriality involves an intense emotional sentiment of commonness, which contributes to binding people together and anchors them in a particular place. These delicate bonds are forceful. Gisèle Krauskopff presents another interesting case, taken from Tharu farmers and cattle-breeders living in the southern Nepalese Tarai plains bordering the Republic of India. The members of this ethnic group have a long past as a semi-nomadic people in search of products in the jungle and the rivers, and their original sense of belonging was predicated on movement. According to the author, the Dangaura Tharus, that is, those settled in the Dang Valley, had until very recently a broad conception of territorial links, based on agrarian relationships (tenant/ownership of land) and ritual ties. Such an assimilatory pattern, which recalls the pre-Shah situation in the Kathmandu Valley, has been recently ‘frozen’ by the Janajati rhetoric. It has transformed original forms of belonging into geographically bounded ethnic groups. ‘Tharu’ now corresponds more strictly to the current definition of an ethnic group as enhanced in the geopolitical imagination of the Maoists: it has been associated with an exclusive delineated territory. Soil has become an ‘ethnic body’. In the third chapter, David Gellner deals with the indigenous discourse that has prevailed in Nepal since the 1990s. This rhetoric, endorsed by the UN’s language of indigenous rights, leads each of the country’s different ethnic groups to claim a specific territory where they have supposedly lived longer than anyone else. The activists belonging to these movements argue that “they belong to that place and the place belongs to them”. In the same way, Jyapu agriculturalists from the Newar community now claim to be the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley: all the other castes came later. Other indigenous intellectuals assert that Newar religion has its own specificities that owe nothing to India. These ideas enforce a sentiment of belongingness among the members of this ethnic group, to the detriment of the division into castes and separate religious groups (Buddhists/Hindus).
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In Chapter 4, Philippe Ramirez focuses on the intrinsically fluid, frequently-changing boundaries of ethnic groups in the Assam hills, between the Meghalaya plateau and the southern Brahmaputra plains, in Northeast India. He presents various examples of a complex intercrossing between a sense of belonging and ‘uncertain identities’ where the social structure, cultural patterns, ethnic labels, and language coincide only partly and do not automatically create clearcut groups. Like Krauskopff (Chapter 2), Ramirez argues that such a confused and open situation was the rule in the past, where, for instance, clanic belonging did not determine ethnic or tribal affiliation. Ethnicity is seen here as non-perennial, a constructed sentiment, according to historical contexts, with a possible conversion from one group to another, particularly in the pre-modern period. The recent creation of regional states has ‘ethnicized’ spaces by assigning exclusive rights over uninterrupted territories to a single ethnic group. The notion of belonging, restricted here to a ‘series of affinities’, has proved to be particularly fruitful. The last chapter in this section attempts to sketch a synthetic overview of state formation in Nagaland throughout the twentieth century. Sanjay Kumar Pandey, a political scientist, reconstructs the history of Naga nationalism and shows the vital role the British played in merging the scattered Naga tribes into a communal national identity. Similarly, Christianity and modern education created a sense of community among various tribes whose political life was formerly focused on small-scale villages. The fight was won in the end for an autonomous ‘ethnostate’ encompassing various Naga tribes. These groups were accorded the right to have an exclusive territory and political sovereignty over it. Sociologically, the Nagas’ sense of belonging was heavily sustained by the boundaries separating them from the Indians, who are seen as having a fundamentally different type of culture and persona. The second section of the book, ‘Socio-religious Bonding’, investigates another parameter of belonging that has so far hardly been studied from such an angle. Basically, religion is a crucial factor throughout the world that ties people together and it shapes a pervasive sense of communality, more specifically of brotherhood, within a group of believers. The realm of the sacred is always emotionally charged for those approaching it. As is the case with other forms of belonging, places and groups play a central role here. Both are invested with a transcendental dimension and provide a
xxxâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas feeling of belonging to devout people. There is however a difference between these two components: religious groupings with a common set of religious signs and practices are generally oriented towards internal cohesion, whereas sacred spaces are usually at the same time bounded, that is, they refer to a particular point, and transcendent, that is, they are widely open to an undefined group of followers. In his chapter, Axel Michaels focuses on a well-known sacred place in the Kathmandu Valley, the Pashupati Temple, which houses a form of Shiva who was the tutelary deity of the former Nepalese kings. Each year, the temple attracts thousands of Hindu pilgrims from various places in the Indian subcontinent. These people regard Pashupati as one of the most sacred tirtha for Hindus, a place of worship that transcends national boundaries. This transnational dimension explains at least partly the fact that the priests serving at the temple are chosen from South India, a region renowned for its learned Brahmans. The question therefore arises: To whom does this temple—a national sacred monument—belong? To these foreign Bhatta priests, accused by the locals of being greedy, corrupt, and outsiders, or else to the Nepalese priests, presently taking secondary position (as assistants), whether Newar or Parbatiya, instead? The question provokes vehement debate at a time when major transformations are affecting the country of Nepal and its temples. In Chapter 7, Gérard Toffin considers a Krishnaite religious grouping in the light of the notion of belonging. This concept seems invaluable when attempting to understand the fervent and emotional bonds that bind together the members of the same exclusive sectarian movement, here the Krishna Pranami sampradaya (or dharma). All members feel that they belong to a common whole. They are not united through blood or soil, but by devotional songs, by a corpus of highly revered texts and by regularly frequenting a limited number of sacred sites. As in other religious congregations of the same type, belonging here is transmitted through a spiritual parentage, parampara, centred around religious teachers. A transnational dimension once again emerges from the study: the sectarian movement crosses over the boundaries between India and Nepal. Furthermore, the chief maharaj of the sect is a Brahman of Nepalese origin, long settled in India. In this case too, Hindu religion radiates beyond national boundaries and ultimately creates over-worldly and transcendental forms of belonging.
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The role of religious representations and symbols associated with a territory is dealt with by William Sax in Chapter 8. This author convincingly shows that the widespread cult of the Nanda Devi goddess in Kumaon and Garhwal has contributed to enhancing a sentiment of belonging since the creation of Uttarakhand state in the year 2000. Ethnicity and language were not sufficient markers in this region to sustain a national sentiment around the newly recognized territory. The ritual landscape of the Himalayas and a procession occurring every 12 years in the Nanda Devi mountains supplement this deficiency. They are instrumental in creating a regional identity and are presently among the foremost symbols of belonging in Uttarakhand. The body of the state, in this case, has been inscribed in the mountainous landscape. This study provides evidence that territorial symbols and religious beliefs have the power to shape common feelings and belongingness. In the end, territories empower those who belong to them. Some pilgrimage sites display a syncretistic character or combine different religions on the same spot. Any affiliation and identification with one’s religion then become a puzzling issue and can lead to dilemmas of belonging. This is the issue raised by Jessamine Dana in her chapter, based on observations made in Muktinath, another famous religious site located in southern Mustang district, Nepal. Pilgrims visiting this place and religious people from different confessions permanently living there experience a sensation of space that holds both its own internal spiritual barriers and its common religious area. Such an experience is achieved by positioning oneself and others, including the anthropologist, who is sometimes included, and at other times excluded, from the category of religious persons, in the daily life of the shrine. The field of belonging then evolves into a dialogic type of entity and turns into a phenomenology of the mutual processes of definition and appropriation. For the most part, the third section, ‘Commitments and Conflicts’, lies at the interface between cosmopolitan, metropolitan, and vernacular processes. It attempts to describe the interaction between local, indigenous forms of belonging and new modes of classification and ordering imposed though national integration and governmental modes of politics. It deals with more flexible forms of attachments, occasionally dual or hybrid, engendering tensions among social agents. It focuses on situations of conflicts between various aspects
xxxiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas of attachment, and/or between old and new patterns of state administration, governing practices, and boundaries. Phenomena such as globalization, migrations, and new federal political structures are increasingly affecting the traditional social fabric. Moves from one place to another, and the subsequent deterritorialization especially, accelerate the creation of new forms of attachments that rupture with old parameters of belonging. In Chapter 10, Martin Gaenszle analyses the Nepalese community who lived in Banaras (Varanasi), India, in the decades before Indian independence. He makes two strong statements, in tension with each other: (a) Nepalese settled in this sacred Hindu town, on the bank of the Ganges, experienced a cosmopolitan atmosphere, speaking an array of different languages, and identifying closely with the democratic struggle of the newly decolonized Republic of India; (b) however, they expressed emotional loyalties towards Nepal, their birthplace, participating in the rise of Nepalese nationalism against the Rana autocracy and in the formation of a modern Nepalese identity by publishing a successful Nepali journal (Udaya). Most of them belong to both places equally. This dual form of belonging was all the more easy to bear as the border between the two countries was less marked than today. Kinship and territory are often viewed in anthropology textbooks as two separate modes of social organization and belonging. In his chapter, Ben Campbell runs against this clear-cut distinction, which he sees as an essentialist assumption. Taking as an example the Tamang-speaking villagers of Rasuwa district, in central Nepal, he documents examples of amalgamation between these two categories. Kin and locality are in fact intermingled in daily life and cannot be analysed separately since the Tamangs in this region are essentially mobility-oriented and forever on the move. Their kin-groups cannot be apprehended through sedentarist models. Similarly, the development programmes elaborated in outer spheres do not match the ‘processual’ and fluid forms of belonging so important in the local life of these agro-pastoralists. In the end, the contemporary social life of the local Tamangs is portrayed as being organized according to flexible patterns of strategic identifications, relational creativity, and shifting boundaries. In Chapter 12, Joëlle Smadja analyses the transformation of forested areas and their surroundings into national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Such forced implementations negatively impact on the
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populations, who previously used these territories for their subsistence. They are now considered outlaws when doing so. For the safety of protected animals in the well-known Kaziranga National Park (Assam) for instance, the Mising Scheduled tribe has had to endure not only the setting up of the park in a wooded area, but also its various extensions on the shifting islands they have exploited up to now. They were used to moving freely over this land and to living off its resources. Deprived of their right to use these resources, they no longer feel they belong to them. Many of them are poachers and encroachers. Two world views—one vernacular, the other more international, oriented towards tourism and stressing the ecological dimension of nature—are opposed here. These ecological conflicts, which are becoming increasingly frequent today, could be solved by better participatory management. The focus here is the deep sense of belonging attached to any form of territory, the related material and immaterial possessions and the means of exploiting nature. The emergence of new federal states in the Republic of India after 1947 must be viewed diachronically. This is what Maheshwar Joshi succeeds in doing in Chapter 13. He traces back the history of this part of the western Himalayas and shows in a most convincing way how conflicting senses of belongingness were at work during the creation of Uttarakhand in 2000. The main opposition was between Paharis (hills-people) and Maidanis (people from the plains), with the latter being seen as immigrants. M. Joshi analyses, among other things, the political reasons why this new state, in spite of a strong sense of identity associated with the hills and mountains, includes a portion of lowlands and has chosen a Maidani as its first chief minister. The concept of belonging also fits in well with the study of other topics, such as the imposition of new rules, procedures, and administrative schemes on local communities. Taking the example of a district court of justice in a small town of Himachal Pradesh, Daniela Berti (Chapter 14) shows how village-based forms of loyalties are confronted with judicial procedures rooted into an urban and state context. Here vernacular forms of belonging come in opposition with the ‘national’ or ‘modern’ system of justice, provoking a clash of values between two societies. The analysis of court proceedings particularly illustrates the difficulty that judicial institutions have in managing the local solidarities and dynamics at work inside the village. The position that each person involved adopts in the debates
xxxivâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas and the negotiations regarding the issues at stake among the court officials open the door on a fascinating field of research.
Belonging as an Object of Reflexivity in Contemporary Himalayan Societies Once we acknowledge the often striking asymmetries between diverse social locations of belonging as described in most of the chapters collected here and the powerful exclusionary practices between social ‘insiders’ and ‘aspiring newcomers’, some major facets of belonging come to light. The human quest to belong can either be buttressed by striving to maintain the status quo—feeling more or less compelled to protect one’s social realm—or by striving for admission to a new collective. The concept of belonging alerts us to important dimensions of social struggles in the field of inequality and social mobility. The moment the social status quo is challenged, the sentiments of belonging can turn into certainties about who is part of us, and who does not belong. As a number of the chapters collected here reveal, under conditions of mobilization, things that go without saying—the tacit sense of belonging—are likely to turn into tools of social boundary-making. Consequently, the more people’s sense of belonging coincides with clear-cut practices of boundary-making, the more reflexive—and exclusive—attachments, allegiances, and loyalties become. When Glick Schiller (2007: 460ff.) distinguished between ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’, she drew our attention to the manifold instances when personal characteristics and attachments are moulded into criteria of belonging or not-belonging in political contestations. Belonging ceases to be a property that goes without saying. Given the tremendous force of present-day identity politics and given the numerous challenges to old-established ways of belonging described in this volume, the human quest to belong explicitly appears more and more prominently on political agendas. Belonging matters, we repeat. The human preoccupation with belonging increasingly translates into political action. It transcends our orientations towards the future. Kannabiran (2006) suggests making a distinction between the ‘politics of belonging’ and the ‘politics of becoming’—the difference lying in the latter’s possibilities for contesting the status quo. The collection of chapters in
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this volume demonstrates that modernization efforts are at work in both cases. Supra-local influences have rendered the search for belonging an issue. Nationalization of resources, displacement, homogenizing national we-group definitions, and other dynamics of disembedding have instigated the perception that social locations that were formerly taken for granted, come under threat. On the other hand, modernization has offered new opportunities. Social and spatial mobility, coupled with a dissemination of formerly unknown cultural repertoires and role models for social visions and action, induce actors to seek entry into new social realms and to forge new social bonds. Today, the human sense of belonging becomes increasingly contested…and all the more precious. This loss is caused by frequent confrontations with social boundaries and with external forces, and is buttressed through a heightened alertness to new possibilities. With an increased number of options, the potentiality of choice renders belonging an object of reflection. Not being a tacit fact of life any more, the importance of the interplay between commonality, mutuality, and attachment is increasingly felt and acknowledged. Belonging becomes an object of debate, something that may be lost— and therefore something that ought to be protected. As impinging at social locations and horizons, globality itself becomes an object of reflexivity (Beck et al., 1994). More human preoccupations focus on locating oneself and one’s peers within the global realm and on engaging in meaningful politics of one’s own. Whether people belong by choice or by compulsion, the modern reflexivity opens up new opportunity spaces—as embattled as the envisaged options may be.
NOTES ╇ 1. We would like to thank David Gellner, Eva Gerharz, Felix Girke, Christian Meyer, and Susanne Kröhnert-Othman for helpful comments on drafts of this introduction. ╇ 2. One way in which the use of the term ‘belonging’ helps us to advance is because it shows up the nationalist and nativist assumptions underlying so many contemporary claims. Certain people belong, that is, have primordial links to particular places, while others do not. As powerfully argued by Simmel (1908): What place do nomadic people, for example, the irregular migrants, in the modern ecumene occupy, except precisely being viewed as disadvantaged and perennially forced to play on their history of victimhood?
xxxviâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas ╇ 3. Latour (1991) uncovered the problematic of such modern dichotomies as body/ spirit, materiality/discourse, actor/object, and others—that were hitherto dealt with separately in diverse areas of research. ╇ 4. For a critique of the notion of identity, see Brubaker and Cooper (2000). More recently, see also Lenclud (2008). ╇ 5. Rosaldo (1989: 168–95), for instance, has driven our attention to ‘multiplex subjectivities’ with numerous intersecting identifications. We claim that commitments and loyalties entail, besides identifications, relations and attachments of diverse kinds. ╇ 6. See Fortier (1999) on how Italian immigrants to London took possession of Church, making it ‘their place’ of dense social relations. ╇ 7. Culture is what goes without saying for those who share knowledge—as powerfully argued by Luckmann, Schütz, Berger, and others. ╇ 8. Notably, Neidhardt (1979), Wimmer (2007), and Tyrell (2008). ╇ 9. We are here taking groups for ‘collective actors’ that are well aware of their complex constitution. 10. This passage relies upon Tyrell’s (2008: 50ff.) discussion. In the Himalayan context, these dynamics were analysed by Ramble (2008). 11. Most probably, under the conditions of transnationality, groups turn partly into networks—an issue we shall take up in our next volume. 12. Already Weber (1921: 15) had highlighted the importance of ritualizations in the life of groups. 13. These elements form part of the subtitle. The context is the contemporary Western world. 14. As Fortier argues, “belonging refers to both ‘possessions’ and ‘appartenance’. That is, practices of group identity are about manufacturing cultural and historical belongings which mark out terrains of commonality that delineate the politics and social dynamics of ‘fitting in’” (1999: 42, author’s emphasis). 15. There are numerous examples from Nazi Germany of how a strong sense of attachment, including patriotism, prevented Jews from leaving the country in time. 16. Frequently depicted as ‘target populations’ or as ‘clients’. Similar developments were recently described by Peter Geschiere (2009) for African contexts.
Bibliography Anthias, F. 2006. ‘Belongings in a Globalising and Unequal World: Rethinking Translocations’, in Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabiran, and Ulrike Vieten (eds), The Situated Politics of Belonging, pp. 17–31. London: SAGE. Ardener, E. 1989. ‘“Remote Areas”—Some Theoretical Considerations’, in E. Ardener and M. Chapman (eds), The Voice of Prophecy and Other Essays, pp. 211–23. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash. 1994. Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition, and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity. Bernot, L. 2000. Voyage dans les sciences humaines. Qui sont les autres? Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne.
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Brubaker, R. and F. Cooper. 2000. ‘Beyond Identity’, Theory and Society, 29: 1–47. Burawoy, Michael. 2000. Global Ethnographies. Berkeley: University of California Press. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York/ London: Routledge. Crowley, John. 1999. ‘The Politics of Belonging: Some Theoretical Considerations’, in Andrew Geddes and Adrian Favell (eds), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe, pp. 15–41. Aldershot: Ashgate. Dieckhoff, Alain. 2004. ‘Introduction: New Perspectives on Nationalism’, in Alain Dieckhoff (ed.), The Politics of Belonging: Nationalism, Liberalism, and Pluralism, pp. 1–15. Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO: Lexington Books. Durkheim, E. 1930. De la division du travail social. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Favell, Adrian. 1999. ‘To Belong or not to Belong: The Post-national Question’, in Andrew Geddes and Adrian Favell (eds), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe, pp. 209–27. Aldershot: Ashgate. Favell, Adrian and Andrew Geddes. 1999. ‘Introduction’, in Andrew Geddes and Adrian Favell (eds), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe, pp. 10–14. Aldershot: Ashgate. Flinders, Carol Lee. 2002. The Values of Belonging. San Francisco: Harper. Fortier, A.-M. 1999. ‘Re-Membering Places and the Performance of Belonging(s)’, Theory, Culture & Society, 16(2): 41–64. Gellner, D. (ed.). 2009. Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia. New Delhi: SAGE. ——— (ed.). 2010. Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia. New Delhi: SAGE. Geschiere, Peter. 2009. The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Giddens, A. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Glick Schiller, Nina. 2007. ‘Transnationality’, in David Nugent and Joan Vincent (eds), A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, pp. 448–67. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Glick Schiller, N. and G. Fouron. 2001. Georges Woke up Laughing: Long-distance Nationalism and the Search for Home. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gluckman, M. 1955. The Judicial Process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1981. Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. hooks, bell. 2009. Belonging: A Culture of Place. London: Taylor & Francis. Kannabiran, K. 2006. ‘A Cartography of Resistance: The National Federation of Dalit Women’, in Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabiran, and Ulrike Vieten (eds), The Situated Politics of Belonging, pp. 54–73. London: SAGE. Latour, B. 1991. Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Paris: La Découverte. Lenclud, G. 2008. ‘Identité et identités’, L’Homme, (187–88): 430–45. Luhmann, N. 1970. Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. ——— . 1997. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
xxxviiiâ•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Migdal, Joel S. 2004. ‘Mental Maps and Virtual Checkpoint: Struggles to Construct and Maintain State and Social Boundaries’, in Joel S. Migdal (ed.), Boundaries and Belonging: State and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices, pp. 3–27. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Neidhardt, F. 1979. ‘Das innere System sozialer Gruppen’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 31(4): 639–60. Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna. 2005. ‘Das Lokale als Ressource im entgrenzten Wettbewerb: Das Verhandeln kollektiver Repräsentationen in Nepal-Himalaya’, in Bettina Heintz, Martin Kohli, Richard Münch, Peter Preseindörfer, and Hartmann Tyrell (eds), Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Sonderheft Weltgesellschaft, pp. 479–99. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Ramble, Charles. 2008. The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in Highland Nepal. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosaldo, R. 1989. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press. Sassen, S. 2006. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schatzki, T., K. Knorr-Cetina, and E. von Savigny. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge. Schlee, G. and K. Werner (eds). 1996. Inclusion und Exklusion. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. Simmel, Georg. 1908. Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Toffin, G. 2005. ‘From Kin to Caste: The Role of Guthis in Newar Society and Culture’, Lalitpur, Social Science Baha, Third Mahesh Chandra Regmi Lecture. Tyrell, Hartmann. 2008. Soziale und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Aufsätze zur soziologischen Theorie. Hrsg. Bettina von Heintz, Andrè Kieserling, Stefan Nacke, and Renè Unkelbach . Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. van Schendel, W. 2005. The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia. London: Anthem. Weber, M. 1972 (1921). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr. White, J.B. 2004. ‘Belonging to a Place: Turks in Unified Berlin’, City and Society, 8(1): 15–28. Wimmer, A. 2008. ‘Elementary Strategies of Ethnic Boundary Making’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(6): 1025–55. Wimmer, R. 2007. ‘Die Gruppe—ein eigenständiger Grundtypus sozialer Systembildung? Ein Plädoyer für die Wiederaufnahme einer alten Kontroverse’, in Jens Aderhold and Olaf Kranz (eds), Intention und Funktion: Probleme der Vermittlung psychischer und sozialer Systeme, pp. 270–89. Wiesbaden: VS. Zolberg, A. and W.L. Long. 1999. ‘Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States’, Politics & Society, 27(1): 5–38.
PART I TERRITORIALITY AND INDIGENEITY
2 ANNE DE SALES
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Chapter 1 Hamro Gaon Practices of Belonging in Rural Nepal ANNE DE SALES
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS1 In the hills of Nepal, where walking still remains the only means of transport in most parts of the country, encounters on the trail involve a conventional set of activities and dialogues through which travellers greet one another. Resting their backpacks on purpose-built platforms by the side of the road, they will invariably ask: “Where are you coming from? What brings you here?” A traveller who is not ready to engage in the conversation may keep his or her answer to a minimum and simply give the name of the last halt. While the reason for the journey remains vague, the traveller may add the information that he or she ‘came wandering’. The leisurely nonchalance conveyed by the expression ghumne, ‘going about, wandering’, may sound like a strange euphemism for anyone who knows the hardships of trekking on the mountain trails, but it indicates that no more details will be forthcoming. Still, a chain of questions and answers will most often lead to the name of the locality from where the travellers are, that is, the places where they were born: rural Nepalis continue to identify with their place of origin even if they have ceased to live there. In this respect, they do not differ much from city-dwellers, whether from Nepal or elsewhere. Our native place or our residence are among the first pieces of information we think of providing in order to introduce ourselves to a new acquaintance. However, the difference becomes clear when Nepalis express their commitment towards their ‘village’, gaon.2 Discussions by the side of the road as well as in Kathmandu or even in European cities, to where
4 ANNE DE SALES many have emigrated since the 1990s—and where I also conducted interviews—invariably focus on the future of their village and on the perspectives for development. Some of them may talk of the projects they have for their communities, while others will complain of the lack of opportunities in the remote areas where they were born. Whether their general outlook is optimistic or pessimistic, their existence seems closely associated with their native locality. They speak of themselves when they speak of their village. This is equally true of the Nepalis who have migrated out, but who remain the owners of the land and continue to stay attached to the relatives of their kin they have left behind. The plural rather than the singular form of the possessive adjective that is used in the expression hamro gaon, ‘our village’, also evokes the community to which the speaker thereby signifies that he belongs. This observation has to be placed in the context of a mostly rural country where the minority of city- or town-dwellers (around onefifth of the population) nevertheless provide the dominant model to which the population aspires. Although the way to the cities or abroad is full of pitfalls, especially for poor emigrants, it is seen as the only possible escape from economic and political dead ends in rural areas. The sentiment of belonging that rural Nepalis are prompt to express towards their native locality therefore needs to be scrutinized more closely: Are they expressing nostalgia for a mythical village, an imagined social unit, or are they referring to an organic entity that is historically constructed and therefore likely to be transformed as they forge their future? The sentiment of belonging involves a strong substantive component, something that will be illustrated in the first part of this chapter by means of a short ethnographic account of the relationships between villagers and their territory. However, the relevance of the territory in the definition of a locality, and indeed the very existence of the ‘village’ in South Asia, has been questioned by several scholars. The review of the literature on this subject presented in the second part will help us to reconsider the notion of the village from various theoretical and ethnographic points of view. In the light of this discussion, the third part of the chapter will be devoted to a case study involving the ethnographer, in this case myself, being asked by the villagers to show commitment towards their village in certain domains. The interaction between locals and a (familiar) outsider will be used as a point of entry into the construction of the relationship of
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belonging to a village in a remote area in west Nepal at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
“THE AIR AND WATER ARE LIKE MEDICINE …” The Kham-Magar area covers the upper valleys of three adjacent districts (Rolpa, Rukum, and to a lesser extent Baglung) populated by Kham-Magar, a Tibeto-Burman-speaking group. They number about 40,000 and form a minority in the shadow of their cousins, the Magar, the largest ethnic group in Nepal. The Magar have been relatively more open to outside influences, often living far away from their homeland in the centre of the country, and have enjoyed an international reputation as soldiers of the Gurkha regiment since the nineteenth century. Over the last 15 years, however, the KhamMagar area has come to the forefront of the news as the heartland of the Maoist insurrection. Although this ethnic group was not at the origin of the movement, they were conveniently situated to be cast by revolutionary propaganda as the exponents of an original, pristine ‘primitive communism’. The unknown and ‘backward’ Kham-Magar suddenly found themselves at the vanguard of the revolution, most often in spite of themselves.3 As per their traditional occupations, the Kham-Magar people are agro-pastoralists. They grow maize, barley, wheat, and potatoes, and raise cattle, goats, and sheep. This traditional economy is still dominant, but villagers now rely more and more on other sources of income to bridge the food gap and to buy salt, oil, and clothes and provide their children with education. The area has experienced a high level of out-migration and a good number of families survive thanks to the remittances sent by one of their members. The migrants working in Korea, Malaysia, and the Middle East are better off than those who hire themselves for seasonal labour closer to home, in India, and earn just enough to survive. A growing number of villagers have enrolled as British Gurkhas over the last two decades, a new phenomenon in the history of this population. The Kham-Magar settlements are compact, some of them comprising up to 400 houses or more, alongside two castes of artisans, the blacksmiths and the tailor-musicians. In the caste hierarchy, these two groups are ranked below the Kham-Magar, whom they call bista (‘master’). Over the generations, the two groups of artisans have
6 ANNE DE SALES maintained jajmani ties through which the Kham-Magar repay their services in kind. The majority of Kham speakers are concentrated in 14 Village Development Committees set apart from Indo-Nepalese multi-caste settlements. The combination of this feature together with the absence of any means of communication—there was no road in Rukum district before 2003—creates the image of a closely integrated and rather isolated Kham-Magar country. Nankhar4 is one of these villages that I have been visiting from time to time since my first period of fieldwork there, 25 years ago. Nankharle do not embark on a journey without ritualizing the bond that unites them to their village territory and to the ancestors attached to it. They do this even for a trip of a couple of days to the district headquarters. This territory stretches beyond the habitations and the cultivated fields, and includes forest and pastures—the wealth of the village. It is delimited by natural frontiers, such as rivers and ridges. The main paths around the settlement are marked by restingplaces, each one erected in memory of the ancestors of a local lineage. After leaving their houses, travellers stop at the resting-place of their lineage and offer the ancestors a few drops of the homemade alcohol that they are given before departure. From thereon, the dense agglomeration of more than 300 houses built close together on the hillside offers the image of an integrated whole. This is the ‘big village’ (thulo gaon), in addition to which there are a number of hamlets scattered on Nankhar’s territory. The big village is mostly endogamous, a feature that the smaller units cannot reproduce, since they usually comprise a single exogamous lineage. It is rare, nevertheless, for their inhabitants to marry outside the territory of Nankhar. After a day’s walk, travellers will leave the Kham-speaking ‘country’ or desh, where ‘the air and water are like medicine for its inhabitants’. They will no longer feel at home, and will be careful to make contact with fellow travellers, discussing the condition of the trail and making sure that there will be places to stay in case of need. Once at the district capital, the Nankharle will choose the lodge where they are most likely to meet their co-villagers. The road and the buses interrupt these networks, but these are reactivated on arrival in Kathmandu, where kinship and residence tend to determine the way in which the Kham-Magar residences are grouped. Away from their ancestral country, villagers tend to keep to the two fundamental principles of association of the members of a community: blood and territory.
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Even though these two markers of identity—the place where one is born, and the parents from whom one is born—appear to be given, social scientists have shown how they can nevertheless be manipulated in various ways as useful emblems in political culture.5 Suggesting that villagers speak of themselves when they speak of their village implies a ‘natural’ coincidence between the two—an atavism of the sort that is well expressed by the informant quoted earlier, for whom the air and the water of his or her country are the best medicine, a remedy for all ills. Richard Burghart describes the attachment that natives had for their ancestral country in nineteenth century Nepal, precisely in the same terms as my informant in November 2006: “A country is also characterized by its unique environment (havapani, literally, ‘air and water’) that sustains the physical constitution of the native” (Burghart, 1984: 106). Together with this substantive continuity between the country and the bodies of its inhabitants, there is also a moral character that defines one country in particular. A common language, lore, and customary practices are seen as dharma, the right way of life specific to each country. Burghart’s purpose in his ground-breaking article is precisely to show how the concept of country, with its moral and natural components, is gradually extended to the kingdom, and how by overlapping the status of citizen with the category of native, a new sort of membership is established in the polity (ibid.: 121). The process, we may add, took a sharper turn after the mid 1990s with the revolutionary leaders’ attempt to mobilize the population on nationalist grounds. It is no longer air and water that are invoked as medicine for the native, but the Nepalese land, soaked with the blood of the brave—consanguine brothers by virtue of their common sacrifice on the battlefield. One who is not a brother is an enemy, and must be kept out of the borders of the mother country. The revolutionary propaganda aims at nurturing a substantive link between the population and its territory. However, in this process, localities are subsumed by the territory of the nation. If a few villages are singled out and made famous as emblems of the revolutionary struggle, they are selected as metonyms for Nepal.6 In this discourse, the highly localized virtues of specific places vanish in favour of the unified nation. It remains to be seen whether the sentiment of belonging that villagers used to have for their ‘country’ is being successfully transferred to the nation.
8 ANNE DE SALES It seems that political culture is mainly concerned with naturalizing its own constructions. Social scientists, by contrast, are shown to be deconstructing them in the following section. In the mean time, people get on with their lives and try to make sense of things, as we shall see in the final part of this chapter.
IS THE VILLAGE A RELEVANT SOCIAL UNIT? The literature concerning the notion of the village in South Asia is vast, and may have generated as many myths as it has helped to debunk. It all started with Dumont’s critical review of the British administrative literature from nineteenth-century India, which shows how the ideal of a village community—seen as a ‘self-sufficient republic’, isolated, stable, and indifferent to the divisions of the kingdom—that emerges from texts that cite one another without substantiation from fieldwork observations, is contradictory to this ideal. Dumont substitutes ‘a relational view’ of the village, seen ‘in the context of caste and power’, for the dominant ‘substantialist point of view’ of the first British writers who saw the village as ‘a thing in itself’ (1966: 86). His own view led him in turn to undermine the territorial dimension of the locality, which more recent studies insist on bringing back into their analysis.7 The myth of the pristine self-sufficient republic pervaded Panchayat ideology, in India as in Nepal, where the village community became an emblem of patriotism.8 It should be added that far from having evaporated in the light of factual evidence or historical reconstruction, the myth is still very much alive. In Nepal, the revolutionary ideology, in spite of its strong opposition to the Panchayat, took over, as we mentioned earlier, ethnic groups; and the Kham-Magar in particular have been encouraged by Maoist propaganda to see themselves as incarnating the ‘original communism’ (adim samyabad) of a Golden Age, when society had not yet been corrupted by the caste system. Not to be outdone, the Nepalese film and tourist industries exploit a mystic version of the same myth, and present Himalayan villages and remote valleys as so many Shangri-Las.9 We shall see in the following sections that development ideology forged yet another—very different—myth of the village by which villagers are confronted. If Dumont saw in the Indian village the construction of a British myth, the first ethnographers working in Nepal, just after the
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establishment of the new circumscriptions of the Panchayat system, were quick to distinguish the gaon, the ‘village’, as an administrative unit, from other sociologically meaningful entities. Lionel Caplan’s observation on this score deserves to be quoted in full: The word gaon, usually translated as ‘village’, is employed in a variety of contexts. It can refer to the general area, so that a man out for a stroll will say simply ‘I am going to the gaon.’ It may denote the named unit of residence, i.e. what I have meant by settlement. The region subsumed by the New Panchayat Committee is called gaon, although it includes a number of settlements. Within the confines of any settlement a small cluster of houses may be called a gaon. Finally a cluster of four contiguous settlements inhabited by Limbus10 is called Limbu gaon. (1970: 23)
This remark concerning east Nepal matches Marc Gaborieau’s ethnographic survey in the centre of the country: “The word gaon is never univocally applied to a single well-defined territorial unit” (1978: 23). Therefore, when ethnographers speak of their ‘village’, they confuse it with the locality to which their experience is limited—a misuse of language. In order to understand the complexity of the Nepalese settlements, Gaborieau suggests starting not from the territory, which cannot be defined in isolation, but from the social units that organize the territory—specifically, the lineages that exercise power over their members. The process whereby a locality is constituted commands its physiognomy: someone who clears the area receives a plot of land from the king, and with it the hereditary title of chief (mukhiya). He marries his sisters and daughters to newcomers and allows them to settle in his territory (taluk). His marital affines, son-in-laws or sisters’ sons, will soon be the heads of their own lineages. Still, the founding lineage will keep its precedence over the newer lineages. A named locality is therefore “a juxtaposition of hamlets created by land clearer lineages into which affines, service castes and buyers of land came to aggregate themselves” (1978: 65). The complementarity between founders and affines remains the basis of all power units. This model of the formation of a locality based on the lineage dynamic is also largely valid for the Kham-Magar area. However, there are two important differences, and the first lies in the fact that hardly any outsiders ever came to buy land in the area with which we are concerned here. The initial organization therefore is not disrupted,
10 ANNE DE SALES and the Kham-Magar are the owners of the land they cleared. The second difference concerns the territorial component of the village. Although lineages are still localized in Nankhar—a lineage neighbourhood is referred to as Nepali deraa, ‘tent, camp’ reminding us of the migration history of the lineages—the ‘big village’ is more integrated than seems to be the case with the Indo-Nepalese settlement of the kind described in central Nepal by M. Gaborieau or, more recently, by Philippe Ramirez (2000: 172–74). Further evidence of the local anchoring of the population in its village territory is found in shamanic songs: the description of the universe within which the shaman operates is centred on the fireplace of the house where the ritual takes place. The song then ‘pans out’, revealing more of the village as the viewpoint recedes: the house itself, the line of houses belonging to brothers, the sectors of the village where local lineages are concentrated, the margins of the village where the service castes reside, the higher part and the lower part of the village, and finally the four directions of the world (de Sales, 1991: 274–75). The term for village in ritual language, nam, means ‘world’ or ‘earth’, and is associated with a quasi-homonym, nem, the sky: the association of these two terms denotes the universe. Gérard Toffin, who found similar features in the Newar communities in the Kathmandu Valley, suggests that “the tribal villages of South Asia, at least those located on the fringes of Brahmanical centres, correspond to a different model” from the Hindu ones (2007: 121).11 Dumont’s work on the historical construction of an ongoing nineteenth century myth as well as Gaborieau’s ethnographic reconstruction of the constitution of Nepalese localities helps us to unpack the notion of ‘village’ while leaving untouched the question of the relationships that the inhabitants have with their village. Stacy Pigg’s more recent work points to the growing contradictions that villagers had to face during the Panchayat period (1962–90) as the ideology of development became more and more dominant. As is well known, the unit at the base of the pyramidal system of representation called ‘Panchayat Democracy’ was precisely the village, or gaon Panchayat.12 King Mahendra’s ‘Back to the village’ campaign of 1967 expresses clearly enough how much ideological stress was put on the development of the village as a tool for national integration. Pigg has analysed the way in which development programmes, radio programmes, schoolbooks, and posters have produced “a typical, generic village, turning all the villages of rural Nepal into the
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village” (1992: 491). This enterprise of ideological standardization was organized around a bipolar opposition between ‘development’ on the one hand and the ‘backward village’ on the other. The process that is initiated is not unlike a process of colonization in the sense that villagers, the ‘targets’ of the campaign, tend to be caught in an alien image of themselves, that of the ignorant and fatalistic villager,13 while at the same time they actively engage in developing opportunities for themselves or their community. I myself observed that villagers often seem to reproduce these stereotypes dutifully, as if they feel the need to feed me first with what they think I think of them as ‘villagers’. Once we moved to a more trusting and familiar ground, my interlocutors showed more confidence and honesty in the analysis of their condition. Still, the stereotype does not lose its hold, and they tend to designate the others, their neighbours, as ignorant villagers. The dichotomy between village and development is deeply rooted in the minds of people. In other words, and to take up Stacy Pigg’s argument, the ideology of development that was actively propagated during the Panchayat period transformed specific and singular places into a social category, the village, that was imposed from above. At the same time, I would argue, this category acquired a life of its own, so to speak, and is used by the villagers in various ways, as the case study in the following section will illustrate. It may be useful to close the foregoing presentation of the works on the notion of the ‘village’ with Appadurai’s (1995) theoretical reflections on the production of locality. The author reminds us that a locality is never a given, even in the small-scale societies on which most ethnographers have tended to concentrate until relatively recent times. As a matter of fact a whole set of practices, including ritual activities, are needed in order to socialize and localize space and time in the experience that individuals have of them, something that Appadurai calls “the task of producing locality as a structure of feeling” (1995: 213). In this way, what is seen in the ethnographic literature as resulting from local knowledge must be reconsidered as producing local knowledge. This structural-functionalist point of view encourages us to examine our data with a view to identifying the practices that nurture the sentiment of belonging to one’s village, rather than taking this sentiment for granted. The ritual behaviour of the Nankharle traveller embarking on a journey that was described in the previous section of this chapter
12 ANNE DE SALES can be understood in this light as an effort to create a substantive link with the ancestral land. While this libation to the ancestors can be understood simply as an act of devotion, it also reasserts the traveller’s ownership of the land he or she is about to leave. The ritual tie is a mutual bond between the two protagonists: if the traveller belongs to the country, the country equally belongs to the traveller. The question behind the presentation of the case study in the following section is whether new practices are created alongside the old ones, revealing a renewed ‘structure of feeling’, or whether the old practices are likely to wither away, as the village becomes a thing of the past.
NANKHAR 2006: A SNAPSHOT The interactions with certain villagers from Nankhar asking me to commit myself to their village took place in a specific socio-cultural context. Soon after the inception of the People’s War in 1996, the Maoist leaders adopted the two districts of Rukum and Rolpa as their base area, involving (as we saw earlier) the Kham-Magar communities in particular. The impact of this occupation varied from one village to another; but a few features were common to all. The rebels expelled national and international development agencies, but were not in a position to provide any viable alternative. Their activities in this domain were restricted to the building of toilets, resting-places in the names of their martyrs, and a few bridges; their unfinished ‘martyrs’ highway’ in Rolpa district may be seen as a fitting symbol of their achievements. Along with a sentiment of being abandoned by the state, villagers developed the conviction that they had only themselves to rely on. In spite of the efforts of the Maoists to prevent it, out-migration intensified under the insurrection, and this may be the next most important phenomenon that shaped villagers’ lives; localities have been striving to create links with the outside world. A last feature worth mentioning in the perspective of our reflection on belonging concerns the domain of village politics, which, among the Kham-Magar, is marked by chronic factionalism. With the radicalization of national politics under the insurrection, this feature could only be reinforced, thereby further threatening village integrity.14 Overall, the tense political context put the village communities to the test.
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The visit to Nankhar that I am recounting took place at the end of this time of duress. This was in autumn 2006, six months after a spectacular mass movement forced King Gyanendra to abdicate on 24 April. I arrived soon after the national festival of Dasain. Although there had not been a communal celebration of the festival, which the Maoists had banned, students and relatives took the holiday as an opportunity to go back home, some of them after several years of absence. The population felt relieved with the end of hostilities and was regaining hope. My host, Rujidan, is a key person in the life of the village. As a schoolmaster he had taught several of the young people who had since enrolled on the side of the guerrillas.15 Although he is not himself a Maoist, Rujidan boasts that his former pupils never ceased to show him respect and remember him as their first guru or master. This position made him a natural facilitator; and it seems that he often succeeded in negotiating rather tense situations involving the rebels, the security forces, and the villagers. It was clear during my last visit that the newly appointed president of the village people’s government,16 a rather shy blacksmith from a neighbouring hamlet, paid Rujidan frequent visits to discuss village matters. Rujidan kept refusing to hold any official position on the village committee, in spite of the several offers that were made to him by the Maoist cadre in charge of the area. As he likes to say, he belongs to the village, not to political parties. Rujidan left his father’s house in the centre of the village—‘too crowded’—and had his own built higher on the slope, just on the border. This is a three-storey house that can be seen from far away, the only one of its kind in the settlement. Reminiscent of the buildings that one finds in towns, it expresses Rujidan’s ambition to modernize his locality. On my arrival he showed me the improvements he had made since my last visit: the lavatories are not in the adjacent vegetable garden any more, but on the second floor, where the residential unit is laid out. He had transformed a room on the ground floor, next to his shop, into a cinema hall: every evening at 8 p.m., teenagers, children, and even mothers with their babies push to get into the small room that offers about 40 seats on wooden benches lined up in front of a TV. The precious device is protected against the pervasive dust by a pane of glass. The price of a ticket is `10 for adults, and `5 for children. The petrol-fuelled generator is installed on the top floor. The shop seems to offer a wide range of
14 ANNE DE SALES goods, although the most visible items are big jars of sweets for the children who crowd the place after school. Fifteen years ago, there was not a single toilet in the village; no vegetables, no cinema, no shops, no sweets. Apart from the profit he makes, Rujidan presents these innovations as the means to keep the population in the village. He wants to show that it is possible to live in rural areas, enjoy leisure and buy small treats as one might in a town. In the course of the last conversations we had before I left, Rujidan expressed a polite gratitude towards me for being faithful to the village and coming back in spite of all vicissitudes. Everybody here knew that I was interested in ‘old stories’, in shamans, and in the ‘culture of our Nankhar’, but now it was time for me to get involved in the development of the place. People were waiting for me to show some commitment and to participate in the welfare of the village. My name would be engraved in the stone like the names of other benefactors; I would be remembered. There were several possibilities: I could make a donation towards the building of a hydroelectric plant, the last-born of Rujidan’s projects; I could contribute towards the repair of the trail, the Bhume Path—so-called because it is consecrated to the god of the soil—or of the platform where the dances celebrating the spring festival are performed. A third possibility would be to help the shamans to participate in the parade of the various ethnic groups organized by the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) held on 9 August in Kathmandu. And finally, I was invited to become a permanent member of the new Kathmandu Society of Nankhar. I suggest that these projects sketch an auto-portrait of the village, a snapshot of Nankhar in 2006. Several ties to the community and its locality are imagined in order to create a membership or, in the case of Nankharle who are themselves also approached, to renew this membership. The fact that the contributions are mainly financial should not be mistaken as just a way of squeezing a few thousand (or even more) rupees out of a comparatively rich foreigner. After all, villagers themselves are invited to contribute a donation, especially the few wealthy migrants who happened to be successful abroad. It may be worth recalling in this regard that villagers who could not pay their taxes in the past were banned from the locality. As we go more deeply into the details of these projects, the importance of the financial involvement in the construction and maintenance of the relationship of belonging will become increasingly apparent.
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The Hydroelectricity Project (and the School): Playing a Double Game and Building a Non-political Civil Society Hardly any development projects have been initiated by the government in Nankhar, and there were no drinking-water taps before the mid 1990s.17 The secretary of the District Development Committee, entrenched in the district capital during the insurrection, did not venture into the village even after the Maoists declared a ceasefire and invited him back. If there was to be development of the place, then it was left to the villagers alone. Five years earlier, Rujidan had asked the town crier to call the villagers for a meeting in front of the traditional village chief’s house. He wanted to build a hydroelectric plant, not only to acquire various commodities, but also to increase the village income through revenue from the electricity bills. Many of the villagers opposed this: ‘What will electricity bring apart from more expenses?’ The village funds so far had been constituted by the taxes that the Nankharle collect for letting people from outside the village graze their cattle on their communal lands. Nankhar enjoys an exceptionally large territory that it takes one day to cross on foot, and shepherds from quite a few other settlements (inside and outside the VDC) use their pastures. But the kind of budget required for generating electricity is much higher, and each household would have to contribute to this enterprise through donations. After five years of preparation, Rujidan’s project was registered in the district office: the Nepalese government promised 45 lakh rupees,18 and the British Department for International Development (DFID) 30 lakh on the condition that the villagers would provide the rest (about one-third of the total amount) in cash and work. Ten lakh had been collected within the locality and from villagers who had migrated out. Yet, there was still a long way to go. Rujidan had forged his experience of communal projects when he fought for the village school. This first endeavour has certain parallels with the hydroelectric scheme. When Rujidan came back from Kathmandu with a university degree (BA) in 1983, he first taught in the village primary school, but soon tried to upgrade it to secondary status. Each district has a quota of permissions every year to open a secondary school, and he had to compete with four other VDCs. The vice-president of the District Council happened to be a ritual
16 ANNE DE SALES friend (mit) of his father. Thanks to the president’s prolonged absence in Kathmandu, the vice-president put pressure on the Central District Officer, and the permission was accorded in 1985. Rujidan could open the secondary school, and was made its headmaster. The next step involved upgrading the school to a higher secondary status. The procedure was similar, but the application had to be supported by a larger sum of money: 500 rupees per household had to be collected, instead of the 25 rupees previously required for the secondary school. Villagers were reluctant to invest such a substantial amount of money, and Rujidan had to promise to reimburse them in case the project failed. He also had to exercise care in the way he handled the two factions of the village. During his collection rounds, he would try to ensure that he was accompanied by a member of each faction on alternate sorties. This in turn caused villagers to accuse him of playing a double game. He had to plead his cause and assure his co-villagers that he was working for the benefit of the community. It was not until 1995 when he came back from the district capital after the permission was granted that he was honoured by the population, who received him with the gift of a goat. There are now more than 400 students in the secondary high school, who come not only from other settlements in the VDC, but also from the neighbouring valley. The 14 schoolteachers hope to go even further and open a college. The success story of the school is nuanced by the thoroughly disappointing results of the 12 students who took their School Leaving Certificate in 2006. The reasons for this are many—absenteeism is one of them—but it is worth mentioning that rather than tackling the causes at the root of the problem, the committee running the school prefers to overlook them and press for the opening of a college, which would be an even bigger source of prestige for the village. In the same line of argument, it is surprising that the concrete improvements brought by hydroelectricity are never really spelled out. Electricity is a must, ‘the door to development’, as the stock formula has it. Apart from pragmatic reasons for wanting electricity, it seems that the driving force of this project is ideological, relegating the image of the village as ‘an area of darkness’ to a vision of the past.19 These two projects also show the reluctance of the majority of the villagers to risk their own money for the common good. The perseverance and the power of persuasion of leaders such as Rujidan may overcome their resistance, but the difficulties encountered reveal how
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much the community is inherently divided along the lines of lineages and political factions. The solidarity of the village community is an ongoing process that needs to be re-enacted periodically—notably through donations—against the recurrent tendency of individuals to nurture an exclusive sense of belonging towards their own kin (dajyu-bhai).
Repairing the Village Ritual Places Repairing the Bhume Path and the area where the young people dance for several days during the spring festival relates directly to the origin of the village. The foundation myth refers to the first act of colonization by the ancestor who cleared the land and made a pact with the god of the soil. It was agreed that every year, a member of the founding lineage would sacrifice a ram to the god in exchange for good harvests. An analysis of the festival,20 which can only briefly be mentioned here, shows that the ritual has preserved traces of the history of the formation of the locality. A celebration of the village community has been grafted on to the initial lineage cult. As a matter of fact, the god of the soil receives two sacrifices in the course of a 24 hour period when the village is ritually cloistered against the outside world. The communal character of the first sacrifice is clear: the sacrificial ram is led through the village along the Bhume trail, collecting and taking on himself all the ills of the community before being sacrificed to the god of the soil. His owner, a Magar householder whose lineage affiliation is irrelevant in the context of this ritual episode, beheads the animal. The second sacrifice, by contrast, is performed in secret by a young pujari. The latter is a member of the founding lineage, and the ritual has the features of a lineage cult. This brief overview corroborates Gaborieau’s model of settlement formation recalled earlier, according to which the founding lineage maintains a privileged ritual status. The arena where the dances are performed during the spring festival is located at the entrance to the village, where a religious guest house (dharamsala) has been built, and recently restored. This is a simple house for the use of pilgrims and traders. For several days in a row—until rain comes—men and women, young and old, perform 22 different steps or styles of dances. These are claimed to be an example of ‘pure’ Kham-Magar culture. The consolidation of
18 ANNE DE SALES the platform aims at improving the image of the locality in the eyes of outsiders. Rather than the traders descending from Dolpo in the north with their loads of woollen belts, the Nankharle hope one day to see a group of tourists pitching their blue tents on the platform next to the guest house. Apart from a few isolated individuals, however, no tourist group has ever ventured into this area. It should be added here that after the Maoists banned all communal sacrifices in the villages, the spring festival was celebrated in Kathmandu on the public ground of the Tundikhel. There, the ceremony is not truncated and ends with the sacrifice of a ram by a young pujari. It gives Kham-Magar who reside in the capital the opportunity to gather together around a village practice and enjoy their favourite dances, while the names of the benefactors are declared through loudspeakers, along with the size of the generous donations they have made to their community in Kathmandu. If the worship of Bhume was at first the secret cult of the founding lineage in a locality, and then the cult of a locality including all the resident lineages, it is now the cult of the Kham-Magar community as a whole, away from its homeland but nevertheless united by its common god of the soil. The political and economic circumstances—the Maoist cultural repression and the out-migration—have contributed to the constitution of an ethnic community in semi-exile in Kathmandu.
Participation of the Village Shamans in Autochthons’ Day The Kham-Magar have not yet participated in the celebration of ethnic groups that the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) initiated two years ago. As Rujidan’s project was taking shape, so too was the vision of a dozen or more parading shamans—dressed in their jingling costumes, adorned with the hides of wild animals, and evoking their special link to a non-human world, heightened by their feathered headdresses—‘magnificent and powerful’ as the songs put it; they would dance to the sound of their drums beaten in unison. The urbanites of Kathmandu should be reasonably impressed. The problems of organizing such a project reveal the difficult meeting between the two worlds of the village and the capital. First, the transport: among the 20 shamans in the village, fewer than a dozen
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would be youthful enough to endure the five-day walk to the roadhead and embark on a bus for Kathmandu. Besides, the shamans never carry their own paraphernalia. Each would need an assistant, and the general cost of travelling to the capital would be doubled. Moreover, the shamans would have to be invited as a matter of honour (ijjat); they are not mendicant yogis. The difficulty concerns the matching of the local understanding of the shamans with their cosmopolitan recognition. When I eventually suggested that the shamans from the neighbouring village of Taka might be included in order to form a more impressive group of dancers, I received the retort that the dances were different from village to village and that the shamans would not come to a common understanding on this matter. Although this last point may be negotiated in the future, it was clear that the project was aimed at the promotion of Nankhar village rather than of the ethnic group as a whole. It should be added that the presentation of shamans as typical representatives of Kham-Magar culture is a rather recent move on the part of the members of this ethnic group, although this remark cannot be generalized to all localities. In Taka, the inhabitants have been conscious of the potential of their shamanic tradition since an ethnographic film was shot there by Michael Oppitz in 1979–80. By contrast, in the village of Thabang, which the Maoists declared their capital, shamanic practices are rejected as superstitious. This rejection only reinforces the general trend towards modernization and development initiated in the 1960s. It is not clear yet whether the Kham-Magar shamans are to be adopted as a spectacular feature of a local culture for presentation to the outside world or, on the contrary, discarded as the remnants of a backward society. The local elite will be prompt to choose the first option, whereas less educated individuals are likely to be more inclined to self-criticism.
The Kathmandu Society of Nankhar The last suggestion is in the same spirit as the scheme to take part in Autochthons’ Day to the extent that it aims to support the Nankharle in their attempt to stretch the frontiers of their village to Kathmandu, and possibly further. Born in November 2006 under the presidency of Rujidan’s younger brother, an ex-Gurkha soldier, and a five-man committee, the society has just created its logo: juniper trees in the
20 ANNE DE SALES background evoke the impressive juniper grove that marks the site of the village, near a river. The logo is in Nepali and in English. By the same token, I was promised that my certificate, a Nepali document declaring my permanent membership of the society, would be translated into English when the society’s funds allowed a print-run in Roman script: it is hoped that the Nankharle society’s members will include Nepalis educated abroad and foreigners. The society’s funds are entirely constituted of donations by its members. There is a plan to rent, and later perhaps to buy, a room in Kathmandu where travellers from the village can stay for a few nights. Picnics will be organized in order to gather together the villagers that city life might otherwise disperse.
CONCLUSION The projects to which I was invited to contribute aim at the reconstruction of a community that has been put to the test by years of insurrection and instability. ‘Democracy’ (loktantra) opened a new era in which the village has been given a new definition by its inhabitants. The first two projects inscribe the locality in a temporal dimension: one is reviving the origins of the locality (the Bhume Path) while the other one is planning its, literally, bright future (the hydroelectricity plant). The last two projects concern the spatial definition of the village, an entity that is seen as part of a network through which the locality is connected to the capital at the centre and hopefully beyond: the recognition of the Kham-Magar shamans within the Nepalese ethnic network would be one step in this direction, while the Kathmandu Society of Nankhar would be another. The village seems to stand between two other social units that are in competition for individuals’ belonging: the lineage on the one hand and the ethnic group on the other. The political factions that Rujidan was at pains to keep on his side were a legacy of the initial formation of the locality and the primordial distribution of power among lineages. It needs the perseverance of a leader to neutralize, even if only temporarily, these chronic conflicts, at the price of being accused of playing a double game. Rujidan’s eventual triumph is also the triumph of the village over the lineages. The other unit to which villagers feel they belong is their ethnic group. This used to be contained within the limits of its ancestral ‘country’, but it is
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now more and more delocalized to the extent that the ceremony for the god of the soil is performed in Kathmandu. In this process, the notion of ethnic group or indigenous population becomes part of a cosmopolitan discourse on ethnicity as a prelude to international recognition. The shamanic parade illustrates the contradictions inherent in this process, as well as the resistance that some villagers express against the prospect of the ethnic group’s encompassing the village, rather than the village representing the ethnic group. The village is the seat of these tensions, and we are reminded of Appadurai’s thesis that a locality is not a given, and that in order to create it as an organic entity, a great deal of cultural work is necessary. In the case of Nankhar, villages are turning to ancient practices in addition to inventing the new activities discussed earlier. The repair of the Bhume Path, and of the place where the dances are performed in honour of the soil deity, illustrates this endless process of construction and reconstruction, not only of the place itself but also of the bond between villagers and their locality: the importance of repairing and maintaining the trail and the dancing ground is not so much that these locations are sacred, as that the undertaking itself is a token of the villagers’ collective effort as a community. To conclude, we have seen that the ideal of the village community as an autonomous republic in British India was underpinned by the politics of representation, and that this ideal pervaded Panchayat ideology in Nepal. In the same way, the overwhelming discourse of development has had the effect of a top-down imposition of a certain vision of the village as a social category (characterized by ignorance and backwardness) rather than as a specific place. However, as the projects for the improvement of the village show, villagers, or at least the local elite, maintain a certain distance from this externallyimposed characterization. Rather than doing what Maoists (or, in other parts of Nepal, Christian missionaries) are doing—that is, abolishing superstitious rituals, alcohol consumption, and animal sacrifice for the sake of being modern—villagers are formulating a distinctive notion of the village. Hamro gaon is neither a rural atavism nor a passive recipient of modernization programmes conceived by a far-away national mastermind, but a hospitable entity that is open to modern technology and education while remaining firmly grounded—literally—in the cult of place, with all the emblems of perceived traditionalism. This involves the protagonists’ extending the frontiers of their village far beyond its original territory, while
22 ANNE DE SALES remaining unequivocally in place. Analysing the notion of village does not mean explaining it away. That is something the villagers themselves would not permit. Finally, what shall I get in exchange for my donations? “You will be remembered,” Rujidan said. My name will be engraved on a slate above the Bhume stone, along with the names of other benefactors. In much the same way as the ancestors are remembered by travellers on the point of departure, I shall be tied to the place.
NOTES 1. I wish to express my gratitude to Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gérard Toffin for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this text. 2. For the present, I shall take this term as a generic designation for any human settlement in rural areas. 3. The reasons for this are analysed in several publications (Gersony, 2003; Ogura, 2007; Sales, 2000). 4. Nankhar, a fictional name, signifies ‘village’ in the Kham language. For David Watters, the term might have derived from the Tibetan mkhar, ‘palace, fort’ (2004). An alternative, knowing that the Magar tend to nasalize Nepali terms, would be Nepali nagar, ‘town’. 5. Concerning the Himalayas, see Clarke (1985). 6. As a Nepali-language newspaper put it at the beginning of the People’s War: “Rolpa is not just a district, it is Nepal” (Muktiyuddha, p. 1). 7. For a review of the literature on this subject, see Lambert (1996), in particular her criticism of Dumont’s theory. Taking a gender perspective on her material collected in rural Rajasthan, Helen Lambert shows that the village is a relevant social unit and that its territorial component cannot be subsumed by caste as the primary social distinction. See also the recent collection of articles in Berti and Tarabout (2008). 8. The village was a central category in nationalist Indian imagination, but the political theories built around it were not homogeneous. Surinder S. Jodhka (2002) brings out the different views of three leaders: for Gandhi the village was a site of authenticity, for Nehru it was a site of backwardness, and for Ambedkar the site of caste and oppression. 9. One of the first historical films in Nepali, Simarekha, illustrates this point (de Sales, 2002). 10. Limbus are one of the Tibeto-Burman-speaking minorities living in Nepal. 11. Among several factors, the author stresses the “firmer boundaries” of these localities that tend “to function as a world of their own, a total society” and express their solidarity through “the cult of a communal deity who protects the local territory”. 12. This administrative entity of the village council was meant to represent an area with a population of approximately 2,000 people, which often led to the incorporation of several small settlements.
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13. In a work that was published shortly before Pigg’s study, Bista (1991) adopts a different approach to the exploration of the causes of this colonized condition, seeing its roots in the political and ideological dominance by higher castes. 14. I have analysed this process in another publication (de Sales, 2009). 15. At the time of writing, one of them, Santos Budha, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and chief of the People’s Government of the Magarant Autonomous Region. 16. The ‘village people’s government’, gaon janasarkar, is the Maoist appellation for the ‘Village Development Committee’ or VDC. 17. Following the visit to the village by a British Gurkha officer, the Kadoorie Foundation in association with the Gurkha Welfare Trust financed the drinking-water project. 18. One lakh (100,000) of Nepali rupees represents roughly 1,000 British pounds. 19. Focusing on long-distance rural migrants to the steel town of Bhilai, Jonathan Parry (2003) distinguishes between the pragmatic reasons why the elite among the migrants are likely not to return to the village and the ideological power of “a vision of modernity which antithetically constructs the village as an area of darkness—a ‘waiting room’ from which one hopes to escape”. 20. See de Sales (1996, 1997).
REFERENCES Appadurai, A. 1995. ‘The Production of Locality’, in R. Fardon (ed.), Counterwork: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge. London: Routledge. Berti, D. and G. Tarabout (eds). 2008. Soil and Territory in South Asia. Delhi: Manohar. Bista, D.B. 1991. Fatalism and Development. Kolkata: Orient Longman Limited. Burghart, R. 1984. ‘The Formation of the Concept of Nation-state in Nepal’, Journal of Asian Studies, 44(1): 101–25. Caplan, Lionel. 1970. Land and Social Change in East Nepal: A Study of Hindu-tribal Relations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Clarke, G. 1985. ‘Blood and Territory as Idioms of National Identity in Himalayan States’, Kailash, 18(3 and 4): 89–132. de Sales, A. 1991. Je suis né de vos jeux de tambours: La religion chamanique des Magar du Nord. [I was born from your drumbeats: The Shamanic religion of the northern Magar]. Nanterre: Société d’ ethnologie. ———. 1996. ‘Dieu nourricier et sorcier cannibale: Les esprits des lieux chez les Magar du Nord (Népal)’, [Nurturing gods and cannibal sorcerers: Spirits of place among the Northern Magar]. Etudes rurales, (143–44): 45–65. ———. 1997. ‘Notes sur la claustration villageoise au Népal’, [Notes on village cloistering in Nepal], in S. Karmay and P. Sagant (eds), Les habitants du toit du monde. pp. 547–64. Nanterre: Société d’ ethnologie. ———. 2000. ‘The Kham-Magar Country, Nepal: Between Ethnic Claims and Maoism’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 19: 41–71. ———. 2002. ‘L’histoire comme vous ne l’avez jamais vue: un film népalais’, [History as you have never seen it], Autrepart, 24: 125–39.
24 ANNE DE SALES de Sales, A. 2009. ‘From Ancestral Conflicts to Local Empowerment: Two Narratives from a Nepalese Community’, Dialectical Anthropology, 33: 365–81. Dumont, L. 1966. ‘The “Village Community” from Munro to Maine’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 9: 67–89. Gaborieau, M. 1978. ‘Le partage du pouvoir entre les lignages dans une localité du Népal central’, L’Homme, 18(1–2): 37–67. Gersony, R. 2003. Sowing the Wind: History and Dynamics of the Maoist Revolt in Nepal’s Rapti Hills. Report submitted to Mercy Corps International. Jodkha, S.S. 2002. ‘Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar’, Economic and Political Weekly, 10: 3343–53. Lambert, H. 1996. ‘Caste, Gender and Locality in Rural Rajasthan’, in C. Fuller (ed.), Caste Today. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ogura, K. 2007. ‘Maoists, People and the State as Seen from Rolpa and Rukum’, in H. Ishii, D. Gellner, and K. Nawa (eds), Political and Social Transformations in North India and Nepal, pp. 435–75. Delhi: Manohar. Parry, J. 2003. ‘Nehru’s Dream and the Village “Waiting Room”: Long-distance Labour Migrants to a Central Indian Steel Town’, Contribution in Indian Sociology (NS), 37(1 and 2): 218–49. Pigg, S.L. 1992. ‘Inventing Social Categories through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal’, Society for Comparative Study of Society and History, 34(3): 491–513. Ramirez, P. 2000. ‘Subjects and Citizens: Rural Headmen in Argha-Khanci’, in P. Ramirez (ed.), Resunga: The Mountain of the Horned Sage. pp. 170–221. Lalitpur: Himalbooks. Toffin, G. 2007. Newar Society: City, Village and Periphery. Lalitpur: Himal Books. Watters, D. 2004. A Dictionary of Kham: Taka Dialect (A Tibeto-Burman Language of Nepal). Kathmandu: Central Department of Linguistics.
Chapter 2 Fluid Belongings: The Weight of Places in a Valley of Western Nepal Gisèle Krauskopff
The dominant rhetoric of ethnic identity in the current political situation in Nepal strengthens cleavages between caste or ethnic groups, jat, thought of as naturally bonded units of belonging that value birth and common origin as the defining features of their membership. By contrast, this chapter focuses on a local setting that exemplifies other parameters that may bind together social and kinship units, such as common residence or collective farming labour. The case under study—that of the Tharu farmers living in the Dang Valley during the 1980s and before, reveals the existence of non-exclusively bonded forms of belonging and social units with fluid limits that remained open to newcomers. It also highlights the contradictory evolution of this fluid pattern under the regulations of the nation-state. The importance of residence will first be illustrated by describing two key units of belonging—villages (seen as groups of houses) and houses—that bring out the contractual nature of the ties built through labour cooperation and marriage arrangements. I then highlight the fluidity of these units, and the ritual and economic processes that created an ‘open territorial body’,1 which until recently prevailed over exclusively bonded forms of belonging. My presentation stands as a counterexample to the contemporary tendency to foster barriers between ethnic groups in the name of immemorial tradition, indigenousness, and ascription at birth. Mutual cohesiveness, such as settling a new farm has produced social ties and created a wide-open ‘territorial body’, the ‘country of Dang’, or Dang desh, before the supposedly primordial dimension of ethnicity emerged.
26â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF The framing principle of the present analysis is the perspective of the locality. My ethnographic material was in the 1980s strongly influenced by the time spent in one village, Baibang, and the relationships I developed there. Since the 1990s, rapid changes have dislocated the village and house structures and my research has been ‘delocalized’, following the moves of the local people along new paths. The ‘disembedding’ mechanisms induced by the new political context and the globalization process have brought to the forefront other forms of belonging, like being ‘Tharu’ during the janajati yug,2 or being ‘young’ or ‘slave labourers’, kamaya, that are particularly meaningful in contemporary national politics.
The Agrarian Context: Farming and Migration in the Tarai Dang was a rich lowland farming valley of the Tarai of western Nepal, mainly inhabited by Tharu farmers until the middle of the twentieth century. High-caste (Bahun and Chetri) inhabitants from the hill country of western Nepal have been in close contact with the local farmers for centuries, but have only settled permanently in great numbers in the valley since the eradication of malaria in the 1950s. This valley was the jewel of the ‘little Hindu kingdom’ of Dang-Salyan, which kept its privileges after the conquest of Nepal by the Shah dynasty and during the Rana period (1846–1951). This kingdom was definitively suppressed in 1961, at a time of great turmoil: land reforms, the intensive permanent settlement of Pahari or hill people, the expropriation and emigration of the local farmers, and the inauguration of the Panchayat system (1963–91). The courtiers of this historic kingdom had owned land in this fertile valley since early periods—most noticeably the Kanphata Yogi ascetics, who controlled large tracts of land and whose religious institutions were very influential. They were absentee landlords, but settled permanently in the valley in the second part of the twentieth century. Until the Rana period, the agrarian system of the Tarai was characterized by an impermanent land settlement linked to the underexploitation of this vast forested plain. But the situation varied greatly from area to area, depending on the availability of ‘free land’ and labourers, the control exercised by a state apparatus from the centre,
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and ecological constraints. This flexible pattern of settlement has hence to be seen as a polarity between a ‘centre’—a land under official control, a permanent settlement (a jimindari, a mauja)—and its moving periphery of land settlers. This tension is the outcome of an early centralization process set in motion by the little Hindu hill kingdoms that managed to appropriate the agricultural surplus of the Tarai land, following older political centralizing forces in the plain about which we know little.3 During the nineteenth century, when plenty of land was still ‘free’ or not permanently settled, or when the farmers were unsatisfied, whole ‘villages’ could move in order to escape state control or a tightening up of state control, particularly in times of crisis at the political centre.4 Since the 1950s or 1960s, many changes in terms of land registration have occurred in the Dang Valley; but agrarian controls in and outside the valley have been in operation from an early period. The Rana era progressively saw a final settlement in the valley, but the land ratio in other areas of the western Tarai was still favourable to migrant farmers. The periphery was then incessantly moving and the local gentry—religious institutions of the Nath Yogis or kings’ courtiers and their local Tharu representatives—tried to keep the farmers in place. This impermanent agrarian pattern and its tensions have to be kept in mind to understand the fluid forms of belonging described here. They developed at the crossroads of two axes: vertical links of agrarian dependency forged under the centralization process of state formation and horizontal links drawn by a web of ‘contractual’ relationships between ‘houses’, through labour cooperation and marriages, which is the element that I shall first highlight.
Villages and Residence Until the very beginning of the 1980s, arriving in Dang, one entered a valley encircled by hills and criss-crossed by small and large rivers. The hills in the background drew a kind of natural boundary. Over the hills stood the outside world: towards the north, the Sesh country from where people came down on their horses, bringing cattle or herbs; towards the south, Madesh, the flat lands haunted by ‘fever’.5 However, Dang farmers had numerous connections with the West, or Buran, as it was then called, that offered land for migration and
28â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF clearing.6 Before the eradication of malaria, many transient figures of ascetics, traders, or officials crossed the valley at specific seasons. The valley ‘opened’ between October and April, and remained ‘closed’ the rest of the time. At any distance, one could see huge bamboo groves hiding Tharu villages in the middle of their fields, bright yellow mustard fields in the winter season, green paddy fields during the monsoon and after, and brown dry fields in the spring season. But by the 1960s it had already become common to see the isolated houses of recent migrants from the hills settled on an area of ‘free land’, on flooded river beds, or in the middle of nowhere; Pahari villages (of hill migrants) having totally replaced Tharu villages; or small shops on the trails leading to the main bazar (market). New buildings—the few brick ones housing the Panchayat administrations and the school—pointed to a change in the territorial organization. But they were still situated outside the villages, in Tharu terms, ‘in the jungle’. No motorable road linked the valley to ‘Nepal’ and the outside world, but there was an airfield bringing americani, that is, white people, the most visible being the members of a huge development programme.7 Even landlords or jimindar, particularly Brahmans, were living on the village fringe in multi-storeyed brick houses or in bungalow-style houses. Villages hidden in their tight bamboo groves contrasted with isolated houses spotting the landscape. More and more Tharu farmers were however settling outside the village boundaries, largely because of the agrarian and tenurial changes brought by the 1960s land reforms. The permanent settlement of hill migrants since the 1950s and 1960s, including the landowners who were previously absentee landlords, has greatly changed life in the Dang Valley. Nevertheless, living in a Tharu village still meant to belong to that village. Villages and houses remained the key units of belonging. When meeting somebody on a trail, asking for the name of his/her village and house was the common means of interaction and presentation (McDonaugh, 1984: 74). When I travelled with my fellow villagers, after several months of stay, I was introduced with hamar baibangik huithi: “She is of our Baibang”, “She belongs to our village”, “She is our own”. The high level of unity of Tharu villages was striking (ibid.: 75). A village was a lane, a galli, flanked by two lines of houses. With a few exceptions, a village had one threshold, one well, one shrine, and, if you looked carefully, four wooden pegs at each corner of the
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group of houses.8 The trail crossing the village was also marked at its north and south exits by other pegs, which were worshipped at two significant periods of the year: the ‘opening’ of the valley to travellers and outsiders and its ‘closing’.9 The fields were hence situated outside the limits protecting the houses and their inhabitants, including the cattle. The village was first and foremost a community of people living together, sharing a threshold, a well, and a shrine—a community of labourers working together. The communal organization of the ‘village’ was hence expressed in collective labours such as roofing or building a house, in the communal free work given to landlords or priests, or in the participation of all the houses in death rituals, or the organization of all the village marriages on the same days (Krauskopff, 1989a). Another persistent feature was the value attached to the produce of the land, which prevailed over the value of the land seen as a territorial or landholding unit.10 The link to the land was not crucial. A village had also one local chief, mahatahwa, and sometimes only one jimindar, as official owner of the village land (mainly Brahmans from the hills, and in the past generally absentees).11 The Nepali term gaon was common; but the village was also significantly called mauja, a nineteenth-century administrative term for an agrarian unit of tax collection during the Rana period, when the Tarai plains provided the larger part of the state revenues. Even if they looked like closed worlds, the villages have always been part of wider ritual and economic webs, as with the tenurial authorities extracting surpluses through taxes or forced labour. These external forces had not only influenced the formation and consolidation of ties between houses, but also constituted the centrifugal forces that induced the farmers to migrate. In the 1980s, however, the forces binding the farmers to the lands were stronger than those impelling them to move.12 This centralization process was also inscribed in the religious organization of the valley: desbandhiya gurwa, literally ‘priests who bind the country’, controlled a region ‘binding’ the villages together through their rituals. Farmers maintained different relations to the village community and to the land depending on their agrarian status. In the 1980s in Baibang, besides the two main landowners or jimindars (who were two Tharu), and a few small landowners who farmed their own lands, the majority of the farmers were raiti or kamaya: raiti had tenurial contracts with the owner of the land,13 while kamaya were paid a
30â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF fixed amount of grain on a one-year contract. While raiti participated in the village council, khel, with each house sending its eldest member as its representative; kamaya did not. With some risk of oversimplification, we could say that kamaya belonged to the house they worked for. Some kamaya were living in their own houses built on their landlord’s land, some not. When land was very abundant and the labour force insufficient—the prevalent pattern in the Tarai until the beginning of the twentieth century—the kamaya represented a dominant category of peasantry, peasants with no permanent relation to the land.14 The baharya labourers or ‘outsiders’ as described in another Tarai valley, Chitwan, illustrated this general pattern of farming (Guneratne, 1996). Such labourers used to move with their families, to find a better farming contract or to clear a new patch of land without paying any taxes.15 Today, on the contrary, kamaya refers to bonded labour, often as an inherited status. However, one should bear in mind that these land labourers are the remnants of an earlier form of peasantry with an impermanent relation to the land. Tilling the land together bound a community together, but on an impermanent basis. The process of house-naming illustrated both this fluid pattern and the importance of residence. A house was generally named with the toponym of the village left before arriving. Hence, at the beginning of the 1980s, Baibang was a big Tharu village, on the bank of the river Babai, containing 42 houses. Among them, 30 were named after their owners’ previous settlement (one, two, or three generations ago). Exceptions were houses with a position of authority or with a remarkable or unusual feature, such as the ‘house of the local chief’, ‘house of the regional priest’, ‘house of sandalwood’, or ‘house of the Vaisnav devotee’. But the majority had a toponym as their name, such as Goltakrahan, ‘the Goltakra’, and Butnahan, ‘the Butanya’. When visiting such a house, one could then say: “I am going to the Goltakra”, Goltakra being a village two hours’ walk from Baibang. No story of foundation was told, and no descent group was linked to the place, all having come from outside, including the landlords. The village was situated in the most western part of the valley, on lands that had been controlled by the Hindu hill kingdom of Dang-Salyan. The main landowners were Tharu—an unusual pattern—and the oldest house at the time of my research was far from being dominant: the family elder said that he was the first to settle in Baibang as an elephant care-taker for the local territorial chief (chaudhari), the ancestor of
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one of the Tharu owners of the village land. He described the site as covered with high grass, as is suggested by the village’s toponym.16 Sukhrawar, a village situated in the centre of Dang Valley, provides a contrasting example (McDonaugh, 1984: 60–84). Its toponym, ‘the dry place’ (or the ‘happy place’) is also the name of the descent group (or group of houses) said to have settled the place by building the first irrigation canal, the Sukhrawar or Sukhrorya (ibid.: 66–67).17 In the 1970s and 1980s, by contrast with Baibang, the ‘Sukhrawar’ were the dominant descent group and, interestingly, a very localized descent group, having consolidated their local position with ritual privileges confined to their own village. In spite of the difference from Baibang, many houses were also named according to an outside village toponym, but in a different way: the village where the wife of the head of the household came from (ibid.: 74).18 This naming process illustrated both the impermanent relation to the land and the collective farming of the same mauja land. Houses were linked to places in a very remarkable way, not as sites of immemorial origin, but as places from which you had ‘just’ come.19 This is certainly linked to the migratory habits of most of the Tharu farmers: settlements used to change regularly. The local group of descent, or ‘split house’, ghar phutlak—several houses having split from one former house—is one more illustration of the residential dimension of kinship units and of the key role of houses. It was the largest unit of descent at the local level, and the most significant one. Hence, the Sukhrawar or Sukhrorya were actually a kind of a big but split house claiming to be the village founders. Each offshoot bore the same name with additional terms, such as ‘big’ (elder) or ‘small’ (younger), or referring to a localization inside the village (north or south). The weight of the communal village residence was strengthened by a very strong tendency towards village endogamy: marriages were preferably arranged inside the village community, or with very close villages, which was the main alliance pattern in the Dang Valley. The widest unit of descent was actually the gotyar, but its corporate identity was very weak. Most gotyar had a very fragile genealogical memory, with a significant exception: four gotyar of priests whose corporate identity was wider because of their hereditary privilege of priesthood (regional or domestic) and the status of their god as a soil god (Krauskopff, 1989a,b). Descent groups could be identified by a nickname, but also, more significantly, through the
32â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF same group of gods venerated in each house. Besides residence, the sharing of the same deities binds people at different social levels, in houses and in local groups of kin houses.
Houses Built of wood and mud, with nice wooden frames, protected by a high thatched sloping roof and walls decorated with mud bas-reliefs, houses were light structures and easily moved. Some houses were however huge, containing up to sixty or a hundred members, as if it were necessary to maintain their unity, or, as was often said, impossible to split it.20 The house, big or split, was the core unit of genealogical membership, of marriage exchange, and of wider social webs. Hence, marriage was a kind of contractual arrangement between households, the most favoured being the exchange of sisters between two houses, usually inside the village or residing within very close range of it. This exchange was not repeated in the next generation.21 One great advantage of this system was to suppress the bride price, and to erase the debt or dependency induced by wife-taking. The exchange of sisters reinforced the ties between houses at the village and the residential level. Women maintained day-to-day links with their natal homes, and, most significantly, with their brothers.22 The alliance tie was a short-term contract between houses; or, as I would put it, as permanent as the shared residence. But the memory of this marriage exchange was kept for three generations through a specific ritual. This very common ritual again points to the house as the main kinship unit in marriage exchange, and its conceptualization as a body of spiritual entities. After marriage, women brought their maternal gods into their husband’s houses. These deities were said to belong to three ‘houses’: the maternal house, layer, the maternal uncle’s house, maman, and the mother’s maternal uncle’s house, jhaman. A group of gods identified each of them, and all the deities of the three maternal houses were propitiated in order, twice a year for each woman in the courtyard of the house, that is, ‘outside’ the husband’s house. Their small material representations were kept together, for each of the women, in a dry gourd container, outside the house. During my fieldwork, I realized that this ritual was the main source of information on descent groups, specifically the non-priestly
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ones (called kusumya), which were very numerous and evanescent. This ritual not only kept the genealogy of each house’s maternal affines, but was also a means to maintain the memory of the descent lines during three generations, through the worship of their gods. The specific priest in charge of this ritual knew much about the web of kinship relations between houses throughout the area where he was called upon to conduct worship. This ritual was hence a kind of kinship chart, a landmark in the evanescent arrangements linking houses. There was no story of lineage origin, neither descent nor migratory clan charts, such as is attested in the Nepalese Hill Groups. It was noticeably a ritual linked to marriage alliance that consolidated descent lines. Affinal and consanguineal links were represented as relations between houses and between gods, underpinning the house as the key social unit and each house as the centre of a web of relations.23 Spiritual entities played a central role in identifying houses as kinship units. It was commonly said—it was the main rule of exogamy—that to establish a marriage alliance the deities of the two houses involved should be different. But one could install a new deity: when moving to another place, or in case of disorder affecting the house, or, as we shall see, when changing the domestic priest. This ‘spiritual’ pattern of descent was therefore quite flexible, with blurred limits.24 A house with no son could hence introduce a son-in-law. It was also possible to incorporate transient workers, such as the kamaya, or even newcomers born in another group. We can find traces of this openness in the composition of some households’ bodies of deities, as in the case, for example, of a magar figure, described not as being from another jat or social grouping, but as coming from a different place and having a different way of life. This magar spirit was represented by a bow and an arrow, tools that symbolize ‘the hunter’, and are significantly never used in Dang, but that here identified this ancestral figure. This kinship pattern centred on houses may be thought as a kind of société à maisons (Lévi-Strauss, 1991), in which the economic and ritual dimensions appear essential to binding people together and organizing their social networks. But, considering the migratory farming pattern underlying this organization, these houses were in fact growing, splitting, or moving. It was neither the apical origin, nor a territory, nor a place, nevertheless, that was stressed, but rather
34â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF a web of more or less permanent relationships among open-ended units of membership.
Gods and Lands: The Making of a ‘Territorial Body’ Besides agrarian dependency, ritual links bound houses and villages together. Each house was actually a ‘client’ of a line of priests: each was linked to the main god of its priest, a deity that played a crucial role, since it was incorporated in the house’s genealogical group of deities. If the priest was a hereditary one—the dominant pattern in Dang Valley—his main god was installed ‘inside’ the house, sharing the same altar as other deities. If the priest was not a hereditary one, his god was part of the family identity, but was installed ‘outside’ the house, as if the process of absorption was not complete. Whatever the case, the gods of priestly lineages belonged to the group of deities identifying their client’s house or descent group, another illustration of the fluidity of the spiritual units defining houses. At a wider level, each village was also a client of a hereditary regional priest whose god was conceived of as the ‘soil god’, bhuiyar, of the village, and installed in the village shrine (in a small house). The regional priest, or desbandhiya, ‘the one who binds together the country’, was in charge of several villages, which together composed his ‘kingdom’, rajye or parganna. Ritual spaces (rajye) tended to coalesce with the territorial units of taxation or irrigation (parganna) controlled by the Tharu state representatives. These kingdoms without palaces duplicated the administrative and agrarian divisions of the earlier little Hindu kingdom of Dang/Salyan. Besides the agrarian relations that tied the village community around its leader (and often the local representative of the landowner), the relations between priests and clients have moulded the territorial organization of the Dang Valley.25 The process by which some family gods became soil gods has also consolidated the identity of the priestly groups. These lines of priests had a privileged ritual status and, by contrast with the other descent groups (kusumya), had a much more solid identity, transcending the group of local houses or ‘split houses’. A well-known story tells how the four gods of the priestly groups had divided the valley and the houses between themselves, legitimating their spiritual
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rights over ‘houses’ and villages in the Dang Valley (Krauskopff, 1989a: 90ff.). Unlike other contractual ties between households, the relationship between a priest and his client was hereditary. Comparative material from the neighbouring Deokhuri Valley suggests that this relation was frozen into a hereditary relationship under the impact of the incipient processes of state control and the permanent settlement of the Dang Valley (Krauskopff, 1989b). Linking gods to houses, to villages (as a group of houses), and finally to ‘territories’ (the ‘binding of villages’) generated a ‘country’, desh. In the second part of the twentieth century, this relation was maintained even when families migrated to the far western Tarai, transcending the locality and building a wider web of Dang Tharu membership. In a way this structuring social link between a priest and his clients through a god attached to a territory made a man a Tharu of Dang country, a Dangaura Tharu.26 This wider category of membership was then, in the twentieth century, maintained even after emigrating from Dang. In the case of the Dangaura Tharu, the importance of the residential pattern was coupled with a weak notion of ancestrality and an absence of speculation on any primordial origin. The relation to the land was impermanent, and labour solidarity prevailed. People moved with their gods and kept few memories of the past lands. This pattern has to be related to the practice of migrant farming, but contrasted with other nomadic social formations, like those of shifting cultivators who move inside a very well-defined territory linked to clanship or of nomadic cattle-breeders. Hence, while the Tharu easily break from the land they have intensively farmed and move with their gods and the gods that they worshipped in that land, the nomads of Ladakh are unable to uproot their territorial gods.27 To sum up, until the beginning of the twentieth century in the Dang Valley, belonging developed through two kinds of affiliation: becoming the farmer of a jimindar or of the Tharu representative of the state, or becoming the client of a priest of the soil (sometimes one and the same person). This well-defined configuration inside the natural limits of one valley is not found elsewhere in other Tharu communities of the Tarai. It is linked to the history of the Dang kingdom or Dangdesh. But this political territory was not bounded either: the little Hindu kingdoms were open political territories, particularly in so unsettled a land as the Tarai. In such a configuration, the limits of belonging were not stressed.
