The Everyday Guardians: Rana Tharu Women’s Implicit Roles in Nepal

This story written by Civic Media Observatory, Samanta Azpurua and Bikram originally appeared on Global Voices on August 21, 2026.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, establishing an important framework for advancing and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples. A central component of the Declaration is protecting Indigenous peoples’ distinct identities and cultural integrity. This includes rights such as practicing, revitalizing, and transmitting cultural institutions, traditions, and customs.

Self-determination is another fundamental principle of the 2007 UN Declaration. It recognizes Indigenous peoples’ longstanding traditions of self-government, autonomous decision-making, and institutional self-reliance, and affirms their right to determine their own political, economic, social, and cultural priorities and to be their own custodians.

In the villages of Kailali and Kanchanpur in Nepal’s far-western Terai, through language, traditional attire, ancestral jewelry, songs, rituals, and food systems, Rana Tharu women share a distinct cultural identity at a time when migration, urbanization, and social change threaten many Indigenous traditions — setting an implicit narrative that gives women a critical role in preserving Rana Tharu cultural heritage.

See also: Could Social Media Affect Who We Are?

Narrative: Women are essential custodians of Rana Tharu cultural heritage

For many children, their first introduction to the Rana Tharu language comes from their mothers and grandmothers. Household conversations, lullabies, wedding songs, and folk tales remain important spaces where the language survives and flourishes.

As formal education and media increasingly prioritize Nepali and English, women often become the last line of defense preventing the loss of local languages. Elders pass on stories about ancestors, forests, farming, and community life to younger generations, keeping language connected to culture and memory.

Rana Tharu women’s role as culture custodians goes beyond language preservation. In a YouTube video by Ranatharu.com, Sarswati Rana congratulates Rambeti Rana, a winner of a Teej song competition. Rambeti Rana wears traditional attire in the video. Rana Tharu textiles feature intricate floral and abstract embroidery, colorful pom-poms, tassels, and creative patchwork. These vibrant elements showcase the community’s artistic traditions, resourcefulness, beliefs, rituals, and strong connection to nature and wildlife. Each design carries cultural meaning and tells a story passed down through generations largely by women. The jewelry that accompanies the dress reflects the Rana Tharu community’s longstanding connections across the region that now includes Nepal and northern India. Each piece carries stories of trade, migration, family lineage, and cultural continuity.

Jeevan Rana, Vice-Chairperson, Provincial Policy and Planning Commission, Sudurpashchim Province, when asked about traditional attire, told Global Voices that:

In the video, Rambeti Rana sings a Teej song traditionally performed by women during the Hindu festival of Teej. Among the Rana Tharu, women observe the Teej fast for the health, prosperity, and long life of their brothers and nephews. This practice differs from that of most other Hindu communities, where women traditionally fast for the well-being and longevity of their husbands or in the hope of finding an ideal husband.

The narrative positioning women at the center of tradition-passing is asserted mostly through actions and, implicitly, in the everyday dynamics and expressions of the Rana Tharu community.

Rana Tharu Hori (Holi) celebrations offer another important cultural space where women express and celebrate their heritage through clothing and actions. Regarded as the community’s grandest festival, Hori is distinguished by its duration of more than 38 days and its distinct phases. The celebrations begin with Zinda Hori, meaning “living Hori,” which marks the start of this elaborate festive period.

See also: Social Media Overtakes Traditional Media as Top News Source, Reuters Study Finds

The context surrounding the narrative

Rana Tharus are a distinct community within Nepal’s broader Tharu population, concentrated primarily in the Terai region. They are one of five major Tharu groups found predominantly in Nepal, alongside the Kathariya, Dangaura, Chitwan (Chitwaniya), and Kochila Tharu. Of these groups, the Kochila are the most geographically widespread.

Rana Tharus traditionally claim Rajput ancestry and migration from Chittorgarh, India, though some scholars dismiss this and assert the myth originates from “caste climbing” storytelling.

Whether Rana Tharus’ origins are factually from Chittorgarh, India, or not, the community’s collective memory holds to the claim of Rajput ancestry, carried by women who fled to Sukala, today’s Shuklaphanta, Terai, Nepal, after Muslims invaded Chittorgarh, India. According to Lai Ming Lam’s publication “Land, Livelihood and Rana Tharu Identity Transformations In FarWestern Nepal,” Rana Tharu oral shared history document that, “there was one Brahmin girl in the group and she fell in love with one of the retainers” one of the servants of the king who was also fleeing and that as a consequence of her higher caste status, “it was agreed that her husband could never enter the kitchen when she made food,” placing women in a higher status.

Beyond preserving language, dress, jewelry, and food traditions, Rana Tharu women play a central role in maintaining religious and ritual life. Their responsibilities extend to agricultural rituals tied to sowing, planting, and harvesting, where prayers and offerings seek fertility, prosperity, and protection for crops and livestock. Women also oversee regular weekly worship, seasonal deity services, and periodic family ceremonies, including traditional three-year deity rituals that reaffirm ancestral and spiritual bonds.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, government resettlement programs and migration into Nepal’s western Terai significantly changed landownership and settlement patterns. Many Rana Tharu families lost customary landholdings as migrants acquired land, while the creation and later expansion of Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve displaced households from ancestral settlements and farmland.

Inheritance-driven land fragmentation is a major challenge for the Rana Tharus. As land is divided among sons and later among brothers and their descendants, farms become smaller and less economically viable. Combined with land loss and population growth, this fragmentation has weakened the community’s agricultural base, reduced farm productivity, and increased dependence on wage labor, migration, and other non-agricultural livelihoods.

Education has also been a long-term challenge for Rana Tharus. Historically, limited access to education and the priority given to agriculture and immediate economic needs restricted educational advancement. Although education is increasingly valued today, these historical disadvantages remain visible in the relatively low representation of Rana Tharus in higher education, government service, professional occupations, and decision-making institutions, limiting their political and administrative influence.

Restrictions on forests, grazing lands, wetlands, and other communal resources have disrupted traditional livelihoods and crafts of Rana Tharus. Reduced access to timber, bamboo, reeds, grasses, and other materials has made practices such as basket weaving, household-item production, and traditional house construction increasingly difficult.

[VP]

Suggested Reading: