Many Tongues One People (SSB) – Arjun Guneratne

Many Tongues, One People
The Tharu of lowland Nepal are a culturally and linguistically diverse people who, only a few generations ago, would not have acknowledged each other as belonging to the same ethnic group. Today the Tharu are actively redefining themselves in Nepal’s mutiethnic polity. In Many Tongues, One People, Arjun Guneratene argues that shared cultural symbols-including religion, language, and common myths of descent-are not a necessary condition for the existence of a shared sense of peoplehood.
The many diverse and distinct sociocultural groups sharing the name “Tharu” have been brought together, Guneratne asserts, by a common relationship to the state and a shared experience of dispossession and exploitation that transcends their cultural differences. Tharu identity, the author shows, has developed in opposition to the activities of a modernizing, centralizing state and through interaction with other ethnic groups that have immigrated to the Tarai region where the Tharu live.
Many Tongues, One People is without question the most detailed and careful study of the politics of identity in Nepal and greater South Asia I have encountered. By focusing on the material conditions and social processes behind the production of a Tharu identity in Nepal, Arjun Guneratne is able to address critically the key theoretical positions on ethnicity in a highly informative way.
-David Holmberg, Cornell University
Many Tongues One People (SSB) – Arjun Guneratne