Paper uploaded. Must use the uploaded paper for references. No external material Deadline Date: April 17th? Format: Times New Roman, 12′ font, do
Paper uploaded. Must use the uploaded paper for references. No external material
Deadline Date: April 17th
Format: Times New Roman, 12" font, double spaced, saved as word document
Length: 750-800 words (be concise!)
After reading the article assigned to your particular conflict, write a short "guide to understanding the conflict" for an audience not familiar with South Asia. In it, make sure to highlight the following:
- Provide historical context for the conflict
- Identify the key groups involved and their demands
- Explain how political forces have manipulated social differences to foment conflict
- Make sure to correctly reference the article you read for your selected conflict.
Citations:
- Do not cite material external to the class
- Do not make a reference list at the end of the paper – only in-text citations
- Do not cite lectures
- You need to cite the author, year of publication and page number for in-text citations; for example (Reddy 2010, 133).
7 In pursuit of recognition
Regionalism, Madhesi identity and the Madhes Andolan
Bandita Sijapati
Introduction
The People’s Movement of April 2006 and the events that followed in its wake are likely to be recognized as watershed events in Nepal’s political history. Not only was King Gyanendra forced to abdicate executive power and hand the nation’s sovereignty back to the people, the country also saw an end to the decade-long Maoist conflict. But despite the high expectations and optimism engendered by these developments, the unlikelihood of any major transfor- mation in the socio-political environment soon became clear when the poli- tical parties did all they could to wean the Maoists away from violence but shied away from addressing the concerns of Nepal’s marginalized groups who had been equal partners in the movement for the restoration of democracy.
Matters came to a head, literally, on 16 January 2007, when the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF), translated into English as the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF), led protests in Nepal’s southern belt, particularly the Central and Eastern Tarai, against the Interim Constitution promulgated a day earlier for not addressing questions of federalism and realignment of electoral constituencies. This was the beginning of the Madhes Andolan, or the Madhesi Movement, which lasted for 21 days,1 during which 30 people were killed and some 800 wounded while government offices and private property were widely vandalized.2
In this paper, I seek to understand the Madhes Andolan by drawing upon literature on ethnic conflict and social movements. First, I provide a chronological overview of the Madhes Andolan, followed by a brief discussion on what con- stitutes Madhes and the Tarai. Second, based on existing literature on ethnic conflict, I locate the grievances of Madhesis within the broader structure of the extractive and exclusionary nature of the Nepali state. In particular, I argue that the paradoxical position adopted by the Nepali state vis-à-vis the Tarai, especially in its desire to exploit the region while refraining from integrating it into the national polity, created the conditions for Madhesis to harbour feelings of relative deprivation. This, I point out, propelled Madhesis to make claims of social justice and egalitarian redistribution as part of their discourse of the “politics of recognition.” Third, I employ theoretical insights from social movement
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
literature to understand the circumstances, conditions and tactics that made it possible for Madhesis to emerge from being a disadvantaged and disenchanted group to mobilize collectively to advance Madhesi rights and interests.
Chronological overview of the Madhes Andolan
The trigger for the Madhes Andolan of 2007 was the draft Interim Constitu- tion prepared jointly by the ruling coalition of seven national parties (called the Seven-Party Alliance, or the SPA) and the CPN (Maoist), and made public in December 2006. Madhesi organizations and Madhesi members of parliaments (MPs) cutting across party boundaries objected to the draft, claiming that it failed to address the two major concerns of the Madhesis: federalism and delineation of electoral constituencies proportional to population for the planned Constituent Assembly elections.3
On 16 January 2007, during a protest organized by the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF), which was then a loose network of Madhesi political and civil society leaders, 28 MJF leaders were arrested for burning copies of the Interim Constitution that had been adopted the day before. Subsequent to the arrest of its leaders, on 19 January 2007, MJF activists in Lahan in Siraha district of eastern Nepal organized a protest program during which an MJF activist was shot dead by a Maoist cadre. In the absence of any government action against the killer, and only a perfunctory apology from the Maoist leader- ship, Madhesi activists launched demonstrations and protests against both the government and the Maoists. The government responded with curfews and increased police presence, instigating the MJF, on 25 January 2007, to announce indefinite protests until the Interim Constitution was amended. Thus began what came to be known as the Madhes Andolan (Pathak 2007; ICG 2007).
