Step in right direction

N FAVOR OF ETHNIC STATES

In a series of five articles written by our former diplomat, Kul Chandra Gautam, the last one was titled “My Preferred Model.” But the preferred model had no map. It sounded more like advocacy for a non-federal state, where everyone is kind to each other and treats each other as equals—as in a dreamland.

The problem with those arguing against ethnic federalism is that they rarely produce a map. Recall that UML, NC and RPP who strongly oppose ethnic federalism never produced a map before running for CA election. They produced instead a long list of considerations they would take into account before federating, which in essence meant nothing. If their intention was to confuse the public, they succeeded. But if their aim was to offer a clear alternative, they failed miserably. One can only hope that this time around UML, NC and RPP will unite and produce a map.

It is not hard to see who is for ethnic federalism, and who is against it. In general, Brahmin-Chettris oppose the ethnic model, the rest support it. This division is just as one would expect. The toughest opposition for this has come from the Brahmin-Chettri Samaj. They know very well that ethnic federalism means their political power will start eroding irreversibly until it reaches equilibrium. And the equilibrium will inevitably be well below what it is now. Madhesis and Janajatis prefer this model precisely for the same reason. They want to level the playing field—they want some of the power handed to them, soon. They want some place in the country where they can call the shots. For the last two centuries, the Brahmin-Chettris have done so for the entire country and Madhesis and Janajatis have felt neglected.


Photo: lincolnauditors.com

There is nothing wrong about Brahmin-Chettris running the country with disproportionate power per se. The only problem is that they don’t understand the problems that Madhesis and Janajatis face. Since they represent only 30 percent of population while Madhesis and Janjatis represent more than 50 percent, we have a situation where the leadership isn’t working on behalf of the majority. By design, such a set-up is a recipe for political instability.

True, one could argue there is no need for ethnic federalism because things are going to be different now: Madhesis and Janajatis will be given access to power. But Madhesis and Janajatis worry that this power will be only on paper. Because the group implementing this will largely be Brahmin-Chettris, they believe the changes will never get implemented. Even if they do, the process will be painfully slow. Take for example the case of recruiting Madhesis in the army. The government passed a resolution to recruit 3,000 Madhesis; but the effort is trapped in a quagmire.

Because the interest to deny them equal opportunity is deeply-rooted and entrenched, it is hard to give real power to Madhesis and Janajatis. Therefore, it is totally unrealistic to expect Madhesis and Janajatis to believe the rhetoric that things will get better for them even if there is no ethnic federalism.

Madhesis and Janajatis fear that federal states may have the structure that preserves the hegemony of Brahmin-Chettri. They believe this is what NC, UML and RPP really want. They want states so that at least in some states they can control the law and order, the right to tax, and the right to permit opening of schools, colleges, hospitals and other small projects. Trying to caricature them as being overtly selfish and insinuating that they are being unpatriotic itself appears selfish.

The main argument in Gautam’s five-part article is that ethnic federalism will somehow hurt the betterment of society in terms of living standards, infant mortality, longevity, and sanitation. But it is never clear why ethnic federalism should hurt human development. In fact, benefits are likely to be higher. Ethnic federalism will create political stability which will lay the foundation for future prosperity.

Another benefit of ethnic federalism is that Madhesis and Janajatis will no longer have the Brahmin-Chettris to blame for their failures. They will have to focus and take a hard look at themselves. This will make way for other badly needed changes among Madhesis. For example, the problems related to caste chauvinism and women’s rights.

Regardless, the ultimate model should be decided with two things in mind: first, what the majority want; and second, if the model satisfies a sufficient number of the minority. We do not want a model where about 30 percent of the population is not heard. There will have to be some compromise.

Ethnic-based federalism is not perfect. It has its share of problems. But it is the best of the options on the table. If UML, NC and RPP have a better vision, they should put a map on paper and offer a clear choice to voters. Let us see what the majority wants. Second, whichever model gets approved, the majority needs to make some room to adjust the opposing forces. If ethnic federalism prevails, this means that Madhesis and Janajatis address the concerns of the Brahmin-Chhettri Samaj. For example, perhaps compromises on having neutral names; and having at least one state where there is a clear majority of Brahmin–Chhettri.

