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"Nepal Tarai:
Context and Possibilities"
Organized by Social Science Baha
With Support from
B.P. Koirala India-Nepal Foundation
Kathmandu
10-11 March 2005.
Concept Note
Among the many neglected arenas of national discourse
in Nepal have been issues related to the Tarai,
encompassing a vast range of subjects from development
to environment, from identity and rights to infrastructure
and economic advancement. Acknowledging this reality,
the Social Science Baha is holding a two-day conference
entitled ‘Nepal Tarai: Context and Possibilities’
to deal with overarching issues with required
depth, bringing together experienced scholars
even while trying to generate interest among young
academics to the study of this dynamic region.
Issues and Rationale
Nepal was unified in the second half of the 18th
century but had yet not yet been fully ‘integrated’
by the close of the twentieth. The reasons for
this lack of integration are many, first and foremost
the geographical terrain obstructing travel and
interaction between the mid-hills, the mountains
and the plains. The fact of the unification being
a ‘mid-hills project’, leading to
a particular kind of centralised state has also
had an impact on integration. These features inhibited
the true unification of Nepal (meaning, inclusiveness
in governance for all communities and regions)
since its formation up to the mid-20th century.
In the modern era, the domination of much of the
state apparatus, including the civil bureaucracy
and political parties, by less than a handful
of communities from the mid-hills and valleys
meant that many other peoples and communities
continued to remain isolated from the Nepali state
and its functioning.
Things, however, are beginning to change. Drawing
upon works that had for several years been locked
in academic research and books, activists began
to point out the injustice of Nepali society reflected
in the domination by a few communities while large
sections and communities continued to remain at
the margins. Pent-up issues from the rural hinterland
came to a boil in the 1990s, under a more democratic
environment, requiring even mainstream political
forces to acknowledge the lack of inclusiveness.
In a country where no community is in the majority,
but where a minority has been able to dominate
the country due to a configuration of certain
historical and geographical factors, the challenge
that remains is how to ensure the inclusion of
marginalised communities. The governments that
have been formed since 2000, including the main
political parties today, speak of bringing the
janajati, dalits and women into the national mainstream.
In the flurry of responses to demands of ethnic,
dalit and women activists, what has been overlooked
is the fact that the entire Nepal Tarai and its
peoples continue to remain in the margins. If
dalits are estranged from the Nepali state for
being at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and
janajatis for being marginal Hindus or non-Hindu,
the majority of Madhesi people of the Nepal Tarai
should theoretically have been mainstream on both
the counts. For the majority of Madhesi people
happen to be Hindu ‘high’ and ‘middle’
castes (although there is a substantial dalit
population). However, these two crucial identities
have not automatically led to participation of
the people of the Nepal Tarai in national affairs
nor in the activities of the Nepali state.
For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the
Nepal Tarai was seen to be largely a combination
of a colony and a frontier in the eyes of the
Kathmandu-based rulers. ‘Colony’ because
the hill people (whatever their ethnicity) have
identified themselves with the state vis-à-vis
the culturally different Madhesi of the plains.
The idea that the Nepal Tarai is the national
granary underscores the Nepal Tarai as a colony
because it produced and sustained the ‘core’,
meaning the mid-hills. The Nepal Tarai also became
a frontier providing new opportunities for settlement
and for striking one’s fortune for the hill
nobility. Compared to the densely populated but
resource-poor hills, it was a vast frontier, which
could be controlled by subjugating the indigenous
communities and inhabited by clearing up the dense
sub-tropical forests. It is only from the 1990s
that these twin ideas have been offset to a certain
extent, some of which would be due to the fact
that almost half of the 205 parliamentary constituencies
are now located in the Nepal Tarai.
It would be proper to say that as late as the
year 2004, the concerns of the Nepal Tarai and
its people have not made it into the national
agenda. Core issues have yet to be discussed,
starting with the identity of the Madhesi and
other communities of the Nepal Tarai in a country
whose ‘self-identity’ has always been
proposed as mid-hills-centric. There have been
political efforts at bringing the concerns of
the Nepal Tarai to the fore, but little social-scientific
enquiry has gone into the project, including the
unique geographical feature of the Nepal Tarai
being a long and narrow strip of territory that
creates its own challenges to inter-regional integration
or bonding. Possibilities of developing hill-to-plain
connection throughout the length of the country
has been neglected, and for a long time the plains
were regarded as merely the space allowing easy
transport between hill markets centres and the
Kathmandu Valley. Demographic transitions within
the Nepal Tarai have also not received adequate
attention, and there is a two-dimensional view
of the region even though there are so many complexities
related to migration, the place of indigenous
communities such as the Tharu, the linguistic
differentiations, the down-migration of hill communities
over the past decades, and so on. Because of overall
neglect, the possibilities of utilising the open
border with India for economic advancement has
also not been studied in depth either.
Despite the Nepal Tarai being overlooked in
so many areas, the fact is that it is emerging
as a dynamic cultural, social and economic frontier
for the entire nation-state. Nepal is a rapidly
urbanising country and, excluding the valleys
of Kathmandu and Pokhara, much of the urbanisation
is taking place in the Tarai. The same is true
with regard to industrialisation. Easy transport,
the possibilities of productive agriculture, issues
related to labour and capital, the open border
and the social and economic trends in neighbouring
regions of India , all these issue will be defining
the future of Nepal as a whole in the days to
come.
The Nepal Tarai corridor, where most of the
industries in the country are located, continues
to remain the economic hub of the country. Even
though depleted, it still contains a lot of sal
forests. It continues to be the place where the
green revolution in Nepal is in its incipient
stage. It is also where major conservation areas
and national parks have been established. The
completion of the East-West Highway and recent
plans to expand road networks within the Nepal
Tarai as well as adjacent areas in India are bound
to create new realities. Yet various issues vex
the region. To begin with, many of its inhabitants
are barred from obtaining citizenship papers.
The ‘open border’ continues to be
seen as a liability, whereas some of the ‘blessings’
are not being utilised. Issues related to inundation
at the border point create perennial problems
for bilateral relations with India, even while
the issues and concerns of ground-level populations
on both sides of the border do not get due recognition,
either in New Delhi or Kathmandu.
There are several ways of bringing these issues
into the national limelight. One such important
strategy would to to organize a conference to
bring together experts and papers that address
these various facets of the Nepal Tarai (and which
would later be published as a book). Moreover,
with the national debate on ‘inclusivism’
being limited to the janajati, dalits and women,
there is continuing danger that the neglect of
the Nepal Tarai will lead to a festering and un-addressed
situation. There is a need to remind everyone
of the exclusion of the Nepal Tarai and its population
from the Nepali national mainstream.
Social Science Baha believes the two-day conference
it is organizing will help to address how one
can go about ‘including’ the Nepal
Tarai and its population within the Nepali state.
Themes expected to be covered include:
• Identity-language politics
• Political economy of the Nepal Tarai
• Pahade-Madhesi (hills-plains) interface
• Religion
• Cross-border issues
Substantive issues expected to be covered:
The peopling of the Nepal Tarai, modern demographic
trends, the politics of citizenship, ‘open
border’, interface with Bihar and eastern
Uttar Pradesh, economy, industrialisation, hill-plain
interaction, evolving inter-community relations,
Terai development issues, and other related subjects.
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