ABSTRACT
The very representation of monarchy as the embodiment of Hindu divinity obviously authenticates a rather superficial orientalist notion of Nepali political culture widely prevalent in the global media. Yet such casual references deny the complex relationship between religion and polity in Nepal. This chapter submits that religion occupies a central place in Nepal’s polity not due to a theologically sanctioned mystical bond between monarch and his subjects but for secular reasons. The relationship between religion and politics involves a wide range of issues: the quest for legitimacy by an authoritarian regime, the construction of national identity, and preserving a social stratification process through an emphasis on the homogeneity of national religio-cultural traditions. More importantly, in the nineteenth century religion was the means through which various Nepali communities imagined their existence. With the rapid rise and fall of ideologies in the context of globalization, the very means of imagining community was transformed in Nepal, which fundamentally altered the relationship between religion and polity. To understand such epochal transformations, we need to place the relationship between religion and polity in social and economic context. This chapter thus delineates the above
arguments through an analysis of geography, economy, demography, the constitution, and the changing dynamics of the political landscape in Nepal.
