David Rangdrol Masters Thesis / Minor Field Study

September 22, 2007

Religious Nationalism in Nepal:

Understanding the Demise of the Hindu Kingdom

Uppsala Programme of International Studies Department of Peace and Conflict Research

Uppsala University

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Abstract

Most of the literature on religious nationalism focuses on explaining the socio-political conditions

that foster religious nationalist movements. There is a theoretical gap, however, in explaining why

such movements may sometimes lose influence and decline, or why a shift from religious

nationalism to secularism may occur. This paper is an attempt to remediate this gap with the help of

a case study of Nepal, a country formerly known as ‘Hindu’ Kingdom but which officially became

secular in May 2006. In this sense, the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal makes it an

interesting exception in a time where the tendency is for more assertive religious nationalism. This

research has attempted to isolate a list of interdependent factors that may explain this decline in

Nepal: being a fragile state, having a top-bottom religious nationalist structure, and experiencing a

legitimacy crisis made it impossible to withstand the pro-secular pressure. A general hypothesis on

the conditions needed for a shift from religious nationalism to secularism or from religious

nationalism to secularism is also presented.

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Acknowledgements

In Sweden, I would like to thank the Swedish International Development Agency for funding this

field research in Nepal and my supervisor at Uppsala University, Mr Isak Svensson. In Nepal, my

gratitude goes to my assistant and interpreter/translator, Suman Lamichhane, and to Mr Mrigendra

Karki for his precious advice. I am also indebted to Mr Keshav Chaulagain, for his insight and help,

and to all the people whom I have interviewed for their time. The errors found in these pages are of

course mine.

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Table of contents

Chapter 1 – Introduction p. 5

Chapter 2 – Research Design p. 8

Chapter 3 – Theoretical Framework p. 12

Chapter 4 – Case Study: Nepal p. 23

Chapter 5 – Conclusion p. 49

After word p. 57

Bibliography p. 62

Interviews p. 66

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1 - Introduction

The political force of religion

It has become customary for the literature on religion and politics to begin with an obituary of the

secularisation theory,1 a premise of the Enlightenment which predicted that religion would

eventually cease to have any public relevance and that if religious values existed at all they would be

relegated to a private sphere of activity. Secularisation was explained as “an-inevitable by-product of

modernity” in which societies became more rational and scientific.2 The secularisation theory has

had a sedative effect on academic and policy circles alike, preventing religion from being considered

as an important factor that influences politics.3 Nowadays, however, partly because of a series of

warnings between the 1979 Iranian revolution and 9/11, the emerging consensus is that religion is a

political force to be reckoned with. The secular-liberal-democratic trinity that was once thought to

bring forth “the end of history”4 is challenged by religious nationalism on every continent and by

different means ranging from peaceful demonstrations, the power of the ballot box, to the use of

violence. For religious nationalists the end of history rather “culminates in a world filled with

religiously oriented nations.”5 Paradoxically, though “modernity” was initially used to explain

secularisation it is now used to explain the rise of its anti-thesis, religious nationalism.6

Acknowledgement of the political importance of religion and reinvigorated academic interest has

already led to important findings, of which, empirical evidence that religious wars are more violent

and intractable and that the proportion of religious conflicts has been increasing steadily in the last

century.7 Religion and conflict also forms the backdrop of one of the most discussed political piece

1 Rodney Stark, “Secularisation, R.I.P.”, Sociology of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 3 (1999); secularisation theory in Sociology has a Political Science version called “modernisation theory” which claims that “processes inherent in modernisation should inevitably lead to the demise of primordial factors like ethnicity and religion in politics.” See: Jonathan Fox., “The Rise of Religious Nationalism and Conflict: Ethnic Conflict and Revolutionary wars, 1945-2001.” Journal of Peace Research, Vol 41, No. 6. (2004 b), p. 716; for a rebuttal of the common critics of the secularisation theory see: Frank J. Lechner, “The Case Against Secularisation: A Rebuttal,” Social Forces, Vol. 69, No. 4. June 1991, pp. 1103-1119. 2 Ted G. Jelen, “Some Priority Variables in the Study of Comparative Religious Politics”, in Santosh C. Saha, ed., Religious fundamentalism in the Contemporary World: Critical Social and political Issues, Maryland: Lexington Books, (2004), p. 30 3 For a discussion of the influence of the secularisation theory on academia see: Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 10. No. 2, pp. 235-262. 4 See: Francis Fukuyama., The end of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free Press, (1992). 5 Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, Berkeley: University of California Press, (1993), P. 193. 6 See: Anthony Gill, “Religion and comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 4. 2001, p. 124-126. 7 For religious violence and civil war see: Monica Toft, "Religion, Civil War, and International Order." BCSIA Discussion Paper, Discussion Paper 2006-03, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, (July 2006); for religion

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of the past decades, Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations thesis, which predicts that the most

common, brutal and protracted conflicts facing that the post-Cold War world will be those opposing

groups or states that belong to different civilisations, for which culture and religion form the most

important defining elements.8 Recent studies, however, have shown that the most common religious

conflicts are those opposing co-religionists in battles between religious nationalism and secularism

and not conflicts fought between different religious groups over religious incompatibilities as

Huntington has suggested.9 Finally, a significant body of literature focuses on a comparative, cross-

cultural analysis of religiopolitical movements of the world loosely defined as “religious nationalism”

or “fundamentalism,” seeking to find commonalities or “family resemblances” between these

movements and seeking to delineate the proximate and background causes for the movements that

challenge the secular world. Literature on religious nationalism and fundamentalism will provide the

theoretical framework of this essay.

The Asian context

Though the Middle-East captures much of the attention of observers interested in the interplay of

religion and politics, Asia has also seen diverse forms of religiopolitical activities that stem from the

region’s three major religions, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. To give disparate examples: the New

Komeito Party in Japan and its use of Buddhism for political mobilisation, the peaceful popular

demonstrations demanding more state-endorsement of Buddhism in Thailand, the more assertive

Buddhist nationalism in war-torn Sri-Lanka, the Hindu-Muslim tensions that fuel the civil war in

Kashmir, the religious pogroms that have devastated the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, and the

violent uprisings against secular governments waged by the Taliban in Afghanistan and other rebel

groups in several South-East Asian countries.

A recent study has examined the 120 armed conflicts that occurred in Asia between 1946 and 2005

to see what proportion of these had a clear religious incompatibility at the core of the dispute. The

research has found that the main belligerents in 31 (26%) of these conflicts had stated a religious

and all types of armed conflicts see: Jonathan Fox, Jonathan Fox, Ethnoreligious Conflict in the Late Twentieth Century: A General Theory, Maryland: Lexington Books, (2002). 8 Samuel P. Huntington., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World order, New York: Simon and Shuster, (1996). 9 For the global trend see: Jonathan Fox., “Are Some Religions More Conflict-Prone than Others?,” Jewis Political Studies, Vol. 16:1-2, Spring 2004; the Asian trend seems consistent with Fox’s findings, see: Isak Sevensson, David Rangdrol., “Between Gods and Guns: Patterns of Religious Dimensions of Asian Armed Conflicts, 1945-2006”, working paper, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University

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incompatibility to justify their struggle, and that the proportion of these has been rising.10 The trend

in Asia seems to vindicate theoreticians that are seeking to put the secularisation theory to rest. But

trends have exceptions, and this research will focus on one of these: Nepal – while many countries

are seeing an intensification of religious nationalism, Nepal is undergoing the opposite process.

Nepal: The only ‘Hindu’ Kingdom in the world

Until 2006 Nepal was known as “the only Hindu Kingdom in the world.” The Hindu attribute has

its roots in the creation of Nepal in the 18th century; it was written down in the highest law of the

land in 1854 and finally enshrined in the constitution from 1962 onwards. But 2006 marked a year of

important transitions for Nepal: from civil war to peace, from totalitarianism to democracy, and

from religious nationalism to secularism. This last point is particularly interesting given the larger

context. The above-mentioned study has found that a majority of conflicts (21 out of 31) that had a

religious incompatibility at their core involved rebel groups that fought governments against

secularism in order to establish religious states. Nepal on the other hand is the unique case in Asia in

the past 60 years where a rebel group, the Maoists, has fought a government and included a demand

for secularism in its agenda.11 Though the Maoist People’s War cannot be characterised primarily as

an anti-religious war, the demand for a secular state was an important part of it. In any case, the

most outstanding event that we will try to explain in this essay is that Nepal has officially shifted

from religious nationalism to secularism in May 2006, effectively erasing an important, centennial

feature of Nepal – to the dismay of Hindu nationalists.

This research will look at the shift to a secular state from the angle of the weakening of religious

nationalism. The broad theoretical focus will be to understand what factors explain the weakening or

decline of religious nationalism. In the empirical context, we seek the factors explaining why Hindu

nationalism in Nepal has weakened to the point of not being able to safeguard the highest and most

important religious attribute of the state – it’s naming as a ‘Hindu Kingdom.’

The academic interest for this case is, firstly, that Nepal has been overlooked by the major

comparative studies of religious nationalism. The studies that have included non-Semitic cases such

10 Isak Sevensson, David Rangdrol., “Between Gods and Guns: Patterns of Religious Dimensions of Asian Armed Conflicts, 1945-2006”, working paper, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University 11 Although the LTTE is also fighting against religious nationalism in Sri Lanka, it mainly seeks to create a separate state, not simply change the government and its religious policies as is the case in Nepal.

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as Hindu nationalism have chosen to cover India, which, given its history of religious violence, has

much to obscure Nepal. Secondly, this case is interesting because it makes us consider a new

question since the academic focus is currently set on explaining the simple existence and growth of

religious nationalism and not its weakening or decline. The case-specific interest is that

religiopolitical issues such as the contest between religious and secular nationalism taking place in

Nepal has in many other cases led to violence. That it has not until now in Nepal is to rejoice, but it

does not imply that we should not remain alert especially since religious conflicts and disputes have

been noted for being especially intractable.12 What might seem like trivial ideological issues to some

are actually cosmic mistakes – sometimes worth taking arms – for others. If this specific issue seems

marginal for the moment in Nepal it is perhaps because it is buried under many other serious issues,

of which, managing the fragile peace process and credible elections, rebuilding infrastructure

destroyed in the civil war, and providing the population with basic needs, justice, and security. But

the controversy over the shift that just occurred may attract more attention and create more

animosity if and when other issues are cleared. It must be said from the onset that two different

surveys show an uncomfortably divided population over this issue.13

2 - Notes on research design

Research questions:

The general theoretical focus is on explaining the weakening of religious nationalism, to find out the

conditions under which religious nationalism can no longer safeguard the religious state and fails to

thwart secularisation. The literature used to help answer the research question is: Mark

Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State; Nikki R. Keddie, The

12 Monica Toft gives the following reason: “civil wars fought over religion are more intense, destructive, because religion is more uncompromising, because it is less concerned with the ‘temporary and mortal than with the eternal and immortal, basically cosmic issues and mistakes are less likely to be resolved through compromise and negotiation.” See Op cited: Toft., (2006), p. 6; for another discussion over what makes religious conflicts intractable see: Isak Svenson, “Fighting with Faith: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars”, Publication forthcoming, Journal of Conflict Resolution, p. 4; and Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 153-167. 13 To the question “Should the Nepal of the future be a secular state or a Hindu state?” one survey shows 52% of respondents answered “Hindu” and 37% answered “Secular”: Sudhindra Sharma, Pawan Kumar Sen, Nepal Contemporary Political Situation IV Opinion Poll Report, Kathmandu: The Asia Foundation & Interdisciplinary Analysts. (2007), p. 43; another poll showed that 61% of respondents wanted to retain the Hindu state, See: Krishna Hacchhethu, “The State of Nepali Democracy”, (Survey conducted with South Asian Democracy Study Group and International IDEA), The Nepali Times, No. 352. 8-14 June 2007, p. 11.

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New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do “Fundamentalisms” Appear?; and Gabriel A. Almond, R.

Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World.

Case selection:

The case for this research is limited to Nepal but references will be made to other cases as the

theories are based on broad comparative studies. I will emphasise comparison with India, it being

the only other country with a significant experience of Hindu nationalism and because it shares

many cultural aspects with Nepal.

Aim:

First, to see the extent to which the selected literature facilitates the understanding of the case study

and to identify potential theoretical shortcomings. Secondly, to deepen understanding of the

influence of religion on the politics of Nepal and evaluate how the controversy affects the social

fabric and stability of the country.

Sources and method:

Secondary sources such as scholarly books and articles and press items will inform the arguments

and conclusions of this essay. I will also refer to interviews I conducted in Kathmandu in May and

June 2007 with politicians, religious and civil-society leaders, and local experts.

Definitions:

The main concept under examination, religious nationalism, is problematic and needs clarification

since there is still no uniform usage of the term despite increasing interest in the subject. I will begin

with specifically defining religious nationalism as it is understood in this research and follow with the

definition found in the selected literature.

Religious nationalism:

As understood in the research question, religious nationalism is: The promotion or support for an

assimilative, homogenising national identity based on the ethos and culture of a given religion. Often

it is a movement aimed at taking or preserving political power, which seeks to influence policy and

which believes that the state should endorse and protect religion by assigning to it religious symbols

and an official religious status commonly in the form of an official name, religious laws or policies,

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and state symbols such as the flag, the national animal and anthem.14 In this case study, it refers to

the movement that supports the constitutional naming of Nepal as a ‘Hindu’ state as well as

different policies of Hinduisation.

It may seem confusing that different authors use the terms religious nationalism and

fundamentalism to talk about a similar phenomenon, as is the case in the literature of this essay.

These sources have selected common movements to inform their theories while naming the

phenomenon differently. For example, while Juergensmyer and Keddie qualify the Indian Baratiya

Jhanata Party (BJP) as religious nationalists, Almond et al. call them fundamentalists. Mark

Juergensmeyer’s and Nikki Keddie object to the use of fundamentalism because it is a term that has

become politically loaded and because it unduly implies extremism.15 Juergensmeyer’s definition is

fairly broad, it simply describes a movement whose leaders “actively criticise the secular political

order and attempt to replace it with one founded on religious principles.”16 Keddie in turn talks of

groups that stress a homogenised common doctrine based on religion and a higher level of political

activism aimed at taking power. Though Almond et al. use fundamentalism it is implied here that

the phenomenon they explain is similar enough to what is understood as religious nationalism in this

essay to effectively use their theory, but nonetheless with a certain ambiguity that requires further

explanation.

The authors refer to fundamentalism as a “a discernible pattern of religious militance by which self-

styled ‘true believers’ attempt to arrest the erosion of religious identity, fortify the borders of the

religious community, and create viable alternatives to secular institutions and behaviour.” It is “a

reactive, selective, absolutist, comprehensive mode of anti-secular religious activism,”17 and the

people that lead these movements are “authoritarian absolutists in a pluralist world” who are not

necessarily violent but that often have that proclivity.18 This definition is largely compatible with our

case but one ambiguous aspect of their definition which calls in question whether Hindu nationalism

14 Elements of this definition are derived from Nikki R. Keddie’s definition of New Religious Politics: Nikki R. Keddie., “The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do “Fundamentalisms” Appear?” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 40, No. 4. October 1998, p. 697. 15 For a discussion over the terminology of religious politics see: Op cited: Keddie., (1998), p. 697-698 and Mark Juergensmeyer, “Why Religious Nationalists are not Fundamentalists,” Religion, Vol. 23 (Spring 1993). 16 Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. (1993), p. 4. 17 Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World, Chicago: The university of Chicago Press, (2003), p. 17. 18 Ibid., p. 219

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in Nepal fits the category concerns whether fundamentalist movements are strictly reactive

opposition movements or “enclaves” conspiring against the outside world as is sometimes implied in

Strong Religion. The authors suggest that these “enclaves” might cease to be called fundamentalists

once they become important players in local, regional, and national politics. The authors say they

have included movements that had significant enough political involvement to “alter the exclusivist,

dogmatic, confrontational mode of the fundamentalist to such a degree that the word

fundamentalist or its cognates is no longer appropriate.”19 In this sense, we understand that the

literature is focused on nascent movements and less so on movements embedded at the top, as is

the case with Hindu nationalism in Nepal. To add to the ambiguity, many of the contributors to the

case studies on which Strong Religion is based have themselves reservations about the applicability of

the term to their cases.20 Hence there is no definitive answer as to whether religious nationalism in

Nepal would fit their definition but the decision to use this theory is based on the clear similarities

with some of the case-studies they have included in the fundamentalist category to think it

appropriate, and also with the consideration that Strong Religion offers the most comprehensive

analysis of the phenomenon which interests us here.

