14. Prakash Transformation of the Nepalese State
Abstract
Topic or Paper summery
About the author
The author of this book, David Gellner is a Professor of Social Anthropology of South Asia, University of Oxford, a Fellow of All Souls, and Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography. His doctoral research (1982-4) was on the traditional, Vajrayana Buddhism of the Newars and on Newar social organization, in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
Subject paper context
Theoretical background of the state
Theories of state function
Pluralism theory
Marxist Perspective
Postmodernists
Theories of state legitimacy
The historical development of the state
The modern state
Definition of the state
Theoretical and Analytical category of this Article
Malthus Theory and Population Bomb as driving force
Natural Resource Perspective as driving force
Development perspective as driving force
Multiple theoretical lenses analysis (OTB)
Discourse Analysis
Environmental Analysis,
Political ecology perspective
Liberation ecology perspective
Sustainable Development perspective
Population Demographics, “More than just Numbers”
My judgments (choosing Malthus Theory)
Nevertheless, I consider Malthus theory to be best suited to explain Nepalese transformation of State. Malthus wrote his most important work, Essay on the Principle of Population with six editions of the work, which was a best seller. He believed that the population is increasing in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increasing in an arithmetic ratio. Basically, that the population is growing too fast, and eventually the world’s food supply will be insufficient to provide for everyone .Malthus believed that natural disasters, wars and poverty were positive check that were all necessary in order to keep a check on the population. In fact, in later editions, Malthus started to advocate abstinence and birth control in order to limit the population.
Synthesizing and Concluding
Reference;
Term End Paper
On
The Transformation of State; Nepalese Experience
Submitted to
Prof. Dr. Amulya Ratna Tuladhar
Population and Development
School of Arts, Kathmandu University
This paper is written in requirement to the partial fulfillment of Masters in Development Studies, for the subject, Population and Development, in Kathmandu University, School of Arts.
Submitted by
Prakash Budha Magar
MDevs, III semester
KUSOA, KU
07/06/2011
Table of Contents
Abstract
This paper is a brief account of how transformation of States takes place, particularly, in context to Nepalese experience. The chapter, Transformation of Nepalese State, that this paper presents is taken from the book, Resistance and the State; Nepalese Experience written by David N. Gellner in 2002. The same author also edits this book.
The objective of this paper is to analyze the events that shaped the formation of Nepalese state from one level of state to another. I envisage identifying the root causes of the resistance against the state that took place in the history and its importance while forming the state from multiple lenses perspectives.
The paper includes theoretical perspective of the state and its formation, with some major chronological events that took place in Nepal, which are marked as the point of change from one regime to another. This includes, the extractive Rana regime, Panchayat ruling, Parliamentary Democratic ruling, Maoism in Nepal with comparison to Peruvian model and its future, along with my view and perception from multiple theoretical perspective lenses.
This paper endeavors to explain and has made me understand the fact that the state and the resistance go hand in hand. Change in inevitable, and the reasons or the cause for the change is also not constant. The moment awareness is prevalent among the people, a scenario of change and resistance starts to build up, and when the mass take up to the street or resist, the state has always given path to formation of new state dwelling.
Topic or Paper summery
Transformation of the Nepalese State is an introductory chapter by David N. Gellner, who is also the editor of the same book ‘Resistance and the State; Nepalese Experience’, 2002, from which this chapter is taken. While the whole book illustrates the ethnographic case studies to explore healthcare programmes, forestry, national parks, political parties, and ethnic revivalism, the introductory chapter deals with the state and transformations of Nepalese state with some graphic description of conflicts over the interpretation of history, and various perspectives on the Maoist insurgency that had taken control of large parts of rural Nepal since 1996. The whole book is an excellent contribution to our understanding of Nepal's current and past situation and worth analysing the process that occurred in formation of our present scenario of.
Gellner explains that the transfer of inequalities from generation to generations by means of specialized roles in a specific territory could have been the determining factor for the state formation. Humans have not always lived under (Gellner, 2002) like we do now, he says. This state of nation was created and shaped through many struggles and consensus in the history to form a newly acceptable and harmonic state, either through law-enforcement or through coming to common consensus. Therefore, he concludes saying that people have divided every possible land on this earth among themselves, today.
