BOOK REVIEWS | 189

Book Reviews

Sara Shneiderman. 2015. Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities between Nepal and India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

At a time of resurgence in the salience of ethnic identity – especially in Nepal, where the major political question of the day revolves around a constitution that recognizes ethnic claims on the state, and where ethnic identities are sometimes validated by being enshrined in ethnographies written by foreign scholars – Shneiderman’s book is a significant contribution to scholarship on the subject. It says something new about a topic which had started to become a little stale in academic discourse: how ethnic identities come into existence and take form, and how that process is related to the wider social and political forms in which they are embedded. Since the publication of a seminal paper by Nancy Levine in 1987, which first laid out the parameters for rethinking the nature of ethnic identity in Nepal, scholars have focused on the malleability and plasticity of such identities, and have argued against the kind of primordialist thinking characteristic of theorists of an earlier generation. Shneiderman engages those debates from a different angle, to make an argument that ethnicity (at least among the Thangmi, the people she writes about) is both enduring and malleable. Although she takes an instrumentalist approach to the nature of ethnic identity formation, she is also deeply cognizant of the cultural ‘stuff’ that is the bedrock of such identities. Her analysis probes the relation between processual aspects, where elite members of the ethnic community and their organizations respond to the imperatives of state policies in two different countries – Nepal and India – that shape identity, and the enduring aspects of cultural life, especially ritual, which is of central importance to the Thangmi sense of themselves. Added to this theoretical appeal is that this is the first book-length description of the Thangmi, an ethnic group that has been largely invisible both in the ethnography of Nepal, and to Nepalis more generally. The Thangmi have been moving between Nepal and India for over 150 years. The ethnonym is not widely known, so other ethnic populations among whom they live do not know who they really are, and Thangmi themselves have often, in a manner familiar in Nepal, represented themselves as belonging to other, more prestigious ethnic categories. Under the old

Studies in Nepali History and Society 20(1): 189–216 June 2015 © Mandala Book Point 190 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 regime in Nepal, their distinctiveness as a particular group carried no special privileges, but has significance today in both Nepal and India. In the context of a modern political system where one’s ethnic identity can bring political and material rewards, Thangmi elites in both countries have sought to make their distinctive ‘Thangminess’ visible to make claims on the state. What is malleable is the way this identity responds to state policies in Nepal and India, to shape elements of culture into identities that respond to state understandings of what ethnic identity should mean. The author thus returns to a focus on the cultural stuff contained within the ethnic boundary. In a departure from much of the work on identity in Nepal and elsewhere, which, since the influence of Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner in the early 1980s, has focused on identity as process, Shneiderman makes process speak to structure, demonstrating that we cannot understand the one without knowing something of the other. What Thangmi find enduring about their identity is its location in ritual practice; it is through performing mainly life-cycle rituals that Thangmi define the boundaries of Thangminess. As the author observes, Thangmi recognize themselves by what they do in ritual action, rather than through metaphors of blood. She writes, “actors are conscious of and make choices between various forms of action that articulate different aspects of their relationship with the sacred to different but equally important audiences” (p. 53). It is not so much what the life cycle rites do for the individual, but how they enable the community (or society) to persist as a particular sort of ethnic group, that is significant to her analysis. My reading of her account of Thangmi political action in India suggests that Thangmi there are engaging in the kinds of identity making that have been described by other ethnographers for Nepal – to use her metaphor, what is going on in India is more like a river than it is like a rock, and is more in tune with other analyses of ethnicity in the Himalaya. This also suggests that when the river flows, at least in modern societies (to keep the metaphor apt), people are shaping the flow with dams and weirs and channels, just as process itself is shaped by human agency. That identity as object is achieved through identity as process is a characteristic of many ethnic movements in Nepal. Shneiderman’s account differs in that she focuses on Thangmi process as ritual action devoted to propitiating deities, and not so much on ritual as performance of identity (although that happens too), which is what is usually seen in these situations. BOOK REVIEWS | 191

The author’s discussion of the contradictory understanding (by Newar and Thangmi) of the role of the Thangmi ritual practitioners – known as nari – in the Devikot-Khadga Jatra is an implicit critique of many influential representations of ‘caste’ relations in South Asia (see for example Raheja’s Poison in the Gift, Parry’s Death in Banaras, and of course the work of Louis Dumont and his followers). The nari obviously neither see nor care about “the poison in the gift” and this concluding section of the book reminds us that ‘caste’ relations and ideology are constituted very differently from different vantage points. The book is one of the best examples I have read of a multi-sited ethnography, and a model for others of how the challenge of writing such a text might be approached. Even so, in the best traditions of anthropology, it stays grounded in the details of village lives. The book is comprehensive in its ethnographic scope; the author demonstrates how various aspects of Thangmi life that is the fodder of traditional ethnographic accounts – myth, ritual, life cycle rites, kinship, economy, politics – is directly relevant to any understanding of how Thangmi identity is shaped and understood. At the same time, she demonstrates trans-locality and trans-nationality in the shaping of identity: how locally grounded practices are shaped and rethought as they circulate between two different national spheres of action, and how India’s Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe provisions have shaped ethnic activism in both India and Nepal. I found the discussion of how Thangmi assert territorial claims (Chapter 6) to be strikingly novel, successfully complicating one-dimensional understandings of the relationship between ethnicity and territory. Although the link between identity and territory is a commonplace, the existence of the territory is usually taken for granted and not made into a problem to be analyzed. In this book, Shneiderman shows us how the territory comes to be creatively imagined and configured by those who claim special ties to it. Her book also explores the relation between ethnographer and subject in a new way, because this was a book the Thangmi themselves wanted written. No other ethnographer of Nepal (or anywhere else for that matter, at least in South Asia, that I am aware of) has responded as Shneiderman has to this creative tension, even though the work that ethnographers do has come to be invoked by ethnic activists in Nepal as they put forward claims based on identity. Ethnographies sometimes validate identity, at least in Nepal, and the Thangmi, lacking both a recognized identity and an ethnography of 192 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 their own, had a stake in the author’s project. The author discusses this at various points in the book; she writes, “I and social science as a whole were useful mediators between divine and political forms of recognition” (p. 31). How she negotiates this relationship – a project of ongoing collaboration with Thangmi – is of interest to anthropologists and others far beyond the bounds of Nepal Studies. The book, unfortunately, is available only in hardback, and is priced at a prohibitive US$ 80, almost ensuring that it will be little read where it matters most, in Nepal. One hopes that an affordable South Asia edition will be published after the sales of the hardback have had time to run their course. To sum up, this book provides stuff to think with for students of caste, of ethnicity, of power, and of self-reflexive writing, including the very important question of how the process of fieldwork impacts the society being studied. Last but not least, the book is lucidly, even elegantly, written. It is the product of 15 years of research among the Thangmi and of a myriad enduring relationships created among them – and this bedrock of knowledge is reflected in the subtlety and depth of the analysis.

