Culture and Conflict in Nepal

Key information

Status
Module not running
Module code
15PSAH017
FHEQ Level
7
Credits
15
Department
South Asia Section

Module overview

The module introduces students to recent and contemporary debates on political change and conflict in Nepal, with particular reference to the aftermaths of the 1996-2006 ‘People’s War’ and the devastating earthquakes of 2015.

Although it focuses on a specific context, the module also offers insights into broader issues, including the relationship between ethnic,
linguistic and national identities; processes of nation building; the relationship between dominant elites and marginalised minorities; tensions between tradition and modernity; and the underlying causes of social and political conflict in a resource-poor environment.

Objectives and learning outcomes of the module

On successful completion of this module a student will:

  • Gain a critical understanding of texts and the ability to situate source material in social, political
    and cultural contexts
  • Gain an understanding of ways in which public culture impacts political decision making
  • Gain an understanding of issues related to knowledge production and manipulation
  • Gain greater knowledge of key texts and debates within Nepal studies
  • Demonstrate the ability to develop research, verbal and written expression as part of transferable skills
    across academic disciplines.

Workload

Total of 10 weeks teaching with 2 hours classroom contact per week consisting of a 1 hour lecture and a 1 hour seminar.

Scope and syllabus

  • Module introduction: civil war, earthquake, aftermath
  • Ethnicity, caste and language
  • Rule, authority and dominance
  • Migrants, Gurkhas and the Diaspora
  • The monarchy and political parties
  • Identity politics: Janajatis, Madhesis and Dalits
  • Development, NGOs and civil society
  • The Maoist ‘People’s War’ and its aftermath
  • The 2015 earthquakes and their aftermath
  • Twenty-five years, three constitutions
  • Nepal’s internal conversation: literary and media practices

Method of assessment

  • Three Reaction papers (700 words each) to be submitted in term 1 (60%)
  • One essay (2000 words) to be submitted on day 5, week 1, term 2 (40%)

Suggested reading

Core Reading

Additional Reading

Nepal: Historical Overview

  • Aris, Michael, The Raven Crown.
  • Stiller, Ludwig 1968. Prithvi Narayan Shah in the Light of Dibya Upadesh. Kathmandu
  • Onta, Pratyoush 1996. 'Ambivalence Denied: the Making of Rastriya Itihas in Panchayat Era Textbooks' Contributions to Nepalese Studies 23: 1, pp. 213-254.
  • Hoftun, Martin and William Raeper 1992. Spring Awakening: An Account of the 1990 Revolution in Nepal. New Delhi

Cultural and political identity in Nepal

  • Clarke, Graham E. 1996.  ‘Blood, territory and national identity in Himalayan states’ in Asian Forms of the Nation, edited by Stein Tonneson and Hans Antløv.  Richmond: Curzon.Whelpton, John 2008.  ‘Political identity in Nepal: state, nation and community’ in Gellner et al (eds) Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal.  Kathmandu: Vajra Books, pp. 39-78.
  • Pradhan, Rajendra. ‘Ethnicity, caste and a pluralist society’ in Dixit, Kanak Mani and Shastri Ramachandaran (eds)  State of Nepal, pp. 1-21.
  • Sharma, Pitamber 2008.  Unravelling the Mosaic: spatial aspects of ethnicity in Nepal. Kathmandu: Social Science Baha. Levine, Nancy 1987. ‘Caste, State, and Ethnic Boundaries in Nepal’, Journal of Asian Studies 46: 71-88.
  • Rose, Leo E. and John T. Scholz 1980.  Nepal: Profile of a Himalayan Kingdom, chap. 1, ‘Environment and History’, pp. 1-15.
  • Whelpton, John 2005.  A History of Nepal, Ch. 1: ‘Environment, state and society in the central Himalayas to 1743’Sonntag, Selma K. 1995. ‘Ethnolinguistic identity and language policy in Nepal’  Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 1 (4):108-20.
  • Yapp, Malcolm 1979. ‘Language, Religion and Identity: A General Framework’ in Political Identity in South Asia, David Taylor and Malcolm Yapp (eds.), pp. 1-33. London: Curzon Press.

Resistance, the state and conflict in Nepal

  • Mathema, Kalyan Bhakta 2011.  Madheshi Uprising: the resurgence of ethnicity. Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point.
  • International Crisis Group. Nepal's Troubled Tarai Region, Asia Report N°136, 9 Jul 2007
  • Sijapati, Bandita 2013.  'In pursuit of recognition: regionalism, Madhesi identity and the Madhes andolan' in Mahendra Lawoti and Susan Hangen (eds) Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal: Identities and mobilization after 1990.  Routledge, pp. 145-72.
  • Yadav, Ramawatar 2011.  ‘On being Madhesi’ in Guneratne, Arjun (ed.)The Tarai: History, Society, Environment.  Kathmandu: Himal Books, pp. 150-160.
  • Hangen, Susan 2005.  ‘Boycotting Dasain: history, memory and ethnic politics in Nepal’ Studies in Nepali History and Society 10(1): 105-34
  • Fisher, William 2003. ‘The politics of difference and the reach of modernity: reflections on the state and civil society in central Nepal’ in Gellner, David N. (ed.) Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences.  New Delhi: Social Science Press, pp. 113-32.
  • Hangen, Susan 2010.  The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Nepal. London and New York: Routledge, chs. 1 and 2.
  • Onta, Pratyoush 2006.  ‘The growth of the adivasi janajati movement in Nepal after 1990: the non-political institutional agents’Studies in Nepali History and Society 11(2): 303-54.

