Religion and its Repercussions

Religion and its Repercussions

Dr Sanjaya Gajurel

In the morning during Swasthani Barta Katha (story involving Hindu deities), my grandfather used to narrate the story which was quite impressive. He would not balk to elucidate the smutty contents in that sacred book such as linga (penis and vagina) and sambhog (sexual intercourse) though my grandmother would poke him intermittently feeling embarrassed. According to Hindu belief, Swasthani fulfills the wishes of devotees taking the fasting and reciting the book. Sometimes, I used to take a turn and after his death, I took over him. Though, I always loved to read it, I still felt that the story actually symbolized the male dominant society; devaluation of women and exaltation of men. Goddess Parvati had to meditate for years to get Lord Shiva and she was later rigorously tested for her fitness to be his wife. You can see almost all the main gods or prophets in every religion are males. In Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwara; in Christian, Jesus Christ, Muhammad in Muslim, Mosses in Jewish and, so forth. Still today, women are struggling to get the same rights as male counterparts. One does not need to gesticulate the tipping of the scales in favor of men in those days. When the brawn was much more powerful than the brain. Male being physically stronger than female always had the edge to be the ruler. It is evolutionary. Women, as children bearers, were responsible for household chores and taking care of offspring whereas men were out there hunting and engaging themselves in other physical works.

The religion started out of ignorance and general funk and, hence, it is uncouth in itself. People did not have knowledge pertaining to things transpiring around them. So, they imagined that someone super powerful must have been residing in the sky watching their activities. The incessant pelting rain causing inundation, natural fire in the forest, earthquake eruption, and tornados were assumed enacted by that puissant extraterrestrial critter. So, people engaged themselves in worshipping and immolating animals to please it as God. By trials and errors, as well as through passed down observations, which later got ingrained in people, they created rules favoring the mighty ones. The rules were implemented in an inappropriate way to discipline people; making them conscious about the dismal outcome with bad karma and misusing it. In this 21st century, we are adhering to the same religion having ambiguous foundation and are waging war in the name of religions.

The dictionary meaning of a Religion is “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often subsuming a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs”. The genesis of religion can be traced back to the “ancient Near East” (www.wikipedia.com), the home of the early civilization consisting of the modern middle east, Mesopotamia (current Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Media, Parthia, and Persia), Anatolia/Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), Malta and the Arabian Peninsula. According to Epstein, Greg M. in Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. New York: HarperCollins. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-06-167011-4, 2010), "Essentially all the world's major religions were founded on the convictions that divine beings or forces can promise a level of justice in a supernatural realm that cannot be perceived in this natural one." The imagination of people is pertinent to the existence of supernatural being in the form of prophet or god, seeking for the comprehensive answer for human problems and sufferings. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity are the major Religions in the world.

Nepal has a Hindu majority. Hinduism, often considered the “oldest living religion”, dates back to the late Neolithic (New Stone Era) in 5500-2600 BCE and includes a wide spectrum of practices and philosophies. Hinduism is also known for the religion of Vedic Period (1500 BC to 500 BC), period during which the antiquated scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, and Agamas) of Hinduism were composed. Vedic literature is divided into two categories: Shruti (which is heard and traditionally understood as revelation) and Smriti (which is remembered as stemming from human authors) that discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, rituals, and temples. The laws and prescriptions of Hinduism are based on the notion of deed (karma), Law of Nature (dharma), and societal norms having distinct intellectual and philosophical outlook. The word Hindu in Sanskrit stands for Sindhu, the local appellation for Indus River.

There is no founder of Hinduism as it was the culture that flourished and took a religious form. Demographically, it is the third largest religion. According to pantheism belief (Nepali Hinduism), there is a single God (Ishwor) and Ishwor is the entirety. The three main Hindu deities - Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver) and Maheshwor (resolver and re-creator), are the manifestations of the one supreme God, Ishwor, and form the Hindu Trinity. Other 330 million gods are the derivatives of these three main Gods based on the role and the cosmic tasks. Hinduism believes in each living being as a unique manifestation of God or God is residing in each of us in the form of Atma (Soul). Hinduism has belief in reincarnation determined by the deed in this life. Also, it believes that after death, saints go to heaven, a reward for their virtues. The damned wind up at hell, a castigation for their vices. Hindus pilgrimage in later stage of their lives seeking expiation for their crimes or sins if any targeting heaven. Hinduism is a religious tradition and tolerance to differences in beliefs of other religions. It grants the complete liberty of beliefs and worships and, hence, has no hard-line common set of beliefs.

