The Politics of Nepal (Persistence and Change in an Asian Monarchy)

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This volume offers the first systematic study of the politics of Nepal, a country long neglected by scholars and largely unknown to the outside world until the mid-fifties. The authors point out that Nepal is of special interest because it has never been reduced to colonial status, and the changes in traditionoal institution are being initiated and controlled by Nepalis unconditioned by Western conquest. Moreover, Nepal is one of the few countries in Asia where a monarchy is the chief agency in the modernizing of the political structure.

The book discusses Nepal's efforts to maintain its national identity, given its geopolitical situation bordering on both India and China. These efforts have led to the development of an internal polity and a foreign policy of nonalignment that make the country unique in Asia.

Although the authors emphasize that Nepal is still in a state of transition and predictions for the future are difficult, their scrupulous analysis should aid the reader in understanding tomorrow's development.

Leo E. Rose Margaret W. Fisher are both Lecturers in the Department of Political Science. Their collaboration in research on Nepal began in 1952. They are co-authors of Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh and North-East Frontier Agency of India.

Leo E. Rose is also Associate Editor of Asian Survey, and author of Democrating Innovations in Nepal: A Case Study of Political Acculturation.

Margaret W. Fisher is Associate Research Political Scientist in the Institute of International Studies.

Richard L. Park.

Our collaboration in researches on Nepal began in 1952 and has continued, with varying degrees of intensity, down to the present. In the early fifties, Nepal was emerging from centuries of seclusion, but was still largely unknown to the outside world. In the course of its search for a place in the modern world a palace revolution occurred which toppled a singularly anachronistic system of government. For a brief period Nepal won attention-although something less than comprehension-in the world press.

Our search for answers to questions arising from journalistic accounts of these events proved to be more rewarding than we had expected. Initial curiosity gave way to sustained interest in the unique civilization which had developed in Nepal's mountain fastnesses. It became clear that this civilization, the people who had created it, and the environment which had nurtured it offered a variety of challenging problems worthy of the attention of scholars in all fields.

Western conquest. Nepal is also one of the few countries in Asia where the modernizing of the traditional institutional structure is occurring with a monarchy as the chief agency of change. (Iran and Afghanistan also come to mind, but neither is as clear an example as Nepal.) Inherent in this situation is the persistence of a traditional approach to politics which conditions the direction and pace of change, sometimes introducing unexpected complications. Old ways of doing things are frequently given new names and new ways are given old names, so that it is sometimes difficult to discern which developments represent persistence and which represent change. Whether this approach has been applied intuitively or as a conscious exercise of statecraft must for the present remain unanswered. Of greater importance is the degree of success which has thus far attended its use.

Nepal's efforts to maintain its national identity, given its geopolitical situation, have prompted it to develop both an internal polity and a foreign policy that distinguish it from its two powerful neighbors, India and China. This distinction has been achieved internally through the panchayat system, and externally through an extension of the nonalignment concept to the goal of “equal friendship for all.”

The process of change continues apace. Indeed, Nepal's overall stability appears to be enhanced by, if not actually dependent upon, fairly constant change. In any event, we are discussing a country that is still in transition. Today's analysis will not necessarily provide a prognosis for tomorrow's developments, but hopefully it will aid in making them comprehensible.

Serious study of modern South Asia is a relatively recent development in the United States. It began shortly after World War II, and was made possible by opportunities for language study and research in the region. Scholarly work on current South Asian themes, however, rests upon older academic traditions that emphasized principally the philosophy, religion, and classical literature of these ancient civilizations. This series, “South Asian Political Systems, is addressed to contemporary political problems, but is presented in the context of institutions and value systems that were centuries in the making.

Over the past quarter century, humanists and social scientists in Asia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere throughout the world have worked together to study modern South Asian cultures. Their efforts have been encouraged by a recognition of the importance of the rapid rise of nationalism in Asia in the twentieth century, by the decline, hastened by the war, of Western imperial systems, and by the appearance of dozens of independent states since the founding of the United Nations. Scholars were made increasingly aware that the South Asian peoples were not anonymous masses or abstract representatives of distant traditions. They were, like us, concerned with their own political affairs, with raising families, building houses, constructing industries, educating the young, and creating better societies. They were nourished by their heritage, but they also struggled to devise political institutions, economic processes, and social organizations that were responsive to modem needs. And their needs were, and continue to be, great.

It was an awareness of these realities that encouraged private foundations and agencies of government to sponsor intensive field work in South Asia, including firsthand observation of day-to-day life and opportunities to discover and use rare source material. India has received the most attention, in part because of its size and intrinsic importance, in part because scholars have concentrated on teaching Indian languages, and research tends to be done where the languages are understood. More and more the other countries of South Asia-Pakistan, Nepal, Ceylon, and Afghanistan-have begun to attract scholarly attention. Whereas in the late 1940's one was hard pressed to find literature about the region, except in journalistic accounts or in British imperial histories, by the 1970's competent monographs and reliable periodicals are abundantly available. Today one can draw from an impressive bibliography on South Asia, including a commendable list of political works.