Gender, Class, Resilient Power: Nepal Lessons in Transformation

Control of armies, police and parties delivers hard power in the ‘state of exception’ illustrated by civil war in Nepal. The history of Nepal nevertheless shows how in revolutionary conditions, the crowd can be decisive to advance equality. Soft people power is mostly superior for advancing egalitarian agendas than hard power. Yet momentary people power must grapple with ancient, entrenched, material power. While ethnic or religious groups sometimes create armies, political parties, states within a federation, women do not create such institutions of hard power. Deft vernacularisation of women’s rights, LGBT rights and the rights of Untouchables into the discourses of both Maoist and western hard power delivered some egalitarian shifts. This case reveals how windows of soft power that advance gender and class equality can be widened in the face of resurgence of the hard power of parties, militaries, crony capitalism and foreign capital. Together, window-widening, disciplined nonviolence and vernacularisation to enroll hard power can deliver transformations that favour the marginalised.