The Vedas (knowledge in Sanskrit) are the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four Vedas Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharvaveda, all organized around canonical collection of verses; individual verses in these compilations are called mantras (spiritual transformations). Vedic mantras are recited at prayers, religious functions, and liturgies for various reasons such as dispelling devils and as blessings. The first three vedas are related to sacrifice (yajna), offering of food, objects, animals, and even human to God as an act of propitious or worship. For example, oblations (ghee, milk, grains) are poured in the divine fire (agni) to reach to the gods and attain certain wishes. The fourth Veda is the collection of spells and incantations, contemplative hymns, and apotropaic charms; incantations for exorcism as an example. Upanishads are philosophical Sruti (heard). Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutra are the main Upanishads which are components of monastic schools of Hinduism. There are morals like “Karma gara phalko aasa nagara (carry out good deeds without expecting fruition of your deeds)” in Bhagvad Gita. Puranas are the narratives of the chronicle of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, and descriptions of cosmology, philosophy, and geography. Mahabharat is the longest Sanskrit epic narrative of Kurukshetra war between Kauravas and Pandavas authored by Vyas that portrays victory of the right over wrong. Ramayan is another Sanskrit epic that depicts the duties in kinships and portray the victory of virtuous over wicked.

Buddhism is more of a philosophy - “the rational inquest of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct” - than a religion, as it teaches Buddha’s Noble Truths: the sufferings and their causes and the ways to the cessation of suffering. Buddha was the founder of Buddhism, who got enlightened and initiated teaching a path to enlightenment through his experience around 6th and 4th centuries BCE. Buddha was born into a Royal Shakya kingdom as Siddhartha Gautam in Lumbini, Nepal in 563 BC but later renowned as Gautam Buddha after his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, India. He was not a God and never claimed to be one. Instead of indoctrinating his teachings, he himself asked his disciples to experience and validate them. The first Noble Truth is the irrefutable fact that life is suffering as it includes pain, getting old, disease, and ultimately death. The pain also includes psychological suffering such as frustration, disappointment, fear, and anger. The second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by craving and aversion. I believe that the progress has become possible with the craving and discontentment nature of mankind who constantly strives to fulfill his desire. Yet, I have the conviction that the second Noble Truth relates to deluded craving out of ignorance. Buddha himself had craving for discovering the truth of life which made me leave his wife and a son; not fair for his family. The third Noble truth is the overcoming of suffering and attaining liberated state of enlightenment (Nirvana) and then focusing time and energy to help others. The fourth Noble Truth is about following the path to liberated state by-the-book as laid out by Buddha’s Noble 8-fold Path and experiencing the cessation of suffering.

The Noble 8-fold Path has eight sections but are categorised under three higher trainings - Prajna, Sila, and Samadhi. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, July 2012), Prajna (Drishti and Sankalpa) is the wisdom that purifies the mind allowing it to attain spiritual insight into the plausible nature of all things. Drishti is pertinent to viewing reality “as it is” but not as “appears to be” whereas Sankalpa stands for intention of renunciation, freedom, and harmlessness. Sila (vac, Karma, aajivan) teaches ethics and morality; abstention from unwholesome (noisome, hurtful) deeds. The five precepts of Sila, therefore, are nonviolence, refrain from theft, refrain from sensual/sexual misconduct, speaking truth, and mindfulness (refrain from intoxicants - drugs and alcohol). Vac bears on speaking truth but in a not-hurtful way, Karma is to act in a non-harmful way, and aajivan is living a non-harmful livelihood. Samadhi (vyamya, smriti, samadhi) is the mental discipline requiring to develop mastery over one’s own mind so as to prevent cravings. It requires practices of various contemplative and meditative regimens. Vamya, smriti, and samadhi pertains to Samadhi endeavor to refine, to be aware, and be conscious of the present reality, and to focus respectively.

Buddhism is dominant in sparsely populated northern part of Nepal which comprises of Tibetan Mahayana tradition with approximately 3000 monasteries. Vajrayana Buddhism is popular in Kathmandu valley. Some Nepali has also turned to Theravada practice. Theravada (Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia) and Mahayana (East Asia) are the two major branches of Buddhism. The third branch Vajrayana is practiced mainly in Tibet, Mongolia, and Nepal. There are several revered Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Nepal; the most sacred are the ancient stupas of Swayambhunath and Boudhanath. Buddhist pays respect to images and statues of Buddha in a calm posture and with compassionate smile, not in worship, but to express gratitude for the teachings. Prostrating, spinning of prayer wheels, collective chants, and burning lamps are some popular Buddhists mores in Nepal. Some Buddhist believe that, if a piece of of paper containing mantra is kept inside the prayer wheels, the prayers message reaches to God by spinning the wheels.

