Book Review Pages
The Kathmandu Post Review of Books
Vol. 1, No. 12
Shailesh Gongal
Martin Chautari for
CSRD and The Kathmandu Post
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Essay
Reviews
- Outward-Oriented Economic Nationalism (Madan K. Dahal)
- Crisis of Governance: A Study of Political Economic Issues in Nepal (Hari Uprety) and The Challenge of Good Governance (Dev Raj Dahal)
- Brahmins of Nepal (Prakash A. Raj)
Conserving Kathmandu's Urban Form
Biresh Shah
The sophisticated urban forms developed in the principal cities of Kathmandu valley essentially during the Malla period is the high point in urban development and planning in Nepal. They demonstrate great refinement in the handling of land-use, quality of urban space, infrastructure provisions, monumental architecture, arts and craft coming together to support a culturally advanced urban society. Today as the banal formless urbanization surrounds them, these traditional urban centers are under siege. Much of the debate is centered on the rapid loss of this great heritage and the potential it could have for a great tourism industry considering that such historic urban centers have been turned into tourism gold-mines elsewhere, especially in Europe and America.
Lately, there have been extremely commendable efforts in the actual preservation of important architectural monuments and installation of modern infrastructure in these cities. However, the urban fabric of the residential courtyards, which nurtured an advanced culture in these cities, and created the setting for the great urban spaces and architectural monuments, have been gradually divided, demolished, and rebuilt in an altogether different manner. While the nature of this phenomenon can be endlessly debated, there is no doubt that it has greatly mired the visual and physical qualities of the traditional urban form.
These areas are under tremendous pressure today. And pressures come in various forms. What were once extended family courtyards for generations have been subject to thoughtless subdivisions, and are mired in disputes un-resolvable within the existing legal framework. Some families have rented out their sections of the courtyards as small tenements, leading to slum formation Others are too poor to redevelop the courtyards or move out to newly developed areas close-by, as cost of land and new construction is astronomical. In short the physical environment of many inner city courtyards is in sordid state.
This is due to a total absence of urban planning vision in the last decade and negligible implementation of planning ideas in the newly developed areas. The urbanization around the traditional cores created enormous pressures within them. Urban planning in the Kathmandu valley had the opportunity to respond to these pressures in its strategies for development in the surrounding areas, but that did not happen. This sordid state of urban development in Kathmandu valley, Nepal's premier urban center, led to mythical levels of speculation on land prices, and sustained destruction of the beautiful landscape of the valley.
Traditionally, the role of urban planning was to physically and visually structure the city form. Today, the agenda is much larger. It has to recognize and understand all social and environmental pressures of a given situation and deal creatively with them to create new possibilities. It is clear that the process of change in the traditional urban core cannot be controlled and guided by the current planning guidelines and by-laws (instituted to save these areas) alone, as they are unable to deal with the pressures of unique situations within the core. Because of their ambiguous nature, these bye-laws are also subject to a variety of whimsical interpretations by the residents and the authorities alike.
To create a comprehensive and sustainable process of conserving the traditional urban form, any approach has to acknowledge three spheres of understanding. First, It becomes important to redefine and re-establish the status of these traditional urban cores in the contemporary metropolis of Kathmandu. Second, it is essential to look at this entire effort as a comprehensive development project, with clearly defined objectives, goals, and range of activities. This requires detailed urban design of the traditional core area and its possible extensions in the immediate periphery, so that each situation has clearly defined physical solutions within the framework of the larger planning strategies for the area. These strategies have to augment the larger vision of the metropolis. Third, any development effort must promote financial systems such that even the private sector can invest.
There is sometimes a temptation to draw comparisons with the conservation of old city centers of the Western world. Historic districts in the West have developed into successful touristic enclaves and fashionable districts, earning billions for the city. But the cities of the developed west went through major shifts in patterns of economic activities over time resulting in major demographic shifts in space. This allowed planners and developers to redefine and redevelop entire urban areas according to new possibilities. But, the nature of inhabitation in the traditional urban cores of Kathmandu has been different. Families, clans have lived in the same neighborhood, the same house for several generations. In the context of today's urbanization and the socio-economic pressures, sustaining the quality of this built environment has been put to the severest test making the effort more complex by the day.
Perhaps a more feasible parallel can be drawn with the internationally recognized conservation efforts in cities like Tunis in Tunisia and Fez in Morocco. Both Fez and Tunis are ancient cities which apart from being similar in scale to Kathmandu have perhaps experienced similar layers of formation; namely the rich indigenously developed medieval city cores, the pre-modern (colonial) transplant, and the unleashing of the fury of contemporary urbanization. The traditional cores, known as the Medina, in both these cities have been the staging ground for successful urban conservation and renewal efforts, by striking the balance between development and conservation required of any meaningful development project.