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From Open ‘Territorial Bodies’ to Bonded Ethnic Belonging In the 1980s, the population in Dang Valley consisted of a mixture of hill people (Parbatiya or Pahari) and Tharu. Parbatiya absentee landlords and new landowners had permanently settled in the valley. A cleavage was then consolidating between the farmers belonging to the country and the newcomers, who were landowners, outsiders, and high-caste people. Low-caste groups, particularly blacksmiths, potters, and tailors, had developed over the past a different relationship with the farmers; some, like the potters, becoming more or less ‘Tharu’, but living in separate villages. Old people still remembered their early years, when hill people used to come down to the valley at regular dates, to bring horses, cattle, or medicinal plants from Jumla, to trade salt or other products, or to take the surplus of grain. They were called lau lau, the ‘new ones’, like some kind of ogres, frightening the children. These ‘strangers’ belonged to an alien country conceived of as a different ecological milieu: Sheshi (people from the northern mountains), Parbatiya (from the hills), or Madeshi (from the plain to the south). In the western part of Dang, the most powerful people coming down the valley, the courtiers of the King of Dang-Salyan, who used to levy forced labour for their attendance, were welcomed in beautiful brick buildings belonging to the Tharu parganna chief. No Tharu farmers, not even the local chief, would then have thought to live in them, and these grand buildings were used, the rest of the year, as cowsheds for the cattle. In ritual texts, lau lau were collectively categorized as ‘rice thieves’, whatever their social grouping (jat): brahmans asking for ritual payments, yogis begging for alms, boat riders, dancers, oil-pressers, lacquer-makers, khair workers, or other transient sellers, all of them asking for rice. This identification of outsiders as ‘rice thieves’ emphasizes the paramount value of the crop and of the collective farming labour it takes to produce it. Those who did not share in the tilling and farming of the land, but asked for its fruits, remained outsiders. Those ready to share in the farming labour could, on the contrary, easily be introduced into the community. These facts bring out collective labour and other forms of solidarity as strong parameters of belonging. The use of very specific appellations in the Dang Valley for addressing people, such as gohi, ‘woman friend’, and gotchali ‘man friend’, pointed to a wider sphere of solidarity,
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independent of kinship. These terms contrast with ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, the common Nepali terms that are used to address people elsewhere in Nepal. Until the twentieth century and even later, whoever came from outside and settled in the Dang Valley became part of it, belonged to the Dang country, or desh, and could be introduced into the community through different forms of affiliation or by marriage.28 We have traces of this in the composition of some households’ bodies of deities, which contain, for example, figures such as the magar lineage figure, depicted earlier not as being from another jat or social grouping, but as coming from a different place with its own way of life. One of the dominant priestly descent groups has incorporated a Raji ancestral figure, represented in rituals by a boat and a fishing net. Some groups were even portrayed as descending from Brahmans, but not in order to claim a higher or the purest status. We also have traces of a slow modification from being a member of a country to being a member of a social (and hereditary) grouping, a jat, in the numerous strictures and penalties handed out to some Tharu of Dang for having married a member of another jat in the nineteenth century (Regmi, 1969). These punishments reveal that the absence of cast barrier was a problem for the central administration of this period, that contradictory concepts of belonging were then in confrontation in the Dang Valley, which was still an open ‘territorial body’. The categories of membership observed among the Tharu farmers living in the Dang Valley during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries contrast sharply with the hierarchical dimensions of affiliation existing among the Tharu living in the eastern Tarai. This situation is probably linked to the very ancient influence of the Mithila kingdom and its Brahmans (Jha, 1980), a kingdom that had legalized the caste system before the fourteenth century, and had a strong tradition of genealogists (ibid.). A different political, cultural, and historical context has induced hierarchical divisions in the eastern Tarai in a manner similar to that which Sinha has described for the Bhumij of central India (1962). ‘Tharu’ lived in both areas in great numbers, but the difference between the eastern and western Tarai has found a new incarnation in some proposed federal divisions of present-day Nepal. Richard Burghart (1984) has highlighted the transformation from ‘territorial bodies’ to ‘social species’ or jat that occurred in Nepal during the Rana period and the formation of the nation-state of
38â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF Nepal.29 The 1854 legal code based on the hierarchy of ‘social species’ or jat evidently constitutes a landmark in this process: “The ethnic concept of country had, by at least the mid-nineteenth century, [devel-oped into] being rendered in terms of species ‘jat’” (Burghart, 1984: 258).30 By ‘ethnic concept of country’ Burghart meant “various countries desha or des, in which the king’s tenants or subjects were, according to him ‘natives’ on the basis of ancestral authority”.31 However, in the specific case of the Tarai migrant farmers, the link to a des (or desh) was not based on an ancestral kind of authority, and moreover the link to the land remained unstressed.32 Interestingly, during the same period around the end of the nineteenth century when caste regulations were being enforced, some Tharu chiefs or priests searched for an apical ancestral figure, and in doing so wrote down a myth of origin (Krauskopff, 2009). This ‘mythography’ emphasized the joint creation of a country, the valley of Dang, and of a body, the body of the first Tharu, a ‘territorial body’, to use Burghart’s words. Dang was still an open country where working in or marrying in remained possible for any newcomer. The Rana law and its caste ideology had legalized, frozen, or obliterated other forms of belongings, transforming open territorial and environmental units into exclusively bonded groups defined by birth. This naturalization of social groupings through legal procedures had long-lasting consequences—essentializing belonging and fixing its limits of membership. Confrontation with other groups in a hierarchical system has strengthened boundaries. Hamar Tharu samaj, ‘our Tharu society’: this formulation was commonly used in the 1970s by the most educated people, who had started to write about the Tharu during the Panchayat period, perceived through their inferior position in the caste system. This young scripturalized elite had gone through the school process of Nepalization and the hegemonic ideology of a hierarchical order of ‘social species’. They have paved the way for a reflexive affirmation of membership expressed in terms of the ethnic fundamentalist tendency of contemporary politics. A limited and exclusive Tharu grouping, interestingly called ‘society’, has slowly emerged, transcending the locality (Guneratne, 2002). Contemporary constructions of ethnic categories appear, then, as avatars of the caste system. In such a context, the emergence of Tharuwan, ‘the land of the Tharu people’, with fixed boundaries—confined to the far western Tarai, including Dang in the geopolitically imagined Maoist federation—
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appears as a ‘bricolage’. It is a reformulation of the earlier concepts of ‘territorial body’ within the framework of the jat system, which influences contemporary politics so deeply, but in a territory with fixed boundaries. Noticeably, most of the so-called ‘Tharu’ do not live in Tharuwan, the ‘land of the Tharu’; but those who previously belonged to Dang desh are now the dominant group.33 This new territory drew physical boundaries over imagined ethnic bodies. The nation-state conceptions of territorial boundaries are crucial here. International boundaries, particularly the Indian boundary, are essential so that Nepali Tharu do not cross the border or try to unite with the Tharu living in India. In the past, on the contrary, people moved easily on both side of the borders. Nepal’s international political boundaries are significant to defining the contemporary Nepali Tharu ‘ethnic body’. ‘Belonging to a country’ and other concepts of ‘territorial bodies’ should be further explored in a comparative perspective. The residential pattern of belonging occurring in the Dang Valley could certainly be found in other areas of the central Himalaya, particularly in western Nepal, at different historical periods. The prevalence of territorial belonging might also explain some ethnic labels widely used in Nepal and including people of different languages or customs (like Tharu or Magar) who have been in close contacts with external powers and earlier kingdoms. In the non-exclusively bonded forms of social membership I have described, the community of people living and farming the land together prevailed over ancestral or primordial links to the land. A web of contractual relations between houses, through marriage, economic, and ritual practices, has led to the construction of a ‘territorial body’ that remained open to newcomers. Strangely enough, the disembedding dimension of the migratory farming system, in which the farmers’ relation to the land tilled remained impermanent, has strengthened the links between people, houses, or groups of houses, fostering social formations based on communal cohesiveness and solidarity. Cohesiveness has prevailed over conflicts, and social units remained non-exclusive. This form of belonging contrasts sharply with the caste system based on birth, separation, and strong hierarchical values, which has frozen exclusion, erased other concepts of belonging, like belonging to a country, and given birth to ‘ethnically defined closed bodies’, an ideology pervading the contemporary exclusive formations in Nepal.
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Notes ╇ 1. To use R. Burghart’s concept (1984). ╇ 2. I borrow this formulation ‘the era of the janajati’ from a controversial paper by M. Des Chenes (1996), contrasting the ethnography practised during the Panchayat period to that of the period since the 1990s, in which members of the Janajati (the ethnic or ‘autochthonous’ minorities) have themselves published books and so changed the research context. ╇ 3. The same lands in the Tarai have been exploited or abandoned at different periods in their history: we have traces of important early agrarian structures, as for instance in Simraongarh, the old capital of Mithila, destroyed in the fourteenth century. The numerous Buddhist remains point to an earlier wave of occupation and exploitation of the so-called ‘wild plain’ of the Tarai. ╇ 4. As numerous historical documents attest (Krauskopff, 2000: 37, 2006: 154–58). ╇ 5. These environmental concepts remind one of Burghart’s ‘ethnic concept’ of territory, defined as a “country and the people who lived in it, sharing customs, air and water, havapani (climate) and perceived as such by strangers” (Burghart, 1984: 229). ╇ 6. The beginning of the 1970s saw the last important emigration movement, from Dang to Bardiya district in an area called Buran. ‘Going to Buran’ then meant migrating outside the Dang Valley. In Dang, very small farmers started to settle their houses on a peace of bought land, often outside the villages. No systematic studies on emigration have been done both before and after the 1961 land reforms, but my observation in western Tarai (in Buran and further west) suggests that it is mainly households╯with registered tenurial contracts (mohi) that remained in Dang, while kamaya and poor farmers moved to new lands or to find better tenurial contracts. McDonaugh’s study (1997) shows that the majority of the farmers in Sukhrawar village became small landowners during this period. ╇ 7. The USAID Rapti Integrated Program, which was to influence future political ruptures in this area. ╇ 8. Factions nevertheless occurred, leading to fission, as is illustrated in Baibang, divided into two ‘villages’ and considered as a ‘broken village’ (Krauskopff, 1989a). ╇ 9. Hill people and Madeshis (from lowland India) did not visit or cross the valley between April and October. This seasonal pattern was still significant in the 1980s in organizing the ritual calendar (Krauskopff, 1989a). 10. A local form of usufruct, called potet, was one of the dominant systems until the beginning of the twentieth century and was still in existence in the 1960s. It was described as ‘eating the whole crop’ (and paying the minimum taxes to the state). Before the land reforms, tenures were more advantageous to farmers, like those of 1/7 (6 parts to the farmer), 1/6, 1/5, 1/4, and 1/3, the last one being still common in the 1980s, depending on the crops and the arrangements for each crop (provision of the seedbeds or not, etc.). 11. The land reform of 1961 divided the biggest landholdings and developed the buying and selling of land, leading to a proliferation of landowners (McDonaugh, 1997). 12. For a detailed presentation of the very impermanent relation of Tharu farmers to the land, and on the effect of the centralization process on emigration patterns, see Guneratne (1996) and Krauskopff (2006).
FLUID BELONGINGSâ•… 41 13. Registered as mohi since the 1961 land reform, with varying share crops, mainly 1/3 or 1/2 (Krauskopff, 1989a). 14. Kamaya means ‘labourer’. Kamaya status has changed greatly during the twentieth century. 15. This form of peasantry seems to have been dominant in the past in the IndoGangetic plain. On peasant and land labourers in the early history of India, see Habib (1995). 16. This house was settled more than four generations ago and was called Gharcoran (from ghatcwar, ‘bell thief’, the nickname of the descent group). The elder’s story used metaphors like: “When our house arrived, Baibang was a garden-lake where birds copulated”, an expression found in priestly songs describing the origin of Dang Valley as a lake. 17. The village was originally given to a Brahman as a birta (an inalienable land grant) by a hill king, a common pattern in this area. In Baibang, by contrast, the jimindar were Tharu whose ancestors had had close relationships with the king of Dang/Salyan in the nineteenth century and were his local representatives or chaudhari. Before the land reforms, their lands were classified as rajya, royal, a local form of full ownership similar to the contemporary raikar. 18. This pattern might be linked to the existence of a dominant descent group, who had to find wives outside the village. 19. When somebody referred to a very close kin house, a kin term could be used, for instance, mother’s brother house mamak ghar, or father-in-law house, sasrar ghar (McDonaugh, 1984: 207). 20. On the Tharu house, see McDonaugh (1984: 116, 1985, 1987). On the ‘big house’, see also Krauskopff (1987). 21. A more complicated pattern was the exchange of sisters between three houses, a slightly longer process as analysed by Hu (1957), see also Mathur (1967). 22. McDonaugh has noted the ‘unsystematic character’ of Dang Tharu kinship terminology, and emphasized the importance of the brother–sister relationship as the centre of gravity of the system (1984: 167). 23. When discussing a man’s relation to his sasrar (a house that has given him a wife), McDonaugh (1984: 206) noted:
…the relationship to a sasrar house exists both as a relationship between the two houses taken as wholes, and yet at the same time has a primary or focal aspect which is the relation between an individual man and his own wife’s natal household. The prestations will also show that included with one immediate sasrar are certain other households and to a certain extent also this sasrar’s recent ghar-phutlak households [split houses].
â•… He drew a significant chart of the affinal houses related to a male Ego, illustrating the web of relations between houses from anyone’s position (ibid.: 208). 24. On the blurred distinction between consanguines and affines, see McDonaugh (1984: 195); on the very weak memory of affinal relationships (ibid.: 205). 25. These priestly rights were significantly expressed, at the village level, through gifts of free work from the ordinary villagers. 26. This relation has been mentioned as one of the structuring forces for building a wider sphere of influence when the NGO BASE (Backward Society Education)
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27.
28.
29. 30.
31.
32.
33.
born in Dang, had developed its impact in the far western Tarai (Ødegaard, 1999). The strong unity built among the Dangaura Tharu may also explain some political developments in the far western Tarai, like the impact of the Maoists and their drawing upon the ethnic region Tharuwan. Hence, for the Tibetan nomads of Ladakh, the link to the territory and its gods is so fundamental that it cannot be cut: the gods of the grazing pasture remain tied to the land and do not travel with the people (Dollfus, forthcoming). We have a paradoxical testimony to this process in a ritual of the Rana period called patiya lena, described as being performed by the parganna chief or chaudhari to introduce someone officially into the Tharu jat. The original and primary meaning of jat is ‘species’, and its taxonomic use needs to be stressed (Herrenschmidt, 1991). It derives from jan ‘to be born’. Burghart distinguished three different ‘territorial bodies’ through three concepts in use during the nineteenth century: muluk, the king’s possessions, and desha, the realm of the ritual authority of the Hindu king, including various countries, desha or des. Each concept “specified a different relation between ruler, land and people, and each was legitimated with respect to different kinds of authority, proprietary, ritual or ancestral” (1984: 229). I found it difficult to distinguish between the desha and des concepts, since the two spellings are not systematically differentiated. In Dang, the two coalesced. I feel personally uneasy with the term ‘ethnic’ to describe the merging of people and their environment at the most basic level, since different groups may share the same space. Burghart noted the role of migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and distinguished between the tenurial contract linking a subject to a king and a “natural and ancestral affiliation” (1984: 238), considering migration as an act of renunciation. The situation of the migrant farmer in the Tarai, considering the underdeveloped state of cultivation, was different. Moving was also an act of resistance against the encroachments of the state to extract surplus (Krauskopff, 2006). The position of the Dangaura Tharu in the contemporary political field in far western Tarai illustrates this situation, see Note 26.
REFERENCES Burghart, R. 1984. ‘The Formation of the Concept of Nation-state in Nepal’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 44(1), [Reprinted in R. Burghart, C. Fuller, and J. Spencer (eds). 1996. The Conditions of Listening, pp. 226–60. Delhi: Oxford University Press]. Des Chenes, M. 1996. ‘Ethnography in the Janajati-yug: Lessons from Reading Rodhi and Other Tamu Writings’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 1(1): 36–51. Dollfus, P. (Forthcoming). ‘From a Green Happy Homeland to a Crammed “Island”: Discussing the Territories of a Nomadic Group Inhabiting the Southeastern Edge of Ladakh’, paper presented at a conference held in Paris, 17–19, December 2007.
FLUID BELONGINGSâ•… 43 Guneratne, A. 1996. ‘The Tax Man Cometh: The Impact of Revenue Collection on Subsistence Strategies in Chitwan Tharu Society’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 1(1): 5–35. ———. 2002. Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Habib, I. 1995. ‘The Peasant in Indian History’, in Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception, pp. 109–60. New Delhi: Tulika. Herrenschmidt, O. 1991. ‘Caste’, in P. Bonte and M. Izard (eds), Dictionnaire de L’Ethnologie et de L’Anthropologie, pp. 129–31. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Hu, C.T. 1957. ‘Marriage by Exchange among the Tharus’, Eastern Anthropologist, 10(2): 116–29. Jha, V.N. 1980. The Genealogies and Genealogists of Mithila. Varanasi: Kishor Vidya Niketan. Krauskopff, G. 1987. ‘De la maison sur pilotis à la grande maison: réflexions sur les transformations des habitations tharu’, in D. Blamont and G. Toffin (eds), Architecture, Milieu et Société en Himalaya, pp. 15–39. Paris: CNRS (Études Himalayennes 1). ———. 1989a. Maîtres et Possédés. Les rites et l’ordre social chez les Tharu (Népal) [Masters and Possessed; Rituals and Social Order among the Tharus (Nepal)]. Paris: Editions du CNRS. ———. 1989b. ‘Prêtres du Terroir et Maîtres de la forêt: La centralisation politique et le système de prêtrise tharu à Dang et Déokhuri’ [Territorial priests and Masters of the forest: The political centralisation and the Tharu Priesthood system in Dang and Deokhuri], in G. Toffin and V. Bouillier (eds), Prêtrise, Pouvoirs et Autorité en Himalaya [Priesthood, Power and Authority], pp 79–100. Paris: Ed. de l’EHESS. ———. 2000. ‘From Jungle to Farms: A Look at Tharu History’, in G. Krauskopff and P. Deuel (eds), The Tharu and the Kings of Nepal, pp. 25–55. Kathmandu/ Los Angeles: CNAS-Rusca Press. ———. 2006. ‘Itinérance ou Résistance? Voter avec ses pieds ou une forme instituée de contestation paysanne dans les jungles du Téraï ’, in B. Steinmann (ed.), Le Maoïsme au Népal, Lectures d’une Révolution [Maoism in Nepal. Readings on a revolution] pp. 146–68. Paris: CNRS. ———. 2009. ‘Intellectuals and Ethnic Activism. Writings on the Tharu Past’, in D.N. Gellner (ed.), Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action Series, Vol. 2), Chapter 8. Delhi: Sage. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1991. ‘Maison’, in P. Bonte and M. Izard (eds), Dictionnaire de l’ethnologie et de l’anthropologie, pp. 434–36. Paris: PUF. McDonaugh, C. 1984. ‘The Tharu of Dang: A Study of Social Organization, Myth and Rituals in West Nepal’, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, Oxford University, unpublished. ———. 1985. ‘The Tharu House: Oppositions and Hierarchy’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 15(1): 1–14. ———. 1987. ‘The Tharu House: Gods and Rituals’, in D. Blamont and G. Toffin (eds), Architecture, Milieu et Société en Himalaya, pp. 261–73. Paris: CNRS (Etudes Himalayennes 1).
44â•… GISèLE KRAUSKOPFF McDonaugh, C. 1997. ‘Losing Ground, Gaining Ground: Land and Change in a Tharu Community in Dang, West Nepal’, in D. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 287ff. London: Harwood. Mathur, S. 1967. ‘Marriage among the Tharus of Chandanchowki’, Eastern Anthropologist, 20(1): 33–46. Ødegaard, S. 1999. ‘BASE and the Role of NGOs in the Process of Local and Regional Change’, in H.O. Skar and G.M. Gurung (eds), Nepal: Tharus and Their Tarai Neighbours, pp. 48–63. Kathmandu: Bibliotheca Himalayica/EMR. Regmi, M. 1969. ‘Law on Dangaura Tharus’, in Regmi Research Series, 1, 2: 46–48. Sinha, S. 1962. ‘State Formation and Rajput Myth in Tribal Central India’, Man in India, 42: 35–80.
Chapter 3 Belonging, Indigeneity, Rites, and Rights The Newar Case David N. Gellner
INTRODUCTION1 One of the paradoxical fruits of modernity has been the simultaneous spread of two ideas that often conflict and are, at the very least, in tension with each other. They are (a) that all humans are essentially the same in virtue of their common humanity and therefore, at least as adults, deserve to be treated equally; and (b) that humanity is divided into mutually exclusive and distinct groups and that human fulfilment can in fact only be achieved through belonging to such a group and being rooted in a particular place. The ideals encapsulated in these two notions may have arisen sequentially in Europe but they have spread synchronically to most of the rest of the world. The idea that particular groups belong in specific places, and therefore have a right to rule those places to the exclusion of others, gave rise to nationalism. The same idea, at the sub-national level, has subsequently conferred legitimacy on the ideology of indigeneity. Briefly put, some groups are indigenous (and others are not), either because they have always lived in the specified place, or because they have lived there longer than anyone else. They therefore belong in the place and the place belongs to them. Those who came later are not indigenous and do not belong in the same way or to the same degree. Since it is not practicable in most cases for small or dispersed groups to secede or govern themselves, only differential rights to resources and political and other positions are claimed. If degrees of belonging are recognized in this way, the acceptance of different degrees or kinds of citizenship follows as a necessary consequence.
46â•… DAVID N. GELLNER Looking at the same dilemma from a political point of view, it is often argued that there is a fundamental clash between attempting to mobilize people on the basis of shared poverty or economic disadvantage, on the one hand, and mobilizing them on the basis of language or culture—in short, ethnicity—on the other. It is certainly true that sometimes those groups that are the most deprived can find themselves doubly deprived because they cannot claim resources on grounds of indigeneity. In other cases, those who are deprived economically and/or disadvantaged in terms of access to education and opportunity are also those who are culturally different—and this provides the basis for nationalist or indigenist movements. Ethnographic study of just how these claims are made and how they play out in actual practice is essential, because it does not always happen in the ways that might be predicted. The Newar case, to be examined in detail, is interesting both because of their position at the centre (the nation’s capital) and because many different strategies are to be found among Newar intellectuals attempting to adapt a highly complex social order and diverse regional traditions to the concepts of modern transnational cultural politics. In other historical circumstances the Newars might themselves have constituted a nation, as some of their activists (who argue that they are a rastra, nation, rather than a janajati, ethnic group or nationality) are well aware. Using the Newar case, I aim to illustrate the range of claims to belong (the very different arguments) that can be made. But I also indicate, selecting two local ‘organic’ intellectuals and one ‘conference/festival’ as examples, that a shared focus on ritual means that they are—to a very meaningful degree—part of a single argument.
THE GLOBAL CONTEXT Two important starting points for an ethnographically and historically grounded understanding of these phenomena are Gerd Baumann’s book, Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in MultiEthnic London (1996), and Andreas Wimmer’s Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity (2002). Baumann’s book shows how the inhabitants of the London suburb of Southall negotiate the construction of ethnicity in local politics. Although Baumann himself does not use the term (first coined by Spivak to label deliberate use of simplified labels for political advantage), his subjects are experts in strategic essentialism. They all know how to
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operate fluently in two discourses, the official discourse in which there are five ‘communities’ in Southall (Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, White, Afro-Caribbean) and a demotic discourse which recognizes very well that these so-called communities are very far from being hermetically sealed boxes. Everyday demotic discourse continually deconstructs the ‘one community, one culture’ picture with which the dominant discourse operates. Despite this, the dominant discourse persists, because, for local politics to be carried on in terms of community, there has to be agreement on which communities belong to Southall, and which communities, therefore, have a claim on its public resources. ‘Culture’ is then a ‘useful fiction’—central to social life without anyone being taken in by the simplifications of the dominant discourse. Wimmer’s book, on the other hand, shows how the creation of modern nations and the building of democratic consensus necessarily also entails exclusion of those who fall outside the definition of the nation or group. Equality, as John Stuart Mill already knew, only extends, and can only extend, to those who are citizens. In order to construct a democratic political unit with equal citizens, there have to be some who do not belong and in most cases the boundaries will be drawn in terms of nationality.2 The stakes in discussions of ethnic identity have been raised considerably by the arrival on the scene of the language of indigenous rights, endorsed by the UN and by many UN member governments (though not by India or many African states). It began with the UN setting up a Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. It continued with a Year of Indigenous People in 1993, subsequently extended to a Decade of Indigenous People from 1995–2004. We are now in a Second Decade of Indigenous People. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) was set up on 2000 in order to advise ECOSOC, the UN Economic and Social Council. The members of UNPFII are elected for three-year periods (a maximum of two terms) and it meets for two weeks at least once a year. A prominent Nepali ethnic activist, Parasuram Tamang, was elected as a representative from Asia for the first two terms. As I have described elsewhere (Gellner, 2001), by an accident of historical timing, the idea of indigeneity arrived in Nepal in 1993 after a national ethnic organization, the Nepal Federation of Nationalities (NEFEN), had already been set up and a new terminology established. Some rapid intellectual gymnastics were required in order to establish that Janajati (ethnic/tribal group) meant the same as Adivasi (indigenous group) in the Nepali context. NEFEN subsequently changed its name
48â•… DAVID N. GELLNER to NEFIN in 2003 in order to incorporate the key term Adivasi/ Indigenous into its own title. These new developments presuppose that there is an identifiable category of indigenous people and that they have rights to land and other resources that trump or exclude those of other citizens of the country. In Canada, the USA, and Australia, there are clear exemplars of the category and there may be acceptable rules about just how much mixing is allowed before people disqualify themselves from the category. In Nepal, there have been considerable arguments, but the government published an official list of 59 indigenous groups in February 2002.3 The anthropologist Adam Kuper (2003) has launched an all-out attack on the very category, as a blatant revival of the discredited concept of ‘primitive society’. He describes how attempts to institutionalize indigenous rights in Canada and elsewhere inevitably lead to distinctions in terms of descent, because any test in terms of language or culture leaves some out who are supposed to belong and would allow others in. He calls this ‘the Nuremberg rule’. He is very clear, in the face of his critics, that anthropologists who exercise self-censorship and refrain from analysing the way in which indigenous rights discourse is actually used, and thereby turn themselves into “the academic wing of the indigenous rights movement”, have thereby betrayed their calling.4
TRADITIONAL BELONGING IN NEPAL: REVERSE INDIGENEITY The Newars are what in Africa would be called a ‘host tribe’, that is, their homeland is in the capital, and they consider it theirs,5 but they are now outnumbered by the citizens of the nation who have flooded in from more peripheral areas. In Nepal, as in other parts of South Asia, there was a premodern concept of indigeneity, but it was not one that conferred rights in the modern sense. Conquering dynasties and locally dominant castes held power, and foremost rights to the land, and often provided the ethnonyms which named particular groups. In the Nepalese case, the term ‘Newar’ referred originally and primarily to the dominant Hindu high castes, those who are collectively now known as Shresthas, and only by extension to other Newari speakers (Gellner, 1986).
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Likewise, Nepali is the language of the hill castes, those who today are known collectively as Parbatiyas or Pahadis (or occasionally as Indo-Nepalese, following the French indo-népalais). In the old days, the language was referred to as Khas kura, ‘the speech of the Khas’. The Khas are, paradigmatically, the Chetris or Kshatriyas of the Parbatiya caste system. In other words, the core or paradigmatic Khas are the Chetris/Kshatriyas: other Nepali speakers are their priests, artisans, servants, or other subjects.6 Dominant groups, in the past, always had a myth of origin outside their present territory, usually connecting them to a high-status kingdom to the south and/or west. Prestige was to be measured by links to the outside, to more powerful and glorious places elsewhere. Tribal groups were allowed to have been there first, though in very many cases they too have myths of outside origin. The very fact of earlier arrival marked them as inferior, though it also gave them certain religious rights and a role in some central religious rituals. Rights, statuses, and privileges were expressed through rites and were maintained by repeated participation and performance. The indigenous rights discourse which entered Nepal formally in 1993 with the UN’s Year of Indigenous People, and earlier in the form of more general cultural nationalism, reversed these traditional perceptions. Conquerors were and are no longer legitimated by their conquest and by the local gods’ acceptance of them. Conquest became colonization. Cultural and linguistic influence became a form of cultural imperialism that should be reversed.
Rana-Period Classification, 1854–1950 The first major attempt to encompass all the groups of the present state of Nepal was Jang Bahadur Rana’s Mulukhi Ain or law code of 1854 (Höfer, 1979). Said to be inspired by what he had been told of the Code Napoleon during his visit to Paris, it was innovative, from the Nepalese point of view, only in that it attempted to weld the separate caste systems of the Himalayan middle hills and the Kathmandu Valley into a single hierarchy (the Tarai was for the most part still regarded as a different world). As far as the content went, it owed much to traditional caste lists and to the Hindu Dharmashastras. Five major categories were recognized and, within each category, there was a further hierarchy. Although in principle
50â•… DAVID N. GELLNER the categories were fixed, there could be movement at the margin that was recognized and legitimated by the state. Groups could move up from the enslavable to non-enslavable status. Just as in India (Cohn, 1987), where the British introduction of the census sparked off a widespread process of inflated status claims, so in Nepal the introduction of a nationwide caste framework led to local elites seeking to claim a higher status in Hindu terms. Thakali elites claimed to be Thakuris from the south (Fisher, 2001). Gurungs adopted high-caste genealogies and Hindu dance festivals—a process that was later to be rejected as evidence of having been duped by cunning Brahmans (Macfarlane, 1997). Bhotiyas—people of Tibetan culture and (usually) Tibetan dialects—constructed identities as anything other than Bhotiya (to avoid the stigmatizing associations of the term) (Ramble, 1997). Tamangs evolved their identity, avoiding the old term Murmi, from the 1920s (Campbell, 1997; Holmberg, 1989). Tamangs sometimes passed as Gurungs (Toffin, 2007: 243) or Sherpas (Clarke, 1980). Bhotiyas passed as Tamangs.7 Many small groups assimilated to the Gurungs. In a continuation of these earlier processes, today the Nyeshangba or Manangis now all call themselves Gurung, and declined to be identified as a separate Janajati in 2000.
The Panchayat Period, 1960–1990 In line with King Mahendra’s ideology of ‘building the nation’, ethnic and caste differences were supposed to be outmoded and relics of the past. Before 1990, many foreigners had the experience of being told by Nepalis, after some innocent (or not so innocent) enquiry about caste, that such things no longer existed or no longer had any significance. At the same time, they also frequently encountered members of minority groups who confided their deep resentment at the pressure they experienced to Hinduize themselves.8 Figures for different castes and ethnic groups were not released by the national census, only figures for mother tongues, which was and is not at all the same thing. Nobody knew exactly how many Tamangs or Magars, Chetris or Bahuns or Dalits there were in the country. Indeed the very existence and deprivation of the Dalits was barely acknowledged at the time. With no reservations (institutionalized positive discrimination) as in India, nor even any development initiatives specifically targeting
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‘backward’ groups, the lion’s share of the fruits of development and rapidly expanding educational opportunities and rewards went to those groups who were already well connected and had long established traditions of literacy and academic study, namely Bahuns, some Chetris, and some (principally high-caste) Newars (these three groups which provide the vast majority of the Establishment are sometimes referred to with the acronym ‘BCN’). On the rare occasions when figures were collected on the proportion of BCNs in higher education or in professions, they were considered too explosive to publish. People were told there was no ethnicity in Nepal. When Gopal Gurung wrote a book about it under the Panchayat regime he called it Hidden Facts in Nepali Politics. He was put in prison for it in 1988 and later started the Mongol National Organization, which won a base in local government in east Nepal (Hangen, 1999: 73). With the replacement of the Rana-period Mulukhi Ain in 1963, cultural differences no longer had any standing in law. All Nepalis were declared equal. Culture remained as folkore and history, however, celebrated in touristic contexts. Dor Bahadur Bista’s famous book, People of Nepal, reflected this view. In so far as generations of anthropology and sociology students in Nepal have learned that just these groups exist, and learned by heart their supposedly separate cultural characteristics, an uncritical essentialist view of Nepalese society has been propagated. A single national history was developed around the identities of the dominant Bahun-Chetris (Onta, 1997) and a single model of development, which, again, presupposed the normative nature of Bahun-Chetri society, with some urban additions, pervaded education and politics (Pigg, 1992). At the same time, there was considerable pressure to ‘Nepalize’, that is, to adopt the standards and the language of the dominant groups, namely the Bahuns and Chetris. To varying degrees, many elite, educated, and upwardly mobile members of hill ethnic groups were in fact happy to do this, much to the chagrin of activists struggling to record, celebrate, and preserve ethnic languages and cultures. Given the frequent migration within Nepal, such cultural assimilation had already occurred and gone quite a long way even before 1960 (Fisher, 2001; Whelpton, 1997). The Panchayat period was in fact a time of increasingly rapid changes, of rising educational and health standards, and of cultural struggle. Emblematic was the emergence of a national Thakali organization at a hotly contested meeting in Pokhara in 1983 (Fisher,
52â•… DAVID N. GELLNER 2001: 143–58). It marked the transfer of power from an older generation happy with the Thakalis’ alignment to Hinduism to a younger generation keen to establish a non-Hindu identity, either as Buddhist or as shamanist. Fisher concludes, “The Thakali case demonstrates that ethnicity is not an inherent quality that is simply passed on from generation to generation; it is a dynamic process and emerges fully only through interaction and conflict” (ibid.: 214). A similar point could be made about the emergence of Magar ethnicity (LecomteTilouine, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; de Sales, 1998–99, 2003). And yet, this dynamic process is carried out on the basis precisely of the assumption that ethnic (and religious) identities are not dynamic and fluid. Both the reconstructions of the activists and the classificatory exercises of the state presuppose that everyone: 1. 2. 3. 4.
belongs to one and only one ethnic or caste group; is born into that group; cannot change their group; though some groups are big and others small, they can, for practical purposes, be treated as groups of the same logical order; 5. all groups should be treated equally (Gellner, 2001: 190).
These presuppositions belong to Baumann’s ‘official discourse’. In the demotic discourse of Nepal ‘everyone knows’ that there are plenty of hybrids (whole subcastes, like Jaisi Bahuns or KCs [the conventional Nepali abbreviation for Khatri Chhetri], or particular families, as among the Ranas or Udays), and that caste can be changed in certain circumstances (Jang Bahadur Rana being a case in point). They also know that size does matter. The logic of being the leader of a small Janajati group, such as the Chantyel, is very different from leading a large one, like the Tamangs or Magars. Under the Panchayat regime, cultural difference was tolerated, and therefore became a kind of legitimate sphere in which opposition and dissent could be expressed. In this way, two nexuses of ethnic activity, or two kinds of overlapping ethnic networks, developed: a leftist one and an ex-army or loyalist one. The two nexuses pursued different strategies but often cooperated at particular cultural events.
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Developments since 1990: Changes in the Capital The explosion of ethnic awareness and ethnic organizations that occurred after 1990 was not in fact the first time that such developments had occurred in a Nepalese cultural context. In the 1920s and 1930s, in Darjeeling, a large number of caste and ethnic organizations were founded. Darjeeling experienced the arrival of modernity— schooling, the presumption of universal literacy and citizenship, and the claiming of rights and benefits from the state—long before Nepal itself did. It is therefore no coincidence that it was also in Darjeeling, along with Varanasi, that the early evolution of a Nepalese nationalism also occurred (Chalmers, 2003). As noted already, a key international event, with a long-term impact within Nepal, was the UN declaration of a year of Indigenous Rights in 1993. This became a decade before the year was out, and we have now entered a second decade. The notion of Janajati was already established and institutionalized, but this international development led to Janajatis being redefined in terms of the new language of indigeneity. Nepali ethnic activists have in fact been fairly successful in pushing their agenda and in getting both ‘in principle’ agreement to their demands, and, more important, money and permission to start putting them into practice. This included measures to institutionalize reservations in education and in government service. When King Gyanendra’s government announced in August 2005 that it was putting the proposed 10 per cent reservations in government bodies into reverse, it was a major sign that he did indeed want to return to the old, Panchayat-period way of running the country. In grappling with the knotty question of how to institutionalize positive discrimination, the ethnic activists have come up with a highly creative solution, at least as far as Janajatis are concerned, namely, to classify them into five different types.9 Those in the most disadvantaged or ‘endangered’ category will have first call on reserved seats or benefits. ‘Highly marginalized’ candidates will receive them in the absence of candidates from ‘endangered’ groups, and so on. The most advantaged Janajatis, the Thakalis and Newars, will only be able to access reserved university seats, for example, if there are no qualified candidates from the other groups. On seeing this scheme, one (Newar) activist is known to have remarked that the Janajatis had reintroduced the caste system under another name. But the point
54â•… DAVID N. GELLNER of this system is the very reverse of the traditional system codified in Jang Bahadur’s Mulukhi Ain. In this case, the smallest punishments and largest rewards will not go to those at the top. None of this addresses the crucial question how the Dalits, who are the most disadvantaged group in the whole country—probably at par, or worse, than many of those in the ‘endangered’ Janajati group—will fare in such a system.
Changes Following the Maoist Agenda In April 2002, the Maoists established a special Magar-dominated district in their heartland in west Nepal. This led the way for the later declaration of autonomous regions in January and February 2004. The whole country was divided into nine so-called autonomous regions, which were the first level of government below the national. Six of the nine were named on an ethnic basis, and the unspoken assumption is that the leader of that region and the majority of the representatives in the regional government must come from the ethnic group so named, though no explicit rule to this effect is to be found in the Maoist rule book.10 The prominence which the Maoists have given to the ethnic issue has raised the question among commentators as to whether the Maoists genuinely seek to address the grievances of ethnic activists, or if they are simply playing the ethnic card because they knew they can outflank the other political parties on the issue. It is certainly true that the dominance of Brahmans in all walks of public life did not lessen, and in some cases actually intensified, when parliamentary multi-party democracy was reintroduced in 1990. The current unrest and ethnic conflict in the Nepalese Tarai would perhaps have been inevitable at some stage or other, but the role of the Maoists in giving ethnic militancy a voice there has certainly been considerable.
NOTES ON NEWAR CULTURAL NATIONALISM Just as Nepali nationalism began in India, so too did Newar nationalism. The latter started slightly later, and in Calcutta rather than Banaras (for Banaras, see Gaenszle, this volume). In the 1920s, Newar students studying in Calcutta were pushed—by the introduction of
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examinations in the vernaculars—suddenly to think of themselves as Newars and not just Nepalis. Dharmaditya Dharmacharyya (born Jagat Man Vaidya) attempted both to revive Buddhism and to assert Newar identity, a conjunction that made a lot of sense to Newars of a Buddhist background, but much less to those of a Hindu background (as Gaenszle’s case study in this volume, a Hindu, shows). The conjunction of Buddhism and Newarism worked up to the 1960s, but split apart thereafter as the Theravada Buddhist activists started to appeal beyond their Newar base.11 The continued, though largely implicit, appeal of the conjunction to followers of traditional Newar Buddhism is examined in the course of this paper. Dharmaditya started the first journal in Nepal Bhasha/Newari— and for the next 20 years it was the only one. He was instrumental in making other Newar students in Calcutta aware of their ethnic identity. He worked out most of the themes that were to dominate Newar cultural nationalism thereafter: the glories of Newar civilization and its ancient literature (by comparison to the culture and language of the dominant Parbatiyas), the injustice of the Gorkhalis appropriating the name ‘Nepali’ for their language, the etymological equivalence of the words ‘Newar’ and ‘Nepal’. It was only the campaign for Nepal Samvat or the Nepal Era to be adopted as the official era of the country which was taken up later. This latter campaign became indeed the most successful and central ritual of the Newar cultural nationalist movement. The Nepal Bhasha Manka Khala (NBMK) was first formed in 1979, as the New Year 1100, according to the Nepal Samvat (era), approached (it fell in November 1979). It sought to unite into one umbrella organization the numerous small local clubs and libraries that existed all over Newar towns and villages in the Kathmandu Valley. Its first task was to bring them together to celebrate the New Year, and this has remained the main and biggest event in its calendar and the one with which it is associated in the popular mind. They adopted the idea of having a motor and motorcycle rally around the three Newar cities of the Kathmandu Valley (similar rallies on a smaller scale had been held in Kathmandu already). This was a stunning success, and attracted a lot of attention. Non-Newars began to recognize it as part of the annual calendar and referred to it as the Bhintuna procession—bhintuna (‘good wishes’ in Nepal Bhasha) being part of one of the most commonly chanted slogans. Other slogans demanded recognition of the Nepal Samvat as the official national era
56â•… DAVID N. GELLNER of Nepal instead of the ‘imported’ (i.e., ‘foreign’) Vikram Samvat, and called for the use and promotion of mother tongues (‘if the language survives, the group, jati, will survive’). Thanks to this annual Bhintuna procession—and the fact that Padma Ratna Tuladhar, president of the Manka Khala, became a national figure when he won an election under the Panchayat regime in a prestigious Kathmandu constituency—the Manka Khala also became widely viewed as the power behind him, even though formally it was non-political and the backing for Padma Ratna in elections came from a specially formed local committee. As Padma Ratna was known to be sympathetic to the left (though never a member of any party), and because later, in 1994–95, he became Minister for Health and Labour in the ninemonth minority UML (Unified Marxist-Leninist) government, the Manka Khala became widely identified as a leftist organization, and counter organizations, aligned with the Congress Party, sprang up among the Newars.12 Since the early 1990s Newar cultural nationalism has gone through several phases, with the most aggressive activists now seeking autonomy for the Kathmandu Valley as a Newar region within the Nepalese state. There is of course a convergence here with the Maoist offering of autonomous regions within their own design for a new Nepal. Some of the activists take this at face value; others are aware that the degree of autonomy experienced by Tibetans within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not represent an auspicious model for what they hope to achieve. Neither of the two local intellectuals to be considered here belong to the this pro-Maoist wing of the ethnic movement by any means and it would be a mistake to assume that all ethnic activists are automatically leftist, let alone sympathetic to the Maoist cause.
BALDEV JUJU: A NEWARIST NEWAR BRAHMAN In order to examine Newar nationalism ‘from the inside’, I propose to look at two ‘organic intellectuals’ in Gramsci’s sense of springing from their own class. Both show the influence of leftist vocabulary. One was indeed a communist for a time. Both are arguably strongly influenced by their own caste background. Neither was educated in the Western style, and neither ever became prominent as a leader. Neither speaks or reads English; both chose to write in their own
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mother tongue, Nepal Bhasha, not Nepali, as would have been an obvious choice for the more politically active.13 One of them had a small leadership role in the past and aspired, but failed to achieve, leadership in his old age. The other has never harboured any such ambitions. The former is Nati Maharjan (a Jyapu, or peasant-caste agriculturalist), the latter is Baldev Juju (a Brahman, a priest, and a school teacher). Baldev Juju was born in 1935, the middle of three brothers. The caste of Newar Brahmans is very small in population, which is in itself an interesting fact.14 In the past, all the men of the caste were priests and there were not really enough of them to go around. It may well be that the Malla kings of the Kathmandu Valley deliberately restricted the number of Brahmans in order to keep their use for themselves and for their immediate courtiers. Other Newars had to make use either of Buddhist Tantric priests (Vajracharyas) or of Hindu Tantric priests (Karmacharyas). Newars who define themselves as Hindus today most often use non-Newar Parbatiya Brahman priests. The number of priests used and the fact that the priests came from different castes was a clear index of social status in the past. Those at the top of the hierarchy made use of the largest and most diverse number, while those at the bottom could hardly have any, and were reduced to using relatives or some other member of their own caste as a priest. Juju’s father and uncle were both purohits, that is to say domestic priests for parishioners (jajman). His father had around 200 households of parishioners, but almost all have now passed to his nephews. He himself has just seven households. Juju’s father spoke to him in Nepali, his mother in Nepal Bhasha or Newari, the language of the Newars. This was a common practice at that time among Shresthas and Brahmans. Newar Brahmans were the first caste, followed shortly after by the Shresthas, to adopt Nepali wholeheartedly, in Juju’s own generation. Thus, in five generations they have gone from being wholly Newari-speaking to wholly Nepali-speaking. They have done this more thoroughly and more completely than any other caste. The Shresthas have also done it to a very large extent, but the fact that Shresthas are more heterogeneous means that the switch, though more significant for the society as a whole, is less thorough in their case. Baldev Juju studied up to the MA level in Sanskrit, following the Banaras curriculum. He taught Nepali for 31 years at Saraswati Campus. Quite late in life he started to write commentaries in
58â•… DAVID N. GELLNER Newari on Newar culture, and adopted the pen name Baldev Juju. ‘Juju’, literally ‘king’, is a Newari honorific of address for Brahman. Honorifically, Newar Brahmans were known as Rajopadhyaya in the past; colloquially, as Dyahbramu, literally ‘god brahman’. Gods, priests, and kings are all entitled to the same honorific Nepal Bhasha auxiliary verb, bijyaye, not used for anyone else. The implication of this is that Brahmans, kings, and gods, are all close to each other and distinguished from the rest of the populace. All other Newar Brahmans, while holding on to their Vedic and Hindu identity, have attempted to slough off any connection to the Newars. They have adopted Parbatiya Brahman-type surnames, such as Sharma and Subedi. Newar Brahmans have always spoken of ‘Newars’ and not included themselves in the group when they spoke (as noted earlier, ethnonyms of this sort always referred to the dominant Kshatriya and landholding group in the first instance, and to their specialists, whether religious, artisanal, or social, only as a secondary extension). Juju, by contrast, has accepted—for himself, if not for his family—a Newar identity and identification. Juju says that he took the cases he discusses in his writings from life (vyavahar), and he was not influenced by any other writer in particular (interview, 10 June 1998). He adopted a new style, not like the Sanskrit verses he was taught when young, with their rigid metre. His first article was on the symbolism of the traditional Newar sword, the khadga. Thereafter he produced a series of studies on different festivals and Newar ‘cultural items’. The study that is particularly interesting is a little book called Newar Culture and Newar Philosophy (see Image 3.1). The term samskriti is difficult to translate by a single term, but it can be rendered as ‘customs’, ‘life-cycle rituals’, or even ‘cultural practices’. In the opening chapter, Juju starts by saying that samskriti without philosophy is just superstition. He is completely against those who say “India’s culture is Nepalese culture”. He wants to argue that, yes, Indian culture has influenced and become mixed with the local culture, but there is still something called authentic Newar culture underneath. Indian culture is all about obtaining moksha (spiritual liberation) as taught in the Puranas, Dharmashastras, and Tantras. By contrast, here in Nepal, the point of Newar samskriti is “to turn a person into a god”. What are worshipped as Tantric gods in Nepal are in fact divinized human beings. He acknowledges that there are Newars who follow the Puranas and say that all male gods are
Image 3.1 Front cover of Baldev Juju’s book: Newar Culture and Newar Philosophy
60â•… DAVID N. GELLNER avatars of Shiva and all female goddesses of Parvati, but they are in opposition to Newar custom. Gods are in fact human and remain in contact with us, as with dancers who embody gods for a time: Pacali Aju and other Ajima goddesses were, in this way, first humans and afterwards gods. This is the aim of ‘Newa philosophy’ that the Newars have been carrying on: for humans to become gods. The fundamental philosophy of Newars is found nowhere else in the world. (Juju, 1995: 5)
He counters claims that Newar culture is derived from the south by citing the evidence of language: Newari is indisputably TibetoBurman, and most Newars are of Mongolian extraction. The fact that there are no books predating southern (Indian) influence is countered by the considerations that (a) they may have been destroyed by invaders and (b) it is not only by written proofs that the full truth is revealed. According to Juju, Newar culture is not selfish or individualistic but is all about improving this life, collectively. In Newar rituals, it isn’t a question of expecting God to do it for you, but of acquiring the power for oneself (ibid.: 12). Thus, the three main characteristics of Newar religion are that it is (a) activist (sangharshavadi), not passive (saranavadi); (b) it is about human-form gods, that is, dancers who incarnate the gods, the living-goddess Kumari, and not four-armed Shiva and others; (c) it is religiously tolerant. It is thanks to Newar religious philosophy that there has been no religious bloodshed in Nepal (ibid.: 11–13). Juju also insists that the philosophy of Newar religion has nothing to do with being fatalistic and inactive (udasin, nishkriya), or just trusting in worshipping gods, and neither is it about showing off wealth, nor about the ‘low feudalistic tendency’ (nic samanti pravrtti) of the rich keeping the poor down—“not just does it not support it, but it encourages one to get rid of these tendencies” (ibid.: 16). Juju also stresses the importance of the five elements or panchatattva: By offering the elements of life in this way to the gods, the idea is that god-like power will arise. Then by accepting the gods’ blessed substances (prasad), the power-infused substances of life are caused to enter each person’s life, and humans acquire godly power and become powerful (shaktisali). (ibid.: 18)
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There is an irony in the fact that Baldev Juju himself is from the generation of Newar Brahman priests who mostly stopped doing Tantric rituals. His father and uncles all took Tantric Initiation (diksha), but he has not. Within the caste it became, what previously it had been in the elite as a whole, an option. But there was this difference that it became an option taken up only by a few, rather than a majority. Yet Baldev Juju’s theory is an interesting one that rationalizes the Tantric substratum or overlay of Newar religion and claims that the formal identity as either Buddhist or Hindu is irrelevant. Juju’s theory may have been true of his father’s generation, but it was becoming less and less true from the 1950s onwards as Buddhists became more modernist and as Hindus likewise sloughed off their Tantric past, preferring cleaned-up and more middle-class forms of devotion. As part of these social and religious changes, Newar Brahmans sought a shared Vedic identity with Parbatiya Brahmans. They and other Newar Hindus sought to replace Tantrism with a Puranic and/or modernized Hinduism. What Baldev Juju is arguing is that there is a common Newar religion, a religion of the group, that has nothing to do with the individualistic search for salvation and has everything to do with sacralizing the group, and expressing its solidarity in terms of a divinized ancestor. Ideas to do with Buddhism or Hinduism, or Vedas versus Puranas versus Tantras, are all imports from outside. His theory of Newar religion is reminiscent of the theories of candomblé in Brazil and orisha cults in Cuba: the real religion is the inherited ancestral religion brought from Africa, the Catholic saint names by which divinities are also known are just for show. Juju’s picture of Newar religion is not wholly false, and was very close to the whole picture, I believe, for an earlier period of history, when the caste system turned every group into a self-perpetuating mini-society, highly conscious of itself as different and yet sharing the same overall framework within which difference was recognized, and complementarity was expected and rewarded. It was a time when, for the vast majority of people and for most of the time, there was no salvation outside the group. Today his view of religion is hard to reconcile with those of the religiously active and serious. But Juju’s theory, in his hands, does express a nationalist imperative—that there is something in common to all Newars, which is yet fundamentally different from what is
62â•… DAVID N. GELLNER found in India, whence their scriptures and rituals derive. Without some such intellectual re-working, it is difficult to see how Newar nationalists can make a case for Newar cultural unity. It is indeed a fact that the Newars are deeply riven by language, caste, religion, and territory, all factors I drew attention to in the very first article I published on Newar ethnicity, over 20 years ago (Gellner, 1986).
NATI MAHARJAN: AN INDIGENIST PEASANT ACTIVIST My second example of an organic intellectual is Nati Maharjan, who contrasts with Baldev Juju in that he comes from the peasant (Jyapu) caste, the largest caste grouping among the Newars. They were considered Shudras and servants of the upper castes; traditionally they were not literate.15 He was born on 4 July 1917, so was 17 years older than Juju. He died in August 2004. He was born, the oldest of six siblings, into a well-off peasant household—they had ‘enough to eat’, that is, they had enough land to grow the household’s entire year’s supply of rice. He was married at the age of 16 to a girl arranged by his parents. When I interviewed him in 1998, he had nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. No doubt because of the relatively easy circumstances of his family, he learned to read—a somewhat unusual accomplishment for someone from his background and generation—at the age of seven. He was a leading organizer of a peasants’ movement in Kathmandu in 1947, which appealed to Babar Shamsher, for relief from wandering animals on their fields. When this was successful, he helped to organize a Peasant’s Union (Kisan Sangh) after the fall of the Ranas, of which he became the Kathmandu leader. He also became a member of the Communist Party in 1951 shortly after its establishment. In 1954, he was the only witness when Man Mohan Adhikari married Sadhana Pradhan at the temple of Gujyeshwari (40 years later, Man Mohan was for nine months in 1994–95 the first communist Prime Minister of Nepal). When the communist leaders escaped to India, he was eventually arrested in 1962 on his way to the fields and imprisoned for a total of two months and 10 days. They released him but (he stressed) without having to sign an undertaking to respect the Panchayat system. Evidently, he was not active in the Panchayat period. But in 1993 the declaration of the UN’s Year of Indigenous People seems to have
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galvanized him. He produced a short book, Swanigahya Samskirti, Jati wa Itihasya Duwala (Exploring the Culture, Nationality, and History of the Kathmandu Valley) (see Image 3.2). In it, he marshals all the arguments he can to show that the Jyapus, or agriculturalists, of Kathmandu are the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley, and all the other castes came later. Fascinatingly, just like Juju, Nati Maharjan starts out with a condemnation of bad samskriti: In Nepal there are many cultural practices (samskriti). Good culture, pure behaviour, (giving) auspicious wishes, good company—all these are behaviour that improves humanity. But even so, there are also many cultural practices here [i.e., in the Kathmandu Valley] that destroy humanity. It is because of such bad practices, bad traditions, bad customs that we Newars are unable to improve our lot... (Maharjan, 1997: 1)
He considers the etymology of the word ‘Nepal’, the fact that many festival customs were instituted in relatively recent historic time by kings, and the importance for Jyapus of Kathmandu of the dhime drum and of their attachment to a specific locality in the city.16 He then moves to the heart of his message: the Jyapus are the oldest inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley, and this is proved by the fact that they have the oldest musical instrument, the dhime drum. All the other castes’ musical traditions came in from India or elsewhere at a later date. Waves of immigrants came to the Kathmandu Valley, and, until the Muslims and then the Shah dynasty arrived, they all became absorbed within the Newar social structure. The important point is that the high castes and the high religions are later arrivals, and have less claim to belong in the Kathmandu Valley than the Jyapus and other agricultural castes aligned with them. Very like Juju, Maharjan expresses doubts about statue worship and fire sacrifice. For him, the original worship of the Newars is of nature and without the intermediary of priests (it is true that Jyapus in the past called priests only for certain life-cycle rituals, principally initiation and death, and managed quite well without them for birth and marriage). In two later collections of essays, the first in Nepal Bhasha, the second in Nepali, Maharjan adopts a more aggressively Buddhist modernist and Jyapu nativist position (Maharjan, 2000, 2001). until the arrival of the Licchavi dynasty there was no Buddhism or Hinduism;
Image 3.2 Front cover of Nati Maharjan’s book Exploring the Culture, Nationality, and History of the Kathmandu Valley
Note: The author has carefully composed himself in traditional dress and with the Jyapus’ characteristic hand plough at his feet.
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the Jyapus became more and more enslaved to superstitions peddled by ritualist priests as time went on; the Buddhism taught by Vajracharya priests goes wholly against the teachings of the Buddha, which were to find out the causes of oppression and domination (sosan daman) and to act to uplift others and for the benefit of the world (paropakar and bahujan hit) (Maharjan, 2000: 86).17 An obituary in the Jyapupau (30 August 2004, 3.8.33), the monthly newspaper of the Jyapu Mahaguthi, noted his opposition to simply preserving customs and his fierce contention that holding on to old customs was what prevented Jyapus from becoming modern. In his view the Jyapu Mahaguthi should see its task as protecting the rights and welfare of the ‘indigenous’ (adivasi) Jyapus against the oppression of the powerful. Both Baldev Juju and Nati Maharjan were driven to reflect on their own culture both by its manifest heterogeneity and by the sociopolitical context: all cultural continuities were being questioned as never before, numerous practices—not to mention their mother tongue in which both of them chose to write—were being abandoned. Both intellectuals tried to seek an authentic identity—Newar in one case, Jyapu in the other—in rituals, even as one rejects them and the other reinterprets them. Maharjan took up the argument of indigeneity with a passion; he was at the same time the far more aggressively reformist and adopted a fully modernist ontology. Juju, by contrast, provides a subtle and more sympathetic interpretation of traditional Newar ritual and culture, which is out of step with modernizing trends but which one could imagine being taken up by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of a putative future Newar Autonomous Region, should such a thing ever come into existence. Whereas Juju apparently has never had political ambitions for himself, seeking only recognition as an author and cultural commentator, Maharjan did seek to head Newarist organizations, but those set up (by others) with him as the figurehead never had any success.
ANOTHER ARGUMENT ABOUT BELONGING: A NEWAR BUDDHIST CONFERENCE AS DURKHEIMIAN RITUAL The Lotus Research Institute is an NGO dedicated to the revival of (traditional) Newar Buddhism.18 It is, so far as I know, almost entirely funded by Japanese Buddhist money, and largely thanks to the initiative of a Japanese Buddhist Zen priest, Takaoka Hidenobu, who
66â•… DAVID N. GELLNER has a temple in Nagoya called Tokurinji. Hidenobu speaks Nepal Bhasha, and has taken on the task of reviving traditional Newar Buddhism through research and scholarly activities. Numerous Newar Buddhists have stayed in his temple in Nagoya, and many other Japanese have come with him to Nepal. Interestingly, the actual funding comes from the Japanese organization Shinshinkai, that is, one of the devotional sects closer to Nichiren (via Reyukai), than either to Zen or to Tantric Buddhism. In other words, Japanese Buddhists, even practising priests, share a ‘polytropic’ attitude to sectarian differences (Gellner, 2005). A series of conferences have been organized on Nepalese Buddhism— by which is understood the Newar Buddhism of the Kathmandu Valley, principally. I attended the fourth such conference held in September 2005. There was a sprinkling of foreign speakers, including about half a dozen Westerners, and others from Taiwan, Korea, Mongolia, and Japan. It was held in one of the smaller (but still very large) conference halls of the National Conference Centre. Outside the conference hall there were exhibitions of books, photographs, and ritual objects. Actual liturgical rituals also took place in the display areas, whilst ritualistic speeches and votes of thanks were being given inside the sweltering conference hall. From time to time bhajan groups, playing Buddhist devotional music appeared outside (see Image 3.3). The whole, five-day jamboree was treated like a fair by local Buddhists. Hired buses brought whole villages to visit, and women and children milled about. Inside the main conference hall speeches stressed the importance of preserving the Newars’ Buddhism, of getting young people to learn the ancient Sanskrit recitations, and so on. After all the speeches, the organizers gave a long list of thank yous to those who made the donations that paid for the conference, and presented them and the paper presenters with certificates, inscribed flags, and pens. During the conference the organizers and the Japanese paymasters spent some time hidden away producing a ‘declaration message’, purportedly on behalf of all the participants, with eight points emphasizing the need for the preservation of Nepalese Buddhism in Nepal Mandala (i.e., the Kathmandu Valley), thanking the government for establishing Lumbini Buddhist University, emphasizing the need to prevent the privatization of Sangha property, and highlighting the problem (an old theme of Buddhist activism) of what to do about boys born of intercaste marriage.19
BELONGING, INDIGENEITY, RITES, AND RIGHTSâ•… 67 Image 3.3 Five Vajracharyas (Buddhist Priests)—dressed in the colours of, and representing, the Five Buddhas—perform puja to White Tara’s mandala
Photo courtesy: Michael Allen. Note: This puja was part of the Fourth International Conference on the Buddhism of the Kathmandu Valley (September 2005).
Thus, the form of an academic conference was welded onto a community celebration of its own traditions, used to demonstrate ‘Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitment’ (Charles Tilly’s WUNC, 2004). In other words, old Durkheimian ritual means have been melded with the modern ritual repertoire of social movements in order to try and gain the ear of the government and its resources. Newar Buddhists do not organize as a caste; rather they mobilize around their religion. Inviting as the main guest a government minister—in this case Buddhi Raj Vajracharya, a Buddhist by background who made good use of his Buddhist social base to be elected mayor of Lalitpur several times—is a clear part of their strategy for recognition. The ethos of the conference could be labelled ‘nativist Buddhist’. In other words, those who identify most strongly with Newar Buddhism, namely the Shakya and Vajracharya caste, are claiming
68â•… DAVID N. GELLNER that the Kathmandu Valley is uniquely theirs because it preserves an ancient form of Buddhism found nowhere else in the world. The unique architectural and cultural heritage of the Kathmandu Valley, recognized by UNESCO, is here connected to a specific religious tradition (Sanskrit-based Vajrayana Buddhism), once widespread in South and Southeast Asia but now found only in Kathmandu.20 Once again, ritual is the heart of this tradition, on behalf of which rights and resources are claimed.
EIGHT CONCLUSIONS 1. Indigeneity is a global discourse that, as elsewhere, has been creatively adapted in Nepal. It inverts traditional notions about belonging and priority. I have described a situation in which a notion of indigeneity developed in Western settler societies (USA, Canada, Australia) and taken up as part of the UN system, has been adopted in Nepal and adapted to local realities. This modern notion of indigenity up-ends traditional assumptions. Where once later arrival in the country correlated with higher status and a stronger claim to be the owner of the land, now exactly the reverse is true. Claims to recognition are now grounded in older traditions of settlement, as well as in distinctive rituals, a distinctive language, and distinctive cultural items. (Rituals that are unpopular with the author can be dismissed as later corruptions.) Where once relatively recent immigration followed by incorporation into local society (at or near the top) was a badge of honour, a sign of high status, now it marks one as a foreigner, an invader, even a colonialist. Once, being autochthonous marked one as possessing a link to local gods, and thereby having the right and duty to perform rituals to them on an annual basis, often with links to the royal palace as well—but it placed one undeniably low in the social hierarchy. Today, by contrast, to be indigenous is to be the true ‘owner’ of the country. 2. The internal caste hierarchy of the Newars produces cultural complexity and internal federalism as a solution. It is not surprising that contests over belonging should be particularly intense in the Kathmandu Valley, housing as it does the capital
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of Nepal. Nor is it surprising that different castes within the Newars should advance different claims to belong. The old linguistic usage— current in the Kathmandu valley into the nineteenth century, outside of it well into the twentieth, and in some places even today— whereby Shresthas were paradigmatic Newars and other Newari speakers were Newar only by association (i.e., ‘Newar’ and ‘Shrestha’ were treated as synonyms), is now forgotten. Newar activists advance the position that all Newar ‘communities’ are equal and need to be federated within an overarching Newar organization.21 3. Some Newars—the Jyapus—claim to be more indigenous than others. The claim by Jyapus to be the indigenous Newars is similar to the claim on the larger Nepalese stage of the Janajatis to be indigenous to Nepal: others are, implicitly or explicitly, late comers with fewer rights. The whole point of the modern movement is precisely to win both higher status and preferential access to resources. It is not just for ‘recognition’ as is argued by some influential first-world commentators. So far the Jyapus have not tried to displace the Newar organization that represents them in NEFIN. They have not tried to claim a separate space in NEFIN, nor that they belong somewhere other than in the ‘most advantaged’ category.22 More controversially, Newar low castes are not included in the state’s Dalit category, and their activists have been persuaded to remain as Newars, not Dalits, thus depriving themselves of any future benefits which may come the Dalits’ way. 4. In Nepal as a whole indigeneity and belonging are now unstoppable political forces. There are powerful political and cultural forces arguing that some Nepalis have a greater right to belong than others and that this fact should be recognized (a) by institutionalizing a system of reservations for backward groups; and (b) by reforming the constitution of Nepal so that it is made up of federal and ethnically based republics. With elections to a Constituent Assembly finally being held in April 2008 and the Maoists emerging (to everyone’s surprise, even their own) as the largest party with nearly 30 per cent of the vote, both of these principles have gained a very large measure of acceptance.
70â•… DAVID N. GELLNER The latter, however, remains controversial. Many members of the political class are still unconvinced. The mutual incompatibility of many ethnic claims, especially in the Tarai, means that there will be continuing political problems over the issue. But minority activists are now determined that their demands must be addressed by the Constituent Assembly and will insist that in some form or other, measures of special protection for them must be one outcome of the constitution-writing process. 5. Indigeneity discourse marginalizes some backward groups, in particular, in South Asian contexts, the Dalits. Sometimes the claim to special rights is put in terms of ‘backwardness’. As we have seen, it is particularly important for Newar activists, with their privileged position at the nation’s centre, to combat this argument. In doing so, they have other Janajatis as allies (who are none too keen to cosy up to Newars in other respects), because none of the Janajatis wish to erode the differences between themselves and the Dalits. By all criteria of disadvantage, the Dalits face far more severe problems and backwardness (oppression and exclusion, to speak bluntly) than any other group. The claim to be indigenous—supposed to give such advantages to the most disadvantaged groups in the Americas, southern Africa, and Australia—is denied to them here. 6. Anthropology may often reveal complexities and variations that activists would prefer not to have publicized. Arguments about indigeneity put the anthropologist in a very awkward place. Some of one’s closest friends, those with the most sympathy for the anthropological project and who have put themselves out the most to help it, may not be happy to have awkward facts that do not support a nationalist agenda being brought up in anthropological writings. When I presented a paper on practices of democracy within ethnic organizations at a conference in Kathmandu in December 2004 (Gellner and Karki, 2008), which examined how far such organizations put elections to a vote or rely on acclamation, a university lecturer who is also an ethnic activist, and who was present, admitted that his immediate reaction was that the purpose of the paper must somehow be to show Janajatis in a bad light.
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7. Anthropology’s awkward position follows from the pervasive difference between ‘official’ and ‘demotic’ discourses and practices of ethnicity. For better or worse, anthropology will always be in an awkward relationship to activist programmes, as has long been recognized by feminist anthropologists, for example. As Baumann showed, there are at least two radically different registers at play, the official and the demotic discourses. It is not that one is false and the other true—each is essential in its own way. Describing ‘demotic discourses’ of ethnicity will inevitably be seen as undermining the strategic essentialisms of ‘official discourses’ advanced by activists. Some simplified model of cultural difference is necessary if politics are to give any recognition to it at all. But daily life and everyday practices are always going to be more fluid and more complex. Furthermore, as Wimmer shows, no democratic community can be constructed without someone being excluded, though one could perhaps take that further and say simply that any community (democratic or not) presupposes both insiders and outsiders. 8. There are many advantages to adopting the biographical method in the study of ethnicity, above all the fact that it conveys how ethnicity is made and re-made, not given. In terms of grasping the complexities of ethnicity as it is lived, an approach through the biography of particular activists (Gaenszle, this volume; Krauskopff, 2009; Lecomte-Tilouine, 2003a) has the advantage that it highlights the process of ethnic production. By looking at individuals, one can observe the way in which an essentialist sense of belonging is generated and (sometimes) passed on to others. Of the cases examined here, Maharjan is typical of many from a leftist Janajati background who discovered the discourses of cultural rights and indigeneity after 1990. Juju is less explicitly political or reformist; what he offers is a subtle, culturally informed, and in some ways more backward-looking Newar nationalist argument about the irrelevance of the labels ‘Hindu’ and ‘Buddhist’. My third case examined an event, a ceremonialized conference, rather than an individual. It encapsulated an implicitly opposed position: that Newar Buddhism and Newar culture are indeed one and the same and can claim resources on grounds of antiquity and authenticity. In this case too it would be possible to name individuals who embody the position.
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Notes ╇ 1. I am grateful to Gérard Toffin, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, and members of the original seminar for comments on this chapter, as well as to Basanta Maharjan for help in tracking down materials. ╇ 2. “…it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities” (Mill, 1862: 313). Or as Wimmer puts it, all modern societies “are characterised by some form of closure and exclusion along ethnonational lines” (Wimmer, 2006: 342, original emphasis). Crowley (1999) and Dieckhoff (2004) both also make this point about the necessity of exclusion in different ways. ╇ 3. This is strikingly close to the total of 55 officially recognized minority groups in China, and the 54 of Vietnam. ╇ 4. See Barnard (2006) and other articles in the same issue of Social Anthropology for sympathetic critiques of Kuper’s critique. ╇ 5. The facts that the name of the country, Nepal, used to refer specifically to the Newars’ homeland, the Kathmandu Valley, and that the ethnonym ‘Newar’ is etymologically linked to ‘Nepal’, encourage the Newars’ sense of ownership and their frustration at their relative disempowerment today. ╇ 6. All of this is (largely) on the level of ideology and representation: most Chetris, as most members of other castes, are and have always been peasant farmers. Low castes mostly lack land of their own, however, and are therefore more likely than others to be artisans and/or labourers. ╇ 7. For examples of how very many groups in the Rana period were engaged in attempting to achieve upward mobility through Hinduization (including the Bahuns themselves), see Pfaff-Czarnecka (1997: 430, 432). ╇ 8. McHugh describes a public meeting in 1981 or 1982, in the presence of the Thai ambassador to celebrate his gift of a new statue to a Theravada monastery in the Kathmandu Valley, at which such resentment was expressed openly (McHugh, 2001: 128–29). ╇ 9. See Gellner and Karki (2007: 368–69) for this solution and on the historical development of activism in Nepal more generally. The table showing the five categories is also published in Gellner and Karki (2008: 112–13) and in Gellner (2007: 1826). 10. On the Maoists’ attempts to establish parallel government structures in the areas they controlled, see Ogura (2008). 11. On Dharmacharyya, see Gellner (1986) and LeVine and Gellner (2005). 12. See Gellner (1997, 2003). On the earlier background to Newar ethnicity, see Gellner (1986), Toffin (1975, 1984), and for an interview with Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Gellner and Sharkey (1996). For more on the NBMK and on other ethnic organizations, see Gellner and Karki (2008). 13. As for instance, Comrade Rohit (Narayan Man Bijukche), the leader of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party that dominates the politics of Bhaktapur. Nati Maharjan did subsequently write also in Nepali. 14. On Newar Brahmans, see Toffin (1989, 1995, 1996) and Levy (1990). 15. On Jyapus generally, see Gellner and Pradhan (1995), Ishii (1995), Levy (1990), and Toffin (1984). On Jyapus in Kathmandu, see Hollé, Toffin, and Rimal (1993) and Toffin (1994).
BELONGING, INDIGENEITY, RITES, AND RIGHTSâ•… 73 16. The unique organization of Kathmandu Jyapus into exogamous localities based on music groups is described in Hollé, Toffin, and Rimal (1993) and Toffin (1994). 17. On Buddhist modernism in the Nepali context, see LeVine and Gellner (2005, especially Chapter 8), and Leve (2002). 18. See www.lrcnepal.com 19. In fact, a baha was set up for boys of intercaste unions with Shakya or Vajracharya fathers in Teku in the late 1990s (Gellner, 2010: 172). 20. Gellner (1992) was a study of this form of religion in precisely this framework, as the last survivor of North Indian Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism of the late first millennium CE. 21. The Newa De Dabu, which emerged as the all-Nepal confederal body for Newar organizations, replaced the Nepal Bhasha Manka Khala as the representative Newar organization within NEFIN in 2004 (Gellner and Karki, 2008: 121). 22. Nor, on the wider Nepalese stage have the smaller, more disadvantaged groups— some of whom are more identified with a hunter-gatherer present and/or past that might align them more closely with indigenous movements globally—attempted to argue that the indigenous category has been ‘stolen’ from them by larger groups whose oral histories clearly claim provenance from somewhere else.
REFERENCES Barnard, A. 2006. ‘Kalahari Revisionism, Vienna and the “Indigenous Peoples” Debate’, Social Anthropology, 14(1): 1–16. Baumann, G. 1996. Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-ethnic London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, B. 1997. ‘The Heavy Loads of Tamang Identity’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 205–35. Amsterdam: Harwood. Chalmers, R. 2003. ‘“We Nepalis”: Language, Literature and the Formation of a Nepali Public Sphere in India, 1914–1940’, PhD thesis, SOAS, London. Clarke, G. 1980. ‘Lama and Tamang in Yolmo’, in M. Aris and A.S. Suu Kyi (eds), Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, pp. 79–86. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Cohn, B. 1987. ‘The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia’, in An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays, pp. 224–54. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Crowley, J. 1999. ‘The Politics of Belonging: Some Theoretical Considerations’, in A. Geddes and A. Favell (eds), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe, pp. 15–41. Aldershot: Ashgate. de Sales, A. 1998–99. ‘Simarekha: A Historical Borderline?’ European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 15–16: 78–85. ———. 2003. ‘The Kham Magar Country: Between Ethnic Claims and Maoism’, in D.N. Gellner (ed.), Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences, pp. 326–57. Delhi: Social Science Press. (Also published in 2000 in European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 19: 41–71; 2003 in D. Thapa, (ed.), Understanding the Maoist Movement of Nepal, Kathmandu: Martin Chautari; and in French in 2003 in Purusartha, 22: 271–301).
74â•… DAVID N. GELLNER Dieckhoff, A. 2004. ‘Introduction: New Perspectives on Nationalism’, in A. Dieckhoff (ed.), The Politics of Belonging: Nationalism, Liberalism, and Pluralism, pp. 1–15. Lanham: Lexington Books. Fisher, W.F. 2001. Fluid Boundaries: Forming and Transforming Identity in Nepal. New York: Columbia University Press. Gellner, D.N. 1986. ‘Language, Caste, Religion, and Territory: Newar Identity Ancient and Modern’, European Journal of Sociology, 27(1): 102–48. ———. 1992. Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1997. ‘Caste, Communalism, and Communism: Newars and the Nepalese State’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 151–84. Amsterdam: Harwood. ———. 2001. ‘From Group Rights to Individual Rights and Back: Nepalese Struggles with Culture and Equality’, in J. Cowan, M. Dembour, and R. Wilson (eds), Culture and the Anthropology of Rights, pp. 177–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2003. ‘From Cultural Hierarchies to a Hierarchy of Multiculturalisms: The Case of the Newars of Nepal’, in M. Lecomte-Tilouine and P. Dollfus (eds), Ethnic Revival and Religious Turmoil in the Himalayas, pp. 73–131. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. ‘The Emergence of Conversion in a Hindu-Buddhist Polytropy: The Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, c. 1600–1995’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 47(4): 755–80. ———. 2007. ‘Caste, Ethnicity and Inequality in Nepal’, Economic and Political Weekly, May, 19: 1823–28. ———. 2010. ‘Initiation as a Site of Cultural Conflict among the Newars’, in A. Zotter and C. Zotter (eds), Hindu and Buddhist Initiations in India and Nepal, pp. 167–81. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Gellner, D.N. and M.B. Karki. 2007. ‘The Sociology of Activism in Nepal: A Preliminary Report’, in H. Ishii, D.N. Gellner, and K. Nawa (eds), Political and Social Transformation in North India and Nepal, pp. 361–97. Delhi: Manohar. ———. 2008. ‘Democracy and Ethnic Organizations in Nepal’, in D.N. Gellner and K. Hachhethu (eds), Local Democracy in South Asia: The Micropolitics of Democratization in Nepal and Its Neighbours, pp. 105–27. Delhi: SAGE. Gellner, D.N. and R. Pradhan. 1995. ‘Urban Peasants: The Maharjans (Jyapu) of Kathmandu and Lalitpur’, in D.N. Gellner and D. Quigley (eds), Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, pp. 158–85. Oxford: Clarendon. Gellner, D.N. and G. Sharkey. 1996. ‘An Interview with Padma Ratna Tuladhar’, Himalayan Research Bulletin, 16: 37–46. Hangen, S.I. 1999. ‘Making Mongols: Identity Construction and Ethnic Politics in Ilam District, Nepal’, in R.B. Chhetri and O.P. Gurung (eds), Anthropology and Sociology in Nepal: Cultures, Societies, Ecology and Development, pp. 69–80. Kathmandu: SASON. Höfer, A. 1979. Caste Hierarchy and the State: A Study of the Mulukhi Ain of 1854. Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner. (Reissued 2004 by Himal Books, Lalitpur, Nepal).
BELONGING, INDIGENEITY, RITES, AND RIGHTSâ•… 75 Hollé, A., G. Toffin, and K.P. Rimal. 1993. ‘The Thirty-two Maharjan Tols of Kathmandu City’, in G. Toffin (ed.), The Anthropology of Nepal: From Tradition to Modernity, pp. 21–61. Kathmandu: French Cultural Centre. Holmberg, D. 1989. Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange among Nepal’s Tamang. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ishii, I. 1995. ‘Caste and Kinship in a Newar Village’, in D.N. Gellner and D. Quigley (eds), Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, pp. 109–57. Nepal: Oxford: Clarendon. Juju, Baldev 1995 (N.S. 1115). Newa-h Samskrti wa Newa-h Darsan [Newar Culture and Newar Philosophy]. Lalitpur: Lok Sahitya Parishad. Krauskopff, G. 2009. ‘Intellectuals and Ethnic Activism: Writings on the Tharu Past’, in D.N. Gellner (ed.), Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia, pp. 241–68. Delhi: SAGE. Kuper, Adam. 2003: ‘The Return of the Native’, Current Anthropology, 44(3): 389–95; also as final chapter 2005. The Reinvention of Primitive Society: Transformations of a Myth. London: Routledge. Lecomte-Tilouine, M. 2003a. ‘The History of the Messianic and Rebel King Lakhan Thapa: Utopia and Ideology among the Magars’, in D.N. Gellner (ed.), Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences, pp. 244–77. Delhi: Social Science Press. ———. 2003b. ‘Sur la de-Sanskritisation des Magars: ethno-histoire d’une groupe sans histoire’, Purusartha, 23: 297–327 (eds) M. Carrin and C. Jaffrelot: Tribus et basses castes: Résistance et autonomie dans la société indienne). Paris: Editions de l’EHESS. ———. 2004. ‘Ethnic Demands within Maoism: Questions of Magar Territorial Autonomy, Nationality and Class’, in M. Hutt (ed.), Himalayan ‘People’s War’: Nepal’s Maoist Rebellion. London: Hurst. Leve, L. 2002. ‘Subjects, Selves, and the Politics of Personhood in Theravada Buddhism in Nepal’, Journal of Asian Studies, 61(3): 833–60. LeVine, S. and D.N. Gellner. 2005. Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levy, R. with K. Rajopadhyaya. 1990. Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Hindu City in Nepal. Berkeley: University of California Press. Macfarlane, A. 1997. ‘Identity and Change among the Gurungs (Tamu-mai) of Central Nepal’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 185–204. Amsterdam: Harwood. McHugh, E. 2001. Love and Honor in the Himalayas: Coming to Know Another Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Maharjan, Nati. 1997 (N.S. 1117). Swanigahya- Samskrti, Ja-ti wa Itiha-sya- Duwa-la[Exploring the Culture, Nationality, and History of the Kathmandu Valley]. Kathmandu: Self-published. ———. 2000 (N.S. 1120). Nepa-h Deyya- vividha khyah-ya- Duwa-la- (Itiha-s, Ghatanawa Vyavaha-r) [Exploring Various Fields of Nepal: History, Events, Behaviour]. Kathmandu: Self-published. ———. 2001 (N.S. 1121). Mero Drstima- [From My Point of View]. Kathmandu: Selfpublished. Mill, J.S. 1862. Considerations on Representative Government. New York: Harper & Brothers.
76â•… DAVID N. GELLNER Ogura, K. 2008. ‘Maoist People’s Governments, 2001–05: The Power in Wartime’, in D.N. Gellner and K. Hachhethu (eds), Local Democracy in South Asia: Microprocesses of Democratization in Nepal and its Neighbours, pp. 175–231. Delhi: SAGE. Onta, P.R. 1997. ‘Activities in a “Fossil State”: Balkrishna Sama and the Improvisation of Nepali Identity’, Studies in Nepali History, 2(1): 69–102. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. 1997. ‘Vestiges and Visions: Cultural Change in the Process of Nation-building in Nepal’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 419–70. Amsterdam: Harwood. Pigg, S.L. 1992. ‘Inventing Social Categories through Place: Social Representations of Development in Nepal’, Comparative Studies of Society and History, 34(3): 491–593. Ramble, C. 1997. ‘Tibetan Pride of Place; Or, Why Nepal’s Bhotiyas are Not an Ethnic Group’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 379–413. Amsterdam: Harwood. Tilly, C. 2004. Social Movements, 1768–2004. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm. Toffin, G. 1975. ‘Les Néwar, un peuple à la recherche de son identité’ [The Newars: A people in search of its identity], Pluriel, 3: 29–39. ———. 1984. Société et Religion chez les Néwar du Népal [Religion and society among the Newars of Nepal]. Paris: CNRS. ———. 1989. ‘La Voie des Héros?: Tantrisme et Heritage Védique chez les Brahmans Rajopadhyaya au Népal’ [The heroes’ path? Tantrism and vedic heritage among the Rajopadhyaya brahmins of Nepal], in V. Bouillier and G. Toffin (eds), Prêtrise, Pouvoirs et Autorité en Himalaya (Purusartha 12). Paris: Editions de l’EHESS. ———. 1994. ‘The Farmers in the City: The Social and Territorial Organization of the Maharjan of Kathmandu’, Anthropos, 89: 433–59. Reissued as chapter 3 of Toffin (2007). -jopa -dhya -ya Brahmans’, in D.N. Gellner ———. 1995. ‘The Social Organization of Ra and D. Quigley (eds), Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, pp. 186–208. Oxford: Clarendon. Reissued as Chapter 2 of Toffin (2007). ———. 1996. ‘Tribal Brahmins? The Case of the Rajopadhyaya of Nepal’, in S. Lienhard (ed.), Change and Continuity: Studies in the Nepalese Culture of the Kathmandu Valley, pp. 85–104. Alessandrio: Edizioni dell’Orso. ———. 2007. Newar Society: City, Village and Periphery. Lalitpur: Social Science Baha/ Himal Books. Whelpton, J. 1997. ‘Political Identity in Nepal: State, Nation, and Community’, in D.N. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 39–78. Amsterdam: Harwood. Wimmer, A. 2002. Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. ‘Ethnic Exclusion in Nationalizing States’, in G. Delanty and K. Kumar (eds), The Sage Handbook of Nations and Nationalism, pp. 334–44. London: SAGE.
Chapter 4 Belonging to the Borders Uncertain Identities in Northeast India Philippe Ramirez
Ernest Gellner (1983) considered that, like nations, ethnic groups were ‘invented’. The analogy is all the more accurate in that the model pursued by most ethnic politicians, resembles closely the nation-state model of nineteenth-century European nationalists. They regard ethnic groups as true nations not only in their nature—homogeneous, specific, and immutable communities—but also in the rights they should be entitled to—an exclusive territory and political sovereignty over it. Nevertheless, recent history shows such fictions often becoming realities, in the form of identities that ordinary people sincerely assume for themselves. So, if ethnic groups are invented, or at least ‘re-invented’, two questions emerge: first, out of what original elements and by what processes are they shaped? And second: how did the social identities look before that, what type of communities did people feel that they then belonged to? In an article written for the fiftieth anniversary of Political Systems of Highland Burma, I insisted on the diversity of identity models, taking the example of three cases from Northeast India (Ramirez, 2007). I suggested that to understand anything about the mechanisms of identity in this particular area, one had to admit the dissociation between social structures, asserted cultural patterns, and actual practices, thus going beyond the confusion that contemporary identity discourses obviously entertained between these three levels. I will follow in this direction here, both in providing more examples illustrating the diversity of identities in the Northeast and also in testing the usefulness of the concept of ‘belonging’ in this respect. I will not abandon the notion of ‘identity’. Despite its obvious overuses, it is absolutely needed to account for realities that cannot
78â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ be easily looked upon as mere instrumental discourses. I feel all the more easy with the concept of identity, that is, social identity, as I reject all its essentialist assumptions. Identity is obviously a matter of perception, representation, and discourse, and it is by nature subjective: identity is not the ‘true nature’ of social groups, it is definitely the assertion by a series of individuals that they form such or such a community. Now the representations shaping social identities rely on the perception of—true or seemingly—cultural similarities and the sharing of certain spaces, institutions, and practices. It is these perceived affinities that may be termed ‘belongings’. Barth was absolutely right in asserting that identity is ‘constructed’; but such a construction relies heavily on a pre-existing social—and natural—framework. Now if the identity processes are relatively flexible, this is not the case with the spaces, cultures, social structures, and institutions they invoke. One of our main objects here will be to illustrate several atypical local cases where dominant ethnicities stumble on inherited belongings.
ETHNICITIES VERSUS CULTURAL COMPLEXITY: THE BHOI REGION To analyse the relationships between identity and belonging in the Northeast, I suggest, rather than starting from particular ‘ethnic groups’, considering a particular area. We will look at a belt of low hills ( < 700 m) spanning the area between the Meghalaya plateau and the Brahmaputra plains and corresponding roughly to eastern Ri-Bhoi district, State of Meghalaya (see Image 4.1) and western Karbi-Anglong district, Assam. This area is close to both Guwahati and Shillong, two major administrative, economic, and university centres. However, it has the reputation of being ‘interior’ and ‘remote’, and its anthropology is very poorly known. As a rough introduction, we could tell how this part of Northeast India is very commonly depicted: Eastern Meghalaya would be the home of the Khasi Jaintia, speaking Mon-Khmer languages, and following ‘matrilineality’. Karbi-Anglong, more towards the east, would be the country of the Karbi, whose language is Tibeto-Burmese and who are patrilinear. This simple ethno-linguistic picture corresponds in fact to the dominant one, resulting from a kind of compromise between the views promoted by the ethnic elites of the most populous groups. The ‘ethnic lands’ picture suggests that clear-cut boundaries exist among those
Copyright: P. Ramirez; basemap from www.demis.nl under public domain
Image 4.1 Approximate location of the Bhoi area in Northeast India
80â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ groups. We will see that this is true neither of cultural divisions, nor of social structures, nor of ethnic divisions. To say the least, this part of Northeast India is a complex one. To describe it as ‘multiethnic’ would not be wrong at a very broad level, but much more hazardous when trying to qualify the local situations: as we will see below, many villages cannot be accurately said to be either ‘mono-ethnic’ or ‘multi-ethnic’, because their inhabitants do not seem to perceive themselves in ethnic terms. In other villages, ethnic identities obviously exist; but they do not always match with specific cultures or social structures. And finally, whether this is a cause or a consequence of ethnic complexity, the matrimonial, political, and ritual relationships among communities bearing different identities are numerous. In his classical monograph on the Khasi, P.R.T. Gurdon mentioned in several instances the ‘Bhoi’, on whom he gave indications that sounded contradictory (Gurdon, 1990). Some of them were entirely wrong as we know today; however, Gurdon’s confusion gives a clue to the complexity of the overlappings between languages, cultures, and labels. Thus, he asserted in his very first pages that the term ‘Bhoi’ is ‘a territorial name rather than tribal’ (ibid.: 4). Soon afterwards, describing the general setting, he mentioned the ‘Bhoi-Khasi’ as one of the ‘five Khasi groups’ (Khasi, Synteng or Pnar, Wàr, Bhoi, and Lynngam) and added that the ‘Bhoi’ of Jinthong, Mynri, and Ryngkhong subdivisions were not Khasi, but Mikir. In modern terms, Bhoi would thus designate a geographical area inhabited by a ‘multiethnic’ population, including Mikir and Bhoi-Khasi. Nevertheless, in other instances, Gurdon describes Bhoi as corresponding to a specific culture: houses built on high posts, a taboo on the use of the sickle—harvest was done by hand—and retention of the sleeveless coats that had been abandoned in neighbouring regions (ibid.: 40). Moreover, if Bhoi-Khasi were Khasi in one way or another, they were also discriminated against by other Khasi. According to Gurdon, the Khasi of the central plateau considered it disgraceful to marry Bhoi, and held the same attitude towards the Wàr, the people from the southern ridges (ibid.: 62). Last but not least, the Bhoi’s inheritance law was paternal.1 We will see that on this last point, Gurdon was wrong. Nevertheless, his description may be taken as a kind of hypothesis on the situation of Bhoi at the beginning of twentieth century: Bhoi was an area inhabited by people who differed in their languages but shared similarities in other cultural aspects, and whose main designations were Khasi (or, Bhoi-Khasi) and Mikir.
