Community penetration and subjection of labour to merchant capital in a Newar town in west-central Nepal

Blaikie, Cameron and Seddon's book 'Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery' represents the first major critical study in Nepal. Although it was initially banned by the Nepalese government and continues not to be considered acceptable reading, it has had great influence on the Nepalese intelligentsia. Many scholars accept the major conclusions, but now criticise the book because of an unconvincing attempt by the authors to fit a rather orthodox Marxist model to the Nepalese countryside. As a result of a two year study of the same area in the central hills of Nepal, we are able to show how their methodology was unable to provide data that could demonstrate the actual process at work. They also misunderstood the Marxist model, and thus analysed  the data they did have from a theoretical standpoint.