The intensity of the Madhes Andolan and the support it generated from different segments of the Madhesi population caught most, including the Madhesi leaders themselves, by surprise. The protests, which were initially limited to Lahan and Janakpur, the main towns in the contiguous Tarai dis- tricts of Siraha and Dhanusha, quickly spread to all the major urban centers in the central and eastern Tarai. Nearly two weeks into the disturbances, on 31 January 2007, the Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, invited protestors for talks while also promising to increase the number of electoral constituencies in the Tarai and affirming his commitment to federalism (ICG 2007).
However, Madhesi protesters rejected the prime minister’s conciliatory moves on the grounds that his address did not “empathize” with their movement nor give due recognition to Madhesi demands as “rights that were due to them.” As the agitation continued, Koirala was compelled to make a second attempt to reach out a week later, i.e., 8 February 2007, when he made sig- nificant concessions, including endorsement of a federal system of governance by amending the Interim Constitution, increase in the number of electoral districts in the Tarai, a system of proportional representation in the electoral system, and inclusion of marginalized groups in the state apparatus.4
146 Bandita Sijapati
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
Following the prime minister’s second address, the MJF suspended protests but cautiously put forward some conditions for talks: resignation of the home minister; action against those responsible for the killings in the Tarai; and setting up of a judicial commission to examine the government’s reaction during the Madhes Andolan.5 Having placated the Madhesis, however, the government ignored the MJF and continued to back the home minister,6
delayed the formation of a judicial commission and did not even take up seemingly non-political issues like providing compensation to victims and their families. Needless to say, this was a missed opportunity whereby the government not only went back on its promises but also failed to adopt any confidence-building measure that could have provided grounds for a mean- ingful dialogue between the Madhesi leadership and the government. Ten days later, i.e., on 19 February, the MJF began fresh protests.7
In the meantime, Madhesi MPs of the mainstream political parties also continued to pressure the government to amend the Interim Constitution and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party8 (Anandi Devi), or NSP(A),9 even threatened to walk out of the SPA. With mounting pressure from all sides, on 9 March 2007, the government amended the constitution, created an Electoral Con- stituency Delimitation Commission (ECDC) and provided guarantees to convert Nepal from a unitary state to a federal one.10
Meanwhile, tensions between the MJF and the Maoists continued to rise in the months of February and March 2007 and culminated in the Gaur Mas- sacre of 21 March in Rautahat district in which more than two dozen Maoist cadres were killed by MJF cadres (OHCHR 2007).11 The Gaur incident has been described as signifying Madhesi attempts to deter the “emerging trend of left dominance in national politics,” but the casual attitude adopted by the law-enforcement agencies and by the Nepali state despite clear signs of vio- lence erupting there is also noteworthy (Hachhethu 2007).12 The government’s subsequent decision to ban MJF protest rallies in the Tarai set the MJF up for further confrontation with the government.
The stalemate was finally broken after a meeting between the Minister for Peace and Reconstruction, Ram Chandra Poudel, and MJF leader Upendra Yadav on 10 May 2007. In subsequent negotiations, the MJF presented a list of 26 demands to the government, ranging from issues such as compensation to the victims of the Madhes Andolan to regional autonomy in the Tarai (Gautam 2008a). However, the 22-point agreement eventually signed between the government and the MJF on 30 August 2007 dealt with the original demands of the MJF only perfunctorily, and this, as I will discuss below, has been a continuing source of Madhesi disenchantment with both the MJF and the government.13
Tarai/Madhesi politics in perspective
Before moving on to the specifics of the sources of Madhesi grievances and demands articulated during the Madhes Andolan, a brief discussion on
In pursuit of recognition 147
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
Madhes and the Tarai in terms of its population and its location vis-à-vis other marginalized groups of Nepal would be in order.
