Freedom, Margins, and Music: Performance as Development Discourse in Nepal

In this article, I examine how the Tharu—one of the largest ethnic minority groups in Nepal, indigenous to the country's southern plains—frame their position as landless, bonded laborers (kamaiyā) as a human rights crisis within maghauta nāc competitions. Originally, the maghauta nāc was a participatory song-and-dance genre performed during the festival of Māghī, but the Tharu now widely showcase it in competitions. I argue that the Tharu employ the human rights discourse in their performances to enact social change in their communities and reform their public image, all on their own terms.