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Very little consistent data is available prior to Gurdon. In the Assamese chronicles, the Buranji, only two terms are found concerning the people of this particular area in the eighteenth century: Dantiyaliya (Bhuyan, 2001: 221–56), and, in several instances, Garo.2 ‘Dantiyaliya’ means literally ‘people of the border/limits/ margins’. As for the Garo, if they are found in significant numbers in the plains beneath Ri-Bhoi, they are almost absent today in eastern Meghalaya, and are not mentioned in the colonial reports concerning the end of the nineteenth century; the Garo hills (western Meghalaya) are located far from there, at three days’ walking distance.3 Garo do not call themselves ‘Garo’, but ‘Achik’. It may well be that the Assamese indistinctly called all hill-dwellers from the south ‘Garo’, a term that may have some link with the term ‘Karew’ used by Khasispeaking Bhoi to designate themselves. Thus, comparisons between eighteenth-century data and Gurdon’s own data are uneasy. This is also true for other parts of the Northeast: Buranji generally give very few clues on the human groups themselves; territories were not identified by their inhabitants but by their chiefs. Is this a sign of the absence of social identities in the past? Of the lack of collective consciousnesses that would have resulted in something alike ‘ethnicities’? At least one has to underline the scarcity of collective terms in the pre-British documents. What do we know about the present anthropology of the Bhoi region? Its administrative setting has to be introduced first, because, as we will see, it has now a very perceptible effect on the senses of belonging. The former Bhoi country more or less corresponds to Ri-Bhoi district, founded in 1992 within Meghalaya. It falls under the Khasi Hills Autonomous District, assigned to the Khasi-Jaintia Scheduled Tribe according to the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution (1951), which covers the central third of Meghalaya.4 In Meghalaya, the former political institutions, which already had relative autonomy in colonial times, are legally recognized and have a say in law-making and administration. Ri-Bhoi is thus dependent upon two major Khasi rulers, the syiems of Khyrim and Mylliem, whose seats are outside Ri-Bhoi and who preside over local chiefs with various statuses (syiem, sirdar, lyngdoh). We will see in the following that the languages, as well as many cultural patterns found in Ri-Bhoi are also found across its eastern border with the Jaintia Hills district (Meghalaya) and the Hamren subdivision of Karbi-Anglong (Assam). These cover the former Jaintia kingdom’s possessions, ‘fully’ annexed by the British as early as 1836 (see Image 4.2).
Copyright: P. Ramirez; basemap from www.demis.nl under public domain
Image 4.2 Administrative divisions in the Ri-Bhoi/Karbi-Anglong area
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The official ethnic profiles only take into account the ‘Scheduled Tribes’ in the strict sense, that is, only those who have this status in the state for which the data are given. For Ri-Bhoi district, 2001, the figures are: Khasi-Jaintia 139,071; Mikir 10,523; Garo 9,376 (Census of India, 2001). I have not yet obtained the linguistic figures at the district level. However, out of the disparate pieces of information I possess, a very complex situation emerges, and one that diverges quite notably from the official figures. The Khasi speakers of Bhoi generally call themselves ‘Karew’,5 and use the term ‘Bhoi’ to designate the other dwellers of the area collectively: the Karbi speakers (whom they specifically call ‘Mikir’) and the Tiwa speakers (‘Lalung’).6 All three groups are called ‘Bhoi’ by the Khasi speakers from other areas. It seems, however, that the semantic field of ‘Bhoi’ is changing nowadays, maybe as an effect of the implementation of the new Ri-Bhoi district: the Confederation of Ri-Bhoi People now claims ‘Bhoi’ as their legitimate ethnic label, against the will of some all-Khasi organizations.7
TERRITORIAL BELONGING AND IDENTITY: THE MARNGA CASE I propose to give a few cases that exemplify the various overlappings between culture, identity, and belonging in the Bhoi area. We will proceed from west to east. Less than three kilometres from the Guwahati–Shillong National Highway, the Marnga (or Marngar) have the reputation of forming an atypical tribe, at least in the eyes of those who know about their existence, that is, their closest neighbours and a few knowledgeable persons in Shillong, because for others, as it is for the census, the area is ‘fully Khasi’. The Marnga describe themselves as the people of ‘Nine Villages’ that formed the core of an autonomous principality ruled by a raja (or syiem, the two terms being used indistinctly). Looking at the electoral data, the population of the Nine Villages might be estimated at about 2,000 people, excluding the four villages that the Marnga consider as ‘Khasi’.8 Marnga assume themselves to be ‘Bhoi’, and more particularly one of the three Bhoi subgroups, which they list as: Bhoi Marnga, Bhoi Karo, and Bhoi Marvet, each corresponding to a particular area.9 Marnga express their specificity through a number of cultural features. The most striking would be their language. Yet the Marnga
84â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ language proves to be very close to Assamese, the major Indo-Aryan language in neighbouring Assam. The difference is that Marnga use a few dozen Tibeto-Burman-looking words, which till now could not be related to any neighbouring Tibeto-Burman languages.10 Besides, Khasi is spoken by every Marnga. If the Marnga language is peculiar, it is indeed as an island of Indo-Aryan language at the core of a Khasi linguistic area. The Marnga say they belong to 11 clans. In fact, only two clan names can be said to be specific to the Nine Villages: Binong—the oldest clan in Marnga—and Barka. Three others are found mainly in the west of Ri-Bhoi district, among groups that we assume are Khasi-speaking. The remaining six are common in the whole Khasi linguistic area, among them the Syiem clan from which the Marnga chiefs are recruited.11 In terms of descent systems, the Marnga both resemble the neighbouring societies in their ‘traditional’ matrilineality12 and differ in its present development: matrilineality is highly prevalent among the older generations, but patrilineality is a clear tendency nowadays. Interestingly, one of our informants explained that this new trend was resisted by Marnga society on ‘moral grounds’, but that it was needed, owing to the prevalence of patrilineality in Assam. It has to be noted that the neighbouring Khasi-speaking communities are still largely matrilineal, that descent in the female line has legal status in Meghalaya, that it is an emblematic institution of the Khasi identity, and that it represents a common process for adopting outsiders. The prevalence of Christianity (79 per cent in Ri-Bhoi, 70 per cent in Meghalaya) does not seem to have significantly affected the descent system (Census of India, 2001). The Nine Villages and their syiem are placed under the syiem of Mylliem. We may guess that this situation goes back to at least the nineteenth century, because there is no trace of other syiems or of any Assamese chief in this area during the colonial period. In Khasi language, the Marnga raja is known as Syiem Raid Marngar (King of the Marnga district); his status is that of a syiem raid, a subordinate syiem—raid being the lower administrative unit above the village. His authority is exerted more on a spatial area than on a particular community, because it concerns the four Khasi villages of Marnga as well. Under a contract with Mylliem, he collects a tax from the Mawlong market.13 Finally, the scanty data that we have on Marnga religion indicate that, depending on whether it is calendar, practices, charges, or beliefs that are considered, its patterns may look more Assamese, Khasi, or specific.
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In the Marnga case, the asserted identity (‘We are Marnga’) thus corresponds above all to a territorial and politico-historical belonging: ‘Nine Villages’ under their own chief. Clan belonging does not seem to be a criterion of differentiation, as most Marnga clan names are found among the ‘Khasi’. In the same way, Marnga do not describe themselves as being people of the ‘Eleven clans’. This is a critical difference compared with other communities in the region, like the Karbi, who define themselves as being members of five particular clans. Similarly, cultural differences are hardly insisted upon by the Marnga in their identity statements: to take only two fundamental aspects, their language is noticeable only as an Assamese isolate within a Khasi-speaking area; and matrilineality is widespread all over the region. If Marnga cultural specificity is a reality, it resides in a unique combination of discrete terms that also exist among their neighbours. It is nevertheless remarkable that Marnga identity survives when other more culturally specific groups are content with a ‘Khasi only’ identity. In other words, the cultural proximity of the Marnga with the Khasi, their sharing of similar clan names, their acceptance of a Khasi syiem, their situation at the core of the Khasi-speaking area, and finally their Khasi ST status does not seem to weigh much on their perception of their identity, or at least on its assertion. It is possible that the maintenance of a distinct chief, whatever the reality of his power, plays a crucial role in this regard. In the course of this chapter, we will find other illustrations of the importance of traditional political belongings in the shaping of identities.
RISING ETHNICITIES: MARMYENG The second case pertains to Marmyeng, a group of villages about 15 kilometres to the east of Marnga. The data discussed here have been locally collected from members of the ‘All Meghalaya Karbi Association’. I was accompanied by Karbi colleagues originating from Karbi-Anglong district. To introduce briefly the relationships between culture and identity among the Karbi, we may say that half the communities claiming a Karbi identity live in the hills (KarbiAnglong and Meghalaya) and the other half in the plains, where their villages are scattered over a vast area to the south of the Brahmaputra, from Guwahati to Upper Assam.14 Their speeches are mutually
86â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ comprehensible, although relatively differentiated, especially between the plains and the hills. Moreover, Karbi areas differ remarkably in their politico-ritual systems: either a regional and pyramidal apparatus, or village autonomies.15 Nevertheless, the status of Karbi everywhere implies belonging to one of five clans: Teron, Terang, Ingthi, Inghi, or Timung. Marmyeng is said to include eight villages in Meghalaya and two in Assam. Its Meghalaya population can be estimated at around 2,000 people. The Karbi speakers we met in Marmyeng asserted their Karbi identity by putting forward not only their dialect, which displays few differences from those of Karbi-Anglong, but first of all their patronyms. Half the Marmyeng Karbi have been converted to Christianity, which is relatively fewer than the Meghalaya average. The non-Christian ritual calendar comprises rites typical of Assamese Hinduism (Domahi/Bihu, Huriya), together with rites more common in the hills and in Southeast Asia, such as ‘closing the village’ during the eviction of malevolent spirits, locally called Rong Ke Um (Macdonald, 1957).16 There is no trace here of the major ritual events among the Karbi of the hills (Chojun, Chomangkhang, Rongkher) nor of the plains (Dehal, Jahang). Marmyeng is administered by a hereditary bangthe assisted by officeholders, each from a particular lineage. Although the designations of positions are partly Assamese, their functions bear several similarities to those of the political system of western Karbi-Anglong, which is reputed to represent the ‘traditional’ Karbi political apparatus. At a higher level, Marmyeng is presently subordinated to the Mylliem syiem. This is a relatively new situation, as before 1830 it was dependent on Dimoria, in Assam, a principality whose present rajas consider themselves as Karbi and still acknowledge the Marmyeng bangthe as their feudatory. Incidentally, the links with Mylliem have faded. Mylliem sovereignty over Marmyeng is still valid in the eyes of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council. A few years ago the Mylliem syiem kept coming to levy taxes. Marmyeng people used to visit his residence, near Shillong, either to settle disputes or to bring a goat to the annual Pomblang Nongkrem, the main Khasi collective rite. According to our informants, these relationships have come to an end. Thus, in Marmyeng’s current politico-ritual practices, the signs of an older authority are preserved at the expense of those of a newer one, providing an example of the weight of ethnicity on belongings.
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The fact that the Dimoria chiefs are considered by Marmyeng people as Karbi, undoubtedly plays a role in such an apparent anachronism. Thus, in Marmyeng, Karbi speakers seem to be split between several territorial belongings. ‘Attachment’ would be more correct to qualify the feeling of Marmyeng Karbi towards Dimoria, and moreover towards Karbi-Anglong: they do not belong to that district, but feel a certain attraction towards a place that can be considered as ‘Karbiland’. Marmyeng, being a Karbi enclave within a Khasi-dominated territory, it is particularly responsive to the Karbi ethnic programme in its ambition of re-uniting all the scattered Karbi components. Dimoria kingdom exerts a kind of challenging seduction: despite its modest size and power, it possesses a higher historical relevance, and indeed represents a more local ‘Karbi’ dominion. Finally, the location of Marmyeng within Meghalaya territory implies a de facto political belonging. This is not radically rejected the way a pro-independence discourse would reject it; but it is clearly underplayed. Neglect for the Khasi syiem is one sign, another being claims to autochthony: “We were the original inhabitants of Ri-Bhoi, before the Khasi themselves.” This attitude has to be contrasted with that of Marnga, where a specific identity and the acknowledgement of a local chief (Syiem Marnga) does not preclude the acceptance of an overarching Khasi sovereignty (Syiem Mylliem). In Meghalaya, Karbi is recognized as a Scheduled Tribe, under the label Mikir (11,399 in 2001),17 and most Marmyeng inhabitants hold this status. This does not prevent them from feeling that the Karbi of Meghalaya are discriminated against by the Khasi majority, a sentiment that we have not noticed in Marnga, and which points to a different kind of identity. Marnga people, who are still more of a minority and are not recognized as a separate entity, assume their Khasi ethnicity beyond their specific Marnga ethnicity. In other words, they accept the possibility of inserted ethnic belongings. It is very uncertain how old the Marmyeng Karbi identity is in its present form. Interestingly, our informants themselves pointed out that there exist, in their immediate vicinity, some groups with a looser identity: this is the case with the small village of Markang, in the north of Marmyeng on the Assam–Meghalaya border, which consists of a dozen houses bearing Karbi clan names. We were told that Markang was founded some 10 years ago by people who came from Marnga. At first, they did not consider themselves either as Karbi or as Khasi, but were more at ease with the Khasi language
88â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ than with Karbi, which they still speak with difficulty. They were enticed by the Karbi speakers of Marmyeng to ‘convert’ into Karbi. This practice is quite common among the Karbi, where a newcomer is purified and adopted into a Karbi clan.18 Markang people are still perceived as a marginal group, badly integrated, unsure about their belonging and whose practices would differ from those of the ‘typical’ Karbi culture. Promotion of Karbi conversion would arise in reaction to an opposite movement of a greater dimension. According to our informants, among the 60,000 ‘real Karbi’ living in 51 villages of Meghalaya, 20,000 have ‘converted’ to Khasi and become matrilineal—which goes some way towards accounting for the fact that only 11,400 are listed in the census. However, their Khasi-ization would not be complete: “They introduce themselves as Khasi in front of Khasi and Karbi when meeting Karbi.” And their clan names still prove they are Karbi. So here is the logic: a clan name with a Karbi consonance does attest a Karbi origin. As a matter of fact, similarity between patronyms is not always obvious—at least for an outsider—and may require some interpretation. One readily suspects that not all Khasi perceive these homonymies—paronymies, in fact—in the same way. They may have a different view altogether, stating that these names are ‘purely Khasi’ and that those who bear them in Meghalaya are without doubt Khasi. Out of the state, ‘Khasi names’ among Karbi people would indicate a ‘conversion’ from Khasi to Karbi. All these assertions do not tell how the maintenance of a patronym is actually possible, considering the difference of descent rules between Karbi and Khasi: when shifting from a patrineal to a matrilineal society, or the opposite, the name of the convert/spouse should disappear at the next generation. But this may not be a crucial point here, because we are primarily concerned with discourses: rather, such divergent interpretations should lead to an examination of the role that clanic belonging plays in the emergence of ascribed or self-ascribed ethnic categorizations. First, because in the identity discourses heard in this region, clanic belonging seems to matter much more than language, descent, dress, or any other visible sign. Bearing a certain clan name means belonging to the corresponding clan and thus, systematically, to the ethnic group to which this clan is exclusive—in the eyes of the speaker. Second, if there is a disagreement on paronymous clan names, it is precisely because they are found among different areas and cultures. This is
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quite a widespread phenomenon, which in the context of rising ethnic claims becomes one of the leitmotifs of identity assertions.19
NON-ETHNIC COMMUNITIES AT THE BORDERS: THE MAWKER CASE The case of Markang, the ‘poorly converted’ village, is not exceptional in the region. Several villages are locally known for their uncertain identities. These communities are located at the margins of what could be called ‘ethnic cores’. By ethnic cores, I mean spaces qualified by a congruence between culture and identity, which does not exclude the possibility that several ethnic components coexist in the same space.20 Marmyeng is a small-sized example, however, the territory of the Hill Tiwa, 20 kilometres to the east, mostly within KarbiAnglong district, is a more salient case.21 Commonly referred to by the name of one of its larger villages, ‘Umswai’, this area comprises a concentration of villages speaking Tiwa—a Tibeto-Burmese language of the Bodo-Garo group—whose inhabitants claim in their majority to be ‘Tiwa’. They, however, form only one-third of a total population of 30,000, which also includes Karbi, Khasi, and Nepali villages. Villages are almost always mono-ethnic, even in the common case where they are a few hundred metres apart from each other. In the Umswai area, the identity of each village is explicit. This does not mean that it is absolutely perennial. Within the last 30 years, abundant conversions to Christianity, as well as the establishment of new villages by Christians seem to have been associated with shifts from the one identity to the other.22 Nevertheless, almost everybody in the area explicitly asserts his belonging to an ethnic group—or ‘tribe’, to render the exact term used—whether Tiwa, Karbi, Khasi, or Nepali. And the first justification given to one’s own ethnic belonging as well as others’ is almost always the patronym, which points to a clan and thus to an assumed ethnicity.23 At the periphery of Umswai area, identities are less clear-cut. Many villagers of the foothills annually attend Jonbil Mela, a fair held near Jagiroad in the Assamese plains. In February 2007, with a couple of Tiwa friends, I questioned visitors about their geographical origin, their mother tongue and—in a rather naive manner—about the ethnic group to which they belonged. A family who came from
90â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ Mawker, one day’s walk from there, in Meghalaya, responded very briefly by saying they spoke Karbi and Khasi. After my Tiwa friends summoned them to state whether they where Karbi, Khasi, or Tiwa, they just answered: “We are from kur Mukti.” In Khasi language, kur means a clan. Mukti, generally spelled ‘Muktieh’ in Meghalaya, is quite a common title in Ri-Bhoi, perceived as being a ‘Khasi surname’; some Tiwa interpret it instead as a distortion of the clan name ‘Mithi’. The fact that some Khasi speakers, living in Meghalaya and bearing a patronym reputed in this state as Khasi, do not introduce themselves as Khasi should attract our attention.24 Mawker is situated in the northeastern corner of Ri-Bhoi, an area facing Umswai on the other side of the Umiam river, which forms the boundary with Assam. At the time when Meghalaya was created, these villages were included in the new state, as they used to pay allegiance to the Khasi syiem of Khyrim. The present syiem of Khyrim described this region to me as being inhabited by Karbi and Lalung (Tiwa) having their own traditions, benefiting from his protection, and acknowledging his own legitimacy, notably by bringing animals at the annual Ka Ponblang sacrifice held in his Smit durbar near Shillong.25 Linguistically, northeastern Ri-Bhoi displays the same features as Umswai: Khasi, Karbi, and Tiwa (most Nepali have fled on the other side of the border after the 1987 anti-foreigners movements in Meghalaya), and many similar patronyms are found on both sides of the border. Thus, one would expect to find the same ethnic pattern as well. But this is far from being the case: linguistic and patronymic composition of villages is far more heterogeneous on the Ri-Bhoi side. The Karbi and Tiwa of Karbi-Anglong perceive many of those villages as either ‘truly Karbi’ or ‘truly Tiwa’, but as subjected to acculturation and not daring to assert their identity in a Khasi-dominated context. In certain cases, there are good clues enough to confirm this. For instance, in Magro and Lymphuid villages, people display patronyms that are widespread in Umswai Tiwa-speaking villages, but not in Khasi-speaking areas elsewhere in Meghalaya. Furthermore, Magro and Lymphuid still form two of the seven centres around which the major territorial ritual of the Tiwa-speaking area—Yangli—is organized.26 However, other villages are obviously in a different situation, of which Mawker precisely offers a good illustration. Mawker is inhabited by people who bear either Khasi-sounding or Karbi-sounding surnames; but these patronyms also coexist in many households.
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Actually, this is not only the result of a few occasional inter-ethnic marriages and of ‘acculturation’. A look at the genealogical structure of Mawker’s households gives the impression that all kinds of arrangements are possible.27 Patrilineal and matrilineal forms coexist within the very same houses, and matrilineal descent is combined with matrilocality, patrilocality, or neolocality. Neither the Khasiness nor the Karbi-ness of surnames seems to be in any correlation with the descent practices. Most of the Mawker’s 58 households throw into question the matrilineality of the Khasi, the patrilineality of the Karbi, and the structural coherence of descent systems. Of course, many good justifications (economy, pluri-ethnicity, etc) could be found to explain the particular choices and arrangements made in each house. But the points to be stressed here are both the great flexibility in these choices and their association with a loose ethnic identity. Mawker’s people speak Khasi and Karbi, have Khasi or Karbi surnames, follow both matrilineal and patrilineal descent, and have some difficulties in answering the question: “Which ethnic group do you belong to?”
NON-ETHNIC POLITIES, TRANS-ETHNIC CLANS, AND THE MODERN ETHNIC STATES We can presume that ‘loose’ or ‘undefined’ identities have something to do with cross belongings; but in which way? One possible conjecture would be that these cultural minorities are placed in an ambiguous situation owing to their insertion into a Khasi polity and a Khasi demographical majority. In the present ethnic context of Northeast India, identities tend to be exclusive. This may make certain minorities feel uneasy, as they are somehow compelled to choose only one among their several ethnic belongings. Thus, putting forward a clanic rather than an ethnic belonging—in the way our Mawker informants did—would be a way out of an alternative between, for example, Karbi and Khasi. Against this perfectly defensible interpretation, I would suggest another one that understands such identity statements in a literal manner, as expressing the possibility of non-ethnic identities. Pending more data on the history of these ‘marginal’ groups, I would put forward the following hypothesis: rather than a conflicting situation, the identity expressed by the marginal groups of Ri-Bhoi is a vestige of an ancient
92â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ identity pattern in which clanic belonging did not determine ethnic or tribal belonging. This would account for the existence of similar clan names among the present distinct ethnic groups. An analogous phenomenon has been unearthed by Günther Schlee in East Africa.28 Trans-ethnic descents, or at least homonymies, should make us constantly interrogate the perennial validity of ethnic belongings versus clanic belongings. The classical approach to tribal societies in anthropology starts from the ethnic group and then introduces the clans as sub-units. This correctly reflects the indigenous discourses, which—putting our atypical cases aside—describe the clans as having stemmed from the primordial ancestor of the tribe, and seldom evoke the existence of a parent tribe. But though this segmentary process is historically plausible, it does not rule out the possibility of another one, in which the clans would be relatively permanent entities, blending to form new ethnic groups, moving individually from one group to another or simply surviving without any ethnic affiliation. I do not mean that ascribed or self-ascribed ethnic identities did not exist in the past. We have seen in the foregoing some occurrences of what looked like ethnic categories in Assamese historical documents. What might be challenged is the idea that ethnic identity necessarily relied on descent, as has become the dominant trend today. Neither is it obvious that culture, including language, was among the prime belongings, that is, those that were primarily asserted in identity. Some living clues are available today, for instance, in the dual cultural morphology of the Tiwa, and more generally in the cultural heterogeneity of Northeastern groups.29 Present-day Plains Tiwa and Hills Tiwa speak languages of distinct families (Indo-Aryan/TibetoBurmese), follow antithetic descent rules (patrilinear/matrilinear), and bear altogether different patronyms. They nevertheless constitute a single ethnic entity in the sense that most of them not only claim to be Tiwa but recognize the same quality in the members of the other cultural sub-group (hills/plains). The Tiwa identity, as well as the atypical identities found within Khasi polities, allows us to imagine what could have been the importance of political and territorial belongings in the genesis of present identities. Because what brings together Plains and Hills Tiwa, in the last instance, beyond their present ethnic identity, is their common recognition of the Gobha deoraja, whose—now solely
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ritual—authority was and is exerted both on the hills- and plainsdwellers irrespective of their clans, descent rules, or languages.30 The present Tiwa identity would be a projection of their former political belonging. The position of cultural continuities and discontinuities within this ancient identity set-up founded on clans and political entities remains to be understood. Did submission to a chief result in the adoption of the politically dominant clans’ culture? Or did the system allow for the co-existence of several linguistic groups as well as various religious practices, provided, for instance, that certain rituals were attended and certain taxes were paid? Among the elements involved in the formation of current identities in the region, political belonging, that is, either belonging to a polity or acknowledgement of a ruler, remains crucial. Compared to the situation in the colonial period, the nature of political belonging has obviously evolved. The major innovation has been, it seems, the territory, or rather, the spatialization of authority. The present administrative arrangements, shaped according to the modern state model, rely on continuous spaces bounded by linear borders. This is the case of states and districts in the Northeast and has made conflicts between Northeastern states a regular occurrence. These concern both the delimitation of borders and the closely related issue of border populations’ citizenship. Since the creation of Meghalaya, regular crises have opposed Meghalaya’s and Assam’s public opinions on the issue of the harassment of ‘Block I & II Khasi’ living on the Assamese side of the border in the Karbi-dominated district of Karbi-Anglong. As a result, Karbi living in Meghalaya have been regularly given a ‘notice to leave’ by certain Khasi organizations. Such reactions may be seen as the direct effect of the new dominant ethnic model, which ‘ethnicized’ spaces by assigning exclusive rights over a continuous space to a single ethnic group. Karbi-Anglong tends to be viewed, by both sides, as a ‘Karbiland’, and eastern Meghalaya as a ‘Khasiland’. Thus, in somehow a classic manner, dominant ethnicized groups tend to have a dual attitude towards the marginal ‘loosely ethnicized’ groups, like those of eastern Ri-Bhoi: either their differences and specificities are underplayed to confirm the ethnic homogeneity of the territory, or on the contrary they are acknowledged, leading to the conclusion that these communities are not geographically in their correct place. This is far from being as yet a dominant paradigm in the villages themselves, where, beyond political chat, inter-community relationships are still largely regulated by what I have called the ‘ancient identity model’.
94â•… PHILIPPE RAMIREZ We hope to have shown how the study of ‘uncertain ethnic identities’ helps greatly in understanding how ethnic identities themselves may have emerged, how they are not ‘necessary’, how they are evolving, and more simply what are their basic paradigms. To this end, the concept of belonging is quite useful in qualifying the individual bricks, out of which collective identities are built. Ethnic identity appears to have emerged as a crystallization of intersecting clanic, spatial, territorial, political, and religious belongings. In each case, a different set of belongings has come forward to sustain the materiality of the emergent ethnic group: descent groups, surnames communities, polities, and geographical areas seem definitely to have been crucial in the past; but belonging to linguistic, religious (especially Christian), or meta-ethnic communities (‘Mongoloïd’, ‘Tibeto-Burmese’, and so on) assumes a growing role.31 Ethnicities appear as layers of a new type that are superimposed above pre-existing belongings, although not yet completely; indeed, on the margins, several pockets of—in ethnic terms—loose identities remain. Further research may reveal whether they are relics, having escaped the ethnicization processes, or in the contrary, paradoxical outcomes of conflicting ethnic forces. In the second case, it might not be entirely inaccurate to imagine that such marginal and atypical patterns may inspire new forms of identities in the future. Identity and belongings are clearly related in a dialectical way, mutually shaping each other. But the steadiness of the cultural and social frameworks that determine belongings definitely sets some limits to the imposition of invented ethnic communities. At the borders, uncertain identities always tend to appear.
Notes 1. “...thereby supplying another link in the chain of evidence in support of the conclusion that the Bhois, or, more correctly speaking, the Mikirs, are of Bodo origin, and not Khasi or Mon-Anam” (Gurdon, 1990 [1906]). 2. Bhuyan (1990: 194–95); Jantiya Buranji quoted by Shadap Sen (1981: 136–39). 3. The 1931 census showed a total of about 7,000 Garo in the “Khasi & Jaintia Hills”, but the figures didn’t distinguish between the hills themselves and the portions of plains included in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills (Census of India, 1931). 4. The original United Khasi–Jaintia Autonomous District (1952) was divided into two Autonomous Districts (Khasi and Jaintia) in 1963. 5. “Karew are the Khasis who live on the Northern slopes of the Khasi hills” (Karmawphlang, 2001: 53).
BELONGING TO THE BORDERSâ•… 95 ╇ 6. ‘Mikir’ and ‘Lalung’ were extensively used in Assam till 20 years ago. Although they remain in the state’s official Scheduled Tribes’ list, they have now been replaced in common usage by the indigenous ‘Karbi’ and ‘Tiwa’ promoted by the tribal associations. ╇ 7. Shillong Times (19 October 2004): “The Confederation of Ri-Bhoi People (CORP) in a statement issued here has strongly defended the use of ‘Ri-Bhoi’ nomenclature for Ri-Bhoi district. Stating that the nomenclature was not only started since creation of Ri-Bhoi district, the organisation said that it was a name given to the people of the area since time immemorial. The organisation also said that the State Government should first change the name of Meghalaya “which was not an indigenous name for our land”. It may be mentioned that the Ri-Bhoi Youth Federation (RBYF) was the first organisation to oppose the changing of Ri-Bhoi district into ‘North Khasi Hills District’. Further, the KSU had issued statement stating that the use of ‘Ri-Bhoi’ nomenclature should be removed in order to preserve the unity of Khasi tribes. KSU and FKJGP were the only organizations to have used Ri-Bhoi district as ‘North Khasi Hills District’” [KSU: Khasi Students Union, FKJGP: Federation of Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo Peoples]. ╇ 8. Electoral Rolls 2006, A100016-18. ╇ 9. Bhoi Marvet would be the hills immediately above Guwahati, Bhoi Karo the remaining of the Bhoi area. ‘Karo’ corresponds most probably to ‘Karew’. 10. According to François Jacquesson, CNRS LACITO, a specialist in Tibeto-Burman languages, who visited Marnga with me in March 2007. 11. Data on the clan distribution come from an analysis of Indian electoral lists I undertook under the ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) project ‘Languages, Cultures and Territories in Northeast India’; see http://www.vjf. cnrs.fr/brahmaputra/uk/corpora/people.htm. 12. Matrilineality is taken here in the wider sense: adoption of the mother’s clan, matrilocality, and inheritance in the female line. 13. In the absence of land taxes, market taxes constitute the main bulk of the revenue of Khasi chiefs. 14. For descriptions of the present Karbi, see Bhattacharjee (1986) and Phangcho et al. (2008). 15. On the variation of political systems and rituals among the Karbi, see Ramirez (2007: 99–102). 16. In the Northeast, closing the village is especially common among the Dimasa (Danda, 1978: 132–33). 17. www.censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_st_meghalaya.pdf 18. We have discovered a similar and very recent case in the vicinity of Guwahati, where a whole Garo village was converted into Karbi under the pretext that its inhabitants had some difficulties finding matrimonial matches. 19. Trans-ethnic clans and clan names were documented as early as 1917 by Barbeau (1917: 393) in North America. For more recent examples in Africa see, for instance, Schlee (1985) or Lindgren (2004: 178, 182–87). 20. The opposition between ethnic cores and margins that I draw here is mainly for qualifying different levels of convergence between culture and identity. I do not refer to any opposition—which may nevertheless exist—between a ‘centre’ and a ‘periphery’, and more precisely not to the models imagined by Mus or Tambiah,
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21. 22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. 28.
29.
30. 31.
which have recently been assessed by Toffin (2007: 14–18) in connection with the peripheral groups of the Kathmandu Valley. We will only speak here about the Hill Tiwa, who differ from the Plains Tiwa in their culture and language, but not in their identity. Why many Christians have left their original villages is not yet very understood. Although there are signs of reactions against conversions to Christianity, it is not clear whether or not these are devised by Hindu radical movements. NonChristians are referred to as ‘Hindus’. If the tribal religions in the Northeast have been in varying degrees influenced by Hinduism, the religion of the Hills Tiwa is nevertheless clearly distinct from Assamese or Bengali Hinduism, even after taking into account the variability of these. The case of Nepalis is slightly different, as their names do not always refer to clans. However, except in some instances, like ‘Sharma’, they are specific enough (Chetri, Gurung, Limbu, and so on) to mean ‘Nepali’ in ethnic terms. At least, this goes against a common assumption in the region, according to which the benefits of the Khasi status in Meghalaya incite many outsiders to marry Khasi girls in order to ‘become Khasi’. According to the Khasi Autonomous Council, non-Khasi may be considered as citizens of a Khasi state, under the status of raiot, if they belong to “Garo or Rabha or Mikir or Hajong or Lalungs or Lushai (Mizo) Community or any other plain Tribal or Tribal Community (except the Dkhars)”—‘Dkhar’ meaning ‘non-tribal’, that is, Assamese, Bengali, or Nepali. These communities are said to have been brought under the authority of the Khasi chiefs by virtue of defeat, migrations, or ‘ethnic affinity’ (Cf. the various statuses of citizenships at http://khadc.nic. in/snippets/meanings.htm). During Yangli, seven main villages sacrifice to the goddess Lukhmi in the name of their dependent hamlets (pham). The summation of the phams of a village does not form a continuous space, which suggests that ritual links are maintained subsequent to migrations. Data discussed here emanates from the electoral lists of Meghalaya. Schlee (1985) elaborately described the segmentation of a proto-group into different ethnicities that retained the original descent units. Concerning Northeast India at least, I think that this is not incompatible with the possibility of an opposite movement, that is, a process of aggregation where clans regularly combine to form new ethnic groups. The Naga case is emblematic: Naga identity may be recent, the ‘Naga’ label may have been ascribed from outside; nevertheless, the extreme diversity of languages and social structures does not prevent a large number of individuals claiming this label. On the Naga’s linguistic diversity, see van Driem (1997); on their political systems, Bouchery (2007). For a brief introduction on the Tiwa king, see Ramirez (2007: 104–05). I have not mentioned here the ‘tribal’ identity (sometimes pronounced/taybɔl/), which is not common in Bhoi, but has become a common way of identifying oneself in other areas of Northeast India. In this context, ‘tribals’ are rarely defined in descriptive terms, but rather in opposition to ‘plains people’, although ironically most ‘tribals’ live in the plains.
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REFERENCES Barbeau, C.M. 1917. ‘Iroquoian Clans and Phratries’, American Anthropologist, New Series, July–September, 19(3): 392–402. Bhattacharjee, T. 1986. Sociology of the Karbis. Delhi: B.R. Publishers. ———. (ed.). 1990 (1933). Tungkhungia Buranji or A History of Assam 1681–1826 ad : An Old Assamese Chronicle of the Tungkhungia Dynasty of Ahom Sovereigns. Guwahati: Government of Assam, Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies. Bhuyan, S.K. (ed.). 2001 (1932). Deodhai Asam Buranji: With Several Shorter Chronicles of Assam [Compiled from Old Assamese Buranjis]. Guwahati: Government of Assam, Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies. Bouchery, P. 2007. ‘Naga Ethnography and Leach’s Oscillatory Model of Gumsa and Gumlao’, in F. Robinne and M. Sadan (eds), Social Dynamics in the Highlands of Southeast Asia: Reconsidering ‘Political Systems of Highland Burma’, pp. 109–25. Leiden: Brill. Census of India 1931: Vol. III. 1932. Assam. Shillong: Assam Government Press. Census of India 2001. Available online at: http://www.censusindai.gov.in Danda, D. 1978. Among the Dimasa of Assam. New Delhi: Sterling. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gurdon, P.R.T. 1990 (1906). The Khasis. Delhi: Low Price Publishers. Kharmawphlang, D. 2001. ‘When the Stone Crumbles’, Indian Folklore Research Journal, May, 1(1): 53–56. Lindgren, B. 2004. ‘The Internal Dynamics of Ethnicity: Clan Names, Origins and Castes in Southern Zimbabwe’. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 74(2): 173–93. Macdonald, A.W. 1957. ‘Notes sur la claustration villageoise dans l’Asie du Sud-Est’, Journal Asiatique, 245(2): 185–210. Phangcho, M., B. Teron, D. Teron, E. Teron, and R. Teron (eds). 2008. Karbi Studies 1. Guwahati: Angik Prakashan. Ramirez, P. 2007. ‘Politico-ritual Variations on the Assamese Fringes: Do Social Systems Exist?’ in F. Robinne and M. Sadan (eds), Social Dynamics in the Highlands of Southeast Asia: Reconsidering ‘Political Systems of Highland Burma’, pp. 91–107. Leiden: Brill. Schlee, G. 1985. ‘Interethnic Clan Identities among Cushitic-speaking Pastoralists’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 55(1): 17–38. Sen, Shadap, N.C. 1981. The Origin and Early History of the Khasi-Synteng People. Kolkata: Firma. Shillong Times. Online edition at http://www.theshillongtimes.com Toffin, G. 2007. Newar Society: City, Village and Periphery. Lalitpur: Social Science Baha/Himal Books. van Driem, G. 1997. Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, containing an introduction to the symbiotic theory of language (2 volumes). Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Chapter 5 Politics of Belonging Identity and State-formation in Nagaland sanjay Kumar Pandey
Introduction The present study attempts to trace and analyse how the politics of belonging contributed to the formation of Naga identity and statehood.1 The focus here is on the transformation of the scattered Naga tribes into a common national identity. It is argued that the Naga national identity and state-formation are related to each other and the ‘creation’ of the two has taken place in the form of interlinked processes. The chapter is divided in two parts. The first deals with the necessary conceptual preliminaries. The second discusses the process of identity and state-formation2 in Nagaland in the context of the politics of belonging.3
Part I Conceptual Framework This part deals with the existing theories of belonging, identity, and statehood. It argues that the three concepts cannot be understood in isolation from each other; rather they are closely interlinked. The project of statehood is a culmination of the politics of belonging and identity formation.
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Defining Belonging and the Politics of Belonging Belonging “is about emotional attachment, about feeling at home, and …about feeling safe” (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 197); whereas identities can be seen as “cognitive boundaries based on exclusive sense of belonging” (Bhambra, 2006: 32). They are often constructed through “the process of defining and maintaining the boundaries of the groups to which the individuals belong” (ibid.). These boundaries separate those who belong to the group and those who do not; “the point at which something becomes something else, at which the way things are done changes, at which ‘we’ end and ‘they’ begin” (Migdal, 2004: 5). These boundaries, which are basically social constructions, have two elements: checkpoints and mental maps. The checkpoints include surveillance techniques, such as checking visas and passports, as well as virtual checkpoints, such as dress, language or even something as subtle as accent differences, “as separators marking who is included in a group and who is not” (ibid.: 6). Mental maps “divide home from alien territory, the included from the excluded, the familiar from the other” (ibid.: 7). The politics of belonging is a political project aimed at “constructing belonging in particular ways to particular collectivities that are, at the same time, themselves being constructed by these projects in very particular ways” (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 197). The threat, real and/or perceived, from the ‘other’ is what leads to the politicization of belonging. People feel secure when the checkpoints and markers —language, race, skin colour, dress, mannerism, citizenship— clearly separate the familiar from the unfamiliar (Migdal, 2004: 10), and when this separation is validated as a geographical space where the community of belonging can control the state institutions that manage the borders and checkpoints. Thus the borders or the checkpoints that separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ have both a socio-cultural (language, race, dress, etc.) and a territorial dimension. In the project of constructing belonging and identity and in distinguishing ‘us’ from ‘them’, the notions of space and territoriality are very important. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1992: 6) are of the opinion that it is this notion of territoriality or space that leads to conflicts and contradictions between cultures and societies. John Crowley has also defined the politics of belonging as “the dirty work of boundary maintenance” (as quoted in Yuval-Davis, 2006: 204). The boundaries that the politics of belonging is concerned
100â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY with are the boundaries of the political community of belonging, the boundaries that separate the world population into ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 204). Nira Yuval-Davis further argues that the politics of belonging can be played at two levels. On the one hand the hegemonic political powers propagate “the maintenance and reproduction of the boundaries of the community of belonging” in one particular way. But there is also “contestation and challenge by other political agents” (ibid.: 205). It is important to recognize, however, that “such political agents struggle both for the promotion of their specific projects in the construction of their collectivity and its boundaries and, at the same time, use these ideologies and projects in order to promote their own power positions within and outside the collectivity” (ibid.). Thus in the politics of belonging there can be two narratives: the dominant narrative and a counter narrative. The counter narrative inevitably tries to construct a distinct cultural and national identity for its community of belonging, separate from, and in opposition to, the identity of the dominant community. This construction and the demands for political rights, most notably the right to selfdetermination, are justified in the name of protecting the identity of the smaller community.
Defining Identity and Identity Formation Identity formation is closely linked to the politics of belonging. “Politics of belonging encompass and relate both citizenship and identity, adding an emotional dimension which is central to notions of belonging” (Yuval-Davis, et al, 2006: 1). Identity is used differently in different disciplines. Broadly there are two approaches: psychological and sociological. The former looks into the issues of individual identity formation, whereas the latter studies the formation of collective social identity. Collective identity is defined as: an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity. (Polletta and Jasper, 2001: 285)
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In many instances, a collective identity was first constructed and enforced by outsiders, but later on accepted by those to whom it was applied. Collective identities are mostly articulated through cultural materials such as names, narratives, symbols, verbal styles, rituals, clothing, and collective memories and they carry with them positive feelings for other members of the group. Our concern here is collective identity from a sociological perspective. The form of collective identity that we are discussing is ethnic and national. Ethnic groups have been described by Weber as: “Human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or of both, or because of memories of colonization or migration” (Weber, 1997: 18). Like ethnic ideologies, nationalism also emphasizes the cultural similarity of its adherents. Nationalism, which tends to be ethnic in character, aspires to make political boundaries coterminous with cultural boundaries (Griffiths and O’Callaghan, 2004: 95). Any debate on ethnic or national identity generally revolves round what many call ‘primordialism’ and what has been variously described as ‘constructivism’, ‘circumstantialism’ and ‘instrumentalism’. This sometimes leads to oversimplification of a complex phenomenon, and also overlooks some common ground between the two approaches. The primordialists consider ethnic ties as eternal. But Geertz (1963), who developed an ‘interpretive’ model of cultural anthropology and assessed the role of the primordial concerns in the emergence of new nations in the wake of the collapse of the European Empires, believes that primordial attachments stem from the ‘assumed’ givens of social existence, thereby bringing in the critical element of perception. One of the foremost primordialists, Anthony D. Smith, who emphasized the centrality of the ethnic component in the emergence of nations, nevertheless concedes that intellectuals and elites play an important role in this construction (Smith, 1989). There are other primordialists who believe that human beings cannot be neatly categorized as primordialist or constructivist, emotional or rational. Hence they suggest synthesizing the two approaches (Gil-White, 1999). For the ‘constructivists’, what distinguishes one ethnic group from others is not the unique elements of their cultures but the perception of such differences. Ethnic groups, and even more so ethnic nationalism, are not holdovers from ancient times, but are imaginary constructions. They are the products of economic, technological, and
102â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY industrial forces that emerged in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Gellner (1983) emphasizes the role of elites, while Anderson (1991) talks about the contribution of ‘print capitalism’ in the creation of this phenomenon. Gorenburg (1999) highlights the role of the state in creating and causing changes in identity. There are a number of theorists who seek to synthesize primordialism and constructivism. Hale (2004) asserts that the primordialism– constructivism distinction is somewhat miscast, obscuring some fundamental issues on which they seem to agree. “Real world primordialists and constructivists agree that identities are constructed (i.e. that beliefs about primordiality are formed) during some identifiable period in history” (ibid.: 461). Others point out the multiple influences that play a role in the creation of identities. Collective identity describes imagined as well as concrete communities, involves acts of perception and construction as well as discovery of preexisting bonds, interests and boundaries. It is fluid and relational, emerging out of interaction with a number of different audiences (bystanders, allies, opponents, news media, state authorities), rather than fixed. (Polletta and Jasper 2001: 298)
While emphasis on identity in the formulation of politics may be useful in electoral and party politics, it may also lead to polarization among ethnic and cultural communities sharing the same civic space or may tend to homogenize diversity and contradictory interests within the same community around “an imagined, transcendental notion of community–self, thereby suppressing within this putative ethnic or cultural community what is perceived to be different or discordant” (Polat, 2006: 512). Thus for the purpose of our discussion, identities are mainly social constructs based on the discovery of some primordial ties, interests, and boundaries in which the state institutions along with elites and leadership play a significant role. Identity and belonging are related concepts. Belonging has both a formal and an instrumental aspect, that is, one’s status (e.g., as a citizen) and an informal affective component, that is one’s sense of identity. Communities of belonging determine one’s status or external standing, but gain support from “affective elements associated with identity that bind people together” (Migdal, 2004: 15).
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Defining State-formation and State-building Most of the definitions of the state draw heavily on the Weberian notion of the state. Broadly they emphasize three factors. First, its institutional character (the state as an organization or a set of organizations); second, its functions (especially regarding the making of the rules); and third, its recourse to coercion (“monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force”) (Ramaswamy, 2003: 71). What lies at the core of these definitions is the question of domination or authority in the state’s claimed territory and the degree to which the state’s institutions can expect voluntary compliance with their rules (legitimacy) or need to resort to coercion. The state has also been described as “a set of organizations invested with the authority to make binding decisions for people and organizations juridically located in a particular territory and to implement these decisions using, if necessary, force” (Evans, et al., 1985). However, there are theories of state that argue that states are not independent from society and that they depend upon social organizations for their creation and purposes. They work within the parameters of social structure. Even though they function in an autonomous manner, successful implementation of their authority is possible only if they have a certain support base within the society. “The autonomy of states, the slant of their policies, the preoccupying issues for their leaders, and their coherence are greatly influenced by the societies in which they operate” (Migdal, 2001: 16). Migdal adopts a state-in-society perspective, which describes the state as “a field of power marked by the use of the threat of violence and shaped by (a) the image of coherent, controlling organization in a territory, which is a representation of the people bounded by that territory, and (b) the actual practices of its multiple parts” (ibid.). Although Migdal (2001) refers to the paradox of the state’s being simultaneously a part of society and apart from society, he nevertheless maintains that the state leaders attempt to propagate the view that “state and society are indistinguishable in purpose if not in form” and that sovereignty ultimately rests with the people. In other words, the states try to make the state and nation coterminous, or “the political boundary correspond to the social psychological boundary” (ibid.: 19). According to the state-in-society perspective, for the purpose of establishing a strong and stable state, identity helps in bringing
104â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY state and society together. Identity and state-formation should not be understood in contradiction with each other. Accommodation of various identities within the state structure may lead to a stable and pluralistic state, so that the state will not be taken as the opponent of society or adversarial to social values, but as a protector of the various customs, identities, values, and organizational structures that a society maintains. However, the process of state-formation is distinct from statebuilding. According to Braddick, state-building is a process of the reproduction of particular, pre-defined state institutions. Such a process is based on a specific model or blueprint of institutions or certain values. In short, the process of state-building is an ‘intentional’ and deliberate process (Braddick, 2000). State-building can be interpreted as a top–down process under which rulers (colonial or otherwise) and/or leaders (national, etc.) create state institutions (Young, 1994). On the other, hand state-formation is an ‘unintentional’ process with impersonal consequences (Braddick, 2000). It is pertinent to remember that for the purpose of our discussion state-building indicates the creation of administrative institutions, whereas state-formation refers to demand for rights of citizenship and a self-governing political community.
Part II Identity and State-Formation in Nagaland This section argues that the politics of belonging in Nagaland has been a political project aimed at creating a common Naga national identity, in opposition to the Indian identity and seeking to establish a political community or an independent statehood based on it. Statebuilding preceded identity and state-formation in the Naga area. Initially it was a colonial enterprise, as the British rulers introduced modern political/administrative institutions, once this area came under their control. As a result of their policies and the introduction of modern education and Christianity an educated middle class emerged. This new class started a movement to create a single Naga national identity, during which the idea of a state, in the sense of a self-governing political community of the Nagas, caught their imagination and through them percolated down to the common Nagas. This process has taken place in three phases, as discussed below.
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Phase I This section traces the early history of the Nagas. They came to their present abode from different directions and at different times and are divided into different tribes (Yonuo, 1974: 38–39). But they had a vague intimation of common origin and some common cultural traits that could form the basis for a sentiment of belonging in the sense of an emotional attachment. But neither did they have common political institutions or statehood that could create a community of belonging, nor a common language that could form the basis for a common identity. Instead, the various Naga tribes were continuously fighting with each other. Indeed, the very name Naga was given to them by outsiders (Chasie, 2005: 29).
The Nagas in pre-British Times: Animists and Headhunters The people known as the Nagas comprise of many tribes of the Mongoloid stock. The areas they have inhabited are in India’s northeastern states of Nagaland, the hilly regions of Manipur, North Cachar, and the Mikir Hills, as well as the Lakhimpur, Sibsagar, and Nagaon districts of Assam, northeastern parts of Arunachal Pradesh, and the Somra tracts and contiguous areas in northwestern Myanmar. These lands lie roughly between the parallels of 93 and 96 degrees of longitude. The area extends from “that noblest of all Indian rivers, the sacred Brahmaputra on the West, to the Patkai range in the north to the Thongdut state in the south, and from the Assam frontier in the west to the Chindwin river in the east” in Myanmar (ibid.: 27). The Nagas have a complex linguistic diversity. There is no common language among the Naga tribes.4 Each tribe has one or more dialects, which are mutually unintelligible except through the medium of a third dialect by means of which they converse with each other. This lack of a common language is mainly due to the population’s composition from different stocks and stages of migration from various routes and directions. The area now occupied by the Naga tribes is known to have been subjected to at least three waves of immigration from different directions. The first wave of migrants were the Maos, Angamis, Semas, Rengmas, Rongmei, and Lothas,
106â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY who moved from the south through the mountain fringes touching the valley of Manipur to the north. The second wave of migrants comprised the Aos, Changs, Khiamnungans, Sangtams, Yimchunger, and Tangkhuls. This group is believed to have migrated from Thangdut, near the Chindwin river in Burma/Myanmar, by a different route to their present hills. The third group of immigrants are the Konyak Nagas, who came to their present hills from the northeast of Burma and trace their original migration to Burma/Myanmar (Yonuo, 1974: 39). Thus all the Naga tribes came to settle in their present hill locations in different waves of migration at different times. Though they came from different routes and directions before they migrated to the present hills, the Nagas must have settled somewhere together. They have something in common in their origin, which is somehow related to caves and stones. Most of the Naga tribes indicate Meikhel or its surrounding area as their place of origin. Some of the Naga tribes, like the Angamis, Aos Semas, Lothas, and Tangkhuls believe that their ancestors emerged from caves and stones. But the origin of the Nagas is still a matter of contention (Aosenba, 2001: 6). The genesis of the term ‘Naga’ has long been a matter of debate among scholars. Two of the most popular views trace its etymology to the Burmese or the Assamese languages. In Burma (Mynamar), the Nagas are called Na-Ka or ‘the people with pierced ear lobes’, a practice widespread among the Naga tribes. In the Assamese language, the word ‘Naga’ means ‘naked’, and has been used in the Assamese historical records called Buranji to mean primitive people living in their natural surroundings (Shimray, 2005: 29). Either way, the term was coined by outsiders, and later on popularized by British administrators and writers. It was much later that the Nagas themselves started using it. The most important political institution in Naga society has been the village. In the past the Semas, Konyaks, and Maos had hereditary chieftainships (monarchy), while the Aos had a council of elected headmen, and the Angamis, Lothas, and Rengmas were nominally governed by kings or chieftains (Nag, 2002: 31). The Naga village states were somewhat similar to the ancient Greek city-states. The villages consisted of an organized community of about 200 to 1,000 persons, permanently occupying a particular portion of territory, with its boundary delimited by its stones, its rivers and its mountains, within which the community had free right to practice jhum (shifting)
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and terrace cultivation, to fish and to hunt. The village government was organized on the basis of customary laws and traditions of an unwritten character obeyed by its inhabitants (Yonuo, 1974: 39). However, the Nagas never established a single sovereign state comprising all the village states or anything similar to it under the control of one king or chieftain. Moreover, the Naga village states did not have regular taxation or a standing army. The Nagas also failed to create a common identity. Rather, inter-village and intertribal feuds were the order of the day. Occasionally, they would come together to fight a common external enemy, particularly the Meitis and the Assamese. But such unity would disappear as soon as the danger was over (ibid.: 39–40).
Phase II During this period the British conquered the Naga Hills, and for the first time introduced modern administrative and political institutions, a modern system of education, and Christianity. The emergence of a common Naga identity was largely an unintended consequence of these measures, though at times it was aided by the conscious efforts of certain British administrators. The role of Naga elites in the construction of a distinct Naga identity in opposition to the Indian is notable. What is also clear is the instrumental use by these elites of a perceived threat of political domination and economic exploitation by the ‘other’ to further the cause of Naga nationalism. The introduction of Inner Line Regulations by the British, that restricted the entry of outsiders into the Naga hills, created a sort of formal checkpoint to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’.
British Mission: ‘Civilizing the Savages’ The British originally came to India during the early seventeenth century for the purpose of trade. They embarked upon building an empire in the vacuum created by the disintegration of the Mughal power in India. Eastern India came under their rule in the second half of the eighteenth century. This brought them into direct contact with the declining Ahom kingdom of Assam and the invading Burmese. The first Anglo-Burmese War resulted in the treaty of Yandabu
108â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY (1826) between the British and the Burmese and the annexation of Assam into the former’s dominions. The Nagas living on the eastern periphery of the Ahom kingdom used to buy salt and iron and metal implements from the people of the plains, and often conducted raids to get these or for taking slaves or headhunting. The occupation of the Naga Hills by the British was initially to protect the plainsmen, particularly those working in the tea gardens, from Naga raids. Quoting Aitchison, Reverend Michael Scott writes: The final decision to make Naga Hills a British district was taken in 1881…the necessity of protecting the borders of Naugon and Sibsagar against raiding Nagas, which in the early days compelled us to penetrate into the Hills little by little, ceased with the formation of the Naga Hill district. But the process of penetration went on inexorably if irregularly. (Naga Chronicle, 2002: 34)5
The British distaste for the tribal way of life is evident in a statement made by the Secretary of State for India Lord Cranbrook in 1878. He says: “The continuance in the immediate proximity of settled districts of a system of internecine warfare, conducted principally against women and children cannot be tolerated” (ibid.: 35). The British alternately used methods of force and of persuasion to absorb the Nagas into British imperial rule. The civilizing mission of the British towards the headhunting and warlike Nagas involved bringing “these not untamable savages first under our influence and afterwards under our control”, wrote Mackenzie on 31 May 1880 (ibid.: 44–45). It is generally believed that the British followed a policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of the tribals. Aosenba (2001: 19) maintains: “One positive thing about the British administrative policy in the Naga Hills was their non-interference in the Naga culture and custom, tradition and indigenous village administration. These were completely looked after by the village headmen (gaonburas) who decided any dispute both of civil and criminal nature according to customary laws.” However, Sajal Nag (2002: 53) argues that the British policy was to ‘structurally detribalise’ the tribals, while a superficial policy of non-interference in their life and culture was followed. In other words, the British believed that the only way to ‘tame’ these ‘savages’, as the tribals were referred to, was to bring about changes in their mode of production. So trade marts were
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established at the foothills to ensure that the tribals need not raid. Nag further argues that the British realized that unless paramountcy was established, the conquered tribes might revolt again. The only way to achieve this was to introduce British administration in the Naga Hills (Nag, 2002: 55). The Ao area was formed in 1890 into Mokukchung subdivision with a European police officer, and Kohima was formed into a subdivision under a Deputy Commissioner. At the local level, the village headmen were given the authority to decide civil and criminal cases according to the customary laws of the various tribes. Appeals and serious matters involving the death penalty were decided by the British officials with the help of the dobashis or the interpreters. A small police force and a military battalion were set up for law and order purposes (ibid.). The hills were then connected with the plains through modern communication systems. Modern education was introduced, but the responsibility was given to the Christian missionaries. “Christian missionaries, as they have done worldwide, followed the British flag to the Naga Hills” (ibid.). The British also introduced an ‘Inner Line Regulation’ prohibiting the entry of British India’s subjects into the Naga Hills without prior permission. The initial intention was to prevent the British tea planters’ encroachment on the Naga Hills, which was leading to open hostility between them and the Nagas (Aosenba, 2001: 14). But this created a formal mechanism, a checkpoint, to separate and protect the residents of the Naga Hills from ‘outsiders’.
Naga Consciousness: ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ During the First World War, about 4,000 Nagas went to France as a part of a British contingent. From their contact with totally a different ‘civilized’ people, the Naga soldiers came to realize their own ethnic, linguistic, social, and cultural uniqueness (ibid.: 34). On their return, they were instrumental in forming the Naga Club at Kohima in 1918. This was formed on the advice and initiative of the British, whose aim was to unite all the Naga tribes and to bring them into one platform. This was a ‘watershed’ in the history of Nagas, as it was the first organization to have within it representatives of most of the Naga tribes, government servants, and leading headmen from the villages. The club aimed at fostering unity among the Nagas and
110â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY at bringing about social and political awakening among them. It was followed by the formation of the first Tribal Council in 1923 by the Lothas, followed by the Aos in 1928 (Aosenba, 2001: 22). When the Simon Commission visited India in 1929 to assess the working of the Indian Councils Act of 1919, there emerged, for the first time, a real possibility of some form of representative and responsible government in India through new reforms. This led to misgivings among the Nagas. In their memorandum to the Commission, the Naga Club claimed that the Nagas had nothing in common with the people of India, who were either Hindus or Muslim. “We are looked down upon by one for our beef and the other for our pork and both for our want of education, which is not due to any fault of ours” (Naga Chronicle, 2002: 111–12). They were apprehensive that new taxes would be imposed on them and their lands taken away when they failed to pay them. The new legislative councils would be dominated by the more numerous plains people, who were insensitive to Naga rights and aspirations. They appealed not to be included in the Reformed Scheme and “not to be thrust to the mercy of people who could never subjugate us”, and therefore to be left alone (ibid.: 112). In the Government of India Act 1935, the tribal areas were declared as ‘excluded’ and ‘un-administered’. Many British officers sympathized with the situation of the Nagas. John H. Hutton, Deputy Commissioner of Naga Hills, presenting the case of the Nagas to the Indian Statutory Commission asserted that the tribals of northeast India were racially, linguistically, culturally, politically, and economically distinct from the Indians. Sir Robert Reid, the then Governor of Assam (1937–42), argued that the British Government had a responsibility towards the future welfare of these loyal primitive people. Reid based his argument on two premises: (a) that the tribals of the northeast Indian hills were not Indian and (b) that in a fast-changing political scenario, in the wake of the British departure from India, these tribals would not be cared for by the post-colonial Indian state. He was also convinced that these tribes belonged to one broad group, but had unfortunately been divided between the two administrations of India and Burma. It was, therefore, imperative that these divided people were united into one administration as a Crown Colony on the pattern of the Crown Colonies of Basutoland and Swaziland in South Africa. The Secretary of State for India, L.S. Amery, apparently favoured Reid’s proposals. But Reid’s successor as Governor of Assam, Andrew Clow, was
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not enthusiastic about it, and the new Labour government decided to let the Constituent Assembly of India take care of these issues (Nag, 2002: 74–81). The Naga middle classes found the colonial theories very useful. They drew inspiration and ideas from these sources for the construction of a national identity for the Nagas. But construction of an identity by itself was not sufficient. There were real difficulties in bringing on to one platform the 20 or more Naga tribes, who only had a vague sense of common identity and a history of perpetual inter-tribal warfare and head-hunting (ibid.: 144). British rule contributed to the formation of a common Naga identity in various ways. British bureaucrats needed to classify and name the peoples they governed. There were compilations for the Census Reports and other official enumerative documents. These administrative procedures contributed to creating a sense of identity among the tribals as they started responding to these descriptions. The contribution of the missionaries towards the formation of identity consciousness among tribals was through the standardization of their languages. For their proselytizing activities, the missionaries needed a language to communicate with the tribals. Similarly, the mission and church-controlled schools spread knowledge of the standard language, thus making meaningful communication possible among the various dialect groups of the same tribe. These schools also created the tribal elites who were to become the leaders of the solidarity movements. The new Christian faith went a long way in binding together the different clans and villages, since it brought the whole tribe on to a single platform and strengthened the tribal identity (ibid.: 138–40). “Long before politically oriented organizations promoting tribal solidarity appeared on the scene, the tribal-level churches provided an enduring and comprehensive experience of tribal unity” (ibid.: 40). Their success in bringing the different tribes together was however limited. Time and again the Naga leaders have harped on the theme of their ‘uniqueness’, which they define in terms of their distinct tribal identity, culture and way of life, and their faith—Christianity. More than this, they insist that Nagaland was never part of India, and that that is the uniqueness of their history. The Memorandum given by the Nagas to the British Government and the Government of India in support of the demand for Self-Determination (February 1947) states:
112â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY The Naga people were independent and their country was not subjugated by the Ahom kings of Assam valley, who ruled for seven hundred years. The Naga hills never formed part of Assam or India at any time before the advent of British suzerainty over Assam valley by the Treaty of Yandabu (Naga Chronicle, 2002: 64).6
It gave following arguments to bolster its claim: 1. Ethnically the Nagas are from a distinct stock. 2. The Nagas have a distinct social life, manner of living, laws and customs; and even the matter of governance of the people is quite different. 3. In religion the majority of Nagas are Animists; but Christianity which was introduced by the American Baptists long before the advent of British is now speedily spreading. Such factors as the above make it imperative that Nagas have a separate form of government. The basis of the Naga system is the village organisation. Every village is an independent unit in the tribe. Villages are managed by a council of elders and man of influence, elected by the people. Such a policy, such a state of society and democratic life can not be found in other parts of India”. (ibid.: 65)
In view of the above, the Memorandum asserted “a constitution drawn by the people who have no knowledge of the Naga Hill and Naga people will be quite unsuitable and unacceptable to the Naga people”. Their apprehension about their identity and culture is palpable. “Thrown among forty crores of Indians the one million Nagas with their unique custom of life will be wiped out of existence. Hence this earnest plea of the Nagas for a separate form of interim government to enable them to grow to a fuller stature” (ibid.: 66). In the process of construction of the Naga identity, the Indian identity has been the constant reference point—the ‘other’. In order to highlight the difference between the Nagas and the Indians, A.Z. Phizo, in his speech on the eve of the ‘Naga Voluntary Plebiscite’ in May 1951, gave a scathing critique of Indian civilization. He criticized it for untouchability, female infanticide, dowry, sati (burning of widows), landlordism and landless labour, and general deceit and insensitivity. Nagas on the other hand, he claimed, were democratic, truthful, and happy people with no social outcastes, beggars, or suicides. Exhorting his people to vote in favour of the plebiscite, he charged India with wanting to dump her excess population in
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Nagaland, as well as to exploit the rich natural resources in Naga territory (Naga Chronicle, 2002: 116–33). Identity-making involves a construction rather than merely a discovery of differences, and should be understood not as something owned or possessed by individual or collective actors, but rather as a “mobile, often unstable relation of difference” (Bhambra, 2006: 34). The differences (racial, cultural, religious, etc.) that the Naga leaders talk about, constitute the virtual checkpoints that separate them from the Indians, while the Inner Line Regulations introduced by the British and the demand for self-government, with the concomitant control over the borders, make up the actual checkpoints to protect the Nagas from the Indians. The Naga elites used real or supposed threats of political domination and economic exploitation or being outnumbered by the ‘other’ to mobilize and consolidate their support base for the national cause. Thus Migdal’s (2004: 10) contention about the threat, real and/or perceived, from the ‘other’ leading to politicization of belonging and political elites trying to create checkpoints and markers to separate the familiar from the unfamiliar, is very valid in this case. This was the most crucial period in the Naga identity and statehood projects. The British introduced the basic institutions of the modern state: administrative structure, a system of courts, taxation and a money economy, modern education, and transport and communication networks. Thus they created the basic administrative institutions that go into state-building. This was also the time when, as a result of the British administrative measures and the introduction of modern education and Christianity, the consciousness of a common Naga identity emerged.
Phase III During this phase, the Naga desire for self-governing political community got partially realized with the creation of the state (province) of Nagaland as an integral part of the Indian Union, but with certain rights and jurisdiction over its land and the authority to control the entry of outsiders. This can be said to have created formal institutional mechanisms or checkpoints to monitor boundaries (ibid.: 6), which are one of the essential components of a community of belonging.
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The Demand for a Separate Naga State The Naga statehood project acquired momentum and urgency with announcement of British withdrawal from India and the prospect of coming under ‘Indian rule’. The Naga Movement assumed a more institutionalized character with the establishment of the Naga Hill District Tribal Council in April 1945 by Sir Charles Pawsey, the then Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills District. The motive was to unite all the Naga tribes and repair the damage done during the Second World War. Later, the Council was transformed into a political organization and renamed as the Naga National Council (NNC) at the Wokha Conference on 2 February 1946. The formation of the NNC was instrumental in the consolidation of disparate nationalistic forces. Membership of this organization was made compulsory for all Naga citizens (Aosenba, 2001: 35). The NNC proposed the setting up of an interim government for a period of 10 years under the guardianship of India on 20 February 1947. Between 27 and 29 June 1947, the British Indian government, represented by Sir Akbar Hydari, the then governor of Assam, entered into a nine-point agreement with the NNC. The agreement recognized the NNC as the sole national political authority of the Nagas. It also endorsed the complete authority of the NNC over Naga territory and its resources. The governor of Assam, as the agent of the government of India, would have special responsibility for 10 years to ensure the observance of the agreement; and at the end of this period the NNC would be free either to extend the agreement or to go in for a new agreement regarding the future of the Naga people (Naga Resistance and the Peace Process, 2001: 9). The agreement was ignored by both the Constituent Assembly of India and the extremist element in the NNC led by A.Z. Phizo, who believed that at the expiry of the 10 years the Nagas were free to declare complete independence. An interesting incident took place at this time, which no Naga document fails to mention. A Naga delegation met Mahatma Gandhi at Bhangi colony in Delhi on 19 July 1947. It is claimed that he told the delegation: Nagas have every right to be independent. We did not want to live under the domination of the British, and they are now leaving us. I want you to feel that India is yours. I feel that Naga Hills are mine just as much as they are yours, but if you say ‘it is mine’ then the
POLITICS OF BELONGINGâ•… 115 matter must stop there. I believe in the brotherhood of man, but I do not believe in forced unions. If you do not wish to join the Union of India, nobody will force you to do that. The Congress government will not do that. (Naga Resistance and the Peace Process, 2001)
The Naga viewpoint has been summed up by one of the most ardent supporter of the Naga movement, Kaka D. Iralu (2000: 6): “When we say we are Nagas not Indians we also mean we are neither Burmese nor Russians nor Africans: for our people and our land never belonged to India or Burma, or any ‘other foreign power’.” He clarifies: “Nagaland is not in India, but India is presently in Nagaland by invasion and subjugation” and that the Nagas have been waging a “war of self defence” against India (ibid.: 7). One can discern two approaches to belonging here. One is inclusive, as represented by the Indian national movement, which sought to create a pan-Indian identity where the whole country belonged to all its citizens; the other particularistic, propagated by those, such as the Naga nationalists, who believe that their identity and culture make them distinct and thus sought to exclude those who are different. As the date of India’s independence approached and with no concrete agreement in sight, the NNC took the ultimate step of declaring independence on 14 August 1947, a day before Indian independence. This move was ratified, they claim, by a 99 per cent affirmative vote in a referendum held in May 1951. They believe that these two actions provide a firm legal and ethical basis for their claim of separateness and independence. They communicated their actions to both the Government of India (GoI) and the United Nations. The NNC through a message to the GoI, the UN, and the foreign ambassadors in New Delhi on 24 January 1950 communicated its non-acceptance of the Indian Constitution. After this they boycotted the first two general elections in 1952 and 1957 (Ao, 2002: 47–52). On 18 September 1954, the Naga independentists declared Free Nagaland as a Sovereign Republic and on 22 March 1956 the Phizo group declared the establishment of the Federal Government as a de facto government at Phensinyu village. The Naga movement was no longer an overground and largely peaceful and constitutional struggle, but became an organized insurgency (Ao, 2002: 67). They also adopted the Yehzabo (constitution) of Nagaland, describing the ideals of the Naga state and its government structure. It mentions English as the official language, Protestant Christianity and Naga
116â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY Religions as recognized religions, and the NNC as the only recognized political institution in Nagaland. Interestingly, Article 3 does not allow any tribe to secede from the Naga nation (Naga Chronicle, 2002: 77–91). The declaration of Naga independence led to violent conflict between the Indian army and the Naga militants, resulting in misery and suffering for the common Nagas.7 With the intention of ending the violence, a section of the Nagas under the banner of the Naga Peoples’ Convention entered into an agreement with the Government of India in 1960 for the establishment of a Naga state within the Indian Union. The Naga Statehood Bill was passed by the Indian Parliament in September 1962, as a result of which Nagaland became the sixteenth constituent state (province) of the Indian Union. Statehood brought many Nagas into the political process and in fact “marked the beginning of India’s decisive entry into Naga politics and history. The new state represented Delhi’s policy to contain the Naga militants” (Chasie, 2005: 61). Simultaneously, it cannot be denied that for the first time in their long history the Nagas acquired a clearly demarcated territory with a duly elected and constituted government that had jurisdiction over certain matters.8 There are special constitutional provisions to protect Naga culture and customs. Thus, no act of the Union Parliament in respect of the religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary laws and procedure, or ownership and transfer of land and its resources would apply to the state of Nagaland, unless the Nagaland Legislative Assembly approved it. No outsider—which includes Indians from other states/provinces—can purchase landed property in Nagaland. The Government of India has also continued with the Inner Line Regulation, which restricts the entry of non-Nagas into the state without the permission of the Government of Nagaland. All the seats in the state (provincial) Legislative Assembly are reserved for the indigenous Nagas. These are the formal mechanisms or checkpoints with which the Nagas can exclude ‘others’ and protect their community of belonging. As a result of the British rule and the grant of statehood to Nagaland (as part of the Indian Union) what Braddick (2000) refers to as state-building, that is formation of particular, predefined state institutions, was complete. Young’s (1994) contention about the
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role of colonial rulers and national leaders also can be clearly seen in this process. Statehood, within the Indian Union, failed to satisfy the aspirations of the Naga independentists, who would not settle for anything less than complete independence. They formed a new revolutionary government of Nagaland in 1967–68, and have been running a parallel government (at times more than one). The armed conflict continued till 1998, when a ceasefire was agreed upon and negotiations started between the Government of India and the most important insurgent group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland I-M [NSCN (I-M)]. However, the general secretary of the NSCN (I-M), T. Muivah, said: We can come as close as possible but it’s not possible for the Nagas to come within the Indian Union or within the framework of the Indian Constitution. Why? Because it amounts to dismissing the whole history of the Nagas and the Nagas cannot do that...Nagaland was never a part of India either by conquest by India or by consent of the Nagas. This is very clear. This is the unique history and so according to this uniqueness a solution will have to be worked out.
Sovereignty, he said, belongs ‘to the Naga people and to the Naga people alone’. He spoke about ‘a special federal relationship’ with India, but not within India.9 Thus the Naga political project did not come to an end with the creation of formal state institutions. It continued with demand for a full self governing political community for the Nagas. As we have mentioned earlier, state-formation is an ‘unintentional’ process with impersonal consequences (Braddick, 2000). Oscar Oszlak (1981) discusses the process of state-formation (more precisely nation-states) in Latin America, in conjunction with related and linked processes like the anti-colonial struggle, rise of nationalism, articulation of internal markets and their linking to the international economy, and so on. Yashar deals with the issues of state formation in relation with emergence of indigenous movement. “State formation has reframed rural citizenship and unwittingly created mobilizational networks through which indigenous movements have emerged” (Yashar, 1998: 38). These movements highlighted the limitations of the process of democratization and state-building in the countryside and demanded that policy-makers recognize both their individual and communal rights in an ideological, as well as practical manner (ibid.: 39).
118â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY The fundamental issue between the Nagas and India is two different conceptions of belonging and identity. The first claims to be inclusive and universalistic, based on the notions of common identity, common citizenship, and multiculturalism. It is best captured in the motto ‘unity in diversity’, the guiding principle of the post-colonial Indian state and its politics. However, it does not satisfy the aspirations of some of the communities living within India’s territorial boundary. These include ‘national minorities’ (like the Nagas) who think of themselves as forming distinct ‘nations’ within the larger state—incorporated through colonization and conquest—and fight to achieve self-governing political societies in their historic homelands. Their idea of belonging is restrictive and particularistic and seeks to exclude the ‘other’. The problem with the first approach is the gap between the claim and practice. While apparently tolerating, and sometimes even celebrating, diversity and differences, it does not give adequate and proper representation to the various ‘national minorities’ in the life of the larger national community. Taking one instance, the school text books prepared by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (under the control of Government of India) does not give adequate representation to the history and culture of these communities. Similarly, people of these outlying regions during their visits to the national capital New Delhi or other places in the ‘mainland’ are often treated as outsiders because of their physical features and way of life. Many a times their cultural practices, like food habits are frowned upon. This creates alienation and resentment among these people. But, to put the matter in right perspective, traditionally the hill people (Nagas, Lushais, and others) also looked down upon the plain people of Assam as inferior and hence were appalled at the prospect of being ruled by them after the British left (Nag, 2002: 92). Another problem with the second approach is that it makes selective use of history and highlights differences while glossing over the commonalities between the larger community (Indian or Assamese in the past) and the smaller group (Naga). Indeed the colonial rule interrupted the centuries old contact between the hill and the plain people and fostered the differences between the two, a point effectively made by Sajal Nag (2002: 143). The political project of creating independent statehood based on these differences provided a further reason to highlight and emphasize them. These two approaches to identity and belonging correspond to what Yuval-Davis (2006: 205) refers to as the two types of politics
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of belonging—one by the hegemonic political group (here the Indian State) and the other by those who challenge it (the Naga nationalists). She has also highlighted how the latter group in the process of constructing the borders of belonging further their own ‘specific projects’ and “promote their own power positions within and outside the collectivity” (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 205).
Conclusion Naga history during the past century is a good example of the linkage between the politics of belonging and the processes of identity and state formation. The politics of belonging is a political project aimed at constructing a community of belonging by creating borders and checkpoints: non-material (based on racial, cultural, religious, and other differences) as well as actual (e.g., passports, visas, and similar mechanisms to exclude the ‘other’). But it also has an affective component, which is identity, which binds people together. The process of identity formation among Nagas has been closely linked to the creation of state institutions and a modern system of education. This in turn resulted in the demand for a fully self-governing political community, where the sovereignty would be with the Naga people. The threat, real and/or perceived, from the ‘other’ and the role of the elites in propagating it are crucial elements in this politics of belonging that leads to demand for sovereign statehood.
Notes 1. This chapter is part of a larger research project at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. 2. The term state has been used both in a generic sense and also to mean a constituent province of the Indian federation. The Constitution of 1950 describes India as a ‘Union of States’. 3. The author is extremely thankful to Dr Rajan Kumar, Assistant Professor and Sudhir Kumar Suthar, Doctoral Fellow, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University for their inputs on the conceptual framework of this chapter. He is also thankful to Raghunath Mundari for his valuable help in preparing the manuscript. 4. The constitution of India uses the term ‘Scheduled Tribe’ to describe certain indigenous communities and accords them special protection and positive discrimination.
120â•… SANJAY KUMAR PANDEY 5. The Naga Chronicle (2002) is a compilation of various primary documents related to the Naga Movement. It has been compiled by V.K. Nuh and edited by Wetshokhrolo Lasuh for the Indian Council of Social Science Research. 6. Excerpts from the text of “Memorandum of the case of the Naga people for SelfDetermination and an appeal to H.M.G. and the Government of India” published in Naga Chronicle (2002). 7. For an account of the Naga perspective on the problem and the various stages of the conflict, see Kaka D. Iralu (2000), Nagaland and India: The Blood and the Tears (publisher and place of publication not mentioned). The Book claims to be “A Historical Account of the 52 Years of Indo-Naga War and the story of those who were never allowed to tell it”. 8. The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India divides powers into Union List (competence of the Union or the Federal Parliament), the State List (competence of the Provincial Assembly) and the Concurrent List (both can legislate but with Union laws having precedence in case of conflict). 9. Quote taken from article in The Hindu titled “Muivah talks of a ‘special federal relationship’ with India” that appeared on 29 April 2005. The Hindu, 29 April 2005, 128(101): 12.
References Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities (2nd edition). London: Verso. Ao, A. Lanunungsang. 2002. From Phizo to Muivah: The Naga National Question in North-East India. New Delhi: Mittal Publications. Aosenba. 2001. The Naga Resistance Movement: Prospects of Peace and Armed Conflict. New Delhi: Regency Publications. Bhambra, Gurinder K. 2006. ‘Culture, Identity and Rights: Challenging Contemporary Discourses of Belonging’, in Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalapana Kannabiran, and Ulrike M. Vieten (eds), The Situated Politics of Belonging, pp. 32–41. London: Sage. Braddick, Michael. 2000. State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chasie, Charles. 2005. The Naga Imbroglio: A Personal Perspective. Kohima: City Press. Evans, Peter B., Dietrrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (eds). 1985. Bringing the State Back in. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geertz, C. 1963. ‘The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States’, in Clifford Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, pp. 105–19. New York: Free Press. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gil-White, F.J. 1999. ‘How Thick is Blood? The Plot Thickens…If Ethnic Actors Are Primordialists, What Remains of the Circumstantialist/Primordialist Controversy?’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, September, 22(5): 789–820. Gorenburg, D. 1999. ‘Identity Change in Bashkortostan’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(3): 554–80.
POLITICS OF BELONGINGâ•… 121 Griffiths, Martin and Terry O’Callaghan. 2004. Key Concepts in International Relations. London: Routledge. Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson 1992. ‘Beyond “Culture”: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference’, Cultural Anthropology, February, 7(1): 6–23. Hale, Henry E. 2004. ‘Explaining Ethnicity’, Comparative Political Studies, May, 37(4): 458–85. The Hindu. 2005. ‘Muivah Talks of a “Special Federal Relationship” With India’, The Hindu, 29 April, 128(101): 12. Iralu, Kaka D. 2000. Nagaland and India: The Blood and the Tears (publisher and place of publication not stated). Lasuh, Wetshokhrolo. 2002. The Naga Chronicle. New Delhi: Regency Publications. Migdal, Joel S. 2001. State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. New York: Cambridge University Press. ——— . 2004. ‘Mental Maps and Virtual Checkpoints: Struggle to Construct and Maintain State and Social Boundaries’, in Joel S. Migdal (ed.), Boundaries and Belonging: States and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and local Practices, pp. 3–23. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nag, Sajal. 2002. Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Sub-nationalism in North-East India. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Naga Resistance and the Peace Process. 2001. Bangalore: Other Media Communications. Oszlak, Oscar. 1981. ‘The Historical Formation of the State in Latin America: Some Theoretical and Methodological Guidelines for Its Study’, Latin American Research Review, 16(2): 3–32. Polat, Necati. 2006. ‘Identity Politics and the Domestic Context of Turkey’s European Union Accession’, Government and Opposition, 41(4): 512–33. Polletta, Francesca and Jasper James M. 2001. ‘Collective Identity and Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology, 27: 283–305. Ramaswamy, Sushila 2003. Political Theory: Ideas and Concepts. New Delhi: Macmillan. Shimray, A.S. Atai. 2005. Let Freedom Ring. New Delhi: Promilla & Co. Publishers. Smith, Anthony D. 1989. ‘The Origins of Nations’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 12(3): 341–56. Weber, Max. 1997. ‘What Is An Ethnic Group?’ reprinted in Montserrat Guibernau and John Rex (eds), The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, pp. 15–26. Cambridge: Polity Press. Yashar, Deborah J. 1998. ‘Contesting Citizenship: Indigenous Movements and Democracy in Latin America’, Comparative Politics, 31(1): 23–42. Yonuo, Asoso. 1974. The Rising Naga. New Delhi: Vivek Publishing House. Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. ‘Belonging and the Politics of Belonging’, Patterns of Prejudice, 40(3): 197–214. Yuval-Davis, Nira, Kalapana Kannabiran, and Ulrike M. Vieten. 2006. ‘Situating Contemporary Politics of Belonging’, in Nira Yuval Davis, Kalapana Kannabiran, and Ulrike M. Vieten (eds), The Situated Politics of Belonging, pp. 1–14. London: Sage.
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Part II
Socio-religious Bonding
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Chapter 6 To Whom does the Pashupatinath Temple of Nepal Belong? Axel Michaels
INTRODUCTION Since the seventh century or earlier, Pashupati, a form of Shiva, has been addressed as a tutelary deity by the Nepalese Licchavi, Malla, and Shaha kings. His main temple is one of the largest and most popular temples in Nepal.1 It is a national monument and symbol, and as such can be found on posters and bank notes. The temple is located about three kilometres west of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. The temple is surrounded by the Pashupatikshetra, the ‘Field of Shiva or Pashupati’, with numerous temples, shrines, rest-houses for pilgrims and ascetics, wells, open spaces, gardens and forests, as well as several settlement structures. All this has changed markedly over the past few decades. Quite a few temples have been renovated and restored, and the city and its housing structures have been altered to a great extent. As a consequence of these changes, many citizens and pilgrims worry about the future of their deities and their processions. Increasingly the question that they ask themselves is this: To whom do Pashupati and his vicinity belong? All this happened during a period when Nepal also changed politically, socially, and economically. The very question of Nepaliness parallels the debates on the Pashupatinath Temple: What is the (religious) centre of Nepal? With whom is one to identify? Are federalism and democracy, decentralization and local autonomous forms of governance the best answer to Nepal’s religious and social diversity? Or are centralized and unitary models of governance to be favoured? In a more general sense, these questions concern notions of hybridity
126â•… axel michaels and the socio-religious imaginaries that are generated through modernization processes, especially through the rise of public spheres and their new media as well as through propaganda for democratic, nationalistic, and socialist ideals. The conflicts that arose after the changes had been implemented in the Pashupatinath area reflect such public debates and concerns. The discussions revolved around whether the Indian Bhatta priests that serve the temple deities should be replaced by priests from Nepal, whether the income of the temple and other institutions should be put under the supervision of a democratic government rather than being left under the uncontrolled jurisdiction of the Pashupatinath Temple and its priests, and whether the influence of the palace or the government should be minimized or strengthened. Since Pashupati is regarded as the tutelary and protective deity of Nepal and his temple as a sacred national monument, the implications of such discussions stretch far beyond the bounds of Deopatan. At times it is even alleged that the future of Nepal depends on the solution of these problems, since the gods have to be pacified and live in peace if men are also to achieve the same. In what follows I try to ask, to whom Deopatan, or more specifically the ‘Field’ of Pashupatinath Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, belongs. As a matter of fact, many claims have been laid to this site, emanating from the various social and religious groups that attempt to dominate and gain influence over it. This presents particularly as an ethnic problem (local Newars versus Parbatiyas), one of insiders and outsiders (inhabitants of Deopatan versus pilgrims from Nepal or India; South Indian priests versus Newar temple assistants), of local and trans-local deities, or of the state and the local community (Pashupati Area Development Trust versus various guthis). However, given the political changes in Nepal, it is also a problem of new means of maintaining or creating new identities by approaching new political or social authorities: new media, Maoists, political parties, and so on. On the basis of fieldwork carried out during the winter of 2006–07 and earlier in both Nepal and South India, I will discuss three incidents in order to illustrate the above-mentioned issues: 1. The influence of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) in restructuring the site into an ‘Indian’ tourist and pilgrim’s place.
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2. The role of the South Indian Bhatta temple priests in the light of political changes. 3. An appeal by Vaishnava ascetics from the Pashupati area to nominate a Nepali Ramanandi sadhu as the abbot of the Rama temple opposite the Pashupatinath Temple.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE PASHUPATI AREA DEVELOPMENT TRUST (PADT) In the 1970s, some politicians and influential businessmen of Nepal felt that population pressures had created a situation in the Pashupati area that threatened the authenticity, appearance, and dignity of the site and its vicinity. In response to this allegation, they developed an agenda to improve the site and proposed it to His Majesty’s Government in order to protect, conserve, and develop the Pashupati area, as well as to declare it as a cultural heritage site of national and international importance. In fact in 1979, during the Third Conference of the World Heritage Committee in Luxor (Egypt), the Pashupati Monument Zone was declared a World Heritage Monument Site, by UNESCO, along with six other sites in Nepal. Immediately thereafter, the late king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev established the Pashupati Area Renovation and Development Committee (Shri Pashupatikshetra Sudhara tatha Vikasa Samiti) and demanded the development of a Master Plan. This plan was published by His Majesty’s Government (HMG) in Nepal, edited by Ramesh Jang Thapa, in V.S. (Vikram Samvat) 2038 (ad 1981). According to this 10-year Master Plan (Thapa, 1981), it was intended to divide the Pashupati area into several different zones and to develop it as a pilgrimage place in order to attract pilgrims mainly from India and tourists from all over the world. It was also planned to preserve the place as a kind of open-air living museum (jivita khula samgrhalaya) or living cultural heritage (jivita samskritik sampada). For these purposes, it was proposed to ban new housing in the pure area (pavitra bhumi)—between the Ring Road and the Bagmati River—remove various small curio and tea shops, build proper pedestrian paths, segregate motor traffic, regulate the water flows of the Bagmati to re-afforest the Mrigasthali Forest and fence it in order to keep the deer in it, and lastly, to establish a museum that
128â•… axel michaels should house and shelter the various now scattered statues and historical objects. A few years later, King Birendra established the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT), or Pashupati Kshetra Vikasa Kosha, under a ‘Special Act’ as an autonomous body with the following objectives: 1. To maintain the Pashupati area accordingly, as Nepal has remained the only one Monarchical Hindu Kingdom, and the Pashupati Area of Lord Pashupatinath has remained as the centre of devotion and a common pilgrimage only to the Hindus. 2. To protect, conserve, and develop the Pashupati area in accordance with the ideal, dignity, and importance of Lord Pashupatinath in a planned way. 3. To conserve, protect, and promote the objects or places of ancient, historical, religious, cultural, and national importance and the natural resources of the Pashupati area. 4. To improve this sacred pilgrimage in a suitable dimension in a planned way for the convenience of all native or foreign followers of Hinduism, including tourists. 5. To perform other functions in a systematic way in accordance with the objective of this Act (HMG., 1986; V.S. 2044, paras 6.1.1–6.1.5). The trust was presided over by the king as its patron and the queen as its first chairperson; its members were mainly members of parliament and officials from HMG administration, but no Karmacharya priest or other local Newar ritual specialists or individuals from Deopatan had been nominated as members. With the onset of the decline of absolute monarchy, the interim government removed all members of the PADT, and a new Pashupati Kshetra Development Act was planned by the parliament. According to a previously published Master Plan (PADT, 2003: 16–20), the Pashupati area as declared by the PADT Act was then divided into three zones: a Core Area with the Pashupatinath Temple complex and the Guhyeshvari Temple, a Consonant Area that encircles the Core Area and reaches from the Ring Road to the Bagmati River and the Mrigasthali Forest, and a Continuum Area that extends from the eastern parts of Deopatan to the Tribhuvan Airport.