Tarai, Madhes and Madhesi
The people in the Tarai, a narrow strip of territory that extends east to west in the southern part of the country along the Nepal-India border, can be divided into three broad categories: 1) non-pahadi (i.e. non-hill origin) caste groups, commonly referred to as “Madhesis”; 2) non-caste groups like the Tharus who claim to be indigenous to the Tarai; and 3) hill migrants belonging to both caste and non-caste groups referred to as pahadis who generally migrated from the hills to the Tarai in the second half of the twentieth century (Gaige 2009; Guneratne 2009).
For the purposes of the paper, I reserve the term “Madhesi” to refer to the caste-based groups in the Tarai who are of non-pahadi origin, while terms like “Tarai inhabitants,” “people of Tarai-origin,” and “Tarai dwellers” are used to refer to the non-pahadi population groups that include Madhesis, indigenous nationalities from the Tarai, known as Tarai Janajatis, and Tarai Muslims. While using these terms, I am acutely aware of the distinct political meanings that the terms “Tarai” and “Madhes” now have come to signify. In general, Madhesi political leaders and activists insist on a singular “Madhesi” identity to denote all the non-pahadi residents of the Tarai.14 They claim that the internal divisions in the Tarai were “manufactured” by the Panchayat regime to divide Tarai dwellers (Jha 2007). However, while many non-caste Tarai groups in the eastern Tarai are comfortable with being included within the broader category of Madhesis, many of their brethren, especially Tharus in the far-western Tarai, reject the Madhesi label and instead claim an independent identity as the original inhabitants of the Tarai. Similarly, some segments of the Muslim population in the Tarai have also contested being identified as “Madhesi” and have recently begun to assert their separate identity as a religious minority, comprising Muslims from the hills as well as the Tarai.15
Madhesis vis-à-vis other marginalized groups
Scholars seeking to understand nationalism and ethnic conflict generally base their analyses of the underlying causes of conflict along four different axes: structural; political; economic/social; and cultural/perceptual (Brown 2001). These factors, as I will describe in the next section, emerge as one of the major sources of Madhesi grievances. However, many of these underlying causes of the Madhesi movement are not peculiar to the Madhes/Tarai alone. Instead, because of the Nepali state’s continued domination by upper-caste hill elites, an “ethnicization of the state” has been underway since the restoration of democracy in 1990 with hitherto marginalized groups time and again mobilizing to articulate their demands against the centralized and
148 Bandita Sijapati
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
exclusionary nature of the Nepali state (Lawoti 2005; Hangen 2007; Pfaff- Czarnecka 1997; Gellner 2007).
Insofar as there are multiple ethnic groupings seeking egalitarian repre- sentation and recognition in the Nepali state apparatus, I find it useful to broadly define Madhesis as an ethno-political group that swings between being what can be called “ethnonationalists” and “communal contenders” (Harff and Gurr 2004: 19–29). That is, as “ethnonationalists,” Madhesis constitute an identity group that is regionally concentrated in Nepal’s south- ern belt, the Tarai, and clamors for greater autonomy, and as “communal contenders,” they are one of the many identity groups seeking a greater share of political power in the existing political establishment.
It is beyond the scope of the paper to analyze the precise reasons why the Madhesi movement, an unexpected development that took the country by surprise, was successful while those launched by other groups, mainly indi- genous nationalities, i.e. Janajatis, and Dalits, have been less so.16 But the lurking question that any attempt to understand the Madhesi movement has to address is the issue of how the Madhes Andolan took the momentous turn it did in January 2007 despite the common experience of being one of the many aggrieved groups in Nepal and structurally located in a similarly dis- advantaged position. To arrive at an answer, I find it useful to complement the existing understanding on the underlying causes of ethnic conflict with the literature on the “politics of recognition” and “relative deprivation.”
