Shyamu Thapa Magar
Ethnic politics became visible after 1990s peoples’ movement following thirty years of Panchayat political system as well as the ten years of Maoist conflict in Nepal. Various indigenous ethnic groups that had established their ethnic social organisation to work for the cultural development turned into political movements. They established a Federation for all indigenous ethnic groups in order to bring them together for their collective voices.
Among them, the Magars, the largest minority group in the country, are constructing their Magar identity through the establishment of the Nepal Magar Association by imagining representing the whole community by themselves. Nepal Magar Association works as a common forum for all Magar activists who represent their district chapters in the central committee. Their affiliation provides them not only the primordial thought of belonging to a group with certain common physical and social characteristics but also something to take pride in.
The ethnonym, Magar, has helped to bring them in to one imagined Magar community. This imagined Magar community has helped all Magars to think of themselves as members of this community. This membership has also helped them to glorify their history by using Magar-specific cultural codes. Nepal Magar Association is taken as the main institution to extend this imagined Magar community. Constructing identity through cultural development has taken a turn towards the direction of claiming political rights. This association has worked as a platform for Magars to raise collective voices for their group rights based on the concept of equality. The main agenda of the Magars which are being carried out in an effort to distinguish themselves from others include wearing an invented cultural dress, the revival of old common cultural practices, the declaration of a separate festival and demands of it being declared a national holiday, the declaration of Buddhism as the community’s religion in resistance to the Hindu religion, and demands for a separate Magarath autonomous region.
This paper will explain how Magars are constructing their identity in an effort to be different from others in the country. Information used in this paper was collected from the field while collecting data for a doctoral dissertation. Key informant interviews, case studies, and group discussion were used to collect primary data whereas content analysis was used as the secondary data collection method.