Reference Levine, Nancy. 1987. Caste, State and Ethnic Boundaries in Nepal. Journal of Asian Studies 46(1): 71–88.

Arjun Guneratne Macalester College

Ian Harper. 2014. Development and Public Health in the Himalaya: Reflections on Healing in Contemporary Nepal. New York: Routledge.

Ian Harper, a physician turned medical anthropologist brings together a fascinating book on Nepal’s pursuit at modernizing its health sector. The book is about, according to Harper, a “discursive well” (p. 3), the attempt by the development actors, including the Nepali state, at introducing and stabilizing the knowledge around, and practices of modern biomedicine. Such attempt at producing and reproducing biomedical order is done within the context where the traditional health and healing practices still hold considerable influence at the local level. This complex interplay of modern and traditional notions BOOK REVIEWS | 193 and practices of health is the main subject of the book, which Harper weaves together through a selection of four distinct, yet interrelated case studies of health interventions. The case studies include, first, an analysis of emergence of a mission hospital in Palpa, an economically and geo-politically prominent district of western Nepal. The central subject of the book include three other case studies. First, an establishment of psychiatric services within the mission hospital; second, a highly acclaimed and globally backed national Vitamin A promotion program and; third, a tuberculosis treatment program. One of the ways in which this work is distinct from many others in the field of medical anthropology is the introductory chapter where Harper provides a solid theoretical framing of his research, which brings the subsequent case studies into a coherent whole. While the thick description and analysis on each of his subsequent case studies carry essence of grounded and inductive research, it is possible that in the absence of theoretical premise, the key message from each of the case study and the interconnectedness across the case studies may look puzzling. Harper’s engagement with the theories at the outset, particularly the use of Michel Foucault’s theories of governmentality and biopower, help address this issue, making each of the cases offer a comprehensive story on the complex interplay of knowledge and power. One of the central themes that the book examines is the rapid influx of modern pharmaceutical products, its related agencies and actors in Nepali health sector. This pharmaceutalization of health sector has been one of the defining features in the way Nepalis are defining illness and seeking medical help. Interestingly, this is happening in the context where traditional or non-biomedical healing and health-related practices are still very much alive. The growing appeal of modern medicine, according to Harper, hasn’t occurred in vacuum but produced through careful circulation of imagery of progress and modernity that first entered Nepal six decades ago with the advent of ‘development project.’ The establishment of modern clinics, as well as explosion of various modes of establishment and regulation of modern health services, therefore have served in giving rise to the easy availability of pharmaceutical products. The access to such products is transforming communities’ view on illness and health. Having established the overall rationale and setting for his research in the first three chapters, in Chapter 4, Harper delves into how attempts to modernize health system have manifested through newer modes of state power. In the name of mobilization, for instance, attempts are made to 194 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 integrate traditional healers such as Làmàs into the formal health system. This represents a systematic effort by the state to nurture power and agency of citizens in order to advance and attain the pursuit of the state. Among other things, this chapter is particularly noteworthy for a collection of great quotes, which reinforces the author’s methodological astuteness in the field of ethnography. The manner in which the local nuances of persistence, relevance and legitimacy enjoyed by local healers are brought to the fore, despite systematic efforts by the state to establish the supremacy of modern biomedicine, is commendable. Since when did this object of establishing a biomedical order start to permeate Nepali society? Harper seeks to address this question in Chapter 5, in which he critically examines the emergence and evolution of a Mission Hospital in Palpa. Conducing an historical analysis of the hospital, he shows how foreign missionaries and doctors played a central role in the establishment of this hospital. These individuals are characterized as those representing the project of modernity in Nepal and responsible for charting a “discursive space” in rationalizing the significance of modern medicine. Chapter 6 deals with the establishment of psychiatric services within the Mission Hospital. It provides insights into how locals who seek mental health treatment problematize their ailments and create expressions for the disease. The chapter further provides evidence on the growing pharmecutalization of health sector, particularly in the form of growing availability of anti- depressants. The chapter also discusses how mental health problems are linked to the larger socio-economic processes facing the country, ranging from migration and poverty and that related to education. Chapter 7, which examines National Vitamin s, more vividly draws on and expands the Focaultian theoretical traditions on the interplay of knowledge, power and discourse. The process by which Nepal is problematized as lacking in micronutrients and that the development of easy and accessible Vitamin A capsules, or “capsular promise” (p. 113) as panacea for this urgent problem is discussed in this chapter. The chapter also does justice in explaining how the interests of global and local assemblage of actors such as those representing scientific community, policy experts, monitoring and evaluation experts coalesce in establishing the relevance and continuity of the program. The chapter is highly engaging, with language that illustrates both the literary strength of the author as well his ability to bring the complex story to the spotlight. One quote here captures this dual strength of the author, “Hope in BOOK REVIEWS | 195 times of ambiguity seems to be what is held up in capsular promise, despite the capsules themselves being part of that very ambiguity” (p. 113). In Chapter 8, Harper brings his personal experiences to bear into the discussion about the promises and pitfalls of tuberculosis (TB) prevention program. Having worked as a physician in Nepal in the 1990s to curb the looming threat of tuberculosis, he offers insights into the politics of establishing the relevance of TB program in the face of increased competition from other health agenda and priorities. While the chapter on the Vitamin A program sheds light into the rationale for and the process by which the international development regime classifies certain programs as a success or a failure, this chapter provides insights into how the local context is central in not just our understanding of programmatic success or failure, but also the design and delivery of health interventions in the first place. As one example of such context influencing health outcomes, Harper discusses how the poor and vulnerable have to negotiate with the bureaucratic norms and procedures in order to remain enrolled in the TB treatment program. It is suggestive of the way in which the poor’s daily lived experiences are incompatible with the requirements and protocols of the TB treatment program. In the concluding chapter, the author tries to reengage the audience with the process and implications of establishing a biomedical order. The pharmaceutalisation of health system is one such consequence of the supremacy accorded to the biomedical approach to health. Overtime, the pharmaceutalization has also shaped the ways in which locals define their ailments and also their quest for modern health treatment. While the policy makers and the state tend to resort to the easy way of blaming citizens for non-compliance of the health interventions, Harper draws attention to more complex problems such as easy availability of uncombined medicine, and issues rooted in society, namely, poverty, migration, etc. The author calls attention to the fact that reasons for non-adherence to the medical order often times lies outside the immediate purview of the health sector. The concluding chapter also contains self-reflections, experiences and dilemmas of the author. Particularly interesting is his reflections on the role as medical anthropologist in critically analyzing the power relations that characterize different health interventions, an area that he once worked on and promoted in his role as a physician. The book makes an important contribution in advancing the study of global-local interface in design and delivery of development programs, and 196 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 also in our collective understanding of how context and power reinforce one another in designing and delivery of development programs. The book also is an important contribution in establishing the critical role of qualitative research in the field of global health. Where clinical trials are increasingly seen as ‘gold standard’ in assessment of global health programs, the effort of the author is timely and appropriate in making the case for qualitative research towards evidence-based planning and policy making. Another key strength of the book lies in its thick description of data.This however comes with a cost. While thick description may be a treat for a reader with serious interest in qualitative and ethnographic research, it is conceivable that a more casual reader could find the details mundane and less engaging. Having played a dual role as both practitioner and researcher, and with background in having served as a ‘cultural broker’ in translating research into practice, the author will hopefully find ways of making his findings more accessible to a diverse set of audience. The timing of Harper’s research coincides with one of the most turbulent times in Nepal’s history. It is for this reason that the author in the introductory chapter hints at his attempts to situate his research within this changing socio- political events. There is no doubt that the book does a convincing job of demonstrating how some forms of globally mandated and propagated views and approaches to health get rationalized and legitimized in the local context. This reflects, as in the case of the Vitamin A program, the flow of discursive power from the global to the local. However, in making this argument, the author makes little reference to how the ongoing socio-political changes facing Nepal, including the emergence of new forms of social movements, the constellation of citizen-led actions, the calls for rights and social inclusion and that for addressing of power inequalities, may have bearing on the way global discourse may alter to the tune of local realities. In other words, it seems unclear from the book whether and to what extent the various forms of struggles for power in contemporary Nepali society have challenged, resisted and even hindered the production and stabilization of the discourses surrounding the biomedical ordering of Nepali society. Given the timing of Harper’s research, it would have been interesting to see this theme to have found a more prominent place in the book. The book, overall, is sure to be an influential piece of work for Nepal, as it undergoes historic transformation in the way development is being imagined and pursued. The book also contains richly referenced text, which will prove BOOK REVIEWS | 197 invaluable resource for those with interest in development in general and public health programs in particular.

