Book Review Pages
The Kathmandu Post Review of Books
Vol. 3, No. 17
Issue Coordinator: Pramod Bhatta
Martin Chautari for
CSRD and The Kathmandu Post
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Essay
Reviews
- Nepali Around the World: Emphasizing Nepali Christians of the Himalayas (Cindy L. Perry)
- Contemporary Nepal (Pashupati Shamshere Rana and Dwarika N. Dhungel, eds.)
- Fields of Grass: Portraits of the Pastoral Landscape and Nomads of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas (Daniel J. Miller)
- Human Development in South Asia 1998 (Mahbub Ul Haq and Khadija Haq)
Book or Glossy Vanity
C K Lal
Professionals crave peer recognition. Acquiring acceptance by building up a series of successes in one's chosen field of endeavor is a long, arduous and time consuming process. It's relatively easier to write a jargon-filled book to establish your credentials. The fear of being found out is not there because every one indulges in this kind of 'ritualistic scholarship' all the time. Lack of originality can easily be compensated for by copious quotes and thick bibliographies to prove that adequate 're-search' has been done. Thus, one witnesses a rush of professionals responding to the urge of getting into 'blue covers.'
To attempt to review Urban & Environmental Planning in Nepal: Analysis, Policies and Proposals by Dr. Ambika Prasad Adhikary (IUCN Nepal, 1998) is in itself giving it more attention than it deserves. If it were not for its excellent production, I would have hesitated to do it. Color printing on a thick glossy art-board cover is arresting. Overall layout of the book matches international standards. Print quality is beyond reproach, though I couldn't find printers' name anywhere in the book and am unable to say whether it was produced here or abroad. Dilip K. Munankarmi, the designer of the book, deserves all the credit for making me buy this book. Quite naturally, it's him that I blame for having prompted me into wasting two hundred rupees of my hard-earned money in buying a book that I could have easily done without.
On the credit page, author asserts that views expressed in the book are those of him and should not be construed as the official views of IUCN Nepal or IUCN. All right, but that disclaimer does not bar me from blaming either IUCN Nepal for publishing the book or the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation for supporting this enterprise. Aid-money should not be squandered away in financing ego trips of ambitious professionals. Oh, I am straying. I am supposed to discuss the content of the book.
The 'contents' page is innovative. It uses 'all caps' for chapter headings and 'all small' for sub-chapter titles. However, once inside, the chapter titles have also been demoted to small letters. Does Munankarmi have a message hidden somewhere there? Does he want readers to concentrate more on the accompanying quotes, sketches and photographs? Tables of figure, graphs and illustrations are interestingly displayed. I am having difficulty focusing upon the contents. Well, I guess I must, otherwise the Coordinator of this review page will throw this piece in the nearest waste paper basket and, in total ten-hours of my effort involved in trying to read this book, along with it.
In the first section, author says, "In this book is expected to contribute towards better understanding of urban and environmental problems in Nepal and to help in the development and implementation of practical solutions to the problems of planning and environment." The author is Ivy League quality - Harvard - with a stint each at MIT and easy going University of Hawaii. Obviously a comparatively illiterate person like me can't dare question his assumptions (The role of a book in implementation of practical solutions, understanding of urban and environment, not urban environment, issues in one slim volume), ambitions (planning and environment, development and implementation, urban and environment) or his English ( In this book is expected ... ). I am one of those who hold the view that even if a Ph.D. commits a mistake, it must be deliberate. A pundit is always right.
Let me face failure, it's extremely difficult to talk about the contents of the book. For a "better understanding of urban and environmental problems of Nepal," issues should have been analyzed in context, in content and with contemplation (The 3Cs of the jargon) for a proper diagnosis. In stead, we are given loads of generalization like "Baneshwarisation" and some more of pontificating on "Standardization" as prescriptions of all illnesses afflicting our urban centers, and even those are too Kathmandu-centric to be of any use any where else in Nepal. I give up the pretensions of a review altogether. Why discuss a book that is not meant to be read by any one? One is expected to buy this kind of books to decorate one's book-shelves.
The small-town characteristics of a thriving rumor culture still hold sway in an otherwise cosmopolitan Kathmandu. One such rumor that floated for quite a while in the circles of intelligentsia concerned IUCN. It appears that Dr. Harka Gurung and Dr. Ambika Adhikary were two of the main contenders for the post of Country Representative of that organization.
