Youth, meritocracy and cultural hierarchy in the New Nepal

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Nepali youth expectations about political equality in the ‘New’ Nepal following the promulgation of a constitution in 2015. It discusses the outcome of seven deliberative youth assemblies held across the country in 2018 and 2019, in which youth debated their priorities for the governments at the local, provincial, and federal levels. These assemblies revealed that youth were committed to a conception of meritocracy that prioritizes individual achievement over cultural ascription as a basis for social and economic justice. Current efforts to introduce equity through ethnic, caste, and gender reservations were seen as useful instruments to achieve this equality but also distrusted as they appeared to contradict meritocratic principles or as tactics to sustain Nepal’s existing cultural barriers.

KEYWORDS:

• Nepal
• youth
• meritocracy
• affirmative action
• political ethnography
• deliberative democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight [grant number 435-2018-1108].

Notes on contributors

Tom O'Neill

Tom O'Neill is an anthropologist and Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. His research in Nepal dealt with petty-capitalism, child labor, and youth ‘living rights’ as carpet weavers. He also investigated labor migration and the effects of the Maoist insurgency on children and youth. His current research is on youth political engagement in Nepal’s emerging democracy. His most recent book is The Heart of Helambu: Ethnography and Entanglement in Nepal (2016).