Imagining the Good Life : Negotiating Culture and Development in Nepal Himalaya [1 ed.] 9789047443377, 9789004167872

Citation preview

Imagining the Good Life

Social Sciences in Asia Edited by

Vineeta Sinha Syed Farid Alatas Chan Kwok-bun

VOLUME 20

Imagining the Good Life Negotiating Culture and Development in Nepal Himalaya

By

Francis Khek Gee Lim

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

On the cover: Langtang villagers participating in Lhabsang ritual. Photograph by the author. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lim, Francis Khek Gee. Imagining the good life : negotiating culture and development in Nepal Himalaya / by Francis Khek Gee Lim. p. cm. — (Social sciences in Asia, ISSN 1567-2794 ; v. 20) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16787-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Economic development— Social aspects—Nepal—Langtang. 2. Culture—Nepal—Langtang. 3. Culture and globalization—Nepal—Langtang. 4. Social capital (Sociology)—Nepal—Langtang. 5. Langtang (Nepal)—Economic conditions. 6. Langtang (Nepal)—Social conditions. I. Title. II. Series. HC425.Z7L365 2008 306.3095496—dc22

2008025895

ISSN 1567-2794 ISBN 978 90 04 16787 2 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

For my parents

CONTENTS List of Tables ................................................................................. List of Maps and Photographs ......................................................... Acknowledgements ............................................................................

ix xi xiii

Chapter One Introduction: In Pursuit of the Good Life ....... Modern Langtang ................................................................... The Experience of Place ........................................................ Who Are the Langtangpa? ..................................................... The Setting ............................................................................. Book Outline ...........................................................................

1 8 14 18 21 25

Chapter Two Zombie Slayers in a ‘Hidden Valley’ ............... Sacred Geography: Langtang as Beyul (‘Hidden Land’) ........ The Mukhiyā Clans .................................................................. Zombie Slayers in Langtang: Ascendancy of the Domar Clan ........................................ Ideology Emplaced: Land, Ritual, Power .............................. Nara ........................................................................................ Conclusion ..............................................................................

31 33 38 40 45 52 57

Chapter Three Crossing Borders ............................................ Crossing Borders (I): Langtang People on the Move ............ Working the Land ................................................................... Crossing Borders (II): Development and Foreign Aid ........... Establishing the National Park: Putting the Langtangpa in Place ........................................

59 63 69 75

Chapter Four Being in the World and the Rituals of Life .... Avoiding dugpu, Attaining kipu ................................................ Gender Complementarity: dgra lha and g.yang ................................................................ Tshe sgrub: ‘Enhancing Life’ .................................................... Karma and the Wheel of Life ............................................... Nyungne (bsmyung gnas) ........................................................... This Life, Next Life ................................................................

89 90

80

93 100 103 105 108

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contents

Chapter Five Embedding Bikās in Everyday Life ................... Emergence of a New Materiality ........................................... Tourism for National Development ....................................... Design of Hotels ..................................................................... Articulation of Internal Design Elements .............................. Hotel, Status and Personal Identity ....................................... Hotels as Political Sites ........................................................... Conclusion ..............................................................................

113 114 117 122 124 124 131 135

Chapter Six Romantic Dreams and Practical Lives ............... Spirituality and Corruption .................................................... Mutual Gazing and Imagining Practices ............................... Living in an Aestheticised Landscape .................................... The Foreignscapes: The Langtangpa’s Counter-gaze ....................................................................... Of Reverie and Emplacement ...................................................... Conclusion ..............................................................................

137 137 140 144 157 165 167

Chapter Seven The Morality of Well-being .......................... Dippa (sgrib pa): Explaining Misfortune in Langtang .............. The Case of Diminishing Potatoes, Or, Why Good Social Relations Are Important ..................................................... Mikha: Exorcism of Malicious Gossip .................................... Cooperative Ventures ............................................................. Desperately Seeking Synthesis ................................................

169 170 178 188 191 193

Chapter Eight Conclusion: Place, History and the Good Life ................................................................................... Spatial Experience and Social Relations ................................ The Good Life and the Practice of Development ................

195 196 202

Glossary of Terms .......................................................................... References ....................................................................................... Index .............................................................................................

213 219 229

LIST OF TABLES Table Table Table Table

1: 2: 3: 4:

The kuriya households ‘Power’ plants and their uses Production of crossbreeds Share of foreign assistance in development expenditure (in million Rs. rounded figures) Table 5: Protected areas in Nepal Table 6: Monthly ritual cycle Table 7: Tourism—Arrivals, 1998–2003

LIST OF MAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

1.1: 1.2: 1.3: 1.4: 1.5: 2.1: 2.2: 2.3: 2.4: 2.5: 3.1:

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

3.2: 3.3: 4.1: 4.2: 5.1: 5.2:

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

5.3: 5.4: 5.5: 6.1: 6.2: 7.1: 7.2: 7.3: 8.1: 8.2:

Fieldwork site in Nepal Fieldwork site in Langtang National Park Langtang Village in late summer Map of Langtang Village Langtang Village—Population chart Langtang beyul in early winter Segmentation of the Domar clan Langtang landholding Tamdin (rta mgrin, Skt. Hayagrīva) Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) Sang (fumigation) ritual at Langshisa—Commemorating the legendary bull which ‘discovered’ Langtang Working in the fields Villagers with a herd of crossbreeds Lha bsangs altar, showing gtorma representing various deities Lhabsang—Officiating lama and his assistant Langtang hotels—Trekkers’ fi rst encounter with the village New status symbol—Contrast between hotel and traditional house Temple—Sitting arrangement of priests and worshippers Hotel—Sitting arrangement of hosts and guests Hotel’s dining room as site of status generation Village attraction—Women doing their chores Langtangpa’s reverse gaze—Imagining a better life? Langtang after a snowstorm Hotel under construction The mikha embodied Participants at village council meeting Local leaders paying respect to the Nepalese monarchy at the start of village meeting

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have incurred many debts in the course of writing this book. First of all, I want to thank my gurus at the S.O.A.S. Anthropology Department: Caroline Osella, Stephen Hughes, and especially J.D.Y. Peel, whose humanity and immense knowledge has been an enormous source of inspiration. My heart-felt appreciation to the following scholars for their help and encouragement at various stages of this project: Charles Ramble, Michael Hutt, Richard Whitecross, Ian Harper, Ben Campbell, Alan Macfarlane, John Hutnyk, Kwok Kian Woon, Bryan Turner, Vineeta Sinha, and Assa Doron. To the people of Langtang: thuje che! Without their hospitality and friendship this book would not have been possible. My sincere gratitude goes to Zangpo and his wife, Zhe-nga, for allowing me to share a part of their lives and for their great hospitality; to Phinjo, Gyalpo, and Temba for their friendship; to Dorje, Karma and Tenzin Pasang for sharing with me their immense knowledge of Langtang history and politics; and to Dawa Lama and Minyu Lama for patiently attending to my enquiries on religious matters and the history of the Domari. Namaste to Ramjee Sah and his wife, Kalpana; both became my closest friends during my time in Nepal. I must also thank Khunchok Thile for his friendship and assistance during the first few months of the fieldwork, as well as Dorje Damdu for his advice and great company. Tribhuvan University and the Ministry of Education facilitated my research in Nepal. Much-needed financial assistance was provided by the following: the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Emslie Horniman Scholarship and the Radcliffe-Brown Fund; the University of London Central Research Fund; and the S.O.A.S. Additional Fieldwork Award. A postdoctoral fellowship at the Asia Research Institute (A.R.I.), National University of Singapore, provided an excellent environment to revise the book manuscript. I thank Anthony Reid, the director of A.R.I. during my stay, for the opportunity. The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, made possible a brief visit to Nepal to update the data for this book. Versions of chapters two, five and six have previously been published in the following journals: European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

xiv

acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to Sandra for her continuous affection, understanding, and wonderful companionship. My deepest gratitude goes to my family, especially my parents, for their unstinting support and encouragement all these years. I dedicate this book to them.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION: IN PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE Social action must be animated by a vision of a future society —Noam Chomsky

This book is an ethnographic study of one of humanity’s most fundamental concerns, the pursuit of the ‘good life’. A briefest of crosscultural surveys shows the immense diversity of ideas on how to achieve it: Buddhism exhorts the faithful to hold fast to the Four Noble Truths in order to attain liberation from perpetual suffering; and Socrates famously defined the good life as a life of self-examination. Moral and political philosophers have grappled implicitly or explicitly with the idea when they debate the ideal forms of society. Therefore, in recent times, John Rawls (1971) writes about the creation of a just society, Robert Nozick (1975) argues for a libertarian one in which there is minimum government intervention in individuals’ lives, while Amartya Sen (1999) sees freedom as both a basic constituent of societal development and the key enabling factor for the development of human capacities. Social practices such as ‘development’ and ‘modernisation’ are geared ultimately towards the attainment of this end. From this briefest of surveys, we see that the pursuit of a good life is a universal human preoccupation, although there is a wide and diverse range of ideas and theories on the ways to achieve it. Going against a central tenet of post-structuralism that denies any universally valid proposition, and that we can only speak of ‘truths’ which are sustained by regimes of power, this ethnography is thus first and foremost empirically grounded on what I think is a universal feature of humanity. What I aim to do here is not to provide an answer, ultimately, to the question of what the good life is. That task, I think, is best reserved for the various religions, and moral and political philosophies. Instead, this book wishes to offer an innovative approach to the study of ‘development’: by analysing the ways in which various social networks, developmental discourses and cultural practices articulate with one another at a particular time and place, in turn creating the

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‘objective conditions’ by which it becomes possible for a particular community to imagine and pursue the good life. Cultural concepts of the ‘good life’ will in turn shape the ways in which developmental goals are formulated and how the pursuit of ‘development’ is experienced. The book attempts to show how the villagers of Langtang in Nepal strive to attain both material and spiritual well-being as they are incorporated into the Nepalese state and engage with the global capitalist economy, and about how their society is transformed in the process. My point of departure is to use original ethnographic material to explore the relationship between notions of well-being and the experience of place. Utilising a ‘practice’ approach, I conceptualise the Langtangpa’s striving for a better life both temporally and spatially: attention to temporality provides a historical understanding of socio-cultural change as the Langtangpa pursue a better life within larger, evolving national and international contexts, while attention to spatiality focuses my analysis on the polysemic meanings of place, revealing the practical, lived space of Langtang as inherently politicised, culturally relative constructions (e.g. Rodman 1992; Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga 2003; Appadurai 1988; De Certeau 1984). Substantively, this book argues for anthropological inquiry into the notion of the good life, since it is undeniably a major, if not the fundamental, preoccupation of most peoples. Practices and goals such as ‘development’, ‘modernisation’, ‘social unity’ and the like—indeed most political ideologies, as well as great swathes of human activities and institutions—are geared ultimately towards the attainment of this end. Like other peoples, the Langtangpa’s search for the good life is not a simple matter, easily attained without pain, sacrifice and contradiction. And since the pursuit of well-being is a perennial human concern, an unceasing endeavour akin to catching up with a forever-receding finishing line, there is no end-stage at which a community—be it a village or a country—can say that the good life has been achieved, that utopia has arrived. Paradise on earth is forever elusive. While most Langtangpa would in general agree that their present life is much better than before, this favourable assessment is not without serious qualifications. Overwhelmingly, they lament the demise of the cooperative spirit among villagers over the past decades, mainly as the consequence of their increasing participation in the money economy through tourism. Some of the old problems have been surmounted, some have persisted, and new ones have appeared on the horizon.

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Nepal is an appropriate research site, since the concept of ‘development’, or bikās, has become an intricate part of Nepalese social discourse, to a large extent framing the practical pursuits of individuals, local communities, and the state. Among the Langtangpa, the Tibetan term yarke (Tib. yar skegs) can be used interchangeably with bikās, but yarke is used more often among the older generation, while young Langtangpa tend to use the Nepali term bikās when referring to ‘development’. At one level, bikās simply refers to the plethora of things that make life more comfortable: water taps, tarmac roads, television sets, radios, bigger and better houses, good healthcare and the provision of education. At another level, although influenced by the western modernisation theory and narratives about development, bikās is a uniquely Nepalese concept of ‘progress’ and development. Here the Nepalese state has played a crucial role. After the isolationist Rana government was overthrown in the 1951 revolution, the new Shah government adopted a progressive stance by opening the country’s doors to Western expertise and international aid to help build up Nepal’s infrastructure. Therefore in Nepal, bikās is also conceived as the link between the country and the more ‘developed’ world, i.e. the West. As Stacey Pigg argues, the ideology of bikās is intimately linked to the state’s nationalist project, through the discourse that defines Nepal as ‘undeveloped’ (N. abikāsi) vis-à-vis the developed West: For nearly 40 years Nepal’s political identity has been linked to global institutions of international development. During this time, the population has been exposed to a barrage of political rhetoric equating the legitimacy of government with national unity on the one hand and national progress on the other . . . The national project of bikās encourages the formation of an imagined community. (Pigg 1992; see also Pfaff-Czenecka 1997)

The discourse and practice of bikās, therefore, is intimately tied to conceptions of what type of place Nepal is: in developmental parlance, it is ‘one of the poorest countries in the world’, hence providing the justification for expert knowledge to intervene in order to help Nepal to modernise and develop. The paradox is that the Nepalese government has appropriated this status in order to attract more and continuous international aid, leading many critics to suggest that this has ultimately contributed to a debilitating relationship of dependency between Nepal and the major donor countries and agencies, fuelling bureaucratic corruption and hindering the process of capacity building. One of the most ferocious criticisms against the debilitating effects of foreign aid

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has been put forward by the Nepalese anthropologist, Dor Bahadur Bista, who in his book, Fatalism and Development (1991), argues that the massive inflow of foreign aid creates a strong sense of dependency and powerlessness. As a result, the political leaders and bureaucratic functionaries do not feel motivated to work hard to solve the country’s problems, as the aid donors ‘are seen as father surrogates; the only active agent of development becomes the foreign party’. Despite the significant number of accounts on Nepal’s engagement with bikās, insufficient attention has been paid to the problem of how the ideology and practices of development become embedded in the everyday life of Nepal’s numerous ethnic communities. In economic terms, development predominantly refers to improvement in material resources that can be assessed quantitatively. Philosophically, the notion of development is more problematic. For example, as Sandra Wallman argues, there is no self-evident justification ‘why a condition [such as] maximum industrialisation should be, or assumed to be, the ideal moral condition’ (1977:1). The term ‘development’ has the connotation of ‘progress’ in relation to some ultimate good. However, what are considered ‘good’, or, in other words, what are the desired ends of development, cannot be assumed a priori, but have to be determined empirically in relation to a particular community’s cultural values. Therefore, a key problematic I am concerned with in this book can be recast as a question: What ‘criteria of judgement’ (Peel 1978:140) based on some form of local social theory does a particular community employ to either negotiate with, and assimilate, new ideas and demands into their cultural universe to become existentially meaningful; or resist or reject them? What I am concerned with is more than just the impact of development on material resources, such as the number of miles of paved roads, the quantity of new water taps in the village, the numbers of schools and children receiving adequate education, the availability of fertilisers, or even the incomes of people. This book argues that the experience of development has to be seen as mediated through a community’s values and aspirations—in short, its vision of the ‘good life’. My position here should not be misconstrued as arguing for a hermeneutically sealed, rigidly bounded local community whose cultural values and indigenous knowledge are incommensurable with, or impermeable to, other external systems of knowledge, such as that of international development (cf. Hobart 1993). The Langtangpa’s ideas concerning the good life, like the ‘local knowledge’ in recent anthropological discussions on development, should be seen as resulting from

introduction

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‘complex negotiation practices linked to knowledge interfaces’ (Pottier 2003:5), involving both local and external actors in relationships imbued with unequal power and access to resources. The Langtangpa refer to the ‘good life’ as kipu (skyid po),1 a very general term that has connotations of happiness, well-being, contentment, and material comforts. There is a related term, kipu dang, which is often used by the Langtangpa to describe happy occasions, such as drinking sessions, wedding parties, all-night dancing, etc., thus making its meaning closer to the common English phrase, ‘having a good time’. Just as there is a distinction in English between ‘a good life’ and ‘having a good time’, the Langtangpa would not confuse kipu with kipu dang. Over the past few decades, the attainment of kipu overlaps to a significant degree, but not completely, with the practice of bikās. However, despite the fact that the Langtangpa have indeed experienced a significant improvement in their standard of living in the last two decades, their previous very deeply felt ambivalence has not yet been fully dissipated. This is because, to the Langtangpa, the good life means much more than material comfort. They are mostly proud that tourists find both their physical and cultural landscapes fascinating, and are grateful for the various development projects that have been carried out in the village. But all this has come at a price. In the name of ‘conservation’ and ‘development’, the state, with the help of international organisations, has taken away the Langtangpa’s traditional control over the land, and subjected them to a new and powerful disciplinary regime (cf. Foucault 1977), objectified in the forms of the army, the police and National Park regulations. Accompanying the arrival of bikās to Langtang Village, then, was a set of externally imposed rules and surveillance that reconfigure the villagers’ relationships with their homeland, the Nepalese state and, ultimately, the world. The Langtangpa have always had to face difficult life-choices in their efforts to overcome adversity. When the Tibetan border was closed following the Chinese takeover, the Langtangpa shifted their economic focus from trans-Himalayan salt and rice trade to the collection and sale of herbs in the market towns of Nepal. New circumstances have brought new opportunities, but also countless challenges and excruciating dilemmas. The previous hardship of trudging with heavy loads over

1 All subsequent bracketed words are transliterations in standard Tibetan, unless otherwise indicated.

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long distances and difficult terrain to trade has now been replaced by anxiety associated with the uncertainties of tourism. The Langtangpa discovered for themselves in 2001 how national and global events, such as the Maoist insurgency, the Royal Palace massacre, and the 9/11 terrorism attack in New York, could reduce the flow of tourists to a trickle, severely jeopardising their livelihoods. While the Maoist rebels had managed to secure a number of strongholds with the districts of Rasuwa, they were absent from the Langtang Valley until March and June 2006, during two periods of ceasefire with the government forces. On these two occasions, the Maoists visited and solicited donations from Langtang villagers, especially from the wealthy hotel owners; they also tried to recruit new members. While the few wealthiest Langtangpa each ‘donated’ around Rs. 20,000, no villagers joined the rebels. So, unlike many other places of rural Nepal, the Langtangpa had not experienced life under direct Maoist rule and the violent clashes between the rebels and government forces. The most immediate problem the Langtangpa faced regarding the Maoist insurgency was its negative impact on tourist arrivals. Therefore, even as trekking tourism has brought with it business and employment opportunities, the resulting competition among the Langtangpa for tourist dollars has threatened to tear the community apart. Food remains a major concern: if the potato crop is struck by disease, or if there is insufficient snowfall in winter, the result is a drastic drop in the harvests, forcing villagers to spend more money on food and putting a tremendous financial strain on the poorer section of the population. Freak weather and poor harvest can mean more than just a meagre diet and greater pressure to find money for food: natural calamities are often interpreted through a moral lens, as reflecting either a general deterioration of social relations among villagers or as the result of somebody’s infringement of particular social norms. As will be shown later in the book, what is considered ‘good’ in a particular aspect of one’s life might not be so in another. Failure to participate in religious rituals or to discharge one’s duties to the temples, due to the need to spend more time in the fields or working as a trekking guide, might incur the wrath of the numerous deities, thereby jeopardising one’s spiritual well-being. By sending their children to private boarding schools, parents wish to give them a headstart in life. This, however, means the parents will have to worry about hefty school fees and also suffer the heartache of prolonged separation from their children. It may be prudent to express one’s loyalty to a particular political leader, but

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this can put a tremendous strain on one’s relationships with those friends and kinsfolk who support another. Indeed, there is general agreement among the Langtangpa that the bikās or yarke the village has experienced in the last couple of decades has not been translated into kipu for the community as a whole, as Tsering, a woman in her mid-30s, said to me, ‘Langtang has developed, but there’s no good life in the village’ (‘ngi Langtang yarke gel sin, hinna yang lung par kipu mindu’). The inexorable process of integration into the cash economy, as well as their participation in the new national political order of multi-party democracy, signifies for the Langtangpa a radical break with the past. Peter Marris has argued in his book, Loss and Change (1974), that all change entails loss, and all loss can be seen as a kind of grief. One kind of change Marris identifies is what he calls a ‘crisis of discontinuity’, whereby new cultural assumptions and practices have supplanted older ones, leading to the emergence of new modes of thinking and social relations, and in the process provoking a sense of fundamental loss within an individual or a community. For the Langtangpa, the creation of Langtang National Park in 1976 and the subsequent arrival of tourism have contributed to such a ‘crisis of discontinuity’. In less than three decades, images of poverty and material deprivation in the pretourism days have already formed an intricate part of Langtang social memory and historical discourse, contrasting with the present period that is marked by a general rise in the standard of living and social transformations. Accompanying the villagers’ sense of tumultuous social change is a deep sense of loss, especially the perceived deterioration of erstwhile social unity and cooperation among villagers. Intra-village political antagonism has combined with the intense business competition generated by trekking tourism to become a strong divisive force, threatening to rupture the very fabric of the Langtang community. At the time of writing, the Langtangpa were afraid that the tourism they are so dependent upon for ‘development’ is being threatened by the Maoist insurgency that has engulfed many parts of the country. The frequent strikes, or bandh, as well as periodic violent clashes between the security forces and the Maoists in the country, have drastically reduced the number of visitors to the Langtang Valley. In terms of theoretical framing, my position here is that an investigation into people’s pursuit of the good life will enable us to better understand and explain not only the creation of social institutions and cultural practices, but also of their transformation and demise. With people forging new relationships as they pursue their projects and goals

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in constantly changing circumstances, new cultural values are formed and new means are created through which these values can be expressed (cf. Sahlins 1985; Barth 1969). In this ethnography, therefore, one of my key focuses is on the Langtangpa’s intentions and purposes, which are crucial to our understanding of their engagement with the world and experience of social change. As Ortner, following Geertz, argues, ‘cultural forms are not merely sets of terms and codes and categories, but emerge from structures of purpose and desire, and only make sense in relation to those underlying purposes and desires’ (1999:22). In trying to portray the Langtangpa’s lives as they live it, I seek to avoid the analytical distinctions that falsely separate the ‘economic’ from the ‘political’, the ‘social’ from the ‘cultural’. Societies or cultures are never as neat as portrayed by, say, a structural-functionalist approach, whose synchronic bias tacitly assumes a static set of wants, projects and desires in a system of universally shared meanings, and whose search for an internal unity has made it open to criticisms that it cannot adequately explain socio-cultural change. In contrast, the approach I adopt here opens up the vista of enquiry, an outward orientation that situates the lives of the Langtangpa in the broadest possible context, emphasising their use of creative ‘strategies’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:12) in the pursuit of a better life for themselves while negotiating through a maze of obstacles and challenges. My focus here is on the intertwining and mutual production of histories through encounters between the Langtangpa and their significant others, and hence emphasises the relationally constituted nature of Langtang sociality (see e.g. Gewertz and Errington 1991). This emphasis on encounters also recognises that ‘people confront one another within the framework of differing agendas’: These are not necessarily agendas of power and domination as such; often they are not. But the de facto differentials of power and resources shape even the most well-meaning encounters, and produce the on-going fiction—sometimes pleasurable, often tragic, always generative—of history. (Ortner 1999:17)

Modern Langtang Some time ago, when I told a friend of my research interest in Nepal, she asked whether the country was ‘primitive’. Another acquaintance questioned my approach of situating Nepal in ‘modernity’ even before I went to the field, saying that whether Langtang is modern has to be

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determined empirically. To many people Nepal probably suggests a largely rural, agricultural country where people continue to live their ‘traditional’ way of life, generally deprived of the various ‘modern’ amenities such as cars, internet connections, flush toilets, cinemas, and so on. This image of Nepal as situated in an ‘Age of Innocence’ has been one consequence of the construction of Nepal as a tourist destination. My friend’s use of the word ‘primitive’ immediately brings to mind the once, and probably still, highly influential evolutionary social theory that postulates a linear progression of societal development. Modernisation theory and the subsequent discourse of development were hugely influential from the 1940s to the 1960s, when Western experts were concerned with the modernisation of the former colonies and newly independent countries. Central to the modernisation theory was the assumption that the so-called Third World countries could catch up with the ‘developed’ countries through a development programme that simultaneously identified and eradicated local ‘traditions’ deemed as impeding ‘progress’, and prescribed positive economic measures emulating the successful Western models and experience (see e.g. Arce and Long 1999:5; Escobar 1995). Those societies that somehow fail to successfully manage the transition are seen as being, in some ways, deficient and pathological. In the case of India, for example, its transition to modernity is allegedly hampered by the continuing existence of certain ‘traditional’ cultural practice, such as the caste system, or ‘pre-modern’ social forms such as the village and agriculture.2 Modernisation theory and its various offshoots are basically convergence theories—akin to the classical theories of Marx and Durkheim—which argue that ‘the basic institutional constellations that came together in early modern Europe and the cultural programme related to it would ultimately be taken over by all modernising societies’ (Eisenstadt & Schluchter 2000:4). Modernisation theory as a development paradigm stipulates intensive industrialisation with the help of scientific knowledge and technological innovations, with the concomitant establishment of legal-rational institutions. From these premises a set of criteria or (economic) indices was developed, which was then used to judge whether a country that has embarked on the modernisation programme has achieved the status of the ‘developed’. The proliferation of this particular narrative of progress ‘marks a turning point at which new values and social institutions finally inject economic motives into people’s lives, 2

For a lucid summary of the debate, see Osella and Osella (2000:257, 272 n. 4).

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infecting tradition with modernism and establishing economic growth as a normal condition of progress’ (Ibid.). To see a village like Langtang in the remote mountain region of Nepal (‘Third World’) as part of modernity goes fundamentally against the basic premises of modernisation theory. To supporters of this theory Langtang is not modern, as it is seemingly devoid of the characteristics of a ‘modern’ society. The Nepalese political elite, mostly comprised of high-caste Hindus, largely appropriated this evolutionary conception of development and gave it a Nepalese twist. As Pigg (1992) writes: ‘It brings into a single evolutionary line a number of scales of social differentiation: habitat (mountain to plains); livelihood (nomadic herding through farming to office work) and religion (Buddhist to more orthodox Hindu); race (Central Asian to Aryan).’ Thus even when Nepal sees itself as less modern/less developed vis-à-vis other Western countries, some sections of the population are seen as more modern and developed than others. Modernisation theory and the concomitant views of modernity as unilinear progression share certain commonalities with the colonial discourse of earlier times. That the construction of the Other as inferior or childlike had served the purpose of legitimising European colonial expansion has been well documented (see e.g. Said 1995; Nandy 1998). A common theme that runs through both colonial and modernisation discourse is the idea that all human societies progress through certain stages. Marx (1977) famously revealed his Eurocentrism when he pronounced the colonisation of India as a necessary evil furthering the transformation of a feudal society on the path towards capitalism and, ultimately, socialism. The framing of modernity in temporal terms has, for the past decade or so, been under intense intellectual scrutiny by social theorists. From the post-colonial trends in anthropology and history, and from numerous scholars situated not in modernity’s classical ‘centres’ but in the so-called peripheral countries, efforts have been made to deconstruct a master-narrative that places the origin of modernity solely and squarely in Europe, and which attempts to universalise the various experiences of European modernity. In this critical and reflexive turn, modernity is re-conceptualised spatial-relationally and is seen as a condition involving Europeans and non-Europeans as co-producers. For example, in an analysis that takes its cue from the world-system theory of Immanuel Wallerstein, Enrique Dussel has compellingly argued from a worldsystem perspective that modernity arose as the culture of the ‘centre’

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of the first world-system through the simultaneous incorporation of Amerindia: European modernity is not an independent, autopoietic, self-referential system, but instead is part of a world system: in fact, its centre. Modernity, then, is planetary. It begins with the simultaneous constitution of Spain with reference to its ‘periphery’ (first of all, properly speaking, Amerindia: the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru). Simultaneously, Europe . . . will go on to constitute itself as centre . . . over a growing periphery. (Dussel 1999:4)

Dussel goes on to argue that the centrality of Europe in the worldsystem is not due to some inherent cultural superiority over the other cultures, but is largely the result of the conquest and colonisation of Amerindia, which in turn gives Europe a comparative advantage over the Ottoman-Muslim world, India and China. Hence, modernity ‘is the fruit of these events, not their cause’ (Ibid.:5). The new paradigm of European modernity arose out of the desire to effectively manage the expansion of the world-system in the first half of the 17th century. This necessitates an emphasis on technological innovation and on the process of simplification through ‘rationalisation’ of the life-world (Ibid.:15). In his recent book Modernities, Peter Taylor undertakes a geohistorical interpretation of modernity that refutes the diffusionist idea that modernity ‘spreads’ from the centre of the world-system (a view held by theorists such as Anthony Giddens and Ernest Gellner) first in Europe and then the United States, questioning a central idea of modernisation theory that traces certain important features of contemporary society back in time ‘so that the story told is one which culminates in the success of today’s society’ (1999:11). Instead of stressing the continuities of modernity, Taylor seeks to emphasise discontinuities on both space and time. For him, modernity ‘doesn’t appear as the result of any “natural” evolution; there are many discontinuities, with both the rise and development of the modern world creating quite different forms of what it is to be modern’ (Ibid.:12). Taylor also adopted a world-systemic approach but emphasises that there are three distinct periods of modernity (or ‘prime modernities’), each dominated by a hegemonic state whose rise to prominence is determined by its successful capital accumulation. Taylor puts forward a ‘geohistory of modernities: becoming modern is negotiated in different ways and in different places’ (Ibid.:38). While both Dussel and Taylor deserve credit for moving the debate on modernity forward by looking at it in both temporal and spatial terms, which improves on the simplistic diffusionism of modernisation theory,

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their analyses fail to address adequately the participation of the so-called ‘non-core’ states in the constitution of modernity. Their orientation is still a Eurocentric one that ultimately sees the development of ‘multiple modernities’ not in the cultural particularities of the sites from which they have emerged, but as largely the results of their negotiations with, and emulation of, the core hegemonic states (cf. Eisenstadt & Schluchter 2000; Bjorn Wittrock 2000). We must recall that while certain social practices and cultural experience (or some, like Hegel would argue, a new form of consciousness) arose in certain countries in Europe as the result of colonial expansion, it is in the colonial economy where ideas of the ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ mode of production were tested (see e.g. Breman 1989; Daniel et al. 1992). What the previous Eurocentric master-narrative of modernity tended to do was to universalise a geographically very restricted experience. Chakrabarty has subjected such an approach to trenchant interrogation in his case study of the Calcutta jute mills. He has cogently argued that we need to rethink the assumptions in industrial labour relations that ‘workers all over the world, irrespective of their specific cultural pasts, experience “capitalist production” in the same way’ (1989:223). Criticising modernisation theories as generalising very historically and geographically specific experience based largely upon British industrialisation, he shows that in India capitalist-labour relationships and class consciousness take on specifically Indian forms, where the considerations of caste and village affiliation still retain their significance, and have not been eradicated as a Marxist-inspired account would predict. Taking a cue from Fabian (1983), my placing of Langtang in modernity is an attempt to recognise the ‘radical contemporaneity of mankind’, refusing a teleological conception of Time such as implied under the evolutionist conceptions of ‘modernisation’ and of societies’ ultimate developmental convergence. Situating the Langtangpa in modernity is, therefore, to recognise their coevalness in the same analytic space: Coevalness aims at recognising cotemporality as the condition for truly dialectical confrontation between persons as well as societies . . . What are opposed, in conflict, in fact, locked in antagonistic struggle, are not the same societies as different stages of development, but different societies facing each other at the same Time. (Fabian 1983:154)

Seeing modernity in relational terms would reveal to us that there are different routes to modernity (cf. Therborn 1995; Chatterjee 1997), so that different modalities of modernity can happen in the same analytic space. As Osella and Osella (2000:260) eloquently argue, ‘we

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must acknowledge that modernity is local in its globality (or plural in its singularity) in that it is elaborated, made sense of and experienced everywhere in a continual dialogue with local ideas and practices.’ Therefore, on the one hand, we could argue that features such as increasing individual freedom, bureaucratisation, secularisation and industrialisation might characterise the cultural experience of modernity in particular European societies. On the other hand, in other parts of the world, modernity can manifest itself as exploitation and subjugation as indigenous people were taken as slaves or ‘coolies’ to work in the plantations and their land taken away for ‘development’. Kevin Bales (1999), in an important study on the ‘new slavery’, provides a forceful account of the relationship between slave labour in countries like Pakistan and prostitution in Thailand on the one hand, and the global economy and consumption practices of peoples in the wealthy nations on the other. For both the exploited workers in the sweatshops in Vietnam and the wealthier consumers of fashion in the ‘First World’, ‘progress’ in whatever form is the common preoccupation. While all inhabit the same analytic space, and in this sense both groups of people are equally modern, their life trajectories and experiences could not be more divergent. In a recent important contribution to the debate on ‘multiple modernities’, K. Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Agrawal introduce the concept of ‘regional modernities’ to highlight the importance of regional state systems and political institutions in structuring the specific forms that modernity takes. In the case of postcolonial societies such as those in South Asia, a distinctly national modernity has been produced as the consequence of the ‘cultural project of nationalism’ (Sivaramakrishnan and Agrawal 2003:15). While Nepal has not been formally colonised, during the era of European colonial expansion in South Asia it was drawn into a regional geopolitics that subsequently structured Nepal’s own pursuit of a ‘national modernity’ following decolonisation in the region. For Stacy Pigg (1992, 1994), Nepalese modernity is more generally linked with a specific discourse and experience of ‘development’ or bikās, mainly via international developmental aid. Recently, Mark Liechty (2002) analysed the practice of consumption of the Kathmandu middle class and argues for Nepal to be seen as manifesting its peculiar form of modernity. Specifically he focuses on the emerging structures of a local modernity by utilising consumption as a key cultural dynamic, and the ways in which consumption practices (e.g. watching videos, listening to pop music) effect new ways of seeing and, hence, new ways of being.

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The intersections of global development discourse and local processes in Nepal is also explored by Davies (1999) in her study of the Janakpur Women Development Project in the Maithil country of eastern Tarai, close to the border with India. She shows that in order to understand the success of this particular project, analyses have to include global relations encapsulated in the confluence of the practices and discourses on development, feminism and tourism. Also, instead of seeing the participants as passive receptacles of ‘foreign’ ideas pertaining to development and women’s issues, Davies stresses that the Maithil women, through their very act of participation, are the creators of women’s development: ‘[ They] come to understand the various interests in them as objects of women’s development and they strategise within and against these perceived interests, sometimes in very “staged” ways and towards their own ends.’ For example, while the foreign sponsors primarily highlight the project’s intervention in gender-related issues, the participants themselves ‘articulate that the (partial) alleviation of poverty, much more than gender subordination, is the primary positive change’ (Ibid.:22). My book builds on the insight of these scholars to show that cultural practices, cognitive categories, as well as identity formation, have to be understood relationally. My emphasis here is to investigate the Langtangpa’s imagination and pursuit of the good life in the context of their understanding and experience of place. The Experience of Place Anthropology’s long history of engagement with space and place can be traced to the work of Durkheim, who, in his Elementary Forms of Religious Life, sees space as the organisation of sensuous experience, something utilised by societies to attribute meaning to the world. Here, space is primarily conceived as coextensive with a territory, or, in present-day parlance, landscape or place (1915:9–11, quoted in Corsín Jiménez 2003). This Durkheimian legacy has contributed to the view that places produce meaning and that meaning can be grounded in place, most evident in anthropological discussions of a people’s relationships with their environment as mediated and experienced through autochthonous cosmology.3 But this premise of isomorphism between place and cos3 The Durkheimian heritage is, of course, highly influential in structuralism. For example, Lévi-Strauss’s (1963) notion of unconscious dualistic mental structures

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mology is implicitly reductionist since it assumes that only one mode of spatial understanding can exist for each cultural group. It contributes to the misleading impression that a cultural group is territorially bound and hermeneutically sealed; and it ignores the fact that at any one time there might be multiple and competing experiences of place, that a dominant interpretation might be invoked and sustained through the exercise of power by a particular set of actors. The Durkheimian gaze is so entrenched that sometimes scholars who recognise its limitations unwittingly let it slip in through the backdoor in their analyses. No doubt cosmology can be an important framework that underpins the spatial understanding and practices of a particular group of people, but it is never the only one. The experience of place is always multiple (cf. Rodman 1992), and if one particular mode or discourse is emphasised, we must account for the circumstances in which that is done and the purpose(s) for which it is invoked. We cannot simply assume a universally shared experience of place at all times under all circumstances by invoking a sort of eternal and pristine ‘cosmology’. The recent years have seen a proliferation of anthropological works on space, place and landscape (see e.g. Parkin 1991; Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995; Myers 1986, 2000; Rodman 1992; Bender 1993; Feld and Basso 1996; Ingold 2000; Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Stewart and Strathern 2003). One of the main reasons for this is the challenge posed to anthropological theorising by the influence of various globalisation theories. In a nutshell, these theories refer to ‘the intensification of worldwide social relation which link distant localities’, such that ‘local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’ (Giddens 1990:64). Taking a Marxist approach, David Harvey (1990) famously characterises globalisation as the ‘annihilation of space by time’ in the post-modern era of flexible capital accumulation. Apart from reducing production costs, firms seek to increase their rate of returns by increasing their efficiency in commodity production. The latter is achieved primarily through technological advancements that will significantly shorten the period between the sourcing of raw material, the production process, and the introduction of new commodities into the market. This calls for a more efficient and reliable system of inspired a huge body of work on the relationship between spatial organisation and social forms. Mary Douglas’s (1970) classification of ‘grid’ and ‘group’ societies is another example of the Durkheimian approach, postulating a correspondence between cosmology, social boundary and body posture.

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transportation and communication, which in turn creates ever-increasingly dense networks that enhance the mobility of people, information and goods. Hence, globalisation is conceived as the ‘complex connectivity’ (Tomlinson 1999) between different localities such that there is an ‘intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’ (Robertson 1992:8). As Hannerz (1997:538) points out, there had been a persistent imagery in anthropology of small and separate worlds that make up a global mosaic of cultures. The influence of globalisation theories has prompted many an analyst to conceptualise culture as undergoing a constant process of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation that vastly complicates its relationship with place, provoking both a sense of crisis in anthropology as a discipline as well as a burgeoning body of research into the spatial constitution of culture. Recent theoretical advancement sees place as ‘multilocal’, contested and infused with multiple meanings (see e.g. Rodman 1992; Thrift 1996; Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga 2003; Appadurai 1988). ‘Space’, on the other hand, is conceived as a ‘field of relations’, a shifting constellation of social relationships by which places are constituted (Olwig and Hastrup 1997). While acknowledging that there can be multiple experiences of a particular place, I would argue that not all are socially and culturally consequential. Put another way, not all conceptions of place have the same ‘structural weight’ (Sahlins 1981:72). Social practice, by definition, happens in contexts, and contexts consist in part of relationships that are infused with power and in part of the deposits of prior histories. Therefore, my aim of exploring the Langtangpa’s imagination and pursuit of the good life in relation to their experience of place will focus on what I deem to be particularly dominant conceptions of place that structure their experience. Differently organised and socially positioned groups struggle over the meaning of place. The construction of the physical space that is Langtang Valley into places infused with spatial meanings, deeply implicates what Gupta and Ferguson (1997:8) refer to as the ‘hegemonic configurations of power’. For example, the demarcation of Langtang by the Nepalese authorities as a tourist space means that it must sustain—such as through the disciplinary apparatuses of the state and developmental agencies—a set of attractive qualities, usually visual features, that conform to its tourist images (cf. Urry 1990; Edensor 1998:15). The limitations that the Langtangpa have to contend with in their pursuit of a better future can thus be construed as having been imposed through the various spatial significations that authorise

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or discredit actions (Smith 1993:88; Pred 1990:12). As will be further explicated in the latter chapters, this means that while the Langtangpa can imagine and pursue alternative lives, the options open to them are not infinite, and they do so under certain structural constraints intimately linked to their experience of place as constituted relationally. Marcuse (1973:206–7) has pointed out that the level of autonomy with which actors and societies can consciously shape their destinies cannot be assumed a priori; it depends on specific historical circumstances. While the focus here is on the Langtangpa’s intentions and purposes, we must not lose sight of the severe limits and constraints on their thoughts and actions over which they have no control. As a community that has been exposed to tourism for the past two decades and reliant on various projects sponsored either by the state or foreign organisations, they are faced with large-scale processes whose nature they find very difficult to understand and over which they are powerless. For example, the National Park that bears the name of the village had been created regardless of the villagers’ opinions. What was worse is that studies conducted by foreign agencies portrayed the villagers as contributing towards deforestation and the depletion of forest resources, thus justifying the establishment of the National Park in the first place. The wider contestations between the Nepalese monarchy, mainstream political parties and the Maoists over what sort of place/country Nepal should be, also severely restrict the development options available to the Langtangpa. The overarching, powerful structures that encompass Langtang sociality mean that they can exercise their autonomy only in a highly circumscribed manner. This greatly affects the ways in which they perceive foreigners and their countries, which in turn affects their perception of what a ‘good life’ could be. From the perspective of the Nepalese state and international aid donors, the Langtang Valley is conceived predominantly as a National Park, established as part of wider efforts at national development and, thus, subject to the disciplinary discourse of bikās. From this institutional position, the means to achieve a better life is largely defined for the locals in developmentalist idioms that call for expert interventions in both Langtang’s physical and socio-cultural environments. While these institutional agendas overlap with that of the Langtangpa, to its inhabitants the valley is not just a National Park, but also a sacred, powerful place—a ne ( gnas), an ‘embodied morality’ that weaves together sets of proscribed social practices and relations that govern the interaction

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patterns between villagers, the deities of the land, and the natural environment. For the Langtangpa, the ‘good life’ in the idiom of kipu therefore both encompasses and exceeds the acquisition of material benefits. My methodological position conceptualises the articulation of the two prevailing spatial constructions of the Langtang Valley—the ‘sacred’ and the ‘developmentalist/touristic’—as constituting the ‘objective potentialities’ in the Langtangpa’s subjective hopes for a better life. To the extent that communities of people everywhere constantly seek a good life for themselves in a perpetual state of ‘development’, it is my hope that the particular account of the Langtang people’s experience can illuminate our understanding of a more general, contemporary human condition. Who Are the Langtangpa? The issue of identity is a notoriously tricky problem for researchers working in the Himalayan region. As William Fisher notes in his study of the Thakali in central Nepal, it very often depends on why, when and to whom the particular group concerned ‘feel the need to answer questions about their identity, their jāt and their culture’. The answer one gets differs ‘within contexts of changing conditions, opportunities and constraints’ (2001:16; see also Guneratne 2002:6–19). Historically, group boundaries and identities have emerged in tandem with state formation, especially in the 18th century when Nepalese rulers sought to consolidate their hold over a vast kingdom that encompassed a diverse range of peoples, from those living in the south who were more exposed to Indic influences, to the enclaves of Tibetan-speaking peoples in the deep valleys of the north. Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Gorkhali king who ‘unified’ the country, likened his kingdom as ‘a garden of four varnas and thirty-six jāts’. After the prime minister, Jang Bahadur, seized power from the Shah monarchy and inaugurated the Rana rule, one of his most significant efforts in legitimising and consolidating his rule was the promulgation of the famous Muluki Ain, the ‘Legal Code’ of 1854. The Muluki Ain sought to integrate the three distinctive caste systems—those of the Newar, the Parbartiya, and the plains dwellers—and other diverse groups into a coherent hierarchy, with each group being assigned varying degrees of privileges and social status (Höfer 1979:40). Occupying the top of the stratum were members of the ‘pure’ castes comprising the Hindu Brahmans and the ruling Thakuri. The Tibetan-

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speaking peoples of the north were called ‘Bhote’ or ‘Bhotiya’ (‘people from Tibet’), and in the Muluki Ain they belonged to the enslavable ‘alcohol-drinking’ and ‘beef-eating’ caste near the bottom of the hierarchy, only marginally better than the untouchables. Although King Mahendra in 1964 promulgated a new Muluki Ain that stressed achieved rather than ascribed status, ‘Bhote’ or ‘Bhotiya’ has become a common, if somewhat derogatory, term used by Hindus of the middle hills to refer to Tibetan-speaking peoples in the north. Charles Ramble (1997) has convincingly argued that ‘Bhotiya’ is not an ethnic category, largely because the groups concerned do not use that term for self-identification. According to Ramble, the dominant pattern of movement of these Tibetan-speaking populations has been oriented in the north-south axis, rather than east-west, due to immense physical barriers between the valleys. Their self-identifications have thus historically revolved around the local mountain cults, and emerged relationally with the predominantly Hindu south, rather than laterally with neighbouring enclaves. The general accuracy of Ramble’s observation can be seen in the Langtang case: among themselves, villagers are called ‘Langtangpa’, therefore identifying with their yul lha (‘country god’), the mountain Langtang Lirung.4 However, despite speaking a Tibetan language that is associated with the dialect of Kyirong in southern Tibet (cf. Cox 1989), the Langtang people are classified in state census as Tamang. According to some villagers, this was the result of a misunderstanding between the government officials conducting the census in the early 1970s and the village headman of that time: the officials could not speak the local language, but some of them and the headman managed to converse in Tamang, a Tibeto-Burman language widely used in Rasuwa District but not mutually intelligible with the Tibetan spoken by the Langtangpa. Since then, the identity cards of the villagers identify them as ‘Tamang’. Some villagers explain that if they do not identify themselves as Tamang, they would have great difficulty getting the Nepalese citizenship card. What my informants have told me seems to accord with Tom Cox’s (1989:16) observations in his earlier study of Langtang Village, that the Langtangpa presented themselves as Tamang to government officials so as to be considered well-integrated citizens, ‘and avoid being disparaged

4 The crucial role of the yul lha in the forging of community identity will be discussed further in the latter chapters.

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as “squatters from Tibet” ’. From her research in the Humla district in western Nepal, Nancy Levine has written about the transformation of ‘Bhotiya’ into ‘Tamang’: Tibetan speakers long were considered Bhotiya. Some decades ago they were instructed by government representatives that their jāt (caste and ethnic label) had become Tamang. The reason given was that the government needed to circumvent Tibetan claims to Nepalese populations and territories, and that the change in jāt was to their advantage, Tamang being of higher caste status. (1987:79–80)

In the Helambu region neighbouring Langtang Valley, there is a distinction between Lama and Tamang; but according to Clarke (1980:21) these labels are not so much ethnic categories ‘in the sense of marking apart different peoples but as an achieved social distinction that depends heavily on residence, wealth and cultural practices’. So, in practice, it is possible for a former Tamang lineage to join the Lama through social achievement or marriage, metaphorically and literally ‘moving up’, since the Lama people live on hill ridges. The Langtangpa and the Lama people speak the same Kyirong Tibetan, and both see themselves as belonging to one cultural group. Not only do they celebrate the same festivities, such as the Nara and Drukpa Che Zhi, there is a history of intermarriage between the Langtangpa and the Lama people. The picture has gotten more complicated in recent years as the Lama people seek to forge a distinct ethnic identity by calling themselves ‘Yolmo’ (see e.g. Desjarlais 1994), an older Tibetan-derived term referring to the region and its people. The self-identity of Langtang villagers, on the other hand, is more context-dependent: for example, Langtang villagers can identify themselves as Tamang or Sherpa/Tibetan depending on whether they are dealing with government officials or tourists. How Langtang villagers see the situation is perhaps best summarised by what a friend said to me, in English: ‘We are officially Tamang, but we are actually Tibetan.’5 5 Some scholars have dealt with, in great detail, the complicated issue of Tamang identity. While Macdonald (1989) and Levine (1987) basically share the idea that ‘Tamang’ is an invented label of state administration and of researchers for heuristic purposes, others such as Holmberg (1989) see the Tamang as taking on a ‘tribal character’ in the form of restricted exchange between exogamous clans in the context of state expansion. Ben Campbell (1997) gives an account of the emergence of Tamang identity in terms of their historical role as semi-captive labourers who carried loads for the Nepalese rulers in their trade with Tibet. He also notes that in the Tamang village

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Scale km

CHINA

0

100

Fieldwork Site MUSTANG ANNAPURNA LANGTANG NEPALGANJ

TANSEN

POKHARA

MT. EVEREST KATHMANDU LALITPUR

INDIA

BHAIRAHAWA

LLAM

BIRGANJ JANAKPUR

BIRATNAGAR

Figure 1.1: Fieldwork site in Nepal

The Setting I first arrived in the Langtang Valley with my Tibetan assistant, Khunchok Thile, in August 2001, for the first period of my fieldwork that lasted until July 2002. This was followed by a brief visit in December 2007, when I wanted to check the material for this book and to reacquaint myself with my Langtang friends. The Langtang Village Development Committee (N. gāU bikās samiti ) covers four hamlets comprising around 560 inhabitants divided into at least 16 named, patrilineal, exogamous clans. The village is located in the Langtang Valley just inside Nepal’s present-day border with Tibet. The valley stretches in an east-west orientation for about 22 miles, carved out by the westward flow of the Langtang Khola that originates from the glaciers of Langshisa. Following Hall (1982), I take ‘Langtang region’ as referring to the area drained by the Langtang Khola that covers an area of around 200 square miles. Geologically, this region falls within the Inner Himalaya, while climatically it is in the transitional zone

where he worked, the salient local categories are Ghale and Tamang, even though they are both considered ‘Tamang’ on linguistic grounds.

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Figure 1.2: Fieldwork site in Langtang National Park

between the southern monsoon region and the arid deserts of the Tibetan plateau. The Langtang Valley itself encompasses several ecological zones, from the relatively fertile sub-tropical forests at the western entrance of the valley, to the rocky, wind-swept stretches of Himalayan pasture that support herds of bovines and sheep belonging mainly to the valley’s inhabitants. With its close proximity to the national capital, Kathmandu, and its enchanting natural scenery, in 1976 it was incorporated into the National Park that bears its name. At the town of Syabru Bengsi, about a day’s walk to the Tibetan border, the valley intersects with an important trade route that has for centuries linked southern Tibet with central Nepal and the Indian subcontinent. Even to this day, just before the Nepalese national festival of Dasain in October, flocks of Tibetan sheep travel along this mountain route to Syabru Bengsi to be transported further on to the rest of Nepal. Before the 1960s, the daily affairs of Langtang Village were subjected to minimal intervention by the central government in Kathmandu,

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Figure 1.3: Langtang Village in late summer

Figure 1.4: Map of Langtang Village

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chapter one 81–90 71–80 61–70 51–60 41–50 31–40 21–31 11–20 0–10 80

60

40

20

0 female

20

40

60

80

male

Figure 1.5: Langtang Village—Population chart

except for taxation and in times of war. That began to change after the isolationist Rana regime was deposed and Nepal embarked on an overall policy of socio-economic development (Blaike et al. 1980:101). In 1961, Nepal underwent a major re-organisation for administrative purposes when the whole country was divided into 14 zones (N. añcal) and 75 districts (N. jillā). Langtang’s relative isolation came to an end towards the end of 1963, when the new ‘Panchayat’ system heralded a period of intensive development that was underwritten almost wholly by foreign aid, witnessing a burgeoning of government administrative capacity. The construction of new schools and roads went hand in hand with the expansion of the civil service and a growing number of health workers and teachers.6 In 1970, the Rasuwa District Headquarters, which had been located at Trisuli, some five days’ walk from Langtang Village, was moved to its present location at Dhunche, a mere two days’ walk away. With the relocation of the district headquarters, Langtang

For a critical assessment of Nepal’s developmental effort in this period, see e.g. Macfarlane (1994) and Blaike et al. (1980). 6

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Village began to receive more visits from government officials, and with the Panchayat system, villagers could express their demands, e.g. for development funds, directly to the district offices through their village headman, the pradhān pancha, who sat on the district council (cf. Cox 1989:15). By 1973, the incorporation of Langtang into the Nepalese state was more or less complete, when the government established a primary school and police station in the village, as well as an army camp on the village outskirts in the light of the gazetting of Langtang National Park. Book Outline With regard to the layout of this book, Chapter 2 sets out a historical overview of the Langtang community. It is not a chronological account of significant events, but an attempt to provide the historical context within which to understand Langtang’s social and political transformation. Specifically, the chapter explores the articulation between the religious ideology that treats Langtang as a sacred ‘hidden valley’ (sbas yul) and the historical formation of a particular indigenous social and political organisation. The chapter argues that the ideology both sustained and was sustained by a local political economy that was itself encapsulated within a larger regional system. The casting of a backward gaze not only allows us a better understanding of present-day Langtang politics by revealing the extent and nature of socio-political transformation in relation to changing spatial meanings, but also explains the persistency of the conception among the Langtangpa of their traditional homeland as a sacred place. The Langtangpa tell the history of settlement of the village in terms of immigrants searching for a better life. In local mythology, it is a hidden sanctuary where an ideal Tibetan society is sustained. Villagers also speak of their ancestors arriving from neighbouring areas in search of pastures and agricultural land. Sandwiched in the borderlands between the two polities of Tibet and Nepal, the Langtang community had for a considerable period of time been at the margin of state influence, paying taxes to whichever power had immediate local control. The historical marginality of the Langtang community in relation to central state authorities, coupled with the Langtangpa’s notion of the valley as a sacred site, had engendered a strong sense of autonomy among the villagers as well as provided the conditions for an indigenous system of social and political organisation to emerge.

