Theorizing Underdevelopment in Nepal

It is difficult to say who first used the term “underdevelopment” in a systematic written expression. The difficulty stems from the fact that not all written expressions draw the attention of many readers. When a written expression in any means, say, a book or a journal , has a small readership, it is more likely that the ideas of which it is composed do not spread at all or spread very slowly among a large number of people. The difficulty also results from the fact that the idea expressed by a less known or an as yet completely unknown writer is dismissed as unimportant. I do not think these two sources of the difficulty in question rule out the possibility of other sources being identified. If there are other sources as well, then the magnitude of the difficulty at issue is more severe than is generally expected.The adjectival form of the term “underdevelopment” was first used in 1942 by an ILO functionary, William Benson in his article “The Economic Advancement of Underdeveloped Areas” (cf. Rist, 2002). This form also appeared at the end of the first paragraph of the fourth point in the Truman’s Inaugural speech made on 20 January 1949. As Rist (2002) observes, “this was the first time it had been used” in a widely circulated text.What is underdevelopment? None of the writers who used this word first defined it before using it as if they were well aware of what it means. Though they did not define it at all or their definition is not vague, the analysis of the contexts in which they used and the dispassionate interpretation of their uses of it would help us figure out whey they meant by it.Without being able to answer the question of what the basis for defining it is, we can not say anything with confidence as its definition. In defining it, if we are to be guided by the fact- which linguists set forth- that a language is arbitrary1 , there will be as many definitions of it as there will be its definers. But if we are to argue that it should not mean something other or more than its first definition, it will have only one definition. I think al least most definitions have been put forward without being informed by the answer (whatever the answer) to the question about the logical basis of definition. They do not know even the question in question, let alone its answer.Though the term “underdevelopment” has acquired wide currency in the academic field, most of those who use it lack a concrete understanding of it. However, their understanding is specific enough to clearly suggest that it is economic in nature, though it is so specific that it explicitly implies what this economic phenomenon constitutes.Many scholars have perceived underdevelopment in many ways. The difference in their perception is explained by their being incognizant of, or their disregard for, the answer to the question I have mentioned above or probably even the question itself2. Those who are not logical enough that they sense a semantic chaos in the world of the hitherto set forth definitions of underdevelopment have tended to accept one, or a set of some of the definitions others have set forth. To them, there is no need for a critical examination of the hitherto put forward definitions of underdevelopment. There is also a tendency for some of them to arbitrarily add a new definition of their own to the set of definitions already put forward rather than to accept one of the many definitions other have posited. But, those who are logical enough to understand that there is an urgent need for addressing the problem of semantic chaos that characterizes by the world of definitions of underdevelopment neither take one of the already available definitions for granted nor arbitrarily add a new definition of their own to the list of the already set forth definitions. They tend to revolutionize the world of definitions of underdevelopment by answering the above-mentioned question and basing the definition of underdevelopment on the answer this question to end the chaos in question.Underdevelopment is not something like a concrete object of a particular size. There is no such a thing as what may be called fixed-sized underdevelopment. Now that a stone exists in different sizes, by stone we mean a multi-sized and shaped object. Similarly, for underdevelopment, which shares something with a stone in a physical and structural sense, exists in different sizes, it could be thought of as a multi-sized entity. It exists to varying degrees in different times. That such adjectives as political, economic, social, cultural, educational, ecological etc. are added in such a way as to precede underdevelopment implies that underdevelopment only means a particular condition characterized by different things; it suggests that when we say underdevelopment, we only understand that it is a condition in which we lack what we need or we do not have as much of what we need as we want. The concept of underdevelopment is not specific enough that it enables us to know what the nature of something we lack is.It is important that we acquire an understanding of underdevelopment before we attempt to analyze the whole process involved in its emergence. At the same time, it is also important that our understanding of it be critical, systematic and broad. The word “underdevelopment” has been used in different ways by different scholars. The discourse analysis of the ways in which it has been employed leads us to say that some use it to mean a product of a particular process while some others to mean a process rather than a product3. The process that leads to underdevelopment is not the same as the process that has led to underdevelopment in a particular country. Though the phenomenon of underdevelopment that exists in many countries may not be the same, the totality of the process that it results from may not be the same. The totality of the process that has given rise to underdevelopment