{"id":28929,"date":"2025-12-22T06:43:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T06:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=28929"},"modified":"2026-02-24T21:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:29:21","slug":"a-legacy-of-structural-discrimination-and-systemic-casteism-the-nepal-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/a-legacy-of-structural-discrimination-and-systemic-casteism-the-nepal-army\/","title":{"rendered":"A Legacy of Structural Discrimination And Systemic Casteism: The Nepal Army"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Roots of Stagnation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While a<\/strong> poorly, lowly, and selectively educated population is, to me, the biggest hurdle to Nepal making cultural, social, economic, and political progress, there is also a deeper cause. The casteist history of Nepal, involving deeply entrenched structural discrimination and systemic casteism, is also a major  reason for this failure. Not surprisingly, the public in Nepal\u2014whether individuals or the media\u2014does not dwell much on that fact, shaped and controlled as they are by the attitudes, mentalities, cultures, systems, and institutions of, for, and by the hill so-called ‘high-caste’ Hindu men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The structural discrimination and systemic casteism Nepalis experience today are hallmarks of pretty much every system and structure of importance in the country. They are a legacy of attitudes, mentalities, ideologies, beliefs, and practices\u2014conscious or unconscious\u2014sown by Prithvi Narayan Shah, the ruler credited with the creation of the country of Nepal. This is now known or labeled as Bahunbaad<\/em>, Bahunvada<\/em>, or Brahmanism in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his article Bahunvada: Myth or Reality?<\/a><\/em>, Kamal P. Malla describes how this began:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“After 25 years of persevering belligerence, Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the three cities of the Kathmandu Valley in 1769. One year later, on 23 March, he shifted his capital to newly occupied Kathmandu. With his court came his kinsmen, retin<\/sup>ue, priests and soldiers \u2014 the new aristocracy of the hill region \u2014 to settle permanently in Kathmandu. They symbolised what Nepal’s leading economic historia<\/sup>n Mahesh C. Regmi calls ‘a shift of political and economic power.’ Among them were the<\/sup> thar-ghar<\/em>, the chosen and select families of hill Brahmins such as Aryal, Khanal, Pandey and Panta, who were rewarded with the best lands and houses in the Valley as their jagirs<\/em> in return for their services to the Gorkhali court in war and peace. Thus begins the success story of the<\/sup> parbate Bahuns, the Brahmins from the hills.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Institutionalizing Discrimination<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To many in the country, this history has amounted to internal colonization. Successive rulers and governments of the “high-caste” hill Hindus so institutionalized structural discrimination and systemic casteism that these forces were deeply entrenched in nearly all major systems and institutions by the time the people rose up to topple the autocratic Shah regime in the 1990 Jana Andolan (People\u2019s Revolution), almost 250 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, all that the revolution did was pave the way for a new group of the ruling caste\u2014the hill so-called “high-caste” Hindus\u2014to rule. After all, the rulers until then had successfully provided the population with a very poor and selective education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case Study: The Nepal Army<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since 1990, the cultural, social, economic, and political systems of importance in Nepal have not significantly changed in kind or composition. This legacy of exclusion is visible in pretty much every key institution of the government, including that which is tasked with national security: the Nepal Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin with, who has been the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of Nepal, and how do they compare with the population of the country? (See chart below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n