Vibha Arora - Routeing Democracy in the Himalayas: Experiments and Experiences

First published 2013 in India

by Routledge

912 Tolstoy House, 1517 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001

Simultaneously published in the UK

by Routledge

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First issued in paperback 2015

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2013 Vibha Arora and N. Jayaram

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-66400-5 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-81199-6 (hbk)

8.1 Comparison of Assumed Preconditions for Democracy with the Case of the Tibetan Community-in-Exile

9.1 Party Position in the Constituent Assembly

10.1 Dimensions of Social (In)justice in Nepal

1.1 Adivasi-janajati Groups of Nepal, published by Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), 2010.

1.2 A Newar Farmer Woman from Kirtipur, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, 2010.

4.1 Tenzing Lepcha, Dawa Lepcha and Ongdup Lepcha on the Third Day of Their Satyagraha at Bhutia-Lepcha House at Gangtok), 2007.

4.2 ACT Activists During Their Dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, 2008.

4.3 A Banner of ACT Summarising Their Critique of Hydropower Project and State Development Policies, 2008.

7.1 Weavers Working in a karkhana in Srinagar, 200607.

7.2 Officials and Villagers in a One-day Training Camp in Navni, 200607.

10.1 A Woman Collecting Firewood in Eastern Nepal, 2007.

10.2 A Dalit Family in Front of Their House in Eastern Nepal, 2007.

6.1 Map of the Bodoland (Vandekerckhove and Suykens 2008).

The fragile young Himalayan democracies can teach us important lessons, even as they borrow and/or learn from other sociocultural and political contexts and indigenise western liberal democratic ideas and ideals. We emphasise the connection between ecology, polity and society in giving this expanse a regional specificity and the variable routes democracies have followed there. Our endeavour is to change the perception and representation of the Himalayas not merely in academic research and policy circles, but also in other discursive contexts.

Reflecting on the genesis of this volume, we identify two factors that motivated us. First, the lack of good scholarly articles on the democratic processes and political transitions that have correlated particular experiments and experiences of the eight states of northeastern India with other Himalayan states of India and connected them with the neighbouring nations of Nepal and Bhutan. The Himalayas must not be viewed as a marginal area; as a region, it provides us with a fertile ground and propitious opportunity for testing existing theories and policies. Our co-editing of a special issue of Sociological Bulletin (Journal of the Indian Sociological Society) entitled Development of Democratic Routes in the Himalayan Borderlands (58 [1], JanuaryApril 2009) was a milestone. The positive response of our fellow sociologists in the the 2009 and 2010 All India Sociological Conferences and other interested readers motivated us to join hands to conceptualise and put together this volume for a larger readership in India and abroad.

Second, at a more personal level, for the first editor (Vibha Arora) it has been a challenge locating the political sociology of the Himalayan region in the Indian sociology so that it gets due attention from others. The launch of a new course in Tibet and Himalayan Studies and the Indian Studies programme at the University of Oxford and her exposure to Tibet Studies and Nepal Studies, and field research among Tibeto-Burman and Nepali groups residing in Sikkim and adjoining Darjeeling Hills facilitated bridging her academic training in the sociology of India at the Delhi School of Economics with her decade-long research in and on the Himalayas. Numerous conference panels that she organised on themes such as identity, ethnicity, democracy and movements for the British Association of South Asian Studies (2004, 2005) and the European Association of Modern Asian Studies (2007) germinated networks and connected many contributors to this volume. There are other academics within India, including the second editor (N. Jayaram), who have encouraged her and whose scholarly advice has sustained her through her struggle for delineating a Himalayan identity. The challenge of dislocating the Himalayan studies in India from its borderland position and rooting it in sociology of India and South Asia has enriched us both.