In the Shadow of the Singha Durbar: Democratization of Powerlessness in Republican Nepal

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Master’s Thesis In the Shadow of the Singha Durbar: Democratization of Powerlessness in Republican Nepal Aleksi Ilpala March 2015 Tiedekunta/Osasto – Fakultet/Sektion – Faculty Laitos – Institution – Department Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Social Research Tekijä – Författare – Author Aleksi Ilpala Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title In the Shadow of the Singha Durbar: Democratization of Powerlessness in Republican Nepal Oppiaine – Läroämne – Subject Social and Cultural Anthropology Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and year Sivumäärä – Sidoantal – Number of pages Master’s thesis March 2015 89 Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This study explores the relationship between historical structures and contemporary political culture within the larger process of democratization. It seeks to interpret and understand the elusive and uncertain nature of Nepalese democracy. While the Constituent Assembly elections of 2013 gave Nepal’s politicians a new mandate to finish the constitution-drafting process, the negotiations surrounding the troubled issue continue. Despite the established formal democratic institutions and procedures, authoritarian legacies and pre-democratic political practices, values and attitudes co-exist with the new democratic establishment with negative consequences for governmental stability. In the 1990s, the dynamics of democratic institutions and electoral competition transformed traditional patron-client relations in multiple ways: as the primary political unit and the new base for obtaining social affiliations, Nepalese political parties took advantage of the existing traditional patron-client clusters and incorporated them into their structure. This impact on the patron-client relations has tended to heighten factionalism and conflict. In the traditional setting any rivalry between patrons was largely limited to the local area, but the contemporary electoral system maintains rivalries at both the regional and national level with destabilizing effects on society and politics. The findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted during winter 2013–2014 in Nepal, where I participated in workshops and demonstrations of several civil society groups and political organizations that were involved in community building, policy making, and in interest group activities. The work builds on the literature on the political history of Nepal, on theories and anthropology of democracy, on local debates and discussion, and on ethnographic data gathered during the fieldwork. In addition to information acquired through participant observation, the research material consists of twelve semi-structured interviews and several supporting in-depths discussions. The interviewees are urban professionals and members of the small yet growing Nepalese middle-class of the Kathmandu valley. The fieldwork data is analyzed in the context of Nepalese democracy and the analysis is supported by a recent citizen survey on the state of Nepal's democracy. Disciplinarily, the thesis provides an anthropological perspective to bear on a widely-debated issue of political science, thus contributing to anthropology of democracy and fostering the interdisciplinary dialogue between anthropology and political science. The overall argument of the thesis suggests that Nepal’s democracy is in a troubling state of dysfunction due to a failure on the part of its politicians to consolidate democratic advances in the form of sustainable democratic reforms and restructuring of the state. There is a variety of issues that have worked against democratic consolidation in Nepal. They include, among many others, patrimonial and split political culture, destabilizing populism, patron-client clusters, the rise of ethnic-nationalism, disoriented new generations and a crisis of governance. The failure to implement deep reforms of the state has allowed the Nepali polity to slip into a state where the new democratic regime has entered into a precarious co-existence with the autocratic institutions of a former era. This study contributes to the findings in anthropology, political science and sociology that demonstrate how democratization cannot be conceived of as a linear process. Although the democratic movements of 1990 and 2006 were compelling examples of the power of social movements to generate peaceful change, the ‘new Nepal’ is characterized by a constitutional crisis and a state of democratization of powerlessness in which the official prognoses and rhetoric paint a picture of popular participation while the polarization of society continues. Avainsanat – Nyckelord – Keywords Anthropology, Democratic Consolidation, Nepal, Political