Christianity was introduced in Nepal in the 16th century through some western missionaries. After 1990, with the restoration of democracy that provided sovereignty to practice one’s faith, the plethora of foreign funded churches emerged. Christian missionaries have spread Christianity through volunteer works. So, the intention, in the name of catering to the community, is to fulfill the ulterior motives of propagating Christianity in the universe. So, this is one mild example of how religion is corrupting human. The acute examples are in front of us where people are combating in the name of religion - terrorist attacks, discrepancies in the form of religion. In ancient time, the prudish way of disciplining people through religion, though biased, served the purpose. In this 21st century, holistic education should be the only alternative to bring peace in the planet disrobing people out of ignorance; beckoning them to become self aware of their comportment and practices.

The majority of Muslims approximately 75-90% are Sunni; the second sect is the Shia. Indonesia has the largest Muslim community. Islam is the second-largest and one of the fastest-growing religions in the planet. The system of governance in Nepal is still based on Hindu scriptures but Buddhism was accepted as a segment of Hindu society but Muslims, the third (minority) religious group in Nepal was allowed to practice their faith under certain restrictions: debarred from propagation of Islam, interdicted to adhere to the Islamic code Sharia in respect to dissolution of marriage by pronouncing talaq (the formula of repudiation, three times), and, inheritance needed to be ground worked on Hindu-scriptures code. Most of the Muslim community resides in the Terai region; some of them in the city of Kathmandu and the western hills. The four distinct groupings of Muslims depending on their advent to Nepal are Kashmiris, Chaurate, Tibetan, and Madhesi. There are around 200 madrassas and 300 mosques in Nepal within 10 km border with India. The Islamic marital jurisprudence is blatantly prejudiced towards women. Polygyny is permitted in Islam under some conditions, however, polyandry is forbidden.

There should be only one religion - the religion of “Humanity” and one should worship the “goodness” in people rather than God. Such radical remarks on sacrosanct religion might amount to heresy but facts need to be exposed to be seen in a new light with different sets of optics, excoriating the outdated ingrained beliefs. We cannot deny the fact that we still have limited knowledge about the Universe. Until microscope was invented, we did not know that there are organisms like bacteria and virus that are invisible to naked eyes, and still can be lethal. Also, without the invention of powerful telescope and other space technologies, we would have never discovered new heavenly bodies in the outer space. So, are we really willing to corroborate the existence of God on this footing? Also, those who believe that God created the Universe, are denying the fact that life began with a single cell, and those who have started relating it to the existence of test tube baby, are still arguing that the environment to procreate and sustain life must have been created by God; interminable inane debate. We are still in the hunt for extraterrestrial creature which must be residing in, we do not how many of the planets, satellites, or even stars, in different environments than earth.

(Gajurel, a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Case Western Reserve University, USA, works as Computational Scientist at the same university. Email: sanjaya.gajurel@gmail.com)

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Misplace adaptation

In Makawanpur, no one knows what the NAPA is,” said a grassroots women’s representative at a roundtable organised in Kathmandu to take stock of the implementation status of the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA). The roundtable, held at the Everest Hotel, was attended by around 80 government and donor staff, NGO representatives, grassroots actors and researchers. The objective was “to take stock of NAPA implementation and identify gaps and the ways forward”. It is of wider interest to know how the NAPA’s promoters and implementers are thinking about adapting to climate change.

Adaptation science

Adaptation is fundamentally about how societies live together with a changing climate. To be successful, we need to monitor the impact of climate change and improve technology. More importantly, we need to adapt institutions and political processes. This is because those affected by climate change depend on local social structures and politics. I was disappointed to find that the roundtable discussion was not sufficiently appreciative of the need to base adaptation responses on an understanding of the intertwined relationship between society and the environment. I raised this issue but received a very defensive answer: “we need to be serious on understanding the biophysical impact of climate change”. To adapt to climate change, we need as much a ‘science of society’ as a science of the biophysical dimensions of climate change.

Aid governance  

Funding was at the centre of the roundtable discussion. Indeed, the main objective of the NAPA is to sell projects for accessing funds to address “urgent and immediate” adaptation needs. In 2001, the Seventh Conference of Parties of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) made a decision whereby developed countries support Least Developed Countries (LDC) to prepare NAPAs and their implementation. Nepal’s NAPA identified nine areas under which projects are being developed to access the LDC fund. In addition to the LDC fund, Nepal has received funding from bilateral and multi-lateral donors too. One of the panel speakers made a quick calculation: “there is roughly 30 arab rupees that could be available for Nepal”.