in one country may either narrower or broader than the one that has given rise to underdevelopment in another country.Why is it that there are many definitions of underdevelopment? Are they different from one another in form only and the same in essence? If it is true that there are many definitions of underdevelopment, is it possible, or logically appropriate to say which of them is good and which of them bad by assessing them against a certain criteria? Or, is it logically appropriate to regard the definition of underdevelopment as being cumulative?It is not logically possible to say that which of them is/are right, and which of them is/are not. If I am asked to define underdevelopment, what I would say may be either one of them or a new addition to them. There is no universally accepted definition of underdevelopment. I do not know if those who have given their own definition of underdevelopment think, as I do, that their definition is fraught with doubt, and is the result of their having defined it with certain level of hesitation. But, as for me, I think if we are to be logical, we must feel some level of difficulty and hesitation and doubt in defining underdevelopment.What is underdevelopment? I hesitate to answer this question. My hesitation continues to exist until I am clear about the answer to another question: What does the phrase” what is” mean?What do we mean by underdevelopment? Underdevelopment is not the same thing for all. This means different things to different people. That this is true is evidenced by the fact that various definitions of underdevelopment have been set forth by different scholars. I have used this term to mean a condition in which an individual, a family, and a community are unable to fulfil their needs, which are not unrealistic. The needs may be physical, political, cultural, or otherwise. Underdevelopment means a condition that we may find ourselves in that stems from our inability to fulfil our needs on all fronts (economic, educational, cultural, and political). I will be discussing the economic dimension of underdevelopment only. I will be giving a panorama of underdevelopment in Nepal below.What is the process involved in the development of underdevelopment? Is this process the same as the one involved in the development of underdevelopment in Nepal? What is the process by which underdevelopment in Nepal manifested itself? For analytical purpose, let me “operationalize” underdevelopment to refer to a phenomenon that a particular process gives rise to. I will be delineating the structure, or the defining features of the process that resulted (or results) inn the emergence of underdevelopment.The Structural Organization of Nepalese UnderdevelopmentThe cause of underdevelopment lies at all levels (individual, family, community, national, international etc.). It arises out of the process that occurs on all fronts (economic, political, cultural, social, scientific etc.) Let me clarify here that I am not arguing implicitly by saying this that all causes of underdevelopment are equally responsible for causing it.Is it true that an individual himself/herself responsible for the problem of underdevelopment that s/he suffers from? I think this question is specific enough to make me answer it categorically. This question is so broad in expression that one may understand it that it is the question of whether the fact that the problem of underdevelopment one faces is attributable to him/her only is true. If this question is to be regarded as meaning something similar to this possible apprehension one may get from it, the answer to it is not definitely in the affirmative. Does this question ask about the truth of the fact that an individual forms part of the cause of the underdevelopment that she/he is beset by? This question is not concrete enough to say with certitude it is about the truth of this fact. If it is really about the truth of this fact, the answer to it is in the affirmative.Let us suppose that there are two individuals from the same family, which treats them equally, or from two separate families, which are not different in the way they are brought up and treated.Why is Nepal poor? Nepal is described as one of the poorest countries in the world4. What was and is a stranglehold on development? What are the underlying causes behind this? The complete, or at least by far the most complete answer to this question is not easy. The sophistication of the answer results from the fact that a multiplicity of factors is involved- if not equally- in the process that gives rise to poverty. Is it true that what political economists say about the underlying cause of poverty applies to Nepalese context? Is it true that what physical ecologists say about this can be justified by the history of underdevelopment in Nepal? Is it true that at least all of the factors that are believed by different theorists to account for poverty-the set of the factors that one may abstract from all of the explanations of poverty put forward to date-explain Nepalese poverty? I argue that the problem of underdevelopment in Nepal has passed through a series of historical stages to find itself in its present form. Is it logical to trace the origin of underdevelopment in Nepal back to the time modern Nepal 5came into existence? And does the barter system retard or make it impossible for development to take place? Had a serious effort even under the non- ideal socio-economic system that existed in the past been made to bring about development from the time Nepal entered modern age, Nepal would have been more developed than it is now, though this developed stage would be far below the one the ideal socio-economic system gives rise to. The king Prithvi Narayan Shah was not sympathetic towards the problems of the majority of the people. Kathmandu valley was affluent during his reign because of its being the main trade route between India and Tibet, the