The weakening of religious nationalism:

The selected sources, though focused on explaining the simple existence of religious nationalism,

also addresses the causes for its growth, and, to a lesser extent, the potential causes for its decline.

However, the means to measure these variations are not clearly indicated. The variation I will try to

explain is the decline of religious nationalism and it will be measured by the inability to safeguard the

official status of religion in a state, or the failure to prevent official secularisation. The advantage of

this method of measuring the variation of religious nationalist strength is that it is explicit.21 The

official naming of a country as a religious state is the first and possibly one of the most important

demands of religious nationalists, and loosing the official state endorsement of religion is a sure sign

of the fading influence of religion on politics or of the weakening of religious nationalism. The

official name’s significance and importance will be discussed in more depth in the analysis and

presentation of the case study. The time variation is marked by the date May 18 2006, date at which

Nepal became officially a secular state.

19 Ibid., p. 12 20 As noted in: Op cited Jelen., (2004), p. 32. 21 Conversely, the strengthening of religious nationalism could be measured by the accession to power of a religious nationalist party, or by the official declaration of a religious state.

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3 - Theoretical framework

In this section, we will look at the selected literature with the general aim of seeing how it can

facilitate the understanding of the decline of religious nationalism. Because this is not the main focus

of the literature it is not appropriate to call this a testing of theories, rather, it is an attempt to make

informative deductions from these. The ideal scenario would have been to find studies or theories

mainly focused on potential social structures, cultural contexts, and political environments that cause

the decline of religious nationalism, but short of this we can use what the authors isolate as causes

for the birth, growth or strength of religious nationalism and invert the equation, working with the

assumption that factors which foster religious nationalism should either be absent or weakening in

Nepal.

3.1 - The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular Sate

Mark Juergensmeyer’s book The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular Sate is about

the global emergence of religious nationalism as a competing alternative to secular nationalism. It is

based on dozens of interviews he has conducted in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Central

and South Asia with political and religious leaders who “actively criticise the secular political order

and attempt to replace it with one founded on religious principles.”22 Although this book is largely

about their discourses, he has also stated the aim of uncovering the patterns that explain how and

why religious movements develop.23

Ideologies of order

The 18th century marks the creation of the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal, which also coincides with the

dawn of “modernity” in Europe. In the Hegelian sense, this meant building societies on the

principles of individualism, the right to criticism, autonomy of action, and rational knowledge that

no longer called for explanations grounded in religion.24 Juergensmeyer explains that it has been a

common assumption since the Enlightenment that western secularism was the only legitimate basis

of nation-building and this universalistic model was eventually exported to the newly liberated

colonies in the twentieth century. However, Juergensmeyer shows that this assumption is challenged

22 Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 4 23 Ibid., p. 8 24 Harjat Oberoi, “Mapping Indic Fundamentalism through Nationalism and Modernity” in Martin Marty, R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, (2004), p. 102

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and that traditional religion can play the same ideological role as secular nationalism in providing a

theoretical basis for the nation-state. Religion has the power to command communal loyalty, to

legitimise authority and the use of violence. Juergensmeyer presents both religious and secular

nationalism as having similar functions and of being rival ideologies of order:

“Both religious and secular nationalistic frameworks of thought are ideologies of order in the following ways: they both

suggest that there are levels of meaning beneath the day-to-day world that explains things unseen; they both provide

identity for and evoke loyalty from secular communities; and they both provide the authority that gives social and

political order a reason for being. In doing so they define how an individual should properly act in the world, and they

relate the person to the social whole.”25

A post-colonial legacy

Religious nationalism is both a consequence and a native response to the colonial nation-building

experience. The new western ideologies and their secular projects faced high expectations when

introduced to the newly liberated nations but in practice the model disappointed; the poor stayed

poor and the hopeful populations deemed their new leaders to be as short sighted, corrupt and

distanced from them as their European predecessors. The new generation of leaders in former

colonies had difficulty in selling “a vision of society that mirrored that of the failing old colonial

powers.”26 Mainly for lack of satisfying results, the imported secular-contract was too weak to hold.

The net result was growing hostility against the secular model and realisation that what was wrong

with it was that it was imported by an elite that disowned its own heritage and religion in favour of

something not only deemed to be a European cultural product but also sometimes even a cover for

Christianity. This lead to what Juergensmeyer has identified in the course of his extensive interviews

as a global trend: the longing for an indigenous form of religious politics free from the taint of

western culture. A great part of his book is devoted to exposing a rhetorical red thread: the venting

of frustrations about Western-tainted secularism, a form of “West-toxification” that turns to religion

for a cure.27

25 Mark Juergensmeyer., “The New Religious State,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 27, No. 4, July 1995, p. 380 26 Op cited, Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 194 27 Ibid., p. 19

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Competing absolutisms

Of course this reaction did not make secularism fade away to be replaced by native forms of

religious politics. This is why we talk of a confrontation; a clash that is bound by the absolutist,

uncompromising nature of both types of nationalisms.28 If the secular mind has a difficulty with the

notion that religion might constitute a legitimate basis for organising a nation-state, most religious

activists also see their tradition as normative for human activity. Governance requires ideology to

animate it, and in certain places the only two alternatives are secular and religious ideologies. The

problem is that these have the proclivity to be irreconcilable. The conversation between secular and

religious ideologues is arduous. One side could ask: “why should we ignore the wisdom of the

ancients, and the word of god compiled in the scriptures to favour the collective reasoning of self-

interested fallible creatures?” To which the other side could answer: “How can we base society on

something so completely unfounded and irrational when science and reason should guide us, and

decisions should reflect the collective will of citizen instead of the will of god or its earthly

guardians.” These are the voices of rival ideologies of order.

The first factor: the colonial secular legacy

The appeal of Juergensmeyer’s book is that it helps us understand the prevalent absolutism that

makes the competition between secular and religious nationalism conflicting and protracted. It

convincingly exposes two stubborn worldviews and the rhetoric of their proponents. The place of

religion in the public space is the subject of public discussions in many countries and the resulting

policies of accommodation are bound to be subversive, and, in the worst cases, it is a source of

tension that can provoke communal violence or war. Juergensmeyer’s study is especially relevant for

Nepal where this contest between the secular and religious ideologies of order is very much alive

and indeed where a paradigmatic shift just occurred. But what of our purpose of understanding the

causes of religious nationalism and getting hints at why it might weaken? The only element that can

be understood as a proper cause of religious nationalism in this book is “the failed post-colonial

secular nation-building experience.” To be sure, we touch upon one of the most outstanding

differences between Nepal and most of the cases used in the comparative studies of all the authors

28 This development is reminiscent of what Morgenthau presciently described decades ago in a discussion on nationalism and religion: “The nationalism of the twentieth century has become a nationalistic universalism, each nationalism believing itself to have a monopoly of perfection and the competing nationalisms to have a monopoly of imperfections.” Hans Morgenthau,. “Modern Nationalism and Religion”, by Salo Wittmayer (Book Review), Ethics, Vol. 59, No. 2, January (1949), pp. 147-148.

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reviewed in this essay: Nepal has never been colonised and therefore does not share this failed

legacy of secular nation-building and its corollary grievances and reactions. But does the absence

thereof explain why religious nationalism in Nepal has declined? Surely other post-colonial nations

have not seen the type of resurgence of religious nationalism described in Juergensmeyer’s book.

Why is religious nationalism strong in India and Sri Lanka and not in Burma or Canada? What then

are the other variables that define when and why religious nationalism takes root? We will now turn

to Strong Religion and try to fill these gaps.

3.2 - Strong religion:

“Strong religion is a theoretical model of fundamentalism based on one of the most extensive social

science projects of the past decades: The Fundamentalism Project, “an inter-disciplinary study of

antimodernist, anti-secular movements on five continents and within seven world religious

traditions.”29 This book also focuses to a great extent on finding “family resemblances,” which

include a clear trend of reactions against secularism that echo Juergensmeyer’s findings, but it goes

beyond the focus on anti-secularism to draw conclusions about the various social structures, cultural

contexts, political environments, and historical events that trigger fundamentalist movements. The

authors have isolated many factors that explain fundamentalism, many of which will be relevant

theoretical elements for our analysis despite sometimes being vague or despite having ambiguous

causal mechanisms. Interestingly we will see that many factors said to be conducive to

fundamentalism instead explain its decline in Nepal.

Explaining fundamentalisms: structure, chance, and choice.

The authors have divided the causal factors for the emergence and growth of fundamentalist

movements in three categories: (1) Structural variables; (2) Chance factors; (3) Choice factors.30

(1) - Long term contextual or structural conditions:

Secularisation: This variable is as pervasive in Strong Religion as in the other literature: “The defining

and distinctive structural cause of fundamentalist movements is secularisation. As we consider the

29 For the authors’ summary of the five volumes see: Op cited, Almond et al. (2003), p. 9-14; for a comprehensive book review symposium of the five volumes see: Chaflant, H. Paul, Ted Jelen, William H. Swatos Jr., “Author’s Introduction”, (Book Review Symposium of The Fundamentalist Project), Review of Religious Research, Vol. 35, No. 1. September (1993), p. 63 30 For full description of each variables see: Op cited, Almond et al. (2003), Ch. 3, p.116-144.

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sweep of fundamentalist movements across nations, cultures, and civilizations, some degree of

secularisation is present in all of them. Confronted with the threat of secularisation, the world of

religion responds adaptively or militantly.”31 We will have to ask if the simple absence thereof

explains the absence of Fundamentalism in Nepal and we will have to consider how the process of

secularisation or its “threat” has influenced religious nationalism in Nepal.

Religion: The authors see the features of specific religions as important determining factors: “The

nature of the host religion out of which fundamentalism arises is perhaps the most important

conditioning factor in the explanation of fundamentalism—its theology, its organizational structure,

its vitality.”32 The authors give Hinduism and the Indian experience of Hindu nationalism as an

example. They attribute to Hinduism the prominent characteristics of being relatively unspecialized

and as having a diffused set of roles and institutions.33 But the authors don’t explain the causality

between these features and the Hindu fundamentalism experience in India. Further they suggest that

if the religion’s beliefs are explicit, coherent, and codified in texts – not the case for Hinduism –

then “it is easier for the fundamentalist movements to separate themselves from a compromising,

secularising religious establishment.”34 Other religious factors like the degree of homogeneity within

the religion or whether it has a messianic aspect are deemed as consequential but without giving us a

proper understanding of the causal relation.

Hinduism is extraordinarily complex, and equally so in Nepal and India. The details of Hinduism in

Nepal and India vary greatly but the most salient features attributed to Hinduism are similar. Yet,

both countries have had significantly different experiences of Hindu nationalisms. The authors do

not equip us adequately to apply this variable. It remains that features of Hinduism in Nepal will

obviously need mention in the analysis, especially in respect to its relation with other minority

religions of Nepal, but without speculating on Hinduism’s special propensity for fundamentalism. It

seems appropriate to work with the assumption that all religions are equally malleable in the right

hands and context.

31 Ibid, p. 121 32 Ibid, p. 122 33 Ibid, p. 122

34 Ibid, p. 123

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Education: This is an ambiguous element. On the one hand, schools can spread knowledge and the

rational analytical skills “that challenge and erode belief in religion,” and, on the other hand,

education can be used to promote fundamentalism if the schools are controlled by a fundamentalist

movement or government. As the authors say, some fundamentalists are educated in madrasas and

others in secular educational institutions. Furthermore, schools do not have the monopoly over

education. This analytical element is therefore highly contextual.35

Communication/media: Communication and media, like education, can work both ways. “On the

one hand, these new and powerful media in the hands of the secular world spread the information,

knowledge and moral standards that threaten religious beliefs and practices.” Conversely, it can fuel

fundamentalism by giving fundamentalists something to rage against (like MTV corrupting the

youth), and, for those who “discovered they could put the media to their own uses,” it can serve

fundamentalist purposes just as well, depending on who controls what proportion of the media. This

is therefore also a versatile variable. 36

Civil society: The authors state that the vitality of civil society and its relationship with the state is

crucial in understanding fundamentalism. For example: “In the absence of civil society, religious

movements can provide alternative channels for the articulation of aspirations and venting of

discontent.”37 Therefore, the absence of civil society might be conducive to fundamentalism, and

vice versa. We will see in the analysis that in Nepal we will see that civil society was actually a force

working against religious nationalism. This is one of many occasions where we will see that variables

operate in the opposite way in Nepal.

Social structure/Economic development: “The economic circumstances of a society—including

its level of development and GDP, its natural resources, its rate of growth, and the unevenness of

the geographic spread of growth—relate to the emergence and life of fundamentalism in a variety of

ways.”38 Generally speaking the authors note the ease with which fundamentalists can recruit from

“anxious and relatively deprived strata” created according to structural characteristics of society like

wealth distribution, urbanization, and development. “Short-run social structural shocks” like

35 Ibid, p.124 36 Ibid, p. 125 37Ibid, p. 126 38 Ibid, p. 130

17

recession, unemployment, labour conflicts, strikes, and the introduction of foreign labour can also

create grievances and make people susceptible to protest movements, including fundamentalism. We

will see that these factors are again actually responsible for the decline of fundamentalism in Nepal.39

Mobility: Major migrations can have a major impact on fundamentalism. The authors give the

notorious example of the impact of Palestinians migrations on Islamic fundamentalism. Although

this factor might become relevant in Nepal in the future, especially as a consequence of the eventual

federalisation of Nepal and the population displacement this might trigger, this element is not

relevant for our current analysis.

Ethnic-regional factors: “The ethnic-linguistic-regional composition of a society and the degree of

heterogeneity may have important implications for the development of fundamentalism. Notably,

subordination and exploitation of one ethnic or regional group by another as well as historic ethnic

tensions may create grievances in the long term.”40 This is yet another factor that has, contrarily to

elsewhere, contributed to the decline of religious fundamentalism in Nepal, and this not by creating

opposing fundamentalist movements, but rather by fuelling a secular opposition movement.

Political characteristics: Important factors are: the authority structure of a state, legitimacy of

institutions and leaders, the level of popular participation and the degree of polarisation.41 Short-

term political characteristics like revolutions, civil wars (the authors note wars can also fit the latter

“contingency” category), and important policy decisions may serve as triggers for fundamentalist

movements. These are all obviously important factors that will need to be analysed for the case of

Nepal. But again, the causality is vague and highly contextual. The legitimacy of leaders is another

variable that works the other way around in Nepal as the King’s legitimacy crisis contributed to the

decline of Hindu nationalism.

International environment: The authors focus here on the importance of Western imperialism and

its “exploitative” ways in the long-term explanation of fundamentalism in the Third World.42 In the

short-term international events like wars, the terms of trade and global economic fluctuations,

39 Ibid, p. 126 40 Ibid, p. 130 41 Ibid, p. 131 42 Ibid, p. 132

18

especially those harming Third World economies are influential on fundamentalism.43 Here, again, a

pointer to the crucial difference between Nepal and the cases of the theories, namely, the absence of

a colonial experience. We will still pay attention to Nepal’s international environment, especially

India, and, to a lesser degree, to the foreign presence inside Nepal via the pervasive international

donor/ NGO influence.

(2) - Contingent, chance factors:

“Chance factors,” either “somewhat predictable” or “truly unexpected,” refer to “the precipitants,

shocks, or triggers that turn inert potentialities (the ‘normal’ economic, social, ethnic, religious,

political lines of cleavage) into ‘live’ ones.”44 The authors give as examples: unanticipated

depressions; famines; economic depravation for a particular group; riots over migrant labour;

population movements; ethnic clashes; sharp changes in government policy towards education,

culture, religion; and noumenal45 events. Concrete examples of unexpected triggers are the Shah of

Iran’s illness and its precipitation of the revolution, or the effects of an earthquake in Turkey, which

bolstered the Islamist parties thanks to their relief work.