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The relative autonomy of the Langtang community came to an inevitable end following the radical transformation of Nepal’s polity in the 1950s. Chapter 3 serves two purposes: first, it charts the impact of this historical transformation by focusing on the Langtangpa’s changing subsistence strategies. Second, the chapter argues that the establishment of the National Park and the promotion of tourism in Langtang not only radically altered the inhabitants’ relationship with the state, but also with the wider world. Ecological constraints had meant that the Langtangpa had no choice but to engage in regional trade in order to supplement their meagre, once-a-year harvest, carving out a niche for themselves in the trans-Himalayan salt and rice trade by plying the route between central Nepal and southern Tibet. The decline of trade, first through the forging of new routes in other areas such as in Sikkim at the end of the 19th century, and the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959, forced the Langtangpa to rely more on the collection and sale of medicinal herbs from nearby forests. The latter was brought to a sudden halt when Langtang National Park was gazetted in 1976, as part of the larger project to develop the valley as a primary tourism site. Here, I examine for the first time the Langtangpa’s ambivalence towards the development project that had initially been thrust upon them, a theme that will recur throughout the subsequent chapters: ambivalent because in relation to their overall sense of the ‘good life’ the development project involves a loss of autonomy. To the Langtangpa, the establishment of the National Park and the arrival of tourism have been inseparable from their increasing subjugation under new rules and surveillance, prompting us to ask if the price of ‘development’ inevitably involves a concomitant erosion of a sense of autonomy. Especially in a ‘Third World’ country such as Nepal, communities such as the Langtangpa often not only come under the surveillance of the state, but are also hemmed in by the powerful international discourse of ‘development’. Development officials predominantly regard the Langtang Valley as a tourism site as well as being part of a larger environmental conservation area. But their promise of developmental benefits comes with a stick, in the form of the army and the police. The Langtangpa overwhelmingly experience the police and the army not so much as a source of security, but as external enforcers of rules that severely undermine their traditional rights to the resources from a valley deemed to be their homeland. The ambivalence in the Langtangpa’s pursuit of the good life is further explored in Chapter 4, where I discuss the tension between

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the villagers’ religious measures directed at this-worldly life enhancement and at longer-term karmic objectives. Part of the aim of this chapter is to explode a prevailing tourist myth that links ritual practices with notions of other-worldliness in order to create images of an exotic Langtang landscape and people fit for tourism consumption. Through a discussion of the local notion of tshe (‘life’), I show how the unforgiving environment in which the Langtangpa live has contributed to a heightened awareness of the precariousness of life, and this, together with a severe lack of medical provision, can help to explain Langtang’s plethora of ‘life-enhancing’ (tshe sgrup) rituals. But at times, the Langtangpa’s strong Buddhist beliefs conflict with their urgent need for the relief of suffering, as when they feel compelled to sponsor shamanic rituals involving blood sacrifice. In the immediacy of suffering, the Langtangpa sometimes have to make the excruciating choice between the attenuation of pain and ensuring a good karmic fate in their next life. Most Langtangpa perceive the end of suffering and hardship not so much as spiritual liberation as the attainment of a better life, or kipu, conceived overwhelmingly in terms of physical well-being and worldly success. Chapters 5 and 6 seek to weave together the two major threads touched upon in the previous chapters, namely, the ideology of development and the Langtangpa’s notion of the good life. Chapter 5 addresses the question: how does the development ideology get embedded in the Langtangpa’s everyday life? Or, put another way, how does discourse become practice? In my attempt to answer this question, I am at the same time describing the structural transformation of Langtang sociality. Various studies on the Tibetan-speaking regions of the Himalayas have shown that Buddhist temples and monasteries have, in the past, projected certain cultural/religious values and were deeply implicated in the structuring of local social relationships. In the case of Langtang, I show in Chapter 2 that the historical dominance of a local priestly lineage was largely achieved through their control of the village temple, at which intersected Langtang social, economic and political relationships. Some scholars have recently noted the relative decline in the social and political significance of temples and monasteries, especially in communities affected by tourism, such as among the Sherpa. I encountered the same phenomenon in Langtang: the village temple was locked and deserted most of the time. One informant after another complained to me about the increasing reluctance of villagers to fulfill their traditional obligations to the temple, such as periodic donations

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of grain and sponsorship of religious events. The important festival of Nara, for example, had not been celebrated in Langtang for about 10 years at the time of fieldwork, due to the ill feelings generated by conflicts over the control of land, as well as the intense business and political rivalry among the principal organisers. It took me a while to realise that it was in the hotels where, so to speak, the action was taking place. Using a socio-semiotic approach, I argue that in a new political economy, the hotels in Langtang have become the new ‘temples’. Over the past 30 years or so, the locus of political power has shifted from the priests and temples to entrepreneurs and their impressive hotels. Hotels, then, are the new sites of power, symbols of a better life, high status and political influence. Here I analyse the Langtangpa’s spatial practices in the hotels in various social contexts, to reveal the processes through which the new development ideology gets embedded in everyday life. By treating the materiality of the hotel as an anthropological tool, I show how the Langtangpa’s pursuit of a better life through intensive engagement with tourism has resulted in the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, as well as social and political relationships. Chapter 6 continues with the theme of tourism, this time focusing on the interactions between tourists and the villagers in the context of Langtang as a tourist space. The demarcation of the Langtang Valley by the Nepalese state as a trekking destination has allowed for its commoditisation within the global tourism industry, transforming its physical geography and its inhabitants into an exotic spectacle. The trekkers’ consumption of the images of Nepal and Langtang through guidebooks, tourist brochures and internet sites as they prepare for their journey, educates their gaze and induces in them what I characterise as a state of reverie as they move through the landscape of Langtang. What I aim to achieve here is to proceed from a detailed description of the socio-economic circumstances within which the local-tourist interactions occur, to the interpretation of deeper meanings such encounters have for both Langtang villagers and the tourists. Taking inspiration from Simmel’s theory of sociation, I show that there is always an inherent dialectic and cognitive gap between, on the one hand, images the locals and trekkers have of each other and, on the other, the actual tourism encounters in particular social contexts. The view that there is a disjuncture between idealised images and reality might not seem, by itself, to be a particularly new insight. However, I suggest that the framework I propose allows us to explain both the persistency of images and the possibility for change. There is, in addition, a final twist to this analysis

introduction

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of tourism encounter, revealing the intertextual relationship between Langtang and foreign places, and also how an existing geography of power allows the Langtangpa to imagine alternative places where life might be better. Chapter 7 juxtaposes the two conceptions of Langtang—the sacred and the developmentalist/touristic—to further explore the dilemmas and tensions experienced in the Langtangpa’s quest for kipu, and the measures with which the villagers seek to overcome them. The Langtangpa feel acutely the centrifugal forces unleashed by their participation in the tourist trade as they seek to improve their lives. Especially worrisome for them is the threat to their sense of unity as a corporate group centered on their yul lha, or ‘country god’, and how the deterioration of social relationships in the pursuit of development risks jeopardising both their physical and mental well-being. The right actions to take under such circumstances are neither straightforward nor cost-free. Here I show the ways in which the Langtangpa seek to regain control over the fate of their future by employing the concept of dip pa (sgrib pa, ‘defilement’), while trying hard to find new forms of cooperation to negotiate the tensions and contradictions that threaten to tear their community apart. In the concluding chapter, I will offer some reflections on the need to take cultural conceptions of the ‘good life’ seriously to fully appreciate the diverse experience of development and how cultural groups forge their own lives and histories in the contemporary world.

CHAPTER TWO

ZOMBIE SLAYERS IN A ‘HIDDEN VALLEY’ The Himalayas, with its high peaks and deep valleys, has for centuries served as a natural geographical frontier and boundary between the kingdoms and states of South Asia which it straddles. Given the strategic advantage of high grounds to the defence of a realm, it is little wonder that the Himalayas has throughout history witnessed countless skirmishes between neighbouring states that sought such strategic advantage. The interest in this mountain range, of course, has not been restricted to matters of defence. North-south trade routes criss-crossed the Himalayan range, connecting the Tibetan plateau to the rest of the Indian subcontinent, ensuring lucrative tax revenues for those who controlled these economic lifelines. In the era of European colonialism in the ‘long’ 19th century, the Himalayas became embroiled in what has been called the ‘Great Game’ between the British and Russian empires, which sought to expand their respective commercial and imperial interests in the region. Due to its pristine environment, aweinspiring mountains, and the remoteness of its valleys, the Himalayas was also the well-spring of countless legends, myths and romantic imaginings, engendering the sacralisation of the landscape that had served as a source of religious inspiration for peoples both living in its vicinity and beyond. Hence, despite its remoteness—or, because of it—warfare, pilgrimages, trade and the search for viable settlement areas have been some of the key factors contributing to the migratory process and interest in the area. Largely due to its location in the frontier zone, enclaves of settlements located deep in the numerous Himalayan valleys were often on the outer fringes of state influence, enjoying a significant degree of local autonomy until processes of state consolidation intensified in the last century or so, as exemplified by the case of Nepal.1 A particular body of Tibetan religious literature suggests that located in the vast mountain range were a number of sacred ‘hidden valleys’, or beyul (sbas yul), where 1 For an extensive list of Tibetan enclaves situated along the Nepal-Tibet border see Jest (1975:33–35).

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the Tibetan royal courts and their subjects might seek refuge when their societies faced the prospect of dissolution as a result of external threats. Contemporary scholars have identified some of these beyul, and have conducted a number of important ethnographic and historical studies (e.g. Aris 1975; Reinhard 1978; Ehrhard 1997; Childs 1998, 1999; Diemberger 1991, 1996, 1997; Orofino 1991). Apart from enriching our ethnographic knowledge of these locales and their inhabitants, some of this research (e.g. Childs 2000, 2001; Diemberger 1997) provides us with further insights into patterns of trans-Himalayan migration as well as the processes through which these locales have been incorporated into nascent nation-states. Historically there evolved in these remote communities unique systems of social and political organisation, often the result of the articulation of specific local historical realities with the broader structures of Tibetan and Indic origins (cf. Clarke 1983:25). A major volume of essays (Blondeau and Steinkellner 1996), on the history and social meaning of mountain cults in Tibet and the Himalayas, has provided a crucial impetus to the study of political organisation in these mountain communities, effectively combining textual analysis and ethnographic method. Despite such effort, there is a need for much more detailed socialhistorical research into the political systems of these enclaves, many of which are located in the Nepal-Tibet borderlands (Ramble 1997:339– 340; Jest 1975:33–35), not least because it will serve to illuminate present-day patterns of domination, status valuation and local political processes. On a more specific note, studies into the various beyul thus far do not evince sufficient exploration of the relation between the beyul concept and the historical formation of specific social and political structures. This chapter in part sets out to address these concerns in Tibetan and Himalayan research by presenting an analysis of the indigenous form of political authority and structure in the Langtang Valley, one of the most significant beyul identified in the Tibetan sources. None of the few previous cursory studies on the Langtang Valley has included the concept of beyul in their accounts, nor have they provided any historical account of the formation of Langtang’s indigenous social and political organisation. This chapter will show that the concept of sacred geography not only forms an important part of the Langtangpa’s social memory and discourse, but also that the beyul concept had in Langtang’s history served an ideological function in relation to the development of its socio-political structure. What I present here is not solely a straightforward, chronological account of significant historical

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events in Langtang; more importantly, my aim is to set out the crucial historical context in which to situate the discussions for the rest of the book. Any attempt to understand the social practices of the inhabitants of Himalayan enclaves such as the Langtang Valley must take into account wider geohistorical and geopolitical realities, as Van Spengen (2000) has so admirably shown in this analysis of the trading practices of the Nyishangpa in the Manang district of Nepal. This is one of the key methodological considerations that guide the analysis throughout this chapter. Sacred Geography: Langtang as BEYUL (‘Hidden Land’) Given that the Langtang Valley has become one of the most popular trekking destinations in Nepal, it might stretch one’s imagination to describe the valley as a ‘hidden land’. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, however, the concept of beyul had aroused much interest and speculation among Tibetans, especially the adherents of the Nyingmapa (rnying ma pa)—one of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism—and inspired many an adventure and legend. The founder of the Cyangter (byang gter) branch of the Nyingmapa, Renzin Gokyi Demthrucen (rid ’dzin rgod kyi ldem phru can, 1337–1408)—he was a famous terton ( gter ston, ‘treasure finder’) of teachings hidden throughout the Himalayas by the Buddhist saint Padmasambhava—is reputed to be the most influential figure contributing to the popularity of the beyul idea, after allegedly having discovered texts detailing various hidden lands (Childs 1999:127–128). What does the concept of beyul entail? Sbas-yul are valleys situated in the southern slopes of the Himalaya. According to legend, they were concealed by Padmasambhava so that they could be used as sanctuaries during times of need. The hidden land is both a refuge for meritorious individuals from all strata of Tibetan society during a time of moral and political disintegration, as well as a place for the spiritually inclined . . . As a refuge from social and political strife, it is a settlement destination, a fertile landscape where society can function with a king as a legitimate ruler, and where an idealised version of Tibetan society can be sustained remote from the deteriorating conditions of Tibet. (Childs 1999:128)

Intrinsically implied in the conceptualisation of beyul as a sacred geography, therefore, was an ideal model of Tibetan political organisation, to be replicated in the hidden valley to where the royal descendents and other Tibetans fled when facing the threat of social disintegration

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Figure 2.1: Langtang beyul in early winter

due to either civil strife or warfare. It is perhaps within this context that we can begin to understand the interest that had been aroused in beyul writing, the efforts undertaken in the search for them, as well as certain historical waves of Tibetan migration throughout the southern Himalayas. As pointed out above, interest in, and the search for, beyul took on impetus in the 13th century. As various writers have highlighted, this was largely in response to both the perceived and actual threats to the integrity of various Tibetan kingdoms, whether from invading Mongols, Uigurs, or rival Tibetan kingdoms (Ehrhard 1997; Childs 1999). In the literature, there is consensus that the legitimate ruler of a hidden valley must be a member of the royal lineage associated with King Trisong Detsen (khri song lde btsan), ‘a tantric [sngags pa] who is blessed and who is from the unbroken lineage of the mnga’ bdag kings themselves . . .’ (gnam zla gnas yig: 17b, quoted in Childs 1999:144).2 Listed among the locations in the beyul literature was a place called Dagam Namgo (zla gam gnam sgo), or ‘Heavenly Gate of Half-Moon Form’. In the biography of another terton, Renzin Nyida Longse (rig

2 Cf. Michael Aris (1990:93–4): ‘[A]ll the Buddhist kingdoms founded at different periods in the Himalayas traced their descent from, and founded their legitimacy upon, the early royal dynasty of Tibet.’

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’dzin nyi zla klong gsal, died 1695), is an account of the protagonist’s discovery of beyul Dagam Namgo in 1680: Finally he set off on the 3rd day of the 8th month of the year of the monkey, offering prayers of supplication to the Master Guru U-rgyan [i.e. Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche]. Even though numerous illusions cropped up along the way he strode on further without giving way to doubt, and [so] he came to the centre of the ‘sacred place’. How he saw the upper and lower caves where Padmasambhava practiced, [as well as] the small [cave] of his practice, the foot impressions, the impressions of bodily parts etc., together with many miraculous signs—[this all] becomes clear in a separate history. (Quoted in Ehrhard 1997:337)

In relation to the subject of this chapter, a momentous event took place: as Renzin Nyida Longse was starting on his journey to search for the beyul, he met a Domari (i.e. a person of the Domar (rdo dmar) clan) and his son. According to Ehrhard, this son was Domar Minyu Dorje (mi ’gyur rdo rje, born 1675), who later became a prolific writer, including several important texts concerning Dagam Namgo. But where exactly was it located? By comparing the geographical evidence presented in various texts, Minyu Dorje concluded that it must be located in the valley of Langtang (glang ’phrang). To further bolster his argument, he recounted a legend relating to the discovery of Langtang, which was interpreted as the ‘opening of the gate to the sacred place’ (gnas sgo ’byed pa): Now for the origin of what is called gLang-’phrang [Langtang] a bull is said to have been killed once in ’Bri-bstim [present-day Briddim] during the consecration feast for the erection of a stūpa of gold and silver by one patron. In the evening the bull fled to that secret land by reason of his supernatural knowledge. The valley was discovered by virtue of the fact that the owner followed its trail; for this reason [the valley] is known under the name Bull Passage—so it is said in the tales of the people of old. (Quoted in Ehrhard 1997:345)

To Minyu Dorje, Langtang was unlike any other beyul: It is even more excellent than all the other secure hidden lands that have been described previously. It is easily reached and lies near Tibet. In other treasure mines, [however], it is not dealt with in detail. [If it is asked] why, [the answer is] because it is a secret and protected area . . . In short, a hidden land is a land where a person flees to in the face of terrifying enemy troops. Its characteristic is that of a fully secure place. If, therefore, Yol-mo [present-day Helambu, as area just south of Langtang] and La-phyi for example, are termed ‘hidden lands’, what is more to be said [of a land] that surpasses them in matters of security? (Quoted in Ehrhard 1997:342, 346)

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From the above we see that, to Minyu Dorje, Langtang received higher estimation than other beyul. Further, as Ehrhard has convincingly argued, Minyu Dorje thought that Langtang beyul was the centre of a sacred space arranged in the sacred mandala form. There is a dearth of material on the history of Langtang in its early days of settlement. In order to reconstruct the early political organisation of the place, I will rely on comparative historical and ethnographic material, as well as oral accounts provided by the Langtangpa themselves. Given that the Langtang Valley is located in the frontier region that branched just east of the important north-south trade route between Kyirong and central Nepal, and that this particular region of the Himalayas had witnessed numerous wars between various Nepalese kingdoms and the Tibetan and Chinese armies (Regmi, D.R. 1961:167–230; Shaha 1990; Stiller 1995; Petech 1973; Uprety 1998:32–65), the Langtangpa’s formal political allegiance would have shifted as much as the fluid state borders. To the north, from the 10th to the early 17th century, Langtang probably came under the influence of the Gungthang Kingdom, centred at Dzongga, which dominated southern Tibet and its vicinity. In the early 17th century, the Gungthang Kingdom was subdued first by the rival Tibetan polity of Tsang. Later, the Fifth Dalai Lama subsumed the area in 1641 under his rule with the help of his Mongol patrons and made Dzongga the administrative centre of the southern region (Childs 1999:218–219). In the south, the Nepal of the 17th century witnessed the rise of two strong and ambitious rulers—Ram Shah of Gorkha and Pratap Malla of Kathmandu. Sensing that Ram Shah had his sights on the important trade routes to southern Tibet, Pratap Malla, exploiting the internal turmoil that was engulfing Tibet at that time, reacted by launching two military incursions around 1630, capturing the trading towns of Kyirong and Kuti (present-day Nyalam). After the Fifth Dalai Lama had consolidated his rule, he managed to wrest back the two towns, while Kathmandu continued to hold on to the areas right up to the northern border, an area that included the Ghale principalities and the Langtang Valley (Holmberg 1996:42; Shaha 1990:29–30; Regmi, D.R. 1960:381–383). The Gorkhalis, under the leadership of King Prithvi Narayan Shah, in 1744 annexed the fertile lands around Nuwakot, just north of Kathmandu, thus securing the trade route that ran from Kathmandu through Rasuwa Garhi to Kyirong in Tibet, forcing Jayaprakash Malla, the ruler of Kathmandu at that time, to sign

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a pact with the Gorkhalis in January 1757 to share Nepal’s revenue from its trade with Tibet. By this time, the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty in China had already gained a firm foothold in Tibetan politics, with its Resident in Lhasa exerting great influence over the Dalai Lama. In 1791, after a series of disputes over Tibet’s refusal to use debased Nepalese coins, the Gorkhalis, having already conquered the Kathmandu Valley, launched an attack across the northern borders. This military incursion provoked the reaction of the Chinese Imperial Army, which swept across the border at Rasuwa Garhi in pursuit of the retreating Gorkha army through Nuwakot to as far south as Betrawati, within a stone’s throw of Kathmandu. After the two warring parties had signed a peace agreement, the combined Chinese-Tibetan army retreated, and this was followed by a period of relative peace between Nepal and Tibet that lasted for almost 60 years. The Langtang region witnessed war again when, in 1854, Jang Bahadur Rana, the Prime Minister and de facto ruler of Nepal, decided to invade southern Tibet once more in the hope of controlling Kyirong and Kuti. In this particular instance, villages along the invasion route through Rasuwa to the border not only had to supply food, but also conscripts, porters, as well as animals for the Nepalese army (Uprety 1998:70). Given that Langtang lies just on the border, it is highly likely that the Langtangpa would have been drafted to help in the war effort as well. In the end, although Jang Bahadur failed to annex the two strategic towns, he managed to force the Tibetan government to pay a significant annual tribute. According to local oral history, Langtang was caught between the imperial designs of the two neighbouring states of Tibet and Nepal, with the Langtangpa having to pay taxes to whoever was dominant at any particular time. However, an indication of where the Langtangpa’s true loyalty lay in those tumultuous times of border skirmishes and shifting frontiers could be attested to by a well-known story. It tells of the Langtangpa’s attempt to resist the invasion of the Nepalese army, resonating with the notion that Langtang, as a beyul, must be a wellguarded refuge in which an ideal Tibetan society could be sustained. The story speaks of an elderly couple called yibi meme chenpo who lived at Thangshyap, near Langtang Village, and whose task was to the guard against unwanted entry by outsiders. When the Nepalese army moved up the Langtang Valley and tried to subdue the people of the area, the old couple turned the slope into a thick sheet of slippery ice.

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This act prevented the soldiers from overcoming the slope and, in the process, there were considerable casualties among the invaders. When the Nepalese army tried to breach the defence again the next day, the old woman, referring to her aching body due to the physical exertions of the day before, complained loudly, ‘Khasa gyap, dering dün.’ She actually meant, ‘Yesterday, [pain in the] back, today [ pain in the] front.’ But the soldiers misunderstood the old woman as saying, ‘Yesterday, [killed] a hundred, today seven [hundred].’3 Horrified that they would suffer even more casualties, the Nepalese soldiers eventually gave up their military incursion and retreated in panic. In memory of the old couple’s heroic effort, a memorial (mchod rten) was constructed just before Thangshyap, where villagers pray once a year, on the fourth Tibetan month, for their continual protection.4 The MUKHIYA Clans The earliest known political organisation in Langtang was the so-called mukhiya (‘headman’) clans. Members of these four clans are believed to have arrived from Kyirong after hearing of the discovery of a beyul in the Langtang Valley. The news allegedly inspired the migration of the first wave of settlers from Kyirong to Langtang. Given that the Langtangpa usually place the founding of the village at about 400 years ago, the time coincided with the period of turmoil in southern Tibet from the 17th to 18th centuries during the disintegration of the Gungthang Kingdom. Given that the intensification of interest in, and the search for, beyul usually coincided with periods of external threats to existing social and political orders (Sadar-Afkhami 1996:2), we could surmise that it was during this period of turmoil in southern Tibet that witnessed the first mass migration of the Langtangpa’s ancestors from Tibet. These earliest settlers devised a system of rotating, once every

3 In Tibetan, the pronunciation of ‘rgyap’ (‘back’) and ‘mdun’ (‘front’) sound similar to ‘brgya’ (‘hundred’) and ‘bdun’ (‘seven’), respectively. 4 Therefore, certain rituals—including Nyungne discussed in Chapter 4—not only secure blessings for the Langtangpa; they are often also the embodiment of history, calling up and reiterating the turbulent history of the Langtangpa, especially their encounters with outsiders. The protective pair of ‘grandmother’ and ‘grandfather’ can be found in other settlements in the Himalayas, e.g. in the village of Dzar in Mustang (Gutschow and Ramble 2003:144, 156).

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four years, the village headmanship among the four founding clans, namely Jhapa, Shangpa, Zangpa and Thokra.5 It is significant that the Langtangpa tend to use the Nepalese term ‘mukhiyā’ rather than the Tibetan equivalent of ‘gowa’ (’go ba). The explanation for this has to be considered in relation to the incorporation of Lantang into the nascent Nepalese state. From the time of the ‘unification’ of Nepal by the Gorkhali kings in the middle of the 18th century, to the Rana regime of hereditary prime minister, the country’s rulers relied primarily on a system of land grants to control the population.6 To increase its hold over communities such as those on the frontier with Tibet, the Nepalese rulers in Kathmandu maintained, and sometimes enhanced, the status of the local headmen with special land grants and conferred upon them additional powers so that these communities could continue to exist and be governed in accordance with their traditions (Steinmann 1991:477–483; see also Forbes 1999:115–116; Caplan 1970:3–9). As long as the two groups of state functionaries—the nobles and state officials, and village headmen—fulfilled their stipulated roles, state interference in local affairs was kept to a minimum, allowing a significant degree of autonomy to these communities. The term mukhiyā in Langtang encompassed two different types of local officials: the jimiwāl who were allocated the task of collecting taxes on wet fields, and the tālukdār on dry fields (Holmberg 1996 [1989]:45). As there were no wet fields in Langtang, the two subdivided roles collapsed into the sole title of mukhiyā, while tālukdār came to designate 5 The rotation of headmanship among chief houses or villagers seemed to be a common Tibetan practice. For example, as Barbara Aziz (1978:199, italics mine) noted that in the district of Dingri just across the border from Nepal: ‘Theoretically the headmanship of a hamlet rotates among village members, or is assigned to a popular vote of members. It is not hereditary and there must be a consensus of agreement for an incumbent to retain office. In most villagers, however, the same person remains in office for several years consecutively. Or, the headmanship may be shared by general agreement between two or three chief houses in the villages and thereby moves from one to another almost automatically’. Mukhiya and gowa were functionally equivalent to the Sherpa’s pembu (see Fürer-Haimendorf 1975:126–7). Saul (1999:68) also notes that in the Mustang’s region of Baragaon, a rotation system of headmanship was instituted around 1930. 6 Large plots of land were granted to officials and nobles close to the ruling families—the so-called jāgīr and birtā land—on which no tax was levied. The main aims of these land grants were both to reward the services rendered to the regime by these individuals, and to secure their continued allegiance and service. The recipients in turn exercised control over the tenant farmers who worked on these lands. The rulers also relied on the village headmen, whose role was to collect tax and to control local land use. For a more in-depth discussion on the history of landownership in Nepal, see e.g. Regmi (1976), Caplan (1970).

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the mukhiyā’s runner, locally known as the chog, who enforced village rules and helped in the initial preparations for various village festivals and rituals, such as the collection of grains and butter from all the households. State administration from early Gorkha times exhibited what has been termed ‘dual foundation’, characterised by a combination of ‘centralisation of political authority and decentralisation of administrative functions’ (Regmi 1979:18). Such arrangements consequently engendered a politically symbiotic relationship between the rulers and state functionaries: By the turn of the nineteenth century, the patron-client relationships had established deep roots in the country. At the national level, the rulers, nobles and senior government officials supported each other . . . At the village level, the local functionaries depended on rulers and nobles for their positions, providing in return the valuable services of collecting taxes and controlling land and forest use. (Malla 2001:291)

In the case of the Kingdom of Mustang, for example, Ramble (1997:396) points out that the central government in Kathmandu allowed the Mustang king to retain his rule over the principality while demanding the periodic payment of taxes. Later, the nobles of the Baragaon area were also tasked with the collection of taxes in Dolpo. It was within this larger state system that the Langtang’s mukhiyā political organisation was embedded. In other words, during this period of Nepalese state consolidation, especially after the fixing of the Nepalese-Tibetan border in 1856, when Langtang formally came under Nepalese jurisdiction, the legitimacy of the headman’s authority was a function of both local historical and cultural factors, and the policy of the Nepalese state at large (cf. Diemberger 1997). Zombie Slayers in Langtang: Ascendancy of the Domar Clan To understand Domar rule in Langtang, we first turn to clan history and the various myths that are associated with it. Here, I follow Godelier’s (1971) historical approach to the study of myth as embedded within, at the same time commenting upon, material social relationships. What counts as ‘memory’ or ‘history’ is inextricably related to competing politico-cultural interpretations of contexts, which include the notion of place (see also Rappaport 1990:11–17, 188–9). Bearing this in mind, I now present a version of the clan history as recounted by Minyu Lama, the most revered Domari in Langtang today.

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According to Minyu Lama, the Domar7 clan originated from a sacred mountain in China called Riwo Tse Nga (Chin. Wu Tai Shan, or ‘FiveTerrace Mountain’, also known as Qing Liang Shan).8 A Chinese emperor had included the clan as part of the dowry accompanying the Chinese princess who had been betrothed to the Tibetan king, Trisong Detsen;9 he is credited in Tibetan historiography as the ruler who introduced Buddhism into Tibet. Upon arriving at the Tibetan court the Domari were installed in high positions in the court hierarchy. The clan was further differentiated into six different lineages arranged in a hierarchy structured by their respective abilities and skills. For example, the Holung Bagyi Dong was able to dispel locusts, to prevent them from causing damage to the crops. The highest lineage, to which Minyu Lama belongs, was the Namdro Zangyi Dong, whose members were believed to be able to slay zombies (ro lang; for an interesting discussion of the Tibetan zombie stories, see Wylie 1964). An attention to such purported skills is relevant to our present object of understanding the position of the Domar clan in Langtang. The belief that the Domari, at least in times past, were the ro lang slayers is widely held by Langtang villagers. While no zombies could be seen stalking villagers at the time of fieldwork, the reputation of Minyu Lama was built upon his reputation for having, on several occasions, prevented the dead from terrorising the villagers during funeral rites, and for being able to exorcise evil spirits from afflicted individuals. Some older Langtangpa recall Minyu Lama’s deceased father as being an even more formidable figure, a tall man who knew everything and was able to predict imminent deaths. These stories of Domari’s connection with the Tibetan rulers, and their ability to slay ro langs, are just some of the sources of its authority 7 The Domari belong a to special category of religious practitioners known as the ngag pa (sngags pa) or hereditary priest, who are believed to possess a special religious quality called the dung-gyü transmitted through the male line (Aziz 1978:53). 8 I want to thank Charles Ramble for pointing out to me the identity of Riwo Tse Nga and Wu Tai Shan. Known also to the Chinese as Qing Liang Shan, it is situated in the present-day Chinese province of Shanxi. The mountain is regarded as one of the ‘Four Great Buddhist Mountains’ in China, and is famed throughout the Buddhist world as the abode of the Bodhisattva Manjuśrī. 9 From both Tibetan and Chinese historiography, we can know for certain that Trisong Detsen did not have a Chinese wife. According to a published history of the Domar clan (Chophel 1998), some members of the clan had formed part of the retinue that accompanied Princess Wen Cheng to Tibet when she was betrothed to Songtsen Gampo. Minyu Lama’s linking of the Domar clan to Trisong Detsen is perhaps due to his desire to trace his lineage to this prominent king who has been credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet.

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in Langtang, another of which is related to Langtang’s founding myth. The present head lama of the Langtang temple, who is not a Domari, mentioned that preceding the arrival of Minyu Dorje were the lamas of the Drukpa Kagyu (’brug pa bka’ brgyud).10 In fact, they were responsible for the construction of the first temples in the Langtang Valley. For example, Langtang Village currently has two temples situated next to each other, the older of which was built by a Drukpa Kagyu lama named Milun Ganpo. In any case, in the accounts narrated by Minyu Lama, when his illustrious ancestor Minyu Dorje first reached the Langtang Valley, having entered from the east, he was met by a Drukpa by the name of Chorangri: At that time, there were already people at Langtang. There was also a lama called Chorangri, who was from Bhutan [Druk yul] but not a Domari. Chorangri knew that Minyu Dorje was coming, and transformed himself into an eagle and flew to Langshisa Kharka to meet him. When the eagle arrived at the place, it dropped to the ground without its head in front of Minyu Dorje, who was at that time seated by a bod cog [a low Tibetan table] with his servant and having his lunch of tsampa and water. Seeing the lifeless and headless eagle, Minyu Dorje took the tsampa and moulded it into the shape of an eagle’s head, and attached it to the bird. Immediately the eagle came back to life and transformed into Chorangri. He said to Minyu Dorje, ‘This is my place and you are my guest. Let me go ahead and prepare the necessary arrangement to welcome you.’ Minyu Dorje replied, ‘Please don’t say that; we’ll go together.’ When they reached Numthang, they made some tsog, which became the hills, and the water from the hills was tsogjang [or chang, fermented barley beer]. From Numthang, Chorangri again transformed into an eagle and flew ahead, while Minyu Dorje was being carried by his servant. The servant thought, ‘The other lama could fly all the time, and I have to carry my lama.’ Minyu Dorje could read his thoughts, and was angry with his servant for doubting his ability. To prove his power, he made handprints in a cave at Chyadang, which can be seen even now. Convinced but also ashamed, the servant continued to carry his master.

Eventually, Minyu Dorje reached Chorangri’s dwelling, and spent the night there. The next day, the two lamas became embroiled in an intense debate, with Minyu Dorje standing at a small hill called Borkhang at 10 The Drukpa Kagyu is a branch of the Kagyupa, named after the country where it had taken root, Bhutan (Druk yul, ’brug yul) (see Tucci 1988:36). See the account below regarding the duel between Minyu Dorje and Chorangri. The fact that the Kagyupa were the first to arrive in Langtang is not so surprising given that one of the most prominent members of that school, Milarepa (mi la ras pa), had been to the neighbouring Helambu, and who could very likely have passed through Langtang Valley en route (cf. Clarke 1983).

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Langtang, and Chorangri at another hill some distance away, their arguments facilitated by a crow carrying letters between them. For many days the debate raged without a clear winner, since the two were almost on par with regard to learning. The matter came to a head one day in the monsoon season, when the grass was tall and abundant, as Minyu Dorje issued an ultimate challenge: the person who could climb to the top of a blade of grass without causing the dewdrop at the top of it to fall to the ground would be the winner and the loser would have to leave Langtang. Accepting the challenge, Chorangri turned himself into a snail and started to climb up a blade of grass with a drop of water at the top. The dewdrop fell. Meanwhile, Minyu Dorje transformed himself into an ant, and because of its small size, managed to emerge triumphant in the task, leaving the drop of dew intact. Acknowledging defeat, Chorangri left Langtang. After getting rid of his rival, Minyu Dorje embarked on a number of tasks to stamp his authority in Langtang. First, he had to build a temple. For guidance, he consulted Guru Rinpoche by making a divination (mo). There are a couple of accounts regarding Guru Rinpoche’s instruction. Minyu Lama says that Minyu Dorje was instructed to build a temple near the present-day Prangjang (see below), lying just next to the village. However, the temple was destroyed in a fire, and a new one was built on top of a hill that looks like an elephant trunk. In another account, it is said that Guru Rinpoche had initially asked Minyu Dorje to construct not one but four temples, a project which the latter protested as being beyond his ability. As a compromise, Guru Rinpoche told him to build just one temple, but to represent the other three on three of the four walls of the one temple being built. The Langtangpa also credit Minyu Dorje with the great act of banishing from Langtang a man-eating demon, or dü (bdud), that had demanded annual human sacrifice. According to Langtang villagers, different families would each year take turns to supply the one male to be sacrificed to appease the dü, failing which disasters would befall the village. Chorangri had not been able to get rid of the demon, and now Minyu Dorje conducted the most extreme rite of tantric exorcism, jinseg (sbyin seg),11 a ritual fire with the capacity to burn out and destroy the 11

Mumford (1990:142) has offered a vivid description of the jinseg: . . . the performing lama drew a four-directional mandala on the floor coloured red, green, black and white, to represent all types of area gods. A fire was lit over the mandala on which the performing lama boiled a pot of oil to a great heat. While chanting mantra, he suddenly poured in alcohol. A blazing pillar of fire shot up

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demon. When that effort failed, Minyu Dorje teamed up with another religious specialist named Meme Pengyab, the ancestor of today’s lha bempa (lha bonpa), who had the power to see the dü. Together, the two religious virtuosos caught the demon, and with Meme Pengyab dragging it from the front with a rope and Minyu Dorje pushing it from behind, the dü was led away from Langtang towards India from where it had originally come. The final twist to the story is that as they were about to leave the Langtang Valley, at the place called Wangyal, near present-day Syabru Bengsi, the dü escaped into a cave when Meme Pengyab was momentarily distracted. To prevent the dü from escaping, Minyu Dorje blocked the cave with a huge boulder and assigned a devi (Skt. ‘goddess’) to guard over it. I have been led by Langtang villagers to the shrine near Wangyal dedicated to the devi, and from the shrine, looking towards a cliff in the distance, I could see black markings on the wall which the locals believe depict the shape of the dü being led away, with a rope tied around its neck. The above semi-historical and mythical accounts of Minyu Dorje’s arrival in Langtang, narrated by one of his redoubtable descendents, can perhaps be regarded as what Malinowski (1936) has called a ‘social charter’, manipulated by the power holders to justify or explain their dominance. Here, I take ‘history’ as representation, which refers to ‘ideologically embedded knowledge represented as “the past”’ (Yelvington 2002:231). If one were to ask any adult in Langtang about the founding history of the village, one is likely to be told stories of the exploits of Domar Minyu Dorje, in addition to the more popular story about a man searching for his lost bull. The fact that the Drukpa Kagyu preceded Minyu Dorje was not widely known among ordinary Langtangpa. Almost everyone I asked about the founding of Langtang mentioned the story of Minyu Dorje’s arrival, and very little of his predecessors. This is perhaps indicative of how deeply entrenched a particular founding myth is, in the Langtangpa’s social memory. Of course, the knowledge of Langtang as a beyul further lent justification to the Domari’s high status and provided legitimacy to their rule in Langtang. We therefore see that the dominant discourse regarding the sacred space of Langtang instigates an act of forgetting that, in turn,

and spread out to every corner of the ceiling; the audience was surrounded by flames as if trapped in a burning house . . . The demons had been burned out, to be released into a higher rebirth.

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contributes to the coherence and persuasiveness of a particular ideology of social order and political power.12 If we agreed with the historian Moses I. Finley (1965) that the narrator of oral history often reflects his own interests, one could attempt to interpret the story concerning Minyu Dorje as justification for the Domari’s dominance in Langtang. Clearly, the part about Minyu Dorje of the Nyingmapa defeating Chorangri, who belonged to the rival Kagyupa, could be seen as suggesting the superiority of both the clan and the Nyingmapa over its rivals. This affirmation of the Domari’s power reinforces what is suggested by the widely known legend among the Langtangpa of the Domari’s reputation as zombie slayers. Further, in the Langtangpa’s social memory, their welfare has been closely associated with two very significant acts of Domar Minyu Dorje: building the gompa under the direct instruction of Padmasambhava, and dispelling the cannibalistic demon out of the Langtang Valley. We note also that Minyu Lama mentioned the Domari’s close relationship with King Trisong Detsen, and we link this to the textual exegesis mentioned at the beginning of this chapter regarding the notion that the rightful rulers of beyul must belong to Trisong Detsen’s imperial lineage. In this narrative, therefore, the legitimacy of the Domari’s political and religious dominance is embedded within the concept of beyul and the identification of Langtang as one of these sacred ‘hidden valleys’. Here, we can relate the above narrative to the potential ideological function of myths in legitimising political structure (cf. Balandier 1970:118–119). Ideology Emplaced: Land, Ritual, Power Not much is known further about the Domari in Langtang after Minyu Dorje and his sons had constructed the new temples in Langtang, 12 That is not to say that all members of that clan are equally respected, and while most of them would have at least some religious training, currently it is the learned ones who are the most revered. While villagers do indicate that the previous high status of the Domar clan has waned somewhat in recent years, ritually, however, the Domari’s dominant position is still unassailable. In the temples at both Langtang and Kyangjin, there are designated seats near the main altars, which can be occupied only by lamas who are from the Domar clan. In the temple status symbolism of Tibetan Buddhism, one’s status is dependent upon how close one sits to the main altar, i.e. close proximity to the main altar indicates a higher status while a seat nearer to the door indicates a lower status. Even the head lama, who is supposed to be the most spiritually accomplished in Langtang, if he is not a Domari, would not be allocated that special position. All village-wide rituals would never start before a participating Domar lama has arrived.

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allegedly under the instructions of Padmasambhava himself. We know that Minyu Dorje had one daughter and five sons, one of whom was Kunzang Gyume Lhundrub (died 1767), mentioned in a Tibetan source as having commissioned an entire key collection of Nyingmapa teachings, the ‘Collected Tantras’ (rnying ma rgyud ’bum) (Ehrhard 1995:258). According to the current head lama, he was the founder of the temple at Kyangjin. Another son, Pema Dorje, constructed the temple in Langtang village. The ancestors of the Domari currently residing in Langtang are said to have arrived only around the closing quarter of the 19th century. Informants belonging to the former mukhiyā clans claim that as there was no Domari lama in Langtang at that time, some members of the mukhiyā clans went across the border to the vicinity of Kyirong to search for a suitable lama to take over the Langtang temple, and to give instructions to those who desired to live a religious life. The Langtang searchers eventually found a Domari at a place called Rama (Ragma), about three to four hours’ walk from Kyirong in Tibet, who agreed to move to Langtang. What happened next had tremendous consequences for Langtang, with the subsequent period witnessing the rise to power of the Domar clan. An important part of the deal to persuade the Domari lama to go to Langtang was that the mukhiyā would relinquish the leadership of the village to him. Upon arrival, the Domari established themselves on an estate next to the village temple as the centre of authority from where they would exercise both religious and temporal power. Villagers still call this estate the Labrang (bla brang). This term itself would give an indication of the high status of the new Domari lama, for ‘labrang’ refers to either the estate of a very high lama—in fact a reincarnate lama, or tulku (sprul sku) (see Goldstein 1973:448; Tucci 1988:10; Mills 2000:27)—or at least a revered tantric priest (Aziz 1978:53). Under the new arrangement, the Labrang took over the office of the headman from the mukhiyā clans and subsequently came to dominate both religious and political life. At the beginning of the 20th century the Rana government established a horse farm at what is today known as Ghoratabela, not far from Langtang Village, and the Domari, as the new mukhiyā of the village, were given the task of looking after the state horses.13

13 One wonders if the reason behind this assignment was in any way related to the fact that the Domari’s clan god, Tamdin, is also believed to be the patron deity of horse traders.

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Labrang

Prangjang (Kusho Renzin)

Labrang (Kusho Nima)

Figure 2.2: Segmentation of the Domar clan

Following the death of the first Domari lama, the clan split into two factions as the result of a dispute between his two sons—Kusho Nima and Kusho Renzin. The latter moved out of the Labrang to establish his own estate, known as the Prangjang. As will be recalled, the transfer of leadership of the village from the mukhiyā clans to the Domari was an important condition to the latter’s move to Langtang. With this transfer, the erstwhile system of rotational headmanship was abolished. Until the Panchayat system of local election in the 1960s, the role of the headman was transferred through male agnates, primarily through brothers. If there were no suitable male siblings, then the post would be taken by the son of the former headman. Kusho Nima inherited the headmanship from his father, the first occupier of the Labrang. Later, with the introduction of elections, Kusho Nima was elected as the first pradhān pancha (renamed from mukhiyā). Kusho Nima had two sons: one died before he was able to take over the role, and the other was found to be unsuitable for the job, as he was mute and considered intellectually undeveloped. Under these circumstances, Kusho Renzin, as the younger brother of Kusho Nima, took over the role of the headman, hence precipitating a gradual shift in the centre of power from the Labrang to the Prangjang.14 14 In Ortner’s (1992) study of the Sherpa Buddhism in the Solu-Khumbu region, she argues that the process of temple founding was intimately tied to contestations for political power among influential male siblings, the result of which was the founding of a temple by the triumphant party. The motivation behind the building of a temple by the winner of the power struggle was to cement his authority as a ‘protector’ in a visible form, but also, paradoxically, to indicate to fellow Sherpa that he (the winner) was humble or ‘small’ in the eyes of the gods. Ortner suggests that the rationale behind the act of temple founding was an internal cultural tension, or ‘contradiction’, between ‘bigness’ and ‘smallness’ that is an essential feature of Sherpa culture (Ortner 1992:53–81). In Langtang, the fraternal rivalry between the Domari brothers had not resulted in the founding of a new temple, but the establishment of an estate alternative to the Labrang. The founding of the Prangjang estate was not the consequence of Kusho Renzin being banished from the Labrang by Kusho Nima, but was an aggressive act on the part of the younger brother to challenge the Labrang’s authority.

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Referring to the Tamang village of ‘Tamdungsa’, in the same administrative district as Langtang, Holmberg (1996 [1989]:47) points out that the standing of the headman was a function of both his reputation within the community and his role as the intermediary between the locality and the state. There was, however, a crucial difference between Langtang and Tamdungsa, where the headman and the lamas, while both manifested royalty-like disposition, were nevertheless the personifications of two distinct institutional roles. In Langtang, however, religious and temporal authority was vested in a single person. The power wielded by the headman was very considerable, reminiscent of the ‘royal style’ noted by Hocart (1950) as typical of Indian villages. Some of the older people in Langtang can still recall the almost absolute rule the Domari headman had exercised over village affairs, his responsibility for enforcing village regulations such as the prohibition against smoking, drunkenness and killing of animals, and the arbitration of disputes. Only the extremely serious cases, such as murder, were referred to the district authority. Since there were neither police nor army in the locality at the time, the responsibility of enforcing state laws and village rules fell upon the shoulders of the headman’s runners, called chog.15 Myths by themselves are, however, insufficient to sustain the dominant position of the Domari. In addition to territorial cults and meanings attributed to the Langtang Valley as a beyul, here we shall see that the pre-eminence of the Domari was also partly a function of two other conditions: the Nepalese political system at large and the economic base of the society. As I have indicated, from the founding of the modern Nepalese state from the late 1800s to 1950s, the political system was based upon the centralisation of authority coupled with the decentralisation of administration. In such a political arrangement, many remote communities were able to maintain high degree of local autonomy. It was within this larger state system that unique indigenous forms of social, economic and political organisations evolved. Before the onset of trekking tourism in Langtang in the late 1970s, the inhabitants relied upon mainly agriculture—such as the cultivation of buckwheat, barley

15 In the Lama village of Tarkhyehyang in Helambu, the positions of village headman and head temple officials were inherited by patrilineal descent. Temple assistants are known as Uje (dbu rje, see Clarke 1980:134).

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Langtang landholding

‘temple land’

chöshing

kushing

‘ancestral land’

‘grassland’

pho shing Figure 2.3: Langtang landholding

and potatoes—and animal husbandry (comprising sheep and various bovine stocks) for subsistence. In addition, before the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Langtangpa were actively engaged in the trans-Himalayan trading of salt and rice between Kyirong in Tibet and central Nepal, plying the main trade route that passed through Rasuwa Garhi at the border. The Langtangpa also collected medicinal herbs from the surrounding forests both to supplement their diet and to sell for cash in the markets of Trisuli Bazaar and Kathmandu. Prior to the nationalisation of forests and the institutionalisation of the new national Panchayat regime in 1962, the Langtangpa’s economic activities was another crucial factor that had contributed to the emergence of an indigenous pattern of landownership that entailed not only a system of resource extraction and distribution, but also provided the material basis that sustained Langtang’s social and political structures. The most common category of land is the phashing, meaning ‘ancestral land’, encompassing both the land first cultivated by the ancestors of a particular lineage and since transmitted patrilineally to subsequent generations, and those other lands that have been acquired from other villagers. Phashing are similar to freehold land that can be bought and sold between any willing parties. Further, Langtang land included swathes of grassland for herds of animals to graze on. It is an obligation for any lineage that has the privilege of using a particular patch of grassland, to contribute butter to the two temples at Langtang and Kyangjin, the amount of which is proportional to the size of the grassland allocated. The third category of land pertains to the temple. In Langtang, the temple land is distributed among certain sections of the populations, with the primary purposes of ensuring the supply of grains, beer and butter that is required in communal rituals, and the upkeep of the temple. One category of temple land is the chöshing (chos

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Number of households with kushing

Shangpa Nagpa Zhu Sanga Garza Zangpa Jhapa Zang Yümpa Thokra Wypa Total

6 5 5 4 2 2 2 1 1 28

zhing, ‘religious land’), whose ownership is rotated among only the two Domar estates of the Prangjang and the Labrang. To gain merit, some Langtang households might donate a proportion of their phashing to the temple as phoshing, which oblige the donor to give to the temple four pathi of barley towards the annual festival Nara (see below). The third category of land that concerns us here is kushing, which are lands that the temple has allocated to the 28 lineages from nine different clans who had first settled in Langtang.16 One of the main purposes for granting kushing was to ensure that the annual temple festivals such as Nara and Yulbi Chechu were sufficiently catered for, as all kuriya (owners of kushing) are under an obligation to contribute certain amounts of grain, derived from cultivating their kushing.17

16 The mukhiyā families had promised the Domari from Rama that the 28 lineages in Langtangpa at that time would each contribute a male member to the temple to be trained under the Domari as village priests. These families were given kushing, hence becoming kuriya. 17 The kushing is very similar to that of bog ma, a term referring to the communal land owned by Tibetan monasteries. For Tibetan monasteries with considerable landed property, the usufruct of the bog ma is usually transferred to certain aristocratic families (bog bdag) who have ‘to deliver part of the harvest to the [monastery] . . . and to pay taxes to the government’ (Tucci 1988:158). The kuriya in Langtang thus replicates the obligations of the bog bdag in other Tibetan monasteries. In Mustang there is a comparable system, known as drongpa, which, like the kuriya system in Langtang, involves a set of obligations as well as signifying household status. In the village of Kag and Dzong, for example, village headmen are selected only from drongpa households (see Saul 1998:51–54).

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Like the phashing, kushing lands, with a total size of 6–7 ropani,18 are inherited by the males within the kuriya. If a particular lineage were unable to fulfil its obligations, its kushing would have to be transferred to another lineage within the same clan. The difference between phoshing and kushing is that the former refers to lands donated to the temple by individuals as a portion of their phashing land, while the latter refers to the lands granted by the temple to the founding lineages of Langtang. Apart from their obligatory religious duties, the kuriya are also required to take turns each year to provide two of their members as assistants, or chog, to the village headman. These chog were responsible for enforcing village rules and regulations, and to maintain law and order prior to the establishment of a police post in Langtang. The consequence of this pattern of landownership with its concomitant ritual obligations was the engendering of a three-tiered structure of ‘ritual hierarchy’: with the Domari holding chöshing at the top, the kuriya occupying the middle position, while those without kushing (the so-called yangpa), who were disqualified from organising the most important village festival of Nara, were then relegated to the bottom rung of the ritual hierarchy. From the perspective of Langtang political and social inclusion, the kushing system bound various founding lineages into a social unit that was continually re-created and reaffirmed through the annual celebration of Nara. It has been shown here that the Langtang system of landholding was once underpinned by a set of religious and temporal obligations that defined the boundaries of Langtang sociality. The contention here is that ultimately, the ideology that gave legitimacy to this system consisted of the Domari’s right to rule in the sacred beyul of Langtang. Systems of landholding are often more than just solely economic arrangements; they are implicated in notions of identity and personhood, as well as communities’ participation in specific social orders. When writing about the ‘Lama’ villages in the neighbouring Helambu region, Clarke (1980:81) notes that village membership in these villages is predicated upon ‘taking a loan from the temple, part of which is paid back immediately, and on which annual interest is payable as a contribution to the costs of a temple-festival’. In Langtang Village, the kushing granted to the 28 households of the nine founding clans could

18 Here one ropani as defined locally refers to the area of land ploughed by the dzo—a crossbreed between the yak and the cow—in a day.

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be seen as the functional equivalent of a temple ‘loan’, the ‘payment’ of which is the organisational and financial obligations to the Nara and Yulbi Chechu festivals. Therefore, like the Lama villages in Helambu, village membership in Langtang was once conceived in terms of the villagers’ participation in the corporate life of the temple. Michael Vinding (1998:272) points out that the term ‘kuriya’ is also used among the Thakali to refer to households represented in the village assembly, and whose social obligations include the duty of the village worker and to participate in public works programme. One crucial difference between the Thakali and Langtang in this instance seems to be the ritual component that formed an integral part of the latter’s political organisation. In fact, Vinding highlights the fact that in Thak Khola ‘ecclesiastical and temporal powers are clearly separated, and in some villages religious specialists cannot become headman’ (Ibid.:282, italics mine). In Langtang, however, political and religious supremacy were invested in the single person of the Domari headman. The dominance of the Domar clan in Langtang was symbolically most eloquently expressed and affirmed in the annual festival of Nara. Nara Nara is considered the most important annual festival for Langtangpa, and indeed for all other Tibetan Buddhists in the region such as those in Helambu in the adjacent valley (Clarke 1991:43). The full name of the festival is Nara Donjuk (na rag dong spyugs), which means ‘finishing with hell’: the primary aim of the central offering is to accumulate merit so that the donor will not descend to hell upon his death but gain a better rebirth. At a more mundane level, Nara is concerned with securing blessings or tendil (rten ’brel, ‘material prosperity’), not just for the donors to the festival but also for the village as a whole. The duration of Nara differs from region to region; in villages in the Helambu area, Nara could last from as little as one day to as long as 20 in the village of Tarkhyeghyang, but in Langtang the festival usually lasts five days. Each year, four of the 28 kuriya households will be the principal donors for the festival, defraying most of its expenses. In the first stage of preparation, long chang, two ‘temple administrators’, or jipa19 (spyi pa) 19 Clarke is of the opinion that the phonetic term ‘jipa’ used by the Helambu people is a corruption of the Tibetan spyin bdag, which means ‘sponsors’. I would suggest,

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from the four organising kuriya will gather the villagers and ply them with beer. Amidst the drunken stupor and amicable atmosphere, villagers will recall their status as either kuriya or yangpa. All the kuriya will have to offer certain amounts of grain for making the chang. The total amount of grain a particular kuriya will have to contribute depends on the number of households within that particular lineage.20 Some of those without the kushing, the yangpa, may want to contribute towards the cost of Nara as a means of gaining merit ( phan yon). All additional costs, and the supply and preparation of food for the duration of the festival, will be borne by the main organising kuriya, the jipa chenpo, and the Domar clan (from either the Labrang or the Prangjang). During Nara the principal ritual actors are divided into three categories. The first is called chö kya and is made up of Domar clan members, who are the principal donors for the first day of the festival. The four kuriya, the jipa chenpo, are divided into two groups of jipa, the trapa jipa and the chomo jipa.21 The former is responsible for the second and fourth days, while the latter takes responsibility for the third and the final, fifth day. The most important people in the Nara festival are, unsurprisingly, the Domari. Not only do they comprise one of the three main categories of principal sponsors, the Domari lamas were the chief officiating lamas of the festival. In addition, one of the main deities propitiated during Nara is none other than Tamdin (rta mgrin), Domari’s clan-god (skyes lha). On each of the five days of Nara, the main officiating priest will invoke Tamdin while conducting a sequence of religious dances (’cham). It is necessary here to give an overview of this principal deity to further explicate the Domari’s ritual and political dominance in Langtang.

however, that by adhering to both phonetic and ethnographic evidence, it refers to spyi pa, the term for a junior administrator of the temple. Apart from its ritual functions, the temple in Tibetan cultural areas is also an economic institution with its own properties (spyi), one of which is land. In general, spyi pa refers to an official responsible for the administration of land belonging to the temple (see Tucci 1988:130, 158). In the case of Langtang and, probably in Helambu as well, the term spyi pa also connotes a donor (hence, spyin bdag) with reference to festivals such as Nara. This view takes on further credibility in relation to the pattern of landownership of the Langtang’s Labrang, as discussed in the main text. 20 For example, in a lineage consisting of three brothers, the eldest, if he holds the kushing, has to give 21 pāthī; the second brother, known as yang chawa, 6 pāthī; and the youngest, the yang chungwa, 4 pāthī. 21 Tib. grwa pa jo mo, i.e. ‘monk’ and ‘nun’, respectively.

