SINHAS Vol 30 No 1 Thomas B. Robertson
“Backwards Development”: Malaria Control, Land Reform, and the Dangaura Tharu in Nepal’s Dang Valley in the 1960s
Thomas B. Robertson
Abstract
In the 1960s, Nepal’s Dang Valley—then home almost exclusively to Indigenous Dangaura Tharu—underwent dramatic transformation through state-led malaria eradication and land reform programs, both backed by King Mahendra and, at first, by international donors during the Cold War. Promoted as development initiatives to uplift rural populations, these interventions instead deepened inequality and triggered widespread Tharu outmigration. Drawing on archival research and over 50 oral histories, this article examines how efforts to control disease and redistribute land undermined Tharu economic health and expanded the kamaiyà system of debt bondage. Rather than a relic of Nepal’s feudal past, the kamaiyà system sprouted mostly from modern soil. This study argues that development initiatives—when driven by distant political agendas and applied without attention to local socio-ecological realities—often backfire, undermining Indigenous autonomy and enabling elite capture. By tracing the layered impacts of development at international, national, and local levels, this article situates the transformation of Dang within a broader global pattern: the reframing of Indigenous landscapes as “frontiers” for extraction and settlement. The case of Dang challenges celebratory narratives of disease eradication and development and reveals how modernization, rather than eradicating inequality, can entrench it more deeply.
Keywords: Tharu, Indigenous, development, Nepal, land reform, malaria, environment
“Backwards Development”: Malaria Control, Land Reform, and the Dangaura Tharu in Nepal’s Dang Valley in the 1960s
Thomas B. Robertson
Abstract
In the 1960s, Nepal’s Dang Valley—then home almost exclusively to Indigenous Dangaura Tharu—underwent dramatic transformation through state-led malaria eradication and land reform programs, both backed by King Mahendra and, at first, by international donors during the Cold War. Promoted as development initiatives to uplift rural populations, these interventions instead deepened inequality and triggered widespread Tharu outmigration. Drawing on archival research and over 50 oral histories, this article examines how efforts to control disease and redistribute land undermined Tharu economic health and expanded the kamaiyà system of debt bondage. Rather than a relic of Nepal’s feudal past, the kamaiyà system sprouted mostly from modern soil. This study argues that development initiatives—when driven by distant political agendas and applied without attention to local socio-ecological realities—often backfire, undermining Indigenous autonomy and enabling elite capture. By tracing the layered impacts of development at international, national, and local levels, this article situates the transformation of Dang within a broader global pattern: the reframing of Indigenous landscapes as “frontiers” for extraction and settlement. The case of Dang challenges celebratory narratives of disease eradication and development and reveals how modernization, rather than eradicating inequality, can entrench it more deeply.
Keywords: Tharu, Indigenous, development, Nepal, land reform, malaria, environment