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The Master Plan proposed the following major works: conservation and restoration of various temples and shrines; drainage and sewerage works in order to clean the water of the Bagmati; acquisition of land in the Core Area and parts of the Consonant Area; demolishing more than 120 houses in the Core Area in order to ‘clean’ this area from “unauthorised encroachment, haphazard and illegal constructions, and uncontrolled commercial activities” (PADT, 2003: 16); development of gardens and parks, including a fenced deer park in the Mrigasthali Forest; improvement of road networks, pavements, cleaning of the streets, and construction of bus parks and other parking areas; construction of an electric crematorium with a parking deck next to it; construction of basic housing infrastructure in the Continuum Area to relocate some people who have been removed from the Core Area; construction of an open-air amphitheatre, a conference centre, a research centre with a library, a museum, and a ‘Ved Vidyashram’; establishment of a museum in the Pancadevala Sattal; and the construction of a spiritual garden, viewing towers, a tourist centre and other amenities for tourists (exhibition centre, shopping mall, cafeterias, etc.), a ceremonial path, an old people’s home, among others. Along with these activities, a website of the PADT and the Pashupatinath Temple was introduced, which was inaugurated by Queen Komal Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah. This website (www. shripashupatinath.org.np), more or less constructs the religious landscape of the Pashupati area into a place of pilgrimage for Indian tourists and commercializes the Pashupatinath Temple by offering various online pujas and links to ‘religious’ companies. It tries to transmute the Pashupati area into an aesthetic Hindu heritage site purified from local, and especially Newar, forms of ritual influence. The dispute over the area’s future came to an initial climax when in May 2002 the PADT began to realize their plans regarding the cleaning the Continuum Area of the Pashupatikshetra from private houses and shops. It purchased the sites of about 200 to 300 houses, made arrangements for compensation, and started to dismantle the dwellings. The following article published by Razen Manandhar on 24 May 2002 in the Kathmandu Post gives a fairly true picture of the situation and the events: The autonomous body formed to preserve the holiest shrine Pashupatinath, Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) has decided to dismantle 238 traditional houses and other religious
130â•… axel michaels monuments in the core temple area ‘for open space’ when the UNESCO has repeatedly warned the government against deforming the traditional structures in the valley. […] â•… The PADT issued a public notice about acquiring 183 plots of houses and land on April 29 in the Pashupati core area. […] â•… The helpless locals today, filed a case at the Supreme Court against the PADT Management Council. They have formed an ‘all-party committee’ to hand-over referendums, signature campaign and peace rally against the Trust’s decision. They say the locals have been responsible for conducting the festivals that have been an inseparable part of the Lord for centuries and dislodging them would mean that the festivals will discontinue. […] â•… Mrityunjaya Karmacharya, the fifty-nine years old chief priest of Jayabageshwori temple in the Pashupati area, said that the core area around the temple is made of different Hindu Newars, whose existence is somehow related with rituals and festive occasions of Lord Pashupatinath. […] ‘They have their secret sanctums Agan-chhe in their homes. The secret idols there cannot be transferred at any cost. This has been the tradition of the Pashupati area for thousands of years,’ Karmacharya said. […] â•… However, the spokesperson of PADT Shyam Sunder Jha said that the trust has decided to evacuate the area to make space for the growing number of pilgrims at the temple, so that the pilgrims would be concentrated to the deity. […] He said transferring of the local people would not hamper the traditions and the people should co-operate with the Trust in some sense and claimed that if properly managed Pashupatinath may earn billions of rupees each year. […] â•… Ishwor Man Pradhan, the general secretary of Nepal Heritage Society, condemned the PADT’s plan to dismantle ancient houses and other monuÂ�ments. ‘The plan that evacuates human settlement in the heritage zone cannot be called a wise one. The plan that came up as a result of one person’s whim, is going to devastate the area that is important from historical, archaeological, religious, cultural and social views,’ he said.
The actions undertaken by the PADT had dramatic and even tragic consequences. Thus, according to his own statement in a private conversation, the above-mentioned priest Mrityunjaya Karmacharya was compelled to leave his house with all his belongings with only three days’notice. He received only 15,000 Nep. Rs for each person of his household as compensation. Afterwards he moved to the Tilganga
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area south of the Ring Road, where he purchased a plot from the proceeds of land he had owned and sold, and built a new house about 15–20 minutes’ walk away from the temples he had to take care of. Owing to health problems and the long distance between his home and the temples, he had to give up performing the daily pujas of the goddesses he served. Like Mrityunjaya Karmacharya, many families could not stay in Deopatan and had to emigrate to nearby or remote city quarters—so far away that they could not regularly participate in their festivals of Deopatan any more. It also became difficult to gather the ritual specialists required for the performance of the processions. The PADT obtained land from the government and divided it up into 179 pieces—each homestead consisting of about 700 square feet of land. Initially, the inhabitants were told that they would get this land in three months. But after their land and houses were acquired by the Trust, they were provided only monetary compensations immediately, and according to Mrtyunjaya Karmacharya many are still waiting for the land promised to them for building houses near the Tilganga area on the banks of the Bagmati River. Another consequence of the changes was that many statues and archaeological remains were haphazardly removed without scientific documentation and collected at other places—for example, the former cow-sheds north of the Pashupatinath Temple or around the office of the PADT. Some objects, such as Licchavi pillars, were even buried or used in construction work—for example, in the building of new stairs. As locals complain, many statues were carelessly shifted from one place to another without performing the necessary rites of pacification. Shopkeepers who had been removed from the street leading to the western gate of the Pashupatinath Temple to the Vanakali area complained about the heavy financial loss they had to face. Many of these sales-people, who had been in business for many generations, could no longer make enough money to sustain themselves. Most houses were destroyed in the central areas, west of the Pashupatinath Temple, that is, the Nasatvah, Bhakuntvah, and Laganlachitvah—the Nasatvah now being almost completely deserted and transformed into an open space. As one local inhabitant mentioned in conversation, what was previously meant to be a quarter (tvah), with a courtyard and a chowk, has now become meaningless, since an open space can hardly be called tvah any more.
132â•… axel michaels The protest in Deopatan further culminated in court cases submitted to the Supreme Court by three parties from Deopatan: (a) Umesh Kumar Kuikel, a member of the Lawyers’ Forum for Civil Liberties; (b) 13 residents from Deopatan from different castes (mostly Newars), among them the former main Karmacharya priest—Mrityunjaya Karmacharya and Madan Bhatta; and (c) Yogi Naraharinatha, an influential scholar and historian, who has meanwhile died and whose grave (samadhi) is now in the vicinity of the Gorakhnatha Temple in the Mrigasthali Forest. The case, registered under nos. 3545 (Madan Bhatta) and 3551 of V.S. 2059 (Umesh Kumar Kuikel), was directed against the following institutions or persons: Kathmandu Municipality Ward No. 8; the District Development Committee, Mulabhatta; the Council of Ministers; all members of the PADT; the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Aviation; the Guthi Samsthana; the Civil District Office Kathmandu; Kathmandu Metropolitan City; and the Department of Archaeology, National Archives. It was deposed by the plaintiffs that owing to the destruction of the old houses in Deopatan the various traditions (parampara), festivals (parva), and processions (jatra) would also be destroyed (nasht hunu). The measures of the PADT would therefore violate Article 88(2) of the Constitution of Nepal, 2047 (1990/91). After the case was submitted, the court gave 15 days’ time to the accused offices and persons to react and to express their point of view. All but one of the institutions that had replied within that period rejected the accusations, claiming that the plaintiffs and the people of Deopatan who had been affected had been given sufficient notice and received compensation. They also argued that all their actions had been based on the PADT Act and its Master Plan, which had been duly approved by HMG, Nepal, so that they could not be illegal. The only exception was the Kathmandu Municipality Ward No. 8, which agreed with the arguments of the plaintiffs. The Guthi Samsthana even argued that the inhabitants whose houses were dismantled were not the original inhabitants (adivasis) of the area, but people who had illegally occupied the land. The Department of Archaeology argued that they had not been involved in the decisions of the PADT, and could not therefore be accused. The judges of the Supreme Court—Mina Bahadur Rayamajhi and Paramananda Jha—accepted the arguments of the accused and rejected the case on the grounds that all actions undertaken by
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the PADT were in accordance with the Master Plan, and sufficient compensation had been granted and therefore the government had the right to take land as this was in the greater public interest. This judgement was issued on Wednesday Jyeshtha 4, V.S. 2062 (May 2005). In Deopatan, many people believed that they had been threatened by the PADT, that they could not win a court case because it was established by an order of the king and could not be questioned in the courts. Moreover, since all this happened when Nepal was under the direct rule of the king and in a state of emergency, open protests in the streets were impossible, and the power of the press was also limited. This is how Deopatan changed its face so considerably within a few days, transforming its appearance increasingly into a site of pan-Hindu Shaiva traditions—at the costs of the local people and their own traditions.
THE SOUTH INDIAN BHATTA TEMPLE PRIESTS For many years, demands have been voiced that the priests of the Pashupatinath Temple should not be Indian any more, but Nepali citizens instead. One of the major accusations is that the priests of the temple are corrupt and do not share the dakshina income and other donations—in other words, that these Bhatta priests believe that the temple belongs to them and not to Nepal and her citizens. In fact, a silver-plated fence encloses the jyotirlinga and the garbhagriha, that is, the sanctum inside the Pashupatinath Temple. Beyond this fence, only two groups of ritual specialists are allowed access: the Bhatta temple priests and the Bhandaris, who are treasurers of the temple’s movable property and also act as temple assistants. Only the Pashupati-Bhattas are permitted to worship the god directly and to touch the linga, but the Bhandaris may also hand over prasada to the devotees. Who are these Bhattas and Bhandaris who are separated from others by such a clear boundary (see also Michaels, 1989, 1990)? The Pashupati-Bhattas are Dravidian priests. According to a copy of a document, issued by King Jagajjaya Malla and dated Nepal Samvat 855 (ad 1734), the priests of Pashupatinath Temple must come from south of the Vindhya mountains; thus they must be Dravidian Telingana (or Tailangi) Brahmans belonging to the Smarta group.
134â•… axel michaels It is also emphasized in this document that the priests of Pashupati must be married householders (grihastha), although their wives do not take any part in the temple ritual. It is particularly interesting that the document from Nepal Samvat 855 explicitly states that a Bhatta pujari who is born west of the Rudramati River (nowadays known as Dhobikhola) and east of the Bagmati should not be taken inside the sanctum. This probably means that he should not be allowed to worship Pashupati directly; if he does so, the king will be short-lived. In contrast to this, the Bhandaris must be born within the Pashupatikshetra. Those who were born beyond it, be they only blood relatives of the Bhandaris or the offspring of a mixed-caste union, are not allowed to officiate as temple assistants. The Bhandaris say that the Pashupatikshetra is almost identical with Deopatan, the city west of the Bagmati River, and that they must hail from there. This means that the Bhandaris must be Newar Shreshthas of Deopatan, while the Bhattas must be born in South India. This distinction refers to a boundary, which is not only ritually important but also spatially discernible. In other words, and seen from inside the sanctum: the insiders, the Bhattas, must come from the outside, and the outsiders, the Bhandaris, must come from the inside, that is, Deopatan. This situation has always been full of tension, but the fear of India’s hegemonic influence in Nepal and the worry that Nepal does not belong to the Nepalis themselves anymore but to India, has increased over the last few decades. In accord with such apprehensions, there have been a number of allegations against the Indian priests that spring from nationalistic attitudes and movements. Thus as early as 1991, people from Deopatan formed a procession against the Indian priests at the Pashupatinath Temple: Representatives of a Silent procession taken out against the ‘mool bhatta’ (head priest) of Pashupatinath Temple Padanav Rawal went to the Prime Minister’s office at Singha Darbar today and registered their protest letter and demands. […] Among the demand of the processionists are action against corruption ending of the arrangement under which the temple priest takes decisions for the Guthi (trusts) Corporation in matters relating to Pashupati, use for the Guthi Corporations’s work instead of its accruing to an individual, and ensuring that temple priests at Pashupatinath is Nepalese citizen. (The Rising Nepal, 19 March 1991, p. 1 and p. 7)
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Since then accusations against the Indian Bhatta priests have basically followed these same arguments: they are blamed for being Indian nationals, greedy and corrupt, and not learned but arrogant. This is, for instance expressed in an article in The Independent, a weekly from Kathmandu, dated 15 July 1998, entitled ‘Demand for Nepali Priests’. Later a new priest was appointed by the king after all the five Bhatta priests, including the Chief Priest, had handed in their resignations following the ongoing demands for Nepali priests in the Pashupatinatha Temple. However, the king reinstated all the priests but one. In tune with this movement, a person called Loknath Adhikari Upadhyaya started an indefinite hunger strike demanding that “the priests of Pashupatinath should be Nepali citizens and other incomes of priests [from temple activities], apart from their salary, should go to the temple”. His press release states: “It is the misfortune of this country’s monarchy to accept foreign domination and go against the national sentiment.” He also distributed flyers saying: “I will die, I will certainly die, but I will die for the state and the nation.” (ma marchu avashya marchu tara rashtra ra rashtriyataka nimti marchu.) The protest of Loknath, who later gave up his hunger strike, was followed by a number of similar complaints in the form of legal cases, demonstrations, and petitions. The Pashupati Sena, a radical branch of the Shiv Sena—a Hindu nationalist party from India that venerates King Shivaji—which still regularly fights for Hindu monarchy in Nepal, was extremely active in this regard, and so was the late Naraharinath Yogi, one of the most learned and widely recognized men in Nepal. The demands are always almost the same as those mentioned before: the priests should get a salary rather than dakshina, and Nepali citizens should replace them. The conflict culminated in a number of legal and political incidents. It started in V.S. 2054 with an amendment by HMG of the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha Ain of 2044 concerning the ‘Rules and Regulations for the Pashupatinath Temple and Area and their Priests, Staff and Property’. In this document, it is mentioned under Paragraph 3 that the main priest, appointed and dismissed by the king according to the tradition, must be a Hindu snataka who has studied the Veda (veda-adhyayi), of good character (sadacara), with special knowledge of the Dharmashastra, with a good command of Sanskrit, a graduate from a Sanskrit School (at least Shastri), learned (vidvan), and married to a wife from his caste (svajati). The law also states
136â•… axel michaels the duties of the priests and says that all rights are transferred from the priests to the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha—with the exception of two privileges: the right to perform the pujas, and the management of puja and income from Guthi land for the priests. Basically, this was an endorsement of the priests’ continuing as before. Shortly afterwards, the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha decided that 70 per cent of the income (especially the donations) of the temple should be distributed among the priests and the Bhandaris, but all money donated to the temple should be registered and deposited in the Pashupati Bhandhara Tahabil, the temple’s treasury house. However, this and other regulations were questioned in the same year, V.S. 2054, by a lawyer from Kathmandu named Vijaya Kumara Pradhana, who filed a lawsuit against the Mulabhatta, the Prime Minister, the Vice President of the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha, its members, and others persons. The case says: As a good citizen I complain: (1) [T]here is a law for new rules and regulations and a (new) code of conduct (for the priests) and the Temple’s assistants but it is not yet enforced. (2) The Mulabhatta is a foreigner and chief of three offices, but he does not know how to handle the land systems. That is why I ask the court to: (1) [w]ithdraw the right of the Mulabhatta to administer the [temple’s] land since he is a foreigner. […]
Despite these demands from a single citizen to have the law enforced against the traditional rights of almost all established state and temple authorities—that is, HMG, the Bhatta priests, the temple’s institutions, etc.—nothing happened. Therefore, the following year Vijaya Kumara Pradhana again filed a case against the Mulabhatta and the other authorities, claiming that up to then no money had been registered in the temple’s accounts, and that this fact made it clear that such donations, given to Pashupati, had not been used properly and should go to the state rather than to the priests, who traditionally had distributed these incomes among themselves and shared them with the temple assistants. He also writes: “The Mulabhatta is a foreigner (Indian) but not fulfilling his duty properly. […] Foreigners must also obey the laws of Nepal but the Mulabhatta takes the money of the puja to India.”
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Following these accusations, the concerned ministry asked the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha about their truth, and the then main priest, Padma Nabha Shastri, answered in a long letter dated V.S. 2055/8/25 what he had already said to the king, namely that the regulations violate the tradition of the Pashupatinath Temple and that they should be changed, otherwise the religious tradition of Pashupati would be finished. He also mentioned that for the new rules and regulations he and historical documents had not been sufficiently consulted. He continues: “every pujari and Bhandhari should promise ‘I will not be greedy and sinful towards any property, gold, silver, or money belonging to the Pashupatinath Temple’.” This oath had been administered to him by his predecessors before he was allowed to enter the inner sanctum of the temple, and he would administer it in the same way as his successors. If he were to violate this traditional rule he and his descendants would be cursed. He concludes: “Therefore there is no corruption, the question should not be raised […] all traditions should be followed as before.” The debate went on for quite some time, discussed intensively in local newspapers. It escalated in April 1998, when—as mentioned before—the main Bhatta priest and all other priests asked for their demission, but the king refused to accept it. However, one year later the main priest resigned for health reasons and went back to his home village near Udupi, Karnataka. In 1999, Nutan Sharma and I visited Padma Nabha Shastri (and other former Bhatta priests) at the place in South India where he lived in a comfortable, but not luxurious, house. In his compound he had built a small replica of the Pashupatinath Temple. Every morning and evening he continued to worship Pashupati there in his more or less private temple. Only every once in a while did some Nepali students from the Medical College come for darshana. In the course of an extensive interview, Padma Nabha Shastri admitted that the conflict in Nepal had worn him out, but also insisted that all accusations raised against him were false. He was slightly bitter when he mentioned that he had come to Nepal at a young age (he was appointed in 1965), and had served Pashupati every day from early in the morning until dusk for many years, in a foreign country, not knowing the languages nor the people (and how cold Nepal could be). It had been hard for him, he says, but he never complained. He did not take any money for his personal use except what he deserved, and he also considered the ‘income’ as a kind of
138â•… axel michaels compensation for his arduous service. He emphasized that he had been appointed by the king, and that he felt responsible only to the king, and neither to the Pashupati Vikasa Kosha nor the state. All these incidents and discussions show that the old institutions are questioned and new institutions are established, both claiming that the Pashupatinath Temple belongs to them. The arguments do not follow religious grounds but political interests. Some say it should be the state and its institutions that rule over the temple, because only the state has legitimate authority. Others insist that authority in religious matters can only come from the gods or the king. Given the unclear and unbalanced political situation, the ‘royalists’ blame their opponents that they do not know which political group is legitimized by whom. And they also hold that it is difficult to replace the South Indian priests by a Nepali priest because there are so many—Smarta Kumai Upadhyaya, Newar Smarta Rajopadhyaya, Tantric Brahmins, and married Brahmins or unmarried Brahmacarins/ Yogis (even Naraharinatha was proposed)—of whom no group would have sufficient authority or legitimacy.
THE BELONGING OF HINDU ASCETICS In South Asia, Hindu ascetics or sadhus are in a way transnational figures. Since they give up all obligations towards family and state, they—ideally—do not belong to a secular state. Many ascetics therefore travel without any passport from one place of pilgrimage to another, staying in a monastery only occasionally or during certain seasons. They are migrants living in between, in their own ‘third space’. Ideally they belong to a realm that is beyond territories. The Pashupatinath Temple of Deopatan has always been a place of attraction for them, especially during Shivaratri, when thousands of ascetics come to Deopatan to worship Shiva or Pashupati (Michaels, 1996; 2008: Chapter 10). Some groups, however, are more or less constantly represented in Deopatan. Among them are Vaishnava ascetics (Bairagis, Nagas, Tyagis, Ramanandis, etc.), the numerically largest group of North Indian ascetics, who in Deopatan have a Rama or Bairagi Akharia where a few ascetics more or less permanently reside. Again during Shivaratri, many Indian Ramanandis join them in a large courtyard south of the Rama Akharia.
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Traditionally, the Rama Temple Akharia belongs to the Ramanandi ascetics. The successorship of the abbot was regulated among them and confirmed by the Guthi Samsthana, a semi-official body for the regulation of religious institutions and affairs in Nepal. In 2002, however, it happened that the main priest and abbot of the Rama Temple and Akharia retired and his successor could not be nominated in the usual way. In the middle of political changes and unrest, the matter became highly controversial and a political issue. It started with a letter signed by 18 sadhus to the Guthi Samsthana requesting the appointment of Shiva Narayana Dasa, a Ramanandi ascetic, as the abbot. For a long time the request was not answered and the issue remained unresolved, even after, on 10 Bhadra 2061 (2004), the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office sent a recommendation (siphari) to support the earlier request. On 19 Shravana 2062 (2005) a group of 42 sadhus from the Vyasa Sadhu Akhada Parishad again tried to bring the case to a conclusion. Interestingly, they all signed their letter with an address and a photograph, demonstrating by this their belonging to an accepted official and national institution, thus claiming the very nationality that, ideally, they were supposed to have given up. They also registered in the newly established Society for the Unity of Nepalese Sadhus and Eternal Dharma (Nepala Sadhu Ekata evam Sanatana Dharma Samaj) presided by Shiva Narayana Dasa. Since there was no progress in the decision, the nominated ascetic Shiva Narayana Das himself wrote the following letter to the Ministry of Land Reform and an identical version to the president of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist): Subject: Application for the position of the abbot Sir, All people know that the position of the abbot of the Rama Temple at Aryaghat is empty since three years. The temple complex is a traditional gathering place for the Vaishnava Ramanandi ascetics. I am the successor of the temple where the worship of Ram and Janaki has been continued by Ramanandi sadhus, wearers of the tulasi garlands, since ancient times. The Guthi Samsthana did not take care of my previous application dated 21st Vaishakha 2061. Therefore, we, the representatives of the sadhus, held a meeting and supported the declaration of the secular state made by the House of Representatives formed after the people’s movement from 19th Caitra 2061 to
140â•… axel michaels 11th Vaishaka 2061 that the tradition, custom and religious belief are based on individual [values] known by all. Therefore, I have submitted my application [for the position of the abbot] with photocopies of my Nepali Citizen Certificate as well as a letter signed and consented by all Vaishnava sadhus. My and other sadhus’ support of the Nepalese Government will continue. Thus, I request you to appoint me as the abbot of the Rama Temple as soon as possible and to give me a chance to serve the Government of Nepal to build a new Nepal and to serve the movement for a secular state. Applicant: Svami S.iva Narayana Dasa Bairagi Maharaja, Pashupati Kshetra Kathmandu Metroplitan City, ward # 8 Bhadra 2063 V.S. (2006 ad)
In this letter the ascetics not only declare themselves as Nepali citizens, they also pretend to support the secularization process. So also does the constitution of the aforementioned Unity of Nepalese Sadhus and Eternal Dharma (Nepala Sadhu Ekata evam Sanatana Dharma Samaj), which includes the following religious and secular objectives: To avoid killing and bad karma; to overcome weakness; l to confirm Nepal as a multi-caste, -lingual, and -religious country; l to protect the cow and the country by unification and peace; l to acknowledge the four varnas and their unity; l to acknowledge the four ashramas for which free arrangement of food, shelter, water, health, education, and dress should be made in cooperation with the government; l to preserve the cow, the Vedas, and the dharma; l to clean the temples, public shelters, and monasteries; l to establish religious libraries; l to teach religion in the schools and universities; l to prevail religious harmony. l l
Given this material, the Vaishnava ascetics at the Pashupatinath Temple have not only to prove their citizenship in order to achieve their religious aim of establishing a new abbot, but also to support the secular state and even the Maoist party in order to claim their
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belonging to a traditional temple site. As in the case of the Bhatta priests, nationality matters, though it is perhaps not put on the same level with the sense of belonging to a communal commonality that is governed by other interests. What remains is an open situation in which various groups and individuals do not know whom to address themselves to preserve their traditional forms of commonality.
CONCLUSION Over the past few decades, the Nepalese state and its administration, that is, the king and his governments as well as the interim government, have considerably expanded their influence over the Pashupatinath Temple and its vicinity. While in the earlier times the dominance of certain religious groups, Bhattas, Bhandaris and Karmacharyas, was somehow balanced, the new political and social identities have meanwhile created other forms of belonging. The temple became a national heritage symbol rather than a supraregional pilgrimage place, the people of Deopatan became citizens of Nepal rather than inhabitants of a small town. The creation of a new administrative body, the PADT, filled with various state representatives, reflects the current political situation in all its instability. The place, previously predominantly a mythical and ritual place, became an administrative territory with clear borders. The financial income was regulated according to fiscal and touristy criteria, and not along the lines of the traditional dakshina or donation system. The localities and their ethnic groups were dissolved, and their settlements even destroyed in part. Conflicts were resolved by juridical bodies rather than by the authority of the king, the priests, or the elders of clans or castes. The nationalization of the temple and disputes about its sources of income made the question of the nationality of the priests an issue. We have seen that the modernization process, with its new forms of representation and transparency, brought forward new ideas of belonging, new loyalties towards political parties, the state, or the public. However, the question: ‘To whom do Pashupati and his temple belong?’ is not new. The temple, its priests, and its vicinity have always been contested. There is a longue durée of such disputes within the Hindu pantheon and its mythology, as well as within the social structure of Hindu societies. The question of to whom the Pashupatinath Temple belongs is now widened, loosened from
142â•… axel michaels its local claims, democratized, popularized, and brought into new public spheres. In short, the Pashupatinath Temple has now been handed over to the control of the new state and public debates. Previously it would have been thought impossible that laymen should control a temple, or that the king should be attacked while visiting the sanctuary, or that a prime minister would not pay reverence to Pashupati. But in 2007, the PADT was directed by a party member of the United Marxist/Leninist Party, the then Prime Minister G.P. Koirala was said to have never visited the Pashupatinath Temple, and the king’s escort was attacked with stones. And so, it seems the contestation goes on. Postscriptum: Right at the beginning of 2009, the then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who became the patron of the PADT, appointed two Nepali priests after the Bhatta priests had resigned allegedly due to personal reasons. However, the High Court of Nepal did not allow the new priests to enter the Pashupatinath Temple at Deopatan arguing that this decision was against the tradition of priestly appointments. Only after a massive protest and influence from India’s oppositional Bharata Janatiya Party (BJP) party Pushpa Kamal Dahal revised his decision and again re-installed the Indian Bhatta priests for regular worship and service at the Pashupatinath Temple.
Note 1. Most of the material presented here is based on fieldwork carried out in Nepal during the winter of 2006–07, as well as on various field trips between 1981 and 2007. I am grateful to Nutan Sharma for his help, and especially for his company during visits to former Bhatta priests in South India in March/April 1999. Parts of the article have been published and elaborated in Michaels (2008, Chapter 12). Unless otherwise stated, the quoted documents are published in Michaels (1994).
REFERENCES HMG (His Majesty’s Government Nepal). 1986 (V.S. 2043). ‘Pashupati Kshetra Vikasa Koshako Vyavastha Garna Baneko Adhyadesha’, in Nepala Rajapatra 36, fasc. 43, part 2, pp. 1–13 (authorized English translation: ‘Pashupati Area Development Trust Act, 2044’, mimeograph copy, pp. 1–21).
to whom does the pashupatinath temple of nepal belong?â•… 143 Michaels, Axel. 1989. ‘Pashupati’s Holy Field and the Temple Priests’ Authority in Deopatan’, in V. Bouillier and G. Toffin (eds), Prêtrise, Pouvoirs et Autorité en Himalaya (Colléction Purushartha 12), pp. 41–60. Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. ———. 1990. ‘Pilgrimage and Priesthood at the Pashupatinatha Temple of Deopatan (Nepal)’, in H.T. Bakker (ed.), The History of Sacred Places as Reflected in Traditional Literature, pp. 131–59. Leiden: E.J. Brill. ———. 1994. Die Reisen der Götter: Der nepalische Pashupatinatha-Tempel und sein rituelles Umfeld. [Journeys of the Gods: The Nepalese Pashupatinath temple and its ritual field], with supplement by A. Michaels and G. Tandan, drawings by Harald Fritzenkötter, Pashupatikshetra, and maps of Deopatan. Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag. ———. 1996. ‘Shivaratri at Deopatan’, in S. Lienhard (ed.), Change and Continuity: Studies in the Nepalese Culture of the Kathmandu Valley, pp. 321–31. Turin: Centro Piemontese di Studi sul Medio ed Estremo Oriente. ———. 2008. Shiva in Trouble: Festivals and Rituals at the Pashupatinatha Temple of Deopatan (Nepal). New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. PADT (Pashupati Area Development Trust). 2003. Reviving Our Spiritual Legacy: Conservation and Development of the Pashupati Monument Zone—A World Heritage Site. Kathmandu: PADT, Planning Division. Thapa, Ramesh Jang. 1981 [V.S. 2038]. Shri Pashupati Kshetrako Guruyojana: Siddhanta ra Sambhavyata [Master Plan for Pashupati Area. Objectives and Scope]. Deopatana, Kathmandu: Shri Pashupati Kshetra Sudhar Tatha Vikas Samiti. The Independent (weekly). 1998. ‘Demand for Nepal’, The Independent, Kathmandu, 15 July.
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Chapter 7 Brotherhood and Divine Bonding in the Krishna Pranami Sect GÉRARD TOFFIN
INTRODUCTION The sociological aspects of Hindu sects have received insufficient attention, despite their being crucial to the study of these religious groupings (sampradaya in Sanskrit). Sects are characterized by social links quite different from those that prevail within castes, sub-castes, and local neighbourhood units. Their adherents are usually united by strong emotional ties, expressive of spiritual brotherhood1 and a common fraternity centred on the memory, teachings, and parentage (parampara) of a sacred person, a spiritual teacher, or a prophet. They share a sacred world that provides them with a common frame of reference, discourse, and communication. One might belong to a sect by birth, but one might also achieve this membership through personal choice. A sampraday(a) thus significantly differs from a sub-caste or a kin group. Interestingly, Hindu sects succeed in forging a corporate identity among people of very different class, caste, and ethnic backgrounds. A sampraday encompasses a self, with its own world-view, and defines it socially as well as religiously. Some sects are quite open to society at large; while others form ‘social wholes’ and remain selfcontained and aloof from it. Most of them endow individuals with a feeling of social separation from the wider society. As R.B. Williams observes in his book on the Swaminarayan sect: “members [of the sect] inhabit the same world at a level more fundamental than the profane world, and this is what unites them into one fellowship” (2001: 147). Such religious identifications as sources of unity are not exclusive. They often reinforce Hindu identity and/or nationalism.
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The concept of belonging seems appropriate for an analysis of such groupings, especially in a South Asian context where religious affiliation is still a vital source of social, as well as personal identity. Being a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, or Christian has deep emotional significance for most individuals and dictates behaviour in various areas of socio-religious life. The sect provides its adherents with much more than a sense of identity; it fosters strong feelings of attachment that are expressed through a series of rules and regulations that overlap with affinities and loyalties to other groups. In other words, I argue in this paper that the notion of belonging usefully complements that of identity. I will take, as an example, the Krishna Pranamis of India and Nepal, amongst whom I recently carried out fieldwork. Two main issues will be addressed, both related to the notion of belonging. First, the difficulties this reformist sect faced in being accepted within the orthodox and authoritarian Hindu kingdom of Nepal from the end of the eighteenth century until 1950. The Krishna Pranami sampraday encountered the same problems and discrimination as the Arya Samaj, another reformist movement introduced much later to the Himalayan kingdom.2 Second, I will focus on the consequences of being a Pranami in the present-day Nepalese ethnic and religious context. How can one be at the same time a vegetarian teetotaller, and, for instance, a member of the meat-eating and alcohol-drinking Newar ethnic group? How can one be a sacred-book worshipper, rejecting the veneration of images of deities and numerous Hindu rituals, and an upper-caste Hindu Parbatiya (speaking Nepali as their maternal language) regularly visiting Hindu shrines? In conclusion, I will analyse the striking phenomenon of the re-Hinduization of the sampraday in India and in Nepal over recent decades, which has occurred alongside re-incorporation of Vaishnava saguna (‘with attributes’) elements in Pranami religious practices—that is, those stressing anthropomorphic manifestations of the divine being. Transnational issues between India and Nepal will also be dealt with in this paper. But, first of all, I will begin with some necessary information on the historical and religious background of the sect.
THE KRISHNA PRANAMIS OF INDIA AND NEPAL The Krishna Pranami (also called Nijananda)3 sect is a Hindu noncaste organization that has been little studied. This sect originated
146 GÉRARD TOFFIN in seventeenth-century Gujarat, and is now sparsely distributed in western and northern India, particularly in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam, as well as in Nepal.4 Its major religious centre is Jamnagar, in Kathiawar (Gujarat) in the Gulf of Kutch.5 The main group’s gaddi (literally ‘seat’ or ‘throne’) is located in this town, along with the residence of the Pranami sect’s chief, maharaj, a term used to designate all religious persons of some importance. The sect’s temples are called mandir or dham, and are built in the Indian–Mughal style, with domes and towers called gummat that are very different from the Hindu gopuram of southern India. Some of them house a mausoleum (samadhi) where a saint belonging to the group is buried. This grave is the object of much veneration. Their religious doctrine, derived from the teaching of Prannath—a charismatic figure of seventeenth-century western India—is remarkably eclectic. It aims to transcend Hinduism, Islam, and other religions such as Judaism and Christianity. In Prannath’s view, the separate religious identity of Hindus and Muslims was based on worthless customs and false ideas. This universalistic vision is one of the main elements of the sect’s message to the present day. Prannath’s followers also strongly reject the conventions of the caste system and denounce Brahman ritualism. They defend gender equality and other egalitarian social values. Theologically, they reject the plurality of the forms of God as commonly understood in Hindu religion. Emphasis is instead laid on the internal spirit of religion, its spiritual essence, to the detriment of idolatry and the performance of Hindu rituals. Devotion is seen as the best form of worship, in the spirit of a lover or faithful wife, as in Radha’s love of Krishna. As in the Bhagavad Gita, the three forms of Brahma are accepted: kshar, perishable, akshar, imperishable, and aksharati, beyond imperishable, the abode of paramdham. The sundarsath worships the child Krishna, the source of whose divine power comes from aksharati. Although the existence of this Supreme Being entails a strong devotional relationship, he remains abstracted from his original nirguna historical context. Noticeably, one ascetic of the sect explained to me that Pranamis are beyond nirakar (nirguna) and sakar (saguna): they follow the suddha sakar (or uttam purus)—a much more transcendent and superior way than the former two.6 There are no statues on the altars inside the temples, just holy books specific to the group, particularly the Kuljam 7 Svarup
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(or Kuljam Svarup Saheb), embodying Raj–Shyamaji, Krishna and his consort Radha, with both divine aspects being merged in the scriptures. The books, placed on a ‘throne’ (simhasana) and carefully wrapped in lengths of cloth, are the main object of the devotees’ worship (see Image 7.1). In ancient times, when these scriptures were handwritten, nobody could touch or read them without first taking a bath. When travelling, they had to be carried on one’s head. Even today, placing the books on the ground is considered highly disrespectful. The Kuljam Svarup, which has 18,768 verses (chaupai), is arranged into 14 books written in various vernacular languages—Gujarati, Sindhi, Hindi, Urdu, and more often than not in a mixture of all these languages. It is believed that this book, attributed to Prannath, carries the essence of the Gita, the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran. Devotees consider it to be the fifth Veda which sets down everything they believe. The book is viewed as the spiritual body of Prannath. The Svarup, as it is often called in its short form, is a key cultural marker of Pranami identity. The social and religious activities of the whole sect centre on this book. Additionally, major biographies Image 7.1 Alter of a Pranami temple with its division into two alcoves: Raj–Shyamaji (Pulcok, Lalitpur, Nepal)
Photo courtesy: Gérard Toffin.
148 GÉRARD TOFFIN of Prannath (Bitak, or accounts of the past) have been composed by the founder’s disciples, notably Laldas and Mukundas. These legendary lives, rich in miracles, are constitutive of the community and its identity. Besides these Pranami-specific texts, the Bhagavadgita and the Bhagavata Purana (also called Shrîmad Bhâgavat), two widespread religious texts of Hinduism, are objects of devotion, of reading and teaching within the congregation. They sustain a sense of common belonging with other Hindus and other Vaishnava sampradays. The movement does not possess any monastic establishment or ascetic order, and mostly involves laypersons from the mundane world. The present maharajs of the group are all bachelors, without any family. However, this was not always the case in the past, to begin with Prannath who was married. In theory, the devotees of the sect come from all castes of society. Everyone has the right to worship, to enter a shrine, and to be initiated. Followers are called sundarsath (from sundar, beautiful, and sath, companion) or Pranamis (from pranam, a Sanskrit word that means the act of folding ones’ two hands and bowing one’s head simultaneously in reverence to a deity or a respected person). Members are strictly vegetarian. The most orthodox adherents do not even eat onions or garlic. They greet each other with their hands raised to their chest in a sign of pranam. Social services (orphanages, schools, hospitals, gau sala or shelters for cows) are seen as the highest form of devotion. No accurate figure for the number of Pranamis is currently available. The sect’s authorities claim over five million members throughout the world, a figure that is exaggerated. Various indicators suggest that they number around three million in South Asia. Of these, about 300,000 sundarsaths live in Nepal.8 Contrary to some other (much more recent) Krishnaite sects, such as Iskcon, that is, Hare Krishna, the Pranamis have not yet spread on a large scale through Western countries.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE PRANAMI SECT IN NORTH-WESTERN INDIA The sect clearly derives from the North Indian medieval sant (saintpoet) stream and nirguna (without attributes) devotional bhakti, which worships a formless, un-manifested divine being. As is shown
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in the literature, this spiritual current spread through various regions located in North India (Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan) from the fifteenth century onwards (Schomer and McLeod, 1987). It was propagated by charismatic sants from both Hindu and Muslim families, many of whom belonged to the lower strata of society. The most important among them were Kabir (circa 1440–1518), the great author and poet; Dadu Dayal (1544–1603) (dayal means: ‘the compassionate one’), who lived in the Jaipur region of Rajasthan, most probably as a cotton carder; and Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of Sikhism. These saints composed religious texts, mostly in the form of poems, and founded religious movements closely related to the Pranamis, each with its own doctrines and philosophy. Interestingly, quite a few of these sants were women. These charismatic religious figures shared common historical roots and disseminated interrelated religious ideas. They promulgated a devotional, egalitarian, and sometimes vehemently anti-caste religion, using vernacular languages instead of Sanskrit, with which they were unfamiliar. All of them lent great importance to living gurus and deified saintly figures. A remarkable hagiographic literature, which is not found in Vedic and shastric Hinduism (Lorenzen, 1995: 181; 2004), and which until recently had been inadequately studied, has been built around these spiritual personalities. This religious stream also laid emphasis on singing hymns (bhajan) to honour the deity. Such songs are still viewed as a means of obtaining happiness. Moreover, sants stressed the nirguna aspects of the divinity, ineffable and aniconic, beyond any sort of qualification, instead of his saguna forms with their anthropomorphic representations worshipped by other Vaishnava bhakti sects. These influential heterodox schools represented an interesting non-conformist reformist movement in Indian society, opposed to the two main orthodox religions of the time, Hindu and Islam. They have had a major impact on the religion and society of northern India. However, in contrast to most of the aforementioned bhakti devotional schools, the founders of the Pranami movement did not come from the lower castes, but from the upper strata of society. According to his official hagiography, Devchandra Mehta (1581– 1655), its initiator, was born in the town of Umarkot, Sindh (now in Pakistan), to a rich merchant family, Kayastha by caste. He was presumably initiated at the beginning of his spiritual quest in the Radhavallabha sect centred on the devotional worship of Krishna
150 GÉRARD TOFFIN and his consort Radha (Sila Khan, 2003: 45). His guru at the time was Swami Haridasji. It is believed that Krishna revealed himself to Devchandra later on and gave him the tartam9 mantra, which gives access to the various lilas of Krishna and is still a major element of the cult. Devchandra’s disciple, Prannath (or Prananath) (1618– 94), the central figure of the sect, was born in Jamnagar, Saurashtra (Gujarat), to an affluent Thakur (Kshatriya) family that held a diwan function (that of chief minister to a king). His original name was Mehraj Thakur. Like Nanak, he travelled for a long period of time in Arabia, Persia, and what is currently Iraq,10 studying the Koran and other Islamic scriptures. He also became acquainted with the Bible and other Christian texts through Arabic sources. Back in India, Mahamati Prannath lived for the most part in the Bundelkhand region. He believed in the unity of all faiths, but was opposed to the orthodox Islam of the Mughal court. It was with Prannath’s blessing that his devotee, the bundela11 king Chatrasal, fought against Aurangzeb’s Islamic rule. Chatrasal raised a powerful army with wealth accumulated from a diamond mine revealed to him by his guru. In 1671, he occupied a large province south of the Yamuna River. Assisted by the Marathas, this Hindu king conquered the whole of Bundelkhand, where he supposedly established an ideal kingdom in which Hindus and Muslims lived like brothers. Devchandra, Prannath, and Maharaja Chatrasal are currently the three iconic figures of the group, and command great respect. Their images are painted or prominently displayed in most Pranami public shrines and private altars. As is the case among other groups founded by sants, Pranamis have developed the idea of a spiritual lineage starting from Devchandra and Prannath and passed on to the gurus who succeeded them as leaders of the organization. The influence of Sufism on most of these sant-bhakti movements is beyond doubt. The sant-mat (tradition of the saints) arose at a time when the Mughals were in power in North India and when Islamic rule was enforced on Hindus. One can therefore expect a great deal of incorporation of Islamic concepts or beliefs. The impact of Islam is particularly obvious among the Pranamis. Prannath frequently proclaimed the esoteric similarity between Hindu and Islamic traditions. “Whatever the Koran has said, the Vedas have also said it. Both are the fellow creatures of God but they do not know the secret meaning and quarrel with each other” (Sila Khan 2003: 50, quoted in Khulasa, 12/42,). A systematic equivalence between Indic
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and Islamic concepts and terms is used in the sect’s religious texts. For instance, the three forms of Brahma (mentioned earlier) are found to correspond to the Koranic la, ilah, and ilillah. Both Hindus and Muslims are considered to be God’s creation. Prannath was himself considered to be both Vishnu’s last avatar and the Imam Mahdi. It seems that he was regarded as both a Hindu sant and a Muslim fakir (renouncer). Chatrasal, who was often compared to Ali, was supposed to have created a kingdom encompassing all religions, a country where Hindus and Muslims cherished the same values. One French author, Dominique-Sila Khan (2002), has recently pointed to the possible connection between Ismaili sects, such as the Nizarpanthis of Gujarat, strongly influenced by messianic ideals and the Pranamis, and has highlighted the essential Islamic elements within the sect. There is scant documentation relating to the origins of the sect. It is thus hard to establish how and when it became a bonded group of people, a systematized movement with its own world-view and firmly established body of doctrine. Similarly, it is difficult to reconstruct precisely the religious identity of the first sundarsath devotees in North India. Did they really consider themselves above Hinduism and Islam? During late medieval period, the individuality of the two major religions in India was supposedly much more fluid than today. But we do not know to what extent this was the case. A number of scholars believe that Hindus and Muslims were already in conflict at that time, and that the two communities had already developed a strong sense of their distinctiveness. Yet this is still a matter for debate.
THE BEGINNINGS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAMPRADAY IN NEPAL The propagation of the Pranami faith in Nepal is particularly interesting, and reveals basic features of the ‘Hindu-ness’ with which the former kingdom has long been associated. It predates the unification of the country, going back as far as the age of Prannath. However, it took a long time for the sect to be officially recognized by religious authorities and to gain a sufficient number of devotees to be financially viable. Nepalese sundarsaths believe that the first followers of Prannath arrived in Nepal at the end of the seventeenth century,
152 GÉRARD TOFFIN in ad 1678–79 to be exact (Sharma, 1984). No historical sources document this event, but it is widely believed that one or more Nepali-speaking Brahmans from Dailekh, western Nepal, named either Purusotham Mahatma or Krishnadas, went on pilgrimage to Haridwar, now located in Uttarakhand, India. He or they met Prannathji at this sacred site and became his disciple(s) and followed the saint (Mahamati) for some time before returning to Nepal. Unfortunately for him, he was not welcomed back in his place of origin. The local people in this far western part of the country viewed his teaching with suspicion, and nobody converted to the Pranami doctrine. The sundarsath was compelled to leave his village. He travelled around Nepal and established himself in Hokse, three kilometres from Palanchok, an area east of the Kathmandu Valley that is now a part of Kabrepalanchok district. The first Pranami altar was set up in this locality.12 Some members of the sect claim that a Chetri group, the Baja Gain, founded the temple. It is not clear whether the sect was introduced to the Kathmandu Valley from its initial location in Kabrepalanchok or from elsewhere. Whatever the case may be, Pranami impact on the Newars in the Kathmandu Valley dates back to the late nineteenth century. The first domestic altar was set up by a guru called Dayal Das, a Nepali himself, in the house of a Newar, Ram Das Shrestha, in Kilagal (Sapugalli to be precise), a neighbourhood in central Kathmandu. Nothing is known about this person, except that his own guru, known by the name of Ratna Das Maharaj, lived in Panna, Madhya Pradesh, India, for the most part. Meanwhile, another relative of the Shrestha family, a timber trader, established a Pranami shrine close by in Nardevi. Ram Das Shrestha’s descendants still live in Kilagal and profess the Pranami faith. The shrine in Nardevi, however, collapsed some decades ago and has not been rebuilt. About the same time, if not earlier, some families belonging to the Sanjel group of Jaisi Bahun (Parbatiya Bahun) settled in the Kathmandu Valley and converted to the Pranami religion. These families originally came from Jumla/Dailekh in western Nepal. They migrated to the Kathmandu Valley during the second half of the eighteenth century, apparently just before the conquest of the valley by Prithivi Narayan Shah (1768–69). They founded the Gauthatar settlement, six kilometres to the east of Kathmandu, in an area that was unoccupied at the time. The Sanjels claim that an ancestor of theirs, one Gokunananda, went to Haridwar in the seventeenth
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century, met Prannath, and introduced the sect to Nepal. But this version is contradicted by other oral accounts. A great number of sundarsaths, mostly Sanjel or from other Parbatiya groups, live in the Gauthatar area to this day. A major Pranami temple was under construction for the last five years over there, close to the banks of the Bagmati river. It has been inaugurated in April 2010. This site, Navathan dham, is expected to become the centre of the sect for the whole of Nepal. The sect spread towards the eastern part of the country from the aforementioned area of Hokse, located in Kabrepalanchok district (Shivakothi, 1988). The pattern of the Pranami implantation in Nepal leads one to surmise that the influence of the sect in Kabrepalanchok district, as well as in the far eastern zone, especially in Terathum, Jhapa and Sunsari districts, is as ancient as in the Kathmandu Valley. Jhapa district at present houses the largest number of Pranami temples and sundarsath disciples in Nepal. A group of Parbatiya (Nepali-speaking) Brahmans, the Mainali, a Kumai Bahun group that migrated eastward from Kabrepalanchok, played a key role in this process. Some members of this thar (clan) have been very active in extending the sect to that part of the country and are known to have been strong supporters of the Pranamis in the past. For instance, a Mainali woman who lived for several years years in Panna, Madhya Pradesh, is said to have introduced the Svarup religious text to eastern Nepal. She established an important Pranami temple in Phuguwa in ad 1828, from which the sect spread to the Nepalese eastern Tarai and to the Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district, West Bengal. The sect also made some converts among the Kiranti Tibeto-Burman speaking groups, especially among Limbus. During the Rana period (1846–1950), the Pranamis faced considerable difficulty in expanding their sampraday and preaching their doctrine in Nepal. The Rana establishment was apprehensive about an overtly heterodox religion that criticized Brahmans and caste hierarchy. Together with the Shah royal family, the Ranas had established a theocratic Hindu state that marginalized religious minorities and prohibited conversion. The great number of Urdu words contained in Pranami religious books, and their tendency towards monotheism, as well as their custom of burying their dead, indicated to the authorities that they were Din-Islam in disguise, a proselytizing Muslim group that had borrowed some Hindu concepts. Sundarsaths were even suspected of symbolically killing cows during their rituals.
154 GÉRARD TOFFIN For the Brahmans, Ranas, and Shahs who ruled the country, Pranamis did not really belong to Sanatana Dharma, the orthodox form of Hinduism that was the state religion and the main pillar of state policy at that time. Instead, they viewed this sect as a Muslim group that had to be kept outside the boundaries of Hinduism, that is to say, outside the country’s boundaries. Such discrimination against Muslims in matter of citizenship was frequently heard amongst high-caste Hindus throughout the kingdom during the Panchayat era, and this is sometimes the case even today. These suspicions about the sect are not specific to Nepal. Dominique-Sila Khan (2003) reports a similar uncertainty about the Pranami sect in present-day Rajasthan. Members of the sect were consequently harassed by officials, many of whom were Brahmans. Some were sent to jail. Others were forced to drink alcoholic drinks and eat consecrated leftovers (prasad) of Guhyeshvari, one of the main Tantric Hindu deities in the valley; these food offerings were known to contain meat and alcohol. Pranami’s sacred books were also the object of searches and, if discovered, destroyed. In response, religious books and male members of some families were kept hidden for months. This persecution reached its height during the rule of Chandra Shamsher (1901–29) and Juddha Shamsher (1932–45). It affected Newars and Parbatiyas (a Nepali-speaking group from the hills) equally. The worst excesses occurred in the Kathmandu Valley, where the central authorities were based. As is widely known, members of the Arya Samaj reformist movement and Christian converts were treated similarly during the rule of Chandra Shamsher Rana (Malla, 1985; Rana, 1978: 126). There were therefore very few Pranami sundarsath in the Kathmandu Valley and in Nepal generally for many years. It was only from 1951 onward, after the fall of the Rana regime, and after 1990, the date marking the end of the Panchayat regime, that the movement gained ground and reached more disciples. Like other religious minorities, from this time on the sect was able to propagate its religious doctrine and make new converts in a much more open manner and in greater conformity with the law. Nowadays, devotees consider themselves Hindu and are recognized as such by state authorities and other Hindu associations or sampraday. Pranamis are particularly influential in the Kathmandu Valley, Kabrepalanchok and Terathum districts in the eastern hills, and in the eastern Tarai. In the Kathmandu Valley, the main figure in recent times is Yugal Das, a Timla Singha Bahun born in Dhungakharka, Kabrepalanchok
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district. This guru spent some years in Kilagal, Kathmandu, and went on to found a temple at Dilli Bazaar. Towards the end of his life, he was taken in by a Duwal Newar family, belonging to the Hindu Chathariya high-status caste, in Pulcok, Lalitpur. In the 1970s, he established another temple there, which is still active today. In the 1980s, he initiated a Newar Shrestha, Indra Bahadur Shrestha, who spread the message of Devchandra and Prannath through the surrounding Jyapu villages in Lalitpur district. Yugal Das passed away in ad 1987 and was buried (samadhi) in Sankhamul, on the banks of the sacred Bagmati River. His photograph hangs in most Pranami temples in the Kathmandu Valley.
BEING A PRANAMI DEVOTEE IN NEPAL TODAY Congregations such as the Krishna Pranami place the group above the individual and communitarian activities over selfish desires. Nepalese sundarsaths’ sense of belonging to their sect is enhanced by a variety of religious practices. Some are performed individually, such as the daily morning offerings and prayers to Raj–Shyamaji (Krishna–Radha) and Kuljam Svarup, during which the devotee enters the temple, prostrates himself in front of the divine beings, circumambulates the altar (parikrama) one or more times, and offers flowers, fruit, and money. Pranamis also gather together to worship during important religious occasions in the Krishnaite calendar (Shri Krishna Janma Astami or Krishna Jayanti, Govardhan Puja, Ras Purnima, Holi), as well as on days that correspond to the birthdays and the anniversaries of the deaths of founding members of the sect. A group of devotees may also gather for hymn-singing sessions, which are accompanied by harmoniums, cymbals, and drums. Common meals and the distribution of food and prasad create fraternal bounds. The main locus of faith is always the local temple, to which devotees are attached because of its proximity to their residences. These centres offer a common ground for uniting Pranami neighbours who belong to different milieux and help to shape the spirit of the group. Sundarsaths also assemble on particularly special occasions, for instance, at parayan recitation of sacred texts (mostly Svarup) that are organized by the sect’s religious leaders from time to time (see Image 7.2). These parayan usually last for one or two days, but some, such as the November 2006 recitation organized in India
156 GÉRARD TOFFIN Image 7.2 Recitation of sacred texts (parayan) by Pranami followers (Banepa, Nepal, November 2008)
Photo courtesy: Gérard Toffin.
(Jamnagar) by the group’s maharaj, can take up to twelve days. Thousands of Nepalese Pranamis participated in this 2006 event, travelling to India by train and bus. On a smaller scale, instruction (upadesh or sandesh) is organized by the sect’s guru. Some Nepalese gurus (Brahmans) specialize in reciting the Bhagavata Purana, which is also considered to be a major book of the Pranami faith. All these meetings foster a strong sense of personal and collective identity. Additionally, regular visits to the sect’s main sites of worship in India (Panna, Jamnagar, Surat) create a common sacral geography and reinforce the pilgrims’ sense of belonging. Journeying to one of these centres encourages devotees to discover their identity in relation to the other world and the community of believers. As in India, the Nepalese sundarsaths are bound by regulations that convey important signs of belonging. They are not allowed to eat meat, fish, or eggs. They never drink alcohol. They are forbidden to smoke tobacco, or to take pan or any kind of drugs. When receiving their initiation (jagani, literally ‘illumination’, or diksha), which marks their entry into the sectarian movement, they swear that they will never steal, gamble, lie, or denigrate others. These prohibitions
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lend a strong moral orientation, and even a puritanical tint, to the group and its members. In theory, members remain affiliated to the organization on the condition that they respect these commandments. In case they fail to observe these, there are expelled from the group. Dress regulations only apply to devotees who volunteer to take charge of the local temples (seva or sevak or pujari) and those who spend a great deal of time within these sacred precincts. These particularly committed members wear white or orange (roughly of a saffron colour) traditional Indian and Nepali dress of kurta and dhoti. The higher gurus are dressed in an orange-coloured cloth (Nepali geru), of a slightly lighter shade than the saffron colour worn by renouncers and ascetics. The group’s maharaj wears a richly decorated cotton and velvet cap on his head; its form seems to derive from those previously worn by holy men such as sants. All Pranamis wear a necklace (mala) made of 108 beads of tulsi wood that symbolize the 108 sectors or stages of devotion that the soul (atma) has to pass through to achieve salvation. This necklace, worn under the garments, is called kanthi (from Sanskrit kantha, ‘throat’). Other Krishnaite sects wear a similar necklace. The Iskcon (Hare Krishna) mala is made of a double row of beads. The sampraday brings together people from different ethnic groups, castes, and even, as will shortly be shown, nations. Followers in Nepal mostly belong to the Parbatiya community, the most numerous group of people in Nepal, consisting of Nepali mothertongue speakers of hill origins. Some Newars, and Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnic groups from the hills, such as the Tamang, Rai, and Limbu, are also affiliated. Madhesis, that is, people from the southern Nepalese plains, also form a major sundarsath contingent. Among all these groups, membership is more often the result of familial affiliation than individual conversion. The fact that in most cases the initiatory tartam mantra is delivered at a very early age, usually a few months after birth, testifies to this fact. Adults also occasionally become affiliated to the sect after encountering a guruji, or befriending or marrying a sundarsath. Pranamis tend to marry within their own group and, more often than not, within the same caste. Among Newars, it is said that a non-Pranami girl who marries a Pranami boy will follow the religious rules observed by her husband and in-laws. The reverse is also said to be true. As was mentioned earlier, very few westerners have been initiated into the movement. However, large numbers of Indians living in Nepal are affiliated to and actively participate in the group. A significant
158 GÉRARD TOFFIN number of them come from the Marwari merchant caste, who settled in Kathmandu a long time ago. In November 2005, I attended a lecture (upadesh) organized in the heart of the capital by the Marwari Sewa Samiti. About 300 people, men and women sitting separately on either side of the assembly hall, listened to the reading and sermon given by a famous Indian celibate guru from Haryana who specialized in this kind of ‘instruction’. Most participants were Marwari; others were Nepali. Marwari merchants are rich donors and contributors to the group. They possibly became linked to this reformist religious community in order to ascend to a status concordant with their economic success, as was the case with the nineteenth-century Radhasoami movement in Punjab (Juergensmeyer, in Lorenzen, 1995: 85–87). In the northern areas of West Bengal where I carried out research, there are also many Marwaris among the supporters and followers of the Krishna Pranamis. To what extent does the sect transcend caste identities? Despite their avowed indifference to caste, most devotees are upper caste, and of Hindu Parbatiya origin in particular. Among this group, the great majority of Pranamis are from the Brahman (Bahun) community, either Upadhya or Jaisi, or of Chetri (Kshatriya) caste. Impure castes may undergo the jagani initiation, with its tartam mantra whispered in the ear. They are allowed in temples, worship the holy books, and offer flowers. But in most cases they never remain in these places for long. In 2006 I visited one particular Pranami temple in the Kathmandu suburbs (Sina Mangal), near the Bagmati River, which almost exclusively belongs to the local untouchable Sarki (cobbler) community. One Brahman and one Sarki were in charge of the shrine and they spent most of their time there. This temple, established by donations made by a Sarki woman, is visited by cobblers only. Therefore, if in theory inter-caste conviviality is highly encouraged, in reality it is largely avoided. The same situation prevails among the Newars. Most Newar Pranamis belong to the ethnic group’s upper strata (Hindu Chathariya and Shrestha for instance) or to intermediate-status castes, especially the Jyapu agriculturists caste. I never saw a member of a Newar impure caste inside a major temple. By and large, inequality persists in most Nepalese Pranamis’ religious centres. Furthermore, affiliation to the sampraday often does not separate initiates from the wider society. Pranamis adapt very easily to the dominant Hindu world and the contested ideology of varnasramadharma (the law of social orders and stages in life),
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which is at the basis of orthodox Hinduism. After all, some Pranami values, like vegetarianism, bhakti devotional religion, the reading of holy texts, and a life devoted to religious goals, conform exactly to the orthodox Hindu values, especially to those held by Brahmans. Most Parbatiya sundarsaths feel at ease with their sectarian religion and do not see any major contradiction with Hinduism. They feel both Pranami and Hindu, and they view their sectarian affiliation as a spiritual path within Hindu dharma. Both identities merge and the two forms of belonging combine. In many ways, the Hinduism has absorbed the sundarsath. Two issues, however, may prove to be real bones of contention. The first concerns the Hindu rites of passage (samskara) and participation in Hindu rituals (karmakanda) more generally. Contrary to the rejection of rituals and puja expressed in their holy books and advocated by their gurus,13 most high-caste Pranamis continue to celebrate their birth, initiation, and marriage ceremonies in the way prescribed in the Dharmashastras. These rituals are seen as customs and socio-religious events to which they are bound as Hindus and which they are obliged to perform in order to retain their caste. Upanayana male initiation in particular, in which the twice-born receives his sacred thread (janai) and is introduced officially in his caste, is considered to be of the utmost importance. This is the reason why sundarsaths wear both the sacred thread and the kanthi necklace, a mark of affiliation to the sect. Parbatiya Pranamis also celebrate the prescribed Hindu funeral rituals and observe all the rules of pollution that sanatana Brahmans are required to observe. They generally also perform the ancestor (pitr) cult and pinda ball offerings to the dead. Some of them even cremate their dead, instead of burying them, as is stipulated by the sect’s rules.14 Sectarian affiliation therefore does not entail relinquishing customary karmakanda rituals performed by all twice-born Hindus. The second issue concerns visits to Hindu temples other than Krishna’s, especially to Devi or Ganesh shrines at which animal sacrifices are offered. Followers are regularly instructed by their gurus to visit only Pranami shrines (and to read only Pranami books) to overcome the exigencies of life, but most Nepali sundarsaths also visit other temples than their own Pranami sanctuary, and some worship the Hindu deities housed in them. In principle, they should refrain from taking food left over from offerings to the deity (prasad) whilst doing so, because it may contain alcohol and blood. A sundarsath
160 GÉRARD TOFFIN is strictly forbidden to touch these offerings with his mouth. However, some devotees do not respect these interdictions, considering it impossible to do so. There are numerous contradictory opinions regarding these matters. Newar Pranamis face much greater difficulties in reconciling their sectarian affiliation and the values of their ethnic society. Sociologically, Newars are organized along extremely clear-cut and exclusive lines of caste, kinship, association, and territory. Pranami ‘protestant’ rules and precepts promoting a non-sacrificial religion, respectful of ahimsa, or non-violence principles, and centred on book worship, also stand in sharp contrast to the Tantrized Newar religious tradition. The sampraday reformist cannot accept cults with numerous goddesses, blood sacrifices, and meals made up of alcoholic drinks and meat dishes. Obviously, Newar Pranamis have to adjust to a lifestyle very different from their original ethnic one. How does one reconcile these two different world-views? How can a Newar belong to his village and to his caste, and, at the same time, be a strict vegetarian and teetotaller? In spite of these evident difficulties, the sect has spread in the last decades among Newar Jyapu (agriculturalist) villagers, who are reputed to be socially and culturally conservative. There are interesting parallels between increasing Jyapu interest in Pranami, and the conversion of a growing number of them, over the past 30 years, and the spread of Theravada form of Buddhism, traditionally alien to their traditional religious culture.15 In concrete terms, conversion to the Pranami faith forces Newar initiates gradually to repudiate their traditional culture and social groupings. They can no longer participate in the numerous banquets organized by the group or in the offerings made to their ancestors and territorial gods. They therefore usually send money or a non-Pranami substitute to do so instead. In contrast to what happens in the Parbatiya community, the divergence between the two forms of belonging and loyalties here results in major conflict. Conversion to Pranami faith entails adoption of values pertaining to high caste Hindus, in particular vegetarianism and non-violence. However, most of the Jyapu Pranamis I met, still follow their traditional life-cycle rituals, even the most peculiar ones, such as the ihi, pseudo marriage of small girls to Shiva, and the old-age ceremony bura jwanku. They also continue to burn their dead, in contradiction to Pranami rules. As for caste rules, they freely interact and share food with individuals from
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impure castes who have converted to Pranami. Although there is still some discrimination against other untouchables, by and large the egalitarian ideology of Prannathji does provide the Jyapus with a positive self-image, one that rejects the inferior status to which they are relegated by dominant Hindu values. In many ways, the process of conversion to this sectarian movement can be described as a process of Sankritization, even if it is incomplete.
CONCLUSION: RE-HINDUIZATION OF THE SECT AND INTERNAL DIVISION There is a striking paradox in the development and history of the Nijananda sect. Originally, Prannath (like Nanak, the Sikhs’ historical spiritual leader) preached the sameness of all world religions. He aimed at a universal dharma, stressing the meaninglessness of all sectarian and religious differences. His intention was to provide a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam, so that at times, the community has concretely allowed, or promoted, some form of plural identity. But in the course of time, the movement turned into a sect, with a separate heterodox religious identity. The followers of the congregation established their own sacred shrines (now visited by nonPranami Hindus as well) and forged a distinct legendary history. A series of rules was laid down and various signs of distinctiveness were established. Interestingly, the gradual emergence of a formally organized community, contradicting the initial emphasis upon the interior quality of religious devotion, is a widespread phenomenon among all sant religious movements. Moreover, recent decades have seen the sampraday undertake an interesting re-conversion to orthodox sanatana Hinduism. Pranamis now tend to forget the strong influences of Islam on their theology and beliefs, as well as the presence of Islamic religious terminology in their texts. They attribute these interactions to contingent historical circumstances, and therefore view them as inessential. The sundarsaths currently define themselves as a pure Hindu group, defending proper Hindu values against foreign religions, especially Christianity and Islam. The exploits of Maharaja Chatrasal, who revolted against the Mughals and against Aurangzeb’s so-called ‘tyranny’ in particular, are often called to mind. A number of Pranamis share aspects of Vishva Hindu Parishad’s thesis (for instance, regarding the need
162 GÉRARD TOFFIN to strengthen Hindu values among Hindu youth), although they insist on their independence from the Sangh Parivar and right-wing Hindu nationalism.16 These changes, which present striking parallels with the Hinduization of the Sikh religion in the nineteenth century (Oberoi, 1994), affect all Pranamis, whether Nepali or Indian. When visiting Nepalese Pranami temples and attending ceremonies performed by their devotees, the observer is struck by features common to other saguna (iconic) Vaishnava sects and popular Hinduism. Admittedly, there is no worship of statues in these centres, and Raj–Shyamaji (Krishna and Radha) are represented by crowns, not faces. But images of Krishna as a child are all over the walls. Photos, chromolithographs, and paintings of the founding members of the sect are represented in an entirely devotional way. These illustrations are not just respected; they are venerated. Raj–Shyamaji, who are embodied in the altar in the form of books, are bathed, dressed in clothes, and covered with a blanket in winter, in a manner not dissimilar to Krishna worship. Even the books placed on the altar are garlanded with flowers, like statues or divine symbols in orthodox sanatana Hindu temples. The pujari offers numerous quotidian ritual services to these divine beings, including several bhog offerings of flowers, and arti at night; activities closely resembling those performed in most Hindu temples. The presence of these Vaishnava saguna elements in India and Nepal requires more ethnographic research. They must have been present in the sect since the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries, as is the case with most of the organizations founded by sants (cf. Vaudeville, 1996). But these features are obviously being re-emphasized at the present day. As a result, Pranamis have found themselves closely associated with other Vaishnava sects, even if they strongly criticize these groups for being materialist and money-minded. This re-Hinduization movement has probably gained momentum owing to the increasingly significant presence of Nepalese devotees within the sect. Brahmans from the Nepalese eastern Tarai in particular have played a major role in the movement over the last 60 years. A figure like Mangaldas, born in Ilam district (Melbote), in 1886, acquired major importance within the sect. This famous guru (or maharaj) set up the main Pranami temple in Kalimpong. He is known to have worked miracles and to have been the spiritual guide for a number of important Pranamis. His popularity is not restricted to West Bengal and the eastern Himalayas; it has expanded to many
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other sacred places in northern and north-western India. Moreover, even the maharaj’s position at the sect’s Indian headquarters has been in the hands of the Nepalis since Dhanidasji Maharaj (1916–44), the twelfth religious leader of the congregation, who was born in Nepal (Balthum, Lamjung district). The sect’s thirteenth maharaj (starting from Devchandra), known by the name of Dharmadasji (1944–91), was himself Nepali: a Ghimire Upadhya Brahman, who was native to Ilam. His successor (chosen by him), is Shri 108 Krishnamani Maharaj,17 who spent his childhood in the Jhapa district of Nepal and was born into a Baral Brahman family. Krishnamani Maharaj, the current head of the Krishna Pranami sect, resides in Jamnagar (Navtanpuridham or Khijra mandir),18 but usually visits Nepal twice a year. When I interviewed him, in November 2007, he de-emphasized his Nepalese origins and presented himself as an all-India leader. He stressed that he was born in India (near Gorakhpur, a short distance from Nepal). However, the ongoing influence of this Nepalese connection provokes envy and jealousy. The present maharaj is vulnerable to accusations of being a foreign agent involved in an obscure conspiracy. Recent articles in Indian newspapers pointing to the Nepalese origins of many Gujarat Pranami temples are a manifestation of these anxieties. Some Indian devotees clearly fear that their whole community has fallen into the hands of the Nepalis. The destination of funds and donations seems to be a particular source of conflict. All these internal issues are, of course, very far from the ideal image that the group wishes to portray to outsiders. Recasting Pranami society in more explicit Hindu terms has set up new boundaries within the sampraday and has provided its members with a new identity within the creed of Hindu values. This development, in which Nepali followers apparently took a major part, has created other forms of internal conflict. Some members disagree with the current leanings of the sect. They publicly condemn the cult of Hindu deities and the participation of Pranamis in orthodox Hindu rites. They criticize the large parayan meetings recently organized by the Pranamis’ religious authorities, and are extremely suspicious about the devotional reverence shown towards its maharaj, as well as about the importance the Pranamis’ Jamnagar ‘seat’ has gained over time. More fundamentally, they denounce a return to idolatry, to external forms of worship, and customs condemned by their founding members. They consider it a
164 GÉRARD TOFFIN mistake to identify Prannath with Krishna, and refuse to consider this god a symbol of the Supreme Being (as the Vallabhacharya sect does). Maharajs, gaddipatis (literally ‘seat holders’), celibate gurus, and public rites concluding with the distribution of prasad and asirbad (benediction) have come to be viewed with great hostility. This dissenting minority, headed by Shri Suryanarayan, the present head (acharya) of the Surat (Gujarat) Mahamangalpuridham temple (Mota mandir), located in a Muslim neighbourhood, demands a return to Prannath’s initial universalistic message. Shri Suryanarayan, born in Bihar, no longer participates in the group’s major events and no longer pays respect to the maharaj of the sect, based in Jamnagar. He has created his own parampara, spiritual succession of sacred persons, holders of the gaddi, and presents himself in his posters as the seventeenth in the line of succession from Prannath. He and his followers have endorsed the traditional name of the sect and now prefer to call themselves Nijanandis. They wear white cloth rather than the saffron-coloured dress now often worn by the most devout people among the Krishna Pranamis. Saffron, they claim, is the colour of sannyasi renouncers and of Shankacharya. It belongs to sagun philosophy and not to the nirgun ideas of the original Nijananda movement. The sampraday is thus at present divided between two different branches, each with its own identity. Their cult sites and holy books remain the same, but the two groups now each have their own networks and funds.19
NOTES 1. This type of brotherhood corresponds to Max Weber’s concept of gemeinde or gemeindereligiosität (1996). Sociologically and historically speaking, these religious groupings or sects resemble their Western Christian equivalents. However, they also significantly differ from them, particularly with regard to their relations with external politico-religious authorities, which are much less structured in India than in Europe. There has hardly ever been in South Asia a set of durable religious institutions powerful enough to impose doctrinal uniformity and ban sectarian deviations. 2. By contrast, some members of the Rana Nepalese oligarchy supported the Kabir Panthis—followers of another reformist sect belonging to the same North Indian sant movement—from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards. 3. Older names, such as Prannathi Panth, or Mehraj Panth, from the names of Mahamati Prannath, are rarely used today. Nijananda (from nij: foundational or own, and ananda: joy, bliss), the original name for the sect, derives from one of
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8. 9.
10.
11. 12. 13. 14.
15. 16.
17. 18. 19.
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the religious titles given to Prannath. Krishna Pranami seems to be a more recent term. Religious leaders of the congregation often speak of Nijananda sampraday and Krishna Pranami dharma, giving the latter a broader meaning than the former. They also categorize Muslims, Christians, and others, as sampraday, sects. The data presented in this chapter were collected between 2005 and 2010 in Nepal and India (Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Delhi). On Indian Pranamis, see also Wilson (1958) and Subba (1986). On Swaminarayan sect, see Mallison (1974) and Williams (2001). The book edited by Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof (2003) is also important for our subject. Panna, in north Madhya Pradesh, is also a major Krishna Pranami (Nijananda) centre and pilgrimage site. Prannath, the founder of the sect, is buried there, in the Padmavatipuri Dham Temple. Some books on the figure of Prannath and on the religious background of the sect have been published under the auspices of the Pranamis. See for instance Sharma (1984) and Sila Khan (2002, 2003). The Krishna Pranamis also have a fairly detailed website containing useful information on their history and beliefs (www. pranami.org). Kuljam or Kulzam is an Arabic word. According to the religious teachers of the sect, kuljam comes from kul: ‘total, complete’, and jam: ‘repository, source of wisdom and love’. This is an estimate. Pranamis are not registered in the national censuses. From Sanskrit tartamya, which means ‘gradation, proportion, difference’. In Gujarati, the meaning of this word is: ‘purport, epitome, relative importance, comparative value’ (Belsare, 1986: 596). Local etymologies explain the word by separating its components: tar, ‘light’, and tam, ‘obscurity’, that is, the way which leads from darkness to enlightenment. In the same way, a number of nath (members of a Kanphata Yogi Shaivite sect) believe that Gorakhnath visited Arabia under the name Buba Ratan Hajja (Assayag, 1995: 135). It is also commonly believed within this group that Muhammad the prophet was a disciple of Gorakhnath, who taught him yoga (ibid., 137). The Bundelas are a Rajput clan who ruled several states in central India, particularly the Bundelkhand region, south of the Vindhya Range. The first Krishna Pranami temple in Hokse dates from ad 1891. Karmakanda (ceremonial acts and sacrificial rites) was anathema to Prannath. In Nepal, most Pranamis are currently buried in a sitting position. Some, however, are burnt. It seems that some members of the sect in India are buried in the recumbent position, like Muslims (Sila Khan, 2003: 75). Similarly, the Krishna Pranami sect has met with great success among tribal groups in India, for instance, the Bhils (Gujarat). Up to the present day, the Pranamis have kept themselves out of politics. Nevertheless, since 2005, Krishna Pranamis have been included in the new committee of the World Hindu Federation (WHF), a Nepalese branch of Vishva Hindu Parishad (Rising Nepal, 4 August 2005). On this subject, see Toffin (2011). ‘108’ here indicates this person’s extreme sacredness, much greater than that of the former kings of Nepal, who only had the Number 5 in their title. This temple is the main seat, pitha (or puri), of the sect. It was founded in ad 1630 by Devchandra. These forms of segmentation and factionalism are common within most Hindu sects.
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REFERENCES Assayag, J. 1995. Au confluent de deux rivières. Musulmans et Hindous dans le sud de l’Inde [At the confluence of two rivers: Muslims and Hindus in south India]. Paris: Presses de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient. Belsare, M.B. 1986 (1904). An Etymological Gujarati–English Dictionary. New Delhi: Asian Educational Service. Dalmia, V., A. Malinar, and M. Christof (eds). 2003. Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lorenzen, D.N. (ed.). 1995. Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action. New York: State University of New York Press. ———. (ed.). 2004. Religious Movements in South Asia 600–1800. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Malla, C. 1985. Mero Atma-Katha. Kathmandu: Inap Press. Mallison, F. 1974. ‘La secte krichnaïte des Swami-Narayani au Gujarat’ [The Krishnaite sect of Swami-Narayani in Gujarat], Journal Asiatique, 262: 435–71. Oberoi, H. 1994. The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rana, P.S. 1978. Rana Nepal: An Insider’s View. Kathmandu: Sahayogi Press. Schomer, K. and W.H. McLeod (eds). 1987. The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition in India. Berkeley, CA and Delhi: Berkeley Religion Studies Series and Motilal Banarsidass. Sharma, S. 1984. Mahamati Prannath: The Saviour. New Delhi: Shri Prannath Mission. Shivakothi, T. (‘Yatri’). 1988 (2055V.S.). Krishna Pranami Dharma Nepali Parivesh. Brindavan: Shri Krishna Pranami Mandir. Sila Khan, D. 2002. ‘The Prannathis of Rajasthan: Bhakti and Irfan’, in L.A. Babb, V. Joshi, and M.W. Meister (eds), Multiple Histories: Culture and Society in the Study of Rajasthan, pp. 209–31. Jaipur/Delhi: Rawat Publications. ———. 2003. ‘The Madhi of Panna: A Short History of the Pranamis’, Indian Journal of Secularism, 6(4): 45–82. Subba, T. 1986. ‘A Vegetarian Religion in a Non-Vegetarian Milieu: The Case of the Pranami Dharma in Darjeeling and Sikkim’, unpublished paper, Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal, Siliguri. Toffin, G. 2011. ‘In the Margins of Hindutva: The Case of the Krishna Pranamis in Nepal and India’, in D. Berti, N. Jaoul, and P. Kanungo (eds), The Cultural Entrenchment of Hindutva: Local Mediations and Forms of Resistance. Delhi: Routledge (in press). Vaudeville, C. 1996. Myths, Saints and Legends of Medieval India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Weber, M. 1996. Sociologie des religions [Sociology of Religions] (edited and translated by Jean-Pierre Grossein). Paris: Gallimard. Williams, R.B. 2001. An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, H.H. 1958 (1828–32). Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus. Calcutta: Susil Gupta. (First published in Asiatic Researches, Volumes 1 (1828) and 2 (1832).
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Chapter 8 Religion, Rituals, and Symbols of Belonging The Case of Uttarakhand William Sax
INTRODUCTIOn In this chapter I pose the question, ‘What effect does statehood have on local forms of belonging in India?’ I answer this question by examining the case study of Uttarakhand, which was founded in the year 2000 and is therefore one of India’s newest states. In searching for a theoretical framework for this essay, I first looked at the extensive anthropological literature on ethnicity. It is important to state at the outset that for some time now, at least since the publication of Barth’s seminal work on the subject, anthropologists have understood ethnicity in a non-essential way. As we see it, ethnic groups are not united by real, permanent characteristics, but rather by beliefs about and perceptions of supposedly shared characteristics, and it is these beliefs and perceptions that are important. Of course, it is true that throughout human history, in all times and places, people have distinguished themselves from others on the basis of categories such as language, religion, blood, shared descent, and the like. But these markers—the bases of ethnicity—are not natural, and they are not permanent. Rather they are cultural creations, and they shift and change according to historical context. They can also change dramatically because of political events. For example, Bengalis once thought of themselves as a single ethnic group, whose main shared characteristic was the Bengali language and its literature. The ethnic category ‘Bengali’ overrode distinctions of religion amongst those who defined themselves—or who were
168â•… WILLIAM SAX defined by others—as Bengalis. But the British colonialists insisted on dividing the state into two parts: East Bengal, which was predominantly Muslim, and West Bengal, which was predominantly Hindu. Many Bengalis protested. At that time, their ethnicity was based on a shared language—Bengali—and they felt that the British were introducing a new distinction based upon religion, in order to divide the Bengalis so that they could be more easily ruled. However, the division has since become a fact, and in the twentieth century we have seen increasing hostility between Hindu and Muslim Bengalis, so that an ‘artificial’ colonial imposition has come to be the basis of an ethnic divide. Ethnic groups emerge and are transformed in history, and not only in South Asia. Another example comes from South Africa, where none of the three major ethnicities—Zulus, Xhosa, and Afrikaners— existed as a named group in the nineteenth century. There was no entity that called itself ‘Zulu’ until the early twentieth century. Nowadays there is a strong rivalry between the Zulu and the Xhosa, but if you look at these two groups’ cultures and languages, you will find that there is very little difference between them. Of course, most Zulu and Xhosa people would disagree with this. They see themselves as clearly distinct, and they focus on a few, relatively trivial, cultural and linguistic markers to justify the distinction in cultural terms—for example, the fact that Zulu males are not circumcised, while Xhosa males are. Likewise, the Afrikaners emerged as a distinct language group only in the late nineteenth century, owing to the activities of a few leaders. Their language was codified, and after that all the regional variations started to fall in line with the standard dialect. Those who became Afrikaners stemmed from a variety of backgrounds in Europe, and included the offspring of Europeans and slaves or indigenous people. Their language had traces of German, Dutch, French, Malaysian, and the local Khoi, as well as the odd Bantu word, but there was no sense of common identity until politicians started to unify local whites on the basis of opposition to the British, and the cultural unity and the idea of an Afrikaner people emerged from there (McAllister, 1997a,b). Yet another example emerges from contemporary Darfur, where the quarrelling parties speak the same language, have the same religion, and share the same physical appearance. According to a UN report, “the sedentary and nomadic character of the groups constitutes one of the main distinctions between them” (Mamdani, 2007: 7).
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However, the conflict has so often been represented in the press as one between ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ that this has begun to affect the very identity of those involved. Again, according to the UN, “those tribes in Darfur who support rebels have increasingly come to be identified as ‘African’ and those supporting the government as the ‘Arabs’” (Mamdani, 2007: 7). We often think that political unity comes about on the basis of shared ethnic identity, but these cases show how, sometimes, the process may actually work the other way round—that political unity comes first and ethnic identification comes later. And the state of Uttarakhand provides one such case. I shall, however, conclude by suggesting that the term ‘ethnicity’ is not entirely satisfactory, that we need to look for a new term. Perhaps that term is ‘belonging’.
INDIA’S ‘NEW STATES’ AND ETHNICITY In India, the process of state-formation has usually been based upon ethnic or quasi-ethnic markers, especially history and language. In 1960, the bilingual Province of Bombay was divided into the language-based states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, after bloody language riots. Later on, Madras was split into Tamil-speaking Tamil Nadu and Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh on the basis of language. Indeed, the history of subsequent state creation in India makes it clear that language and cultural unity have been the main reasons for the creation of new states. Given the importance of religion in Indian social life, one might think that it, too, would be a basis for state-formation. But religion was a taboo subject after the horrors of partition, and Nehru and his followers did not want to repeat this tragedy in the Punjab, where they believed that demands for autonomy were based on Sikh religious separatism. In the end, however, they allowed the separation of Punjab from Himachal Pradesh, ostensibly on linguistic grounds. Oommen (1990) argues that this case demonstrates that religion was in fact surreptitiously accepted as a quasi-legitimate basis for state creation in postindependence India. Since independence, new states have regularly been created in India. Perhaps the most salient examples are the northeast hill states, the so-called ‘seven sisters’, whose borders correspond in a rough way to the various tribal-linguistic groupings in the region. With respect
170â•… WILLIAM SAX to these states, Mawdsley argues that ‘ethnicity’ has proved to be “an ‘informally valid’ basis for political-administrative reorganization under certain circumstances” (2002: 7). But Mawdsley’s formulation seems entirely too cautious to me. Ethnic identity has in fact been central to the political history of this region, both for Christians and for tribal groups, and this of course extends to the creation of the new states. It seems to have been quite relevant elsewhere, too. The most recent wave of state creation in India took place in 2000, with the creation of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttaranchal, which has recently been renamed Uttarakhand. I will focus on this latter case. According to Mitra: [S]eparatist groups claiming exclusive control over parts of existing national states have been a major characteristic of post-independence politics in South Asia.… The[se] ‘subnationalists’…consider their claims justified by their unique identities derived from their affinity with a particular language, religion, ethnicity or region.… In South Asia, rival claims to legitimacy—both from the territorial state and from those challenging its authority on the basis of separate nationhood—have traditionally been based on appeals to a separate identity drawing on language, race, ethnicity, history and geography. (1995: 58, 61)
Following the usual modernist terminology, Mitra (1995) characterizes these appeals as ‘primordialist’. My impression from a rather cursory survey of the literature is that the majority of political scientists who have written on the topic view ethnicity as a kind of feeling or emotion, a psychological resource that is used by calculating, entrepreneurial political leaders to achieve their goals. Moreover, they seem to believe that this feeling can be quantified and then inserted into their formal models, such as a rational choice theory. But, as I argued earlier, ethnicity does not operate in a vacuum. One needs the proper environing factors in order for it to take root and become an active force. In India, these factors are history, political institutions, and economic relations. As Mitra puts it: [C]ulture is the ubiquitous, common element of all separatist movements. However, the assertion of culture as sui generis—as an immutable, organic entity which is ‘quite independent of political nationalism’, but which is somehow asserted politically—is problematic in the sense that economic motivations may also operate in parallel with cultural factors. (1995: 59)
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Culture does not operate in a vacuum. Cultural items—in this case, ethnic and quasi-ethnic markers such as religion and language—are picked up, utilized, and manipulated, in response to the economic and political environment. This is utterly consistent with the nonessentialist definition of ethnicity with which I began. Ethnic markers may be ‘contextually defined’, as Barth taught us, but that does not mean that they are random. They are matters of widespread agreement, and they are in principle interchangeable; but precisely which of these markers is operative at any particular time is a function of historical context and political interest. And that is why Mitra is correct: culture is entirely too vague a concept to specify such contexts and constellations of interest. In the case of Uttarakhand, culture did not even play a major role, at least not up till the state was created. The crucial point about the movement for statehood in Uttarakhand is that it was not based on ethnicity, but rather on feelings of economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement. That is why ‘ethnicity’ is not a good term to use when discussing the genesis of Uttarakhand, and why the more nebulous term ‘belonging’ may be preferable. Let us review the history of the Uttarakhand movement.