Situating the broad contours of Madhesi demands and grievances
Drawing on the Hegelian idea, proponents of the “politics of recognition” argument point out that identity is constructed through a dialogical process that hinges on mutual recognition and reciprocal relations (Taylor 1994; Moore 2001; Young 1990; Fraser and Honneth 2003). Taylor (1994: 25), for instance, argues that our “identities are shaped partly by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others,” such that “a person, or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confusing or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.”
In the case of the Madhesis, too, the historical progression of their ethnic discontent shows that the Madhes Andolan did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it is a manifestation of historical marginalization and alienation experienced by Madhesis at the hands of a succession of ruling elites of Nepal. The policy of systematically exploiting the Tarai, while withholding integration of the region and its people on an equal footing, produced deep- seated resentment, a sense of “relative deprivation,”17 and “misrecognition” of Madhesis. The feeling of relative deprivation and the resultant absence of recognition of Madhesis as Nepali citizens and their exclusion from national life, I argue, was one of the main factors that precipitated the Madhes Andolan.
In pursuit of recognition 149
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
Early rulers and the Tarai/Madhes
In seeking to understand the rise of identity-based movements in Nepal, it is not uncommon to locate ethnic grievances to the formation of the Nepali nation- state. In particular, many scholars and commentators have contested the notion of “unification” that led to the founding of Nepal in the mid-eighteenth cen- tury, claiming that it was an out-and-out military conquest as opposed to any genuine effort to “unify” (Pandey 2007; Lawoti 2010). The manner in which the Tarai region was annexed is particularly telling. In the early 1770s, when Prithvi Narayan Shah turned his attention to the conquest of eastern Nepal, his instructions to one of his generals in the field clearly specified the value he placed on the Tarai: “It is no use giving up revenue-yielding better land [Tarai] and retaining the land of inferior quality [hill] … Do not give up the plains” (Pradhan 2009: 122). This set in place the practice of using the Tarai as a source of revenue and distributing it to the ruler’s family, courtiers and military officers in return for their support (Gaige 2009; Regmi 1988; Adhikari, Dev, and Dhungana 2005; Shrestha 1990).
This legacy of treating the Tarai like an “internal colony,” that is, appro- priating resources from the region without considering it as a constituent element of the Nepali nation-state, continued into the Rana regime. In parti- cular, the Rana rulers viewed the Tarai as their “personal estate,” whereby they successfully appropriated and allocated much of the revenue collected from the export of timber and conversion of forests into agricultural land into their personal coffers or used it to dispense patronage.18 Like their Shah pre- decessors, over the long term, the Ranas also refrained from developing the region for the fear that it would attract the attention of the British, and also invite revolutionary ideas from neighboring India (Gaige 2009; Whelpton 2005; Regmi 1976, 1988; Shrestha 1990; Guneratne 2002).
The result of the Rana rulers’ refusal to treat the Tarai inhabitants as anything but revenue-generating subjects, as Guneratne (2009: xviii–xix) poignantly observes, meant that “while the hill people had had centuries to work out their relations with each other, and a hill culture had developed as a consequence of the centralizing activities of the state … the Tarai people remained alien to those who held power in Kathmandu.” The limited centralizing activities of the state also meant that the Tarai population remained highly fragmented, undermining any possibility of a collective identity from taking firm root.
Panchayat rule and emergence of regionalism
The Panchayat regime that succeeded the Ranas, with a brief quasi-democratic interlude from 1951 to 1960, was presented with two major challenges. First, following India’s independence, it had become imperative for Nepal to forge a national identity and a sense of nationalism distinguishing it from its neigh- bour; and, second, to garner support for its autocratic regime, especially against the “democratic forces” backed by India, the monarchy also had to
150 Bandita Sijapati
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
embark on a process of modernization and development (Guneratne 2009; Joshi and Rose 1966; Gaige 2009). Of the two types of state policies that Brass (1974) points out are available to multiethnic states during the process of nation-building, namely, integrative and pluralistic, the Panchayat regime adopted the “integrative” option.