680anand@gmail.com

Published on 2013-02-25 01:28:34, Nagarik news

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DEATH PROCESSIONS IN NEPAL-MICHAEL ROSENKRANTZ

MICHAEL ROSENKRANTZ

DEATH PROCESSIONS IN NEPAL

I recently experienced the festival of Maghe Sankranti as the only westerner in attendance in a village near Ghorahi, Dang. The last time I was at the festival site was during Tihar in 2012, and things were very quiet in this beautifully wooded area with a man-made lake in the center, where I had previously visited the home of a Sadhu. At that time, I noticed some old boats sitting idle in the lake. I was also shown a small temple with an area that I was told was used for animal sacrifice. I tried to imagine what that was like, but really had little idea.

As we made our way to the festival site for Maghe Sankranti, I noticed the number of other people arriving, the orange and peanut sellers, the variety of balloons and foods, a makeshift movie house, and sugarcanes. It was really a lot of “eye-candy” for someone who loves to take photos.

We made our way to the lake and the sacrifice site and I saw many people paying for a boat ride, while other people were bathing. Behind the temple was the sacrifice site, and I started to see a number of people roasting headless carcasses over open fires and other people cleaning what had been a sheep. Crossing a small bridge, we came to a line of sheep waiting to be sacrificed, being held from both ends over a bloody log. A man brought what looked to be a sword, i.e. a Khukuri, up and then down, and the head went one way with the carcass being thrown another. This happened a number of times in very machine like fashion. In experiencing the quiet of this particular area during Tihar, I had imagined what the “screams” might be like. But watching the actual sacrifice, I heard nothing but the sound of the Khukuri as it went up and came down.

Back in Kathmandu, I thoroughly enjoy making the walk from Thamel to Sanepa Chowk, where I live. But on this particular night around Chikamungal I came upon a group of people watching the start of a funeral procession. I heard and saw a woman crying and walking around a body, although it was difficult to tell, as it was tightly wrapped in a mat with a pitamber (yellow cloth), lying on an arthi.

The procession started to move with five men carrying the arthi and the woman, who must have been the wife of the deceased, continuing to wail and cry. The procession, consisting mostly of men, made its way forward and crossed the Ring Road at Teku. It was the first time that I had seen all traffic on both sides of the road stop at the same time. We continued to walk to an area near Pachali, where the body was removed from the arthi, and placed on what appeared to be a slab, where various ceremonies were taking place. I soon left and didn’t wait for the body to be taken to an area on the Bagmati where it would be cremated.
In the US, a hearse picks up the family of the departed and whisks them to the funeral home.
I have witnessed cremations a number of times in Varanasi, including the dressing of the bodies, purification in the Ganges, and the funeral pyre. What seemed unusual in Kathmandu and Varanasi as I compared the funerals there to funerals in the US was the public nature of the process. In the latest procession that I had witnessed in Kathmandu, taxis, tractors, motorcycles and cars whizzed by on the dirt road as most of the procession was watching the ceremony. Many people witnessed the procession, as it made its way throughout Kathmandu, which is very different from the private nature of a funeral in the US.

The public nature of things possibly makes death more acceptable and natural. Everybody on the path of the procession somehow took part, looking and then moving their hand numerous times from their head to what appeared to be their heart and back again. In the US, a hearse picks up the family of the departed (who are mostly wearing sunglasses to hide their tears), and whisks them to the funeral home, where a lot of money is spent on a plot, a casket, and a ceremony. Although I’m not really clear why this is the case in the US, except to support a funeral industry, or to hide tears, but what I found was that it the money was not about a beautiful casket, but more about how this was the natural order of things.

My life during the past four years in India and Nepal has been so much about giving, as after all I am a volunteer. I thoroughly enjoy this and have no reservations about it. But I have also learned so much from what I have seen. In many ways, this will hopefully help me become more accepting of the natural order of things, as the contrast between life and death in this part of the world and the US is so very stark. As I spend more time in this part of the world and become more connected, I hope that when I am no more, I also will be cremated on the banks of one of the sacred rivers, and mix and flow with generations of those that have gone before me.
The author has been a volunteer at VSO Nepal since June 2012, working as a partnership builder in the corporate and media sectors.