Nimesh Dhungana London School of Economics and Political Science

Krishna Hachhethu. 2015. Trajectory of Democracy in Nepal. New Delhi: Adroit Publishers.

The decade of the 1990s was an important period for Nepali politics as many important transformations took place in the decade including the re-practice of multi-party parliamentary democracy and the re-assertion of a civil society which was to play a crucial role in converting Nepal into a republic. One of the important features of the 1990s was the predominant role played by the parties in running the polity. This had significant meaning as there was to be a fundamental shift in the power structure from an absolute monarch heading a party-less Panchayat system to a multi-party parliamentary dispensation. There have been works by different scholars on the period who have dealt with different aspects of democratization, economic development, and the role of civil society among others. One more work – Trajectory of Democracy in Nepal – by political scientist Krishna Hachhethu has now been added to this corpus. The articles in this book have been previously published in various publications and the author has put them together here, possibly for the benefit of readers who have not seen them before. For instance the chapters on the mass movement of 1990, the negotiations regarding the making of the 1990 Constitution and on the problem of governance were earlier published in the publications of the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) of Tribhuvan University where the author worked as a researcher for a long time. Similarly, the chapters concerning elections, the parliament and the prime minister, the Maoist insurgency, the monarchy and its legitimacy crisis and those on local government and civil society have been earlier published by the Nepal Center for Contemporary Studies (NCCS), an academic NGO in Kathmandu with which Hachhethu is currently affiliated. The one on political parties was earlier published in the book Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences edited by David Gellner (2003). 198 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015

A look at the articles suggests that the author has not given equal treatment to all of the subjects mentioned above. For instance while Hachhethu weaves through the negotiations of the 1990 Constitution making process, he fails to come strongly on the patronage culture perpetuated by the parties. A conceptual flaw of the author is reflective in his usage of the term democrats – in reference to Nepali Congress (NC) – and communists to refer to the parties on the left of the political spectrum. The author offers no justification for the use in the academic sense, even though the terms are in vogue at the popular level. Hachhethu must have surely known that it was the NC-led government of Sher Bahadur Deuba that had recommended the dissolution of the then House of Representatives in 2002. In offering an analysis of the making of the 1990 Constitution, the author points out the actors involved along with describing various events that occurred during the mass movement. But, he fails to provide a link between that movement and the subsequent developments that led to the transformation of Nepal as a republic. Publishing a book on the 1990s in the post-republic period and that too while a new constitution was being negotiated would demand an explanation of those linkages from the author. The negotiation process related to the drafting of the 1990 Constitution is fascinating. There were many ups and downs as major stakeholders concerned pushed through their respective position. The author does a good work of bringing to light the complex process and the positions of the key actors – NC, United Left Front (ULF) and the monarch. The 1990 Constitution changed the power structure of Nepali polity as it initiated the process of legitimizing political parties, who were until then banned. It also reduced the role of the monarch from being an absolute ruler to a constitutional one. Therefore the then monarch Birendra Shah initially pushed for an accommodative model whereby he wanted the parties to join the Panchayat government, a position untenable to the political parties. NC was pitching for a constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, which ultimately became the framework for the 1990 Constitution. The ULF on its part had pushed for the abolition of all Panchayat institution in addition. Hachhethu further points out how the members of NC and royal representatives in the Constitution Drafting Commission had their way in granting privileges to the monarch, something opposed by the ULF. The author, however, doesn’t deal with the role played by the chairman of the Commission, Bishwonath Upadhyay. Upadhyay had a crucial role in the BOOK REVIEWS | 199 making of the 1990 Constitution. In particular he had warned King Birendra not to push the interests of the monarchy too hard as that could jeopardize the longevity of the institution itself. Hachhethu talks about three ds: deideolization, delinking and dis- integration of political parties. These concepts portray a formative transformation undergone by the parties. The parties began as oppositional movements to the Panchayat regime. But after acquiring power they became closer to the state mechanisms and confined themselves within the power corridors at the center. Thereby, the parties delinked and slowly distanced themselves from their respective constituencies. An important hallmark of the party system in the decades of the 1990s and afterwards was the tendency of ‘catch all’ individuals irrespective of their ideological positioning. The tendency of parties to induct members of the former regime contributed to deideolization. The deideolization happened not just at the party level but was also reflective in the various policies undertaken by the successive governments who pursued a neoliberal policy of deregulation and excessive privatization under pressure from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Distribution of patronage and perks from the leaders forms another important theme of the 1990s. The culture of patronage by successive governments has to be understood in relation to the tendency of creating narrow coteries which ensures regime survival both at the level of the government and in the central structures of the political parties. But Hachhethu doesn’t do justice to the theme as he misses out on the idea of a professional salaried class in politics that emerged out of this culture. The relationship of the parties with their elected representatives including the members of the cabinet is another area dealt with in the book. The author shows how the 1990 system did not help to create institutions of parties both within and without the Parliament as those in the executive felt threatened from their rivals within their own parties. Therefore party committees prevailed at times over the parliamentary structures of the parties. Also the chapter on the party system doesn’t identify the vicious triangular relationship established between the party, NGOs and trade unions especially in the case of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) which has used the mechanism for its cadre management. The election system is also a crucial area of inquiry in this book. In particular the fact that Nepal had adopted a first-past-the-post system (which 200 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 has also been dubbed as ‘winner take all’) has been at the heart of the political and social conflicts as this system failed to secure the representation of marginalized groups in the Parliament. Hachhethu points out the inner working of the parties in selecting the candidates and managing the dissidents. The CPN-UML, according to Hachhethu, sent disgruntled leaders to the cabinet as a mechanism of assuaging the aggrieved within its party. The book talks of the crucial development of the 1990s, namely, the monarchy and its crisis. Hachhethu traces the crisis of monarchy to the royal move of 2002 when then King Gyanendra dismissed the elected Prime Minister Deuba. But his premise of identifying the crisis of monarchy is faulty as one can trace the roots to the fag-end of the Panchayat in the late 1980s which saw serious differences between the elected and nominated Panˆcas, aiding the eventual downfall of that System. This heralded the coming in of multi-party democracy, which in itself weakened the link between the monarchy and its supportive institutions – Hindu religion, Nepali language and prescribed attires – which contributed to the abolition of the monarchy itself. The chapter on the Maoist insurgency is also weak as it offers mere superficial description and does a flimsy analysis of the impact the movement has had. In particular there is very little on the ethnicity, nationality and linguistic fronts as mobilized by the Maoist party. The author has not made substantive effort even to delve into the works referred to by himself such as Understanding the Maoist Movement of Nepal edited by Deepak Thapa (2003). This work has made serious attempts to deal with the aspects of ethnicity and language, among others, of the Maoist movement. The chapter on civil society too has very little to offer in terms of insights. On the whole, the book is a half hearted attempt to understand the period between 1990 and 2005. In particular there should have been a separate chapter on developments after Nepal became a republic in the form of lessons to be learnt from the preceding period or this could have been discussed in an extended introduction to the book which it lacks. Also a separate chapter on civil-military relation and the Nepal Army is desirable as that institution’s role in shaping democracy has been important. Many of the themes treated in this book should be dealt with in greater detail since critical readings of the 1990s are important for the future of Nepal as a republic. BOOK REVIEWS | 201