Basically, all of the above-mentioned “structural factors” which come suddenly or “by chance” and

other types of surprises make up this category. These events “have the effect of mobilizing the

people along the structural lines of cleavage,” and, because fundamentalists are “shrewd observers

and diagnosticians of their societies,” they are “poised to take advantage of the polarization of

society.”46 The reader will have noticed that “chance” is an impressively broad and flexible category.

Still, unlikely events occur everywhere and Nepal is no exception. The royal massacre could be

treated as one of these.

(3) - The particularities of human choice and leadership:

Strong Religion’s model designates “religious leaders, their creativity, the choices they make, and the

resulting collective psychic responses as key elements in founding and shaping fundamentalist

movements.”47 “Leadership constitutes a very large part of the sufficient causation,” but, “followers

43 Ibid, p. 133 44 Ibid. 45 Events such as religious “miracles.” 46 Ibid, p. 134; aren’t all shrewd politicians poised to do that? 47 Ibid, p. 118

19

must be ‘prone,’ susceptible to fundamentalist appeals and tactics.”48 The leaders make choices

taking into consideration their personal preferences, the internal character and dynamics of the

religious community, “and the constraints and opportunities presented by the specific conditions of

the society in which he lives.” This is to say that all the structural and “chance” factors mentioned

above will influence leaders’ choices and impact the dynamics of fundamentalism. We must

obviously consider “leadership” and “choice” in the analysis of Nepal, but without restricting the

analysis to “religious” leadership as many leaders that influence religious politics are not primarily

religious leaders but instead primarily political leaders and sometimes the boundaries are blurry. To

give obvious examples from Hindu nationalism in India, V.D. Sarvarkar, the “father of Hindutva,”49

and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician L.K. Advani were primarily politicians, but also influential

Hindu nationalist leaders. Moreover, the embodiment of Hindu nationalism in Nepal, the King,

assumed a dual role for most of the history of the monarchy.

Democracy and non-democracy

The authors examine how the above-mentioned elements will play out in democratic and non-

democratic societies. As they see it, fundamentalists adapt to those settings: in a democracy they may

“exploit the freedoms of a liberal society,” and in an authoritarian regime they may build “enclaves”

and rise up when the authority loosens or simply take over by violent means.50 The authors do not

explicitly suggest whether one type of regime is more conducive than another to fundamentalism.

What is sure is that both types of regimes have governed Nepal, and the shift between religious

nationalism and secularism has occurred in the midst of a transition between authoritarianism and

democracy. These broad factors will therefore need examination.

Decline

Although most of the authors’ attention throughout the book is on the circumstances that allow

fundamentalist movements to germ and grow, they also devote a passage to examine why a

movement may decline. Being related to the main question of this essay this passage was highly

anticipated but unfortunately disappointed. The main problem, other than again stating the same

structural factors previously mentioned and vague elements like “chance,” “choice,” and

48 Ibid, p. 135 49 Hindutva can be translated as “Hinduness,” V.D. Sarvarkar has written a book entitled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? in which he lays the ideological foundations of Hindu nationalism. 50 Ibid, p. 95

20

“leadership,” is that they have restricted themselves to explaining why “enclave” movements may

decline. They explain, for example, that “policies of repression are, above all, the most prominent

danger to fundamentalist movements in nondemocratic societies,” giving the examples of what

Syria’s Assad did to the Muslim Brotherhood, or of what Saddam Hussein did to the Shi’ite Da’wa

groups.51 They explain that enclave movements are vulnerable to “ideological dispute or competition

between powerful leading figures” because they typically cannot tolerate internal opposition.52 But

Nepal’s Hindu nationalism was embedded to the very top institution before declining; it was not a

mere “enclave” movement. In the period that interests us here it was the pro-secular forces that were

an enclave rather than the Hindu nationalist establishment. Although in their initial definition of

fundamentalism the authors chose to include movements that became important players at the

national level – as are Hindu nationalists in Nepal – they have not extended the analysis of decline to

such movements. Therefore, their analysis of decline is not applicable.

The amount of variables Almond et al. have served us reflects the complexity of the phenomenon

they are trying to generalise, especially given the large amount of case-studies of fundamentalisms to

which they are trying to apply these variables. Many of their variables are vague or ambiguous, and

single factors can easily fit in multiple categories at the same time, but they have nevertheless

isolated many relevant factors. In any case, we will analyse different variables in Nepal and underline

in which categories they fit when applicable.

3.3 The impact of communalism

To conclude and complement this theoretical section, we will briefly turn to Nikki R. Keddie’s study

on Religious nationalism. Keddie contributes to the study of comparative religiopolitical movements

specifically to understand why such movements have significantly expanded since the 1970s, and

more importantly for our purpose, to see “what causes exist in areas where these movements are

strong and why they differ from those regions where they are weak and nonexistent.”53 Keddie

offers a more limited definition of religiopolitical movements seen as more similar and significantly

comparable.54 Namely, she compares groups that stress a homogenised common doctrine, and a

high level of political activism ultimately aimed at taking power. These characteristics are not shared

51 Ibid, p. 213 52 Ibid. 53 Op cited: Keddie., (1998), p. 696 54 Ibid, p. 699

21

by many cases included in Strong Religion but they are of value to us because Nepal shares these

characteristics.

In line with Juergensmeyer and Strong Religion, Keddie sees “the considerable post-colonial failure of

governmental solutions to socio-economic and cultural problems” as having created a growing

alienation between people and their governments, which is conducive to religious nationalism.55 She

also acknowledges the undeniable human agency factor or the “leadership” variable stressed in

Strong Religion because “all [movements] involve active individuals moving in ways that are

unpredictable.”56 She has also enumerated worldwide trends that favour religious nationalism but

these largely overlap with the structural factors outlined in Strong Religion since she has based her

study on that book. These are: “the search for a secure identity in the face of rapid socioeconomic

and cultural changes; growing income gaps; changes in the status of women, the family, and sexual

mores; and the growing and often unpopular power of secular central governments and their failure

to meet the economic and cultural needs of their subjects.”

However, because these factors are also found in places without significant religiopolitical

movements they do not have enough explanatory power on their own. She suggests that at least one

of two crucial variables that make the difference in the incidence of religious nationalism is religiosity

or communalism. What defines religiosity is simply when “a high percentage of the population identifies

with the basic tenets of its religious tradition.”57 What defines communalism is when “at least two

strong religious communities exist; and there is a widespread quasi-nationalist identification with

one’s religious community as against other communities.” These two factors “are often the main

ones distinguishing communities with or without significant religiopolitical movements, for example,

they distinguish Muslim countries from Confucian ones.”58

Going back to the postulate “factors which the theories take as explaining the presence, growth or

strength of religious nationalism must be either weakening or absent in Nepal,” of these two

“distinguishing factors,” communalism – or rather its relative absence in Nepal – is relevant for our

analysis. However, religiosity is more problematic. In the absence of a proper survey of religious

55 Ibid, p. 721 56 Ibid, p. 700 57 Ibid, p.702 58 Ibid.

22

belief and practices in Nepal, it is difficult to assess whether it is weak or declining. But it is probably

safe to say based on a simple eye account of the amount of religious activity in Nepal and its

households that Nepal is still comfortably above the threshold of religiosity, at least as Keddie

understands it. For that reason, the absence of religiosity can probably not explain the decline of

religious nationalism in Nepal but the absence of communalism will need scrutiny.

This concludes the presentation of the theories in which we have seen that religious nationalists are

commonly motivated by grievances with the failed western secular experiment and by the desire to

replace it with a model adapted to local culture and religion. We also saw that understanding

religious nationalism in a given context required the analysis of several socio-economic and

structural factors which the literature identified as having leverage, but the literature covered does

not provide enough clues to provide us with a clear hypothesis of what might cause the weakening

of religious nationalism and a shift to secularism.

4 – Hindu nationalism in Nepal

We will now turn to the case study of Nepal. In this section we will uncover the historical roots of

Hindu nationalism in Nepal and trace its process to the present day, emphasising the socio-political

developments that have marked the past decades especially since secularisation or its “threat”

became more apparent in the nineties, up to the official declaration of Nepal as a secular state in

May 2006. The goal will be to provide the nuances necessary to assess where Nepal stands between a

theocratic Hindu state and an almost ‘de-facto’ secular country that happens to have a ‘Hindu’ tag as

some scholars suggest.59 This is necessary to make an analysis of the forces at play, to see how

anchored this ‘Hinduness’ was to be able to understand how and why its removal was possible.

Throughout this process, structural factors and various variables mentioned in the theories will

surface but will be analysed in more depth in the ensuing analysis.

The roots of Hindu politics

Religion has long been an influential factor in the politics of Nepal. Despite the religious diversity of

the country, it is almost exclusively Hinduism that has had a dominant political influence, making

59 As Sudhindra Sharma suggested, see: “The Hindu state and the state of Hinduism”, in Kanak Mani Dixit, Shastri Ramachandaran, eds., State of Nepal, Lalitpur: Himal Books, (2002), p. 35

23

Nepal predominantly a Hindu Kingdom with a Hindu polity, though not necessarily with a

uniformly pro-Hindu society.60 Though the state enforced Hinduisation to different degrees in its

three main modern periods (1768-1846, the Shah’s absolute regime; 1846-1951, the Rana oligarchy;

1960-1990, the Shah’s authoritarian Panchayat regime), it remains that the county’s identification has

mostly rested on four key ideas largely derived from Hinduism: “the unquestioning power and

authority of the Hindu king of Gorkha; the supremacy of Hindu ethos in national life; and social

integration through Hindu social system based on caste division; and recognition of Nepali as the

language of government, administration, and in more recent times, education.”61

The Hindu roots of Nepal – 1769

In 1769, Prithivi Narayan Shah, brought small independent states, chiefdoms and principalities of

different ethnicities and religions under his control and created modern Nepal.62 The first Gorkha

King declared Nepal asali Hindustan, the “true land of Hindus,” and “garden of four varnas and

thirty-six jats.”63 The kings became widely revered as an incarnations of god Vishnu, one of the main

gods of the modern Hindu pantheon.64 Though scholars disagree on the intensity with which

Hinduisation and cultural assimilation was thereafter implemented, it remains clear that Nepal

espoused the identity of a Hindu state from its very inception,65 and that over time non-Hindu

indigenous, nature-worshipping, animist or Buddhist people have been gradually ‘Hinduized’ as a

result of the conquest of the Hindu Kings an the migration of Parbatiyas (high-caste hill people) to

different parts of Nepal.”66 In 1846, members of a powerful family, the Ranas, relegated the Gorkha

monarchy to a secondary role and effectively became the rulers of Nepal, establishing a legacy of

dictatorial prime ministers that lasted over a century.

60 Pradan, Rajendra., “Ethnicity, caste and a pluralist society”, in Dixit, Kanak, Mani Shastri Ramachandaran., eds., State of Nepal, Lalitpur: Himal Books, (2002), p. 3 61 Sudhindra Sharma. “Dharmashastric View of Hindu Kingship: Implications for Discourse on Democracy and Constitutional Monarchy”. Presented in Conference on ‘The Agenda of Transformation: Inclusion in Nepali Democracy’, Organised by Social Science Baha. Kathmandu, 24-26 April 2003, quoted in: Krishna Hacchhethu, “Confronting Hindu Identity,” South Asian Journal, October-December 2003: http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magazine/journal/Nepal%20confronting%20hindu.htm (retrieved 1 May 2007) 62 Op cited: Rajendra., (2002), p. 2 63 Bal Gopal Shrestha, “Ethnic Nationalism in Nepal,” IIAS Newsletter. No. 30. March 2003, http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/30/IIASNL30_22.pdf (retrieved 14 April 2007), Varnas and Jats refer to the traditional Hindu castes and their derivative professions. 64 Sudhindra Sharma, a Nepali expert on religion and politics says that the historical origins of the godly association with the King are not known: Sudhindra Sharma, Director, Interdisciplinary Analysts, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-21 65 Op cited: Hacchethhu., (2003) 66 Op cited: Rajendra., (2002), p.3

24

The Ranas chose to build on the Hindu foundations that the Gorkha Kings had laid before them: In

1854, Jangabahadur, the first Rana minister, introduced laws based on Hinduism and divided the

country hierarchically, subordinating all other nationalities to the Brahmins and Kshetris (Khas)

ruling class.67 The civil code of 1854 the Muluki Ain (law of the land) cemented the cast system and

ensured that the rulers would exercise total control over a static society: “Grounded in the Hindu

idea of ritual purity, the Muluki Ain regulated the lives of every citizen from birth to death, making

social or political mobility almost impossible.”68 From then, the process of Hinduisation under the

Ranas though not overtly aggressive but rather “gradual and almost imperceptible” had its effects, of

which the slow, piecemeal adoption of Hindu traditions and the dominance of the Higher castes.69

One political function of this was to project a distinct image of Nepal vis-à-vis India which was seen

as “defiled” by Mughal Muslim rule and called pejoratively “Muglan” (land of Mughals). Jang

Bahadur Rana thus spoke: “We have our own country, a Hindu rajya [state], where laws prescribe

the cows shall not be slaughtered; nor women and Brahmins sentenced to capital punishment…In

this age of Kali70 this is the only where Hindus rule.”71 The Rana rule came to an abrupt end in the

1950s. This tumultuous decade also saw Nepal’s first democratic experiment, which lasted until 1960

when the Gorkha dynasty staged a royal coup and took back the power it has lost to the Ranas a

century before.

The Panchayat era: beginning of ambiguity

In 1962 King Mahendra established a party-less political system, the Panchayat, which lasted until the

popular revolution of 1990. This time marks the beginning of state ambiguity towards religion,

which characterises the religiopolitics in Nepal of the past half-century. The Panchayat regime both

enhanced the status of Hinduism in Nepal while toning down important aspects of it: it enshrined

Hinduism in the constitution of Nepal, officially giving it the name of “Hindu Kingdom” while

officially disposing of the Hindu Dharmashastras72 as source of laws thereby ending state-

endorsement of the millenarian Hindu caste system. These moves gave him a dual political and 67 Op cited: Bal Gopal Shrestha., (2003); Brahmin and Kshetris are the two highest castes of the traditional Hindu system. 68 Martin Hoftun, William Raeper, John Whelpton, People Politics & Ideology: Democracy and Social Change in Nepal, Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, (1999), p. 3 69 David N. Gellner, “Ethnic Rights and Politics in Nepal,” Himalayan Journal of Sociology, Vol. 2, pp. 1-17: http://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/staff/publications/Ethnic%20rights%20in%20Nepal%20(2005).pdf (retrieved 10 May 2007) 70 The ‘final’ of the four ages of Hinduism, the age of iron and darkness. There is a fierce Hindu goddess of the same name. 71 Op cited: Sharma., (2002), p. 25 72 The Dharmashastras are ancient Hindu texts (200 BCE- 200CE) that contain social laws of Hinduism, notably the laws governing the caste system.

25

religious source of legitimacy, as political ruler and King of Hindus, while parting with the caste

system allowed him to project the image of a modern reformer.73 It remains, however, that the

Panchayat regime ensured continued dominance of the higher castes and maintained the

endorsement of traditional Hindu customs and religion and national integration “by means of

adoption of Parbatiya [high-caste hill people] culture on the part of minorities.”74 But the 1962

Constitution also speaks of “the Nepali people irrespective of religion, race, caste or tribe.”75

Nevertheless, Nepal remained a poor and weak state throughout the Panchayat era and these failings

diminished the monarchy’s credibility. Towards the end of the Panchayat period the palace turned

strongly to religion hoping to re-legitimise its power, but to no avail.76 In 1990, as the soviet block

disintegrated in Eastern Europe, the people of Nepal also took to the streets to demand democracy

and a better society.

