Shakun's 'The Way Forward' Op-Ed in The Kathmandu Post

The Way Forward | Op-Ed | :: The Kathmandu Post ::

Laxman Tharu, Buddha Tsering Moktan and Shakun Sherchand Leslie

LAXMAN THARU,BUDDHA TSERING MOKTAN,SHAKUN SHERCHAND LESLIE

KATHMANDU, FEB 20 -

Adivasi Janajatis, Dalits, Madhesis, Muslims, Khasas and Brahmins are all Nepalis; and yet, why do we feel pointedly obliged to redefine ourselves more than ever before? Is it because Nepali nationalism remains rigid in content and vague in inspiration?

First of all, it has to be clear that the Tharus, Tamangs, Thakalis, Limbus, Newars, Rais and Magars are comfortable in defining themselves as Adivasi Janajatis for a reason. Adivasi connotes the indigenous peoples of Nepal while Janajati refers to its tribal/ethnic heritage. Autochthonous (derived from Greek), meaning “sprung from the earth”, Adivasi Janajatis were settlers rather than conquistadores. The Neolithic tools found in Nepal hint of our presence here 9,000 years ago. We were taught verbatim that our ancestors had prepared a survival kit to connect with the land, air, trees, water and mysticism. In their quest for survival and in order to give meaning to their existence, they adopted animistic, shamanistic and Buddhist practices.

When the interlopers came, instead of embracing harmony, they brought a foreign religion and forcibly replaced ancestor worship by idol worship. They trespassed upon Adivasi land by manipulation and conquest. Therefore, the indigenous ethnic people can be defined as “a politically underprivileged group, who share a similar ethnic identity different to the nation in power, and who have been an ethnic entity in the locality before the present ruling nation took over power”.

Adivasi Janajatis did not emerge from caste Hinduism, and discrimination is incompatible with the practice of ahimsa (non-violence) and karuna (compassion). Brahmins in Nepal have to understand the marginalised, discriminated and exploited are fighting not those who are Brahmins by birth, but the deplorable and excessive practice of the laws of Manu.

What went wrong?

Before the concept of nation state emerged, the diversity of human culture in Nepal was as varied as the biodiversity of the flora and fauna, and peace depended on the symbiotic relationship based on their needs. However, Hinduism undid the various ethnic principalities. Hindu Brahminbad was introduced during the Lichchhavi period and established in 1437 B.S. by Jayasthiti Malla when he invited five Brahmins from South India to introduce casteism and discrimination according to the Manava-Dharmashastra (Laws of Manu).

What is unnerving for Adivasi Janajatis is their systematic elimination through application of “law of all the social classes”, whereby a majority of Nepalis are socially and politically disenfranchised. In 1870, the Ranas tried to suppress the indigenous people’s languages and in the process, many were executed or chased from the country.

As Adivasi Thakalis, we realised that our father’s inheritance was a shift in history. Their forefathers had traded language, culture and identity for the license to trade in salt; for salt was the subsistence of their tribe, and a man who did not know how to fulfill the needs of his tribe could not be called a Thakali, literally the oldest and the wisest.

The Tharus can trace their lineage back to Shakyamuni Buddha, Ashoka and the Koli heritage. But the Tharus — an indigenous, self-sufficient group — were debased to Kamaiyas, the poor share croppers, through an enforced social hierarchy. The Ranas had given up large parts of the Tarai and present day Sikkim in exchange for Nepali autonomy. The Ranas followed internal colonisation after assisting the British in the Indian rebellion of 1857 and both world wars.

The Tharus had lost their land through the manipulation of land rights tied up with what was considered development aid. In 1952, the joint collaboration of the US Operation Mission and WHO helped eradicate malaria from the Rapti Valley, benefiting the mid-hill Brahmins and Chhetris to exclude the Tharus from their own territory, as earlier they were the only inhabitants resistant to malaria. The Tarai progressed to becoming the rice bowl of Nepal, upgrading the land value. By the mid-1960s, two million people had migrated to the Tarai. By 1971, the proportion of cultivated land in the Tarai was 41 percent compared to 9 percent in the hills and 2 percent in the mountains. They gradually watched their land slip away from their hands — 75 percent of the land being transferred to Brahmin zamindars, 10 percent to Chhetris and 15 percent to Janajati and Tharu landlords.