The contrasts in the personalities of these two eminent individuals are spectacular. Dr. Gurung is an ethnic non-caste Hindu, an earthy geographer, a former politician, a prolific writer, shows up in Nepali topi and talks about his travels in Nepal rather than Naples. In short, he is a man one would like to have tea with. On the other hand, Dr. Adhikary is a high-caste bahun, an aesthetic architect, a former teacher, impeccably turned out, articulating his words carefully and dropping Ivy League names meaningfully. He is just the kind of person you would like to tee off. Elite institutions like IUCN prefer the latter types and publish books that can be inscribed upon by their high profile authors on the golf courses in between holes so that holes can be made in deep pockets while raising funds for a cause. This book can serve that implicit purpose exceedingly well.
Finally, I regret having taken up the responsibility of reviewing this book. I am not a very good critic because I like to be liked. To be praised, one must praise and I must make one last ditch effort in that direction. If you want to buy some items of interior decoration, pick up this book along with the crystal ash trays, bone-china flower-vases and jade figurines. This book will look good on your carved coffee table and will show your class. It has been thoughtfully produced in soft-cover so that you can get it hard-bound in leather by hand before having it monogrammed in gold. However, like all precious possessions, this book should be handled with care and never opened if possible. At least, not unless absolutely necessary to show the biography of the author on the back cover to adulatory guests.
See the power of this book? It has made me fill sentence after sentence with 'I' and 'me'. Vanity rubs off as easily as the gloss on expensive covers. That's the highest accolade one can give to a book of collection of rehashed essays published to impress rather than inspire.
(C K Lal is waiting to defend his Master's thesis on Urban Planning at the Institute of Engineering, TU)
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Nepali Around the World: Emphasizing Nepali Christians of the Himalayas
Author: Cindy L. Perry
Publisher: Kathmandu: Ekta Books, 1997,
Price: Rs. 600
Nepali Christians at Large
Carrie Williams
It's a pity that Cindy L. Perry's Nepali Around the World is not as approachable as its lovely cover and simple title promise, because its subject is one that many will benefit from exploring. The work was originally presented as Perry's doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh under the less misleading title, "The History of the Expansion of Protestant Christianity among the Nepali Diaspora." Although the book is written from a Christian perspective and primarily intended for a Christian audience, the history Perry describes and the issues her work raises are of much broader relevance.
As its original title suggests, Nepali Around the World explores the history of emigration from Nepal and conversion to Christianity among various Nepali diaspora groups. Perry begins with a chapter entitled "Who is a Nepali?," in which she gives a taxonomy of the cultural and ethnic groups who populate Nepal and discusses some reasons for emigration. In the following four sections, she gives a hefty region-by-region description of Nepali emigration and conversion. Perry divides this analysis into four sections: The Eastern Himalayas; North East India and Burma; North, North West, and Urban India; and The Gurkhas and Nepali Overseas. For each section, she gives a brief history of emigration followed by more detailed descriptions of specific communities and the history of the spread of Christianity among them. Analysis of this information is almost entirely confined to the concluding chapter, in which she discusses the "missiological issues" raised and suggests effective methods for "reaching" more of the Nepali diaspora with the Christian message.
The sheer volume of information collected here -- and the work that was obviously involved in this book's construction -- is impressive in itself. Perry describes some of the challenges involved: "dearth of comprehensive documentation or published accounts available....[t]he common practice of lumping Nepali together with Indians, and the generalised use of the term 'Gurkhas' (not differentiating between soldiers and the general populace)." It quickly becomes clear that the process of writing this was, in Perry's words, like putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but first having to find the pieces.
Because of its groundbreaking nature, this book will certainly be welcomed by members of Nepali Christian communities who, Perry points out, are often not in touch with Nepali Christian groups in other locations. Likewise, Christians of all nationalities will welcome Nepali Around the World as an addition to the record of Christian history.
For others, this book might serve to open up new avenues of thinking about conversion of Nepali people to Christianity. Perry's detailed accounts of the spread of Christianity among groups of Nepalis outside of Nepal show the variety of reasons and contexts for conversion, giving depth and texture to a phenomenon that's often looked at one-dimensionally, particularly by those who oppose it. Similarly, Perry's descriptions of the ways in which Christianity has been brought into Nepal by Nepalis who converted outside the country may surprise those who attribute the growth of Christianity in Nepal solely to Western money and coercion.