References Gellner, David, ed. 2003. Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences. Delhi: Social Science Press. Thapa, Deepak, ed. 2003. Understanding the Maoist Movement of Nepal. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.

Pranab Kharel Kathmandu School of Law

Aditya Adhikari. 2014. The Bullet and the Ballot Box: The Story of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution. New Delhi: Aleph.

The Bullet and the Ballot Box gives readers the back-story of the Maoist revolution. Aditya Adhikari, the author, does an important work of tracing the lived experiences and journeys of Maoists in various rungs of the party leadership, their motivations and beliefs, and their relationship with local communities and national and international players. To this end, he provides a rich narrative of how and why the People’s War took the form it did by drawing on a wide range of sources like Maoist publications, novels, memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews with Maoist cadres, and scholarly and journalistic literature about the Moist movement. Scholars of Nepal’s Maoist Movement and general readers alike will find an invigorating account of the People’s War and how it was experienced by people who were deeply embroiled in it. Adhikari is a journalist who has written widely on Nepali politics. In this book, Adhikari provides a perspective on how the Maoists of Nepal were able to take on what was largely considered a dead ideology worldwide and, within a decade of launching a protracted People’s War, be able capture state power. He argues that this was possible because of the pragmatism of Maoist leaders about their own strengths and weaknesses relative to the state and their ability to take advantage of the contradiction between the monarchy and parliamentary parties. In addition, supporting marginalized groups that did not form a part of the establishment was another key to their success. The freedom afforded by the post 1990s political scene also allowed the movement space to flourish. The weakened legitimacy of the monarchy after the royal massacre and Gyanendra Shah’s autocratic takeover of state 202 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 power provided fertile ground for Maoists to collaborate with parliamentary parties and influence the later to support their agenda. The book consists of nine chapters and follows a fairly chronological order. The first chapter goes over how the Cultural Revolution in China, Naxalite movement in India and the dissatisfaction with the Panchayat regime in Nepal worked together to fuel the attraction towards communism and how various Maoists leaders became drawn to the Maoist ideology. The re-introduction of parliamentary democracy in 1990 becomes a letdown for radical Maoist parties as their demand for a constituent assembly (CA) of elected representatives is overridden by the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) in order to appease the king. Chapter 2 argues that political wrangling among the parties during the initial years of parliamentary democracy, which led to ineffective short-lived governments, and the singing of what many considered an unequal treaty with India without broader consultation, drove the Maoists to affirm their distrust of parliamentary parties, who they considered pawns of Indian expansionism. This along with violent clashes in Rolpa between the Maoists and NC supporters and subsequent increased state violence towards Maoist supporters in Rolpa and Rukum pushed the Maoists to launch the People’s War. In Chapter 3 the author focuses on the various strategies that the Maoists deployed to generate support and acquiescence in the rural areas where they established their bases and to cultivate public opinion in Kathmandu. Their major strategy was exploiting the historical contradiction of power-sharing between the parliamentary parties and the palace which controlled the Royal Nepalese Army by attacking only one at a time and widening the rift between them. Chapter 4 goes over the years after the royal massacre when the new King Gyanendra Shah made his political goals covert by aiding and abetting political parties and eventually taking over executive power. Having been betrayed by the king, the Maoists had no choice but to shift their target of attack and they called on parliamentary parties to support them in their demand for an interim government that would hold the CA elections. However the more orthodox Maoists were not happy with this move as they did not trust the parliamentary parties especially with regards to preserving national autonomy. Chapters 5 and 6 are the most interesting chapters in the book as they capture the experiences of Maoist cadres and their relationship with local BOOK REVIEWS | 203 communities. Chapter 5 discusses why young men and women joined the Maoist insurgents and stayed committed despite the challenges. Adhikari argues that whereas the party infused progressive practices like encouraging inter-caste marriages and encouraging widows to re-marry, it nonetheless did not allow cadres complete freedom. On the experiences of Maoist women the author argues that although being a part of the rebellion gave women much needed space, it was hardly as empowering as projected by the top leaders. Chapter 6 focuses on how the Maoists tried to reconcile ethnic demands with class struggle to gain the much needed support of ethnic minorities and the various ways in which people and communities reacted towards the Maoists. The author argues that in the mid-western hills it was the history of state violence and terror that created support for Maoist rule. However it was not always easy for the Maoists to win over support from Janajàti leaders and local communities in other areas. With regards to Dalits, although the Maoists’ campaign to end caste-based discrimination enticed many Dalits to support the armed rebellion, it also led to a greater dispossession as many were forced to help support the rebellion by contributing their skill and labor. Chapter 7 details how the ideological tussle within the Maoists, on how to view the monarchy, parliamentary parties and the Indian state, shaped the trajectory of the People’s War. This ideological tussle was further complicated by the insecurities of top Maoist leaders which lead them to favor alignment with the monarchy only to be betrayed. After Gyanendra’s takeover in 2005, the Maoists had no choice but to do an about-face to appease the parliamentary parties and India. Chapter 8 discusses how the Maoists, parliamentary and prominent civil society activists in Kathmandu came together in 2006 to lead the People’s Movement II to bring down the monarchy. The last chapter goes over the post-2006 period in which the CA became the battleground between the Maoists and identity-based federalists on the one hand and parties like NC and UML who were opposed to identity- based federalism. The use of Maoist literature and journals of Maoist cadres by the author gives good insights into their inner lives. Chapter 5, titled ‘Among the Believers,’ in which the author talks about the various reasons why men and women joined the insurgency and why they stayed on, could have used more material. It is an important part of the book but sadly leaves the readers wanting to know more. A missed opportunity in this book, especially with Adhikari being a journalist, is a critical look at how mainstream media in 204 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015