Between the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) of 1854 to Bhumisudhar (Land Reform Act) of 1963, the laws and directives sidetracked the Adivasi Janajatis through a land grabbing mechanism and huge tracts of land were passed as state gifts to priests, advisors and administrators. This displaced and shrunk the livelihood of the Tharus as they turned into Kamaiyas (serfs). Kippat (community) land was taken from the Tamangs and Limbus, and guthi (religious community) land from the Newars. Ownership of land by Adivasi Janajatis dropped from approximately 100 percent to 60 percent during this period.

The declaration of Nepal as a Hindu state diminished the cultural practices of the Adivasi Janajatis. Dashain (a Hindu festival) was declared a national holiday. Citizenship papers were processed with Hinduised names for land ownership. Adivasi Janajatis, who were mostly Buddhist practitioners, were forced into caste categories. Eating beef was made sacrilegious, and violators were imprisoned. Even now, there are 200 discriminatory laws.

Sanskritised Nepali was the predominant official language. The Nepali vernacular was used as the medium of education and elimination of other dialects, pushed out by humiliating their speakers. Systematic exclusion of Adivasi Janajatis from the administration, civil service, media, high posts in the military and political parties was initiated and soon became the standard. The Adivasi Janajatis, with their limited skills in spoken/written Nepali, were at a huge disadvantage.

Civil distress

Adivasi Janajatis as Nepalis are trying to reclaim their lost dignity through agradhikar (restorative justice).

“Ek Madhes, Ek Pradesh”, which is basically a slogan against Brahmin hegemony, is not just an ideology of some political party, but a demand for identity. Meanwhile, the CA has become a 24-party arena for social inclusion debates. The country is at high risk of political and social polarisation. The ham-fisted state restructuring invites another level of controversy and especially puts the Tharus and the Madhesi on alert. Recently, the Khasa people congregated to declare their desire to declared Adivasi Janajatis.

To ignore social inclusion through proportionate representation in federal Nepal will be akin to taking the country from the hands of authoritarian feudalists and putting it into the hands of repressive totalitarians. Hence, our common cause has to be ‘drafting equality, executing equality and administering equality’ and thereby bringing Nepali nationalism to a full circle.

Proust on Memories, Place & Time: The Last Lovely, Fleeting Line of Swann's Way

"They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years."

Marcel Proust

'Swann's Way'

Recherche du Temps Perdu

Remembrance of Time Lost

The Last Line of Joyce's 'The Dead'

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

James Joyce

'The Dead'

Dubliners (1914)

Leah's February USA Shopping List

Dear Daddy,

I hope you are having a good time with Grammy. Mommy and I am having fun too. OK! you are coming on the 25th. Could you please get me these things?

1- flip flops in brown or black or white isze 23 or 23cm long from toe point to heel point.

2- marshmellows

3- cream cheeese for my bagles

4- bead making box

5 Hanna Montana secret rock star headset $ 14 ( go to website amazon.com)

6- skate board and knees pads

TQS!

Luv ya dad, Leah

Valentine's Day 2010

i'm in josh's room at georgetown university. while i write, ez is on another computer. josh is taking a nap.

last night, our first here, we went out for dinner w/ charlie, josh's seattle roommate, and arian, an american-iranian friend of his from denver. we found paradiso pizza and ice cream w/ hot fudge on the streets of georgetown in the freezing winds of this snowathon here in washington, dc.

it's actually quite incredible how much snow there is on the streets here. there was hardly any in NMH, in fact a lot of green grass was showing on the campus up by the vermont border, then a fair amount burrowing in the cars on the mean streets of NYC, the one transit night ez and i spent there. first taking an hour++ to get across the bronx, then dropping the car at hertz on 95th street, then, whoosh!, me up to ed and sherry's in harlem for a night on the couch while ez took the subway out to queens to see adhish and sudip (silash had gone for losar to boston).

it was great to see ed and sherry in their new digs in harlem. a spacious restored townhouse w/ huge spaces and tons of books w/ a little fireplace. very rustic and intellectual in the BIG city. quite a change for our friends from their vermont and kathmandu worlds...

then, ez and i took the bolt magic bus from nyc mid-day yesterday after a quick but absolutely delightful hour w/ malika leiper munching bagels near columbia. she loves it there and didn't quite feel the same in cambodia when she was there over new years. it's always cute to see ez and malika together. they are birds of a similar feather, global kids, worldly, smart, self-confident. much life ahead for these young souls...

