Revolution in Nepal : an anthropological and historical approach to the People's War

425 Pages·2013·7.847 MB·English

by  Marie Lecomte-Tilouine

Title Pages
Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and
Historical Approach to the People's War
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780198089384
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198089384.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) Revolution in Nepal (p.ii)
(p.iii) Revolution in Nepal
(p.iv)
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Tables and Figures
Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and
Historical Approach to the People's War
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780198089384
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198089384.001.0001
(p.vii) Tables and Figures
Tables
3.1 The Victims of November 1979 and February 1980 105
7.1 Changes in Rice Production per Caste and Ethnic Group in Deurali
215
7.2 Changes in the Surface of Dry Fields per Caste and Ethnic Group in
Deurali 215
7.3 Changes in Livestock per Caste and Ethnic Group in Deurali 216
10.1 Socio-economic and Political Background of Maoist Women, 2002–3
345
10.2 Socio-economic and Political Background of PLA Women Combatants
of the Sixth and Seventh Divisions, Western Nepal, 2010 346
11.1 Nepali ‘National’ Genres: Aspects and Associations 374
Figures
1 Localization of Ethnographic Studies and of the Districts Mentioned in
the Volume xi
1.1 Campaigns Directed by Naradmuni Thulung’s Provisional Government
in Bhojpur 41
1.2 King Tribhuvan and B.P. Koirala in Delhi, 1951 48
3.1 The Martyr’s Memorial in Chintang 98
(p.viii)
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Abbreviations
Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and
Historical Approach to the People's War
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780198089384
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198089384.001.0001
(p.ix) Abbreviations
AC
Area Committee
ACM
Area Committee Member
AHW
Assistant Health Worker
ANR
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
AMU
Aligarh Muslim University
ANWA (R)
All Nepal Women’s Association (Revolutionary)
BHU
Banaras Hindu University
CA
Constituent Assembly
CCOMPOSA
Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South
Asia
CDO
Chief District Officer
CID
Counter Intelligence Division
CNRS
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
CPA
Comprehensive Peace Agreement
CPDP
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Abbreviations
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project
CPN
Communist Party of Nepal
CPN (M)
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
CPN (Marxist)
Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist)
CPN (Masal)
Communist Party of Nepal (Masal)
CPN (UML)
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist)
CPN (ML)
Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist–Leninist)
DC
District Committee
DCM
District Committee Member
DFID
Department for International Development
DIG
Deputy Inspector General of Police
DLF
Dalit Liberation Front
DU
Delhi University
DSP
Deputy Superintendent of Police
(p.x) FARC
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia
FUP
Forming-up Point
GPMG
General-purpose Machine Gun
INGO
International Non-governmental Organization
INSAS
Indian Small Arms Systems
INSEC
Informal Sector Service Center
JTA
Junior Technical Assistant
LTTE
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
MP
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Abbreviations
Member of Parliament
NC
Nepali Congress
NCP (UML)
Nepal Communist Party (Unified Marxist–Leninist)
NGO
Non-governmental Organization
NWPP
Nepal Workers Peasants Party
PERDEP
Poverty Elimination and Rural Development Program
PKK
Parti Karkerani Kurdistan
PLA
People’s Liberation Army
PWG
People’s War Group
RBM
Regional Bureau Member
RIM
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
RNA
Royal Nepal Army
RPP
Rastriya Prajatantra Party
RSS
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
SLR
Self-loading Rifle
SMG
Submachine Gun
SPA
Seven Party Alliance
UCPN (M)
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
UML
Unified Marxist–Leninist
UPFN
United People’s Front Nepal
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
VC
Vice Commander
VDC
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Abbreviations
Village Development Committee
VPG
Village People’s Government
YCL
Young Communist League
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Introduction
Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and
Historical Approach to the People's War
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780198089384
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198089384.001.0001
Introduction
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198089384.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
Using long-term ethnography and micro history, the antecedents of the People’s
War and it broke out in Nepal’s rural areas are examined. Denunciation of
Brahmanocracy by ethnic activists in the 1990s marked the beginning of a
symbolic revolution in Nepal, whereby power architecture based on oligarchy
and caste status was condemned. Yet, indigenous peoples had not developed a
global vision of change in contrast to the Maoist party, which produced a more
comprehensive, conceptual analytical frame of interpretation—feudalism. It also
incorporated people’s emotions and artistic creativity into discrediting ‘old
power’ and its agents, and the first Maoist ‘examples’ were particularly effective
in terms of their far-reaching social consequences. The complex operation of the
Maoist machinery also contributed to its dynamics. It made it difficult to destroy
and disorient villagers. This made the party a parallel, mysterious yet lively
universe, which finally exercised its own power of attraction, independent of
social positions and political sensibilities.
Keywords:   People’s War, revolution, armed movement, exemplarity, symbolic revolution, anthropology
of war, long-term anthropology, revolutionary outburst, elite, feudalism
War is the father of all, and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others
as humans; some he makes slaves, others free.
—Heraclitus, Fragment 53
From early times war has been recognized as a decisive sociological moment. As
Heraclitus put it, it ‘shows’ men in a new light, it ‘makes’ their social status. Yet
the anthropology of war still needs to assert its field of research and its
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Introduction