The chapter starts with the notion of state, types of resistance, and their role in forming the state, and finally ends asking questions about the fate of the state at the hand of the Maoist movement. He opines about the various natures and the resistance of the States and writes about how Nepal slowly transformed from one stage of state to another. At the same time he also portraits how different people have different view about Nepal and its people.
The author provides us the primary formal characteristics of the modern state as according to Max Weber (1968: 56). However, at the same time he also clarifies the challenges of modern state in actual practice – corruption, nepotism, mafias, ethno-nationalist secessionist movements and so on.
He begins with the Rana regime, which he rightly points as the Extractive state. According to him, among all the other regimes, the Rana regime has been the worst for its citizens as its political system was an undisguised military despotism in order to enhance their personal wealth and their family. After about hundreds years of ruling, the Panchayat Regime came into power from 1951 onwards, through combined factors such as changed international situation, social change within the country and the support of the King Tribhuvan. There were some changes, like the tax basis of the regime shifted from land to indirect taxes, mainly levied on imports increasingly the Panchayat regime relied on foreign aid to fund its day-to-day running. However, he also points out of the large amounts of money concentrated in the capital, Kathmandu, so, both the elite and the less well off who were based there certainly saw dramatic improvements in their standards of living and in their access to global culture. Alan Macfarlane (1983, 1994, 2001) has documented how changes were felt only in Kathmandu, excluding a large portion of rural areas.
Our state saw another change in 1990 and that was the Parliamentary Democracy, People’s Sovereignty, and so was the new constitution promulgated in November, the same year. Interim government was set up, and the beginning of the modern era started. However, the new system also faced problems such as economic, political and demographic pressure as the other regime did, basically, because the introduction of new system has seen the same player return but no change was really experienced by the people. With few exceptions, there was nothing that reminds one of the modern worlds; anyone who boards a plane away from Kathmandu felt as if they have gone back two centuries in time (Gaborieau, 1978:63). Literacy and contacts in the bureaucracy gave bahuns (Brahmins) an overwhelming advantage when land started to become scarce, whereas, the others remained the same or further deteriorated. The emergence of openly ethnic movement started to further deteriorate the grip of the government with the state mainly, the Maoist movement, stating from 1996. The author perceives Maoism as the greatest challenge to the state, though he also agrees that resistance is natural and inescapable part of development. Gellner explains Maoism with the Peruvian model as Peru also underwent similar history background in its political affairs. He mentions how some of the scholars like Andrew Nickson (1992) and Stephen Mikeshell (1993) had predicted the uprising looking at the Peru and its similar case studies. Because the book was written in 2002, when the people’s war was still under way, it is written with the uncertainty of the Nepal’s destiny with Maoism.
Many ethnic activists, disillusioned by the largely symbolic gains made since 1990, have been tempted to throw in their lot with the Maoists. Whereas, the author also raises a serious questions about the role of the Tibetan refugees in context to Maoism, who have settled here in Nepal after the Tibet issue that ignited back in 1959.
While concluding the chapter, he speaks of the fate of the Maoist, which is yet to be seen he says, as this book was written back in 2002. He points out the prevalent situations where the people have not experienced parliamentary democracy since 1990. Economically people have felt very hard pressed by rising prices and a lack of employment. Politically, there has been massive disillusionment with the new generation of leaders who came in on an unprecedented wave of optimism and hope. Far from ushering in a new kind of politics, the popular perception is that they have rushed to enrich themselves and their parties at the expense of the public. He argues about the lack of competences and Statemanship among the leaders.
About the author
The author of this book, David Gellner is a Professor of Social Anthropology of South Asia, University of Oxford, a Fellow of All Souls, and Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography. His doctoral research (1982-4) was on the traditional, Vajrayana Buddhism of the Newars and on Newar social organization, in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.His Teaching and research interests includes, Anthropology of South Asia, East Asia, Buddhism, Hinduism, traditional urbanism, healers and their relation to religion, ritual and symbolism, politics, ethnicity, and activism.
He has carried out fieldwork in the Kathmandu Valley on many subsequent occasions, broadening his interests to include politics and ethnicity, healers, mediums, and popular approaches to misfortune, and religious change, in particular the history and effects of the newly introduced Theravada Buddhist movement. In 1991, he did three months’ exploratory fieldwork on Buddhist priests in Japan. For eight years, he taught at Brunel University, west London, the first British university to introduce a Master’s course in medical anthropology. For three years from 2002-5 he held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for research into the social history and practice of activism in Nepal (for the academic year 2003-4 he combined this with a Visiting Professorship at the Research Institute for Cultures and Languages of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies).