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Source: Kreijger (2001:106)

Figure 2.4: Tamdin (rta mgrin, Skt. Hayagrīva)

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Numerous works in Brahmanic and Tibetan literature have affirmed Tamdin’s tremendous ritual power. The ‘Horse-head One’ has his origin in the Brahmanic religion: known in Sanskrit as Hayagrīva, it is believed to be an avatar of the Lord Vishnu. As one of the ‘defenders of faith’ (chos skyong; Skt. dharmapāla) of the Brahmanic religion, its wrathful nature is harnessed to its dominant role as the ‘destroyer of obstacles’ (Skt. krodha vighnāntaka), eradicating all impediments that might hinder one’s quest for enlightenment (Linrothe 1998:86). Hayagrīva has been appropriated by Tibetan Buddhism into its vast pantheon and has become known as Tamdin, belonging to a special group of guardian deities called the Trag She Ghe (drag gshed brgyad, see e.g. NebeskyWojkowitz 1977:23; van Gulik 1935:10–28). As an archetype of fierce compassion in Tibetan Buddhism, Tamdin is considered a terrific form of the bodhisattva Chenrezi22 (spyan ras gzigs; Skt. Avalokiteshavara), of whom the Dalai Lamas are considered his emanation, as well as the manifestation of Padmasambhava,23 the tantric saint from Uddiyana (present-day Swat Valley in Pakistan) who is credited for introducing Buddhism into Tibet. Tibetan sources refer to the deity’s critical role in introducing Buddhism from India to Tibet: when Padmasambhava was invited by King Trisong Detsen to Tibet to promulgate the dharma, the saint allegedly encountered great opposition from the local demons and deities. To subjugate these malicious spirits, Padmasambhava invoked Tamdin to his aid, in the process transforming the erstwhile enemies of Buddhism into its guardians, binding them in an oath to defend the new faith in Tibet (Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1977:101–102, 171, 193). Under its new guise, Tamdin is the lord of all dharmapāla, the chief defender of the Buddhist faith. For the Langtangpa, Tamdin is widely acknowledged as a song ma (srung ma; see also Mumford 1990:117–139), a ‘guardian’ of not only their religious faith, but also against harmful forces. It is the only clangod in Langtang whose cult is not restricted to the clan to which it is the tutelary deity, given its wider function encapsulated within the pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism. On the 29th day of each month in the Tibetan calendar, Ngi Shu Ghu, the Domari pray to their guardian

22 Chenrezi is depicted in Tibetan Buddhist history as the father of the Tibetan nation. Taking the form of a monkey, the bodhisattva mated with a mountain demoness, an emanation of Tārā, to give birth to the first Tibetans (Samuel 1993:168). 23 One of Tamdin’s origin mantras is ‘Om Hrih Padma Sambhava Hum’ (Rhie and Thurman 1996:189).

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Source: Rhie and Thurman (1999:247)

Figure 2.5: Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)

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deity in the Langtang temples. On this day, those Langtangpa with physical or mental afflictions believed to have been caused by evil forces, bring with them offerings of grain to the temple, hoping the Domari will pray to Tamdin to help eradicate their sufferings. When asked why they would want to seek help from Tamdin, respondents always mentioned Tamdin’s ‘great power’. The importance of Tamdin to the Langtangpa in various village rituals such as Nara and Ngi Shu Ghu thus directly confirms the Domar clan as a crucial point of reference, symbolically expressing and affirming it as the principal protector and benefactor of the community as a whole. Conclusion According to Tibetan textual exegesis, beyul was conceptualised as a sanctuary where an idealised Tibetan society could be established and sustained, ensuring in part the preservation of the royal lineage which was ideologically deemed essential to the peace and prosperity of Tibetan society. In this chapter I have explored the relationship between the beyul concept and the form of political organisation it has historically engendered in Langtang. I have shown that the ideology that views Langtang as a sacred place both sustained and was sustained by a local political economy that, in turn, was part of a larger regional system. In what form did this ‘ideal’ Tibetan society take in the Langtang Valley? Langtang’s indigenously evolved system of land distribution and ownership was once underpinned by what I would call a ‘ritual hierarchy’ of its social organisation. Until fairly recently, the local political hierarchy was mapped upon this ritual hierarchy. The evidence presented here suggests that Langtang’s history of social and political organisation can best be understood in terms of the beyul concept, especially in relation to the notion that only those associated with Trisong Detsen’s royal lineage could be the legitimate and ideal rulers of the various beyul. The history of the settlement of Langtang Village is inextricably linked to its conception as a sacred place, from the myth of its discovery, to the indigenous system of land distribution, to the ritual and political dominance of the Domari. This indigenous form of socio-political structure is an especially crucial context with which to understand the status contestations and the seismic shifts in social and political alignments in present-day Langtang. The result of an intimate association between the village’s founding history, the idea

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of Langtang as a sacred place, and a particular form of social relations, means that when the Langtangpa evoke the sacredness of their homeland these days, they are also partly evoking and foregrounding this history and relations. In other words, a particular spatial practice can conjure up certain pre-eminent social forms and hierarchies that are deposited in social memories. As will be demonstrated in the rest of the book, the Langtangpa’s experience of their homeland as a sacred place constitutes an important cultural element in their conception of the ‘good life’, or kipu. However, over the last few decades another dominant way of conceptualising and experiencing the Langtang landscape has emerged, generating new cultural forms, social relationships and political hierarchies.

CHAPTER THREE

CROSSING BORDERS Pema gives the leading dzo a strong, sharp tug, and the animal just manages to haul itself and its burden over the crest of the slope along which the caravan has been trudging sluggishly for the past hour or so. While Pema looks back to check that the precious bags of rice are still tightly fastened to the dzo, he is reassured to see that Tenzin, his sister, is following closely behind, prodding another beast of burden along. The bend in the path and the lush vegetation obscure his view of the entire party trailing behind Tenzin, but the group of six packed animals and their eight minders from Langtang travels with considerable bustle, the sounds of whistling, singing and shouting competing with the torrential roar of Bhote Khosi rumbling in the valley floor below. The journey might pose a challenge to Tenzin, Pema thinks, for this is the first time she is accompanying a trading caravan on the four-day trip to Kyirong. Although Tenzin is only 13, Pema is confident she can rise to the challenge, especially regarding the difficult task of guiding the animals along the narrow path that clings precariously to the valley wall. Well, aren’t they the Nakpa, the ‘nak’s people’, who are supposed to be experts in animal husbandry? The Nakpa clan used to be the servants of the Domari, tasked with looking after the latter’s herds of yak and nak.1 Pema’s ancestors followed their masters to settle in Langtang four generations ago, but the Nakpa are now no longer tied to the Domari in servitude. Pema’s family now owns a small plot of land on which they cultivate barley and potatoes, and Pema travels once a year to Kyirong to trade. Pema now feels exhausted; it is almost noon and the sun bears down mercilessly on both men and beasts alike. This is their second day on the trek after spending the previous night at the village of Khamjing, a long day’s walk from Langtang Village. The caravan has been travelling in a northerly direction since leaving Khamjing this morning, so at least the sun is behind them, and Pema does not have to constantly 1 A female yak, hence the name ‘Nakpa’. In Tibet, before its migration to Langtang, the clan was called Phashu Lowang.

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squint to keep out its irritating rays. A while later, the caravan finally reaches the border-post of Rasuwa Garhi, manned by a small contingent of about 10 Nepalese soldiers, part of a battalion that is based at Trisuli, the district headquarters. Pema knows that by now his brother, Kesang, and his brother’s wife, Drolma, have veered off the main track and are hiding somewhere in the forest behind him. Each of them carries on their back two huge blocks of butter wrapped in cloth, and they will wait until nightfall to cross the border when they will give the border guards the slip to avoid being checked. As on previous trips, Pema prays to the bodhisattva Chenrezi that they will not be caught for, according to a new policy promulgated by the Chinese since they took over Tibet in 1959, butter may not be brought into Tibet and sold in Kyirong’s market. At present, trade is limited to a few commodities such as wool, grain and salt. But because of the high price that butter fetches in Kyirong, many Langtangpa are still willing to risk smuggling this contraband across the border. The present dilapidated fort at Rasuwa Garhi hails from the time of Jang Bahadur Rana, in the mid-19th century, and the crossing is one of a handful along the Nepal-Tibet border utilised for countless generations by caravans plying the trans-Himalayan trade routes. The border post has seen better days: Pema can still remember his grandfather telling him how busy the trail used to be on both sides of the border during the main trading seasons. But that was many years ago. Now, on this bright April day in 1960, Pema’s expedition is the only one that stops at the checkpoint. This is not unusual, for April is not the trading season for most Langtangpa. They travel to Kyirong only during winter, when no work is possible in their frozen fields. However, three weeks ago Pema heard a rumour that the Chinese would soon prohibit the entry of Nepalese trading parties into Tibet without a proper visa, one that would have to be obtained from the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. Since he still had a substantial amount of rice that had been bartered from Helambu, and he has been intending to sell one of the family’s dzo, he decided to embark on another trip back to Kyirong. This time he is taking Tenzin along, for who knows if she will ever get a chance to visit her ancestors’ homeland when the Chinese completely seal the border. When the rest of the caravan (minus two people) catches up with him at the checkpoint, a Private and a Sergeant command the Langtangpa to unpack the loads off the animals so they can be checked and weighed. On this particular trip, Pema’s trading party carries only rice, and the

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20 sacks of grain weigh a total of 275kg. The tax rate for rice this year, the Sergeant tells Pema, is Rs. 1.20 per 10kg. After complaining bitterly about the increase in tax from the year before, and receiving only grunts and shrugs from the soldiers, Pema pays slightly more than the required amount, and the border guards pocket the difference as tips. Pema does this every time, like most of his fellow villagers. One might need the soldiers’ favours in the near future, especially if Kesang and Drolma are caught trying to smuggle the butter across. With the animals reloaded, the caravan snakes pass the guardhouse and continues its journey northwards. In no time, the Langtangpa arrive at the bridge that straddles the Lente Khola, the river that formally marks the border between Nepal and Tibet in this part of northern Rasuwa. Upon crossing the bridge, the party is now firmly on Tibetan soil. Not far beyond is a stone tablet erected by the Chinese—on the ‘13th day of the 10th month of the 57th year of the Chien Lung reign’ (approximately 26 November 1792), according to the Chinese inscriptions—commemorating their victory over the Gorkhalis in the 1791 Nepal-Tibet war, which saw the Chinese army cross the border at this very location and invade the heart of Nepal. The Langtangpa have heard that the Chinese are now again in Tibet. In fact, they completely took over the government’s administration the year before, in 1959, and Pema knows from the steadily increasing number of Tibetan refugees arriving at Syabru Bengsi that the Dalai Lama himself has fled, precipitating an exodus of Tibetans across the length and breadth of the country. The Tibetans head south, into Nepal, Sikkim and India, many of them hoping to travel ultimately to Dharamsala, where their spiritual leader has set up the Tibetan government-in-exile. When Pema was in Kyirong three months ago, there were Chinese soldiers everywhere, to the bewilderment of the Langtangpa, who had to deal directly with the Chinese officials through Tibetan translators in order to trade their goods. For the past few months, Pema and his fellow villagers have been speculating with trepidation the possibility of the Chinese travelling south to invade their land. As Pema and his party settle down to make camp for the night just inside the Tibetan border, and to wait for Kesang and Drolma to rejoin them, a group of around 15 Tibetans trudge in their direction, with only a few belongings between them. They look dishevelled and seem to be in a hurry; an elderly couple in the group seems exhausted and barely able to walk further. Pema immediately guesses their identity and where they are going, but as the group passes, he shouts to them

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in the Kyirong dialect, ‘Ka dro geh? [Where you going?]’ ‘Yambhu la [To Kathmandu]’, comes a tired reply, from the young man leading the group. The Langtang people watch as the downtrodden bunch slowly disappear into the distance, towards the bridge at Lente Khola and the Nepalese border-post at Rasuwa Garhi. Pema has an uneasy feeling that this might be his last trip to Kyirong, and is glad that he has brought Tenzin along . . . More than 40 years later, in the summer of 2002, Pema and I chatted about his former occupation as a trader, as we sat on the ground outside his modest house while he was making a mat out of bamboo strips, his gnarled fingers and a slightly hunched body a testament to the physical hardship he has had to endure throughout his life. The Chinese have not invaded Nepal, although the Langtangpa were still rather concerned about the possibility that they would. One of them told me that, when I first arrived in the village, some locals initially thought I was a spy coming to Langtang to prepare the way for a Chinese invasion! Pema himself has not been to Kyirong since the 1960s, and the above narrative is a reconstruction based partly upon his recollection of his days as a trans-Himalayan trader, the purpose of which is to give the reader a sense of the life of a Langtangpa travelling back and forth between southern Tibet and central Nepal in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That was a time of momentous events in Tibet, Nepal and the rest of the world, which had significant repercussions for the peoples of Langtang and similar trading communities living along the Himalayan range. While the previous chapter focuses on the articulation of the ideology of sacred landscape and the formation of Langtang’s indigenous socio-political organisation, this chapter discusses the villagers’ changing relationship with the Langtang landscape in terms of their subsistence strategies. An important theme in this chapter is about the ‘placing’ of Langtang people as various events and discourses largely beyond their control have conspired to restrain, limit and ‘discipline’ them. I analyse the ways by which the Langtangpa have increasingly become ‘localised’ in their physicality and economic orientation, and how the various national, as well as transnational, social practices of ‘development’ in Nepal—with their purported aims to improve the life of its people—intersect and weave together to form the ‘objective structures’ (cf. Bourdieu 1979) of the Langtangpa’s lives. The establishment of the National Park and the promotion of tourism in Nepal and Langtang

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have profoundly affected the inhabitants’ relationships with their homeland, the Nepalese state and the wider world. Crossing Borders (I): Langtang People on the Move Rice and Salt Commenting on the subsistence pattern of the peoples living in the northern mountainous regions of Nepal, Fürer-Haimendorf (1975:286) notes that ‘a self-contained peasant economy based on agriculture and animal husbandry cannot be sustained by the natural resources of valleys lying above 3,300 metres’. Langtang Village lies just above this altitude, and it is not surprising that for centuries the Langtangpa have relied on more than just their land and animal husbandry for subsistence. Since the founding of the village, its inhabitants have been engaged in trade, with their trading parties forming a small part of the economic network connecting southern Tibet with central Nepal. Rather than saying that the Langtangpa and other similar peoples are ‘natural’ traders, it would be more accurate to describe the situation as ‘enforced trading’, for they almost have no choice but to trade in order to survive. The pattern of trans-Himalayan trade is a good example of the articulation of localised imperatives for subsistence and the wider economic network of exchange of surplus goods between regions, specifically between Tibet and the Indian sub-continent through Nepal. For example, while Tibet produced salt and wool in great abundance, it did not produce enough grain; on the other hand, while central Nepal was a grain-producing region, it needed to import the salt necessary for its people and animals to have a healthy diet, and wool for making cloth. Before the influx of Indian salt in the latter half of the 19th century, Nepal relied mainly on Tibet for salt, while central and southern Tibet obtained a significant portion of their grain from Nepal and other South Asian countries. The Langtangpa, like other communities that lived along the borders of Tibet and Nepal, became a conduit that facilitated the flow of surplus commodities between the two neighbouring countries. The fact of their being traders is therefore the result of two main factors: their insufficiency in food production due to the unfavourable mountain ecology, and the wider economic system that enabled them to carve out a viable business niche, in part as a solution to their local problems of subsistence.

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Most of the Tibetan salt originated from the north-central part of that country, known as the Chang Tang, fetched by its nomad inhabitants. The salt was first brought south to the seasonal markets in villages, towns and monasteries, and further to the frontier markets along the SinoTibetan and Himalayan borders (Van Spengen 1998:103). Kyirong was one such important trading town in southern Tibet where Tibetan salt and wool were traded for grain, such as superior-quality rice and maize that were brought across high passes from Nepal, Assam and Bhutan by the various ‘Bhotia’ populations living south of the Himalayan divide (Aziz 1978:96–97). The salt and grain trade at the beginning of the 20th century was very lucrative; according to one study, the rates for Tibetan salt against grain in Nepal were then 1 to 5–18 by volume2 (Clarke 1980:76). Before the late 1800s, the Kathmandu Valley had been a key node in this vast trading network, where a significant portion of Indo-Tibetan trade, especially Tibetan wool, passed through the hands of Newari businessmen in the city. The Newaris’ control over the pulse of trans-Himalayan trade has been substantially reduced since the Gorkhalis conquered the Kathmandu Valley and unified the country in the late 18th century. With the isolationist policies of the Rana regime following the bloody coup of Jang Bahadur in 1856, their dominance in the Indo-Tibetan trade was further curtailed, and their role as middlemen was increasingly taken over by the Tibetan-speaking population along Nepal’s northern border (Van Spengen 1998:117). At this time, the British Raj in the south also wanted a slice of the economic pie. In order to circumvent Kathmandu’s mediation in their trading relations with Tibet, the British began to forge new trade routes further east, especially via Bhutan and Sikkim. As the century came to a close, Kalimpong in Sikkim replaced Kathmandu as the main transHimalayan entrepôt, following the successful opening of the Chumbi Valley as the main conduit for Indo-Tibetan trade. Langtang trading parties primarily plied the route between Helambu to the south and Kyirong to the north. Though the main commodities for barter were salt and rice, other goods were also traded, such as the yak-cow crossbreeds, butter, leather and medicinal herbs gathered from the forests. Since the Langtang Valley branched east of the main The end-points of the Kyirong and Nyalam trade routes were Swayambhunath and Bodhanath in Kathmandu. The north-south flow of goods and peoples created ‘channels for diffusion of Tibetan culture southwards and of Hindu culture northwards’ (Clarke 1980:17). 2

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trade route that linked Kathmandu, Rasuwa Garhi and Kyirong, nonLangtangpa traders crossing the border did not have to pass through the valley. Langtang traders wishing to go to Kyirong would have to travel eastward with their animals laden with goods for more than a day in order to join the main trade route at Syabru Bengsi, before turning north towards the border. The time of travel largely depended upon two factors: the agricultural season and the weather. In order for the Langtangpa to get to Helambu to trade Tibetan salt for rice, they would have used the traditional route via the Gangja La, a high mountain pass that connects Langtang Valley with northern Helambu, which is passable in the summer months of July and August. Even so, the Langtangpa say that sometimes they had to travel a whole day on the snow, and a round trip could take at least six days. The rice was then kept in the village for the next two months, as the villagers busied themselves with harvesting crops from their fields, as well as gathering animal fodder for the coming winter and animal dung as fertilisers for the next agricultural season. It was only in the winter months of December and January, and before the Losar celebration, when the fields were frozen and work on them impossible, that the Langtangpa would take their grain, animals and other goods to Kyirong to barter and sell. The Langtangpa’s once-a-year trading in Tibet is contrasted with that of the Khumbu Sherpa, who travelled to Tibet for trade twice a year, in early summer (May and June) and autumn (October and November), when the Nangpa La was passable (Fürer-Haimendorf 1975:63). A Langtang trading party varied in size; it usually consisted of small groups of three or four people, though occasionally it could swell to more than 10. Both men and women went on these trading expeditions, with the latter making up almost half of a trading party and sharing with men the strenuous task of carrying loads. An elderly Langtang woman, in her 70s, told me that the trading parties were often held up at the border, as the border guards would subject the women to thorough body checks, as the women often hid contraband in their clothes. Some Langtangpa gave the guards the slip by crossing the border at night, after hiding in the forest during the daytime. At Kyirong, the Langtangpa often had to resort to bribing the Tibetan officials to be allowed to trade. The rice from Helambu would be bartered for salt, while leather, herbs, butter, sugar and spices were usually sold for cash, which, before 1959, could either be in Indian, Chinese or Nepalese currency. In the late 1950s, a male crossbred bovine, such as the versatile dzo-po, could fetch up to Rs. 200. With some of the money, the

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Langtangpa would buy manufactured goods such as Chinese bags and rubber shoes, which they would bring back to Nepal for re-sale or for their own consumption. Powerful Place, Powerful Plants Apart from travelling north to Kyirong to trade, the Langtangpa also ventured south to Trisuli, mainly to sell medicinal plants which were the Langtang Valley’s main export before the creation of the National Park. The villagers would collect valuable natural products, such as Cordyceps, jatamansi and Juniperus recurva, to sell in Trisuli and sometimes in Kathmandu. The botanical properties of these plants contributed to only part of their value, which was further augmented by the fact that they were originally grown in a place considered sacred and powerful. I have discussed in detail Langtang’s reputation as a sacred place in the previous chapter. The Langtangpa often also use another word, ne (gnas), to refer to the unique status of the valley. It literally means ‘abode’, and in popular usage the word refers to the residence of a deity (cf. Huber 1999:13). Therefore, anything that is deemed a ne is essentially imbued with divine aura. When asked why they prohibit the killing of animals in the valley, the Langtangpa usually came up with the following two answers: one is that they are Buddhist and, therefore, against the taking of life; and two, that Langtang is a ne nang (gnas gnang), or ‘the place that gives ne’. Here, the Langtangpa are referring to the various objects with divine properties from the valley, both animate and inanimate. The Langtang Valley, itself a great ne, is also considered a place where other ne can be found. Therefore, for example, the boulder where the legendary bull (glang) had been tethered, as recounted in the founding myth of Langtang, is considered by locals as a ne, and so are the red stones at Langshisa, believed to be the pieces of bull’s skin that had been scattered when it died, as well as the handprints in one of the caves that some think belong to Padmasambhava and Domar Minyu Dorje. This particular ‘reading’ of Langtang’s physical landscape reveals the way in which the Langtangpa see ne as embodied in objects and substances that can be found throughout the valley, and the Langtangpa’s attitude towards these objects reflects what Huber (Ibid.:15) has described as ne’s primary quality, it being a source of ‘sacred energy’ or ‘empowerment’ (chinlab). As Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey explicates:

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Figure 3.1: Sang (fumigation) ritual at Langshisa—Commemorating the legendary bull which ‘discovered’ Langtang All objects at great ne have the empowerment (chingyilab) of the deities and great practitioners associated with that place. It is like [the effects of ] water soaking into things, so it includes rocks, dirt, water, plants, trees. This is also called ‘empowerment of ne’ (neki chinlab). Thus, this empowerment can be collected in the form of rocks, dirt, plant parts, and so on, and due to the Tibetans’ great faith in the power of these things they do collect them. (Quoted in Huber 1999:15)

To modern medical knowledge, the value of these medicinal plants lies in the curative efficacy derived from their biochemical constituents. To the Langtangpa, however, there is an additional layer of significance: the fact that these plants have beneficial qualities is, in addition, because they themselves are smaller ne ‘given’ ( gnang) by the larger ne of Langtang (hence, gnas gnang), sharing the same essential quality of ‘sacred energy’ and power. The Langtangpa did not just sell these plants to outsiders for considerable sums of money, but also collected them to supplement their otherwise meagre diet. Villagers believe that it was their ancestors’ consumption of these natural, powerful products from the forest that contributed to their physical strength and taller stature. The Langtangpa attribute their own supposedly smaller frames and weaker physical constitutions these days to their unhealthy diet,

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especially since the arrival of tourism—they think they are eating too much processed food.3 One of the significant consequences of the decline of trans-Himalayan trade for the Langtangpa is that they have become increasingly dependent on the sale of herbs at markets at Trisuli and Kathmandu to obtain cash. The crunch for the Langtangpa was the geo-political situation of the late 1950s and 1960s, when the gradual encroachment by the Chinese into Tibetan affairs made it increasingly difficult for the villagers to conduct trade expeditions to Kyirong. The other factor was that Nepal was gradually opening up to the world, with the abandonment of the isolationist policy of the previous Rana regime, following the revolution that swept through the country in 1950. Consumer goods flowed into Nepal in greater quantities, and this drastically reduced the need for the Langtangpa to travel to Kyirong to obtain them, especially the Chinese-made ones. More significantly, the Nepalese could increasingly buy in the markets the consumer goods that had previously been brought overland by the traders who plied the trans-Himalayan routes. Therefore, trade between central Nepal and southern Tibet began to lose its profitability for communities like the Langtangpa. The various restrictions put in place by the Chinese government in Tibet further forced the Langtangpa to re-orient their economic ventures to the south, mainly the sale of herbs in Trisuli and Kathmandu. Below is a small sample of some of these useful plants: Table 2: ‘Power’ plants and their uses Local name churwa yarsagumba soma jatamansi shukpa pama shukpa tse

Species Rheu emodi Cordyceps Rumex nepalensis Nardostachys jatamansi Juniperus recurva Juniperus indica Ephedra gerdiana

Use rheumatic pain, appetiser aphrodisiac pain reliever sedative, antidote incense incense anti-asthmatic

Sources: Durham (1977); Yonzon (1993)

3 In Langtang, one often sees children being given packets of uncooked instant noodles as main meals: the children crush the noodle in its packaging, pour in the powder seasoning, and have the dry, very salty mixture as their meals.

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Yibi, an elderly woman in her 70s, can still recall vividly the times when she would join the trading parties to Kathmandu, two to three times a year. ‘How many times we went,’ Yibi said, as she fondled her rosary beads, ‘depends on the amount of herbs we collect from the forest. Both men and women went. If a family didn’t have men, then the women went. If there were lots of herbs, then all the able men and women in the family would go. When we were in Kathmandu, some of us would visit Bodhanath and Swayambhu [ both well-known Buddhist pilgrimage sites].’ According to Yibi, like the trading parties to Kyirong, travelling to the markets in the south usually involved large groups of people: around 20 people during the monsoon season, and up to 60 in winter. It took normally around a week of walking to reach Kathmandu; taking into consideration the trading and pilgrimage, villagers could spend three to four weeks on these expeditions. Through these trading expeditions, plant species from Langtang found their way into the vast global trade in Himalayan herbs which flowed from the Himalayan region to the south, with the bulk of Nepal’s harvest going through Kathmandu. From there, through a series of middlemen who increased the price at each stage, quantities of these valuable and highly sought-after commodities travelled through the porous NepalIndia border to the pharmaceutical factories in the sub-continent and beyond (Aryal 1993). Working the Land In Langtang National Park as a whole, agricultural land accounts for 1.6% of the park area, with average per capita landholding of 0.006ha—barely enough to produce a quarter of an individual’s annual food requirement (cf. Pralad Yonzon 1993). In Langtang, land 4 is inherited patrilineally and is divided equally among sons, usually when one of them gets married. The land tax at the time of fieldwork was Rs. 2–3 per ropani, and had to be paid by the titleholder every year to the Village Development Committee (V.D.C.). The V.D.C. would keep 75% of the total tax collected and the balance would be given to the

4 The official Nepalese unit of measure is ropani (= 0.13 acre), while the local unit of measurement is the tor (approximately 0.4 acre), equivalent to the area ploughed by a particular bovine animal in a day.

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state. A titleholder who failed to pay his land tax at a particular year had to pay 125% of the original sum the following year. The types of crop that can be planted around Langtang Village are primarily determined by two factors: climate and soil quality. In ecological terms, the Langtangpa inhabit the sub-alpine zone. Because of high rainfall during the monsoon, coupled with the steep slopes on both sides of the upper Langtang valley, the weathering rates in the vicinity of Langtang Village are high, contributing to the poor quality of the soil, which is young and skeletal, sandy-loam with a high proportion of rock. Because of these conditions, the main crops are restricted to barley (ney)5 buckwheat (brawu) and potatoes (hey), supplemented by turnips (mula), cabbage and cauliflower (cauli). Barley is sown at the beginning of the agricultural season, just after the Losar (Tibetan New Year), in mid-February, and is harvested after five months, in mid-July. The ground barley flour can be divided into two grades—the inferior grade is usually given to hired labourers while the superior flour is consumed by the household and reserved for special occasions. Buckwheat is planted about a month after the barley, at the beginning of March, and is harvested in August. The flour from buckwheat is divided into four different grades. The best ( güma) and the middle grade (toyāma) flour are for human consumption, and is usually used for making bread and flat-noodles (shyakpa). Further down the scale comes torza, which is consumed by poorer households, and finally zēbe, which is given to animals. Of the three primary crops, potato is the last to be planted, from mid-March to April, and is harvested at the end of October. Potatoes are usually stored in the ground, covered in a hole about half a metre deep near the farmer’s house. Turnip was previously planted in Kyangjin, but since Kyangjin land is now used only for the building of hotels, nowadays it is cultivated around Langtang Village, after barley has been harvested in late-September and the land has been re-ploughed. Turnip is harvested at the end of October. The Langtangpa distinguish two types of turnip: nyangma which is used as animal fodder, and can be kept for a long time after it has been dried; and labhu, which is eaten by the villagers, the skin being given to the animals. The leaves of the turnip plant, when it is 16–17 days old, are also consumed as a vegetable (N. sāg).

Strictly speaking, according to the Langtangpa, the harvested barley before threshing is called ney ngiema, while ney refers to the threshed barley, but before being grounded into flour. 5

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Figure 3.2: Working in the fields

So there is a staggered pattern to the planting of various crops, usually about a month apart, starting with barley in mid-February, followed by buckwheat, and then potato. The same pattern can be observed for harvesting: starting with barley in July, followed by buckwheat in August, and potato in October. The one-month gap between the harvesting of buckwheat and potato is also fruitfully utilised: following the harvest of barley, the Langtangpa re-plough the land for turnip. Here, then, is an agricultural system that efficiently utilises the two scarce resources of land and manpower, which uses the maturity periods of the various main crops to establish a system of staggered planting and harvesting. For those with little land, barley and buckwheat are planted in alternate years, while those with larger estates might plant both in a single year. A system of sharecropping exists in Langtang Village, known locally as the phethāb6 (N. adhiyã), whereby a tenant farmer pays half of the harvest as rent in kind to the landlord. A landlord would usually enter into a phethāb arrangement either because of insufficient labour in the household to cultivate all its land, or because he is unable or refuses to hire labourers for the task. The tenant under this arrangement is

6

In Mustang, it is known as phejha (‘pe’ means half; Saul 1999:50).

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often someone who has insufficient land to cultivate his own food crops, or a new resident of the village, such as the few Tibetan Khampa refugees. No household in Langtang is entirely self-sufficient in terms of labour for agricultural work. The need to obtain the maximum from one’s land, combined with the problem of manpower shortage in one’s household, has given rise to a system of exchange relations between various Langtang households called parmo.7 A parmo is a mutual-help group that usually consists either entirely of young men or women. This, as I will show below, is largely due to the gendered division of labour in most agricultural work. Apart from the fact that most parmo groups are single-sex, there are no strict rules that govern their formation, which is based on the general principle of friendship and good working relationships. Most parmo groups are made up of five to six members, and the group will take turns to attend to the work that needs to be done at each individual member’s household. A person can be a member of different parmo groups, depending on the nature of the jobs. For example, a man could be in a parmo that has been formed to cut and collect firewood, and in another for the ploughing of fields. But because one tends to work with people whom one feels comfortable with, memberships in different parmo groups do often overlap. While parmo mutual aid constitutes one of the strategies to solve the problem of labour shortage, the hiring of labourers is the other. This solves two problems at once: for the land-rich who are short of labour, this is a way to prevent fields from lying fallow and being unproductive; while the land-poor need the money from working in the fields of others to purchase enough food for themselves and their families. The landlord supplies two main meals for all who work for him on a particular day, and the workers usually have a choice of two types of payment. For money payment, a man can get Rs. 100 and a woman, Rs. 60. Otherwise, the worker can ask to be paid with one of the following: two cups of rice, four cups of other grains such as flour from buckwheat or barley, one cup of salt, one litre of kerosene, or two plates of potatoes.8

For the Sherpa, such a work group is known as ngalok (see Fürer-Haimendorf 1975:37). 8 Watkins (1996:38) points out that the Nyeshangte were unwilling to work for fellow villagers for wages, but the Langtangpa appear to have no qualms about doing so. 7

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Unlike trading expeditions, on which men and women shared the same tasks of carrying loads and looking after the animals during travel, there is a more marked division of labour along gender lines in most agricultural work. Work for all normally starts at around 9a.m., after a substantial morning meal, and stops at 4–5p.m., with a short lunch break in between. The first task for a male householder at the beginning of the yearly agricultural cycle is to repair the stonewalls which protect individual fields against straying animals, such as cattle, goats and sheep. Breaches are made after harvest in these walls to allow shortcuts across fields, and these gaps are now closed. While women are involved in scattering fertiliser (consisting of dried animal dung called ju wa) in the fields, it is only the men who are allowed to plough the land. Only one type of male crossbred bovine, the dzo po, is used for this task. Both the Langtang men and women I interviewed believe that if women handle the plough, bad luck will follow, the harvest will fail, and the fields might catch fire. It is usually the men who are responsible for cutting and collecting firewood from nearby forests, while it is usually the women who shoulder the main responsibility for agricultural tasks, such as planting, weeding and harvesting. One can, however, see exceptions to the rule. On many occasions, I have noticed men help out with weeding and the harvesting of potatoes, and young women, especially those who are unmarried, cutting and collecting firewood. What is described is a general pattern, which, because of the shortage of manpower, is not strictly adhered to at all times (except the handling of the plough). Apart from agriculture, the Langtangpa also rely on animal husbandry for their subsistence; the livestock consists mainly of sheep, goats and a variety of bovine crossbreeds. Young children (especially boys) are often responsible for taking the family’s goats and sheep to the pastures on the village outskirts in the morning and returning with them in the late afternoon. Ownership of livestock in Langtang is usually invested in spousal pairs, and not in the clan or lineage corporate groups. Upon the division of family property, a consensus will usually be reached among the sons regarding the proportion of livestock and land each will inherit. Take the case of Tenzin, for example. He inherited the greater part of the family land because he wanted to start a hotel business, and for this he agreed to take care of his elderly parents. His older brother agreed to this arrangement and inherited the whole of the family’s livestock, because he preferred to rely on animal husbandry for subsistence. The crossbreed between the yak and oxen stocks is a

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particularly valuable animal, combining their desirable qualities. The female crossbreeds, such as the dzomo and hormo, give more milk than the nak or cow, while the male crossbreeds, especially the dzo po, are valued as hardy beasts of burden and are useful in agricultural work. Unlike yaks, the crossbreeds are very versatile animals that do not suffer from the problems posed by lower altitude and warmer climates, but are still capable of crossing high passes, a desirable quality for the conduct of trans-Himalayan trade. Mass migration of the crossbreeds occurs twice a year. Around March and April, the herds move to the summer pastures around Kyangjin and beyond. The village headman used to supervise this movement: he would determine when the animals should start to move, and directed the herds belonging to different households to their traditional grazing pastures. These days, however, due to the acrimonious political climate (see Chapters 5–7), the V.D.C. Chairman has ceded this control, and there is a scramble among herders for the best grazing land. In midOctober, the herds start moving again, starting with the crossbreeds, this time in the reverse direction from the high summer pastures to pastures just below Langtang Village. The herds stay there for about a week, before moving even further down the valley. The yaks and naks move to their winter pastures about two weeks after the crossbreeds, and are held near the village. At the time of fieldwork, the Langtangpa collectively owned a yak that was used for the purpose of mating with the female crossbreeds to produce more of the latter. The Langtangpa are not concerned solely with increasing the size of their herds, but more importantly because crossbreeds are so valuable, with breeding and selling their calves for profit. Owning a large herd of crossbreeds used to be considered a source of prestige for the Langtangpa, but villagers these days view running a hotel business as the means to a better life and social status. This shift in status symbolism and aspiration is the direct result of the arrival of trekking tourism in the area. Table 3: Production of crossbreeds Yak + nak ox + nak cow + yak yak + dzomo ox + hormo

—— —— —— —— ——

yak + nak* dzo-po# + dzomo* (N. chaªrī) dzo-po + dzomo* horpo# + hormo* dzo-po + dzomo*

* Mainly for milk # Mainly for ploughing and/or carrying loads

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Figure 3.3: Villagers with a herd of crossbreeds

Crossing Borders (II): Development and Foreign Aid As there are individuals whose qualities of character and level of intelligence make it impossible for them to take advantage of economic opportunities, so are there nationals similarly handicapped . . . as there are bums and beggars so are there bum and beggar nations. —Hans Morgenthau, quoted in Panday (1992:14) Despite four decades of development, supported by large aid flows, Nepal’s poverty reduction record is mixed. —DFID Nepal, Country Assistance Plan 2003–2007

After the Rana autocracy ended in 1951, Nepal embarked on the task of social and economic development. Foreign aid also began to flow into the country, at first a trickle, but in subsequent decades, a torrent. It first started with a substantial grant from the United States under the aegis of President Truman’s Point Four Programme, followed later by additional grants and technical aid from India and other countries, all to kick-start Nepal’s path towards ‘development’. One key concept

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of development at that time was ‘decentralisation’.9 Under the new scheme, the initiative for development should come from the local people, with the village as the elementary unit. Thus, in 1952 Nepal saw the ‘Tribhuvan Village Development Programme’, and in 1961, the ‘Back-to-the-village Campaign’. At the state level, long-term development plans are conceived in terms of Five-Year Plans. A Planning Board was established in 1955, resulting in the publication of the First Five-Year Plan, covering the period 1956–1961, to implement development projects funded entirely by foreign aid (Karan and Ishii 1996:12). Beset by daunting limitations such as the lack of adequate knowledge of the country’s resources, population and development potential, the Plan did not amount to much, though some tentative progress was made in the fields of education and health. Even before the First Plan had run its course, Nepal was again plunged into political turmoil when King Mahendra dissolved the parliament, banned political parties and jailed their leaders, on the grounds of their constant intrigue and internecine squabbling. While Mahendra’s new ‘Panchayat Democracy’ displaced the erstwhile multi-party system and concentrated executive powers in the monarchy, the emphasis on development continued unabated and foreign aid continued to pour in. The first three Five-Year Plans gave priority to activities that would serve as the foundation for further development, such as the development of physical infrastructure, e.g. irrigation, power, transportation and communication capacities. In terms of social development, emphasis was placed on the building of schools and health centres. In addition, extensive surveys of resources as well as population census were being conducted. In the 1960s, the main foreign aid donors were the United States, India and Switzerland (Shrestha 1992:11). The Americans, operating under the aegis of U.S.A.I.D., focused mainly on the social sectors, especially village development projects such as the construction of irrigation canals and the provision of modern agricultural equipment and high-yield crops. The Americans also played an active role in helping to eradicate malaria, an especially deadly disease in the Tarai region bordering India. Indian development aid, on the other hand, was mainly channelled to infrastructure improvement, such as the construction of highways and the Kathmandu airport, and improving the postal and telecommunication facilities.

9 For a detailed history and critique of the decentralisation policy, see the essays in Rijal and Pradhan (2002), especially those by Harka Gurung and Walter Kälin.

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Table 4: Share of foreign assistance in development expenditure (in million Rs. rounded figures) Development Foreign Foreign % of Expenditure Grants Loans 2 to 1 1 2 3 4 First Plan (1956–61) Second Plan (1962–65) Third Plan (1965–70) Fourth Plan (1970–15) Fifth Plan (1975–80)

383 615 1,639 3,357 8,833

383 478 920 1,609 4,241

– – 15 311 1,616

100 78 56 45 48

% of 3 to 2 5

% of 3 to 1

– – 2 21 38

– – >1 9 18

Source: Tiwari (1992:9)

As can be seen from Table 4, while foreign aid for the first two FiveYear Plans comprised wholly of grants, from the Third Five-Year Plan onward Nepal became increasingly reliant on loans to finance its development projects. One reason is the proliferation of capitalintensive projects whose financing outstripped those provided by the grants. Another reason was that loans were an attractive option due to low interest rates and the long maturity period of at least 40 years (Tiwari 1992:10). Furthermore, the policy of the World Bank in the early 1970s to extend loans to poor countries for their developmental projects prompted other donors to increasingly view loans as a legitimate aid portfolio. On the whole, the Ministry of Finance viewed the massive inflow of foreign aid and grants very favourably since they contributed towards maintaining the country’s balance of payment. As the legitimacy of the Panchayat was based, to a large degree, on the promises of bringing bikās to Nepal, the increasingly lofty political rhetoric and spiralling number of developmental projects went hand in hand with the country’s growing dependency on foreign grants, loans, and expertise.10 By the 1970s, almost all the developed countries and important neighbours had established diplomatic and aid relationships with Nepal; countries such as the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, India and China were some of the major donors. With the assistance of foreign aid, the Nepalese government in 1968 set up the Remote Areas Development Committee, whose main aim was to counter possible Communist influence from Tibet by bringing bikās 10 This was the start of Nepal’s eventual problem of crippling foreign debt. According to the latest estimate by the Asia Development Bank’s 2004 Asia Development Outlook, Nepal’s external debt servicing currently stands at around 48% of its G.D.P.

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to the various Tibetan-speaking communities living along the border areas. Under this development programme, Buddhism was tolerated, ‘and the Mao badge was countered with the Mahendra badge along with the badge of the Dalai Lama’ (Gurung 1997:515). An important corollary to Nepal’s overall project development was the forest nationalisation programme of 1957 and the subsequent creation of national parks. Therefore, one of the Langtangpa’s most profound experiences of the first two decades of development was that of losing their traditional control over the surrounding forests. Previously, the Langtangpa could freely utilise the forest produce, and each Langtang household would have to contribute one young man to a pool of people who would, under the direction of the village headman, be organised into smaller groups to patrol the forest to prevent poaching. Under the new system of state-landlordism, forests became the properties of the state, while the Forest Act of 1961 set out to define forest offences. The 1968 Forest Protection Special Act gave policing and judicial powers to officials from the government’s Forest Department (Green 1993:316), as well as the responsibility for harvesting forest products to supply raw material to the forest-based industries located mainly in the lowland Tarai (Malla 2001:292). Inescapably, as in almost all of Nepal’s development effort, foreign donors were implicated. As one commentator puts it: Donors were interested in fostering industrial growth in ‘underdeveloped countries’. The role of the forest resource was to support the growth of industries and generate revenue for the state. To this end, the donors supported the government’s nationalisation of forest resources and provided financial and technical support to establish forest-based industries in the tarai. (Malla 2001:292)11

In the early 1970s, however, the Nepalese government began to emphasise the importance of rural development and environmental conservation. This change in orientation, unsurprisingly, coincided with the growing public awareness within the donor countries of the importance of protecting the environment, which culminated in the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment. Given Nepal’s overwhelming dependency on foreign aid for its national development, there was

11 The forest nationalisation policy was reversed in the 1970s with the policy of community forestry. However, the Langtang people were unable to benefit from the new measure due to the establishment of the National Park.

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little choice but for its development policies to reflect the changing focus of the major donor countries ( Justice 1986). Therefore, in 1971 the Nepalese government initiated a national conservation programme, which was later given a legal basis following the passing of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act in 1973 (Green 1993:316). But what happened to those forest-based industries that had been set up, in which the government had much vested commercial interest? In fact, it was a win-win situation for both the Nepalese government and the donor agencies. As Malla (2001:296) points out: If parks were created in regions where government had little commercial interest, such as in the hills, and communities were restricted to only subsistence use of their forests, the government could satisfy donor demands for environmental protection without disrupting the lucrative harvesting activities of the Forest Department. The government also benefited from expanded tourist revenue and donor aid associated with the parks.

Of the various policies discussed so far, the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 is arguably the most significant in terms of its subsequent impact on the lives of the Langtangpa, for it was under the provision of this Act that Langtang National Park was eventually established. Table 5: Protected areas in Nepal Name Hill and mountain Rara National Park Shey Phoksumdo Park ACAP Langtang National Park Sagarmatha NP Makalu-Barun Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve Kaptad National Park Shivapuri Watershed Protected Area Tarai or inner tarai Royal Sukla Fata Wildlife Royal Bardia NP Royal Chitwan NP Parsa Wildlife Kosi Tappu Wildlife Source: MacLennan et al. (2000:191)

Area (km2 ) 106 3,555 7,000 1,710 1,148 2,330 1,325 225 114 305 968 932 499 175

Location

Gazetted

High mountains High mountains High mountains High mountains High mountains High mountains High mountains High mountains Mid mountains

1976 1984 1988 1976 1976 1992 1987 1985

Terai Terai Terai Terai Terai

1976 1988 1873 1984 1876

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chapter three Establishing the National Park: Putting the Langtangpa in Place

Following the creation of a new political regime in 1951, the state’s involvement in local affairs involved more than just the collection of tax revenues and the maintenance of law and order. Because of the new emphasis on development, there was a massive expansion in the state’s bureaucratic organisation and manpower necessary for the coordination and implementation of developmental programmes, resulting in increasing state intervention in local lives. The Langtangpa, of course, form an intricate part of these efforts; in fact, in developmentalist parlance, they would constitute one of the ‘target’ groups, the local populations most in need of ‘development’. But where were the ‘voices’ of the Langtangpa, as it were, in the process of the formulations of these various policies and projects that have had such a great impact on their lives? The answer is: nowhere to be heard.12 So much for the trumpeted ‘decentralisation’ policy. The Langtang region was the first in Nepal to be designated a national park, but it was not gazetted until 1976. In the process of creating Langtang National Park (L.N.P.), the opinions of the Langtangpa did not matter much, for the decisions were taken at the state and international levels, in accordance with the imperatives of developmental discourses and practices. I would argue that this was, to a large extent, because Langtang people were seen as the problem of development, rather than those who suffered from 12 It was not just the opinions of local recipients of development aid and projects that had been ignored; even the Nepalese government bureaucracy was largely powerless when faced with the dominance of international aid organisations. B. Shrestha, a former government policy planner in rural development, offers a fascinating insider account into the dynamics of development process at the governmental level. On the decentralisation programme, Shrestha writes: The entire programme, including the bylaws and procedures, as well as the concept of ‘user groups’ at the grassroots level, was set up by Nepali experts. But then U.N.D.P.’s eyes fell on the programme. Instead of assisting the programme while maintaining its indigenous nature, the technical assistance that the agency began to provide has overwhelmed the programme and brought it entirely into the donor’s orbit, with all the attendant consequences. (1992:13) The discursive practice of development has since moved on from the 1960s and 1970s to become more aware of the need to consult with the locals. For example, within the Nepal Tourism Board there is now a Village Tourism Development Department, whose task is to promote village tourism as a means to alleviate rural poverty. In an interview conducted in 2001, the head of the Department said that it emphasises the bottom-up approach: it will seek feedback from the villagers on what they want, and the Department will then provide the necessary support.

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the lack of it. A good example of placing the blame on the locals is a quote taken from an executive summary of the Langtang National Park Management Plan, a joint project between the Nepalese government, the United Nations Development Programme (U.N.D.P.) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (F.A.O.). It notes that the Park’s ‘greatest problem is its resident and peripheral local populations who depend on its natural resources for their agricultural, pastoral, fuel, timber and other requirements’ (Bourradaile et al. 1977:132, italics mine). However, a careful reading of the report would question that conclusion. Take the example of wood consumption. One of the main justifications for the establishment of any national park is to prevent, or to slow down, the process of deforestation. In lieu of this, emphasis will be placed on curbing tree-cutting and to persuade the locals to use alternative forms of energy. Therefore, one of the key aims of the creation of L.N.P. was ‘to preserve the forest cover and to slow down the processes of erosion, which result in lowland floods and silting of hydroelectric dams’ (Bourradaile et al. 1977:7). Regarding local wood consumption, the report notes: Attitudes towards wood use do, however, seem hopeful; of 30 houses visited in the area of Langtang, Syabrubensi, Syabru all adopted the policy of reducing fires to no more than embers when cooking was not in progress, and many took the larger pieces of wood from the fire and put them out altogether . . . Collecting wood involves very hard work, for instance in Langtang Village the people have to climb well over 400ft to reach the cutting area and this is up a very steep slope . . . Thus, collecting wood is viewed as a laborious task and so consumption is kept to a minimum. (Ibid.:18, italics mine).

Now, contrast the above description to that concerning the government cheese factory in Kyangjin. At the time of that particular study, the cheese factory processed approximately 600 litres of milk a day for a total of around 120 days, theoretically needing 3,729kg of wood. While the estimated total annual requirement was 9,120kg (228 loads, 1 load is approximately 40kg) of firewood, the permission was sought in 1977 to cut 32 tonnes (800 loads) (Bourradaile et al. 1977:62). The report acknowledged that the cheese factory was not popular with the locals. This is hardly surprising, since most Langtangpa do not like cheese, which is mainly exported to Kathmandu and used in local lodges to satisfy Western trekkers’ cravings for cheese pancakes, cheese omelette, toast with cheese, cheese pizza, etc. This brings us to the impact of trekking tourism on wood consumption. The report highlighted the

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high consumption of firewood for trekking groups: in a single day, up to 10kg per tourist and up to 20kg per guide/porter. In addition, the guard-posts and park quarters at Ghoratabela, which is 2–3 hours’ walk from Langtang Village, and housing for around two dozen soldiers, used an estimated 20–40 tonnes of fuel wood per year. Despite such high consumption of wood by the cheese factory, tourists, their guides and porters, and the Nepalese army, the authors noted that, ‘the devastation of forest resources by populations adjacent to them has been singled out as the most pressing problem the Park faces.’ So, on the one hand, the authors praise the locals for their judicious use of wood, but on the other hand lay the responsibility for the depletion of forest resources squarely on their shoulders. Such glaring inconsistency compels us to ask the question: what prompted the authors of this Management Plan to conclude that local residents were mainly to blame?13 In a short study published in 1985, entitled ‘Impact of modernisation of the Himalayan ecology: A case study of the Lamtang [sic] valley’, its author notes that: The present technology that is used by the people of Lamtang valley is primitive. No modern technology enters into any activity . . . The social system . . . is still highly primitive. Social traditions and customs are highly ritualised. Any change in the tradition is not acceptable. As a result, no remarkable change had occurred in the social system. (C.B. Shrestha 1985:29, 32–33, italics mine)

An attention to the language used in the above quote betrays its ideological underpinnings, not to mention its sheer ignorance of local history. In the development narratives, Nepal as a whole is remote and

13 The flip side to blaming the locals for all the problems is turning a blind eye to project failures. One good example is the visit by Robert McNamara, former World Bank president, to the Rasuwa-Nuwakot Project that was started in 1976–77. During his visit, the Chief Technical Officer gave a glowing account of the project’s success, but said nothing about the crop failure due to the disastrous introduction of particular high-yield maize to the area. The locals called the distinguished visitor ‘Makaimara’, the killer of corn (B. Shrestha 1992:13). In the recent critical turn in development studies, scholars have been analysing the ways in which ‘locality’ is produced by a hegemonic scientific epistemology within the developmental regime that removes resources from locals’ control. For example, Fairhead and Leach argue that the exaggerated estimates of deforestation in West Africa obscure appreciation of how farmers may have been enriching and managing their landscapes in sustainable ways. They obscure the historical experience of inhabitants and the origins of their claims to land. They obscure locality as it has been lived and is understood by those living it. And, most significantly, exaggerated rates of forest loss have often unjustly supported draconian environmental policies that further impoverish people in what is already a poor region (2000:194).