phenomenon that existed long before he conquered Kathmandu6. But this affluence that resulted from the “entrepot trade with Tibet” was out of the reach of the general people because “the bulk of foreign trade”, reported a Christian missionary7, “was controlled by the royal family and nobility”.When did underdevelopment originate in Nepal for the first time in history? Chaitanya Mishra, a leading sociologist in Nepal, wrote in 1987, “It is difficult to precisely locate the onset of underdevelopment in Nepal”8. Despite the difficulty, he tried to locate its beginning during the middle of the 1880s on the basis of, in his own words, “a number of guideposts”. However, he doubted the exactness of the point of time he mentioned as the starting point of underdevelopment in Nepal. “Like most other historical markers”, wrote he, “this [the middle of the 1880s] is only an approximation”9. As is implicitly implied in Mishra’s definition of underdevelopment, underdevelopment is a broad process, which subsumes many sub-processes. Because underdevelopment as a process is broad enough to include many sub-processes, it is abstruse to answer the question of when underdevelopment first originated in Nepal. Stated in a more explicit way, the difficulty in answering such a question arises out of the fact that not all sub-processes subsumed under the broad underdevelopmental process came into being at the same point of time. Besides, the sub-processes in question do not last for the same length of time. By “underdevelopment”10, I mean a set of consequences of a broad process, which also encompasses the process Mishra considers to be underdevelopment, inter alia, as one of its sub-processes. #what are other sub-processes? # The question of when underdevelopment in Nepal as conceived by Mishra is another form of the question of when part of what I call “comprehensive underdevelopmental process”11 in Nepal.Political economy studies the relation of the state with market. The kind of the relation of the former with the latter determines whether there exist economic and social problems in the society where the relation manifests itself. What is the nature of the interaction between politics-state- and economics-market in Nepal? What was it in different historical periods? When did state come into being in Nepal? When did market come into existence in Nepal?One of the overriding reasons why Nepal is far behind developed countries of the world is poor governance. The past rulers in Nepal governed the country to gain personal rather than social advantage. Someone may try to argue away the lack of good governance exhibited by the past rulers by saying that the time they governed was an age of intellectual blindness. But, this argument cannot justify their irresponsible governing behaviour that put the country in a state of developmental stagnation. Let us suppose for some time that their bad governance is justifiable given the fact that they lived at the time when people were not aware of the real or complete process involved in the brining about of development. Implicitly implied in our such a supposition is that the present rulers or the rulers who ruled the country at the time when people were already aware of the process in question have no any excuse for the way they governed that resulted in the backwardness of the country.Nepal’s present underdevelopment is nothing but a cumulative whole of the consequences of bad governance on the part of our past rulers at least since the time when modern Nepal came into existence following the unification of small sovereign and autonomous principalities by Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1769. Though it is said that “the establishment of the kingdom of Nepal was due primarily to the “nationalist” spirit of Prithvi Narayan Shah…. who believed that the country’s progress and security would be assured if it was kept free from the influences of European colonists”12, there are many cases in which he was obsessed with personal aggrandizement or the aggrandizement of those who were close to him. As Mahesh C. Regmi has put it,“…It was in the economic field that lack of national integration was most evident…Roads were no doubt constructed, and ferry services established in different parts of the country. However, these transport facilities only served military needs: there is little evidence that they helped to promote trade and commerce. The energies of the government were concentrated primarily on the collection of revenues to finance its growing military and administrative expenditure. Concern for the well-being of the people seldom found a reflection through the disbursement of public funds.”13Nepal’s present underdevelopment is something cumulative. In subsequent chapter, I will deal with the cumulative character and structure of underdevelopment in Nepal. In a sense, development is a “temporal phenomenon” by which I mean something that has a temporal limitation in terms of the time it takes to be materialized. For example, we can not achieve any developmental goal as soon as we wish but only after a certain period of time passes. There is the fastest possible speed at which development activities are carried out to achieve a particular social goal. Development is a product of the passing of a certain period of time during which developmental activities are carried out. Let me emphasize here that by conceiving development as something temporal, I am not implicitly arguing that factors other than the passage of time have nothing to do with development. My belief that development may be spoken of , in a certain sense, as being “a temporal phenomenon” stems from the fact that time cannot be overlooked when there is a talk of development. Development planning has a temporal limitation. There is the shortest possible period of time taken by the materialization of the development planning. Nepal would have been developed now