A disturbing weakness is Perry's failure to state her point of view or to examine the effects of her biases on her portrayal of historical events. Although she never states it explicitly, Perry's evangelical Christian perspective is evident, particularly in the final chapter, where nearly all of her analysis is pointed toward discerning which methods are most "effective" in "reaching" Nepali diaspora communities with the Christian message.
While the effect of Perry's religious point of view on her analysis is fairly transparent, its influence on the body of the work -- the accounts of Nepali immigration and conversion in various areas -- is much less clear. As I read I wondered what this same work would look like had it been researched and written by a non-Christian. What sorts of information were emphasized or overlooked as a result of Perry's religious orientation? As a Christian, Perry may have goals quite different from a non-Christian academic's, and it wouldn't make sense to ask her to set those aside. But in a scholarly work such as this, it seems reasonable to expect an explanation of her perspective and some attempt at analyzing its effects on the types of information she's obtained.
Even without that sort of self-reflection, this volume can be of interest and help to students -- both Christian and non-Christian -- of history and religion, or to anyone interested in the dynamics of emigration and conversion. The region-by-region descriptions, though thick, can be informative if read with a critical eye; the bibliography is superb; and the appendices include intriguing primary source material.
All in all, this is an impressive and important compilation of previously uncollected information, but it's a shame the finished product doesn't seem to be meant to be read. In fact, while slogging through the densely detailed historical accounts peppered with somewhat embarrassing copy editing oversights, I wondered occasionally how many other people had managed -- or ever would manage -- to read the entire volume. Nepali Around the World is a Ph.D. thesis, the main goal of which is not to enrapture or inform the public but to compile and analyze information and to demonstrate the author's prowess as an academic. Perhaps it would have been better to keep this version for the historical archives and publish a slightly more reader-friendly digest rather than the detail-heavy, analysis-light tome lurking between the friendly looking covers of this volume. However, in the absence of such a publication, Nepali Around the World is worth a look.
(Williams is a Fulbright grantee studying expatriate missionaries in Kathmandu)
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Contemporary Nepal
Editors: Pashupati SJB Rana and Dwarika Nath Dhungel
Publisher: Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1998
Price: IRs. 395
A Mediocre Compendium
Anil Baral
Nepal is endowed with bountiful nature. Snow-clad mountains to the north, fertile plains to the south, and beautiful valleys interspersedwith green lush hills in the middle set a perfect landscape one could ever dream of. Moreover, her multi-ethnic setting, varied languages, colorful rituals, richness of traditional arts and crafts together constitute the icing on the cake for foreigners willing to venture into Nepal. Hold on! Nepal is not only a paradise of touristic imagination. There are also disquieting and dismal faces of Nepal that belittle her charm. Grinding poverty, glaring gender discrimination, poor access to basic social services such as education, nutrition and health services, mounting ecological imbalance are there for everyone to see. Contemporary Nepal is an invitation to look at the partly composite picture of Nepal through the eyes of Nepali scholars from diverse backgrounds, and at best to judge their analyses. Partly composite in a sense that it fails to cover some important facets of Nepal, notably contemporary arts and literature, tourism, health and education. However, it must be acknowledged that to undertake the task of representing the composite picture of contemporary Nepal in one book is itself an arduous assignment.
For common readers accustomed to reading novels in which plots captivate him/her from the beginning to end, textbook-like Contemporary Nepal will be a difficult read. It contains thirteen articles from eleven writers who deal with themes such as nationalism, culture, economy, foreign policy, environment and gender. An introduction by the editors summarizes the contents of each article. Beginning with "The Land and the People" by Sant Bahadur Gurung and ending with Arju Rana Deuba's "Empowering Nepalese Women: What are the Chances?", the book is an amalgamation of a few provocative and many insipid articles.