THE CREATION OF UTTARAKHAND In 1989, several left-leaning organizations assembled to form the Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangarsh Samiti (USSS) to campaign for autonomy. The campaign did not make much headway until two years later in 1991, when a major earthquake struck the town of Uttarkashi, killing 200 people. Relief operations were slow, and local people protested. Police responded by using tear gas. After this shocking experience there was much discussion of economic exploitation in the hills by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government of the day. The population of Uttarakhand is quite small, relative to that of Uttar Pradesh, and therefore the so-called hill districts were totally dominated by the state legislature, so that the people felt politically under-represented as well. All of this was complicated and exacerbated by the Mandal Report. In 1994, the Mandal Commission had recommended that the proportion of places reserved for low-caste students in the universities should be greatly increased. But Scheduled Castes make up a tiny minority in the hills, and from the perspective
172â•… WILLIAM SAX of the people of Uttarakhand, the recommendations of the Mandal Report were an answer to a UP problem, imposed by a UP legislature, with no real concern for, or understanding of, the needs of the hill people. There was a massive student protest, and the movement for statehood began to gather steam. Demonstrators were fired on by the police, students organized a mass bus trip to Delhi for a planned protest, the buses were stopped in Muzaffarnagar, and many female students were raped, while male students were beaten and even killed by the UP police. In 1995, the state government’s attempt to cover up the massacre unravelled, and there were monthly protest rallies. In 1996, the state government apologized to the victims of the 1994 violence and offered them financial compensation. In August of that year, the Government of India announced its approval of statehood for Uttarakhand. There were long discussions throughout the hills, about whether they should seek full statehood, or be content with recognition as a centrally-administered area. Finally in the year 2000, the new state was born, but with a different name: Uttaranchal. Even though the name Uttarakhand or ‘the northern region’ was an ancient term, it was thought to be too suggestive of separation or partition, since the suffix ‘khand’ also means ‘part’. In the end, the name ‘Uttaranchal’, with its feminine connotations—the word ancal refers to the border of a woman’s sari—was imposed on the new state, much to the irritation of those who had fought for it.1 Several years later, the original name of ‘Uttarakhand’ was restored. Two points are clear from this short history of the birth of Uttarakhand. First of all, police violence against the student martyrs of Muzaffarnagar gave a huge boost to the movement; and second, ethnicity or cultural difference was never an important issue. On the contrary, economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement were the twin spurs driving the movement for statehood. Even now, a prominent website2 associated with Uttarakhand employs typically nationalist rhetoric in its messages, in which the principles of inclusion and exclusion are not cultural or religious, but rather economic: Uttaranchal, our current reality, remains a pale shadow of what could be. In the two years following statehood, it has become painfully obvious that the new Uttaranchal does not belong to the people, but to the large landowners of the terai, petty babus in the bureaucracy, land speculators across the hills, and the big mafia-controlled contractors that continue to exploit the natural resources of the Himalaya
RELIGION, RITUALS, AND SYMBOLS OF BELONGINGâ•… 173 beyond the breaking point. While the rich prosper, the hardships of the common man multiplies [sic] and their lot [sic] grows ever more precarious. The backbreaking work of women continues unabated and they remain deprived of their political voice, despite all their sacrifices for Uttarakhand. Moreover, a new class of colonizers has arrived from the plains and cities of Northern India where life is rapidly becoming unbearable. Land prices have skyrocketed as the wealthy from urban centers, dreaming about summer homes to escape from the wretched heat and pollution of the plains, have bought up prime land all over Uttaranchal. Overdevelopment by absentee landowners now represents a real threat, not just to the hill stations as in the past, but to the entire hills. Most grievously, the ugly concrete sprawl, land colonization, pollution, and vehicular congestion, are doing what two centuries of domination by the Gurkha and the British, coupled with the money order economy could not—uproot the patrimony of the hill people, devastate the natural beauty of the Devbhumi, and corrupt its spirit.
I have argued that cultural and ethnic factors have been prominent in the creation of new Indian states, but that Uttarakhand was an exception. Ethnicity was never prominent in the movement for statehood, which always had rather to do with politics and economics. But now the people of Uttarakhand have their state, and according to the logic of the Indian system, they need some form of belonging to match. But if they are not really ethnically distinct from their cousins in the plains, then what sort of belonging should this be?
‘BELONGING’ TO UTTARAKHAND Any attempt to fashion a form of belonging that is appropriate for Uttarakhand is hampered by the old rivalry between Kumaon and Garhwal, the two former Hindu kingdoms that together constitute nearly all of the new state. From an anthropological point of view, the differences between Garhwalis and Kumaonis are minimal: their languages, religions, caste structures, and kinship systems are more similar to each other than to anyone else, and yet despite this shared ethnicity—or more likely because of it—the old rivalry between them is difficult to eradicate. Here it may be helpful to review the history of relations between Garhwal and Kumaon. The Chand dynasty of Kumaon was the more ancient, ruling from the eleventh century, with some precedents as far back as the eighth century, at about the time
174â•… WILLIAM SAX when the Katyuri dynasty shifted from Joshimath to Karttikeyapuri. By contrast, the Shah dynasty of Garhwal was not founded until the late fourteenth century, when Ajay Pal conquered the so-called ‘52 forts’ or gadhis (from which Garhwal takes its name) and united them into a single kingdom. Thereafter, the two kingdoms had relations of more or less perpetual rivalry and sometimes hostility, without either of them ever really decisively defeating the other. In 1793, the Gurkhas from Nepal under Amar Singh Thapa defeated Kumaon, and kept up hostilities against Garhwal for 10 years, finally defeating them in 1803, when the king of Garhwal died in battle near Dehra Dun. In 1810 the British defeated the Gurkhas, and re-instated the Garhwali king’s son, who had helped them in their campaign. However, his kingdom was much reduced, to roughly half its former size, while the Chand dynasty of Kumaon was never restored to power. From that point on, the rivalry between Garhwal and Kumaon was no longer military, but purely political, economic, and cultural.3 In the 23 years or so, during which I conducted research in Garhwal before the new state was created, Kumaon was always described as modern, progressive, and prosperous, with a Westernized elite, while Kumaonis, and even Garhwalis themselves, described the Garhwalis as poor, rural, traditional farmers. According to local stereotypes, Kumaonis are sophisticated and worldly, clever at business but not to be trusted, while Garhwalis are poor hillbillies, quick to anger and quick to fight, but sincere and honest to a fault. One day these two old rivals woke up, as it were, to find that they were now bedfellows in the new state of Uttaranchal (later re-named Uttarakhand), and that they had somehow to develop a new form of belonging. Various attempts were made to unite the two sides, one of the most important being the movement to make the village of Gair Sain the new state capital. Gair Sain had the great virtue of being centrally located, more or less on the border between Garhwal and Kumaon. It was also associated with the famous freedom fighter Chandra Singh Garhwali, whose memorial stands on a mountain high above the town. The fantasy here—and it really was little more than a fantasy—was that since there are not many roads in this small Himalayan town, the MLAs4 would not be able to use their white ambassador automobiles as MLAs do elsewhere in India. They would have to ride bicycles, and since they would be far from the corrupting influence of the plains with their timber and alcohol ‘mafias’, state politics would remain relatively honest. In the event,
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Dehra Dun was chosen as the state capital, the MLAs there would travel in cavalcades that rival those of the pre-independence Rajas of India, and the influence of the mafias as great as ever. Nevertheless, activists are still holding out for Gair Sain. As one website puts it:5 This may not necessarily entail relocating the entire bureaucracy to Gairsain, but at least holding a yearly open-air assembly.… This would help maintain a proper perspective on the needs and hardships of hill life, while ensuring a greater measure of accountability from government officials.
What other concrete measures are being taken to overcome the old rivalry between Garhwal and Kumaon, and to integrate the two former kingdoms into one Indian state? In 2006, I found myself sitting in Dehra Dun in the office of a minister who happened to be a Garhwali, when he was visited by a delegation of businessmen from Kumaon. He was extremely helpful and friendly to them, saying that it was particularly important that their concerns be addressed so as to ensure the unity of the state—and it seemed to me that more than mere rhetoric was involved. A second example has to do with an annual festival where Garhwalis living near Kumaon—in Gair Sain, actually—used to burn effigies of the Kumaoni king. Now they have given it up, saying it is no longer appropriate. Although intermarriage between the two regions has always existed, it seems to be on the rise. In addition to this, there are proposals afoot to teach the Kumaoni dialect in Garhwali schools, and vice versa. But to be honest, none of this really amounts to much. A more fundamental and enduring basis for new forms of belonging is the religious significance of the Himalayan landscape that dominates the region. The mountains are ever-present, and indeed the geographical distinctiveness of the area is part of the reason for the small population and geographical isolation that led to the movement for statehood in the first place. Most important of all are the so-called char dham, the ‘four holy places’ of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Jamnotri. They have become emblematic for the region, especially in tourist literature. Badrinath and Kedarnath have been famous for centuries and even millennia, though it may well be that Gangotri and Jamnotri are more recent inventions. The importance of Badarikashram in India’s great epic Mahabharata, the fact that the king of Garhwal was formerly known as bolanda badri or ‘the speaking Badrinath’, and the common appellation devabhumi or ‘land of the gods’ that
176â•… WILLIAM SAX is used for Uttarakhand—both point to what is one of the most important factors around which a sense of belonging amongst the people of Uttarakhand has developed: the religious values of the landscape. Now, such a sense of belonging is obviously Hindu; but secular government policy requires a rhetoric of religious pluralism, and that is why alongside Badri, Kedar, Gangotri, and Jamnotri, the tourism department’s advertising also mentions the sacred places of other religions: well-known places like the Sikh shrine of Hemkund, Lokpal, but also relatively unknown ones, such as Nanakmatta and Meetha-Reetha Sahib; and a Muslim shrine that I have never heard of, Piran Kaliyar. More problematic is the fact that these holy places are almost all in Garhwal. Of course, Kumaon has its shrines, too, and some of them, like Jageshwar, are of great archaeological and artistic importance; but they do not have the same international and panHindu fame as Badri and Kedar. What is the most effective way to foster an enduring sense of belonging between these two former rivals who now find themselves bedfellows in the new state? One answer has to do with Nanda Devi, goddess of the Himalayas, and especially her procession, the Raj Jat, which links the two former kingdoms.
THE GODDESS NANDA AS A SYMBOL OF BELONGING Every 12 years, a four-horned ram is born in the region. Shortly afterwards, a local prince fashions a red parasol, symbol of the goddess Nanda Devi, and together with the four-horned ram he leads a procession of priests and pilgrims on one of the most dangerous and spectacular processions in India, a three-week, barefoot journey of more than 260 kilometres. The procession occurs at the end of the rainy season, which is known to be one of the worst seasons of the year. As it progresses, it is joined by the palanquins of other forms of Nanda Devi, the so-called ‘seven sisters’, who join in the procession. It reaches Rupkund, a small pond located at an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, surrounded by hundreds of human bones, and from there it goes still further, to Homkund, the Lake of the Fire Sacrifice. According to the faithful, the four-horned ram leaves the procession at that point and finds its way, unaided, to the summit of Mt Trishul. This is the most difficult and challenging pilgrimage in all of South Asia.
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It is difficult to know just how old this tradition is. One of the rulers of the earliest-known local dynasty, the Katyuris, called himself the paramabhakta or ‘greatest devotee’ of Nanda Devi in the mid-ninth century (Kielhorn, 1896: 179, 183; Sircar, 1956: 179, 282, 287–88). The Devi Purana, dating from roughly the sixth century, describes a local geography of pilgrimage that may well make reference to the procession. And there are inscriptions in nearby temples, dating from between the eighth and tenth centuries, which suggest that at that time at least some ascetics were committing ritual suicide in the name of Nanda Devi (Sircar, 1959: 253; cf. Dabaral, 1965–78, Vol. 3: 477). My own research, including an expedition funded by National Geographic in 2004, has proved that the bones on the shores of Rupkund are those of a pilgrimage party—probably a royal one—from outside the region, which perished on the side of the lake in some sort of natural catastrophe approximately a thousand years ago. This more or less confirms the folklore of the region, according to which the people came from western India. One of the places particularly associated with Nanda Devi is the village of Nauti near Karanprayag, where the Raj Jat begins, along with the nearby fortress of Chandpurgarhi. According to local legend, this fort belonged to a local chieftain named Kanak Pal, who married his daughter to a warrior from Gujarat named Ajay Pal. Some even claim that the daughter’s name was ‘Nanda’. Ajay Pal is said to have later settled 12 lineages of the so-called barahthani (‘twelve-place’) Brahmans in 12 villages in the area around the fortress, which he gifted to them before shifting his capital to Srinagar on the banks of the Alakananda River. Historical evidence for these claims is sparse, however. Most historians agree that Ajay Pal did indeed found the Shaha dynasty of Garhwal, after defeating the ‘fifty-two’ forts, or gadhi, from which ‘Garhwal’ takes its name—including the gadhi of Kanak Pal. But there is scant historical evidence that Ajay Pal ever married Kanak Pal’s daughter, or lived in his fortress, or settled the barahthani Brahmans there. Be that as it may, the route of the Nanda Devi Raj Jat is determined by the location of the barahthani Brahmans’ villages, which it traverses, and it is led by the lineage of the Kunvars, the putative descendants of Ajay Pal. Regardless of when or how it began, the cult of Nanda Devi is very widespread in the hills. In her songs and rituals she is called Gaura or Gaurja, the ‘fair-skinned’ wife of Shiva, and her story is basically that of Parvati, the mountain girl who falls in love with Shiva, becomes
178â•… WILLIAM SAX his devotee, and eventually marries him. Once in a year she returns to her parents’ home, where she is worshipped during the annual festival of Nanda Devi, and is then escorted back to the mountain-top home of Shiva on a palanquin. Her annual procession is therefore nothing less than a ritualized escorting of an out-married village daughter back to the home of her husband after she has visited her parents (Sax, 1990, 1991). As I have argued on numerous occasions, the dhyani or out-married daughter is a central figure in the ritual and folklore of Uttarakhand. Nanda Devi’s mythical story is the story of a mountain dhyani, and the difficulties and sorrows that she endures are in many ways typical of the problems traditionally faced by women in Uttarakhand. It is this association with local women that accounts for the deep emotional power of her cult and rituals. She represents the realm of kinship—that is, of love, sacrifice, and duty—as is related to feelings of longing and impermanence. Most importantly, Nanda Devi is strongly associated with Kumaon, as well as Garhwal. Recall that the Katyuri king in Joshimath styled himself the ‘paramount devotee’ of Nanda Devi in the mid-ninth century. In the medieval period, long after the decay of the Katyuris, Kumaon came to be ruled by the Chand dynasty, of whom Nanda Devi was the lineage goddess. Throughout this period, Kumaon was Garhwal’s greatest rival. In 1670 Baz Bahadur Chand, the king of Kumaon, defeated the Garhwalis and took the image of Nanda Devi from Badhan Fort near the border of Kumaon to his own capital in Almora (Atkinson, 1974, Volume II: 566). To this day, the priests refer to this particular form of Nanda Devi as Rajarajeshvari, ‘the royal goddess’, and the Royal Procession occurs in this very region, on the border of Kumaon and Garhwal. The organizers of the Raj Jat in Nauti always claimed that the Kumaonis had traditionally taken part in it, bringing the Nanda of Almora to join the other sister goddesses. However, there is no historical evidence of any such custom, and it had not occurred within living memory, but in the year 2000 not only was the new state created, but the Royal Procession also occurred in a blaze of publicity, and the Kumaonis brought an image of Nanda Devi in a palanquin from Almora to Nauti, to participate in the Raj Jat, thus uniting the two former rivals. The procession was covered on radio, in the newspapers, and on television, not only in Uttarakhand itself but also throughout India. The folk singer Narendra Singh Negi released a cassette that was based on the folk songs of Nanda Devi in a new and popular idiom, and it was wildly
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successful, one of the best-selling in the history of the local music industry. Everywhere, in the villages and the bazaars, young people were singing songs that, a few years earlier, had been known only by elderly women. A two-and-a-half-hour video of the pilgrimage was also produced and it achieved impressive local sales. The next year, Professor Data Ram Purohit of the University of Garhwal wrote a play about Nanda Devi, partly based on songs that I had collected and translated—which is why he generously made me the co-author. The play was performed in the university town of Srinagar, and in the provincial capital of Dehra Dun. Amongst other things, it is a statement about regional identity, in which the central characters are Kumaoni trekkers outfitted with Western equipment, who cannot understand the Garhwali dialect, and who pepper their language with English phrases that the locals cannot understand—all of which confirms the stereotypes mutually held of each other by Garhwalis and Kumaonis. By means of this media activity, along with many newspaper articles and television broadcasts, Nanda Devi was firmly established as the goddess of the new state. Her procession was well on the way to becoming an icon of ethnic identity, an item of heritage to be promoted by government ministers and private entrepreneurs, to be marketed, sold, and consumed locally, nationally, and even internationally. For example, in India’s Republic Day Parade of 2004, the float from Uttaranchal featured Nanda Devi, the four-horned ram, and a parasol-bearing pilgrim—typical signs of Nanda Devi (photo plate here)—in order to represent the new state at India’s most important festival of national unity.
CONCLUSION It might be objected that this goddess with her procession is too slender a scaffold on which to build a shared sense of belonging for the new state. For one thing, even though Nanda Devi is worshipped widely in Uttarakhand, she is by no means worshipped universally in Uttarakhand. Her cult is especially popular in the high-altitude districts of Chamoli and Pitthoragarh, where she is worshipped by the so-called ‘Bhotiyas’, who traditionally sought her protection when they crossed the high passes into Tibet. She is also worshipped in most of the other districts of Kumaon (excluding Udam Singh Nagar), but is not so well known in the districts of Tehri Garhwal, that is,
180â•… WILLIAM SAX the region that was returned to the King of Garhwal after the British defeated the Gurkhas. But there is no comparably powerful religious symbol to replace her, other than the famous pilgrimage places of Badrinath and Kedarnath, and they lie squarely in Garhwal, unlike Nanda Devi, who is worshipped in Kumaon as well. It might also be argued that India is a secular country, and that religious symbols like Nanda Devi have no place in its official life. In fact such an argument was made, and rather passionately, by a leftwing intellectual from the mountains, when I presented this chapter in its original form as a paper at the conference in Delhi. To this I can only reply that, like it or not, Hindu symbols have pervaded Indian politics since at least the time of Gandhi, who employed them to great effect. The population of Uttarakhand is about 95 per cent Hindu, and the vast majority of people here are deeply religious, so that the use of religious symbols to express a sense of belonging is almost inevitable. The need for effective vehicles of identity, for symbols of some new form of belonging, was more or less forced on local people when the new state of Uttarakhand was created. In this chapter, I have argued that the goddess Nanda Devi will inevitably be used for this purpose. Other symbols such as Badrinath are too closely identified with Garhwal, to the exclusion of Kumaon. Moreover, because Nanda Devi is a dhyani or out-married daughter, she evokes a deep emotional response from local people, being associated with family, love, sacrifice, and duty. She is widely worshipped in the highaltitude districts of the state, and she physically unites these two old rivals when she travels between them on her palanquin as part of her periodic processions. For all these reasons, Nanda Devi is and will remain one of the foremost symbols of belonging in Uttarakhand.
NOTES 1. For a history and analysis of the movement, see Dhoundiyal, Dhoundiyal, and Sharma (1993). 2. For more details see the website: http://uttarakhand.prayaga.org/heart.html (last date of access: 8 March 2007). 3. Standard sources for the history of the region are Atkinson (1974 [1882]), Dabaral (1965–78) (in Hindi), Rawat (1983), and Saklani (1987). 4. Members of the Legislative Assembly; that is, locally elected representatives. 5. For more details, see the website: http://pauri-garhwal-group.blogspot. com/2006/11/on-behalf-of-paurigarhwal-group-open.html.
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References Atkinson, Edwin T. 1974 (1882). Kumaon Hills: Its History, Geography and Anthropology with Reference to Garhwal and Nepal. Delhi: Cosmo Publications. [First published in Allahabad under the title The Himalayan Districts of the North Western Provinces of India]. Dabaral, Shivaprasad. 1965–78 (2022–2035 V.S.). Uttarakhand ka Itihas [The History of Uttarakhand], 8 volumes. Dogada, Garhwal: Vir Gatha Prakashan. Dhoundiyal, Dr N.C., Dr Vijaya R. Dhoundiyal, and Dr S.K. Sharma (eds). 1993. The Separate Hill State. Almora, UP: Shree Almora Book Depot. Kielhorn, F. 1896. ‘Pandukesvar Plate of Lalitasuradeva’, Indian Antiquary, 25: 177–84. Mamdani, Mahmood. 2007. ‘The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency’, London Review of Books, (March) 8: 5–8. Mawdsley, Emma. 2002. ‘Redrawing the Body Politic: Federalism, Regionalism and the Creation of New States in India’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 40(3): 34–54. McAllister, P.A. 1997a. ‘Ethnicity and Identity: Southern Africa’, in John Middleton (ed.), Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. ———. 1997b. ‘Zulu Kingdom and Afrikaner “Volkstaat”: The Re-invention of Ethnic Politics in South Africa’, in R.J. Watts and J. J. Smolicz (eds), Cultural Democracy and Ethnic Pluralism, pp. 117–24. Peter Lang: Berne. Mitra, Subrata. 1995. ‘The Rational Politics of Cultural Nationalism: Subnational Movements of South Asia in Comparative Perspective’, British Journal of Political Science, 25(1): 57–77. Oommen, T.K. 1990. State and Society in India: Studies in Nation-building. London: SAGE. Rawat, Ajay Singh.1983. Garhwal Himalayas: A Historical Survey. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers. Saklani, Atul. 1987. The History of a Himalayan Princely State. Delhi: Durga Publications. Sax, William. 1990. ‘Village Daughter, Village Goddess: Residence, Gender, and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage’, American Ethnologist 17 (3): 491–512. ———. 1991. Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Central Himalayan Pilgrimage. New York: Oxford University Press. Sircar, D.C. 1956. ‘Three Plates from Pandukesvar’, Epigraphica Indica, 31: 277–98. ———. 1959. ‘Some Inscriptions from UP’, Epigraphica Indica, 34: 243–54.
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Chapter 9 The Politics of Encounter Hindu Belonging in a Multi-faith Pilgrimage Site in Nepal Jessamine Dana
Pilgrimage sites are, in a basic sense, special places. They are social and spiritual foci: distilleries and places where unexpected permutations of social and cultural realities—or new emphases to old ones—are possible. The site exists as a dual reality or paradox, as that which is historical or ‘traditional’ and yet that which is constantly negotiated between its participants. Therefore, a site is a place that is both a projection of history and a present experience carried forward by an unusually diverse group of stakeholders, who, even as strangers to each other and the site, must create a mediated experience, that is, the pilgrimage event. However, the site is not only engaged with, but is also presented to the participant; and this aspect will be referred to as the site’s ‘encounterability’, a term that seeks to capture the site’s ‘given-ness’ and its interpretative possibilities. Its normative rules and categories, often of religion, identity, ethnicity, gender, and so on, and the competition for symbolic and material resources are brought to bear on the creation and practice of the site by its stakeholders. In this chapter we see how, as a result of these realities, the issue of ‘belonging’ figures very prominently at pilgrimage sites, particularly those that have competing religious or political groups.1 Belonging becomes a means of apprehending resources and generating authority and legitimacy. How people belong, and when, where, and why they feel they belong or are said to belong, form an ethnographically supported category of experience and discussion among stakeholders. People at sites seem particularly concerned with belonging, and
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openly demonstrate its centrality to the pilgrimage event, while revealing unique processes of belonging that may contradict doctrinal or ‘traditional’ criteria for inclusion or exclusion in or from the place or an associated religious group. While it will not be possible to treat all aspects (or even most) of belonging to pilgrimage sites , this chapter offers a particular study of the pilgrimage site Muktinath, or Chumig Gyatsa, as it is known in Tibetan dialects, located in the Mustang district of Nepal. It draws on my own data from five years’ research at the site, including a period of over a year spent living there. The issue of belonging and its processes will be examined in terms of judgements and claims made by people, particularly religious specialists, about others, particularly myself. Specifically, I examine how belonging is constructed by Hinduism as it exists at the site and by the Hindus who go there. When the designations ‘Hindu/not-Hindu’ are indicated verbally or non-verbally, they are not taken to be all-inclusive or immutable facts about the person in question (i.e., about their identity as Hindus), but as recognition of a set of relations between that person and other simultaneously co-existing entities that allows them to belong in or to the site as Hindus. Belonging is both declared by the distinction ‘Hindu/not-Hindu’ and enabled or practised in how the person may be allowed to participate in rituals, shown into various temples, and treated by both the Hindu and Buddhist ritual specialists as well as by other pilgrims. I include information from Hindu ritual specialists within Muktinath and Hindu pilgrims wherever appropriate, but I will also interpret my own experiences of being claimed to ‘belong’ in a Hindu way to Muktinath, despite the fact that I am not of South Asian descent. As a person whose religious designation was unclear (yet possibly attractive to secure), my trajectory through designations of inclusion and exclusion by Hindus at the site has highlighted some of the dynamics of these processes.
AN INTRODUCTION TO MUKTINATH At 13,000 feet, the environment around Muktinath/Chumig Gyatsa is a high-altitude desert in Mustang district, Nepal. Until about 2005 it could only be reached by an arduous journey on foot or by helicopter, and the installation of new roads and other ‘modern conveniences’ in recent years has increased the number of visiting pilgrims and tourists. Pilgrims come from all over the world, but
184â•… jessamine dana especially from Nepal, India, and Tibet. The local people are known as the Baragaonle, and may loosely be described as belonging to the ‘Tibetan cultural world’ (McKay, 1998: 5). They make a living from agriculture, animal husbandry, trade, and increasingly, working abroad as migrant labourers. Muktinath/Chumig Gyatsa in lower Mustang is a multi-faith pilgrimage site. Its spiritual pedigree probably involves a development from the worship of autochthonous deities to Hinduism, Bon, and Buddhism, which have interacted there since at least the sixteenth century.2 A Buddhist priest who visited Muktinath in 1528, and actually received Hindu teachings from yogins there, wrote about Muktinath: “It was a frequented pilgrimage place in general, but notably also a place where both Indian and Buddhist courts would wash and pay tribute” (Ehrhard, 1999: 25); and in 1729, a Tibetan traveller described it as a “renowned holy spot revered by both Hindus and Buddhists” (ibid., 1999: 23). At the time of publication it consists of six temples: two are used exclusively by Hindus, two by Buddhists, and two by both religions. Of the two that are ‘mixed’, Hindus make more use of one, and Buddhists of the other, and their architectural styles reflect the traditions of the religious group that uses them the most. The Hindu presence is officiated by a hereditary Hindu priest who is male, whereas the Buddhist presence has, since the seventeeth century (ibid., 1999: 26), consisted of a Nyingmapa nunnery inside Muktinath itself where nuns perform rituals and from where they function as ‘caretakers’ of the entire complex. The Nyingmapa nunnery has a head lama or male Buddhist priest; but he lives in Kathmandu. Thanks to a situation in which the site is shared between two resident religions, there is competition, but also a level of cooperation in order to secure resources for pilgrims. The Buddhist nuns, who come from a nearby village, have the political and economic support of the local community. However, their main source of income continues to be the donations they receive from non-local pilgrims at Muktinath. The Hindu hereditary lineage priest who resides there is paid a small salary by the Nepalese government; but it would be insufficient to support his family without the payments he receives for performing rituals for pilgrims. The nuns perform rituals for specific donors inside the jurally mixed but architecturally Tibetan Buddhist temple, assist the Hindu priest in conducting pilgrims into the jurally mixed but architecturally Hindu temple, and are the caretakers of the whole site. The priest performs rituals both at the latter temple and in the exclusively Hindu Shiva temple nearby.
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In addition to these key figures and the relationships between them, a new Hindu ritual specialist has built a fire sacrifice (hom) temple within the complex, and has appointed himself guardian of the site. Among other proposed changes, this new ritual specialist, Swami Kamalnayanacharya, is calling for the nuns to be barred from entering the inner sanctum of the mixed, architecturally Hindu temple and from performing rituals there, because of their ritual impurity and lesser status vis-à-vis male Hindu priests. While this chapter concentrates on Hindu practitioners and Hindu ways of belonging at the site, the study of these people is taking place against a backdrop of increasing conflict between a diverse group of Hindus and the Buddhist nuns who are caretakers of the site, local Buddhists who live around the site, and Buddhist pilgrims. Although I will mainly focus on judgements and distinctions about religious belonging, these are closely followed by the realities of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences between stakeholders. It is also important to note that the ‘Hindu group’ is also actually quite diverse and is characterized by its own intra-religious conflicts and delicate negotiations. Attending to these concerns, only vaguely may endanger the following arguments; but this is a requirement of brevity. It is my hope that this analysis may offer a small view into specific aspects of judging and articulating Hindu forms of belonging, which will be built upon elsewhere.
BELONGING Belonging can operate both positively3, that is inclusively, and negatively, or exclusively with reference to the person to whom the designation refers. Each negative declaration about another person is, however, a positive assertion of the entity and/or group to which that person does not belong. While belonging is transacted on an ‘individual to individual’ level, it is also subject to the negotiations and constraints of the entire ‘community’ and the sub-communities of Muktinath. Related to these multiple levels of belonging, cross-cut by creativity and constraints, is the fact that people at Muktinath maintain multiple and contradictory forms of belonging—perhaps none more so than I, who is engaged in the study of different religious groups and how they interact. In part for this reason, a discussion of the situations in which I served as a foil for other people’s statements and actions declaring or limiting belonging is now appropriate.
186â•… jessamine dana In this chapter I put forward a constellation of ideas on the issue of belonging in pilgrimage sites. For this purpose, I am suggesting a concept of belonging: 1. That is based on a system/set of non-static relationships between an individual and real or imagined entities that render the individual ‘suited to’ or ‘claimed by’ the context in which they may be said to belong. These are regulated and organized according to some suggested norms. 2. In which embodiment, techniques of the body, and to an extent, habitus (Bourdieu, 1977; Mauss, 1973) are particularly important to the evaluation and construction of belonging. 3. In which the claim that another person belongs or does not belong is intertwined with creating one’s own or one’s own institution’s belonging at the site, and therefore occurs in a context of concern over power, authority, and legitimacy. 4. That is based upon and particularly suited to the particular context of pilgrimage sites, where in general, belonging is necessary to a satisfying experience, yet a high level of competition over belonging occurs. I will briefly outline the thinking behind the first concept. The suggested definition of ‘belonging’ as based in ‘suitability’ and being ‘claimed by’ the context in which they may be said to belong was arrived at by examining data about informants at Muktinath, and also from my own experiences at the site. Although this chapter is more interested in the claims of belonging made by people about each other than it is about the internal, emotional experience that occurs when one feels oneself to belong, some consideration of this was appropriate when formulating the concept. In discussions with my informants, the feeling of belonging at Muktinath, or to Hinduism or Buddhism in Muktinath, was almost always stated as not only identifiable through one’s sympathies or good feeling for a place, entity, or person, but also through the comfort one took from knowing that not only is the context suitable for oneself, but one is also considered and rendered suitable and claimed by it. Most people pointed out that belonging could not be only about what a person feels or posits on to an entity, be it a landscape or a god, but that it had to include a sensation that the entity posited a relationship extending over and including the person. In the case of Muktinath,
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that designation of suitability for ‘it’ was often not primarily selfproduced, but instead had its foundation in declarations made by other people about oneself (whether verbal or not verbal), as was evidenced both by people’s sensitivity to such comments or actions, and by their desire to make judgements and discriminations about other people they encountered at the site. In this perspective on belonging, suitability between people or ideas/institutions (real or imagined entities) is activated through others to create belonging. Another related point of significance is that in common Nepali dialect, I have found no catch-all term that relates to the nexus of feelings that is captured by the term ‘belonging’ in the English language. Instead, I had to use the equivalent words for ‘suitable’ or ‘authorized’, ‘appropriate’, or ‘your own’4 when asking questions about who the informants think belong or do not belong in Muktinath and why. These words suggest to me a system or framework of relationships to the individual and his or her group, rather than a declaration of the identity of the individual in question, which is implied to a greater degree by the English word ‘belonging’. Indeed, it was partly through the Nepali terms through which I was able to perform research on belonging that I developed my four-point concept of belonging. Furthermore, because research in Nepali has required a more circuitous approach to eliciting informant opinions, rather than lapsing into a propensity to throw a blanket term over the matter and assume that there is agreement between researcher and informant as to its meaning, the idea of ‘belonging’ had to be investigated in an ‘unpacked’ form, and therefore may have produced more useful conclusions. Concepts one and four are further reasons why this analysis is concerned with belonging and not identity. They both express the contextual or ecological embeddedness of the person—indeed more than an embeddedness—a relation of mutual need that claims and transforms a person into a ‘suitable’ belonger. It is as if this judgement, whether it is expressed verbally or non-verbally, reaches out and includes a belonger, so that further experience can occur and a complete spiritual and ritual engagement with the site as a religious subject can take place. Such a situation is more than a position in social organization and hierarchy, or other ways of describing how people relate to one another; in Muktinath, through the idiom of identity, it allows for identities to be maintained, subsumed, and ‘sculpted’.
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THE WAYS BELONGING HAPPENS FOR THE PILGRIM The pilgrims’ perspectives on belonging and their construction as Hindu subjects through the intersubjective experience of place, religious specialists, and other pilgrims at the site manifests consciously and unconsciously in many forms and levels of intensity. The construction of a certain kind of Hindu experience is a collaborative project with the religious specialists, who are working with them to create a Hindu religious experience rather than a Buddhist or a tourist one. This is a matter of particular significance in Nepal, where many people, particularly among those who live in the middle hills, practise a syncretistic folk form of Hinduism and Buddhism, and would not see a significant difference between the two. However, even this segment of the Muktinath pilgrimage population is determined to engage in ‘correct’ religious practice at the site so that the maximum benefit of pilgrimage may be gained. The conscious pursuit of Hindu belonging is often grounded in a sense that their village Hinduism/Buddhism is a ‘lower’ and flawed form of Hinduism in comparison to the less syncretistic, ‘higher’ form of institutional Hinduism that the Hindu priests are thought to represent. For others, who have stronger Hindu institutional affiliations at home, ritual and experience in Muktinath is an opportunity for an assertion of ideal practice, confirming their own status as ideal Hindus actors and their institutional form of Hinduism as pre-eminent. Whether directed more by the Hindus met in Muktinath or by the members of one’s own pilgrimage group, which may itself include a priest or religious instructor (guru), the conscious pursuit of a ‘proper’ Hindu religious experience takes place against a backdrop of what is seen to be the threat of deviant religious practices (both Hindu and Buddhist), and in a cultural and environmental landscape that is markedly different from their own places of origin. It must be stressed that the Tibet-like terrain in this area, inhabited by Tibetanoids, exclusively Buddhist people, is felt to be completely different from the vast majority of Hindu pilgrims’ home environments in the jungles, cities, and plains of lower Nepal. This serves to amplify further their understanding of difference and the importance of defining their belonging to Hinduism, seen as allied with all that is opposed to the area around Muktinath and its Tibetan-style world. The history of ‘Hindu-ness’ in Nepal and
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how it has developed over time has a significant impact on how belonging as a Hindu is experienced in Muktinath and contrasted with Buddhism there. The theme of Hindu purity, and how it relates to differences in the way Hindus see Hindu and Buddhist practices, has now been expressed in the form of a recent Hindu concern with the nuns’ menstruation as a barrier to their ritual access to certain temples in Muktinath, though this point often only served as a prelude to the declaration that the nuns are quite simply and ontologically ‘impure’ and that they have ‘no knowledge; they are bhote’, bhote being a pejorative, catch-all term for anyone of Tibetan culture and ethnicity. Or, as one young Nepalese, Hindu government worker at Muktinath/Chumig Gyatsa put it, contrasting both the gender of the nuns and their religion with himself and his own: We worship Buddhism and the Buddhists also worship Hinduism. We also go to Bouddhanath (a large chhorten/stupa in the Kathmandu Valley), though there are some differences between our rituals; that we sacrifice animals for instance. There is a Hindu statue at the stupa of Buddha and they [the Buddhists] will worship it too. Up here [in Muktinath] it is different. Here, Hindu dharma (religion and law of existence) and Buddha dharma are different. They don’t follow gurus and they follow lamas. We give our offerings inside the main temple. She [the nun who accepts donations alongside the Hindu priest] is not a pujari (male, Hindu priest). She’s allowed inside the temple but you are not! Only she is allowed to touch the statue. We feel uncomfortable with this because we are Hindus and she is a Buddhist.
Without having the space to fully analyse it here, the quotation is a rich example of the emergence of strong statements about difference and belonging, as it is developed through reflection on categories, practices, and personal experience.
BELONGING AS A HINDU: AN ARGUMENT FOR CATEGORY OVER CONTENT At present the debate over what makes a person a Hindu, how to define Hinduism, and what ‘Hindu-ness’ can be said to be rages on. What is most interesting about the notion that there is a category ‘Hindu’, may be not what it contains (samskaras, family relationships,
190â•… jessamine dana descent, and so forth), but that people continue to believe that a Hindu habitus (Michaels, 2004) or something like it—the ‘Hindu mind’, ‘Hindu-ness’ (Lipner, 1996), Vedic orientation (Halbfass, 1991)—exists, and if it exists we can study how it is identified and assessed. Such avoidance of concerns over the definition of ‘Hindu’ in a general sense is not intended to sidestep the importance of defining the institution of Hinduism in other work; but the realities of a pilgrimage site (its ‘specialness’) require a site-based definitional approach committed to mapping the term as it is used. If Muktinath/ Chumig Gyatsa was a site that attracted only Hindus or Buddhists, we would still find that there is no comfortable consensus on these matters; and the fact that the site exists in conjunction with at least one other religious institution makes it all the more difficult to pin down a single notion of Hindu-ness or to root our understanding of belonging as a Hindu in Muktinath to a comprehensive institutional definition of Hindu-ness or Hinduism. Instead, what is useful to accomplish here is to try to understand how the process of Hindu-ness unfolds in Muktinath. In certain contexts like that of a pilgrimage site, there is also the possibility of seeing the construction of the category ‘Hindu’ as being more resilient and relevant than the content of what being a Hindu means. The organization of social categories may both precede their content and remain after their content has been eroded and replaced. As Floya Anthias has written in her defence of theorizing social division using categories or grids to predict and understand social outcomes: …once individuals are placed into categories (although they are not mutually exclusive) across different dimensions, the relational terms of otherness and sameness are constructed. In the process notions of self and other, identity, identification and division come into play. Usually the categories are constructed in a binary way and as mutually exclusive. They endow individuals with attributions of difference which are then seen to have necessary social effects. (1998: 515)
The construction of Hindu/not-Hindu makes possible the formulation of what Hindu-ness means in Muktinath, rather than the process working in the opposite direction. This distinction is a judgement about belonging to the category Hindu in Muktinath that is based on the embodied representation of a Hindu self at the site. From this distinction can follow a negotiated Hindu construction of
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the site, pilgrim experience, and proper ritual practice. It is negotiated because it is not always performed in the same way by the ritual specialists and by pilgrims, but in the view of at least the specialists it is nonetheless either Hindu or not Hindu. Or, seen another way, consistency of Hindu content is so eroded by the heterogeneity of the religious identities of pilgrims and specialists in Muktinath that all that remains is the category Hindu, like the archaeological remains of a building’s foundations, on which each Hindu’s pilgrimage must be built. This has interesting implications for who can be incorporated into or excluded from the ‘category Hindu’ in such a situation. Again, Anthias (1998) raises an excellent point where she notes that differences of interests in resources and values within a given group can make for ‘Other-ness’ undercutting the ‘We-ness’ of a group; in this case, forcing from it people who may themselves believe that they meet the content criteria for Hindus but are pushed out into the ‘non-Hindu’ category, as sometimes happens with pilgrims who in their quest for spiritual benefit appeal to the Buddhist nuns and alienate the Hindu priest. Surely, if we allow that such a process of exclusion occurs, then it opens a door to the possibility that within the ‘Other-ness’ of another group similar shifts in practice may occur, sending individuals and groups over to belong in the Hindu category of ‘We-ness’. Furthermore, when the personal and the institutional processes and categories of belonging come together through the requirements of practical life, we find that the experience of a multi-faith pilgrimage site may produce unity and community, that is, belonging unique to itself that occurs even across religious lines even as it draws on the before-mentioned norms. One day I asked a nun whether the nuns cooperated with the priest, and she said ‘Sometimes’. Then she said: “The nuns and the pujari [Hindu priest] are the same. They both stay here. They both do puja [ritual]. They are in the same family.” “But”, I interrupted, “the pujari is married.” She admitted that they were “a little different because he has a wife and children”. Then I asked about the sadhus (itinerant religious ascetics), expecting her like so many others to attack their authenticity and champion the nuns. Instead, she said: “The sadhus life and the nuns’ life are the same: no marriage, no children. They are the same.”5 She concluded by saying: “The Hindu pujari and Buddhist pujari are similar (ustai ustai cha). The sadhu is a little different, he has no home, no money, no mommy and no daddy, he is like the nuns.”
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MY STORY My experience of Muktinath/Chumig Gyatsa was hardly suffused by a positive personal experience of belonging. As time passed, however, I found that stakeholders in the site began to make claims about my belonging or not belonging to the site and the religions present there, often in the form of declarations about my ‘true’ religious membership. The increase in frequency and explicitness of these claims, both for and against my belonging, was connected to the perception of the resident stakeholders that I was becoming a stakeholder myself, and their understanding that I would hence be contributing to how Muktinath is interpreted by the world. It was also connected to the changing political climate in Muktinath, and indeed in Nepal, which continues to intensify the place’s themes of religious conservatism, public orientation, and concerns over ritual purity. Declarations (verbal and non-verbal) about me were always context-specific, however, and though I may have been allowed to enter the ‘main’ Hindu temple when I was with the hereditary Hindu priest, when other Hindus were present, I was sometimes encouraged to remain on the outside looking in. The first time that I experienced a claim of belonging made on my person was an extremely moving experience involving making a friend and being observed in my bodily, non-verbal habits. When I met Krishnaji, the young, hereditary, Hindu priest of Muktinath, he was also relatively new to the site. His father had only just given up presiding over the Vishnu/Chenrezig temple a couple of years before, and he was far from accustomed to being apart from his wife and children, who live in another district of the country. Although Krishnaji’s knowledge of correct ritual practice was often openly denigrated by some of the Indian Hindus, who sometimes arrived with their own priests, he will proudly tell you that he studied for the requisite number of years in Varanasi and is a true acharya. Krishnaji is the only Hindu who currently resides in Muktinath throughout the year, and the only religious specialist who is permitted to live within the complex itself, which he does, living-off a salary paid by the Muktinath Development Committee.6 Although he is sociable with the nuns and policemen who live in the temple complex, his religious commitment and his awareness of the requisite noble bearing of his role keep him slightly apart. The fact that the local people and nuns are not part of his middle hills Hindu culture, in
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addition to the fact that he speaks Nepali with difficulty, further contributes to his isolation. I had been living in the Buddhist nunnery for about a month, and had already experienced some of the tensions that my study of both Hindu and Buddhist groups there had produced. Despite the fact that other researchers had previously stayed there to study the site, the resident ritual specialists had very little understanding of what anthropological research was or how it was performed. Instead, they were finely attuned to whether I was becoming a Buddhist or a Hindu—where my loyalties lay. They literally kept tabs on whether the rituals I participated in were Hindu or Buddhist, of what kinds, how often, and in which temples. At mixed religious temples, the nuns and Krishnaji instructed me on the necessity of showing respect to the deity in certain ways upon entering. They would watch me carefully to see whether I performed the characteristic Buddhist prostrations or pursed my hands together and bowed to the deity in the ‘Hindu way’, and in turn, I tended to use one salutation or the other depending upon my purpose of visit and who was watching. All this became quite stressful. In the evenings, after attending the Buddhist ritual in one temple, I’d run up to catch the last of the Hindu evening rite (arati) in the Vishnu temple. From a Hindu perspective, Muktinath is sacred to Vishnu, but a Shiva temple has also been built on the site. It was very rare for pilgrims to remain in Muktinath to attend the Shiva temple’s evening rite, which occurred long after the one in the more important Vishnu temple had finished. After having ran between the main Buddhist and Hindu rituals, I used to like to sit on the steps leading to the opening of the Shiva temple and watch Krishnaji perform the arati, savouring the peace of ritual before I returned to the nuns’ intensely communal life, and reminding myself of the year I lived in Varanasi, traditionally thought of as Shiva’s city. Beginning from my first visit to Muktinath/Chumig Gyatsa, people have asked me what my religion was. This is in contrast to other parts of Nepal or other contexts, where the declaration and definition of which religion one belongs to is not considered to be a topic of much conversational interest. When one day I was sitting in Krishnaji’s room with a couple of other Nepalis and he asked me what my religion was, I was not surprised and gave him my usual ‘pat’ answer about how I was not sure yet, and that various members of my family followed different religions (dharmaharu). In the middle of my recitation, he raised his
194â•… jessamine dana hand in an authoritative gesture to stop me from speaking and command my attention, and said, “You love Shiva. You are a Hindu.” I was shocked. Having lived in South Asia for almost two years, I had never, and certainly not in India, heard anyone say that I was a Hindu. In fact, my experiences of Hinduism had been characterized by exclusion more than anything else. At that moment, I felt incredibly touched (in a non-critical way) that he had publicly declared that I belonged to the group he belonged to, an exclusive membership indeed, and that he had claimed me for himself as a friend and for Hinduism as a member. Furthermore, by taking the time and care to observe my personal, habitual behaviours and proclivities, rather than just believing my ‘objective’ researcher’s line or relying on other content criteria, such as race or caste for Hindu-ness, he had identified in me an affinity for the devotional practice to the god Shiva and therefore accorded me a place in the category Hindu. Since that time, many more people have declared that I am a Hindu, but it has only ever happened in Muktinath, which is to say that they have claimed that I belong in a Hindu way in/to Muktinath. However, on each subsequent occasion, the person who has told me that I am a Hindu has unfailingly been a Hindu ritual specialist (or an accusing Buddhist nun), though those who have communicated that I do not belong to Hinduism have been both ritual specialists and pilgrims. A contrasting example can be found in the new self-appointed religious guardian of Muktinath, Swami Kamalnayanacharya, who has definitely not claimed me as Hindu, and is at the forefront of protests against the Buddhist nuns’ being allowed inside the mixed, though architecturally Hindu, temple. He is already ensconced in the institution of Hinduism through his ties with notable Indian gurus and his many ashrams. For him, the management of Hindu meaning at the site does not need my participation as a Hindu, and indeed would suffer by it. He is concerned with branding the site with conservative Hinduism befitting his links with Indian Hinduism and the Vishwa Hindu Mahansangh (World Hindu Federation) in Nepal. When I stood in line with the masses of other pilgrims during the Dasain festival, he blessed me, saying that I was a ‘very fortunate woman’. I had a sense that he meant this in terms of being given a moment to belong and receive blessings (prasad and tika, which requires touch and prayer) from him at a holy site, whereas normally I would not have had, as I came from another country and was not born a Hindu. For him the interpretation of and claim to authority,
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power, and Muktinath as a resource continues to mean excluding the belonging of certain ‘others’ in order to highlight the belonging of his sanctioned group. In his discourses, he focuses on disallowing the belonging of the Buddhist nuns resident at the site, that is, banning them from what he sees to be exclusively Hindu temples, because they are impure owing to menstruation and engage in ritual activity that in his view should be the practice of male Hindu priests alone. He has recently refurbished the pilgrims’ guest-house and built a new temple—an interesting permutation of the relationship between belonging, the site, and embodiment—which I was told “belongs to him and is the place where you can worship him”. His interpretation of institutional belonging and his own belonging to the site are part of the same project, and the two support one another.
CONCLUSION In my story, I was a Hindu because I did as a Hindu, even, or perhaps most importantly, in my not-for-observers practice of visiting the Shiva temple. In the absence of statements about myself, and sometimes even despite them, for the Hindu priest my actions and their acceptance by him inserted and embedded me in the Hindu world order. Csordas writes: Embodiment is about neither behaviour nor essence per se, but about experience and subjectivity, and understanding these is a function of interpreting action in different modes and expression in different idioms. There is not a specific kind of datum or a special method for eliciting such data, but a methodological attitude that demands attention to bodiliness even in purely verbal data such as written text or oral interview. (1999: 184)
When I was told that I belonged as Hindu in Muktinath, Krishnaji, the Hindu priest, was using such a discriminating methodology to establish my belonging. Using a methodology from ‘the standpoint of embodiment’ (ibid.: 181), he analysed my practices, habits, and narrative about living in India, among other elements, and he made a judgement and claim about my embodied Hindu-ness, my belonging to Muktinath in a Hindu way, even though he recognized that I was not born a Hindu and lived with the Buddhist nuns.
196â•… jessamine dana Owing to their ‘specialness’, ‘encounterability’, and a high level of competition between ritual specialists (both Hindu and Buddhist) for economic and symbolic capital, as well an imperative to construct ‘correct’ and satisfying ritual experiences, the nature of pilgrimage sites is to be both normative and negotiable. This reality causes belonging to be an ongoing project that depends on the processual elements of belonging such as bodily techniques and representations, which can respond to these fluctuating demands and strategies and be used to create distinctions and differences. The cultural organization of other peoples’ belonging into categories, their ordering and assessment, is a means through which power is produced, reproduced, and put to use. Hence, the production of belonging through claims about another person’s Hindu-ness or non-Hindu-ness and through allowing or disallowing certain ritual practices in which only people who belong to Muktinath in a Hindu way may participate, is part of the politics of power at work in a pilgrimage site. The incentives for specialists to capture power over a site such a Muktinath are manifold. Their livelihood and role in society are determined by their ability to dispense belonging appropriately, that is, to select and benefit from the participation of some but not all the visitors to Muktinath, in ways that support the continuity of their authority and the authority of the religious institutional manifestation to which they belong. Interestingly, within the unique world of the site, these regulatory norms may diverge from those advocated as ‘acceptable’ by their institutions, allowing for religious specialists and pilgrims to make discriminations and claims about Hindu belonging that fill these categories with new content.
Notes 1. Which, it may be argued, includes all pilgrimage sites, depending on the significance placed on the distinction between sects technically belonging to a single religion. 2. Although Jackson (1978: 198) states that traces of Tibetan cultural penetration into the area can be dated to the seventh century bc, he and Ramble and Seeber (1995) have found evidence of an older Indic, and possibly Hindu, people who lived in an older principality called Serib (Jackson, 1978). Futhermore, Bon seems to have been officially promoted by religious teachers from the Kingdom of Lo in the eleventh century, and with it came Tibetan enculturation of the people of Serib (ibid.: 203). Ehrhard (1999: 24) dates the formal Buddhist conversion of the area to the fifteenth century.
the politics of encounterâ•… 197 3. The literature on belonging will not be reviewed here, but is very well treated elsewhere in this book. Instead, a concept of belonging as it emerged from my ethnography and as it is taken up and expanded upon by analysis will be presented for consideration. Also see, Lecomte-Tilouine (2009: 254) for Muktinath’s inclusion in a network of fire temples patronized by the Mallas between ad 1100 to 1960. 4. Aphno is itself a complicated bundle of concepts. 5. Here she showed that she is possibly not aware that the life story of many sadhus does include a period of family life; or perhaps her statement was an even more subtle acknowledgement of the parallel between a nun’s life before taking her vows and the householder experiences of sadhus. 6. Although this committee has a variety of members, including local Buddhists, its president is always the current Central District Officer of Mustang, and therefore a non-local, high-caste, Hindu civil servant.
References Anthias, Floya. 1998. ‘Rethinking Social Divisions: Some Notes towards a Theoretical Framework’, Sociological Review, 46(3): 506–35. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Csordas, Thomas J. 1999. ‘The Body’s Career in Anthropology’, in H. Moor (ed.), Anthropological Theory Today, pp. 172–205. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ehrhard, F.K. 1999 (1993). ‘Tibetan Sources on Muktinath: Individual Reports and Normative Guides’, in Dieter Schuh (ed.), Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Reports on Research Activities in the Nepal–Tibetan border Area of Mustang during the Years 1992–1998, Part IV, H.14, pp. 23–39. Bonn: Archiv für Zentralasiatische Geschichtsforschung. Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1991. ‘The Idea of the Veda and the Identity of Hinduism’, in Wilhelm Halbfass (ed.), Tradition and Reflection: Explorations of Indian Thought, pp. 1–22. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Jackson, David P. 1978. ‘Notes on the History of Serib and Nearby Places in the Upper Kali Gandaki’, Kailash, 6(3): 195–227. Lecomte-Tilouine, Marie. 2009. ‘The Panchakoshi of Dullu, the Fire Frame of the Malla Imperial Capital’, in Marie Lecomte-Tilouine (ed.), Bards and Mediums: History, Culture, and Politics in the Central Himalayan Kingdoms, pp. 253–76. Almora: Almora Book Depot. Lipner, Julius J. 1996. ‘Ancient Bunyan: An Inquiry into the Meaning of “Hinduness”’, Religious Studies, 32(1): 109–26. Mauss, Marcel. 1973. ‘Techniques of the Body’, Economy and Society, 2(1): 70–88. McKay, Alex. 1998. ‘Introduction’, in Alex McKay (ed.), Pilgrimage in Tibet, pp. 1–17. Richmond: Curzon Press. Michaels, Axel. 2004. Hinduism: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ramble, Charles and C. Seeber. 1995. ‘Living and Dead Settlements in the Shöyul of Mustang’, Ancient Nepal, No. 138, September: 107–31.
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Part III
Commitments and Conflicts
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Chapter 10 Emergent Nationalism, Citizenship, and Belonging among Nepalis in Banaras The Case of Kashi Bahadur Shrestha Martin Gaenszle
The type of belonging considered in this chapter at first glance appears to be characterized by attachment to two different places. It deals with Nepalis who live and feel at home in Banaras (Varanasi/ Benares)—also known as Kashi, a pilgrimage site south of the present day nation-state of Nepal1—and despite of having lived there for a long time, continue to feel strongly attached to Nepal, which they regard as the place that defines their identity. They could therefore be described as experiencing ‘multilocal’ belonging (Parkin, 1998: xiii) that is, feeling emotional loyalties towards more than one locality. This situation has long been encouraged by the open border between India and Nepal, countries that only gradually came to be conceived of as distinct nation-states in the modern sense. However, as India and Nepal consolidate their status as separate nations, citizenship certificates, passports, and tax liabilities have become significant concerns for their residents, meaning that Nepali residents in Banaras are increasingly forced to choose—to ask themselves: what is my citizenship, what is my ‘true’ identity? It is significant and possibly ironic that in the first half of the twentieth century, when nationalism was the major rallying cry of pro-democratic political activists, the situation of Nepalis in Banaras was marked by a degree of cosmopolitanism.2 In order to understand the development of Nepali nationalism, the seed of which has now come to full fruition, it is useful to look at this early period. This chapter will focus on the decades before Indian independence, during which nationalist sentiment emerged amongst Nepali residents in Banaras, and found expression in their words and deeds.
202â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE Kashi has a special significance in Nepali history, as numerous scholars have observed.3 It is common knowledge that the founder of modern Nepal, Prithivi Narayan Shah, went on a pilgrimage to Kashi before his successful military campaign to ‘unite’ the country. Similarly, every Nepalese school child knows that Bhanubhakta, the first ‘national’ poet, studied in Banaras and that his Banaras-based translator, the writer-cum-publisher Moti Ram Bhatta, was active in promoting Nepali as the national language. It is also well known that many of the major political parties came into existence or took shape in Banaras during the late Rana period. Thus, one might say that the concept of Nepal as a nation has important roots in Banaras. One might even be tempted to say: Nepal owes its nationhood to a large degree to this linkage with Kashi. Whether this is true will be explored in the course of a separate study (Gaenszle, forthcoming). However, it should be stressed that the linkage to Kashi predates the modern nation-state, and therefore one has to be careful not to project modern concepts of territoriality on to the past. Today a Nepali has to cross an international boundary to go to Kashi; but what was the situation before these boundaries existed? Was Kashi seen as part of a foreign country or simply as part of another polity? And did the Nepalis who lived there feel like a diaspora? I will try to clarify these issues of space and belonging by first giving a sketch of the history of the Nepali community in Banaras and then, in the second section, giving an overview of the situation of Nepalis outside Nepal in the recent past. Finally, in the third section, I will focus on one particular case, the life and work of Kashi Bahadur Srestha (1911–89), a writer who was an important figure in the Nepali community in Banaras. As I will attempt to show, an ambivalent sense of belonging pervades his life as well as his work. Though born in Kashi and very much formed by his education in the cosmopolitan environment of the city, he became a well-known activist of linguistic nationalism, working as editor of the ‘longestsurviving’ magazine of Nepali literature, Udaya, which he published from 1937 to 1967.
NEPALIS IN BANARAS Nepalis have been coming to Banaras for many generations, not only as pilgrims but also to stay there, either temporarily, with some specific purpose in mind, or for good. It is difficult to say
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how many Nepalis now live in the city, as they are scattered over the municipality. Conservative estimates put the figure somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000, about 15,000 of whom are linked to the Indian Army (Gorkha Training Camp) in Sadar Bazar, located near the cantonment area. Many of the remaining Nepalis are students; others are running businesses or working as employees in various enterprises or institutions (for example, printing, publishing, teaching). But there are also many who come to earn a modest income as riksha drivers, hotel servants, kitchen aides, or chaukidars. The number of the latter seems to have gone up in recent years, but since these labourers do not usually settle in any particular area, it is not possible to verify this estimate.4 There is an area in the old city which has long been known as a Nepali neighbourhood; it consists of about a dozen mohallas (neighbourhoods) spread around Dudh Vinayak mohalla, close to Pancaganga Ghat (Gaenszle, 2004). Though the number of Nepali residents has diminished over the last decades, especially since 1990, this locality is still known to many as ‘Chota Nepal’ (a Hindi expression for ‘Little Nepal’). Today this may seem like an exaggeration, as Nepalis are a minority in all these mohallas, but the term appears to reflect a historical reality: this area has been the focus of Nepali settlement in the city of Kashi for many generations. Though there is another mohalla named ‘Nepali Khapra’ that is also considered to have formerly been Nepali-dominated (cf., e.g., Medhasananda, 2002: 28), I have not found any convincing evidence to support this belief. However, there is no doubt that the Nepali neighbourhood around Dudh Vinayak (including the mohallas of Pancaganga Ghat, Ram Ghat, Mangala Gauri, and Brahma Ghat) is the oldest area of continuous Nepali settlement in the city, and the present chapter focuses on this locality (see Image 10.1). It is difficult to determine how and when this Nepali neighbourhood came into existence. The link between Kashi and the hill people of Nepal has a long and complex history (for a more detailed discussion, see Gaenszle, 2002). There is ample evidence, in the form of inscriptions and documents, that kings and noblemen of the central Himalayas, and especially of the ‘Nepal’ (Kathmandu) Valley, expressed their reverence for this sacred place through donations to its shrines: temple icons, renovations, temple bells, and so on. Over the course of time, their habit of visiting the city for religious reasons took on a distinct political flavour: the visits were used not only to
204â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE Image 10.1 Nepali quarter
obtain divine support (as in the case of Prithivi Narayan Shah in the mid-eighteenth century) but also to retreat from political quarrels in the centre of power. Rana Bahadur Shah, for example, spent four years there as an exile from 1800 to 1804, trying to regain the throne he had earlier renounced. His grandson king Rajendra Bikram S´-ah accompanied the exiled queen Rajya Laksmi Devi to Banaras after the Kot massacre in 1846, similarly (though less successfully) seeking to plot against his enemies in Kathmandu from there. Numerous courtiers and priests accompanied these kings and queens, and many of them eventually settled for good in Banaras. However, these noblemen had their residences and possessions in various localities, and there is no indication that they were attached to any particular place.
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The situation of Brahmans is different. Historical evidence clearly indicates that pandits played a special role in the formation of the Nepali area near Pancaganga Ghat. The Banaras directory of James Prinsep (1832) contains a list of all the well-known pandits of the city, which notes their caste, area of residence, and field of specialization (Nair, 1999: 255–56). In this list we find five pandits categorized as ‘Parbuttee or Nippallee’, four of whom are said to reside in Ram Ghat and one in Mangala Gauri mohallas—both mohallas are in the present-day Nepali localities. Parbatiya Bahuns therefore make up 6.5 per cent of the 77 pandits listed. This is not an insignificant number; but clearly the biggest group of pandits is that of the Maharashtrians (38 per cent), who have also traditionally lived near Pancaganga Ghat, in an area partly overlapping the Nepali locality. It emerges from Prinsep’s directory that this particular area in central Banaras was a kind of Brahmanic stronghold, full of pandits who were mostly, as Prinsep points out, ‘supported by foreigners’ such as the Maratha kings. At the present day, there are still numerous Sanskrit schools in the area. It seems that Brahmans from Nepal were drawn to the mohallas around Pancaganga Ghat by the high concentration of pandits there. As is still recalled locally, the Maratha Peshwas (i.e., Prime Ministers) were generous in their support of Brahmans from all over South Asia, and Nepalis also profited from this kind of patronage. For example, Narayan Dikshit was a very influential priest of the Peshwas who is remembered for constructing Brahma Ghat (1740, cf. Gutschow and Michaels, 1993: 60) and his name lives on as that of a mohalla where he apparently resided. This mohalla is part of the Nepali locality (see Image 10.2). Thus, there is evidence that during the eighteenth century, increasing numbers of Nepali Brahmans came to live in Kashi, and it would seem that Nepali settlement in Banaras was initially linked to Kashi’s role as a centre of learning. Hill Brahmans have long come down here to study Sanskrit, and many have eventually settled here. In the course of time, the presence of a large number of Nepali speakers in the locality led other migrants from the hills of Nepal to settle there: Chetris, Newar traders, and members of other ethnic groups. Thus the Nepali population of Kashi has a complex and mixed heritage, which is the subject of a separate ethnohistorical study (Gaenszle, forthcoming, Chapter 4). The Nepali community in Banaras, if we can speak of such an entity, has a history of its own. This history is linked to that of the central Himalayan region
Photo courtesy: Martin Gaenszle.
Public space in the mohalla Dudh Vinayak (Nepali neighbourhood, Banaras)
Image 10.2
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and northern India. Before the formation of nation-states in South Asia, the movement of people was not determined by national boundaries, but guided by different ideals and constraints. It is this change in the conception of space that I want to highlight in this article. The presence of Nepalis outside Nepal is the result of longterm historical and social developments, which will be discussed in the following section.
NEPALIS OUTSIDE NEPAL If one speaks about ‘Nepalis residing outside Nepal’, and tries to gauge the size and attributes of this category, one first of all has to clarify what is meant by ‘Nepali’. If citizenship alone is taken as a criterion, then this would be a rather narrow definition, as a great number of people who have a Nepali background and speak Nepali as a mother tongue, but have Indian passports, would be excluded. A more inclusive approach is to take linguistic identity as a starting point. A practical definition, suggested by Hutt (1997: 106), is to regard as Nepali “speakers of languages spoken primarily in Nepal”. This is not without problems, as it would exclude, for example, speakers of Hindi, Maithili, and Tibetan who hold Nepali passports. I will therefore use the term ‘Nepali’ in the broader sense, including both all speakers of Nepali languages and all holders of Nepalese citizenship. Hutt’s conservative estimate, based on Indian and Nepalese census statistics, puts the number of Nepalis in India at somewhere between 1,750,000 and 2,250,000 by 1981. Taking into account the time between then and now, as well as the broader definition used here, we can estimate that the number is certainly well over two million by now, and probably above three million.5 Of course, the category of ‘Nepalis outside Nepal’ increasingly includes Nepalis living in England, the USA, Germany, the Gulf States, Japan, and other states.6 However, in 1981, the destination of the vast majority of Nepalese labour migrants was still India: more than 90 per cent of Nepalis looking for work went to India (Gurung, 2001: 14). This proportion drastically changed after 1990, when it became easier for Nepalis to obtain passports and opportunities of work overseas. Though this is generally a temporary migration, it too leads to the formation of diaspora communities in urban settings. These deliberations concerning the identity of ‘Nepalis outside Nepal’ bring out the difficulties involved in defining this very fluid
208â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE category. For one thing, the criterion of Nepali as mother tongue is not uncontroversial: people may grow up bi- or multilingual. Furthermore, the citizenship issue is even more tangled, since many people have dual citizenship; though this is officially illegal, there are ways to get around this regulation. And even if we can clearly decide who has a Nepali passport and who speaks a Nepali mother tongue, there are many Nepalis who go abroad for short periods, maintain a nominal residence there, and move back and forth between the two countries, a very common migration pattern in Banaras. These qualifications should warn us not to be over-concerned with census statistics and to be alert to the divergent reality ‘on the ground’. It should be made clear from the outset that the Nepalis in Banaras are not typical of the general Nepali diaspora. In line with a general eastward drift of migration in the central Himalaya, most Nepali emigrants are found in the eastern Himalayas: in particular, in Darjeeling (West Bengal), Assam, Bhutan, Meghalaya, among others. The majority of these speak Tibeto-Burman languages (Hutt, 1997: 114), especially those with a Rai or Limbu background. The ancestors of most of these migrants settled on Indian and Bhutanese territory in the nineteenth century (starting in the late 1830s) and at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their reasons for doing so were varied, but economic pressures figured large: scarcity of land, high taxation, and interethnic conflict in the hills. At the same time, British colonization opened up employment possibilities in tea plantations and other economic opportunities (English, 1985). In contrast to this labour diaspora (to use a term coined by Cohen, 1997), the Nepali community in Banaras is almost exclusively of high-caste origin. Their reasons for emigration, though often also linked to hardship, were different. Therefore, this community’s history has to be seen as unique, but not independent of the larger context. Over the last 50 years the condition of Nepalis in India has gradually changed. In principle, their status is still regulated by Article 7 of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states that the governments of India and Nepal grant each other’s citizens reciprocal rights of residence and property ownership (Timsina, 1992: 79). This was apparently meant to guarantee free movement across the border, and passports were of no significance in the first decades after the treaty was signed. It was even possible to vote in Indian elections by showing an easily obtained ration card. While this may seem unproblematic, for Nepali residents in India it meant that
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they had no special status as Indian citizens and were often treated as foreigners (and of course, in reverse, this applied to Indians in Nepal). The Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling, which took a violent turn in the 1980s, opposed the agreement for this reason. Many Nepalis in India wanted to be full citizens in their country of residence without being linked to the Nepali state. As a result of the efforts of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led by Subhas Ghising, a ‘Notification on Citizenship Issues’ was signed in 1988 that laid down conditions for obtaining Indian citizenship, notably: residence five years prior to the coming into force of the constitution (26 January 1950); birth on Indian territory; or birth of either parent in India (Hutt, 1997: 130–31; Subba, 1992: 269–70). Both governments pushed for the introduction of citizenship certificates, and attempts were made to distinguish and define an unambiguous national identity. As dual citizenship is prohibited, for many Nepalis residing in India, this meant they had to decide on their ‘true’ affiliation.
EMERGING NATIONALISM: THE CASE OF KASHI BAHADUR SHRESTHA How was the situation before Indian independence? How did Nepali nationalist sentiments, which came to fruition with the establishment of a democratic nation-state in 1951, develop under colonial conditions? I will now turn to a crucial and formative period, when the notion of belonging to a nation with a distinct language became more and more widespread amongst Nepalis outside Nepal, and especially amongst those living in Banaras. This movement originated in the late nineteenth century, taking its inspiration from Hindi-language activists (Hutt, 1988; also see the following), and was gaining in momentum by the mid 1930s. Several journals had been launched in Banaras by then, and there was considerable competition within this growing market (Chalmers, 2002). During this time, a booming printing business, which was at first mainly associated with Hindi (Dalmia, 1997), also affected Nepali-language publication, leading to the translation into Nepali language many works of North Indian literature. This fledgling print-capitalism contributed to the creation of a ‘national print-language’, which, as Benedict Anderson
210â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE has argued, is an important factor in the formation of nationalist ideologies (Anderson, 1991: 67ff.).7 Kashi Bahadur Shrestha became an important figure in this context, and although he was not a great success as a writer he earned a name for himself as the editor of a fairly successful Nepali journal, which can claim to have the longest period of publication up to the present (1937–67) of all the journals published from Banaras (see Image 10.3). Kashi Bahadur Shrestha was born in 1911, the son of Ganesh Bahadur Shrestha and Vishnumaya Shrestha, who had come to Banaras from Bhaktapur in the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the fall of the Malla kings, increasing numbers of Newari traders had moved out of the Kathmandu Valley. The Shresthas’ migration is consistent with this pattern, and they were specifically fleeing Rana atrocities (main sources of biographical details are Shrestha, 2003 and Parajuli, 1996). Ganesh Bahadur, who came from a trading family, set up a business in Banaras, ‘The Nepal Musk Store’, which also dealt with other items (amber, saffron, pearls). Despite their nonBrahman status, the family settled in the Brahman-dominated Nepali neighbourhood of Dudh Vinayak. The young Kashi Bahadur went to school at five and later studied at Queen’s College for some years. However, he had to quit his studies in order to help his father with his trading enterprise. In this context, he accompanied his father to Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta), and Delhi, where they had business branches. Thus, Kashi Bahadur grew up in a cosmopolitan atmosphere. He was an avid reader from an early age, and spoke different languages: Newari, his mother tongue (the language he used at home); Hindi, the language of communication in Banaras; and English, which was the medium of education at his school; and he also learned Urdu, the former court language and language of administration. Such multilingual competence was common in Banaras at the time. Later on, it was the Nepali language with which he increasingly identified and to which he dedicated much of his energies in both his writings and his publishing. However, he did not start his career as a writer in Nepali. In the early 1930s, inspired by writers such as Premchand, he began writing short stories in Hindi, published in Ranbhumi, Kamalini, Hindustan, Aj (Varanasi), and so on. Apparently he was not yet influenced by Nepali linguistic nationalism, which had already been flourishing for some time. The beginnings of this movement are associated with Moti Ram Bhatta, who is credited with publication of the first
Image 10.3 Kashi Bahadur and his wife Suvarna Kumari Devi (around 1934)
Photo courtesy: Durga Prasad Shrestha.
212â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE Nepali-language periodical in 1886. Nepali linguistic nationalism gained momentum after 1900 (Hutt, 1988: 142ff.), and only gradually became associated with a clear political agenda. Initially, it was the preserve of an educated elite with literary leanings, who felt that Nepali, which was perceived as somewhat uncouth, had to be developed and reformed into a language of literature.8 The idea to publish in Nepali occurred to Kashi Bahadur during a visit to his in-laws in the Nepalese Tarai in 1932, following a conversation with one Anand Bahadur Singh. Together, they planned to launch a Nepali monthly from Banaras (Shrestha, 2003: 22). The project was delayed by the death of Kashi Bahadur’s father in 1933, after which he had to assume responsibility for the business. However, he continued to write mostly in Hindi until around 1935. It seems that his decision to switch to Nepali was not impelled by an inner urge but by the suggestions of close friends, who exhorted him to “serve his own language instead of Hindi” (Shrestha, 2003: 58ff.); that is, it was provoked by a sense of national duty, with love for the language (bhasa prem), often evoked by the nationalists, figuring only as a secondary concern. One might wonder why Kashi Bahadur did not opt for his mother tongue, Newari (known as Nepal Bhasha), for whose recognition other Newars in India, especially Buddhists like Dharmaditya Dharmacharyya, fought at around this time (LeVine and Gellner, 2005: 28; see also Gellner, this volume). I do not have any evidence that he considered actively working for the ‘upliftment’ of that language. My impression is that he deliberately favoured Nepali as the language of national literature (while he continued to use Hindi in some writings), but I have not come across explicit statements on this issue.9 He was at this time an eminent citizen of Banaras and a successful businessman. “He used to pay income tax. In 1933–34, he had paid Rs. 33/5 (thirty-three rupees and five annas)” (Shrestha, 2003: 10). After the death of his father, however, he could no longer manage the business’s sizeable network of branches, and the offices in Kolkata and Delhi had to be closed down, whilst his former partners took over the office in Mumbai. Nevertheless, he continued to run and make a profit from the store in Banaras, and was also involved in social and political matters; as a respected citizen of Banaras, he was made special police officer in his mohalla during Hindu–Muslim riots in 1943. In a larger arena, he became a member of the All-India Gorkha League, an organization of Nepalis living in India, in 1942. He also later joined the Congress Party.
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It is clear from his activities that Kashi Bahadur kept an eye on events and conditions in Nepal. He was concerned about the negative aspects of the Rana rule, and actively intervened when he felt it necessary. At one point he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, complaining about the hardships faced by people in Mahottari district owing to the lack of small coins. He was also active in Indian politics. For example, he took part in anti-colonial demonstrations organized by the independence movement. At the instigation of M.K. Gandhi, he participated in the burning of foreign clothing in the Town Hall, together with Krishna Prasad Koirala (the father of B.P. Koirala), who was a business partner of his. Indeed, both men occupied a similar position: that of successful businessmen, opposed to the oppressive regimes of their time. Rana autocracy and British colonial rule were equally targeted by those who were fighting for democracy and autonomy. In the context of liberation struggles, one’s specific nationalist identity remained secondary. Yet politics was not Kashi Bahadur’s real passion, and he later spoke disparagingly about politicians. His main interest was his publication project, which finally materialized in 1937, and through which he devoted himself to the cause of linguistic nationalism. In the editorial of the first issue of Udaya he writes: In all civilized countries they have standard magazines and periodicals which reflect their development in all spheres. But it is sad that we don’t have a single magazine in our language [Nepali], therefore to fill this gap Udaya is born. (quoted in Shrestha, 2003: 12)
The monthly journal published short stories, essays, satire, poems, translations of topical texts, a mixture of everything to appeal to a variety of contemporary readers. A list of the content of all the issues published between 1937 and 1967 is given in the appendix of Parajuli (1996). The publication was a success; its circulation reached not only India and later Nepal, but also, owing to the Gurkha army readership, and after the British government’s approval, reached as far as England, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The work of editing and publishing was basically a one-man enterprise: Kashi Bahadur did everything on his own, editing the articles, proof-reading, making arrangements with the press, and organizing the advertisements. Publishing, after all, was a business. He was able to draw advertising revenue from his numerous business contacts: pharmaceutical
214â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE companies, financial firms, sari traders in Banaras, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Delhi, and so on. With the publication of Udaya, and his own literary contributions to it, Kashi Bahadur increasingly showed himself to be a nationalist, primarily concerned with the ‘upliftment’ and ‘prosperity’ (Nepali unnati) of the Nepali language and its society. He saw himself as a social realist writer, whose work created awareness of social evils, such as casteism and economic exploitation. As with many other writers of the time, for Shrestha the ‘development’ of society went hand in hand with the ‘development’ of language. The driving force behind his efforts was his interest in language as a common medium of communication. He even obtained permission from the Nepali Bhasa Prakashini Samiti in Kathmandu to publish in Nepal, which indicates that his political ambitions were subordinate to his linguistic ones. Both of Kashi Bahadur’s novels, Usha (1938) and Vachan (‘The Promise’) (1944), were published in Nepal by the Nepali Bhasha Prakashini Samiti. This may be viewed as surprising, as they are generally regarded as ‘social novels’, which are critical of prevailing social and political conditions. The plot of Usha takes place in the Tarai region, an area familiar to the writer, as Janakpur was the home of his in-laws. The novel deals with the relationship between the hero Kailashchandra and a young woman from the forest area with whom he falls in love, creating problems that are later resolved when it is revealed that she is his wife’s long-lost younger sister (sa-li), enabling him to marry her. The story deals mainly with psychological tensions in the traditional extended family, and its social critique is rather weak. The second novel, Vachan, is more mature and has been commercially successful: it went through three re-editions between 1967 and 1980. It is set in Bhaktapur, the original hometown of Kashi Bahadur’s paternal ancestors, and recounts the unhappy love affair between a Newar boy and a Newar girl who have already been promised to other families for economic reasons. The social criticism concerning caste norms is more outspoken here, but political issues are not raised. This may explain why the Rana authorities agreed to publish the book. It is not my aim to evaluate Kashi Bahadur as a writer (others have done this; see, for example, Sharma, 1996). The question I pose concerns his dual attachment to his place of birth and residence and his place of ancestral heritage. Looking at his life and work, it is clear that
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he was strongly attached to both places. It seems that he sometimes had to defend his commitment to the Nepali cause, because, after all, he had never lived and never intended to live in Nepal. He died in Banaras in 1989. He is said to have declared at one point: As a citizen of India, I have my duty towards this country. India is my motherland, but Nepal is my fatherland, therefore I have some obligation towards it also. (Shrestha, 2003: 63)
Thus, Kashi Bahadur saw himself as affiliated with two countries equally; he belonged to both, and to both he had obligations.
LINGUISTIC NATIONALISM, CITIZENSHIP, AND BELONGING Nepalis in Banaras have played an important role in the formation of a modern Nepali identity. The activities of writers and publishers (often roles adopted by the same person), contributed to a highly creative public sphere in the Nepali mohalla of Dudh Vinayak, in which new political and aesthetic ideas were circulated, experienced, and openly discussed, leading to the creation of something like ‘public opinion’. This process can be compared to the transformation of the public sphere in Europe (Habermas, 1990), though one has to keep in mind some major differences, such as the different notion of privacy in South Asia, and the less powerful position of the emerging middle class, the ‘subordinate elites’ (see the discussion of Orsini, 2002: 11–16). The new possibilities created by print-capitalism also brought about new patterns of consumption, pleasures, and ways of imagining society and community. The establishment of political parties in the 1940s (the Nepali Congress Party was founded in Banaras, and the Communist Party maintained an office there soon after its foundation in Calcutta/Kolkata) did not occur in a void. This latter phase may be seen as part of the development of a modern ‘political society’.10 The basis of this emerging public sphere was appreciation of Nepali as a common language of which one was proud: a language of culture (this was often invoked as the aim of the movement) and the language of a common historical and cultural heritage.
216â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE The new passion for Nepali interestingly developed in a climate of multilingual cosmopolitanism. It is significant that the early initiatives of Nepali linguistic nationalism were inspired by the Hindi movement, and by the activities of Harishchandra Bharatendu in particular (Chalmers, 2002; Dalmia, 1997). In the late nineteenth century, this movement developed in a context where subcontinental identities had yet to be bounded by particular languages, but were expressed through numerous idioms, deployed according to need: People didn’t have languages; they had linguistic repertoires that varied even within a single household, let alone the marketplace, school, temple, court or devotional circle. (Lelyveld, 1993: 202)
The Hindi language movement favoured a particular version of ‘Hindustani’, namely Khari Boli Hindi, which was written in the Devanagari script, distinguishing it from Urdu, which was viewed as a separate language because it was written in Persian script (King, 1994). Thus, a national language was created which eventually came to stand for a specifically Hindu national identity. This was a lengthy process that continued throughout the twentieth century. As Francesca Orsini has pointed out, Harishchandra’s Hindi was still a mixed code that contained a high proportion of colloquial idioms, but with the project of ‘developing’ the national language, it became increasingly purged of these and turned into a standardized printlanguage (Orsini, 2002: 6). A similar process of creating a ‘sober’, ‘cultivated’—that is, Sanskritized—and distinct national language can also be observed in the ‘development’ of Nepali. As we have seen, until the 1930s, when Kashi Bahadur started his career, he was not sure which language he should use for his publications, and in fact he continued literary writing in Hindi for most of his life. However, his concern for the situation of Nepali speakers in Rana Nepal, as well as those on Indian soil, led him to launch a magazine with the intention of ‘uplifting’ the Nepali language to the level of a civilized medium of communication for a large community that was mainly defined through its language. The promotion of Nepali was not a self-serving enterprise; it was linked to an agenda of social and political awakening. Resistance against the Ranas and the fight for democracy was inspired by a conviction that Nepali culture, based on the Nepali language, was a powerful resource that had remained suppressed. The
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linguistic nationalism of Nepalis outside Nepal was directed towards a scattered, pan-Nepalese imagined speech-community, its members were seen as sharing a strong yet underdeveloped civilization that was independent of any particular state. This otherwise rather heterogeneous community had to be forged and welded together by the production, dissemination, and popularization of a common literature. With the help of vernacular journals like Udaya, a ‘realm’ of readers was established in which a new self-awareness grew and spread.11 According to this view, prevalent in the pre-independence period, the border between India and Nepal had a particular quality. It demarcated political regimes and not nations. Therefore, for those who had no respect for these political regimes, it was irrelevant. What counted most was the translocal community of language. How is the situation today? The success of nationalist movements in India and Nepal has led the political border between the two countries to be drawn increasingly sharply. As a result, citizenship issues have become a pressing concern for the Nepali diaspora in India. If they want to become full members of the local community, buy property, and invest in business, they are likely to opt for Indian citizenship. But if they still have property in Nepal and intend to go back there, they retain Nepali citizenship. Thus, the decision is linked to future plans and has long-term implications, and is usually avoided or delayed. The Nepalese state has been relatively slow in implementing a nationalist ideology. The kings in Kathmandu maintained longstanding links to religious institutions on Indian soil, and even managed a temple in Banaras through the Guthi Samsthan, up to and beyond the end of the Rana period (Gaenszle, 2006). It was mainly during the Panchayat period that the Nepalese state enforced a strongly nationalist vision of ‘one country—one language—one dress’, which showed little concern for the fate of Nepalis outside Nepal. The situation changed after 1990, when Indo-Nepal diplomatic relations thawed after a long period of frost. When Bhutanese refugees had to be accommodated in camps in the Tarai and were thus granted certain rights in Nepal; it became clear that the government could not entirely close its eyes to the living conditions of Nepalis outside the country. Likewise, India had to face the demands of Nepali speakers in Sikkim and Darjeeling, and finally acknowledged the significance of the Nepali language on its soil by putting it on the constitutional schedule in 1992. These developments can be seen as producing a
218â•… MARTIN GAENSZLE complex form of ‘graduated sovereignty’ (Ong, 1999). Thus, it transpires that the political realization of nationalism ultimately took a different shape to that imagined by the early nationalists. Returning to the question of belonging, it also becomes clear that emotional attachments are more complex today than the nationalist ideology would allow. There is considerable ambivalence among present-day Nepali residents of Banaras. According to my survey (carried out in 2002), 88 per cent of respondents said they liked living there, whereas only 6 per cent expressed their dissatisfaction (the rest were unsure). However, as far as the wish to return to the ‘homeland’ is concerned, the picture is less clear-cut: 45 per cent said that they would like to go back to Nepal for good some day, while 49 per cent planned to stay in Banaras. Considering that almost half of the latter are old people who came for ‘Kashibas’ (i.e., in order to die in the sacred city), it emerges that among economically active residents the idea of return is very much alive. Most of this group retain strong links with their relatives in Nepal and regularly return for visits (at least once a year). This may be surprising considering that more than 80 per cent hold Indian citizenship; but many of these (exact figures are not available) also retain their Nepali citizenship. It seems that most residents are attached to both places, and many keep an open mind on where they will eventually spend the last years of their lives. The writer and publisher Kashi Bahadur Shrestha can be seen as an early example of a person with ‘multilocal’ attachments. He saw himself as an Indian—as a citizen of Banaras—as well as a Nepali, that is, a member of a largely imagined community of Nepali speakers in the state of Nepal and outside it. One is tempted to say that the former was his factual status, his legal identity (in the sense of an identity card), whereas the latter was characterized by a more imaginary, ideal, and emotional sense of belonging. However, this dichotomy would be too simplistic, as both kinds of attachment have an imaginary and emotional quality. If, as Nadja Lovell claims, belonging can be seen as a “way of remembering” (Lovell, 1998: 1), then the object of ‘mnemonic desire’ has to be something that one has already experienced. In the case of literary writing, the situation is different: emotions of belonging can also be directed to the construction of a fictive world that may contain elements of personal experience, but may also go beyond it. Kashi Bahadur Shrestha’s dual belonging was not, I would argue, characterized by the typical diasporic longing for and imagining of
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a distant home country. As his name metonymically indicates, he belonged to both places equally, and though he devoted his life to one of his several languages, pursuing the dream of social justice and solidarity among all Nepali speakers—not only those living in Nepal—he remained a child of multilingual and cosmopolitan Banaras all the same.
Notes ╇ 1. Fieldwork in Banaras was made possible through funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). I am grateful for its support. Also, I am grateful for comments on earlier versions of this chapter by the participants in the conference and by the editors. ╇ 2. I understand cosmopolitanism to be a particular attitude towards communicative practices that affiliates speakers to ‘a larger world’ and is thus opposed to vernacularism (Pollock, 2000: 591). On the religious aspects of cosmopolitanism in Banaras, see Gaenszle (2004). ╇ 3. See, for example, Hutt (1988: 123–24); Gaenszle (2002); Chalmers (2002); and Shrestha (2003). ╇ 4. One exception is the Tibetan community in Sarnath: street vendors from trading families in northern Nepal come regularly to sell their goods to tourists (Tulachan, 2001). ╇ 5. In his more recent work Hutt (2003: 193) regards his earlier figure for 1981 as ‘surely an underestimate’. ╇ 6. According to the Non-Resident Nepali Association, there are about 800,000 Nepalis living in non-SAARC countries (www.nrn.org.np, accessed on 16 March 2008). ╇ 7. Whether this factor is a necessary precondition, as Anderson suggests, is debatable. In Nepal, the development of the nation-state is generally seen as pre-dating that of print-capitalism. ╇ 8. Thus, a general idea of education and a standard language is associated with this linguistic nationalism, in keeping with E. Gellner’s model of nationalism (Gellner, 1983). But this model has its limits, as Nepal at that time was still far from being an industrial society requiring an educated labour force. ╇ 9. Nor is there any indication that Kashi Bahadur was involved in the Buddhist revivalist movement of the time. The Nepali Buddhists in Banaras appear to have favoured staying around Sarnath (which is also true for pilgrims), while the Dudh Vinayak area has been more of a Hindu territory. But of course this is not a strict division, and contacts were always possible. 10. For a discussion of the terms ‘political society’ and ‘civil society’ in the Indian context see Chatterjee (2001). 11. Benedict Anderson, when describing the ‘philological revolution’ effected by the growth of print-capitalism in modern Europe, speaks of the emergence of ‘consuming publics’ and ‘reading classes’ and stresses that ‘power and print language mapped different realms’ (Anderson, 1991: 75, 77).
