Tending the Flower Garden

Focusing on dohori’s place in state constructions of nationalism, this chapter traces the genealogies of musical tropes in dohori and the umbrella genre of lok gīt, or folk song, through a history of musical nationalism and associated musical and language ideologies. It looks at song genres chosen to represent the nation after the founding of Radio Nepal in 1951, and tells how men in charge of the folk song department at the radio shaped Nepali national folk music. It also tells the story of national dohori competitions and how they, along with the radio and national cultural policy, helped consolidate dohori into its current generic parameters. It examines the power dynamics of region, caste, and ethnicity, showing how the attempt to unite Nepal’s musical diversity into an all-inclusive national genre ended in the overrepresentation of particular regional styles, and, most important, how the music chosen became symbolic of cultural intimacy.