Gurung's essay and Sushil Bhattarai's article on "Ecology and Environment" are congregations of facts not bolstered with good analyses. "The Evolution of Nepalese Nationalism" by editor Rana, on the other hand, is analytical in its treatment of the theme. He describes four different types of developments in the history of nationalism, namely territorial nationalism (British or French pattern), linguistic nationalism, anti-colonial nationalism and created nationalism and relates them to the evolution of nationalism during different phases of Nepali history. "We are standing in the phase of created nationalism which is partly cemented by anti-Indian sentiment" argues Rana. In addition, the emergence of regional, communal and linguistic issues in the course of electoral politics has established sectoral nationalism which is threatening the nation's integration. Rana is rightly justified in arguing that "representation and distribution are the major mechanisms required to resolve the conflict of this phase of 'created nationalism' in Nepal." Binayak Bhadra's essay on energy, environment and human development is a down-to-earth presentation in which he advocates small hydro power plants for rural electrification. This, he argues, will reduce the dependence on fuel wood, generate small enterprises and uplift the rural economy.
The other essays - "The Culture of Nepal" (Jagadish SJB Rana), "The Nepalese Administrative System" (Dhungel) and "Prospects and Retrospect of NGOs in Nepal" (Diwakar Chand), Nepalese Foreign Policy (T.N. Jaiswal) - begin with a historical background and describe the developments in the specified subjects through the contemporary period. It is hard to understand why the editors chose to include both "Gender and Development: Nepalese Perspective" by Padma Mathema and Deuba's "Empowering Nepalese Women." The former alone adequately depicts the gender issues in Nepal. Had the latter been replaced by an article on the arts, literature or tourism, it would have expanded the coverage of the book.
Few titillating potentials and recommendations aside, most articles are implicitly pessimistic regarding Nepal's development. For instance, editor Rana whines "Nepal lacks a charismatic leader with a broad vision and strong political commitment to steer the country out of the prevailing chaos." The articles can be classified broadly as good and mediocre. Rana's earlier mentioned piece and Gunanidhi Sharma's "The Economy of Nepal: A Macroeconomic Overview" are good articles; Gurung's, Bhattarai's and Deuba's essays are mediocre ones. The rest fall somewhere in between. The book comes with a dull layout and occasional spelling errors. On the whole, it is unlikely to generate much inspring debate about contemporary Nepal.
(Baral is doing research on environmental issues)
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Fields of Grass: Portraits of the Pastoral Landscape and Nomads of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas
Author: Daniel J Miller
Publisher: ICIMOD, Kathmandu, 1998
Price: Rs. 2000
Documenting Pastoral Landscapes
Pratyoush Onta
Fields of Grass will come as a surprise to those who associate the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas to snow-covered desolate lands only. Its immaculate photos - over 220 of them - and the accompanying texts, however, will be a feast to those interested in the nomads and grasslands of Nepali and Tibetan highlands. Nomads or nomadic pastoralists are people who "specialize in animal husbandry that requires periodic movement of their herds."
The American photographer-author, Daniel J Miller, first came to Nepal in 1974 as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He spent four years in northern Nepal, working and living with yak herders. "Yak herding," Miller found out "was a fascinating way of life and the pastures the yaks grazed in a remarkable landscape." He sometimes accompanied yak caravans to the Tibet-Nepal border but could not actually visit Tibet as it was closed to foreigners. After returning to the US, Miller studied ecology of rangelands - areas that are unsuitable for agricultural cultivation but serve as source of forage for animals. He returned to this region in 1983 and worked in the field of range-livestock development and wildlife conservation in Nepal, Bhutan, China, Mongolia and Pakistan.
For two years starting in 1995 Miller worked as a rangeland specialist for ICIMOD. He first visited Tibetan grazing lands in 1988 and by 1997, he had made 15 trips to pastoral areas in Tibet and passed through similar areas of Nepal and Bhutan on numerous occasions. In his introduction to the book, Miller provides a brief history of nomadic pastoralism in the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas and compares it with pastoral regions of Eurasia and Africa. He also highlights the many characteristics shared by the nomads of the region.
The photos included in the book span the years from 1975 to 1997. Documenting in photographs "the nomadic way of life and the transformations nomad society was going through," Miller has created a visible archive "of the landscape and the uses it had been subjected to by people and their livestock." The photos and the texts are presented under titles such as pastoral landscape, pastoral production, livestock, nomads, changes and future challenges.
Miller's photos show the internal variety in the rangelands found in China, Nepal and Bhutan. They also record the various pastoral production practices and strategies that have been historically adopted by nomads in these countries who usually own a mix of different species of animals. This is a strategy that maximises their use of rangeland resources and minimises the risk of losses that can result from diseases. Livestock photographs show yaks, sheep, goats, and horses. Photographs of nomads show women and men from Langtang, Solu and Dolpo in Nepal; from Yunnan, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Tibet in China; and from Sakten in Bhutan.