Panchayat decline

The Panchayat regime did not succeed to build a strong, cohesive state. The failures of the system

that led to the 1990 revolution were largely economical and political, but there was also an

underlying moral and religious crisis; “the Panchayat system had a detrimental effect on the ethics of

the Nepalese society. Several critics charged that Hinduism had become a corrupt political tool in

the hands of the governing elite. King Birendra stood as the head of his country as an incarnation of

the god Vishnu – but faith in his divinity and in his character was on the decline,”77 “In the spring of

1989 there was a feeling of crisis everywhere…the only hope for Nepal was to have a popular

democratic government.”78 Thus rang the end of an authoritarian era and the beginning of a second

democracy test. This was a period of national reckoning, of re-thinking of everything for which the

state of Nepal had stood for, including the role of Hinduism.

The dawn of secularism in Nepal

The interim government that formed following the dissolution of the Panchayat government faced,

for the first time in Nepal’s history, serious questioning over the preservation of the Hindu attribute

73 Op cited: Sharma., interview , (2007) 74 Op cited: Gellner., (2005) p. 3 75 Op cited: Sharma., (2002), p. 26 76 Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 289 77 Ibid, p.112 78 Ibid, p. 113

26

of the state as a concerted campaign for a secular state mounted.79 Despite being nominally Hindu,

Nepal is also a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, with Buddhists forming the largest non-Hindu

group, followed by Muslims, Christians and many other smaller religious denominations. The figures

of the official census of Nepal are commonly used by Hindu nationalists to justify the Hindu state

because of the clear Hindu majority it marks:80 According to the 2001 Census, 80.6% of the people

would be Hindu followed only by 7.78% Buddhists; but the census is contested by virtually every

non-Hindu group.81

That Communists82, Christians83 and Muslims campaigned vigorously for a secular state in 1990 did

not come as a surprise for most Hindus, but that they where joined by Buddhists, whom Hindus

thought of as being within their fold, came as a shock.84 Most Nepalese were unaware of the distinct

Buddhist identity that emerged with the education of their historical subordination and persecution

and their rising self-consciousness.”85 For example, G.B. Khapangi, the General Secretary of the

Nepal National People’s Liberation Front (NNPLF) commented this way: “In the name of

Hinduism we have lost our whole identity, language, culture – everything is theirs[…]caste laws have

destroyed our society.” 86 The nineties also saw many non-Hindu ethnic groups and also Hindu low-

castes, all of whom had been subordinated since the 18th century, rise to fight the domination of

high-caste Hindus, to the point that many began to worry that the strife caused by communalism in

India might spread across the border to Nepal.” 87

79 Op cited: Sharma., (2002), p. 27 80 In giving justifications for the continuation of the Hindu state, Bharat Keshar Simha, the President of the World Hindu Federation Nepal, and Arun Subedi, Secretary of the Shiv Sena Party, the two prominent Hindu nationalist organisations, said, respectively, that in Nepal, 90% and 89% were Hindus: Bharat Kesher Simha, President, World Hindu Federation (WHF), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-04; Arun Subedi, Party Secretary Shiv Sena Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-05-25 81 For official census figures see: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71442.htm; for criticism of see: Op cited: Sharma., (2002), p. 30, and Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 316-317

82 In the 1990 debate, Communist leaders and members of the Interim Cabinet publicly declared that Nepal should be a secular state. See: Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 313 83 Christians also contributed to the secular demand by staging their first ever public rally on May 7 1990, Christians that were imprisoned on religious grounds because of ban on conversion where released, a few weeks latter. See: Ibid. 84 Op cited: sharma., (2002), p. 27 85 Ibid, p. 33; Op cited, Hoftun et al. (1999), p. 315 86 The NNPLF is a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group (Magars); Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 327 87 Ibid, p. 312

27

Hindu reaction

If many thought that minority demands where justified, others mingled worry with fear that Nepal

could become “another Kampuchea, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.”88 Many Hindus took fright, and the

reaction was strong. The press reflected the mood in the street: Achut Regmi, a Hindu nationalist

urged the Nepalese Hindus to take to the streets and fight for a Hindu kingdom.89 The moderate

conservative newspaper Motherland criticised the interim government in an editorial on 26 June 1990:

“Quite obviously very strong emotions have been aroused with the government itself taking up the

question of secularism when the practice was that the Hindu state tolerated the observances of any

religion with remarkable co-existence and fault-free history of mutual respect.”90 On June 29 1990,

five to six thousand people marched the streets chanting, “We want a Hindu nation!” The following

day, a march organised by the Nepal Buddhist Association gathered twenty-five to thirty thousand

people who responded: “give us a secular state, Buddhism is not just a branch of Hinduism!”91 The

voices of the two rival ideologies of order were now loudly arguing for their case in the streets of

Kathmandu.

In the end, Hindu nationalists worked earnestly to preserve Nepal’s Hindu identity and won the

contest: Nepal was to remain a Hindu state. The 1990 status quo begs the question: Why did

conservative Hindus win? One commentator answers simply: “Put bluntly, Hinduism was in

people’s blood…The forces at work to maintain Nepal as a Hindu state were too strong.”92 What

are these forces? Many believed that elements of the old regime (the Panchayat) and even the palace

were involved.93 Another observer put it this way: “the main reason for the Hindu victory was the

simple fact that Brahmans were in majority in all the relevant political institutions.”94

Nepal remained a Hindu state but not without the kind of ambiguity found in the 1962 Constitution.

The 1990 constitution proclaimed that Nepal was a multinational and multilingual country while it

retained Nepali as the official language and Hinduism as the sole state religion. Democratic Nepal

88 Ibid, p. 333 89 Ibid, p. 315 90 Ibid, p. 314; this same argument, that Nepal’s tradition of religious tolerance did not warrant secularisation, was reflected by Hindu nationalists following the 2006 declaration of Nepal as a secular state: Op cited: Simha., interview, (2007); Op cited: Subedi, interview, (2007) 91 Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 315 92 Ibid, p. 319 93 Ibid. 94 Padma Ratna Tuladhar, quoted in: Ibid, p. 334

28

had to reconcile its multiple functions as protector of the Hindu religion, which maintains the idea

that non-Hindus are secondary citizens, while adopting, in principle and in line with modern

democratic nations, the values of equality, liberalism, pluralism, and non-discrimination.95 A difficult

balancing act was in the making.

The state of Hinduness

Keeping in mind that the Hindu social laws and the caste system providing the foundation on which

to order society were already abolished in 1962, it is appropriate to ask what made the Nepal of the

1990s ‘Hindu’ beyond the official title.

The spring of 1990 was not a total revolution. The popular democratic impulses ended the

Panchayat rule and led to multi-party politics but not to the demise of the institution of Kingship.

The God-King remained the effective head of state. However, to be nuanced, Nepal was far from

being a full-fledged theocracy; a clergy did not govern its people and a strict religious code did not

constrain its citizen; but neither was it a de facto secular state. Its Hindu nationalist tradition upheld

by the palace; tacit discrimination of non-Hindus; and a few explicit pro-Hindu laws, symbols, and

policies are what put Nepal somewhere in the middle. According to Sudhindra Sharma, a specialist

on religion and politics in Nepal, important Hindu state markers are the ban on cow slaughter, the

ban on conversion, the policies of Sanskritization, and the sponsoring of Hindu festivals.96

The cow is the most potent symbol of Hinduism in Nepal and its slaughter has long been illegal.

While it no longer warrants capital punishment as it did under Ran Bahadur Shah two centuries ago,

or life imprisonment as the 1854 Civil Code stipulated, under the 1990 Constitution it remained a

crime punishable with a hefty 12 years of imprisonment. Although in practice the law was rarely

strictly enforced it is to this day very much taboo. Opponents of secularism often cite cow-welfare

95 Op cited, Hacchethhu, (2003) 96Op cited: Sharma., (2002), p. 27-30

29

as main reason to preserve the Hindu state97 while the cow symbol is potent enough for pro-secular

ethnic minority groups to lobby for the rhino to replace the sacred cow.98

Non-Hindus may also feel prejudiced by the numerous state-sponsored Hindu festivals. Thirteen of

the nineteen state holidays are Hindu festivals. The King makes prominent appearances in the most

important of these, Dassain, which lasts six days. The promotion of Hindu education, notably

through the teaching of Sanskrit, the Hindu sacred language, is also controversial. Sharma explains

that Hindu epics are inserted into textbooks, particularly in language-related subjects, and that

Sanskrit has become a symbol inextricably linked with Hinduism in Nepal. Objection against

Sanskritization are taken as objections to Hinduism itself. Finally, and perhaps one of the most

significant constraint on religious freedom, is the ban on conversion. Article 19 of the 1990

Constitution states that "Everyone shall have the freedom to profess and practice his own religion as

handed down to him having due regard to ancient practices; provided that no person shall be

entitled to convert another person from one religion to another."99 This restriction is yet another

aspect that reveals the ambiguity of the Hindu constitution: while it professes freedom of religion, it

does not allow a person to convert to another religion. Sharma claims that “orthodox Hindus also

designate everyone who advocates the right to convert as enemies of Hinduism.”100 We can also

note that many state rituals are associated with Hindu kingship such as the coronation, mortuary

rites, and others official rites that sometimes involve both the King and the Prime Minister.101

Finally, some non-Hindus take offence of the existence of the mul purohit and raj guru institutions,

97 Arun Subedi, Secretary of Shiv Sena Nepal, in an interview commented: “Imagine a day when people slaughter cows in fron of Kathmandu’s temples. Hindus will be ready to give up their lives to stop it.” See: Bikash Sangraula, “Nepal Faces Hindu Backlash over Declaration as Secular State,” The Christian Science Monitor, 30 May 2006: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0530/p04s01-wosc.html 98 Such as the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN): Pasang Sherpa, Chairperson, NEFIN, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-07-01 99 See: U.S. Department of State, “International Religious Freedom Report 2006”: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71442.htm (retrieved August 10 2007). 100 Op cited, Sharma., (2002), p. 30; Sharma makes an interesting point regarding the contradiction betwen Hinduism’s most extraordinary feature and the ban: ‘the ban on proselytising may be extracting form Nepal’s Hinduism its creative capacity to-reformulate itself.” Ibid. P. 36; it is interesting to note that Hinduism is not traditionaly a proselytising religion and that enforcing bans on conversion may be a way to neutralise this disadvantage. 101 Interestingly, the current Prime Minister B.P. Koirala, has begun to conduct Hindu rituals that were once the privilege of the King which has earned him virulent editorials. See: Avantika Regmi, “It is a matter of Disgrace”, The Kathmandu Post, 22 June 2007

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respectively the state priest and state “guru,” whom the government employs to perform various

Hindu rituals and official functions.102

The kingship

To understand the Hinduness of the state and its latter decline, we must emphasise that it is

intrinsically linked with the monarchy, Nepal’s erstwhile most solid institution. Sharma explains that

it is primarily through the institution of Kingship that Hinduism has nourished a symbiotic

relationship with the state since its formation in the late 18th century, and even under the Rana

dynasty in which the Kings had a secondary role:103 “The polity places the King as “sovereign lord, a

protector of territory and subjects, a guardian of moral order, an upholder of traditions, and the

source of all spiritual and temporal power,”104 he is the “enforcer of the dhamma.”105 The idea that he

is an emanation of the Hindu god Vishnu has also been cultivated for centuries. Though both of the

King’s political and religious sources of authority have vacillated over time, it remains that he has

been, for the most part, “a unifying figure and all-important symbol of nationhood.”106But this

double source of authority also translates in a double vulnerability. It is not possible to attack him on

one aspect without affecting the other, and because he is the embodiment of the Hindu Kingdom,

“the sole Hindu institution so far as the state is concerned,”107 attacking his political authority by

extension brings injury to the Hindu state.

What’s in a name?

We must also understand Nepal’s Hindu tag from the point of view of its political functions; as a

factor that coloured both domestic and international policy, and as a feature that wields a certain

amount of “soft power.”

102 In an interview the Raj Guru has mentioned that since 2005 he no longer does work for the Parliamentary wing of the Government of Nepal, which pays his salary, and that he is now only summoned to the palace. Dr Bhattarai, Madhav, Nepal Raj Guru (“State Religious advisor”), Government of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-29 103 Op cited, Sharma., (2002), p. 23 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid p.35; dhamma, a Sanskrit term used in most Indic traditions, is the “spiritual law and order,” it is often loosely translated as religion. 106 Op cited, Hoftun et al. (1999), p. 289 107 Op cited, Sharma., (2002), p.35

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As a symbol it may have the effect of tacit endorsement and maintenance of a socio-economic

system that favours the Hindu religion and the highest classes and castes within it.108 Furthermore, it

has historically served Nepal’s policy of isolation, especially from India, and, more recently, for

Nepal to project a distinct image from secular India, sending a message to the upper castes and

those who benefit from state patronage of Hinduism that they will be looked after, unlike in India

where “the country is perceived to be ruled by an anglicised elite that has come to disown its own

heritage and religion and has taken up the cause of secularism”109 which is often derogatorily equated

with minority appeasement. Furthermore, Nepali Kings “have also tried to use their leverage among

the Hindus of India to counter the possible alliance between secular forces of India and Nepal

against their interests.”110

There is indeed much in a name. The simple fact of being named an “Islamic” state, a “Buddhist” or

“Hindu” Kingdom reveals the colour and sets the tone of the government, even though in

substance it is not always clear to the observer what it means. As Juergensmeyer saw it, “the political

role of religion is primarily in formulating national identity and purpose.”111 It is often the very first

demand of a religious nationalist movement and the first gesture posed once in power is to change

the official name. These attributes are loaded with meaning, just as “secular” or “democratic” are.112

And when the media uses these terms to refer to a nation or a political party it is usually with either

an approving or disapproving tone depending on which side it stands, but it is rarely neutral. By

clinging to religious names religious nationalists want to appeal to those who approve of it both

inside and outside the country’s borders, and the opposite is true for secularists.

In this sense, these official attributes wield a certain amount of “soft power:”113 States are conscious

of the charismatic effect of their names and choose them accordingly, based on the audience they

108 As Hoftun et al. put it in describing why one Brahman political activist might be opposed to secularisation: “As a high caste Brahman, Regmi [a former Nepali Congress politician] himself was part of the elite who had occupied a privileged position precisely because Nepal was a Hindu state. If the new constitution were to make Nepal a secular country this might directly challenge the high-caste Hindus’ traditional hold on power.” Op cited, Hoftun et al. (1999), p316 109 Op cited, Oberoi., (2004), p. 101 110 Sanu Bhai Dangol, The Palace in Nepali Politics, Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, (1999) quoted in: Op cited, Hacchethhu., (2003) 111 Mark Juergensmeyer, “The New Religious State,” Comparative Politics, Vol.27, No. 4, July 1995, p. 388 112 “When the word ‘democracy’ is used it is almost universally felt that we are praising it…” George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell and Politics, London: Penguin Books (2001), p 402. 113 Joseph Nye introduced this term referring the appeal of popular American culture and its effect in international relations. Here, out of its American context, it refers to the ability to exert influence through cultural or religious means. See: Joseph S. Nye Jr,. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York, NY: Public Affairs, (2004).

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wish to appeal to. Just like the function of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s name is partly there to

appeal to the whole Shi’ite croissant, the Hindu Kingdom appeals to Hindu nationalists within

Nepal’s borders, to Indian Hindu nationalists displeased with Indian secularism, and, importantly, to

the vast Hindu Diaspora who knows and cherishes Nepal as “the only Hindu country in the world,”

and whose moral and financial support is important.114 Nepal is the only remaining Hindu Kingdom.

The former Kings of India, the famed maharajas, have now for main function to cater to rich

tourists in their hotel-transformed palaces. Many Nepalese Hindus find pride that their King is the

head of state and “emperor of all Hindus” of the world.115 The name “Hindu Kingdom,” projects an

aura of religiosity and morality to those who approve of it. The naming of a country should be

understood as a policy decision. It might be that enough powerful people now feel that the ‘soft

power’ function of the Hindu state is not worth it anymore. Being called a ‘secular’ state can appeal

to an altogether different but important audience. If the Hindu feature appeals to many, it has an

adverse effect for proponents of secularism, which might include the western donor nations and

NGOs on which Nepal depends so much, as a local intellectual hinted.116 We can therefore look at

this from the perspective of a rational policy decision based on the benefits of appealing to one

group as opposed to another within and outside of the borders.