He has carried out fieldwork in the Kathmandu Valley on many subsequent occasions, broadening his interests to include politics and ethnicity, healers, mediums, and popular approaches to misfortune, and religious change, in particular the history and effects of the newly introduced Theravada Buddhist movement. In 1991, he did three months’ exploratory fieldwork on Buddhist priests in Japan. For eight years, he taught at Brunel University, west London, the first British university to introduce a Master’s course in medical anthropology. For three years from 2002-5 he held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for research into the social history and practice of activism in Nepal (for the academic year 2003-4 he combined this with a Visiting Professorship at the Research Institute for Cultures and Languages of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies).
The author of this chapter, David N. Gellner, has contributed immensely to Nepalese literature through books such as Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest (1992) and The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism: Weberian Themes (2001), and the co-author (with Sarah LeVine) of Rebuilding Buddhism: the Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (2005). His latest edited and written works includes Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal (2008), Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (2009), Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia (2010) and many more on similar issues.
Subject paper context
This chapter presents immense information about the scenario and the incidents that took place, while the state was transforming itself. However, the whole book is written to illustrate the ethnographic case studies that explore healthcare programmes, forestry, national parks, political parties, and ethnic revivalism. The introductory chapter deals with the state and transformations of Nepalese state with some graphic description of conflicts over the interpretation of history, and various perspectives on the Maoist insurgency. The author has tried to point out the fact why people choose to resist against the state even when the regime were thought to have been doing good for their subjects from their own perspective. He points out the frustration of the people toward its government or regime has largely contributed to migration, ethnic movements, and encouragement to join Maoist etc. He opines that as nationalism evolves through contested process, the outcome is by no means predetermined. They choose to act according to understanding that they construct for themselves.
Similar issues were also raised by other scholar such as that of Krishna Hachhethu in “Nepal in Transition” by IDEA (2008) that has tried to explore many important issues related to transitional politics: the issues of monarchy, inclusive democracy, and the transformation of the Maoists from an insurgent group to a mainstream party that engages in competitive politics. The survey has also studied the new phenomenon of the rise in ethnic consciousness among Nepalese, a phenomenon that demands vigilance and deft social engineering from the major political actors in the transition process, and the dynamics of ethnic and national identity. The discriminatory character that the Nepali state has had, ever since the state was formed, encouraged the politics of exclusion, and only privileged caste and class groups have enjoyed power and access to resources.
Similarly, Dev Raj Dahal has also presented a similar view in an article, “The Paradox of a Weak State, Distributional Struggles and Social Transformation in Nepal”. He says, transformation in Nepal is premised on the inclusion of marginalized forces of society to reshape governing institutions, undertaking the process of democratization, decentralization and devolution of power, abolition of feudalism, transformation of a centralized and unitary state into a decentralized and federal one and providing proportional representation of women, Dalits, Madhesis, Janajatis, Aadibasis and marginalized in the state power
This chapter was written at a time when the Maoist were full vigilant with the state and stood as the most serious threat the government and the state. In 2002, when this book was published, it had very little clue about what was going to be the future of the Maoist and therefore had left the future of the Maoist in the hand of the readers. The author has tried to take the readers back to the moments when the Nepalese people were ruled by different regimes and under which scenario had, the people overcame the barriers and formed the new State. At a time when the history of this chapter was written the socio-economic development of the country was almost negligible. However, the author opines that the present change brought in Nepal also cannot be credited to the present regime as the degree of change we have now is also natural and bound to take place within itself.
Theoretical background of the state
In the social science, a state is the compulsory political institution of a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. However, for most of human history, people have lived in stateless societies, characterized by a lack of concentrated authority, and the absence of large inequalities in economic and political power.
The word ‘state’ is derived from the Latin, where status, meaning "condition" or "status." With the revival of the Roman law in the 14th century in Europe, this Latin term was used to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" - noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The word was also associated with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the "status rei publicae", the "condition of public matters". As time passed by, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society as a whole and the apparatus of its enforcement (Skinner, 1989).
