In 2004, Parshuram Tamang, one of the founding members of the Federation told researcher Mukta S. Tamang, “the term ‘Janajati’ was chosen to include all the historically marginalized groups engaged in democratic struggle. [break]
The term was also thought to be useful to denote the existence of distinct culture and history of the ethnic groups separate from “Jat” or Hindu caste system.
” Although the term adivasi (indigenous people) was not included in NEFEN’s title, it was included in the definition of janajati in the organization’s original 1990 Constitution in a manner that suggested that the use of the latter encompassed the former.
The early 1990s was marked by a debate about what term(s) to use to refer to ethnic groups in Nepal. One strand of this debate was focused on the use of the term janajati.
Those who favored the use of this term used it to refer to all ethnic groups in Nepal who did not belong to the Hindu caste system, and who had ties to specific locations in Nepal, spoke a distinct language, and had a culture of their own.
However, ethnic leaders like Gopal Gurung of the Mongol National Organization rejected the term janajati by arguing that the concepts embedded in the terms jat and jati only existed within Hinduism, and just like Bahuns and Chhetris, those referred to as janajatis were migrants from India and were hence not indigenous to Nepal.
Instead, he preferred to use the term mulbasi (main inhabitants) and claimed that 80 percent of Nepal’s population consisted of mulbasi Mongols.
The second strand of this debate was focused on the use of the term adivasi whose literal translation would be original inhabitants or indigenous people.
Arguing that the Nepali population consisted of descendants of different waves of migrants from various directions, anthropologist Rajendra Pradhan stated (in 1994) that “indigenous people do not exist in Nepal; or if they do, the majority of the Nepalis are indigenous, including many of the Bahuns and Chhetris.
” This line of argument did not please those who favored the use of the term adivasi in reference to Nepal’s non-Hindu ethnic population.
This was a clash between those who wanted to popularize the use of the term adivasi as the Nepali equivalent of indigenous peoples and hence link the movement within Nepal with an already existing international movement and discourse organized around the idea of indigenous peoples, as recognized in the UN system and outside of it, and those who read the term literally in a temporal mode.
Those in favor of the term also wanted to capitalize partly on the then emerging practice of regarding self-identification as a basic criterion for determining the indigenousness of groups.
This criterion would also allow the users to highlight adivasis as those who were variously disempowered in the Nepali society at large and hence could claim various relational histories of discrimination.
This was in keeping with definitions proposed by bodies such as The World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP).
The UN declaration of 1993 as the World Indigenous Peoples Year and the decade 1995-2004 as the International Decade of the World Indigenous Peoples provided further impetus for the use of the term adivasi/indigenous peoples in Nepal.
At a national consultation workshop organized by the National Ad Hoc Committee/Nepal for the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in March 1994, there was a further elaboration of the term that made it possible to use ‘indigenous’ as a synonym of janajati. Both referred to ethnic groups with ties to specific locations, languages and cultures and a common history of subjugation in modern Nepal.
On January 14, 1996, the Nepal government constituted a task force under the convenership of sociologist Sant Bahadur Gurung to suggest the modalities for the formation of a foundation that would work for the upliftment of the janajatis.
In its report, the task force proposed that a National Foundation for Upliftment of the Nationalities be established. Although the term indigenous did not appear in the title of the proposed foundation (it was later added by the then parliament when the related bill came up for discussion), it was included in the definition of janajatis.
Janajatis were defined primarily as those communities who had their own distinct languages and traditional rites and customs but were not part of the four-tier Hindu varna system.
The taskforce delineated some other characteristics of janajatis as communities “who have a separate collective cultural identity; who have their own traditional language, religion, customs and culture; whose traditional social structure is based on equality; who are traditionally located in particular geographic regions; who have their own written or oral history; who have a ‘we-feeling’ within their communities; who do not have influential role in the modern politics and state governance of Nepal; who are indigenous people of Nepal and who call themselves janajati.”
Based on these criteria, the taskforce produced a schedule listing 61 janajatis in Nepal.
This schedule was adopted by the then Nepal Government when it established the National Committee for Development of Nationalities (NCDN) in July 1997.
The Committee was an interim body primarily responsible for facilitating the establishment of the foundation.
After much delay, the bill related to the adivasi janajati foundation was passed by the then House of Representatives in July 2001 and became an Act on February 7, 2002.
This National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) Act, 2002, has defined indigenous nationalities as “a tribe or community as mentioned in the schedule having its own mother tongue and traditional rites and customs, distinct cultural identity, distinct social structure and written or unwritten history” (NFDIN 2003: 32).
The part of the definition proposed by the taskforce which stated that janajatis were not part of the four-tier Hindu varna system has been omitted in the NFDIN Act.
It is important to note that the NFDIN Act of 2002 modified the schedule proposed by the task force with 61 janajatis.
