Enduring inequalities: Practices of caste and development in new Nepal

In 2007 a new Nepal in the form of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal was born. The idea of this new Nepal was to create a political space in which all Nepalese peoples irrespective of caste, ethnicity, gender and religion could relate to each other in equal social relations. Yet Nepal continues to harbour a deeply unequal society led by unequal distribution of opportunities for economic and social mobility. This thesis critically examines the difficulties in attaining equality of social relationships through ethnographic observations of everyday lives between Bahun, Dalit and Tamang communities in a rural village in Nepal. In doing so the ethnography investigates how the structure of caste influences the interplay between everyday cultural as well as organized development (bikas) practices in changing social and political milieu in creating unequal opportunities. Informed by location specific as well as national historical- political contexts, the thesis explores how caste status and its associated practices of discrimination link with wealth, leadership roles, education and networks to create uneven playing fields for various social groups in accessing land, utilizing financial institutions and even migrating in ways that only further consolidate their pre-existing structural positions. The thesis shows how the state’s rhetoric of equal social relations and its discourses and practices of growth-oriented development ignore unequal social relations and thus prove incapable of eradicating the structural poverty of the Dalits