From Hindu kingdom to secular republic

  • Joshi, Bhuvan L. and Leo E. Rose 1966. Democratic Innovations in Nepal. Berkeley: University of California Press [Chapter on the Ranas].
  • Baral, L.S. 2012.  Autocratic Monarchy: politics in Panchayat Nepal. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.  Ch. 3 'King Mahendra's coup of December 1960 and its implications for Nepal'. pp. 123-59.
  • Burghart, Richard 1993. ‘The Political Culture of Panchayat Democracy’, in Nepal in the Nineties: Versions of the Past, Visions of the Future, Michael Hutt (ed.), pp. 1-13.
  • Gaige, Frederick 1975.  Regionalism and National Unity in Nepal, Ch. 8, ‘Politics in the Nepalese Tradition’, pp. 136-70.
  • Onta, Pratyoush 1996. ‘Ambivalence Denied: The Making of Rashtriya Itihas  in Panchayat Era Textbooks.’ Contributions to Nepalese Studies 23(1).
  • Whelpton, John 2005. A History of Nepal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Chapter 4 – The monarchy in ascendance, pp. 86-121]

Ethnic politics and federalism

  • Dipendra Jha 2017 Federal Nepal: Trials and Tribulations.
  • Malagodi, Mara 2013 Constitutional Nationalism and Legal Exclusion: Equality, Identity Politics and Democray in Nepal 1990-2007 (ebook via soas library or hard copy for example chapter 4)
  • Burghart, Richard, 'The Formation of the Concept of Nation-State in Nepal' Journal of Asian
  • Middletown, Townsend and Sara Shneidferman 2008.  'Reservations, federalism and the politics of recgnition in Nepal'.  Economic and Political Weekly, 10 May: 39-45

Nepali media, NGOs and civil society

  • Hutt , Michael. 2006. 'Things that should not be said: censorship and self-censorship in the Nepali press media, 2001-2' The Journal of Asian Studies, 65.2, pp. 361-92. (see below)
  • Lecompte-Tilouine, Marie 2017 The Royal Massacre, Rumours and the Print Media in Nepal. In Hutt and Onta. Political Change and Public Culture in Post 1990 Nepal. (ebook at Soas library)
  • Shakya, Mallika 2017 Country of Rumours: Making Sense of a Bollywood Controversy. In Hutt and Onta Political Change and Public Culture in Post 1990 Nepal. (ebook at Soas library)
  • Onta,, Pratyoush. 2002. 'Critiquing the media boom' in State of Nepal, eds Dixit and Ramachandaran, pp. 253-269.

Nepali identity in India

  • Chettri, Mona 2017. Ethnicity and Democracy in the Eastern Himalayan Borderland. Amsterdam University Press.
  • Dhakal, R.P., 2009. The urge to belong: an identity in waiting’. In T. Subba & et.al, eds. Indian Nepalis: Issues and Perspectives. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, pp. 148-167.
  • Ganguly, Rajat 2005. 'Poverty, malgovernance and ethnopolitical mobilization: Gorkha nationalism and the Gorkhaland agitation in India' in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11(4): 467-502.
  • Golay, B., 2006. 'Rethinking Gorkha Identity: Outside the Imperium of Discourse, Imperium and Hegemony’. Peace and Democracy in South Asia, 2(1 and 2), 23-49.
  • Middleton, Townsend: ‘Across the interface of state ethnography: Rethinking ethnography and its subjects in multi-cultural India’. American Ethnology 38.2.
  • Chakraborty, C., 2008. The Gorkhaland movement: an enquiry into the social background of the crisis’. In R. Bhadra & M. Bhadra, eds. Ethnicity, Movement and Social Structure. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, pp. 287-308.
  • Subba, T.B. ‘Nepal and the Indian Nepalis’ in Dixit, Kanak Mani and Shastri Ramachandaran (eds),  State of Nepal, pp. 119-36.
  • Subba, T.B.,  Ethnicity, State and Development.  A case-study of the Gorkhaland Movement in Darjeeling.  Chapter 3 (pp. 51-75)
  • Arora, Vibha. 2006. “Roots and Route of Secularism in Sikkim.” Economic and Political Weekly 41 (38): 4063–4071.
  • Shneiderman, Sara and Mark Turin 2006.  ‘Seeking the tribe: ethno-politics in Sikkim and Darjeeling’ Himal South Asian 19(2): 54-8 (www.himalmag.com/2006).
  • Dorjee, Pema Wangchuk, and Alex McKay. 2012. “Some Issues in the Early British Construction of Sikkimese History.” In Buddhist Himalaya: Studies in Religion, History and Culture, ed. Anna Balikci-Denjongpa, 63–72. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetotology.
  • Gupta, Ranjan. 1975. “Sikkim: The Merger with India.” Asian Survey 15 (9): 786–798.