Michael.Rosenkrantz@vsoint.org
Published on 2013-02-28 01:10:43, taken from  my republica

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Agro the Answer- By Anup

Every naïve Nepali youth has three common dreams. First, they apply to European countries and the US for study and stay. Second, they fight for jobs in the government sector. Third, many more fly to the Middle East and Malaysia to work as low-wage earners, some venture into their own small and medium scale businesses, and a very few continue to engage in agricultural activities like their ancestors.

Why is farming at the bottom of the list? The answer is  crystal clear: The agricultural area, though oft termed as a major occupation of a majority of the Nepali people with a significant share in the GDP, has long been neglected as a good income source. And again why is it so? It is because we have remained far from increasing investment and high-yield, commercial agriculture.

Sometimes, I feel Nepal is a bus park with a maximum number of Nepalis waiting for their turn to flag down the vehicles that will ferry them to their dreamland country. No youths see opportunities in the country. In my perception, all this brain drain and labour outflow is growing due to out disinterest in developing agriculture. Nepal is culturally prosperous, geographically generous and has agriculturally advanced avenues ahead. But what we need to do is focus, fund and follow them technically and commercially. The most untapped and rarely harnessed area is agriculture unlike tourism and hydropower. We are taught to grow potato and sell it for Rs 15 per kg commercially, but we don’t know how to sell potato chips for Rs 45 per packet made from less than a quarter kg of potato. We are encouraged to start dairy farms, but we do not have plans to earn the most from it except for selling milk on a per litre basis. We cultivate ginger in great quantities, unfortunately we do not have final goals. So we rely wholly on the price fixed by India and overseas countries. To overcome these obstacles, we must concentrate on farming academically, mechanically and commercially.

One day, migration to the developed Western countries and Japan is going to end after India and China become more developed than them. When that happens, our youths will not find work in Indian and China as they aren’t going to hire migrant workers from neighbouring countries as they have adequate manpower of their own. Likewise, the Middle East and Malaysia will stop hiring migrant workers after their construction phase ends. Where then will our youth find employment? In agro production, trekking, tourism and hydro harnessing.

Given the provision of agro loans and insurance by government and private sector banks and financial institutions, we can make our agro dream come true commercially. Lastly, what I would like to opine is that agriculture must be the epicentre of the economy, agenda of politics, avenues of policies, need of the country and goal of this generation.

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Ethnic party In nepal-By suman Khadka

Why do ethnic parties, who break away from socialist parties to champion ethnic causes, form new parties and call themselves “social democratic” or “federal socialist”? What is its relevance to ethnic emancipation? None. Socialism rose against exploitative capitalistic structures of industrialism while social democracy has roots in evolutionary socialism and primarily arose to emancipate people, not from ethnic exploitation, but from exploitation by the market. Social democracy is the best political ideology we have today that balances hegemony of the market (capitalism) with the hegemony of the state (socialism). However, Janajati parties are not it. They are more like European far right parties such as the British National Party (BNP), for whom “race” (British indigenous  is the most crucial aspect of nationhood. But at least the BNP clearly says what it stands for, instead of using a Marxist façade.

The disjoint between political rhetoric, ideology and quality of their actual policies is so widespread that it has become a norm. After all, who is not using such a facade  Guess what the latest political line adopted by the UCPN (Maoists) is. It is to start a capitalist revolution. Really, comrades? Of course, communism requires the material base of capitalism, but they knew this before starting the revolution, right? If it is simply about economic growth and not about sharing the fruits of capitalism equally, what makes them Marxist and not followers of Hayek, the free market political scientist? After all, economic growth can be jobless (no job increase), ruthless (only for the rich) or futureless (unsustainable). Capitalism by itself is not enough.