The state of Hinduness: conclusion

So far, we have seen that the Hinduness of the nation has deep historical roots. It is part of the

tradition and culture of the country, mostly upheld by the institution of kingship, and it has also

been fed by a policy of ‘soft’ Hinduisation which includes pro-Hindu laws and policies that have

persisted to this day, and against which many segments of the population are opposed. Though we

cannot portray Nepal as an aggressive theocracy it remains that is not a de facto secular state either;

114 Although I know of no study on the funding and influence of diasporas on religious nationalism in Nepal or India, it is a common allegation that Hindu nationalist organizations get much of their support from abroad. Famed Historian Romila Thapar has published an article on this subject: http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/22/stories/2004022208600300.htm; in an interview, Bharat Keshar Simha has also underlined the importance of the “worldwide support for the Hindu Kingdom,” and has said that the declaration had hurt Hindu feelings all over the world: Op cited Barhat Keshar Simha., (2007); for another example, a New York based

organisation, the Sanatan Dharma and Sanskrit Organisation is sending mass e-mails and multiplying calls fro the Hindu Diaspora to rally against the secular project in Nepal, see: http//newsblaze.com/story/20070612212335nnnn.nb/topstory.html 115 Ashock Singhal, the head of the powerful Indian Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad has given the title of “Emperor of all Hindus” to King Gyanendra on the occasion of the silver jubilee of the organization. King Gyanendra is known to patronise this and several other Indian Hindu nationalist organisations. See: Siddhart Varadarajan, “Uneasiness about the ‘Hindu’ tag,” The Hindu, 3 October (2004): http://www.hindu.com/2004/10/03/stories/2004100300280900.htm 116 Lal, CK, Journalist, Journalist, The Nepali Times, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-05-22

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apart from the various laws and policies described above, the very naming of Nepal as a Hindu state

shows that the attribute has functions and effects. That so many people are either vehemently

opposed to it while others are passionate about its preservation is the simplest way to testify of this.

The second democratic experiment

As the 1990 Constitution maintained the Hindu state, discontent lingered throughout the decade

and there was “an enormous increase in the accusations of ‘Brahminism’, i.e. pro-Brahman policies

and Brahman domination.”117 Although secularism had knocked hard enough on the door to rattle

Hindu nationalists, it was apparently not enough to make these concert their efforts to entrench

Hindu nationalism deeper into Nepal’s pores so that the traumatic debates of 1990 would not

resurface. As this was a period of competitive democratic politics, one could have imagined to see

political parties build their programs on a Hindu nationalist platform and stir the emotions that

emerged with the “threat” of secularism, all the more because they could witness how well Hindu

politics where serving their Indian counterparts in that same period. But there was none of that, nor

incidents of communalism similar to those that marred inter-religious relations in India. 118

The 1990s saw successive governments, parties and prime ministers, none succeeding where the

others had failed. Political bickering, rampant corruption and failure to address economic

development and poverty alleviation quickly poisoned the jubilant atmosphere released with the

successful popular uprising, while King Birendra kept a back seat, seemingly content with not being

involved in mucky politics. The free political climate also unearthed various ethnic, religious, and

linguistic grievances that had been festering underground in the decades of totalitarianism. Street-

protests and nation-wide strikes again became familiar sights. The strongest political forces of the

seven main political parties were the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal

(CPN). It is from the former that the Nepali Communist Party-Maoist (CPN-M) split in 1996 to

wage the Nepal’s People War, “taking advantage of the public’s high expectations and rapid

disenchantment,”119 thereby contributing to Nepal’s worst bout of uncertainty and crisis. High on

117 Op cited: Gellner., (2005); charges which were fuelled by the eventual introduction of news read in Sanskrit on the radio and the introduction of compulsory Sanskrit in schools up to class 8. 118 With the notable exception of riots and attacks targeting Nepali Muslims following the execution of Nepali workers in Iraq. 119 Kanak Mani Dixit., “A new King and the challenge of democracy”, in Dixit, Kanak Mani, Shastri Ramachandaran., eds., State of Nepal, Lalitpur: Himal Books, (2002), p. 66

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the Maoist agenda was ousting the King and be done with feudalism – attached to this was a

demand for a secular state.

Five years into the Maoist war a most unlikely and inauspicious tragedy hit the royal palace and

jolted Nepal to its foundations. On December 1, 2001, The King’s son, Crown Prince Dipendra,

seized an automatic weapon and killed the king, queen, his brother and sister, and six others.120 The

ensuing nation-wide state of shock and disbelief cannot be overstated. Nevertheless, the palace

massacre did not sound the end of the monarchy. The King’s brother, Gyanendra, who happened to

be away from the Palace at the moment, ascended the throne and became the 12th successor of the

Shah dynasty – and possibly its last. The new King had more of a penchant for assertive politics

than his predecessor, and he was much less appreciated. After dismissing successive governments

and prime-ministers, and as the inefficiency of the political parties and the Maoist war dragged on,

King Gyanendra finally seized complete power, dissolved the parliament and declared a state of

emergency in February 2005. The ensuing political tumult lasted until April 2006, when disabused

Nepalese staged their second quasi-revolution in as many decades, forcing the King to cede back

power to the Parliament, which was now to include the Maoists as agreed in the terms of a much-

anticipated peace-process.

The newly assembled parliament set up a joint task force assembled from the seven main political

parties plus the Maoists to write an interim constitution. Among the many issues they addressed was

the fate of the ‘Hindu’ status of Nepal and secularism. None of these parties were Hindu nationalist

formations so there was no pro-Hindu force to speak of. Otherwise, the CPN-M and other leftist

parties were expectedly secular. To all avail, the question was intrinsically related to the future fate of

the monarchy. In any case, according to a United-Marxist-Leninist (UML) Member of Parliament

present at the discussion, there was little debate, and the joint task-force settled the question in less

than fifteen minutes.121 Thus, without lengthy clashes over ideologies of order, cosmic battles – or public

consultation – the fate of Nepal was sealed and secular. The people of Nepal found out when the

House of Representatives declaration was made public on May 18, 2006. Its eighth point states:

“NEPAL SHALL BE A SECULAR STATE.”122

120 For the sordid details, see: Ibid, p. 68-71 121 Pandey, Surendra, Member of Parliament, United Marxist Leninist (UML), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-14 122 For the full text of the HoR declaration: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/nepal/document/papers/house_representive.htm

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5 – Analysis

This section will link the case to the theory and attempt to answer the research question to explain

why religious nationalism has weakened to the point of not being able to prevent official

secularisation. At the same time, we will try to evaluate how the theories facilitate the analysis of our

case, and attempt to identify shortcomings and suggestions for future research. This will require

going through an exhaustive list of independent variables, which reflects the complexity of both this

case and the related theoretical questions that Juergensmeyer, Almond et al. and Keddie have

addressed. The reasons that explain the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal and the shift to

secularism can be divided in the following categories largely following Strong Religion’s categorisation:

(1) The lack of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation: The tools of religiopolitical mobilisation

refer to an aggregation of all the elements that religious nationalists can instrumentalise in order to

stimulate or maintain religious nationalism. These elements mostly overlap with the various

structural and contextual factors outlined in the literature reviewed in this research. The more

abundant these ‘tools’ are the easier it is to boost or maintain religious nationalism. I will argue that

shortage of these partly explains why religious nationalism could not be maintained in Nepal.

(2) Leadership: As the literature made clear, leadership and human agency always determines the

outcome of religious nationalism. But the leadership factor is to a great extent dependent on the

availability of the above-mentioned tools, although exceptional leadership can compensate for a

shortage. We will see that the lack of tools and a legitimacy crisis centred on the King and the top-

bottom structure of Hindu nationalism in Nepal explain why leadership is partly responsible for the

decline.

(3) “Contingency and Chance”: As the author’s of Strong Religion have noted, there are always

unpredictable events that fit no category. The palace massacre fits here.

The House of Representatives adopted the country's draft interim constitution on January 15 2007, which states on Point 5: “State of Nepal: Nepal is an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive, and fully democratic state.” For full text see: http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Nepal_Interim_Constitution2007.pdf

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(4) Other contextual and structural factors: Here, broad elements like democracy, modernisation,

civil society, education, political characteristics, and the international environment need mention. We

could place the Maoist war in this category.

The tools of religiopolitical mobilisation

As mentioned in the introduction, the secular-liberal-democratic model that was exported to the

newly liberated colonies in Asia and elsewhere in 20th century with quasi-religious zeal123 often ended

in failure; the only thing that the ‘nation-building’ process actually built was something that became

known as the third world. As Juergensmeyer noted, high-expectation led to high disappointment,

and the solution was religious nationalism grounded in local culture and traditions.

The authors of the selected literature have found that the most common grievance and motivation

for religious nationalists is exactly that failure of the post-colonial secular nation-building

experiment. Religious nationalists grieve about its lack of concrete results in the form of an overall

solid and cohesive society, and blame it on its Western influence and on the Western-oriented local

elite’s disregard for indigenous culture, religion, and mores. Therefore, common grievances and

common recipients for the blame unite religious nationalists of the world. However, as mentioned

before, Nepal was never colonised and it has no experience of official secularism: it has been known

as a Hindu state for most of its history with its pro-Hindu policies and outlook, and with 1962

marking the constitutional endorsement of its Hindu status. In Nepal, it is not the secular

experiment but the Hindu state that has not done well; totalitarianism, political turmoil, and general

discontent, even under a democratic regime, have prevailed. This might be the outstanding

difference between Nepal and other cases: Religious nationalists in Nepal are deprived of the most

potent source of grievance available to others. The ailments that cripple Nepal cannot be blamed on

the colonial legacy, the west, or secularism; it is under a religious nationalist canopy that the

misfortunes developed. Religious nationalists cannot point in any credible way to the overall

achievements of the Hindu Kingdom to justify continuation, depriving them from positive tools as

well. Thus forces are rather pushing for a shift, for trying something new.

123 Juergensmeyer discusses the quasi-religiousness of secular nationalism, op cited: Juergensmeyer, (1993), p.15-16

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Few blame the failures solely on the Hinduness of the state, in fact a majority of people want to

retain the Hindu attribute according to two different polls,124 but the people who have the upper

hand at the moment happen to perceive it as part of the problem: the system in place with the King

at its head has failed, and Hindu nationalism is so intrinsically attached to the palace that it would be

hard to separate it from the rest, so it is the whole package that is being disposed of. It is safe to say

that if religious nationalists could at least point to the strength and prosperity of Nepal it would be

easier for them to base their rhetoric on positive achievements. But they do not. It is then the

failures under religious nationalism and the lack of someone to blame that we take as our first cause

of decline.

Fragile state

If we are going to talk about the failures under religious nationalism in Nepal it is essential to

mention salient salient features of the socio-economic state of affairs, especially because many of the

elements for this explanation overlap with theoretical elements that the authors of Strong Religion and

Keddie have identified as having leverage on the dynamics of religious nationalism, elements mainly

related to economic development and political factors. But for the reasons explained above the

causality is reversed in Nepal; it is pro-secularists that have had the advantage of being able to use

these elements against religious nationalism.

Things were not well in the Hindu Kingdom. Nepal has a history of totalitarianism, punctuated by

coups, popular revolutions, and democratic experiments that only highlighted the governing elite’s

political immaturity and proclivity for corruption. As the authors of People Politics and Ideology:

Democracy and Social Change in Nepal explain, legitimacy rests to a great extent on economic

development.125 Nepal is one of the poorest nations in Asia. Four out of ten people live with less

than one Dollar a day. Nepal ranks 138 and 147 out of 177 in the Human Development and Gross

Domestic Product indexes.126 The infrastructure, especially in the capital, cannot support its growing

population. Traffic is abysmal and dangerous; sewage overflows daily and spreads deadly disease in

the monsoon rain, and the air quality ranks Kathmandu the second most polluted city in Asia. This

124 52% and 61% according to two different polls, op cited: Sharma and Sen, (2007); p. 14; Op cited: Hacchethu, (2007), p. 11 125 Op cited: Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 345 126 United Nations Development Program Statistics: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_NPL.html

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sorry reality is all the more frustrating for citizens who know of Nepal’s immense potential given its

rich resources, most importantly fresh water and hydro-power. People blame the government’s

inability to safeguard these and other assets from foreign hands, and the usual suspect is India whom

people take as dictating Nepal’s ways more than their own government. The country depends on

foreign aid and weak leadership hampers its effective use. The weak economy is the country’s major

problem according to seventy percent of respondents of a poll.127

The last two decades saw two revolutions, repeated states of emergency, and a prolonged civil-war.

Daily news report strikes, political assassinations, and a parallel system of law-enforcement that

rivals the state police and army. Even though people can be happy that the civil war is over and that

the peace process holds, there is uncertainty as to where the country is heading. Elections that were

due in June 2007 were cancelled and postponed to November 2007, and doubts persist about

whether they will be free and fair, if held at all.128 Fortunately, the country still controls its territory

and citizen have not yet massively denied the government the right to collect tax, saving Nepal of

being called an outright failed state.129 Nevertheless, one could easily call it, optimistically, a fragile

state. Foreign Policy magazine’s index of failed states ranks Nepal the 21st in the unflattering

“Danger” category, squeezed between Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan, and one count short of the

“Critical” failed state category.130 All these indicators, and the moral failings and corruption that have

led to them cannot be blamed on the western secular legacy, as can be done in neighbouring

Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka (ranked 12, 16, 25 on the same index). But it can and it is blamed

on the Hindu state.131

127 Krishna Hacchhethu, “The State of Nepali Democracy”, (Survey conducted with South Asian Democracy Study Group and International IDEA), The Nepali Times, No. 352. 8-14 June (2007) 128 In an interview, a member of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said that he did not doubt the elections would be held but said that his party members did not dare go to the country-side to promote their party: Baburam Paudel, Central Committee Member, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), interview, Kathmandu, 2007-06-28; likewise, many others feel intimidated by Maoist-affiliated groups, notably the Young Communist League, who are known for their intimidation tactics and the parallel law and order system they operate, which have owned them Prime Minister Koirala’s affective sobriquet “Young Criminal League”. 129 For a discussion on whether Nepal is a failed state and the political implications of that appellation see: Pyakuryal, Bishwambher., “Politico-economic instability: Is Nepal a failed state?” The Himalayan Times, 15 June 2007 130 It is worth noting the 5 factors that most contributed to Nepal’s poor ranking as these echo many elements mentioned in this research (10 being the worst score): uneven development along group lines (9.2), Legacy of vengance-seeking group-grievance or group-paranoia (8.9), Criminalization and/or delegitimization of the state (8.5), Rise of factionalized elites (8.5), Security apparatus operates as a “state within a state” (8.3): The Failed Sate Index 2007, Foreign Policy, July-August (2007): http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865 131 Feeling the urge to insert something positive in this otherwise gloomy picture, we can rejoice that tourism after a long lull during the civil war has almost increased to pre-war level bringing much needed capital. Tourists can enjoy safely what is still, despite its troubles, one of the most hospitable and stunningly beautiful countries in the world.

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The fragile state and its impact on leadership

Hindu nationalists in Nepal cannot use aversion towards secularism and grievances about its failures

for political mobilisation as the authors have noted is done elsewhere, but there could still be other

tools available, as perceived threats or enemies, not secular, but from other religions inside and out

of the country, a local Clash of Civilisations. This merits attention because, in contrast with

Juergensmeyer, Huntington and others see inter-religious conflicts, rather than the ones between

secular and religious nationalism, as being the most relevant type of religious friction of our times.

Keddie has also noted the importance of communalism for fundamentalism to develop. But we will

find that this other type of grievance so abundant in other parts of the world, notably in India, is

sparse in Nepal. It seems difficult to mobilise Hindus in Nepal based on the threat of a religious

“other.”