If the current trend of gradual mutation and destruction of the traditional city form continues unchecked, we will have lost not only a great national heritage painstakingly created over centuries, but also a great resource for the nation. Tourism is an industry of vast potential, and as more and more people get involved with it, its dimensions have been constantly redefined. The conservation of the traditional urban areas of Kathmandu valley have placed before us an entire new dimension of tourism to be developed and marketed. Will we be able to save and develop this great "resource" before it disappears is the question that is going to test the resolve and commitment of the citizens of this valley.
(Shah is an MIT-educated architect, and is currently an independent consulting architect in Kathmandu).
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"Outward-Oriented Economic Nationalism" (In Social Economy & National Development Edited by: Horst Mund and Madan K. Dahal)
Author: Madan K. Dahal
Publisher: Nepal Foundation for Advanced Research, 1996
Wishful Policy-Making
Swarnim Wagle
Dr. Dahal, an economics professor at the Tribhuvan University, begins this 48-page paper with a cliche: That Nepal is a "least developed, landlocked, geographically disadvantageously placed and economically vulnerable nation of enormous ecological, cu ltural and ethnic diversity". If Nepal is to "survive" as a viable nation-state, he suggests that it adopt a mix of economic nationalism and globalization. Economic nationalism, because it'd strengthen the nation's ability to survive and secure itself ec onomically are not threatened. And globalization, because it'd help propel the national development programs forward.
TWO PATHS: Clearly, Dahal envisages a scenario wherein economic nationalism and globalization would chart their own individual paths to deliver different, yet mutually-compatible, development-oriented results. That may be a seemingly sound conclusion. But the way Dahal goes about to give his reasons smacks more of wishful thinking than sound political economy. Dahal starts by lashing out against the effects of World Bank-led Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). Yet he omits to say what havoc in the Nepali context that SAP has specifically wrought. This omission is significant, for, as far as I can remembe r, the SAP-bashing has been going on in Nepal for almost a decade now. That is why it is sad to realize, through papers like this one, that leading Nepali economists still have not ventured beyond the usual vague generalities to come up with Nepal-specifi c SAP-criticisms. And so, with the SAPs bashed obligatorily, Dahal moves on to examine some recent economic indicators -- pronouncing boldly, and pessimistically, that the Nepali economy is "dying".
FOUR SECTORS: To energize that economy, Dahal identifies four sectors -- bio-diversity, water resources, human resources and tourism -- that he believes are instrumental to Nepal's sustainable development. Drawing examples from Sweden and Finland, both small countries with large forest-resources, Dahal argues that Nepal, with 37 per cent of forest-cover, should plant high-value crops. To that end, Dahal would like to see citrus fruits in the mid-hills, apples in the inner Himalayas, and Nepali cardamom and mushrooms sold in international bazaars. All these, he says, supplement national income. His take on water resources is less wishful. He rightly says that water resources have remained under-tapped largely because of Nepal's weak negotiating power. His blames our lack of a national consensus ("Nepal does not even have an authentic map of her exact boundary lines") on how to harness water into power coupled with India's indifference. To break this impasse, he recommends that Nepal involve Bangladesh in tri- partite negotiations. But why and how Bangladesh can and should come to the negot iation-table is not made clear. Still, what really provides comic-relief is Dahal's take on tourism. Listing the usual clichis that draw visitors to Nepal, Dahal proposes that Pokhara be turned into a SAARC capital, that Lumbini host a SAARC university, and that all the SAARC Centr al Bank Governors' get together to form some sort of a SAARC-ish IMF. These are all magnificent castles in the air. Missing, however, are credibly chiseled foundations underneath.
NO WAY OUT: Ultimately though, Dahal's paper, larded as it is with jargons (e.g, tax-effort ratio, low-level equilibrium trap, index of terms of trade, and so on) and ill- developed thoughts, fails to sustain both interest and respect. On the level of a rgument, he fails to tie up his version of economic nationalism and globalization cogently with his proposed four sectors for sustainable growth. That is to say, he does not explain how tourism, water-resources, human resources, and forests are really lin ked with his starting concerns of economic nationalism and globalization. And even on the level of details, there isn't anything original or sufficiently arresting in this paper.
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Crisis of Governance: A Study of Political Economic Issues in Nepal
Author: Hari Uprety
Publisher: Centre for Governance and Development Studies, Kathmandu. 1996, 156pp.
Price: Rs. 200
and
The Challenge of Good Governance: Decentralization and Development in Nepal
Author: Dev Raj Dahal
Publisher: Centre for Governance and Development Studies, Kathmandu. 1996, 78pp.
