Monarchy, Insurgency, and Uprising in Nepal, 1990-2006
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FROM CIVIL SOCIETY TO CITIZEN SOCIETY: MONARCHY, INSURGENCY, AND UPRISING IN NEPAL, 1990-2006 by CHUDAMANI BASNET (Under the Direction of David Smilde) ABSTRACT The character of civil society activism in Nepal—its discourses, its identities, and its practices—has changed several times over the course of two decades. In the 1990s, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and professional organizations were the major actors in the field of civil society, but their roles were largely subordinated to state goals. Beginning in early 2001, civil society activism exhibited a different character, and its public visibility increased dramatically and in more positive ways than in the previous period. As Nepal plunged into a deep political crisis, many new forms of organization and peace publics appeared. Activists associated with these organizations spoke the language of peace, neutrality, and objectivity; yet, they became radicals, and they, in turn, radicalized political discourse. Civil society activism appeared as a powerful force and public identity only in the course of the Second People’s Movement against King Gyanendra’s direct rule in 2005 and 2006, however. In the process, “civil society” became a household name. The King was forced to surrender to the movement in April 2006. This dissertation seeks to understand civil society activism in Nepal in three historical periods—1990-2000, 2001-2004, and 2005-2006. Focusing on three groups of civil society activists—professional organizations, autonomous citizen groups, and the local NGOs, I asks how and why civil society activism took different forms and characters at different historical periods. Drawing on civil society, social movement, and relational sociology literature, I argue that the nature of the evolving political field and the struggle over the meaning of civil society best explain the trajectory of civil society activism in Nepal. This study departs considerably from the existing approaches to civil society and citizenship studies. INDEX WORDS: Nepal, Social Movement, Civil Society, Citizenship, South Asia, Democratic Transition, Monarchy, Maoism, Revolution FROM CIVIL SOCIETY TO CITIZEN SOCIETY: MONARCHY, INSURGENCY, AND UPRISING IN NEPAL, 1990-2006 by CHUDAMANI BASNET BA, Tribhuvan University, Nepal, 1995 MA, Tribhuvan University, Nepal, 1997 MA, University of Georgia, 2006 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Chudamani Basnet All Rights Reserved FROM CIVIL SOCIETY TO CITIZEN SOCIETY: MONARCHY, INSURGENCY, AND UPRISING IN NEPAL, 1990-2006 by CHUDAMANI BASNET Major Professor: David Smilde Committee: James Dowd Patricia Richards Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia July 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without persistent efforts of several hands. My committee chair David Smilde trusted me in the whole arduous task. Over the past several years I worked closely with him and learned how to become a better scholar and a better human being. I thank him for all his efforts. I will have his imprints in my academic and personal life for many years to come. My committee members, Jim Dowd and Patricia Richards, have been supportive all along. Right from the very beginning of my graduate studies at UGA, Patricia has been very kind to me, shouldering my burden more that I could legitimately ask. She deserves special thanks. I was lucky to have several wonderful friends at UGA. I thank Erin, Dave, Kim, and Nicole. Liz Cherry was special all along. I will always be thankful to her for her support all these years. Xiaoli Su has been a good friend for many years; she turned out to be a good neighbor, too. I thank Xiaoli for her support. I thank Mark Cooney and Jody Clay-Warner for their excellent support as graduate coordinators. I worked with Jim Coverdill, Linda Renzulli, and Linda Grant as a teaching assistant. I thank them all for their warm support. Special thanks to Jim Coverdill for his generosity and for listening to my “village stories.” All faculty members and administrative staff at the department have been exceptionally kind to me. I thank them all. Kathy Lou has been very supportive in administrative matters. She deserves special thanks. iv In Nepal, several individuals helped me as I tried to stir clear of my dissertation mess. To name everyone would be virtually impossible, and many have actually asked me not to mention their names. I am grateful to journalists, political party leaders, and civil society activists for their generous time and support. I thank extraordinarily cooperative library staff at the Informal Service Center (INSEC) documentation center, the Martin Chautari library, the Social Science Baha library, and the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninist documentation center. The Human Rights and Peace Society let me copy a pile of documents that it had meticulously collected over the years. I thank Krishna Pahadi and other members there. I also thank staff at the Human Rights Organization of Nepal and Rural Reconstruction, Nepal. I benefitted from my interaction with Martin Chautari (MC) researchers and MC’s discussion series. Pratyoush Onta and Sierra Tamang deserve special thanks. Activist and lawyer Tika Ram Bhattarai provided me several important documents from his private collection. I also thank Bishnu Pukar Shrestha for providing me with important documents. I spent countless hours with Dr. Devendra Raj Panday, Khagendra Sangroula, Bimal Aryal, Bhaskar Gautam, Ramesh Parajuli, Shekhar Adhikari, Shyam Shrestha, and Anubhav Ajit. My interaction with these activist-scholars was very fruitful. I thank the Citizens’ Movement for Democracy and Peace (CMDP) family for letting me attend their internal meetings. I also thank Dr. Mathura Shrestha, Subodh Pyakuryal, Daman Dhungana, and Shushil Pyakuryal for their time and generosity. I met them all repeatedly. Anil Bhattarai and Feyzi Ismail read part of this dissertation and took care of my grammar and typos. Both of them deserve special thanks. v Finally, my family members contributed mightily to this dissertation. My father and mother are perhaps the happiest persons, who probably never dreamed of my doing PhD, that too in a faraway country. I thank my brother Post Basnet and brother-in-low Sitaram Subedi for their support. My maternal grandmother died while I was in the United States. She would have been the happiest person in the world. She and my maternal uncle Govinda Karki supported me for many years. I will always be grateful to them. I lived with my father and mother-in-laws in Kathmandu during my year-long fieldwork. I thank them all for their sacrifice and cooperation. Finally, my wife Sanju and daughters Apekshya and Akanshya suffered a lot during these difficult years in the United States. I promise that I will devote more time to them even though Apekshya is already scared of extra homework once Daddy has become free! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 CIVIL SOCIETY, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND POLITICS .......................1 2 NEPAL: QUEST FOR NATION, POLITICAL STABILITY, AND DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................25 3 CIVIL SOCIETY, STATE GOALS, POLITICAL PARTIES ........................62 4 POLITICAL STRATEGIES, RADICALISM, CIVIL SOCIETY DIVERSIFICATION, 2001-2004 ..................................................................113 5 KING’S DIRECT RULE: REENACTING NATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND POLITICAL STABILITY....................................................................177 6 CIVIL SOCIETY AND INTERNATIONAL MOBILIZATION ..................206 7 INVENTING CITIZEN SOCIETY: TOWARD MASS MOBILIZATION .237 8 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………...…...288 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................301 APPENDICES A METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................317 vii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 3.1: Patterns of NGO Growth in Nepal....................................................................94 viii CHAPTER 1 CIVIL SOCIETY, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND POLITICS Trajectory of Civil Society Activism in Nepal The form and character of civil society activism in Nepal—its discourses, its identities, and its practices—has changed several times over the course of two decades. A political movement, popularly known as the First People’s Movement or People’s Movement I, ended a monarchical Panchayat system and established a multiparty democracy and constitutional monarchy in 1990. In the years following the movement, Nepalis started becoming increasingly assertive in public life. Associational life outside the direct patronage of the state and market that is often referred to as civil society has a long history in Nepal. In fact, as I will describe in chapters 2 and 3, the 1980s saw a remarkable surge of formal organizations even if the monarchical Panchayat regime tried hard to control citizens’ independent organizing. If the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is any indication, what was distinct about the 1990s was a public