Caste, Regionalism, and Political Violence: Maoist Violence in Nepal and Bihar Paper for presentation at the Annual General Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association in London, Ontario, 3 June 2005 By Binoy Shanker Prasad, Ph.D Department of Politics, Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5B 2K3
[email protected] This is a chapter in preparation for a book, Political Violence and Diasporas in South Asia, eds. Paul Wallace and Kavita Khoury. Please inform me before making any reference to this paper. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Caste, Regionalism, and Political Violence: Maoist Violence in Nepal and Bihar Binoy Shanker Prasad, PhD Up until 1996, the Maoist movement in Nepal was in a dormant state. To Nepal’s south, in the central-eastern Indian state of Bihar, a strong Left movement has its history since the 1930s. Nepal -- until the surge of global democratization in early 1990s – was regarded largely as a quiet Himalayan Hindu kingdom with its docile citizenry and exotic tourist spots. Bihar, on the other hand, has seen many ups and downs in its democratic experience since 1947, including the politics of revolutionary (Marxist-Maoist) violence. In the post 9/11 international scene of political violence and terrorism, if a couple of stories have to be picked up from South Asia, usually secession-violence in Kashmir or the Tamil-Sinhalese ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka get most of the attention. The strategic location, ferocity or the head-count usually determine international consciousness. Also, people tend to go where the media take them. So, buried under the major international headlines related to violence and upheavals of the day are other ongoing stories either ignored or given least priority to.