Abstract
Diversity is the norm in the political cultures of the South Asian states. They all must contend with a wide variety of political, social, religious, and ethnic traditions and values in their efforts to construct coherent and integrated national societies. India was the only state in the subcontinent that formally adopted ‘unity in diversity’ as its operating principle for national integration tasks at independence, but the others have had to pursue similar strategies in fact, if not in form. While the results have not always been particularly impressive, the latter have had some success in integrating a national political culture that is usually identified as modern, with subnational cultures based on religion, ethnicity, language, local customs and values, or a combination of some or all of these. The subnational cultures are commonly classified as traditional and seen as potentially fissiparous forces. Full integration has certainly not been achieved, but there has been substantial progress.
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Notes
See Ludwig E Stiller, The Rise of the House of Gorkha (New Delhi: Manjusri Publishing House, 1973) for a detailed analysis of the formation and organisation of a national political system in the post-1770 period in Nepal.
Rishikesh Shaha, An Introduction to Nepal (Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1976), 4; Bhuwan Lal Joshi and Leo E. Rose, Democratic Innovations in Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 1; and Ludwig F. Stiller, The Silent Cry: The People of Nepal, 1816–39 (Kathmandu: Sahayogi Prakashan, 1976).
Prayag Raj Sharma, ‘Caste, Social Mobility and Sanskritization: A Study of Nepal’s Old Legal Code’, Kailash 4, 1977, 277–299. I have also discussed this in ‘Secularization of Hindu Polity: the Case of Nepal’ in Donald E. Smith, ed., Religion and Political Modernization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 31–48.
Satish Kumar, Rana Polity in Nepal (New Delhi: Asia Publishing House, 1967); and Pramede Shamshere Rana, Rana Nepal: An Insider’s View (Kathmandu: R. Rana, 1978).
Prayag Raj Sharma, op. cit.; Mahesh C. Regmi, ‘Preliminary Notes on the Nature of Rana Law and Government’, INAS Journal 2(2), 1975, 103–115.
Daniel Edward, in ‘Patrimonial and Bureaucratic Administration in Nepal’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1977) discusses the extensive ‘modernisation’ of the administrative system under the Rana regime.
Harka Gurung, ‘Sociology of the 1981 Election in Nepal’, Asian Survey 21 (12), December 1981.
For a thorough study of the role of parties in the ‘non-party’ system in Nepal, see Lok Raj Baral, Opposition Politics in Nepal (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1977).
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© 2001 Amita Shastri and A. Jeyaratnam Wilson
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Rose, L.E. (2001). The National Political Culture and Institutions in Nepal. In: Shastri, A., Wilson, A.J. (eds) The Post-Colonial States of South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11508-9_6
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