Most projects were designed by a United Nations programme or other international agencies on Nepal’s behalf. It was not quite clear from the discussion what principles and criteria were followed for defining

agency roles for project development, for accessing funds or for implementation. An official from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MoSTE) regretted that the lengthy bureaucratic procedure of donors and the Government of Nepal had created hurdles in timely accessing climate funds. As another participant highlighted, only a small part of the $20 million allocated for Nepal at the LDC fund has been accessed so far. A $7 million project has been submitted with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology as the focal point. Another $5.2 million project was submitted for ecosystem-based adaptation. The MoSTE official said that there will soon be an attempt to access $12-13 million dollars. Already, a 14.6 million pounds sterling project called the ‘Nepal Climate Change Support Programme’ has been launched in 14 districts in the Far West and Mid-Western regions to develop and support Local Adaptation Plans of Action (LAPA). Besides these, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have developed a $110 million project called the ‘Strategic Programme on Climate Resilience.’

One participant pointed out that the adaptation programme cannot work well without critically addressing the prevailing aid culture. Another elaborated, “aid kills the local cadre base and encourages corruption”. Implicit in this point was a question of transparency and accountability in aid governance. Nepal’s climate change policy 2011 requires that at least 80 percent of the budget go to the community level. There were questions on whether this criterion is being met.  Clearly, we need to learn from the past 60 years of aid management as we enter the new round of aid packages coming in as “climate finance”.

Projects

There was an hour devoted to sharing updates on planned and ongoing projects. This session was rife with language about ecosystem, glacial lake outburst, flash flood disasters and so on. These are risks that we need to act on. Activities for which budgets were asked for included monitoring the environment and finding technical responses. Obviously, a lot of thinking has gone into understanding the risk and designing adaptation action from a biophysical lens. I sensed that such technocratic approaches to climate change adaptation is going to create problems for society. Indeed, a community activist argued that community rights are already being compromised.

I also sensed that much of the project investment was related to developing plans and guidelines for adaptation. Over the past couple of years, hundreds of LAPAs and thousands of Community Adaptation Plans have been prepared. As one participant asked, “who is going to own the LAPA document?” Those implementing projects said that they have held discussions with many women and organised consultation meetings so the plans are fully locally owned. During the lunch break, participants talked more openly about progress on adaptation. One participant said to me, “there is no elected local government and all these plans are being made without local ownership. There is a possibility of the adaptation investment being wasted”.

Repoliticising adaptation

We must understand how climate adaptation processes are ‘situated’ in the ongoing political dynamics in Nepal. Studies from outside show that climate change can fuel social conflicts. So responding to climate change is fundamentally political. It appears that a strong apolitical and technocratic ‘community of practice’ has developed. This approach assumes that political institutions are working just fine and it is possible to design any kind of adaptation projects. Climate projects have also misused the notion of ‘participation’, which has been reduced to a rhetorical instrument to legitimise adaptation projects. It is now high time to allow politics to enter the climate adaptation debate. Politics is not just about what political parties do but how citizens exercise their fundamental freedom on matters concerning them.

Ojha is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies

Posted on: 2013-03-05 08:47 

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Story of poverty

Does the rising tide lift all boats?” This is a succinct description of a topic of perennial debate in economics: does economic growth and a rise in GDP increase the living standard of everyone? Nepal’s experience in the last two decades gives rise to another interesting question: “Can boats be lifted without a rising tide?” Between 1995 and 2011, Nepal’s real per capita GDP grew at an average of 2.1 percent per year, hardly a breakneck pace of growth. Over the same period, the poverty rate, measured by household expenditure on food items, non-food items and housing, plummeted from 42 to 25 percent. People were better off even by their own assessment: where 73 percent of households thought their total income was less than adequate in 1995-96, only 49 percent thought the same in 2010-11.  If an increase in GDP was not responsible for the reduction in poverty, what was?

Remittance: In the story of poverty reduction in Nepal, remittance is the unequivocal protagonist.  In 1993, total remittance received into the country was $54 million. By 2010, the number had reached $4 billion, a 73-fold increase! In another measure of scale, total remittance to Nepal in 2011 equaled at least 22 percent of its GDP, one of the highest rates in the world.  

What’s more, the increase in remittance was broad-based.  Where 23 percent of all households received remittances in 1995-96, the number had climbed to 56 percent in 2010-11 and both rich and poor households experienced this increase equally. Per capita remittance received was Rs. 625 in 1995-96 and Rs. 9245 in 2010-11, an increase that was again distributed evenly across households in all poverty strata. Throughout the period, remittance continued to play an outsized role in households’ budget: share of remittances in total household income was 27 percent and 31 percent in 1995-96 and 2010-11 respectively. And here is the most telling fact of all: an astonishing 82 percent of remittance was used for daily consumption or education in 2010-11. The astronomical increase in the volume of remittance, coupled with the broad distribution of remittance receipts and the almost exclusive use of remittance in consumption, goes a long way in explaining the drop in Nepal’s poverty rate.