Kathmandu viewed and covered the insurgency and subsequent years in which the Maoists were in power and how they influenced public opinion about the Maoists and their agendas. Apart from commenting on how the insurgency affected the Tharus in Bardiya, and how state violence pushed them to support the Maoists, there is no mention of how the rest of the Madhesh experienced the civil war. They are only ‘present’ after the 2006 Madhesh uprising. Overall, Adhikari does a good job giving a balanced account of the Maoist insurgency and how it was experienced by Maoists at various levels of leadership, women Maoists and communities in Maoist strongholds. The author highlights the various instances of pragmatism on the part of the Maoists which helped them to gain control over a large portion of Nepal’s rural areas during the civil war, despite their many disadvantages, and in convincing parliamentary parties of their commitment to multi-party democracy. He also explores the contradictions and leadership issues within the Maoists that are crucial to understand the way they functioned during various instances. Ang Sanu Lama Social Science Baha

Elizabeth Enslin. 2014. While the Gods were Sleeping: A Journey through Love and Rebellion in Nepal. Berkeley: Seal Press.

All Nepali students of social sciences have had their share of reading writings by foreign scholars about ‘Nepalese/Nepali’ subjects. These dissertation turned into books by foreign scholars dominate the prescribed reading lists of MA level curriculum in the social sciences in Nepal. I used to get this eerie kind of feeling while reading the work of an ‘outsider’ writing about my own society. One could not help but wonder about the personal life histories of the foreign scholars themselves. In particular, I have been curious to know how they decided to come to Nepal to do research. Obviously they were more than just romantic tourists who saw Nepal as some hidden Shangri-La. But very few foreign scholars have delved into their personal life trajectories that brought them to Nepal. Elizabeth Enslin’s book, While the Gods were Sleeping: A Journey through Love and Rebellion in Nepal may help us to make sense of many of these curiosities. BOOK REVIEWS | 205

The book is divided into three parts each depicting a timeline between 1985 and 1992. In the very first chapter, she situates her experience in Nepal interestingly: “When I finally decided to live in Nepal, I came to carry out a pregnancy and give birth – reasons that would have made little sense even to most devoted Nepalophile” (p. 6). The book takes us through the personal journey of a young American feminist who marries a Nepali man and lives in Nepal. Enslin and Pramod Parajuli fall in love at Stanford University in the USA, fueled by their common interest in global politics. While Pramod is making arrangements for his fieldwork in India, Enslin struggles to find a suitable research topic for fieldwork in Africa. It was when Pramod issues an ultimatum that Enslin reluctantly decides to “follow” (p. 28) him to South Asia. She mentions that the feminist in her struggled to come to terms with herself and writes, “I had fallen into what my addled feminist brain saw as the lowliest category of all: I’d followed a man” (p. 71). Nepal was not the destination for doctoral dissertation research since the beginning of Enslin’s graduate studies. Both Pramod and Enslin regarded Nepal as a “theoretical backwater” (p. 34). They thought being under an authoritarian monarchical regime, Nepal had little scope for serious research other than those on religion and rituals. This is a bit surprising since many serious theoretically-informed scholarly works on Nepal, focused on a wide variety of themes, had already been published by the time the duo started their graduate training at Stanford in the early 1980s. So, it took an accidental pregnancy to make Enslin start all over in Nepal as a researcher. She rationalizes “being pregnant and giving birth in Nepal while learning another language and finding new research project could be my own test of skill and endurance” (p. 74). Her retrospective autobiography tells us how this reluctant decision turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Enslin not only finds herself in the midst of a local feminist movement but also becomes an important part of it. Enslin’s passionate description of Nari Jagaran Sangh’s struggle for meeting spaces and power politics between high caste and low caste individuals/groups in Gunjanagar, Chitwan is a must read to understand the inequalities within the women’s movement in Nepal. The most important part of the book is Enslin’s reflections on her position as a Brahman daughter-in-law and an anthropologist in the ‘field.’ These reflections can be important for young researchers to understand how to practice reflexivity in research: 206 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015

I had to develop and maintain a professional persona: objective anthropologist, open to all ideas. And I was only learning Nepali....And I had to overcome all that I lacked as a non-Brahman, a non-Hindu, and a relative newcomer to South Asian studies by being the best daughter-in-law possible. All that added up to not confronting elderly men, no matter how much they insulted me or our family. I turned my rage inward. There it mixed with habitual shyness and the loneliness of being pregnant in an unfamiliar place without my husband, and then jumbled with the confusion of being an anthropologist with too many opinions. (pp. 111–112)