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undeveloped, but apparently some places are more remote and undeveloped than others. ‘No remarkable change had occurred in the social system’? Even before I have discussed the impact of the creation of national park and the arrival of tourism, the previous and present chapters have shown that Langtang Village has undergone a series of social, political and economic change since its founding. While Europeans had difficulty entering Nepal before the early 1950s, the history of long-distance transHimalayan trade—and the Langtangpa’s involvement in it—shows that many communities living within the borders of the country had had a long history of encounters with the rest of the world, due to trade, conflicts or migration to seek a better life. The question is this: what is it that has allowed a researcher to arrive in Langtang, and make that kind of pronouncement? Disciplining the Langtangpa In as much as foreign aid is a political and economic relationship, we have gained patrons. Patrons who give us the benefit of their advice at our cost. Our patrons have taken on the onus of thinking on our behalf and are always right. If their advice does not have the intended effect, the fault lies in its implementation. —Pitamber Sharma, Nepali Times, 15–21 February 2002

Ferguson (1990) has argued from the case of Lesotho that international organisations involved in the ‘development’ business, such as the World Bank and the Food and Agricultural Agency, tend to portray the targets of their aid in terms that justify their very intervention in these recipient countries. One of the persistent myth-making strategies that justifies the developmental agencies’ ‘expert intervention’ is the invention of ‘isolation’. Not surprisingly, therefore, development narratives about Nepal usually emphasise that it had been a ‘closed’ country prior to 1951, and that it was only when the isolationist policies and the Rana regime that had maintained them had been thrown out of power that the country became ‘opened’ to the world (Pigg 1993:47). Such discourses re-create a ‘people without history’ (cf. Wolf 1997), and the impression that it was only following contact with the West that Nepal emerged from the timeless, ossified ‘feudalistic’ form of social and political organisation. The persistent image of Nepal as ‘out of time’ can be partly attributed to the remoteness and ruggedness of its mountainous terrain that creates the impression of isolation from the rest

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of the world. In other words, Nepal’s remoteness in time is discursively linked to its remoteness in space. Langtang Village, nestling in a valley close to the Tibetan border, lends itself even more to such images of timelessness and arrested development, and thus the assumption that its social system was ‘primitive’. In development narratives, Nepal is considered a less developed country—‘one of the poorest countries in the world’—within which the country’s villages most exemplify underdevelopment. By implication, if Nepal is to be developed, then its villages have to be developed first. In order to achieve that, the ‘primitive’ social system that is deemed the obstacle to development must be subjected to the intervention of ‘expert’ knowledge, so that ‘progress’ and ‘development’ can come about. As Stacey Pigg poignantly points out, the discursive practice of ‘development’ always involves the structuring of knowledge systems and social forms in a hierarchy framed by ideologies of ‘social progress’: [S]ocio-cultural factors are always subordinated to institutional needs because the very concept of development implies that local social forms are inadequate. This asymmetrical relation between development expertise and other knowledges is structural . . . Devaluation of the local, the everyday sense of ordinary people . . . occurs because development messages and the policies that support them are inserted in a larger ideological field setting the terms that frame the relation between the ‘traditional’ and the ‘developed’. Development fosters an ideological representation of society through an implicit scale of social progress. (Pigg 1993:53)

Just like the religious ideology that envisions Langtang Valley as a beyul and ne, the various Western imaginaries that conceive the Nepalese and the Langtangpa are not just a matter of perspectives, but visions with material consequences. These imaginaries ‘are heavily implicated in ways problems are framed, which itself informs the outcomes of resource struggles’ (Vigdis Broch-Due 2000:18–19). The Langtang Valley is no longer just a ‘beyul’, no longer just a ‘ne nang’, it has also become a ‘National Park’. From the perspective of the state, developmental agencies and aid donors, the establishment of Langtang National Park constitutes part of a wider effort to ‘develop’ Langtang and Nepal, which calls for the intervention of ‘expert’ knowledge in local lives. An important part of the disciplinary apparatus consists of the ‘rules of the national park’, some of which are quoted below:

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Prohibited Acts Except with the permission of the warden, no one may: – construct building – occupy, clear or cultivate land – cut, clear or burn vegetation – camp other than in authorised sites – light fires – bring or possess prohibited articles into the Park No one may: – damage vegetation by a fire started inside or outside the boundary – fix or maintain advertisement – interfere with signs, boundary markers or fences – sell or purchase wood – sell or barter rights or privileges – hunt any animal, damage or remove birds’ nests or eggs except for management or scientific collection – leave litter unless properly disposed of – crop Park resources for sale outside Park Rights of local – continuation of certain existing rights – free grazing On payment of appropriate fees and obtaining the necessary permit locals may: – cut wood from dead vegetation – obtain building timber Locals will be required to give information on numbers of: – households and people within each – livestock – fields – other information Priority of Locals Locals shall be given priority in the running of concessionary facilities (Bourradaile et al. 1977:142–143)

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By saying that the Langtangpa have been ‘put in place’, I mean it both literally and metaphorically. With the decline of trans-Himalayan trade due to evolving geo-political and economic conditions, the Langtangpa have had to rely more on the produce of their land for subsistence, whether from agricultural work, animal husbandry or the selling of medicinal herbs in the markets of Trisuli and Kathmandu. The final fixing, as it were, came in the form of the National Park. With the arrival of tourists, the Langtangpa’s physical rootedness is best symbolised by the hotel: solid and immovable, intimately tied to the land. Villagers’ economic orientation has swung fully around, now focusing wholly on Langtang’s locality. Concomitant with this increasing ‘rootedness’ of the Langtangpa is their increasing subjugation under the disciplinary power wielded by the state and powerful international organisations. Here, the discursive practice of ‘development’ and the establishment of Langtang National Park constitute a new form of social control (cf. Foucault 1976) that exercises disciplinary power over the valley’s inhabitants. One of the Langtangpa’s chief complaints regarding the National Park is that they are no longer the masters of what used to be considered their land. Under the National Park rules, no new agricultural land may be cleared; the Langtangpa have to pay for permits from the park authorities to cut down trees for building houses; they are forbidden to sell medicinal herbs. With the establishment of the National Park came the enforcers of discipline—the army and the police.14 There is now a police post in the village, manned by two to four policemen. A detachment of soldiers is now permanently based on the outskirts of the village in an army camp, which was built in 1976, the same time the National Park was established. The presence of both the army and the police in the village thus constitutes a form of state surveillance of the local people, made possible by an uncanny collusion between the Nepalese state and development practitioners. In practical terms, the 14 A battalion of soldiers is based in Langtang National Park for two years, with the battalion headquarters at Dhunche. In the Langtang Valley, there is one company stationed at the Ghoratabela, from which a section is furthered deployed in Langtang Village. The policing of residents of national parks have been documented elsewhere. In the Sahel in Mali, for example, Benjaminsen (2000:94–109) notes that a developmental regime’s vision of severe deforestation blamed on the locals prompted the establishment of a paramilitary Forest Service to guard the sparse woodlands in the area. The Forest Service is in charge of issuing permits for using the area’s resources and has the power to impose fines for the violation of park rules.

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creation of the National Park has resulted in the Langtangpa coming increasingly under the watchful eyes of the state: In this perspective, the ‘development’ apparatus . . . is not a machine for eliminating poverty that is incidentally involved with the state bureaucracy. Rather, it is a machine for reinforcing and expanding the exercise of bureaucratic state power, which incidentally takes ‘poverty’ as its point of entry and justification . . . (Ferguson 1997 [1994]:232)

Each evening, the commanders of both the police post and the army camp take a stroll together through the village, as part of a public relations exercise and to advertise their watchful presence. It was during one of these ‘village strolls’ that they revealed to me the animosity of the villagers towards them. By the time of this conversation, I had already established a rather cordial relationship with the commanders of the army and police detachments. On this particular evening, both had had some whiskey at one of the local shops, and hence were more talkative and high-spirited than usual. When they saw me in my room, they came in for a chat. Raju, the policeman and the more reserved of the two, came from Kathmandu, while Sharma, the army corporal, was a father of two boys from Pokhara. As our conversation drifted to our views of Langtang—with me complaining about the cold, the vegetarian diet and the hassle of travel—both of them, to my surprise, lamented about their unpleasant experience in the village (I doubt they would have been so forthright had they not been a little tipsy at that time). Since both Sharma and Raju were Hindus from the middle-hill regions further to the south, and did not speak the local language, they felt acutely out of place and sensed that the locals despised their presence in the village. ‘They are Bhote, you know, and our samskriti (“cultures”) are very different,’ commented Sharma. ‘Coming here, we are just following orders, but the villagers don’t welcome us.’ The term ‘Bhote’, as I have already mentioned in Chapter 1, is a derogatory term used by Nepali-speaking Parbatiya Hindus to refer to mountain peoples of Tibetan origin. According to Sharma, he had heard the villagers referring to him and his colleagues as ‘rumpa’. In Langtang, the word has the connotation of ‘barbarian’ and is used mainly as a term of insult—a clear indication of the villagers’ animosity towards the army and the police. To their credit, the soldiers had sought to establish a more cordial relationship with the villagers, but largely to no avail. For example, every year during the Nepalese festival of Dasain, the soldiers would invite various important individuals, such as village leaders and

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the hotel owners, to the army camp for a feast. During the time of my fieldwork, only three people (including me) from the village turned up for the party.15 On another occasion, the soldiers organised a friendly volleyball match against the villagers. In the end, the players who represented the village were all hotel cooks, none of them locals. What irks the Langtangpa a great deal is that while they are subjected to increasing state control, the ‘guardians’ themselves are unguarded: on numerous occasions army personnel have broken the rules by hunting and by cutting down trees. On a number of occasions, I witnessed three to four soldiers from the Langtang detachment climbing up the cliffs adjacent to the village to hunt for the Himalayan tahr, a protected animal. On one such hunting expedition, I personally saw soldiers throw a carcass down the cliffs to their cheering comrades who were waiting below. Later, the triumphant group passed through the village on their way back to the army camp, one of them carrying the prize on his shoulders. As these soldiers were soon to be rotated to the Rolpa district to join the military effort against the Maoist insurgents, a young Langtangpa standing next to me remarked that their transfer to that dangerous place was well deserved, due to their bad karma accrued from hunting animals. The Langtangpa’s show of displeasure and resistance goes beyond verbal condemnation. After a state of emergency was declared in November 2001 in response to the Maoist threats, the police were withdrawn to the district capital and the detachment of soldiers stationed at the village were ordered back to their main camp at Ghoratabela, a two-hour walk away. One afternoon not long after this, I saw streams of Langtangpa and non-local helpers and cooks working in the hotels carrying loads of firewood back to the village, all freshly cut. Perplexed, I asked one of them what was happening. He answered, ‘We must get a lot before the army comes back!’

15 This is another indication of the army’s lack of understanding of Langtang culture. While Dasain is the most important holiday for Nepal’s Hindus, to the Langtangpa it is a period of great sin, since thousands upon thousands of sheep will be slaughtered throughout Nepal over the holiday period (see the next chapter on Nyungne). Little wonder that very few Langtangpa accepted the invitation to the celebration in the army camp.

CHAPTER FOUR

BEING IN THE WORLD AND THE RITUALS OF LIFE ‘Life is difficult,’ many Langtangpa moan. In my numerous interviews and informal chats with the villagers about their lives, the words ‘dukkha’ or ‘dugpu’ kept cropping up. The words dukkha in Nepali, and dugpu (sdug po) in Langtang Tibetan, both refer to the same conditions: physical hardship, bodily pain, intense grief, misery. Life was particularly difficult before the arrival of tourism. Yibi, a 73-year-old woman, remembers vividly the times when she had to venture into the forest to collect herbs—after a back-breaking day working in the fields. The imperative to trade also meant that each year she and her siblings had to embark on long, arduous trips to central Nepal and southern Tibet, trading grain for salt, selling dried vegetables and herbs in market towns, trudging along narrow and slippery mountain trails while carrying heavy loads on their back, at a time when proper roads and buses were non-existent. In order to travel south to Helambu to acquire rice, she and her companions had to cross the 17,000ft Gangja Pass at least four times in the monsoon season, risking avalanches and attacks by wild animals such as snow leopards. In winter, she had to contend with the severe cold and heavy snow in Tibet when she travelled to Kyirong to trade rice for Tibetan salt. In those days, food was in very short supply and of dismal quality compared to what is available now: the staple consisted mainly of tsampa (ground barley) mixed with butter tea; occasionally villagers would have potatoes flavoured with dried chilli flakes and salt. ‘People were hungry most of the time,’ recalls Yibi. ‘And we ate rice only once a year, during Losar.’ Life nowadays is more comfortable for Yibi, for all of her children have grown up and take care of her. Following the Langtang custom, she resides with her youngest son who operates a modest but rather successful hotel in the village. After a life of hard manual labour, Yibi now preoccupies herself with religious matters, such as participating in long retreats and praying in the village temple, and leaving the task of making a living to the next generation. Yibi’s daughter-in-law, Drolma, has just recently given birth to a baby boy. A year before, her first child had died two weeks after birth. While the family is overjoyed to have a new member in the household,

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the baby’s arrival means there is now an additional responsibility on Drolma’s young shoulders. The lines on her face and her robust and full figure belie Drolma’s actual age: when I first met her, I thought she was around 30 years old, and was very surprised to subsequently learn she was in fact 10 years younger. Like most Langtang women, Drolma had married young, and while I am chatting with her in the privacy of the kitchen, as she cooks the family dinner, she confesses that she much preferred her life before marriage, when she was more mobile and had more freedom to join in the merry-making of various Langtang festivities. Now, as before, she has to work in the fields, but life for her is much busier. Apart from agricultural work and the normal household chores such as doing the laundry, cooking meals for her family and collecting firewood, she has to help her husband run the family’s hotel business. That means soliciting custom from trekkers passing by, cooking for them, and making sure they are comfortable. I point out to her that, unlike her mother-in-law, at least she does not have to collect herbs and go on long and difficult trading expeditions. True, she says, but while life has generally improved in the past 20 years, people are now much busier, and are not as cooperative as before ‘because everyone is concerned about business’. Their own hotel business has suffered because of the drastic fall in tourism in Nepal, and Drolma is starting to worry about her son’s future. Avoiding

DUGPU,

Attaining

KIPU

Experiences of hardship cling on tenaciously in memory, and the mountain trails etch the pain of excruciating labour permanently onto the landscape, persistently reminding the Langtangpa of their history of enforced mobility in their quest for viable subsistence. ‘We used to walk for 20 days to get to Kathmandu and back!’ an elderly man said to me. ‘Sometimes we only had one meal a day: the whole family had to share a plate of potatoes!’ recalled my landlord. ‘The Gangja La is very cold, and the paths very slippery. We tried to cross it quickly,’ recounted Yibi. ‘We had to pay bribe at the border, and also to the officials at the dzong1 near Kyirong to trade,’ complained an ex-trader. Dugpu comprises an intimate part of the Langtangpa’s discourse about their life—past as well as present.

1

A fortified Tibetan centre of administration or military garrison.

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Because of the immediacy of dugpu and the prominent place it occupies in local social memory, the Langtangpa are very preoccupied in their efforts to avoid it while constantly striving to attain its opposite—kipu (skyid po). The word connotes happiness, well-being (bde skyid), goodness, material prosperity and comfort. Not surprisingly, then, it also means ‘good life’ in Langtang. It is important then to minimise dugpu and maximise kipu. The main problem is finding the appropriate means to achieve that. One important way is to be aware of what events or things are tashi (bkra shis), i.e. favourable and auspicious, and what are ta mishi (bkra mi shis), i.e. antagonistic and harmful. It is imperative for the Langtangpa to maximise auspiciousness and to avoid antagonistic and harmful forces. For example, polluting the various spirits such as the lha, lu and tsen is ta mishi, which would incur their wrath and retaliations that could lead to physical ailments and disasters (discussed in detail in Chapter 7). Sponsoring the kurim (sku rim) ritual is auspicious, for it increases the sponsor’s luck and ensures success in new enterprises. It is ta mishi to travel on Sundays: ‘Nima lamshu dün mindug [Travelling on Sunday there will be no success],’ as the Langtang saying goes. It is inauspicious to embark on any manual work on the 30th day of each lunar month, the Nam Gang, because that is when one’s store of vitality (srog) is at its lowest, increasing one’s vulnerability to physical harm and attacks by spiteful spirits. For an individual, there is a wide range of prescriptions that are considered tashi, starting from the time one is born. According to local beliefs, the gods will first inscribe dug sum (sdug gsum, ‘three sufferings’), followed by ki sum (skyid gsum, ‘three happiness’) on the forehead of a newborn baby. The Langtangpa will wait for a while for the latter to be inscribed before cutting the umbilical cord, to ensure good health, prosperity and a long life for the child. Awareness of what is tashi and what is ta mishi, of course, forms an important remit of the various religious specialists. Within a month of a baby’s birth, the parents have to sponsor the Bhum Jhung ritual, during which lamas will conduct the Yum ceremony—this involves the liturgical recitation of the 16-volume Prajñāparamitā texts—to ward off illnesses. This should ideally be repeated at least once a month for the first few months of the baby’s life. In addition to the Lamaist ritual, the parents can ask a bonpo, or shaman, to ward off evil spirits.2 However, the Langtangpa

2 Vincanne Adams (1996:171–194) has argued that for the Sherpa community, shamanic healing involves the patients trying to establish intimate social relationships

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have an ambivalent and uneasy relationship with the bonpo, due to their association with blood sacrifice.3 While no bonpo permanently resides in Langtang, there is one who frequently visits from Syabru and knows the locals well, as his wife was from Langtang. When he hears of a birth in a household, he approaches the parents to offer his service, warning them of the newborn child’s vulnerability to inauspicious events or evil forces. While many villagers are averse to the bonpo, some do not want to take any chances. For example, when Drolma had her first child, she and her husband only sponsored an assortment of Lamaist rituals, and refused the service of the bonpo. Unfortunately, the baby fell sick after a few days and died. With their second child, despite their reservations about shamanic rituals, they sponsored a bonpo to ensure the boy’s good health. Even while a newborn child’s immediate well-being remains the focus of ritual interventions by various religious specialists, the rest of her life comes under scrutiny through the calculation of her personal horoscope. Using the Tibetan horoscope, the lama is able to determine a person’s inauspicious days (shi sa) and auspicious days (lha sa, srogsa) of the week. Ideally, one should be extra vigilant on the inauspicious days and avoid starting new ventures, while one’s enterprises have higher chances of success if conducted on the auspicious days. With regard to an individual’s entire life-span, the most important system of time reckoning utilised by Langtang lamas is the ‘12-year cycle’ (lo skor bcu

(thurmu) with the spirits causing the trouble, so that the latter would feel obliged to end their malevolence and even protect the patients. For the Yolmo wa of Helambu, Desjarlais (1994 [1992]) focuses on the ‘aesthetic of illness and healing’, arguing that curative efficacy of shamanic rituals lies in its ability to change how the patient feels by manipulating her senses. 3 The tension between lamas and shamans has also been documented elsewhere in Nepal. Among the Gurung in Lamjung district, for example, Messerschmidt (1976) noted an emerging clash between shaman and lamas. Paul (1976) argues that the main difference between the lama and the shaman is the latter’s ‘this-worldly’ orientation that emphasises control of spirits, while the former personifies the monastic ideal. Resonating with Paul’s argument, Ortner (1978) has suggested that Lamaist ideology was ‘individualistic’ in its aim of isolating the believer from society, whereas shamanism promoted a relational worldview (Ortner has recently rescinded from this individualrelational dichotomy; see Ortner 1995). An important study by Mumford (1990) analyses the historical encounter between Tibetan Buddhism and shamanism in the Gyasumdo region of central Nepal in terms of Bakhtin’s idea of ‘dialogue’. Treating shamanism as a more ancient ‘cultural layer’, Mumford argues that despite the Tibetan lamas’ denigration of shamanism, both ritual traditions interpenetrate. While Tibetan lamas share with shamans a common narrative of history, the lamas ‘re-emplot’ the narrative to offer an alternative plot structure to that of the shaman.

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gnyis), so that every 12th year after a person’s birth year constitutes a particularly dangerous time that makes her especially vulnerable to demonic attacks. Each of the ‘unlucky years’ (lo skag) has to be expelled ( gto) with an effigy. An individual is also partially vulnerable in the year before and the year after lo skag. To further complicate things, every fourth year starting from a person’s birth year poses danger, thus adding ‘three ruinations’ ( pung gsum) periods in every 12-year cycle. Knowledge of individual horoscope reading is essential for almost every adult Langtangpa with regard to matters such as diagnosing illness, marriage matches and death rites. Each personalised horoscope indicates the phases of the waxing and waning of vital life forces—vitality (srog), body (lus), power (dbang thang), luck (rlung rta) and soul (bla)—all of which interact and function together to sustain the psychological and physical well-being of an individual. Whenever someone dies in the village, the lamas have to calculate whether any of the living villagers’ personal horoscopes is affected. The afflicted individual has to sponsor an exorcism called Samdeen in which a tiger effigy is constructed from dough to act as a receptacle for all possible harmful forces that might threaten the sponsor, and which is then to be expelled outside the village boundary at the ritual’s conclusion. As an individual grows into adulthood, it is very important for her to constantly solicit from her elders their blessings, the most common form of which is the milām (‘personal success’) blessing. On the first day of Losar, the Langtangpa seek the milām blessings from their parents, grandparents and elder siblings who will say to them ‘yagpu shyo, kipu shyo! (goodness comes, happiness comes!)’ The milām blessing is also sought when one gets married. The wishes imparted are mostly concerned with success in personal projects, e.g. plentiful harvest, success in studies or business, a good job, to become the next V.D.C. chairman, as well as for general well-being (bde skyid), including a long life, good health, and prosperity. Gender Complementarity:

DGRA LHA

and

G.YANG

Everywhere in the villages of southern Asia lay beliefs [that] presume the existence of deities who have at least limited power to combat and overcome the vicissitudes of individual fortune. —Gananath Obeyesekere 1968:22

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At the individual level, a variety of ritual means are available to the Langtangpa for their mental, spiritual and material well-being: from the time the umbilical cord is cut and the various milam blessings obtained from the elders during festivities such as the Losar and marriage, to the wide range of shamanic and Lamaist rituals used to deal with physical ailments. However, since getting married and establishing one’s own household is an important stage in life for the adult Langtangpa—provided he or she is not considering embracing the monastic life—the household, or khyim, becomes a significant focal point, as well as a basic organisational unit deeply implicated in the Langtangpa’s endeavours to attain kipu. The household, in addition to being the social affirmation of the sexual union between a man and a woman, expresses an ideology that sees the combination of particular male and female principles as an effective and, in a sense, more comprehensive, means to overcome hindrances to a better life. In Tibetan Buddhism, the union of the male and female is most poignantly symbolised by the yab-yum image, the representation of ‘Father-Mother’ in sexual embrace. As Robert Thurman explains, the yab-yum imagery is not an example of erotic art, neither is it a ‘primitive’ mix of degenerated Buddhism and animistic religion that legitimises sexual extremes; it is a manifestation of Buddhism’s most profound spiritual message (Thurman 1996:17). In Tibetan Buddhism, the correct identification and the deployment of the so-called ‘skilful means’ (thabs; Skt. upāya kauśālya) forms an essential part of one’s efforts to attain enlightenment. With its roots in ancient Indian tantrism, in the Tibetan yab-yum symbolism, the Father ( yab), or male principle, represents the most important ‘skilful means’ to attain nirvana, that of compassion (snying rje). Yab is, therefore, an active principle in its exhortation to act for the good of all sentient beings. The Mother, yum, embracing the Father in the sexual act, symbolises the transcendent wisdom (shes rab) that directly grasps the essence of ultimate reality: ‘Wisdom is the bliss of seeing through the delusion of self-preoccupation to reveal the underlying dimension of freedom. Compassion is the expression of such bliss to others’ (Thurman 1996:17). Together, the pair represents the state of enlightenment as the union of compassion and wisdom. The rapturous pleasure during coitus is thus identified with the blissful sense of unqualified and unutterable ‘voidness’ that is the defining state of absolute cognition (Tucci 1988:105). The Langtangpa are familiar with the yab-yum imagery, as it is replicated in a number of bronze sculptures and mural paintings to be

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found in the village temples. Many will also encounter the image in their pilgrimages to the various Tibetan Buddhist holy sites. But just as the notions of karma (las karma) and enlightenment (byong chub sems pa) do not normally enter into the discourse and practice of everyday Langtang life, the abstract religious idea of enlightenment as conveyed by the yab-yum symbolism does not form an essential part of the ritual repertoire of the laity. For the most part, the Langtangpa are more concerned with obtaining the benefits of this life—such as wealth, health, friendship, long life and social standing—than with the pursuit of accumulating karmic merit and spiritual liberation. The alleviation of hardship is conceived existentially not so much in terms of attaining ultimate release from the world, as increasing one’s material and psychological comforts within it. While the union of the male and female principles, conceived at the abstract level, expresses the soteriological goal of tantric practices, I would argue that at the level of mundane everyday life and lay religiosity (’jigs rten pa’i chos), the significance of this union is ideologically and ritualistically embodied in the institution of marriage and household formation, bringing together the male ‘enemygod’ (dgra lha) and female principles of ‘prosperity’ (g.yang). The cult of the dgra lha (pronounced da blha) is widely celebrated in the Tibetan-speaking communities throughout the Himalayas.4 For example, among the Gunsa people in the Arun Valley of eastern Nepal, the da blha constitutes a significant part of the community’s self-identity, being worshipped and celebrated as the protector of the Gunsa people’s sense of autonomy and well-being by defeating both demons and invading Nepalese armies (Diemberger 1994). While the enemy-god is believed to dwell on a person’s right shoulder, the ritual celebrating his cult is restricted to men. Belonging to the category of protective deities, the origin of the dgra lha cult very likely lies in the Tibetans’ warring past, as indicated by his chief duty as the destroyer of enemies in battle. Nowadays, the dgra lha is primarily propitiated by the Langtangpa to increase a man’s lung ta (rlung rta, ‘worldly luck’) and wang dang (dbang thang, ‘power’) in order to defend against the various evil

4 Nebesky-Wojkowitz (1975:318–9, 327–328) notes that the dgra lha can be conceptualised in two ways. The term can refer to ‘those deities who are believed to be especially capable of protecting their worshippers against enemies and to help them to increase their property’. It can also refer to a personal protective deity, belonging to the category of ’go ba’i lha lnga, ‘The Five Head Gods’, the other four of which are the mo lha, srog gi lha, pho lha and the yul lha.

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forces and machinations that threaten his and his family’s mental and material well-being. The deity’s propitiatory ritual, also called dgra lha, is first celebrated by a man on his wedding day, signifying his progression to maturity as a householder and his new role as the protector of the newly established nuclear family. The first half of the wedding ceremony takes place in the bride’s natal home; at one stage, the bridesmaid presents the bride with an arrowshaped wooden or metal stick known as the dadar (mda’ dar), at whose pointed end is fastened silk ribbons of five colours—white, yellow, green, red and blue, each representing an important Buddha in the Tibetan pantheon5. The matchmaker at one point slots the dadar—considered the embodiment of good luck and prosperity, or yang ( g.yang)—into the gap between the bride’s dress collar and the back of her neck, thus establishing her in her new role as a wife and ‘house-mother’ (grong pa ama). When the groom subsequently invites his bride back to the couple’s new home, not only is he bringing back a wife, but prosperity and good luck as well. The cults of the dgra lha and of yang are most frequently celebrated together in individual households during the popular sang (bsangs) ritual, which is essentially a fumigation ritual that uses aromatic herbs—usually juniper (bsang zhing)—to produce a sweet-smelling smoke that both purifies the deities and obtains from them the state of purity. There are two types of sang rituals in Langtang, both versatile and effective rituals easily enacted at home for a small donation to the officiating lamas. On the one hand, there is Dipsang (sgrib bsangs), enacted specifically to ameliorate a state of pollution on the part of the sponsor and to restore his or her position in the proper social order (see Chapter 7). More common is the Lhabsang (lha bsangs), which is sponsored for a wide range of purposes, such as during marriage, for good health and a long life, for success in any enterprise, for a safe journey, and to eradicate pollution in household. All Lhabsang rites sponsored by a household incorporate the dgra lha ritual that involves the male householder, as well as the summoning of yang by his wife. Before the ritual begins, new prayer flags with prints of ‘wind-horse’ (rlung rta) are solemnly raised and strung from the rooftop to a juniper pole (srog shing) representing a

5 Respectively, Vairochana, Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi, Amitabha and Akshobhya, known collectively as the Dhyani (Meditative) Buddhas.

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Figure 4.1: Lha bsangs altar, showing gtor-ma representing various deities (Leftright: skyes lha, btsan, srung ma (pair of yab-yum), Langtang Lirung, Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), Tema, Shiptak)

reinvigorated life-force that has been erected in front of the sponsor’s house. On the household altar is placed a number of dough images, or torma (gtor ma), made by the officiating lamas. These tormas represent the important deities to be propitiated during Lhabsang; they usually consist of the sponsor’s ‘birth-god’ (skyes lha), the warrior protective deities (srung ma6 and btsan), Langtang Lirung, Padmasambhava, Tema (bstan ma bcu gnyis, 12 female spirits instructed by Padmasambhava to aid the villagers) and Shiptak (gzhi bdag, a collective term for all other unnamed deities and spirits in the region). The Lhabsang ritual can be divided into a number of sections, each devoted to a particular deity represented by the various torma on the altar. After the srung ma has been propitiated about mid-way through Lhabsang, the male sponsor (sbyin bdag) and a male companion (who 6 Here, srung-ma refers to rta mgrin, the clan-god of the Domari. Françoise Pommaret points out that in Bhutan the term chos skyong is more commonly used than srung ma, because ‘the latter [is] reserved for a higher category of deities that protect an important lama or a particular religious school’ (1996:41). The Langtangpa’s use of the term srung ma is another indication of the high respect for rta mgrin (see Chapter 2).

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must also be married) will each hold a khukuri (the Nepalese curved knife) and wave it in front of the altar at specific moments, interspersing shouts of ‘Pang Tho!’ (‘high respect!’) with songs of blessings (rten ’brel glu) addressed to the dgra lha, imploring him to bless the sponsor with power (dbang thang) and worldly luck (rlung rta). Thereafter, offerings are made to all the tsen in the Langtang vicinity. This is followed by the yang-ku7 rite, during which the wife takes the men’s place in front of the altar. In between chants by the lamas, she will wave the dadar—which she has brought into her husband’s household after their wedding—while shouting ‘Yang Ku, Chang Ku!’ when prompted by the officiating lama conducting Lhabsang, soliciting blessings from the deities that inhabit all the corners of the world to guard and to multiply the household’s store of luck and prosperity. While a man can take the place of his wife to conduct the yang ku ritual if she is absent, the wife cannot participate in the dgra lha rite in place of her husband, whose role then is taken by the presiding lama chanting the relevant passages. The union of dgra lha and yang through the institution of marriage provides the establishment of an individual household with a rationale that goes beyond purely economic considerations and sexual interests. The religious beliefs that underpin the dgra lha and yang cults, together with their ritual practices, can be interpreted to suggest that Langtang men and women of marriageable age, by existing individually, are living in a state of incompletion, particularly in terms of the restricted means available to them in their quest for material and spiritual well-being. I suggest here that the dgra lha and yang ku rituals provide an ideological justification for the institution of marriage and household. A man’s dgra lha can only be ritually invoked in his aid after he is married, while a woman is first identified with yang on her wedding day. The union of a man and a woman in marriage and the concomitant establishment of the household thus make available, simultaneously to the couple, two extremely powerful means to attain well-being for them and their family. The dgra lha defeats the malevolent evil powers, while the yang rite summons prosperity and keeps it within the household for the benefit of all its members.

7

Ku means ‘a cry’ or ‘shout’. Hence I translate yang ku as ‘beckoning for prosperity’.

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Figure 4.2: Lhabsang—Officiating lama and his assistant

From the ethnographic evidence presented here, there seems to be a ‘systematic analogy’ (cf. Lichter and Epstein 1983:224) between dgra lhayang on the one hand, and yab-yum on the other, distinguished along the axis between this-worldly and next-worldly orientations. While the latter points to an ideal religiosity that characterises the state of liberation (thar pa) from worldly existence, the former suggests a comprehensive and powerful means to achieve well-being (bde skyid) and happiness (skyid po) in this life. Both yab and dgra lha are active principles that manifest an outward orientation: the yab symbolism demands compassionate behaviour towards all sentient beings, the dgra lha destroys all external threats. In contrast, a self-referential focus typifies both yum’s identification with wisdom that emphasises contemplation and stillness, as well as the yang rite that beckons prosperity and seeks to retain it within the household. Both systems express the attainment of their respective goals in terms of the union between the male and female principles: one symbolised by the sexual embrace between the ‘Father’ and the ‘Mother’, the other expressed through the institution of marriage and the establishment of the household.

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All households in Langtang try to adhere to particular sets of daily, weekly and monthly rituals, in order to secure general well-being for all their members. In the main living room of each house is an altar (mchod stegs) on which is placed sacred images, such as thangkas and small bronze sculptures, copies of religious scriptures (dpe cha), flowers, and the dadar (symbol of prosperity, see above). In addition, there are seven small cups of water that have to be replenished every morning, so that after death one will not get thirsty during the 49 days one has to wait before being reborn into the world. Every Saturday and Tuesday is Dü Karma, or ‘Demon’s Day’; in the morning of these days either the husband or the wife will burn incense to purify the hearth and the house’s exterior to prevent dü (bdud) attack. A summary of the monthly ritual cycle is given in the table below. Table 6: Monthly ritual cycle8

9 10 11

Day

Events

8th 10th (chepa zhu) 15th (che nga) 25th (ngishu nga) 29th (ngishu gu) 30th (Nam Gang)

Tshe Sang Tshe Sang Che Chu9 (tshes bcu) ritual in temple for long life Tshe Sang Tshe Sang Benza Guru:10 prayers in temple to Padmasambhava Gü Du: prayers to Tamdin (rta mgrin)11 Tshe Sang

Referring to the Tibetan (lunar) month. Literally, ‘10th day’, on which it is common for Tibetan communities (especially those followers of the Nyingmapa tradition) to worship Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche. According to my Langtang informants, Padmasambhava is believed to be present in the temple on the 10th of each lunar month. 10 Local rendition of ‘Vajra Guru’, one of Padmasambhava’s many epithets. From his mantra ‘Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum’ (Rhie and Thurman 1996:168). 11 On the importance of this deity, see Chapter 2. 8 9

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It is evident that a significant portion of the important daily and monthly rituals in Langtang deals with the well-being of tshe, which can be translated as ‘life’ or ‘life-span’. Tshe Sang is a household ritual that involves members of the household lighting butter lamps on the altar, and Che Chu is conducted by the village lamas in Langtang temple—all with the intention of securing a long life (tshe ring) for the villagers. As one of the important life-forces within an individual, one’s strength of tshe can wax and wane. When tshe is abundant, one feels strong, able to endure hard physical labour, and is fortified against harmful forces. But tshe can also be weakened—what the Langtangpa call tshe nyam pa—leading to the loss of vigour and strength. Tshe nyam pa can result from excessive physical exertion or retaliatory attacks by the numerous malicious spirits that inhabit the landscape. Or it can be due to the inexorable working out of one’s karma: here, tshe is conceived as one’s life-span; one common expression for death is ‘tshe bla mi ’dug’, ‘no tshe and bla’. Not only is life difficult in terms of physical hardship, it is also precarious. Previously, the Langtangpa’s engagement in long trading expeditions exposed them constantly to dangerous and potentially lifethreatening circumstances, such as negotiating high mountain passes and narrow winding paths that perched precariously along steep valley walls. One could slip into the torrential Langtang Khola and drown while trying to cross to the other side of the valley to collect firewood. Until about 15 years ago, modern medical care was unavailable in the village. Even now, the village health-post is deserted most of the time: its health worker prefers the urban comforts of Trisuli Bazaar, a two-day travel away, to the sparse and decrepit health-post which is not well-insulated against the biting cold and ferocious wind for which Langtang is notorious. Since the escalation of the Maoist insurgency, the health worker has stopped visiting the health-post but continues to draw his salary from the district office. Ante- and post-natal medical care is unheard of in Langtang, resulting in a high incidence of child mortality. During my fieldwork two babies died just after birth, while a four-year-old child died because her parents could not afford to send her to the hospital in Kathmandu. Adults suffer from the lack of proper medical provision as well. One morning, just before I went to Kathmandu to make phone calls and check my email, my good friend Ramjee, a teacher from Janakpur in southern Nepal who had been sent to the school in Langtang, visited my room. The mother of one of his students was very sick, and unable

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to move or eat for the past four days. Would I be able to help?, Ramjee asked. I followed him to a small house just behind the village shop, and entered a dark, filthy room, with boxes and clothes strewn across the floor. In the corner of the room, a woman lay motionless on a dirty mattress, and beside her sat her despairing husband, Lhakpa. While Ramjee’s student stood by, Lhakpa said that his wife had been feeling unwell for more than a week, and for the past four days had been very weak and unable to eat anything. The nearest doctor or health worker was a day’s walk away, in Syabru Bengsi, but the woman was too weak to be moved. Lhakpa asked me if I had any medicine. I hesitated. The only medicine I had were paracetamol tablets, some pills for diarrhoea, and a tube of antiseptic cream. I was not medically trained and did not know if paracetamol would help—and given that some people have adverse reactions to it, I said I was unable to help. By the time I returned from Kathmandu a couple of weeks later, the woman had passed away. Physical hardship, harsh climate, grossly inadequate medical provision, malevolent spirits—it is little wonder that life-enhancing (tshe sgrub) rituals form such a significant part of the Langtangpa’s ritual repertoire. In Langtang, the most important life-enhancing ritual used to be Yulbi Chechu ( yul pa’i tshes bcu). Like Nara, it had not been celebrated for almost 10 years when I arrived in the village. According to one Langtangpa, ‘Nara and Yulbi Che Chu are like mother and son; if there is no Nara, then there is no Yulbi Che Chu.’ A religious festival that is widely celebrated in Tibetan cultural areas and in some Tamang communities (Holmberg 1996 [1989], 2000), in Langtang it is a three-day event held in the Chepa Ghu, or the Ninth Month of the Tibetan calendar, its significance is on par with that of Nara in securing the well-being of the village as a whole. Like Nara, Yulbi Chechu’s main organisers are the 28 kuriya lineages, and for this occasion they are divided into four groups of seven, with one group being the main organiser for each year. Since the organisation of both Nara and Yulbi Chechu is founded upon a system of rotation among the kuriya, it is possible for some kuriya to find themselves in charge of organising both Nara and Yulbi Chechu in a single year. The main ritual on the first day is called Shyabü Changbü (sha phud chang phud), ‘offerings of meat and chang’, which celebrates the dispelling of a cannibalistic demon from Langtang many years ago (see Chapter 2). Little chunks of red dough representing meat, together with locally brewed beer, are offered to the Lhalu Shiptak (lha klu gzhi bdag), a collective term referring to all the deities and spirits that inhabit

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the Langtang Valley. The most important deities on this occasion are Langtang Lirung, personified as the mountain that overlooks the village, and his 21 assistants. After the deities have been propitiated, the lamas proceed to prepare the masks and attire for a religious dance to be held on the second day. The second day of Yulbi Chechu is ritually the most significant. It is also the most entertaining, for it involves a sequence of religious dances (’cham) performed by the village lamas. The main deity represented in the cham is none other than Tamdin (rta mgrin), one of the principal protectors of the dharma, and the Domari’s clan god. The day starts with lamas chanting prayers to Tamdin, followed by the cham in the evening. On this occasion, Tamdin is shown in his tantric male and female aspects, the yab and the yum, represented by two masks that are worn by two dancing lamas. According to Dawa Lama, who used to be one of the dancers, the purpose of the Tamdin cham is to beseech this powerful deity to protect the villagers from all the evil forces that rage against them, and to ensure the welfare of the entire village. ‘When Tamdin is fighting against the enemies, the horse head on the top of his head will shout three times, to frighten the enemies,’ explained Dawa Lama, while showing me a thangka depicting the deity in his wrathful form, standing on the bodies of three demons (bdud), an iconographic representation of his triumph over adversities and the enemies of the dharma. Karma and the Wheel of Life The Langtangpa conceive and relate to tshe in two major ways. At one level, tshe can be extended and its vitality enhanced. From the time a person is born, a vast range of rituals is available, and indeed utilised, to protect the vulnerable infant. With the complete absence of anteand post-natal medical care in the village, these life-enhancing rituals are given immense significance and are regarded as effective ways to improve a child’s chances of survival. The overwhelming attention paid to tshe sgrub in Langtang’s daily and monthly ritual cycles further attests to the villagers’ intense preoccupation with tshe, reflecting their heightened sense of vulnerability to a plethora of potentially harmful physical and spiritual forces, in a harsh environment that constantly threatens to cut life short. At another level, the Langtangpa are also aware that a person’s life is determined by her karma, or ley karma (las karma). Briefly, the doctrine of karma expresses the idea that one’s actions both determine, and

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are determined by past and future actions. Every deed will come to its fruition in the fullness of time, as expressed in the phrase, las rgyu ’bras, literally the ‘causes and fruition of actions’. The doctrine of karma is a central tenet in both Hinduism and Buddhism, a concept of causation that is inextricably linked to the idea of birth and rebirth (Skt. samsara). There are essentially two classes of actions in the karmic system. On the one hand, there are the virtuous acts gewa (dge ba) that generate merit, referred to either as sonam (bsod nams) or phayön (phan yon). On the other hand are acts that are considered sinful, or dikpa (sdig pa), that result in demerit. For the Langtangpa, karma is conceived as much an accounting as a causation system: virtuous acts increase one’s store of merits, while sinful acts accumulate demerits, the final balance of the two when one dies determining one’s rebirth in future life. ‘When a person dies,’ a villager called Tenzin explains, ‘he will go to hell and face Shingje [the Lord of Death]. After 49 days, if he sees I have more sonam, then I will go to heaven or have a good rebirth. If I have more dikpa, then I will go to hell, or may be reborn as an animal.’ Part of the reason behind the preponderance of rituals in Langtang, and the great significance villagers attribute to them, is the overwhelming number of potentially sinful acts compared to meritorious ones. For while all virtuous acts have to be intentional, one can sin even unknowingly. As one Langtangpa explains, ‘We have to work in the fields all the time, and we also have to cut trees for firewood. We can kill some animals when we are working, and then our karma will not be good, although as Buddhists we don’t kill.’ ‘I might be walking along the path, and step on an insect,’ another says, ‘and that will be dikpa also.’ The Langtangpa engage in a number of actions that are believed to increase their store of merit, simple deeds such as spinning prayer wheels, reciting the ubiquitous Tibetan Buddhist mantra ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’,12 visiting and circumambulating holy sites, engaging in charitable works, or erecting prayer flags. Sponsoring or participating in all Lamaist rituals is also regarded as an effective way to generate great merit to counteract the sinful deeds one intentionally or unintentionally commits. ‘Even when someone sponsors lha bsangs for business success, he will get more phayön, so his karma will be good,’ as a lama explains.

12 Literally, ‘Hail, Jewel in the Lotus’. This is the most popular of all mantras recited by the Langtangpa, directed to the bodhisattva Chenrezi (spyan ras gzigs, Skt. Avalokiteśvara).

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But not all rituals can be considered ‘meritorious’ or ‘virtuous’. The Langtangpa are ambivalent about shamanic rituals because, despite their supposed efficacy in dispelling evil forces, the bonpos are associated with blood sacrifices—the taking of life that is anathema to the Langtangpa’s Buddhist sensibilities. To many, the bonpos are ‘Hindus’, because, as the Langtangpa always say, ‘they cut’, referring to the frequent sacrifice of animals in shamanic rituals. Herein lies an uncomfortable existential tension and dilemma for the Langtangpa: while engaging the service of a bonpo might cure one of physical and mental suffering, or retrieve one’s soul (bla) from capture by malicious spirits, such a means to achieve immediate well-being may well be detrimental to one’s karmic fate in the long run and jeopardise one’s chances of a better rebirth. Tshe might be fortified by the bonpo’s ritual interventions at a particular moment, but it can ultimately be cut short by the inexorable fruition of one’s karmic action due to the dikpa (‘sin’) generated through sponsoring blood sacrifice. This sense of ambivalence and tension can further be intensified since an individual’s karma determines not only her present lifespan, but also the quality of her rebirth in the next life. But often the immediacy of pain (tsher ka) screams out for urgent relief: Drolma and her husband did not wish to suffer again the agony of losing their child—the bonpo had to be consulted. Nyungne (BSMYUNG GNAS) The religious injunction against the taking of life in Langtang is best exemplified by the Nyungne retreat.13 Held twice a year, it is a threeday fasting retreat in the village temple during which participants are exhorted to abstain temporarily from the pleasures of everyday life—such as sex, alcohol, smoking and food—and to focus on their state of spiritual well-being. In Langtang, Nyungne is considered one of the rituals for merit-making par excellence. Like most village-wide events, the task of organising Nyungne is based on a system of rotation—for this occasion, among all Langtang households, three of 13 This does not mean that the Langtangpa never kill animals for food or that they adhere to a strictly vegetarian diet. When dignitaries arrive in the village, say for the important annual V.D.C. meeting, a goat or sheep will be slaughtered for a communal feast. The Langtangpa also consume with great relish the meat of their livestock that have died either from old age or accidents. Some Langtangpa also consume meat when they venture outside the valley, for example, when they go to Kathmandu.

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which are responsible each time. The night before, volunteers who are non-participants gather at the temple to make dough offerings (tsog), an opportunity for them to accumulate phayön (‘merit’) for themselves and for their relatives who have recently died. Apart from the lamas, the participants fall into two categories: the kugpa who take part in the full fast—some even avoid swallowing their own saliva for two days; and the sohjang who take on minor abstinence such as giving up smoking or drinking during the period of renunciation. At the start of Nyungne, participants are asked to take a vow to live a faultless three-day period without any sleep or conversation. Throughout each day of Nyungne, they are led by the lamas to engage in various deeds of ‘great merit’, phayön chenpo ( phan yon chen po), such as meditation, circumambulation of the temple and a series of prostrations, taking care to cultivate pure intentions (sems pa bzang po) throughout. Given the austerity demanded by the Nyungne retreat, it is not surprising that the event is not very popular among the Langtangpa, and is usually not well attended. Participants, normally 15–20 villagers, consist overwhelmingly of the elderly. Among the Sherpa, Sherry Ortner has also observed the low attendance rate and the over-representation of the elderly at Nyungne. Despite her respondents’ claim that the main reason for this is Nyungne’s rigour and austerity, Ortner argues that because Nyungne encourages acts of altruism, most Sherpa do not attend it because of their ‘resistance to having their altruism and generosity inflated if they cannot really afford to give things away’ (1999 [1978]:49). Ortner’s suggestion is highly debatable, not least because she disregards the main reason given to her by most of her respondents, and chooses to privilege one response by her neighbour about not having enough money to attend Nyungne (Ibid.). Here Ortner can be criticised for using her data highly selectively in order to support her more general (and controversial) claim that the Sherpa as Buddhists are highly ‘individualistic’ and averse to exchange: their apparent resistance to altruism, allegedly indicated by poor attendance at Nyungne, ostensibly supports her claim. Apart from the objection that Ortner overstated the individualism and antisocial nature of Buddhism (see e.g. Cohen 1998:363–4; Mills 2000; cf. Fuller 1992:27), I suggest here that there are more plausible reasons for the poor attendance at Nyungne, in accordance with both the Sherpa data and those from Langtang. First, regarding the fact that the elderly are overwhelmingly overrepresented at Nyungne. This should not surprise us: the motivation to accumulate sonam or phayön is much greater when a person enters the

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dusk of life, since the amount of one’s merits at death will determine the quality of one’s future rebirth. To the younger generation, Nyungne does not really appeal, for a variety of reasons. Many say it is boring. ‘It is not very interesting, they just sit and pray all day, can’t eat and drink. Very difficult,’ my landlord said. ‘Usually we go on the last day, for the singing and dancing when Nyungne ends.’ At a Nyungne I witnessed during my fieldwork, some villagers started to arrive in the temple only on the last night, mainly to give the participants their support, and the next morning to join in the breaking of the fast with a communal feast. Since Nyungne demands total devotion of a person’s time and energy for a three-day period to religious activity, most villagers—who have to work in the fields, have hotels to operate, children to look after, and supplies to procure—simply do not have the time or the energy to participate. With the immense pressures of daily living, the many demands of the here-and-now, most Langtangpa are only remotely concerned with the quality of their next life. Nyungne may not be a popular ritual, but as has been documented in the case of the Sherpa (cf. Fürer-Haimendorf 1964; Ortner 1999 [1978]), it still constitutes one of the principal elements that define the Langtang community as ‘Buddhist’. The more important of the two Nyungne retreats is held in conjunction with the Nepalese festival of Dasain in October. Considered by the Hindus of Nepal as one of the most important festivals in their religious calendar, Dasain is a 10-day event devoted to celebrating the triumph of the ferocious goddess Durga over the forces of evil. In the early hours of the tenth day (Kal Ratri), a mass slaughter of chicken, goats and buffaloes occurs in many parts of Hindu Nepal, most famously the state-sponsored slaughtering of 108 buffaloes and 108 goats in the central Kumari temple to placate the ferocious appetite of Taleju, an equivalent of Durga who is considered the chief protective goddess of the Nepalese state. On the tenth day (Dashami), Hindus don new clothes and visit family elders to receive their blessings in the form of a red tika on their foreheads. The King of Nepal will also on this occasion publicly receive a tika as Durga’s blessings from the royal Brahmin priest. Dasain for Nepal’s Hindu majority is a joyous occasion for the gathering of friends and families, for feasting and visiting the colourful fairs. In the eyes of the Langtangpa, however, Dasain is a festival that involves extensive bloodletting and, hence, is generally viewed with revulsion. To the Langtangpa, one distinguishing feature of Hinduism is animal sacrifice, or ‘cutting’, and, as I highlighted earlier, villagers

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often say that bonpos are ‘Hindus’ because animal sacrifice often forms an essential part of shamanic rituals. The Langtangpa say explicitly that Nyungne is organised during Dasain in order to counter the dikpa of the mass slaughter of animals by praying for their souls, to which is transferred all the merits that are generated during Nyungne. In Chapter 2, I discussed the conception of Langtang as a sacred, hidden sanctuary (sbas yul) in which an ideal Tibetan society is to be preserved. The Langtangpa’s view of their valley as a holy Buddhist site to be protected against foreign incursion is most poignantly expressed in their oral history and particular ritual practices. For instance, I mentioned the story of an elderly couple who successfully defended the valley against the invasion of the Nepalese army by turning a slope leading to the village into a sheet of ice. Their heroic act is still commemorated today. This persistent perception that Langtang is a unique, sacred, Buddhist site is again evident in the conduct of Nyungne. Apart from the belief that it is an occasion that generates ‘great merit’ ( phan yon chen po), at the level of Langtang social ideology Nyungne establishes a ritual boundary around the community, setting it apart from the wider, predominantly Hindu Nepal, most poignantly through the opposition between the Lamaist injunction against killing and the ‘Hindu’ sacrifice of animals.14 This Life, Next Life Statements by scholars such as, ‘Tibetan villagers . . . view socialeconomic inequalities among themselves as signs of past deeds coming to fruition’ (Mumford 1990:46) are unconvincing and certainly do not reflect the situation in Langtang. I seldom heard the Langtangpa invoke karma as an explanation of one’s success or failures in life. For example, currently the rich hotel owners occupy the pinnacle of Langtang’s socio-economic ladder. But neither they nor the other villagers attribute their success to the workings of karmic forces. While hotel owners usually stress business acumen and the blessings of gods as the main reasons for their success, other villagers emphasise factors

The ritual production of boundary is also observed by Holmberg (2000) in the Tamang’s ‘Chhechu’ festival, which he argues involves a ‘ritual production of power’ that symbolically constitutes Tamang as collectivities in opposition to the internal colonisation of the Nepalese state. 14

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such as corruption and foreign sponsorships. The discourse of karma in Langtang is characterised more by its use as a social critique than as a justification for socio-economic inequalities. For example, as I mentioned towards the end of the last chapter, when the army personnel stationed outside the village were sent to fight the Maoist insurgents in another district, villagers regarded that to be the result of the soldiers’ bad karma from hunting animals for meat. Similarly, one Langtangpa commented that even though Pema, the richest person in Langtang, might be successful in this life, the karma he has allegedly accrued from political corruption means that he might suffer a bad rebirth. Drolma’s husband, Zangpo, said that he just wanted to be one of the ‘middle people’, because ‘when one gets too rich, it’s bad for the karma’. Here, karma is seen as a system of justice: one reaps what one has sown. Of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the First Truth is ‘Suffering’ (sdug sngal). Only with this initial awareness, according to the Buddha’s teachings, can one begin the search for the means to end suffering, and ultimately reach the goal of liberation (thar pa) from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. Though the acquirement of karmic merits by itself would not liberate an individual, it would at least set a person on the right path towards that goal. If one accumulates enough merit, say, to be reborn as a high lama, then one might have a chance of attaining liberation in the next. This scenario, however, resonates most strongly with the Buddhist orthodoxy frequently taught to the laity by the religious specialists. The Langtangpa would certainly agree with the truth of suffering, or dug, since it looms so large in their perception and experience of their own lives. Their social memory of pre-tourism days is filled with images of physical hardship and deprivation. While life for the current generation has undoubtedly improved significantly, some perennial problems cling on and new ones have presented themselves. Stanley Tambiah, in his study of Buddhism and the spirit cults in northern Thailand, long ago warned against being too reliant on doctrinal texts to interpret the behaviour of a population under study (1970:92). In stark contrast to doctrinal teachings, for most Langtangpa the end of suffering and hardship is not ‘liberation’ in the spiritual sense, although of course they are familiar with this essential Buddhist teaching, recounted repeatedly by the lamas during important rituals such as Nyungne. To the majority of Langtangpa, the end of suffering means not so much an end to life (conceived in the karmic sense) as the attainment of a better life, or kipu. In this chapter I have tried to show that the preponderance of life-enhancing rituals in Langtang’s

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daily and monthly ritual cycles can be seen as resulting from the Langtangpa’s experience of life as inherently difficult and precarious. In this context, tshe is in constant need of succour and enhancement to defend it against the multitude of harmful spiritual and physical forces. In a place where regular, adequate medical provision is almost non-existent, the tshe-sgrub rituals take on an even greater significance in maintaining the villagers’ mental and physical well-being. But however much the Langtangpa resort to the tshe-sgrub rituals, they realise that ultimately a person’s life-span is pre-determined by karmic fate. A plethora of means is available to a Langtangpa to accumulate merit (sonam or phayön) to counter the sinful acts (sdig pa) she might intentionally or unintentionally commit. But the final balance of merit and demerit at the point of death is determinative only of the nature of her next life. When an individual’s karmic fate has run its course, no ritual can prolong her life. But the very mystery surrounding the fruition of karma, and hence the unpredictability of when life will end, has prompted the Langtangpa to constantly engage in rituals to strengthen tshe, with the hope of prolonging it. The resolution to this existential tension recalls Weber’s discussion of the Calvinist doctrine of pre-destination and the tension generated by the uncertainty surrounding the knowledge of one’s salvation. In the Protestant case, the existential tension is supposed to be resolved by looking at the various ‘signs’ in the life of the faithful: if one is successful in this world, one might possibly have been among the Elect, for God takes care of those He favours. According to Weber, upon this foundation of existential uncertainty lies the ‘ethic’ that motivates Protestants to work hard to succeed in life. In the case of karma, the very unknowability of its fruition motivates the Langtangpa to pursue ritual practices and virtuous deeds in the hope of strengthening their tshe. If a Langtangpa constantly enjoys a state of mental and physical well-being, then it could be a sign—just like in the Protestant case—that her karma might be good, that tshe-ring is assured. A fortified tshe might be considered able to ensure tshe-ring for a particular individual, but the notion of kipu as the ‘good life’ entails a constellation of qualities of which tshe-ring is just one. Due to their history of physical hardship and material deprivation, as well as a strong sense of life as an arena of immense struggle, the Langtangpa conceive kipu overwhelmingly in terms of this-worldly success and material enjoyment. Putting a twist to Socrates’ famous refrain, for the Langtang laity ‘a long life of hardship without enjoyment is not worth living’.