In English, "state" is a contraction of the word "estate", which is similar to the old French estat and the modern French état, both of which signify that a person has status and therefore estate. The highest estates, generally those with the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power.
Theories of state function
Pluralism theory
Pluralism theory view society as a collection of individuals and groups, who are competing for political power. They then view the state as a neutral body that simply enacts the will of whichever groups dominate the electoral process. Although pluralism recognizes the existence of inequality, it asserts that all groups have an opportunity to pressure the state. The pluralist approach suggests that the modern democratic state's actions are the result of pressures applied by a variety of organized interests.
Marxist Perspective
There is no single "Marxist theory of state", but rather many different "Marxist" theories that have been developed by adherents of Marxism. Marx's early writings portrayed the state as "parasitic", built upon the superstructure of the economy, and working against the public interest. He also wrote that the state mirrors class relations in society in general, acts as a regulator and repressor of class struggle, and acts as a tool of political power and domination for the ruling class. The Communist Manifesto claimed that the state is nothing more than "a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.
Postmodernists
They feel that the modern state plays a large role in structuring the economy, by regulating economic activity and being a large-scale economic consumer/producer, and through its redistributive welfare state activities. Because of the way, these activities structure the economic framework; this theory feels that the state cannot be looked at as passively responding to economic class interests. Michel Foucault, a post modernist, believed that modern political theory was too state-centric. He believed that political theory was focusing too much on abstract institutions, and not enough on the actual practices of government. In Foucault's opinion, the state had no essence. He believed that instead of trying to understand the activities of governments by analyzing the properties of the state (a reified abstraction), political theorists should be examining changes in the practice of government to understand changes in the nature of the state.
Theories of state legitimacy
The theory of state legitimacy see state as a form of political legitimacy in order to maintain domination over their subjects in addition to coercion, states, which generally rely on a claim to some form of political legitimacy.
The historical development of the state
The earliest forms of the state emerged whenever it became possible to centralize power in a durable way. It is said that agriculture and writing made things possible to form a state that we live in today, as they compelled people to organize and keep record of events. For 99.8 percent of human history people lived exclusively in autonomous bands and villages. At the beginning of the Paleolithic (i.e. the Stone Age), the number of these autonomous political units must have been small, but by 1000 B.C. it had increased to some 600,000. Then supra-village aggregation began in earnest, and in barely three millennia as the autonomous political units of the world dropped from 600,000 to 157. In the light of this trend, the continued decrease from 157 to 1 seems not only inescapable but close at hand" (Carneiro, 1978).
The modern state
The form of ‘’ has been changing day by day and getting far more complicated as numerous amount of resistance underwent due to emerging problems being faced by the people. For example, cultural and national homogenization figured prominently in the rise of the modern state system. Since the absolutist period, States have largely been organized on a national basis. Even in the most ethnically homogeneous societies, there is not always a complete correspondence between state and nation; hence the active role often taken by the state to promote nationalism through emphasis on shared symbols and national identity. Probably, this is why the role of Bureaucracy, Corporation, Globalization, and Neoliberalism has been felt more and more in the modern State.
Definition of the state
There is currently no academic consensus on the most appropriate definition of the state. The term "state" refers to a set of different, but interrelated and often overlapping, theories about a certain range of political phenomena. The act of defining the term can be seen as part of an ideological conflict, because different definitions lead to different theories of state function, and as a result validate different political strategies.
Theoretical and Analytical category of this Article
Malthus Theory and Population Bomb as driving force
As Malthus describes the population problem through geographical rate of growth and arithmetic rate of increase, we realize that it is no doubt that the population could act as a Bomb as describe by Ehrlich in his bestselling book “The Population Bomb” in1968.
