Articles

• Lazima Onta-Bhatta

  Political Economy, Culture and Violence: Children's Journeys to the Urban Streets
  This paper analyzes children's displacement from their homes and the development of the phenomenon of street living in urban Nepal. Emphasizing the theoretical importance of articulating political economy with cultural ideologies, practices, power, violence, and human agency, it explores the shifts in children's lives from rural subsistence settings to urban commodity production. Street children's experiences and interpretations of work, violence, and the power relations between them and the adults are elucidated by utilizing their narratives. The paper also presents the children's guardian's narratives to show how they have experienced the ramifications of the various ways in which political economy manifests within families. The processes of impoverishment, displacement, and urbanization are analyzed in the context of capitalist penetration, and the articulation of these processes with cultural systems of domination, violence, gender, and seniority are highlighted through the street children's and their guardian's narratives.
  Return to 2(2) Contents

• Surendra K.C.

  Rakshadal Bidroha tatha Nepal Communist Partymaathiko Pratibandha: Aitihasik Tathya tatha tyasko Durgami Prabhavmaathi Samkshipta Adhyayan [Raksadal Revolt and the Ban on the Nepal Communist Party: A Brief Study of the Historical Event and its Longterm Effects]
  On 22 January 1952, 1200 members of the Raksadal revolted in Kathmandu under the leadership of Dr K. I. Singh. Government forces quashed the rebellion the following day and Singh and some his supporters escaped to Tibet. Although the exact role of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in the revolt is still unclear, the government of Nepal imposed a ban on NCP on 24 January, 1952. This ban lasted for over four years and was eventually lifted in April 1956. This paper argues that the political circumstances related to the lifting of the ban on NCP had two primary effects: first, because of the compromises reached with the Palace, the revolutionary nature of the communist movement in Nepal was greatly tamed and the leadership then and that of the lines descended from those who made those compromises, has ever since demonstrated a level of deference toward the monarchy contradictory for a communist movement. Second, the role of the Palace during the lifting of the ban on NCP engendered a process of internal divisions within the communist movement in Nepal, one based on a crisis of mutual trust among NCP leadership, that continues to this day.
  Return to 2(2) Contents

• Om Gurung

  Demographic and Environmental Effects of the Mining Industry of Western Nepal
  This paper examines the demographic and environmental effects of the mining industry in the Baglung region of the Western Nepal hills. Based upon ethnographic as well as locally available historical data, it argues that the population pressures and environmental degradation in the region have historically resulted from state appropriation of local resources. State control over lands, forests and mines and oppressive measures of tax appropriation in the form of various kinds of compulsory unpaid forced labour (rakam and jhara) systems significantly affected the demographic structure of the region, on the one hand, and disrupted the local environmental balance, on the other. The government's policy of land appropriation was an additional force to create demographic upheaval and environmental imbalance in the region. Examples of such twin effects of the state policy of resource appropriation come from many hill villages of Baglung district where mining was a predominant economic activity among certain ethnic communities during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries in Nepal, but is demonstrated with particular reference to Tara Khola (located at the northwestern corner of Baglung district) where the author conducted field research from 1992 to 1994.
  Return to 2(2) Contents

• Multiple authors

  Nepali Women's Movement: Experiences, Critiques, Commentaries
  This special commentary section contains eighteen essays by individuals who have varied connections to Nepali women's movements. Some are long-time activists, others have experience in NGOs and INGOs that work on women's issues, some are journalists who cover women's issues and a few are people who have done academic research on women's issues. There is by no means comprehensive coverage of events and work going on in the name of the Nepali women's movement. Agricultural issues and rural-based movements, for example, are strikingly underrepresented here. Nonetheless, many fundamental issues being grappled with today come under discussion in these essays, and collectively they should provide readers with much insight into the state of efforts for female equality in Nepal. Themes of the individual essays are discussed in the second half of the editorial introduction to the commentary section. Click here to read the editorial introduction
  Return to 2(2) Contents

• Editors

  Recent Writings on Nepali Women: A Reference Bibliography and Lekhanmaa Nepali Mahila: Sandarbha Samagri Suchi
  The final element of the special section on the Nepali women's movement is two reference bibliographies compiled by the editors, one of work in English (and a few German and French entries), one of work in Nepali. The English bibliography concentrates on items published in the past decade but also includes some earlier studies. It contains a mix of books, journal and magazine articles, theses, and development reports. Concentration on recent work is intended to give us all at least a general picture of the kinds of things being written about Nepali women these days. Inclusion of some older work allows us to notice both persistent themes (measurement of the fertility of female Nepali bodies for example) and shifts of attention over time (the recent rise in attention to Nepali women and girls being sold into prostitution in India for example). It also serves as a reminder of some of what has already been said. Thus where older work is concerned we have tended to include less well known studies (other CEDA reports, for example, rather than the already well known Status of Women series). We have also made an effort to include, along with recent theses, older ones that have not, to our knowledge, had their main contents published in book form. Keeping track of what has been said in the past, and in disparate venues (e.g., academic and non-academic; in-house NGO/INGO reports versus published sources) has value not only for historical study of representations of Nepali women, but also as an aid to assessing current work - what's new, what's being repeated? Moreover, some older studies and work published in venues that are, in Nepal, obscure (which includes many academic journals published abroad) may have new relevance today. During the debate over women's property rights of the past few years, the virtual absence of reference to the many studies of women conducted during and since the UN-declared "Decade for Women" has been very striking. Thus we have made an effort to include works of many kinds on marriage and those on kinship that make substantial reference to women. If this work has no relevance to the debate over property rights, then something is amiss within the domain of social science. If it has relevance but its authors, or others, are failing to bring it to bear on the controversy, then something is amiss in the relation between academic research and public sphere activism. Of course, what is needed is not just a list of these publications, but rather the studies themselves. We invite any author represented here (and those we may have missed) to send copies of their publications to SINHAS (Mandala Book Point, GPO Box 528, Kathmandu). They will be deposited in the Martin Chautari library in Thapathali, which is made available to local researchers, journalists and students.
  

  The Nepali language bibliography also includes a preponderance of recent writings, but ventures further into the past on the view that foreign researchers will be less familiar with this body of work. There is the same mixture of materials as in the English bibliography, with the addition of significant representation of literature. This is because literature has been one of the genres that contains the most keen observations of the social situations of Nepali women. Again, this is not a comprehensive bibliography, but provides a good initial guide into many terrains that anyone who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of Nepali women's movements and the challenges they face, would want to explore.
  Return to 2(2) Contents