Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 7, 2013 |31 32 | Youba Raj Luintel Locating Pawai in the Social Hierarchy of the productive low lands). By implication, it is differential access to assets and resources that brings diversity and inequality in society Khasa: a Preliminary Note on Jumli Caste and not the vice-versa. Structure Keywords: Pawai and Jyulel, caste hierarchy, deprivation and identity. Youba Raj Luintel1 1. Introduction Abstract Until relatively recently Nepalese social scientists, notably the Until very recently, Jumla’s Pawai, or the Matawali Chhetri, have anthropologists and ethnographers overlooked the very existence of remained one of the very least understood caste groups in Nepal. In the Khasa: the culturally predominant caste group inhabiting Karnali many sense Pawai can be considered as an unusual caste group and region of Nepal.2 It is therefore not surprising that they are still possess some unique yet paradoxical socio-cultural traits and claims. unaware of the Pawai, a small segment of Khasa population. Dor B. Overall, they represent Chhetri sub-caste, but in the Jumli caste Bista, one of the eminent native ethnographers, admits that he was hierarchy they are placed lower than Chhetri. They do not wear completely unaware about the unique caste group of Khasa in as late sacred thread called “janai,” do mostly worship masto, and in Bota as sixth edition of his book (Bista, 1996): village, some of them even offer liquor to their Hindu diety. This Most anthropologists who have done their studies in Nepal in article attempts to explain the distinctive characteristics of Pawai in the past have missed the Khas[a] people altogether...This book light of the Jumli caste hierarchy, and differs from some of the "People of Nepal" went through five prints before this one without simplistic explanations of human ecological approach to argue that separate chapter describing the Khas[a] ... It was never before Pawai are simply the by-product of their cultural interface with the considered necessary to go into an in-depth study and prepare a local ecology, or the reductionist arguments of identity politics that it separate chapter about the Khas[a] people as they were thought to is the ethnicity and not the class that differentiates society and forms have been included into the chapter, Bahun, Chhetri, Thakuri etc. of different identity of the culturally marginalised one. This article first the hills. sheds lights on the social construction of Pawai as the kamsel caste I have to admit that I was unaware of this until a few years group, takes into account the uniqueness of paddy cultivation in ago (Bista, 1996:74). Given this context of scanty attention on the Jumla and its caste implications in the local political economy, and Pawai, it is therefore obvious that very scanty, passing by and then compares and contracts the Pawai vis-a-vis the Jyulel to make an insufficient information is available up on which we cannot rely. argument that the uniqueness of Pawai can only be meaningfully understood by placing them in their dynamic relationship with Jyulel. 2 This relationship essentially entails a relationship of privilege and Data and observation for the present paper have been derived from a fieldwork in Jumla between March to August 1991 under a research project "Development strategies for the deprivation in terms of access to and ownership of jyula (as remote areas of Nepal” implemented by the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), Tribhuvan University and funded by IDRC-Canada. The data was updated and 1 Dr Luintel is Associate Professor in Sociology at Tribhuvan University Central substantiated in June 2013 during my revisit of Jumla for a research in inter-caste relations department of Sociology and Anthropology. supported by University Grants Commission. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 7, 2013 |33 34 | Youba Raj Luintel Perhaps it was Prayag R. Sharma who wrote for the first time a full- the North.4 Jumla enjoyed an extent of administrative influence even fledged paper on matwali Chhetri (Shama, 1971). Luintel (1993) during the Panchayat regime (1961-1990) when it was designated as prepared a brief ethnographic note on them as an entry for the the zonal headquarters of Karnali. However, in the current political proposed Cultural Encyclopaedia of Nepal.3 Despite his years of and administrative landscape of Nepal, Jumla enjoys no such research in the Karnali region, Barry Bishop could mention only privilege. Despite the fact that Jumla has loosened its economic, passing by notes on matwali Chhetri (Bishop 1990). In a research political and administrative prominence over the years, it is still the report, Manandhar et al. (1993) made some elaboration on the Pawai central point in the larger canvass of history and culture of the Karnali mode of