The book derives its title from the time Enslin arrived in Nepal during the period of caturmàs (literally meaning four months). It marks the monsoon and the harvest season during which the gods and the goddesses are supposed to be sleeping. While Pramod is away doing his research in India, Enslin decides to stay back in Nepal and restart her halted research for her own dissertation. However thoughts related to her pregnancy continuously disrupt her research. She is disappointed at Nepal’s lack of women-centered birthing facilities. At first this seems presumptuous. But on second thought, she is voicing the common concern of middle-class Nepali women who undergo traumatic childbirth experiences in Nepal’s hospitals where their nearest loved ones cannot be present. She also wonders whether natural birth at home is a better option for her, as her Nepali sister-in-law tells her that “Babies are like mangoes,....When ripe, they fall. You won’t need to go to Kathmandu. Have the baby here at home” (p. 80). Though being best prepared for home birth, circumstances drive Enslin to give birth to her son Amalesh in a hospital in the nearby town of Bharatpur. This traumatizes her for a long time. Enslin writes about an important universal concern of most women which is less discussed than it should be. She voices her anxieties and concerns about her mothering abilities. In her case, these concerns were more complexly shaped by her identity of being an American woman married to a Nepali man. Enslin felt being questioned about not just her mothering abilities but also on the authenticity of her motherhood. “I stepped out of the jeep with my child. ‘This is my son,’ I said in Nepali, holding back tears. I gave birth to him in Bharatpur Hospital. His father is a Nepali. Our home is in Chitwan. I breastfeed him and have never needed to give him a bottle” (pp. 144–145). As a woman brought up by a single mother and a disinterested grandmother, Enslin is fascinated by child rearing practices in Nepal. She notes that in Nepal she could count on many others to look after her son while she attended “a meeting or wedding at a moment’s notice” (p. 214). Back in the US, she BOOK REVIEWS | 207 was “exhausted by parenting” (p. 214) duties. However the comparison she makes between American and Nepali child rearing practices is imbued with romanticism as she offers little analysis of the ways in which Nepali child rearing practices have come into being. The most important part of the book deals with the relationship that Enslin develops with âmà, her mother-in-law who had renamed herself as Parvati (the book is dedicated to her). âmà is far from the traditional mother-in-law. She wears a big man’s watch in her wrist and does not wear any jewelry. She is a feminist and a political activist. She is a poet who often burns her food while cooking because she is too busy composing her songs. But she does not know how to write. Enslin’s important role as a catalyst came in very handy as she and Pramod start an adult literacy class in their neighborhood (such classes became a major development practice in the following decades). Being a vide÷ã, Enslin is caught in the web of contrasting expectations on the part of her relatives and neighbors. She struggles to make sense of her contradictory dual roles as a Brahman daughter-in-law and as a researcher. On the one hand, people expect her to be “out in fields...working” (p. 119) like traditional daughters-in-law and stop reading and writing too much. On the other hand, villagers also expect her to be their doctor treating women and children who are ill. Although her anthropological training makes her skeptical about development projects, the villagers also expect her to bring vikàs into the village. These discussions in the book help us to make sense of the experiences and anxieties of foreign scholars and volunteers who live and work in Nepal for long periods of time. At 292 pages, While the Gods were Sleeping tries to accomplish the near impossible task of combining the insights from an academic dissertation with the descriptions expected in a travelogue and a memoir in one single book. Therein perhaps lies the flaw in its execution. There are certain parts of the book which read more like lessons in Nepali history than Enslin’s personal life story. In the end, readers are also left to wonder what happened to Enslin’s life after she submitted her doctoral thesis. Nevertheless this book will be a pleasurable read for academic and non-academic readers alike.

Neeti Aryal Khanal Monash University 208 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015

Yogesh Raj and Pratyoush Onta. 2014. The State of History Education and Research in Nepal. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.

History teaching as a part of higher education in Nepal started with the foundation of Tri Chandra College in 1918. However, the commencement of professional academic training and research had to wait until the establishment of the Tribhuvan University (TU) in 1959. It was not until 1961 that the TU first rolled out the Masters Program in History, which was followed by the inauguration of the PhD program nine years later. The concept of the Central Department of History (CDH) officially materialized only after 1985. Prior to 1972, it was generally known as the Post Graduate Department of History. Since then the history teaching and research at the TU have been through major changes. But, there has not been an attempt made till to date to trace the evolution of the history discipline in Nepal. Two promising historians of Nepal, Yogesh Raj and Pratyoush Onta, seek to address this lacuna in their recently co-authored volume, The State of History Education and Research in Nepal. In the words of the authors, this study has three objectives: to analyze, “the present state of teaching and research, institutional and methodological innovations and weaknesses of the past dozen years” and to put forward “an agenda for the advancement of history as a discipline in Nepal” (p. 1). Raj and Onta, briefly but meticulously, examine the history curricula since 1991 (pp. 6–8, 40–45). They particularly focus on the changes between 1999 and 2010. The authors acknowledge that the recent history syllabus of 2014 could not be incorporated as it was not finalized at the time of the writing of the book. The authors are correct in their observation that the last syllabus was drafted “under tremendous time pressure” and “with minimal intra- departmental consultation” (p. 45). That being said, I believe that the study of the history curricula is incomplete without the discussion of the syllabi from 1965 and 1972. These had respectively introduced thesis writing and historiography in the Master’s program. Even studying the Master’s level curriculum alone will not give a comprehensive picture of history teaching and research at the TU. As such a comprehensive study of bachelor’s level and 10+2 level syllabi becomes necessary to draw a more holistic picture. An analysis of the high school level syllabus of history could be equally beneficial. BOOK REVIEWS | 209

I agree with the authors that in addition to TU, many other independent individual scholars, private institutions, and government organizations have made valuable contributions on historical research in Nepal. But the treatment of this subject in the book seems a bit incomplete. Two influential historians, D.R. Regmi and Surya Bikram Gewali, who have produced several volumes on the various periods of Nepali history are left out. Gyanmani Nepal is considered to have “completed the full requirements” of the Samsodhan Mandal (p. 6), but Dhanavajra Vajracharya, who produced the monumental volume, Licchavã Kàlkà Abhilekh (1973), which also won the prestigious Madan Puraskar, is not given enough credit. Similarly, in the list of Nepali historians receiving PhDs from foreign universities (pp. 18–19n), Krishna Kant Adhikari goes unmentioned. Adhikari received his PhD from Nagpur University and wrote the first book on Nepali historiography and a well- researched monograph on Jang Bahadur Rana. In light of many history books and journals being published today, the authors correctly observe: “The scale of publication suggests that history as a discipline is certainly not dead in Nepal nor is it necessarily in the decline” (p. 24). But one of the major issues confronting us today is an extremely low enrollment of students in the history program. This topic is briefly touched upon in the book (pp. 15–16), and the authors do offer some suggestions to address both the question of low enrollment and the promotion of faculty research (pp. 59–63). On a side note, the book provides (Table 4, p. 15) the number of students admitted in the Master’s level history in the years 2069 v.s. and 2070 v.s.. The figures show a drastic decrease in the enrollment in the history departments, be it at TU’s University Campus, Kirtipur or Post Graduate Campus, Biratnagar. Since the authors do not explain, the readers, I am sure, will fail to understand this sudden decrease in the student enrollment. This change is in fact triggered by the announcement of the student union elections that particular year (2069 v.s.). In the subsequent year(s) when there was no such activity scheduled, the enrollment figure slumped. Coming to the financing component of the academic research, Raj and Onta correctly state that “TU’s budget has not provided additional research funds to the CDH ever” (p. 27). Their claim that almost all CNAS (Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies) sponsored projects are handled by CNAS members is also fairly accurate. Perhaps one exception is the National History Project in which CDH collaborated with CNAS to produce several volumes. 210 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015