now we've run straight into near-arctic conditions here near the mason-dixie line. this used to be a southern city, but climate change has everything upside down, it seems. i just came from tea at michael and karen's home in nw dc. each person had dug out their own car in front of their home, then placed a plastic chair there to keep others from parking in their private sites. some cars are still fully buried under the snow... and five more inches are expected tomorrow!

time, i guess, to wake up josh, who's been working hard and loving this semester at g'town. he's deep into his south asian politics and state building classes! i get to guest lecture at one of his classes on tuesday about my work on the constitution in nepal. i love these opportunities as it pleases the ancient academic in me and the fun of being w/ students in a more intellectual, stimulating environment. fantastic to see how engaged josh is, as well, now with his studies. i couldn't wish for more.

so it's time to catch a taxi to the folger shakepeare theater by capitol hill, where i booked tixs this afternoon for a modern interpretation of 'orestes' by euripdies in that beautiful classic stage. i thought a bit of kulture for the boys wud be even better than a movie tonight. good for josh, too, to know some of the amazing places in his new town. i was last there to 'midsummer's night's dream' in 1978!

then, tomorrow we'll see what's up depending on how much homework josh has to do. he's got one afternoon class on tolkien (a good balance to his four governance/politics/philosophy classes) that's being made up b/c of the last lost week due to snow days.

i head to mom's on tuesday evening while ezi has an 8 am train back to springfield. how much and independently these young souls travel around our world. i guess it runs in the family or through my genes, if i look back at my youth, as well...

then, as quickly as we are together, poof, it's over the we all head in our own directions. such is life. but, as you can feel, it's so good to be together, even briefly, as much and as often as possible. america has been good to and for these sons of ours, no doubt about that! much credit to NMH and their gentle yet demanding tutelage up in the cow pastures of rural western massachusetts.

of course, i wish we had more time with these awakened young men as we miss parts of the transitions in their lives at this stage of youthful promise, but that's the way it is right now. still, they are good. very good. josh loves his studies and life. he's really fit into georgetown now and it's been an excellent, challenging, stimulating world for him as he makes his way in the world. he's got this cream in his wavey hair, wearing both his black earring studs. very slick and big city.

ez is casual and laid-back about his future. telling malika that he doesn't think he'll get into any of his schools and then he'll head to europe to take some writing course and learn a language. not a bad plan B -- actually, can we join him? lago como? but malika smiles, shakes her head and like most of us, says, 'ezi, you'll get in somewhere!' laughs and looks at him with a kind wonder.

these boys. great sons. great young men. a joy to be near them. hug them. get a kiss from josh on the cheek. meet their friends. live. love, dance. it's a wonderful way to spend valentine's day.

Shakun on "Agradhikar" or 'Restorative Justice' in Nepal

Agradhikar literally translates as “pro-original rights” and prescribes not “preferential rights” but “restorative justice” for citizens who have been oppressed and subjugated with forced nationalism causing the destruction of the original practices of communities and leading to discriminatory and unlawful human rights practices. Agradhikar as restorative justice has been the touch word in the language radar of the Adivasi Janajati expression of self-determination. Agradhikar can be defined as reclaiming the inheritance of wasted social, symbolic, cultural and economic values. 

The Adivasi Janajatis are evaluating through dialogue and expressing by story-telling their experiences of discrimination, marginalisation and exploitation and how they can be partners in the state building process as equal citizens. They reminisce about the sequential and structural discrimination of Adivasi Janajatis, Dalits and other marginalised groups demanding social, political, economic and educational opportunities. Such rights as these marginalised identities have been demanding are specified in the declaration of UNDRIP, ILO Convention 169, CERD and CBD Convention 1992. 

Exclusion and humiliation

Some may like to believe that agradhikar interpreted as ‘extra-preferential rights’ demanded by the Adivasi Janajatis will lead to ‘reverse discrimination’ and thereby attends to the fear of Brahminbadis. The Adivasi Janajatis, Dalits, Madhesis and other marginalised groups find the relevance of their demand for restorative justice in the same way that Indian constitutionalist Dr. Ambedkar was for applying necessary unequal rights to bring society to a conclusive equilibrium. Preferential rights are not bonus rights but justified and reasonable compensations to right the historical wrongs perpetuated through defining and classifying of the citizenry according to a dominant caste’s prerogative. 

As Galileo was right to question the church and the state which held that the earth was flat, the Adivasi Janajatis have a right to question their enforced inclusion as discriminatory and unjustified. 