| Years | Population ('000) | Growth Rate |
| 1911 | 5,639 | -- |
| 1920 | 5,574 | -0.13 |
| 1930 | 5,533 | -0.07 |
| 1941 | 6,284 | 1.16 |
| 1952/54 | 8,257 | 2.30 |
| 1961 | 9,413 | 1.65 |
| 1971 | 11,556 | 2.07 |
| 1981 | 15,023 | 2.66 |
| 1991 | 18,491 | 2.10 |
| 1998* | 23,698 | 2.52 |
Sources: CBS, Nepal 1995 and *CIA Fact book, 1999
Natural Resource Perspective as driving force
Human Impact (I) on the environment equals the product of P= Population, A= Affluence, T= Technology. This describes how our growing population, affluence, and technology contribute toward our environmental impact. I = PAT is the lettering of a formula put forward to describe the impact of human activity on the environment. Every collapsed society has different story even though there are some general issues similar. As Jared Diamond in his book ‘Guns Germs and Steel’ has rightly pointed out about how some society managed to survive while the others fade on the process of formation of . According to him, modern State has been shaped by conquest. Failing to do it correctly will lead to collapse of the whole society. David has not emphasized more on issues related to natural resources and its uses
He lays out five-point framework, which have huge impact in the formation of the States. The impact of human on environment, Deforestation, soil erosion, neighbouring society, relation with hostile society are some of the factors he identifies that could have helped shape the change we face today, and not just political, economic and socio-cultural factors. While looking at the transformation of States, we cannot deny the fact as to how the environment has degraded in the course of time. At the same time, the growing population and the scarce resources problem has also immensely played a great role while shaping the mass to contribute and encourage toward resistance against the state.
Development perspective as driving force
Multiple theoretical lenses analysis (OTB)
The author has seen the transformation of Nepalese State mainly through political economic changes as the paper has broadly spoken of political change or transformation from development perspective alone. It does not mentions about the possible radicalizing factors for change, such as population and natural resource issues, within which, there are many other variables to ponder upon.
It has not included the other perspective of changes that equally stands for a completely transformed state. Though it rightly identifies the return of the same players as the ruler, and no changes felt by the people, the author does not give any account of what other development such as population, demographic changes, natural resources issues, took place at the same time, which could have contributed to resistance against the State. Therefore, this Term End paper will be analyzing the transformation of the state from a discourse analytical perspective, while it also tries to analyze the written chapter in itself.
Discourse Analysis
If we look at the language, literature, and humanities as applied to social practices, we will see the deeper social meaning of power play and power structures.
David has mostly attempted to identify categories, themes, ideas, views, roles, and so on, within the state that took up to transform the state, particularly from ethnic issues. However, while trying to understand the discourse, it helps us understand the issue under study, how people constructed their own version of an event, and how people use discourse to maintain or construct their own identity. The author here has not included the impact of migration, education, natural resources, environmental analysis issues that could have cause people to get into conflict and finally garner the courage to stand against the state.
Environmental Analysis,
One of the most pervasive assumptions is that the population growth is the driving force behind environmental degradation. Population growth has come out of the historical policies of the state (Metz 1991). As David had pointed out in this chapter that Rana regime encouraged Indian peasants and encouraged settlement on the virgin land, he does not identify this policy as the possible threat to resistance as he only sees it from bad policy but fails to categories it as the future problem. As the issue of population is more fundamentally of land and labor and ultimately food security, the growing number of population has led to environmental degradation, which further degrades the livelihood of the people and therefore cumulate the resistance motivation.
Even though the paper has been seen more from anthropocentric perspective, the author has not identified any anthropocentric activities that could have caused natural resource changes or population demographic contributing to resistance and the change.
Political ecology perspective
The author has not clearly mentioned about the relations between human society, viewed in its bio-cultural-political complexity, and a significantly humanized nature. It develops the common ground where various disciplines intersect and prosper to change from one state to another. However, the author has not emphasized the brought change from political ecology. He identifies some social issues but has not done enough research on case studies from specialists in agriculture, land tenure, health, development, international law, history, and both the physical and social sciences; which are major contributions to the study of political ecology. These are political ecology, with its insistence on the need to link the distribution of power with productive activity and ecological analysis, with its broader vision of bioenvironmental relationships.
Even though Political Ecology is more pronounced in the ‘North’, it cannot be assumed that the ‘South’ is not like the ‘North’. J. Guthman has rightly identified the reasons of degraded environment, which can be understood as the reason for the people to have trouble in their daily livelihood and living as the Himalayan Degradation Theory explains.
Liberation ecology perspective
David Gellner portraits about how the Ranas did everything they could to prevent dissent. They discouraged the development of education. They suppressed ruthlessly any attempts at political change and forbade conversion from one religion to another. They restricted the access of foreigners. Yet, Nepal managed to overcome the entire barrier and resist against the State.