In particular, under the aegis of “Ek desh, ek bhesh, ek bhasa” (“one country, one dress, one language”), the Panchayat rulers systematically sought to homogenize its diverse groups while casting ethnic affiliations as being counterproductive to modernization and development (Hangen 2007). How- ever, the pillars of nationalism, conceived as consisting of the monarchy, Hinduism, and the Nepali language, were not “neutral” either. Instead, they were derived exclusively from the culture and norms of upper-caste Hindus from the hills. Such an imposition meant that not only did the Panchayat regime fail to recognize the distinctiveness of Madhesis and the Tarai region but, to use Taylor’s terms, “misrecognized” them by privileging traditions and norms they could not completely identify with.19
The aggressive promotion of Nepali nationalism by the Panchayat govern- ment was coupled with two policies that further marginalized Madhesis and created deep resentment amongst them against the state. First, facilitated by the malaria eradication programs of the 1950s, the government pursued a policy of “pahadization” of the Tarai through various government-sponsored resettlement programs that encouraged large-scale hill migration to the Tarai (Gaige 2009; Guneratne 2002).20 While these resettlement programs were rationalized by the Panchayat government as an economic need, the political motivation behind the implementation of such policies is undeniable. In particular, the rulers considered it imperative to curtail the possibility of India using the Tarai, and the Madhesis, who the rulers perceived as being sympathetic towards India, to gain influence and even take over Nepal (Gaige 2009; Shrestha 1990; Guneratne 2002, 2009; Krauskopff 2000). Whatever the motive, the successful outcome of this policy of “pahadization” of the Tarai through resettlement programs is evident in the five-fold increase21 in the proportion of the pahadi population in the Tarai between 1951 and 2001, with pahadis even constituting the majority in seven of the 20 Tarai districts by 2001 (Shah 2006).22
In addition to land resettlement, the other policies that disenfranchised, and hence denied recognition to Madhesis as Nepali citizens were the various citizenship laws promulgated by the Panchayat system.23 When citizenship laws were being reframed by the Panchayat regime, the Nepali Congress, then in exile, was operating mostly in the Tarai and the border areas of India. The royal government viewed the Nepali Congress and India as being the main threats to the territorial integrity of the Nepali state as well as to its own rule, and hence included provisions that made it difficult for people of Tarai origin to obtain citizenship. In particular, there were two stipulations in the 1964 Citizenship Act that discriminated against Tarai-dwellers: the requirement to speak and write the national language of Nepal, i.e., Nepali; and the require- ment of having resided in Nepal for not less than a period of two years in the case
In pursuit of recognition 151
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
of a person of “Nepalese origin,” and for not less than a period of twelve years in the case of a “person other than of Nepalese origin” (Gaige 2009:91–107).
In terms of the former, the requirement of fluency in spoken and written Nepali placed Madhesis at a distinct disadvantage because regional languages, namely, Maithali, Bhojpuri and Awadhi, were and continue to be much more widely spoken in the Tarai than is Nepali.24 Similarly, while the precise meanings of “Nepali-origin” was not specified in the clause on descent, “Nepali-origin” was generally interpreted to mean “pahadi-origin” in con- trast to “non-Nepali origin,” which was used to identify Madhesis, who were largely perceived as being Indians.25 The differential criterion of descent was carried over to the 1990 constitution. As a result, until 2007, of the nearly 3.5 million people estimated to be without citizenship certificates, the majority of them were from the Tarai (Gurung and Paulsen 2007). This tactic of denying citizenship to Madhesis, which had been initially designed to exclude them from the political process, created fertile ground for Madhesi resentment.
Status of Madhesis after 1990
The restoration of democracy in 1990 generated optimism and, barring a few changes, mainly the transition from an authoritarian regime to a multiparty system, there was very little in terms of a genuine shift to an inclusive democracy (Hangen 2007; Hoftun et al. 1999; Lawoti 2005; Pfaff-Czarnecka 1999; Whelpton 1997; Gellner 2007). Insofar as the two upper-caste groups, namely, Bahuns and Chhetris, continued to dominate Nepal’s political land- scape, Lawoti (2008) has described the democratic years in Nepal as a form of “exclusionary democratization.”
