Nepal has an amazing quality of being able to not change even as its own world is changing around it...
Josh & I are just back from a short trip to Liwang, the district center of Rolpa district, where the Maoists had their capital over the past ten years of civil conflict. The ride from the East-West highway along Dang district up through Pyuthan district, over 1800 m. ridges w/ magnificent views of the winter wheat fields below along the Rapti river, was breath-taking. Stunning snow-capped mountains peered over the nearby horizon. Slate-covered stone homes sat like contented toadstools on the terraces.
Snow fell as we crossed Sato Batto, just above the Liwang valley and we stopped for Josh to make his baby snowmen, draw a heart in the snow for his girlfriend, Lisa, and for all of us to enjoy the rare pleasure of feeling snow drop & drizzle among us in the rough-hewn middle hills of Nepal.
After many years hearing of Rolpa as the Maoist stronghold in Nepal, it was fascinating to reach there, passing Nepali army outposts on steep ridges, like scenes from "The Man Who Would be King", newly re-established police checkposts and isolated villages living as they have for decades.
With all of the promises made by the Maoists and past governments, the truth of Liwang Bazaar appeared no different from it had been for before this People's War. Rough, isolated poverty in a setting of absolute beauty. The 'hotel' where we stayed was as basic as anything I've stayed in over the years in Nepal. Definitely nothing you would write home about or take one's spouse to visit.
The ironies pre-dominate. For all of the high rhetoric of the Maoist achievements and commitments, the health & education facilities appeared no different after their stay than they were before. For all of the government's antipathy to the Maoists, the government offices remained open in Liwang throughout the war. In fact, it seemed that it was safer to be a GON official in Liwang than any other district. There appears to have been a mutual agreement that the GON would not attack the Maoist stronghold while the Maoists would not attack the GON offices/officials in Rolpa. Strange bedfellows indeed...
The red hammer & sickle flag waved above the basketball court by the muddy bus park while the police chowk and policemen lingered by the entrance to the bus park as we drove through. Inspirational paintings of children in peaceful marches had been painted on concrete walls above barefoot Magar village women who sat crouched on the damp ground patiently selling their dokos of oranges or firewood.
Little there was on the surface to imply that the politics of Nepal has revolved around the revolutionary fervor of this distant district for the past decade. Until, of course, we sat and spoke with the civil society & political leaders the next day...
(it's late tonight, so i'll continue w/ my impressions of post-revolutionary rolpa 2morrow...)
Showing posts with label maoist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maoist. Show all posts
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Shakun's Childhood Quiz
I remember a childhood quiz:
There was a farmer who had to cross a bridge with three conflicting issues from his farm- a bundle of grass, a goat and a tiger. The bridge could only hold the weight of one and himself. In the challenge of delivering all three safely across the bridge, he would have to assure that one did not fail bait to the other. The issue for his survival as well as each of them depended not only in his insight but also his wide-angled intelligence. He had to deliver them across by taking them one by one. But if he did this, he would have to sacrifice one, as each served as the fodder for the other. If he carried the grass across and came back to get the goat he would find the goat missing. If he asked the tiger to follow first, on his return, he would find the jaws of the goat cuding away the grass. The only puzzle in the scenario was that the tiger had no taste for grass and the grass had no brains for either of them. In this, lay the answer for the farmer.
Nepali people will have to cross the bridge of democracy and deliver safely all Nepalese of caste/ ethnicities and women. The victory of the Maoists, to me, is like cow dung in cheese souffle. Their 2-3 days of cleaning campaign in Thamel is no different than their whim to wipe out clean, a community building or school in Myagdi. Should I or other, thinking and feeling Nepalese, consider the smile of a Hyena, signing a peace contract, an auspicious sign? A Hyena just does not know how to wipe out that clean smile off his face, even while preying and praying. Nepali denizens are constantly lured by cutting of ribbons, vermilion blessed foreheads, lighting diyas, handshakes, namastes, sweeping propaganda. and promises of reservations and so forth. All promises that bring us back to the colloquial "Mangal Man".
Every decade since 1940s, Nepal has garnered mass movements, only to fall prey to consequential governments which take you no further than the delusions of a caste based representation of the very nature of what it is fighting against. It's like rolling the dice and getting the same number four times. The hierarchy of caste/class conflict continues with even more gusto and vengeance in the present context as there is the economic, global factor to reckon with, reinforcing power like fueling a tank.
King Pritivi Narayan's "char varna 36 jaat ko phulbari" (Garden of Dreams) could not see King Gyanandra through the April Andolan. The symbol of his forefather's "up you" finger of oneness, has converted his statue into a red, look-alike, veiled and devout Muslim (the color red is to honor the Maoist flavor of the day) in front of Singa Durbar.
The 7 parties professing democracy for Nepal can barely pronounce the fundamental rights and directive principles in their own backyard, Their fundamental concerns are- me, my and mine badis. They speak for the people but who are the people to them?
