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 The Tarai: Call for Papers
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Posted on 09-06-04 8:38 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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This may be of interest to Sajha scholars.

Please feel free to forward this to other interested folks.

oohi
ashu
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Call for papers

Nepal Tarai: Context and Possibilities
a conference to be hosted by the Social Science Baha
March 2005


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 plans to hold 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.
 
Posted on 09-06-04 8:40 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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In the flurry of responding 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-�-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.
 
Posted on 09-06-04 8:40 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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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 be the planned 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.

Call for papers

The Social Science Baha, which had earlier organised a conference titled �The Agenda of Transformation: Inclusion in Nepali Democracy� in April 2003, as well as its parent organisation, Himal Association, have been at the forefront of bringing latent issues to the surface for national debate, and both institutions believe that the Tarai has been neglected for much too long as a subject of social-scientific inquiry, which has ultimately affected the population living in this region. As the organiser of the �Nepal Tarai: Context and Possibilities�, the Social Science Baha calls for papers that will deal with the primary focus of the conference: how one could go about �including� the Nepal Tarai and its population within the Nepali state.

Themes to be covered
Identity-language politics
Political economy of the Nepal Tarai
Pahade-Madhesi (hills-plains) interface
Religion
Cross-border issues

Substantive issues 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, and so on.

Time-table

Call for abstracts: August, 2004
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 September, 2004
Length of abstracts: around 1 page (typed/12 point font)
Review of abstracts/finalisation: 30 October, 2004
Deadline for paper submission: 30 January, 2005
Conference: March 2005

Paper Specifics

Total papers to be accepted: 16
Length of papers: around 10,000 words

Contact person: Ajaya Mali
email: baha@himalassociation.org
(abstracts/papers are to be sent to this address).
 


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