The poor people were not least concerned with the education nor had any interest on the politics or foreigners. This was also the time when the world was freshly getting freedom from colonization, which means suppressing and ruling ruthless over the subject was view normal and acceptable. However, the people of rural Nepal were hardly acquainted with these facts. So, what factor could have inspired the people to fight against the regime? It is the difficulties that they faced to carry on the survival for themselves and their future. And, these difficulties could have come from political ecology. Piers Blaikie is among one such scholar who has reasoned environmental and economic degradation as exemplar in “The Political Economy of Soil Erosion’ to “land Degradation and Society”.
It should have tackled politics, including the actions of peoples' movements built around environmental justice and land rights. It should have also shown how local environmental knowledge is incorporated into alternative development strategies, look at the social construction of environment and development language and debates, that forged new forms of environmental history and ecology while not so much of being anthropocentric. The three domains of livelihood, entitlement, and social justice among the people should have been seen while trying to figure out the reasons or the causes of resistance against the state.
Liberation ecology, therefore, adds neglected components to a "regional political ecology" analysis. As Leopold’s Nature say, everything is a member of community of a nature with respect to their own importance. In other word, everyone is equal and there should not be any hierarchy. Everybody should be dealt with their instrumental value and not their intrinsic value. As environments gets transformed, so does the social relations. This theme also emerges in the work of Schroeder and Suryanata, who look at the potential of agro forestry to change the economic landscape and tenure relations.
I think it is legitimate to ask why ecological analysis is lacking in this important book, especially since papers was written at a time when ecological perspective have already started to enlighten the scholar in their writing.
Sustainable Development perspective
If we look at the development pattern of resource use, which aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come, we have not been able to do so. Particularly because of the growing population as Malthus said and the development trend that we practice. Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems.
The transformation of Nepalese state has somehow carried on to couple of regime but failed to deliver the development it promised because it only focused on economic growth as development. Development is a driving force in terms of human well being. However, when we look at the Human Development Index (HDI), we see that it is around 0.450 on average, which is very low. That also implies that we have about 31% of our population at below absolute poverty line. Therefore, we cannot say that our nation has developed; neither can we say we have sustainable development.
Population Demographics, “More than just Numbers”
Population has been the most important variable while studying any social science phenomenon. Population is more than just the numbers. Malthus described it as problem, which will basically lead to food supply problems and spatial problems. Whereas Boserup explain it as the mother of invention, because she sees that necessities is the mother of all invention. The trend of Nepalese transition has been true to what Malthus theory says even though what Boserup identifies is also equally important. Nepal has not been able to catch up with the development trend with rest of the word, but it is likely that the population growth trend will decrease if it continues to decrease at the current rate, which has fallen to 1.9 from about 2.25 a couple of years ago, according to ADB, 2009.
My judgments (choosing Malthus Theory)
David N. Gellner has identified most of the major problem we had and have in context to our country, Nepal. Though the failure of the state to deliver promised development and benefits has been identified as the main reason for resistance against our State, there are also many other socio-economic, political and geographical factors that could have incepted the idea of resistance against the state.
The social relations in Nepal are glued by a process of accommodation between Hindu-Buddhist and other religions, regional ethnic systems and the policies of a centralizing state where the society, art, language, literature, culture and religion lent necessary support for mobility, Sanskritization and Nepalization (Sharma, 2004:127-66). In regard to this, Nepal has remained as a subsistence country in terms of rural areas, whereas, as dependent in context to urban area. By this, I mean, that Nepal has somehow been able survive all the difficulties and problems as our natural resources are enough to sustain us. Having said that, it also raises a serious question of development. Will our country ever develop as the other countries have? On the other hand, will it collapse as J. Diamond (1997) has said in relation to the survival of the States? In fact, J. Diamond had categorized Nepal as a State on the verge to collapse.
The author has used Marxist and Pluralism Theories to explain the transformation of the States, as he speaks more of inequalities as the major factor for the people to rise against the State. He at the same time, he identifies ethic problems as the motivational factors for the resistance. Over all, the chapter identifies most of the problems that could have related the protest against various regimes that existed in Nepal.
However, as I understood and felt, we can also identify the root causes for the people of Nepal to resist against the State repeatedly from different perspective. I would like to see the transformation of Nepalese state from Malthus Theory perspective. Thought it has got many critique and failed to exist in many developed countries, it is still relevant for Nepalese State.