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When outsiders (tourists, for example) see the prevalence of religious practices in Langtang, many carry away with them the impression that the villagers are ‘spiritual’—in the sense of not being concerned with this-worldly material success. The reality is otherwise. While not denying that the Langtangpa, to varying degrees, are concerned with acquiring karmic merits through various ritual practices for their spiritual wellbeing, the exigencies of life mean that they are unapologetically more focused on utilising ritual means for this-worldly personal and communal gains, such as good health, success in business, abundant harvests, and becoming the V.D.C. Chairman. For the last two decades, tourism has been promoted by the Nepalese government, and is increasingly seen by the Langtangpa as a viable and effective means to achieve kipu, and it is to tourism that the next two chapters will turn.

CHAPTER FIVE

EMBEDDING BIKĀS IN EVERYDAY LIFE The first day of the Water-Horse Year in the Tibetan calendar started early for Langtang villagers. While the newly installed prayer flags were still fluttering noisily in the chilling easterly wind, sending prayers to the gods dwelling high up in the mountain passes, Tashi and his family collected a pail of water from the main village water source, and, together with the bread the family had made the previous night, made their offerings to the gods for their continual protection. Like many of the new breed of Langtang hotel entrepreneurs, Tashi had a humble beginning. His ancestors, belonging to the Shyangpa clan, were among the first settlers in the village. As a boy, apart from helping out in cultivating the family land, he occasionally worked as a porter and cook for trekking groups visiting the Langtang region. In the early 1990s, he started a small teashop on the piece of land he had inherited from his father after his marriage. Luck was with him, for that piece of land was situated along the main dirt path that runs through the village, and his little teashop prospered. In 1995, the teashop underwent extensive renovation and was transformed into a proper hotel with a dining room and sleeping quarters. In 1999, Tashi continued the expansion of his hotel business by renting a government-owned ‘Riverside Hotel’ at Gumnachok, two to three hours’ walk down the valley. On this cold morning on the first day of Losar, Tashi felt especially blessed, for he had just opened his third and grandest hotel, his second in Langtang Village. This was one of the reasons he wished to erect a new prayer pole (rlung rta), adorned with the five-coloured prayer flags, in the grounds of his newly opened lodge. A lama had been invited to conduct the Lhabsang (lha bsangs) ceremony, Langtang’s most popular ritual, to pray to the gods for long life, good health and material prosperity for Tashi and his family. While the priest was chanting, at certain prescribed moments, Tashi and his second son would venture outside the hotel to throw offerings over its roof to the gods, shouting ‘Che Buloh! Please accept [our] offerings!’1 1

Tib. bzhes, accept; ’bul, invitation, offerings.

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At around lunchtime, I was invited to Tashi’s first hotel located in the middle of the village. When I arrived, he was sitting at one end of the dining room, directly across from the door through which guests entered. Tashi was in his finest chuba in the style of a chieftain, worn only for special occasions such as this. He did not get up to receive any of his guests, but remained seated with a benign smile while exchanging greetings with the guests. He would then majestically wave the guests to take their seats behind the long tables on either side of him. Once seated, Tashi’s wife served me Tibetan butter tea and a plate of snacks (deka). While we ate and bantered, more guests continued to arrive, greeted Tashi, and were then directed to their places. The people present were Tashi’s brothers, the helpers and cooks in his hotels, and a few other close friends. All the guests—except for his eldest brother, who had a comparatively modest lodge adjacent to Tashi’s—were non-hotel owners, and all were less wealthy than Tashi. After a couple of hours of eating and drinking, guests started to sing and dance in the middle of the dining room. Tashi did not participate, but cheered the people on. Sitting in his hotel, the apparently unassuming and soft-spoken Tashi whom I had previously known, was now transformed into someone who projected an image of authority . . . Emergence of a New Materiality Referring to a newly independent India, Nehru once said that dams and steel plants were the country’s new temples. Dams and steel plants were, of course, the symbols of a particular ideology of developmental practice embraced by India at that time, a socialist mode of production that emphasised the exploitation of natural resources and large-scale industrialisation. Following from this, we can treat the actual physicality of dams and steel plants as the materialisation of the socialist development ideology pursued by India. Turning our attention northwards to Nepal, I would suggest that the hotel is one of the important symbols of Nepal’s developmental effort and a particular form of expression that articulates with the ideology of development. Those who have been to Nepal know what the district of Thamel in Kathmandu looks like: apart from numerous bars and restaurants that serve a wide range of international cuisine, there are also countless hotels of various quality and size. When one goes trekking in the mountains, especially in the more popular national parks, one encounters the ubiquitous hotels and

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teahouses where trekkers can stay and have their meals. Even before travellers arrive at a particular village while travelling along the main trekking route, they would have seen, painted on boulders, sporadic advertisements, for example ‘Hotel Mountain View, Free Hot Shower and German Bakery’. In Nepal, the English word ‘hotel’ often refers to small teashops as well as to the tourist lodges in the hills and starred hotels in the big cities. In the context of Langtang, the English term ‘hotel’ refers to the usually family-run establishments in the trekking regions of Nepal that provide accommodation, food, and guide services for the tourists (cf. W. Fisher 2001). Before starting on this research in Langtang National Park, like most other trekkers visiting Nepal, hotels were to me places where one could rest, have a hot shower, and then have a generous serving of dal bhat tarkari and garlic soup. Apart from the immediate context of the tourism industry, the significance of the hotel in other social and cultural domains has not been adequately explored. Tourism literature in general tends to treat hotels as sociologically and culturally unproblematic. The few studies that treat hotels as social organisations in their own right deal mainly with the themes of social control and micro-level interactions between the hosts and guests (Wood 1993:66–67; Belisle 1981; Stringer 1981). Researchers working in mountain tourism areas of Nepal are no different—in the discussion of tourism’s impact on local communities they have considered hotels to be purely economic phenomenon (e.g. Fisher 1990; Brower 1991; Stevens 1993). I will show that a hotel is more than just an economic activity—it is a materiality through which the development ideology that currently pervades Nepal gets embedded into the everyday life of people. Through a socio-semiotic approach, I show the hotels that have arisen from Nepal’s contemporary effort at national development, have acquired social and political significance, and should be understood for their salience in status and power contestations. To understand the role of the hotel, it is useful first to examine the historic role of Tibetan Buddhism and its influence on the social, economic and political arenas of Nepalese life. Many anthropological studies conducted in these communities include discussions of Buddhism and its attendant religious institutions. In particular, these studies have noted the significance of monasteries and temples (e.g. Ortner 1992, 1999; Clarke 1980, 1983, 1991; Adams 1996). Clarke’s (1980) study of the so-called ‘temple-villages’ in the Helambu region shows that households were bound together primarily through the village temple, forming the foundation upon which the Yolmo’s political, religious and

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social lives were based. Clarke further discusses the ways in which the fission of priestly Lama lineages had historically contributed to the founding of new villages in different locales, as settlements formed around the newly established temples. In recent years, however, while the temple in Helambu still remains the spiritual centre of the village, it has lost its political significance. In another study, Desjarlais comments that: ‘Yolmo villages are no longer “temple-villages” but rather villages with, or without temples . . . The ostensive political authority once wielded by the lamas has been usurped by secular politicians’ (1994 [1992]:58–9). In another example, Sherry Ortner’s High Religion shows how the development of Sherpa Buddhism and the founding of temples were intimately related to violent, strongman politics, and especially to fraternal rivalry. A historical study of the founding of Sherpa temples reveals the relationship between the community’s cultural conception of status and issues of political legitimacy. In her most recent book on the Sherpa’s engagement with mountaineering and tourism, Ortner notes that ‘from a broader perspective, [the monasteries and temples] have done their work in injecting a higher Buddhism into Sherpa religious life, and have now moved into a somewhat more marginal position in the Sherpa community’ (1999:268). Unfortunately, Ortner does not go on to say what might have gained prominence relative to the monasteries. The main aim of this chapter is to answer the question: how does the development ideology become an integral part of the Langtangpa’s conception of the ‘good life’? Put another way, how does discourse of development become cultural practice in everyday life? My analysis is both historical and synchronic, and adopts a socio-semiotic method. Socio-semiotics takes the epistemological position that both the artificially produced material object (in our case, the hotel) and our understanding of it ‘derives from codified ideologies that are aspects of social practices and their socialisation processes’ (Gottdiener 1995:26). Sociosemiotics is a field that has developed through the work of semioticians such as Umberto Eco, scholars of the New Archaeology movement (e.g. Tilley 1999) and anthropologists who study material culture (e.g. Douglas 1992; Miller 1987; Keane 2001). Socio-semiotics sees the conception of meaning not as an infinite free play of signifiers, but as emerging from the relationship between the production of knowledge and the power relationships which delimit the operation of signification. In other words, it does not view the signifying process in a cultural vacuum, but seeks to establish the link between sign production and consumption, as well as that between the socio-historical processes of economics and

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politics. As Mary Douglas (1992:7) argues, any interpretation of the meanings of an object necessarily takes place in the context of people. Arjun Appadurai has cogently pointed out that it is not possible to understand the meanings of things without situating them in contexts of human activity, attribution, and motivation: The anthropological problem is that this formal truth does not illuminate the concrete, historical circulation of things. For that we have to follow the things themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories. It is only through the analysis of these trajectories that we can interpret the human transactions and calculations that enliven things. Thus, even though from a theoretical point of view human actors encode things with significance, from a methodological point of view it is the things-inmotion that illuminate their human and social context. (Appadurai 1986:5, italics mine)

While Appadurai refers to ‘things-in-motion’, the thing this chapter is concerned with is a fixed, solid entity that is not literally in motion, unlike the case of say, money and other smaller portable artefacts. But since hotels, as I shall show, are sites for various sorts of social events, they can be seen as metaphorically moving through the diverse semiotic domains and discursive contexts underlying varied forms of social interaction. Hence, the hotel, whose property as a material form is necessarily semiotically underdetermined, can act as a bridge between domains of knowledge and experience (Keane 2001:69–70; Geismar and Horst 2004:5). In order to interpret the social and cultural meanings of hotels, we have to first account for the production of their specific material forms and the social interactions therein, and link these to their instrumental functions as embedded within the multitudinous social contexts of knowledge production. I argue that what has gained prominence in the place of religious institutions are institutions of tourism, of which the hotel is key. The hotel’s current role within Himalayan communities exposed to tourism is that of a main structuring agency of socio-economic relations. The hotel has become a locus of status valuation and power contestation, reflects the new values of the people, and constitutes an important arena of local political processes. Tourism for National Development In the 1950s and 1960s, while the Nepalese government, with the backing of bilateral and multilateral donors, was taking the first steps

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towards its eventual entanglement with the project of development, an increasing number of foreign visitors began to arrive in the country. Before this, the foreigners allowed into the country were mainly pilgrims and trade expeditions from neighbouring countries. In the 19th century, due to their colonial expansion in South Asia, Europeans took an increased interest in Nepal for political, economic and scientific reasons (cf. Karan and Ishii 1996:259). One of the first high profile visits by Europeans took place in 1911, when the British king, George V, made a hunting trip to the Terai. It must have been an interesting experience for the British monarch, for 10 years later, another royal, this time the Prince of Wales, visited the Nepal Terai: It is scarcely surprising that the Terai has always been regarded as a sportsman’s paradise. When King George V came in 1911 to shoot in the Nepal Terai, and again when the Prince of Wales came 10 years later, wonderful collections of live animals of Nepal were presented by the Maharaja to His Majesty and H.R.H. to enrich the Zoological gardens of the Empire . . . Brian Hodgeson . . . recorded over 560 species of birds, and the vast collection which he presented to the British Museum included over 9,500 specimens of birds, 900 of mammals, and 80 reptiles. (E.A. Smythies 1942, quoted in Satyal 1999:29)

By the early 1950s, the Western public was sufficiently mesmerised by Nepal, primarily through the widely publicised Himalayan mountaineering expeditions that culminated in the British ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. To ensure the widest possible publicity, news of the successful ascent by Edmund Hillary and Tenzin Norgay was kept secret for a while, and was announced to the world to coincide with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. No sooner had Tenzin Norgay embarked on his journey westward to receive accolades in Europe than rich Westerners began to travel eastward through the first commercial tours to Nepal. In 1951, Indian National Airways had already started the first international service between Kathmandu and Patna. Modern tourism formally arrived in Nepal in 1955, when the travel agency Thomas Cook offered the first organised tour of Nepal, a year after a new airport had been opened in the capital. A hotel entrepreneur recorded the then Prince Mahendra’s reactions when he saw the first foreign tourists: His Royal Highness thought it a good idea but wondered what foreign visitors would want to see and buy in Nepal. In February 1955, when I ran the Royal Hotel, the first tourists ever visited Kathmandu. There were about 20 of them, mostly elderly ladies and all very rich. They fell

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madly in love with Kathmandu and bought all the local arts and crafts I had on display in the hotel. His Royal Highness Prince Mahendra was present and immediately turning to some officials with him commanded that tourist visas should be introduced. (Quoted in Satyal 1999:75)

With such high-level backing for tourism, it is little wonder that the Tourism Development Board (T.D.B.) was established within two years, in accordance with the Development Act of 1956. In 1958, the T.D.B. came under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, and with the government’s realisation that tourism should form an essential part of the overall national development strategy, the T.D.B. became the new Tourism Development Department and, in 1967, it was incorporated into the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. To complement a new emphasis on environmental matters, in 1972, H.M.G. published a new tourism Master Plan that identified as ‘favourable tourism forms’ activities such as trekking tourism and mountain tourism, comprising recreational tourism (mountaineering, fishing, trekking, rafting, etc.) and nature tourism (bird and wildlife watching, photography, scenery, scientific tourism, etc.). The 1972 document has since been updated by the 1995 Policy Document for Tourism Sector that explicitly recognises ‘the strategic importance of tourism, among other sectors (e.g. water resources, human resources, etc.) to the national economy’. The main objective of tourism is to ‘increase productivity, national income and foreign exchange currency earnings . . . create employment opportunities, improving seasonal imbalance . . . project the image of Nepal in the international arenas through development and diversification of the travel and tourism industries’ (MacLennan 2000:177). Nepal’s main attractions are its diverse natural and cultural heritage (cf. Zurick 1992:613), from the jungles to the ancient cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan in the Kathmandu Valley, to the rugged terrain and soaring peaks of the Greater Himalaya. In 1966, the first commercial mountain treks were organised in Nepal, thus putting the country on the map as one of the world’s foremost trekking destinations. While adventure tourism provided the initial boost to tourist activity in Nepal, conventional tourists soon came to make up the bulk of visitors, coming for sightseeing and pleasure (MacLennan et al. 2000:175). Recognising the strategic importance of tourism to the national economy, the Nepalese government in 1995 published for the tourism industry a policy document, highlighting the need to pay attention to:

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• The preservation and conservation of historical places and monuments • Bio-diversity of wildlife tourism • New trekking routes and peaks • Rural tourism development • National environment guidelines for tourism • Land policy for tourism development • Classification of the tourism industry • Concessions to travel and tourism industries • Provision for human resource development • Institutional strengthening Source: MacLennan et al. 2000:176

Thus, the growth of the tourism industry went hand in hand with the country’s overall project of development.2 In other words, tourism became a crucial component of bikās. Currently, tourism earnings contribute to about 3% of Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product and 15% of total foreign currency earnings, and the hotel industry is one of the main income-generating enterprises in the tourism industry. Circumstances largely beyond their control have forced the Langtangpa to engage with tourism and the operating of hotels as the primary means of social mobility. In Chapter 3, I discussed how, with the cessation of the trans-Himalayan trade between central Nepal and southern Tibet, Table 7: Tourism—Arrivals, 1998–2003 Year

Total no.

Average length of stay (no. of days)

Annual growth rate (%)

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

463,684 491,504 463,646 361,237 275,466 334,610

10.80 12.80 11.88 11.93 7.92 9.50

9.90 6.00 –5.70 –22.10 –23.70 21.50

Source: H.M.G. Ministry of Finance

2 For more in-depth discussions of Nepal’s tourism industry and policies, see e.g. MacLennan (2000), Satyal (1999) and Nepal (2003).

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the Langtangpa were compelled to rely on the collection and sale of forest products for cash to buy food, since their agricultural produce alone was insufficient for subsistence. While environmental conservation was the stated purpose for gazetting certain areas as national parks, the other reason was to support the tourism industry in achieving Nepal’s developmental goals. The creation of Langtang National Park in 1976 put several important restrictions on its inhabitants.3 One is the prohibition against further clearing of agricultural land. Since Langtang’s system of land inheritance stipulates an equal division of household land among male siblings, the average land size per household tends to decrease with succeeding generations (unless land is acquired from other villagers), contributing to decreasing agricultural yields for each household. In addition, the Langtangpa were forced into tourism by national park rules that banned the collection of herbs for sale.4 Taken together, all these factors compelled the Langtangpa to participate in the tourist trade in order to reduce their reliance on natural resources that were becoming increasingly inaccessible. When trekking tourism first arrived, the Langtangpa mainly functioned as porters or local guides for the trekkers and a small number of mountaineering expeditions. Then, a villager (whom I shall call Pema) opened a small teahouse next to a local government-run cheese factory and from its earnings started the first modest, single-storey hotel in Langtang Village, in due course becoming its richest man. In the mid-1980s, there were three to four hotels in the village; by the end of my fieldwork in 2002, there were 16. When all the hotels operated by the Langtangpa in the whole upper valley are included, the total number is twice as many. Approximately 30% of the 109 Langtang Village households are directly involved in hotel operation. Langtang villagers need not apply for special licences if they build hotels on their own land. In an interview with the chairman of the National Park Border Zones Committee, I was told that as long as a villager can afford to pay the Park authorities Rs. 200 for each piece of timber cut from the trees in the Park, there is no restriction on the number of hotels that are allowed to be built on private land. On the other hand, there are a number of places along the trails classified as For a discussion on the management issues of the national park, see Bourradaile et al. 4 The punishment for illegal smuggling and sale of herbs was harsh: for a first-time offender it was a week’s jail in Dhunche, the district headquarters. 3

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state land which the Park authorities have allocated for the construction of hotels or teahouses. One has to apply and bid for special licences to operate a hotel on these parcels of state land, and it is the Border Zone Committee that issues these licences. At the time of fieldwork in 2001, the Committee chairman told me that no new licences would be issued as there was an oversupply of hotels in the National Park. Design of Hotels Like all other business ventures, hotel operations are driven by the need to design a machine for the realisation of capital. Given Nepal’s current realities, its developmental goals and the global tourism industry, the main purpose of most hotels there is to sell hospitality to trekkers. The hotel’s design functions to disguise the nature of the relationship, which is fundamentally an instrumental exchange between hotel owners and guests (the consumers of hospitality). A hotel presents an integrated façade that aims to induce trekkers to seek out and fulfil their consumption-related desires. This overriding concern to profit from the relationship exerts decisive control over all other aspects of the hotel’s design, such that the hotel as a built environment exists as a manifestation of wider discursive practices. As a result of their travels and visits to other trekking areas in Nepal, many Langtang hotel operators have a clear sense of what constitute popular facilities and architectural forms. They have learnt the art of running a hotel from acquaintances already in the business. In addition to these informal channels, hotel management courses are conducted by government officials and other experts from Nepalese and foreign non-governmental organisations: certificates of attendance are proudly framed and hung on the walls of a hotel’s dining room as proof of the owner’s professionalism. In Langtang, experts from the Department of National Parks and the American-based Mountain Institute conducted courses in 1996 for local hotel owners as part of the ‘Langtang Ecotourism project’ (see Lama 2000). The training covered matters such as fuel utilisation, waste disposal, sanitation, and the construction of essential hotel facilities.5

5 During my fieldwork, one foreign female development expert who had helped convene the Langtang Ecotourism Project in 1996 came back to Langtang for an inspection tour. News of her imminent arrival in the village preceded her, and some

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Figure 5.1: Langtang hotels—Trekkers’ first encounter with the village

Even as they seek out rugged adventures and rural living, visitors to the mountains expect a certain familiar level of comfort and hygiene; accordingly, Langtang hotel owners have been advised to build clean toilets and solar panels for hot showers, facilities that are entirely absent from the traditional houses in the area. Another issue of concern is food, and owners of these establishments understand that it can make or break their business. All along the main trekking routes, hotels offer a bewildering array of international cuisine, from pizza to chow mien and Mars bar pancakes. A hotel that introduces a ‘German’ or ‘Swiss’ bakery almost certainly sees its business improve. A local group called the Langtang Tshokhang Bikhas Sammitti (L.T.B.S.), which was set up with Japanese aid, even has a poster that says in English: ‘Welcome to Langtang Valley! Traditional French style bread And Italian style cheese available At L.T.B.S. Workshop in Langtang Village’

hotel owners were apprehensive about how she would evaluate the various programmes she had put in place previously, such as bottle recycling, the Women’s Association, and the kerosene depot. Since none of these was functioning properly, one hotel owner told me he was afraid she would be angry, ‘since she had spent lots of time and money in Langtang’. When this expert arrived, she went into most of the hotels to inspect the facilities.

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Successful elements are often copied, resulting in the replication of similar hotel designs throughout Nepal’s most popular mountain trekking areas. The design of choice, interestingly, is one with more of a ‘Hostel’ theme, which incorporates comfortable communal dining areas and dormitories. The success of this specific motif is obvious from its proliferation throughout the Nepalese Himalayas. It evokes a sense of the rugged camaraderie of communal living that simultaneously offers the option of privacy and a degree of material comfort that approximates the trekkers’ experience back home. Articulation of Internal Design Elements As dusk falls, trekkers drop their adventures and seek refuge indoors. The hotel’s dormitory rooms are usually basic and sparse. Electricity is not always available and the rooms are not well insulated against the cold and wind. The dining room, in contrast, is an oasis of warmth and comfort—it is the most important space in the hotel. A well-designed dining space generates cash as the longer the guests linger in the dining room, the more food and drink they consume. This principal space usually consists of a large room with connecting benches that run along three sides of the wall. A stove sits in the middle, burning firewood to heat the room, and cushions or carpets are placed on the benches to provide added comfort. Posters of various mountaineering expeditions and popular tourist destinations in Nepal are hung on the wall, and the ‘ethnic’ feel so sought after by tourists is manufactured through the display of Tibetan thangka paintings, handicrafts, and photographs of the owner with his family and friends. The cosiness of the dining room functions as a positive contrast to the hostile external environment, and to the sparse dormitories that have little attraction beyond being a place to sleep. Guests do not stay in their rooms for long and the overall design of the hotel facilitates the gravitation of guests away from the rooms and towards the comfortable, communal space of the dining room where their consumption is maximised. Hotel, Status and Personal Identity Not surprisingly, starting a hotel is a major undertaking for a local in Langtang, with the project taking between two to four years to move from planning to completion. Assuming that it is to be built on land one already owns, there are two primary ways a person can secure the money

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needed to build a hotel. One of the most common means to raise the needed cash is through the sale of valuables; but the money obtained from the sale of possessions such as land or gold is often insufficient for the Rs. 4–8 lakhs (U.S.$530–1,100) needed to build a hotel. The balance has to be borrowed. Banks are ruled out as a potential source of funds since the agricultural value of Langtang land is considered so inferior that banks refuse to accept it as collateral. For wealthy families, gold can be used as bank collateral, but with interest rates of 13–17%, this is not a popular option. The more common approach is to go to one or more of the local ‘big men’ for financial help. (For a discussion of implications for social relationships, see Chapter 7.) Whatever the source of funds, the construction of hotel facilities requires considerable resources and such projects invariably create some degree of employment for Langtang villagers. Construction work is one of the primary means through which non-hotel-owning villagers first become tied to the tourism industry and dependent on it for income. As a result of tourism, therefore, two new economic classes have emerged in the village: the hotel owners as primary employers, and the rest of the village depending on them for waged work. As the main source of employment for other villagers and because of their greater economic power, hotel owners now constitute the dominant class. The skilled workers fundamental to the hotel’s construction, such as the master builder and the carpenters, are often hired on the basis of recommendations from other hotel owners. Unskilled workers, in contrast, are drawn from within the village and its surrounding regions. The main builders and carpenters work onsite for most of the project, and the others essentially become human mules, tasked with ferrying building material such as stones, logs and supplies to and from the new hotel. With the demands of socialising with guests, cooking for them, cleaning the place, walking along the trails to solicit custom, procuring supplies and so on, the running of a hotel leaves its proprietor with little time for menial or agricultural work. Periodically, the hotel owner may engage villagers to collect firewood and animal dung for cooking and heating. Offering up to Rs. 100 and two meals per day, hotel owners also hire villagers to work in their fields that might not otherwise be attended.6 Currently, this hotel-centred power relationship is made more stable

6 In the village of Kag of Baragaun, many hotel owners do not perform manual tasks and hire hands for purposes such as looking after household animals and fields (Saul 1999:187).

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Figure 5.2: New status symbol—Contrast between hotel and traditional house

by the fact that no viable alternative source of employment is available to the villagers. Unlike the Gurung, Rai or Magar of the central hills, the Langtangpa do not have the option of joining the various Gurkha regiments. Furthermore, as documented by Joanne Watkins (1996), the Langtangpa have no widespread national or trans-national business networks to speak of that can shadow that of the Nyeshangte. Under Nepal’s present economic circumstances, many Langtangpa see operating a hotel as a means of social mobility and the attainment of greater material comfort. As a result, hotels have become status symbols, with their owners regarded as being a step closer to bikās than the others in the village.7 The hotel owner’s economic power rests largely upon his ability to command a labour force and to be a source for loans. This power is translated into status in two main ways: the hotel’s physicality as an icon for bikās, and the social interactions within it. Hotels can be said to stand out as status symbols, partly because of the stark contrast between their physical structure and those of traditional buildings of the village. Traditional buildings in Langtang are modest, double-storey structures consisting of stone walls and roofs made from wooden tiles. A wooden staircase leads from the courtyard in front of the house into the upper living quarters, which is a large square room. The four corners are assigned a variety of purposes: storage, cooking,

7 For the Sherpas, Ortner (1999:254) has noted that as a result of a history of engaging with mountaineering expeditions and tourism, there has arisen among the Sherpas a new class of ‘big people’ who are not the old traders and landowners but successful leaders of expeditions. These people, after earning enough money to retire early from mountaineering, usually go into the hotel and restaurant businesses.

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sleeping and religious worship. The ground floor is used mainly for storing grain and keeping household animals at night. Hotels are generally of considerable size and tend to include a large dining area and dormitory rooms. The main structure is usually built with huge stones quarried from the riverbed, while the roof is made of shiny corrugated zinc sheets bought in Kathmandu. Hotels stand out also because of the facilities they provide. Because of the widespread standardisation of hotel design and the curriculum of Lodge Management courses, hotel owners understand that certain facilities are essential if they are to stand a chance of being successful in business. They are advised, for example, to construct separate enclosures for toilets and bathrooms with hot showers that are powered by solar energy. Other uncommon features are a relatively well-equipped, separate kitchen, and a courtyard where trekkers can lounge in good weather. Together, these factors fuel the hotel’s image as the physical embodiment of bikās. The embedding of the hotel in Langtang’s everyday life is further augmented through its dual function as both business and domestic site. Carsten and Hugh-Jones (1995), extending on Lévi-Strauss’s notion of a ‘house-society’, have urged us to pay serious attention to a house’s material as well as social dimensions, such as its domestic, economic, political, and religious functions. They argue that ‘house operates through its physicality as a complex idiom for defining social groupings, naturalising social positions, and as a source of symbolic power’. In Langtang, the social significance of the house can be seen from its close association with the definition of the household (khyim). In Langtang, the social significance of the house can be seen from its close association with local ideas about the household. Historically, the status of households in Langtang had in part been dependent upon whether they were associated with the village-founding clans. The segmentation of these founding clans into lineages (rigs) had resulted in the formation of a type of households called the kuriya. These were corporate entities whose adult members were accorded full citizenship in the village. At the same time, the kuriya households were, and still are, expected to fulfil certain social and religious obligations to the village, such as making donations of grain and money to the organisation of village-wide rituals, since one of the key defining features of the kuriya is their hereditary ownership of parcels of temple land known as kushing (see Chapter 2). The non-kuriya households are collectively known as yangpa, literally, ‘the outsider’. In Langtang, the priestly Domar clan, the kuriya, and the yangpa constitute its indigenous socio-political and

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ritual hierarchy, and the form of village organisation is structurally similar to the ‘Tibetan model’ of peasant household systems that can be found in a number of Tibetan enclaves in the Himalayan regions (e.g. Levine 1988; Vinding 1998; cf. Campbell 1996). However, under the present circumstances where every villager, in theory, has equal rights as national citizens in political participation, and when the local political economy revolves primarily around the tourism industry, erstwhile standards of status valuation that incorporated kinship, ideas of household, as well as socio-political rights and privileges, have been undergoing significant changes. These days, a typical household—be it Domar, kuriya or yangpa—consists of a married couple and their children, often also with the elderly parents of the male householder. In Langtang, it is usually the youngest son who inherits his parents’ house, and he has the responsibility of looking after his parents in their old age. Other sons in the family, upon getting married, will move out into new houses built on divided family lands. Hence, the house constitutes an important part of a person’s and household’s identity. When one’s house is also a hotel, one’s personal identity and of those living within the same household become closely associated with the hotel as well.8 This is because hotels in Langtang are not just commercial enterprises; owner families usually live in them as well. The intimate link between one’s identity and one’s hotel is clearly illustrated by the Langtangpa’s method of identifying a person. Since certain names are widely used, the Langtangpa often use epithets to differentiate those who share common names. For example, this particular man who is the son of a shaman is called jhankri Gyalpo ( jhankri is the Nepali term for shaman), to differentiate him from the many other Gyalpos in the village. Or someone might be referred to as baru (dba’ rus) Phuntso, the epithet often being used to refer to people from the traditional three prominent lineages of the village. Continuing with this cultural practice of identification, these days, hotel owners are often identified by the names of their establishments. Thus when I first arrived in Langtang, I was told to look for ‘Village View Pema’, the 8 In their study on consumption and social mobility among the Izhavas of Kerala, South India, Filipo and Caroline Osella also described how the house, due to the identity between family and house names, has become an embodiment of worth and reputation, especially for those Izhava migrant workers who have returned to their home communities. Eschewing thatched or wooden huts, these returnees seek to project their newly acquired affluence, status and taste by choosing house designs that are ‘reminiscent of the luxury bungalows occupied by the rich and Westernised characters in popular Malayali films’ (1999:1017).

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Altar

Close friends/ seniors Position of lineage lama

Worshippers

Sitting position of priests —in descending order of rank Entrance

Figure 5.3: Temple—Sitting arrangement of priests and worshippers

129 Host

Stove

Sitting positions of guests Entrance

Figure 5.4: Hotel—Sitting arrangement of hosts and guests

richest man in the village who might be able to help. Similarly, since there are a number of villagers who are called Tenzin, one is referred to as ‘Mountain View Tenzin’, while another as ‘Langtang Lirung Tenzin’. The important implication is that hotels, through their dual function as house and hotel, have become an important component of personal identity. I previously highlighted how, as part of the overall hotel design, the hotel’s interior functions to stimulate and fulfil trekkers’ consumption desires and to maximise profit for the proprietor. The instrumental concern over internal spatial organisation has implications for status generation and local political activity as well. A comparison of the social organisation of the space within a temple with that of a hotel will help to illustrate my point. In seating arrangements in a temple, a person’s status is indicated by his or her proximity to the deities on the altar during communal worship (Figure 5.3). The most esteemed position is occupied by the chief officiating priest, who sits just in front of the altar in an elevated seat reserved for senior members of the local Domar lineage lama.9

9 In temple rituals, this lineage lama is the representation of his ‘spiritual lineage’ (bla rgyud) and is considered the personification of a Buddha.

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Figure 5.5: Hotel’s dining room as site of status generation Note: The host is the only person wearing the chuba reminiscent of a chieftain. With the exception of the toddler, a young boy (ranked according to age) and a woman (ranked according to gender) are sitting furthest away from the host.

Other priests follow down the line, in descending order of rank. The communal space directly in front of the altar and between the two rows of priests is usually reserved for members from prominent, wealthy baru lineages. Villagers of lower status usually congregate near the door. Now consider the social gatherings of Langtang villagers in hotels, such as during the Losar feast that is held yearly in almost every establishment. During my fieldwork, the Losar feast as shown in Figure 5.5 was replicated in most hotels in the village and their wealthy owners hosted banquets where they received well-wishers. The seating arrangement on this occasion and at other large gatherings bears a striking resemblance to the pattern observed in the temple. The interior design of a hotel’s dining room can be seen to act as a bridge between the two domains of experience (spiritual and economic), transposing the status symbolism of one to the other. This replication of the temple seating arrangement in the hotel is made possible by the peculiar design of the dining room. The prime position of the host reflects his overall social position, and the guests are arranged according to their own relative status (see Figure 5.4 and Figure 5.5). By choosing his position and that of the guests in the dining room, the hotel

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owner becomes the agency for the spatial organisation of social status, revelling in his own symbolic power. But status is a hierarchy of social ranking within which one’s position is determined by a constant dialectic between self-valuation and social validation. The symbolic power of a particular hotel owner can be contested by his or her peers through their absence from the gathering. A person who considers himself to be higher in status than the host can choose not to attend the function, for his presence would affirm the host’s status to the expense of his own. The number and composition of the hotel owner’s guests are an indication of his overall status and ranking in the village. The status-generating event of the Losar feast thus facilitates both an inward and outward form of orientation: an inward focus through which the relative social positions of the host and the guests engender for the host an immediate validation of his own perceived status, and an outward orientation in which this status has to be reappraised via comparisons with the situation in other hotels. Such determinants of status go beyond the confines of the Losar feasts and the hotels that host them, and reverberate into the political sphere. Hotels as Political Sites With Langtang’s economy becoming increasingly focused on tourism, the role of the hotel as an important status and identity marker has profound implications for local political process. Before the 1970s, the priestly Domar lineage was both politically and religiously dominant in Langtang Village. In recent decades, however, the Domari’s hold on temporal power has been challenged. Following the overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime in 1950 and the creation of a new political system based on democratic principles, all citizens were empowered by state law to select their local leaders in periodic elections. In 1960, King Mahendra dissolved the multi-party system and instituted the party-less ‘Panchayat Democracy’, but the Nepalese still enjoyed voting rights to elect their local leaders. The only difference was that the candidates could not belong to any formal political parties (cf. Joshis and Rose 1966; Borgström 1980; Ramirez 2000). Throughout the first two decades of the Panchayat regime, members of the Domar lineage managed to dominate the post of village headman. However, after the creation of Langtang National Park and the introduction of tourism to the area in the late 1970s, a group of rich

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and powerful entrepreneurs emerged. Relying on their newly acquired tourism-driven wealth and status, they began to challenge Domari dominance in local elections. In the early 1980s, one of the early beneficiaries of tourism, Pema, managed to get elected as the village headman after defeating a relatively young and inexperienced Domari candidate who was unable to match his opponent’s ability to mobilise personal wealth to secure the support of voters. Elections over the next 10 years saw the Domari continually challenging Pema in local elections, but to no avail. Over this period, Pema had become the richest man in the village, with his family members owning at least four hotels throughout the Langtang Valley. According to Langtang villagers, because of Pema’s tremendous wealth, he was able to out-spend his political opponents by organising banquets in his hotels for villagers, and distributing sacks of rice and gifts of beer during election periods to increase his popularity, thus winning votes.10 Following the restoration of multi-party democracy in Nepal in 1990, two parties became dominant in Langtang: the Nepali Congress led by Pema, and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), whose leader was another wealthy hotel owner. During local elections, candidates from these two parties campaigned to lead the nine wards that make up the Langtang Village Development Committee (V.D.C.). At the same time, villagers also chose the V.D.C. Chairman and Vice-Chairman, a two-man team consisting of the party leader and his deputy. Because of Nepal’s decentralisation policy, the V.D.C. Chairman has considerable power over local affairs. Most importantly, he controls the funds allocated to the V.D.C. by the central government for local development projects, as well as the stipends for all members of the Committee.11

10 Bribery in elections is rife throughout Nepal. In her work on Kag village in Baragaun, Mustang, Rebecca Saul (1999:85) noted that there had been an increase in tensions between local village factions, and between and within households after the institutionalisation of multi-party politics. During an election, the Congress candidate gave several hundred rupees to villagers who voted for the party. 11 Saul (1999:80) highlights from her research in the Baragaun region that the reputation of pradhān pancha or V.D.C. Chairman depends significantly on his ability to bring bikās to the village.

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Langtang Land-grab Pema managed to get elected again in the first multi-party election in 1992, becoming Langtang’s first V.D.C. Chairman. As the village leader who straddled both the old Panchayat and the new multi-party political regimes, Pema was involved for four years in one of the most bitter disputes in Langtang’s history. The case concerned Pema’s construction of hotels on what was supposed to be communal land. In the late 1980s, Pema decided to build a new hotel with better facilities on a patch of communal pasture. In addition, he set his sights on another piece of land which had traditionally been used by villagers to celebrate important religious festivals. On these two pieces of communal property, Pema began to build the grandest of his hotels, ignoring the protests and indignation of many villagers. For the new hotel in Kyangjin, Pema constructed a stone wall enclosing the main building and the communal land in the vicinity to keep out unwanted intruders—animals and humans alike. What further incensed the villagers is that when parks officials arrived to conduct a land survey of the Langtang Valley, Pema tried to use his powerful position as the village leader to claim a large swathe of pastures around Kyangjin as his own. After Pema’s Congress Party had narrowly won the local election in 1992, the villagers took the case to the district headquarters of Dhunche. The villagers were not only vehemently opposed to Pema’s appropriation of communal land as his own, but were also concerned that he might levy an animal grazing tax and charge trekkers a fee for visiting a popular viewpoint on top of a hill located on the disputed land. During the arbitration at the district headquarters, the authorities asked the then Vice-Chairman of the V.D.C., an ally of Pema, about the truth of the villagers’ accusation. As can be expected, the Vice-Chairman came down in favour of Pema, who eventually won the case. Undaunted, some villagers, led by members of the opposition party U.M.L., appealed against the ruling by taking the matter to the Supreme Court in Kathmandu. Though their persistence and effort paid off, theirs was not a complete victory. Of the approximately 3,300 ropani12 of land Pema had laid claim to, he was allowed to keep around three and a half ropani—the land on which the two hotels had already been built. In effect, Pema’s new hotels helped to stamp his authority 12

This refers to the Nepalese standard of 1 ropani, approximately 0.13 acre.

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over two pieces of valuable communal land and allowed him to claim them as his own. Because of their sheer physicality and immobility in the Langtang landscape, the new hotels bear lasting testimony to how wealth in the new economic and political circumstances can be translated into power over the control of valuable resources. Since Pema was the leader of the local Congress party, many villagers who had opposed his effort at the land-grab became supporters of the U.M.L. party. The U.M.L. party’s members currently include all the village priests, including those from both the Domar and non-Domar sub-groups. Power Contestation Following the restoration of multi-party democracy in Nepal after 1990, all subsequent local and national elections in Langtang have been plagued by physical violence involving the two rival political parties. At the time of fieldwork, although the Maoist rebels were not active in the Langtang Valley, the insurgency did contribute towards a drastic fall in the number of tourist arrivals to Nepal. Langtang hotel owners told me that the number of tourists visiting the area had decreased by around 50%, resulting in heightened competition among the hotels. Together with the political split among villagers along party lines, intense business competition further deepened the division in the community (see also Chapter 7). With the polarisation of the village into two political camps, and with all prominent leaders being engaged in the hotel business, the hotels in Langtang have taken centre-stage and become the main site of horizontal contestation of political power. Like political parties in many other places, in Langtang, the modus operandi of political parties consists of the creation of party loyalists and the effective utilisation of their support for electoral gains. In time, the hotels of the two political leaders have become the de facto party headquarters. Supporters gather at their respective bases for mutual support, to affirm their political affiliation and to discuss election strategies. As a result, the physical space of the hotel dining room has taken on a secondary function above that of providing a comfortable communal space for trekkers. It is now a political site where the status and power of political leaders are affirmed and where solidarity is generated between their supporters. The political contestation centred around the hotels that serve as political headquarters is dramatically enacted each year during the Drukpa Che Zhi festival. Held in the middle of the monsoon season in July, this event is celebrated in all areas where Tibetan culture is

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observed. The celebrations commemorate the day Shakyamuni gave his first sermon at Bodhgaya following his enlightenment. For the Langtangpa, it is a four-day festival that includes communal prayers, picnics and entertainment. Given the intense competition in party politics, the Drukpa Che Zhi festival has for many years been marred by physical violence. The situation is especially tense during an election year. The most serious violence erupted when there was to be a national election for a member of parliament representing the Rasuwa district. On this occasion, after the drinking and merrymaking at Pema’s hotel, a large group of Congress Party members descended upon the U.M.L. leader’s hotel where U.M.L. supporters had gathered. The ensuing brawl between the two groups of supporters got so violent that a group of English trekkers had to be evacuated by helicopter. In the aftermath of the mayhem, the police and army moved in and arrested more than a hundred Langtang men, including all political leaders. When I attended the Drukpa Che Zhi festival in 2002, it became obvious to me why outbreaks of violence between supporters of the two opposing political parties were likely during this particular festival. On the last evening, depending on their political affiliation, villagers bring gifts of beer and ceremonial scarves to either of the political leaders. On that particular night in 2002, the large communal space of each hotel’s dining room that formed the party base was swollen with two separate groups of villagers. Supporters of both sexes entertained themselves with songs, dance and drinks throughout the night, presided over by their leader sitting in his appropriate place. The two hotels were thus transformed from businesses catering to the needs of tourists into two axes of power and contestation. On the vertical axis was hierarchy between leaders and followers based on wealth and status, and on the horizontal axis was the intense opposition between the two rival political factions. Conclusion One of the main aims of this chapter has been to explore the process through which the development ideology that pervades Nepalese society becomes embedded in everyday life. Historically, in the Himalayan communities of Nepal, religious institutions such as the temple have been socially and politically dominant. Much has changed and, as a result of tourism, a large share of the clout has shifted away from the

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temples. To date, however, scholars involved in studies of the Himalayan communities most affected by tourism have persistently ignored the phenomenon of the hotel. This is perhaps another example of the tendency of anthropologists to associate certain locations and peoples with particular research topics (Appadurai 1988). Thus, for example, India with its caste structures is often associated with the study of hierarchy. In the case of Himalayan studies, I would suggest that the very classification of certain communities as ‘Buddhist’ predisposes researchers to look for what I would call their ‘exemplary structures’, one of which would be the temple or monastery. In this chapter, I have highlighted the importance of treating the hotel as an important new materiality that has emerged in tourism-affected Himalayan communities. My analysis of the hotel as an architectural form that mediates different social domains throws into sharp focus its role as an ‘ideological practice’ (McLeod 1985:7), producing the power relations that would, in turn, generate their very contestations. By treating the materiality of the hotel as an anthropological tool, we are thus able to understand more fully how a community’s pursuit of development and its intense engagement with tourism have resulted in the creation of new forms of subjectivity, as well as social and political relationships.

CHAPTER SIX

ROMANTIC DREAMS AND PRACTICAL LIVES Spirituality and Corruption Wrapped in innumerable myths and legends, Nepal is a land of magic and mystery. The confrontation between its millions of gods and goddesses on the one hand, and the most powerful demons on the other, at various points gives a meaningful perspective to this magic and mystery. —Nepal Tourism Board tourist booklet The Langtang region was Nepal’s first Himalayan national park, and for good reason! Nowhere else is so much high mountain landscape accessible with such ease and with so few tourists. This trek takes us through numerous Tamang and Helambu Sherpa villages (Tibetan related peoples), through high elevation pastures, and finally to the foot of Langtang Lirung. Tourism was late in finding this spectacular range, even though it is only a day’s drive from Kathmandu. The result is that the Langtang region is home to many endangered and rare animals including the bharal sheep, wild yak, and the snow leopard, as well as intimate villages that still live traditionally. Langtang is now one of the few places in central Nepal where traditional dress, lifestyles, and cultures abound. Despite the long history of conservation in the Langtang region, this is one of Nepal’s best-kept trekking secrets! —www.earthboundexp.com/trips/ FRMNPExA.html The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images. —Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

While I was having my usual lunch of Tibetan bread and omelette in the kitchen one rainy afternoon, in came a trekker who had just returned from Kyangjin, which is the final destination for most trekkers to the Langtang Valley. At that time, Kyangjin was still under the ‘rotation’

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system, under which throughout a particular week groups of hotels took turns to open for business. The system was devised so that hotels would not engage in cut-throat competition, sometimes offering huge discounts to tourists and large commissions to their guides to attract customers. The system was designed to ensure that all the hotels in Kyangjin had a chance to earn some tourist money. This Italian trekker, fresh from being ‘fleeced’ by the hotels in Kyangjin, and in an indignant and pained tone, began an apparently heartfelt litany on the degeneration of Langtang Tibetans. In between sips of hot lemon tea, he accused the Kyangjin hotel owners of being ‘moneyminded’ for charging high prices for food and accommodation, including Rs. 20 rupee for a mug of hot water, Rs. 150 for a room and Rs. 80 for Tibetan bread (shaped like chapatti, but much thicker). Due to the rotation system, on each day there was almost a monopoly in the supply of accommodation in Kyangjin, with hotel owners agreeing to cooperate and to fix their rates. Since Kyangjin was the highlight of the trek and the last permanent settlement in the Langtang Valley offering food and accommodation to trekkers, most trekkers had little choice but to stay there for at least one night if they wanted to explore the surrounding areas and to enjoy the stunning scenery, the finale of the trek. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Italian called the hotel owners a ‘Mafia’. Because of the rotation system, this particular trekker found that he could not bargain down the prices of food and accommodation in Kyangjin, something that he could do in Langtang Village, where the rotation system had broken down. In the presence of my landlord and two other villagers, the tourist, without any sense of impropriety, lamented that the Langtang ‘Tibetans’ were ‘corrupted and finished’, for they had lost their Buddhist faith and piety, and were now concerned with making money from the tourists. He had previously met many Tibetans on his travels, and was especially impressed by the Tibetans in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India, which he had visited eight times. The Tibetans in Dharamsala were the best, for ‘they were very religious and polite people, always praying and not so much concerned with making money’. The Tibetans in Kathmandu were slightly worse than their counterparts in India; but his most stinging criticisms were reserved for the Langtang people. To the bewilderment, and not to say, slight bemusement, of my landlord, the tourist said that Langtang had been ‘spoiled by tourism’, and that he had been disillusioned and would not visit the place ever again. As he got up to leave, he wished my landlord and the Langtang people ‘good luck’, meaning, of course, that Langtang needed all the luck

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in the world to stall the movement down the path to eventual failure, having lost its spirituality in the pursuit of tourist money.1 ‘I heard there are good jobs in Malaysia’ Samten was back from Swayambhunath, the renowned Tibetan monastery perched on a hill in the outskirts of Kathmandu, and was now catching up with village news and gossip. Eighteen years old and the youngest son and child in the family, he had been sent to the monastery a few years ago. It is generally a common practice for Tibetan families to send at least one son to a monastery to study to become a monk, and the Langtangpa are no exception. Apart from the important reason of religious piety, the Langtangpa think that sending the boys to a monastery is one of the best ways to ensure they receive quality education in a favourable environment. Apart from the all-important religious instruction, the monasteries’ curriculum also includes general courses similar to those of secular schools, such as Nepali, English and Mathematics. Thus, for a one-time donation to the monastery, a boy can receive an excellent education and learn discipline, as compared to the exorbitant amount a family would have to pay if the boy were to be sent to a private boarding school. A small number of young Langtang men are in the monastery in order to take up serious study to become monks. Some return to the village to become junior lamas, to assist in important rituals and perhaps to continue the religious training—not as celibate monks, but as householder priests. Some realise they lack the religious vocation, and give up monastic life and religious training. Samten belonged to the last category, for now, chatting away in the kitchen, he talked about his desire to give up his monastic life and to find work overseas. From some friends he had heard that it might be possible for him to go to Malaysia for work through an agent in Kathmandu. The problem was the hefty fee that had to be paid to the agent—Rs. 80,000 (roughly U.S.$1,100), which is a phenomenal amount by Nepalese standards. Samten further revealed that the deal would not include a work permit and a guaranteed job at the destination. When he said that he would be getting a one-way ticket, alarm bells started to sound in my head: I became worried that if he were to proceed with his plans, he would find himself in an extremely

1 The Sherpas of Solu-Khumbu have been deemed by some—especially by foreigners who have a romantic view of the Sherpas as innocent and non-materialistic—to have suffered the same fate (see e.g. Ortner 1999:248–9).

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thorny situation upon arrival in Malaysia. By this time, I had read enough horror stories and news reports about illegal migrant workers from Nepal being cheated of their money and left stranded in foreign countries. Many had been exploited by unscrupulous employers, working long hours for very low wages in hazardous conditions. Seeing Samten’s eagerness to take his chances in Malaysia and his attempt to persuade his brother to support him, I felt compelled to dissuade him from going to Malaysia without any work permit and with only a one-way ticket. I described to him the risks involved in such a venture and the dismal life an illegal worker could lead, trying to convey to him the fact that he was actually enjoying a better standard of living than an illegal migrant worker, but he was not convinced. To him, the most important thing was to go overseas and look for a job, even if that meant being on the wrong side of the law . . . Mutual Gazing and Imagining Practices Broadly speaking, this chapter seeks to make sense of the two vignettes above, and to tease out and analyse the underlying processes involved in these two seemingly unrelated phenomena. It focuses on the cultural encounters between tourists/trekkers and Langtang villagers, and relates such encounters to the shaping and re-working of the imagination of each other’s lives. It is also about the different modes of imagining a ‘good life’ within the geographical site of Langtang of two groups of differently positioned actors, and how the images each holds of the other shapes the dynamics of their interaction. These images—having been moulded from a specific history of interaction between the Nepalese and foreigners, as well as having emerged from media constructions and then circulated via the global networks of cultural commoditisation—are not immutable cognitive structures, but are amenable to interrogation and modification through the nuances of face-to-face encounters. Here, the physical site of Langtang takes on cultural significance in that it is a ‘practiced place’ (cf. de Certeau 1986:117), defined, contested, and continually constituted by actors associated with it, both local inhabitants and outsiders. I will treat the act of gazing as a key social practice that underlies these encounters. On this aspect, I take my inspiration from John Urry’s work on tourism in which he identifies the ‘tourist gaze’ as a vital element in tourist consumption, and privileges the investigation and understanding of tourism in the context of the sensual, especially

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the sense of sight. According to Urry, this consumption of the visual aspects of social worlds is what marks tourist activities as a unique form of social activity: ‘[ T ]he gaze in any historical period is constructed in relation to its opposite, the non-tourist forms of social experience and consciousness’ (Urry 2002:1). To be a tourist would, therefore, entail seeking out and enjoying sights that are usually outside one’s ordinary social and cultural experience, and the gaze is the key means of enjoyment that a tourist employs upon arrival at any particular desired destination. According to Urry, there is no single tourist gaze as such, for the nature of the gaze always varies according to changing social and cultural contexts. However, one common factor that underlies the different forms of gazes is that they are all constructed through difference: What makes a particular tourist gaze depends upon what it is contrasted with; what the forms of non-tourist experience happen to be . . . The gaze therefore presupposes a system of social activities and signs which locate the particular tourist practices, not in terms of some intrinsic characteristics, but through the contrast implied with non-tourist social practices, particularly those based within the home and paid work. (Urry 2002:1–2)

Regarding Langtang, it will be shown below that the construction of difference that allows for the practice of the tourist gaze is itself the consequence of the construction in the popular media and the tourism industry of the Langtang Valley as a particular type of place. Graham Dann (1996) has argued from his analysis of British tourist brochures that these serve to transform images of destinations into texts with powerful ideological meanings for the tourists. Like most tourists, visitors planning to trek in Langtang National Park get to know the place initially through travel guides and books, brochures, or websites of travel agencies. Karsh and Dann ([1981] 2002:183) liken the pre-trip stage of a vacation to ‘a total project’. Of course, this is a part and parcel of doing one’s research and preparing for a trip. But this also implies that one’s impressions of destinations are mediated by tourism operators whose main interest is to ‘market’ the destinations. The first two quotes are typical of the kind of language both Nepalese and foreign travel agencies use to paint a particular image of Nepal in general and Langtang National Park in particular. When the private enterprises and tourism authorities both utilise the same marketing strategy, the fate of Nepal as an ‘exotic’ tourist destination is more

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or less sealed. A recent study commissioned by the Nepal Tourism Board on tourists profile was entitled ‘Nepal, Land of Mysteries’.2 Of course, this exoticisation of Nepal is nothing new, and has received the attention of numerous commentators. What has happened to Nepal is often compared with the case of Tibet, which has been seen by many Westerners as the location of the fabled ‘Shangrila’ (Bishop 1990). According to Bishop, the reasons for the creation of the myth of Shangrila are manifold, such as the influence of travel writings, the fixation with the discovery of ‘unknown places’ and the premium placed upon exploration as Western colonial empires expanded, and the self-imposed isolation policy of the Tibetans. To these we could add the influence of popular media such the movie ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, the almost global stardom of the Dalai Lama since being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the fact that many museum curators seem to have a penchant for defining Tibetan art as primarily esoteric and religious when organising exhibitions.3 In the book Buddhism Observed, a study of Western travellers and Tibetan exiles at the great Bodhanath stūpa in Kathmandu, Peter Moran notes that Nepal has been central to Western fantasies of ‘untouched, uncommodified life, where one can encounter people who “live in pure culture” ’: For those other Western travelers [sic] who have come to Nepal not only to find pieces of Tibet, but to find themselves through sacred Tibetan technologies, the spirituality of Tibetan culture is monumentalised in Bodhanath’s monasteries and personalised in the figure of the lama who dwells there. These Western pilgrims come to find a local culture-in-its-place. (Moran 2004:191)

2 An official working at the marketing department of the Nepal Tourism Board told me in a 2001 interview that close to 70% of the Board’s budget was spent on marketing. The marketing strategy was to promote different aspects of Nepal as ‘tourism products’, and branding the country as a place of multiple interests. Hence the marketing slogan at that time was, ‘Mt. Everest and more . . . Experience it in Nepal’. 3 This ‘packaging’ of cultures by museums and the media is an intricate part of events marketing in order to attract public attention. For example, Deborah Gewertz (1992:218n) has given an illuminating account of the ways the National Geographic sought to portray the Chambri of Papua New Guinea. When she was reviewing the sound script for a programme it produced on the Chambri, Gewertz protested to the organisation that the film portrayed the Chambri as if they were living in the Stone Age, and pointed out that the Chambri musical performance used in the programme was, in fact, regularly performed for tourists. The National Geographic replied that nothing could be done about the way the film portrays the Chambri, because its subscribers ‘buy’ this image of the still untouched primitive.