livelihood, part of this paper draws on this report. region. The dichotomised livelihoods of the Pawai and the Jyulel form In this paper, I attempt to present the socio-cultural milieu of a part of it. Pawai and consider their lower social position within the predominant According to the Nepal Human Development Report 1998, Khasa caste structure in Jumla as a manifestation of their lack of the human development indicators of Jumla were very worse during access to and command over production of paddy as the valued cereal the mid-1990s. In terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and crop. The central theme of my argument is that the present socio- income indices, the district of Jumla was placed at the 69th rank of the cultural marginalisation of the Pawai is very much related to their 75 districts (NESAC 1998).5 The district of Jumla has been divided ethnographic past of being unable to adapt to the unique cropping into 30 Village Development Committees (VDCs) for administrative practice of marsi variety of paddy, which in fact, is an innovative and purposes. Nevertheless, people find it more meaningful to divide the ritualised system of wet variety of paddy cultivation in the highest whole district in four daras: the Sinja dara, the Chudhabisa dara, the elevation of the world (Bishop, 1990). I would demonstrate that their Panch-saya dara and the Asi dara.6 The total population of the district inability to adapt themselves in the localised system of marsi variety of paddy derives not only from their specific spatial location on the 4 According to Giuseppe Tucci, "… about the eleventh century, two Aryan-speaking tribes ridges of Jumli hillocks (as opposed to the low beds of Tila and Sinja (from Nepal) broke into Western Tibet. The one took control of Purang and the other rivers), as the orthodox arguments claim, it also derives from their Guge" (Tucci 1962, 60-61). In the early twelfth century, Nagaraja, a descendant of the social exclusion as the liquor drinking sub-group in their juxtaposition ruling family of Guge moved his capital to Sinja and established the Khasa Kingdom to the so-called chokha Thakuris. (Bishop 1990). This is how legends describe the establishment of Khasa Kingdom. Harka Gurung cites another legend that describes how the once powerful Khasa Kingdom started to disintegrate. Accordingly one of the Malla rulers insisted one of the Lamas, called 2. The social construction of Pawai as the kamsel caste group Chhichhim Lama from Mugu, to demonstrate his magical powers at the royal palace. Instead of demonstrating magic, the Lama created a heavy earthquake that greatly damaged the buildings of the capital (Gurung 1980, 49). As indicated in this legend, this Jumla was once a powerful Khasa Kingdom of West Nepal. During was the beginning of the demolishment of the Khasa Kingdom. the medieval period of political history, Jumla evolved as the centre of 5 The latter Nepal Human Development Reports do not disaggregate HDI at district level socio-cultural, economic and political milieu. Its political domain was (see UNDP 2006 and 2009, for example). The HDI for the Mid-Western Nepal region extended as far as Dullu in the South and Gunge, Purang of Tibet in including Jumla was 0.402 in 2001 and there is slight improvement in 2006 with regional HDI being 0.452. This improvement is not specific to Mid-Western Nepal, but resonates overall improvement in national HDI (from 0.471 in 2001 to 0.509 in 2006)(see UNDP 3 The Cultural Encyclopaedia of Nepal was, then, a project under the support of Japan’s 2009: Table 2.1). Toyota Foundation. The project had accomplished preliminary work on various entries 6 The dara was a native classification system based on geographic specificity and already during the mid-1990s, but for some reasons, the encyclopaedia was never watershed differences. The dara-division was in vogue as late as the local feudal and the published. village headmen were in charge of collecting the land revenue. The daras are still Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 7, 2013 |35 36 | Youba Raj Luintel in 1991 census was close to 67 thousand. The Brahmin, the Chhetri, is also observed that matwali Chhetri do not invite any Brahmin priest the Thakuri and the Sanyasi were the major chokha caste groups in in their rites de passage rituals and festive occasions which is a Jumla, followed by iron-smiths, tailors and cobblers, collectively normal practice to other Chhetri. Beside, and I assert this is more known as the kamsel caste. Seldom mentioned are the Pawai (the important, since the Pawai inhabit in high elevations of slopes; they matwali Chhetris)7 whose caste position falls in-between the so-called do not have any jyula, irrigated land. As a consequence, there are chokha and kamsel division. The actual size of population of the many outcomes characteristic to the Pawai.