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Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom: The Politics of Culture in Contemporary Nepal. Edited by DAVID N. GELLNER, JOANNA PFAFFCZARNECKA, and JOHN WHELPTON. Studies in Anthropology and History, Vol. 20. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. xxii, 623 pp. $75-00 (cloth).
In 1990 Nepal was convulsed by the same set of anti-authoritarian, pluralistic, prodemocracy forces which swept the rest of the world in 1989-91. The ensuing election of 1991 established a multiparty, parliamentary system which replaced the so-called "partyless Panchayat system" (more accurately, an absolute monarchy) which had prevailed for the previous 30 years.
One result of this sea change, regardless of whether the reins of power in Kathmandu during the 1990s have been held by the Congress or Communist Parties (the latter making Nepal the world's only constitutional, communist, Hindu monarchy), has been an unleashing of hitherto suppressed "special interest" ethnic politics. Region, religion, caste, language, and ethnic group have become focal and flash points for political organization and expression. To deal with the "nationalism, ethnicity, resistance, and change" occasioned by these recent developments, the editors of Nationalism and Ethnicity in a Hindu Kingdom have brought...