Rationale for a Hindu State

When I asked Hindu nationalists who are openly opposed to secularism how they justified their

position, they offered “soft” reasons – not reasons based on a specific threat so common in religious

nationalist rhetoric as Juergensmyer’s interviews have shown.132 For example, the head of the World

Hindu Federation and close advisor to the King, Bharat Keshar Simha, said that Nepal had always

been a Hindu Kingdom, and its positive record of inter-religious harmony justified continuation.133

Likewise, the general Secretary of Shiv Sena Nepal (The Army of Shiva), a well known Hindu

nationalist organisation and political party, said: “It is our identity…nine out of ten are

Hindus…Nepal is the only Hindu country in the world.”134 Other than the perceived “inter-religious

harmony,” neither based their rhetoric on the Hindu state’s positive socio-economic achievements.

The rare negative rhetoric was not based on past or existing threats but on hypothetical future ones.

Arun Subedi, speaking of the future consequences of the recent shift to secularisation said: “It’s the

end of inter-religious tolerance and harmony.”135 “If Nepal is not a Hindu kingdom then there is no

Nepal. We are entering into a holy war.”136 Obviously the rationale for the religious state is not

always expressed in the same way; the argument here is that this type of reason is prevalent and that

the above-mentioned statements probably reflect the most common rationale that Hindu nationalist

132 Op cited: Juergensmeyer,. (1993), see especially p. 11-26 133 Op cited: Bharat Keshar Simha, interview, (2007) 134 Op cited: Arun Subedi, interview, (2007) 135 Ibid 136Charles Haviland, “Hindu Fears over Secular State”, interview with Arun Subedi, 18 September (2006) BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5355816.stm

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leaders give to the media. It is interesting to note that these ‘soft’ reasons also reflect those that

people gave in an opinion poll when asked: “If Nepal should be a Hindu state, then why?” The first

answer is: “It is part of tradition; Nepal has always remained Hindu (60%); followed by: “Nepal is

identified as a Hindu state in the world (29%); and a small minority also spoke of future conflicts:

“If not Hindu, it will invite conflict in the name of religion (5%).”137 In sum, religious nationalist

leaders and 89% of the “pro-Hindu” population base their stance on “soft” reasons; perhaps it is

not enough for political Hinduism to stir enough passion to build a mass-movement as there is in

India. As Keddie has stressed, communalism is what may make the difference between religious

nationalism or none because of the passions communalism stirs in the population and the ease with

which these passions can be exploited; communalism helps develop identification to one’s

community “against” other communities.138 But there must be at least minimal possibilities to do so,

and there might not be in Nepal.

Because the literature stresses the instrumental importance of threats for religious nationalism, it is

noteworthy that the Hindu nationalist rhetoric in Nepal is not grounded in hostility to a specific

“other” or directed at internal threats from a rival religion. And the reason for this is probably that it

would be difficult to do so given Nepal’s history and religious demography. If India’s Hindu

nationalists have access to abundant material to fabricate or exaggerate, for example, the “Muslim

threat,” it is hard to do so in Nepal. As Paul Brass and Ali Ashgar Engineer, two specialists on

communal relations in India, have explained, inter-religious threats are easily constructed, inflated

and propagated.139 But there are at least some true historical catalysts that form the basis of these

constructions and exaggerations. Of which, that Muslims invaded and ruled India for centuries only

to be succeeded by a Christian empire (the ‘secular-Christian threat’ that followed the ‘Muslim

threat’). They may be exaggerating, for example, the anti-Hindu activities of Auragzeb the Mughal

ruler and may downplay the tolerance of his predecessor Akbar, but no one can challenge the

historicity of their rule over much of the Indian territory. The material is abundant: they have the

traumatic partition of India along religious lines and the enduring wars and rivalry with Muslim

Pakistan, the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, terrorist attacks on Indian soil attributed to Muslim

groups, and several instances of severe communal Hindu-Muslim and also Sikh confrontations that

137 Op cited, Sharma., (2007) p. 46 138 Op cited, Keddie., (1998), p. 702 139 Ashgar Ali Engineer, Paul Brass, “Muslims in Hindu Nationalist India”, Center Conversations, Ethics and Public Policy Center Conference Paper. No. 28, April (2004)

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resulted in massive casualties, not to mention the many important disputed holy sites such as

Ayodhya and the pogroms these have created. Religious nationalist movements are typically

exploiting threats of an “other,” which helps them mobilise people to their cause. But that “other” is

difficult to locate in Nepal. Nepal was never a colony, neither Christians nor Muslims invaded it, it

has experienced no large-scale inter-religious violence nor any other type of traumatic event that can

be credibly blamed on this or that religious minority. Hindu nationalists in Nepal, instead, speak of

the harmony that reigned under the Hindu Kingdom to justify continuation.

Despite the controversial census figures it is clear that religious demographics show a solid Hindu

majority with Buddhists for main minority. It is not customary to talk about Hindu-Buddhist

confrontations, and it is very difficult for most Hindus to demonise or speak of a ‘Buddhist threat’

for the simple reason that they take Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism. Furthermore, the Buddha,

whose birthplace is in Nepal, is in the Hindu lore the ninth and last avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu

(the same god the King emanates from). Furthermore, the Tantric and Shakti variations of

Buddhism and Hinduism that have developed in Nepal make them very difficult to distinguish. The

Hindu nationalists I have interviewed often said that Nepal ought to be a Hindu state by the virtue

of its “ninety-percent Hindu majority.” When asked about the Buddhist opposition to these figures,

they spoke of Omkar, a concept typical of Hinduism’s high absorption capacity that refers to the

larger “Hindu family” which includes Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. Buddhists are simply taken as

Hindus’ kin. (When I asked Buddhists whether they viewed themselves as a branch of Hinduism,

there all frowned, and spoke a clear “no”.)

As for Christians, they are a very small community counting 0.45% of the population, and though

there is fear of Christian conversions and alluring through missionary work and NGO influences,

prompting fears that mass conversions could undermine the whole base and structure of Hindu

society,140 it is seemingly not enough to massively mobilise people around a Christian threat, as is

also customary in India.141 And the same applies for Muslims who constitute 4.2% of the population,

although there have been more cases of agitation involving the Muslim community.142 The only

severe incident of Hindu-Muslim communal violence in the past decade occurred following the

140 Hoftun et al., (1999), p. 334 141 An exception would be the president of the world Hindu Federation`s allegation that there was a Christian plan to convert half the population to Christianity by 2000”, Hoftun et. al., (1999), p.338 142 See: Op cited, Hoftun et al., (1999), p.156

42

execution of twelve Nepali workers in Iraq for which some Hindu groups in Nepal sought revenge

on Nepali Muslims.143 Other than this, Nepal has been relatively free from severe inter-religious

violence, and is devoid of historical catalysts and traumas that can be credibly attributed to non-

Hindus, and this deprives religious nationalists from a tool of religiopolitical mobilisation that is very

potent elsewhere: the threat, fear, of an “other” based on religious difference; there is no internal

Clash of Civilizations in Nepal.

If not the secular west, the local secular elite, or religious minorities, who else then could personify

an anti-Hindu enemy? The Maoists perhaps? After all, it is them who have asked for a secular state

at the point of AK-47s, and they are communists and therefore should be in principle atheists?

Although many religious nationalists perceive Maoists as enemies144 – being the brute force behind

the fall of the Hindu Kingdom – they have not been widely portrayed directly in terms of an “anti-

religious” force.145 In general, Maoists do not fit the anti-religious/atheist communist stereotype.

The Maoists seem to have managed a skilled balancing act: on the one hand harvesting the

grievances left by decades of pro-Hindu discrimination, and, on the other, being careful enough not

to harm Hindu or traditional sentiments. Though the CPN-M official banners display the usual

communist avatars146 alongside their leader Prachanda, they have differed from Mao and some of his

acolytes in that they have not proactively promoted atheism and anti-religious policies. Although it is

reported that there were incidents in the People’s War, especially at the beginning, that involved

iconoclastic gestures such as destroying temples or intimidating priests, they were quick to realise the

strategic downside of those methods. They have managed to recruit all the marginalised people of

the Hindu state system while they have also displayed respect for the Hindu religion and its

traditions.

143 The names of well-known Hindu nationalist groups have circulated in connection to the rioting and burning of a mosque in the capital: Op cited, Varadarajan., (2004) 144 Of which Arun Subedi and Bharat Keshar Simha, Op cited: Subedi, interview, (2007); Op cited: Simha, interview, (2007) 145 See for example: Mahima, Pro-Hindu, published in The Nepali Times Internet Edition, 2 august 2007: http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/360/FromtheNepaliPress/13810 146 As they appear on the CPN-M banners: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Prachanda. To visualize the effigies see: http://cpnm.org/new/video/posters/POSTER10TH-EN.JPG

43

It is well known that, like most political parties of Nepal, the Maoist elite is mostly high-caste

Brahmin, including the leader Prachanda.147 The CPN-M has no policy of atheism for its members

(as the Chinese Communist Party has) and a study reports that only 11% of CPN-M members in

Nepal describe themselves as atheist.148 One Maoist MP said that party members where free to

profess any religion they liked.149 On many of the thousands of billboards displaying the Maoist

leader’s image in Kathmandu we can see Prachanda, “the fierce one,” with garlands of marigold

around his neck and a red tika (mark of red powder) on his forehead, both traditional, easily

recognisable Hindu symbols. Some CPN-M leaders go as far as beginning speeches with Hindu

verses in Sanskrit.150 At the beginning of the war, the Maoists have included a demand for secularism

in their 40-Point Demand sent to the Prime Minister’s office,151 but the Maoist’s main goal is related

to the Communist anti-feudal, anti-King platform, and not an anti-religious one. In short, Maoists

could not compensate for the lack of anti-Hindu enemies elsewhere.

Ethno-religious conflicts are a factor mentioned in Strong Religion as being conducive to

fundamentalism.152 It also relates to an important point Keddie made when she claimed that the

presence of religiosity or communalism makes the difference between the places where religious

nationalism happens and the places where it doesn’t even when most other structural elements are

there.153 The argument that the absence of tension and the absence of communalism have deprived

religious nationalists of a powerful tool in Nepal supports her claim and seems to give another

reason why Hindu nationalists in Nepal are lacking both positive and negative tools of

religiopolitical mobilisation.

147 The list of Brahmin leaders of all parties can be seen here: http://www.kantipuronline.com/columns.php?&nid=115318 148 Mrigendra Karki., “Social Networking and the Recruitment Process Among Activists in Nepal”, Contibutions to Nepali Studies, Vol. 33. No. 1. January (2006), p.49 149 Sharma, Dina Nath, Member of Parliament, Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-18 150 Op cited: Sharma., interview, (2007) 151 Point 18 reads: “Nepal should be declared a secular nation.” For full list see: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/nepal/document/papers/40points.htm 152 Op cited: Almond et al., (2003), p. 123 153 Op cited: Keddie., (1998), p. 720

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Non-Hindus in a Hindu Kingdom

The Hindu nationalist’s above-mentioned point of view on Nepal’s record of inter-religious

harmony, though correct in terms of Nepal’s clean record of large-scale incidents, does not get

general approval. In fact, according to the Hudson’s Institute’s religious freedom’s indicator, “Nepal

scores poorly on religious freedom,”154 and that is also the well-documented opinion of many

Christians, Muslims, other non-Hindu minorities, and increasingly Buddhists.155 An opinion survey

found that the most common answer (65%) that pro-secular people give to justify their stance is:

“Religious freedom/rights of minorities can be secured only in a secular state.”156

We have seen in the presentation of the case study that these groups formed a strong pro-secular

lobby when the debate first emerged in the 1990 transition. Because they have not in the end

managed to force the shift they sought their grievances continued to build up in the following years

as they saw no significant improvement even though it was a period of enhanced freedom and

democracy; they were still living in a Hindu Kingdom, and each group in its own way felt that

democracy or not the Hindu state had to go.

But the democracy factor, and other related elements like the development of a civil society and the

modernisation of the means of education and communication all improved their chances of

educating and organising themselves to lobby more effectively for their goal. Education, civil society,

and modernisation are all structural variables that Strong Religion takes as having a significant impact

on religious nationalism. But as mentioned in the presentation of their variables, many of these have

ambiguous causal mechanisms. Education and communication will have a beneficial effect on

religious nationalism if religious nationalists control it, as was more the case in earlier periods of

Nepal, but less so in post-Panchayat era. A survey also shows that support for secularism increases

with education.157 We can say that all of these elements have contributed to the various non-Hindu

minorities and other backward castes’ capacity to organise and lobby for secularism in the latter

period. For example, NEFIN, as mentioned before, campaigned energetically for the various

minorities to develop a consciousness of their own religion and encouraged non-Hindu minorities

154 See: Hudson Institute for Religious Freedom Annual Report 2006: http://crf.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=survey_files 155 Op cited: Pradan., (2002), p. 1-20 156 Op cited: Sharma., (2007), P. 46 157 Op cited: Sharma., (2007), p. 45

45

not to state Hinduism as their religion in the 2001 Census, which in real terms has had an effect on

the figures. The 1990s also saw an intensified Buddhist movement of self-consciousness.158 They

were increasingly educated on the distinct features of their religion, and increasingly aware of the

Hindu propensity to view Buddhists as Hindus and growing hostile to it. Education over these

matters, the possibility to communicate these ideas and to organise a civil society in a politically open

environment –all these factors explain why the pro-secular camp could gain strength – but on their

own, these factors do not suffice to explain the sudden fall of the Hindu Kingdom.

Legitimacy, leadership, war and social structure.

The elements we have analysed so far – the lack of possibilities of blame-displacement on a colonial

secular legacy, the lack of credible threats of an “other,” and the minority discontent and increased

ability to voice their grievances – cannot explain the variation we are trying to understand on their

own because these elements were mostly constant in the past decades and do not explain why the

shift to secularism occurred in 2006 and not in 1990 or before. What then precipitated the

weakening of religious nationalism is the complex combination three main factors and their

derivatives: the King’s falling legitimacy, the Maoist war, and the 2005 April uprising.

After the 1990 uprising, King Birendra retreated to his palace and let the political parties govern

Nepal mostly without intervening. His attitude during the 1990s increased his personal legitimacy

and also that of the institution of Kingship, which, despite growing discontent during the Panchayat

era, remained Nepal’s oldest and most solid institution and the only embodiment of the Hindu state.

The political parties that shared power in the 1990s disappointed and failed to live up to the high

expectations that followed the 1990 popular revolution. These same deceptions also led the Maoists

to split from mainstream politics and to begin a civil war: all the grievances that had formed during

the past decades, including those against the discriminatory pro-Hindu state, and all the elements

that made Nepal a fragile state were now for the Maoists to exploit. The Maoists blamed the political

parties but also the legacy of the monarchy’s feudal system, with the King at its head, and contended

that it was intrinsically part of the People’s war to get rid of this institution which they claimed still

exerted influence despite having relegated powers to the parliament. Because the King was the head

of the state and also happened to be the “Hindu” King of a “Hindu” country, giving him a double

158 Bikkhu Ananda, Member of Parliament (Independent), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-07-01

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vulnerability, they saw fit to attack both of his sources of legitimacy, the political and the religious,

hence the demand for secularism.