A shift away from agriculture: In the last two decades, there has been a shift away from low productivity subsistence agriculture to non-agricultural sectors like manufacturing, construction, trade and services like hotels, restaurants and transportation. The share of the labour force working in the agricultural sector declined from 83 percent in 1995-96 to 64 percent in 2010-2011. The drop was especially pronounced in wage labour in agriculture, the lowest paying sector, where 12 percent of the employed population worked for wages in agriculture in 1995-96, the fraction had dropped to less than three percent in 2010-11. This is important, because in 2010-11, the average daily wage in the non-agricultural sector was Rs 263, 55 percent higher than Rs 170 in the agricultural sector. The diminishing reliance on agricultural income is reflected in the sharp decline in the share of farm income in total household income, down from 61 percent in 1995-96 to 28 percent in 2011. This structural shift of labour was driven in no small part by urbanisation as agriculture constitutes an even smaller slice of the urban economy.

Out-migration of people from rural areas possibly had an effect on poverty indirectly as well.  With a lower number of people in rural areas tending to farms, there was perhaps an increase in per capita farm income even if there was no increase in agricultural productivity.

Social safety nets: The social safety net programme refers to programmes that provide cash and in-kind support to the most vulnerable populations. In the past few years, there has been a significant expansion of social safety nets in Nepal. Not only have new programmes like the Karnali Employment Programme, the Child Nutrition Grant, Endangered Ethnicities Grant and scholarship programmes for Dalits, girls and disabled children been initiated, the coverage of existing programmes like old age allowance, single women allowance and disability allowance have been expanded and benefit levels increased.  In 2011, 36 percent of households benefited from at least one social safety net programme and the total government expenditure on social safety nets is now more than two percent of the GDP, one of the highest rates in South Asia. Although the size of the transfers is often small, they have nevertheless augmented the income of some of the neediest households.

This looks good. But is it? Poverty reduction is welcome news but the way it has been achieved does not provide room for optimism. The almost exclusive reliance on remittances cannot be a viable long-term strategy for poverty reduction. In the absence of ‘real’ improvements in the economy, like an increase in land and labour productivity, industrial production and exports, the gains made in the last two decades will wash away like sand castles by the smallest waves of global economic disruption.

Nyaupane holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the Ohio State University

Posted on: 2013-03-04 08:25

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Food threat

PAUL R EHRLICH/ANNE H EHRLICH Humanity faces a growing complex of serious, highly interconnected environmental problems, including much-discussed challenges like climate change, as well as the equally or more serious threat to the survival of organisms that support our lives by providing critical ecosystem services such as crop pollination and agricultural pest control. We face numerous other threats as well: The spread of toxic synthetic chemicals worldwide, vast epidemics, and a dramatic decline in the quality and accessibility of mineral resources, water, and soils. Resource wars are already with us; if a “small” nuclear resource war erupted between, say, India and Pakistan, we now know that the war alone would likely end civilization. But our guess is that the most serious threat to global sustainability in the next few decades will be one on which there is widespread agreement: The growing difficulty of avoiding large-scale famines. As the 2013 World Economic Forum Report put it: “Global food and nutrition security is a major global concern as the world prepares to feed a growing population on a dwindling resource base, in an era of increased volatility and uncertainty.” Indeed, the report notes that more than “870 million people are now hungry, and more are at risk from climate events and price spikes.” Thus, measures to “improve food security have never been more urgently needed.” In fact, virtually all such warnings, in our view, underestimate the food