5 - Remaking the Tribe: ‘A Farewell to Bad Traditions’

Summary

During the insurgency, the Maoists were waging a full-blown war not only against the Shah monarchy but also against what they regarded as remnants of a feudal and reactionary society and the consciousness associated with it. The idea of transforming the consciousness of people (chetana pariwartan) was key to Maoist wartime policies in the areas under their control. The path to change was envisioned through an uninterrupted process of uprooting ‘bad traditions’ (naramro samskar hataune), achieved through a process of conscientization—summoning villagers to attend ideological sessions, and implementing distinct policies, most often imposing plain bans. During the war, the bans were omnipresent and regulated most areas of social life, ranging from livelihoods and kinship to religious and life-cycle rituals: ban on alcohol-brewing and gambling, on polygamy and early marriages, on communal religious celebrations and ‘lavish’ celebrations, on death rites and shamanic gatherings. The zeal exhibited by the Maoists during the war in fighting against ‘bad traditions’ is now critically re-evaluated by the Maoists themselves, who admit that in their fervour to attain a Cultural Revolution they attacked even ‘good’ elements of the local culture.

This chapter seeks to understand the Maoist wartime project of cultural transformation. It does so by focusing on the Maoist attempt to uproot transhumant herding and alcohol-brewing—the key livelihood and social practices among the Kham Magars regarded by the Maoists as ‘bad traditions’. Why were the Maoists and the local educated people so concerned about the practice of alcohol-brewing (drinking) and transhumant herding (and pig-raising)? What do these livelihood practices stand for? The chapter argues that the revolutionaries targeted those areas of social life which, in their view, contributed to maintaining the image of Kham Magars as a ‘backward’ group of people. By drawing on the concept of habitus, the chapter illustrates that in trying to eradicate ‘bad traditions’ (naramro samskar), such as alcohol-brewing or transhumant herding, the Maoists attempted to reconfigure not only the key livelihood practices in the area but also the ‘tribal’ habitus—a set of dispositions, ways of acting and thinking characteristic of Kham Magars in the past. By regulating the flow of everyday life and people's routinized actions, the Maoists aimed to transform the habitus, associated in their eyes with being ‘primitive’ and narrow-minded (simit).