Price: Rs. 165
Problem of Governance
Seira Tamang
Everyone agrees that good governance is needed. But no one seems to pin it down to a useful concept. Two recent books, "Crisis of Governance: A Study of Political Economic Issues in Nepal" by Hari Uprety, and "The Challenge of Good Governance: Decentr alization and Development in Nepal" by Dev Raj Dahal each take a stab at it. But with mixed results. AUTONOMOUS ECONOMICS: Taking governance as "the exercise of political power to manage a nation's public affairs", and arguing that "economic dependence ... erode[s] the powers of governance", Uprety covers the familiar ground of foreign aid, role of NG Os, debt and the open border and trade treaties with India. Highlighting India's role in Nepal's maladies, he writes that "the problems of governance, or [of] economic development for that matter, are not at all related with the political system, but the open border coupled with the [Nepal's] perceived need for a transit route".
Uprety critiques the government's privatization and liberalization schemes, lamenting the fact that Nepal's industries are not being protected, and that the government is not giving Nepal's own private sector a chance. His analyses of current taxation p olicies towards the "shadow economy" are critical of the government, reinforcing, as he argues they do, the Nepali state's weak position vis-a-vis other states and economic realities.
Uprety's main concern with the "crisis of governance" has to do with the inability of the Nepali nation-state to control its own economic policies in the face of external geo-political and globalization restraints. Still, one wishes that those concerns were framed not as issues of governance, but as issues of sovereignty. If one substitutes the term sovereignty for governance, very little, if anything, is lost. For example, in such arguments as "Nepal has had to give up a significant portion of its powe r of governance to [India] through treaty ties and agreements", or "[t]rade diversification, especially in exports, determines the amount of governance power a state has", it appears that sovereignty would be a more technically precise a term to use. Uprety's own elaboration of the relationship between "sovereignty", "autonomy" and "governance", however, does more to muddle than clarify. He states that "sovereignty is the precondition to autonomy of governance", where autonomy is "the ability of gov ernments to act independently of the different social forces they represent". But what he does not do is to distinguish among the different levels at which "autonomy" is applicable. This particular definition of autonomy, and thus of sovereignty, functions at the level of internal state to society relations.
However, in so far as his whole book functions at a completely different level - at the level of the state vis-a-vis external economic constraints, this use of autonomy is misleadingly limiting. Furthermore, if one takes that "sovereignty is the precondition to autonomy of governance" sentence to understand his larger argument, confusion ensues. Untangling the above sentence, what this means is that sovereignty is the precondition to the autono my of "the exercise of political power to manage a nation's public affairs". In so far as both sovereignty and autonomy generally mean the power to self-government, the argument then stands as sovereignty (referring as it does to the level of the nation-s tate) is a precondition to the "exercise of political power to manage a nation's public affairs". The question then is: Can this be further rephrased without losing clarity and overall meaning to say "sovereignty is the precondition to governing?" And wh at does it mean anyway in terms of differentiating between "governance" and "governing"?
COGNITIVE LIBERATION: As Uprety's focuses mainly at the state-level, Dahal discusses governance as it relates to society. He defines governance as applying it "to the exercise of power in a variety of institutional contexts, the object of which is to di rect, control, and regulate activities in the interests of people as citizens, voters and workers". Summarizing Nepal's historical experience with centralized rule and the current political system's inability to respond to the needs of the marginalized an d poor, Dahal thinks of decentralization as good governance.
To that end, not only does he question the government's current commitment to decentralization (given the fact that local government institutions (LGIs) are still accountable to the powers above than to the people below), but also points out that in our hierarchically stratified societies, barriers to participation arise from underlying economic, social and cultural structures. There is thus a need, says Dahal, for movements to help build self-confidence and self-worth to trigger a "cognitive liberation ". To achieve it, NGOs, self-help organizations and political parties are to play an important role.
Thinking through Dahal's arguments on a conceptual level, however, I wonder whether -- in statements such as "non-bureaucratic components of the political system . . . can be instrumental in realizing the notion of self-governance" and "[g]ood governan ce thrives on self-management of functionally decentralized consumer groups whose coordinating body embodies representatives of all those affected by their activities" -- "governance" is really the term to be used. The term "democracy" would seem to be mo re appropriate.
"Governance" appears to have implications for both internal and external forms of rule. But what exactly it is, and how it contributes to our understanding of Nepal still remains to be made clear. Given its limited explanatory power (i.e., its substitut ability), perhaps the use of familiar concepts such as those of "democracy" and "sovereignty" help us understand today's socio-economic-political Nepal.
(S. Tamang is pursuing a Ph.D in international relations at The American University, Washington DC, USA.)