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References Anderson, Benedict. 1991 [1983]. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Chalmers, Rhoderick. 2002. ‘Pandits and Pulp Fiction: Popular Publishing and the Birth of Nepali Print Capitalism in Banaras’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 7(1): 35–97. Chatterjee, Partha. 2001. ‘On Civil and Political Societies in Post-colonial Democracies’, in S. Kaviraj and S. Khilnani (eds), Civil Society: History and Possibilities, pp. 165–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, Robin. 1997. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Dalmia, Vasudha. 1997. The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions. Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press. English, Richard. 1985. ‘Himalayan State Formation and Impact of British Rule in the Nineteenth Century’, Mountain Research and Development, 5(1): 61–78. -lı- Kings Gaenszle, Martin (in collaboration with Nutan Dhar Sharma). 2002. ‘Nepa and Kas´ı : On the Changing Significance of a Sacred Centre’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 7(1): 1–33. ———. 2004. ‘Religiöser Kosmopolitismus: Der Nepali-Stadtteil in Benares, Indien’ [Religious cosmopolitanism: The Nepali neighbourhood in Banaras, India], Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 129(2): 165–82. ——— (in collaboration with Nutandhar Sharma). 2006. ‘Nepali Places: Appropriations of Place in Banaras’, in M. Gaenszle and J. Gengnagel (eds), Visualizing Space in Banaras: Images, Maps, and the Practice of Representation, pp. 303–23. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ———. forthcoming. Banaras: A Spiritual Centre of Nepal. Kathmandu: Himal Books. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Gurung, Harka. 2001. ‘Highlanders on the Move: The Migration Trend in Nepal’, in S.v.d. Heide and T. Hoffmann (eds), Aspects of Migration and Mobility in Nepal, pp. 11–42. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar. Gutschow, Niels and Axel Michaels. 1993. Benares: Tempel, religiöses Leben in der heiligen Stadt der Hindus [Banaras: Temples and Religious Life in the Sacred City of the Hindus]. Cologne: DuMont. Habermas, Jürgen. 1990 (1962). Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit [Transformation of the Public Sphere]. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Hutt, Michael. 1988. Nepali: A National Language and its Literature. London, New Delhi, Kathmandu: School of Oriental and African Studies, Sterling, Ratna Pustak Bhandar. ———. 1997. ‘Being Nepali without Nepal: Reflections on a South Asian Diaspora’, in D. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal, pp. 101–44. Amsterdam: Harwood. ———. 2003. Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Fight of Refugees from Bhutan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. King, Christopher R. 1994. One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
eMERGENT NATIONALISM, CITIZENSHIP, AND BELONGING AMONG NEPALISâ•… 221 Lelyveld, David. 1993. ‘The Fate of Hindustani: Colonial Knowledge and the Project of a National Language’, in C. Breckenridge and P.v.d. Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Post-colonial Predicament, pp. 189–214. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. LeVine, Sara and David Gellner. 2005. Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth Century Nepal. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lovell, Nadia (ed.). 1998. Locality and Belonging. London: Routledge. Medhasananda, Swami. 2002. Varanasi at the Crossroads. Kolkata (Calcutta): The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. Nair, P. Thankappan. 1999. James Prinsep: Life and Work, (Volume 1: Background and Benares Period). Kolkata (Calcutta): Firma KLM Private Ltd. Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Orsini, Francesca. 2002. The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Parajuli, Krishnaprasad (ed.). 1996 (V.S. 2053). Ka-s´ -ı baha-dur S´res.t.ha smr.tigrantha [Felicitation volume for Kashibahadur Shrestha]. Varanasi (Banaras): Kashibahadur Shrestha Smr.tigrantha Samiti. Parkin, David. 1998. ‘Foreword’, in N. Lovell (ed.), Locality and Belonging, pp. ix–xiv. London: Routledge. Pollock, Sheldon. 2000. ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, Public Culture 12. Prinsep, James. 1832. ‘Census of the Population of the City of Benares’, Asiatic Researches (Calcutta), 17: 470–98. -s´ı-baha -dur S´resthaka - duı- upanya -s’ [The Sharma, Gopikrishna. 1996 (V.S. 2053). ‘Ka .. -s´ı-baha -dur S´restha], in K. Parajuli (ed.), Ka-s´ -ı baha-dur S´restha Two novels by Ka .. .. -s´ı-baha -dur S´restha Smrtigrantha Samiti. Smr.tigrantha. Varanasi: Ka .. . Shrestha, Durga Bahadur. 2003. Kashi Bahadur [Makers of Indian Literature]. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Subba, Tanka. 1992. Ethnicity, State and Development: A Case Study of the Gorkhaland Movement. New Delhi: Har Anand Publications and Vikas Publishing House. Timsina, Suman Raj. 1992. Nepali Community in India. Delhi: Manak Publications. Tulachan, Pushpa. 2001. ‘Seasonal Migration and Trade: A Strategy for Survival by the Lobas of Lo Monthang’, in S.v.d. Heide and T. Hoffmann (eds), Aspects of Migration and Mobility in Nepal, pp. 43–72. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.
Chapter 11 Pathways of Place Relation Moving Contours of Belonging in Central Nepal Ben Campbell
INTRODUCTIOn In its everyday English usage ‘belonging’ can evoke a notion of bonds that stand against the flow of contingent process, and the constant rearrangements of relationships and things swept up in the relentless pace of a changing world. This usage conveys an untroubled stability of association, a self-evident connection of people and place, beyond need for further explication. This kind of an idea is especially suspect in an era characterized by increased global movement and deterritorialization. The grounds and justifications for claims to belonging need to be brought into the open. This chapter deals with Tamang-speaking villagers of Rasuwa district in Nepal, for whom any discussion of belonging involves leitmotifs of movement. This belonging-in-motion connects ancestral clan migrations, agro-pastoral cycles of displacement, and the journeys that nowadays take people into ever-widening circuits of places beyond the familiar, to bring back cash for necessities at home. I contrast this self-consciously mobility-oriented disposition, with sedentarist topologies of belonging, which pervade state and development gazes. The contradictory interactions between dominant modes of imagining belonging and people’s actual practices then come into view. The ways in which communities’ characteristics and locatedness have been represented and resisted have to be seen in a historical process moving into contemporary scenarios. This chapter looks at the genealogy of external frames of belonging in
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Nepal, from ‘tribal’ and ‘peasant’ relationships of people to territories in the frame of national economic development, leading up to the currently dominant ‘environmental’ framing. The idea of belonging in global sustainability programmes presents contradictory features when it makes local belonging a criterion for new practices of governance for environmental conservation purposes, but at the same time conditions of globalized labour markets have re-oriented the rural workforce elsewhere to sustain their livelihoods.
HIMALAYAN KINSHIP AND TERRITORY I have drawn much inspiration for this chapter from Graham Clarke’s (1995) extended historical reflections on how kinship and territory have provided alternate bases for external perceptions of Himalayan societies. While sympathetic to his historical critique of primordialism, I suggest that recent strands of new kinship theory and post-productionist analyses of development and political ecology offer possibilities for moving beyond the binarism of kinship and territory. Provisionally at least, ‘belonging’ provides a viable alternative conceptual vehicle for analysing the twin politics of dwelling and difference. Clarke discussed the colonial mapping of people and places and the tension between principles of territory and kinship in the Himalayan and Hindu-Kush range. He tracked the effects of imperial structures of control and ethnological knowledge, and the possibility for national framings to arise in the region that could draw on ideas of solidary communities of blood. His argument involves a cycle of classificatory ethnonymic invention on the part of Victorian administrator-ethnologists. They moulded empirically observable groups to names of peoples derived from ancient Greek sources (e.g., The ‘Dards’), and anticipated the take-up of nation-oriented identifications. His central point for our concern is that the Himalayan mountain topography has not been conducive to the kinds of horizontal political solidarities of belonging generated by notions of shared kinship that were mythologized in Victorian conceptions of nationhood. Most kinds of interactions in Himalayan people’s lives have historically been conducted across vertical ecological steps, and within polities constituted by communities of asymmetrical status.
224â•… BEN CAMPBELL The mountains act as moderators, physical baffles to the full and lasting incursion of fundamental social changes, whether these are the forces of religion, the economic market, or of nationalism (Clarke, 1995: 90–91). Clarke argued that the state had limited reach, and people’s acceptance of the overlapping presence of various states, prior to the notion of integrally bounded territorial polities, suggests an easygoing cosmopolitanism (not Clarke’s precise idiom) towards the traffic of diverse actors. Conversely, “Nepal had authority over various shrines and their associated fiefs further abroad, such as the Kyirong area of Tibet [and] … Benares” (ibid.: 99). Nepal’s traditional polity had a ritual focus on a ‘sacred centre’, from which a succession of thresholds radiated out on leaving the Kathmandu Valley. Outlying valleys of the Himalaya offered little horizontal connection, and pilgrimage was one of the few contexts for meeting people among whom a greater sense of likeness or ancestral connection could be entertained. The tendency was for routine relations to “drop back into the local space, and to be encapsulated in local relations of territory and kinship” (ibid.: 93). One is not Nepalese in the sense that one is French…the modern Nepalese citizen often can appear more as an individual than as the representative of a nation. In having avoided the European model of the nation state, a Nepalese at the same time may be both traditional and post-modern. (ibid.: 96)
Outside Nepal, imperial administration validated, bounded, and named higher-order ethnonyms on the basis of territorial units, for example, ‘Ladakhi’ and ‘Balti’ (ibid.: 110–11). Within Nepal, the somewhat arbitrary selection of the categories Rai, Limbu, Magar, and Gurung to denote those communities of blood with requisite qualities for military recruitment became a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, in so far as people seeking employment in Gurkha regiments then presented themselves as being of these groups. Combined with the normal tendency for sons and co-villagers to take on the same professions, this helped give territorial expression to these ‘tribes’ as collections of local groups (ibid.: 114). Clarke’s analysis stresses the need to look at both territory and kinship as produced at the interface of metropolitan and vernacular processes. He goes some way in this direction, but his attention remains at a sub-national level of focus: on the effects of mountain
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ecology in terms of its inhibition of greater opportunities of social scale for the playing out of solidarities of kinship. The geography provides less fruitful ground for the kinds of nationalism that rely on mythologies of common blood. I suggest there are issues to do with ‘belonging’ that need to be discussed in practices of strategic identifications, and not just as apparently disparate principles of kinship and territory, for these have a particular purpose in the model of formal rights of citizenship in the language of the state. We have to ask how is kinship different in the hands of the state as opposed to its operational life in village contexts?
PLACING KINSHIP Kinship is not just about genealogy. As used by anthropologists to study social relations in societies where functional complexity has traditionally been exercised within, rather than opposed to differential intimacies, kinship entails relations between relations by which a variety of characteristics are analogically familiarized. It concerns how people effect linkages and truncations of sameness and difference with respect to terminology, embodiment, gender, alliance, residence, the conduct of ongoing livelihoods, and articulations of non-human affinities. Kinship is now seen as a technology for producing effects of natural relationship (Franklin, 2001: 312–13). A welcome aspect of Clarke’s article is its pointed epistemic rupture between local and ‘national’ logics of kinship. This enables him not to essentialize kinship as foundational, and he shows this by arguing against the notion of ‘impression management’, which would imply people ‘really are’ something authentic beneath a show made for others (Clarke, 1995: 101). Adding a malleable dimension to ideas of kin relatedness, Clarke also remarks that shared blood is supplemented by the shared water and air of distinct climates (havapani) (ibid.: 97). Clarke’s analysis, however, misses the possibility of local perspectives in which kinship and territory are not necessarily perceived as distinct principles, and can be both actively brought into existence through labour and residence over time (Campbell, 1993), and through sentient ecologies that fertilize, protect, and heal human relationships. Movement of individuals and families into Tamangspeaking villages of central Nepal is enabled by contracted work
226â•… BEN CAMPBELL in herding, participation in agricultural field labour, and craft specialisms. People can move into a household to help repay a debt, or can attach themselves to the households of known kin, and if they prove themselves in terms of contributing to others’ livelihood welfare, they are encouraged to settle and take a spouse. Many field names carry the appellation of the cultivator who cleared a piece of rough ground and brought it into cultivation (e.g., Yarten Kharka—‘the field of the man from Yarsa’). Several such cases existed in the village I worked in. Data from the early 1990s showed some 14 per cent of men had arrived in this way. A higher proportion of women arrived from outside the village in marriage, but I was able to see examples of other women who for one reason or another had attached to the village, and were encouraged to join in the rounds of field labour groups to broaden their interaction with the range of village households. The labour flow and household property nexus gives movement and relational creativity to the terms that Clarke speaks of as ‘kinship’ and ‘territory’. If the situation is not quite so fluid and ‘optative’ as Schneider’s (1984) example of the Yapese—which led him to reject kinship as a generic analytical category—cooperative relations can notably instantiate kin recognition pragmatically. Tamang kin terminology is indeed a precondition for any village interaction, but this does not restrict its deployment only to those who are offspring of ancestral lines. Kinship is not parthenogenetic, but crosses back and forth in Himalayan contexts with analogical reticulation between different kinds of idioms signifying the body, house, place, and ritual (Diemberger, 1993). Lineage logics of blood or ‘bone’ can compete with ‘house’-based principles (Clarke’s own key tension in his 1980 thesis on Yolmo). Diametrically opposed versions of affinal hierarchy (between the classic hypergamous ‘North Indian’ model and the hypogamous Tibeto-Burman) does not mean actual people cannot straddle them and live with such contradictions, although this may objectively constitute an entirely opposite interpretation of power on each side (Lecomte-Tilouine, 1993: 328ff.). Various synecdochal images of body parts, house and hearth elements, and field and herd histories give diverse compelling resonances for the causes of relational solidarity thereby evoked, without bringing them into any transcendent resolution. They are all, as the Tamang say, ‘pathways’ (gyam) for reckoning identity. Terms from Nepali and Tibetan such as jethan (wife’s older brother), tewar (husband’s younger brother),
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ashyang (mother’s brother or father’s sister’s husband) and makpa (sister or daughter’s husband), kul (lineage), and ru (clan) jumble into local configurations. Whether as saino (terminology of relatives) or mheme khor (family circle) kinship in its multiple versions is averse to anything but provisional officialization. I doubt that its opposition as a category to territory would make any sense to the Tamang, for whom Tamang lungba (Tamang homeland) evokes ‘place’ as a homeland where people interact as kin, sustained by appropriate dialogue with non-human guardians of place. In Rasuwa it is not so much the ethnicity of Tamangness, but kinship in its Dravidian articulation of clans that is the language of relationality between participating ‘ethnicities’. Half the people speak Tamang but are not of ‘Tamang’ clans. Pathways convey the pedestrian inscription of purposeful social activity in the landscape, and the indigenous Tamang term for ‘path’ (gyam) carries through to explain who people are. This is both in the sense of where they have come from geographically, in recent and ancestral migrations, and as marked identities within relational pathways of parallel and cross kinship. As a people whose dominant mode of subsistence is transhumant agro-pastoralism, the Tamangs’ almost perpetual motion through the landscape requires a special recognition of their kinetic sociality. From the everyday orientation of activity with crops and livestock, and from the language of relationship in kinship and affinity, to the concepts of sacred space exemplified in pilgrimage, social life is predicated on traversals of landscape, diverging and converging along connecting pathways. In fact, it is hard to think of any significant discourse of relationships, or field of exchange, that does not contain a defining component of movement through place. Women often deliberately short-circuit classificatory extensions of hierarchical affinity relations to their husbands’ wider kin, to stress parallel kinship, if traceable, through the ‘mother’s path’. Mutual acceptance of reciprocal terminological paths between two people gives important moral clarity to the relationship. There is room for agency in how people make the paths of relatedness in their lives. Paths of kinship can be further worked on, and made clearer through undergoing ritual kinship and making gifts, shoring up pathways between relational coordinates, so that genealogical traces are made bolder by intentionally affirming routes of connection.
228â•… BEN CAMPBELL Toffin (1990) writes of the tension in which ‘segmentary’ qualities of clan-based social relations are held against the dispersed roamings of agro-pastoral production. For the Tamangs of Ankhu Khola, these movements give them a “great suppleness, and a fluidity in social relations, and are a means of evading in part the constraints of lineage organization” (ibid.: 30, my translation). This is closer to the analysis I have pursued, in talking about the kinetic sociality of livelihoods in mountain ecology, and the creative rhetorics of solidarity that enable people to accommodate flexible patterns of tactical belonging. Transhumant demands of domestic herds compete for priority with kin-based coordinates of social order. Models of house- and clanoriented village wholeness are symbolically constructed at times, such as the four national festivals,1 but on an everyday basis, a de facto territorial community in-motion, performs and reforms on the slopes of ‘open’ field terraces. Village lands give a primary and immediate context for people’s orientation to the productive affordances of high–low displacement, but this is a transposable disposition that organizes understandings of landscape and activity in such a way as to make village boundaries evident as administrative constructs, rather than natural limits. The locations of territorial fixity that mark the political and religious landscape—rivers as boundaries, and the dwelling places of territorial spirits and gods—are arguably less intrinsic to the notion of a productive territory, than the practices of integrating high and low. As Ramble comments on place orientations in lower Mustang: “it is the vertical axis itself rather than any particular god or class of supernatural beings inhabiting the landscape, that is linked to notions of fertility” (1996: 150–51, original emphasis). The human relatedness to place conveyed in the imagery, practices, and ‘being in the world’ of pathways, thus contrasts both to the sedentarist models of house- and lineage-based residential community (identified by Toffin above), and to the territorializations of boundaries and naturalizations of rights that have been substantialized since the 1970s in the governance of the Langtang National Park. The national park does not permit use of pastures to livestock keepers unless they own land within the Gaon Vikas Samiti (GVS). Before the park restricted their movements, villagers took their flocks of sheep and goats for several days’ journey to the north. Since the time of the park, they are confined to using the immediate vertical range of their GVS, in which they are property owners.
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Correspondingly, the buffalo and cattle herds of Bahun-Chetri that used to be pastured in the valley bottom are no longer permitted. These overlappings of community and territory have been separated out, so that belonging corresponds to distinct sets of use rights. Giving a perspective from research on Tamang invocations of place in ritual journeys, Höfer’s (1999) analysis presents a model that is instructive for the issues of territory. He argues that Tamang relationships to place can be seen as derived from an idea of ‘sacred territory’ associated with “societies in transition from tribal to ‘prefeudal’ forms of social organisation” (ibid.: 230). He differentiates this notion of territory from the sense of any political or demographic unity, and rather than making claims to an original ethnic sovereignty over land,2 Höfer suggests that the Tamang chants of ritual journeying have historically articulated relationships of accommodation with powerful neighbours: [T]he journeys take cognizance of the ‘givens’, e.g. that the Western Tamang live in an ethnically heterogeneous settlement area; that they are organized in a polity resulting from a history which has not been exclusively theirs; and that they have in part been orienting themselves on the surrounding Newar, Khas (Parbatiya) and, Tibetan cultures. Still it is precisely by respecting such ‘givens’ as components of ethniccultural identity that the itineraries constitute specifically Tamang ways of declaring presence and claiming competence in that they inscribe (or rather in-speak) themselves into the relief of a land shared with others. (ibid.: 228)
In contrast to systems for representing religious verities in landscape forms, Höfer further argues that instead of making the sacred legible through constructs that remould landscapes as mandalas or stupas, “Far from finding the ‘thusness’ of the world meaningless, [the Tamang] content themselves with namings and movements to mark what is invisibly immanent in the visible, real landscape” (ibid.: 229). A common theme in Tamang mythology is of different subjects encountering each other as different kinds of being, who can be potential affines. The territorial context for such encounters is this periphery of transits and cross-overs, where the local society is consciously composite, and derives energy and tension from the perspectival differences of clan, gender, and alliance. ‘Integration’ or ‘encompassment’ of the local are terms that presume a closed,
230â•… BEN CAMPBELL schematized, and complete relationship of ordering to describe the attendance to qualities of difference that make a difference in the thusness of a land of shared belonging with others. There is not a single scheme for integration here, but a border world of dialogical engagement with alternatives and with indeterminacy. Sihlé (in Smadja, 2003: 195) suggests for lower Mustang something similar in a possible absence of the ‘ordering’ effects of mythical landscapes (that are sometimes held by local actors and observers), and argues for an irreducible diversity of place qualities that resist this possibility of coherent ordering. The point to stress is the actual closeness of this ‘remote’ social place to centres of ritual landscape. The near contiguity of concertinalayered ecological, cultural, and political strata makes the positionality of dwelling-in-between the centres of mandalas and chortens (in Kathmandu and Kyirong) appear alternately empty, lacking, and remote, or uniquely vantaged for managing the flows between poles of difference. In the longest continuously inhabited Tamang villages of the region, annual ritual dramas enact the intermediacy of the Tamang regions by staging them as occupied in the historical battle zones of Chinese and Nepali armies.3 In his review of new approaches to place, Escobar (2001) cites Massey on the qualities of meaningful specifity, mixture and porosity in such contexts: […] “places” may be imagined as particular articulations of [powerfilled] social relations, including local relations “within” the place and those many connections which stretch way beyond it. And all of these [are] embedded in complex, layered histories. This is place as open, porous, hybrid—this is place as meeting place (again, the importance of recognising in the “spatial” the juxtaposition of different narratives). This is a notion of place where specificity (local uniqueness, a sense of place) derives not from some mythical internal roots nor from a history of relative isolation—not to be disrupted by globalisation—but precisely from the absolute particularity of the mixture of influences found together there. (Massey 1999: 18)
To summarize this section: viewing both kinship and territory as processual, not as fixed, liberates anthropological analysis from the ideological inflections of the kinds of nationalism that were Clarke’s focus. Under conditions of central neglect in areas like Rasuwa, active discourses of sovereignty (citizens empowered over territory) did not supplant the processes of ‘involution’ with which Holmberg (1989) has described Tamang’s relations to the centre. This raises
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the converse question of how well have ontological quandaries of locatedness been apprehended where the state does not feel at home? In the village economy of mobile agro-pastoralism, kinship is ‘made’ in the process of living in place, moving to make livelihoods between different ecological zones, and in sharing the fertility of the mountainside through the seasons. In the practices of dwelling, the belonging of kinship and territory are not separated out. They are the same activity.
FROM COLONIAL CASTES AND TRIBES TO TARGETS OF DEVELOPMENT Colonial ethnology yielded typologies of ‘peoples’ who were seen as exhibiting intrinsic qualities of blood (e.g., martial, suited to plantation labour, degenerate) with variable potential for achieving liberty in the prescribed Victorian manner of nationalism. Soon after the opening of Nepal to ethnographic research against the background of development, the attention brought to its rural population as peasant ‘producers’ (vertically distributed, land-scarce, demographically multiplying, environmentally threatening, culturally constrained) imposed a flatter kind of topography for belonging and for directions of social change. The peasant’s relation to modernization became a distinctly new kind of framing for kinship and territory. By the 1970s, the ‘tribal’ prism of discrete peoples and cultures had yielded to the realities of agrarian peasant incorporation. Sagant confidently declared that, at least in terms of Nepal’s rural production, “ethnic particularism is dead” (1976: 270). Peasants as rural householders were expected to respond to opening infrastructure and integrate the many village production systems through a nationally overseen discovery of miracle high-yielding or market-valued crops: apples in the mountains, winter wheat in the Tarai, and Holstein milch-cattle replacing ‘riff-raff’ herds of non-productive bovines. ‘Local’ in this context meant unimproved, illiterate, stuck in place, not moving with the times, much as Pigg (1992) describes for the generic relation of ‘the village’ to development. Above all, unreformed habitual peasant relations to the land were seen to be in need of transformation in order to prevent soil erosion, which was attributed to levels of population growth that compelled cultivators to clear marginal and unsuitable spaces to
232â•… BEN CAMPBELL build diminutive terraces for growing low-yielding ‘poor’ crops. But many locals from the hills did get the message to produce. Soon the weight of numbers moving from the hills to the Tarai encroached on tenure systems, and on privileged, commercially valuable forests to constitute a problem of illegal squatting (Ghimire, 1992; MüllerBöker, 1995; Shrestha and Conway, 1996). The producers had overdone it, and exceeded the message to cultivate where the land was best suited. Meanwhile, in this southern border zone, the formation of land and kinship in terms of ‘blood’, marked those groups identified as having come from India as being ‘other’ and ‘foreign’ (Clarke, 1995: 119). Kinship belonging served as a technology of territorial border maintenance. In the meantime, foreign anthropologists apparently still drawn like moths to a flame to study ‘exotic’ practices were criticized as perverse and anachronistic by Nepali social scientists (Dahal, 1993; Mishra, 1984), for following research agendas divorced from Nepal’s national development needs. Studies that did look into changing characteristics of rural Nepali society and de-tribalization processes, often concentrated on the actual transfer of land between categories of title-holders, or between categories of title-holding. Thus, Caplan’s Land and Social Change identified the shift in east Nepal from collective cultivation rights under kipat (with birth rights providing access to corporate clan lands), to its abolition and conversion of fields into raikar status, that was then mortgageable and alienable to owners outside the kin or ethnic group. Therefore, from the ‘tribal’ framing of anthropology that misrecognized fragmented territories to be peopled by distinct ethnological groups, the agenda of development, agricultural modernization, and questions about the characteristics of peasantries shifted attention from ethnic unities to the transformations of systems of land tenure and taxation from jagir, birtha, guthi, rakam, and kipat (traditional forms of land grant arrangements from the state on bases of official, military, religious, labour services, and clan property) towards raikar (individual freehold) see Regmi, (1978), and the consequences for peasants’ relation to class processes and national integration. It is common in the discourse of development for the relation of land and identity among peasants to signify their non-modernity. Either peasants cannot adequately liberate land as a factor of production, or they are abusive of it in both physical and proprietorial senses. Rural Nepali society in general was characterized by the prevalence of owner-cultivators in a ‘household mode of production’,
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in which the development of capitalist agrarian relations was inhibited by ruling-class interests, conditioned by the history of Nepal’s ‘semi-colony’ relation to India (Blaikie, et al., 1980). In development projects aiming to transform the productivity of the subsistence economy, generic characterizations of peasants as producers located in sedentary communities were normalized through techniques of household surveys and farming systems research. Packages of intensified agronomic, sylvicultural, and livestock-keeping practices were promoted for more rational management of available resources in conditions of population growth, while growing concerns about the environmental ‘carrying capacity’ attributed forest degradation to villagers’ ‘archaic rights’ to headloads of fodder (Wyatt-Smith, 1982). Responses to the peasant/land complex took various forms, but up to the mid 1980s, the alternative to a productionist model of land utilization was to take land out of production and make nature conservation the binary alternative to resource utility (Guthman, 1997). Kearney’s (1996) overview of peasantry discourse within anthropological and development theory offers an important position from where one can rethink Clarke’s analysis of kinship and territory. Kearney’s argument is that the notion of ‘peasant’ in the twentieth century entailed a non-modern contrast with the modern subject over a whole set of social and economic features. A fundamental prism of the peasant, as locked into a relation with the land as a producer, resulted in anthropological neglect of other kinds of subjectivity and relational practice, such that when peasants did actually move, migration tended to be seen as deviant, and even pathological. That the post-Cold War era has witnessed widespread movements (in Kearney’s study, it is primarily Mexicans taking up opportunities in the USA) need not be taken as evidence of a wholly new outlook on the world. Instead, the discursive containment of the peasant as belonging in ascriptive social relations of traditional corporate communities, and tied into productive dependence on non-commoditized property systems, blinded the development anthropology of the time from seeing more complex subjectivities. The productionist framing of development made the recent global movements of peasants and the contemporary resonances of ethnicity as an international phenomenon appear novel. Globally restructured, post-Fordist capital and labour markets of course play their part in the new territories of livelihood, residence, and identity, but trends in what we now call belonging can be illuminated by post-productionist perspectives. These depart from the
234â•… BEN CAMPBELL images of ensconsement in, or rupture from, an umbilical kinship with the land. So what has changed significantly in the contexts for talking about kinship and territory since Clarke’s attempt at Himalayan synthesis? 1. Globalization has been marked by countervailing repositionings of the local and of community, as contexts for particularized claims over practice, produce, territory, knowledge, and value. 2. Significant changes have occurred in the reduced role of the state in development processes. Ripert et al. (2003) describe the sandwiching of the state between levels of NGOs, which doubly mediate its relations both with the international community and with its infra-national communities at regional and village levels. 3. Devolution of environmental protection to community forestry groups, national park buffer zone committees, and conservation areas has instrumentalized residential communities as holders of use-rights over the non-agricultural environment. 4. The effects of new labour migrations have resulted in ‘villages with no men’, to use a prevalent local idiom echoed from one end of Nepal to the other. Development’s reincarnation in the guise of sustainability is seen by Kearney further to ensconce peasant–land linkages. With the idea of ‘the local’ standing for what is close to the people, accountable, and ecologically responsible, sustainability’s emphasis on benignly adaptive livelihoods even removes people from pathways of progressive life opportunities that traditional development once offered to the poor. For Kearney, it requires people “to adapt to conditions of persistent poverty in ways that are not ecologically economically or politically disruptive” (1996: 107). In the circumstances in which sustainability has arrived in those parts of Rasuwa district under the Langtang National Park, as participatory conservation, the ‘local’ people have seen few chances to benefit from infrastructure and employment in the district or nationally. The pathways of modernity and development have been tangential to their orbits of subsistence agro-pastoralism, to such an extent that a tourist guide to the area proclaims its villages as places where ‘time stands still’ (Pradhan and Harrison, 1997). (This guide was produced as part of the United
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Nations Development Program’s promotion of tourism as a means to demonstrate local benefit from the park.) Seeing that time has indeed stood still for them in terms of economic opportunity, some two-thirds of the men between 16 and 40 years of age have left the villages of Rasuwa for employment in Malaysia. Better-off migrants from Rasuwa have managed to secure employment in Europe. There are accounts to be made of levels of dependency on foreign remittance economy across different households, and the different destinations that are travelled to between manual labourers and the regional elites. But my central point is that the emplacements and characterizations of colonial ethnography and peasant development (proto-national communities of blood, and unsuitably non-modern economic actors also taking Pahadi ways to the Tarai) were unable to anticipate how sudden has been the take-up of global labour migration. The realities of globalization present an altogether variant perspective on kinship and territory than that proposed by the instrumental hitching of communities to resources in environmental governance, which imagine stable memberships of belonging in forest user groups. Just as Pfaff-Czarnecka (2007) has written of civil society and NGO interventions in large-scale South Asian environmental projects, so at village levels there is far more indeterminacy, conflict, and fragmentary provisionality in the communities that have been set up as genuine organizations for administering rights and entitlements of environmental belonging. This idea of devolved stewardship is transcribed into memberships subject to rule-bound sets of ‘collectively’ agreed legitimate behaviour for the management of forests as resources.
GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY Neo-liberal forms of conservation have spearheaded global sustainability: rational actors will conserve the environment if they are given incentives to do so. The environment is presented as an object, a source of products for use and exchange, and can be substituted by other resources for the purpose of meeting livelihood needs. Territory and kinship enter a new relationship when the environment is no longer a sentient ecology of known spirit-abodes, or a context for subsistence and other social activities, but becomes an object of scarcity that is made over to rights-bearing communities of inherited
236â•… BEN CAMPBELL membership, excluding those who do not belong. This delivers control of forests into the public realm of formal village memberships in which property differentials and the inequalities of gender and status, naturalized in land-ownership patterns, lie behind appearances of collectivity (Agarwal, 2001; Nightingale, 2005). The new sustainability agenda merges citizenship and environment in an instrumentalization of belonging for management purposes. Classic modernity’s liberation of the individual from affective or tradition-bound ties to the land—differentiating actor from resource—becomes reconfigured in the devolution of agency to citizens with environmental responsibility (Agrawal, 2005). A new authority of citizenship stemming from environmental discourses took from representations of movements such as Chipko to be an iconic ‘grassroots’ struggle for villagers’ rights to belong in healthy forests with clean air and water. The narrative of a people taking responsibility for protecting the forests, with whose fate their own lives belong, found a distinctive niche in the ecology of global communications and UN awards. Further creative appropriations were made possible, after this template became legitimized—thus local actors grasp new tactical opportunities for presenting themselves to external gazes. Pernille Gooch (1998), for instance, describes how the Van Gujjar pastoralists adopted a ‘forest people’ identity in their strategies for claiming rights of transit through designated park areas of Uttarakhand. Contrastingly, Karlsson’s (2000) work demonstrates how people of the same ethnicity on different sides of an Indian state border can configure themselves differently according to the distinct political agendas and persuasive poses of the respective states. With the idea of territory as ‘environmental’, and the new valuation of nature in terms of biodiversity scarcity, it becomes the object of protection as a national asset, and a source of international symbolic capital. Good and modern citizens are now to be found in local organizations for forest protection (Agrawal, 2005). I suggest that ethnography leads to different kinds of analysis, and the rolling out of new global environmental citizenship patterns encounters barriers of resistance in culture and place. If “global environmental change alters the notion of citizenship itself” (Redclift, 2000: 111), it can only do so in terms that make sense to people who are already alert to human–environmental relationships. The imagined connections of territory, community, sovereignty, and agency conceived in
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environmental governance need to be tracked through ethnography and cultural analysis. Attending the pilgrimages to Gosainkund and Shikar Besi presented occasions for thinking about wider contexts in which to set the state’s relationship and claims to village territories for nature conservation. The Langtang National Park, whose representatives officiate the human–divine confluences at Gosainkund, could be seen as acting within a framing of cultural legitimacy for claims to environmental sovereignty over the lands of those communities who congregate at pilgrimage. In this benign face of territorial sovereignty, the inclusive common ground of belonging shared by diverse participants interweaves the ritual intensity of diverse village practices and the vertical sacred polity.4 An atmosphere of tense accommodation of cultural others prevails (Tamang, Sherpa, Newar, and Parbatiya—much as in Höfer’s quotation in the foregoing), in contrast to confrontations over forest resource control, in which village society is categorically opposed to state interests (this confrontational relation is most evident in villagers’ attempts to avoid payment for licences to take forest products that they deem common property). However, in both pilgrimage and environmental regulation, officials are not concerned with the realities of local practice per se, but with maintaining recognition of hierarchical power in relation to the local. The state’s manifestation in this kind of periphery is far from consistent or continuous. There is no simple local–state tension, but a range of interactional modes in place and time. Participatory, paternalistic-reciprocal, and inclusive institutional practices coexist with those of a more predatory or coercive character, thus presenting different kinds of claims over territory and persons. Rather than a dualistic state–local dichotomy, the heterogeneity of the state and its territorial interests ought to be recognized, as should the role of local intermediaries. The variability of such relations across Nepal should be kept in mind. Even the sacrality of landscape takes quite different manifestations and contexts of relevance when, for instance, the privileged land relationships of kipatiya title-holders of eastern Nepal are considered, with wholly different mythologies and directions of ancestral migrations (Gaenszle, 1991). Writing of Sepa in northern Sankhuwasabha district, Diemberger (1996) describes a stronger disjuncture with the coming of state forest control in the east than was possibly the case in Rasuwa:
238â•… BEN CAMPBELL The traditional relationship to territory according to which the community administered its land seems…to have been preserved until the nationalisation of the forests and the introduction of panchayats. In this context the access to land was conceptualised and administered according to a view which entailed the inherent sacrality of the landscape. (Diemberger, 1996: 222)
Worship of sacred ‘land-owners’ was part of local land access regulation, and the karkyong celebration ritually opened the doors to the hidden valley, providing an event for settling community affairs and scheduling pastoral and forest activities (ibid.: 223). Diemberger argues that the traditional community administration of all resources “drastically changed with the interference of the state in the administration of the forests” (ibid.: 228). The rediscovery of value in local environmental practice, which has been promoted in more ‘participatory’ conservation models, has led to a revival of interest in such institutions; but the possibilities for negotiating with central authorities over resources are limited, as is the convertibility of cultural practice into frameworks for sustainable management of the environment as a controllable and objectified entity. When ethnographic approaches to the social life of mountaindwelling are looked at freshly as a cultural politics of environmental engagement, this combination of approaches to the environment can contribute to explanations of why attempts at environmental regulation by conservation schemes have experienced unforeseen obstacles to assuming that states are in control of the lands declared protected for nature. The operative notions of sovereignty, ownership, and legitimate use rights in these places are relationally ‘thick’. They are unstably contingent on ‘declared presences’ (Höfer, 1999), and the perceived competence of human and non-human actors in distinct places where belonging is negotiated with reference to the spirit ‘lords of place’ (shyibda), rather than organized by the rule-bound, rational-actor approaches of neo-liberal governance. Development project funds have been made available in Rasuwa district within the Langtang National Park’s buffer-zone initiatives, offering villagers substitute financial incentives in exchange for more positive attitudes to nature protection; but they are essentially displacing a genuine examination of real issues of environmental justice. Using a reductionist understanding of the environment as providing material resources, this logic substitutes one ‘resource’, normally cash income, for another, without attending to the incommensurability of the resource substitution. The ‘thus-ness’ of
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living at comparative liberty in Himalayan forests, conditioned by poverty and developmental neglect, entails a wholly different ontology of belonging from one that depends on tourist income hitched to the idea of conservation benefits. Trekking tourism produces an income for a small proportion of the totality of those affected by the park, and even this number has been reduced by the extension of transport services, which has effectively excluded southern villages from benefits, and created enclaves for small numbers of local and outside entrepreneurs. Furthermore, hotel-keepers in Rasuwa reported a 60 per cent drop in tourist income with the escalation of the Maoist insurgency from 2001. The Easy Trek booklet mentioned above reassures visitors that, though they can expect other-worldly experiences, accommodation is provided by the locals, and “your favourite soft drinks are now available on every mountain top” (Pradhan and Harrison, 1997: 43). The local territory and its inhabitants become a pre-industrial consumer experience for the global leisure classes—further exoticized by the unintended riskfactor of Maoist presence.5 The extent to which conservation can address environmental dimensions of political economic inequality through the imagined cargo of tourism revenues has to be doubted, given the picture of low, single-digit percentages of national tourism revenue reaching villages. An idea of the challenges facing conservation in the subcontinent can be gleaned from Sharma and Yonzon’s (2005) collection, which highlights funding shortfalls, and the general position that private capital is not attracted to support conservation, apart from specific lucrative ventures. Alternative ‘pathways to sustainable development’ as Rhoades’ (1997) book argues, would work on facilitating exchanges and movement attending to the unique ‘politics of location’ presented by mountain verticality. Sustainability could be built by judiciously enabling better terms of engagement for Nepal’s diverse populations to make exchanges of value in things and skills from their varied productive relationships to the environment. Not, in other words, confining and trapping in place the productivity of livelihoods and identities, hitched to fixed landed property, but rather giving room for extensive complementarities of place relationships, for overlapping claims of belonging in various locales, as Rasuwa villagers manage through recognizing the distributed commonalities of clan, ethnicity, ritual congregation, and exchange potential that reorient people to other places, in ways that obviate the boundaries of national park administration. Similar stories of the negative impact
240â•… BEN CAMPBELL on regional sustainability of an over-localized focus on resource conservation have been repeated for different parts of Nepal (see, for example on Dolpo, Bauer, 2004: 129–32). Environmental regulations can thus be seen to take place, and make place, in ways that actively reconfigure integrative and differentiating processes in relation to state authorities, to village leaderships, to communities of ethnic difference, and to perceived pantheons of supernatural presences in parallel orders of territorial occupancy. The multiplicity of spheres of agents and levels of interaction that have been brought out in the ethnographic deconstruction of the environment cannot easily be contained or hierarchically ordered by the single plane of national/local resources. Place, agency, and authority have been profoundly impacted by the re-territorialization of human–environmental relations under the national park, as biodiversity ‘protected area’ status introduces a global schema for re-categorizing places, boundaries, and access. According to Croucher’s account of the contemporary relevance of belonging, it is when the boundaries of belonging come under processes of negotiation, promotion, rejection, and violation, that the new context of globalization is made visible as a politics of belonging (ibid.: 41). Extensive cross-regional movements of Tamang communities through tributary and barter relationships have been realigned into effectively homeostatic ecological models (Peet and Watts, 1996: 5), bounded within village territories of restricted resource circulation. The national park’s institutional practice has sealed up an involuntary historical compaction of territorial range for the agropastoral economy since the mid-twentieth century. The framings to territorial claims of the state are in the meanwhile met with countervoices from villagers.6 These call on the place-enlivening qualities of people’s vertical environmental interactions, and the relationships of reciprocity—‘declared presences’—maintained with invoked site names, with movement, and with attendance to living things.
CONCLUSION In this chapter I have attempted to show how ethnographically generated understandings of belonging diverge, bounce off, and are transformed by state-bureaucratic templates for people and
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territory. The conference theme prompted me to revisit Graham Clarke’s synthetic analysis of the relationship between kinship and territory as principles of belonging in the Himalaya. His identification of the importance attributable to integrative qualities of vertical asymmetry—in terms of ecology, economy, and religion—even seems to be borne out by the region he was most concerned with, Yolmo, which has in recent years provided its communities with a framework of belonging, as opposed to aspiring for designation as Sherpas (Sato, 2006). While his analysis of the effects of mountain topography on processes of change continues to bear up, his key terms of analysis have shifted ground substantially. Equating kinship with ideologies of blood relation may be true to the conception of kinship held by Victorian ethnology (and its ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’), but it too easily pulls kinship apart from territory rather than exploring ethnographically their conjuncture and idiomatic deployments. In relation to the Tamang in Rasuwa district, there is a historical sequence of framings for territorial belonging: from feudal tenants with legitimate presence in Nepal rather than as squatters from Tibet; as populations with a problematic relationship to development modernization (Campbell, 1997); as farmers who present threats to forest and biodiversity in Langtang National Park (revamped by the global sustainability agenda that separates people from nature as resource-dependent, only subsequently to recombine them). All along, the imposed packagings of belonging have been taken up, tried out, and reflected back within people’s projects of livelihood and collectivity. This has taken place always in relation to diverse others, and pragmatic dealings with immediate surroundings—which also include the non-human owners of place as a non-negotiable dialogic presence. In the context of recent environmental governance initiatives, the conjuncture of territory and kinship in participatory conservation has remoulded the socialities of both, to give rise to a version of citizenship that is still only in its early years. It is possible that Clarke’s problematic of the topography of the mountains can provide an entirely appropriate platform for evaluating whether grassroots environmental democracy has effectively taken root (as some anecdotal reports of Maoist approval of community forest groups might suggest), or whether elite ethnic capture across such institutions marks a newly empowered hold of horizontal alliances of blood, as a form in which the national context of ethnicized political
242â•… BEN CAMPBELL allegiances merges with a taken-for-granted ideology of belonging at the local level. Nepal’s emergence from civil conflict into federalist experiments with people-territory relations will be a critical process in which to look for creative dialogue between addressing historical injustices perpetrated by the state in relation to the territorial rights of the rural poor (Tamang, 2006), and doing so in a fashion that will learn from the same people’s understandings of convivial belonging between humans and a variety of non-human others. More generally, reflection on the land–identity relation in the theme of belonging (one that involves its formation as a nexus of sensibilities and anchored claims to presence) reveals a history of imputed fixities and mountain niche-specificity that enable a reexamination of the generic terms that have constituted Himalayan ethnography: tribe, ethnicity, caste, and peasant. By reconsidering the emplacements of these terms, current patterns of migratory turbulence might be reviewed as not so novel after all, nor necessarily a grand rupture with belongings of the past.
Notes 1. Dasain, chaitra dasain, maghasankreti, and saun sankreti. 2. In the context of the People’s War since 1996, claims for autonomous regions for Nepal’s ethnic groups have repositioned arguments over historical injustices of lands expropriated from Tamang clans since the Gorkha conquest (Tamang, n.d.). 3. Holmberg (1989) and Toffin (1987) described examples of these performances. 4. See Tautscher (2007) for an excellent and well-illustrated account of pilgrimage cults and mythologies in Tamang areas of central Nepal. 5. The ways in which Tamang-speaking villagers talked about the Maoist insurgency highlighted the poverty of the district and its separation from both the benefits of development and participation in the struggle against the state. They said “we are all poor here, there are no rich” and that the insurgency was something going on “down there, in the Jyarti [Bahun-Chetri] villages”, in order to divert the attentions of both the Maoists and the security forces. 6. Peluso gives an illuminating discussion of the effects in Western Kalimantan made by shifts in territorial claims from intergenerational rights in tree crops, to landed property. “State territorialization policies have, in fact, always faced local and regional challenges to their territorial sovereignty. In these, local and regional actors have emphasised more localized, identity-based territorial strategies of resource ownership and control as a means of mounting counterclaims or reclaims to contested or appropriated resources” (2003: 231–32).
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REFERENCES Agarwal, B. 2001. ‘Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework’, World Development, 29(10): 1623–48. Agrawal, A. 2005. ‘Environmentality: Community, Intimate Government, and the Making of Environmental Subjects in Kumaon, India’, Current Anthropology, 46(2): 161–90. Bauer, K. 2004. High Frontiers: Dolpo and the Changing World of Himalayan Pastoralists. New York: Columbia University Press. Blaikie, Piers M., J. Cameron, and David Seddon. 1980. Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Campbell, B. 1993. ‘The Dynamics of Cooperation: Households and Economy in a Tamang Community of Nepal’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of East Anglia. ———. 1997. ‘The Heavy Loads of Tamang Identity’, in D. Gellner, J. Pfaff-Czarnecka, and J. Whelpton (eds), Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom, pp. 205–35. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Clarke, G. 1980. ‘The Temple and Kinship among a Buddhist People of the Himalaya’, unpublished thesis, Oxford. ———. 1995. ‘Blood and Territory as Idioms of National Identity in Himalayan States’, Kailash, 8(3 and 4): 89–132. Croucher, S. 2004. Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World. Baltimore, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Dahal, D.R. 1993. ‘Anthropology of the Nepal Himalaya: A Critical Appraisal’, in Ramble C. and M. Brauen (eds), Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalaya, pp. 49–59. Zurich: Ethnological Museum. Diemberger, Hildegard. 1993. ‘Blood, Sperm, Soul and the Mountain: Gender Relations, Kinship and Cosmovision among the Khumbo (N.E. Nepal)’, in Teresa del Valle (ed.), Gendered Anthropology, pp. 88–127. London: Routledge. ———. 1996. ‘Political and Religious Aspects of Mountain Cults in the Hidden Valley of Khenbalung: Tradition, Decline and Revitalisation’, in A.-M. Blondeau and E. Steinkellner (eds), Reflections of the Mountain: Essays on the History and Social Meaning of the Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalaya, pp. 219–31. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Escobar, A. 2001. ‘Culture Sits in Places: Reflections on Globalism and Subaltern Strategies of Localization’, Political Geography, 20(2): 139–74. Franklin, S. 2001. ‘Biologization Revisited: Kinship Theory in the Context of the New Biologies’, in S. Franklin and S. McKinnon (eds), Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, pp. 302–25. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gaenszle, Martin. 1991. Verwandtschaft und Mythologie bei der Mewahang Rai. Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag. Ghimire, K. 1992. Forest or Farm: The Politics of Poverty and Land Hunger in Nepal. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gooch, P. 1998. At the Tail of the Buffalo: Van Gujjar Pastoralists between the Forest and the World Arena. Lund Monographs in Social Anthropology, No. 6. Lund: Department of Sociology.
244â•… BEN CAMPBELL Guthman, J. 1997. ‘Representing Crisis: The Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation and the Project of Development in Post-Rana Nepal’, Development and Change, 28(1): 45–69. Höfer, A. 1999. ‘Nomen est numen: Notes on the Verbal Journey in Some Western Oral Ritual Texts’, in B. Bickel and M. Gaenszle (eds), Himalayan Space: Cultural Horizons and Practices, pp. 205–44. Zurich: Völkerkundemuseum. Holmberg, D. 1989. Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange among Nepal’s Tamang. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Karlsson, B. 2000. Contested Belonging: An Indigenous People’s Struggle for Forest and Identity in Sub-Himalayan Bengal. Richmond: Curzon. Kearney, M. 1996. Reconceptualizing the Peasantry. Boulder, CO: Westview. Lecomte-Tilouine, M. 1993. Les Dieux du Pouvoir: les Magar et l’hindouisme au Népal central. Paris: CNRS Editions. Massey, D. 1999. ‘Spaces of Politics’, in D. Massey, J. Allen, and P. Sarre (eds), Human Geography Today, pp. 279–94. Oxford: Polity Press. Mishra, C. 1984. ‘Social Research in Nepal: A Critique and a Proposal’, Contributions to Nepalese Studies, 11(2): 1–10. Müller-Böker, U. 1995. Die Tharu in Chitawan: Kenntnis, Bewertung und Nutzung der natürlichen Umwelt im südlichen Nepal [The Chitawan Tharus of Southern Nepal: An Ethnoecological Approach (1999)]. Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart. Nightingale, A. 2005. ‘The Experts Taught Us All We Know: Professionalisation and Knowledge in Nepalese Community Forestry’, Antipode, 34(3): 581–604. Peet, R. and M. Watts. 1996. Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements. London: Routledge. Peluso, N. 2003. ‘Territorializing Local Struggles for Resource Control: A Look at Environmental Discourses and Politics in Indonesia’, in P. Greenhough and A. Tsing (eds), Nature in the Global South: Environmental Projects in South and South-East Asia, pp. 231–52. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. 2007. ‘Challenging Goliath: People, Dams, and the Paradoxes of Transnational Critical Movements’, in H. Ishii, D. Gellner, and K. Nawa (eds), Political and Social Transformations in North India and Nepal, pp. 399–433. New Delhi: Manohar. Pigg, S. 1992. ‘Constructing Social Categories through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34(3): 491–513. Pradhan, S. and J. Harrison. 1997. Easy Trek: The Lower Langtang in Nepal’s Himalayas. Kathmandu: UNDP Quality Tourism. Ramble, C. 1996. ‘Patterns of Places’, in A.-M. Blondeau and E. Steinkellner (eds), Reflections of the Mountain, pp. 141–53. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Redclift, M. 2000. ‘Global Equity: The Environment and Development’, in K. Lee, A. Holland, and D. McNeill (eds), Global Sustainable Development in the 21st Century, pp. 98–113. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Regmi, M. 1978. Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar. Rhoades, R. 1997. Pathways Towards a Sustainable Mountain Agriculture for the 21st Century: The Hindu Kush–Himalayan Experience. Kathmandu: ICIMOD.
PATHWAYS OF PLACE RELATIONâ•… 245 Ripert, B., I. Sacareau, T. Boisseaux, and S. Lama. 2003. ‘Des Discours et des lois: gestion des resources et politique environnementales depuis 1950’. in J. Smadja (ed.), Histoire et Devenir des Paysages en Himalaya: représentations des milieux et gestion des resources au Népal et au Ladakh, pp. 365–400. Paris: CNRS Editions. Sagant, P. 1976. Le Paysan Limbu, sa Maison et ses Champs. Paris: Mouton. Sato, S. 2006. ‘Discourse and Practice of Janajati-Building: Creative (Dis)Junctions with Local Communities among the People from Yolmo’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 11(2): 355–88. Schneider, D. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbour, MI: University of Michigan Press. Sharma, U. and P. Yonzon (eds). 2005. People and Protected Areas in South Asia. Kathmandu: Resources Himalaya/IUCN. Shrestha, N.R. and D. Conway. 1996. ‘Ecopolitical Battles at the Tarai Frontier of Nepal: An Emerging Human and Environmental Crisis’, International Journal of Population Geography, 2(4): 313–31. Smadja, J. (ed.). 2003. Histoire et Devenir des Paysages en Himalaya: représentations des milieux et gestion des resources au Népal et au Ladakh. Paris: CNRS Editions. Tamang, M.S. 2006. ‘Culture, Caste and Ethnicity in the Maoist Movement’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, 11(2): 271–301. ———. n.d. ‘Tamang Activism, History and Territorial Consciousness’, paper presented to Oxford Conference on Activism and Civil Society in South Asia, July 2005. Tautscher, G. 2007. Himalayan Mountain Cults: Sailung, Kalingchok, Gosainkund, Territorial Rituals and Tamang Histories. Cinnabaris Series of Oriental Studies, III. Kathmandu: Vajra. Toffin, G. 1987. ‘Au Népal, Les Tamang, ces hommes qui dansent leur histoires’ [In Nepal, the Tamang, the people who dance their history], Notre histoire, 31, February, 52–55. ———. 1990. ‘L’espace des populations montagnards du Népal: le cas des Tamang du Ganesh Himal’, in J. Bourliaud, J.-F. Dobremez, and F. Vigny (eds), Sociétés Rurales des Andes et de l’Himalaya, pp. 25–31. Grenoble: Versants. Wyatt-Smith, J. 1982. ‘The Agricultural System in the Hills of Nepal: The Ratio of Agriculture to Forestland and the Problem of Animal Fodder’, APROSC Occasional Paper 1. Kathmandu: Agricultural Projects Service Center.
Chapter 12 Belonging, Protected Areas, and Participatory Management The Case of Kaziranga National Park (Assam) and of the Misings’ Shifting Territory Joëlle Smadja
Since the 1970s, numerous protected areas, such as national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, biosphere reserves, conservation areas, and the like, have been set up in the Himalayas.1 With their own borders, some of which are controlled by the army, and their own legislation, drawn up either in conjunction with international organizations or by them alone, they constitute real enclaves within states, new administrative territories, new strata of spatial identity that overlap or clash with earlier territorial divisions (state, district, village community…) (Smadja, 2005a,b). These spaces, however, are struggling to become real territories, in terms of ‘spaces appropriated by a population’ or ‘milieux with which a population identifies itself’, whose enhancement depends on the feeling of citizenship and belonging they evoke. This is a problem that proper governance and participatory management policy-makers have to tackle. In this chapter, the question as to whether the environment is a major element through which identity is constructed or not will not be raised again (cf. Campbell, 2003).2 The objective of this chapter is to show how the process of protecting natural resources relies on the feeling of belonging to a territory perceived by those concerned and thus on the implementation of proper participatory management. Much has been written about protected areas and participatory management in the Himalayas,3 but not explicitly from a ‘belonging’
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perspective. In order to illustrate this point, Kaziranga National Park in Assam and the Mising population living around the park will be taken as a case in point. This is a complex situation—both because of the plural identity of the population and of the scattered and shifting territories considered—that has not been studied so far.
BELONGING TO A TERRITORY/BELONGING TO PROTECTED AREAS Besides being a political, juridical, or administrative space, whatever its form, whether a precisely demarcated area, scattered area, or network, a territory here is taken to mean a space appropriated by a community in which resource utilization—both material and symbolic—structures it and, in return, informs the community of its own identity. A territory is produced thanks to frequent use of the space, of the milieu and of its resources. Populations’ knowledge and practices are recorded in it. Different uses of the milieu and a collective memory built up over time thus lead to defining a specific ‘Us’ and a feeling of belonging (cf. Jolivet and Léna, 2000: 8). The process of belonging to a territory is therefore a slow social construction (Di Méo, 2004: 349). Under these conditions, belonging to a territory leads to feeling pride in it, and this may contribute to enhancing it. The space used by a population then becomes a space of identification where people can build a project (Deffontaines, 2006; Deffontaines and Prod’homme, 2000). The population is no longer considered solely as an ‘economically-active population’: it is an organized society, capable of making choices to influence the development of its territory (cf. Jolivet and Léna, 2000: 6). Here the territory is mainly viewed as an expression of the relationship between people and their environment, and it is an integral part of their culture and identity. The relationship that Himalayan peasants have with their environment and the way they appropriate it has been illustrated in detail in earlier works on Nepal (Smadja, 2009a) and, more precisely, in a study on place-names in a Nepalese village (Smadja, 2009b). It focused on how the territory and one of its expressions—a visual one, the landscape—are both a man-made production over time and an image of their society, while constituent of their identity. This work
248â•… JOëLLE SMADJA demonstrates that the territory of that village carries an affective dimension, an attachment that provides a feeling of belonging. Since they are proud of it and rely entirely on it for their survival, it is well maintained and put to account. It also shows that populations living in this area have a very sound knowledge of their milieu, which they use to the full—from high-altitude pastures to the stream at the bottom of the slope—and their adaptation to it is an eminently cultural construction. With regard to their unstable environment, populations have developed a respectful form of fear that leads them to seek a balance. Rather than any potential harmony between Man and Nature, the real issue here is the knowledge of the milieu, a milieu with which, and not only in which, people live. This example is typical of many situations in the Himalayas, and corroborates the work of other authors such as Campbell (2003). Owing to the setting up of protected areas, new spatial and social combinations are being established, as well as new limits, names, organizations, and representations. For most of them, these new territories include a ‘core zone’ where no human activity is authorized; populations are therefore relegated to the area beyond this. A ‘buffer zone’ or a ‘transition zone’ surrounds these ‘core zones’. Limited and fully-controlled human activity is tolerated here, according to regulations issued by international or state bodies. Sometimes, the local population is forbidden access to the whole of the protected area. Whatever the case, the resources and assignment of the milieu are redefined, and consequently the regulations change. In the Himalayas, as in other densely populated rural areas in the world, peasants are thus partly or totally deprived of the resources they relied on for their subsistence and which were part of their culture and identity (they have had to abandon material resources such as pasturelands and plants…and sometimes their divinities and places of worship along with their villages). Most of the time these protected areas have been imposed on them and are not the result of any social construct. How can peasants in these conditions appropriate these new territories, consider them their own, be involved, belong to them and, hence, protect them? Participatory management has been implemented in many of these protected areas to remedy this situation. The process is difficult to set up and does not always help, since it is ambivalent: it encourages citizenship and prompts populations to manage resources and to enhance these new territories, while peasants lose their spatial (from
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village to world) and temporal (memory of the milieu, of its usages and practices) bearings. Nevertheless, it appears to be essential, and all the examples studied worldwide show that without effective participatory management, protection of the environment is a total failure.4 They point out that the citizenship, commitment, and involvement that are needed in the process of belonging to a territory can be effective through proper participatory management and are a way of protecting resources: ...a sense of citizenship often does not start with the State […]. It is rather a ‘societal’ sense of someone who belongs, or who is excluded from, different kinds of collective associations—village, neighbourhood, user group—and defines their identity in relation to these. “Their sense of citizenship lies in the terms on which they participate in this collective life and the forms of agency they are able to exercise.”5 (Eyben and Ladbury, 2006: 9)
It is also what we will see hereafter with the case of Kaziranga National Park and of the Mising Population in Northeast India.
THE SHIFTING TERRITORY OF THE MISINGS FROM BOKAKHAT In order to illustrate this topic, work that has only just started in central Assam, in a locality called Bokakhat (Golaghat district), is presented here. Bokakhat is bordered by the Brahmaputra and its islands in the north, Kaziranga National Park in the west and the Karbi Anglong hills in the south (see Image 12.1). In this area the great earthquake of 1950,6 frequent floods, the impermanence of a riverine terrain, and the setting up of Kaziranga National Park and its subsequent extensions have led the population to make frequent moves. As a result, villages disappear or are relocated. Everywhere in the region, cultivable land is a key resource, and conflicts over land are common. While the growing population and the landless claim land, each year floods from the Brahmaputra wash away land from both farmers and the national park. As for the park, where the protection of wildlife is proving a success, it is claiming more land, because the elephants and rhinoceroses, which have multiplied, lack sufficient space. Indeed, herds of elephants destroy crops and villages in the area surrounding the park. This place is therefore excellent for observation
250â•… JOëLLE SMADJA Image 12.1 Location of Bokakhat and National Park (Assam, Northeast India)
and for work on various issues linked to protected enclaves in very densely populated rural areas,7 as well as on the relationship between society and nature, and on the notion of ‘belonging’. The town of Bokakhat, which dates from the 1960s, is inhabited by 15 or so communities living in well-defined neighbourhoods. Among them are the Assamese, Karbis,8 Nepalis, Rajasthanis, Biharis, Bengalis, Bangladeshis, tea workers,9 and the Misings, who are located between the park and the Brahmaputra River. The Misings are a ‘Scheduled Tribe’10 that speaks a TibetoBurmese language. They are closely related to the Tani groups living in Arunachal Pradesh, and particularly to the Adis from the Siang Valley. They are thought to have progressively migrated since the
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thirteenth century from this valley, located in the eastern part of Arunachal Pradesh, to the Assam plain (cf. Bhandari, 1992; Bordoloi, Sharmah Thakur, and Saikia, 1987; Lego, 2005; Mipun, 2000). Most of them now live in Assam11 along the Brahmaputra River. Siang is the name given to the Tsangpo River when it crosses into Arunachal Pradesh; it becomes the Brahmaputra further on in the Assamese plain. And thus, the Mising populations have always been associated with this river, which forms a component of their identity.12 One of their features has been their mobility, whether voluntary or forced. In Arunachal, because of their practising slash and burn cultivation (jhuming), their landscape was never the same from one year to the next: cultivated plots changed every one or two years, and village locations changed every 20 or 30 years. They have always moved over time. In the Assam plain, the Misings have remained mobile, but they have also had to adapt to a milieu which itself shifts. They have had to move along with the floods and important events such as the earthquake in 1950. This group has therefore always used this mobility by adapting to very different milieux, while retaining some of its original features. Indeed, even though the Misings are well integrated in Assamese society—they dance the Bihu13 with Assamese people, they often only speak Assamese, they practise Hindu pujas, some are converts to Christianity—and though their links with Arunachal are weak, they nevertheless worship Donyi Polo (the sun and the moon) as Tani groups do in Arunachal. In Bokakhat, they are the only ones to do so; they are also the only ones to have houses built on piles, as they did in Arunachal. Finally, in a way, it could be said that they use land as people in Arunachal do. In fact, on the banks of the Brahmaputra, they exploit the silty land left by the river when it withdraws during the dry season after the floods. It is a sort of ‘strand’, not with a daily but an annual rhythm (land is under water for about five months of the year), made up of a series of small, more or less ephemeral and shifting islands, called saporis, which may disappear from one year to the next or remain for some years. This is specific to the ‘braided rivers’, as hydrologists call them.14 In this milieu, they have in some respects ‘flattened the mountain’, using the plain somewhat as they used the slopes: they move from their dwelling place, along the bank of the river, towards these saporis, where they drive their herds and in some places sow (but do not plant)15 fast-growing winter rice in the time interval between two floods, as well as mustard, peas, and so on. In brief, they practise shifting cultivation on this mobile, ephemeral
252â•… JOëLLE SMADJA land, in the same way as they practised jhuming in Arunachal. They also live off fishing, collect wood floating on the Brahmaputra, and cut branches to be used for fuel or for roofing (see Image 12.2). Sometimes they sell these at nearby markets. Like most strands, these saporis are far from being unproductive. In Assam, Misings generally also have irrigated paddy fields next to their dwellings and exploit all the different milieux in a complementary manner. For several centuries, the Misings’ shifting territory along the river banks has been an integral part of their culture and identity. The Misings express their link to the riverine milieu they rely on in many of their tales and folk songs (Dutta, 2001; Mipun, 2000; Pegu, 1956, Verrier, 1993). Since they have lived in Assam, they have combined their inherited shifting practices with new practices linked to their integration into Assamese life, such as farming on permanent fields, cultivation of irrigated rice, and utilization of the swing plough. Nowadays all these together form components of their identity, which is even more of a plural nature. Image 12.2 Mising woman coming back from the saporis (in the background) with branches used for fuel and roofing (Dhansiri Mukh, Bokakhat, Assam)
Photo courtesy: J. Smadja, March 2008.
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In Bokakhat, since the earthquake in 1950, floods have increased and the constant rising of the riverbed has continually forced the Misings inland. Moreover, following the setting up of the Kaziranga National Park in 1974, part of their permanent fields and of their villages have been included within the park’s perimeter. Today many have taken refuge on embankments, and only survive thanks to their being able to use the shifting islands. But, since the extensions of the park from 1977 to 1999, these populations and their activities are no longer allowed on these islands; they are excluded from them. As a result, they have lost resources they relied on: this is evidenced by local place names. The resources that came from the park’s wooded area and from the saporis were fish from the ponds and rivers, pastures for grazing animals, fodder, timber, and firewood, as well as a large part of their diet, that is, wild fruits and vegetables (see Images 12.3 and 12.4). This consumption of wild resources in the Himalayas has also been attested by Meyer and Koppert (1983), who have shown that in the Tamang village of Salme, 41 per cent of the fruit and vegetables consumed by the population (albeit sedentary) were wild. This has likewise been noted by Robbins (2001) in Rajasthan. As a result of these exclusions, several lawsuits are now in progress. Part of the Mising population has been displaced to areas very different from the milieux they had been used to. Others have not resettled, since they do not have a land title. They are now landless or ‘encroachers’. Today, the Misings are those (along with the Nepalis, some Bangladeshis and Biharis) who suffer most from the park policy and from its extensions. Moreover, not only have they been excluded from the park area, they are now also being excluded from the saporis, but those who still own land in the park’s surrounding area regularly suffer depredations from the park’s wild animals. They cannot hunt the wildlife that destroys their fields, and are not allowed to enter the park’s enclosure to gather wood or other resources, otherwise they are shot by forest wardens. They have become poachers and encroachers on what they consider to be their own territory. Indeed, some accept `500 a head from mafia groups to kill rhinoceroses whose horns are then exported to Myanmar. Their relations with the park authority often end in conflict.
254â•… JOëLLE SMADJA Image 12.3 Grazing on the saporis (Bokte Sapori, Bokakhat, Assam)
Photo courtesy: J. Smadja, March 2008. Note: This area is now included in the sixth addition to Kaziranga National Park.
Image 12.4 Fishing net set up by Misings on a branch of the Brahmaputra river between the saporis (Bokte Sapori, Bokakhat, Assam)
Photo courtesy: J. Smadja, March 2008. Note: This area is now included in the sixth addition to Kaziranga National Park.
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‘Whose’ Territories are Protected Areas? The Example of Kaziranga National Park The protected area was established as a forestry reserve in 1908, as a fauna sanctuary in 1916 and as a wildlife sanctuary in 1950. In 1974, the site was listed as a national park following the 1972 law on nature protection. The park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1984, as a habitat for rare or threatened plant and animal species. It houses no human populations, since it is recognized as a natural, not a cultural heritage. Successive extensions have been made in order to conserve the exceptional biodiversity of the site, and to allow wildlife to roam freely. The national park has so far been extended six times and its initial surface of 430 km2 has doubled. There is no real ‘buffer zone’ in Kaziranga Park. There exists a ‘core zone’ forbidden to all and a so-called ‘buffer zone’ where only tourists are authorized. The whole of the park and its resources are totally forbidden to local populations. Many protected areas in the Himalayas and in the world are spaces shared by actors whose expectations may differ;16 this is the case with Kaziranga National Park: 1. The presupposition is that these spaces do not belong to man but to wildlife. In Kaziranga, the authorities view their park and its surroundings, including Bokakhat, as a rhinoceros and elephant territory that has been appropriated by man. Thus, people are encroachers, each and every one of us, and especially the Misings and the populations living on the saporis. 2. These protected areas belong to World Heritage, and not to simple users who have possibly only been entrusted with protecting them. Therefore the territory on which a society, here the Misings, relies on becomes a natural heritage considered to be humankind’s common property. 3. These new spaces are also territories for tourists who have a particular conception of these milieux, generally seeing them as vast recreation areas and exceptional spaces. Tourists belong to an urban (and/or Western) population—in Kaziranga National Park they are mainly Indian city-dwellers—that comes to contemplate an ‘untouched nature’ and to discover the folklore of indigenous populations. For tourists, these protected areas
256â•… JOëLLE SMADJA are territories where they can find their bearings, if one considers that certain symbols attest to belonging to a territory: the same lodges, menus, and accommodation throughout the world; and places of identification that we could call ‘generic places’ (cf. Debarbieux, 1995), such as restaurants, hotels, shops, observatories, paths, and road infrastructures. 4. Situated somewhere between tourists and peasants, guides and shop- or lodge-keepers recreate a “professional territory and a place with new practices and identities” (cf. Sacareau, 1997) that link them up to the rest of the world. Thus, they are considered as territories of social progress and promotion. 5. Most often, these spaces no longer belong to the villagers who have had use of them up to the present day. In Kaziranga, the land within the park enclosure had previously been inhabited for a long time, and resources from it were used as has already been described earlier. Now villagers simply have the task of looking after these new territories. They are requested to look after spaces that are qualified as a ‘Gift to the Earth’.17 Peasants are therefore considered at best as ‘buffer-zone citizens’, ‘environment caretakers’, and ‘landscape managers’, and at worst as poachers, squatters, or outlaws (cf. Colchester, 1993; Kollmair, Müller-Bökker, and Soliva, 2003). 6. The staff managing protected areas are supposed to ensure the link between all those involved. They work within a framework of international and national bodies that are often very farremoved from local groups and are considered by them to be alien. Moreover, those who ensure law enforcement are foresters who have even more power than in the past—though they were not always appreciated back then—together with, in certain cases, members of the army, whose behaviour in these areas is widely criticized. Thus, protected areas are well arranged and include all the necessary facilities for tourists, who are considered to be citizens of the world, for whom everything is set up in such a way that they can find their bearings. They also benefit from impressive means for protecting flora and fauna, the world’s heritage. A large part of the Kaziranga Park’s budget is devoted to putting a stop to poaching, to helping rhinoceroses that have strayed outside the park and to tourist infrastructures. On the other hand, in many cases, parks are next to,
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or include, villages that lack any basic services, barely benefit from tourism, and are cut off from access to the natural resources needed by their populations, who are more often than not considered to be outlaws. Villagers in the surrounding area of Kaziranga National Park draw no benefit from tourism; nothing is done to prevent the loss of crops or depredations due to wildlife; and no compensation is provided.18 In every instance, protected areas are spaces that most actors consider to be natural, whereas they have in fact been socialized for a long time. In these areas, landscapes are being protected by cutting them off from the peasants who actually created them. Paradoxically, actors who wish to implement nature protection and sustainable development policies take into account the present situation, considered as degraded, but not the memory and thus the knowledge concerning resource management recorded in a territory. Villagers no longer control the milieux they once used, which for them now lack any meaning and have lost their primary function of providing resources within a subsistence economy. Thus, the number of actors and their diverging preoccupations are a source of conflict. Some researchers, when referring to these protected areas in South Africa, talk of ‘green apartheid’ (cf. Guyot, 2004, 2006).
PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT: A MEANS OF BELONGING TO PROTECTED AREAS? Even though the Misings have a very sound knowledge of the milieux now under protection, the park’s staff does not associate them with their management. It only tries to make them aware of the importance of their conservation and to establish a total split between what it considers natural and what it considers social. Therefore, by way of participatory management, the only initiative so far proposed by the park’s authorities and the various nature protection committees, who act with good intentions, has, since 2007, been a training course targeted at young people (12–15 year-olds). The purpose of this training is to inform them about the environment and its protection in the hope that they will in turn educate their parents. The children selected to follow this course are those of poachers living on the park’s perimeter. However, besides ecological issues, the precepts
258â•… JOëLLE SMADJA highlighted during this course are discipline and obedience with regard to authority. For three days, these young people are told that they live on rhinoceros and elephant territory and that therefore they should feel guilty if they encroach on the animals’ territory or kill them. When children ask about wildlife depredation, they are told that this is because peasants have settled on animal territory: they are seen as not belonging to this territory. Today, villagers receive proposals to protect them against wildlife depredation by setting up electric fences around their farms. Paradoxically, for certain people, no doubt the majority, globalization, or contributing to the protection of the World Heritage, means belonging to a shrinking and increasingly shut-off territory. Kaziranga National Park is without a doubt a ‘Gift to the Earth’; but mainly to tourists, since it is strictly prohibited to villagers. This ‘Gift to the Earth’ seems more like a sacrifice at times. The ‘success story’ about rhinoceros conservation in Kaziranga National Park comes with a social cost that is rarely taken into account. This social cost is expressed nowadays in terms of a setback in the effectiveness of nature protection: encroachments and poaching persist, and, in 2007, 22 rhinoceroses were killed there. Kaziranga National Park was set up along the lines of the parks created in the 1970s. In many places in the world, parks of this kind have proved to be ineffective, that is those wherein populations have not been associated with their management. Indeed, many scholars have proved that as long as participatory management does not allow populations to take decisions and to become full citizens of these new territories, they will go on suffering from the legislation instituted in these spaces and transgress it. This is the case in Nepal, in Bardiya National Park, in Chitwan Park, and in that of Rara, and of Langtang, as is shown by Campbell (2003); Kollmair and Müller-Böker (1999); Kollmair, Müller-Böker, and Soliva, (2003); Ripert, Sacareau, Boisseaux, and Tawa Lama (2009); Shrestha (2009); Soliva, Kollmair, and Müller-Böker, (2003), and other. This has also been witnessed at Nanda Devi and in other Himalayan parks (Ives, 2004; Silori, 2001). The same goes for other parks in Northeast India where research is in progress. For example, in Balpakram National Park (Meghalaya), in which any activity and any collecting are strictly forbidden, the Garo population has been driven away and resettled in ‘buffer zones’. These spaces are not sufficient for the populations; they are overused and degraded, so that incursions into the park have become ever more frequent. At present, the park administration wants to widen its limits in order
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to prevent any encroachments and to allow the vegetation to grow back. But this will only postpone and accentuate the problem (cf. Thomazo, 2006). In fact, this situation exists throughout the world: for example, among the Masai in Tanzania, whose population is on the increase. They have a shortage of land and find themselves boxed in between N’Gorongoro conservation area, Serengeti National Park, and the animal corridors linking up these two spaces (cf. Olenasha et al., 2001 in Sacareau, 2006: 182). These studies have shown that, in many cases, participatory management may come over as a sham when the populations consulted are not able to air their opinions and simply remain silent (cf. Kollmair and Müller-Böker, 1999; Kollmair, Müller-Böker, and Soliva, 2003; Pimbert and Prety, 1997; Ripert, Sacareau, Boisseaux, Tawa Lama, 2009). Most often, the local committees that existed prior to the setting up of protected areas no longer wield any power over space and resource management. They have been replaced by the protected areas administration, which in fact comes under national and international regulations, with laws being designed with no regard for the populations’ practices or needs. If populations are encouraged to participate, they are in practice asked to ratify decisions taken by others that often go against their wishes. For example, the ban on hunting proves a particular problem, since peasants suffer depredations caused by wildlife on their crops and even on their dwellings, as well as predations on their own herds. Thus, the different institutions in charge of managing protected areas come across as alien and illegitimate spheres in the eyes of villagers, and their authority is regularly challenged. On the other hand, when there is effective participation and a real delegation of power to local populations, the experience often proves to be conclusive. This frequently corresponds to a return to ‘traditional’ management, though now backed by the government. This is demonstrated by the Kangchanjunga Conservation Area Project in Nepal, where there has been a real willingness to establish some form of participatory management, illustrated by welldeveloped local legislation regarding the management of pastures, cutting thatch and wood, and where exchanges between villages have been set up to use resources (Boisseaux, 1998; Kollmair, MüllerBöker, and Soliva, 2003; Müller-Böker and Kollmair, 2000). In this case, we note a strong feeling of belonging to a territory that benefits from adapted legislation.
260â•… JOëLLE SMADJA Manas National Park in Assam (India) also displays a form of association between local administration and populations. Close to the border with Bhutan, it is situated in a Bodo autonomous territory. Following some major incidents after its designation as a World Heritage site in 1985, the forest department decided to entrust the park’s management to Bodo populations with some degree of assistance. The administration has favoured the development of tourism by giving priority to local actors and has provided help in building infrastructures, distributing salaries, and so on. As for the community, it has inherited management of the territory and its social organization. Whilst many controversies still persist, the results seem to be encouraging (cf. Thomazo, 2006). Similarly, in Peru: [A]fter having attempted to no avail to protect vicunas from supposedly predatory human populations by coercive measures (imprisonment, deprival of civil rights for communities…), the public authorities entrusted the legal responsibility for managing the vicuna population to the campesino community, with the right to use the herd, especially for its wool. Four years after implementation of this decision, a clear drop in poaching can be noted as well as a slight increase in the size of herds.19 (cf. Wheeler and Hoces, 1997 in Rossi, 2000: 61)
Using a number of examples taken from all over the world, Bahuchet, de Maret, F. Grenand, and P. Grenand (2001) further underline that: “if they are allocated sufficient surface areas, populations… do not destroy their milieu, but become ipso facto its protector”.20 Nature protection is thus achieved by real participatory management. It implies that decisions have to be taken by citizens belonging to a territory that they produce over time by their frequent use and knowledge of the milieu: they take a certain pride and recognize themselves in it, and they seek to enhance it. The absence of participatory management or its dysfunction, on the other hand, only leads to continually evading current problems, when protected areas are forever being extended and increasingly coercive measures are being taken to protect the sectors around the parks. Now: …it is illusory to imagine that in the long term one can protect milieux against populations’ most elementary interests, without their real adherence and without respecting their management methods. First of all, because it is impossible to post a guard behind every peasant […].
BELONGING, PROTECTED AREAS, AND PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTâ•… 261 Next, because even in this case, endless conflicts and the resentment that ensues find expression in various forms of sabotage, for example, cases of arson. Finally, and above all, the creation of these reserves amputates the territorial heritage in such a way that this, at the very least, leads to disruption in the systems for organising and turning space to account, as well as in local management practices. This provokes a stark increase in pressure on the remaining land which can be seen from the overuse of its resources.21 (Rossi, 2000: 61)
Indeed, numerous studies have shown that the destructuration of societies is the first cause of environmental degradation (cf. Beck, Luginbühl, and Muxart, 2006). Since the 1980s, international nature conservation organizations have increasingly realized that “nature conservation is only possible with the participation of all involved and, in an ideal world, through them” (Ellenberg, 1993: 295 in Kollmair, Müller-Böker, and Soliva, 2003). This does not deny the important role that government has to play as regulator to ensure equity between the different social groups and to protect the weakest, which is not always the case in local management (cf. Colchester, 2003). Nothing allows us to certify that the Misings were using resources properly and protecting nature before Kaziranga National Park was set up. But from this example, as well as from numerous examples all over the world, it is evident that nature protection will not be guaranteed if people are not involved in it, and if there is no proper participatory management of resources. Misings could also probably learn about the protection of their milieux, which they might accept provided that they are not excluded from them. As Colchester (2003: 46) mentions: […] indigenous people actively seek to have parts of their ancestral territories recognised as protected areas under their own management and control […] in order to benefit from the protection such designations are meant to entail and the possible revenue streams that may come from ecotourism and scientific research. [However] they will also need to reappraise how and whether their systems of customary law, self-governance and enforcement effectively regulate and control resource use, both by their own members and by visitors to the areas. Indigenous peoples’ institutions may have proved adequate to the task in the past, but new pressures may also imply that they need to strengthen and modify their traditional ways. Conservation does not imply the absence of change.
262â•… JOëLLE SMADJA One may wonder in this context why more lessons are not drawn from these experiences and why there still exist cases such as Kaziranga National Park. In 1989, as Colchester (2003) reminds us, the International Labour Organization developed a revised convention in which Article 14 states that: [M]easures shall be taken in appropriate cases to safeguard the right of the peoples concerned to use lands not exclusively occupied by them, but to which they have traditionally had access for their subsistence and traditional activities. Particular attention shall be paid to the situation of nomadic peoples and shifting cultivators in this respect. (2003: 38)
In India, the ‘Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006’ passed by the Indian Parliament on 18 December 2006 is supposed to ameliorate the situation of villagers, but it only concerns forests, not other wild spaces such as the saporis, considered to be unproductive, and it yet has to be implemented.
FROM NATURE PROTECTION TO COMMUNALISM FURTHER FEEDBACK ON THE ABSENCE OF PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT As we have seen earlier, villagers have often been evicted from the protected areas or can no longer use resources within their perimeter (see Image 12.5). Nevertheless, they can be found in eco-villages next to or within the parks, where they are part of the scenery and are presented in their ‘so-called traditional dwellings and costumes’. However, they are only supposed to retain certain traits of their own culture, ‘the proper customs’ (housing, costumes, dances, songs…), while ridding themselves of what would be prejudicial to ‘nature’ (animal sacrifices, for example, or slash-and-burn farming practices, or simply agriculture in places that are considered to belong to wildlife). Some of the Mising children who participated in the earliermentioned training courses in Kaziranga National Park were from a Mising ‘eco-village’ that will be discussed in the following paragraphs. Moreover some of their relatives belong to the Mising
BELONGING, PROTECTED AREAS, AND PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTâ•… 263 Image 12.5 Boundaries between Kaziranga National Park, on the left and a Mising village settlement on an embankment on the right (Bokakhat, Assam)
Photo courtesy: B. Ripert, March 2008.
Autonomous Council, with the Misings, like many other Scheduled Tribes in Northeast India, demanding in turn an autonomous territory. Some members of extremist movements support their claim, explaining that they could not survive if the land they belong to was confiscated. Indeed, in Bokakhat, one Mising village next to Kaziranga National Park has been transformed into an eco-village with the park’s blessing. A blessing obtained because, for the park authorities, it appears in the guise of some kind of participatory management, and also because what this setting reveals of the Misings is only part of their culture and identity, essentially only those elements inherited from Arunachal that they have kept, that is, a house built on piles, the hearth, fabrics and the pestle. This setting also attests to their adaptation to Assamese society, the plough, which they have only been using in permanent paddy fields since their arrival in Assam, being also exhibited here. On the other hand, the part of their
264â•… JOëLLE SMADJA identity, culture, territory that has shifted over centuries and that is linked to the river, its islands, and its banks hardly emerges. The park supports this initiative, but what would the situation be if the Misings disclosed their relationship with the saporis? In practice, it is considered preferable for them to nurture a form of belonging that forms only a part of their full identity: above all, one cut off from their riverine mobile territory and milieu, as if their present identity were ‘soilless’, except in its Assamese aspect. Their adaptation and their integration into a mobile milieu have finally been denied. Thus, what is shown of the Misings in the ‘eco-village’ or what, in the end, they have decided to show and to use, is only part of their culture, in particular the mountain aspect inherited via their Arunachal origins, whilst a very large part of their identity that has been compiled since they arrived in Assam—a part of their belonging that has changed and shifted—has been confiscated. In the end, this situation leads to communalism, since they are now demanding a Mising autonomous territory, eventually making use of the particularities to which people have sought to restrict them, and reinventing their own tradition (cf. Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1992).
BELONGING TO SCATTERED, SHIFTING TERRITORIES Furthermore, the autonomous territory that the Misings are demanding would be a scattered territory corresponding to their lifestyle, not a single stretch of well-demarcated land. They belong to shifting milieux, whereas the policies related to protected areas consist in freezing land, landscapes, populations, and even animals, denying mobility to any of them, which in any case causes problems, since wildlife itself does not respect the limits of the park. The authorities of the park then have to face problems such as wildlife roaming outside the park, the hybridization of wild buffaloes with domestic ones, the invasion of unexpected plants such as mimosa (Mimosa rubicaulis and Mimosa invisa) coming from the tea plantations, and so on. The consequences of the separation between ‘Society’ and ‘Nature’ are in many respects perverse and here again we have proof of this. This echoes Robbins’ studies (2001) on ‘Tracking Invasive Land Covers in India, or Why Our Landscapes Have Never Been Modern’:
BELONGING, PROTECTED AREAS, AND PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTâ•… 265 In the process they have, following Bruno Latour,22 “physically attempted to partition those land uses seen as ‘social’ from those seen as ‘natural’, and thereby tried to enforce a modernist purification of land covers […]” (Latour, 1993: 638). “[…] This effort to partition human production space from environmental conservation space, and the conceptual worldview that supports it, is a fundamentally modernist one” (ibid.: 645). “[…] The fundamental problem, then, is seeing nature incorrectly, imagining it to be changeless, and attempting to enforce a state of permanence upon it through enclosure”. (ibid.: 652)
This behaviour does not even take into account scientific studies, proving that high levels of biodiversity can be fostered by human activity (Robbins, 2001; Saberwal et al., 2000; Smith and Wishnie, 2000). Moreover, as ecological communities are in a constant state of flux, what particular state should anyone attempt to conserve? (cf. Smith and Wishnie, 2000: 496). The Misings’ project in the framework of this autonomous territory is to build infrastructures, bridges, highways, roads, to provide access to drinking water, and to solve education and employment problems. In their programme, there is no mention of preserving nature, since they consider that they already do this thanks to their sound knowledge of it, while practising a very ecological form of agriculture. For them, nature protection is obvious, but entails the use of natural resources. This example shows the hiatus between the official policies on protected areas, which bestow a purely ecological dimension on these milieux, and the point of view of populations not belonging to an ecosystem, but to a territory in which certain milieux, such as the forest or the saporis, are both a special biotope and a material or immaterial resource. It also demonstrates that one can belong to a territory that has no precise limits and that may shift over time (cf. Bonnemaison, 1990; Collignon, 1996). *** The case of the Misings of Bokakhat, who are a group combining cultural features both from the mountains and from the plain, using both shifting and permanent land, exploiting milieux considered to be either natural or social depending on the actors, illustrates a complex way of belonging to a territory. This example demonstrates the fact
266â•… JOëLLE SMADJA that a territory, as is the case here for the Misings, can be constituted of ephemeral and shifting land and that the term need not imply that people have land titles. In this particular variant of the process, the frequentation of places is more important than land acts. In examining this situation one may recall the remarks made by Bahuchet et al. (2001): the disappearance of self-subsistent economies may be the cause of real poverty, and the viability of such economies relies primarily on guaranteeing territories that suit populations’ practices. Cutting off people from their know-how and turning them away from their practices is the principal vector towards irreversible poverty. The feeling of belonging to a territory is a major component in the structuring of a society and in its behaviour towards its natural environment. When communities do not fulfil this aim within the state-owned administrative and political units, communalism and claims for autonomous territories may emerge. Proper participatory management seems to be a way of avoiding this. Today, do the Misings from Bokakhat only belong to the embankment to which they are relegated? Or do they belong to the world community, which has nothing to offer them? They have for a long time tried to belong to the State of Assam and to become full citizens of Assam. The reservations they benefit from in the public service sector through the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, as well as all the proof of their attempts to integrate into Assamese society, have been one step towards this. By doing so, they have built a new composite identity and have exploited composite territories. Losing these territories and being considered as outlaws is a step towards communalism and autonomous claims. They are on the way to belonging only to a community, the Mising community, with all the exclusive behaviour that ensues from this process. Let us listen to one of them, who is not from Bokakhat, and who is not exactly talking about protected areas, but whose words summarize the issue: Whose State is Assam anyway? That is the question many are beginning to ask. Injustice is the breeding ground for violence. If Misings have kept their cool until now, there is no guarantee that the unemployed, the deprived, the victims of injustice or those driven to the edge will continue to dance the Bihu. The Ali Aiye Ligang [Mising feast in spring associated with farming] has grown rhythmic enough to invite an exclusive following. (Padun, 2006)
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NOTES ╇ 1. They cover more than 13 per cent of the total area (18 per cent in Nepal, 29 per cent in Sikkim, 31 per cent in Bhutan) without taking into account the corridors that link the different areas, as well as the numerous projects to come. The world average is 11.5 per cent. ╇ 2. On this topic, see, among others, the paper by Campbell (2003) and Höfer’s comments following his text. ╇ 3. Among others: Campbell (2003); Ives (2004); Kollmair and Müller-Böker (1999); Kollmair et al. (2003); Müller-Böker and Köllmair (2000); Ripert et al. (2009); Shrestha (2009); Silori (2001); Soliva et al. (2003); Thomazo (2006). ╇ 4. Cf. Campbell (2003); Ives (2004); Kollmair and Müller-Böker (1999); Kollmair et al. (2003); Olenasha et al. (2001) in Sacareau (2006); Pimbert and Prety (1997); Ripert et al. (2009); Rossi (2000); Shrestha (2009); Silori (2001); Soliva et al. (2003); Thomazo (2006); Wheeler and Hoces (1997), etc. ╇ 5. Quotation is from Kabeer (2005: 21) in Eyben and Ladbury (2006). ╇ 6. The great earthquake of 15 August 1950 in Assam, which was graded 8.6 on the Richter scale, has deeply modified the area’s geography and economy. Since then, the bed of the Brahmaputra is higher and floods occur more often and are more destructive. ╇ 7. In the Assamese plain population density is about 500 inhabitants per square kilometre. ╇ 8. The Karbis are a ‘Scheduled Tribe’ that speaks a Tibeto-Burmese language. Most of them inhabit the hills located south of Bokakhat, to which they have given their name: ‘Karbi Anglong’. ╇ 9. They are workers from tea gardens. Most of them originate from Orissa. They were brought to Bokakhat by the British during the nineteenth century. 10. They have been classified as a ‘Scheduled Tribe’ in the Constitution of India. 11. In 2001, there were 587,310 Misings in Assam, the second biggest group among the Scheduled Tribes there, which altogether amount to 3,308,570 and constitute 12.4 per cent of Assam’s total population (Census of India). 12. On the Misings in Bokakhat, see Crémin (2007). 13. Bihu dances are performed during the three Bihu festivals of Assam. They correspond to distinctive phases in the farming calendar. The most important is the Rongali Bihu, which occurs mid-April, celebrating both the New Year and the coming of spring. It is the time when paddy fields are prepared for cultivation. 14. A braided river is a river constituted of a mobile network of channels separated by small and often temporary islands called braid bars, which correspond to what Assamese call saporis. 15. In Arunachal, in the jhum, rice, which is not irrigated, is also sown, not transplanted. 16. On this topic, see also Guyot (2004, 2006). 17. For example, the WWF declared the Kangchanjunga Conservation Area a ‘Gift to the Earth’ on 29 April 1997. 18. People may get some compensation only if their houses are destroyed by elephants, but the process is complicated and takes a long time. 19. Translated from the French.
