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The Madhesi Upsurge and the Contested Idea of Nepal pp 1–7Cite as

History of Nepal Amid Contentions: The Rise of Madhesi Identity

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Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Anthropology ((BRIEFSANTHRO))

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the existence of Nepal from the colonial era to the commencement of “Naya Nepal”. The contentions around redefining Nepali identity vis-à-vis cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of Nepal and the rise of Madhesi identity comprises the core content of the chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The King who unified Nepal.

  2. 2.

    “… a collectivity of people living within an existing state who express a strong sense of identification as a distinct nation” (Catt and Murphy, 2002, p. 18).

  3. 3.

    E.g., “Regionalism and National Unity” by Fedrich H. Gaige and “Unravelling the Mosaic: Spatial aspects of ethnicity in Nepal” by Sharma (2009).

  4. 4.

    Census 2011 provides Rajsthani.

  5. 5.

    Here the languages given by Fedrich H. Gaige as plains languages in “Regionalism and National Unity” is used to compare with the numbers given by census 2011 of people speaking these languages to determine the population of Madhesi population.

  6. 6.

    Tarai Janajati who do not prefer calling themselves Madhesi.

  7. 7.

    Author’s calculation based on census 2011 and Pitamber Sharma’s categorisation is used to provide the population.

  8. 8.

    Census of Nepal 2011 does not provided explicit categorisation as Tarai languages however provides details of number of people speaking these languages out of the total population. Similarly, the Census although it does not provide categorisation of Tarai castes, it enumerates the population of these castes in total population of Nepal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Kalpana Jha

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  1. Kalpana Jha
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Correspondence to Kalpana Jha .

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Jha, K. (2017). History of Nepal Amid Contentions: The Rise of Madhesi Identity. In: The Madhesi Upsurge and the Contested Idea of Nepal. SpringerBriefs in Anthropology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2926-4_1

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