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Brahmins of Nepal
Author: Prakash A. Raj
Publisher: Nabeen Publications, 1996
Price: Rs. 100
A Weak Rebuttal
Kishor Pradhan
Prakash A Raj's Brahmins of Nepal, a sort of a Brahman-nic rebuttal to Dor Bahadur Bista's phenomenal bestseller Fatalism and Development (Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1991), can be best described as informative yet inconclusively argued.
First the informative aspect. Raj provides ample details and descriptions that deal with the origins of the Brahmins, their clans, castes and sub-castes, their purbia-kumai- jaisi dichotomies, and their gotra-specific rituals and festivals. The appendices, which make up half the book, are on disaggregated demographic distribution of the Brahmins. This is all a goldmine of information, and Raj deserves credit for bringing it all in one slim book. But when it comes to picking up cogent theses to launch a c lear line of argument in support of the Brahmins, Raj serves up a weak fare.
EXHIBIT A Writing about ethno-political concerns that have spilled into the public arena since the Jan Andolan, Raj notes with irony that while ethnic organizations call against compulsory learning of Sanskrit in secondary schools, they have not been ab le to do so without using Sanskritized Nepali in their ethnic journals and in the naming their organizations (as in Janajati Mahasangh). He points out that the ethnic leaders themselves have names which are Sanskritic in origin. And he attributes today's non-Brahmins' opposition to compulsory Sanskrit to their ancestors' being denied access to Sanskrit schools. Well, ho hum.
Assuming Raj to be right, then what to make of ethnic organizations such as Yakthung Chumlung, Tamang Ghedung, Tamu Choj Dhi and others? And what too to make of some ethnic leaders who are increasingly using their ethnic names to raise the ir concerns in the public arena, while some, such as the Newars, have stuck to their scripts as type-fonts in their newspapers?
EXHIBIT B: Raj asserts that the Brahmins have facilitated the growth of an egalitarian society. For proof, he points to Brahmin communist leaders -- almost all of whom are married to non-Brahmins. From this, Raj goes on to argue that the Brahmins are in deed bringing about a social change in Nepal.
Again, it is difficult to see what we are to make of such an assertion based so obviously on anecdotes. For it is still not clear whether the communist Brahmins were and are really conscious agents of social change (when it comes to advocating inter-cas te marriages) or they just happened to get married to whoever they individually fell in love with while underground. The latter may or may not have resulted because of the former, and it's easy to argue either way. Still, I fail to see how a few communis t Brahmins' marrying inter-caste necessarily help(ed) pave the way for an egalitarian Nepali society.
EXHIBIT C: Raj is correct in pointing out that Brahmin writers have played a big role in the development of Nepali as the national language. But this claim is so obviously true and well-accepted that it's not clear why Raj thinks this even needs a defen se. But what Raj does fail to do is to distinguish between those who oppose the dominance of the Nepali language alone and those who also want recognition for their own ethnic languages and heritage alongside in today's democratic setting. Two are distinc t groups of ethnic activists, and by portraying them as singularly anti-Nepali-language (and by extension, anti-Brahmin) people, Raj only further blurs the gradations of wants and aspirations that exist within various ethnic leaders' demands.
EXHIBIT D: Raj says that the Brahmins too had fought for a democratic system, in which all have an equal chance to participate in governance. This is fine and good. But he fails to explain why (and how) is it that the hill Brahmins, who make up 13 perc ent of the population, take up almost fifty percent of membership in the House of Representatives formed after the 1994 poll. After all, by way of a comparison, the Magars, though 7.24 percent of the national, take up only 1.46 percent of seats in the Pa rliament. Obviously, Brahmins, as a group, have been better able to gain access to governance in ways the Magars have not been.
Raj ends his book by saying that writers like Bista are wrong to blame the Brahmins for introducing a fatalistic (bahunistic) caste-system in Nepal, and he shows little patience with what he calls "Bahun baiting" writings. Raj is entitled to his impati ence, but let me extract this short quote from Fatalism and Development itself: "The people who imposed the [caste system] upon the Nepali society were not the Bahuns. They could not have done so it by themselves as they were weak, dependent immigrants at that time . . . It was the local ruling elites who were responsible for doing this by applying the bahunistic principles of caste system for further entrenchment of their own class status."
Bista's claim remains popular yet provocative enough to invite serious further discussions -- both to bring up more searching theories that better shed light on the complexity of Nepal's societies or to present (so far lacking) well-documented ethnogra phic accounts of afno manche/chakari practices which he says emanated from bahunistic ethos. Unfortunately, weakly argued and primarily descriptive books such as this one by Raj are of little help to serious readers to raise the level of debate on so-pe rceived bahunism higher.
(K. Pradhan is a Kathmandu-based social scientist.)
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