And it was the Maoists who made the CPN-UML a laughing stock by announcing that the “real” communists had now arrived, so why vote for the fake communists? But even a cursory review of Maoist social policies (or lack thereof) confirms that they are not quite “real”. I am not simply talking about the signing of BIPPA but lack of any substantive, universal rights based services established for the poor and the working class since the rebels came to power. The Bhattarai government has instead promoted scattered NGO-type “awareness” programmes. Remember how he himself went to clean the rivers and streets of Kathmandu with gloves and brooms, and said that if only the behaviour could be changed, Kathmandu would be clean? Not so, comrade. Leftists don’t believe in only behaviour change. They believe in structural change. And no, I don’t think Kathmanduites want to take on a cleaner’s job. Keeping our house clean is our duty, keeping the streets clean is the duty of the appropriate agencies of the government (not the prime minister) through a functioning waste management system.

Moreover, if it was simply about market liberalism, the Nepali Congress (NC) was on the right path. Not that this was in line with its own ideology, which apparently is democratic socialism (socialism through democratic means). I say apparently because it may have been slightly socialist under BP Koirala (policies such as abolition of the “birta” system in the 1950s were indeed revolutionary), but he is long gone and his successors are the most neo-liberals of our political bunch. The NC alone is responsible for liberalising everything when it came to power in the 1990s. And I am not only talking about Bansbari shoes, but social services such as health and education, which should at least be protected in democratic socialism.

A while back, Ram Sharan Mahat had written an article entitled “Road to prosperity” which was eerily similar to Hayek’s “The road to serfdom”, both of which praise capitalism’s inevitability for progress. Ironically, Hayek is against the creation of the welfare state and is a neo-liberal while Mahat’s NC attends the Socialist International together with the British Labour Party, an advocate of the welfare state. Moreover, the NC’s social policies look like 19th-century poor laws which preceded the welfare state.

The UML, on the other hand, is supposed to uphold the principles of socialism. As a party that introduced old-age allowance, child grant and housing assistance, the UML can claim some social-democratic legacy. But while this started a “better than nothing” social policy in Nepal, it is not even residual in nature, let alone, being comprehensive and universal, and still comes under liberal poverty reduction strategies.

Ironically, the only real socialist appears to have been king Mahendra, be it centralisation and expansion of free education, reformation of the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) for caste equality or land reform. What can be more socialist than putting a ceiling on landholding, and hence taming the biggest source of capital itself? But his dynasty was toppled to usher in “socialism”. While this does not mean that the monarchy should be recalled, it is important to discern between rhetoric and policy.

So we have a situation where our country’s political parties are dominantly “left” in name (about 75 percent of the Constituent Assembly seats were won by these socialist or communist parties) but overwhelmingly “right” in their policies. In the article “Right way” (TKP, January 25), Gyawali has urged the right (monarchists) to make its voice heard in the midst of domination of the left. I would argue that the monarchists are ultra-right conservatives and that the so-called left parties are in fact “right”.

In the book The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama has stated that free market liberalism has triumphed. Ironically, that appears to be the case in Nepal. But this is not necessarily true in the West, whose own liberal capitalism has been transformed into a welfare state based on social democracy and welfare capitalism. As Chomsky says, the West preaches liberalism to the rest of the world and destroys them while continuing to have radical state intervention in its own economy. Contrary to mainstream misconception, capitalism has not defeated socialism, but instead has been tamed by it, and for good. Hence the ideological war, in fact, has ended in the West with some form of welfare capitalism the only game in town. Nepal’s attraction to the “left” is not only understandable, but desirable. But for real impact, the parties need to either change their ideology or their policies. Not doing so, before the next election, is political fraud.

