A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DE-PEASANTISATION PROCESS IN NEPAL WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THE ROLE OF STATE LAND POLICIES SINCE THE 1950S Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF RHODES UNIVERSITY BY JAGAT BAHADUR BASNET Department of Sociology MAY 2019 Supervisors: Professor Kirk Helliker and Professor Praveen Jha i ABSTRACT The principal objective of this thesis is to offer a critical analysis of the process of de-peasantisation in Nepal since 1950, with a particular focus on the capitalist neo-liberal restructuring of the economy beginning in the early 1990s. The analysis begins by tracing the legacy of feudal land practices and landholdings from the pre-1950 Rana and Shah dynasties. It was under these feudal dynasties that economic and political institutions of extraction first emerged, leading to a landlord- peasant agrarian economy in which peasants (often as tenants/sharecroppers and smallholders) were subordinate to the power nexus between feudal landlords and the ruling dynasties. After 1950, a window of democratic opening was soon interrupted by the formation of the party-less Panchayat system, which lasted from 1960 to 1990. In 1964, a major land reform measure was enacted under the Lands Act, with the goal of enhancing the security and livelihood of the peasantry. However, this process was met with significant resistance by feudal landlords, and actually led to deepening insecurity and the loss of land by peasants, with farmers belonging to lower castes and indigenous groups experiencing this with a greater degree of intensity. The overall result of this period was the beginnings of what is referred to in this study as de-peasantisation. This line of analysis shows that the institutions of extraction remained firmly in place even after the reforms of this period. Finally, the neo-liberal period, which was marked by land titling, the marketisation of land, and the commercialisation of agriculture, represents the late entry of capitalism into Nepal. This period saw the deepening and widening of the process of de- peasantisation, including further loss of peasants’ access to land and a general turn to wage-labour. In this regard, despite propagating the slogan ‘land to the tillers’, the major political parties in Nepal (including the Maoist party) have failed to defend the interests of the peasantry. Some progressive civil society groups have recently sought to do better, but there is also evidence of peasant organisations themselves seeking to resist and oppose the de-peasantisation effects of neo- liberal restructuring. This thesis thus considers the form and extent of de-peasantisation in Nepal, and some responses to it, over an extended period. A broad Marxist-based political economy perspective has been adopted in pursuing the principal thesis objective, but one which argues that there is a symbiotic relationship between economic and political power, such that the latter is not reducible to the ii former. The thesis draws upon original fieldwork in twenty districts of Nepal, including through the use of a survey, interviews, observations, case studies, and focus group discussions, thus combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Based on this fieldwork, it becomes clear that (i) there are major social, economic, and political forces behind the processes of de- peasantisation in the studied districts (and in Nepal more broadly), and that (ii) the Nepali peasantry is becoming increasingly landless, or land-short, and subject to processes of proletarianisation. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My doctoral thesis work would not have been possible without the genuine support of a number of people, right from its very inception, for which I express my sincere thanks and appreciation. First and foremost, I genuinely express my profound gratitude to my esteemed thesis supervisor, Prof. Kirk Helliker, for his constructive guidance and supervision of my doctoral research. Despite his limited time, he was always ready to extend his critical academic support to me very generously by reading and commenting on all chapters of my doctoral thesis on time. Similarly, I express my profound gratitude to Prof. Praveen Jha from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) India, for his continual support, guidance and cooperation in connecting me to Rhodes University. Without his kind cooperation, my PhD enrollment at the Rhodes University would not have been possible. I am thankful to Rhodes University for accepting my PhD application. In particular, I am thankful to the Head of the Department of Sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Rhodes University for their direct or indirect support during the entire period of my doctoral research. I also thank their staff for their cooperation. I genuinely express my sincere thanks and appreciations to Prof. Laya Prasad Uprety, former Head of the Central Department of Anthropology, Tribuvan University, Kathmandu in Nepal for his generous academic support, encouragement and review of my all thesis chapters voluntarily. I also experess my sincre thanks to Mr. Abiral Phunyal for his meticulous eduting of my thesis. I would like to thank Dr. Roshan Chitrakar, Dr. Suresh K. Dhakal, Mr. Mukunda Kattel and Mr. Bimal Phunyal for their kind encouragement for my PhD study. Similarly, I would also like to thank the staff and board members of Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC) for giving me this wonderful opportunity and support for my PhD study. I especially thank Mr. Jagat Deuja for accepting the position of Executive Director at the CSRC and relieving me of its executive responsibilities during the period of my study, which helped me to complete my academic work on time. I am extremely grateful to my respondents/informants who furnished me all the necessary iv qualitative and quantitative information needed for the study. Without their generous support and cooperation, it would not have been possible to produce this doctoral thesis on the “critical analysis of de-peasantisation processes in Nepal”. Last but not the least, I am immeasurably indebted to my father Mr. Punya B. Basnet and my mother Mrs. Laxmi Basnet who, being unschooled, dared to send me to school in a Hill village of central Nepal. Had they not sacrificed for my rudimentary education, despite their relatively marginalised peasant economic background, I would never receive this opportunity for pursuing a PhD at Rhodes University. I also thank for my beloved wife Mrs. Hema Basnet for shouldering all the familial responsibilities, managing all household drudgeries and supporting me fully for the timely completion of my doctoral thesis. I also thank to my sons Kedar and Prakash Basnet, daughter Shreejana and daughter- in law Manjita Basnet for their encouragement and support. Jagat Bahadur Basnet May 2019 v Contents ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ xii ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ xiii GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................ xv LAND AREA MEASUREMENTS ...................................................................................... xviii Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Background of the Study ............................................................................................................. 2 1.2.1 Land Reform Process in Pre-Panchayat Period (1951 to 1960) ........................................... 3 1.2.2 Royal Land Reform in Panchayat Period (1960 to 1990) .................................................... 5 1.2.3 Neo-liberal Period: Commodification of Land (1991 to 2017) ......................................... 10 1.3 Objectives of the Study .............................................................................................................. 18 1.4 Rationale of the Study ............................................................................................................... 19 1.5 Outline of the Study ................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter Two: Research Methodology ....................................................................................22 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Background of Study Area ........................................................................................................ 22 2.3 Rationale of the Research Site Selection ................................................................................... 26 2.4 Demographic Profile of Study Districts ...................................................................................