Conquest and subjugation

The origin of Nepali state nationalism is the enforced aggregation of Brahmin discipline and methodology. Before the conquest of the 22 and 24 fiefdoms and principalities, Prithvi Narayan Shah was a warrior king of the Gorkha, whose divinity was protected by his Magar priests. But he sanctified Brahmins as the priests who could dictate his spiritual life and anesthetise him about the plight of his people and place. From 1768, the Brahmins who had been vested with priesthood fast levitated to advisors, gathered momentum as administrators and established their rule under the garb of kingship and democracy. Their monopoly to translate the Hindu religious texts helped them establish their hegemony over the king and citizens. They gave technical accounts in ornamental language and established authority by exposing themselves to hypothetical peer review and judgment. This was all new to the Adivasi Janajatis, for whom identity was equivalent to oxygen to keep an individual in a community spiritually active.

The principle of unification had been conquest (adhikaran) through brute force (in 1768), followed by manipulation of a series of subjugating laws codified supposedly to build a nation-state. The nationalities of the territories did not come together as the EU or Indian states built on consensus. The Nepali nation-state was a borrowed knowledge of British colonialism with unfettered access to laws, implementation and resources. If the Newars were conquered by brute force during Indra Jatra, Limbuwan was subjugated by manipulation as they enjoyed the kipat system (autonomous land) of land holding till King Mahendra’s regime.

Deciphering language

In the anatomy of language, the literal expression always identifies conventional explanations that have limited factual basis and confirm the pre-established set of rules. It denies a new basis of establishing cause and effect. Hazoor, a Mughal derivative of poetic eloquence, when applied in Nepali caste-ism, becomes a crude expression of extracting respect through domination. Thus language might literally mean one thing, but taken in a different context, it can completely lose its original meaning. Agradhikar for the Adivasi Janajatis means pro-original rights for the protection of their culture, territory and natural resources. It is also their right to sustainable development, which at the present, is being denied by the centralised state.

We do not see the current struggles as a failure of nationalism, but as a sign of ethnic groups reasserting themselves in the national context. When the Muslims in Britain who make up 13 percent of the population want their representation guaranteed in the British Parliament, they are not demanding for a Muslim Britain. Likewise, if it was J.F. Kennedy who had given the “I have a dream” speech instead of M.L. King, it would not have morphed the black issue into a civil rights movement which today has established President Obama as the rightful president of the US by the Dedilomeni Principle. Thus it is important that the media, while airing the views on social inclusion and inclusive democracy by the Brahmins, also give the same space to Janajatis. But that is not the case. 

Brahmin leaders like Girija Prasad Koirala, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Pushpa Kamal Dahal thus talk about solutions to the Janajati issues, not because they would like to solve them, but because they want to misuse them for their vested interests, much like how they settled on the double ballot system to confuse the uneducated majority. 

Constitutional conclusion

If Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the UCPN (Maoist) deny people the right to self-determination, impose ethnicity-based federalism by cunning and refuse to activate fully proportional representation at all levels of Nepali public life, it is likely to derail the peace process. Why are the Brahmin legislators and those executing governance resisting equitable sharing? Are the marginalised identities any less capable?

To look at the Adivasi Janajati issues with facts and figures and in relationship to all the castes is to bring balance to the national polity. No leader ever invested in the nationalism of Nepal. All past leaders concentrated more on gathering power rather than on empowering the people. We sang Shri Man Gambhira Nepali till our throats were  sore, and see where we are today. Can’t we even recognise our own failings? 

Establishing democracy in Nepal is liberating Nepalis from the physical conquest of one-caste rule (akikaran) and psychological subjugation (adhikaran) of the laws of Manu. If those who draft the constitution once again fail to understand that Nepal constitutes the sum total of its castes and ethnic groups and there is plenty of space for national consolidation, we will end up with sand in our mouths. 

To be able to discuss matters of such deep consequences, which have a direct bearing on our history and nationalism with sincerity, respect and concern is to appreciate the concerns of all people. Without aggregating the political, social, educational, cultural and economic pro-original rights of all the marginalised communities in the drafting of the constitution, the territorial expression of identities will only intensify. 

Heralding Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal poses harsh challenges in terms of legislating as well as executing decisions. Restructuring the federal state and system cannot alone empower the Adivasi Janajatis, Dalits and other marginalised communities and boost the nation-building process. For that, it is imperative to address the provisions of agradhikar in the new constitution.

published in the 'Kathmandu Post'

January 31st, 2010