| ashu |
Posted
on 27-Oct-00 01:38 AM
Mabi wrote:
>You believe your friend, Tim, in saying
>that Chandra Shamsher did not distribute the >land to freed slaves nor did he rehabilitate >them. That's fine.
>If Tim says it was not Chandra Shamsher, >then he should be
>able to say who gave them the authority to >settle there at a particular place?
Mabi, the irony is this.
Despite the name Amlekh Gunj, there were and are NO freed slaves who ever settled there!!
Tim has been to that place, and, after spending a week, could find no one who had descended from the freed slaves. You could
say that he did lousy research, but his
evidence says otherwise.
That's why, the issue of where those freed slaves disappear remains a historical mystery.
I think Tim's research is ground-breaking
for arguing, with evidence, that popular assumptions about Chandra Shumsher's
settling the the freed slaves are NOT supported by historical evidence.
This is, of course, NOT to detract the basic good work that Chandra did do to free the slaves in the first place.
>Tim's research would not be complete
> without the answer of
>who settled them there.
Well, you know very well that all research
in the social sciences is ongoing all the time anyway.
There is no such thing as complete and finished research that neatly answers all
the questions in one package.
Maybe other historians, with better
evidence, will challenge Tim's conclusions
tomorrow . . . and that's fine. This is
how the field of historical inquiry should
advance in Nepal and elsewhere.
>Probably a similar "tarika" might help
>the "Kamaiya's" to settle.
What we do know is this: Chandra Shumsher paid off the debts of the slaves he freed.
Today's irate jamin-daars evoke this
act of Chandra Shumsher to demand
that today's government also pay off
the debts (saunki) of the ex-kamaiyas.
But what these jamindaars do not seem to
understand is this. By Nepal's laws
(the Constitution and the Muluki Ain),
keeping someone in debt bondage was/is
ILLEGAL to begin with!!
So, the jamin-daars asking for compensation is like, to use Tim's analogy, a smuggler's asking for compensation for goods he lost after being caught by the police!!
Tim, BTW, is a graduate of Conneticut's Wesleyan University. He is in his mid-20s.
Completed his research on Nepali slaves
as a part of his undergraduate thesis.
Published his findings in the journal
Studies in Nepali History and Society.
Speaks fluent Nepali, and presently works
in Nepal as an advisor to Dilli's organization Backward Society Education.
A really smart, fun guy, overall.
He can be reached at: twhyte@wlink.com.np
More later,
ashu
>BTW, Who is Tim?
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