methodology, even if the fecundity of its approach no longer needs to be
demonstrated. With war shaped at its summit by the vision and will of a handful
of individuals, contemporary wars, until recently, remained the privileged field
for political analysts, and so much so that none of the anthropologists who
fought in World War I offered an analysis of it (Audoin-Rouzeau 2008). Leaving
aside the event-based aspects of war at national level and its approach in the
form of a single narrative, the anthropology of war focuses on the particular
moment of social restructuring that it represents, on its anonymous actors and
on microscopic events, and the way in which they are linked to great history. The
case of the People’s War waged by the Maoist party in Nepal, as examined here,
is specific in this respect for having overtly aimed at radically changing the
nature of power and society. It therefore, calls for an anthropological study of its
development and effect in society. Although the Maoists did not ultimately seize
power through the use of weapons, the movement (p.2) undoubtedly took the
form of a revolution, in the sense that it was a well-thought-out ideological
project, the action and implementation of which were carefully developed on a
very large scale in a methodical way.
To account for this powerful socio-political project and its far-reaching effects—
for what this protracted war ‘showed’ and ‘made’ in society—our study could be
nothing but collective. Indeed, the variety of contexts where it developed called
for a number of case studies to be considered in order to achieve a polycentric
portrayal of how it took root. We, thus, produced an extensive, detailed picture
of village contexts under Maoist control and emphasized the importance of such
a descriptive approach focusing on village life and its micro-history, and on
leaving people time to speak, to narrate their experiences, to air their opinions
and to expose their choices. This immersion at the grass-roots level and as close
as possible to the actors themselves forms the basis of anthropology. In a context
of war, with all the great complexity and passion it involves, this is even more
necessary to avoid hasty generalizations or biases. Not only did we deliberately
start with the facts and with ordinary social contexts, but we also opted to
maximize this effect by compiling a collection of descriptive accounts. This
provided a broad scope that we did not attempt to limit in order to allow speech
and information to flow freely, along with the particular course of history in each
place.
Yet, all this follows the lines of a common project which, far from aiming to be
exhaustive or even representative in a statistical sense,1 seeks to explore the
conditions of possibility for an armed revolutionary movement to develop, extend
and encompass all aspects of life. We attempted to provide some answers to this
puzzling question at the root of armed mass movements by examining, on the
one hand, the antecedents of the People’s War and, on the other hand, how it
was waged in the country’s rural areas which were directly under Maoist
control,2 and the variety of paths it followed in such a composite context in
terms of ethnic group, caste, language, religion, education, and where political
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Introduction
culture is both a very recent implant and still at an elementary level. We paid
special attention to the manner in which ordinary people perceived the
movement over time, their hesitations, resistance or enthusiasm, and to the
mechanisms that finally led to it being acquiesced in by the majority. To
complement this village-centred approach we also devoted space to some
features of the revolutionary organization, namely, its military specificities, and
its cultural production, whereas its structure and ideology are not dealt with
here other than how they appeared to villagers (on this subject, see Hachhethu
2008–9; Ogura 2008a).
(p.3) The study of a revolutionary period raises fundamental questions, such as
the respective importance of contingent events and individual agency, on the one
hand, and of the long-term evolution of social structures, on the other. Our
grass-roots approach highlights the embedding of these apparently opposed
spheres, and the structuration resulting from an accumulation of similar
phenomena that are shaped by being subjected to the same conditions. The role
of school teachers as vectors of revolutionary ideas in many localities in Nepal
may serve to illustrate this. Endowed with additional symbolic capital, but not
with power or economic means, school teachers were the first to develop social
criticism (as described, for instance, in Benoît Cailmail’s chapter, this volume).
Yet, it was not before the advent of political liberalization in the early 1990s,
which also coincided with a void created by massive migration depriving Nepal
of many of its educated, relatively well-off young men, and the creation of a
nationwide revolutionary project and organization, that they became fully
operative.3 This recalls Tocqueville’s theory that the French Revolution found its
origin in the newly enriched bourgeoisie but that their revolt against the court,
privileges and ascriptive status came at a time when the old nobility itself
disapproved of the new court manners. Though schoolteachers do not form a
social or economic class in the so-called class war that Nepal’s People’s War
represented for the Maoists, ethnography shows that they have something in
common with many of those who chose the revolutionary path early on in Nepal:
a subaltern position within the elite. Indeed, in many localities of the base
region, a local conflict within the dominant clan meshed with the national
conflict when it became expressed in terms of a conservative/revolutionary
dichotomy following the introduction of party politics in the early 1990s.
This was the case in Maikot (Rukum) or in Mirul (Rolpa), for example—two
localities where early participation in the People’s War was essential for the
development of the movement as a whole. This phenomenon also emerged in two
village contexts studied in this volume (see chapters by Satya Shrestha-Schipper
and Marie Lecomte-Tilouine, this volume). Yet, in the remarkable case of
Thabang,4 which became the cradle of the revolutionary movement, though the
initial situation was also that of a local conflict between headmen, the opposite
phenomenon occurred: communism led to their reconciliation (Anne de Sales).
In one way or another, a conflict within the elite was, therefore, an important
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