problem. For example, micronutrient deficiencies may afflict as many as two billion additional people. And many other sources of vulnerability are underrated: The potential impact of climate disruption on farming and fisheries; how a shift away from fossil-fuel consumption will impair food production; how agriculture itself, a major emitter of greenhouse gases, accelerates climate change; and the consequences of groundwater overpumping and the progressive deterioration of soils. Indeed, agriculture is also a leading cause of biodiversity loss—and thus loss of ecosystem services supplied to farming and other human enterprises—as well as a principal source of global toxification. Perhaps most important, virtually all analyses assume that the human population will grow by 2.5 billion people by 2050, rather than seeking ways to reduce that number. The optimism of many analysts concerning our ability to feed these additional billions is quite disturbing, given that millions annually die of malnutrition already, and many more are so malnourished as to have degraded lives. If it will be so easy to feed a population 35 percent larger, why isn’t everyone well nourished today? Five steps are typically recommended to solve the food problem: stop increasing land for agriculture (to preserve natural ecosystem services); raise yields where possible; increase the efficiency of fertilizer, water, and energy; become more vegetarian; and reduce food wastage. To this one could add, stop wrecking the oceans, greatly enlarge investment in agricultural research and development, and move proper nutrition for all to the very top of the global policy agenda. All of these steps require long-recommended changes in human behavior. Most people fail to recognize the growing urgency of adopting them because they do not understand the agricultural system and its complex, non-linear (disproportionate) connections to the mechanisms driving environmental deterioration. All inputs needed to feed each additional person will, on average, come from scarcer, poorer, and more distant sources, disproportionately more energy will be used, and disproportionately more greenhouse gases will be generated. More than a millennium of changing temperature and precipitation patterns, all vital to crop production, has put the planet on a path toward increasingly severe storms, droughts, and floods. Thus, maintaining—let alone expanding—food production will be increasingly difficult. The most serious threat to global sustainability in the next few decades will be the difficulty of avoiding large-scale famines. A popular movement is needed to direct cultural awareness toward providing the “foresight intelligence” and the agricultural, environmental, and demographic planning that markets cannot supply. Only then could we begin to address seriously the population disaster—consider the nutritional/health benefits of humanely ending population growth well before we reach nine billion people and beginning a gradual decline thereafter. The best way, in our view, to achieve such population shrinkage is to give full rights and opportunities to women, and to make modern contraception and back-up abortion accessible to all sexually active people. While the degree to which these steps would reduce total fertility rates is a matter of controversy, they would deliver significant social and economic benefits by making huge reservoirs of fresh brain power available to solve our problems, while saving hundreds of thousands of lives by reducing the number of unsafe abortions. Can humanity avoid a starvation-driven collapse? Yes, we can—though we currently put the odds at just 10 percent. As dismal as that sounds, we believe that, for the benefit of future generations, it is worth struggling to make it 11 percent. One of our most distinguished colleagues, biogeographer and energy expert James Brown of the University of New Mexico, disagrees. He puts the odds of sustaining human civilization at about one percent, but thinks that it’s worth trying to increase it to 1.1 percent. Developing foresight intelligence and mobilizing civil society for sustainability are central goals of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB), based at Stanford University. Those who join the MAHB join the best of global civil society in the fight to avoid the end of civilization
Published on 2013-02-27 01:00:06 Upper mustang trekking, where is tibetan culture more pure than tibet. book a upper mustang trekking with mountain Air guided Adventures(p.)Ltd.

