ABSTRACT
Nepal saw a plethora of social movements following the success of the 2006 popular movement. Starting with the Madhesi movement in early 2007, the Nepali state reached agreements with around two dozen social movements by May 2012. The focus of this paper is on those agreements, and their subsequent executions or lack thereof. Through this focus, the chapter attempts to comment on the particularities of both the movements and the Nepali state during those five years. This chapter shows that these movements have largely followed a similar trajectory before concluding with an agreement with the state. In so doing they have entrenched a particular template of a “successful” movement, thus contributing to the homogenization of movement dynamics in Nepal. This chapter also argues that the agreements that the Nepali state entered into show that the Nepali state during this period was neither “weak” nor “strong” but rather a particularly “clever” one.