After the Andolan, when they blatantly elect three representatives in the election commission; all brahmins- Bhoj Raj Ghimiri, Usha Nepal (a brahmin woman) and Nil Khanta Upreti; is this their genuine understanding of one representing all, for proportional representation and democracy? This is only one example, the rest is an unchanged pattern of business as usual.
What about the Arms Management agreement? Is it peaceful to be stupid? Lock them up in high tech cantonements and hand over the keys to the Maoists while the UN gets to play the Pundit. This is the ceremony of confusion. It is like asking a man-eating tiger to shut his mouth with a lock and let him keep the keys, when a plump breakfast is being served. The UN is adorned a "Group Four" authority with chaukidar status, policing the cheese while the cats have free access to milk. Why not have a lock that does not need a key? Why does the Pundit not have the power to configure a code number that is it's own mantra?
When the likes of me hear Mr. Dahal, alias Prachanda, say that he is going to turn Nepal into Europe in another decade, I am just wondering what Andolan will gear up in the next ten years.
The Nepalese are facing the challenges of damning the devil you know and the devil you don't know, syndrome. As long as the government and the donors are not able to respond to Nepal's diverse citizenry through broad based inclusion, Nepal will remain a failed state while I remain a sardonic rat scurring the traffic in Kathmandu.
There was a farmer who had to cross a bridge with three conflicting issues from his farm- a bundle of grass, a goat and a tiger. The bridge could only hold the weight of one and himself. In the challenge of delivering all three safely across the bridge, he would have to assure that one did not fail bait to the other. The issue for his survival as well as each of them depended not only in his insight but also his wide-angled intelligence. He had to deliver them across by taking them one by one. But if he did this, he would have to sacrifice one, as each served as the fodder for the other. If he carried the grass across and came back to get the goat he would find the goat missing. If he asked the tiger to follow first, on his return, he would find the jaws of the goat cuding away the grass. The only puzzle in the scenario was that the tiger had no taste for grass and the grass had no brains for either of them. In this, lay the answer for the farmer.
Nepali people will have to cross the bridge of democracy and deliver safely all Nepalese of caste/ ethnicities and women. The victory of the Maoists, to me, is like cow dung in cheese souffle. Their 2-3 days of cleaning campaign in Thamel is no different than their whim to wipe out clean, a community building or school in Myagdi. Should I or other, thinking and feeling Nepalese, consider the smile of a Hyena, signing a peace contract, an auspicious sign? A Hyena just does not know how to wipe out that clean smile off his face, even while preying and praying. Nepali denizens are constantly lured by cutting of ribbons, vermilion blessed foreheads, lighting diyas, handshakes, namastes, sweeping propaganda. and promises of reservations and so forth. All promises that bring us back to the colloquial "Mangal Man".
Every decade since 1940s, Nepal has garnered mass movements, only to fall prey to consequential governments which take you no further than the delusions of a caste based representation of the very nature of what it is fighting against. It's like rolling the dice and getting the same number four times. The hierarchy of caste/class conflict continues with even more gusto and vengeance in the present context as there is the economic, global factor to reckon with, reinforcing power like fueling a tank.
King Pritivi Narayan's "char varna 36 jaat ko phulbari" (Garden of Dreams) could not see King Gyanandra through the April Andolan. The symbol of his forefather's "up you" finger of oneness, has converted his statue into a red, look-alike, veiled and devout Muslim (the color red is to honor the Maoist flavor of the day) in front of Singa Durbar.
The 7 parties professing democracy for Nepal can barely pronounce the fundamental rights and directive principles in their own backyard, Their fundamental concerns are- me, my and mine badis. They speak for the people but who are the people to them?
After the Andolan, when they blatantly elect three representatives in the election commission; all brahmins- Bhoj Raj Ghimiri, Usha Nepal (a brahmin woman) and Nil Khanta Upreti; is this their genuine understanding of one representing all, for proportional representation and democracy? This is only one example, the rest is an unchanged pattern of business as usual.
What about the Arms Management agreement? Is it peaceful to be stupid? Lock them up in high tech cantonements and hand over the keys to the Maoists while the UN gets to play the Pundit. This is the ceremony of confusion. It is like asking a man-eating tiger to shut his mouth with a lock and let him keep the keys, when a plump breakfast is being served. The UN is adorned a "Group Four" authority with chaukidar status, policing the cheese while the cats have free access to milk. Why not have a lock that does not need a key? Why does the Pundit not have the power to configure a code number that is it's own mantra?
When the likes of me hear Mr. Dahal, alias Prachanda, say that he is going to turn Nepal into Europe in another decade, I am just wondering what Andolan will gear up in the next ten years.
The Nepalese are facing the challenges of damning the devil you know and the devil you don't know, syndrome. As long as the government and the donors are not able to respond to Nepal's diverse citizenry through broad based inclusion, Nepal will remain a failed state while I remain a sardonic rat scurring the traffic in Kathmandu.
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