268â•… JOëLLE SMADJA 20. Translated from the French. 21. Translated from the French. 22. Here Robbin refers to Latour (1993).
REFERENCES Bahuchet, S., P. de Maret, F. Grenand, and P. Grenand. 2001. Des forêts et des hommes: Un regard sur les peuples des forêts tropicales [Forests and man: A glimpse at the peoples of tropical forests]. Brussels: APFT–ULB, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Beck, C., Y. Luginbühl, and T. Muxart (eds). 2006. Temps et espaces des crises de l’environnement [Time and spaces of environmental crises] Paris: Éditions Quae, collection INdiSciplineS. Bhandari, J.S. 1992. Kinship, Affinity and Domestic Group: A Study among the Mishings of the Brahmaputra Valley. New Delhi: Gyan Publishers. Boisseaux, T. 1998. Elaboration et mise en place d’une politique de protection de la nature et rôle des ONG au Népal [Development and implementation of a nature protection policy and role of NGOs in Nepal]. Université d’Orléans, DEA: Mémoire. Bonnemaison, J. 1990. ‘L’espace réticulé. Commentaires sur l’idéologie géographique’ [Reticulated space: Comments on geographical ideology], in Tropiques, Lieux et liens. Florilège offert à Gilles Sautter et Paul Pélissier, pp. 500–10. Paris: Orstom. Bordoloi, B.N., G.C. Sharmah Thakur, and M.C. Saikia. 1987. Tribes of Assam: Part╯1. Guwahati, Assam: Tribal Research Institute. Campbell, B. 2003. ‘Identity and Power in a Conflictual Environment’, in M. LecomteTilouine and P. Dollfus (eds), Ethnic Revival and Religious Turmoil. Identities and Representations in the Himalayas, pp. 178–204. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Colchester, M. 1993. ‘Pirates, Squatters and Poachers: The Political Ecology of Dispossession of the Native Peoples of Sarawak’, Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters, 3: 158–79. ———. 2003. ‘Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas: Rights, Principles and Practice’, Nomadic Peoples NS, 7(1): 33–51. Collignon, B. 1996. Les Inuit. Ce qu’ils savent du territoire [The Inuits: What they know of the territory]. Paris: L’Harmattan. Crémin, E. 2007. ‘La tribu mising du fleuve Brahmapoutre au coeur d’une crise socioenvironnementale: d’un mode de vie traditionnel à la redéfinition d’un territoire’ [The Mising tribe of the Brahmaputra River at the heart of a socio-environmental crisis: From a traditional lifestyle to the redefinition of a territory]. Mémoire de Master 2 Recherche. Environnement: Milieux, techniques et Sociétés. MNHN, INRA, Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot. Debarbieux, B. 1995. ‘Le lieu, le territoire et trois figures de rhétorique’ [The place, the territory and three figures of rethoric], L’Espace géographique, 2: 97–112. Deffontaines, J.P. 2006. ‘Rôle du territoire dans l’ajustement des discordances entre dynamiques sociales et biophysiques?’ [Role of the territory in the adjustment of
BELONGING, PROTECTED AREAS, AND PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTâ•… 269 discrepancies between social and biophysical dynamics] in C. Beck, Y. Luginbühl, and T. Muxart (eds), Temps et espaces des crises de l’environnement, pp. 333–40. Paris: Éditions Quae, collection INdiSciplineS. Deffontaines, J.P. and J.P. Prod’homme (eds). 2000. Territoires et acteurs du développement local, de nouveaux lieux de démocratie [Territories and actors of local development, democracy’s new places]. Paris: Editions de l’Aube. Di Méo, G. 2004. ‘Une géographie sociale dans le triangle des rapports hommes, sociétés, espaces’ [A social geography in the triangle of relationships between men, societies and spaces], Bulletin de l’association des Géographes Français, 2: 194–204. Dutta, A.K. 2001. The Brahmaputra. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Eyben, R. and S. Ladbury. 2006. ‘Building Effective States: Taking a Citizen’s Perspective’, in Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. Available online at www.drc-citizenship.org/docs/publications/ drc_general/Report/drccitizensperspective.pdf (last date of access: 1 December 2008). Guyot, S. 2004. ‘Derrière l’écotourisme, le politique: conservation et discrimination territoriale en Afrique du Sud’ [The politics behind ecotourism: conservation and territorial discrimination in South Africa], Revue Tiers Monde, ‘Les masques du tourisme’, 178 (April–June): 341–64. ———. 2006. Rivages Zoulous [Zulu shores]. Paris: Karthala, Collection Tropiques. Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger. 1992. ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, pp. 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ives, J.D. 2004. Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-being of Mountain Peoples. London and New York: Routledge. Jolivet, M.-J. and P. Léna. 2000. ‘Des territoires aux identités (Logiques identitaires, logiques territoriales)’ [From territories to identities (Identity logics, territorial logics)], Autrepart, Cahier des sciences humaines, Editions de l’Aube, IRD, nouvelle série (14): 5–16. Kabeer, N. 2005. Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions. London: Zed Books. Kollmair, M. and U. Müller-Böker. 1999. ‘Implementation of a Participative Conservation Approach as Seen from the Viewpoint of the Local Population: A Case Study in the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal’, EcoSys, Beiträge zur Ökosystemforschung, 28: 211–19. Kollmair, M., U. Müller-Bökker, and R. Soliva. 2003. ‘The Social Context of Nature Conservation in Nepal’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 24: 25–62. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern (Translated from French by Catherine Porter). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Lego, N. 2005. History of the Mishings of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. Itanagar: Ponung Lego. Meyer, F. and G. Koppert. 1983. ‘Anthropology of Health and Nutrition’ [Anthropology of Health and Nutrition], in Ecologie et développement, Journées franconépalaises, 27–30 novembre 1983, pp. 20, typescript, Villejuif, Centre d’études himalayennes.
270â•… JOëLLE SMADJA Mipun, J. 2000 [1987]. The Mishings (Miris) of Assam: Development of a New Lifestyle. New Delhi: Gian Publishing House. Müller-Böker, U. and M. Kollmair. 2000. ‘Livelihood Strategies and Local Perceptions of a New Nature Conservation Project in Nepal: The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area Project’, Mountain Research and Development, 20(4): 324–31. Padun, N. 2006. ‘Whose State is It Anyway?’ Pro Mising Action, 4(1): 2. Pegu, N.C. 1956. The Miris or the Mishings of the Brahmaputra Valley. Majuli, Assam: Kumarbari. Pimbert, M.P. and J.N. Prety. 1997. ‘Parks, People and Professionals: Putting “Participation” into Protected-Area Management’, in K.B. Ghimire and M.P. Pimbert (eds), Social Change and Conservation. Environmental Politics and Impacts of National Parks and Protected Areas, pp. 297–330. London: Earthscan. Ripert, B., I. Sacareau, T. Boisseaux, and S. Tawa Lama. 2009 [First edition in French, 2003]. ‘Discourse and Law: Resource Management and Environmental Policies since 1950’, in J. Smadja (ed.), Reading Himalayan Landscapes over Time: Environmental Perception, Knowledge and Practice in Nepal and Ladakh. pp. 379–417 Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry. Robbins, P. 2001. ‘Tracking Invasive Land Covers in India, or Why Our Landscapes Have Never Been Modern’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91(4): 637–59. Rossi, G. 2000. L’ingérence écologique [Ecological Interference]. Paris: CNRS Editions, Espaces et milieux. Saberwal, V., M. Rangarajan, and A. Kothari. 2000. People, Parks and Wildlife: Towards Co-existence. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited. Sacareau, I. 1997. Porteurs de l’Himalaya. Le trekking au Népal [Porters in the Himalayas]. Paris: Belin, Mappemonde. ———. 2006. Tourisme et sociétés en développement: une approche géographique appliquée aux montagnes et aux sociétés des pays du Sud, Mémoire d’habilitation à diriger des recherches. Paris: Université Paris I-Sorbonne. Shrestha, S. 2009 [First edition in French, 2003]. ‘Environmental Protection, Impoverishment of Men: Botan Village on the Periphery of Rara National Park’, in J. Smadja (ed.), Reading Himalayan Landscapes over Time: Environmental Perception, Knowledge and Practice in Nepal and Ladakh, pp. 421–34. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry. Silori, C.S. 2001. ‘Biosphere Reserve Management in Theory and Practice: Case of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, Western Himalaya, India’, Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy, 4(3): 205–19. Smadja, J. 2005a. ‘Himalaya, une nouvelle géographie de la chaîne’, in J. Smadja and P. Sorgues (eds), ‘Himalaya’, Geo, 311 (January): 66–74. ———. 2005b. ‘La politique de protection a établi une coupure entre les hommes et la nature’, in J. Smadja and P. Sorgues (eds), ‘Himalaya’, Geo, 311 (January): 76. ———. (ed.) 2009a [First edition in French, 2003]. Reading Himalayan Landscapes over Time: Environmental Perception, Knowledge and Practice in Nepal and Ladakh. (Translated from French by B. Sellers). Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry. ———. 2009b. ‘A reading of the Salme Tamangs’ Territory and Landscape’, in J. Smadja (ed.), Reading Himalayan Landscapes over Time. Environmental Perception, Knowledge and Practice in Nepal and Ladakh, pp. 199–239. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry.
BELONGING, PROTECTED AREAS, AND PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTâ•… 271 Smith, E.A. and M. Wishnie. 2000. ‘Conservation and Subsistence in Small-scale Societies’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 29: 493–524. Soliva, R., M. Kollmair, and U. Müller-Böker. 2003. ‘Nature Conservation and Sustainable Development’, in M. Domroes (ed.), Translating Development: The Case of Nepal, pp. 142–77. New Delhi: Social Science Press. Thomazo, J. 2006. La gestion des espaces forestiers indiens. L’exemple de l’Assam et du Meghalaya [Management of forest areas in Himalayas: The example of Assam and Meghalay], Mémoire de Master 1, Géographie et Aménagement, Université Paris X Nanterre. Verrier, E. 1993 [1958]. Myths of the North-East Frontier of India. Itanagar: Directorate of Research, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. Wheeler, J.C. and D.R. Hoces. 1997. ‘Community Participation, Sustainable Use and Vicuna Conservation in Peru’, Mountain Research and Development, 17(3): 283–87.
Chapter 13 Geocultural Identities and Belonging in the Ethnohistory of Central Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India Maheshwar P. Joshi
INTRODUCTIOn The geographical area that comprises Uttarakhand extends from the western border of Nepal in the east to the river Tons, a tributary of the Yamuna, in the west; and from the Terai-Bhabhar region in a line from Dehra Dun to Khatima-Tanakpur in Nainital district in the south to the western Tibetan border in the north. It is situated between 28º44´ and 31º25´ north latitude, and 77º45´ and 81º1´ east longitude. For the Hindus, Uttarakhand Himalaya is noted for being the source of their most sacred rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, and the seat of “the great shrines of Badari and Kedar…To them Kumaon Himalaya is what Palestine is to Christian” (Atkinson 1884: 703). Today, Uttarakhand is divided into 13 districts, of which Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar are plains districts, nearly a third part of each of Nainital and Dehra Dun districts is in the plains, and the remaining nine districts are in the hills. Uttarakhand’s capital is Dehra Dun (Dehra Dun district). In the last census its population numbered 8,489,349 (Anonymous, 2004: 1). On the basis of tradition it has been assumed—but without any conclusively probative evidence—that the Dom (the Scheduled Castes of Uttarakhand now styled Das-Shilpakar) were the aborigines of this region. They were then subjugated by the ‘early wave of the IndoAryans’, called Khasa, in the remote past. The Khasa in turn were subdued by high-caste immigrants belonging to the Brahman and Kshatriya varnas who started migrating into the central Himalaya
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from about the seventh century ad onwards (for references and critique, see Joshi, 1998a). Significantly, with the exceptions of the Kunindas, who reigned supreme between c. 200 bc and c. ad 300 (Joshi, 1989), archaeological sources hardly provide any information, on the basis of which, the ethnicity of the early inhabitants of the central Himalaya can be determined. Nevertheless, these traditions essentialized central Himalayan society as representing two categories, namely, bith (the ritually clean), forming the migrant groups, and dom/dum (the impure), comprising the aborigines. Accordingly, it was pictured that, depending on their closeness to the rulers, the most cultured bith appropriated power and resources by subduing the rest (see, for details, Sanwal, 1976).
BELONGING IN THE CENTRAL HIMALAYA—THE PRE-BRITISH PERIOD (c. ad 1745–1815) It is interesting to note that at sometime in the past the central Himalaya witnessed a remarkable process of othering, whereby certain groups within the same community enjoyed power and prestige, leaving their others lagging behind. It cannot be said precisely when this process started, but available records clearly show that it already existed in the eighteenth century ad, before the occupation of the central Himalaya by the Gorkha, and progressed by leaps and bounds during British rule (ad 1815–1947). This is evident from the traditional histories of various castes recorded during the British rule.1 I will present a summary account of certain widely popular traditions as follows.
King Som Chandra and His Attendants Traditions are unanimous in that Som Chandra, the founder of the Chandra dynasty of Kumaon, was an immigrant from the plains of India, be it from Jhusi, Kanauj, or Kalinjer. Significantly, copperplate grants and revenue records of the Chandra dynasty reveal that Som Chandra was not a historical person. At least up to the time of Baj Bahadur Chandra (ad 1638–78), the Chandras traced their ancestry to Gyan Chandra (ad 1378–1420) (for details see, Joshi, 1995).
274â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI Therefore, the tradition of Som Chandra was invented after Baj Bahadur Chandra. Two major historical events, namely, the Rohila invasions of Kumaon and their occupation of its capital Almora in ad 1744, and the Gorkha conquest of Kumaon, and its annexation to Nepal (ad 1791–1815) contributed substantially to this mythopoeia, as will be clear from what follows. Thus, the Kalyanachandrodayam, a Sanskrit work written immediately after the defeat of the Rohilas (Mishra, n.d.) highlights the loyalty of certain maula Brahman counsellors of the Chandra dynasty, and eulogizes King Kalyan Chandra (the hero of the work) and his Brahman supporters, particularly the author, his ancestors, and Shiv Dev Joshi—the Prime Minister of Kalyan Chandra—as if they alone liberated Kumaon from the Rohilas. However, contemporary Chandra copperplate inscriptions reveal that during the Rohila invasion King Kalyan Chandra was deserted by his functionaries and personal attendants, and was forced to flee. At this juncture Anup Singh Taragi from the Champawat region and Sumer Singh Adhikari from the Ranikhet region came to the rescue of the crown, and eventually Kalyan Chandra came out victorious (Joshi, 1998b). In the context of belonging, it would be interesting to ‘read’ the importance of the term maula2 used in the Kalyanachandrodayam. This says that the predecessors of King Kalyan Chandra, from Rudra Chandra to Udyot Chandra (ad 1567–1698), honoured the counsel of hereditary maula advisers of noble lineage, and hence prospered (Kalyanachandrodayam, passim, particularly, canto V, verses 41–43). However, with the advent of a Khasa named Manik in the Chandra polity the worthy Brahmans of noble lineages were marginalized and prosecuted, and their lands were confiscated. The work advises the king to revert again to the old order so as to regain power and prosperity by patronizing those maula counsellors whose names are specifically mentioned in the Kalyanachandrodayam (V. 46–48). Thus, combined study of the copperplate inscriptions and the Kalyanachandrodayam makes it clear that those who captured power treated the losers as their others. Under these circumstances, the tradition of Som Chandra was invented as a prop for claiming maula status during the chaotic period following the Rohila attack, as it helped certain families to pretend a closeness to the Chandras, as if it dated from the very time of the foundation of that dynasty in Kumaon. This is clear from the earliest known Vamshavalis
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(genealogies) of two different Brahman families written in the wake of the Rohila invasions, in which for the first time the name ‘Som’ occurs, namely, the Silval Joshi Vamshavali (SJV) and the Simaltiya Pandeya Vamshavali (SPV). The former was written by Trilochan, who was born in Shaka 1661 (ad 1739). According to it, Lankaraj, the founder of SJV, came to Kumaon from Kanauj during the reign of Som Chandra, and his son Prithuraj was appointed as purohita (family priest) by the Chandras (Shrikrishna, n.d.: 1; Manuscript no. 1: Opening verses 32–33). The SPV was composed by Padmadeva, a senior contemporary of Trilochan. According to SPV the founder of this lineage, Harihara, the guru (preceptor) of Som Chandra, came to Kumaon from Kanauj with the latter (Shastri, 1925: 7). The Garga Gotri Joshi Vamshavali (GGJV) adds further to our knowledge (we have no information about its date and authorship). According to tradition Sudhanidhi Chaube, the founder of the GGJ family, came from Unnao. He accompanied Prince Som Chandra when the latter set out on a pilgrimage to Badrinath in Garhwal (Pande, 1937: 231–32). Eventually, Som Chandra was installed as a Chief in Kali Kumaon (Champawat), and appointed Sudhanidhi as his vajir or divan (terms traditionally denoting the Chief Minister) (ibid.: 564). It is interesting that historically the names of the Joshi and Pande Brahman functionaries mentioned in the earliest known copperplates of the Chandras do not agree with the ones occurring in the Vamshavalis just mentioned (Joshi, 1990). Nevertheless, in order to gain trust and closeness to the royal family the authors of these genealogies, regardless of the facts, assiduously propagated the idea that the Silval Joshis, the Simaltiya Pandes, and the Garga Gotri Joshis were respectively the hereditary purohits (priests), gurus (preceptors), and vajirs or divans (prime ministers) of the Chandras from the time of Som Chandra, and therefore the maula counsellors of the Chandra kings. This invented tradition in part succeeded in achieving its purpose because Kalyan Chandra was not himself a successor to the Chandra throne in the direct line. His ancestors had fled from Almora to Doti (far western Nepal). He was illiterate and leading a miserable life in Doti when he was chosen as a successor to the vacant throne during the years of chaos (Atkinson, 1884: 583–86). So he himself faced a crisis of identity in presenting himself as a maula successor to the Chandra throne, and therefore these invented traditions also helped him to establish his own credentials.
276â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI The political society of Kumaon continued to be in turmoil throughout the remaining period of Chandra rule up to ad 1791. There were several contending factions in the Chandra kingdom, each trying to gain political control, and this attracted the attention of the Gorkhas. Consequently, with the help of the faction of Harsha Dev Joshi, son of Shiv Dev Joshi, the Gorkhas occupied Kumaon in ad 1791. This brought about a radical change in political society. In the Chandra polity, state functionaries were remunerated with land grants that included the enjoyment of various state dues that were levied upon the granted land. However, the Gorkhas restructured land and revenue management and imposing only 10 kinds of taxes (Atkinson, 1886: 462), they eliminated the age-old rights of several dominant groups, who suffered economically and lost their sociopolitical status. Yet another manipulation of belonging that occured during the short period of Gorkha rule (ad 1791–1815) is worth noting. We have already noted that Harsha Dev Joshi helped the Gorkhas; and consequently during the early stages of Gorkha rule the Garga Gotri Joshis of the village of Jhijar (district of Champawat, Kumaon) led by Harsha Dev Joshi became very influential. As a result, even nonGarga Gotri Joshis claimed to belong to ‘Jhijaud’ (which is the same as Jhijad/Jhijar) to gain a foothold in the Gorkha polity, as is evident from ‘the chronicle of Damodara’s clan’ of the Angiras Gotra settled in Raginas, Nepal (Pant, 2002: 126–27). Significantly, the Angiras Gotri Joshis, also known as Senu Joshis (Sedhaaee Jaisi/Josi/Joisi in Nepali documents), trace their origin to the village of Senu (Katyur Valley, district of Bageshwar) in Kumaon. They have nothing to do with Jhijar (Manuscript no. 3).
COMPLEXITIES OF BELONGING DURING THE BRITISH RAJ (ad 1815–1947) Early British archival material is replete with references to certain local ‘principal inhabitants’ whom the British contacted for support to conquer Kumaon–Garhwal (Saksena, 1956: 1–9, 16–23, 31–42, 56–61, etc). After the conquest, these ‘principal inhabitants’ also helped the British to consolidate their power and enrich the government treasury so as to acquire their own niche in the new polity. However, the British abolished all customary higher offices,
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and carried out several land settlements. They managed with a few low- and middle-ranking salaried/contractual offices, and introduced inalienable ownership of land—all new symbols of power and prestige. To acquire these status symbols once again history was reinvented so as to claim a hereditary administrative stature that could figure as a desirable qualification for the salaried/contractual posts. At this stage family histories were required to prove the credentials of the claimants to these posts. This situation accounts for the proliferation of traditions picturing the ancestors of different dominant groups as migrants from one or another advanced geocultural seat outside Kumaon or Garhwal, with the then rulers thereupon appointing them to appropriate offices suited to their qualifications. Conversely, the autochthones/early settlers of the hills were branded as uncultured, and hence unqualified for employment. This explains the invention of yet another tradition representing Som Chandra of Kanauj as coming to Kumaon with 27 (or 24) attendants (Pande, 1937: 231–32). Significantly, the list of attendants reproduced by Pande (ibid.) does not mention the Lankaraj of SJV and Harihara of SPV mentioned earlier. It lists seven names from Brahman castes, three Kshatriya, two fishermen, one barber, one betel server, and five other persons without any caste affiliations, making a total of nineteen names; the remaining eight are left unidentified. This tradition provided a handy device for any community to claim immigrant status in the hills, and climb on the bandwagon of maula attendants, for it not only comprised different professions and castes, but also provided blank space for eight others of any caste antecedents whatever. Sahlins (1983) noted a similar myth based on kaunitoni migration while studying the Fijians of Moala Island. Elsewhere, we have shown that the notion of being ‘immigrant’ seems to have brought about “a total transformation of Kumaoni society from a fluid state of caste to that society highly characterized by differing claims to higher status” (Brown and Joshi, 1990: 258). The British apparently accepted these traditions, for they suited their own ideas of origin and social order (cf. Trautman, 1997), whereby it was claimed that the native Indians were inferiors, and that most of the superior elements in Indian history were introduced by foreign invaders, the British included. Moreover, there is a homology between the advent of the Chandras in Kumaon (Atkinson, 1884: 497–502; Pande, 1937: 230–32), the Pamvar rulers in Garhwal (Atkinson, 1884: 446), and the British in Kumaon–Garhwal
278â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI (declaration addressed to the people of Kumaon, Home/Misc/645: 449, dated 15 January 1815; and of Garhwal, Home/Misc/647: 224, dated 23 January 23, 1815; India Office Library and Records, London). All figure as liberating the local people from the yoke of their earlier atrociously oppressive rulers. Official British accounts invariably picture the autochthones/early settlers of the central Himalaya as uncivilized, in sharp contrast to the cultured, high-caste, and knowledgeable later migrant families from the plains. Such notions inspired the dominant groups to invent traditions corroborating their plains origin. Witness, for example, Traill’s (1828: 159–60) remarks that the ‘original occupants’ of Kumaon–Garhwal “have been completely uncivilized, and wholly ignorant of agriculture and of the common arts of life”; and that in some ‘not very remote’ period it was colonized by people “from the plains of Hindustan”, who introduced “their religion and knowledge” here. In the first ever census of 1865 (Plowden, 1867), it is further elaborated in Captain Fisher’s (1867: 28) enumeration of the “Brahmin, Rajpoot Thakoor, Rajpoot”, and the ‘Bunneah’ castes as immigrants from different places outside Kumaon, as contrasted to ‘Kuseea’ and ‘Dome’, represented as “Hindoo…of Kumaon Province”. Gardner (1867: 29–30), reporting on the castes in Garhwal in the same census report, though not as precise as Captain Fisher, says that from about ad 688 “a number of Brahmins and Rajpoots from the plains started migrating to Garhwal” whose descendants “still pride themselves on superiority to the other inhabitants”, and that the ‘Dooms’, the ‘aborigines’ of the hills live in “the state of slavery and degradation”. The list of immigrants from some place or another outside Kumaon or Garhwal continued to grow by degrees in the works of subsequent writers, notably: Atkinson (1884: 266–77, 421–53), Upreti (1889, 1907), Raturi (2004: 71–89), Turner (1933), and Pande (1937: 558–630). Furthermore, there were several others who also wrote on caste antecedents (e.g., on Kumaon, Shastri, 1925; Pandeya, 1995; Chaudhari, n.d.; Shrikrishna, n.d.; Manuscripts nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).3 The burden of these writings is stereotyped, and builds on the concept of migration. For example, the very title of Manuscript no. 2, containing 23 pages, reads Kurmanchal Pradesh mem jo log anya 2 Deshom se aye unaka sankshipta vivarana (‘Short description of those people who came to Kumaon Province from other countries’). It describes the caste antecedents of all the four varnas of the Hindus in Kumaon, namely, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and
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Shudra. Inclusion of several Shudra clans as immigrants in Kumaon is significant, for example, as we have already mentioned, the Doms (Shudras) are invariably represented as the autochthones of the central Himalaya. However, certain status-conscious Shudra communities of the central Himalaya, particularly some of the Tamtas (coppersmiths), claim that their ancestors migrated to Kumaon from Rajasthan, though the practice of coppersmithing in the central Himalaya can be traced back to the third–second millennium bc (Joshi, 1997). The caste antecedents of the central Himalayan peoples from the time of Plowden (1867) to that of Pande (1937) reveal a significant difference as we proceed from Kumaon to Tehri–Garhwal4, as is shown in Table 13.1. Table 13.1 Number of Brahmin and Kshatriya Castes of Uttarakhand Claiming Immigrant Status Total Brahmin Castes Kumaon
62 ‘I category’ 186 ‘Other category’
Garhwal TehriGarhwal
Immigrant Brahmin Castes 62 183
33 ‘Sarola’
19
65 ‘Gangadi’
53
354 no category
48
Total Rajput Castes 26 ‘I category’ 303 ‘II category’
Immigrant Rajput/ Kshatriya Castes 26 303
116 ‘reputed’
77
70 ‘higher order’
40
Source: Based on Pande (1937: 580–89, 601–12), Raturi (2004: 71–78, 81–88), and Turner (1933: 572–77).
This table shows that the Brahmans and Rajputs/Kshatriyas claiming higher-caste immigrant status in Kumaon, number respectively 98.7 per cent and 100 per cent; in Garhwal, the Brahmans making such claims number 73.4 per cent and the Rajputs/Kshatriyas 66.3 per cent; and in Tehri-Garhwal, the Brahmans figure 13.55 per cent, and the Rajputs/Kshatriyas 57.1 per cent. Obviously, during the British period, the highest percentage of the Brahmans and Rajputs/ Kshatriyas recorded as immigrants and claiming higher caste status is concentrated in Kumaon, followed by Garhwal. In Tehri-Garhwal, the Princely State under the native rulers of Garhwal, the percentage
280â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI was considerably lower. Apparently, the political conditions prevailing in close proximity to the centre of British control in Kumaon made it far more rewarding to claim immigrant status there. We already have noticed how the maula status was advisable for winning a berth in the Chandra polity. It carried with it entitlements to various land grants and certain privileges that the recipients could share jointly with their kinsmen. However, there were no such provisions under the British, who remunerated their functionaries with cash. This new situation gave rise to internal competition among the collateral branches of the various maula claimants to different offices in the British Raj, in turn resulting in internal othering. This is clear from Atkinson’s observation: On the British occupation, the office of kanungo in Kumaon was found divided amongst two families, one of Chaudhris and one of Joshis.… Practically, however, the Dwarahat Chaudhris furnished kanungos for Pali and Barahmandal; the Dhaniya Joshis, one for Shor and one for Chaugarkha, and the Jijhar Joshis, one for Kali Kumaon; and all acted generally as collectors of the land-revenue, writers and record keepers. (1886: 505–06)
It is to be noted that “the officers who were known by the name of duftrees under the Goorkha Government were styled cannongoes [kanungos]…” (Whalley, 1870: 37). However, pre-Gorkha records in Kumaon do not support the existence of such an office, although we do come across revenue records termed daftara (Joshi, 1992, 1998c).5 Interestingly, Atkinson’s statement metioned in the preceding paragraph reveals the dominance of three families during the early British period, namely, the ‘Dwarahat’ Chaudhris, and the Joshis of ‘Dhaniya’ (Danya) and ‘Jijhar’ (Jhijar). The Joshis of ‘Galli’ are conspicuous by their absence, although the official Gorkha documents reveal that Shiv Ram Joshi of Galli was appointed as Tehsildar in charge of the Pancha Daftar (Five Records/Offices), that is, the Chief Record-Keeper of Kumaon during Gorkha rule (vide the Lal-Mohar letter issued by Kaji Gaj Keshar Pande, dated Samvat 1860, Magh, sudi 7). In the administrative hierarchy, the post of a Tehsildar was two ranks higher than that of a kanungo. Additionally, he was in overall charge of the five daftaras. Apparently, the Galli Joshis were marginalized owing to their closeness to the Gorkha regime, and became the others of the Dhaniya and Jhijar Joshis.
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Use of village names, that is, speaking of the Joshis of the villages ‘Dhaniya’ (Danya), and ‘Jijhar’ (Jhijar), is significant. In terms of internal hierarchy, ‘othering’ their collateral lines, the Joshis so described ‘claimed superiority’ over their kinsmen settled in other villages, and hence to be the legitimate heirs to government offices. The case with several other castes is similar. In fact the early British records containing the caste names of Brahmans are highly revealing in that the mind-set of certain sections of society continued to articulate maula traits. Thus, Traill records: The principal classes of Brahmins are Joshis, Panths, and Pandes, in Kamaon, and Khanduris and Dobhals, in Gerhwal, all of which are extremely scrupulous and prejudiced. Among the lower ranks of Brahmins, great latitude is taken in regard to labor, food, &c., and their claim to the distinction of that caste is, in consequence, little recognised. (1828: 162)
Captain Fisher’s (1867: 28) account of Brahman ‘castes’ of Kumaon is equally revealing. He notes the degradation of certain Brahman castes descending from the Pandeys. About the ‘Joshee Brahmins’ of Kumaon he remarks: “Their ancestors were Chowbey Brahmins…”, obviously referring to the Garga Gotri Joshis of Jhijar, who, as was noted earlier, trace their ancestry to Sudhanidhi Chaube. Accordingly, for him Silwal Joshis, Danya Joshis, and Galli Joshis, who played important roles in pre-British political society, became non-entities. These records look like the British version of the maula castes. This sort of caste feeling is still intense; and a thorough programme of sociological research will add considerably to our knowledge of the role it played in the political society of the central Himalaya. Witness, for example, the rules of commensality. Traditions have it that no bith (pure castes, particularly Brahmans) in Uttarakhand would accept cooked food from one another because of a strong sense of geocultural superiority. Eventually, it was ordained by the respective rulers of Kumaon and Garhwal that food cooked by a Rasyara Pande in Kumaon (Pande, 1937: 562) and a Sarola Brahman in Garhwal (Atkinson, 1886: 267) would have to be accepted by all. Such traditions helped the descendants of self-styled maula functionaries claim higher socio-political status so as to obtain benefits from the British Raj. Significantly, available archival records, dating between ad 1856 and 1884, clearly show that Brahmans
282â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI of Uttarakhand monopolized government offices, with ‘Joshi outclassing all others’ (see, for details, Tolia, 1998: 6–13). Another benefit of such claims was entitlement to proprietary land tenure, because inalienable ownership of land was granted on the basis of customary land laws. Therefore, the descendants of maula functionaries invented and distributed systems of land tenure in keeping with their racial image of Kumaon. Accordingly, along with their close allies, they claimed thatwan (proprietorship) tenure, while their others, labelled Khasa, were assigned sirthan and khaikar (tenant cultivator) tenures, and the autochthonous Doms, the kaini (serf) tenure (Joshi, 1998c). This fictitious racial profile has been internalized by both the scholars working on the central Himalaya and the local peoples themselves. How it helped in determining social stratification and power negotiations can be attested to by Sanwal’s (1976) otherwise brilliant sociological study on Kumaon. This shows how belonging to any geocultural place outside Kumaon was taken as a passport to admission not only into the higher ranks in the social hierarchy, but also to the upper echelons of power in the Chandra polity. Sanwal’s thesis rests on the invented tradition of the dharmadhikari, an office that never existed during the Chandra period.6 However, in Sanwal’s reconstruction of caste antecedents it plays a central role in determining the socio-ritual hierarchy and thereby in recruitment to various offices in the polity during the Chandra period. Sanwal (1976: 136) notes: In Chand times the state exercised, through the dharmadhikari, the authority to allocate individuals to particular castes in all cases where the normal rules of patrilineal affiliation were not applicable or to legitimize shifts in ritual status in line with changes in the control of political and economic resources. Conformity to the hierarchical norms was also enforced by the state.
Thus, we notice that the appellation maula was used as the central mechanism in creating ‘others’, so as to establish socio-political hegemony. In varying contexts, the term maula was used as denoting those migrating from any superior geocultural place outside Kumaon or Garhwal,7 as the case might be, or else those hailing from some particular village, and hence superior to their others in the system of power relations.
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THE POLITICS OF BELONGING TODAY— CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS In the foregoing sections of this chapter we noticed that immigrant status was used as a determinant of higher ranking in the political society of the central Himalaya to negotiate access to power. However, such forms of access to status are not rewarding in a democracy, in which all ethnic identities can play an equally vital role, leading to a requirement for re-alignment of power relations. The practice of sharing differential power is still continuing, but the actors and their identities this time represent different types of units, as the politics of belonging in the central Himalaya has been at the crossroads ever since the introduction of a UP (Uttar Pradesh) Government Order (GO, UPPS Act no. 4 of 1994 No. 1/1/94-karmik-1-94, dated 29 March 1994) providing a 27 per cent reservation of seats for the OBCs (‘Other Backward Classes’), both in the institutions of learning and in employment in the governmental and semi-governmental bodies and such autonomous establishments which receive government aid. Significantly, the traditional hills society has no OBCs (Joshi, 2005; Sanwal, 1976, passim), and its caste composition changed gradually from the advent of the British onwards. Terms like ‘Scheduled Tribes and Castes’, and ‘Backward Classes’ (BCs), and more recently ‘Other Backward Classes’, have gained currency since the Constitution of India came into force in ad 1949. Accordingly, it was held that before the introduction of the OBC award, the population of the hills comprised some 2 per cent of Scheduled Tribes, 7 per cent of BCs, and 21 per cent of Scheduled Castes, with the remaining 70 per cent falling into the general category—a suggestion accepted by the High Court of UP at Allahabad in the course of admitting a writ petition filed by the Late Maharaja Manvendra Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament from Tehri, challenging the GO just mentioned. Accordingly, the GO was amended and seats in the educational institutions were reserved in accordance with the above-mentioned earlier system of distribution (Kumaun University, Nainital, notification no. Manyata/Pravesh/Arakshana-2/729, dated 30 September 1996). However, this verdict of the High Court was not considered by the government as affecting the matter of employment.
284â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI Consequently, owing to job reservation the number of OBC employees in various government departments increased significantly, notably in education, the judiciary, the police, and the revenue, administration, irrigation, forest, customs and excise, public works, health departments, and so on, thereby concomitantly increasing their power and prestige, while the bith have been losers to a corresponding extent.8 Contemporary history indicates that once again under changed circumstances, the modern reincarnations of the maula are re-aligning to share differential power. This is made clear, first, by the election of Nityanand Swamy as the Chief Minister by the BJP Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), followed by that of the two current Members of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), namely, Captain Satish Sharma and Satyavrat Chaturvedi, both of them Maidani (natives of the plains) from the state of UP, by the Congress MLAs. The latest glaring examples of this kind are the appointments of the Chairmen of Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam and Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam by the Uttarakhand government under the BJP. These two bodies, exclusively established for the development of, respectively, the Kumaon and the Garhwal hills by the UP government, are considered as the time-honoured official icons of the hills identity. The highlanders enjoyed the de facto right to hold the posts of chairmen of these establishments by virtue of possessing the experience of the hardships of the backward hills. However, the present incumbencies are filled by persons of the Vaishya community of plains origin, living in the plains of Uttarakhand. In all these cases, power relations make political society reluctant to protest against such decisions of their superiors. Therefore, realignment of various groups along new lines is made conspicuous by the recent appearance of formations such as the ‘Maidani Kranti Dal’ (Revolutionary Party of the Natives of the Plains) in Haridwar district, the ‘Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Sabha’ (All-India Association of Kshatriyas) in Almora district, the ‘Kumaum Vaishya Mahasabha (Registered), Kashipur’ (the Great Congregation of Kumaoni Vaishyas, listing 304 septs of Vaishyas widely circulated in posters), Udhamsingh Nagar district, and the ‘Shri Parashuram Mahasabha (Registered)’, Rishikesh (Dehra Dun district), of Brahmins, besides the time-honoured Kumaon Parishad (of Kumaonis) and Garhwal Sabha (of Garhwalis) in Dehra Dun, to name only a prominent few. These formations overlap territorial and ethnic boundaries, and blur geocultural identities.
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Significantly, descendants of a sizeable number of Paharis settled several generations ago in the adjoining Tarai, Bhabhar, and the Duns plains of Uttarakhand have intermingled with the Maidanis through matrimonial alliances. In Garhwal they are known as Kathamali, and in Kumaon, Bhabhari. Depending on circumstances, they are at home equally with both a Pahari and a Maidani identity. Such a stock of Paharis has further blurred the Pahari ethnicity. But in negotiating power such an uncertain identity is highly rewarding. With the formation of Uttarakhand, a new trend concerning belonging is emerging. Replacing invented geocultural identities, it is building on geophysical factors, as can be seen in the clear-cut divide made between people living in the hills and in the plains of Uttarakhand. The former argue that it was owing to the backwardness of the hills region in the state of UP that the Pahari state of Uttarakhand was formed. However, the inclusion of the Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar districts, situated in the plains, has complicated the issue, as these are populated by an overwhelming majority of non-Paharis, who protested against the merger of those districts in Uttarakhand.9 The paradox is that since the formation of Uttarakhand these two districts have benefited most, thanks to the various incentives given by the Uttarakhand government to attract private entrepreneurs through SIDKUL (State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation Ltd). The official website clearly shows that, of the 33 industries established in Uttarakhand, 15 each are situated in Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar districts. Furthermore, all the seven ‘Industrial Estates’ are situated in the plains.10 This has benefited the people of these districts, and they are now striving to carve out for themselves a dominant niche in the political society of Uttarakhand as well. By contrast, the hills region has not experienced any noticeable developmental activities. Witness, for example, Uttarakhand’s agricultural operations, which reveal a contrast of uneven irrigation infrastructures, showing the net irrigated area of the plains standing at 87.9 per cent, but that of the hills at barely 12.1 per cent (Mittal et al., 2008: Table 35). The drinking water supply in the hills is also precarious as a result of depleted resources (SPC, 2008: 13). Landholdings in the hills are small and fragmented, and nearly 88 per cent are dependent on rain (Mittal et al., 2008: Tables 7, 11, 12, 35; SPC, 2008: 6). This accounts for the almost 50 per cent higher percentage of poverty in Uttarakhand compared to the Indian average (ibid.: 17).
286â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI The woes of the people settled in the hills are further aggravated by the recent redrawing of the boundaries of Uttarakhand Assembly constituencies, which has reduced the number of hills constituencies significantly, so as to tilt the balance of power towards the plains, meaning that the original purpose of the establishment of the hills state will be miserably defeated. This redistribution is based on the number of inhabitants, and nearly 52 per cent of Uttarakhand’s population is now concentrated in the plains area (Anonymous, 2004). Furthermore, it is also believed that the Punjabi community has a significant presence in seven of the Assembly constituencies, and at present there are three MLAs from this community in the Uttarakhand Assembly. As a result of the new redistribution, out of 70 Assembly constituencies only 36 fall in the hills proper (see the table in Rautela, 2008: 18). It is feared that further application of such simple demographic criteria will in future “end the dominance of the hills in the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha”.11 For the present, in addition to a demand for the introduction of rapid developmental activities similar to those in the plains, and for the annulment of the proposed redistribution of the Assembly constituencies, the rallying point of the emerging picture is for the establishment of the state capital at Gairsain (in the district of Chamoli), situated almost in the centre of the Uttarakhand hills. Under these circumstances, geophysical rather than invented geocultural identity, would be instrumental in negotiating power and prestige. Already people voicing such issues have started forming organizations such as ‘Uttarakhandi Samajik Vikas Samgathan’ (Rautela, 2008). And so, unlike what happened in the past, in modern democracy the politics of belonging is no longer an exclusive domain of the elites.
NOTES ╇ 1. Ethnographers have long been engaged in recording the traditions, customs, folklores, social structure, cultural praxis, and so on, of the central Himalaya, but, to the best of my knowledge, these family histories found in the form of genealogies have not been subjected to research. ╇ 2. I have elsewhere (Joshi, 1998a) used the term ‘Intellectual’ for persons claiming maula status. It answers strikingly to the description of ‘intellectuals’ by Gramsci (1970: 124) who says: “Intellectuals are the ‘officers’ of the ruling class for the exercise of the subordinate functions of social hegemony and political government…”.
GEOCULTURAL IDENTITIES AND BELONGING IN THE ETHNOHISTORYâ•… 287 ╇ 3. I have noticed such histories in the private collections of different families during ethno-archaeological explorations from 1963 to date. ╇ 4. Data relating to Kumaon is from Ganga Datt Upreti’s work (1907) cited in Pande (1937). ‘Garhwal’ in Raturi (2004) refers to the traditional Garhwal comprising Pauri- and Tehri-Garhwal; whereas Tehri-Garhwal refers to the Princely State of Tehri-Garhwal. ╇ 5. I have collected the texts of nearly 100 copperplate inscriptions, besides some 1500-odd A-4 size Xeroxed pages of the revenue records relating to the Chandra period (c. ad 1300–1791), in none of which is the office of ‘kanungo’ or ‘duftree’ mentioned. ╇ 6. So far no pre-Gorkha document is known to refer to the office of dharmadhikari in Kumaon. Even the Kalyanachandrodayam, with its strong Brahman bias, does not mention this office. ╇ 7. It is interesting to note that the term maulo occurs in several Nepali Vamshavalis. (e.g., in that published by S.V. Bhattarai, Ancient Nepal, No. 27, 1974), both for a sacrificial pole and for the headman in charge of the pole, ‘usually the eldest member of the first settled kul in the locality or the first kul of pure status’ (personal communication, Dr Marie Lecomte-Tilouine, CNRS, UPR 299, Villejuif cedex, France). Thus, here ‘belonging’ is used in the sense of ‘autochthony’ vis-à-vis ‘legitimacy’ in the ritual context, rather than an official position held by an immigrant in relation to a ruling chief, as in Kumaon. ╇ 8. Witness, for example, the appointment of a Muslim candidate from the plains as ‘Lecturer in Sanskrit’ in Kumaun University under the OBC category. Such glaring instances are cause enough to create resentments among the bith candidates. ╇ 9. http://www.pandeyji.com/uttarakhand/27.cfm. 10. http://www.sidkul.com/sidkulwebs. 11. http://andolan.prayaga.org/2007/02/16/pioneer-delimitation-of-seats-a-majorissue; http://www.pandeyji.com/uttarakhand/27.cfm.
References Anonymous. 2004. Uttaranchal, Census of India 2001, Series 6. Director of Census Operations, Uttarakhand. Delhi: The Controller of Publications. Atkinson, E.T. 1884, 1886. Gazetteer of the Himalayan Districts of the North Western Provinces of India, Volume II (1884), Volume III (1886). Allahabad: N.W. Provinces and Oudh Press. Batten, J.H. 1841. ‘On the Management of the Kumaon Bhabur and the Turai’, in P. Whalley (1870), The Law of the Extra-Regulation Tracts Subordinate to the Government, N.-W. Provinces, pp. 71–77. Allahabad: Government Press, North-Western Provinces. Bhattarai, S.V. 1974. Ancient Nepal, No. 27. Personal Communication, Dr Marie Lecomte-Tilouine, CNRS, UPR 299, Villejuif cedex, France. Brown, C.W. and Maheshwar P. Joshi. 1990. ‘Caste Dynamics and Fluidity in the Historical Anthropology of Kumaon’, in Maheshwar P. Joshi, Allen C. Fanger, and Charles W. Brown (eds), Himalaya: Past and Present, Introductory Volume, pp. 245–65. Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot.
288â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI Chaudhari, Ghanashyam, n.d. Kurmanchaliya Itihasa mem Dwarahat Chaudhari. Almora: Almora Dwarahat Chaudhari Bhratrimandal. Declaration addressed to the people of Kumaon, Home/Misc/645: 449, dated 15 January 1815; and of Garhwal, Home/Misc/647: 224, dated 23 January 1815; India Office Library and Records, London. Fisher, Captain. 1867. ‘A Brief Account of Castes in Kumaon’, in W. Chichele Plowden (ed.), Census of the N.W. Provinces, 1865, Volume I, Appendix B, pp. 27–28 Allahabad: Govt. Press, N-W Provinces. Gardner, D.M. 1867. ‘Gurhwal: Brief Sketch of the Prevailing Castes’, in W. Chichele Plowden (ed.), Census of the N.W. Provinces, 1865, Volume I, p. 28. Appendix B, pp. 29–30. Allahabad: Government Press, N-W Provinces. Gramsci, Antonio. 1970. The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: International Publishers. Joshi, Maheshwar P. 1989. Morphogenesis of Kunindas (c. 200 B.C.–c. A.D. 300): A Numismatic Overview. Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot. ——— . 1990. ‘Kumaoni Vamsavalis: Myth and Reality’, in Maheshwar P. Joshi, Allen C. Fanger, and Charles W. Brown (eds), Himalaya: Past and Present, Introductory Volume, pp. 201–44. Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot. ——— . 1992. ‘Economic Resource Management in the Kumaon of the Chandras’, in Maheshwar P. Joshi, Allen C. Fanger, and Charles W. Brown (eds), Himalaya: Past and Present, Volume II, pp. 239–69. Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot. ——— . 1995. ‘Chronology of the Chandra Dynasty of Kumaon’, in A.M. Shastri (ed.), Visvambhara, pp. 62–76. New Delhi: Harman Publishing House. ——— . 1997. ‘The Tamtas [Coppersmiths] of Central Himalaya: A Diachronic Study’, in K.C. Mahanta (ed.), People of the Himalayas: Ecology, Culture, Development and Change. Journal of Human Ecology, Special issue no. 6, pp. 109–13. Delhi: Kamla-Raj Enterprises. ——— . 1998a. ‘Culture Constructed by Intellectualism and the Intellectualism of Culture: The Case of Central Himalaya’, in I. Stellrecht (ed.), Karakorum– Hindukush–Himalaya: Dynamics of Change, pp. 527–50. Cologne: Rudiger Koppe Verlag. ——— . 1998b. ‘Kumaoni Sources on Rohila Invasion of ad 1743–1745’. International Seminar on 50th Anniversary of India’s Independence and 200 years of Rampur Raza Library, Rampur Raza Library, Rampur, 1998 (in publication). ——— . 1998c. ‘Some Aspects of Socioeconomic History of Kumaon under the Chandras (c. ad 1250–1790 )’, The Indian Historical Review, 23(1–2): 66–99. ——— . 2005. ‘Kumaon and Garhwal: State and Society’, in J.S. Grewal (ed.), The State and Society in Medieval India, pp. 292–312. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lal-Mohar letter issued by Kaji Gaj Keshar Pande, dated Samvat 1860, Magh, sudi 7, in Private Collection of Advocate Ram Chandra Joshi of Galli, Almora. Manuscript no. 1: Bhakti Prabhandha Kavya (includes SJV), Late Mr Garudadhvaj Joshi, Nainital. Manuscript no. 2: Kurmachala Pradesh mem jo log anya 2 Deshon se aye unaka samkshipta vivarana, Advocate Mr Ram Chandra Joshi, Almora. Manuscript no. 3: Balabhadra. Shaka 1702 (AD 1779). Angiras Gotri Joshi Vamshavali, Mr Dayanand Joshi, village of Mala, Almora.
GEOCULTURAL IDENTITIES AND BELONGING IN THE ETHNOHISTORYâ•… 289 Manuscript no. 4: Anonymous (contains glossary of Kumaoni technical terms and dynastic list of rulers of Delhi, followed by the Chandra kings of Kumaon), Advocate Mr Ram Chandra Joshi, Almora. Manuscript no. 5: Anonymous (contains brief history of Kumaon including caste antecedents), Dr V.D.S. Negi, Almora. Mishra, Nityanand. n.d. Shivakavi-virachitam Kurmachaliyakavyantargatam Kalyanachandrodayam (edited with text, Hindi translation and introduction). Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot. Mittal, Surabhi, Gaurav Tripathi and Deepti Sethi. 2008. Official Website of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations—Working Paper No 217. Available online at http://www.icrier.org/publication/Working_Paper_217. pdf. Pande, Badaridatt. 1937 (reprint 1992). Kumaun ka Itihasa. Almora: Shree Almora Book Depot. Pandeya, Bhairavadatta. 1995 Samvat (ad 1938). Kurmachalabhijananam DyoliyaPandeyetiprasiddhanam Sarasvatabrahmananam Itihasasahita Vamshavalih. Palyun (Almora): The Author. Pant, Mahes Raj. 2002. ‘Documents from the Regmi Research Collections’, I, Adarsa, 2: 61–152. A Supplement to Purnima, the Journal of the Samsodhana-mandala. Kathmandu: Pundit Publications. Plowden, W. Chichele. 1867. Census of the N.W. Provinces, 1865, Volume I. ‘General Report and Appendices A., B., C., & D’. Allahabad: Government Press, N-W. Provinces. Raturi, Harikrishna. 2004 (1928). Gadhavala ka Itihasa, 5th Reprint. Tehri–Garhwal: Bhagirathi Prakashan Griha. Rautela, Jagmohan. 2008. ‘Uttarakhand se vishwasaghat kiya swarthi netaom ne’, Yugavani, 8 March: 18–20. Dehra Dun. Sahlins, Marshal. 1983. ‘Other Times, Other Customs: The Anthropology of History’, American Anthropologist, (85): 517–44. Saksena, Banarsi Prasad. 1956. Historical Papers Relating to Kumaun 1809–1842. Allahabad: Government Central Record Office. Sanwal, R.D. 1976. Social Stratification in Rural Kumaon. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Shastri, Manorath Pandeya. 1925. Samkshipta Kurmachala Rajavarnana aura Simaltiya Pandeya Vamshavali. Lucknow: Anglo Oriental Press. Shrikrishna. n.d. Bhakti Prabhandha Kavya. Almora: The Author. SPC. 2008. ‘Poverty, Planning and Development (A Case Study of Uttaranchal State), Part 1 (General Profile). Official website of the State Planning Commission, Uttarakhand. Available online at http://gov.ua.nic.in/planning/Plan/Vol1/Vol1%20Part-1.doc (last month of access: October 2008). Tolia, R.S. 1998. The Office of Kumaon Commissioner and Its Subordinate Offices 1856–1884. Nainital: Centre for Development Studies, UP Academy of Administration. Traill, G.W. 1828. ‘Statistical Sketch of Kamaon’, Asiatic Researches, 16: 137–234. Trautman, Thomas R. 1997. Aryans and British India. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications. Turner, A.C. 1933. ‘Caste in Kumaon Division and Tehri Garhwal State’, in Census of India 1931, Volume XVIII, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Part I, Appendix C, pp. 553–87. Allahabad: Government Press.
290â•… MAHESHWAR P. JOSHI UPPS Act no 4 of 1994: The Uttar Pradesh Public Services (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act of 1994, notification no. 482/ka-1:94-1-1-94, dated 29 March 1994, Government Gazette, Extraordinary, U.P. Serial No. 133 (ka). Upreti, Ganga Datt. 1889. Notes on the Prevailing Castes of Garhwal (cited in Raturi, 2004). Almora: Kumaon Printing Works. ———.1907. Descriptive List of the Martial Castes of the Almora District, U.P. (cited in Pande, 1937). Lucknow: Methodist Publishing House. Whalley, P. 1870. The Law of the Extra-Regulation Tracts Subordinate to the Government, N.W. Provinces, pp. 71–77. Allahabad: Government Press, NorthWestern Provinces. Yugavani, 8 March 2008. Dehra Dun.
Chapter 14 Trials, Witnesses, and Local Stakes in a District Court of Himachal Pradesh1 Daniela Berti
India has developed a well-established secular democracy, with a strongly independent judiciary system, a free press, and a growing economic and political liberalism that has integrated the effects of globalization, consumerism, social justice, and international and human rights. On the other hand, this democracy has been superimposed upon a society that remains largely based on local servitudes of religion, gender, age, caste status, and territorial, kinship, and feudal allegiances—all highly coercive mechanisms through which authority was, and still is, exercised, especially at the rural level. This is not to say that today a ‘modern’ state coexists with ‘traditional’ forms of authority—since even at the rural level, the local society participates in a context of modernization and globalization. However, the kind of relationships or of economic and political activity that people may have at a local level may sometimes enter into conflict with the kind of commitment taken by the Indian state both at national and at international level. In this chapter I shall study how this tension between the state and local society takes shape and is elaborated at a judicial level, within the urban- and state-centred context of a District Court of Justice. This study is based on an ethnographic observation of a judicial case in a Session Court of Mandi, a small town in Himachal Pradesh in the Indian Himalayas. The analysis of the court’s interactions, as well as of the multiple discourses engaged in by the protagonists of the case outside the courtroom, will throw light on the different ways in which the court system of justice, owing to its specific judicial procedures and its legal interpretation of facts, is constantly confronted with, and sometimes hindered by, village-based forms of local belonging.
292â•… DANIELA BERTI The notion of ‘belonging’ that will emerge here is not merely a shared ‘emotional connection’, a ‘sense of experience’, or an ‘attachment to a place’—which is commonly associated to the closely related notion of ‘identity’ (Lovell, 1998; Polletta and Jaspers, 2001). It will rather be considered as a factor or a condition likely to produce various, and sometimes opposite, outcomes. This is indeed, in a sense, closest to the way people themselves make use of the term to interpret their own behaviour when faced with the rule of law. In some of the cases observed in the court, for example, the fact that the accused belonged to the same place as the witnesses, was presented as involving multiple implications—ranging from family affection to village solidarity to common economic or political interests—that were all likely to go in his favour during the trial. In other cases, by contrast, the local dynamics of conflicts—village factionalism, family enmities, local political or economic rivalries—were presented by the accused as the very reason why his co-villagers had fabricated a case against him (Cohn, 1987). The detailed study of court interactions will show how the proceedings themselves—that is, the techniques provided for ascertaining facts—are far from ignoring the issue of belonging. This is shown, for example, by the sentences which the judge or the prosecutor dictate in English to the court typist on behalf of the witness, whenever they think that he is not telling the truth: “It is incorrect that I am deposing falsely for the relationships I have with the accused.” How closely the witness and the accused are related to each other is indeed the very first question asked of them on recording their statement: “Do you know the accused?” or “Do you belong to the same village?” By contrast, if the witness is not related to the accused (i.e., they are neither from the same village nor family and are in no way bound to each other) the witness is called, in the judicial language, an ‘independent witness’—and their statement is seen as having more value in supporting the judge’s decision. Moreover, in civil cases, one of the reasons that may induce a villager to appeal to the court rather than to the village council (Panchayat) is that they consider the judge to be neutral, and that his judgement will not be influenced by the person’s belonging to a caste, a political party, a village faction, or a religious group.2 The neutrality of the court is such a basic rule that a judge cannot stay in the same court for more than three years. He usually gets transferred much earlier than that, precisely with the aim of avoiding the kind of
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‘local entanglement’ that would interfere with his decisions in court cases (Engel, 1978: 136).3 In this context of a sought-after neutrality, I shall focus my analysis on court proceedings to see how the court manages (or fails) to deal with the discrepant dynamic of ‘local belonging’. A study of lowercourt judges fits well with this kind of perspective, since unlike the higher judiciary they have close interactions with ordinary people and are directly concerned with the meticulous recording of facts. Looking into a court’s proceedings and verbal exchanges will also allow an understanding of the articulation between ‘ordinary talk’ and court talk about the same facts (Drew and Atkinson, 1979). In other words, it casts light on how facts that occurred in a village context, made up of rivalries and loyalties, are re-presented to fit into a code section, to be discussed within the grid of court proceedings, and to be judged on the grounds of other well-established and codified judicial records.
THE COURT JUSTICE COMPLEX The District Court of Mandi is situated at the heart of the town, in a little square just adjacent to the seventeenth-century royal palace. On the north side of the square is the Court Complex, and on the west the police and the prosecutor’s buildings. The place is quite an enclosed space, communicating with the remainder of the town through some narrow roads and passages, one of which goes directly into the courtyard of the present habitation-cum-hotel of the king. The court buildings are known by the name of ‘Emerson House’, and were built in 1914 as the secretariat for the resident commissioner. Emerson, a British administrator, had been appointed as the guardian of the last king, Jovinder Sen, who was a minor when he inherited the throne. Emerson initially, and the Raja Jovinder Sen later on (when he became of age) used to sit in on one of these courtrooms, which is today a Revenue Court, with the Deputy Commissioner also sitting there on some occasions. The old complex includes at present one Session Court (the higher level), one Additional Session Court, and two or three other courts of lower levels. But adjacent to these older courts, a new part of the complex is under construction that will include other courts that are at present temporarily located in various other parts of the town.
294â•… DANIELA BERTI The court complex is one of the most bustling and crowded areas of town. Early in the morning, lawyers sit there with their assistants and trainees to speak with their clients, to inform them of the formalities required, to discuss their cases, and to prepare witnesses. This is a point of contact between villagers, who are immediately recognizable by their peasant appearance, and lawyers who have a more ‘urban look’, even though they themselves may also sometimes be from the countryside. It is a place which is relatively free of caste hierarchy and religious differences (Morrison, 2005: 145ff.) but not of territorial ties, with a lawyer often being chosen from the same area to which the client belongs. As Galanter and others have extensively shown, “lawyers serve as links or middlemen between official centres and rural places, disseminating official norms, rephrasing local concerns in acceptable legal garb, playing important roles in devising new organization forms for forwarding local interests” (Galanter, 1992: 27). More specific to the court are those functionaries employed by the government to help the judge in his day-to-day work: the ‘readers’, the typists, the stenographers, the peons, and so on. These people do not have as many local connections as lawyers do, although they somehow represent the court’s memory. Unlike judges, who are always being transferred, most of these employees go on holding the same job in the same court for long periods, and are sometimes the only link between a newly incoming judge and the cases that may have begun to be tried under his predecessor. By 10 o’clock in the morning, people start arriving at the courtroom, to check that their names are on the list of the day’s hearings and to sit outside the court, waiting to be called. Here ordinary people from the town or the countryside mix not only with lawyers coming and going—checking the list for whether their case has been scheduled or deferred—but also with a number of policemen, who have been summoned by the court as witnesses for the criminal cases they have recorded and investigated. Inside the court, the readers along with other employees prepare the day’s files for the judge, checking that everything is in order. Once the judge has entered the court, the day begins with the comings and goings of lawyers, who ask the judge to defer a hearing of their client or to sign a document. Then the cases begin with hearings of witnesses, regrouped together for each case so far as possible.
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During my fieldwork, although I occasionally visited other courts within the complex, I concentrated my research on the Session Court. For one month I attended the court every day, with the aim of studying the interactions between the various principal actors in a trial—the judge, the prosecutor, the lawyers—and in order to analyse how they proceed, how they try to extract facts from witnesses, how the witnesses reply, and how this reply is put into written form, and filed into what ultimately becomes the official version of the trial. The Session Judge appointed to that court during my stay was Judge A.D., a smart, self-confident man in his fifties who, after practising law for 22 years, was directly appointed as a Session Judge. Judge A.D. showed great interest in my research and gave me his consent to sit near the bench during the trials, right next to the witness bar and the typist.4 This privileged position allowed me to follow interactions in a way that would have been impossible had I been seated in a public seat. In fact, during the trial, in front of the judge at the bench, stand the prosecutor and the defence lawyer, followed by all their assistants. This kind of disposition tends to form a closed circle of people, with all the main actors close to each other, so that between them interactions can sometimes take place in a very hushed manner.5 Among the various trials that I followed during my fieldwork in the Mandi Session Court, I have chosen for this study, a criminal case registered against a villager under Section 20 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, which concerns ‘Punishment for contravention in relation to cannabis plant and cannabis’, for which the term of imprisonment is no less than 10 years. Whilst setting the case in a wider cultural context at regional level, I will concentrate my analysis on what happens inside the courtroom. Indeed, it is through in-depth observation of trials that it is possible to observe village dynamics at work and to see how they are expressed through the very techniques used in court proceedings.
GROWING CANNABIS IN FIELDS My analysis of the case will deal with a form of village corporatism that took place inside the courtroom and that is linked to the enforcement of a legal Act issued by the Parliament in 1985, concerning the
296â•… DANIELA BERTI criminalization of drugs. The practice of growing cannabis plants was indeed officially authorized throughout the colonial period, when it was a source of income for some people. It started to be criminalized by the state from the 1960s onwards, and the effective implementation of this process of criminalization has taken more than 20 years. Before going into the case it is to be noted that in Himachal Pradesh, as in many other parts of India, substances such as cannabis (and opium) are used by villagers for a number of things. As far as Himachal Pradesh is concerned, Charles (2001: 17), in a study financed by the UNESCO Management of Social Transformation Programme, points out to what she calls the ‘socio-cultural’ and ‘functional’ uses of cannabis and other psychotropic plants in the region. The fact is, for example, that these products are used by villagers to perform religious ceremonies (like Shivaratri), to prepare medicine, produce local shoes, bags, and ropes and even to make a certain number of local dishes. The author analyses how, since the spread of the Western ‘hippie culture’ in some areas of Himachal Pradesh in the 1960s, these substances have been completely misused and have led to a national and international traffic. Notwithstanding these developments, the author insists in her conclusion on the inadequacy of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in the Indian context and defends the need to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for religious and cultural uses. Charles’s analysis of the local context of cannabis cultivation well reflects the discourse of Himachali villagers, who also defend the legalization of cannabis on the grounds of its traditional and multiform local use. Newspaper articles show the form this discourse takes among villagers. For example in 2004, after the destruction by the ‘Narcotics Control Bureau’ of cannabis plants in over 10 bighas6 near Malana, one of the biggest areas for cannabis production, an article in The Tribune reported: Villagers have described the operation as a direct attack on their only source of livelihood… “Cannabis has been grown here since time immemorial”, said Mr Daulat Ram, Vice-president, Malana panchayat. “The bhog [food offerings] for devta [god] is made from the seeds of cannabis, and charas [hand-made hashish] has been used here for medicine over the ages” villagers said… Villagers held a meeting today to work out their future strategy… Villagers rued that they had nothing to fall back on as the government had given them
TRIALS, WITNESSES, AND LOCAL STAKES IN A DISTRICT COURTâ•… 297 nothing over the years despite promises… On cannabis cultivation, villagers said the demand for charas picked up after foreigners started coming to the valley in the nineties. “They told us that cannabis could change our destiny as charas could fetch a good price in the market” they said. “It sells for Rs 50,000 per kg” they said. (The Tribune, 26 July 2005)
Another article also appeared in The Tribune, significantly entitled ‘Where Devta [deity] Tells Them [villagers] to Grow Cannabis’: To avoid the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, the villagers have started cultivating the cannabis crop, pleading that they use its seed for dishes and its shells for ropes. “Unless Jamlu god tells us to grow other crops, we will grow only cannabis.”
It is not only villagers who hold this discourse, as the following article shows: Doctors Call for Law Change on Cannabis Doctors in India have called on the government to review the 10-yearold law that bans cannabis, on the grounds that it is not a public health problem and that it has medicinal uses.… “Cannabis has been used in India for centuries. It is an important ingredient in many traditional herbal medicines and in some parts of the country it is socially acceptable for both men and women to consume cannabis during festive occasions” … “Placing cannabis in the category of the more dangerous and addictive drugs was a historical error.” (BMJ, 17 August 1996)
As a matter of fact, considerations of this kind were not deployed at all as an argument inside the court, where narcotic cases are considered as extremely serious cases, and are likely to be very severely punished. However, it is by taking into account this cultural context that I am going to present the case and the interactions that took place inside the court.
COURT INTERACTIONS AND LOCAL BELONGING In 2003, a narcotics team from Chandigarh, a town in the neighbouring state of Punjab, made a raid on an isolated high-altitude
298â•… DANIELA BERTI area of Mandi district and discovered some cannabis plants in a field. The team was from the Narcotics Control Bureau, an investigation agency set up by the Indian government in 1986 in order to stamp out illicit trafficking and thus apply the international commitments undertaken by India since 1961 to join in fighting against narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.7 After ascertaining the identity of the owner of the fields in which the cannabis plants had been found, the Chandigarh team left the local police the task of registering a case against this person, who was temporarily arrested and then released on bail some weeks later. When the trial began, the man was still living in his village, although he did have to appear in court for the hearings. The registration of the case by the police—the FIR (First Information Report)—is dated 2003; but the trial began only in November 2006 in the court of Judge A.D. The discussion of the case will be based on the analyses of the interactions I collected inside the courtroom, as well as of the conversations I had with the various principal actors, especially with the lawyer, the accused and the judge. I will support my observations by making reference to other similar cases registered at the same period on which judgements were pronounced in the same court during my fieldwork. During the hearings the accused, a villager in his fifties, was asked to stand on one side of the courtroom, and nobody put any questions to him save to confirm if his name was well and truly the one given in the police report submitted to the court. During the first days of the trial, the witnesses to be heard were all prosecutor witnesses. The first prosecution witness, named in the file as PW-1, was the patwari, the revenue officer who was in charge of the area where the cannabis plants had been found. In Mandi, as elsewhere in other districts of Himachal Pradesh, the patwari is not always considered by villagers to be a ‘local’ in the strict sense of the term. In fact, according to the rule, a patwari should not be made responsible for the records of villages within 10 miles of his birthplace (Smith, 1952: 46). Although he may have chosen to live in one of the villages under his jurisdiction—where he is provided with a house by the government—he himself does not originate from these villages. The common perception villagers have of a patwari is indeed of ‘a government person’ or, especially in this context, of ‘someone who goes along with the court system’. In fact, it is more complicated, since villagers constantly try to curry
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favour with the patwari in revenue matters. In the press, numerous articles may be found about patwari involved in cases of corruption. In consequence, the line that a patwari decides to adopt when a villager is heard by the court depends on his own personality and his disposition to enter into negotiations with the villagers. During the ‘examination in chief’, the patwari replied to the questions put to him by the prosecutor and occasionally by the judge. According to the procedure followed in the court, the interactions were in Hindi and in a question–answer form. The replies were then immediately translated by the judge into English and put into the first-person form. This dictation was recorded both by the typist in English and by the stenographer in Hindi, with the English version being officially approved and signed at the end by both the witness and the judge. In the English version of the record the patwari’s statement is reported as follows: On 27-10-2003 I along with the Pradhan [village president] and police officials were inspecting the lands in M.D. [name of place] so as to ascertain the cultivation of Cannabis… At a distance of 100–150 m, on the higher side, cannabis plants were found to be those of accused. The police collected the leaves of the plants in his presence and put them in a parcel… My signature was also obtained by the police along with that of Pradhan. (Mandi, Court record)
The patwari therefore supported the prosecutor’s case, by stating that: he went to the field along with the village pradhan and the police; they saw the cannabis plants in a field, which he identified as the field of the accused. However, during cross-examination two main points emerged to the prosecutor’s disadvantage: 1. that in the revenue record, the land where the cannabis had been found was registered not as belonging to one person but to several co-owners—which makes it impossible from a legal point of view to accuse only one person and not the others; and 2. that no demarcation had been made there by the police in order to ascertain whether, if not de jure then de facto, the accused was in possession of the field.
300â•… DANIELA BERTI The problem of demarcating joint land systematically occurs in all such cases and proves to be one of the main obstacles for the prosecutor in proving his cases. According to the Himachal Pradesh Land Records Manual (Chapter 10.2), which is commonly quoted in these cases, land may prove to be a joint property for the Revenue Office, but to be divided on paper by the co-owners on the basis of a mutual agreement.8 The acknowledgement of this ‘customary demarcation’ may be legally certified only by the kanungo and the tehsildar, who are high-ranking revenue officials.9 Although there are very clear rules on this matter, in point of fact, when the police go to the fields for inspection, the only revenue officer who happens to be with them is the patwari, who, being a low-ranking officer, is not legally competent to carry out land demarcation. In most cases of cannabis cultivation, the police proceed with the destruction of the cannabis plants without first asking the kanungo or tehsildar to carry out land demarcation, as the law requires. This quite common blunder on the part of the local police in investigation proceedings was interpreted differently by the judge and by the defence lawyer. Judge A.D. explained it by referring to the police’s lack of training owing to the shortage of government funds. By contrast, the defence lawyer explicitly attributed the mistake to a ‘double bind’ experienced by the policemen, who are “duty bound and locally bound … who do a State job but who are also locals”. According to him, police shortages are not to be interpreted as such, but as part of a system that allows the local police—especially when working with the Chandigarh narcotics team—to do its duty by registering a FIR whilst also, in return for some compensation, helping villagers to evade the court judgement. This kind of investigative blunder on the part of the local police would indeed be a way of ensuring that the court “will be hampered during the trial”.10 He explained that, for example, whenever the police found cannabis on joint land, instead of registering the FIR for all the co-sharers, they did it just for one of them (while taking money from the others). In that way—he added—“the case will be registered but the court will be prevented from convicting the accused”. Apart from the difficulties encountered by the prosecutor through deficiencies in the police investigation, another serious obstacle faced the court on the second day of the trial, when it was the turn of the villagers to give evidence. Fourteen witnesses belonging to the same
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village as the accused, including the village pradhan, were called to the bar in their role as prosecution witnesses (who were supposed to support the prosecutor’s case). At the time of investigations, and on the police’s request, they had jointly signed an affidavit (a deposition under oath) where it was stated that the field where the cannabis had been found was the accused’s customary possession, and that the accused personally cultivated cannabis in his field. I will report the first of these fourteen witness statements in order to show how, although the affidavit was there on file, the situation now worsened further as far as the prosecutor’s case was concerned. It needs to be pointed out that, on the second day of the trial, the prosecutor was, as a result of exceptional circumstances, out of town to attend a wedding, and the judge, with the defence lawyer’s consent, exceptionally played two roles: that of prosecutor and that of judge. In his role as judge, A.D. began to ask the witness to give his oath by pronouncing the formula: “What I will say I will say the truth, on behalf of dharma.” Then the examination in chief began, and the witness replied to the questions that the judge put to him in Hindi, and stated that field No. 424 (where cannabis was said to have been found) was jointly owned not only by the accused, but by 15 cosharers including himself, and that he had neither sown nor seen any cannabis plants in that field. The judge proceeded to dictate the English translation of the witness’s replies to the typist, by putting them in the first person and in the form of a statement.11 Stated that I know accused present in the court. He is from my village. The khasra [‘field’] No 424 is in possession of all the co-sharers and I am also co-sharer in that. N.S. [the accused] has not sown cannabis on khasra No. 424.
Immediately after recording the two statements in English, without even changing his tone of voice or expression, the judge continued to dictate the following objection in English: At this stage Learned Public Prosecutor [in fact, himself] has stated that witness is trying to suppress the truth. As such prayer is made to cross examine the witness, which is considered and allowed.
For the witness, who did not speak English, nothing had changed in his interaction with the judge. But the fact that he was going to be
302â•… DANIELA BERTI cross-examined12 meant that he had to reply, from now on, to socalled ‘leading questions’, that is, to questions that are not open (as in the examination-in-chief), but to which the answer can only be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. By putting these leading questions to the witness, the judge (as prosecutor)—again in Hindi—was now trying to draw from him facts or contradictions that would support the prosecutor’s case. However, even cross-examination did not produce better results for the prosecutor’s case. The witness not only explicitly denied that the accused had sown cannabis, but also maintained that neither the police nor the patwari had ever visited the place, and that, consequently, not a single cannabis plant had ever been destroyed in the field. He even denied that his own statement had been recorded by the police—which was again contested by the judge, who went on to dictate to the typist, again in English: “see the reference of the affidavit which is included in the file”. The judge, who was quite familiar with cases of this kind, concluded the cross-examination by asking the witness, in a rather resigned and sceptical tone of voice: “Are you trying to save the accused?” On the witness’s replying “No sir!” he again dictated to the typist: “It is incorrect that I [the witness] am deposing falsely because of my relations with the accused.” After two more witnesses had been heard, the judge was now certain: all the villagers who had been called to the court as ‘prosecution witnesses’ had turned ‘hostile’—they were now in favour of the accused. The judge, visibly disappointed, after realizing that all the witnesses belonged to the same village, and that some of them were relatives of the accused, clearly announced that, for the time being, he did not want to hear all these hostile witnesses and listen to the same version all day long. Determined not to waste his own time, he then instructed the typist to simply make as many copies of the first statement as there were villagers scheduled for hearings, and to ask everybody to sign his/her copy and send them all home. The only exception to this quite unusual procedure was reserved for the village pradhan—the only one not to be a co-owner. He was not a direct relative of the accused and in the version given by the patwari (and which was to be confirmed afterwards by the police), he was said to have gone with the police and patwari to the fields. His hearing, however, did not produce any new results. The pradhan, who looked
TRIALS, WITNESSES, AND LOCAL STAKES IN A DISTRICT COURTâ•… 303
very much at ease in coping with the judge,13 not only confirmed the villagers’ version, but he too, skilfully gave the judge a rather detailed account of the day the police arrived, introducing a lot of contradictions with the account given in the police report. He also told the judge, in a convincing manner, that he had already passed regulations some time before at his Panchayat meeting, whereby preventing villagers from cultivating cannabis, but none of them had actually been doing this anyway. Here are some passages from his statement translated from Hindi: Pradhan, to the judge: “Look, Maharaja, I have been pradhan for twenty years and nothing like this has happened during that period. … I have not seen anybody sowing this. Nibhar charas (wild charas) can be found everywhere in our area. It is not sown; it can be found everywhere!”14 Judge, smiling ironically: “Yes, it can be found in Gram Panchayat also!” At the judge’s comment everyone started laughing, including the accused. This kind of reaction happened quite commonly in the court of Judge A.D., whose remarkable sense of humour always created a very convivial atmosphere in the court. As for the pradhan, he continued his statement undisturbed. Once I was doing forest work and met a man who asked me: “How much money do you get from this work?” I replied: “I get almost one and a half lakh of rupees.” The man then asked me: “What is this all about? Start a bhang [cannabis] business then! I will fill your bed with money!” I swear to God, Sir, that I said neither that I wanted that bed nor that I would do such business… I swear it! I said: “No, no. I do not want to.”
Notwithstanding the pradhan’s performance, the judge, without even asking him anything, dictated in English to the typist who was recording the statement: “At this stage learned PP [Public Prosecutor] has stated that witness is trying to suppress the truth, as such, prayer (sic) is made to cross-examine the witness, which is considered and allowed.” However, during the cross-examination the pradhan introduced some more contradictions with both the patwari and the police versions, which ended in weakening the prosecutor’s case even further. First, contrary to what the patwari had stated just before, he denied
304â•… DANIELA BERTI being with him and the local police when they reached the place. He averred that he had reached the fields before the patwari, along with the Narcotics Team, and that no cannabis plants were found there. Then he also denied that the police had recorded any witnesses’ statements on the field and even that there had been any destruction of cannabis by the police—there being no cannabis there to destroy. The judge concluded the cross-examination by dictating: “It is incorrect to suggest that I am deposing falsely in order to save the accused as a member of my panchayat.” This is quite a common form of judicial astuteness that consists in pronouncing, on behalf of the witness, a standardized formula whose effect is often to affirm the very contrary of what is being denied! The next day, other villagers came to the court in their role as prosecution witnesses.15 Some of these were also heard, but the result was again the same: all of them were defined as ‘hostile’ by the judge. They all gave the same monothematic set of replies in favour of the accused, so that the defence lawyer saw no need to cross-examine them, since they had all already supported his case. In fact, the only point on which the defence lawyer wanted the witnesses to give confirmation was whether cannabis plants were growing wild everywhere in the area “by the side of road and streams and on government land”. Indeed it was important for him that this point should figure prominently in the typewritten version of the evidence, as he wanted to use it to build his defence during the ‘arguments’.16 According to him, the police had completely invented the case without ever going to the fields, by collecting the cannabis samples from somewhere in the forest and getting people to sign the affidavit. In order to support this theory, the lawyer intended to throw light during the arguments on another ‘error’ committed by the police, who, instead of making the witnesses each sign their own affidavit separately, as required by law, made them sign a ‘joint affidavit’ with the signatures of fourteen people. Regarding the other points of his defence, everything that the prosecution witnesses had stated was quite sufficient for him. There was no need for him to call other witnesses, with the attendant risks of providing the prosecutor with the opportunity of cross-examining them and of allowing some contradictions in their testimony to emerge in his favour.
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VILLAGE PRACTICE AND LEGAL EVIDENCE The defence lawyer explicitly told me that, although Judge A.D. was a very severe judge—one who condemned the maximum number of people to the maximum number of years—he was almost certain that in the case of his client he would be forced to acquit him. It was not because the facts were non-existent, but because the evidence collected in the courtroom was all in his favour. Of course, he knew that the accused was cultivating cannabis plants. “We also do it in our village”—he told me—“it is not sown for commercial purposes or for making charas. It is sown for our domestic use.” According to him, this also explained why very simple men and women, some of whom had never been in a court, could lie so easily before the judge. Villagers do not consider cannabis cultivation as wrongdoing (pap, fault). So why should these people be sent to prison? They know that, if they tell the truth, their people will be sent to prison. So that is why they help him. They help him pure of heart (shuddh atman se), not with the intention of carrying on their cultivation. They say that they have been sowing it for thousands of years and that it is written in the record books! Thus, from the defence lawyer’s point of view, the witnesses did not ‘turn hostile’, as was stated by the judge. According to him, they had always been hostile, since they had never supported the prosecution’s case. Although their signatures well and truly figured on the affidavit, he claimed that they had been forced by the police to sign it, which was what now led them to lie to the court: I asked them: “Because of fear of the police you have signed this?” They said yes! The police are sometimes like that, they have to write their report and they have to complete their case. But in remote areas how do you manage to find people and get them to sign? The police never say what it really is. They just say that you have to sign it. It’s nothing, just a formality.
The unanimity with which the villagers had given their statement inside the courtroom had been partly prepared by the defence lawyer, who, in his role of bridging the gap between the state judiciary and rural culture, had earlier discussed this with some of them in order to suggest to them the best line of conduct to take. However, such a manifestation of village solidarity in a case of this kind proves to be a
306â•… DANIELA BERTI well-established endogenous pattern of reaction, which is frequently reported in newspapers, as is shown by the following example: Acting on the secret inputs, the NCB monitored the smugglers for six months and succeeded in nabbing them red-handed … as soon as the smugglers got the hint that they had been trapped, they managed to raise four barricades by villagers on the Mandi-Khaneti road to thwart the operation against them. “The villagers came out from the hillsides, throwing boulders and stones on us, but we managed to take along the two kingpins in the wee hours of the morning and reached Mandi at 4 am” added the Police Inspector. (The Tribune, 26 July 2005)
In June 2007, that is, seven months after the beginning of the trial, the judge pronounced his judgement, and the accused was acquitted. In his judgement the judge underlined, on the one hand, the oversights in the police investigation (not proving that there was a land demarcation; not counting the cannabis plants, and other such things); and on the other hand, the fact that neither the village president nor the village co-owners had supported the prosecution case. The judge’s conclusions were almost identical to other judgements he had previously passed about cannabis cultivation where, in these other cases too, the field of cannabis was joint property, and neither the kanungo nor the tehsildar had been called upon to proceed with land demarcation. In these other cases too, none of the villagers summoned to court as prosecution witnesses had supported the prosecution case during the trial. In his judgement the judge supported his decision not only by referring to the testimonies of the witnesses, who were all in favour of the accused, but by referring to ‘the ratio of the law’. He quoted a case of appeal before the Supreme Court: […] The observations made by the Hon’ble Apex Court which are relevant in the context of the present case as under: “In order to prove the guilt, it must be proved that the accused had cultivated this prohibited plant … it is not enough that few plants were found in the property of the accused.… If plants are sprouted by natural growth, it cannot be said that it amounts to cultivation.” (State of Himachal Pradesh vs Shri Chandermani)
The judge concluded in writing that in the present case as well there was no satisfactory oral or documentary evidence to show that
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the accused had sown cannabis seeds over the land in his possession. With jointly-owned land and with no demarcation made by a competent official—concluded the judge in the order—the case of the prosecution “had fallen like a house of cards” (ibid.).
CONCLUSION This case shows the different discourses that the state and local society hold about the practice of growing cannabis in the area. The many commitments made by India over the last decades at national and international level in the field of narcotics control have led to an increase in the criminalization of a formerly widespread practice, still culturally approved by some villagers, who foreground its ‘cultural’ or ‘ancestral’ value. As we have seen, the discourse about the ‘traditional’ value of cannabis in the region has to be taken as corresponding to only one side of the picture. Indeed, cannabis cultivation is now under the control of national and international dealers, who even encourage villagers to plant cannabis in fields previously reserved for ordinary crops. The domestic and traditional use of cannabis may well thus persist, but when a villager cultivates cannabis today it is also, first and foremost, to respond to a market demand. Villagers are also developing certain strategies in order to foil police raids, such as sowing cannabis on forest land instead of on private land, so that nobody can be punished (Chauhan, 2005). Although strategies of this kind, which maintain a ‘façade of behavioural conformity’, may partly be compared to an “everyday resistance to the State” (Scott, 1985),17 it should also be noticed that people who are involved in cannabis trafficking fairly overlap class (as well as caste) distinctions. Poor villagers are often incited by relatively rich people, including resident foreigners, to cultivate cannabis. And local people who are close to the state apparatus, such as lawyers or other governmental officers, are indirectly involved to help villagers in their efforts to escape state legislation. Moreover, this hidden or ‘soft’ resistance to the state legal apparatus may, in the case of a crisis, even turn into a direct confrontation with the state’s efforts to implement legality, as in the newspaper case cited earlier about villagers’ making barricades or throwing stones at the Narcotics Team in order to prevent fugitives’ from getting captured (Chauhan, 2005).
