Sascha Fuller
In Nepal, the term thulo manche (big person) connotes a person’s authority, influence, and status, and demands deference. Today’s thulo manche culture can be seen as a legacy of the Panchayat period that impacts upon Nepali everyday life, yet a detailed critical analysis of thulo manche culture remains absent from much of Nepal’s anthropological literature. Drawing on ethnographic material collected during fieldwork in a Bahun hill village in Gorkha, I will demonstrate that the cult of the thulo manche is ever present in daily village life and underlies village level decision-making. In defining what it means to be a village thulo manche in the context of a changing Nepal, this paper aims to highlight the extent of the thulo manche influence and the effects it has on village, local, and global relations.
Thulo manche is an important marker of identity at the village level. Gender, caste, literacy, educational attainment and employment, and social networks and mobility are important interconnected factors that determine one’s thulo manche status and social work (community development), decision-making, conflict resolution, and advice- and opportunity-giving are perceived as integral roles of someone with this status. The thulo manche is credited with ‘knowing’ and is the provider of knowledge. Thus illiterate village women and men who undertake agricultural work and rarely leave the village bounds are excluded from ever achieving the thulo manche status of the village elite, and are confined to the place, status, and associated stigma of saano manche (a small person). The village, therefore, is divided between those who know and those who don’t know and I argue that this has ramifications beyond defining village and community relations. The cult of the thulo manche also determines a person’s relation to the larger global processes of development, modernisation, globalisation, migration, politics, and education.
It is no wonder then that afforded power, greater participation in development and ‘modernity’, and a pathway to an ‘easy life’, villagers desire the coveted thulo manche status. They perceive education and employment as the means to achieving this end and make decisions and take actions oriented towards this outcome. Beyond the village, however, Bahun thulo manche dominance is wavering in the face of a changing Nepal. Years of political instability and struggle, the rise of indigeneity, and the changing caste and labour relations have limited traditional Bahun thulo manche dominance. Social network and connections that once extended to the capital Kathmandu, no longer ensure employment, favourable politics, and prestige. So, while their influence extends well beyond the village bounds, the thulo manche may not.
Despite the challenges to status and identity at the national level, in the village the culture of the thulo manche ensures caste and gender hierarchies are maintained. Understanding the thulo manche culture, I argue, is crucial to understanding the challenges to equality, development, democracy, and constitution-writing in Nepal.