if our past rulers had realized that development is a temporal phenomenon in a sense. Many centuries passed without a serious “social” developmental effort on the part of our past rulers. This means that Nepal has lagged far behind by many centuries, and the now developed countries are more developed than Nepal by many centuries.A Look Back into the Macro-Developmental Efforts in NepalNepal was closed to outsiders until 195014. It is about two century and half since Nepal entered a modern age. It took its present geographic form towards the end of the eighteenth century. Underdevelopment in Nepal in its present form is a cumulative historical whole of consequences of a broad system15. That underdevelopment is also historical means it is a cumulative whole of effects caused by the hitherto social systems. One may raise a question of when the first social system existed the repercussion of which also figure in what I call “a cumulative whole of effects of social systems Nepal has experienced thus far. This question is a Herculean one. Without critically scrutinizing the history of social system in Nepal, it is not possible to answer it. The difficulty involved in answering it stems not from the problem with the securitization of the history of social systems in Nepal as one would think. The difficulty in question results from the difficulty involved in identifying a complete array of factors involved in the causal relationship. Because the hindrances to underdevelopment were not eradicated by the past rulers, the underdevelopment existed in different historical periods and still exists. It now finds itself in worse state than before. Nepal is both undeveloped and underdeveloped. The present problem of underdevelopment is the totality of the adverse effects of the way the country was ruled in the past. The way in which our country is governed now is not essentially different from the way in which it was governed in the past. Why is it that our past rulers did not govern the country in such a way as to bring about development? The answer is simple. They could not take themselves above their strong desire for personal rather than social aggrandizement.It is about six decades since Nepal started attempting to solve the problem of underdevelopment in a planned way. Many periodic plans were implemented in the past. But, no significant change has taken place in the country. Is it because of the fault of the plan itself or because of the poor implementation of the plan?Many scholars-both national and international-have endeavoured to explain underdevelopment in Nepal from a multiplicity of angles. The researcher aims at critically scrutinizing the explanations of underdevelopment set forth by them. The proposed research will be carried out in order to answer the following research questions:Before it assumed its present geographic form, i.e. during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Nepal was divided amongst numerous petty but autonomous hill states. Most of the rulers in these states belonged to Thakuri caste, believed to have descended from the Rajput families who ruled Rajasthan16 before they were defeated by the Muslims. In most cases, people of Indo-Aryan extraction were the ruling classes and people of Mongloid extraction and low caste artisans blacksmiths, leather workers and tailors.When did underdevelopment come into being for the first time in Nepal? How did it evolve over time? What accounts for underdevelopment in Nepal? Is there a knowledge gap in the field of development thinking in Nepal? What weaknesses do these explanations demonstrate? What are the factors that have contributed to underdevelopment in Nepal to different extents? Which of them is essential? Is it possible to develop such a development model that makes it possible for the countries to bring about development within a period of time less than the normal period of time?In his book “The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal”, Baburam Bhattarai defines development and underdevelopment in the following way:“Development and underdevelopment may be considered antithetical to each other in that, whereas development within a given social formation would be full realization of productive potentials of the society or transformation to higher social formation, underdevelopment would be the opposite condition of non-realization of full potential of development and/or blockage to transformation to higher formations under the cumulative impacts of prevailing endogenous and exogenous conditions”17The proposed research aims at critically examining the inadequately available Nepalese economic literature as part of the attempt to explain underdevelopment in Nepal18.The historical facts will be interpreted in the light of critical understanding of philosophy of history, one of the sub-fields within a broad discipline known as philosophy.There are various theories that attempt to explain underdevelopment. They differ as regards the perspective from which they look at underdevelopment. If we closely observe these theories, we find that they are partially true. If we are to merge all of them into a unified theory, I think there will be a theory, which is complete. It is to be understood that the theory that applies to one society is not universally applicable. It is necessary to look at the problem of underdevelopment from all possible perspectives in order to arrive at a logical conclusion regarding the question of what accounts for underdevelopment in a particular society. The recommendation we give regarding the best way to do away with the problem of underdevelopment must be informed by all the theories propounded to date.All of the factors, which have been put forward as the underlying causes of underdevelopment do not exist everywhere. Put it differently, though it is true that all theories of underdevelopment exhibit some relation with reality, it is not true