Taking into consideration some of the criticisms made against the earlier classification, the schedule published as part of the Act only lists 59 groups as indigenous nationalities.
This state-led exercise realized a legal definition of who was and was not a janajati in Nepal. After the NFDIN Act came into existence, NEFEN changed its name to Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) in 2003.
The definition in the NFDIN Act and the schedule of indigenous nationalities attached to it gave rise to some confusion.
Some of this confusion arose because arguably some of those listed in the schedule are spatially distributed members of the same ethnic group.
This is most prominently obvious in the case of the Thakalis who are listed several times in the schedule based on their separate locations inside Thak Khola.
An additional source of confusion came from the contested nature of the inclusion of Newars.
This has been the case ever since the janajati movement took off in 1990. Newars, who are overwhelmingly located in urban areas, have a full-fledged caste system with not only “high caste” groups but also “low caste” groups that would fit the current categories recognized in the term dalit.
Hence they disqualify on the main definitional grounds proposed by the Gurung-led taskforce.
An additional ground for disqualification is that Newars have been close to the power centre of modern Nepal by virtue of the fact that they were the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley.
Once King Prithvinarayan Shah moved the capital of his Gorkhali kingdom to Kathmandu in 1770, some Newar families have always held key positions in the ruling establishment.
While their language and some aspects of their cultural life were banished from the emerging public sphere promoted by the state around the Nepali language from the early years of the 20th century, Newars (at about 5.6 % of the population) have benefited disproportionately from the development investments made in Nepal since the mid-20th century.
Hence they cannot claim a history of oppression from the modern Nepali state that would correspond with, say, the case of the Tamangs or Tharus.
Despite these contradictions, their inclusion in the schedule was justified on several grounds.
These include the claim that the caste system prevalent in Newar society is not based on the logic of ritual hierarchy but on profession-oriented specializations.
Anyone who knows Newar society would have to agree that while this claim is partially true, the caste system within the Newars also has a strong ritual purity basis. This has been the conclusion of every single serious scholar of Newar society.
Another point to note is that in terms of their socio-economic development, the identified 59 groups are variously located, and hence the schedule as published in the NFDIN Act 2002 does not have significant referential utility with respect to the execution of development programs or affirmative action programs.
Having realized this, and upon the demand of NFDIN, a taskforce from the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities classified the 59 groups into five categories, supposedly using various human development parameters. The details of this exercise were never made public, and it had its own internal critics.
Approved less than unanimously by the Federal Council of NEFIN on 1 March 2004, these categories are: endangered groups (10 janajatis), highly marginalized groups (12), marginalized groups (20), disadvantaged groups (15), and advanced groups (2).
Through this classification, the janajati movement had officially acknowledged that the various janajati groups have achieved different standards of development and hence, by implication, do not seek and expect the same level of affirmative action/reservations across all the groups.
This was a way to take care of one of the standard criticisms that were then made of the janajatis by non-janajatis (namely, affirmative action-type programs were not needed for the better-off janajatis).
However, the debate on who is an adivasi or janajati in Nepal is far from settled. On the recommendation of the Governing Council of NFDIN, the Nepal Government can make changes in the schedule of janajatis by publishing a notice in the Nepal Gazette although this has not happened in the nine years since the passing of the NFDIN Act.
A commission established by the Nepal Government and headed by the prominent janajati academic-activist, Dr Om Gurung, recommended in 2010 for a revision of this schedule, and for the inclusion of some 80plus janajatis in it.
In addition, it reported that it was unable to locate two of the 59 groups mentioned in the NFDIN Act schedule! There are many other groups which have claimed their inclusion in the revised list.
In 2004, the late Dr Harka Gurung wrote, “the search for a scientific definition that reflects the myriad aspects of the ethnic groups of Nepal continues.” I think this search will be unsuccessful as the operational dynamics of searching for such a definition is political in nature and not scientific.
If this could be recognized, then definitional debates and listing in schedules could be viewed more as a political act than a scientific enterprise.
This political demand has both a historical dimension (the politics of marginalization that resulted in various disparities that the janajatis face today) and a future-oriented dimension that seeks the execution of certain policies and programs (including ethnic federal units) that will benefit the janajatis.
As part of the dynamics of this political act, the caste-Hindu bahuns and chhetri communities have demanded an ‘adivasi’ status for themselves, based upon the argument that they have lived in Nepal for longer periods than many janajatis (such as, for example, Sherpas who migrated into Nepal only a few centuries ago).
Read in a temporal mode, they are justified in making the adivasi claim. Some scholars have argued that entertaining this claim would add confusion to the janajati movement.
As long as we are clear about the historical and future-oriented twin dimensions of definitional politics, in particular, what future claim bundles the use of each of these terms might entail, there should be no problem with respect to recognizing specific non-janajatis as adivasis in the upcoming Constitution.
Onta is a historian based at Martin Chautari in Kathmandu.
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