“LIMBUWAN IS OUR HOME-LAND, NEPAL IS OUR COUNTRY”: HISTORY, TERRITORY, AND IDENTITY IN LIMBUWAN’S MOVEMENT A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Dambar Dhoj Chemjong December 2017 © 2017 Dambar Dhoj Chemjong “LIMBUWAN IS OUR HOME, NEPAL IS OUR COUNTRY”: HISTORY, TERRITORY, AND IDENTITY IN LIMBUWAN’S MOVEMENT Dambar Dhoj Chemjong, Ph. D. Cornell University 2017 This dissertation investigates identity politics in Nepal and collective identities by studying the ancestral history, territory, and place-naming of Limbus in east Nepal. This dissertation juxtaposes political movements waged by Limbu indigenous people with the Nepali state makers, especially aryan Hindu ruling caste groups. This study examines the indigenous people’s history, particularly the history of war against conquerors, as a resource for political movements today, thereby illustrating the link between ancestral pasts and present day political relationships. Ethnographically, this dissertation highlights the resurrection of ancestral war heroes and invokes war scenes from the past as sources of inspiration for people living today, thereby demonstrating that people make their own history under given circumstances. On the basis of ethnographic examples that speak about the Limbus’ imagination and political movements vis-à-vis the Limbuwan’s history, it is argued in this dissertation that there can not be a singular history of Nepal. Rather there are multiple histories in Nepal, given that the people themselves are producers of their own history. Based on ethnographic data, this dissertation also aims to debunk the received understanding across Nepal that the history of Nepal was built by Kings. This dissertation is a case study of Limbu claims for their collective identity and Limbu resistance to the state of Nepal. This dissertation illustrates that identity politics in Nepal and the Limbu quest for Limbuwan identity is better studied in terms of their contending relationship with the state-led making of the collective aryan Hindu identity in Nepal over more than six centuries. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dambar Dhoj Chemjong was born and brought up in a mountain village of Limbuwan in east Nepal in a Limbu Subba family with local kipat land holding functionary rights. After finishing his School Leaving Certificate. he taught as a primary school teacher for three years. He did his Intermediate and B.A. degrees from Dhankuta Campus in east Nepal. He did his Masters degree in anthropology from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu and started teaching there from 1996. He did his M. Phil. in anthropology from the University of Bergen, Norway in 2002. He also worked in the Nepal government civil service for ten years. In 2007 the Government of Nepal appointed him to the Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission, which delineated the country into 240 constituencies for the purpose of the post-conflict Constituent Assembly election in 2008. He is currently lecturer at the Central Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University. He lives in Swoyambhu, Kathmandu with his spouse Hema, and two sons, Mukum and Muksam. v Dedicated to the memory of my Grand Father Subba Darwar Singh Limbu vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many peoples and institutions have unconditionally helped me in research and writing this dissertation. David Holmberg, my committee chair, has been a remarkable mentor and teacher, who not only showed me the way to Cornell but also taught me to think differently about culture. I learned anthropology not only from his classes but also through informal conversations with him over 15 years now. Had he not shown me the way to Cornell I would have ended up elsewhere nor would I have had a valuable perspective to look into societies, including my own. The intellectual product I have at hand here has been possible only because of David’s unconditional support and academic guardianship. I shall remain forever grateful to my committee chair, David Holmberg, for all the support he has given me both on and off campus in Ithaca and Nepal. I feel proud and fortunate to be his student and thankful to him for accepting me as his student. My committee member, Kathryn S. March, has been so remarkably helpful both academically as well as in helping me navigate through difficulties with Cornell’s bureaucracy as an international student. I learned so much about the conceptual and theoretical differences and similarities between non-Hindu adivasis and Hindu caste cultures in Nepal from her class on Peoples and Cultures in the Himalayas. I would also like to recognise Kathryn for all her support, guidance, and care not only for me but also for my spouse Hema, and my boys, Mukum and Muksam. My committee member, Magnus Fiskesjö, has been a great help in relation to choosing my research topic. During my first semester at Cornell, I took