308â•… DANIELA BERTI As a matter of fact, the economic stakes behind cannabis cultivation lead to a form of corporatism among people sharing territorial and parental bonds. In the case presented here, this corporatism was partly the direct consequence of the rules regulating landed property. These rules, by establishing the collective responsibility of the cosharers of the land, had indeed the implicit effect of binding them to help the accused and unanimously keeping to the same version in front of the judge. According to the defence lawyer, these rules have been utilized in favour of the co-sharers by the local police, who deliberately introduced some errors during their investigations—such as registering the case against only one of the co-sharers—so as to hinder the proceedings at the moment of trial. In fact, these errors were probably less deliberate than the lawyers thought, and were also due to a lack of training and to an absence of coordination among the police officers. However, the fact that the local police, owing to the multiple bonds they have with the villagers, are open to bargaining with villagers, is quite a widespread discourse among the local population. According to this discourse, whenever a so-called ‘compromise’ is found, the case will not even reach the court, that is, it will even not be registered.18 By contrast, once the Chandigarh Narcotics Team discovers a cannabis field, the local police are obliged to pursue the investigations. In the example discussed here, for example, the accused told me that he had even proposed `10,000 to the police officer posted to the headquarters of his local area, in whose hands the Narcotics Team had left the case. But the police officer replied to him that, since the Narcotics Team had been involved in the operation, the case was not under his control, and that he could not do anything for him. In contrast with the Narcotics Team, the position of local policemen is indeed quite ambiguous. As the lawyer noted, their dual role as state employees and members of the locality leads them frequently to shift between what may be defined, using Conley and O’Barr’s expressions (1998), as ‘ruleoriented’ and ‘relation-oriented’ spheres of authority—on the one hand, their duty to enforce state legislation and, on the other hand, the multiple entanglements they have with villagers. A similar opposition between state role and local commitment also comes to light by comparing the position of the land officer (patwari) and the village president (pradhan). In their cases, this opposition is also intrinsically linked to the way they are officially
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appointed into their respective roles. The first, nominated by the state, is less likely to break the law and take the villagers’ side, unless he is offered some form of compensation. The second, democratically elected, feels obliged to enter into some form of complicity with his villagers and to tell lies before the judge. Another aspect the case highlights is the way in which the opposition between state and local society takes shape at a legal and judicial level, within a context where this interaction has to follow specific procedures and forms of reasoning. Indeed, the case illustrates the disparity between the knowledge that everybody seems to have about the facts and the legal impossibility of demonstrating them. In other words, it shows how the villagers and the court correspond to two “alternative modes of thought” (Fuller, 1994: 15) within their local social context: one based on social links, loyalties, or economic interests, and the other based and relying on legal codes and judicial proceedings. This disparity appears to be evident inside the court, with the judge constantly blaming the witnesses for suppressing the truth, or refusing to waste his time by collecting their testimonies.19 In spite of his efforts to prevent villagers’ corporatism from affecting the trial proceedings, the court appeared to be powerless to neutralize the effect of it on its final decision. The case shows indeed, more generally, how legal processes are not ‘above’ the people but are embedded in the social context, and how this social context may influence the trial’s outcome. In the case discussed here, the accused’s local entanglements emerged in the in-court and out-of-court version of the case as involving multiple connotations—family relations and cannabis connections for the co-sharers, economic benefits for the police, and political alliances for the pradhan. However, other cases could have been taken to show how these local entanglements were presented by the accused as the very reason for being involved in a false case. In one instance, a man accused of rape claimed that the case was entirely fabricated by his fellow villagers, who blamed him for cultivating some woodland for his personal use. In another case, a man involved in a case of theft saw the accusations as being exclusively due to a long-standing political opposition between two factions within the village. Unlike the cannabis case discussed here, where the villagers’ corporatism rendered the judge powerless, in the aforementioned cases villagers’ rivalry and economic competition was presented as a source of enmity faced with which the accused felt helpless. Although
310â•… DANIELA BERTI the claim of a ‘conspiracy’ may be part of the defence strategy, some lawsuits tried in court as criminal cases may eventually prove to stem from politically or economically based village tensions, showing the extent to which the court, by the use of its specific procedures and in spite of its efforts towards neutrality, may provide an arena for expressing the various outcomes of local belonging.
Notes 1. This article is part of the ANR programme “Justice and Governance in India and South Asia”. Available online at http://just-india.net. I would like to thank the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale for the support I received while writing this paper. 2. I am not referring here to legislation that deliberately and consciously takes into account some forms of ‘belonging’. One example of this is the issue of personal law in civil matters (for example, for Muslims or other minorities). In the same way, a certain number of Acts that have been enacted since independence concern some specific categories of individuals who are considered by the state to need protection because they belong to some ‘underprivileged’ groups such as women or members of the Scheduled Castes. These Acts, however, simply provide the legal context within which the judge is supposed to formulate a neutral decision. 3. This does not mean that judges are complete outsiders to the locality. For example, if a Session Judge (just one step below High Court Judge) cannot be appointed in his district of origin, he cannot be transferred to a court outside his own State. It is only in the High Court that the judge does not need to belong to the State where the court is situated. 4. The condition was that I had to cover my head to show respect to the Court, and the judge was particularly strict with regard to this. 5. In this respect it should be said that in Indian Courts there is no jury—the jury system being abolished in Courts of law in 1960. The absence of a jury does greatly influence the way the trial is performed, in the sense that it lessens the importance of ‘performing a show’, of ‘staging a drama’, which may impress or emotionally affect the jury’s opinion. In Indian trials, by contrast, even for very serious cases with a sentence of more than 10 years imprisonment, the judge is completely on is own in deciding all the cases that are tried in his Court (although the case can be referred for appeal to the higher Courts). All the interactions are thus concentrated around the judge and are not always likely to be heard by the attendance. 6. 2.5 bighas = one acre. 7. The Narcotics Control Bureau has ‘Zonal Units’ spread over the various major towns of the country, which act as bases from which they launch occasional raids into the areas that they know to be most affected by narcotics activities. During these raids, the unit team works in cooperation with the local police. In this respect, it is worth underlining that, without the intervention of the Chandigarh team, local policemen, during their day-to-day patrols on the mountainside, would never take the initiative to register a FIR (First Information Report) in a case of cannabis cultivation.
TRIALS, WITNESSES, AND LOCAL STAKES IN A DISTRICT COURTâ•… 311 ╇ 8. As noted in a village-based study on the Himachal Mountain Ecosystem: […] in the past, the transfer of land from one generation to the next was mediated by the formation of joint-households which prevented the immediate division of land into small plots … [however] some consultants pointed out that it was possible to divide the land on paper but still own land as a joint family.
╇ 9.
10.
11.
12.
13. 14
15.
16.
Available online at (Cf. http://www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/natural_resources/ mountain/book/2/index.html) The final published report of the project under the CIDA-SICI partnership program is available at: h ttp://www.umanitoba.ca/ institutes/na tural_resources/mountain/book/index.html The tehsildar is both a revenue officer responsible for the collection of revenue, and a second-class magistrate responsible for the collection of testimonies for court cases. He often serves as a witness, and can pass judgement himself up to a penalty of six months. It is worth pointing out here that it is a different matter for the narcotics team from Chandigarh, which has no ties with the locality and the people in this area. For example, the policeman who registered the case was posted to the same area as the accused lived in, which is also the area he himself belonged to. What people explained to me is that, whenever corruption is involved, the case will not even reach the court, but a so-called ‘compromise’ will be found, in the sense that the police will accept some money for not registering the case. In fact, during the trial, those who were authorized to ask questions (the judge, the prosecutor, and the lawyer) asked them in Hindi (most of the time the witness knows only Hindi). Then, when the witness replies, his reply is simultaneously translated into English. The judge is not the only one authorized to translate. The prosecutor and the defence can do this, too. In some cases, especially during the cross-examination, there may be some tension regarding who shall be the first to dictate the translation to the typist, so as to formulate the sentence in the most convenient way possible for his/her side. Cross-examination is usually requested by the adverse party’s lawyer; but in this case the witness was deemed to have changed his testimony in favour of the opposition. He was indeed quite familiar with court proceedings and he told me that he had been summoned by the court to stand as witness a hundred times. By saying this, the pradhan was implicitly accusing the police of having collected the cannabis sample from the forest and government land, implying that it was thus wild cannabis. The witnesses who can be heard as the prosecution witnesses are those who have been registered by the police. In fact, in the common law system the court has no inquisitorial power. This is a specific phase of the trial, the date of which is fixed once the evidence is over. During the arguments, the defence and the prosecutor (or the lawyers of both parties in civil cases) will defend their respective case before the judge by exposing all the contradictions that have emerged in the evidence from the opposing side, and by using earlier records on similar cases to support their defence.
312â•… DANIELA BERTI 17. I would like to thank Niraja Gopal Jayal very much for making this point, and for the very stimulating comments she made in discussing my paper during the Delhi workshop in 2007. 18. See also Chaudhary (1999: 151) for the Pakistani context. 19. In this regard, Judge Anoussamy (2001: 77) notes that: […] especially in criminal cases, the elements of the file which are of legal value force him [the Judge] to pass an order acquitting the accused, in contradiction with the impression he may have obtained during the trial. The Judge, as if to excuse himself for the decision he has been obliged to take, doesn’t omit to point out the lapses in preliminary investigation. â•… Judge A.D. also told me how he spent sleepless nights after writing up judgements for cases where the legal evidence compelled him to acquit the accused in spite of his being convinced of their guilt.
REFERENCES Alka Ram vs State of U.P. quoted by the judge in the following judgement State of Himachal Pradesh vs Sh Narain Singh. This is a Court document which is not online. Other information written in the judgement are as follows: In the Court of Shri A.C. Dogra, Special Judge, Mandi, H.P. in Session Trial 16, 2004 decided on 5 July 2007. Anoussamy, D. 2001. Le droit indien en marche [Indian Law on the March]. Paris: Société de Législation comparée. Berkes F., G.S. Chauhan, I. Davidson-Hunt, K. Davidson-Hunt, C. Duffield, J.S. Gardner, L. Ham, B.W. Pandey, J. Sinclair, R.B. Singh, and M. Thakur. 2010. ‘A Mountain Watershed Ecosystem in Himachal Pradesh’, in Sustainability in Mountain Environments. Available online at: http://www.umanitoba.ca/ institutes/natural_resources/mountain/book/2/index.html (last date of access: 26 September 2010). Charles, M. 2001. ‘Drug Trade in Himachal Pradesh. Role of Socio-economic Changes’, Economic and Political Weekly, 36(26): 2433–39. Chaudhary, M.A. 1999. Justice in Practice: Legal Ethnography of a Pakistani Punjabi Village. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chauhan, K. 2004. ‘Where Devta [deity] Tells Them to Grow Cannabis’, The Tribune, 28 July (Himachal Pradesh Edition). Available online at╯: http://www.tribuneindia. com/2004/20040728/himachal.htm#10 (last date of access: 26 September 2010). ———. 2005. ‘2 Drug Smugglers Nabbed with 68 kg Charas’, The Tribune, 26 July. Available online at╯: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050726/himachal. htm#1 (last date of access: 26 September 2010). ———. 2005. ‘Forest Land under Cannabis Cultivation’, The Tribune, 12 December. Cohn, B. 1987 [1965]. ‘Anthropological Notes on Disputes and Law in India’, in B. Cohn (ed.), An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays, pp. 575–631. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Conley, J.M. and W.M. O’Barr. 1998 Just Words: Law, Language, and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
TRIALS, WITNESSES, AND LOCAL STAKES IN A DISTRICT COURTâ•… 313 Drew, P. and M. Atkinson. 1979. Order in Court: The Organization of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. London: Macmillan for SSRC. Engel, D.M. 1978. Code and Custom in a Thai Provincial Court. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Fuller, C. 1994. ‘Legal Anthropology, Legal Pluralism and Legal Thought’, Anthropology Today, 10(3):╯9–12. Galanter, M.L. 1992 [1989]. ‘The Aborted Restoration of “Indigenous” Law in India’, in R. Dhavan (ed.), Law and Society in Modern India, pp. 37–53. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lovell, N. (ed.) 1998. Locality and Belonging. London: Routledge. Morrison, C. 2005. ‘Social Organization at the District Courts: Colleague Relationships among Indian Lawyers’, in I. Deva (ed.), Sociology of Law, pp. 131–43. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Mudur, G. 1996. ‘Doctors Call for Law Change on Cannabis’, BMJ, 17 August, 313 (7054): 384. Polletta, F. and J. Jaspers. 2001. ‘Collective Identity and Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 27: 283–305. Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak. Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Smith, W.S. 1952. ‘The Misal: A Structural Village: Group of India and Pakistan’, American Anthropologist, NS, 54(1): 41–56.
Glossary and Abbreviations Adivasi
literally ‘original dweller’, used to translate ‘indigenous’; in the Indian context, it is treated as equivalent to Scheduled Tribe ashram Hindu religious institution, usually associated with a specific teacher arti (or arati) the offering of a lighted lamp (made of one or more wicks of cotton or cloth strips soaked in ghee or camphor) to a deity avatar (avatara) incarnation, embodiment of God on earth bhakti devotion; bhakti specifically refers to an approach to Hinduism stressing personal devotion rather than orthodox ritual and caste bhajan Hindu devotional songs bith ritually clean caste among the Hindus of central Himalaya Brahman (or Brahmin) highest of the four varnas, the priestly caste; in Nepal known as ‘Bahun’ Buranji Assamese chronicles char dham (literally: ‘the four abodes/seats’) in the western Himalayas this expression refers to the four sanctuaries of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Jamnotri (Yamnotri), all consecrated to divine forms of Shiva Chand local dynasty of Kumaon belonging to a Kshatriya clan that ruled from circa fourteenth century to ad 1791, when Kumaon was conquered by the Gorkhas of Nepal Chhetri (Chetri) the Nepali spelling of Kshatriya (the Hindu ruler and warrior group); it refers in particular to the largest of the Parbatiya castes, comprising approximately 18 per cent of the total Nepalese population
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
chorten (mchod rten)
dakshina
Dalit DFID dham dharma dharmadikar (i) dhoti
District Court
diwan Dom/Dum gram Panchayat FIR Gorkhaland
315
Tibetan name of the stupa religious monument; a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics and the place of Buddhist worship (literally: the right side) sacrificial honourarium offered to Hindu priests; the recompense paid by the sacrificer for the services of a priest (literally ‘the oppressed’) politically correct term for ex-Untouchable groups British Department for International Development sacred seat, sanctuary of peculiar importance cosmic and social order; religious law; code of proper conduct; religion sacerdotal officer or judge, invariably a Brahmin man’s garment in India and lowland Nepal; it is a rectangular piece of unstitched cloth, wrapped around the waist and the legs, and knotted at the waist the highest court at district level, below the State High Court (India). It is presided over by a District Judge and is the main court for civil cases. In criminal cases it is called a Session Court, presided over by a Session Judge, who may also pass a sentence superior to 10 years imprisonment as well as the death sentence chief counsellor/minister the lowest division of Hindus in central Himalayan social hierarchy village council (India), in Nepali: gaon panchayat First Information Report made by the police to register a case (India) the name given to the area around Darjeeling in West Bengal, India, with a majority of ethnic Nepalis, and to this area’s movement for autonomy
316 THE POLITICS OF BELONGING IN THE HIMALAYAS GoI gotra guru (or guruji) havapani
Hindutva
HMG ICIMOD
Iskcon
Janajati
jat jhum (or jhuming) kamaya kanungo
Karbi
karmakanda
Government of India exogamous patriclan among the Hindus instructor, teacher, usually in the religious sense Nepali expression designating the climate or environment (literally, the water and the air) of a specific bounded territory literally ‘Hindu-ness’, a term coined by V.D. Sarvarkar in 1923; it now refers to the ideology of Hindu nationalism animating the Sangh Pariwar His Majesty’s Government (official designation, Nepal, until May 2006) International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, headquartered in Kathmandu a Hindu sect: the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (known also as Hare Krishna) neologism adopted in Nepali at the very end of the 1980s and gaining currency after 1990 to refer to ethnic (‘tribal’) groups in Nepal; the term is less used in India than in Nepal (in Nepal usually jat) caste; literally ‘birth’ or species slash and burn (shifting) cultivation, the field cultivated in this manner in Nepal: a bonded labour system, hired labourers, slaves local revenue official in charge of a pargana (India). He is notably in charge of supervising village maps and checking the patwari’s records and statistics a tribe (formerly known as Mikir) living in central Assam and eastern Meghalaya and speaking a Tibeto-Burman language; the Scheduled Tribe status applies only to hill Karbis (365,000 in 2001) an inclusive name for the performance of Hindu ceremonial acts and sacrificial rites
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
Katyuri
Kham-Magar
Khasa Kshatriya kipat lal-mohar lama (bla-ma) Limbu
linga Madhesi
maharaj Magar
Maidani Mandal Report
317
a Kshatriya dynasty of kings who ruled from circa fourth to twelfth century ad over a vast area in central Himalaya extending from western Nepal in the east and Garhwal in the west; they were the political and lineal descendants of the Kuninda tribe of central Himalaya and adjoining Himachal Pradesh, and their different branches continued to rule up to the eighteenth century ad a group of Magars living in the northern part of Magar territory (Nepal) and speaking a separate dialect ancient population of the western Himalayas (Kumaon and Garhwal) warrior, ruler; the second of the four varnas communally held land (Nepal) red insignia used in royal Gorkha orders in Nepal Buddhist religious authority ethnic group (Janajati) in far eastern Nepal, also found in India; according to the Nepal census of 2001, they number 359,255 in Nepal phallic symbol of Shiva (also Madheshi, Madeshi, Madise) literally ‘a plainsman’ in Nepal; it has become an ethnic term, opposed to Parbatiya, for all Nepali citizens of Indian ancestry or culture originating in the Tarai term of address for a religious person or god; the head of a Hindu sect an ethnic group speaking a Tibeto-Burman language; the largest of the Janajatis in Nepal with a population of 1,622,399 according to the 2001 census natives of the plains (Commission) led by B.P. Mandal, the report of this commission suggested that reservations for OBCs in India should
318 THE POLITICS OF BELONGING IN THE HIMALAYAS
mandir Mising
MLA mlechha
mohalla Mon-Khmer
Muluki Ain Naga
NDPS Act
NNC NSCN Newar
Nagar palika NC
be raised to 49.5 per cent. When Prime Minster V.P. Singh tried to implement the recommendations in 1989, there were massive nationwide protests Hindu temple ‘Scheduled Tribe’ that speaks a TibetoBurman language. They are closely related to the Tani groups living in Arunachal Pradesh where they come from. Most of them now live in Assam (587,310 in 2001) along the Brahmaputra River (India) Members of the Legislative Assembly (India) (Sanskrit) barbarians (from a Hindu point of view); the word often designates Westerners and other foreigners ward, neighbourhood (Hindi) a group of Austro-asiatic languages spread over Southeast Asia, including among others, Khasi, Palaung, Khmer, and Vietnamese the legal code in Nepal general term for several tribes living in Northeast India and speaking various Tibeto-Burman languages Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was passed in 1985 to consolidate and amend the law for the control and regulation of operations relating to narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (India) Naga National Council National Socialist Council of Nagaland an ethnic group in Nepal, who are included in the Janajati category, despite being concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley and sub-divided by caste; according to the 2001 census they numbered 1,245,232 municipal council (India, Nepal) Nepali Congress, one of the biggest Nepalese political parties
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
NEFIN
NGO OBC
PADT Pahadia (Pahade) Pahari
Panchayat
parampara
Parbatiya
319
Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (Nepal Janajati Adivasi Mahasangh), a federal body with one representative body for each Janajati group in Nepal (previously known as NEFEN, the Nepal Federation of Nationalities, the term ‘indigenous’ was added in 2003) non-government organization Other Backward Castes (Indian official term for those low caste who are neither Dalits nor tribals but suffer from educational and economic backwardness) Pashupati Area Development Trust (Nepal) ‘hill person’, the term used in the Nepalese Tarai to refer to migrants from the hills the term used for the language and regional identity of those from the Indian Himalayas, particularly Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand (a) literally and originally ‘rule of five [elders]’, that is, supposedly ‘traditional’ local or caste councils widely found across South Asia; hence, the name was adopted for (b) democratically elected local councils, the new institutions of local selfgovernment in India after Independence; and it was also adopted as (c) the name both of specific local (village, district) and national councils in the period of ‘partyless democracy’ (1960–90) in Nepal and of the regime of that time as a whole succession; uninterrupted succession of teachers and disciples in traditional Hindu culture; religious parentage literally ‘hill person’ (cf. Pahadia), now an ethnic term; it can be used for anyone of hill provenance, but is often used more restrictively in the Nepalese context to refer to the high castes, Bahuns and Chetris, and associated Dalit service castes; often
320 THE POLITICS OF BELONGING IN THE HIMALAYAS
pargana (or parganna) parikrama patwari People’s War
pradhan pradhan panch prasad
puja pujari purohita raikar
raj jat
Rajput
Rana
translated into French by the composite word: ‘Indo-Népalais’ local administrative unit (India and Nepalese Tarai) circumambulation of an altar or temple revenue officer (India) name given by the Nepalese Maoists to their insurgency (1996–2005) against the State of Nepal village head (India) village head (Nepal) during the Panchayat era (1962–90) leftovers of an offering to a deity; blessings from god, grace; objects sanctified by contact with a deity or august personage offering to a deity or to an important person and receiving their blessing Hindu priest family priest term used in Nepal. Before 1951, this term designated land directly owned and administrated by the state. Today, it refers to land owned by private persons (mostly in contrast to guthi religious tenures) procession of priests and pilgrims to Nanda Devi (Uttarakhand, India), held in the months of August/September every 12 years high Hindu caste, usually assumed to be paradigmatic Kshatriyas and therefore to have as their ‘dharma’ the protection of the Hindu social order; before 1947 they dominated western India as kings, aristocrats, and landlords title of the hereditary Prime Ministers of Nepal from 1846 to 1951 (their previous family name was Kunwar); hence the name of the period of Nepalese history when the Shah kings were reduced to figureheads with no real power
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
sadhu samadhi
samaj samiti sampraday(a) sant sapori (or capori)
sundarsath SC
seva Shah
Shrestha Shudra
ST
Sufism Tamang
Tarai
321
Hindu renouncer, ascetic or practitioner of yoga complete meditation, mental concentration, non-dualistic state of consciousness; mausoleum constructed over the grave of a saint, or spiritual leader group, society, community group, committee Hindu sect, religious congregation Hindu religious figure, saint (Assamese term) ephemeral and shifting islands on the bed of the Brahmaputra River Pranami sect disciple (from sundar: beautiful) Scheduled Caste (official Indian term for those formerly untouchable castes placed ‘on the schedule’ for receipt of ‘reservations’, i.e., positive discrimination) service, including religious devotion dynasty of kings. Title of the kings of Nepal; before 1769 they were the kings of Gorkha name of a Newar Hindu caste or status group (Nepal) fourth varna category, the ‘servants’, usually applied to low but ‘clean’ castes, that is, those just above the Dalits, but sometimes taken as denoting Dalits themselves Scheduled Tribe (official Indian term for those tribal groups placed on the ‘schedule’ for receipt of ‘reservations’, i.e., positive discrimination) Islamic mysticism second largest ethnic group (Janajati) in Nepal with a population of 1,282,304 according to the 2001 census, speaking a Tibeto-Burmese language lowland and plain region of northern India and southern Nepal running parallel to the Himalayas
322 THE POLITICS OF BELONGING IN THE HIMALAYAS tika
red spot of vermilion powder placed on the forehead as a religious blessing or celebration in Nepal and India Tibeto-Burman a group of languages belonging to SinoTibetan linguistic family Tiwa a tribe of Assam, formerly known as Lalung, living both in the hills and the plains. The ST status applies only to the plains Tiwa. Matrilineal descent is still prevalent among the hill Tiwas, who speak a Tibeto-Burmese language. Thakuri royal sub-caste, considered superior to ordinary Chhetris, in Nepal; equivalent to Rajput in India Tharu large ethnic group found throughout the Nepalese Tarai and the neighbouring states of India; in Nepal it is classed as a Janajati group and is the second-largest such group, comprising 1,533,879 people (6.7 per cent) according to the 2001 census Tharuwan land of the Tharus UNDP United Nations Development Programme UP Uttar Pradesh, one of the northern state of the Republic of India varna (Sanskrit) the four socio-religious groups of classical India, ranked in a hierarchical manner: Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras. The Untouchables (Dalit) are below the lowest varna (Shudras) Vaishyas third-ranked, merchant varna vamshavali genealogy, local chronicle VDC Village Development Committee, the smallest political unit in Nepal; renamed from ‘Village Panchayat’ after the fall of the Panchayat regime in 1990 Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Federation) the religious wing of the Hindu nationalist movement (cf. Hindutva) V.S. Vikram Samvat or era, the official era in Nepal, which began in 57 bc. It is also commonly used in India.
About the Editors and Contributors The Editors Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. She was coordinator of the EU-Asia-Link Project ‘The (Micro) Politics of DemocratÂ�isation: European–South-Asian Exchanges on Governance, Conflict and Civil Action’ with Tribhuban University Kathmandu (CNAS), University of Colombo (IMPAP), and Oxford University (ISCA), as project partners. Her major book publications include Ethnic Futures: State and Identity in Four Asian Countries (with A. Nandy, D. Rajasingham-Senanayke, and T. Gomez) (1999); Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal (co-editors: D. Gellner/J. Whelpton) (2008); The Ethnicisation of the Political: Identity Politics in Latin America, Asia and in USA (with C. Büschges) (2007). E-mail:
[email protected] Gérard Toffin is a social anthropologist and a member of the Himalayan Centre, CNRS, at Villejuif, France, where he was the director between 1985 and 1996. He has carried out extensive fieldwork among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley and among the Tamangs of the Ganesh Himal range. His research currently focuses on a Krishnaite sect found both in Nepal and India (particularly Gujarat and North Bengal), the Hindu city model in South Asia, the construction of democracy in Nepal, and the anthropology of theatre. He is author of Pyangaon, une communauté néwar de la vallée de Kathmandou: La vie matérielle (1977); Société et religion chez les Néwar du Népal (1984); Le Palais et le temple. La fonction royale dans l’ancienne vallée du Népal (1993); Les tambours de Katmandou (1996); Ethnologie. La quêt de l’autre (2005); Entre hindouisme et bouddhisme: la religion néwar (2000); Newar Society: City, Village and Periphery (2007). His edited volumes include: Man and His House in the Himalayas (1991); Nepal, Past and Present (1993). E-mail:
[email protected] 324â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas
the Contributors Daniela Berti is a social anthropologist, Chargée de recherche at the CNRS, Paris. She is a member of the Himalayan Centre at Villejuif and carries out her fieldwork in North India. Her main works focus on ritual interactions, on politico-ritual roles and practices formerly associated with kingship, on Hindutva’s entrenchment in local society, and on the Indian judiciary system. She is currently coordinating with G. Tarabout for a team project entitled ‘Governance and Justice in Contemporary India’. She is the author of La Parole des dieux: Rituels de possession en Himalaya Indien (2001); co-editor (with G. Tarabout) of Territory, Soil and Society in South Asia (2009) and (with N. Jaoul and P. Kanungo) of The Cultural Entrenchment of Hindutva: Mediation, Convergence, Resistence (forthcoming). E-mail:
[email protected] Ben Campbell is lecturer in anthropology at the University of Durham. He has worked over two decades with the Tamang-speaking communities of Rasuwa district on issues of ethnicity and development, agro-pastoral livelihoods, environmental knowledge, and the politics of nature conservation (www.conservationandsociety.org vol 3(2)). He has made a film (People of the Border) about the likely impact of road connection to the China border, and the Tamangs’ ritualized historical plays of conflict between China and Nepal. E-mail:
[email protected] Jessamine Dana has undertaken fieldwork at the pilgrimage site, Muktinath/Chumig-Gyatsa in Mustang District, Nepal for over five years from 2000–05 and performed research on Mustang for UNESCO Kathmandu. Her recent doctoral thesis from the University of Oxford has been about the multi-faith and political encounters between different kinds of Hindus and Buddhists and various nationalities at Muktinath, with a focus on the ‘technologies of interaction’ including its architectural, spatial, sensory, and embodied aspects. Ms Dana has also worked as an applied ethnographer in technology and ageing research at the Department of Economics at the National University of Galway, Ireland, and the Technology Research for Independent Living Centre, a partnership between the Intel Corporation and the Irish government. She is currently working on a comparative study of female spirituality and spiritual life in the United States of America. Email:
[email protected] ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORSâ•… 325
Anne de Sales is Chargée de recherche at the CNRS and member of the ‘Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative’ of the University of Nanterre-Paris X (France). She has published widely on the Kham-Magars, including the monograph, Je Suis Né de vos Jeux de Tambours. La Religion Chamanique des Magar du Nord (1991). E-mail:
[email protected] Martin Gaenszle is Professor in Cultural and Intellectual History of Modern South Asia at the Institute of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. His research interests include ethnicity, local history, oral traditions, and religious pluralism in North India and Nepal. He is the author of Origins and Migrations: Kinship, Mythology and Ethnic Identity among the Mewahang Rai (2000) and Ancestral Voices: Oral Ritual Texts and Their Social Contexts among the Mewahang Rai of East Nepal (2002), and has co-authored (with Karen Ebert). Rai Mythology: Kiranti Oral Texts (2008). His edited volumes are Himalayan Space: Cultural Horizons and Practices (with Balthasar Bickel) (1999), Visualizing Space in Banaras: Images, Maps, and the Practice of Representation (with Jörg Gengnagel) (2006), and The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance (with Ulrich Demmer) (2007). E-mail: martin.gaenszle@ univie.ac.at David N. Gellner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls. He is the author of Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest (1992) and The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism: Weberian Themes (2001), and the coauthor (with Sarah LeVine) of Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (2005). His edited volumes include Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (with D. Quigley) (1995); Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom (with J. Pfaff-Czarnecka and J. Whelpton) (1997); Inside Organizations: Anthropologists at Work (with E. Hirsch) (2001); Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences (2003; 2007); Nepalis Inside and Outside Nepal and Political and Social Transformations in North India and Nepal (both with H. Ishii and K. Nawa) (2007); and Local Democracy in South Asia (with K. Hachhethu) (2008). E-mail:
[email protected] 326â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Maheshwar P. Joshi, archaeologist and historian working on central Himalaya since 1963, obtained his PhD degree in temple architecture and iconography and DLitt in numismatics. He is retired professor and head, Department of History, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, and former member, Central Advisory Board of Archaeology, Government of India. Currently Honorary Fellow, Doon Library and Research Centre, Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, and Collaborator, CNRS, UPR, 299, Villejuif, France, Joshi is working on source-material for the study of traditional metalwork, water management, and socio-economic and religious history of Uttarakhand and western Nepal. He has published extensively on different aspects of central Himalayan history, culture, and archaeology from prehistory to modern times. He is the author of Morphogenesis of Kunindas (c. 200 B.C.—c. A.D. 300): A Numismatic Overview (1989); Uttaranchal (Kumaon-Garhwal) Himalaya: An Essay in Historical Anthropology (1990); co-editor (with Allen C. Fanger and Charles W. Brown) of Himalaya: Past and Present (4 volumes, 1990–2000); (with Lalit Prabha Joshi) Uttaranchal Himalaya (2 volumes, 1994, 1995); and (with S.P. Shukla and R.S. Bisht) History and Heritage (2007). E-mail: mp_joshi20 @rediffmail.com Gisèle Krauskopff is Directrice de recherche at the CNRS and a member of the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative based at the University of Nanterre-Paris-Ouest/La Défense. She has carried out extensive research among the Tharus of the Nepal Tarai (see Maîtres et possedés. Les rites et l’ordre social chez les Tharu (Népal) (1989); The Kings of Nepal and the Tharu of the Tarai, in collaboration with P. Deuel, (2000–01). She is the editor of Les Faiseurs d’histoires. Politiques de l’origine et écrits sur le passé (2009). She is now engaged in a research programme dealing with the circulation and creation of Himalayan ‘Art objects’. E-mail: gisele.
[email protected] Axel Michaels is both a scholar of Indology and Religious Studies. He has been Professor of Classical Indology, at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg since 1996. In 2001, he was elected Spokesman of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 619 ‘Ritual Dynamics’. Since November 2007 he has been one of the directors of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORSâ•… 327
Context—Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows’. His current fields of interest are social history and the history of Hinduism, the theory of rituals, life cycle rites of passage in Nepal, as well as the cultural and legal history of Nepal. Major book publications include Reisen der Götter: Der nepalische Pashupatinatha-Tempel und sein rituelles Umfeld, 2 parts (1994); Hinduism: Past and Present (2004); (with Niels Gutschow) Handling Death: The dynamics of Death and Ancestor Rituals among the Newars of Bhaktapur, Nepal (2005); The Price of Purity: The Religious Judge in 19th Century Nepal (2006); (with Niels Gutschow) Growing up: Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal (2008); S´ iva in Trouble. Rituals and Festivals at the Pashupatinath temple of Deopatan, Nepal (2008). E-mail:
[email protected] Sanjay Kumar Pandey, Associate Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, teaches courses on foreign policy of Russia and the Central Asian states. His publication include ‘Asia in the Debate on Russian Identity’, International Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, October–December 2007, pp. 317–37 and ‘India in the Russian Foreign Policy Debate’ in Paramjit Sahai (ed.), India–Eurasia: The Way Ahead (2008), pp. 24–36. For the past three years he has been doing a Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi) funded research project on ‘Challenges to Indian Federalism: Politics of Identity and Self-determination’. It is a comparative study of identity politics and separatist movements in Nagaland and Mizoram. He has carried out extensive field survey in these two states of Northeast India. Presently, he is continuing his research on the subject as Charles Wallace Trust Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies of the University of Cambridge. E-mail:
[email protected] Philippe Ramirez is a Chargé de recherche at CNRS, Centre d’Etudes Himalayennes, France. For 20 years, he has undertaken researches on Nepal, particularly on the social and political structures of central Nepal. His publications on Nepal include De la disparition des chefs. Une anthropologie politique népalaise (2000); and, as an editor, Resunga, The Mountain of the Horned Sage: Two Districts in Central Nepal (2000). His present work focuses on the anthropology and history of multicultural areas of Northeast India. E-mail:
[email protected] 328â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas William Sax completed his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1987.╯After two years at Harvard University, he moved to New Zealand, where he taught Anthropology and Religious Studies for 11 years before taking up the Professorship in Anthropology at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg, Germany.╯He has published extensively on popular Hinduism, ritual theatre, women and religion, and ritual healing.╯He is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology at the South Asia Institute, and Co-ordinator of the Research Area ‘Health and Environment’ at the Karls Jaspers Centre. E-mail:
[email protected] Joëlle Smadja is a geographer, Directrice de recherche at the CNRS in France. She is head of the research unit ‘Centre d’études himalayennes’ (Centre for Himalayan Studies). She first of all carried out research in Nepal on geomorphology, then on land use, resource management, the population’s perception and representation of environments, the repercussions environmental protection policies have had on agriculture and rural societies, as well as on territorial restructurings. Her current fieldwork covers Northeast India, and in particular Arunachal Pradesh and the Brahmaputra plains in Assam, where she focuses on the mobility of land and of populations. She has edited Reading Himalayan Landscapes over Time: Environmental Perception, Knowledge and Practice in Nepal and Ladakh (2009); this book was first published in French in 2003. E-mail:
[email protected] Name Index Aderhold, J. xxxviii Adhikari, M.M. 62 Agarwal, B. 236, 243 Agrawal, A. 236, 243 Ambedkar, B. 22 Anderson, B. 102, 120, 219 Anoussamy, D. 312 Anthias, F. xi, xiv, xvi, xxxvi, 191 Ao, A.L. 115, 120 Aosenba 106, 108–10, 114, 120 Appadurai, A. 11, 21, 23 Ardener, E. xxii, xxxvi Aris, M. 73 Assayag, J. 165–66 Atkinson, E.T. 178, 180, 275–78, 280–81, 287 Atkinson, M. 293, 313 Aurangzeb 161 Babb, L.A. 166 Bahuchet, S. 260, 266, 268 Bakker H.T. 143 Baldev Juju 56–61, 75 Barbeau, C.M. 95, 97 Barnard, A. 72–73 Batten, J.H. 287 Bauer K. 240 Baumann, G. 46, 52, 73 Beck, U. xxxv, xxxvi, 268–69 Belsare, M.B. 165–66 Berkes, F. 312 Bernot, L. xiv, xxxvi Berti, D. xxiii, xxxiii, 22, 166, 291 Bhambra, G.K. 99, 113, 120 Bhandari, J.S. 251, 268 Bhanubhakta 202
Bhattacharjee, T. 95, 97 Bhattarai, S.V. 287 Bhuyan, S.K. 81, 94, 97 Bickel, B. 244 Bijukche, N.M. 72 Birendra, King 128 Bista, D.B. 23, 51 Blaikie, P. 233, 243 Blamont, D. 43 Blondeau, A.M. 243–45 Boisseaux, T. 245, 258–59, 268, 270 Bonnemaison, J. 265, 268 Bordoloi, B.N. 251, 268 Bouillier, V. 43, 76, 143 Bourdieu, P. 197 Bourliaud, J. 245 Bowchery, P. 96, 97 Braddick, M. 104, 116, 117, 120 Brauen, M. 243 Breckenridge, C. 221 Brown, C.W. 277, 287, 288 Brubaker, R. xxxvi, xxxvii Burawoy, M. xii, xxxvii Burghart, R. 7, 23, 37, 38, 40 Butler, J. xvii, xxxvii Campbell, B. xxii, xxiii, xxxii, 50, 73, 222, 225, 241, 243, 246, 248, 258, 267, 268 Caplan, L. 9, 232 Carrin, M. 75 Chalmers, R. 53, 73, 209, 216, 219 Chand, Baz Bahadur 178 Chandra Samsher Rana 154 Chapman, M. xxxvi
330â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Charles, M. 296 Chasie, C. 105, 116, 120 Chatrasal 150, 161 Chatterjee, P. 219, 220 Chaudhari, G. 278, 288 Chaudhary, M.A. 312 Chauhan, K. 312 Chhetri, R.B. 74 Christof, M. 165–66 Clarke, G. 22, 23, 50, 73, 223–26, 230, 232, 234, 241, 243 Clow, A. 110 Cohen, R. 208, 220 Cohn, B. 50, 73, 292, 312 Colchester, M. 256, 261–62, 268 Collignon, B. 265, 268 Conley, J.M. 308, 312 Conway, L. 232, 245 Cooper, F. xxxvi, xxxvii Cowan, J. 74 Cranbrook, Lord 108 Crémin, E. 267–68 Croucher, S. 240, 243 Crowley, J. xiv, xxv, xxxvii, 72–73, 99 Csordas, T. 195, 197 Dabaral, S. 177, 180 Dahal, D.R. 232, 243 Dahal, P.K. 142 Dalmia, V. 165–66, 209, 216, 220 Dana, J. xxvi, xxxi, 182 Danda, D. 95, 97 Debarbieux, B. 256, 268 Deffontaines, J.P. 247, 268–69 Dembour, M. 74 Des Chenes, M. 42 De Sales, A. xxii, xxiv, xxvii, 3, 10, 22, 23, 52, 73 Deuel, P. 43 Deva, I. 313 Devchandra 150 Dharmacharyya, D. 55, 212 Dhoundiyal, N.C. 181
Dhoundiyal, V.R. 181 Di Méo, G. 247, 269 Dieckhoff, A. xiv, xxxvii, 72, 74 Diemberger, H. 226, 237–38, 243 Dobremez, J.F. 245 Dollfus, P. 42, 74, 268 Drew, P. 293, 313 Dumont, L. 8, 24 Durkheim, E. xiii, xxxvii Dutta, A.K. 252, 269 Ehrhard, F.K. 184, 196–97 Engel, D.M. 293, 313 English, R. 208, 220, 243 Escobar, A. 230 Evans, P.B. 120 Eyben, R. 249, 267, 269 Favell, A. xiv, xxxvii, 73 Ferguson, J. 99, 121 Fisher, C. 278, 281, 288 Fisher, W.F. 50–52, 74 Flinders, C.L. xxi, xxii, xxxvii Fortier, A.-M. xxxvi Fouron, G. xxvii Franklin, S. 225, 243 Fuller, C. 24, 42, 309, 313 Gaborieau, M. 9–10, 17, 23–24 Gaenszle, M. xxvii, xxxii, 55, 71, 201–03, 205, 217, 219, 237, 243–44 Galanter, M.L. 294, 313 Gandhi, M.K. 22, 114, 213 Gardner, D.M. 278, 288 Geschiere, P. xxxvi Geddes, A. xxxvii, 73 Geertz, C. 101, 120 Gellner, D. xvii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxxvii, 43–45, 47–48, 52, 62, 66, 70, 73–76, 212, 220, 221, 243–44 Gellner, E. 77, 97, 102, 120, 219, 220
NAME INDEXâ•… 331 Gersony, R. 22, 24 Ghimire, K. 232, 243, 270 Ghising, Subhas 209 Giddens, A. xxiii, xxxvi, xxxvii Gil-White, F.J. 101, 120 Glick-Schiller, N. xxvii, xxxvii Gluckman, M. xix, xxxvii Gooch, P. 236, 243 Gorenburg, D. 102, 120 Gramsci, A. 56, 286, 288 Grewal, J.S. 288 Griffiths, M. 101, 121 Guneratne, A. 30, 38, 40 Gupta, A. 99, 121 Gurdon, P.R.T. 80–81, 97 Gurung, G. 51 Gurung, G.M. 44 Gurung, H. 207, 220 Gurung, O.P. 74 Gutschow, N. 205, 220 Guthman, J. 233 Guyot, S. 257, 267, 269 Gyanendra, King 13, 53
Hutton J.H. 110 Hydari, A. 114
Habermas, J. xxiv, xxxvii, 215, 220 Habib, I. 41, 43 Hachhethu, K. 74, 76 Halbfass, W. 190, 197 Hale, H. 102, 121 Hangen, S. 51, 74 Harrison, J. 234, 239, 244 Heide, S.v.d. 221 Heintz, B. xxxviii Herrenschmidt, O. 42–43 Hobsbawm, E. 264, 269 Hoces, D.R. 267, 271 Höfer, A. 49, 74, 229, 237–38, 244, 267 Hollé, A. 72–73, 75 Holmberg, D. 50, 75, 230, 242, 244 Hu, C.T. 41 Hutt, M. 75, 207–09, 212, 219–20
Kabeer, N. 267, 269 Kabir 149 Kannabiran, K. xxxvii, 120–21 Kanungo, P. 166 Karki, M.B. 70, 72–74 Karmacharya, M. 130–32 Karmawphlang, D. 94, 97 Karmay, S. 23 Kaviraj S. 220 Kearney, M. 233–34, 244 Khilnani, S. 220 Kielhorn, F. 177, 181 Kieserling, A. xxxviii King, C.R. 220 Knorr-Cetina, K. xxxviii Koirala, B.P. 213 Koirala, G.P. 142 Koirala, K.P. 213 Kollmair, M. 256, 258–59, 261, 267, 270–71
Iralu, K.D. 115, 121 Ishii, H. 24, 72, 74, 75, 244 Ives, J.D. 258, 267, 269 Izard, M. 43 Jackson, D. 196–97 Jacquesson, F. 95 Jaffrelot, C. 75 Jagajjaya Malla 133 Jang Bahadur Rana 49, 52–53 Jaoul, N. 166 Jasper, J.M. 100 Jaspers, J. 292, 313 Jayal, N.G. 312 Jha, P. 132 Jha, V.N. 37, 43 Jodkha, S.S. ix, 22–23 Jolivet, M.J. 247, 269 Joshi, Maheshwar P. xxxiii, 272–73, 275, 279, 280, 282–83, 286–88 Juddha Shamsher Rana 154
332â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Koppert, G. 253, 269 Kranz, O. xxxviii Krauskopff, G. xxiv, xxviii, 25, 29, 31, 35, 38, 40–43, 71, 75 Kumar, R. 119 Kuper, A. 48, 72, 75 Ladbury, S. 249, 267, 269 Lama, S. 245 Lambert, H. 22–23 Lash, S. xxxvi Lasuh, W. 120–21 Latour, B. xxxvi, xxxvii, 269 Lecomte-Tilouine, M. 52, 71, 74–75, 197, 226, 244, 265, 268, 287 Lego, N. 251, 269 Lelyveld, D. 221 Léna, P. 247, 269 Lenclud, G. xxxvi, xxxvii Leve, L. 73, 75 LeVine, S. 72–73, 75, 212, 221 Lévi-Strauss, C. 33, 43 Levy, R. 72, 75 Lienhard S. 76, 143 Lindgren, B. 95, 97 Lipner, J. 190, 197 Long, W.L. xiv, xxxviii Lorenzen, D.N. 149, 158, 166 Lovell, N. 218, 221, 292, 313 Luginbühl, Y. 268–69 Luhmann, N. xiv, xix, xxxviii Macdonald, A.W. 95, 97 Macfarlane, A. 50, 75 Mahanta, K.C. 288 Maharjan, B. 72 Maharjan, Nati 57, 62–65, 72, 75 Mahendra (King) 10, 50 Malinar, A. 165–66 Malla, C. 166 Mallison, F. 165–66 Mamdani, M. 168, 181 Massey, D. 230, 244
Mathur, S. 41, 44 Mauss, M. 197 Mawdsley, E. 170, 181 McAllister, P.A. 168, 181 McDonaugh, C. 28, 31, 40–41, 43–44 McKay, A. 184, 197 McHugh, E. 72, 75 McLeod, W.H. 149, 166 Medhasananda, S. 221 Meyer, F. 253, 269 Michaels, A. xxiii, xxx, 125, 133, 138, 143, 190, 196, 205, 220 Migdal, J. xiv, xv, xxxviii, 99, 102–03, 113, 121 Mill, J.S. 47, 75 Mipun, J. 251, 252, 270 Mishra, C. 232, 244 Mishra, N. 289 Mitra, S. 170, 181 Mittal, S. 289 Morrison, C. 294, 313 Mudur, G. 313 Muivah, T. 117, 120 Müller-Böker, U. 232, 244, 256, 258–59, 261, 267, 269–71 Munch, R. xxxviii Nacke, S. xxxviii Nag, S. 106, 108, 118, 121 Nair, P.T. 205, 221 Nanak, 149 Nawa, K. 244 Nehru, 22 Neidhardt, F. xxxvi, xxxviii Nightingale, A. 236, 244 Nugent, D. xxxvii Nuh, V.K. 120 O’Barr, W.M. 308, 312 O’Callaghan, T. 101, 121 Oberoi, H. 166 Ødegaard, S. 42, 44 Ogura, K. 22–23, 72, 76
NAME INDEXâ•… 333 Ong, Aihwa 143, 218, 221 Onta, P. 51 Oommen, T.K. 169, 181 Oppitz, M. 19 Orsini, F. 215–16, 221 Oszlak, O. 117, 121 Padun, N. 270 Pande, B. 275, 277, 279, 281, 287, 289 Pandey, S.K. xxiv, 98 Pandeya, B. 278, 289 Pant, Mahes, R. 276, 289 Parajuli, K. 210, 213, 221 Parkin, D. 201, 221 Parry, J. 23 Pawsey, Sir Charles 114 Peet, R. 240, 244 Pegu, N.C. 252, 270 Peluso, N. 242, 244 Pfaff-Czarnecka, J. xi, xxii, xxxviii, 22, 44, 72–76, 220, 235, 243– 44 Phizo, A.Z. 112 Pigg, S. 10, 11, 23, 51, 76, 231, 244 Pimbert, M.P. 259, 267, 270 Plowden, W.C. 278–79, 288–89 Polat, N. 102, 121 Polletta, F. 100, 121, 292, 313 Pollock, S. 219, 221 Pradhan, R. 72, 74 Pradhan, S. 62, 234, 239, 244 Pradhan, V.K. 136 Prannath 146–47, 150–52, 164–65 Premchand 210 Prety, J.N. 259, 267, 270 Prinsep, J. 221 Prithivi Narayan Shah 152, 202, 204 Prod’homme, J.P. 247, 269 Quigley, D. 74–76
Rabinne, F. 97 Ramaswamy, S. 103, 121 Ramble, C. xxxvi, xxxviii, 76, 196, 228, 243–44 Ramirez, P. xxvi, xxix, 10, 23, 77, 95–96 Rana, P.S. 166 Ranger, T. 264, 269 Raturi, H. 278–79, 287, 289 Rautela, J. 286, 289 Rawat, A.S. 180–81 Redclift, M. 236, 244 Regmi, M.C. 37, 44, 232, 244 Reid, Sir Robert 110 Rex, J. 121 Rhoades, R. 239, 244 Rimal, K.P. 72–73, 75 Ripert, B. 234, 245, 258, 259, 267, 270 Robbins, P. 253, 264, 265, 270 Rosaldo, R. xxxvi, xxxviii Rossi, G. 260–61, 267, 275 Rujidan 13–16, 18, 20, 22 Saberwal, V. 265, 270 Sacareau, I. 245, 258, 259, 267, 270 Sagant, P. 23, 231, 245 Saikya, M.C. 251, 268 Sahlins, M. 277, 289 Saklani, Atul, 180, 181 Saksena, B.P. 276, 289 Sanwal, R.D. 273, 282, 283, 289 Sassen, S. xii, xxxviii Sato, S. 241, 245 Sax, W. xxvi, xxxi, 167, 181 Schatzki, T. xii, xxxviii Schlee, G. xiv, xxxviii, 92, 95, 97 Schneider, D. 226, 245 Schomer, K. 149, 166 Schuh, D. 197 Scott, J.C. 307, 313 Sen, S. 94, 97
334â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Sharkey, G. 72, 74 Sharma, G. 214 Sharma, Nutan 137, 142 Sharma, S. 152, 165, 166 Sharma, S.K. 181 Shastri, M.P. 278, 289 Shimray, A.S. Atai 106, 121 Sinha, S. 37, 44 Shivakothi, T. 153, 166 Shrestha, D.B. 210, 212, 213, 215, 219, 221 Shrestha, K.B. 201, 202, 210 Shrestha, N.R. 232, 245 Shrestha, S. 267, 270 Shrikrishna, 278, 289 Sihlé, N. 230 Sila Khan, D. 150–51, 154, 165–66 Silori, C.S. 258, 267, 270 Simmel, G. xiii, xviii, xxxv, xxxviii Singh, Chandra, 174 Sircar, D.C. 177, 181 Skar, H.O. 44 Smadja, J. xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxxii, 230, 245, 246, 247, 270 Smith, A.D. 121 Smith, E.A. 265, 270 Smith, W.S. 313 Soliva, R. 256, 258, 259, 261, 267, 269, 270, 271 Spencer, J. 42 Steinkellner, E. 243, 244, 245 Steinmann, B. 43 Subba, T. 165, 166, 221 Suthar, S.K. 119 Suu Kyi, A.S. 73 Tamang, M.S. 242, 245 Tandan, G. 143 Tarabout, G. 22 Tautscher, G. 242, 245 Thapa, Amar Singh 174 Thapa, D. 73 Thapa, R. 127, 143
Tawa Lama, S. 258, 259, 270 Thomazo, J. 259, 260, 267, 271 Tilly, C. 67, 76 Timsina, S.R. 208, 221 Toffin, G. xix, xxx, xxxviii, 10, 22, 23, 43, 50, 72, 73, 75, 76, 96, 143, 144, 166, 228, 242, 245 Tolia, R.S. 282, 289 Traill, G.W. 278, 281, 289 Trautman, T.R. 277, 289 Tripathi G. 289 Tulachan, P. 219, 221 Tuladhar, P.R. 56, 72 Turner, A.C. 278, 279, 289 Tyrell, H. xxxvi, xxxviii Unkelbach, R. xxxviii Upadhyaya L.A. 135 Upreti, G.D. 278, 287, 290 van Driem, G. 96–97 van Schendel, W. xiv, xxxviii Vaudeville, C. 162, 166 Veer P.v.d. 221 Verrier, E. 252, 271 Victen, U.M. 120, 121 Vigny, F. 245 Vinant, J. xxxvii von Savigny, E. xxxviii Watters, D. 22, 23 Watts, M. 240, 244 Weber, Max xiii, xviii, xxxvi, xxxviii, 101, 121, 166 Whalley, P. 280, 290 Whee Per, J.C. 267, 271 Whelpton, J. 44, 51, 73, 74, 75, 76, 220, 243 White, J.B. xvii, xxxviii Williams, R.B. 144, 166 Wilson, H.H. 165, 166 Wilson, R. 74 Wimmer, A. 76
NAME INDEXâ•… 335 Wimmer, R. xiv, xix, xxxvi, xxxviii, 72 Wishnie, M. 265, 271 Wyatt-Smith, J. 233, 245
Yonzon P. 239, 245 Young, C. 104, 116, 121 Yuwal-Davis, N. xxxvi, 99, 100, 118, 119, 120, 121
Yashar, D. 117, 121 Yogi Naraharinath 135, 138 Yonuo, A. 105, 106, 107, 121
Zolberg, A. xiv, xxxviii Zotter A. 74 Zotter C. 74
Subject Index acculturation 90, 91 activists xiv, xxvi, xxviii, 46, 51–56, 69–71, 175, 201, 209 Adi, ethnic group, India 250 adim samyabad (‘original communism’) 8 Adivasi xxvii, 47–48, 132, 314, 319 affinity xi, xxix, 78, 129, 145, 225 agency xxiv, 227, 236, 240, 249 agro-pastoralists xxxii, 5 Ahom 97, 107–08, 112 Ajima (goddess) 60 Alienation xiv, 118 Almora 178, 181, 197, 274–75, 284, 287–90 ancestor 6, 12, 17, 22, 30, 41, 61, 92, 106, 152, 159–60, 208, 214, 245, 274–75, 277, 279, 281, 327 ancestral land xxvii, 12 Ankhu Khola (Nepal) 228 arati 193, 314 artisans 5, 49, 72 Arunachal Pradesh 250–51, 269, 271, 328 Assam xv, xxix, xxxiii, 78, 81, 84– 87, 89, 90, 92–93, 95, 96, 97, 105, 106, 107–08, 110, 112, 114, 118, 146, 208, 246–47, 249–52, 254, 260, 263, 266–71, 314, 316, 318, 321–22, 328 attachment iv–xiii, xv, xvii, xx–xxiv, xxvii–xxviii, xxxi–xxxii, xxxiv– xxxvi, 7, 63, 87, 99, 101, 105, 145, 201, 214, 218, 248 Australia 48, 68, 70
authority xxiv, xxxviii, 30, 38, 42–43, 84, 86, 93, 96, 103, 109, 113–14, 138, 141, 143, 170, 182, 186, 194, 196, 224, 236, 240, 253, 258, 259, 282, 291, 308, 317 autochthony xxxvii, 87, 287 Baglung 5 baharya 30 bahujan hit 65 Bahun (caste, Nepal) 26, 50, 72, 152–54, 158, 205, 314, 319 Bahun-Chetri (castes) 51, 229, 242 Balpakram National Park (India) 258 Banaras (see also Varanasi) xxxii, 54, 201–02, 204–06, 208–10, 212, 214–15, 217–21, 325 Bangladeshis 250, 253 bangthe 86 Bardiya National Park (Nepal) 258 Barka 84 belonging (cross-, ethnic, territorial, tribal) ix–xxxviii, 3–5, 7, 10–12, 14, 17, 20, 25–28, 35–39, 45, 48, 68–69, 71, 73–74, 77–78, 81, 83, 85–89, 91–94, 98–101, 104–05, 113, 115–16, 118–21, 130, 133, 137–39, 141, 145– 46, 148, 152, 155–56, 159–60, 164, 167, 169, 171, 173–76, 179–80, 182–92, 195–97, 201– 02, 209, 215, 218, 221–23, 225, 228–33, 235–44, 246–50, 256–60, 264–66, 272–74, 276,
subject INDEXâ•… 337 282–83, 285–87, 291–93, 297, 299–301, 310, 313, 314, 322 Bengal xxxviii, 146, 153, 158, 162, 165–66, 168, 208, 244, 315, 323 Bengali 96, 167–68, 250 bhakti 148–50, 159, 166, 288–89, 314 bhintuna 55–56 Bhoi (ethnic group) 78–84, 87, 90–91, 93, 96 Bhotiya 50, 76, 179 bhuiyar (‘soil god’) 31, 34 Bhumij (central India) 37 Bhutan 208, 217, 220, 260, 267 Bible 147, 150 Bigha 296, 310 Bihu (festival) 86, 251, 266–67 Binong 84 biodiversity 236, 240–41, 255, 265 bista 5, 23, 51 blacksmith 5, 13, 36 blood xiii, xxxvii, xxx, 6–7, 23, 120–21, 134, 159–60, 167, 169, 223–25, 231–32, 235, 241, 243 Bodo ethnic group (India) 89, 94, 260 Bodo–Garo (languages) 89 Bokakhat (Assam) 249–55, 263, 265–67 boundary dynamics xiv boundary maintenance xxv, 99 Brahma 146, 151 Brahmans xxx, 28–29, 36–37, 41, 50, 54, 56–58, 72, 76, 133, 146, 152–54, 156, 158–59, 163, 177, 205, 210, 272, 274–75, 277, 279, 281, 287, 314, 332 Brahmaputra xxix, 78, 85, 95, 105, 249–02, 254, 267–70, 318, 321, 328 British administration 109 British Gurkha 5, 23
British Raj 276, 280–81 Buddhism xxxviii, 55, 61, 63, 65–68, 71, 73–75, 184, 186, 188, 189, 325 buffaloes 264 Buranji 81, 94, 97, 106, 314 Burma (see also Myanmar) 77, 97, 106, 110, 115, 213 Cachar 105 Calcutta 54–55, 166, 210, 215, 221 Canada 48, 68 candomblé (Brazil) 61 cannabis 295–313 census reports 111 Chand dynasty 173–74, 178 Chandigarh 297–98, 300, 308, 310–11, 327 Chantyel (= Chantel) ethnic group (Nepal) 52 chaudhari 30, 41–42, 278, 288 checkpoint xxxviii, 99, 107, 109, 113, 119, 121 Chetri (caste, Nepal) 26, 49–50, 72, 96, 152, 158, 205, 314, 319 Chhattisgarh 170 chieftainship 106 China 56, 72, 324 Chipko (movement) xxiv, 236 Chitwan Park (Nepal) 258 chorten 230, 315 Christian ix, xxxv, 21, 86, 89, 94, 96, 109, 111, 145, 150, 154, 164–65, 170, 272 Christianity (see also Christians) xxiv, 84, 86, 89, 96, 104, 107, 111–13, 115, 146, 161, 251 circulation 213, 240, 327 citizens xxiii, 7, 24, 47–48, 96, 114–15, 125, 133, 135, 140–41, 212, 215, 218, 220, 224, 230, 236, 256, 258, 260, 266, 269, 317
338â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas citizenship xxxvii, 45, 53, 93, 96, 99–100, 104, 117–18, 121, 140, 143, 154, 201, 203, 205, 207–09, 213, 215, 217–19, 221, 225, 236, 241, 246, 248, 249, 269 Code Napoleon 49 colonial rule, British xxii, 117 colonization xxiv, 11, 17, 49, 101, 118, 173, 208 commitment xii–xiii, xxxi, xxxvi, 3–4, 14, 67, 192, 199, 215, 249, 291, 298, 307–08 commonality xi–xii, xv–xviii, xxiii, xxviii, xxxv–xxxvi, 141 community xiii–iv, xix, xxviii–xix, xxxii, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16–21, 23–24, 29–31, 34, 36, 39, 44, 47, 67, 71, 76, 78, 93, 96, 99–100, 102, 104–06, 113, 116–19, 126, 148, 156–58, 160–61, 163, 166, 184–85, 191, 202, 205, 208, 215–19, 221, 228–29, 234, 236, 238, 241, 243–44, 246–47, 260, 266, 271, 273, 277, 284, 286, 321 conflict 199 Constituent Assembly (Nepal) 69–70, 111, 114 constructivism 101–02 cosmopolitanism 201, 216, 219–20, 224 cultural pattern xxix, 77, 81 culture xiii–xv, xvii, xxi, xxvi, xxix, xxxii–xxxiii, 7–8, 17, 19, 44, 46–48, 50–51, 55, 58–60, 63–65, 71, 73–76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 88–89, 92–93, 95–96, 99, 101, 108, 111–12, 115–16, 118, 120–21, 132, 143, 160, 166, 168, 170–71, 184, 189, 192, 197, 216, 220–21, 229, 231, 236, 243–45, 247–48,
252, 262–65, 273, 277–78, 288, 296, 305, 317, 319, 326, 328 dajyu-bhai (“kin”) 17 Dalit xxxvii, 50, 54, 69–70, 315, 319, 321–22 Dang xxviii, 25–28, 30–31, 33–44 Darjeeling 53, 153, 166, 208–09, 217, 315 Dasain (festival) 194, 242 Dehra Dun 175, 179, 272, 284, 289, 290, 326 Delhi ix, xxxvii, 23–24, 42–43, 73–76, 97, 114–16, 118–21, 165–66, 172, 180–81, 210, 212, 214, 220–21, 243–44, 268–71, 287–89, 312–13, 323– 25, 327 democracy 10, 20, 54, 70, 74, 76, 121, 125, 181, 213, 216, 241, 269, 283, 291, 319, 323, 326 Deokhuri 35, 43 Deopatan 126, 128, 131–34, 138, 141–43, 327 deoraja 92 des or desh (‘country’) 6, 25, 35, 37–39, 42, 278, 288 desbandhiya 29, 34 deterritorialization xxxii Devbhumi 173 development xix, xxiii–xxvi, xxxvi, 4, 6, 10–12, 14–16, 19, 21, 23–24, 28, 42, 48, 50–51, 53, 72, 74, 76, 84, 126–29, 132, 142–43, 161, 163, 173, 184, 192, 201, 207, 213–17, 219– 24, 231–35, 238–39, 241–44, 247, 257, 268–71, 284–86, 288–89, 296, 315–16, 319, 322, 324, 327 Devi Purana 177 dharamsala 17
subject INDEXâ•… 339 dharma xxx, 7, 55, 72, 135, 139, 140, 154, 158–59, 161, 163, 165–66, 189, 193, 212, 282, 287, 301, 315, 320 Dharmashastras 49, 58, 159 dhime (drum) 63 diaspora xii, 202, 207–08, 217, 220 diksha 156 Dimasa, ethnic group, India 95, 97 disembedding xxiii, xxxv, 26, 39 District Court of Justice, Himachal Pradesh xxxiii, 291 diversity xv, xxvi, 23, 77, 96, 102, 105, 108, 125, 166, 230, 236, 240–41, 255, 265 dobashi 109 Dom 272–73, 279, 282, 315 earthquake 171, 249, 251, 253, 267 East Bengal 168 eco-village 262, 263, 264 elephant 30, 249, 255, 258, 267 embodiment ix, xviii, 186, 195, 225, 314 Emerson House 293 encounterability 182, 196 endogamy 31 environment xxiii, 7, 38, 40, 42, 171, 183, 188, 202, 223, 231, 233–41, 243–49, 256–57, 261, 265–66, 268–70, 312, 316, 324, 328 environmental discourse, regulation, degradation 233, 236–37, 240, 244, 261, 278, 281 environmental protection 234, 270, 328 ethnic identity xxvi, 25, 47, 92, 169, 170, 179, 325 ethnic markers 169, 171 ethnicity xv, xxvii, xxix, xxxi, 21, 25, 44, 46, 51–52, 62, 71–76,
86–87, 89, 91, 97, 121, 167– 73, 181–83, 189, 220–21, 227, 233, 236, 339, 342–43, 245, 273, 285, 323–26 exchange of sisters 32, 41 exclusion xiii–xv, xvii, xxii, xxv– xxvi, xxx, xxxvii, 39, 45–47, 70, 72, 76, 172, 180, 183, 191, 194, 243, 253 factionalism xxviii, 12, 165, 292 family xii, xviii–xix, 30, 34, 58, 62, 89, 138, 148–50, 152–53, 155, 163, 180, 189, 191, 193, 197, 210, 214, 227, 275, 277, 286, 292, 309, 311, 320, 322 fiction 220 fire sacrifice 176 First World War 109 forest xxiv, 6, 43, 127–29, 132, 214, 232–33, 235–39, 241, 243–45, 260, 262, 265, 268, 271, 284, 303–04, 311–12 forestry 243–44, 255 galli 28, 280–81, 288 gaon xxvii, 3–4, 6, 9, 21, 29, 228, 314 gaon janasarkar 23 gaonbura (headman) 108 Garhwal 173–81, 275–79, 281–82, 284–85, 287–90, 317, 326 Garo ethnic group (India) 94–96, 258 Gemeindereligiosität 164 Gemeinschaft xiii, xxxviii Gesellschaft xiii, xxxviii globalization v, xxxii, 26, 234–35, 243, 258, 291 Goddess Nanda Devi 176, 180 Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) 209 gotyar 31
340â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Government of India 110–11, 115–18, 120, 172, 316, 326 Guhyeswari (goddess) 62 Gurkhas 5, 174, 180 guru 13, 149–50, 152, 155–59, 162, 164, 188–89, 194, 275, 316 Gurung ethnic group (Nepal) xv, 44, 50–51, 74–75, 96, 207, 220, 224 guthi xix, xxxviii, 65, 126, 132, 134, 136, 139, 217, 232, 320 Guwahati 78, 83, 85, 95, 97, 268 gyam (‘pathway’ in Tamang) 226–27 havapani (‘air and water’) 7, 225, 316 head-hunting 108, 111 heimatlosigkeit xiii Himachal Pradesh xxxiii, 291, 296, 298, 300, 306, 312, 317, 319 Hindu Ascetics 138 Hindu symbols 180 Hinduism 52, 61, 63, 75, 86, 96, 128, 146, 148–49, 151, 154, 159, 161–62, 166, 183–84, 186, 188–190, 194, 197, 314, 325, 327–28 Hinduization 72, 145, 161–62 His Majesty’s Government 127, 142, 316 hunting 259 identity xi–xii, xv–xviii, xxvi, xxxi–xxxiv, xxxvi–xxxvii, 7, 23, 25, 31, 34, 43, 46–47, 50, 52, 55, 58, 61, 65, 73–78, 83–96, 98–105, 107, 111–13, 115, 118–21, 144–48, 151, 156, 161, 163–64, 166, 168–70, 179–83, 187, 190, 197, 201, 207, 209, 213, 215– 16, 218, 226, 229, 232–33, 236, 242–44, 246–49, 251–52,
263–64, 266, 268–69, 275, 284–86, 292, 298, 313, 319, 323, 325, 327 identity formation 98, 100, 119 ideology 8, 10–11, 21, 38–39, 45, 50, 75, 158, 161, 217–18, 242, 268, 316 ijjat (‘honour’) 19 imperialism 49 inclusion xiv–xv, xxv, xxxviii, 172, 183, 197, 279, 285 independence xxxii, 87, 114–17, 162, 169–70, 175, 201, 209, 213, 217, 288, 310, 319 Indian Constitution 115 Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) 120 Indian Parliament 116, 262 indigeneity xxvii, 1, 45–48, 53, 65, 68–71 indigenous xxi, xxviii, xxxi, 14, 18, 21, 25, 45, 47–49, 53, 62, 65, 68–70, 73, 92, 95, 108, 116–17, 119, 121, 168, 227, 244, 255, 261, 268, 313–14, 319 indigenousness 25 Indo-Aryan (languages) 84, 92 initiation (Tantric) 61, 74, 156–59, 327 Inner Line Regulation 107, 109, 113, 116 intellectuals xxviii, 43, 46, 56, 65, 75, 101, 286 interaction xviii–xx, xxii–xxiii, xxxi, 4, 12, 24, 28, 52, 102, 161, 222–23, 226, 237, 240, 291–93, 295, 297–99, 301, 309–10, 313, 324, 325 International Labour Organization 262 Jaisi Bahun (caste, Nepal) 52, 152 jajman 57 jajmani 6
subject INDEXâ•… 341 Jamnagar 146, 150, 156, 163–64 janajati xxxvii–xxxviii, 26, 40, 42, 46–47, 50, 52–54, 69–71, 245, 316–19, 321–22 Japan 65, 66, 207 jat xiii, 25, 33, 36–39, 42, 176–78, 316, 320 Jha (Brahman caste) 37, 43, 130, 132 Jharkhand 170 jhum or jhuming (shifting cultivation) 106, 251–52, 267, 316 jimindar, 28, 29, 35, 41 juju 27–29, 41, 56–63, 65, 71, 75 Jumla (Nepal) 36, 152 Jyapu (caste, Nepal) xxviii, 57, 62–65, 69, 72–73, 153, 158, 160–61 Jyapu Mahaguthi 65 kamaya (‘slave labourers’) 26, 29–30, 33, 40–41, 316 Kanphata Yogi 26, 165 Karbi ethnic group (India) 78, 83, 85–91, 93, 95–97, 250, 267, 316 Karbi-Anglong ethnic group (India) 78, 81–82, 85–87, 90, 93 Karkyong 238 Karmacharya (caste, Nepal) 57, 128, 130–32, 141 Kathiawar 146 Kathmandu Valley xxviii, xxx, 10, 49, 63–64, 66–69, 72, 74–76, 96, 143, 152–55, 210, 224, 318, 323, 325 Kaziranga National Park xxxiii, 246–47, 249, 254–55, 258, 261–63 khadga 58 Kham-Magar xxvii, 5–6, 8–10, 12, 17–20, 23, 317, 324 khas kura 49 Khasa 272, 274, 282, 317
khel (village council) 30 kin xx, xxxii, xxxviii, 4, 17, 32, 41, 144, 225–28, 232 kinship xiii–xv, xxi, xxxii, 6, 25, 31–33, 37, 41, 75, 160, 173, 178, 223–27, 230–35, 241, 243, 245, 268, 291, 325 kipat (land) 232, 317 kipatiya 237 Kisan Sangh 62 Kohima 109, 120 Koran 147, 150–51 Korea 5, 66 Krishna 30, 146–50, 152, 155, 157, 159, 162, 164, 166, 221, 316, 327 Krishnaite 30, 148, 155, 157, 166, 323 Krishna Pranami xxx, 144–45, 155, 158, 163–66 Kshatriya 49, 58, 150, 158, 272, 277–79, 284, 314, 317, 320, 322 Kuljam Svarup 147, 155 Kumaon xxxi, 173–76, 178–81, 184–85, 243, 272–82, 287–90, 314, 317, 326 Kumari 60 kur (‘clan’, in Khasi) 90 Kyirong 224, 230 lama priest 73, 184, 189, 245, 258 person 259, 270, 317 landscape xxxi, 28, 175–76, 186, 188, 227–30, 237–38, 247, 251, 256–57, 264, 270, 328 Langtang (Nepal) 228, 244 258 Langtang National Park 228, 234, 237–38, 241 lau lau 36 legitimacy xxvi, 45, 90, 103, 138, 170, 182, 186, 237, 287
342â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas lineage xii, 6, 9–10, 17–18, 20, 33–34, 37, 86, 150, 177–78, 184, 226–28, 274–75 linguistic nationalism 202, 210, 212–13, 215–17, 219 livestock 227–28, 233 local management 261 Loktantra (‘democracy’) 20 Lotus Research Institute 65 Lukhmi (goddess) 96 Lumbini 66 Madhesi ix, 157, 317 Magar ethnic group (Nepal) 5, 17, 22–23, 33, 37, 39, 50, 52, 54, 75, 224, 244, 317, 324 maharaja 140, 150, 161, 283, 303 Maharjan (caste, Nepal) (see also Jyapu) 57, 62–65, 71–72, 74– 76 mahatahwa 29 Mahayana 73 Maidani xxxiii, 284–85, 317 Maithili 207 Malaysia 5, 168, 213, 235 Manas National Park (Assam) 260 Mandal Commission 171 Mandal Report 171, 317 mandala 67, 229–30, 289 Mandi, Himachal Pradesh 291, 293, 295, 298, 299, 306, 312 mandir 146, 163–64, 166, 318 Manipur 105–06 Maoist insurrection (Nepal) 5 Maoist rule (Nepal) 54 Marmyeng 85–89 Marnga (or Marngar) ethnic group, India 83–85, 87, 95 marriage 25, 27, 29, 31–33, 37, 39, 43–44, 63, 66, 91, 159–60, 175, 191, 226 maternal uncle 32 matrilineality 78, 84–85, 91, 95
mauja, Maula 27, 29, 274–75, 277, 280–82, 284, 286 Meghalaya xxix, 78, 81, 84–88, 90, 93, 95–96, 208, 258, 271, 316 Meikhel 106 migration xxvi, xxviii, xxxii, 5, 10, 12, 18, 26–27, 40, 42, 51, 68, 96, 101, 105–06, 121, 208, 210, 220–22, 227, 233–34, 237, 277–78, 325 Mikir ethnic group (India) 80, 83, 87, 94–96, 105, 316 milieu (environmental) 36, 43, 155, 166, 245–46, 247–49, 251–53, 255, 257, 260–61, 264–65, 268, 270 mimosa 264 Mishing, ethnic group, India 268– 70 mit (‘ritual friend’) 16 Mithila 37, 40, 43 mkhar 22 modernization xxiii, xxv–xxvi, 19, 21, 126, 141, 231–32, 241, 291 modernity xii–xiii, xxxvii, 23, 45–46, 53, 75–76, 120, 232, 234, 236 mohi 40–41 moksha 58 monarchy 106, 128, 135 monastery 72, 138 money economy 113 Mongol National Organization 51 Mongolia 66 Mongolian 60 Mongoloid Stock 105 Mon-Khmer (languages) 78, 318 mukhiya (‘chief’) 9 Muktinath xxxi, 183–97, 324–25 muluk 42 Muluki Ain (Law code, Nepal) 49, 51, 54, 74, 318
subject INDEXâ•… 343 Muslim 47, 63, 110, 145–46, 149– 51, 153–54, 165–66, 168, 176, 212, 287, 310 Mustang district (Nepal) xxxi, 183, 324 mutuality vii, xv–xxi, xviii, xxi– xxxi, xxxv Myanmar (see also Burma) 105–06, 253 Mylliem 81, 84, 86–87 Naga Club 109–10 Naga ethnic group (India) xxix, 96–98, 104–21, 138, 318 Naga National Council (NNC) 114–16, 318 Naga Statehood Bill 116 Naga Voluntary Plebiscite 112 Nagaland xxix, 98, 104–05, 111, 113, 115–17, 120–21, 318, 327 nagar 22, 179, 272, 284–85, 318 Nagoya 66 Na-ka (or Naga) 106 nam (‘village, world, earth’ in Kham-Magar) 10 Nanak 149–50, 161 Nanda Devi xxxi, 176–80, 258, 270, 320 Narcotics Control Bureau 296, 298, 310 nation xiii–xiv, xxii–xxiii, xxxviii, 7, 23–24, 37, 39, 42, 46–48, 50, 70, 76–77, 97, 101, 103–04, 116–18, 120–21, 135, 157, 201–02, 207, 209, 219–20, 223–24, 235, 318 nationality xxviii, 46, 63–64, 75, 139, 141 National Council for Education, Training and Research (Government of India) 118 National Socialist Council of Nagaland (= NSCN) 117, 318 nationalism xxvii, xxix, xxxii,
xxxv, xxxvii, 7, 44–46, 49, 54–56, 62, 70–71, 73–77, 97, 101, 107, 115, 117, 120–21, 135, 144, 162, 170, 172, 181, 201–01, 209–10, 212–14, 215– 21, 224–25, 230–31, 243, 316, 322–23, 325 nation-building xxvi, 76, 181 nationhood 170, 202, 220, 223 Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) xxiv, 8, 12, 13, 15, 18–19, 21, 23–24, 38, 42, 54, 56, 69, 73, 75–76, 126, 139–40, 239, 241–42, 245, 320 Nepal Federation of Nationalities 47 (NEFIN) Nepal Mandala (see also Kathmandu Valley) 66 Nepal Samvat (era) 55, 133 Nepalis in Banaras 201–02, 208, 215 network xi–xii, xxxvi, 6, 20, 33, 52, 113, 117, 129, 164, 197, 212, 247, 267 Newa De Dabu 73 Nijananda 145, 161, 164–65 nishkriya 60 Northeastern states 93, 105 Nyeshangbas (or Manangi) 50 organization ix, xii, xv, xix–xx, xxxii, 9, 28–29, 33–34, 43, 47, 53, 56, 65–6, 69, 70, 72–76, 83, 93, 95, 103, 110–11, 114, 146, 150, 157, 162, 171, 187, 190, 196, 212, 228, 235–36, 246, 248, 260–61, 294, 313, 319, 326 orisha ‘cults’ (Cuba) 61 Orissa 267 Pacali Aju 60 Pahari xxxiii, 26, 28, 36, 285, 319
344â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Panchayat: period, regime 8–11, 21, 26, 28, 38, 40, 50–53, 56, 62, 154, 217, 238, 292, 303–04, 315, 319–20, 322 pandit 205, 220 Parbatiyas (or Pahadis) 49, 55, 126, 154 parganna 34, 36, 42, 320 participatory management xxxiii, 246, 248–49, 257–59, 261–63 Parvati 60, 177 Pashupati Area Development Trust 126, 129, 143, 319 Pashupati Temple xxx Patkai (range) 105 patrilineality 84, 91 patwari 298–300, 302–04, 308, 316, 320 peasants 30, 62, 72, 74, 231–33, 247–48, 256–59 People’s War (Nepal) 12, 22, 75, 242, 320 Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) 47 Peru 260, 271 pham (‘hamlet’) 96 Phizo 115, 120 pilgrimage xxxi, 127–29, 138, 141, 143, 152, 165, 176–77, 179–84, 186, 188, 190–91, 196–97, 201–02, 224, 227, 237, 242, 275, 324 Pokhara 51 potet 40 potter 36 pradhan 299, 301–03, 308–09, 311, 320 prasad 154–55, 159, 164, 194, 320 priests xxx, 29, 31, 34, 38, 43, 49, 57–58, 61, 63, 65–67, 126–27, 133–38, 141–43, 176, 178, 185, 188, 192, 195, 204, 275, 315, 320 primordial attachment xii, 101
primordialism 101–02, 223 Prithivi Narayan Shah 152 protected area 240, 245–48, 255– 57, 259–62, 264–66, 268, 270 pujari 18, 134, 137, 157, 162, 189, 191, 320 Purana 58, 61, 148, 156 purohit 57, 275, 320 race 99, 170, 194 raikar (land) 41, 232, 320 raiot 96 raiti 29–30 raja 83–84, 86, 175, 293 Rajasthan 22, 24, 146, 149, 154, 166, 250, 253, 279 Rajopadhyaya (caste) 58, 75–76, 138 Rana xxxii, 26–27, 29, 37–38, 42, 49, 51–52, 62, 72, 153–54, 164, 166, 202, 210, 213–14, 216–17, 244, 320 rashtra 46, 135 Rasuwa (district, Nepal) xxxii, 222, 227, 230, 234–35, 238–39, 241, 324 reservation (system) 50, 53, 266, 283–84, 290, 317, 321 residence xxvii, 3, 6, 9, 25, 27, 30–32, 146, 181, 204–05, 208–09, 214, 225, 233 Revenue Court 293 rhinoceros 249, 253, 255, 256, 258 Ri-Bhoi (Meghalaya), see also Bhoi 78, 81–84, 87, 90–91, 93, 95 ritual journey 229 Rolpa 5, 12, 22, 24 Rongmei (Naga ethnic group, India) 105 Rukum (Nepal) 5–6, 12, 24 sacrifice xxiv, 7, 17–18, 21, 63, 90, 96, 160, 165, 173, 176, 178, 180, 185, 189, 258, 262, 287, 315–16 sadhu 127, 138–40, 321
subject INDEXâ•… 345 Salme (Nepal) 253, 270 Salyan (Nepal) 26, 30, 34, 36, 41 samadhi 132, 146, 155, 321 sampradaya (or sampraday) xxx, 144 samskriti 58, 63 Sanskrit 57–58, 60, 68, 75, 135, 144, 148–49, 157, 165, 205, 216, 274, 287, 318, 322 Sankritisation 75 Sankritized 216 sapori 251–55, 262, 265, 267, 321 sati (burning of widow) 112 Scheduled Tribe (ST) xxvii, xxxiii, 81, 87, 95, 119, 250, 262, 267, 283, 290, 314, 316, 318, 321 Second World War 114 sedentarist xxxii, 222, 228 self-determination 11, 327 Session Court 291, 293, 295 Shah xxviii, 26, 63, 125, 127, 129, 152–54, 172, 177, 283, 320, 321 shamans 14, 18–20 Shastric Hinduism 149 Sherpa 50, 237, 241 Sheshi 36 Shillong 78, 83, 86, 90, 95, 97 Shinshinkai 66 Shiva xxx, 60, 125, 135, 138–39, 143, 160, 177, 178, 184, 193, 194–95, 314, 317 Shrestha (caste, Nepal) 48, 57, 69, 152, 155, 158, 209–10, 321 Shudras 62, 279, 322 Sikhs 161 Sikkim 165–66, 217, 267 Simarekha 22, 73 Simon Commission 110 social change 224, 231–32, 270 Somra (tracts) 105 Southall (UK) 46–47 sovereignty xxix, 77, 86–87, 103, 117, 119, 218, 229–30, 236–38, 242
spiritual brotherhood 144 state (pluralistic) 104 state-building 103–04, 113, 116–17, 120 state-formation 98, 103–04, 117, 169 statehood 98, 104–05, 114, 116–19, 167, 171–72, 175 state-in-society-approach 103 subsistence economy 257 suzerainty 112 taluk 9 Tamang ethnic group (Nepal) xxxii, 50, 52, 73, 75, 157, 222, 225–30, 237, 240–45, 253, 270, 321, 32–24 Tani, ethnic group, India 250–51, 318 Tantra 58, 61 Tarai (Nepal) xxviii, 26–27, 29–30, 35, 37–38, 40, 42, 44, 54, 70, 153–54, 162, 214, 217, 231–32, 235, 245, 285, 317, 319–22, 326 tea plantations, gardens 108, 208, 264, 267 Teku (Nepal) 73 terrace cultivation 107 territoriality xxvii–xxviii, 1, 99, 202 territory xiii, xxvii–xxix, xxxi– xxxiii, 1, 4, 6–7, 9–10, 15, 21–23, 33, 35, 39, 42, 49, 62, 74, 77, 87, 89, 93, 99, 103, 106, 113–14, 116, 141, 160, 208–09, 219, 223–31, 233– 39, 241–43, 246–49, 252–53, 255–60, 263–66, 268, 270, 316–17, 324 Thakali ethnic group (Nepal) 50–53 Tharu ethnic group (Nepal) xxviii, 25–31, 34–44, 75, 244, 322, 326
346â•… The politics of belonging in the himalayas Theravada 55, 72, 75, 160, 221, 325 Tibet 179, 184, 188, 197, 224, 241, 243 Tibetan xxxviii, 22, 42, 50, 56, 73, 76, 183–84, 188–89, 196–97, 207, 219, 226, 229, 272, 315, 322, 325 Tiwa (language) 83, 89–90, 92–93, 95–96, 322 Tokurinji (Nagoya) 66 tourism xxxiii, 132, 176, 235, 239, 244, 257, 260–61, 269–70 tourists 18, 127–29, 183, 219, 255–56, 258 tradition xiii, xiv–xx, xxiii, xxxii, xxxvi, 5, 15, 19, 21, 25, 37, 46, 48, 49, 51, 54–55, 58, 62–68, 75, 84, 86, 90, 107–08, 118, 129–30, 132–33, 135–36, 139–43, 150, 157, 160, 164, 166, 170, 174, 178–79, 182– 84, 193, 197, 205, 214, 220, 224–25, 232–34, 236, 238, 243, 259, 261–62, 264, 268– 69, 272–75, 277–78, 281–83, 286–87, 291, 296–97, 307, 319, 325, 326 transnationality xx, xxxvi–xxxvii, 143, 221 tribal xxvii, xxix, 10, 44, 47, 49, 76, 80, 92, 95–96, 107–11, 114, 165, 169, 170, 223, 229, 231–32, 316, 319, 321 tribe xxvii, xxix, xxxiii, 48, 81, 83, 87, 89, 92, 95, 98, 105–06, 109–12, 114, 116, 119, 169, 224, 231, 242, 250, 262–63, 267–68, 283, 290, 314, 316– 18, 321–22 Tsangpo (river) 251 Uday (caste, Nepal) xxxii, 52, 202, 213, 214, 217
UNESCO 68, 123, 126–27, 255, 296, 325 UNESCO World Heritage Site 126–27, 255 United Nations (UN) 115, 322 untouchability 112 Uttar Pradesh (UP) 146, 149, 171, 283, 290, 322, 340 USA 48, 68, 207, 233, 323 Uttarakhand (India) xxxi, xxxiii, 152, 167, 169–74, 176, 178– 81, 236, 272, 279, 281–82, 284–87, 289, 319, 320, 326 Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangarsh Samiti 171 Uttarakhand xxxi, 33(I), 152, 167, 169–74, 176, 178–81, 236, 272, 279, 281–82, 284–87, 289, 319 Uttarkashi 171 Vaishnava ascetics 127, 138, 140 Vajracharya (caste, Nepal) 57, 65, 67, 73 Vajrayana 68, 73 Van Gujjar (caste, India) 236, 243 Varanasi (see also Banaras) xxxii, 43, 53, 192–93, 201, 210, 221 Vedas 61, 140, 147, 150 vernacular xxxiii, 55, 147, 217, 219, 221, 224 Vikram samvat (era) 56, 127, 322 Vishva Hindu Parishad 161, 322 vyavahar 58 wildlife sanctuary 255 Wokha Conference 114 WWF 267 West Bengal 146, 153, 158, 162, 165, 168, 208, 315 Yandabu (Treaty) 107, 112 Yangli 90, 96 Yogi 132, 135, 165