that the underdevelopment in a particular society are a product of all of the factors different theories posit as the causes of underdevelopment. Those who think underdevelopment is caused by only one factor give us an incomplete advice on the question of how to address this problem. Because they regard underdevelopment as stemming from one factor only, their advice on this question does not pay heed to the eradication of another factor or other factors responsible for causing underdevelopment.Nepal lacked an ability to prevent itself from moving towards a quagmire of underdevelopment. The writers of Nepal in Crisis regarded this inability of Nepalese state as part of the crisis that they thought Nepal found itself in. They implicitly stated that what they meant by “the crisis that Nepal was in and the future crisis they had predicted Nepal would find itself in” is not “static point” towards which it moved and it was moving19. They did not elaborate on their concept of crisis in this book. This definitely leads us into a state of mental confusion in which we are unable to categorically answer the question of what constitutes the whole of their concept of crisis. Their statement that “crisis is a complex process; a changing manifestation of underlying structural contradictions which reveal themselves in a variety of forms, from the chronic to the acute” is so broad that it is not feasible to fathom what they mean by crisis in more specific and concrete terms without further elaboration20.I perceive underdevelopment as a product to evade the antinomy inherent in its use both as a process and product. How can we use the same word to designate two things? Do we not have another word that can be given one of the two meanings-a process and a product that underdevelopment refers to? Why is it that we are so attracted to the word “underdevelopment” that we give it two different meanings, which create a confusion in communication? However, I have nothing to say for its use either as a process or as a product. But when the same term is used to mean a contradictory set of two meanings (a process and a product), the problem arises with the communication. Its total existence is made up of a welter of products of a larger process, or what I prefer to call “a process with multi-faceted nature. The distinctive feature of this process is that it finds its existence on many fronts such as economic, political, cultural, educational, etc and at many planes such as local, national, and international. Put it differently, underdevelopment in the fullest rather than partial sense of the term is a set of repercussions of certain systems, which are political, cultural, economic, educational, technological, etc in character. This is not to say that they are equally responsible for the development of underdevelopment. I hold that they differ as regards the extent to which they contribute to underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is not such a thing as stems from a single factor. It is nothing but a totality of effects that results from a welter of factors. But, this is not to say that all effects that make up underdevelopment are equal in their strength, or in the extent to which they are severe. This inequality in their strength or the degree of their severity arises out of the discrepancy in their capacity to give rise to underdevelopment. The question of which of them is the salient cause of underdevelopment is not easy because the way they influence development and the extent to which they influence it is not the same everywhere. Also, the way development is influenced and the degree of the influence of development are not the same in all times.The lack of an intellectual ability demonstrated by the hitherto development/underdevelopment thinkers to look at development/underdevelopment in its entirety is the main reason why many countries are still underdeveloped and even the so-called developedTowards a New Developmental ParadigmUnderdevelopment stems not only from the system itself but also from those who work under the system. A question would arise of which of the two-the system and those who run the system- is primary cause of underdevelopment. It is wrong to say that one of the two is always primary and another always secondary. The system may be primary cause and its runners secondary cause in one situation while round in another situation The answer to this question depends upon another question- the question of what kind of the socio-economic system there is. Every socio-economic system has a capacity to bring about development to a certain measure21. It is not the system itself that ensures the realization of its full potential to bring about development. While the socio-economic system has a relation with development, it has no any relation with the full realization of its developmental potential. The full realization of the developmental potential of the socio-economic system hinges upon how its runners run it. Underdevelopment may exist even though there has been a socio-economic system that is adequately capable of bringing about development. Underdevelopment in such a situation may be spoken of as resulting from its runners, more specifically, the way they run the socio-economic system. In such a situation, those who run the system – of course, their behaviour affecting the effectiveness of the system by implication- are the primary cause of underdevelopment. Consider another situation. Let us suppose that there is no such a socio-economic system as is capable of bringing about development adequately. If underdevelopment exists despite the fact that “system runners” are as honest as possible in running the system. In this situation, the primary cause of underdevelopment is the socio-economic system rather than its runners.The socio-economic systems that prevailed prior to the unification are also responsible for the emergence of the present