Bhutanese Refugees

  • Hoellerer, Nicole. ‘Refugee Resettlement in the UK: Bhutanese refugees in Greater Manchester, UK.’ In: European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 43 Winter/Spring 2013/14
  • Hutt, M. Unbecoming Citizens, chs. 14, 15.
  • Hutt, Michael 2005, ‘The Bhutanese Refugees: Between Verification, Repatriation and Royal Realpolitik’ Journal of Peace and Democracy in South Asia  1: 1
  • Adhikari, Deepak. 2007. Red Army in the Dragon Kingdom. eKantipur. Kathmandu,http://www.kantipuronline.com/feature.php?&nid=120974.
  • AHURA Bhutan: Bhutan: a Shangri-la without Human Rights.
  • Amnesty International 1992. Bhutan: human rights violations against the Nepali-speaking population in the south[ASA14/04/92] (Dec.)
  • Amnesty International 1994. Bhutan: forcible exile [ASA 14/04/94], (August).

Nepali labour migration

  • Caplan, Lionel 1995. Warrior Gentlemen.“Gurkhas” in the western imagination. Chapter 1, pp. 1-28.
  • Des Chene, Mary: ‘Loyalty versus equality’ in Himal South Asia Vol. 10 No. 4 (July/August 1997), pp. 15-23.
  • Hutt, Michael 1989.  ‘A hero or a traitor?  The Gurkha soldier in Nepali literature’.  South Asia Research vol. 9 no. 1, May 1989, pp. 21-32.  Also in Arnold, David and Peter Robb (eds.), Institutions and Ideologies: a SOAS South Asia Reader pp. 91-103.
  • Thapa, Deepak: ‘Mercenary Position’ in Himal South Asia Vol. 10 No. 4 (July/August 1997), pp. 24-6.
  • Bruslé, Tristan 2010.  'Who's in a labour camp?  A  socio-economic analysis of Nepalese migrants in Qatar'.  European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 35-36: 154-70.
  • Brusle, T. (2008). "Choosing a destination and work migration: Strategies of Nepalese workers in Uttarakhand, northern India." Mountain Research and Development 28(3-4): 240-247
  • Pettigrew, Judith ‘Gurkhas in the town: migration, language and healing’ in European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 19 (2000): 7-40.
  • Seddon, David  (2001) The New Lahures: foreign labour migration and the remittance economy of Nepal. Institute for Development Studies, Kathmandu.
  • Sharma, Jeevan Raj. 2008. ‘Practices of Male Labor Migration from the Hills of Nepal to India in Development Discourses: Which Pathology?’ Gender, Technology and Development 12(3): 303-23.
  • Sharma, J. R. 2011. "Culture of migration in the middle hills in Nepal", Labor Migration: Opportunities and challenges for mountain livelihoods, ICIMOD Periodical, No. 59, October 2011. 18-20

Gender and power

  • Seira Tamang 2009 The politics of conflict anddifference or the difference of conflict in politics: the women's movement in Nepal. Feminist Review. 0141-7789/09 www.feminist-review.com
  • Seira Tamang (2000) Legalizing State Patriarchy in Nepal. Studies in Nepali History and Society 5(1): 127-156.
  • Seira Tamang (2015) ‘Mainstream’ feminism. Kathmandu Post 10/3/2015
  • Yadav, Punam 2014 Social Transformation in Post-Conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective

The 2015 earthquake and its aftermath

  • Raj, Yogesh and Bhaskar Gautam. 2015. Courage in Chaos: Early Rescue and Relief after the April Earthquake. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.
  • Tseten, Kesang 2017 Trembling Mountain. (film)
  • Bennike, Rune Bolding 2017 Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction in Northern Gorkha
  • In Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies
  • March, Kathryn S. 2015. My Village in Nepal is Gone. Cornell Chronicle: Ithaca, NY. April 30, 2015.
  • Nelson, Andrew. 2015. Classquake: What the Global Media Missed in Nepal Earthquake Coverage. The Conversation, May 4, 2015. <http://theconversation.com/classquake- what-the-global-media-missed-in-nepal-earthquake- coverage-41063> (accessed on November 30, 2016).
  • Schuller, Mark. 2014. Being an Insider Without: Activist Anthropological Engagement in Haiti after the Earthquake. American Anthropologist 116 (2): 409-412.

Disclaimer

Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules