ABSTRACT
In April 2006, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Nepal to demand the restoration of democracy. This 19-day movement, now called the second people’s movement, was in many ways a political watershed for the country. After ten years of a Maoist insurgency, an alliance of seven major political parties and the Maoists launched the movement to end four years of direct rule by the king. The contrasts between the first people’s movement of 1990, which ushered in a multi-party system, and the 2006 movement are striking. Whereas the 1990 movement was confined largely to the capital city of Kathmandu and the other cities in the valley, in 2006, people throughout the country, including rural areas, staged protests. In 1990, people demanded a democratic form of government; in 2006, they sought not merely to restore multi-party politics, but to completely transform the state and create a ‘new Nepal’. The outcome of the 2006 movement was unprecedented: the king was forced to relinquish power, and the new ruling coalition declared Nepal a secular state, created a new interim constitution, and held elections in 2008 to a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. The Constituent Assembly abolished the monarchy, declaring Nepal a federal democratic republic. The 2006 movement and its aftermath revealed that a dramatic transformation had taken place since 1990: people became more politicized, especially in rural Nepal, and they began to make more radical demands. Yet the scholarly record offers little insight into how these changes occurred. This book sheds light on these political shifts and the democratization process by examining one of the most significant social movements to emerge since 1990 – the indigenous nationalities movement. This movement brought numerous politically and culturally marginalized ethnic groups together to end the political and social dominance of high-caste Hindus, demand greater representation in the political system and revive their own waning cultural practices. By focusing on an ethnic political party within this movement, the Mongol National Organization (MNO), and its mobilization in rural eastern Nepal, the book provides a view of the democratization process after 1990 beyond the political center in the capital city. Scholarly and popular attention to Nepali politics has concentrated on the Maoist People’s War that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) waged from 1996 to 2006 (Hutt 2004; Onesto 2005; Thapa 2003, 2004). The Maoists gained
control of most of the countryside through this insurgency, became part of the ruling coalition after the 2006 people’s movement, and won the largest block of seats in the Constituent Assembly elections in 2008. During the decade-long war, 13,000 lives were lost in battles between the Maoists and the state forces, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their rural homes. Although the role of the Maoists in Nepali politics is significant, numerous other political parties and social movements have also been part of the process of political and social change in the post-1990 era. Unlike the Maoists, many of these other forces did not employ violence and coercion to create changes. This study of the indigenous nationalities movement is a step towards understanding these other political forms. Ethnic politics have become increasingly central in Nepali politics. In 1990, issues of ethnic rights were ignored in the mainstream political discourse. Over time, the state became more responsive to the indigenous nationalities movement, most notably by establishing the National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities in 2002. After the April 2006 movement, the ruling coalition implemented changes that matched many of the indigenous nationalities movement’s long-standing demands to remove symbols of high-caste and royal privilege. They changed the state from a Hindu to a secular polity, curtailed the power of the monarchy, wrote a new interim constitution that gives more rights to marginalized groups, and held elections to a constituent assembly in 2008. These changes demonstrate the indigenous nationalities movement’s considerable influence on contemporary political discourse. These legislative changes, however, have not resolved ethnic political demands. Protests by ethnic political groups, who include the Madhesi peoples from the Tarai, Nepal’s southern plains, as well as the indigenous nationalities, became increasingly vociferous and violent after 2006. Adamant that they should not be excluded from the new political system, these groups demanded that the new constitution grant regional autonomy to ethnic groups, create a federal rather than unitary polity and institute a proportional system of representation in all public institutions, including the Constituent Assembly. Protests by these groups continued after 2008 and have delayed the country’s efforts to regain political stability. Many of the biggest challenges that the Constituent Assembly faces concern ethnic political issues. Ethnic politics will play a major role in Nepal’s political future. This book traces the rise of ethnic politics and the democratization process in Nepal since 1990. It focuses on the mobilization of the Mongol National Organization, an ethnic political party based in rural Nepal, primarily during the mid1990s, drawing from ethnographic fieldwork. The book sheds light on how people in the margins interpreted and engaged with the democratic political system that was instituted in 1990. To understand the changes in the political structure and in political practices that occurred after 1990, the book explores the strategies and experiences of the MNO as it maneuvered through the political system in its bid for power. I consider the structural challenges the MNO faced as a new ethnic party, and its capacity to create cultural and political changes.
