Roads in Nepal are more than stretches of gravel and dust. They are promises etched into political slogans, development dreams and emblems of progress to secure public support. In rural Nepal, roads not only invite accessibility but can also produce inequality, environmental transformation and political forms of exclusion.

Grounded in ethnographic qualitative research, ‘Infrastructures of Democracy: Politics and Processes of Road Building in Rural Nepal’ presents avant-garde prospects and motifs of road constructions in rural Nepal—particularly in Morang, Dolakha and Mugu. The book presents road development not merely as infrastructural, but as an impetus shaping community life, environmental change and local politics.

Along with collaborative and relational ethnographic methodology, interviews, observational methods and archival research inform the book’s comprehensive findings.

Presenting roads as central to governmental practices and numerous facets of everyday life, the research argues that they shape the dynamics of political and environmental change, and those dynamics, in turn, bring roads into being in specific ways in particular times and places.

The book explores multiple narratives and perspectives that address the social, material, and political ‘messiness’ the researchers encountered in the districts, while also introducing the vernacular languages of each area.

The history of road development in Nepal presents the chronology: 1846-1950, 1950-1970, 1970-1990 and 1990-present, marking the evolution from the Rana regime to the present ‘green road’ concepts. This history examines the political structure and economic conditions within and beyond the borders of Nepal.

The book moves across three districts: Morang in the plains, Dolakha in the mid-hills, and the remote mountain district, Mugu. Each presents key trajectories in the road development of Nepal today, encompassing a wide range of political-ecological, cultural-political, and geopolitical contexts. Challenging the easy divisions between urban and rural, and introducing a distinction between municipalisation and urbanisation, the book’s rural perspectives underscore the diversity of people’s everyday engagements with road building and its management.

The chapter ‘The Politics and Practice of Road Building in Morang: A Paradox of Remoteness and Accessibility’ by researcher Lagan Rai addresses road as a ‘fundamentally political endeavour that generates unintended consequences, including environmental degradation, inequality and injustice among the local population.’ Engaging closely with Morang for two years, 2016-2018, Rai explored the lived paradox of isolation and remoteness in Morang, addressing the socio-political and environmental contexts of road building.

In these accounts, roads are not merely infrastructural. They become boundaries that determine who can reach the market and access healthcare and who remains isolated.

Rai puts forward the voices of the residents of Morang and their history of forced or voluntary labour, jana shramdan, during the late 18th century. The government’s inadequacy in addressing local development and planning decreased the inclination towards voluntary labour, subsequently increasing the manual wage. Corruption, locally referred to as chalkhel, khanu, milaunu, became widely recognised as an embedded part of the system.

In Morang, the presence of rivers and streams is often a challenge, especially during the monsoon season. The construction of bridges, which is significantly overlooked in discussions about road development and planning, underscores the technical burden and further induces remoteness in the district.

The book also shows how class conflict and the exclusion of marginalised communities from the democratic process of public participation are strongly shaped by road accessibility. Locals were found using bullock carts for regular transport in the dry seasons, while only wealthier individuals used elephants to cross rivers during the rainy season. “Locals’ narratives often reflect their strong feelings of remoteness and isolation,” writes Rai.

‘The Politics and Practice of Road Building in Dolakha: From Users’ Committees to Bulldozers’ by Shyam Kunwar navigates the complexities of road building in Dolakha based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted from 2015-2019 and July-August 2023.

Dolakha experiences significant technical challenges in building roads, as a mountainous district encompassing the ‘middle-hills’ and inner-mountaineous Himalayan regions. The diverse ethnocultural populace and history of Dolakha are given considerable weight in the section, which also highlights cross-border commerce with Tibet.

‘A Dolakha Initiative’ presents how local people adapt and accommodate change. Kunwar highlights the road history of Dolakha, with tensions between the efficiency of heavy machinery and the availability of locally used tools. He also navigates the acceptance and resistance of Dolakha’s local government towards environmentally friendly construction practices. Influencing the process of winning contracts, making money, and contributing to local development, “commissions” (bribes) proved more effective.

Excessive use of dozers in the hills of Dolakha raises questions about environmental considerations and sustainability, largely making the area vulnerable to landslides and floods. Kunwar addresses a set of questions rooted in the politics of land: “Who is the public? Why does the public sometimes demand the road and sometimes protest it?”

Typically described as “remote”, Mugu is examined in research by Pushpa Hamal and Tulasi Sharan Sigdel for its challenges in agricultural production and road construction.

The chapter highlights the changing experiences of remoteness in Mugu, making key arguments about how road building catalyses not only infrastructural transformation but also shifts in economic and political subjectivity. “Mugu’s road history powerfully illustrates the point that remoteness is experienced as a relative, not an absolute concept in relation to the development of infrastructure.”

Describing the common features of the user group, Hamal and Sigdel discuss the practice of kagaj milaune, which corresponds to practices found in Dolakha.

The chapter concludes by presenting roads as powerful political imagery and a socio-political field, with key implications for economic development and social justice, advocating for community control over the local planning processes.

The conclusion by Katherine N Rankin brings together the ethnographic findings of the research, concluding with the normative question for planning praxis: what is to be done? Addressing connectivity and remoteness that deliver uneven experiences even within the same locality, the research brings the dynamics and impacts of power into the limelight.

By foregrounding the voices of the communities living along these roads, the book challenges existing development thinking and presents strong ethnographic aspects. Ultimately, it reframes infrastructure as a political relationship between the citizens and the state. “When citizens are subject to material hardships caused by road ‘upgrading’— persistent dust, unreliable transportation– roads as a shared imagery for future progress cease to hold the public trust,” writes Rankin.

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Infrastructures of Democracy: Politics and Processes of Road Building in Rural Nepal

Editors: Katharine N Rankin, Sara Shneiderman, Mukta S Tamang

Publisher: Martin Chautari
Year: 2026