WATER OF DISCORD, WATER OF UNITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER RIGHTS IN UPPER MUSTANG, NEPAL by GOVINDA BAHADUR BASNET (Under the Direction of ROBERT E RHOADES) ABSTRACT Although water rights and property relations have become issues of strategic importance in recent water policy debates, legislation, and rural development initiatives, there is still a gap of understanding about what water rights in practice are, how they are created and contested, and how these contestations modify social institutions. This ethnographic research, by integrating historical and comparative approaches, investigated how water rights are defined and contested in a cold, arid region of upper Mustang in Nepal. The struggle for water rights was found to take place at three levels: (1) to acquire and defend rights to access water; (2) to defend to take part in collective decision making, and defining water rights contents; and (3) to legitimize contesting claims. Social differentials, like classes created on the basis of inheritance of parental property, were the most decisive factors in defining an individual’s access to water and participation in the decision making process. The impartible primogeniture inheritance system, followed traditionally in the research villages, had created two classes of people, those inheriting the property, and those not inheriting the property. The struggle for water rights has abolished the distinction between such classes in some villages. The inter-village contestation for control of water sources was largely dictated by the political power a village held and the local understanding of hydrology. These inter-village struggles for water rights were found to be instrumental in developing cohesion within a village. The dynamics of struggle for water rights were found to trigger change in social institutions. INDEX WORDS: Water rights, Cooperation and conflict, Common pool resources, Irrigation, Inheritance, Institutions, Legal pluralism, Political ecology, Natural Resource Management, High altitude irrigation, Trans-Himalayan region, Mustang, Mountains, Nepal WATER OF DISCORD, WATER OF UNITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER RIGHTS IN UPPER MUSTANG, NEPAL by GOVINDA BAHADUR BASNET B.Sc. (Ag.), Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University, India, 1990 M.Sc., Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands, 1994 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 2007 © 2007 Govinda Bahadur Basnet All Rights Reserved WATER OF DISCORD, WATER OF UNITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER RIGHTS IN UPPER MUSTANG, NEPAL by GOVINDA BAHADUR BASNET Major Professor: Robert E Rhoades Committee: Theodore Gragson David Hally Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2007 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest sense of gratitude goes to my Guruba, committee chair Professor Dr. Robert Rhoades, whose continued support, encouragement, and guidance made this dissertation possible. He stood by and encouraged me through difficult times and his assistance and support extended beyond the call of a committee chair. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Ted Gragson and Dr. David Hally, members of my dissertation committee. Dr. Gragson’s insightful comments immensely helped me in writing the dissertation proposal and formulating this research. I would like to thank Dr. Virginia Nazarea and Dr. Tommy Jordan for their support in the preparation of my dissertation proposal and the subsequent writing of this dissertation. I express my deep sense of gratitude to the people of upper Mustang, without whose knowledge and willingness to share their knowledge this dissertation would not have been possible. It is their experience, knowledge, and history that are the centerpiece of this research. Although not included in this dissertation research, I also would like to thank the people of Chherlung, Palpa, whose innovative methods of irrigation management helped me to understand the issues of water rights in a broader perspective. I would like to thank the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Winrock International Nepal, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, and the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka for their generous research grants that made the field work and data collection possible. I would also like to thank the University of Georgia Graduate School for the Dissertation Completion Award. v A number of people helped me throughout this dissertation research. I would like to thank friends from the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, Mr. Madhu Chhetri, Mr. Nawa Chapagain, Mr. Ramji Acharya, and others. I would also like to thank the Nepalese community in Athens Dr. Milan Shrestha, Dr. Murali Adhikari, Dr. Surya Manandhar, Mr. Chudamani Basnet, Mr. Shamir Khanal and their families. I also would like to thank the support of Ms. Marjorie Floyd, Ms. Charlotte Blume, Ms. Labau Bryan and Arnold Brunson from the University of Georgia’s Department of Anthropology. I acknowledge many friends and relatives who have been very generous in their support to help me complete this study. I would like to thank the continued support and encouragement of my parents, brothers and sisters and their families, and in-laws, and many relatives. I am deeply grateful to my wife Mumta and our son Abhinav for their unflinching support without which I would not have come this far. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ACRONYMS ...................................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 2 WATER IN GLOBAL AND LOCAL CONTEXT .....................................................19 3 GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY OF UPPER MUSTANG.........................................33 4 UPPER MUSTANG IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT ...........................54 5 WATER MANAGEMENT IN DIFFERENT VILLAGES .........................................88 6 CONFLICTS FOR CONTROL OF WATER SOURCE...........................................165 7 INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGES...........................................................................188 8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ..........................................................................213 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................226 GLOSSARY .....................................................................................................................226 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................229 vii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 4.1: General features of the studied villages........................................................................87 Table 5.1: Distribution of water share among different households in Namgyal........................120 Table 5.2: Water share distribution among households in Tsaile................................................130 Table 5.3: Distribution of water shares in Ghyakar village.........................................................139 Table 5.4: Landholding, labor contribution and irrigation turn in Dhee .....................................150 Table 5.5: Number of households in different irrigation groups in Ghiling................................154 Table 5.6: Summary of water management in six villages..........................................................163 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1: Irrigated landscape stands out in desert-like environment in upper Mustang.............31 Figure 2.2: Irrigation canal as source of drinking water in the winter months..............................31 Figure 3.1: Mustang district in Nepal ............................................................................................34 Figure 3.2: Map of Mustang ..........................................................................................................35 Figure 4.1: Lo Monthang village ...................................................................................................79 Figure 4.2: Namgyal village ..........................................................................................................79 Figure 4.3: Tsaile Village ..............................................................................................................82 Figure 4.4: Ghyakar Village ..........................................................................................................82 Figure 4.5: Dhee Village................................................................................................................85 Figure 4.6: Ghiling village.............................................................................................................85 Figure 5.1: Water reservoirs are an integral part of irrigation systems .........................................89