In this regard, it is but obvious that Madhesis are not the only social group to have been under-represented in Nepal’s polity, until the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections that is (see Table 7.1).26
However, the relatively low representation of Madhesis needs to be under- stood in the context of many political parties, especially the Nepali Congress, having used the Tarai as entry points to launch various political struggles as well as to maintain a presence in Nepal while in exile in India. While this heightened political activity in the region should have resulted in a higher number of Madhesis in Nepal’s political apparatus, the fact is otherwise, leading to a sense of relative deprivation amongst Madhesis.27
In addition to low representation in the parliament, Madhesis were also under-represented in other state institutions as well (see Table 7.2). In parti- cular, the representation of Madhesis in the security forces, mainly the mili- tary, has been almost non-existent compared to other excluded groups like the hill Janajatis. This is mainly due to the Nepali elites’ perception that Madhesis are not loyal to the Nepali state and would act in the interests of India along with the commonly held belief that Madhesis are “less martial.”28
This low representation of Madhesis and other groups in the state appara- tus, especially in the years after the restoration of democracy in 1990, brings
152 Bandita Sijapati
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
Table 7.1 Representation of various caste/ethnic groups in national legislature (prior to the Constituent Assembly)
Caste/Ethnic Groups
National Legislature (a) Total Population (b)
Proportional Share Index (PSI) (Ratio of a/b)
1959 1981 1991 1999 2007 2001 1999 2007
Bahuns 27.5 13.3 38.1 39.6 32.8 12.7 3.12 2.58 Chhetri/Thakuri 31.2 36.3 18.2 17.3 17.9 17.3 1.0 1.04 Newar 3.7 8.1 8.3 8.3 7.3 5.5 1.51 1.33 Sub Total 62.4 57.7 64.6 65.2 58.0 35.5 1.84 1.64 Tarai1 22 18.5 19.6 17.4 21.9 33 0.53 0.66 Hill Social Groups2
15.6 23 14.7 14.7 20.1 29 0.51 0.69
Others – 0.7 1.2 1.5 – 2.5 0.6 – Sub Total 37.6 42.2 35.5 33.6 42.0 64.5 0.52 0.65 Total 100 99.9 100.1 98.8 100.0 100
Source: Adapted from Yadav 2007. Notes 1 Includes Madhesi caste groups, Tarai Janajatis and Muslims. 2 Includes Hill Janajatis and Hill Dalits.
Table 7.2 Representation of various caste/ethnic groups in different sectors 2005
Upper-caste hill Bahun/ Chhetri
Janajati Madhesi Dalit Newar Others Total
Sector Public 82 7 9 2 14 0 114 Political 93 20 11 1 14 0 139 Private 21 3 30 0 42 0 96 Civil Society 94 9 18 1 19 0 141 Total 290 39 68 4 89 0 490 Percentage (a) 59.2 7.9 13.9 0.8 18.2 0.0 100.0 Percentage of Total Population
30.9 23.1 31.5 7.9 5.5 1.2 100.0
PSI (Ratio of a/b) 1.9 0.3 0.4 0.1 3.3 0.0 6.0
Source: Neupane 2005; UNDP 2009. Note: Public sector includes Supreme Court, constitutional bodies, cabinet of minis- ters, members of lower and upper houses of parliament; political sector includes lea- ders of political parties; private sector includes individuals holding leadership positions in Federation of Nepali Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Chamber of Commerce; civil society includes heads of different professional groups and media houses.
In pursuit of recognition 153
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal : Identities and Mobilization After 1990, edited by Mahendra Lawoti, and Susan I. Hangen, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unt/detail.action?docID=1024644. Created from unt on 2021-03-08 08:35:15.
C o p yr
ig h t ©
2 0 1 2 . T
a yl
o r
& F
ra n ci
s G
ro u p . A
ll ri g h ts
r e se
rv e d .
to mind Giddens’ (1998: 71) argument about the need for “democratization of democracy,” partic
Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers
Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS
Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.