underdevelopment. It would not have been as severe as it is now had they been capable of bringing about adequate development. Though it is true that these systems account for the present underdevelopment in Nepal, it is wrong to blame them for it. One must be able to distinguish between attributing the present underdevelopment to these socio-economic systems and blaming them for it.We have many economic needs. If we lack an ability to fulfil these needs, we find ourselves in a condition that is called “underdevelopment”. Our inability to fulfil our different economic needs stems from different factors. Our inability to fulfil one economic need results from a different factor than the one that our inability to meet another economic need results from.Countries are still far from being “an ideal developed country”22. Nepal is not an exception to this reality.The main reason that Nepal is underdeveloped is that there has never been a fundamental change in the nature of the political and economic system. However, the extent to which Nepal is underdeveloped now might not have been as acute as it is now despite no change in it had other problems (e.g. cultural, educational, technological etc.) been done away with.Nepal’s underdevelopment has been explained by many scholars in different ways. The nature of the explanations for it ranges from capitalist to Marxist. Many explanations lie between them in terms of analytical framework by which to look at underdevelopment. Though there has been an effort to account for Nepal’s underdevelopment from almost all possible perspectives, not all efforts to explain it are very systematic. Marxist and neo-Marxist endeavours to explain it are more systematic than others.Endnotes1 Linguists in general agree that the nature of a language is such that it is an arbitrarily created system.2 I think they are probably unaware of even the question in question because being aware of the question usually means having something in mind as the answer to that question, which may not be necessarily logical, complete etc.3 “The analysis of discourse is necessarily analysis of language in use…. While some linguists may concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analyst is committed to an investigation of what language is used for” (p4) …..” “Philosophical linguists and formal linguists are particularly concerned with semantic relationships between constructed pairs of sentences and with their syntactic realizations” (preface) Gillian Brown and George Yule, Discourse Analysis, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1983. My effort to analyze different meanings given to underdevelopment to date with a view to identify the broad levels of expression they can be subsumed under has been informed by theoretical insights derived from the science of language, that is, linguistics and even the philosophy of language, one of the subfields within a broader discipline known as a philosophy.4 One may get surprised if someone raises such a question: is Nepal really poor? Dor Bahadur Bista implicitly argues that Nepalese people are not poor in absolute terms. He observed, “Nepal may be poor by international standards but the Nepali peasants are self –sufficient and largely content. Because of their isolation from international affairs, Nepalis had no idea that they were relatively impoverished until a few decades ago” Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development: Nepal’s Struggle for Modernization, India: Orient Longman Ltd., 2001, p 133. Those who feel surprise at such a question are bound to say that the answer is not in the affirmative. I do not feel surprise at their surprise. The kind of answer they give to this question is shaped by the kind of the understanding they have of poverty. They are right in answering that question in the negative, given their understanding of poverty. Someone may be surprised to see their surprise by thinking beyond their apprehension of poverty, that is, by thinking in terms of his/her own apprehension. But, their surprise does not amount to what I prefer to call “rational surprise”. Their surprise at the question I have stated above inevitably stems from the kind of apprehension they have of poverty. Nepal is not poor at least potentially. As someone has said, Nepal is like a beggar with a golden dish in his hand who begs money from people. If we are to keep in mind two things only-the availability of natural resources and the potential positive change in the lives of Nepalese people that the proper and adequate utilization of the abundantly available natural resources leads to, Nepal is not poor. But, if we are to use the question of whether the extent to which these resources have been utilized to date is adequate enough to benefit all the populace throughout the country as a yardstick, it must be accepted without any element of doubt that Nepal is poor. Historians say that Nepal found itself in its modern phase in 1769, the year when many small but sovereign principalities were merged into a single large sovereign country by the King by the name of Prithvi Narayan Shah.5 Historians say that Nepal found itself in its modern phase in 1769, the year when many small but sovereign principalities were merged into a single large sovereign country by the King by the name of Prithvi Narayan Shah.6 “Commercial relations between Kathmandu valley and Tibet had been reorganized during the reign of King Pratap Malla(1641-1674) of Kathmandu. A treaty signed between Kathmandu and Tibet at that time stipulated that Tibet should use no other route in its trade with India” (p 24, Mahesh C. Regmi, A study in Nepali Economic History).7 Quoted in Mahesh C. Regmi, A study in Nepali History, p 258 Chaitanya Mishra, Essays on the Sociology of Nepal, Kathmandu: Fine Print Books, 2007, p 539 Ibid, p 5310 If we examine all the different ways in which underdevelopment is used, we find that it is conceived