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The Shangrila myth is itself a part of a more general romanticisation of the Himalayas. Even for ancient South Asians, the Himalayas, abounding with numerous sacred lakes and peaks, was seen as the abode of saints and wise men and the source of countless Hindu and Buddhist myths (Hutt 1996:50). All the Himalayan countries such as Nepal, Bhutan and Ladakh have had their turn at being romanticised, as the mantle of Shangrila was passed around (Ibid.:52). In the case of Nepal, the romanticisation process started in earnest with the first mountaineering expeditions to the country in the 1950s, as Westerners came into increasing contact with the Sherpa who apparently were able to combine within themselves with ease such admirable qualities as loyalty, cheerfulness, bravery and stoicism, even in the face of appalling mountaineering hardships—qualities deemed increasingly hard to find in Western societies (see e.g. Fisher 1990; Adams 1996; Ortner 1999). While Urry’s concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ is a useful tool for understanding tourism practice, we must guard against over-visualisation of tourism analysis by paying attention to what Coleman and Crang (2004) call the performativity of tourism, that is, the concrete interactions between tourists and host communities that consist of a constant negotiation of spatial meanings. Tucker (1997:107) cautions that ‘tourism theories that only emphasise the gaze can themselves set the tourist experience in frames, and thereby gloss over what actually takes place in tourists’ interactions with the visited environments’. In this chapter, therefore, Langtang as a tourist site is an arena of social interactions, and not just an object of tourist gaze. In addition to describing and analysing the tourist gaze and imagination at Langtang, I will also provide details of concrete interactions between tourists and locals. What made that Italian tourist think that Langtang Tibetans are supposed to be ‘spiritual’, otherworldly, kind and polite, without any hint of selfishness and display of pecuniary concerns? Many other tourists who did the trek echoed the same sentiment. While there is no universal tourist type, the opinions expressed by many visitors to the Langtang area ultimately tend to revolve around certain key themes, which we will analyse below. That was the tourists’ side, but what about the locals’? If outsiders come to Langtang to gaze at the place and its people, the latter can do the same to the visitors. Urry locates his analysis of the gaze within tourist practices, i.e. the visitors to a particular locality or tourist site. What is missing is what I would characterise as a ‘counter-gaze’ by the

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very people who are a part of the landscape that is being consumed by the tourists. How ‘they’ see ‘us’ is something that has received insufficient attention in tourism literature.4 If one of the key motivations for tourists to embark on a trip to places such as Nepal is to seek out an Other that has been constructed by the tourism industry as manifesting ‘primeval unity and simple naturalness’ (Cohen 2004:252; cf. Turner and Ash 1975:72–93), what then constitutes the ‘Other’ for host communities such as the Langtangpa? In other words, how do the places from where tourists originate get imagined and constructed by the hosts, and in what ways do the mutuality of imagery constructions shape the dynamics of host-guest interactions? What I seek to achieve here is to provide an ethnographic account not only of the economic and social circumstances within which the local-tourist interactions occur, but also to interpret the deeper meanings such encounters have for both Langtang villagers and the tourists. Living in an Aestheticised Landscape The Langtang trek . . . gives you the opportunity to get right in among the Himalayan peaks and to walk through remote and relatively unpopulated areas. If you want real adventure then these 2 treks [ Langtang and neighbouring Helambu] can be linked by high-altitude passes . . . It’s 72km from Kathmandu to Trisuli Bazaar — about four hours by car or six by bus . . . From Trisuli the 50km road to Dhunche is steep, winding and rather hairy . . . Dhunche is a pretty village at 1950m and here you will have your trekking permit checked and must pay entrance fee to the Langtang National Park . . . —Lonely Planet: Nepal

4 There are notable exceptions. For example, Abbink (2000), in his study of the Suri-tourist encounter in southern Ethiopia, describes how the Suri continuously refuse to conform to set tourist expectations, and how, unaware to the tourists, the Suri see them with a sense of bewilderment and irritation. Evans-Pritchard (1989) has similarly documented the Native Americans’ images of tourists within a more general perception of ‘the Other’. In her historical approach, she analyses the ways in which historical parodies and critiques of the ‘whiteman’ influence present-day Native Americans’ attitudes towards tourists, and how the hosts rely on stereotypical images to defend and protect, as well as to discriminate. Tourism studies such as Abbink’s and Evans-Pritchard’s are few and far in between, which perhaps reflects a certain bias in tourism research in general.

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Culturally [the Langtang National Park] is mixed including the Tamang, Sherpas and Brahmani people and is steeped in folklore, myths and superstitions. —www.visitnepal.com

The ‘pristine’ and ‘other-worldly’ condition that many trekkers seek to find in Langtang National Park is not only portrayed pre-eminently in tourist brochures and websites; it is, in a sense, suggested by the actual travel itself. Although the National Park lies in relatively close proximity to the capital Kathmandu, trekkers initially have to travel over difficult terrain before reaching the Park’s main entrance at Dhunche, and further on to the small town of Syabru Bengsi where the trek usually starts. There are a few ways to get to the Langtang Valley. One is to fly by helicopter from Kathmandu to a place called Ghoratabela, which is about a two-hour walk from Langtang Village. This option involves the least hassle and physical effort, and enables the visitor to get right into the mountains in about 20 minutes after the helicopter has taken off from the airport. Needless to say, it is also the most costly way to travel, about U.S.$1,000 to charter a helicopter, and the service is most frequently utilised by Japanese tour groups. For individual travellers, the most common mode of transport is the local bus, which is relatively inexpensive (U.S.$2) for the 120km ride but entails the greatest ‘hardship’. To ensure a seat, one has to either buy the ticket a day prior to travelling, or arrive about an hour before the bus departs at around 7a.m. The buses are usually crowded with people loaded with luggage on the way back to Trisuli, Dhunche or Langtang. It is on the bus where the tourist will encounter for the first time the people of the Langtang region, who are distinguished by the languages they use (usually Tamang or Tibetan dialects), and the women stand out prominently in their Tibetan-style clothing. Another way to reach Langtang National Park is to charter a jeep or minibus from Kathmandu, an option quite popular with European groups and individuals. At the cost of roughly U.S.$130 per vehicle, one could get to Syabru Bengsi in about eight hours, depending on the conditions of the road. All tourists heave a sigh of relief when they reach Syabru Bengsi, for in the opinion of many tourists and guides I have talked to, it is the ‘worst bus ride in the world’. The conditions from Dhunche to Syabru Bengsi constitute the most hazardous feature of the journey, with the vehicle travelling the narrow dirt road that is perched precariously along sheer cliffs constantly facing the danger of being swept away by an avalanche of rocks and earth. At one particular stretch, the vehicle

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has to make numerous hair-raising sharp turns such that any problems with the braking system could mean a steep drop into the valley far below. I had thought the Langtang people were used to the demanding travelling conditions, and with time sufficiently accustomed to the tension of the hazards of the journey. In fact all the locals I talked to immensely disliked the experience, even though some of them had to travel frequently to Dhunche, Trisuli or Kathmandu. Foreigners were only too happy to reach the destination without any mishap, and generally did not look forward to the return journey. Some even thought I was ‘brave’ to have endured the trip so many times. An American tourist made the remark that Syabru Bengsi was ‘like a border town’. The statement is true in the literal sense, as the border with Tibet is just a long day’s walk away. However, it also refers to an environment of ‘unplanned’ development and haphazardness that characterises many a border town: Tibetans from across the border pass through southwards for business and pilgrimage to the many sacred Buddhist sites in Nepal; there are South Indians working in the Hydroelectric Project, marked out by their darker skin tone and the language they speak; Hindu Nepalese from the central hills, many of whom are owners of grocery shops, travel frequently to Trisuli and Kathmandu to procure supplies; villagers from the surrounding areas come to Syabru Bengsi to buy supplies, meet friends and relatives, or to catch the early morning bus to the capital. And, of course, tourists arrive by the jeep-load with their trekking guides and porters, pitch their tents in the camping grounds and then wander around the town, with expensive cameras ever ready for action. After staying a night at Syabru Bengsi, tourists embark early the next morning on the journey for which they have come: the trek up the Langtang Valley. The main path hugs the southern bank of roaring Langtang Khola, and begins to climb almost immediately upon leaving the village. Vegetation at this altitude is lush and green for most of the year, with bamboos, lichens, moss, fern and orchids intermixing with the ‘giants’ such as oaks, maples and firs. Along the way are strategically located hotels and teahouses, and most trekkers stay the first night at a place called Lama Hotel where several lodges operate, and from where they continue their journey the next day. A major stop on the second day is usually at a place called Thangshyab. Many tourists stop here for lunch; some stay for the night but most continue their journey after a brief rest. Often it is at Thangshyab that tourists encounter for the first time Langtang hotel owners or their employees soliciting custom.

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During the tourist season, the Langtangpa leave their village in the late morning to reach Thangshyap at around mid-day, coinciding with the trekkers’ arrival. The Langtangpa go the hotels run by their relatives or close friends, wait in the kitchen for the tourists to finish their meals, and some even chat with them. Whenever possible, the Thangshyap hotel owners in turn recommend their relatives’ hotels in Langtang Village. Some Langtang families own a chain of hotels stretching from Lama Hotel all the way to Kyangjin; therefore, the tourists are sometimes unwittingly shepherded from one hotel to another, all of which are run by members of the same family. This is usually done with the cooperation of the trekking guides. Hotel owners go out of their way to establish good relationships with the guides, since they usually decide where their clients will stay. During the period of my fieldwork, competition among the hotel owners for business became more intense, primarily due to two factors. First, the Langtangpa see tourism as a means to a better life, with the wealthier and more able of them building hotels for tourists, in response to the increasing popularity of the Langtang trek over the years. This has resulted in the proliferation of hotels in the vicinity. A second factor that intensified competition was the drastic drop in the number of tourist arrivals between 2001 and 2002, as a result of both national and global events. The year 2001 was not kind to Nepal. In early June, there was the ‘Royal Massacre’ in which a supposedly demented Crown Prince Dipendra shot dead most of his immediate family, including the King and Queen, over the controversy regarding a suitable bride for him. Then came 11 September, when planes hijacked by terrorists were flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. That event dealt a blow to tourism worldwide, as people became apprehensive about flying with commercial airlines. And if that were not bad enough, following closely behind was the tense stand-off between India and Pakistan, which at one point seemed to threaten a nuclear confrontation. Then there was the war in Afghanistan. The whole of South Asia ran the risk of being engulfed in conflicts. Before this sequence of unfortunate events, the Langtangpa had eagerly awaited the arrival of the tourist season in September. But September 2001 saw tourist arrivals at Langtang drop to a trickle. The last straw was the declaration of a state of emergency by the Nepalese government on 26 November, following the escalation of violence wrought by the Maoist insurgency in the country. According to the figures from the Nepal Tourism Board, the number of tourist

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arrivals by air in 2001 decreased by around 21% compared to the previous year (Dhakal 2002). The following year witnessed a further dip of 28% (nepalnews.com, 2 January), the equivalent to a fall of almost 50% in tourist arrivals in just over two years. Hence, the optimistic promises of tourism in previous years fell short as a result of a series of unfortunate national and global crises. I was told that previously in a typically good season, 150–200 tourists would pass through the village on a single day, many of whom would stay for at least a night in Langtang Village to acclimatise. My own research at the army check-post, where all tourists have to sign in, confirmed the numbers. However, in September–November 2001, the average number of arrivals per day was around 25, and in the spring season of 2002, the number increased slightly to around 40. That still fell far short of the numbers the Langtangpa had been accustomed to, and certainly not what the hotel owners had been hoping for. Given that there were 16 hotels in Langtang Village at that time, such an arrival rate was definitely not encouraging for businesses. It has to be borne in mind that many trekkers come in what the locals call ‘trekking groups’, which are organised by travel agencies in Kathmandu, and tend to rough it out by sleeping in their own tents and cooking their own meals. They usually buy their supplies at Kathmandu or Syabru Bengsi, where the prices are comparatively lower. The few hotels that also own camping grounds can profit from these trekking groups by charging a fee for the use of their compound and toilet facilities. The majority of hotels in Langtang, however, depend on ‘independent’ trekkers who stay at their establishments. My landlord, who himself has a modest lodge, said that formerly he could earn Rs. 100,000–150,000 in a single season. With the drastic fall in the number of trekkers arriving at Langtang Village, lodge owners are compelled to devise schemes to give them the edge over their competitors. One such way is for a hotel owner to send someone down to Thangshyap or further away, to tout for business from trekkers approaching the village. For the large hotels, this is usually one of the cooks or kitchen helpers who can speak some English. For the smaller establishments, either the hotel owner or the spouse personally goes to meet the tourists. This means that the exhausted trekkers, on the last stretch before reaching the village, encounter Langtang people trying to persuade them to stay at their hotels, often offering huge discounts on the menu; many even waive the room charge. Tourists I talked to generally disliked being pestered by the hotel representatives, but would usually not show their

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displeasure overtly. One common tactic for the hotel representatives is to initiate conversation with the potential clients. If the offer of a discount does not persuade the trekker, the hotel representative turns his attentions to the trekking guides. During my stay in Langtang, the competition was so intense that, in addition to the discounts offered to the tourists, hotels were offering free food and drinks to the guides and porters. Then, to the chagrin of others, three hotels started paying the guides to bring trekkers to their establishments. It had begun with a ‘commission’ of Rs. 100; in the subsequent season, many trekking guides, taking advantage of the situation, were asking for a commission of Rs. 1,000 for every large group of trekkers they brought to the lodge. The tourists, of course, were largely unaware of these back-stage negotiations. Many independent trekkers asked for huge discounts off the prices of the food menu and tried to get the rooms for free as well. Unbeknown to them, many hotels have two different sets of menu, one with higher prices than the other. If the trekking guides or the tourists ask for huge discounts, they are given the higher-priced menu. So the first significant encounter of many tourists with Langtang villagers often involves intense bargaining over the prices of food and accommodation. Commentators on tourism in Nepal and elsewhere have often noted the asymmetrical relationship between hosts and guests: the latter usually much more economically well off than the former, hence frequently able to influence, to a large degree, the terms of interaction between the two. As the number of tourists dipped, with a corresponding oversupply of hotels in Langtang, the trekkers and their guides arriving at the village were in a strong bargaining position. Even before the tourism downturn in 2001, many Nepalese saw the tourists possessing a level of wealth they would find difficult to earn in a lifetime. When tourism was suffering a decline at the time of my fieldwork, the wealth and power differentials between the Nepalese and the tourists were attenuated even further. This translated into stronger bargaining power of the trekkers on the one hand, and a corresponding drop in profit margins for Langtang hotel owners, on the other. But as profit margins fell, hotel owners had to devise schemes to attract tourists to their establishment, some of which have been discussed above. Apart from the obvious adverse economic impact brought about by the slump in tourism, one could detect in Langtang a cognitive impact as well. On the side of the tourists, the intense touting by hotel representatives gave them the impression that the Langtangpa were overly concerned with pecuniary matters. For example, one irate Israeli commented:

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chapter six I have come here to look for some peace, to enjoy the mountains and the local culture . . . but what did I get? People asking me to go to their hotels even when I was a few hours away! Two of them actually followed all the way from Ghoratabela [about two hours’ walk from Langtang], each trying to offer a better deal than the other. People here are only concerned about business, just like the other places.

A German couple were furious when they arrived one afternoon in Langtang Village to find the rotation system in place. When they were notified that they could not stay at the hotel of their choice, as that day was not its turn to receive guests, and that they had to stay at another, smaller hotel with fewer amenities, they promised they would tell their friends back home not to visit Langtang, commenting that ‘it is going down the drain’. Together with the incident of the Italian tourist mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, we see that many tourists have certain preconceptions about Langtang and its people, and being concerned with making money is not one of them. These are examples of tourists’ explicit expression of displeasure regarding the situation in the village. But even those who had expressed positive views betrayed the same preconceptions. One Italian tourist stayed at one of the three hotels in the ‘old’ part of the village, deliberately chosen in order to experience the ‘village life’. He had travelled extensively in India and Nepal, and when I asked for his impression of Langtang National Park, he replied that it was much better than Solu-Khumbu (where Mount Everest is located), because Langtang people were ‘not too business-like, unlike those in Solu-Khumbu. Here, people treat you like a person, not always trying to sell you things or do business’, he added. Another trekker, a Briton, commented: There is a fine balance between local culture and tourism here in Langtang, and the people are very nice . . . It is different in the Everest [SoluKhumbu] region, according to my friends who have been there. This is the reason I chose to come here.

A Belgian woman, who had travelled for three weeks in China before going to Nepal, lamented that the ‘Chinese would soon lose their culture, everything they have previously known’. She thought China was becoming too ‘Westernised’. For the same reason, she disliked Kathmandu, and had chosen to ‘get away’ for trekking in the Langtang region. Compared to her experience in China and Kathmandu, she had positive things to say about Langtang Village, and said that ‘at least the culture has largely remained, people very open and friendly’.

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Most trekkers stay for at least a night in Langtang Village to acclimatise. How much they see of the place and its people depends on the time they arrive and their physical condition. There are a few options for trekkers wanting to see more of the place. A particularly popular attraction is the local temple situated prominently at the top of a slope on the side of Langtang Village that clings to the northern massif of the Langtang Valley. The temple itself is shut most of the time, so visitors usually take a short walk in the surrounding area that includes a collection of houses. Another option is to take a ‘village walk’ (cf. Guneratne 2001). When the intrepid British explorer Tilman first visited Langtang Village in June 1949, as part of an expedition to explore and map the Himalayas, he noted that there were around ‘30 families rich in cows, yaks and sheep’ (Tilman 1952:35). Since he was more interested in the mountains than local architecture, apart from some descriptions of the temple, Tilman has not left us with a picture of what people’s houses were like 50 years ago. Since, according to the Langtangpa, most of the houses in the old part of the village date from the turn of the 20th century, we can safely assume they have not changed much since Tilman’s time. While these modest houses did not warrant Tilman’s attention in 1949, nowadays they form an essential part of the tourist’s experience of Langtang Village’s authenticity. There is one house near the village centre, in particular, which seldom fails to attract the tourists’ attention. It is one of the oldest-looking buildings in the village, with the upper storey tilting precariously to the front, seemingly about to topple onto a perennially present heap of hay in front of the house. Tourists passing through the village often stop to ‘admire’ it and take photographs, to the bemusement of the villagers. Tucker notes that in the Turkish village of Göreme, ‘tourists seek to photograph the “authentic”, and preferably no signs of modernity should be present’ (1997:119). Photography in cases such as these could be seen as a tool that captures the evidence purporting to show the ‘primitiveness’ of the local people, occupying and living within a time frame different from the ‘modern’ one inhabited by the tourists. Since most tourists stay in the newer part of the village, where most of the hotels are located, the walk takes them into the heart of the village proper, travelling along the only main path of the village, passing clusters of houses built close to one another. Most tourists do not enter the houses, and only appraise their external architecture. I spent some

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Figure 6.1: Village attraction—Women doing their chores

time observing the tourists, trying to determine the things in Langtang that interested them. Local women busy doing their chores was one of the main attractions. One afternoon I was sitting on the steps of a particular house adjacent to the main footpath, and just below and to the left of me squatted Tshering in the courtyard, bathing her baby boy in a large basin. In the time Tshering took to bath her child, most of the tourists who happened to pass by stopped to look; many took out their cameras, some with telephoto lens, and started photographing the scene—not of me sitting on the steps, but of the mother bathing the child.5 A couple of tourists even posed with the mother and her baby. Later when I asked Tshering if she found the tourists intrusive, she replied it was fine with her. Indeed, many Langtangpa relish the opportunity of being photographed, often requesting the tourists to send the photos to them later. Interaction between the tourists and the villagers is understandably limited. Langtang children like to ‘talk’ to the tourists, the conversa-

However, on two other occasions, I myself became the focus of attention when some tourists learned I was an anthropologist conducting research in Langtang. Somehow that made me an exotic spectacle and the tourists took pictures of me lounging. 5

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tion consisting mainly of, ‘Namaste,6 pen? Chocolate? Bakshish, money?’ Frequently tourists oblige by giving sweets, chocolate, stationery, or occasionally money, and this in turn encourages the children to continue the practice. During the trekking season, some sit by the main path of the village and make their request to tourists passing by. Some tourist groups, in addition to sightseeing and trekking, come to Langtang on an environmental mission: during their trek, group members pick up non-recyclable rubbish, e.g. empty plastic bottles, and post signs in lodges and teahouses along the way exhorting people to take care of the environment. As recounted in detail above, when the trekkers approach Langtang Village, their first encounter with the locals is likely to be of some hotel representatives soliciting their custom, negotiating prices for food and accommodation. After they have settled in, the tourists are served by the hotel owners and their helpers. Some tourists take the initiative to enquire about the village, especially after dinner when everyone is sitting around the stove for warmth. The dining room is the prime socialising space (see previous chapter), where the day’s experiences are talked over, where gossip and views on Nepal and Langtang Village are exchanged, the general convivial atmosphere helped to a considerable extent by after-dinner drinks. It is customary for either the owner or the helpers and cooks to join in a session of tête-à-tête with the tourists, especially if the lodge is of a modest scale. The content of interaction can range from a perfunctory exchange of pleasantries to a more in-depth discussion of Nepalese and global affairs. It is also at this time that some tourists might enquire about local matters. It must be pointed out that such sessions are important for the hotel owners and other locals, for it is through these interactions that potentially beneficial relationships with the tourists are cultivated. It is nothing more and nothing less than the concept of ‘networking’ in business parlance, similar to the cultivation of the sponsor relationship documented in the case of the Sherpa of Solu-Khumbu. For example, Adams has noted that there is a tendency for the many Sherpas to view their relationships with Westerners from ‘homogenising perspectives’: that of a ‘sponsorship

6 As Tibetan is the Langtangpa’s mother tongue, they use the phrase ‘khamsung bu (Are you well)?’ for greetings among themselves, but will normally use the Nepali term ‘namaste’ (‘hello’, ‘greetings’) for tourists, because most travellers to Nepal would know what namaste means.

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relationship [that] creates a virtual Westerner who could be a sponsor’ (1996:12). According to Adams, this is the outcome of a specific history of encounters between the Sherpas and the Westerners, in which the former have acted as high-altitude porters and guides in the foreign-run mountaineering expeditions and treks in Nepal since the beginning of the 20th century. In Langtang, what villagers most want tourists to ‘sponsor’ is the education of their children. The Langtangpa place a premium on this, with the hope that with the necessary academic qualifications, the next generation will be able to get ‘office jobs’. Although the introduction of tourism two decades ago has brought about a general improvement in the standard of living for many Langtang people, they also realise that the tourism industry can be unreliable, and income from it unstable. Over the years, competition has increased markedly with the proliferation of hotels in the Langtang Valley. The recent downturn in tourism has brought home the fact that it cannot be taken for granted. Gyatso, who owns two hotels in Langtang Village, has this to say: You know, many people [i.e. fellow villagers] see us with hotels and think we are rich, but we have many problems (‘dherai samasyā cha’), they don’t know. We have to pay money back [repayment of loans for building the lodge], buy things and food for the hotel; if tourists don’t come, we are finished (‘khatam bhoyo’). I want my children to have good education, so they could get office job, so they don’t have to worry about money, and life is also easier if you have office job, you don’t have to carry heavy things and walk a lot. And every month you get paid.

So whenever the opportunity arises—either during the post-dinner têteà-tête session with the tourists or when acting as guides and porters—if they are asked about their personal problems, the Langtangpa are likely to bring up the topic of their children’s education. They harbour the hope that the tourists will agree to sponsor their children’s education in the private boarding schools in either the district centre of Dhunche or in Kathmandu. At the time of fieldwork, of the entire village, there were 49 people who had once been, or were currently being, sponsored by foreigners for their education, ranging from primary to tertiary level. It is not surprising that foreigners are often courted as potential sponsors. Whether they are just passing through as tourists or arrive as development/aid workers, most of them are immensely wealthier than most Langtang villagers. For the Langtangpa, as well as for many Nepalese, ‘foreigners’ (N. videśī ) are cognitively linked to ‘development’,

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aid and ‘projects’7 (see Chapter 3 for a discussion on development in Nepal). In Langtang, the idea that foreigners mean potential sponsors for village welfare projects probably originated from the 1960s, when the first cheese factory in the region was opened as a result of Swiss financial and technical assistance. The most important project in Langtang since the late 1980s has been the Japanese Langtang Plan, which has provided for the development of a hydroelectric plant and cheese factory in the village. There was also the Langtang Ecotourism Project mentioned in the last chapter, a collaborative project between the Mountain Institute (a U.S.-based international N.G.O.) and the Nepalese Department of National Parks. There have also been several other foreign-sponsored projects on a smaller scale, such as a tree-planting project organised by the Japanese, and an ongoing project involving American missionary doctors and their Nepalese counterparts to provide medical consultation for a nominal fee to the villagers. Tourists are harbingers of wealth in various senses. In general, tourism has provided a boost to the local economy and created employment opportunities for the Langtangpa. As sponsors, they can also be seen as a potential source of money for children’s education. Some tourists might even provide the opportunity for the Langtangpa to go overseas, either to find work or for travel by writing recommendation letters for the purpose of visa applications. At the time of my stay, one lodge owner tried to apply for a tourist visa to go to the United States by relying upon by a letter of invitation by an American who had once stayed at his place. This Langtangpa, planning to find some work once he had reached his destination, had paid a Nepalese acquaintance a large sum of money just for arranging an interview at the U.S. embassy for his visa application. Before I left Nepal, I met him in a Tibetan restaurant in Kathmandu and was told that his application had not been successful. He vowed to try again in the near future. He was neither the first nor the only Langtangpa harbouring the desire to go overseas to find work. Before the arrival of tourism to

7 In Nepal the English word ‘project’ is often used to refer to a foreign aid project or foreign N.G.O. work. When Ramjee, the teacher from the Tarai (near the border with India) who had been sent by a British N.G.O. to Langtang Village to teach, was asked by a soldier at the National Park checkpost the reason for his stay in the village, Ramjee replied ‘project-ko lāgi [for project]’, and elicited a knowing nod and expression of respect from his interlocutor.

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Langtang, some local men had been to India to work. However, since tourists started arriving a couple of decades ago, only a few Langtangpa had gone to work in the Nepalese cities such as Kathmandu. This is different from the situation in other parts of Nepal. For example, the Khumbu region witnessed large-scale seasonal out-migration as numerous Sherpa men acted as trekking guides during the tourist seasons, with many being away from home for as long as 10 months (Fisher 1990:118). On the positive side, this outflow of young Sherpa men to work in the tourism industry has brought about a general rise in the standard of living in the Khumbu. There were, however, adverse consequences of this large-scale migration. In agriculture, for example, fields were abandoned because there was a lack of able-bodied locals to cultivate, leading to a decline in agricultural production (Ibid.:122). Watkins (1996:21) has documented the same phenomenon with the Nyeshangte in the northern central hills of Nepal. As a result of their trading tradition and heavy involvement in tourism, the Nyeshangte have a sizeable diasporic population in places such as Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, northern India, and also in Kathmandu and Pokhara in Nepal. It was usually the Nyeshangte men who travelled, and the women were left behind to tend to domestic chores and to cultivate the fields. In recent years, due to the political turmoil and economic crisis in Nepal, more and more Nepalese have left their country to seek job opportunities in places such as the United States, Japan, the Gulf States (or ‘Arab’, as the Nepalese would say), and countries in Southeast and South Asia. According to the Department of Labour estimates in 2002, there were 214,839 Nepalese working overseas, of which 99.5% were unskilled. This was the official figure of Nepalese with proper legal documents; an equal number was thought be working illegally abroad (Poudel 2002; Dhakal 2002). According to a study by David Seddon and his co-workers for the British Department for International Development (D.F.I.D.), the remittance of these migrant workers could be as high as Rs. 69 billion, which was equivalent to about 20% of Nepal’s G.D.P. (cited in Poudel 2002). Langtang provides a contrasting example, bucking the migration trend in Nepal as a whole. However, the situation could be about to change. Apart from the couple of examples mentioned so far in this chapter, I have also been personally asked by some Langtang men if I could help them find jobs in the country where I came from. This despite the fact that all of them were wealthy, widely respected people involved in the tourism business. With the downturn in tourism, the Langtangpa were starting to think of alternatives to tourism, the most common of which

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was, especially for young men, to look for work overseas, even if that meant working illegally. Notice that they first contemplated migrating not to the big cities in Nepal, such as Kathmandu, Pokhara or Birganj, but to foreign countries, often ignoring my advice that working illegally overseas would not normally guarantee an eventual improvement in one’s standard of living. From the various reports of returning Nepalese who had worked abroad, especially those who were on the wrong side of the law, working life abroad was extremely harsh and many of them had been disillusioned (Poudel 2002). The Foreignscapes: The Langtangpa’s Counter-gaze For Langtang villagers, foreigners in general, and tourists in particular, are both the embodiment and bringer of wealth. Many Langtangpa see tourists as potential sponsors or benefactors, with whom the cultivation of a meaningful relationship might bring the offer of patronage. I shall further illustrate this with an incident. When I first arrived at Langtang, I stayed at a hotel belonging to a man called Gyatso. Next door was another establishment operated by a man I shall call Dorje. Gyatso and Dorje were competitors not only in business, but also in politics, each supporting a different political party. Apparently they had fallen out and were not talking to each other. Dorje had four daughters, all of whom were being sponsored by foreigners for their education in private boarding schools at either Dhunche or Kathmandu. One day when I was having a chat with Dorje, he asked me if Gyatso had approached me to be a sponsor for his children’s education in boarding schools. I replied that he had not, and added that Gyatso said his children had no sponsors. Dorje treated the information with disbelief: ‘That is not possible. Nobody can afford to send his children to boarding schools by himself; he must have some sponsors.’ Later, I found out from some other sources that Gyatso did, indeed, have foreign sponsors, from the Netherlands, for his children’s education. Intimately related to the perception that tourists are the embodiment of wealth is their role as what I would term ‘travelling advertisements’. In an important sense, their very physical presence in Langtang advertises the life that they might lead back home, for their very ability to travel overseas for leisure indicates a certain level of economic wellbeing. I do not mean that what is advertised corresponds necessarily to the lived reality of the tourists, or the ways in which the tourists themselves view their own lives. The ‘advertisements’, so to speak, are

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the images that are projected through a specific history of interactions. In Langtang, one villager told me ‘tourists are like Congress people’; in the eyes of the Langtangpa, the Nepali Congress Party is considered a party of rich and powerful people. As noted in the last chapter, the richest man in the village was the leader of the Congress Party. For Langtang villagers, and I would say for most Nepalese, the primary reason for long-distance travel is not recreation, but more mundane, pressing matters relating to subsistence. I discussed in Chapter 3 the history of the Langtangpa’s involvement in trans-Himalayan trade and their travel to trading centres such as Trisuli Bazaar and Kathmandu in central Nepal to sell herbs they had collected from Langtang forests. Historically, therefore, long-distance travel entailed the hard physical toils necessary for long-term survival. Nowadays, the closest that the Langtangpa come to experience travelling as pleasure is what is known in Langtang Tibetan as ‘cham cham la’—‘to wander, to stroll’. This primarily involves taking a stroll through the village to look for one’s friends for a chitchat, or for recreational activities such as carom and card games in order to pass the time. To travel beyond the Langtang Valley usually involves work, such as procuring rice from Syabru Bengsi, a day’s walk away, or, for the hotel owners, to procure from Kathmandu supplies that are not locally available. It does not help that going to Kathmandu requires a long day of walking and another full day of an uncomfortable bus ride along roads that are treacherous in certain sections. Given the relatively high cost of living in the capital, the Langtangpa tend to avoid travelling to Kathmandu unless they have to. The Langtangpa do, however, travel to Kathmandu for non-work related purposes a couple of times a year: in the days leading up to Losar, to buy new clothes and snacks for the festivity, and when they go on pilgrimage to the various holy Buddhist sites in the capital. Even then, most spend no more than two or three nights there. Compare their situation to that of the tourists to Nepal, who can afford to travel for an extended period of time over vast distances for recreational purposes, and we can understand the Langtangpa’s conception of the tourists as wealthy, both in terms of time and finance. Almost all the locals whom I interviewed saw tourists in a very positive light, although they did have some negative things to say about tourism. (There is, of course, the likelihood that the respondents were voicing what they thought the interviewer might want to hear.) ‘Tourism’ in Langtang encapsulates a constellation of meanings: in addition to the mass arrival of foreigners, the phenomenon also refers to the gazetting

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of the whole region as a National Park, the arrival of soldiers to man the check-post, the building of an army camp next to the village, and the construction of hotels. Tourism is seen as the primary cause of deforestation, as hotels continue to rely on large quantities of firewood for both cooking and heating despite the authorities’ effort to promote kerosene use. Many Langtangpa loathe the soldiers in their vicinity as they occasionally hunt for meat the very animals they are supposed to protect from poachers. In a religious context, the Langtangpa consider the killing of animals as a sin (sdig pa), as well as a defiling act (sgrib) polluting their sacred environment. Also, increasing inequality and village conflicts due to competition and jealousy are seen as some of the negative impacts of tourism. For the Langtang people, the category of a ‘tourist’ as an individual is however at a level cognitively abstracted from tourism as an industry. Here, the formal sociology of Georg Simmel is helpful to our understanding of how the Langtangpa perceive tourists. According to Simmel, since we cannot have a complete picture of another person, we see the other as generalised, i.e. when we engage in social intercourse, we always generalise the psychological picture of the other person(s) within that intercourse: We conceive of each man . . . as being the human type which is suggested by his individuality. We think of him in terms not only of his singularity but also in terms of a general category. This category, of course, does not fully cover him, nor does he fully cover it. In order to know a man, we see him not in terms of his pure individuality, [but] by the general type under which we classify him. (Simmel 1971:10)

How the Langtangpa imagine the tourists and their societies can be gleamed from the popularity of a particular type of poster that often hangs on the walls of Langtang houses and hotels. These pictures are often titled with the names of places they purport to show. For example, the poster in Figure 6.2A above has the title ‘America’. However, upon a closer inspection, we see that some things are not right. The skyscrapers in the background are actually situated in the Singapore business district—I know because I happen to be from Singapore—while the bridge that cuts diagonally across the picture appears to be the Golden Gate Bridge which is in San Francisco. The small image of a mountain at the top centre of the poster shows Ama Dablam, a distinctive and well-known peak near Mt. Everest in Nepal’s Khumbu region. Hence, only the suspension bridge is in fact located

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A: ‘America’

B: ‘Paris’

C: ‘Singapore’ Figure 6.2: Langtangpa’s reverse gaze—Imagining a better life?

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in America. The title of the poster in Figure 6.2B is ‘Paris Tower’, correctly referring to the Eiffel Tower in the centre of the picture. But here again, something is out of place: the imposing snow-capped mountain that dominates the landscape, which most Japanese would recognise instantly as the iconic image of Mt. Fuji. In real life, there is no mountain dominating the Parisian skyline. The last poster (Figure 6.2C) is supposed to show Singapore, but this Singaporean can say with confidence that it does not! What are we to make of these posters? One thing to note is that these posters are composed with the superimposition of photographic images of various places, what I would term here as foreignscapes. The use of photographic images can be interpreted as an attempt to convey a sense of authenticity, except that the discrepancies between the representations and reality are immediately evident to those who are familiar with these places, either through their own travels or exposure to the mass media. Thus, my ability to question the authenticity of these posters is based upon my experience of these places that has been afforded by my comparatively privileged background relative to most Langtangpa. Perhaps, here, the issue of verisimilitude is not as important as the message that might be encoded in these images. First, the headings of these posters almost always refer to places in the more ‘developed’ countries, from where many of the relatively wealthy travellers to Nepal originate, even though Indian nationals currently constitute the largest proportion of tourist arrivals. Next, the material objects depicted in these posters are revealing: skyscrapers, bridges, beautiful houses, aeroplanes, pleasure boats—symbols of development and a privileged lifestyle. America, Paris and Singapore are shown as places with bright lights and tall buildings, peopled by the well-attired with their expensive and luxurious cars. There are no pictures of priests in temples or churches, colourful crowds at carnivals, or 17th century cottages in the Cotswolds. Given Nepal’s current economic situation and its long, ambivalent engagement with the project of development, these representations of foreignscapes powerfully remind the Nepalese of what their country lacks; at the same time, it reveals to me what they hope to achieve. In this context, it does not matter that, in reality, no suspension bridge cuts across the Singapore harbour, or that no snow-capped mountain dominates the Parisian skyline. Place connotes values: the crucial issue here is what foreignscapes like ‘America’ or Singapore’ in these posters symbolise. To the Langtangpa, these images of wealthy foreign lands are even more vivid and convincing as they are seemingly being affirmed constantly

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by the trekkers’ personification as ‘travelling advertisements’ of their societies. Thus we can see that to the Langtangpa, these faraway foreign places as advertised by the tourists are also aestheticised landscapes. What these (mis)representations of the posters suggests to us is that verisimilitude is not as important as idealised dreams. In a study of how Nepalese in the Kathmandu Valley conceptualise tourists, Hepburn finds that for many of her respondents, ‘Tourist’ is not a person who puts aside more lasting identities in order to travel: rather, the word often means ‘white person’. A Tourist is a ‘sort’ of person, as understood within the caste idiom common in South Asia. This term can mark a range of social categories and statuses depending on context, including race, culture, class, species, or caste. (2002:611)

Tourists as ‘white persons’ might have been true in the 1960s and 1970s, when Nepal, in particular Kathmandu, was one of the key destinations on the hippie trail. These days, tourists are increasingly ‘yellow’, so to speak, as personified by the Japanese, South Koreans, and other East Asian nationals. Hence, Hepburn’s usage of ‘white person’ as the key diacritic of the term ‘tourist’ does not adequately capture contemporary usage of the term. While Hepburn correctly points out that the ‘tourist’ is usually regarded as a ‘sort’—what, following Simmel, I would here call a ‘type’—of person by the Nepalese, she has not addressed adequately the issue of how the conceptions might evolve. According to Vincanne Adams, a process of mimesis determines the images that the Sherpa and the Westerners have of each other. By the term ‘mimesis’ Adams refers to the creative process of identity construction: the Sherpa see themselves through the eyes of the Westerners and the images the latter have constructed of them. The Sherpa ‘become like that which the Other [the Westerner] desires to see them as, in a set of perceived cultural differences and similarities that make the Sherpa larger than life, more real than reality itself.’ Adams argues that the process not only compels the Sherpa to mirror the desires of the Westerners, but also to seek out their own cultural practices that would mark them out as ‘different’ (Adams 1996:16–17). In the history of contact between the two groups of people, the Sherpa have been variously described by Western mountaineers, tourists, trekkers, ethnographers or aid workers as ‘loyal, hardy, reliable, skilled, capable of superhuman physical feats, and, above all, good-natured about demanding work’ (Ibid.:43–44). The Sherpa are thought to have embraced these images of themselves and constructed an identity mirroring the desires of Westerners. The mimesis works in reverse as well: the Sherpa’s images of the Westerner

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are the creations that meet the Sherpa’s needs. According to Adams, this mirroring of desires between the Sherpa and the Westerners has resulted in the formation of a particular dominant form of relationship—that of the patron and client (Ibid.:12). The downside of Adams’ study is that it suffers from the same conceptual inadequacy as that of Hepburn’s: for them, the images formed of the Other are immutable constructs that serve as guides to social interaction, and they fail to address the crucial issue of evolving perceptions and imaginings. Therefore, since the early 20th century, the image Westerners have of the Sherpa is this—loyal, hardy, reliable, skilled, capable of superhuman physical feats, and good-natured about demanding work. Similarly, the Sherpa have to always see the Westerners as rich and as a source of patronage. For Adams’ structuralist argument to hold, this has to be the case for, according to her, the relationship between the Westerner and the Sherpa is characterised by the mimesis of the same images and desires each has of the other throughout the history of their contact. Like Hepburn, Adams’ framework does not allow for the possibility of alternative definitions and imaginings—in fact, I would argue that her method compels her to present the mimetic relationship between the Sherpa and Westerners as the only way for the Sherpa to construct their identity—contributing unwittingly to what Erik Cohen (1993) calls the ‘stereotyping of the stereotype’. One commentator has echoed the same sentiment, criticising Adams for ‘vastly [over-privileging] the effect of sahib perspectives and vastly [underestimating] the reality of a Sherpa world that bend sahib influence to Sherpa purposes’ (Ortner 1999:58). What we need is a framework that can help us to understand and explain not just the production and relative stability of categories, but also the conditions and contexts that would allow for their evolution and change. I suggest that Simmel’s idea of ‘excess characteristics’ can provide us with some illumination. According to Simmel, our inherently incomplete cognition of others means there are certain facets of them that are turned away from social interaction (or what Simmel calls ‘sociation’). For example, in the context of the classroom, the relevant facets involved on the part of a teacher includes, for example, her knowledge of the subject which she is teaching, her personality (e.g. whether she is an extrovert or introvert), and her teaching methodology. Facets that are not immediately relevant to her role of a ‘teacher’ are what constitute the ‘excess characteristics’ of the teacher. Inherent, therefore, in any social interaction is a variable degree of ‘strangeness’.

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However, the fact that a part of an individual is not turned towards sociation does not mean that it has no relation to the socially relevant part. As Simmel says, It is not simply something outside society to which society, willingly or unwillingly, submits. Rather, the fact that in certain respects individual is not an element of society constitutes the positive condition for the possibility that in other respects he is: the way in which he is sociated is determined or codetermined by the way in which he is not . . . The proposition is not invalidated by the fact that at every moment we are confronted, as it were, by relations which directly or indirectly determine the content of every moment: for the social environment does not surround all of the individual. (Simmel 1971:12–13)

For example, a teacher is not only a teacher, a tourist is not only a tourist. Therefore, ‘[t]his extrasocial nature—a man’s temperament, fate, interest, worth as a personality—give a certain nuance to the picture formed by all who meet him. It intermixes his social picture with the non-social imponderables . . .’ (Ibid.:13). Let us now look more closely at the interaction between the tourists and the Langtangpa. After planning their travels and consulting various travel guides, brochures, internet websites and newspapers, tourists often have certain preconceptions about the place and people they are visiting. I have alluded to this process through the various epigraphs quoted in this chapter. Even the journey to Langtang can contribute significantly to the shaping and reinforcing of the tourist’s preconceptions of Langtang as ‘out of this world’: the difficulty of the bus journey, the arrival at the border town of Syabru Bengsi (a transitional zone between the ‘outside’ world and a ‘hidden’ valley), the trek into the mountains and the wilderness, a land of lamas and monasteries. Just as in any social interaction where one sees the others, to varying degrees, as generalised types, so do visitors see Langtang villagers. What these preconceptions are, can be inferred from both the positive and negative opinions of the tourists towards Langtang and its people. We should note here, however, that these types are not essentialised, immutable categories, but have been formed partly through a particular history of interactions and influences—in the present context, the influence of the media on the tourists, the nature of the journey, the geography of the place, and the situation at destination; and partly through the necessary process of generalisation due to the impossibility of our having a complete knowledge of the others in social interactions. Even though types have their particular degree of stability, they can be interrogated and challenged via additional interactions that reveal

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the ‘excess characteristics’ of the other parties involved in a particular social interaction.8 The very expressions of ‘disappointment’ of some tourists point clearly to the fact that the general type with which the Langtang people were conceived had been destabilised, which in turn will likely evolve into a more nuanced image or type that these tourists will carry away with them when they leave.9 Of REVERIE and EMPLACEMENT Encompassed within the general framework of Simmel’s theory of sociation, the interaction dynamics between tourists and the Langtangpa, I would suggest, consist of a constant shifting of subjectivity along a spectrum marked by the two poles of reverie and emplacement. The condition of reverie can arise through an aestheticisation of the landscape that simultaneously results in what the cultural geographer Jonathan Smith terms the ‘displacement of the subject’, a state in which the spectator is situated in an Olympian position that affords him a sense of detachment in relation to the scenery under his gaze. In a state of reverie, the spectator becomes a voyeur who feels a partial escape from temporal flux, while at the same time attributes qualities of completion, stability and innocence to the landscape, hence lifting it out of the vicissitudes of history: Because they are able to endure . . . landscapes are believed to possess a reality surpassing that of the process by which they were created. At the same time, their endurance allows them to be cleansed of the taint of their creators, and to displace themselves from this context into the realm of private memories. (Smith 1993:81)

8 It should be pointed out that the ‘excess characteristics’ are not more ‘real ’ than the ‘types’ with which we perceive others in sociation. Our construction of types, according to Simmel, is the result of the necessary process of generalisation inherent in any particular sociation; we might get to know more about the other’s ‘excess characteristics’ through additional interactions, after which further generalisation is possible based on the additional information we have gleaned. 9 This same process can be seen, for example, in the British urban newcomers to the rural farming areas. As Newby notes: The newcomers often possess a set of stereotyped expectations of village life which place a heavy emphasis on the quality of the rural environment . . . many newcomers hold strong views on the desired social and aesthetic qualities of the English village. It must conform as closely as possible to the prevailing urban view—picturesque, ancient and unchanging . . . [this has led] many newcomers to be bitterly critical of the changes wrought by modern farming methods. (1985:167)

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In our particular case, the construction of the Langtang Valley by the media as a site of cultural tourism transforms its sheer physicality into an aestheticised spectacle fit for tourism consumption. If Smith’s analysis is pushed further to include the fact that in many instances an aestheticised landscape is also inhabited, then the lifting of the Langtang Valley out of the temporal flux under a tourist gaze has the effect of transforming its inhabitants into a timeless Other, and concealing the fractures and displacement of everyday life. Conversely, the Langtangpa’s views of foreign places consist of a series of equally aestheticised landscapes, as evident from posters of foreignscapes widely circulated in Nepal and hung on the walls of many homes and hotels in Langtang. These images are sustained by a specific history of interaction between the Langtangpa and the tourists who act as ‘travelling advertisements’ that hint at their apparently privileged lives in ‘developed’ societies. But a state of reverie only partially characterises the tourism experience for both the visitors and the hosts. Both parties are susceptible to be jolted out of this condition of detachment and indifference by situations that lead to ‘emplacement’, the re-situating of the subject ‘in a historically and existentially specific condition’ (Englund 2002:267), i.e. the subject metaphorically being brought down to earth from the Olympian heights of reverie. This subversion of the aestheticised landscape can be triggered by the introduction of ‘irony’, ‘a representational discrepancy, a symbol out of place’ (Smith 1993:86), revealing the farce of the represented pretensions constructed under the tourist gaze. The representation of Langtang as a pristine and timeless place where inhabitants are untouched by history and ossified in their cultural practices—in other words, preserved in an Age of Innocence—educates the eyes of visitors to see the Langtang Valley as a spectacle. Emplacement occurs when this representation is revealed through social intercourse for its farcical nature: when Langtang men are not dressed in the traditional Tibetan chuba, when hotel owners seek to maximise profits, when Langtang women harass trekkers along the trails to entice them to their establishments, when villagers hope to find work abroad, when loyalists of opposing political parties come to blows with each other during the Drukpa Che Zhi festival. In other words, emplacement results when the crucial element of difference that is inherent in the construction of the tourist gaze is replaced by convergence, an awareness that the spectator and the spectacle are both entrenched in the vicissitudes of history, subjected to the cares and pressures of everyday living.

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Conclusion I started this chapter by noting Urry’s conception of the ‘gaze’ as one of the key tourism practices, and what the tourists essentially gaze upon are scenes that are different from those encountered in their everyday life back home. The construction of such differences involves the production and circulation of images and perceptions related to the history of interactions between the tourists and the hosts, the workings of the mass media, and the consumer culture of modern capitalism. Factors such as geography and the experience of travel are intimately implicated in reinforcing the perception of differences: the difficult bus journey to Syabru Bengsi can, therefore, be seen to symbolise the arduous journey one undertakes to get from a ‘normal’ state of existence to that of an ‘other-worldly’ one in Langtang as promised by the travel guides and brochures. To the Langtangpa, the Langtang Valley is a sacred geography filled with religious signs such as footprints and handprints of various deities and holy men claiming the valley for Buddhism, and this particular local conception of the land as sacred overlaps to a considerable extent with what many tourists seek to experience when they travel to the area. However, as I have shown, the generalised images the tourists have of Langtang and its people does not fully reflect the reality, and some of these images have been transformed as the Langtangpa were discovered to be as concerned about business and other pecuniary matters as people everywhere else. The discovery of these ‘excess characteristics’ has the effect of jolting the tourists out of a state of reverie in their relation to the Langtang landscape and its inhabitants. Equally important to the investigation of the tourist-host relationship is that of the gaze of the hosts. The Langtangpa, like many Nepalese elsewhere, see the tourists as belonging to a general type that is often characterised by wealth and the willingness to ‘sponsor’ projects and children’s education. Therefore, it seems that both the Langtangpa and the tourists view each other in structural terms. Due to a specific history of foreign presence in Nepal, mainly relating to international aid, developmental projects and tourism, the Langtangpa tend to view the tourists as embodiments of wealth. However, there is one crucial difference between the tourists and the Langtangpa in this process of mutual imagination. The tourists are able to question the images they hold of the Langtangpa when they observe the latter in their day-to-day living environment, but the Langtangpa

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cannot: most of them are unlikely to go abroad and, hence, do not have the opportunity to observe the tourists on their homeground. In other words, it is more likely that the tourists will apprehend the ‘excess characteristics’ of the Langtangpa than the latter of them, and are more likely to be brought down to earth from a state of reverie. This means the romanticisation of the Other can be more pronounced and stable on the part of the Langtangpa than on the part of the tourists. For example, contrary to their romantic preconceptions, some tourists realise that Langtang people are just as concerned with seeking profits as business people elsewhere, and would resort to various measures to achieve them, such as charging for a mug of hot water. Or that the Langtangpa do not conform to the image of a tradition-bound, innocent and harmonious people, as portrayed by tourist brochures, and whom the trekkers initially seek out and experience in their visit. On the part of the Langtangpa, the facet they usually see of the foreigners is that of a ‘Tourist’: someone with almost unimaginable wealth who is able to travel for leisure for a prolonged period of time, many complete with guides and porters. The perceived superiority of the tourists is thus sustained by the geography of power: the Langtangpa have tremendous difficulty in transcending their romanticised foreignscapes to see the mundane, gritty and unappealing mechanisms of daily life in these foreign lands. The tourists’ spatial privacy, therefore, supports the pretensions of their privileged lives, while the grim reality of Langtang Village lies very much exposed to the tourist gaze. .