The royal massacre placed King Gyanendra on the throne. Gyanendra did not enjoy the popularity

of his predecessor and faced a legitimacy crisis from the start. The first reason is the widely held

belief that he is the conspirator behind the palace massacre, as he happened to be away from the

palace at the fatal time,159 which was not helped by the ensuing darkness in which the population

lingered before receiving an official explanation. Secondly, prior to being King, Gyanendra was

known to the public as a businessman, he operated lucrative operations including the commerce of

cigarettes and alcohol –which is perhaps unbecoming for a godly emanation. Furthermore, his son

and new Crown Prince had an even worse reputation of a drunkard womaniser who had been

involved in deadly traffic accidents and other high profile scandals. Six years after the massacre, we

can still see booklets sold in the streets of Kathmandu that report the details of a vast Gyanendra

machination and it seems that many people believe their content. This is not to say that all people

lost trust in the institution of kingship. Rather it is more generally linked to the personality of the

current king.160

The King’s popularity plummeted further following his increasing interference with the Parliament

throughout the decade, which at the same time further emboldened the Maoists. The culminating

point however came with the dissolution of Parliament, the declaration of a state of emergency and

the King’s seizure of direct power in 2005. By then, Maoists controlled much of rural Nepal, and the

war had devastated the country’s infrastructures and killed 12 000 people. The people of Nepal who

had marched the streets to ask for democracy and socio-economic uplifting in 1990 where left

sixteen years latter with a country on the brink of collapse. They took to the streets again, braved

police bullets and batons to demand on the one hand of the King a return to democracy, and on the

other of the Maoists a return to peace. After 19 days of chaos and violence something gave in. An

agreement emerged after prolonged discussions and the added weight of foreign pressure in which

159 Op cited: Dixit., (2002), p. 67-71; 52 % of respondents of a poll mention the palace massacre as main source of the monarchy’s growing unpopularity, followed by 23% who blame the temperament of Gyanendra. Only 4% think that the King should be the legitimate ruler of Napal. Op cited, Sharma, (2007), p. 27, p. 42. 160 41% of respondents of another poll opine that the monarchy should be retained because it is the promoter of Hindu religion, symbol of nationalism and national unity, and it guarantees stability and continuity.” See: Krishna Hacchhethu, “What the People Have to Say”, (Survey Conducted in coordination with International IDEA), The Kathmandu Post, 9 June 2007.

47

the King agreed to relegate power to the Parliament (without abdicating) while the Maoists were

allowed to enter the government. War and the latest episode of totalitarianism were over – but so

was the Hindu state.

As mentioned before, the Maoists had a clear demand for a secular state and once in government

they managed with ease to make it a reality. Though the seven main parties have diverging opinions

on that point, mainly because of its link to the fate of the monarchy, none where outright Hindu

nationalist parties and none calculated they would be adversely affected enough for them not to go

forth with the secular declaration. Part of the reason why there were no Hindu nationalist parties

even in the 1990s rests on the historical structure of religious nationalism in Nepal: its top-bottom

configuration. Hindu nationalism had been imposed from the top with authoritarian means from the

very beginning. The institution of Kingship always secured the Hindu state, and therefore no

bottom-up religiopolitical activism was ever needed to maintain religious nationalism.

If one compares this trajectory to India the contrast is telling. In India, Hindu nationalism has a

century of training by trial and error. It began with a fight against the British, and throughout the

century, between the Brahmo Samaj and the Bharatiya Janata Party, creative leadership developed a

sophisticated social network which adapted to the changing environment, used and created tools of

religiopolitical mobilisation, all the more refined in 60 years of competitive democratic politics until

religious nationalism reached the highest levels of power in the 1990s. When the BJP lost the 2004

elections it was a defeat for religious nationalism but not a demise; the vast social networks and the

multiple other channels of power they had created were intact. In Nepal, with the King in a corner

and intensified Maoist pressure, no strong alternative mediums were there to protect the interests of

the Hindu state, and none of the political parties saw it as a vital part of their agenda. Hindu political

parties did not emerge because there was no demand or need for them; state Hinduness was secure

with the King. The 1990 secular debate was an alarming moment Hindu nationalists did not heed,

there was no such instinct, no such culture. But not much could be expected in such a short lapse of

time because social networks take time to form. The marked shortage of tools of religiopolitical

mobilisation available, the lack of grievances, fears and threats also affects the equation. No leader of

stature saw Hindu politics as a good political option. Therefore when the top fell, the Hindu edifice

crumbled.

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Answer to the research question

To sum up the immediate precipitants and answer the main research question applied to the case

study: The top-bottom structure of Hindu Nationalism centred on the monarchy did not ask for intense

Hindu political activism to secure the Hindu state, an activism that was also impeded by the lack of

tools of religiopolitical mobilisation available. The sudden fall of the King’s legitimacy (leadership) made him

vulnerable to the rising threat of Maoists who demanded a secular state, and also made him

vulnerable to the popular uprising directed against both him and the Maoist civil war. But the Maoist

war, popular discontent, and the shortage of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation are all predicated

upon the various long-term structural factors that amount to making Nepal a weak state. Therefore,

in the broadest terms, the combination of the following independent variables answers the research

question: Weak state, lack of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation, top-bottom structure, and weak

leadership.

6- Conclusion

The research aim of this paper was on the one hand to explain the weakening of religious

nationalism in the specific context of Nepal, for which a tentative answer is written above. The

second research aim was to see how the selected literature facilitated the development of a case-

specific answer, and to find solutions to possible shortcomings, to which we now turn.

In The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Religious State, Juergensmeyer has provided an

excellent introduction to the confrontation between both types of nationalisms and he has also

highlighted the importance of a certain type of grievance as a motivating factor for religious

nationalists, namely, grievances against the Western-inspired secular projects that have failed in

many developing countries. Though sparse on other explanatory structural factors, he has isolated

an important motivating factor of religious nationalists, which the other two sources have also

acknowledged as the most common and outstanding element. The other benefit of Juergensmeyer’s

work was that it enabled us to appreciate the distinctive trajectory of Nepal: that it has not

experienced colonisation or the secularisation project that came with post-colonial nation-building –

a factor setting Nepal apart from the bulk of comparative cases covered in the whole literature on

religious nationalism.

49

Keddie’s work was only briefly introduced because she is also concerned with structural factors for

which I chose to focus on Strong Religion whose work is more exhaustive, and on which Keddie has

herself based her study. The particular appeal of Keddie’s outlook was the point that the structural

factors that are conducive to religious nationalism are also found in places where there is no

experience or religious nationalism, and she has isolated two factors that might explain why it occurs

in some places and not in others: communalism and religiosity. Religiosity did not apply but

communalism, or the absence of it, was used in the context of Nepal to explain why religious

nationalists had a shortage of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation.

Strong Religion

Strong Religion provided several independent variables for the phenomenon of fundamentalism, a

term we had to reconcile with religious nationalism with some difficulty. Similarly to Juergensmeyer,

the main aim in Strong Religion was to explain the existence or growth of fundamentalism and not its

decline; therefore, it was for us to invert the equation to see whether the factors that explain the

strength or growth of the fundamentalism elsewhere could be either absent or declining in Nepal. It

was noteworthy that many factors that explained the weakening of religious nationalism in Nepal –

most found in the characteristics of a weak state – were the same that explained its growth

elsewhere. The problem encountered here was the difficulty to apply their variables. They explained

their workings ambiguously, acknowledging that they actually have different effects in different

places and contexts. For example Education can either work for or against fundamentalists depending

on who writes the curriculum. Some of the variables could also apply to multiple categories; a war

could be a political factor but also a contingency factor. We were also left with vague “catch-all”

categories like chance and leadership. But the main problem remained the overall absence of clear

causal mechanisms. The sheer number of variables testifies to the complexity of the matter, but

using their theory induced occasional perplexity, as if being told: “if you want to understand a

fundamentalist movement, you should consider everything important that relates to politics and

religion in that given place.” But it remains that short of clear causality, they did identify relevant

variables. It was easy to place every variables of the Nepal case study in one or the other of their

categories for the reasons mentioned above. Strong Religion undertook the colossal task of making

generalisations for a phenomenon as complex as fundamentalism, and this based on seventy five

different case-studies that include groups as varied as Japanese Buddhist cultists and Iranian

Ayatollahs. To be able to find explanations for a loosely defined concept that can be applied cross-

50

culturally on five continents requires the vagueness that we have encountered. As an author has

noted, the study of cross-national laws of political behaviour and generalisations “bring both

enthusiasm and criticism that the diversity and complexity of political phenomena renders the

development of serious cross-national generalizations either futile or trivial.”161 To facilitate the

understanding of a specific case like Nepal with a comparative study it would seem better to make

more controlled comparisons between cases that share more similarities.

Definition-related problems

If the definitions of fundamentalism and religious nationalism were clearer, more restrictive and

disaggregated into sub-categories, it would probably be easier to make and apply generalisations to

these. Some groups covered in Strong Religion are not even distant cousins: American anti-abortion

activists are too different from Shinto emperor worshipers, just as Lubavitch Hasidics are from the

Jamaat-i-Islami rebels to make generalisations on a category that includes the two. They are treated

as a “family” by virtue of having for common denominator “religion and its various functions and

uses.” Because of this problem, we are left with independent variables like “contingency,” “war,”

and “leadership” without clear causal mechanism explained. The instrumentalisation of religion

serves different purposes with different means, and it is perhaps based on these differences that we

could construct our categories. Following is a tentative sub-categorisation of the broad religious

nationalism category based on this idea: Religious activism, religious statism, religious nationalism, religious

fundamentalism, and religious terrorism.

Religious activism would refer to movements that are non-political. They may seek to influence policies

by the means of protests, lobbying, or other activities but they do not seek direct political power.

For example: Falun Gong’s human right campaigns or anti-abortionist groups. Religious statism is the

same working definition I have used for Nepal: it is a political movement that seeks to reach or

maintain the highest levels of power, and which wants the state to be the guardian of a chosen

religion. This includes groups aiming to create new states within or across existing borders.

Examples: Jamaat-I-Islami, the BJP in India, the Council of the Revolution in Iran, or the Taliban.

Using statism distinguishes this group from other religiopolitical movements that do not operate at

the nation-state level or which do not seek top-level power but instead seek to promote the interests

of their ethnic groups or nations based on religious motivations or goals, in such case we could talk 161 Op cited: Jelen., (2004), p. 29

51

about Religious nationalism. An ethnic Buddhist group in Nepal seeking more religious freedom

could be placed here. The distinction then with religious activism is that it is ethnic-based religious

activism. The controversial term religious fundamentalism should be used for the original Protestant

movement from which the term originates, or otherwise as meaning literalism, which refers to a

particular approach to the understanding of religion and which is not a political movement. If we

use the term to imply extremism or the use of terror and violence to seek any of the goals of the

groups above, it would then be better to use religious terrorism, but which is not without its own

problems with in mind the adage that one’s terrorist is another’s legitimate freedom fighter. Mark

Juergensmeyer has developed the idea of religious terrorism as distinct from political terrorism.162

It seems that if we are seeking to explain what makes movements strengthen or weaken, we can

imagine that the reasons that make, for example, religious activism or religious statism successful

should be different enough for them not to be analysed under the same magnifying glass. More

controlled comparisons might be helpful, but, conversely, disaggregating too much might render

comparisons difficult. As often, we should try to find the middle ground and if none is found then it

is perhaps because overly broad comparative studies are problematic.

Theoretical hypothesis: explaining the conditions for a shift

A difficulty for this research relates to the absence of literature specifically addressing the decline of

religious nationalism and the shift to a secular state.163 It could be useful to do a comparative study

selecting other states that have undergone a similar transition and determine what common

independent variables could provide explanations for that variation. I have difficulty to turn the

independent variables that have emerged in my answer of the research question for Nepal into

theoretical elements that could be applied elsewhere for the same reasons noted above with Strong

Religion: it would lead to a generalisation either too vague so that other cases can apply, or too

restrictive to make any comparison relevant, but for the sake of trying, I am tempted to broaden the

hypothesis to the explanation of the conditions that make a shift possible – in either direction –

from a religious state to a secular state or from a secular state to a religious state.

162 See: Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Name of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Berkeley: University of California Press, (2000) 163 Secularisation theory does not apply being concerned with explaining a long term historical and global process, and not the immediate causes for a shift in a single country. Moreover, it is originally intended to explain the phenomenon in the West, with the specific conditions set by the Christian heritage. For what is considered as the foundation for modern variants of the theory see: David Martin, A general Theory of Secularisation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1978).

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Hypothesis

There was an allusion in the first paragraph of this essay to the peculiarity found in the early

literature of religious nationalism and secularism, of scholars using the same variable – modernity –

to explain the rise and occurrence of opposite phenomena.164 We might have encountered the same

kind of ‘dual effect’ of single variables in this research. If you ask what caused religious nationalism

to decline in Nepal, you get a list of socio-economic and political factors similar to those used to

explain the existence and rise of religious nationalism elsewhere: while socio-economic deprivation

and political legitimacy crises contributed to religious nationalism elsewhere, it contributed to its

downfall in Nepal, and so on. Could it be that these elements, especially those contributing to

making a state weak, rather than explaining the existence and rise of religious nationalism or

secularism, instead explain the conditions under which a shift – in whatever direction – is possible?

The main variables for this hypothesis are: Weakness or strength of a state, availability of tools of political

mobilisation, religiosity, and leadership.

Of course presenting a hypothesis requires to set guidelines for its application. This is another

exhaustive project but I will simply give the general terms by which the variables could be measured.

The availability of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation, as already mentioned, refer to the elements

that give material to religious nationalists leaders, notably, the presence of a threat (constructed or

otherwise), the possibility of blame-displacement on an “other,” or traumatic events and historical

catalysts. If the state is weak, it will create grievances that can be used for the proponents of the

opposite system, religious or secular. It will be possible to use these grievances and transform them

into tools – either of religiopolitical mobilisation, as happened in India, or of secular mobilisation, as

happened in Nepal.

As for the measurement of the weakness or strength of a state, I take strong in hard terms of

economic development, which can be measured with various readily available indicators. Poorer

states are obviously more likely to be weak and richer ones more likely to be strong, but not

necessarily. I also mean strong in the sense of sovereignty and control over the territory and the

monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within the borders. But these factors alone are not

enough because the notion of strength and weakness also entails the concept of a strong or weak

social contract. Here, Lock and Rousseau’s familiar concept is used to describe a state in which a

164 Op cited: Gill., (2001), p. 124-130

53

critical mass of people get what they think they deserve; that the individual rights and taxes they

cede to the state give them something acceptable back, enough to foster a social order from which

they can benefit. If people believe the contract is fair, then the state has earned its legitimacy by

virtue of it showing acceptable results. A strong social contract does not mean that people are always

content with the government, but it means that the dissatisfaction is tolerable enough to challenge

the government by legitimate means, without having to take to the streets and provoke a revolution,

as was necessary in Nepal on two occasions in as many decades. A strong social contract can be

religious or secular. In a secular state it requires taking into account religious sentiments to the

extent that they matter, and in a religious state it requires taking into account the secular minded

people and the religious minorities that do not share the faith of the majority to the extent that it

matters, and what makes it matter is the critical mass. Thus the absolute prerequisite for a strong

state is a valid social contract, for which strength in hard economic and sovereign terms obviously

contributes though without being enough on its own.

Hypothesis A:

In a religious state: If the state is weak and there is a shortage of tools of religiopolitical

mobilisation, it will be less likely for political leadership to be able to maintain religious nationalism

and it will increase the chances of secular forces provoking a shift to secularism. Secular forces can

use the tools which the weak state has made available for secular mobilisation. The decrease of

religiosity can be an additional factor for this as Keddie suggested but it is not a prerequisite (this is

the theoretical generalisation of the case of Nepal).

Hypothesis B:

In a secular state: If the state is weak, the availability of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation will

increase the likelihood of political instrumentalisation of these tools and therefore increase the

chances of a shift from secularism to religious nationalism. In this case, the presence of religiosity is

necessary.

Hypothesis C:

In both secular and religious states: The unconditional variable for a shift is: a weak state.

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Therefore, the variables that explain a shift in either direction are the combination of the strength of

the state, the availability of tools of religiopolitical mobilisation and political opportunism

(leadership). But a weak state seems to be the basic condition in most states that go through a shift,

whatever its direction. The weak state is the variable that explains why most states covered in the

literature were in a dynamic shift from secularism to religious nationalism, and why Nepal just went

through the opposite process. Creative leadership can compensate for sparse tools, and an

abundance of tools can compensate for inept leadership, but in either case the pre-requisite is a weak

state, unless it is a top-bottom shift in which a powerful enough authoritarian political authority,

domestic or foreign, enforces the shift. In either case, democracy and democratisation will ease the

way this process can happen in a bottom-up structure. In authoritarian settings, the state will be

more resistant to bottom-up pressures and less vulnerable to this dynamic only as long as authority

is strong enough. This is what explains why a shift is unimaginable in Sweden or Canada (strong

states, weak tools and religious nationalist leadership) unlikely in Japan and South Korea (strong

states but some religiosity and tools available for leadership), and why the shift occurred in Nepal in

2006 (week state, low tools, low leadership), or Iran in 1979 (week state, high tools, high leadership).