Malthus argued that people have a natural urge to reproduce, and the increase in the food supply cannot keep up with population growth. The major consequence of population growth, according to Malthus, is poverty. Whereas, In contrast, there are also some famous scholar such as Ester Boserup, who argued that population in fact has forced human to advance and creativity to inventions. Marxism felt it’s not the population itself but the capitalism that leads to increasing population. The socialist feel that the population growth can be readily absorbed by the economy with no side effects, and hence doesn’t consider as problem.
Nevertheless, I consider Malthus theory to be best suited to explain Nepalese transformation of State. Malthus wrote his most important work, Essay on the Principle of Population with six editions of the work, which was a best seller. He believed that the population is increasing in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increasing in an arithmetic ratio. Basically, that the population is growing too fast, and eventually the world’s food supply will be insufficient to provide for everyone .Malthus believed that natural disasters, wars and poverty were positive check that were all necessary in order to keep a check on the population. In fact, in later editions, Malthus started to advocate abstinence and birth control in order to limit the population.David emphasized about lack of political freedom in the beginning and ethnic issues as the main factors for the later part of the resistance against the State. It is no exaggeration to say that the ethnic map of Nepal forms an attractive mosaic in itself. It is this diversity, rather the social pluralism at work that gave the state necessary durability and strength. Therefore, it is my argument that even in the most ethnically homogeneous societies, there is not always a complete correspondence between state and nation, for example, India, hence the active role often taken by the state to promote nationalism through emphasis on shared symbols and national identity is better than division.
The kings and the Ranas were able to prevent dissent because of the low population prevent at that time and they could easily discourage the development of education, suppressed ruthlessly any attempts at political change and forbade conversion from one religion to another. They restricted the access of foreigners. This was possible because as mentioned above, a number of factors, such as low population, no education, naïve citizens, remoteness, had their role that made the Ranas’ work easy to rule over the subject.
The defining characteristics of the new state were integration of territory under a single ruler, the centralized monopoly of force, unification of polity, expansion of administrative power and enforcing the voluntary compliance of people. However, there is one great mistake that the kings and the Ranas did, and that was the treatment of all resources as their personal property to the king and the ruler.
Things were acceptable to the people as long as they also had sufficient amount of land to cultivate and to maintain livelihood. However, as the population grew, things started to changes, environment started degrading making livelihood difficult for the people, and the ecological balance was slowly being destroyed. Later, the people opposed the idea to their possession of all the natural ecological property by the kings, largely because the resource, which people possessed were not enough for them and it is than that the people realized that they need more, and it was unfair for the rulers to have abundant while the people had nothing with them. The high level of engagements of societal forces in the political movements of 1950, 1979, 1990 and 2006 in Nepal indicates the transformative power of society—the power to reshape politics through mass public action and redistribution of land. Nepal’s history suggests that the macro-political change in the country has always been the product of mass action, not class action.
Therefore, as our population grew from 2 million people in1950 to 22 million by 2002, close to 30 million now is a serious threat to a country like Nepal where technology has not been able to advance as Boserup had counter argued. Therefore, with the given situation it is hard for me to say that situation like Population Bomb could anytime take place here in Nepal. The scholars, have felt prominent changes, where the living standard had decreased, food crisis has occurred, high unemployment rate, growing inequality and so on, in comparison to 1990 from 1960 AD.
Synthesizing and Concluding
This book is of immense value both to experts — political scientists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, students— and to the general reader.
As we assume of the present state as a final stage of transformation, there could be many more surprises yet to be seen. Chances are very high that we have a lot of changes yet to expect as David has said that the state and the resistance go side by side and it is a continuous process. No theory or a situation is permanent. Change is inevitable.
While the author sees the growing population as only one of the problem, I find it to be the major problem of the State. The problems of ethnicity has only picked up lately, inequalities grew as the population grew, political parties were able to garner support only when they were able accumulate mass, which was only possible as the population grew. Therefore, development means different things in different time. The reason for the resistance had changed from one regime to another. However, there is one factor that remain constant, and that is the growing number of population. The more the population grew, the more the problem we faced and the kind of problem changed from time to time. The lenses that we see as development from are not the same among the people of different times.