I agree with the authors that “the funding scene in historical research in Nepal is generally bleak” (p. 31). However, there exists a small possibility of garnering research finance from the University Grants Commission (UGC) for conducting research. In the past a few academic historians or teachers have received grants from the UGC to conduct research. However, it needs to be mentioned that in most cases the researchers often submitted their already completed works (e.g., PhD dissertation/chapters) under the guise of new research. Had the funds been channeled through respective departments, rather than directly from the UGC, perhaps such malpractice could have been avoided. In the section ‘Recent Past of the Institutions,’ the authors critically analyze the publication activities of various organizations involved in history studies (pp. 34–40). In addition to the established ones, the authors highlight the activities of several relatively new institutions: Suthan (publishes a research journal Pàsukà); Martin Chautari (editorial home of this journal); Asa Saphu Kuthi (holds the largest archive of Newari manuscripts); Tamang Pragyasabha (published one issue of the academic journal, Tamang Journal, in 2009); Kirat Yakthung Chumlung (reprinted books by Iman Singh Chemjong); Lotus Research Center (digitalized several documents of Kathmandu Valley; and Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (holds one of the largest collections of Nepali books, journals and magazines). The authors also mention the transfer of Foreign Ministry documents to National Archives (NA), and the use of Kaushi Tosha Khana documents in the CDH. As to the first, the Foreign Ministry had transferred less than 20 percent of its documents to the NA for a very long time and has, only in the last few years, transferred the remaining documents. Regarding the Kaushi Tosha Khana documents available at the CDH, it seems that so far only one historian has utilized them, which is a pity. As suggested by the authors, the archive available at the CDH “deserves a better infrastructure and management for its care by scholars and students of history” (p. 39). The book critically reviews some of the recent trends in historical research in Nepal, mostly by looking at the post-2002 publications. Even though the literature review is brief, it certainly provides a good synopsis of current and future possibilities for research in Nepali history. The authors point out that most of the MA theses written in the TU are not published. But the fact is that, with the exception of a few, most of these theses are based on secondary sources, and the writers hesitate to publish BOOK REVIEWS | 211 them in journals. The publication record of the PhD dissertations is not that impressive either. So far only 43 out of 99 dissertations submitted to national and foreign universities have been published. The publication of dissertations should be increased – and this will, to an extent, also help to check the practice of plagiarism. One way to achieve this may be to link the degree with the publication of completed dissertations, as is the case in some European universities. The authors “suspect that...the research interests of the supervisors guiding these MA students are also influencing the latter’s research topics” (p. 49). Having taught and supervised students at the CDH for more than three decades, I can state that this is not the case. The authors identify publication regularity, peer review protocols, and production quality (pp. 50–52) as three main criteria in evaluating publications. Since irregularity may be a result of so many factors, regularity alone cannot be taken as a benchmark for quality. As for the peer review, it is definitely an important aspect. But, the authors themselves admit that the editors “who have tried to adopt even basic versions of peer-reviewing in the journals under their care have faced hostile reactions from their colleagues” (p. 52). In terms of production quality, the publishing houses of Nepal have made good progress in the last two decades. In the final section of the book, the authors offer several suggestions to advance the history discipline, and also highlight some strategies to link teaching and research components of the discipline (p. 55). The recommendation part is divided into a) institutional changes and networking (pp. 55–59), b) recruitment of students, faculty and researchers (pp. 59–63), c) future research themes (pp. 63–66), and d) quality and impact of publications (pp. 66–69). These recommendations should be widely discussed in the academic circle without any personal or institutional biasness, and sincerely implemented wherever possible. The ‘References’ section is very rich. It covers more than 20 pages of the book (pp. 50–70). But the two publications of CDH are missing from the list. They are Nepàlko Itihàskà Vivàdàspad Viùayaharå (2037 v.s.), and Political Instability in Nepal: Impact on Nepali Democracy (1999). The book also lists 63 academics with their respective dissertation titles who completed their PhDs in history from TU. The printing is fine. I did not notice any printing mistakes. The book is not divided into chapters, with sections and sub-sections demarcating the areas of analyses. Nine tables and four annexes give the details of some of 212 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 the issues discussed in the book. I congratulate the learned authors for their fruitful endeavor and thank Martin Chautari for its publication.

Tri Ratna Manandhar Tribhuvan University

Peter Svalheim. 2015. Power for Nepal: Odd Hoftun and the History of Hydropower Development. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari.

Nepal had imagined itself as a ‘hydropower nation’ based on an estimate made in 1966 that the country has a potential of generating 88,000 MW of electricity from its water resources. Even before this exact estimation, politicians and policy makers had betted on hydropower as a potential means to develop the country. It was likened to ‘white gold’ and this image was placed in the mind of every citizen of the country, especially school going children. Government policy since the 1960s emphasized harnessing hydropower potentials for faster socio-economic development including industrialization and poverty reduction (Dixit and Gyawali 2010). But the actual progress is far less than the desired goals in spite of the efforts of the government, international aid agencies and neighboring countries particularly India. The book Power for Nepal discusses the works of Odd Hofton, a Christian missionary and a familiar name among hydropower professionals in Nepal, who worked to start several small and medium hydropower projects including training of professionals in the initial stages of hydropower development. The book has eleven chapters, the sequence of which broadly follows the development ideas that Odd followed as his work progressed in Nepal. The book starts with Odd’s initial visit to Nepal to construct Tansen Hospital in the late 1950s and then gives account of his affiliations with hydropower and general development until the early 1990s. Each chapter of the book describes Odd’s concept or vision of development, its implementation processes and impacts, and personal and institutional problems encountered in this process. ‘Afterword’ in the book summarizes Odd’s overall learning that hydropower development is all about ‘people’s welfare’ and about developing ‘people’s capacity.’ BOOK REVIEWS | 213