Under "Changes", Miller documents transformations in the use and conditions of rangelands, and in the lives of pastoralists. The long-term prospects of nomadic pastoralism in the region, according to Miller, are good but will require suitably designed research and management programs. A reading list and a selection of photos from the book that are useful for repeat photography, a valuable tool to analyse changes, are included at the end. All in all, this is a fascinating book.
(P. Onta hosts Dabali, a discussion program on Radio Sagarmatha FM 102.4, two times a week)
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Human Development in South Asia 1998
Author: Mahbub Ul Haq & Khadija Haq
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Pakistan, 1998
Educational Challenges in South Asia
Pramod Bhatta
As we approach the next millennium, it is a stark truth that South Asia will emerge as the poorest region in the world, not only economically but also socially as demonstrated by the Human Development Indices for the region. Home to one-fourth of humanity, South Asia is already the most illiterate, the poorest, the most malnourished and the least gender sensitive - indeed the most deprived - region in the world. The first Human Development in South Asia report conveyed this shocking message in 1997.
This second report focuses on the critical role of education in acclerating human development in the region. There are more than 50 million children in South Asia who have never seen the inside of a school. About 40 percent of those enrolled drop out annully. About 395 million adults remain illiterate, of which two-third are women. All South Asian nations had once stated that they would extend basic education to all by the year 2000. This is definitely beyond their reach. But neglecting education now means adding more illiterates to the already massive pool of uneducated South Asians. As Mistral poignantly said, "Many of the things we need can wait; the child cannot .... Her name is today." Yet, despite these highly disturbing facts, Universal Primary Education (UPE) in the next five years is not a utopian vision for South Asia but an achievable reality. Policy makers, especially politicians, must act now to end the region's shameful neglect of basic education. This is the central message of the Human Development in South Asia 1998.
Divided into ten chapters that include numerous boxes, tables, statistical diagrams and technical notes, this book begins with the message: "the challenge for South Asia today is to travel the vast distance between its performance and its promise....by a massive investment in human development whose critical components include basic education for all and building relevant technical skills." Additional evidence is collected from the experiences of the East Asian Tigers, Latin American countries and even some African nations where massive investments in education have acclerated social and economic progress.
According to the report, South Asia's educational challenge include low access, low achievement and low completion rates. Six major tasks need to be done to meet this challenge: i) enrolling all children in primary education; ii) improving the quality and relevance of education; iii) providing more and qualified teachers; iv) removing all forms of gender disparities; v) building relevant technical skills; and vi) mobilizing financial resources more properly. This means creating school facilities for an additional 65 million children, training an addition 2.05 million teachers (three-fourth of them females), promoting non-formal, cost-effective high quality education, decentralizing education programs, and producing a socially relevant curriculum. This also requires persuading at least 20% of secondary schoolers to opt for vocational and technical education and producing skilled labour force as demanded by the market. To achieve this all, a firm political commitment not only in words but also in deeds is necessary, backed up by allocating about 1% of the combined GNP of the region for education. Thus the report not only details the meagre state of education in South Asia but also provides a strategy to ensure UPE within the next five years, provided that there is a strong committment from all appropriate sectors.
Whether any policy execution will follow from such a situational analysis is still questionable. However some promising signs have been noted. For example, in Bangladesh and certain states of India and Pakistan, the governments have collaborated with NGOs to improve the performance of educational institutions. Statistically speaking, the results from such experiences are quite encouraging. But in Nepal - where the role of NGOs has not been properly defined and other civil society institutions remain ill-developed - the same may not be easily achievable.
The report says that "income poverty is no barrier to the spread of basic education" but it also says that "Poverty has an enormous bearing on girls' chances of schooling." These are two apparently contradictory statements. A sound political committment as envisaged by the report may not be possible in the near future while the political leaders relish on the massive support of student bodies. However, this bluntly frank report should come as a rude shock to all those development practitioners of the region who still believe that economic development can be achieved independently of human development. Such 'experts' and Nepal's politicians should read this report carefully and think about meeting the challenges described therein.
(P Bhatta is an MA student in sociology at TU)
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