both as a process and as a product a particular process results in. It is, therefore, essential that we guard ourselves against the proclivity for some people to understand underdevelopment only as one of them and to wrongly interpret the idea of others based on their own understanding of underdevelopment, the understanding contradicting the one they have. This is not to say that one must conceive underdevelopment as a set of these two. One must, I think, be free to deem it in any of these two ways. But, when we come across the term in question in any form of communication, we must be able to know in which of these two ways it has been used and to understand the term accordingly. If we fail to understand the term in question in a way in which product, tend to ask: when was the underdevelopmental process first seen in Nepal? And when were its those who have used it understand it, our apprehension of their idea surrounding underdevelopment is bound to be misleading # refer to books dealing with semantics# I use this term to mean a set of products that result from a certain process, which I prefer to call “underdevelopmental process”. Therefore, for me, the question of when underdevelopment first originated in Nepal is not the same as what those who perceive underdevelopment as a process think about this. It is more likely that these for whom underdevelopment is a process do not ask the question, which those, who deem it as a consequences seen first in Nepal? I felt it was necessary to add the adjective “comprehensive” to the phrase “underdevelopmental process”. The addition would help us look at underdevelopmental process in a broad way, or would help those who understand underdevelopment as a process, which is only part of the complete underdevelopmental process, to question their “parochial understanding” of underdevelopmental process.11 I felt it was necessary to add the adjective “comprehensive” to the phrase “underdevelopmental process”. The addition would help us look at underdevelopmental process in a broad way, or would help those who understand underdevelopment as a process, which is only part of the complete underdevelopmental process, to question their “parochial understanding” of underdevelopmental process.12 Regmi, Mahesh Chandra, A Study in Nepali Economic History, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 1999(second reprint*, p 913 Regmi, Mahesh Chandra, A Study in Nepali Economic History, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 1999(second reprint*, p 1414 Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development,2001 p 13315 As you will see in the subsequent chapter, the system that is responsible for the present underdevelopment in Nepal is so broad that it is made up of many sub-systems which are political, economic, cultural, educational, technological etc.16 Rajasthan is one of the provinces in India. In the distant past, it was an autonomous state.17 Bhattarai, Baburam, The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2003 , p 49418There exists a huge gap in the economic history of Nepal. Most of the historical works are about dynastic chronology and political relationships rather than economic phenomena. About 36 years ago, Mahesh Chandra Regmi, a formidable Nepalese thinker, wrote:“Nor is the present lacuna in the field of Nepali historiography limited solely to methodology. From the viewpoint of substance too, the persistent disregard for the economic aspects of Nepal’s historical problems is inexplicable and inexcusable.”19 In the recently republished book, Nepal in Crisis ,these writers have dealt with the question as to whether their views expressed, or based on the phenomena that existed, twenty years ago are still relevant or not. They opine that their political-economic analysis of Nepalese society-the first systematic analysis of the political economy of underdevelopment in Nepal as the writers themselves claim, which I also think is correct- is still valid.20 They define crisis in the following way: “We do not see a crisis as some static point towards which societies move….We would also include in the concept of Nepal’s crisis the direction which the nation as a whole is taking. In other words, Nepal’s inability to change a direction (or rather a slide) to catastrophe is part of the crisis. Crisis is therefore a complex process; a changing manifestation of underlying structural contradictions which reveal themselves in a variety of forms, from the chronic to the acute. Nepal’s crisis is, we argue, rapidly becoming acute”. (p 5).21 This is not to say that all of the socio-economic systems have the same level of capacity to bring about development. They differ as regards the extent to which they are capable of bringing about development.22 I may be understood as implicitly saying that all of the hitherto thinkers in question are of the same order. It must be accepted that they are heterogeneous in terms of the quality and validity of their explanation for underdevelopment. Notwithstanding this, the arguments set forth by some are more tenable and logical than those put forward by others. Besides, the sense in which I have ascribed the lack of a particular intellectual ability to underdevelopment in underdeveloped world and the absence of ideal development in the so-called developed world is that the policy informed by the insights of those who lack such ability is bound to exacerbate the problem of underdevelopment. It would be wrong to extrapolate from my having ascribed underdevelopment and the absence of ideal development to the dearth of that intellectual ability that I assume that looking at underdevelopment in a way in which I look at is sufficient in order that development comes about. My ascription should not be mistaken for the fact that I assume that the implementation of the policy that is guided by my understanding of underdevelopment has nothing to do with development.