his class on Asian Minorities in which his discussions and readings on the Wa people from the vii borderlands between Burma and China were greatly helpful for me as I looked into Limbu society. Limbu lifeways and customs seem similar to the Wa in many respects. At the Department of Anthropology at Cornell, informal meetings and conversations with Terence Turner were serendipitously helpful in whetting my anthropologically blunt intellectual edge then. To me, Terry’s concept of synchronic pluralism is a theoretical capsule that is useful in dealing with the problems facing multi-cultural societies like Nepal. His phrasing of Marx and anthropology together, by “anthropologizing Marx and [the] marxification of anthropology” during his talk on “Indigenous Peoples’ Movement and Marxism” in Kathmandu in May 2012, was profoundly helpful in conceptualizing my research. Terry is no more with us now but the anthropological theoretical capsules he has left behind are so useful and perfect for interpreting indigenous peoples movements in particular, and societies in general. I am really grateful to the late Professor Terence Turner for providing me with a uniquely different understanding of anthropology, which helped me to look towards a different horizon. Jane Fajans was the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department when I came to Cornell. It would not have been easy for me in starting graduate school at Cornell without her support and guidance. In my first semester, the proseminar class with Steve Sangren was intellectually stimulating as well as enlightening. I am thankful to Steve not only for that class but also for thoughtful conversations, focusing mainly on politics. I am also grateful to Audra Simpson for her class on the Anthropology of Colonialism. The class mainly discussed native Americans, and The First Nations’ historical and political issues in the face of European colonization. Her class really helped me to think through the adivasi Limbu situation in Nepal. viii My travel between Ithaca and Nepal for my research was supported by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Graduate School at Cornell. The Department of Anthropology’s emergency fund also provided invaluable financial support. I am grateful to these organizations for financially supporting me. While doing my field research in Nepal, many individuals and organizations were generous and helpful. I worked with DB Angbung, a promising student of anthropology but also a scholar in Limbu mundhum, literature and writing as well as a full time activist in the Limbuwan movement. Without his support, this work would not have gotten into this form. Conversations with the leaders of the Federal Limbuwan State Council including Kumar Lingden, Khagendra Makhim, and Surya Makhim were extremely helpful in knowing the history of the Limbuwan based political parties and their movements in Nepal. I am thankful to DB Angbung for all his support. I am grateful to Kirat Yakthung Chumlung’s Arjun Limbu, Yograj Wanem and Lila Singak for their time and help for me. I am also thankful to the Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University and the professors and the staff for all the support they given me. I am thankful to Professor Om Gurung for his support and generosity to me during my field research years in Nepal. I am also grateful to Professor Laya Uprety for recommending my study leave from the Central Department of Anthropology while I was writing up my dissertation. I would also like to thank Professor Binod Pokharel in this regard. Coffee talks with colleagues Janak Rai, Mukta Lama, and Suresh Dhakal were always stimulating as well as helpful for generating new ideas about adivasi-janajati politics in Nepal. I am thankful to Suresh Dhakal, Janak Rai and Mukta Lama for their time and stimulating kurakani. ix Coversattions with Dr. Krishna Bhattachan has been always invigorating and enlightening. I have learned a lot from his about the adivasi-janajati movements in Nepal. I would like to express my sincere horchhe to him. My association with Cornell began through the Cornell Nepal Study Program (CNSP) in Kirtipur, when the program recruited me as a Tribhuvan University student in 1995. CNSP’s Program director Banu Oja unconditionally helped me in when I was a Tribhuvan University student, and even thereafter by recruiting me as Teaching Fellow at the program. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Banu didi for her support not only for me but also for Hema, Mukum, and Muksam. In Ithaca, I am extremely thankful to Shambhu Oja for all the support and care he gave our family including myself, Hema, Mukum and Muksam. Shambhu even hosted all of us at the Oja home for a whole week in summer 2015, taking us to different places around New York and Washington, DC. I wish to extend my sincere thanks to James Sharrock for reading and meticulously copy-editing and formatting this dissertation.