Culture, Democratization, Patron-Client Relations Tiedekunta/Osasto – Fakultet/Sektion – Faculty Laitos – Institution – Department Valtiotieteellinen tiedekunta Sosiaalitieteiden laitos Tekijä – Författare – Author Aleksi Ilpala Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title In the Shadow of the Singha Durbar: Democratization of Powerlessness in Republican Nepal Oppiaine – Läroämne – Subject Sosiaali- ja kulttuuriantropologia Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and year Sivumäärä – Sidoantal – Number of pages Pro gradu -tutkielma Maaliskuu 2015 89 liitteineen Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract Työssä tutkitaan historiallisten rakenteiden ja poliittisen kulttuurin välistä suhdetta laajemmassa demokratisaatioprosessin viitekehyksessä. Pyrin tarkastelemaan Nepalin demokratian tilaa ja sen ongelmia antropologisesta perspektiivistä. Nepalista tuli demokratia vuonna 2008, kun perustuslakia säätävä kansalliskokous lakkautti 240 vuotta kestäneen kuningasvallan. Pitkä sisällissota oli päättynyt kaksi vuotta aiemmin. Rauhanprosessi on vieläkin kesken eikä perustuslakia ei vielä olla saatu valmiiksi huolimatta vuoden 2013 kansalliskokousvaaleista. Gradussa käsittelen sitä kuinka Nepalin lähihistoria kummittelee valtion päätöksenteossa ja miten autokraattiset rakenteet ja käytännöt vaikuttavat edelleen maan poliittiseen ilmapiiriin. Aihetta tarkastellaan demokratiateorioiden ja demokratian antropologian perspektiivistä tavalla joka pyrkii ottamaan huomioon myös historialliset ja kulttuuriset elementit demokratisaatioprosessin käsittelyssä. Tein tutkielmaa varten etnografisen kenttätyön 2013-2014 talvella Nepalissa. Osallistuin tämän kolmen kuukauden jakson aikana lukuisiin työpajoihin, seminaareihin ja protesteihin, joita järjestivät sekä poliittiset organisaatiot että kansalaisyhteiskunnan toimijat. Työssä nojaan pitkälti Nepalin poliittiseen historiaan, paikallisiin debatteihin ja sekä etnografiseen aineistoon jonka keräsin kenttätyöperiodin aikana. Osallistuvan havainnoinnin lisäksi tutkimusmateriaali koostuu semi-strukturoiduista haastatteluista ja lukuisista syventävistä keskusteluista. Haastattelemani ihmiset olivat pääosin Kathmandun pientä mutta kasvavaa keskiluokkaa. Aineistoa on analysoitu Nepalin demokratiakehityksen kontekstissa ja sitä tukee laaja demokratian tilaa koskeva kansalaiskysely vuodelta 2013. Tutkielmassani argumentoin kuinka Nepalin demokratia on huolestuttavassa häiriötilassa, johon pääsyynä on maan politiikkojen tähänastinen kykenemättömyys vakauttaa maan julkishallintoa ”syvien” demokraattisten uudistusten myötä. Useat ilmiöt ovat vaikeuttaneet tätä prosessia, mutta keskeisiksi tutkielmassa kohoavat nepotismi, yhteiskunnallinen polarisaatio, hallinnon kriisiytyminen ja konfliktinhakuinen poliittinen kulttuuri. Demokraattisen konsolidaation puute on johtanut tilanteeseen, jota määrittää ”voimattomuuden demokratisaatio” sekä perustuslaillinen kriisi. Avainsanat – Nyckelord – Keywords Antropologia, Demokratia, Nepal, Poliittinen Kulttuuri, Demokratisaatio Contents Contents 1 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Anthropology and Political Science . 2 1.2 On the Anthropology of Democracy . 5 1.3 Ethnographic Fieldwork and Methodology . 9 1.4 2nd Constituent Assembly Election Results . 14 2 Democratization and Political Culture: a Theoretical Framework 16 2.1 Democratization . 16 2.2 Political culture . 20 3 Political History of the Nepali State: The Steps Towards Democracy 24 3.1 Traditional Modes of Power in Nepal: 1700 - 1962 . 25 3.2 Patronage, Reciprocity and Systems of Favouritism . 32 3.3 The Road to Revolution . 37 3.4 The Persistance and Breakdowns of Nepalese Democracy . 41 4 Democratic Imagination in the New Nepal 43 4.1 How Democracy is Conceptualized in Nepal? . 45 4.2 Authoritarian Pasts, Democratic Futures . 48 4.3 Political Parties, Contentious Politics and the Dissolution of the 1 st Con- stituent Assembly . 51 4.4 Old Values, New Obstacles . 57 5 Democratization of Powerlessness 59 5.1 From Patrimonialism to Neo-Patrimonialism . 62 5.2 Patron-Client Politics in a State of Flux . 65 5.3 Afno Manchhe and Source-Force in the ’New Nepal’ . 67 5.4 Medical Crisis . 71 1 5.5 Looking Back, Looking Forward . 74 6 Conclusions 78 References 82 1 Introduction In 2008, Nepal entered a new epoch as the newly elected Constituent Assembly voted in favour of abolishing the nation’s 239-years-old monarchy and transforming the state into a democratic and secular republic. This historical decision also brought a formal end to the hostilities between the Maoist insurgents and government forces, a conﬂict that had ravaged the country since late 1990s. Two movements for democracy paved the way for the decline of the authority and power of the Hindu kingdom, beginning with the ﬁrst people’s movement in 1990 and eventually culminating

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