HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 21 Number 2 Himalayan Research Bulletin Article 17 2001 Conference Digest Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation . 2001. Conference Digest. HIMALAYA 21(2). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol21/iss2/17 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Conference Digest CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS THE 30th ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON SOUTH ASIA MADISON, WISCONSIN OCTOBER 18-21, 2001 NATURE AND NATION: PERSPECTIVES FROM This paper will deal with the movement against forest res­ INDIA AND NEPAL ervation in the Garo Hills in the early 20th century, a move­ ment that succeeded in putting a halt to further reserva­ Gunnel Ceder!Of, Uppsala University tions and out of which a new type of ethnic politics and The Sovereign State and the Subjects' Right in Nature: leadership among the Garos evolved. The Garo Hills is situ­ India Under Company Rule ated in the eastern part of the present Indian State of Meghalaya. In contrast to the general situation in India, After forest lands were ceded to the East India Company the bulk of the forests in Meghalaya and other hill states of in the early nineteenth century, the principles of land settle­ Northeast India are under communal management and ment came into conflict with the local livelihoods of people ownership. The colonial state applied a policy of minimal engaged in nomadic pastoralism and shifting cultivation. governance in these out-of-the-way tracts and some aspects In the southern part of the subcontinent, where less violent of it have also survived into the postcolonial period (provi­ and organized resistance against encroaching state power sions for local autonomy under the sixth schedule of the existed, the legal sphere became a prominent battlefield Indian constitution). The paper will further address the for determining rights in land and resources. A common contemporary politics of forest in Meghalaya, and above argument concerning colonial forestry emphasizes that all discuss the controversial Supreme Court Order of 1996 nature was perceived in a purely technical way, as resources through which a moratorium on felling and transport of to be conquered, controlled, and utilized for their market timber has been imposed. The "timber ban," as it is re­ value. In this "colonial project" people were "tribalized" fetTed to locally, has triggered debates about Delhi impos­ and marginalized within an orientalist discourse. However, ing unjust rules that threaten the livelihoods of people who this paper shows that in first encounters, local people were depend on the forest, and, as such, fueling autonomy de­ a major concern of East India Company officials, and the mands and ethnic politics. interests of the Madras government and Company officials contrasted at times sharply with those voiced by represen­ tatives of the Crown. In the administration, support for di­ Nina Bhatt, Yale University rect relationships between government and subject, free King of the Jungle: Constructing Bureaucratic Iden­ market ideals, and individual proprietary rights stood tity in Nepal's National Park Services against the vision of supporting intermediaries between state and subjects, preferences for Company trade, and state While the politics of forest management in Nepal has re­ sovereignty. As will be argued, in this contested domain, ceived intense attention at the local, national, and interna­ people locally found space for negotiation on rights in na­ tional levels, there is little attention to the culture of gov­ ture. Depending on support within the state, they could ernment bureaucrats who work in these contexts. Despite delay decisions, obstruct orders, and refuse to comply with the influx of donor aid, conservation ideologies, and inter­ demands to give up land. national development programs, the nature of the Nepalese state and its bureaucratic workers invariably involved in these projects remains an elusive object of analysis. By Bengt Karlsson, Uppsala University combining ethnographic with historical/textual materials, Indigenous Natures: The Politics of Forest and Ethnicity this paper examines official ideologies, the discourses and in Meghalaya, Northeast India practices of governance, and the cultural and political prac- CONFERENCE DIGEST 101 tices whereby national park bureaucrats construct their iden­ Himal. Rainfall is usually sufficient to raise both summer tities as officials of His Majesty's Government of Nepal. and winter crops on the 67 named areas of out-sloping ag­ The historical component of this paper seeks to illuminate ricultural ten·aces, which are distributed widely between the ways in which the Royal Regime shaped bureaucratic 1550 and 2450 m. The current farming system divides fields identity and thus induced certain patterns of relations, be­ into 7 groups, which are aggregated into 3 macro groups, hav iors, aspirations, and ideologies before the 1990 demo­ each of which is in a different year of a 3 year rotation. cratic revolution. The ethnographic research focuses on con­ Because fields are widely scattered, farmers fertilize their temporary constructions of identity in the framework of fields by holding livestock on fields for one to several weeks Nepal's post-1990 democracy. By examining the political­ after each crop is harvested but before the next is planted. economic and cultural dilemmas of Nepalese state func­ This system produces a complex pattern of sequential herd tionaries, much is revealed about the politics of governance, movements and crop plantings from one of the 7 subgroups identity construction, and state making which challenge to another in both the spring and autumn planting seasons. received ideas about South Asian bureaucracies. During times when all fields are planted, herders take their livestock into the forests, where they supplement the food the animals graze and browse with fodder cut from forest Christopher Tarnowski, University of Georgia trees. This system is gradually transforming the forests into Mis-/Placing Nature and Locating the Environment in shrublands. The increasing scarcity of fodder and of labor, the Fetishization of Development as working-age men leave for wage labor jobs around the world, suggest that this 3 year rotation system will not long The proliferation and merging of environmental, develop­ endure. ment, and community-based programs is having profound implications for how nature is imagined and the environ­ ment managed. While nature may be losing ground in Michael Rechlin, Principia College Nepal, an imperiled environment is increasingly subjected A Passion for Pine: Forestry Practices of the Apatani to global environmental agendas and national development People of Arunachal Pradesh ambitions. Implicit in much of these global and national imperatives is an imagined nation-state that belies the con­ Forest degradation and resource scarcity are the norm tested and fragmentary character of variably positioned throughout the Himalayan region. In the Indian state of efforts to secure access to resources in the name of devel­ Arunachal Pradesh, however, there is a small tribal group opment and the environment. For example, the recent rise that takes resource management seriously. The Apatani in conflicts in Nepal, whether Maoist or ethnicity-based, valley, described by a former Chief Minister as "An Island renders problematic the de-politicized, de-localized rheto­ of Green" in the Arunachal landscape, is dotted with pri­ ric of a community-based discourse. While the impact that vate plantations of Blue Pine (Pinus wallichiana) and sur­ these conflicts have in reshaping the nation and/or nature rounded by native forests that are rigidly controlled by tribal remains to be seen, the popularity of Community Forestry, clans. This paper examines the forest management prac­ arguably one of Nepal's most successful modernist tices of the Apatani people. Data on forest growth and con­ schemes, has contributed greatly to the escalation of envi­ sumption patterns show that the Apatani are achieving a ronmental managerialism, in which both nature and local­ sustained yield of forest products from their private plan­ state relations are increasingly being reconfigured. This tations. We suggest that the tribal history of the Apatani paper explores these issues using forests and trees as they people and the geographic location of the Apatani Valley serve multiple, ever-changing roles as signifiers of nature, have led to the development of a culture distinctive in the a political symbol, a source of livelihood, as a site of and degree to which it values forest conservation.lt is a culture for biodiversity, and a resource to be managed and exploited where people feel compelled to plant trees for future gen­ for the national good. erations and where trees, like other family valuables, are kept under lock and key. HIMALAYAN SUBSISTENCE AND IMMIGRATION Mohan N. Shrestha, Bowling Green University John J. Metz, Northern Kentucky University Nepalese Emigration to South Asia: An Historical Per­ The Evolving Agroforestry System of Chimkhola, an spective Upper