----I too dance.Adit Adhikari

ONE BILLION RISING I was thirteen years old when I realized that the world was a more dangerous place for me than it was for my brother. It was a warm evening; spring perhaps, or the beginning of autumn. I was walking with my family near the place where Kupandole turns into Pulchowk, wearing a short-sleeved kurti, trying to avoid stepping on the trash on the pavement, when two drunken soldiers in outfit extended their hands to caress my arms, or more likely, my barely-there breasts. The country was in a state of Emergency, and my mother told my father to leave the soldiers alone and avoid trouble. But my father believed that we deserved to be protected by our government, and he called the police. I still remember waiting on the pavement until the police came to arrest the soldiers. That night I realized that I was not immune to sexual harassment that my mother used to talk to me about. But I also believed in the rule of law, and I was proud of the Nepal Police. As a teenager in Kathmandu, I have had men inch closer and closer to me in a tempos or public buses until their bodies were touching mine in a way that made me feel dirty. I have had young boys shout loud, sometimes vulgar, comments about the clothes I was wearing, even if it was a kurta-suruwal or jeans. Sometimes I have told them off, but most of the times I was scared, and did not want to create a scene. In America, the culture of sexual harassment is different, but not non-existent. Often, men expect dates to result in sex. When my friends and I go dancing, we watch out for each other because there are men who take the liberty to grab us in different ways without our permission. PHOTO: INDYBAY.ORG In the wake of several incidents of sexual violence and the movements they spurred in different parts of South Asia, I have had many conversations with friends about rape-culture and victim-blaming that takes different forms in different places. That is why, when a friend mentioned the One Billion Rising flash mob, I signed myself up for it instantly. Later, though, I started having doubts about it—how was I going to combat the violence that millions of women face by dancing on Valentine’s Day? Their lives would not improve even if a Billion people did dance. I was also skeptical about how this flash mob, conceptualized by middle-class women in the West, would be relevant in the global South, where resistance and movements are different from what they are in the West. But there was something in me that didn’t let me back out. It was the commitment I had made to my friend, but more than that, it was the fact that if I could not take concrete action against gender-based violence, I could at least raise my voice against it. On the morning of Valentine’s Day, I rode the train to the venue with about thirty friends, and joined countless other people at Woodruff Park. When the official One Billion Rising song started playing, men and women, old and young, Black and White and Asian and Hispanic, danced in a sea of red with hundreds of strangers. And in that crowd, I too danced. I tried not to worry about forgetting the steps of the dance, and focused on the fact that each one of us in the park was connected by our goal to end gender-based violence. It was a short dance, but for the few minutes while the song played, each one of us claimed our bodies, with all their flaws, as holy. For me, this is why we were dancing, as opposed to participating in a run, or a rally, or a fast. Regardless of our height or weight or skin color or ability, we were saying, our bodies are not an excuse for anyone to violate us. All over the world, we were united by a common goal, to “break the chain” of violence against women. When I got home later that day, I watched videos from One Billion Rising events throughout the world. Somehow, this experience felt more empowering than participating in the flash mob had been. In each of the videos I watched, the flash mob was a little different—sometimes it wasn’t a flash mob at all. In Patan Durbar Square, the organizers attracted the attention of bystanders by playing the 1974 AD song “Yo man ta mero Nepali ho” before starting the flash mob. In Delhi, the song “Jaago Delhi jaago” (rise Delhi, rise) was played instead of the One Billion Rising song in English. Men, women, and children, from Belgium to Bhutan were saying “no more excuses.” When a girl gets in your car, she isn’t “asking for it.” If a girl pushes you away, she wants you to stay away, not “try harder.” A person’s gender, lack of physical strength, body-type, ethnicity, or legal status are not excuses for you to assault them. The fact that they are walking through an unlit path after dark does not mean that you have an excuse to rape them, regardless of what they are wearing. Just because someone has dinner with you, or lets you put your arm on their thigh, or kiss you doesn’t mean that they owe you sex. When someone gets drunk around you, it doesn’t mean they want to be raped when they’re unconscious. When someone gets into your car, they are not “asking for it.” If someone is trying to push you away, it means they want you to stay away, and not “try harder.” If someone has been intimate with you before, it doesn’t mean you have the right to demand the same from them this time. Some of my educated, respectful male friends who claim that they would never assume a girl is consenting to sex when she goes out with them argue that date-rape isn’t “really” rape. The assumption that men have an unconditional right on their partners’ bodies is widespread, and causes much of the gender-based violence in the world. According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Campaign to end Violence against Women, “at least one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime.” We need to understand that the romance and respect end in a relationship when coercion, blackmail, and violence begin. Sexual assault is never the victim’s fault. When we blame the victims of sexual assault, who are mostly women, we are not protecting the men that victimize them; rather we are saying that men have a need to violate other human beings and that they have no control over their sexual desires. We need to realize that forcing someone to have sex with you does not make you more of a man; it only makes you less of a human being. Sexual contact is either consensual or not, and any sexual act that is not consensual is sexual assault. There are really no excuses. The author is a Political Science graduate from Agnes Scott College, US aditiadhikari@gmail.com
Published on 2013-02-26 01:10:01 Upper mustang trekking, where is tibetan culture more pure than tibet. book a upper mustang trekking with mountain Air guided Adventures(p.)Ltd.