This hypothesis would of course need closer scrutiny and testing.

Is a strong state possible under both ideologies of order?

This hypothetical formula, if it happened to have some validity, could deliver an important signal to

the proponents of both ideologies of order: that if they want to maintain their favoured system they

should focus on good governance, integrity and accountability, even possibilities of development,

and universal human-rights – everything that makes a strong social contract. Perhaps the religious

and Enlightenment “fundamentals” which form the rhetorical backdrop of both ideologies are as

important as the results they are expected to deliver.165 To the question that I have avoided as to

whether secularism or religious nationalism is better suited to bring a state forward, I suggest that it

is whichever can create a strong social contract. If it is not possible under one system and if the

conditions are there, the forces will tend to provoke a shift in the other direction, for as long as it

takes until the slow moving pendulum stops.

165 Juergenmeyer and others have suggested that religious states may have the extra advantage of not having pressure to show results since their very establishment provides other-worldly, superior benefits. If so, Nepal is a notable exception, Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 194

55

The reason why there is a “confrontation” between religious nationalism and secularism is, as

Juergensmeyer pointed out, because of the absolutist nature of both ideologies and because many

states are not uniformly secular or religious. For a strong state to be possible in places where this

confrontation takes place requires a fine balancing act, often leading to “double frustrations” as

Juergenmeyer has shown and as we are seeing today in Nepal.166 That is why these issues are

protracted and likely to be around for a while. Whether “the end of history” will be religious or

secular is not as clear as both sides would hope. How long will the secular-religious confrontation

remain? The hypothesis presented above suggests that as long as states remain weak and as long as

there is a pro-secular or anti-secular leadership there to instrumentalise the grievances that weak

states create, there will be a tendency for a shift. There is therefore a strong case for knowing the

workings of the secular-religious confrontation because it is the most common type of religious

conflict and its destabilising potential shows no sign of abating.167 We must develop evaluation tools

and means to minimise the risks associated with secular-religious ideological confrontations.

Instead of being engaged in a unidirectional march towards secularisation or religious nationalism, as

theoreticians on two sides predict,168 we might be facing a perpetual shift until states becomes strong

and settle under one ideology, or until people see these ideologies and official statuses of “religious”

and “secular” as irrelevant and unrelated to good governance and socio-economic development. If

this debate ever becomes obsolete, then the debates and shifts will be of the same type that occur in

places where this secular-religious confrontation is absent, that is, it will be confrontations and shifts

between “left,” “right,” “conservatism,” “liberalism,” “dictatorship,” or “democracy.” Then we will

not be talking of confrontations between ideologies of order but of politics as usual, perhaps not be

better or worse.

166 Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 39 167 Op cited: Fox., (2004 a); Svensson and Rangdrol., (2007) 168 As the secularisation theory and some of its detractors do, see: Frank J. Lechner, “The Case Against Secularisation: A Rebuttal,” Social Forces, Vol. 69, No. 4. June 1991, pp. 1103-1119; see also: Huntington., (1996)

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VI - After word

This section is not concerned with the main research questions of this essay or the set time-frame

leading up to the May 18 2006 declaration. It is an after word on what happened after the

declaration, with some consideration for measures that could be taken for the sake of stability in

Nepal, at least as related to the confrontation we have been looking at between religious nationalists

and secularists.

The declaration of a secular state that came on May 18, 2006 was not followed by a public relations

effort to explain how the decision makers had reached that decision, and, importantly, what was

expected to change – all things people expect with an important political decision. I asked Members

of Parliament from the three main political parties (NC, CPN-M, CPN-UML)169 whether they did or

intended at some point to make public declarations regarding this policy decision, and the answer

was that they had no such plans for the moment. At the time of writing the population knows of the

declaration but not of what it entails.

In the introduction of this paper and in the presentation of the case study on Hindu nationalism in

Nepal, we saw that official symbols are very important, and that the official naming of a country

with a religious adjective gave it a potent emblem; enough to cause either attachment or revulsion.

But we also asked what it was beyond the official title that made the Hindu Kingdom “Hindu”.

Likewise we can now ask what it is that makes Nepal “secular” beyond its new official title. The

answer is that, so far, nothing has changed and there is no concrete plan to change anything that the

public knows of. Whatever few pro-Hindu laws and subtler pro-Hindu policies mentioned in the

case study are so far intact.170 When I asked the same MPs whether they planned to address any

specific legislation that might come with the secular declaration, giving for example the removal of

the ban on cow slaughter or conversion, they either said that it was a matter for the future, that they

did not so far have any plan, or that these things were the domain of tradition and should not be

touched.

169 Sharma, Dina Nath, Member of Parliament, Communist party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-18; Pandey, Surendra, Member of Parliament, United Marxist Leninist (UML), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-14; Bhusal, Shyam Parsad, Member of Parliament, Nepali Congress (NC), interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-28 170 Likewise the US Department of state has reported: “the reinstated parliament declared the country to be a secular state; however, no laws specifically affecting freedom of religion were changed.”: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71442.htm

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Reaction

Hindu nationalists received news of the declaration with consternation. Some have termed the

declaration as “defamatory” and “dangerous,” and said that it could provoke a “religious crusade.”171

Following the announcement, Hindu groups organised rallies in different parts of the country

demanding a reversal of the declaration.172 Some religious leaders question the legitimacy of this

declaration, for example, Diwakar Chand, General Secretary of the World Hindu Federation asks:

“How can a 250-member parliament decide on something as serious as this?” claiming that a

referendum would have been more suitable.173 Fortunately there have been so far no incidents of

violence related to that decision.

On the pro-secular side, the declaration was welcomed with reserve. The Buddhists, Christians,

Muslims, and other ethnic minority groups that had lobbied for a secular state expressed satisfaction

mixed with concern over the lack of concrete measures or legislation. For example, the leader of the

Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) is not content with a mere name change, he

wants a reversal of all discriminatory laws and policies, including the ban on cow-slaughter, the

sponsoring of Hindu festivals, and the removal of all state-symbols associated with Hinduism,

including the flag (for its crimson colour) and the cow as national animal.174 Meanwhile, the Prime

Minister of secular Nepal, GP Koirala, has begun to perform Hindu state rituals that were once the

king’s privilege, sending an unclear signal about the meaning of the shift.

Interestingly, many people who do not oppose in principle the removal of the Hindu name have

reserves about the word secular. Many have mentioned that it would have been better to withdraw

171 Arun Subedi, Secretary Shiv Sena Nepal in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor. Op cited: Sangraula., (2006) 172 I have witnessed one public protest against the declaration. It consisted of a quiet crowd, gathering perhaps two hundred people at its peak, listening to people taking turns at the microphone to spell out their dissatisfaction with the declaration. It was the second of a series of fifteen manifestations planned to take place in Kathmandu beginning in June 2007. One thing that caught the eye was behind the park where the protest was held: a queue at a petrol pump had gathered an immensely larger amount of people lining up and waiting for their daily ration of gas for an average of three to five hours (a relatively good day for that period) in lines that spread several kilometres beyond sight. The wider reasons why that queue was there (beyond the immediate factor of Nepal not being able to pay its bill on time to the Indian Oil Corporation) were the same reasons that contributed to making Nepal a weak state (corruption, inefficiency, short-sightedness). Ironically, if Nepal had not been a weak state, that queue would not have been there and perhaps at least a few hundred more would have had the time and reasons to join the small group of Hindu nationalists grieving about the fall of the Hindu state. The same reason somehow made the crowd small and the line long. 173 Quoted in: Op cited, Sangraula., (2006) 174 Sherpa, Pasang, Chairperson, Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-07-01

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the ‘Hindu’ attribute and to emphasise religious freedom but without using the word secular which

they saw as problematic for different reasons ranging from its vagueness, its “antireligious”

connotation, its meaninglessness if not joined by concrete measures, and also because of the

negative connotation stemming from India’s bleak experience of inter-religious relations under

secularism.175

To express the situation with an analogy, we have a situation where religion and politics filed a

divorce and made it public but without explaining when religion was to move out, how they

intended to split the goods, or without telling anyone what motivated the decision as if keeping the

personal details to themselves. Those around who wanted them happy ever after and who think of

divorce as sinful were shocked, while those who did not see the union as legitimate in the first place

are worried that the divorce is just a front, that the old couple will actually stay together, while other

neutrals would have preferred to separate the two without using the word divorce. No one is happy.

This is a convoluted situation, which Juergensmeyer described as the “double frustrations” that

come with attempts to reach compromises between religious and secular nationalism. The new

secular leaders of Nepal might face the challenges others have faced elsewhere: “The problem with

all these attempts of secular leaders to accommodate religion is that they lead to a double frustration:

the leaders are considered traitors both from a religious and secular point of view.”176

What next?

What is sure is that politicians cannot afford to take these decisions lightly as they are always bound

to trigger a subversive reaction. It may be that Nepal’s political parties’ silence is actually a policy to

minimise the controversy hoping that the shift would somewhat go unnoticed, but it might not. It is

fortunate that the declaration did not lead to violence or agitation, but without being alarmist, it is

good to remain vigilant and follow the evolving situation. We should be in preventive mode.

As said earlier, the absence of a failed secular experiment is the most important factor that

distinguishes Nepal from India and other places, and it is a factor that explains partly why religious

175 Reflecting what Juergensmeyer has discovered in the course of his interviews, many take secular as meaning “antireligion”. Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 186; Adhikari, P.P, Member Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-05-30; Chaulagain, Keshav, General Secretary, Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-05-28 176Op cited: Juergensmeyer., (1993), p. 386

59

nationalists are deprived of an important grievance and of its related tools of religiopolitical

mobilisation. But Nepal has become secular and if it remains the weak state it is now – and the

political parties so far do not make us believe otherwise – in due time, it will be possible for religious

nationalists to use this to their advantage and blame the new failures on the secular state and join the

global religious nationalist trend. Moreover, that the top institution of Hindu nationalism

collapsed177 means that a bottom-up network of religious nationalism is likely to form, leaders and

political opportunists are likely to seize the day, just as the Maoists did before them, and should

there be any traumatic events and catalysts it could become dangerous, as these confrontations often

do. These issues have immense destabilising capabilities and should be taken seriously. In the

immediate this concern is buried under many pressing tasks; keeping the peace process together and

managing free and fair elections, but if and when these come to pass, the secular and religious

confrontation could very well surface. As noted in Strong Religion: “a movement may go into a kind

of hibernation, later to re-emerge, reconstituted and fortified for battle.”178 What can be done to

minimise the risks of the secular-religious confrontation turning into a destabilising battle in Nepal?

It is important to explore different possibilities:

The stabilising role of faith-based mediation and preventive faith-based diplomacy should be

explored further. Mechanisms should be developed to measure and assess the threat level of

communal and inter-religious agitation and violence and strategies should be developed to address

these accordingly. In this respect, departments of peace and conflict research could establish

networks with local civil-society organisations and governments and concert their efforts to

minimise the risks associated with these issues. The International Center for Religion and Diplomacy

is currently working on similar projects in South Asia but not in Nepal.179 We could also draw

helpful conclusions from the India-based Centre for Society and Secularism and its leader Ali Ashgar

Engineer who has for decades studied and explored means of countering inter-religious strife in

177 Though the fate of the King has not yet been resolved he has lost all his powers and the Parliament has the constitutional tools to completely abolish the monarchy. Options include to retain the monarchy but to allot it a strictly ceremonial role, to which the Maoists are vehemently opposed. The Maoists have threatened to boycott the elections unless Nepal is declared a republic. See: Yuvraj Acharya, “Parliament can now end monarchy”, The Kathmandu Post, June 13, (2007) 178 Op cited: Almond et al., (2003), p. 146 179 The International Center for Religion and Diplomacy: http://www.icrd.org/research.html

60

India. Given the historic, geographic and cultural proximity of Nepal and India, his expertise could

surely be helpful.180

In the course of this research, I have spoken to many members of a Nepalese organisation, the

Inter-Religious council of Nepal, which gathers leaders and activists from different faiths to tackle

the issues that concern us here. Its General Secretary, Mr Keshav Chaulagain, spoke of the

effectiveness of the organisation and of instances and activities that have helped minimise the risks

of inter-religious confrontation in this volatile time of transition. It has been noted that, “a religious

authority’s support for or opposition to a conflict is often an influential factor in determining its

outbreak or its conclusion,” because religious leaders have a pervasive influence on the community

and they can use their leverage for reconciling conflicting parties, and also prevent future conflicts.181

It seems warranted to involve leaders of different faiths and secular leaders as well. Mr Chaulagain

also emphasises an important point: that such organisations need to proactively involve the majority

religion, in this case Hindu leaders, in order to promote inter-faith harmony. This is not the case in

many places where such movements are minority-based. Organisations such as the Inter-Religious

Council of Nepal should benefit from international collaboration and link their research and

networking capacities to similar organisations elsewhere so that a mutual benefit can be reaped.

Finally, it could also be advisable for the government of Nepal to emphasise the issue discussed here

in its Truth and Reconciliation projects. It could also be advisable for the government of Nepal to

summon the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom, for a country visit and an

external and neutral opinion.182

180 The Centre for Study of Society and Secularism: http://www.csss-isla.com/aboutus.php 181 Douglas Johnson, ed., Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, Oxford: oxford University Press, (2003), p.13 182 The Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom or Belief for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights makes annual reports and special visits and recommendations to countries that make the request: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/religion/index.htm

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Interviews Adhikari, P.P., Member Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-05-30 Ananda, Bikkhu., Member of Parliament, Independent, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-07-01 Ansari, Hamid., Board member, Nepal Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Member Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-25 Bahadur Khatri Ganesh., President, Cow Welfare Association, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-20 Basnyat, Raddha Devi., President, World Hindu Federation Canada Chapter, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-04 Bhattarai Dr. Madhav., Nepal Raj Guru (“State Religious Master”), Government of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-29 Bhusal, Shyam Parsad., Member of Parliament, Nepali Congress (NC), interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-28 Chaulagain, Keshav., General Secretary, Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-05-28 Gautam, Damodar., Party member, Nepali congress (NC), Chairman, World Hindu federation Nepal National Committee, interview, Kathmandu. 07-06-28 Keshav Sthapit., Former Mayor of Kathmandu, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-22 Kreti, Bikshu Chandra., Member Inter-Religious Council of Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-22 Lal, C.K., Journalist., The Nepali Times, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-05-22 Lamichhane, Arjun., Coordinator, World Hindu Youth (WHY), interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-15 Narendra, Yogi., Party Member Peace Party, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-15 Neupane, Dr. Hari Baktha., President, Sanatan Dharma Dewa Samiti, interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-26 Pandey, Surendra., Member of Parliament, United Marxist Leninist (UML), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-14 Paudel, Baburam., Central Comitee Member, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, interview, Kathmandu. (RPP), 2007-06-28 Paudel H Satsang., Shankar, Party member, Peace Party, interview, Kathmandu.2007-07-20

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Pokharel, Sanjeev., Researcher, National Peace Campaign, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-15 Prasad Humajaim., Shiva, Member of Parliament, Nepali Congress (NC), interview,Kathmandu. 2007-08-02 Sharma, Sudhindra., Director, Interdisciplinary Analysts, interview, Kathmandu.2007-06-21 Sharma, Dina Nath., Member of Parliament, Communist party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-18 Sherpa, Pasang., Chairperson, Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-07-01 Simha, Bharat Kesher., President, World Hindu Federation (WHF), interview, Kathmandu. 2007-06-04 Subedi, Arun., Party Secretary Shiv Sena Nepal, interview, Kathmandu.2007-05-25

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