Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka - The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics

Half Title

The Politics of Belonging
in the Himalayas

Series Note

Governance, Conflict, and Civic Action Series

Series Editors: David N. Gellner, Krishna Hachhethu, Siri Hettige, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Grard Toffin

Volume 1: Local Democracy in South Asia: Microprocesses of Democratization in Nepal and its Neighbours , eds David N. Gellner and Krishna Hachhethu

Volume 2: Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia , ed. David N. Gellner

Volume 3: Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia , ed. David N. Gellner

Volume 4: The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics , eds Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and G rard Toffin

Volumes in Preparation

Development, Governance and Conflict in South Asia , eds Siri Hettige and Eva Gerharz

Facing Globalization in the Himalayas: Belonging and the Politics of the Self , eds Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and G rard Toffin

This volume has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union (EU). The contents of the book are the sole responsibility of the respective authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the EU.

The Asia-Link Programme was launched at the beginning of 2002 as an initiative by the EU to foster regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in EU Member States and South Asia, South-East Asia, and China. This five-year programme, which has a total budget of 42.8 million, aims to provide support to European and Asian higher education institutions in the areas of human resource development, curriculum development, and institutional and systems development.

The Politics of Belonging in the
Himalayas: Local Attachments
and Boundary Dynamics

GOVERNANCE, CONFLICT, AND CIVIC ACTION: VOLUME 4

Edited by

Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
Grard Toffin

C opyright Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka and Grard Toffin, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 2011 by

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The politics of belonging in the Himalayas: local attachments and boundary dynamics/edited by Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka , Grard Toffin.

p. cm(Governance, conflict, and civic action series; v. 4)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Ethnic groupsHimalaya Mountains Region. 2. Group identity Himalaya Mountains Region. 3. NationalismHimalaya Mountains Region. 4. National characteristics. 5. Himalaya Mountains RegionEthnic relations. I. Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna. II. Toffin, Grard.

DS485.H6P65 305.80095496dc22 2011 2011007105

eISBN: 9788132107729

The Sage Team: Rekha Natarajan, Arpita Dasgupta, Amrita Saha and Deepti Saxena

Cover caption: Brahmin extended family, central hill region of Nepal (1980).

Photo courtesy: Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka

Contents

Introduction : Belonging and Multiple Attachments in
Contemporary Himalayan Societies

Politics of Belonging: Identity and State-formation
in Nagaland

Brotherhood and Divine Bonding in the
Krishna Pranami Sect

Religion, Rituals, and Symbols of Belonging:
The Case of Uttarakhand

The Politics of Encounter: Hindu Belonging in a Multi-faith
Pilgrimage Site in Nepal

Emergent Nationalism, Citizenship, and Belonging among
Nepalis in Banaras: The Case of Kashi Bahadur Shrestha

Pathways of Place Relation: Moving Contours of
Belonging in Central Nepal

Belonging, Protected Areas, and Participatory Management:
The Case of Kaziranga National Park (Assam) and
of the Misings Shifting Territory

Geocultural Identities and Belonging in the Ethnohistory of
Central Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India

Trials, Witnesses, and Local Stakes in a District Court of
Himachal Pradesh

For our Readers

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Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO,
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi

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This volume, The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas: Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics , is the outcome of an inter-national conference that took place in New Delhi during 2022 March 2007. All the chapters contained in the book developed out of the presentations during this scientific meeting. Our thanks go the India International Centre, New Delhi, which supported and housed this event, and to the French Centre for Human Sciences, Delhi, and in particular to its then director, Vronique Dupont, as well as to Mallika Hanif and Romain Chappuis, each of whom played a major role in organizing the conference. We are also indebted to our Indian colleagues from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Institute of Economic Growth, and other academic institutes in Delhi, who agreed to par-ticipate in the meeting as discussants and greatly contributed to the debate on the concept of belonging. We would like to list all of them here: Ravina Aggarwal, Balveer Arora, Amita Baviskar, Nirja Gopal Jayal, Surinder Jodhka, Ravinder Kaur, and Patricia Oberoi. We would also like to express our thanks to Andre Gingrich from the University of Vienna, Nirmal Tuladhar from Tribhuvan Univer-sity (Nepal), Christian Bueschges from the University of Bielefeld, and Kanak Dixit of Himal Association for their stimulating role as discussants.

This undertaking would not have been possible without the sup-port of the German Research Foundation (DFG) through its Collab-orative Research Programme (SFB 584) carried out at the Bielefeld University, Germany, the European EU-Asia-Link programme of the European Commission (Brussels), the British Academy, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the French foundation Maison des Sciences de lHomme (MSH), Paris. Professor Hinnerk Bruhns (MSH), in particular, warmly encouraged the project from the very beginning and has given us useful advice and suggestions for its organization. We are grateful to David Gellner, University of Oxford, who invited us to include this book in MIDEA series, published by SAGE Publications. Finally, our thanks are due to Bernadette Sellers (CNRS, Villejuif) who revised the papers written by French researchers, and to David Phelps (Oxford) and Pragya Dhital (London), who edited the final English versions of the book.