As, in-egalitarian social stratification and the power structure have given most of the benefits of society to better-off classes and delayed the shift of society from traditional status to modern social contract as describe by author Gellner, based on the rule of law and impersonality of institutions, the birth of citizenship and loyalty to modern state. However, the process of social change largely depends on the availability of critical mass and its competencies in each group and sub-group. This is only possible as the growing number of people with unemployment, frustrated, unsatisfied groups, which later formed in to ethnic groups, etc. have lend their hand to political parties as they set to fulfill the promises of development within their community and region.
But no matter how the current transitory phase plays out, the Nepali political landscape is likely to undergo a significant transformation, given that the ideological content of politics is being supplanted by the rise of ethnicity, regionalism and other forms of loyalties. Where that transformation would lead to depends on how imaginative, bold and confident the political parties would be in managing the transformation, but some positive changes are bound to occur. The growing rising awareness of the people would doubtless help to ensure some sort of a culture of accountability among the political parties and the rising trends of regionalism, ethnicity and other elements of identity would force the political parties to address the legitimate demands of regional and ethnic groups. At the same time, there are also scholars like Dahal who cautions that the Nepalese state, in its transitional phase, is losing its unified symbol of national unity, ownership of public policy.
The locus of power is no longer the State but powerful individual leaders although the constitution defines the equal rights and opportunities for the citizens to participate in democratic commonwealth. The feelings of nationalism do not provide the ideological glue to the state to politically organized citizens as well as to stay relatively independent of dominant social class to bind the plural societies together under its authority. One of the characteristics of the Nepali state now is that it is internally opening itself for the formation of national identity of citizens over their individual particularly—class, caste, women, Madhesis, indigenous groups, Dalits, etc.
After 1950, the frequent changes in the government structure and the short- life of the elected democratic government in 1959-60 could not provide enough space for the people. The Panchayat regime (1960-1990) absolutely maintained Hindu supremacy and values and did not provide space for the participatory political culture of people considering their language, religion and culture. Therefore, the write has largely excluded the cultural aspects of the resistance and the important role played by the migration and the cultural invasion in our state. A lot of people had migrated due to unemployment as the growing population started to pressure the livelihood activity and food security, which were the problems created by growing population.
However, it is no surprise that we are facing multi-cross cutting problem today in our state. For example, some scholars had already predicted the future that if we fall pray of economic development only, as mentioned in an epic work, The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi made a grim warning of the consequences of “subordinating societies and cultures to the accumulation of capital on a global scale”. His warning came to be true as the world system built on industrial civilization has entered into a phase of structural crisis induced by the information revolution and, consequently, reduced the notion of space and time, natural resources has been used to almost scarce point. It provided the subordinated societies new opportunities, networks and information for revolts against the neo-liberal system and safeguard social projects. It can be said that if a state is only looked from economic perspective, which our nation does quite often, and information technologies like Facebook, mobile phone and awareness has made people to get radicalize overnight and the state is bound to suffer unsustainable development. Perhaps this could be one prominent factor for the resistance against our state.
The root to any transformation is said to be strong if the revolt or the resistance has the economic, social and cultural aspects involved along with the political agenda and not the latter alone. At present, our nation needs to have more of egalitarian policies. Ecological perspective should be their main agenda. They must not forget that failing to deliver promises that they have given to the citizen must come true, or else, very soon resistance is likely to intensify. The political bodies should only be the catalyst to all the changes and not the determining factor, should the change be strong and pervasive. However, in Nepal, the political change has been largely dominating all the other perspective of change that is political.
It is high time that we better focus on technology, which at present is growing at a negligible pace. If we are to prevent the Population Bomb, we must act like how Boserup (1969) felt the population as positive phenomenon. However, the degradation of the natural resources are also coming up due to excessive of them by the growing population, and therefore, we must ensure that sustainable development and natural resource degradation theory also must be kept in mine. Perhaps this is why the States have largely been organized on a national basis and the role of Bureaucracy, Corporation, Globalization, and Neoliberalism has been felt more and more in the modern State.
This implies that the ethnic issues and inequality alone seems to have no correlation with the social division and the resistance against the State. It is the root of those problems that came up due to high population growth, which could not bear the pressure of difficulties and therefore took up the shape to combined effort to raise voice against the State. The fundamental problems are again not institutional but political and policy-specific as the web of power built by state elites has created barriers to implement pro-poor policies aiming to achieve social equality, equity, regional balance, ecological, gender justice, and consolidate economic, social and political rights of people.
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