The book argues how difficult it was to actually materialize hydroelectricity production in the early days of development in Nepal which started in earnest since the mid 1960s. Lack of skilled manpower and institutions to undertake the work, non-existence of training institutes for skill development, and a total absence of infrastructure such as road seemed to preempt progress at the outset. Notwithstanding such challenges, Odd made several efforts on a few of the hydropower-related projects he was affiliated with including Butwal Technical Institute (BTI), Butwal Power Company (BPC) and Andhikhola Hydro and Rural Electrification Project (AHREP). These projects were small and intermediate in scale, and Odd emphasized that social justice went hand in hand with hydropower development in these projects including fair distribution of hydropower benefits, participation of the poor and the marginalized, multiple use of water (i.e., power and irrigation), use of co-operative structures, women’s empowerment, and health and sanitation. These ideas remain important as hydropower sector is now fast moving to large-scale projects dominated by multinational companies from the private sector. There is every chance that these ideals will be lost in this new environment dominated by the nexus of technocrats, businesspersons and bureaucracy. Later in his life, Odd was also associated with larger projects with the involvement of multinational companies, big donors and high-paying consultants. This new development in hydropower sector led to – as revealed in the book in its latter sections – transnational flow of capital, geo-political co-operations and conflicts, and political interference in the projects from Nepal’s political elites. As a result, hydropower development came to share the woes of other aid-driven development processes in that it was the state and its paraphernalia including the bureaucrats, development consultants, businesspersons and politicians who benefited from aid in the name of helping the common people. Excerpts contained in the book from Odd’s correspondence with his family members and colleagues clearly tell us that he was aware of the problem of aid hijack in Nepal and that he had tried hard to avoid institutional mismanagement of aid. A spiritual calling seemed to guide Odd’s work in Nepal as mentioned in his various correspondences. Odd’s family and community life in Norway had emphasized moral education based on Christianity, and he had seen Norway emerge from a relatively poor to a prosperous country within his lifetime. These two aspects of his life might have shaped his outlook and 214 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 made him a moralist. Odd lived a simple and purpose-driven life guided by responsible freedom, i.e., a feeling that one’s work should define one’s life and that an individual should provide genuine service to the greater community. The book refers to Odd’s debates with his family and friends on the purpose of life and whether to live a life in Norwegian comfort or to take up challenges abroad. The book seems to suggest that Odd would have got higher academic or other positions in Norway through his own qualifications and social connections had he chosen to remain there. But he chose to come to Nepal and cherished the work he did here, which in turn allowed him to overcome feelings of inferiority for not accomplishing as much professional success as those by his Norwegian friends who stayed behind. The book also portrays Odd as being in an influential position, which helped him to solicit support for his work in Nepal from within Norway and from other organizations. It is certain that not everyone has the same kind of network and influence that Odd had. Yet, his deep commitment seemed to be the primary factor for what he could achieve. The network and influence that Odd had in Norway or in other places would not have been exercised if he had no commitment to hydropower development in Nepal. This book concisely discusses the critical lessons development practitioners can learn from Odd’s experiences. For example, Odd’s style of working together rather than working alone, pushing to achieve more with less resources, presenting oneself as a learner with open eyes rather than an expert with ready advice as seems to be the norm currently, using local resources as far as possible, creating local pool of skilled persons with training and mentoring, and emphasis on hard work, frugality and creativity are still relevant for development. Odd preferred to work with limited resources rather than with a flood of money as he felt that the former condition triggered creativity to be frugal and efficient and thus led to local innovations whether in technology or in organizational management. The book discusses at length the creative solutions adopted in Tansen Hospital including water conservation through rainwater collection and multiple uses of water. There are similar such examples from other projects too. Odd believed that too much money may kill an otherwise good project, and it may even spoil real progress and create dependency. Odd wrote in a letter in 1959 “I’ve become a sworn believer in cow dung, rice straw and earth. It’s astonishingly good building material, especially when you take the cost into account” (p. 57). BOOK REVIEWS | 215

The book discusses interesting episodes where Odd contradicted with other development experts from abroad. It is often assumed that conflicts occur between Nepalis and foreigners and that ‘foreigners’ constitute a homogenous group with the same ideas and attitude. Odd seemed to side with Nepalis than with foreigners on development matters. He periodically ran into difficulty in dealing with the post-war generation of Europeans who did not recognize the importance of austerity and hard work. At times, development practitioners wanted to bring huge funds to fetch most modern of the technology which assumed that bigger is better. They ran into conflict with Odd who believed that small is beautiful and in local incrementality of technological upgrade or the concept of bootstrapping. This book also shows that Odd was appalled by the exercise of ‘power’ by the foreign development experts exerted through their control of money in having an upper hand in decision-making and thus putting the local staff in subservient positions. Nepal’s realization that electricity generated from its own sources is important for energy security in the future, and that this security is directly linked to Nepal’s sovereignty in its true sense has been accentuated, especially after India’s border embargo in late 2015. As a result, there is even more interest now to develop hydro-electricity because it is the main source of power in Nepal as it lacks sources of other fuel like gas and petroleum products. Moreover, hydro-electricity being clean energy, it has its own benefits. For example, it is argued now that provision of clean energy in affordable prices is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty in all its dimensions. It is true that there are debates as to which model might offer an effective strategy: whether to rely on small-scale projects that can be developed and operated locally or to go for big projects, whether to adopt multi-purpose projects that generate electricity as well as supply water for irrigation or to focus on single-purpose projects on electricity, whether to embrace the model adopted in Bhutan which was to give full authority to India for hydropower development while ensuring fair share on revenues generated or to fund within and generate locally-reliant development, whether to first develop in-country human resources for hydro-electricity projects or bring in experts and workers from foreign countries. This book reflects on Odd’s experimentation and experiences with different models of hydropower development with an aim to draw lessons for the current times. Because of a very high demand of electricity now and the widely dispersed nature of settlements in the rural areas, Nepal perhaps 216 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 20(1), 2015 needs different types of hydro projects. Small and medium scale projects could be developed and managed at the village and regional levels while larger projects may be needed at the national level for supply of electricity to urban areas and industrial sectors. There are lessons in the book that could be useful for different professionals involved in hydropower development of different types especially towards making the country self-reliant in terms of human resources, lower projects costs, local innovations, benefits at the grassroots level, and sustainability of the projects. This book will be useful for a wider fraternity of professionals involved in a diverse range of development projects. It discusses personal aspects of development such as the satisfaction derived from one’s work. The book gives an impression that Odd felt content with his life-long work in Nepal. This satisfaction seemed to have come to him from his self-evaluation of his work in Nepal against the life ‘goals’ that he himself had set. This satisfaction had come early on in his work in Nepal, which might have encouraged him to stay on and work hard for the benefit of the people of Nepal. The book indeed makes a point to say that Odd considered his early experience in Tansen Hospital as “last and highest level of education” (p. 34).

Reference Dixit, Ajaya and Dipak Gyawali. 2010. Nepal’s Constructive Dialogue on Dams and Development. Water Alternatives 3(2): 106–123.

Jagannath Adhikari Perth, Australia