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MORALITY OF WELL-BEING It was the morning of Zha Nga, the last of the traditional 15-day Losar (New Year) celebration. For the first time in four days, I was able to sit in the courtyard to soak up the magnificent sunshine of early spring. Over the past few days, Langtang had been buffeted by a rather severe snowstorm, forcing villagers to stay indoors most of the time, huddling around the kitchen hearths for warmth and drinking countless cups of butter tea. The storm was brutal even by the standards of Langtang, whose reputation as a ‘very cold place’ had been constantly made known to me by kindly outsiders living further down the valley. The unrelenting snow and wind had inconvenienced villagers in their preparation for the big celebration that was to be held that night, when most villagers were expected to congregate at Hotel Snow View for food, drinks, songs and dance. Nima, my landlady, was one of those responsible for preparing the communal meal, and the bad weather of the past few days had significantly drained her seemingly boundless energy as she scuttled to and from various houses, making sure there would be enough alcohol to last the whole night, discussing the allocation of cooking tasks, procuring some of the ingredients and foodstuff needed for the important feast. So on this clear, sunny morning, it was not just me who relished the change in the weather. Having a much-needed break before the hectic night ahead, Dawa joined me in the courtyard and, together with Pasang the postman, we engaged in one of the villagers’ favourite past-times: gossip. Naturally, our banter soon turned to the severe weather of the past few days. For me, the snow, cold and wind had been a further confirmation of Langtang’s reputation for harsh winters. But for the Langtangpa, as was soon to be revealed to me, the matter was not so simple: percolating rapidly through the village was the view that the real reason behind the snowstorm was one particular adulterous woman in the village. The woman in question, whom I shall call Mingma, had had an affair with a Sherpa trekking guide, and was pregnant with his child. Affairs between local women and Sherpa trekking guides are not unheard of. The problem with the present case was that Mingma was

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already married and a mother of four children. While sexual relations between unmarried adults are generally accepted in Langtang, villagers do not look kindly on unfaithful spouses, more so if the affair results in pregnancy. DIPPA (SGRIB PA): Explaining Misfortune in Langtang Both Nima and Pasang were adamant that the scandalous affair between Mingma and the Sherpa guide was the real cause of the severe weather. The whole incident had resulted in tensions and antagonisms between the various parties involved. Cuckolded, Mingma’s husband was understandably furious and was contemplating divorce, but at the same time he was worried about the effects such an act would have on the children. Mingma herself was thrown into uncertainty, undecided if she should leave her husband for the Sherpa. The latter, on his part, had not made his intentions known, for he was living alternately in Kathmandu and Solu-Khumbu, and only came to Langtang during the trekking seasons. The disruptions of previously cordial social relations meanwhile had extended to the relationships between various kindred and close friends, as each took sides either with Mingma or

Figure 7.1: Langtang after a snowstorm

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her husband. To many Langtang villagers, the freak snowstorm we had experienced over the past few days was the direct result of this sudden deterioration in social relations. Langtang people do not look kindly upon an illegitimate child, or ne gün, for, any pregnancy out of wedlock is considered dippa (sgrib pa). The term literally means ‘shadow’ or ‘stain’, and can be translated roughly as ‘pollution’, ‘defilement’ or ‘contamination’. To illustrate further the concept of dip and the imperative of its avoidance to material welfare and social harmony, Pasang mentioned an incident that had occurred in the 1990s involving an unmarried couple and a helicopter accident. At that time, there were two teachers in the village schools, both outsiders: the man and woman were from the Dhading and Gorkha districts, respectively. During their teaching stint in Langtang, the couple had had an affair that resulted in the woman getting pregnant. One day, as a helicopter was landing in Langtang to fetch some tourists, an avalanche unleashed a large amount of snow towards the village, some of which fell onto the aircraft. Not long after taking off from Langtang for the return journey to Kathmandu, the helicopter crashed near a place called Lama Hotel further down the valley, killing the six people onboard. Villagers attributed the tragedy to the dip generated by the illicit affair of the teacher couple, and the village headman of that time was pressured by the villagers to ask the couple to conduct a special ritual, called dip sang (sgrib bsangs)1 to cleanse the defilement. In the eyes of the villagers, a Langtang couple’s registration of their union with state authorities is not sufficient for their union to be recognised locally. According to local custom, a child is considered ne gün if his or her parents have not gone through a specific marriage ceremony called tendel, a sanctifying ritual conducted by the village priests that bestows blessings on the union. If the unmarried couple has one or more children, the purifying ritual of dip sang has to be conducted for each of the children; otherwise, the villagers believe, ‘the gods would be unhappy’, resulting in natural disasters, bad harvests, and personal and communal misfortunes. Dip sang is discontinued only after the couple have gone through the tendel ceremony.

1 The word bsangs is derived from sang, which means to purify. The ritual sgrib bsangs purifies not only the sponsor (sbyin dag) of the ritual, thereby fortifying him against any attack by harmful forces, but also purifies the deities addressed and ‘obtains from them the condition of purity’ (Tucci 1988:201). See Chapter 4 for detailed discussion of bsangs.

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The concepts of dip and illegitimacy also determine the criteria regarding a particular type of untouchability, or khame (kha med ). If the offspring of an illegitimate child again were to have a child without having conducted tendel, this child would move further down the purity grade. If the same were to happen again after the third generation, the subsequent offspring would be considered khame, people with whom other villagers would avoid sharing utensils and cups; hence the term referring to them, which literally means ‘not of the same mouth’. In short, it would take three successive generations of illegitimate unions within a lineage to qualify one as khame. If someone were to marry a khame, he or she would become a khame as well. In Langtang at the time of my fieldwork, there were about 11 khame households. The proscriptions regarding interaction with the khame are not as serious and rigid as in some Hindu cases, where in extreme cases even close physical proximity with an untouchable could result in one being polluted, hence requiring the permanent separation of residences between the ‘purer’ castes from the defiled, polluting ones. In Langtang, on the other hand, there does not appear to be a practice of segregating the residences. Under most circumstances, khame interact freely with other villagers. One of the most significant behavioural restrictions is the prohibition against sharing utensils and cups with other villagers. The practice of drinking from the same cup is significant in that it expresses notions of solidarity and community, e.g. when a cup of chang is passed around during particular rituals for those present to take a sip from. The significance of this practice with regard to inclusion is analogous to the Christian communion of drinking wine from the same cup. In Langtang custom, equals may drink from the same cup. While the notion of khame does not pertain to physical segregation by residence, the sanction against sharing the same cup symbolically casts the defiled, polluting persons outside of Langtang sociality, underlying the villagers’ anxiety concerning the negative effects of dip. As pointed out, khame and ordinary villagers interact extensively in day-to-day life: on important occasions such as weddings and other celebrations, khame are often invited. There is no prohibition against entering the temple either. The villagers often hire khame for manual work, e.g. cutting firewood, constructing houses and making metal tools. As is the custom in Langtang, in addition to cash payment for work, the employer has to provide meals and drinks, often chang, to the workers. The utensils provided for the khame workers have to be thoroughly cleaned before they are used by others. The wealthier

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households tend to give the utensils to the khame workers when the job is completed. Because of the contagious nature of dip, on certain occasions khame are prohibited from entering non-khame households, such as when a woman is pregnant or if a person in the household is sick. The Langtangpa believe that dip can be passed onto the unborn baby, and the store of luck, or yang, of the child will be severely diminished. Dip is also thought to aggravate the already weak constitution of a sick person, thus impeding recovery, if not positively contributing to further illnesses. Here, then, we are dealing with the effects of defilement on the general well-being of an individual. The psychophysical well-being of an individual is believed by the Langtangpa to depend on retaining within the person, and maintaining a fine balance of, the five ‘elements’ of life-force (rlung ’brel ), soul (bla ’brel ), body (lus ’brel ), power or strength (dbang ’brel ), and vital spirit (srog ’brel ). Dip is considered dangerous as it threatens to disrupt the delicate balance by depleting one or more of these five elements that make up an individual. For example, illnesses diagnosed by either the lama or the bonpo (shaman) as being caused by dip could deplete one’s store of ‘vital spirit’, which can lead to lethargy and laziness. The condition of an already sick person—if he or she were to acquire dip from the presence of a khame, for example—would deteriorate even further, depleting the person’s strength, and, if no restitutive measures are taken, might eventually lead to death, where one’s vital spirit is completely destroyed and the soul leaves the body. The concept of dip applies not only to the human world, but to the realm of non-human beings as well.2 Inhabiting the Langtang ‘country’ ( yul ) are numerous gods and spirits, both named and unnamed, sharing the same environment with the human inhabitants. These non-human beings can be divided into three general categories of lha (gods), lu (klu, serpent/water spirits) and tsen (btsan, fierce warrior deities, spirit residues of kings and heroes of the past). A collective term for these beings is ‘Lhalu Shiptak’ (lha klu gzhi bdag, ‘deities of the region’), and can be conceptualised in a way by their degrees of separation from the immediate affairs of the human world, and (hence by extension)

A note of caution here: for most Langtangpa, the various deities and spirits (benign or otherwise) are as much part of ‘nature’ as human beings and other living creatures. It might therefore be misleading to use the term ‘supernatural’ here to describe the non-human realm. 2

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by their relative insulation from defilement by human activities.3 The Langtangpa believe that these three classes of beings reside in realms corresponding to the general tripartite cosmological division of heavenly spaces (lha yul, with its five directions of north, south, east, west and centre), the human world (mi yul ), and a hell (dmyal ba). Inhabiting the heavenly abode and worthy of the highest honours are the lha, who are deemed relatively remote, stable and, on most occasions, benign. If not propitiated properly, however, they can create various hindrances (bar chad ) to a person pursuing their goals. The most important lha of a particular locality often takes the physically impressive form of a significant mountain, manifesting itself as the yul lha, or ‘god of the realm’. In Langtang, the yul lha is the mountain Langtang Lirung, the highest mountain in the region that overlooks Langtang Village, often likened by the Langtangpa to a parent watching over his or her children. Therefore, it is not surprising that Langtang Lirung is considered a ‘family god’, the ri lha (rigs lha) or pho lha for all Langtang villagers regardless of their clans and lineages, thus serving as a principle of unity for the Langtangpa. When viewed this way, Langtang Village can be conceptualised as a corporate group, like a family or household: the appropriation of Langtang Lirung as ri lha contributes to the sense among villagers that all of them belong to one family.4 One of the first rituals the head of a household has to do upon the birth of a child in the family is to make offerings of incense to Langtang Lirung, acknowledging and thanking the god as the ultimate source of life in Langtang. This life-giving aspect of the yul lha is given 3 The Langtangpa’s primary religious orientation can be considered an example of ‘folk’ religion of Tibetan Buddhism that emphasises the propitiation of local deities mainly for this-worldly concerns (Tucci 1988; Samuel 1993:157–198). In societies following the Theravādin tradition, local deity-cults coexist with Buddhism. However, the conduct of their rituals is not the responsibility of the Buddhist monks, but that of a separate group of non-Buddhist priests and mediums. In contrast, for Tibetan Buddhism, as part of the Mahāyāna tradition, the ‘taming’ and propitiation of local spirits and deities constitutes an important part of the religious specialists’ repertoire. Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, is the archetypal practitioner of this ‘shamanic’ form of Buddhism (Samuel 1993:170–3). 4 The conception of the yul lha in kinship idiom can also be seen in Bhutan, where villagers often use the honorific ‘ap’—meaning ‘Father’ or ‘Mr.’—to refer to their yul lha (Pommaret 1996:43). Karmay (1994:117) has also noted the link between the worship of mountain deities and the notion of identity and social integration, arguing that the participation in the mountain cult— . . . implies total integration into [the] community; this in turn implies inherited social and political obligation, moral and individual responsibility, and an affirmation of communal and national solidarity in the face of external aggression.

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further significance by the fact that from its melted snow flows all the water that is consumed by the villagers. Because of its all-encompassing posture, the pollution of the yul lha is often discussed in contexts of a grand scale, relating to affairs that affect the Langtang region and its inhabitants as a whole. The other two categories of non-human beings, the tsen and lu, are more involved in the Langtangpa’s daily affairs, easily give way to anger, and constantly require propitiation. Their actions, either benevolent or malicious, have more immediate effects on the lives of the villagers. The warrior deities, or tsen, are usually located atop mountain passes, waterfalls, cliffs and boulders, all part of the so-called ‘intermediate realm’ of Langtangpa cosmology. Because of their fearsome character, tsen are also often appropriated by clans as their guardian deities (srung ma) to protect the kin group against enemies of all forms, human or otherwise. While villagers do not view the residence of impure persons within Langtang—such as the khame, the blacksmiths, or a widow soon after her husband’s death—as polluting the yul lha, they are seen as always posing potential threats to the purity of the clan guardian deities, who, if polluted, will bring immediate retributional attacks. In the context of psychophysical well-being as discussed above, if an impure person, such as a khame or a blacksmith, were to be allowed into a household, thus polluting and angering the guardian deity, the latter might withdraw its protection over the household members; this would make the five constituting elements of an individual vulnerable to harassment by malicious forces, resulting in illnesses and personal misfortunes. Of the three main categories of non-human beings, the subterranean lu are the most vulnerable to pollution and, hence, the most easily offended. Given the importance and extensiveness of agricultural activities in Langtang, it is not surprising that lu attacks are the most common explanations for sustained physical and mental discomfitures suffered by the villagers. Lu is a class of serpent deities, known as nāg in Nepali and nāgas in Indian languages, which, when treated with respect, bestow upon the villagers plentiful rain and bountiful harvest. Unlike the lha and tsen, who dwell mostly in high and relatively inaccessible places, lu live in close physical proximity to humans, living beneath the earth or at the bottom of streams and lakes. In Langtang, they are also believed to reside in the hearths inside all homes. For the Langtangpa, many places in the locality are known to be the dwellings of lu, such as specific sections of streams and rivers, and particular plots of land.

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Knowledge of particular lu dwellings is the result of the Langtangpa’s extensive accumulated experience in associating incidences of physical and mental ailments, on the one hand, with a history of recallable disturbances or pollution of these places by individuals, on the other. The Langtangpa’s attitude towards such places is generally circumspect, tinged with a certain degree of anxiety, and the villagers try to avoid them as far as possible. For example, one would not do the laundry in a particular section of a stream known to be a lu dwelling, or animal herds are prevented from trampling over and disturbing a specific plot of land or boulders where lu are believed to inhabit. The problem posed for the Langtangpa by the lu is that because of their ubiquity, apart from a number of known locations, one can never be sure when or where one might disturb or pollute them. When the Langtangpa split rocks and prepare the foundation for building a house, or cut trees for firewood, or relieve themselves next to a boulder, there is always a likelihood that lu might be injured or polluted. Lu’s retaliation is almost immediate, causing afflictions, most notably skin diseases, and withholding abundance. To avoid offending the subterranean lu, sang propitiation rituals need to be conducted before any building project or agricultural activity begins in Langtang. As an added line of defence against lu attacks, the cycle of household rituals includes two days of Lu Dip (klusgrib) each week, whereby offerings of incense are made in the morning at the hearth and around the exterior of the house. Commenting that modern constructions of disease focus on the ‘what’ over the ‘who’ in aetiology and pathology, Adams (1998:18) notes that ‘biomedicine conceptualises diseases in terms of objective agents which are not vested with the qualities of relational beings—the causes of diseases are things to which one has not obligation and to which one has not sense of sacred duty’. In contrast, she went on to write, many Nepali communities still evince collectivist tendencies that conceptualise disease ‘in terms of an intricate set of relationships between persons (and between persons and the supernatural beings)’. It would be a serious mistake to conclude from the preceding discussion of dip that the Langtangpa do not have basic bio-medical knowledge concerning the cause of illnesses. They know that as the weather turns cold one can fall sick if not properly wrapped up, or that eating unclean food can cause an upset stomach. During my stay in Langtang, I was repeatedly approached by villagers for medicine for conditions such as cold, fever, headache and diarrhoea. When asked why they always

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requested medicine from me and other foreigners, rather than getting them from the local health-post, I was told that ‘tourists’ medicine are better’. Therefore, the Langtangpa’s first reaction to initial symptoms of illness is to obtain a medical cure, reflecting a basic knowledge of biomedicine. It is only when symptoms persist despite the administration of medicine that the Langtangpa begin to suspect that non-human agencies might be involved: has a khame entered my kitchen, thereby offending my guardian deities? Have I relieved myself too close to a lu’s dwelling? Where did I last wash my clothes? Have I disturbed the soil in the past week? In Langtang, in other words, the explanations for physical and mental illness and disease include notions derived from both a biomedical aetiology, as well as the ideas that link well-being to moral and social order. It is often only when available medicine fails to provide an adequate cure, that the Langtangpa seek a meaning for the illness. As I have been trying to show, this interpretive and explanatory schema involves the concept of dip that weaves together sets of proscribed social practices and relations that govern the interaction patterns between villagers, the deities of the land, and the natural environment. The case involving one of my good friends in Langtang will illustrate the essential features of the diagnostic process. Rai was a cook from the Solu-Khumbu district employed by one of the hotels in Langtang. One day, after returning from a trip to Syabru Bengsi to procure supplies for his hotel, he started to feel unwell, lethargic, and had a throbbing headache. Like many Langtang people who knew me well, he came to me for some medicine. When his condition did not improve after more than a week, people began to wonder if he had offended one of the many spirits in Langtang—and I wondered if my medicine was not the reason for his prolonged suffering. The father of the hotel owner was a sort of amateur religious specialist who had great knowledge of symptoms of tsen and lu attacks, and he was consulted over the matter. After some probing, he established that Rai had leaned against a boulder while taking a rest during his trip back to Langtang, unaware that the huge piece of rock was generally known to the Langtangpa as a tsen’s dwelling place. The cause of Rai’s illness was thus diagnosed: it must have been a tsen attack after its dwelling had been disturbed and polluted. The appropriate sang ritual was then commissioned and after a couple of days, Rai’s condition did significantly improve. The Langtangpa’s penchant to interpret major events—especially cataclysmic ones—as the interventions of either a conscious power or

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a conscious will could be seen being replicated in many other societies5. To the Langtangpa, a disruption to the normal fabric of existing social relationships underpinned by particular ideologies can result in angering the spirits that inhabit the physical world, causing personal misfortunes and cataclysmic events. It is precisely such a belief system that underlies Nima and Pasang’s conviction that the freak snowstorm had been the result of a woman’s infidelity: if something goes drastically wrong, it must be someone’s fault. The Case of Diminishing Potatoes, Or, Why Good Social Relations Are Important During the latter part of my stay in Langtang, there was a palpable sense of apprehension among Langtang villagers. Not only were the tourists not arriving in the droves that they used to, but the quality of local potatoes, which constituted the Langtangpa’s staple food, had been deteriorating drastically over the past few years, seriously affecting the harvests. A decade or so ago it was possible to obtain approximately 100 baskets of potatoes per ropani of land, but these days the harvests were half of that. Given that produce from the fields for many people would last only six months in the best of times, the potato crisis was a source

5 This type of anthropomorphic explanation has a long history in anthropological thought, most notably beginning with E.B. Tylor’s discussion on animism, the belief that the world is governed by animate and conscious forces susceptible to both human manipulation and emotional influences. Some scholars have argued that this particular way of understanding the world has been partly conditioned by the geographical limits of small-scale societies, whereby daily intensive face-to-face interactions reinforce the belief that agencies, humans or non-humans, are behind each and every significant event in one’s life (Diamond 1974:144–146; Smith 1994:50; Schwartz 1973:156). Pascal Boyer has recently offered the most compelling account for the anthropomorphic interpretation of misfortune. From the insights of an impressive range of intellectual disciplines, such as evolutionary sciences, social psychology, cognitive anthropology, as well as rich ethnographic material, Boyer argues persuasively that our belief in gods and spirits is the result of our evolved cognitive and social inference systems that tend to attribute agencies to ambiguous occurrences in the environment. According to Boyer, humans as social beings have evolved inference systems that guide their intuitions about exchange and fairness with members of their community, so that when an unusual event occurs, such as a natural disaster that leads to great loss of life, humans are inclined to produce interpretations in terms of ‘someone’ acting (2001:218–223). The human tendency to describe gods and spirits as all-knowing and powerful agents also ‘makes them plausible origins of misfortune’. In Langtang, the belief in animism is also intimately linked with conceptions of social order.

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of grave anxiety for the villagers. Some started procuring new potato seeds from Syabru Bengsi, but these were expensive, and presented a viable option only for the wealthier section of the population. Some others contemplated switching crops, such as planting more buckwheat or barley instead. For many Langtangpa, this was a further indication that all was not well. Like their attitude to many other major events that befell the village, a ‘natural’ cause by itself would only be a necessary, but not sufficient, explanation. By far the most common ‘moralistic’ interpretation of the diminishing potato harvests was the deterioration of community spirit. A middle-aged farmer, Dorje, lamented: ‘Dai, when people quarrel with each other, these kind of things happen. Nowadays people don’t cooperate, they don’t make donation to the gompa, and so we don’t have Nara. That’s why the potatoes have gone bad.’ When I asked the Langtangpa about the changes in their village over the past 25 years, one of the issues always mentioned was the deterioration of social relationships. Almost within the same breath of commenting on the improvement in the standard of living brought about by tourism, respondents both young and old complained about how ‘selfish’ people had become as a result of it. According to them, there are two main reasons for this perceived breakdown of cooperative relations. First, the competition generated by the cut-throat hotel business in the area: as people’s primary attention shifted towards making money, the erstwhile spirit of cooperation was seriously undermined. Second was the divisive local politics since the early 1990s, when the multi-party democratic system was restored in Nepal. Hotels and Land Conflicts While good social relations are often seen as key to a Langtangpa’s welfare—in terms of good mental and physical health—the rise in the standard of living as a whole for the village is thought to be largely responsible for the ensuing social tensions. As the economic imperative of cooperation in a predominantly agricultural and trading society of the past gives way to the competitive ethos of the tourism business, new social tensions have emerged and old ones have taken on new forms. One of the most significant ongoing disputes as the result of recent changes concerns landownership. Under the new economic circumstances, a well-located piece of land constitutes a promising means to a better life for the Langtangpa, since starting a hotel is seen as one of the surest ways out of poverty. The two most important considerations

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for starting a hotel business are land and money. In Chapter 3, I noted that, as in many societies whose economies are based mainly upon agriculture and animal husbandry, the wealth of most Langtang households was a function of the size of the land and animal herds they owned. Those who owned large plots of arable land and sizeable herds were more likely to obtain a surplus which could then be traded, leading to earnings that would add to their existing store of wealth. In Chapter 2, I discussed the indigenous system of landownership that reflected Langtang’s ritual and political realities. Here I want to go a step further to highlight the kuriya’s advantage over the yangpa in relation to starting a hotel business, and the ongoing disputes over landownership that had engulfed the Langtangpa at the time of my fieldwork. The wealthier section of Langtang’s population comprises mainly the kuriya, and there are historical reasons for this. Their ancestors, being the first settlers in Langtang, appropriated the most productive and accessible lands. Also by virtue of being the founding clans, they had been endowed with kushing land by the temple, with the vital concomitant obligation to contribute grain and manpower to the organisation of village rituals such as Nara and Yulbi Che Chu. The latecomers, the non-kushing holders, the yangpa, were disadvantaged with regard to access to prime land: they had to be content with land of inferior quality, most of which were also a considerable distance from the main village. Thus, even before the arrival of tourists to Langtang in the mid-1970s, the Domari and the kuriya formed the upper echelon of Langtang’s economic hierarchy. The Domar clan was (and still is) the largest landowner, and the three or four so-called baru households (a traditional honorific title given to the few exceptionally wealthy households) are kushing holders. Contestations over the ownership of the kushing had arisen after a series of government land surveys was conducted in the Langtang region in preparation for the creation of the National Park in the mid-1970s. These land surveys were of tremendous consequence to the Langtangpa. I have discussed elsewhere the co-existence of two systems of land tenure in Langtang: from the perspective of the Nepalese state, Langtang people had once had inalienable customary rights over their land, and retained a large degree of autonomy. From the perspective of the Langtangpa, the ‘dual structure’ of political arrangement had effectively guaranteed the continuing existence of an indigenous system of land use that, as I have shown in earlier chapters, circumscribed local politics and structured aspects of social relations. However, when the government conducted

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the land surveys in the 1970s, it did not take into account the pattern of Langtang’s indigenous land tenure. Local distinctions between different types of land were ignored and all were collapsed into a single category to be taxed by the government under the system of state landlordism. So, for example, while previously a Langtang household would have kushing, which theoretically belonged to the temple, in addition to its private ‘ancestral land’, under the government’s policy the household would have to pay tax for all the land that it has usufruct. The result was an overlap of two systems of land tenure, thereby necessitating a kushing landowner to pay taxes twice: once to the temple in the form of materials and manpower for the organisation of various festivals, and second, a monetary payment to the government for this particular land area under cultivation. All the informants I talked to place the responsibility for this situation squarely upon the shoulders of the Domari headman at the time of land survey exercise was conducted. The villagers’ criticism pertained primarily to the headman’s failure to explain the local system of land tenure to government officials, which resulted in the subsequent confusion and conflict over kushing. Consequently, some kuriya households started to question the prevalent system whereby only the kuriya would have to organise the various festivals and rituals: since kushing has now been classified by the state as private land to be taxed, the hitherto strict obligation on kushing holders to organise such events should be dissolved, so they would not have to pay taxes twice. On the other side of the debate, the non-kuriya households were furious that the land that technically should belong to the temple was now firmly in the hands of the kuriya. Fuel was fed to the flames when some kuriya began to build new hotels on former kushing lands. The intensity of the resulting debate and conflicts over the kushing has to be understood in the context of Langtang’s recent history. Even before the arrival of tourism in Langtang, this appropriation of kushing by its titleholders as ‘private land’ would have caused immense consternation among most villagers. The chief underlying reason is land scarcity. For many villagers, scarcity of arable land in the unfavourable climate and geography of Langtang means that the amount of food obtained from agricultural produce is sufficient for, at the most, six months; the remainder has to be bought from the markets in nearby villages and towns. Hence, the addition of any arable land to an average household would have increased its level of food sufficiency while providing relief to the household’s financial burdens. Land disputes

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have recently increased in both frequency and intensity as a result of soaring demand for land for hotel construction, especially now that Langtang villagers have realised the tremendous business opportunity open to them. From the accounts presented here and in the previous chapter, we see that the benefits derived from the favourable access to prime land that earlier settlers (especially the kuriya) had enjoyed, have allowed the wealthy to utilise existing patterns of landownership to position themselves advantageously in the lucrative tourist trade. Increased demand for prime land for hotels has contributed to soaring land prices. The land at Kyangjin, a couple of hours’ walk from Langtang and belonging to it, used to be the cheapest in the valley, as Kyangjin was cold and relatively inaccessible. Before the construction boom, it was used primarily as a base from which yak herders would venture into higher summer pastures with their flocks. Now, however, real estate in Kyangjin is the most expensive in the whole National Park, around Rs. 1 lakh per ropani, according to the Langtangpa. As Kyangjin is usually the final destination for trekkers to the valley, foreign visitors stay there for at least a couple of nights to admire the mountain scenery and explore the surrounding regions. This translates into very significant earnings for the hotel owners in Kyangjin. As for Langtang itself, the prime location is around the village centre, where 1 ropani can fetch around Rs. 80,000. With land being such a highly prized commodity, it is no wonder that land disputes have become such a recurring issue, with profound social consequences. One casualty of land disputes is the Nara festival, which ceased to be organised around 10 years ago following a bitter land dispute between members of the Domar clan, who were the chief celebrants of the festival (see Chapter 2). The eldest of the four brothers who inherited the land that contributed to the organisation of Nara, eventually gave the land to his brothers as he himself was unmarried and hence lacked the manpower within his household to help him maintain the land. Meanwhile, the other three brothers were reluctant to accept the fields because of the difficulty in cultivating them, but took turns to organise the festival. However, towards the end of the 1980s, as the increase in tourism brought about a corresponding rise in Langtang villagers’ awareness of the value of fields as potential hotel and camping sites, the three brothers fought among themselves over the Nara fields. Without a satisfactory resolution, none of them was willing to organise the Nara festival. With the Domar clan divided, the kuriya were reluctant to take over the organisation of the festival. Part of the reason, as I highlighted

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previously, was that the state had classified kushing as private land subject to government taxation, as a result of which many kuriya began to question their obligation to contribute material and manpower towards the celebration of Nara. The kuriya argued that what was formerly kushing should now be considered part of their private landholding. For the non-kushing holders, i.e. the yangpa, this amounted to the kuriya appropriating, at almost no cost, highly valuable land that under local practice should belong to the temple. As one yangpa told me, ‘If they [the kuriya] don’t organise Nara, then they should give the land back to the temple, so that other people could take it over to organise Nara. If not, then it is very unfair that kuriya have got the land for free.’ There is little prospect of the kuriya giving up their kushing, and many of them have already built hotels on these lands. Money-lending When I first arrived in Langtang, I was struck by the number of hotels dotting the landscape. Because the new hotels were built away from the village centre, congregating eastwards, they are what visitors to Langtang first encounter. The hotels stand out from the landscape, some like a sore thumb, vying for attention. I was led to wonder about their building costs. In Langtang, there are primarily two ways a person can secure the money needed for building a hotel, assuming that it is to be built on land one already owns. The money obtained from the sale of possessions such as land or gold would not be sufficient to raise the Rs. 4–8 lakhs needed to build a hotel. The balance of the money, a significant proportion, had to be borrowed. Banks were ruled out as a potential source since the quality of soil in Langtang is considered so inferior that banks refuse to accept it as collateral. For wealthy families, gold could be used as collateral for loans from the bank, with interest rates of 13–17%, or valuables could be sold for cash, which is the more common option. Because the bank is not a viable option as a source for loans, the potential hotel owner is most likely to approach one or more of the local ‘big men’ for financial help. One of the biggest lenders is Pema, the richest man in the village, who had been the village headman for more than 15 years after defeating the Domari candidates in the local elections (see Chapter 5). I was initially intrigued that businessmen well established in the tourism industry would so willingly lend money to fellow villagers to start their own hotel business, often with very low

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Figure 7.2: Hotel under construction

annual interests of 2–3%. Why did they not try to monopolise the business, instead of acting in a way that created potential competitors, resulting in decreasing profit margins for them? In the course of seeking answers to these questions, as well as other matters relating to hotel construction, I became aware that business in Langtang is not solely about profit. Since selfishness is one of the most despised vices in the eyes of the Langtangpa, a magnanimous and generous person is worthy of respect and held in high regard. To avoid being criticised—at least not publicly—as mean spirited, most local ‘big men’ strive to present themselves as helpful and big-hearted, and making available loans for hotel construction can be interpreted as one of the ways to achieve higher social standing. This gesture, as we shall see presently, has political implications as well. In one of my few interviews with Pema (he was always very effusive and welcoming) about village development and the role he had played in it—given his long tenure as the village headman—Pema highlighted his efforts to encourage fellow villagers to build their own hotels. He had gone one step further by offering loans to those who needed the money to start their own businesses. On the one hand, his efforts could be interpreted as a manifestation of his concern for the overall development of the village. At the same time, granted local cultural

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sensibilities, the offering of loans to fellow villagers ensured the gratitude of a particular segment of the community, i.e. the young men of the village who were politically active with a focus on social mobility and better living standards. The example of my landlord is a good illustration of how the establishment of feelings of gratitude could be utilised to one’s political advantage. At the time of my fieldwork, when multi-party democracy had been established for about a decade, my landlord, Tenzin, supported the U.M.L. party, which was opposed to Pema’s Nepali Congress. Privately to me, Tenzin often criticised Pema’s failure to work for Langtang’s welfare when he had been the headman. When I asked Tenzin why younger men such as he had not spoken out publicly against Pema, he stressed the importance of avoiding as much as possible the effects of direct confrontation with powerful people like Pema: ‘We all live in the same village, and they are very powerful. Sometimes when you are in trouble they can help you. Pema helped me when I wanted to build my own hotel, when I didn’t have enough money. He gave me a loan of 1 lakh rupees. I have already paid him back.’ A good illustration of the soundness of maintaining at least a semblance of civility with the ‘big people’ comes from the case of a young man, whom I shall call Mingma. Mingma’s father was a Tibetan refugee who had married a local woman after escaping from his country following the Chinese occupation. Because his father was not a Nepali, Mingma had been unable to obtain the Nepali citizenship card. Despite many attempts, he failed to receive any help from the V.D.C. Chairman whose intervention was crucial for his citizenship application. The reason was this: during a major village meeting at which I was also present, Mingma had made an impassioned speech denouncing all the local ‘big men’ as corrupt and accused them of hindering Langtang’s development. A few months later, I met Mingma at Syabru Bengsi, where he had opened a shop. When I asked him why he had moved, he replied that he had found it ‘difficult to live in Langtang’. Cynics might be tempted to accuse my landlord Tenzin’s demeanour as duplicitous. But as Mingma’s case highlights, Tenzin’s disposition and actions would generally be considered in Langtang as behaviour appropriate not only to the maintenance of civility among villagers— even to those whom one despises—but also in an important, economic sense, it is seen as manifesting a degree of political astuteness that is almost always necessary for social advancement in Langtang. Another example is that of Sonam, a teacher at the local primary school, whose

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brother Kesang, as leader of U.M.L. party, was Pema’s main political opponent. Initially I had thought that Sonam supported Pema, for he was frequently seen at Pema’s hotel and seemed to be at his beck and call. In fact, ‘big men’ like Pema and Kesang seldom moved around without a small retinue of followers. So imagine my surprise when, during one of my informal chats with him, Sonam had stinging criticisms against Pema, accusing him of ‘doing nothing to the village, and used the money [received from the government for village development] to build hotels and his houses’. Sonam pointed out that funding for almost all the major projects, like the new bridge and school, had come from either the government district office or from international N.G.O.s, and he suspected that the money allocated to village development had been appropriated by Pema when he had been the village headman. Sonam then moved on to extol the virtues of his older brother, Kesang, pointing out that in his capacity as the chairperson of the National Park’s Buffer Zone Committee, he had used the National Park’s funds to help develop Langtang. At one level, the examples given above could be dismissed as malicious gossip against one’s opponents, a phenomenon common to politics everywhere. What I would like to look at further is precisely this disjuncture between behind-the-back hostility and the apparent public harmony between political rivals. In Langtang, most of the young men who aspire to be wealthy lodge owners of the future, have little choice but to maintain at least a semblance of good relations with the already established few, for one crucial reason—the financing of hotel construction. As I have discussed, starting a hotel business is considered the foremost way to achieve social mobility and a better life in Langtang. The situation has to be put in an appropriate historical context. Unlike the Gurungs, the Rais or the Magars of the central hills, whose social mobility to a considerable extent depended upon their recruitment as Gurkhas in the British army, the Langtangpa do not have this particular option. From the cessation of trans-Himalayan trade in the 1950s to the arrival of tourism in the area, the one primary source of income for the Langtangpa had been the sale of herbs to the nearby towns and Kathmandu. After the creation of the National Park, that particular source of income was terminated since park rules forbid the collection and sale of medicinal herbs, forcing the Langtangpa to increasingly rely upon tourism for their livelihood. As pointed out earlier, the initial beneficiaries of the tourism economy were mainly those from local wealthy families who had been able to utilise their resources

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to build the early lodges that catered to the needs of trekkers. Today, many of Langtang’s prominent political leaders are those who were able to take advantage of their substantial economic and social capital in the early days of tourism to start hotel businesses. After these early pioneers prospered from tourism, they carved out their own niches of political influence in the community. As Langtang’s economy became almost wholly orientated towards tourism, there was a corresponding increase in the influence of the few ‘big men’ over the village’s social and political affairs. As tourism became the primary means of social mobility, ordinary villagers who wanted to climb up the social ladder had little choice but to rely on the financial and political help of these ‘big men’, whose political authority in the village was further enhanced in the process. Maintaining good relations with these wealthy individuals is not only the concern of those who intend to start a hotel business. For the majority of the Langtangpa who do not operate hotels, or are deprived of opportunities to tap directly into the benefits of tourism, the minority of successful villagers are an important source of financial assistance in times of need. For example, as a result of the decrease in the potato yields, the Langtangpa had to spend more money on buying food from outside. To do that, many of the poor had no choice but to borrow money from the wealthy lodge owners, especially if the lender was one’s relative. The case of Ani, a woman in her late 30s whom I had got to know quite well, was typical. Ani was unmarried and lived alone in a small house in the centre of the village. To eke out a living, she sometimes cut wood for the hotels, cultivated a small plot of land for potatoes, and had a small herd of goats. For her, life was full of ‘hardship’ (dukkha): since her father’s death, she had been cultivating a piece of land that technically belonged to her brother. But as she was unmarried and lived alone, she was allowed to continue cultivating the field for food. Things had changed drastically for her over the last few years. For one thing, her brother had been thinking about getting back the piece of land to start a hotel business; for another, the potato harvests from her field had dropped significantly in recent years, forcing her to buy more of her food from outside. In the best of times, the annual harvest would have lasted for at most six months; now it would be difficult to survive on the harvest for more than three. Ani had no choice but to borrow money from her nephew, who ran a successful hotel business and was a notable local politician. We were sitting in the tiny courtyard

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in front of her house where she dried grass as fodder for the animals. She was pensive in talking about her life, how, in order just to get by, she increasingly had to rely on others, especially her relatives. With a sombre air, Ani emphasised that now more than ever, she had to work hard to maintain good relationships with both her brother and her brother’s son, the nephew who had helped her financially. Falling out with either of them could seriously jeopardise her livelihood. For Ani, the future did not look too optimistic . . . MIKHA: Exorcism of Malicious Gossip If foreign visitors to Langtang leave with the impression that it is a very peaceful place, I would not be too surprised. Indeed, many tourists I talked to admitted that they were visiting the valley for its tranquillity and scenery (see Chapter 6). Away from the din and dirt of Kathmandu, the relative peacefulness of Langtang is usually broken only by the songs of young women going to work in the fields, the occasional sound of galloping horses and the tinkling of their bells, a man shouting to his friend at the other end of the village, or, sometimes, the crash of avalanches in the distant mountains. The Langtangpa are generally soft-spoken, although they are capable of much bonhomie when enjoying themselves, especially after one cup of chang too many. Unless there is a major festival or celebration such as a wedding in the village, the mood of the village in normal everyday life seems serene, if not subdued. This does not mean, of course, that the villagers co-exist with each other in absolute harmony. That said, however, it is undeniable that occasions of overt confrontation and public display of aggression among villagers are very rare indeed. Throughout my stay in Langtang, I did not witness a single public quarrel or fight. This, to my mind, reflects the importance that the Langtangpa place on cooperative and harmonious relationships for the reasons I have described in detail. Of course, there are always undercurrents of tensions and hidden illfeeling generated by the pressures of life, compounded by the daily, intense face-to-face social relationships and the lack of opportunities to emigrate elsewhere. Feelings of hostility and mistrust erupt only during extraordinary circumstances, such as during the elections, or at large communal gatherings, when confrontations often carry political overtones (see Chapter 5, on the Drukpa Che Zhi festival). Apart from these occasions, the negative feelings of the Langtangpa towards

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one another are most likely to find expressions in the hushed tones of kitchen banter, in tête-à-tête sessions among close friends working in the fields, while cutting wood in the forests, or when travelling. Goffman’s (1971) distinction between the ‘front stage’ and ‘backstage’ of social life is very pertinent here; behind the public display of apparent tranquillity in village life lies a backstage of social dramas that play out in the privacy of darkened kitchens and smoky hearths. Here, the civility of the front-stage social space gives way to plots and counter-plots, running commentaries on villagers’ affairs, and rampant gossiping. Most of the information I gathered about conflicts and tensions among the villagers came initially from listening to the conversations at meal times, when, in the security of their homes, household members and visitors felt free to air their thoughts about village affairs or to vent their pent-up anger against particular individuals. Sending one’s children to private boarding schools would invite gossip about acquiring foreign wealthy sponsors; the construction of a new hotel might attract charges of corruption if the owner also holds official position in the village. Why did the potato harvests for most villagers fall drastically but not affect the investments of the rich? Could it be that he has brought a curse upon the village? One hotel owner complained to me that the water pipe linking his house to the spring had been repeatedly cut, and he was certain that a particular political and business rival of his was responsible, even though, he admitted, he did not have any proof. No Langtangpa can completely avoid becoming the subject of gossip, especially those who have achieved some level of economic success and social status in the eyes of the villagers. The Langtangpa know that behind-the-back talk is rampant, precisely because all of them engage in this activity, which is called mikha (mi kha), literally, ‘people’s mouth’. The term can be taken to mean ‘malicious gossip’ or ‘envious talk’. To the Langtangpa, the primary significance of mikha lies not in its inherently duplicitous nature, as is all gossip, but that it will decrease one’s chances of success, or lam dö, in life. In particular, envious talk or gossip is believed to severely impede one’s endeavours to achieve material well-being and social status.6 Because of this, a certain ritual, also called mikha, is sponsored by the Langtangpa 6 Mikha is an example of the widespread belief of the ‘evil eye’, a curse or spell cast by envious people against their fellow members of the community. For instance, David Pocock (1973) has written about the popular belief of the najar among the Gujarati in North India. The najar, or ‘curse’, from the envious is believed to be capable of inflicting all sorts of misfortune, such as bad harvests, accidents and illnesses.

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to deflect the negative influence of malicious gossip, especially when one is embarking on a new venture, such as starting a hotel business or when elected to positions of political power. The mikha ritual, like most Nyingmapa rituals, is attributed to Padmasambhava, the illustrious 8th century culture hero. While in some Tibetan communities malicious gossip is personified as a Chinese girl, and the ritual involves addressing and casting out this demon (Kapstein 1997:528), in Langtang the ritual is said to originate during the construction of Samye (bsam yas), the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. According to Langtang priests, a legion of demons were attracted to the Samye building site by people’s incessant talk about the project, and repeatedly tried to impede the progress of its construction by continuously throwing huge stones at it. When Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet on the invitation of King Trisong Detsen, he conducted the first mikha ritual to dispel the spiteful demons, after which the Samye monastery was successfully built. The text used in Langtang is believed to have been the work of Padmasambhava. Since mikha is by its very nature disembodied, when the priest is conducting the ritual the sponsor puts various items on a large tray to represent its body, such as a large piece of bone representing its shoulder blade, clumps of hair, a handful of grains, a piece of stone, etc., so that mikha would dwell in them. Malicious gossip is also thought to get attached to people’s possessions. Therefore, in the case of a hotel owner for example, items that represent the potential objects of gossip are put onto the tray as well. In one mikha ritual I attended, included among the various items in the tray were an empty Nescafé coffee tin, an empty tea box, a piece of potato, some money, biscuit wrappers and an empty medicine bottle (representing health). Towards the end of the ritual, the sponsor takes the tray out of the house and throws away the contents on the outskirts of the village. In this manner, mikha is expelled, and success of the sponsor’s undertakings is assured. According to the head lama of Langtang, the mikha ritual has in recent years become increasingly popular among the Langtangpa. With the discrepancy in the villagers’ fortunes perceived to be the direct result of tourism, as village politics become increasingly polarised between two major political parties, and as harvest levels drop drastically, the reasons for the popularity of the mikha ritual are not too difficult to surmise. With the contradiction between the immense tension generated by endemic polarisation, on the one hand, and the ideal of social harmony, on the other, the exorcism of envious talk and rampant gossip

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Figure 7.3: The mikha embodied

fulfils an important socio-psychological need. It de-personalises widespread and diffuse acts or emotions that threaten to rupture the social fabric by channelling them into a ‘container’ objectified as a demon. By subsequently casting out the embodied gossip, there is less pressure to confront publicly suspected duplicities, which might run the risk of jeopardising one’s relationships with fellow villagers. At the same time, the mikha ritual ensures that whatever malicious gossip or machination against oneself will ultimately be defeated. Cooperative Ventures As I have noted elsewhere, for most of Nepal’s history as a nationstate, the state had been for the Langtangpa a remote entity concerned primarily with the collection of taxes, leaving the villagers to run their local affairs with autonomy. The small contingent of police and army personnel arrived in Langtang only a quarter of a century ago, when Langtang National Park was created. Before this, village rules were enforced by the chog, who was selected from the kuriya households. It was the responsibility of the headman to organise local young men to prevent the poaching of wildlife in the area, because the Langtangpa

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believed their valley to be a sacred Buddhist site where the deliberate taking of life was prohibited. Therefore, a long history of the state’s non-intervention in local affairs fostered a strong sense of self-reliance on the part of the Langtangpa, and reinforced their belief in the importance of mutual aid and cooperation. As discussed above, events in Langtang’s recent history have been perceived as threatening the social bonds that have served them so well in the past. As a result, there has been a conscious effort among the villagers to counter these centrifugal forces by devising schemes that enhance the cooperative spirit in the community. Due to increasing competition as a consequence of the falling number of tourist arrivals and the oversupply of hotels, many hotels have started touting for business; some of the larger ones offer substantial discounts to tourists and large commissions to their guides to secure their custom, thus depriving the smaller hotels of business. For a short period between 1998 and 1999, the touting practice was actually stopped, due to the directives given out to all lodge owners by the Langtang Lodge Management Committee (L.M.C.). The L.M.C. was created as part of an ‘Ecotourism Project’ jointly organised by the Department of National Parks of Nepal, and the U.S.-based Mountain Institute. The initial intention was for the L.M.C., of which all Langtang lodge owners are members, to implement and enforce rules and regulations prohibiting the practice of touting and to impose the maximum number of tourists a single lodge was allowed to serve on any particular day. Chairmanship of the committee was to be rotated among the lodge owners. Any lodge found to have more than 20 tourists on a single day would be required to cease operation for seven days, with its owner being fined Rs. 15,000. The L.M.C. also standardised a room charge of Rs. 50, of which Rs. 5 would go to the L.M.C. and the remainder to the lodge owner. Tour guides would have to pay Rs. 50 for dal bhat (the Nepalese staple meal, normally consisting of rice, vegetables and lentils), of which Rs. 25 would go to the L.M.C. The purpose was to prevent lodge owners from harassing tourists and undercutting each other, as well as to ensure that all lodges had a fair share of clients. Conceived in a spirit of goodwill and cooperation, the idea soon failed in practice as individual business concerns ultimately predominated. From the very beginning some lodges were reluctant to comply, and continued the practice of touting and offering discounts. The matter came to a head when one particular lodge refused to pay the fine for having 21 guests on a single day—its owner protested, pointing out that the additional tourist had insisted on staying with his

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friends and refused to move to another lodge. Subsequently, the L.M.C. became largely defunct after only two trekking seasons. Possibly the worst period of tourism in Langtang was between 2000 and 2002, as a result of Nepal’s civil war and the terrorism attack of 11 September. Since I was in Langtang in 2001–2002, I hoped my presence would not be interpreted as the cause of this downturn. On the other hand, I would not be too surprised if there had been ‘malicious gossip’ about me behind my back. In any case, the number of tourist arrivals dropped so drastically, and the competition between the hotels got so intense, that the Langtangpa were compelled to devise another counter-measure—the ‘rotation system’, under which groups of lodges would take turns to open for business to avoid cut-throat competition, and to ensure that all hotels would have an equal chance to cater to customers. Again, there was a strong feeling among the hotel owners that they should work together to deal with the problem. Other villagers were pointing to the antagonistic relationship between hotel owners as one of the main reasons for the recent spate of disasters, e.g. dwindling potato harvests, and consequently, hotel owners felt greater pressure to cooperate with one another. A few leaders were selected to enforce the rules of the system. The scheme worked well for about three weeks, but then ran into trouble. The Maoists called for a three-day national strike, severely disrupting the transport system. As a result of this, very few trekkers arrived in Langtang for almost a week. When the strike ended, controversy raged among the hotel owners as to whether those hotels that had been originally scheduled to open during the week affected by the strike should now be allowed to open for business, when under the rules, some other hotels would have their turn to open. The issue could not be resolved to the satisfaction of all sides, and it was back to a free-for-all competition again. Desperately Seeking Synthesis Given the poverty the Langtangpa experience, a poverty they are constantly being reminded of by the mantra, ‘Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world’, and by the stark contrast between their poverty and the tremendous perceived wealth of tourists, is it any wonder that many Langtangpa seek with a singleness of purpose the material benefits tourism can bring? Given the hostile physical environment in which the Langtangpa live and the history of the state’s failure to provide public

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welfare, it is perhaps not surprising that they also emphasise the value of cooperation. It would be a mistake to dismiss the Langtangpa’s yearning for some positive aspects of the past, most significantly the cooperative spirit, simply as pining for a ‘golden age’ that is idealistically viewed through the distorted lens of the present. Of course we must be aware of the possibility that the complicated social texture of the past might have been smoothed out in order to portray an unblemished and uncomplicated history. Nevertheless, I would argue that such widespread sentiments not only reveal the Langtangpa’s anxiety about the problems their community currently faces, but also discloses the importance which the Langtangpa attach to particular aspects of social and cultural change and the values they hold dear. Representations of the past are not ‘neutral’ historical facts, but usually take the form of a narrative commentary on the past and a critique of the present. In the same way, views about the present are often conceived with an eye to the past in order to construct multiple causal sequences that would explain recent events. In this manner the past is brought to the present, in order for the Langtangpa to strive for a better future. For the Langtangpa to stress repeatedly the demise of the cooperative spirit indicates what they perceive to be one of the most serious crises their community is currently facing. Their efforts to restore a sense of social unity also reflects a deep-seated conviction that ultimately Langtang Village exists as a corporate group, popularly conceptualised in a kinship idiom, under the watchful eye of their yul lha, Langtang Lirung. To the Langtangpa, while the village of the past might have been poor and destitute, it was imbued with the positive value of cooperation. In contrast, the downside of recent material improvements has been the weakening of social bonds for villagers as a whole. What the Langtangpa want desperately to achieve in the future is the co-existence of these two important values of co-operation and material well-being.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CONCLUSION: PLACE, HISTORY AND THE GOOD LIFE ‘Kipu shyo, yagpu shyo (May the good life and well-being come to you)!’ This is one of the most popular blessings the Langtangpa seek from their friends, elders and religious specialists. When asked what they wish for in the future, some say better education for their children, while others want more development projects in the village. Forty-year old Tashi, one of the village’s two postmen, hoped for more tourists so he could supplement his meagre income by working as a trekking guide. But Tashi was also worried: ‘Sometimes their Nepalese guides will “cut” chicken to cook for the tourists, and that is not good. Killing is not allowed in Langtang; it’ll anger Langtang Lirung and then bad things will happen.’ Nyima had two daughters in boarding schools at Kathmandu under the sponsorship of a German couple, and she was trying to find another sponsor for her youngest child. Apart from desiring more material benefits and more tourists, most of my informants never failed to mention the current moral crisis that the village faces: political strife, lack of cooperation, and the perception that people have become more selfish. As they seek kipu through their ever-expanding social and economic relationships, the Langtangpa strive to find their own place in Nepal and the wider world, and how—both individually and as a community—to best deal with the current challenges. In order to describe their pursuit of the good life in all its complexity, the methodology I have adopted in this book has been both diachronic and synchronic: to spatialise historical development and to historicise spatial experience. This has allowed me to analyse the Langtangpa’s pursuit of the good life by placing it against the relationally constituted nature of both socio-cultural development and changing, contested meanings of place. For the Langtangpa, kipu, to a large extent, refers to material well-being, e.g. more water taps in the village, the availability of electricity, enough food for the family, comfortable houses, owning a hotel. Good health and blessings from the numerous deities of the land are also essential for a good life. This is not surprising: the ‘good life’ for most people must entail the attainment of a significant level of material comfort. This is even more so

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for communities such as the Langtangpa who live in a harsh environment, and who have a long history of engaging in demanding physical labour where food shortage and the deprivation of material goods is not uncommon. Almost all the elderly villagers would, in their youth, have plied the dangerous mountain paths between central Nepal and southern Tibet and endured the hardships of long-distance trade. Even those in their late 20s still remember an extremely difficult childhood, especially memories of agonising hunger. As I indicated in Chapter 4, dug or dukkha (‘suffering’) has become an intricate part of the Langtangpa’s social memory, and is often mentioned when they compare their present living conditions with that of the past. That is why bikās has become such a pervasive social discourse in Langtang, for it is primarily about material things, and the image of material deprivation looms large when the Langtangpa look back on the days before the arrival of tourism. I elaborated in Chapters 3 and 5 how the Nepalese state, since the 1950s, has relied on the promise of development as a source of its legitimacy, which in turn has opened the floodgates to the massive inflow of foreign aid into the country. One of the main aims of this book has been to describe the Langtangpa’s conception and pursuit of the good life in the context of this history of development. But what I want to argue is that even though the good life as conceived in the idiom of kipu overlaps significantly with bikās, they are not synonymous. We must not conflate pursuit of the ‘good life’ with ‘development’. I shall elaborate on the importance of this distinction in the concluding section. But first, it needs to be pointed out that for the Langtangpa, kipu both encompasses and exceeds the acquisition of material benefits that the practice of bikās basically entails. To make this important point, I will start by describing a key diagnostic event. Spatial Experience and Social Relations One of the most vivid images I carry away with me from Langtang is the proceedings of the 10th Village Council Meeting ( gāu˜ parisad sabhā), for it encapsulates the various tensions and dilemmas that the Langtang community currently grapples with. As a rule, all those present at public meetings are allowed to speak on issues concerning the village, especially regarding the performance record of the Village Development Committee (V.D.C.). On this occasion, most of the participants were

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men, and there were only three or four women with children in tow at the periphery of the meeting area. The first few speakers—leaders of political parties—had already mounted scathing attacks at the V.D.C. Chairman, Tshewang of the Domar lineage, accusing him of incompetence and of mishandling village development funds. The Chairman was in an unenviable position: as an ‘Independent’ (N. svatantra), he was exposed to attacks by leaders of the two opposing political parties in the village, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party. It did not matter that the Chairman hailed from the village’s most prominent lineage, whose genealogy could be traced to the early religious kings of Tibet, and had until a couple of decades ago been both the religious and political leaders of the village. Under the present system of multi-party democracy, different factions are jostling for power in Langtang Village, and undercurrents of antagonism, both political and personal, tend to spill out in public meetings such as this. After the party leaders had spoken, five young men took turns to speak to the audience, comprised mainly of young villagers like themselves. One after the other they expressed their desire to see more development in the village, such as the construction of more communal water

Figure 8.1: Participants at village council meeting

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taps, better schools and higher-quality teachers, as well as the cessation of political conflict. One of the speakers went further, lamenting the state of educational provision in the village, criticising the V.D.C. for neglecting its responsibility and the teachers for caring more for their hotel businesses than the pupils under their charge: ‘Sometimes, children come to school in the morning and no teachers are present. They are in their hotels, and worry only about their business!’ He vehemently accused all the political leaders of corruption, and demanded that all of them stand down and let the younger generation take over the village leadership. With his trademark aviator sunglasses on, Tshewang then stood up to launch a passionate defence of his tenure as the village leader for the past five years, pointing to the various development projects that had been completed during his tenure, highlighting especially the new bridges, new school buildings and the repair of trails. He then moved

Figure 8.2: Local leaders paying respect to the Nepalese monarchy at the start of village meeting

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on to the charges of corruption levelled against him. ‘Some people say there is corruption in the V.D.C., here, take a look at the accounts, you can see for yourself. See if there is any corruption!’, he challenged his accusers in a thundering voice, slamming the accounts book on the table in front of him. There was silence all around; his opponents stared into the distance, the villagers shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Seeing that no one was coming forward, he went on to speak of the various political disputes over the past few years, particularly the unhappy circumstances under which he had been chosen as the V.D.C. Chairman. For more than a decade, supporters of the two main political parties had been engaged in bitter disputes, sometimes leading to physical violence. Politically, the village was split down the middle. After stressing the need for the various parties to work together for the sake of the village, to the surprise of many, Tshewang then brought out Tibetan ceremonial scarves from a bag and presented them to his political opponents, as a sign of reconciliation. The above account is a good illustration of the extent of the contradictions and tensions that the Langtangpa’s pursuit of the good life has engendered. Like other peoples, the Langtangpa value and desire many different things, but not all values can be realised at the same time, and not all are completely commensurable. For example, the villagers see operating a hotel as one of the best ways to climb up the social-economic ladder, but if all the teachers in the local primary schools were to pursue this goal, it would be at the expense of the children’s education, which is also highly valued. If most of the young men and women were to become trekker guides or porters, then who would work in the fields? Should one speak out against the alleged corruption of some prominent local politicians, or remain silent so they can be approached for help in times of trouble? When there is inadequate medical provision and when the lamas are unable to cure a sick child, should one hire the services of a bonpo and risk incurring bad karma? These are just some of the many dilemmas that an individual Langtangpa may face in his or her daily life. What I have sought to achieve in this book is to situate the Langtangpa’s experience in its cultural and historical contexts. For heuristic purposes, I have sought to analyse the Langtangpa’s conception and pursuit of the good life in relation to the articulation of two dominant experiences of place: the sacred and the developmentalist/touristic. Analytically, each dominant spatial meaning and experience can be conceptualised to be associated with a pre-eminent

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form or pattern of social relationship and hierarchy. I would argue that many of the Langtangpa’s social and political conflicts engendered in their pursuit of kipu may, to a large extent, be understood in terms of the structural tensions generated by two contemporary overlapping, spatial-experiential frames. I noted at the end of Chapter 7, and I will stress here again, that I am concerned not so much with whether the social unity and sense of cooperation the Langtangpa stress were actual qualities of the past, but more with how they represent their past through the lens of their present experience. I have had numerous conversations with the villagers regarding the changes over the past two decades, during which most of them have complained about ‘no cooperation nowadays’ (dering nangbar roram med ) and the threats to social unity as a result of pursuing opportunities offered by tourism and development. Historically, development arrived in the village through the demarcation of Langtang Valley as a tourism space and conservation area, in conjunction with the state’s overall project of national development.1 As I discussed in Chapters 5–7, engaging in tourism has resulted in the formation of a particular socio-economic structure dominated mainly by the beneficiaries of tourism, namely, the hotel owners. Situating this local experience in its largest, global context, the Langtangpa’s social relationships also stretch laterally via tourists to foreign places, or what I termed ‘foreignscapes’ in Chapter 6. Hence, the very demarcation of Langtang as a tourism space and the Langtangpa’s experience of it as such, have enabled the villagers to imagine the foreignscapes as another possibility of attaining a better life. At the same time, villagers repeatedly emphasise the importance of harmonious social relationships and community autonomy. It seems to me that such sentiments have arisen from a much longer history of the Langtangpa’s understanding of their homeland as a sacred space—such as a beyul or ne. Under the

1 In a rather bizarre turn of events, the tourism industry has actually picked up over the last two years, despite the ongoing conflict in Nepal. Even the recent spate of bombings and killings have not deterred the tourists. I almost could not believe my eyes when I saw this headline on the B.B.C. news website: ‘Trekkers drawn to Nepal Rebels’ (13 January 2004). The article reported that many trekkers actually relished meeting and chatting with the Maoist rebels, seeing that as one of the thrills of an adventure in Nepal. Not long ago, an article in The Independent (23 August 2004) noted that, for some tourists, one of the most coveted items to take away from trekking in Nepal these days is a receipt for making monetary donations to the Maoists. The state of reverie goes on.