Khadka is a PhD candidate at Monash University, Australia

Posted on: 2013-02-28 08:39 , Ekantipur, Nepal

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Unseen violence -By shova Shakya

Reading the newspapers these days is really daunting. Every day, at least three cases of violence committed against women are reported. Women being raped by their boyfriends, a boy goading his friend to rape his girlfriend, gang bangs, a father raping his daughter, five-to-six year-old baby girls being raped, old women raped by a boy who took shelter at their house for the night, house workers raped by their master or his son. Or else, we hear about dumb or disabled young girls being raped by their neighbours or by relatives, a husband burning his wife’s intimate parts or violently beating her, a father or other family member burning a daughter, in-laws burning their daughter-in-law, a wife killed by her husband because she didn’t bring property from her maiti, etc. All these crimes are ignominious and incredible. While the Occupy Baluwatar movement is forever demanding justice to victims of violence against women, the number of such extremely violent actions is on the rise from one day to the next.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Unseen, day-to-day violence and everyday discriminations against women are still not reported in the media. We would like to address this issue by considering the case of single women in male-dominated Nepali society. Single women are, in fact, the most vulnerable to physical violence and represent an alienated social group. Indeed, unmarried women are not considered to be totally accomplished adults. They cannot perform death rituals for their parents. For a couple, marriage is still considered a major social and religious achievement. And it is meritorious for parents to give their daughter as a gift, kanyadan. As a Newar saying goes: “Neither a woman who has never borne the pain of childbirth or a man with no experience of building a house can understand what suffering, dukha, is”. In Hindu society, widows are frequently held responsible for the death of their husbands. There are blamed for their own condition. Yet other categories of single women exist: unmarried, abandoned and divorced. These women are particularly prone to aggression and exploitation.

In the course of research that was recently carried out on single women in the town of Laliptur, one of the two authors recorded a number of life stories documenting the subject. The cases analysed include an unmarried woman whose life is totally taken up with household chores — taking care of her ailing old mother, of her sick nephew, cooking, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, fetching water, etc. From early morning to late evening she is so busy that she has no time to rest. During her childhood she had to support father and mother, and to look after her brothers and sisters. Thus, there was no possibility for her to benefit from any schooling. Although she is very keen to save money, she never has a single paisa in her purse. She works all day without being paid and has become an all -too-reliable domestic slave for her brothers and sister-in-laws. Even though this person is a member of a family, she still has no property share. Even to leave the house she needs to ask permission from her family members. She is trapped within her own family with no individual rights.

Another unmarried woman describes her extremely distressing situation. “It’s like strict tapasya”, she says. “Men are always bothering me, they are forever finding an excuse to touch my body, they show improper attention and offer help with ulterior motives. It is very difficult for me to dodge such colleagues at work. Married men are the most dangerous; they just wanted to be near me. They even telephone at any time for no reason, just to flatter me. I always have to be careful with this kind of man. I am fed up of this life”. Such cases of harassments were commonly reported in the interviews.

One respondent actually got married without even seeing the groom beforehand. She simply trusted her mother and brother with preparations for her wedding. Yet, when she arrived at her husband’s house, she realised that the groom was ugly and old. She was totally appalled. “It was impossible for me to live with this man!” she says. So she decided to leave him. The very next morning, she moved back to her maiti. She never dared to go back to her husband’s house. Time passed and her mother got older.

Her brothers drifted away from the family. At present, she is the only one looking after her mother who is becoming increasingly sick and needs medicine. She has no financial support from her husband. Furthermore, her brothers have not even given her property share because she is married. “How can I provide the medicine my mother needs? I can’t even go out of the house and search for full-time employment. How will I care for my mother in the meantime?” Her life is full of such difficulties.

These voices, mixed in with tears when recorded, convey profound dukha, pain. Admittedly, some single women have succeeded in gaining their own independence and in leading a rewarding life. However, in most cases, they remain extremely dependent on their family, they are sexually harassed, and discriminated against socially and religiously. Beside, 98 percent of respondents were unaware of their legal rights. Although the weight of cultural traditions plays a prominent role in all these matters, it would be interesting to investigate the difference in how women are treated according to their ethnic group or caste. Whatever the case may be, the number of unmarried women in Newar society seems to have always been relatively high compared to other communities. Generally speaking, access to graduate education and the modern living conditions have significantly increased the number of single women, without actually putting an end to the misery faced by these abused citizens. It is now time to break the silence.Shakya, independent sociologist, was a fellowship grantee of the Harka Gurung Programme (SIRF-SNV)Toffin is Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, France

Posted on: 2013-02-28 08:40 , Kantipur News Nepal

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