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idiom of sacred landscape, the villagers conceive their community as a corporate group orientating towards a centre, their community god, the yul lha Langtang Lirung. In this particular evocation of place, the Langtangpa emphasise the need to maintain harmonious relations both among themselves, and between them and the deities of the realm. The constitution of Langtang community centred on their yul lha and expressed through their religious practices, simultaneously engenders a ritual boundary separating it from the wider Nepalese society conceived as ‘Hindu’. Therefore, the villagers’ evocation and experience of Langtang as a sacred space foregrounds another pattern of social relationships. In this case, an indigenous socio-political organisation legitimised by an ideology that conceives Langtang as a sacred landscape and refuge, in which villagers are divided into either the kuriya or the yangpa, with the Domari occupying the pinnacle of this social and ritual hierarchy. From the discussion above, we are now in a better position to understand the Langtangpa’s current predicament. In the days before tourism, Langtang Village was ritually and politically dominated by the Domar clan, in an economy that consisted mainly of agriculture, animal husbandry and trade. This was a time the Langtangpa remember as one of hardship, poverty and material deprivation. As I mentioned in Chapter 3, the scarcity of labour meant that the Langtangpa had to form mutual-aid groups such as the parmo which took turns to help members in their agricultural tasks, the collection of firewood, the building of houses, etc. Such cooperative arrangements in times of a severe shortage in labour have converged with the idea of Langtang community as a ‘family’ watched over by its yul lha to forge a strong sense of social unity. We recall that before the 1960s when the Nepalese government embarked on its intensive development effort, the state was a remote entity to the Langtangpa, who enjoyed significant autonomy in managing their community affairs. However, the creation of the National Park and the arrival of tourism after 1976 added an additional layer of spatial meaning and experience, reconfiguring the villagers’ relationships with the Nepalese state and the outside world. When villagers reflect upon the events of the last couple of decades, they welcome the significant improvement to their lives that trekking tourism has brought, and know that compared to many other Nepalese, their general situation is comparatively better. But it is precisely this new experience of Langtang as a developmentalist/tourist space that has enabled them to interpret their pre-tourism history as one marked by poverty, social

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unity and autonomy, and to experience the present as a time of greater material comfort even as it is felt to be marked by social disharmony and a sense of decreasing community autonomy. Hence, at the most general level, the Langtangpa’s current cultural conception of the good life appears to comprise material and spiritual well-being, social unity and autonomy. Paradoxically, it is precisely because they have embraced these values that there are tensions in the village. When the Langtangpa invoke the ‘sacred’ to critique the individualism and materialism engendered by participation in tourism, they are implicitly invoking a particular pattern of social relationships that ultimately affirms the superiority of the lamas. But the Langtangpa emphatically do not wish to replicate the past, because in their social memory the past is also associated with hardship and poverty. As they embrace the benefits of development and tourism, however, they bring to the foreground the specific relationships associated with Langtang as a tourism space, with the hotel owners occupying the position of power. The villagers’ experience of these two dominant meanings of place in present-day Langtang—the sacred and the developmentalist/touristic—has therefore created a condition for the contestation of social hierarchies. It seems that it is this structural tension that manifests itself as the centrifugal force currently experienced by the villagers. As shown in the last few chapters and in the above account of a village meeting, the Langtangpa are struggling to find a feasible way forward, seeking to embrace what opportunities tourism and development have to offer, while trying hard to maintain good social relationships with one another and with the deities of the realm. An interesting indication of the Langtangpa’s efforts to resolve the community’s structural tensions is their decision to select Tshewang the Domari as the V.D.C. Chairman, foregoing the voting process of the new multi-party system that has never failed to split the community and result in widespread physical violence. Since Tshewang was a prominent member of the priestly lineage as well as a successful businessman, his selection as the ‘neutral’ village leader could perhaps be interpreted as the Langtangpa’s attempt to come up with a viable synthesis. The Good Life and the Practice of Development By way of a conclusion, I would like to engage with the recent anthropological critique of development and the ways in which the critique may be moved forward by paying attention to a community’s

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concept and pursuit of the good life. The critique has arisen from an uncomfortable observation: despite the intense effort of ‘development’ since the 1950s and 1960s, both developers and scholars ask, why are there overwhelmingly more cases of failure than success? In Africa, for example, countries such as Zambia and Uganda, which had once been held up as possible exemplars of successful development, have not lived up to expectations (see e.g. Ferguson 1999; Frankland 2003). The recent financial crises in Southeast Asia and South America further adds to the scepticism among critics and activists over development efforts directed by powerful organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Closer to the concern of this book, both Nepalese and foreign scholars have been wondering at the dismal pace of developmental progress in Nepal after more than half a century of massive aid assistance to the country. The overall pessimistic prognosis for Nepal’s future has given cause for concern: numerous studies have shown that in many areas, people’s lives have actually worsened in the past couple of decades (see e.g. Macfarlane 1994; Seddon 1994), although standards of living have indeed improved in communities that have benefited from tourism. In fact, many commentators have pointed out that the uneven development and worsening standard of living for people living in Nepal’s far-flung regions are some of the key factors contributing to the rise of the Maoist insurgency.2 So what is wrong with the practice of development? Efforts to answer this question can be traced to at least the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the form of a Marxist critique of the world capitalist system and the unequal economic relations that existed between the rich Northern countries and the poorer Southern countries, which were mainly the former colonies. Very briefly, according to this view, the so-called Third World countries were systematically exploited by the richer, advanced capitalist countries for their cheap raw materials and labour. This worldsystemic approach, made famous by Andre Frank’s idea of ‘development of underdevelopment’ (1969), has been overtaken in recent years by the deconstructionist critique of development inspired by post-colonialism and post-structuralism. Largely influenced by Foucauldian ideas of politics of representation, discourse and knowledge/power, the deconstructionists saw the dominant concept of ‘development’ primarily as a power-saturated discursive practice that constitutes the very notions of 2 For an in-depth discussion of the origins of the Maoist problem, see the collection of essays in Hutt 2004; Karki and Seddon 2000; Thapa 2003.

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what is ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ (see e.g. Crush 1995; Schech and Haggis 2000:57–82). This position is epitomised by Arturo Escobar in his influential book, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, which vividly portrays the post-1945 institutional contexts from which the discursive practice of development emerged, most specifically the role played by the World Bank in ‘discovering poverty’ in 1948 when it set the poverty indicator for nations at national income of U.S.$100 per capita. Since then, those living in regions defined as ‘poor’ were seen as ‘target’ populations that needed ‘development’ in order to attain a living standard of the ‘rich’ West. Over the next two decades or so, the development industry and its supporting knowledge structures treated the people in the Third World more as objects to be scrutinised and subjected to Western ‘expert’ interventions than as subjects of their own notions of development (Edwards 1989). In recent years, the anthropology of development has been at the forefront of the critical turn within the development discourse. In a way, anthropology is uniquely suited for this role given its reoccupation with the ‘indigenous’ and the ‘local’ in the very countries where the development industry largely operates. A collection of essays contained in the volume, An Anthropological Critique of Development, have put forward a particularly trenchant and influential critique of the dominant Western development paradigm. The main contention of the authors, explicated by Mark Hobart in his introductory chapter, relates to the issue of epistemology, specifically the incommensurability or ‘disjuncture’ between, on the one hand, the Western system of scientific knowledge that underpins the dominant development paradigm, and on the other hand, the ‘local knowledge’ of communities that are the targets of developmental effort. Highlighting the unequal power relations between the developers and those-to-be-developed, Hobart argues that the arrogance of self-belief among developers of their own system of knowledge is reflected in their failure to take indigenous knowledge seriously, resulting in high rates of failure among developmental projects (1993:2–3). Hobart characterises the relationship between the two parties as: . . . constructed by the developers’ knowledge and categories . . . The epistemological and power aspects of such process are often obscured by discourses on development being couched predominantly in the idiom of economics, technology and management.

As an international class of aid practitioners—usually dominated by those from the more ‘developed’, wealthy countries—initiate and engage in projects of local development, they inadvertently displace indigenous

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knowledge by imposing a Western scientific paradigm. Therefore, as the hordes of developers sweep through the globe from one ‘needy’ community to another, they also leave pockets of ignorance in their wake. Acknowledging the problems that might accrue from the imposition of their own views upon local communities, many developers these days adopt a bottom-up approach, soliciting and incorporating the ideas of as many locals as possible in their project designs. This approach has a myriad of names, such as ‘participatory rural appraisal’, ‘participatory method’, etc. As Hobart points out, this effort at inclusion in the formulation of project designs does not necessarily solve the problems and difficulties of development, because ‘the terms and kind of actions expected are usually defined by superiors’ (Hobart 1993:15–16). Let me give an example from Langtang. The Langtang Ecotourism Project was one of the largest projects ever conducted in Langtang National Park, aimed at promoting ‘sustainable community-based tourism’. In a joint effort by the Nepalese government and the Mountain Institute based in the U.S., experts went to villages within the National Park to conduct courses on topics such as lodge management, village cleanliness and hygiene maintenance, methods of waste disposals and environmental protection. The project emphasised the ‘participatory method’ to solicit villagers’ vision of community-based tourism for the future. In its effort to ‘empower women and enhance their status in the community’, it encouraged the formation of ‘women’s groups’, or Ama Samuha, in the villages. So far, so good; all the right rhetoric about the need for participation. However, the problem highlighted by Hobart is revealed in an article on the project written by one of its main organisers. Especially revealing is the section on local women: Women are often the keepers of cultural traditions and knowledge in terms of cooking local foods, wearing traditional ethnic dress, cooperating in support of religious functions, producing handicrafts, knowing about natural medical remedies, performing traditional dancing, and speaking and singing in local dialects. These are the very resources that attract tourists, and through planning and management they can be turned into tourism products. (Lama 2000:221)

It is true that in Langtang it is mainly the women who produce handicraft to sell to tourists. It is also true that most of them wear the local Tibetan-style dress3 but so do some men in the village. Both men and 3 Langtangpa women wear a colourful, ankle-length piece of knitted cloth called the shyarma at the back, from the waist down. The long-sleeved cotton shirt they wear

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women participate in singing and dancing, and the knowledge of natural medical remedies is not a gender-specific property. In many households, while it is the women who cook and do the household chores, men will take over if the women are busy with other things. Despite this, women were seen by the developers as the ‘keepers of cultural tradition’, and should remain so in order to appeal to the tourists.4 It is little wonder that one of the key roles stipulated for the Ama Samuha was the performance of local dances in cultural programmes for the tourists. Since both Langtang men and women participate in singing and dancing in equal measure during celebrations, why should women be singled out to perform local dances for the tourists? Over and over again, the Langtangpa have expressed to me their wish to provide quality education for their children, both boys and girls. They envisage a future when both Langtang men and women have the chance to pursue a stable and respected career, such as in the medical field or in the civil service. What the quote above inadvertently reveals is that to the author, Langtang women are the embodiment of ‘tradition’ and should continue to be so. From such a perspective, Langtang women have been ‘put in their place’ by development experts as bearers of tradition for the tourist gaze. By coincidence, I had an opportunity to discuss the affairs of Langtang with the author of the article when she arrived at the village for an ‘inspection’ trip at the time of my fieldwork. When the topic of religion came up, I mentioned the problem of how, due to internal conflicts, villagers were finding it increasingly difficult to organise communal rituals. This provoked her to remark that ‘religion is the glue of Langtang society’, and that without religion the community would fall apart. Based on what this development expert said to me, and what she has written, it is apparent that behind the rhetoric of ‘participation’ still

is the surkü, while most women also attach a small metal spoon called kimphu to their belts—not for any practical purpose, but for ‘fashion’. 4 Seira Tamang argues that the intertwining of global and national agendas of bikās has created a generic ‘Nepali woman’: The emphasis, in the name of bikās, was on the domestic roles of cooking, cleaning and working exclusively within the household; the more flexible gender roles prevalent within various ethnic groups were dichotomised to conform to Hindu notions of a strict division between the masculine realm of the public and the feminine realm of the private . . . The ongoing emphasis on the need to ‘mainstream gender into development’ misses the fact that bikās has actually always been ‘gendered’, being premised on women and men playing definite and defined roles. (2002:164)

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lurks the insidious dichotomy of modernisation ideology: secularism and the ‘modern’ on the one side, religiosity and the ‘traditional’ on the other. Here, two conceptions regarding the Langtangpa converge and mutually reinforce each other: they are ‘traditional’, and they ought to be ‘traditional’ for the sake of tourism. My point in highlighting the case of Ama Samuha is to show how sometimes, despite the developers’ best intentions with regard to ‘participation’, they are still ultimately the ones who determine the terms of development. It seems that the appropriate tasks for Langtang women to undertake should adhere not so much to their own vision, but that of the development experts. The ‘incommensurability thesis’ has itself come under the criticism of scholars who question the view that Western and non-Western systems of knowledge are fundamentally opposed. ‘Local knowledge’ is never wholly indigenous, but is the result of a complex process of negotiation practices linked to knowledge interfaces (Pottier et al. 2003; Sillitoe et al. 2002). A fundamental premise of this view is that there is no clear distinction between ‘local community’ and ‘external agents’. Against the post-modern critique that focuses predominantly on development discourse, Pottier (2003:10) argues that development should be conceptualised as ‘a set of situated practices and relationships’, and that a discourse of control can at the same time generate a discourse of entitlement, so that recipients of aid can press claims on the state or developmental agencies, thus contributing to policy formulations. Eschewing the debilitating pessimism of the ‘incommensurability thesis’, this group of scholars seeks to highlight the possibility of partnerships in development, while acknowledging that these partnerships still exist within relationships of inequality and hierarchy. The two main anthropological critiques of development discussed above have, to a greater or lesser degree, affected the way developers go about fulfilling their constituencies. The shift from a top-down approach to the emphasis on ‘participatory method’ is at least an indication that the opinions and knowledge of local communities are beginning to be acknowledged as important input for policy formulations. These critiques are fine as far as they go, but have not gone far enough. If systems of knowledge relating to development are to be seen as the result of a process of negotiation, we have to ask what such negotiations are primarily about. If the issue relates to, say, the best way to utilise available land or conserve resources, or whether medical practitioners should use local herbs to complement modern medicine to treat tuberculosis, then we are still dealing with matters of technique, i.e. ascertaining the

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best way to fulfil a particular development task. What these critiques propose is essentially to ‘take local knowledge seriously’. A much more fundamental issue, I would suggest, concerns the ends of development as seen from a more holistic, cultural perspective. Let me illustrate my point with another example from Langtang. Over the years, there has been a convergence of interest between the Langtangpa and developers: both parties wish for more development in the village, and these days the villagers enthusiastically welcome trekkers. However, given the Langtangpa’s cultural value of autonomy in the pursuit of kipu, they greatly resent being under the surveillance of the police and the army and being forced to adhere to an externally imposed set of park rules. Among other things, what the Langtangpa value are both the material benefits that accrue from tourism, as well as autonomy to manage their own affairs on their own terms. For the developers and National Park authorities, however, the army and the police constitute a necessary part in the growth of tourism in the Langtang region and their conservation effort. If the anthropological critique of development remains largely at the level of technique, then it will not fully achieve the critical role it strives for in relation to its aim of empowering local communities, since the terms and ends of development would still overwhelmingly be determined by powerful external agencies. What I am arguing is this: our attention to processes of negotiation between local communities and developers must not be restricted to matters of knowledge, but should also extend to matters of cultural values, particularly the local conceptions of the good life. Much more fundamental than questions of suitable means are questions concerning the type of life that members of a particular community would like to attain. In other words, we must seek to understand local conceptions of the good life through which a particular community pursues developmental goals so that the latter can become culturally and existentially meaningful. The imperative to understand local conceptions of the good life takes on an even greater urgency in the context of recent academic and political debates over the link between cultural values and human progress. While the anthropological critique of development was sparked mainly by the concern over the high rate of failure in general developmental efforts, the ‘culture matters’ controversy was stimulated by the different rates of economic success among countries in the world. This debate received its impetus in no small part from scholars and politicians trying to explain the so-called ‘Asian economic miracle’: the rapid post-war economic development of countries such as Japan, South

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Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In a neo-Weberian mode, analysts search for reasons to explain why the aforementioned countries have achieved such phenomenal economic growth while some other countries, such as many in Africa and South Asia, are languishing in a state of underdevelopment and poverty. The sense of bewilderment is captured by the political scientist Samuel Huntington: In the early 1990s, I happened to come across economic data on Ghana and South Korea in the early 1960s, and I was astonished to see how similar their economics were then. Thirty years later, South Korea had become an industrial giant with the fourteenth largest economy in the world . . . [while no] such changes had occurred in Ghana, whose per capita G.N.P. was now about one-fifteenth that of the South Korea’s . . . South Korea value thrift, investment, hard work, education, organisation, and discipline. Ghanaians had different values. In short, cultures count. (2000: xiii–xvi )

I think most anthropologists can attest to the fact that the qualities cited by Huntington can be found not only among the South Koreans, but perhaps among most, if not all, contemporary peoples. The Langtangpa and other Nepalese certainly manifest such qualities. Some have argued that common Confucian values had enabled the East Asian economies to develop. If that were the case, why had China—arguably the most ‘Confucian’ of all, judging by the standards of the culturalist camp—not developed at the same time as the so-called ‘Asian Tigers’? If one of the possible answers is that China had been under the strong grip of the communist mode of production for a larger part of the post-war era, then the thesis that ‘progress’ can somehow be explained in terms of some essentialised national character/culture is further undermined.5 The ‘culture-matters’ debate has a rather long and protracted history, and it is not my intention here to give a thorough review of the debate.6 What I want to highlight from this particular episode is the often triumphal, self-congratulatory manner in which the ardent supporters of what Schweder characterises as ‘cultural developmentalism’ explain their success stories, usually in terms of an inherent superiority of their own cultures. One cannot help but feel a sense of déjà vu: the 5 It is interesting to note that while the cultural developmentalist camp take their inspiration from the methodology developed by Weber to explain the success of East Asian economies, they often do not mention, or have wilfully overlooked, the fact that Weber, in his comparative study on the origin of modern capitalism, saw Confucianism as an obstacle to the emergence of capitalism in China. 6 For a lucid critique of cultural developmentalism from an anthropological perspective, see e.g. Schweder 2000.

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classic modernisation theory again, this time hidden under the cloak of ‘culture’. I am not saying here that economic progress is unimportant, nor am I denying the achievements of countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, or any other ‘success stories’ one might care to name. What I want to emphasise is the inherently ideological nature of the cultural developmentalists’ attempt to simplify what should necessarily be complex causes of development into a simple, reified factor called ‘culture’. The underlying premise of their argument is essentially a reformulation of the unilinear development schema of modernisation theory. To the advocates of the cultural development thesis, the reason for a society’s failure to achieve these allegedly universal goals can be attributed to some defects in its ‘culture’. Since the people who put forward such an argument are usually those who have attained a stage already judged by their own criteria as ‘developed’, their own cultures are considered to be superior and, hence, should be emulated. My point can further be illustrated by Marshall Sahlins’ candid account of his experience on a visit to China: One American Sinologist said China during the Qing dynasty had come oh so close. Yet it all seems like asking why the New Guinea Highlanders failed to develop the spectacular potlatch of the Kwakiutl. This is the question the Kwakiutl social scientist could well ask, since with their elaborate pig exchange ceremonies the New Guineans had come so close. Nearer to the point . . . is the Christian missionaries’ question of how it could be that Fijians in their natural state fail to recognise the true god. One might as well ask why European Christians did not develop the ritual cannibalism of Fijians. After all, they came so close.

In the ‘culture-matters’ debate, therefore, ‘[t]he indigenous people’s culture is something the matter with them’ (Sahlins 1999:4–5, 11). As seen with the recent political rhetoric in the United States, the cultural developmentalist argument when appropriated by politicians and members of the public can be used as part of the warmongering effort that justifies foreign military incursions, similar to what the ‘civilising mission’ did for the colonialists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hence, nowadays, the neoconservatives’ war cry of ‘Bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’ jostles for prime-time media coverage with debates on the compatibility between Islam and ‘modernity’. My emphasis here on cultural values diametrically opposes that of the cultural development advocates’. I am arguing for the need to take into consideration a particular community’s visions of developmental ends, whereas for the cultural developmentalists what these ends should be, have already been

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pre-determined for the community, of which culture is then evaluated in terms of whether it facilitates or obstructs the realisation of such prescribed ends. My argument for the need to pay attention to cultural conceptions of the ‘good life’ inevitably brings up the thorny problems of cultural relativism and autonomy. It should be obvious through my adaptation of the relational approach to cultural change that I am not subscribing to a concept of culture as a rigidly bound entity encompassing a moral universe that is completely impervious to external values and influences. My position throughout the book has been this: the extent to which particular values of a community are shared with other peoples cannot be asserted a priori but has to be determined through ethnographic means and a sincere desire to understand. In contrast to the convergence thesis of cultural developmentalists, I believe that the ‘progress’ of a community should be measured by the degree of success in attaining its particular culturally valued goals. As I have discussed in detail in this book, the Langtangpa are ambivalent about what has happened to them over the past couple of decades: what developers might deem to be ‘progress’—in terms of things such as more water taps, the availability of electricity, more tourists, the establishment of a women’s group that dances for the tourists’ pleasure—is not unequivocally viewed as such by the villagers. This is because what they also value greatly in terms of kipu, most notably community autonomy and social unity, have been severely compromised by the imposition of restrictions by powerful agencies, all in the name of bikās. While the discourse and practice of bikās is pervasive in Nepalese society, we cannot assume from this that all the many different diverse ethnic groups in Nepal experience bikās in the same way, and that they all desire the same developmental goals. By adopting the methodology of investigating the Langtangpa’s experience of structurally consequential meanings of place, I contend that a community’s experience of ‘development’ must be conceived as mediated through its cultural notions of the good life, which are themselves not immutable entities but have historically emerged via a process of negotiation with external influences and values. In order to move forward the anthropological critique of development, there is an even greater imperative these days to present the case of a plurality of visions for the future, and that the global reach of capitalism has not resulted in the replication of uniformity. The arrogance of powerful development practitioners in imposing their ideals on local communities

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must be replaced by a truly bottom-up approach: by understanding the locals’ own visions of the good life and then working together as partners to achieve them. If we accept that communities continuously produce and re-produce their cultural values, identity and history through negotiations with external agents and influences, then we must also take into account their cultural conceptions of the good life if we are to appreciate more fully their diverse visions of development.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS All words listed in the left-hand column are Langtang words except those followed by (N.), which designate a Nepali word, or by (S.), which designate a Sanskrit word. Word

Equivalent in written Tibetan, where applicable

Gloss in English

beyul

sbas yul

bikās (N.) bonpo baru

bon po dba’ rus

brawu kauli cham

’cham

Chenrezi

spyan ras gzigs

chinlab chöshing

sbyin labs chos zhing

chöteg chog Cyangter dablha

mchod stegs byang gter dgra lha

dadar

mda’ dar

‘hidden valley’; considered in Tibetan religious tradition as a place of refuge during turbulent times development; progress shaman wealthy prominent lineages in Langtang buckwheat cauliflower religious dance to dispel evil performed by masked lamas also known as Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion empowerment; blessing inalienable ‘religious land’, held by Langtang’s Domar lineage altar headman’s assistant a branch of the Nyingmapa ‘enemy-god’, belonging to the srung ma category of protective deities; primarily propitiated by Langtangpa to increase a man’s luck and power arrow-shaped wooden or metal stick fastened with silk ribbons symbolising prosperity; presented to the bride by her bridesmaid during the first half of wedding ceremony in bride’s natal home

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glossary of terms

Table (cont.) Word

Equivalent in written Tibetan, where applicable

Dasain (N.)

deki devī (Skt.) dikpa dip pa Dipsang

bde skyid lha mo sdig pa sgrib pa sgrib bsangs

Drukpa Kargyud

’brug pa bka’ brgyud

Drukpa Che Zhi

drug pa tshes bzhi

dü dug dzo

bdud sdug

dzong

rdzong

gāu˜ bikās samiti (N.) gewa

dge ba

hey horpo

Gloss in English

most important national holiday in Nepal; a 10-day event devoted to celebrating the triumph of goddess Durga over the forces of evil well-being; comfort goddess sin; misdeed pollution; defilement one of the two main categories of bsangs rituals; enacted specifically to ameliorate a state of pollution on the part of the sponsor to restore his position in the proper social order a branch of the Kargyupa, named after the country where it has taken root, Bhutan (’brug yul) ‘4th day of the 6th month’, commemorating the first sermon given by Shakyamuni at Bodh Gaya following his enlightenment; four-day festivity including archery competitions for the men demon suffering; pain female offspring of ox and nak; commonly raised for milk Tibetan centre of administration or military garrison ‘Village Development Committee’ (VDC) virtuous acts, virtue; karmic merit; funeral rites undertaken to increase karmic merit of deceased person potato male offspring of yak and dzomo, used mainly for ploughing and carrying load

glossary of terms

215

Table (cont.) Word

Equivalent in written Tibetan, where applicable

Gloss in English

jipa jindak khami

spyi pa sbyin bdag kha mi ’dug

ke lha khyim kipu kuriya

skyes lha khyim skyid po

kushing

sku zhing

la lha Lhabsang

bla lha lha bsangs

le lu lungta

las klu rlung rta

mandala

dkyil ’khor

temple administrator sponsor of religious rituals ‘not of the same mouth’; impure person clan or ancestral god household happiness; ‘good life’ 28 founding lineages with kushing land temple land allocated to 28 lineages of 9 founding clans of Langtang which are in turn obligated to supply grain and manpower for the organisation of communal rituals, e.g. Nara and Drukpa Che Zhi soul god one of the two main categories of bsangs; sponsored for a wide range of purposes, e.g. marriage, for good health, a long life, success in enterprise, safe journey, eradication of household pollution karma subterranean serpent deities ‘wind-horse’; worldly luck; prayer flags divine circle; diagrammatic arrangement of deities a sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation ‘people’s mouth’; malicious gossip or envious talk; name of the ritual dispelling negative effects of gossip blessing from elders for personal success

mantra mikha

mi kha

milām

mi lam

216

glossary of terms

Table (cont.) Word

Equivalent in written Tibetan, where applicable

Gloss in English

Nara

na rag (dong spyugs)

ne

gnas

Ney Nyingmapa

rnying ma pa

Nyungne

bsmyung gnas

‘finishing with hell’, communal ritual for the accumulation of merit and securing blessings and material prosperity for villagers sacred abode; residence of a deity barley oldest of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism ritual fasting for accumulation of merit and period of atonement mutual-aid group for manual work that usually consists either entirely of men or women ancestral land system of landholding whereby tenant farmer pays half of the harvest in kind as rent to landlord ‘man-god’ or ‘birth-god’ sometimes used interchangeably with rigs lha; Langtang Lirung land donated to the temple by villagers ‘family god’, synonymous with pho lha; Langtang Lirung zombie unit of land measurement, 1 ropani = 0.13 acre a fumigation ritual that uses aromatic herbs (usually juniper) to produce a sweet-smelling smoke that both purifies the deities and obtains from them the state of purity juniper that is used for ritual fumigation ‘offerings of meat and chang’, conducted at Yulbi Che Chu to commemorate the dispelling of a cannibalistic demon from Langtang

parmo phashing phetāb (N. adhiyā)

pha zhing

pho lha

pho lha

phoshing

pho zhing

ri lha

rigs lha

rolang ropani (N.)

ro langs

sang

bsangs

sang shing

bsangs zhing

Shyabü Changbü

sha phud chang phud

glossary of terms

217

Table (cont.) Word

Equivalent in written Tibetan, where applicable

Gloss in English

sonam

bsod nams

sung ma

srung ma

Shiptak

gzhi bdag

Tamdin

rta mgrin

Tema

bstan ma (bcu gnyis)

terton

gter ston

thangka torma tshe CheChu

thang ka gtor ma tshe tshes bcu

tsen yang yangpa

btsan g.yang

yab yum

yab yum

merit; often used interchangeably with phan yon warrior guardian deities; Langtanga’s epithet for Tamdin a collective term for all unnamed deities and spirits in Langtang Valley Skt. Hayagrīva; ‘Horse-head One’, one of the main defenders Buddhist faith, guardian deity and destroyers of obstacles 12 female spirits instructed by Padmasambhava to protect villagers ‘treasure finder’, seeker of treasures believed to have been hidden by Padmasambhava Buddhist scroll-painting dough effigies of deities life; tshe ring, ‘long life’ ‘10th day of the month’, reserved for the worship of Padmasambhava warrior deities prosperity ‘outsider’; those without kushing land ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’, representing compassion and wisdom liturgical recitation of the 16-volume Prajñāparamitā texts power

Yum wang

dbang

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INDEX Note: Tibetan transliterations are shown within square brackets [ ] in italics. accommodation 138, 149, 153 Adams, Vincanne 53–154, 162–163, 176 agriculture, agricultural activities 9, 48, 70, 73, 76, 86, 156, 179–181, 201 animal husbandry 63, 73, 86, 201 anthropology, anthropologist(s) 2, 4, 10, 14–16, 115–116, 136, 204, 207–209, 211 Appadurai, Arjun 117 army 5, 25–26, 37, 82, 86–88, 135, 148, 208 Assam 64 auspicious 91–92 authenticity 51, 161 authority – political 32, 40, 48, 133 – religious 41, 43, 46, 48 autonomy 17, 25–26, 31, 39, 48, 202, 208 Bales, Kevin 13 bargaining 148–149 beyul [sbas yul ] (See also ‘space, sacred’ and ‘sbas yul ’) 25, 31–33, 35–38, 45, 48, 51, 84, 200 Bhote, Bhotiya 19–20, 64, 87 Bhutan 64, 143 bikās (‘development’) 3–5, 7, 17, 77, 96, 98, 120, 126–127, 194, 196, 208, 211 birth (See also rebirth) 89, 91–93, 103–104, 109 Bishop, Peter 142 Bista, Dor Bahadur 4 blessings (milam) 93–94 blood sacrifice 27, 92, 105 bonpo (shaman) 91, 105, 108, 173 British, British Raj 31, 64, 118 Buddhism (See Tibetan Buddhism) business 6, 28, 63, 90, 108, 122, 126–127, 183–184, 187 butter 40, 49, 60, 64–65 capital accumulation Carsten, Janet 127

11, 15

Chakrabarty, Dipesh 12 chang 53, 170, 188 cheese 81, 121, 155 China, Chinese rule/government 5, 11, 26, 36–37, 41, 49, 60–62, 65, 68, 77, 150, 209 chog (headman’s runners) 40, 48, 51, 191 Chorangri 42–43, 45 civility 185 clan(s) 39–40, 46–47, 50–51, 53, 55, 73, 127 Clarke, Graham 20, 51 Cohen, Erik 163 Coleman, Simon and Crang, Mike 143 collateral 125, 183 colonial expansion, colonisation 10–13, 31, 142 commoditisation 140 community 7, 28–29 Communist Party of Nepal (See United Marxist-Leninist) consumption 13, 28, 66, 81–82, 116, 122, 124, 140, 166 contraband 60, 65 control 5, 25, 78, 86, 88 cooperation, cooperative spirit 2, 29, 192–194, 200 corruption 3, 109, 189, 199 cosmology 14–15, 174 counter-gaze 143 Cox, Tom 19 culture(s), cultural values 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 16, 209–210 cultural development (See development, cultural) Dalai Lama 36, 55, 61, 142 Dann, Graham 141 Davies, Coralynn V. 14 death(s) 41, 93, 101, 107, 175 deforestation 81, 159 deities 6, 18, 56–57, 95–98, 102–103, 167, 201 demons [bdud ] 43–45, 103, 191 Desjarlais, Robert R. 116

230

index

development (See also ‘bikās’ and ‘modernisation’) 1, 4–5, 13, 75, 200–204, 208, 211 – cultural 209–211 – discourse, ideology/idioms, paradigms 4, 9, 14 17–18, 80, 114–116, 135, 204, 207 – programmes/plans, policies 9, 26–29, 76, 78, 207 – narratives 82–84 – socio-economic 22, 75–76, 195 dab lha [dgra lha] (enemy-god, male symbol) 95–96, 98 dip pa [sgrib pa] (stain, contamination) 29, 170–173, 176 Domar, Domari 35, 40–42, 44–46, 48, 50–51, 53, 57, 103, 127–129, 131–132, 134, 180–183, 197, 201–202 Douglas, Mary 117 Drukpa Kagyu [’brug pa bka’ brgyud ] 42, 44–45 dug, dukkha, dugpu (hardship/suffering) 89–91, 109, 187, 196 Durkheim, Emile 9, 14–15 Dussel, Enrique 10–11, 14 dzo-po (male crossbred bovine) 59, 60, 65, 73–74 Eco Umberto 116 ecology, ecological 22, 63, 70 economic class(es) 125 economy 2, 7, 119, 131, 149, 201 education 139, 155 – provision 3, 198–199, 206 – sponsor(s) 154–157, 167 Ehrhard, Franz-Karl 35 emplacement 165, 167 employment 6, 125–126, 155 environment 14, 18, 78 – conservation 26, 78, 120–121, 153 Escobar, Artuno 204 ethnography, ethnographic 1, 8, 32, 36, 99, 144, 162, 211 Europe, European(s) 13, 83, 118, 145 exorcism [sbyin seg] 43, 93 Fabian, Johannes 12 family 89–90, 96, 98 Ferguson, James 83 festivals – Dasain (Nepalese festival) 22, 87, 107–108 – Drukpa Che Zhi [drug pa tshes bzhi ] 134–135, 166

– Losar [lo sar] 65, 70, 89, 94, 113, 130–131, 169 – Nara Donjuk [na rags dong spyugs] 28, 50–52, 57, 102, 182–183 – Nyungne retreat [bsmyung gnas] 105–108 – Yulbi Chechu [ yul pa’i tshes bcu] 50, 52, 102–103 Finley, Moses I. 45 firewood 72–73, 82, 88–89, 101, 124–125, 159, 172, 201 Fisher, William 18 food – crops 70, 72, 76, 179 – production 6, 63, 69–70 – prices 149, 153 – supply 89, 181 Food and Agriculture Organisation (F.A.O.) 81 foreign aid (See also ‘international aid’) 3–4, 22, 75–78 foreignscapes 157, 161, 166 forest(s) 26, 67, 78, 121 Frank, Andre 203 Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von 63 g.yang (prosperity god, female) 95–96 Gellner, Ernest 11 gender 14, 73, 93–94 Ghoratabela 46, 53, 82, 88, 145 Giddens, Anthony 11 globalisation, globalisation theories 15–16 Goffman, Erving 189 good life (kipu or in Tib. skyid po. See also well-being) 1–2, 5, 7, 14, 16, 18, 26–29, 91, 94, 109–111, 140, 195–196, 199, 203, 211 gompa (See ‘temples’) Gorkha, Gorkhali regime/dynasty 18, 36–37, 40, 61 gossip (See ‘mikha’) grain(s) 40, 60, 63–64, 72, 127 guide (See trekking guide) Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James 16 Gurkha(s) 126, 186 Guru Rinpoche (also known as Padmasambhava) 43 Hannerz, Ulf 16 hardship(s), physical and mental (See also dugpu) 5, 27, 62, 101, 110, 143, 145, 201–202 Harvey, David 15

index headman clans (See ‘mukhiyā’) health posts/centres 76, 101 Helambu 20, 51–52, 60, 64–65, 89, 115–116 herbs (See medicinal herbs) Hepburn, Sharon J. 162–163 hidden valley (See ‘beyul ’ and ‘sbas yul ’) Himalaya(s) 18, 21–22, 27, 31, 34, 36, 95, 119, 124, 143 Hindu, Hinduism 10, 18–19, 104–105, 107–108, 143, 146, 172 history 8, 10, 32, 36–37, 40, 44–45, 82–83, 90, 167, 181, 211 Hobart, Mark 204 Holmberg, David H. 48 horoscope 92–93 horse, horse farm 46 hotel(s) 28, 73–74, 86, 89–90, 113–115, 117, 120–128, 130, 133–136, 138, 153, 159, 199–200, 202 – competition 147–149, 154, 179, 182–183, 186–187, 189 – design of 122, 124, 127, 129–130, 146–149 – management courses 122, 127 – owners 6, 88, 108, 113, 122, 131–132, 134, 147, 149, 153, 193 – rotational system 138, 150, 193 house, household (khyim) 51, 74, 89, 94–96, 98–100, 105, 115, 127–128, 175 Huber, Toni 66 Hugh-Jones, Stephen 127 Huntington, Samuel 209 identity 14, 18–20, 51, 128–129, 211 image(s), imagery 7, 9, 16, 27–28, 94, 114, 144, 158, 161, 165, 167 imagining(s), imagination 14, 17, 31, 140, 143, 159, 167 India 11–12, 44, 55, 61, 75–77, 114, 136, 138, 147, 156 infrastructure 3, 76 inherit, inheritance 51, 69, 73, 121 international aid (See also ‘foreign aid’ and ‘development’) 3–5, 13, 17, 167 International Monetary Fund 203 Jang Bahadur (See ‘Rana, Jang Bahadur’) jinseg [sbyin seg] 43, 93 Kagyupa [bka’ brgyud pa] 45 karma 27, 102–104, 108–110

231

Kathmandu (city and as centre of authority/government) 13, 22, 36, 40, 49, 60, 64, 69, 86, 101–102, 119, 127, 138–139, 142, 145–146, 148, 150, 156 khame [kha med ] 172–173, 175 khyim (See ‘house, household’) kipu (See ‘good life’) knowledge, knowledge production 2–5, 67, 76, 84, 93, 116–117, 176–177, 203–204, 206–208 Kunzang Gyume Lhundrub 46 kuriya 50–52, 127–128, 180–182, 191, 201 kushing [sku zhing] (See also ‘land, lineage’) 50–51, 180–181, 183 Kyangjin 46, 49, 70, 74, 81, 133, 137–138, 147, 182 Kyirong 19, 36–38, 46, 49, 59–62, 64–66, 68–69, 89–90 labour 12–13, 71–73, 90, 126, 201 Labrang 46–47, 50 land – ancestral [ pha zhing] 49–50 – disputes 182 – grab 133 – lineage [sku zhing] 50–51, 180–181, 183 – religious [chos zhing] 39, 50–51 – surveys 180 – tenure 180–181 – use 69–71, 124 landownership 28, 49, 51, 69, 121, 179–180 landscape 5, 15, 27, 62, 66, 162, 165–166, 201 Langtang – district 21, 48 – myth/discovery of 34–35, 37–38, 41–44, 46–48 – National Park 5, 7, 17, 22, 25–28, 62, 66, 69, 79–80, 84, 86, 115, 121, 131, 141, 145, 150, 180, 191, 205 – Valley, Village 5–6, 10, 16, 19, 21–22, 32, 35–37, 42, 44, 46, 48–49, 51, 59, 63, 70, 74, 84, 103, 121, 131–132, 134, 138, 141, 145–148, 150–151, 154, 174–186, 194, 196, 200–202 Langtangpa 2, 5, 7–8, 12, 14, 16–19, 25– 29, 37–39, 41, 44, 49, 52, 55, 57, 60–63, 66–68, 74, 78, 80–81, 86, 88, 90–91, 93–95, 101, 103–104,

232

index

107–110, 120–121, 126, 128, 139, 144, 147–149, 152, 154, 156–158, 161–163, 165, 167–169, 173–180, 186, 189, 191–196, 199–209, 211 Langtang Ecotourism Project 122, 155, 193, 205 Langtang Khola 21, 101, 146 Langtang Lirung 19, 97, 103, 174, 194, 201 legitimacy 40, 44–45, 51, 77, 94 Lente Khola 61 Levine, Nancy 20 Lhabsang [lha bsangs] rituals 96–98, 113 licenses 121–122 Liechty, Mark 13 life-force(s) 93, 97, 101, 103, 173 lineage(s) 49–51, 57, 116, 127–128, 130–131, 202 livelihood 6 loans 51–52, 77, 126, 183–184 localised 62–63 Lodge Management Committee (L.M.C.) 193–194 Mahendra, King 19, 76, 118, 131 malaria 76 Malinowski, Bronislaw 44 Malla, Pratap 36 mandala 36 Maoist(s), Maoist insurgency 6–7, 17, 88, 101, 109, 134, 147, 193, 203 Marcuse, Herbert 17 marriage 93, 95–96, 98–99, 113 Marris, Peter 7 Marx, Karl 9 materiality 28, 117 media 142, 161, 166, 210 medical care/services, medicine (Western) 27, 101–103, 110, 176–177 medicinal herbs/plants 5, 49, 64, 67–69, 86, 89, 186 Meme Pengyab 44 migration – animal herds 22, 74 – Tibetan (refugees) 32, 34, 38, 61 – to seek a better life 83, 156 mikha [mi kha] (malicious gossip) 189–190 milām (blessings) 93–94 Minyu Dorje [mi ’gyur rdo rje] 35, 42–46, 66 Minyu Lama [mi ’gyur bla ma] 40–42 modernisation 1, 10, 12 modernisation theory 9–13, 207, 210

modernity 8–9, 11–13, 210 monarchy 17, 76 Moran, Peter 142 mukhiyā 38–40, 46–47 multi-party system/democracy 7, 76, 134, 179, 202 Muluki Ain 18–19 myth(s), myth-making 25, 40, 44, 48, 83, 143 National Parks (See also ‘Langtang, National Park’) 17, 62, 79, 84–85, 159, 186 national development 17, 78 nationalist, nation 3, 32 ne [ gnas] (sacred abode) 17, 66–67, 84 Nepal 1, 3, 5, 8–10, 13–14, 17, 22, 24, 31, 37, 61–63, 76–78, 83, 107–108, 114, 118, 134, 142–143, 162, 179, 203 Nepali Congress Party 133, 135, 158, 185, 197 Nepal Tourism Board 119, 142, 147 networks 16, 63, 140 New Archaeology 116 Newar(s), Newari 18, 64 non-governmental organisations (N.G.O.) 122, 186 Nozick, Robert 1 Nyingmapa [rnying ma pa] 33, 45–46 Ortner, Sherry B. 8, 106, 116 Osella, Filipo and Osella, Caroline Other, the 8, 144, 162, 166

12

Padmasambhava (also known as Guru Rinpoche) 33, 45–46, 55–56, 66, 97, 190 Panchayat system/regime/democracy 24, 47, 49, 76–77, 131 parmo (mutual-help group) 72, 201 patronage 157 phashing [ pha zhing] (See ‘land, ancestral’) phethāb 71 photography 151–152 Pigg, Stacey 3, 10 pilgrims, pilgrimages 31, 69, 95, 118, 146 place 3, 12, 14–17, 40, 86, 163, 199, 201 police 5, 26, 78, 86–87, 135, 208 political organisation/structure 25, 32–33, 36, 38, 40, 45, 48–49, 83 political party(ies) 134, 185–187, 199 politics 116, 179

index population(s) 6, 39, 76, 81 postcolonial 13 potatoes 6, 49, 59, 70, 73, 89, 178, 187, 193 progress 3–4, 9–10, 13 poverty 7, 179, 193, 201–202, 209 power relations 16, 47–48, 116, 124–125, 134, 136, 204 Prangjang 43, 47, 50 primitive 8, 84, 94, 151 Prithvi Narayan Shah (See ‘Shah, Prithvi Narayan’) Ram Shah (See ‘Shah, Ram’) Ramble, Charles 19, 40 Rana government/regime 3, 18, 24, 37, 39, 46, 68, 75, 83, 131 Rana, Jang Bahadur 3, 37, 60, 64 Rasuwa – District(s) 6, 19, 24 – Garhi 36, 49, 60, 62, 65 Rawls, John 1 rebirth (See also birth) 104, 107, 109 refugee(s) 61, 72 remittance(s) 156 remoteness 31, 82–84 Renzin Goleyi Demthrucen [rid ’dzin rgod kyi ldem phru can] 33 Renzin Nyida Longse [rid ’dzin nyi zla klong gsal ] 34–35 reverie 165, 167 rice 5, 49, 59–60, 64–65, 89 ritual(s) – boundary 108 – cycle 100 – hierarchy 51, 128, 201 – household 101–103, 105, 110 – life-enhancing (tshe sgrup) 27, 91, 96, 100, 102–104, 109 – religious 6, 43, 49, 53, 92, 96–97, 176 Riwo Tse Nga (also known as ‘Wu Tai Shan’ in Chinese) 41 Royal Palace massacre 6, 147 Sahlins, Marshall 210 salt 5, 49, 60, 63–64, 89 sbas yul (See also ‘beyul ’) 25, 31 schools 6, 24, 76 Sen, Amartya 1 Shah (dynasty) – Prithvi Narayan 18, 36 – Ram 36 Shangrila 142–143 sharecropping system (See ‘phethāb’)

233

Sherpa(s) 27, 106, 116, 143, 153–154, 162–163, 169–170 Sikkim 26, 61 Simmel, Georg 159, 162–165 Sivaramkrishnan, K. and Agrawal, Arun 13 Smith, Jonathan 165–166 social change, social progress 2, 7–9, 84 social memory 7, 32, 40, 44–45, 58, 91, 109 social mobility 120 social relations 6–7, 17, 27, 51, 200, 202 socio-political organisation 25, 32, 57, 62, 127 socio-semiotic method 28, 115–116 soldiers 60, 82, 86–88, 159 space – analytical 12–13, 16 – developmental/touristic 16, 18, 199, 202 – geography 11, 14, 29, 33, 200 – sacred (See also ‘beyul’) 25, 32–33, 36, 44, 167, 199 spatial organisation 129, 131 spectacle 28, 166 spirits 91, 102, 173 sponsor(s) 27, 91, 93, 96–98, 109, 153–155, 157, 189 status, status symbol 18–19, 126, 129–132 subsistence 26, 49, 62–63, 73, 86, 90 surveillance 5, 26, 86–87 Syabru Bengsi 22, 44, 61, 92, 102, 145–148, 158, 163, 167, 179, 185 Tamang 19, 48, 102 Tamdin [rta mgrin] 53–55, 57, 103 tax(es), taxation 24, 30–31, 37, 39–40, 61, 69–70, 181 Taylor, Peter 11 technical aid/assistance 75, 155 technology, technological 15 temple(s) ( gompa) 6, 27–28, 42–43, 45–47, 49, 52, 57, 95, 106, 114–116, 130, 151 Tibet 19, 26, 36–38, 49, 55, 60–63, 89, 142 Tibetan Buddhism 1, 33, 41, 55, 78, 95, 104, 109, 115, 167 Tilman, Harold W. 151 Thambiah, Stanley 109 thangkas 100, 103, 124 Thangshyap 37–38, 146–149

234

index

Third World 9, 26, 203–204 Thurman, Robert 94 tourism 2, 26, 62, 68, 89–90, 111, 118–121, 131, 135, 149, 158–159, 167, 186–187, 190, 208 – different types of (e.g. cultural, nature/eco) 115, 119 – earnings 120, 148–149 – promotion 62 – site(s) 28 – trekking 28, 33, 48, 74, 81, 115, 119, 152, 202 tourist(s) 6, 20, 82, 111, 118, 134, 140, 144–146, 148, 151–153, 155, 158, 161–163, 165–168, 178, 180, 193, 205–206 tourist gaze 140–141, 143, 166–168, 206 trade 5, 26, 31–32 59, 63, 83, 89 trader(s), trading party 62, 65 trans-Himalayan trade/trade routes 5, 22, 26, 31, 49, 60, 63–64, 68, 74, 83, 86, 120, 158 trekking guide, porters 6, 121, 146–147, 149 Trisong Detsen [khri song lde btsan], King 34, 41, 45, 55, 190 Trisuli 24, 49, 60, 66, 68, 86, 145–146 tshe sang (See ritual, household) Tucker, Hazel 143 United Marxist-Leninist (U.M.L.) 132–135, 185–186, 197

United National Development Programme (U.N.D.P.) 81 United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.) 76 Urry, John 140–141, 143, 167 Van Spengen, Vim 32 Village Development Committee (V.D.C.) 21, 69, 74, 93, 132–133, 196–199, 202 Vinding, Michael 52 violence 6–7, 135, 202 vote(s) 132 Wallerstein, Immanuel 10 Wallman, Sandra 4 war(s), warfare 24, 31, 34, 36–37, 61 Watkins, Joanne 126 wealth 132, 155, 157, 167–168, 193 Weber, Max 109 well-being (See also ‘good life’) 92–94, 96, 98–100, 173, 177 women, women’s issues 14, 205 wood, timber 64, 121 World Bank 77, 203–204 world-systems theory 10–11 yab-yum (male/female element) 94, 99, 103 yangpa 53, 127–128, 180, 183, 201 yul lha 19, 29 zombie(s) (ro lang)

41, 45