Cheaf justice led Governed-Apuraba Khatiwada

APURBA KHATIWADA CJ-LED GOVERNMENT Arguments against the proposed chief justice led transitional government have generally taken two forms. First, the “it-is-not-constitutional” argument, which means it cannot be done. Second, the “it-is-not-politically-appropriate” argument, which means it should not be done. Both arguments have enjoyed their fair share of proponents. There are people, particularly those who read the interim constitution by the letter, who are on the side of the former argument and cite provisions of the constitution, which has been defunct for nearly a year. And there are people, particularly members of political parties, who are on the side of the latter argument, and see a chief justice led government as a slap on the face of political parties and their relevance. However, both sets of arguments lack any logical or legal basis. Increasingly critical responses against the proposed CJ led government are threatening the little hope there is of a proper direction to the Nepali state. I am particularly astonished at the Nepal Bar Association (NBA)’s most unusual and unprofessional threat of “andolan” if a CJ led government is formed. This proposition is neither a revolutionary stand, and nor does it enjoy the support of principles. NBA’s harping on the arguments of “separation of power” and “constitutionality” are at best naive, and at worst a deliberate selective reading of the constitution. Moreover, the NBA’s proposal that a “less unconstitutional” step should instead be taken is riddled with confusions, and is also academically perverse. Any act or decision is either constitutional or unconstitutional, so there is no difference between a less unconstitutional decision and a more unconstitutional decision. ILLUSTRATION: SI.WSJ.NET Besides, the normative purpose and relevance of the interim constitution ended last year on May 27. Nothing since that day has been ‘constitutional’, and if we are to stick to the literal words of the constitution, whatever is done next will be unconstitutional anyway. Therefore, people who argue that the CJ led government is not constitutional are at least nine months late. The present debate is not about constitutionality, but effectiveness. It follows, therefore, that the arguments of “constitutionalism” and “separation of power” suffer from the short-blanket syndrome. They cannot address the present constitutional crisis. Even in America, the so-called “constitutional orderliness of transitions” has been proven ineffective, and most importantly, simply not true, in the history of constitutional law. In addition to empirical evidences from constitutional law and practices all over the world, there is a huge corpus of principle works which reject the argument of orderliness because of its failure to “provide guidance” to a society “trapped in a constitutional moment” (Levinson, Yale Law Journal 1998-99). As a pioneer in constitutional jurisprudence during transition, professor Teitel writes that transitional jurisprudence itself is fluid in form, and constitutionalism during transition, rather than grounding itself to some constitutional order, serves to “mediate the normative shift” in society. As such, constitutions and constitutionalism are “epiphenomenal with, and arise by virtue of, the provenance of political change”. In other words, the political changes demanded in a transition cannot be and should not be impeded in the name of strict constitutional principles. If such strict constitutional principles were unexceptionally followed, the changes we witnessed and cherished in the spring of 2006 were also illegal and could not have happened. The only constitutional test relevant at this time is whether any act in question can ensure us the constitutional transformation. If the CJ led government can promise us the same, it is by all means constitutional. Now this brings us to the “it-is-not-politically-appropriate” argument. This is a purely political question of should the CJ led government be made? The affirmative answer to the question is obvious and for everyone to see. I say this for two basic reasons. First, whether we like it or not, without all these political parties agreeing, there will be no solution to the present constitutional crisis, and there will be no CA elections. Despite their incompetence and arrogance, the so-called major political parties will continue to have their say in the transformation of Nepal’s constitution. Therefore, it is difficult to question the political efficaciousness of a decision largely based on consensus among major political forces. Second, from the outcomes, or lack of them, of recent discussions, it is simply very difficult to imagine the political parties agreeing on another option. An act is either constitutional or not. There is no question of a decision being ‘more’ or ‘less’ constitutional. Unfortunately, after the CA elections, political parties have only ridiculed the politically indispensable need for consensus and trust, essential for constitutional transformation. This in turn was mainly due to their unhealthy power play in regard to attaining executive power. In this context, the CJ led government has the promise of bridging that trust deficit and ensuring that we get another shot at constitutional transformation. That is, the CJ led government can remove, from the political equation, the very source of distrust and conflict among the political parties. There is no compelling answer to the possible question of why the CJ—and not any other independent individual? It was a political decision, and like many other political decisions of the recent past, it may not necessarily have a principle reason. Perhaps, the CJ led government was preferred over other options because unlike an independent individual, the CJ led government can bring institutional credibility, and unlike other institutions such as the Presidency, the Nepal Army, or bureaucracy, can avoid obvious political controversies or division. In any case, political effectiveness of the CJ led government is also dependent on the leadership that the CJ can provide, and the sincerity of the political parties to assist him in his task. Similarly, in regard to my answer to the first criticism against the CJ led government, one should not construe that the CJ led government may do whatever it wishes to. As I said earlier, as long as the CJ led government can promise the change we desire, it is constitutional. The very change, and the principle content and aspirations permeating that change, can control and direct the CJ led government. Such control would perhaps prove far more appropriate and stronger than a mere rhetoric of separation of power. The author is an advocate and also teaches law at Chakrabarti HaBi College of Law. apurba@cantab.net
Published on 2013-02-27 01:10:04 Upper mustang trekking, where is tibetan culture more pure than tibet. book a upper mustang trekking with mountain Air guided Adventures(p.)Ltd.

Country of fear-Jagnath Lamichane

In Nepal, irrespective of all types of instability, whether in politics, the economy and development, the only all-time stable thing is “fear’’. In the future, the degree of fear in the population is likely to increase. Nepal is heading towards becoming a “country of fear”. Everyday political and social narrations documented in the media and discussed in the public sphere point in this direction. The fear lords, the politicians, shamelessly talk about Nepal becoming like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Rwanda or Sri Lanka all the time. It is hard to understand who these politicians are trying to intimidate or if they are merely reflecting the state of their own failure and mental vulnerability. The question is: Do we still continue listening silently to this nonsensical political gossip or is there anything that we can do immediately to protect ourselves from becoming worse?

Let’s discuss the mental and traumatic state of once conflict-ridden countries like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka. If Nepal’s fear lord politicians tragically lead the country towards a conflict—violent or otherwise—what kind of scenario is likely to arise in front of us? What do we do then? In Afghanistan, more than two decades of conflict has led to widespread human suffering and population displacement. Many studies have found that nearly half of population has experienced traumatic events. Two-thirds of the people have suffered mental disorders like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The disabled and women have a poorer mental health status. Direct relations have been found between the mental health status and traumatic events. Larger populations are dependent on religious and spiritual practices to cope with mental trauma and disorder.

Cambodia has had a long history of violence, highlighted by the civil war in the 1970s. Studies conducted 10 years after the end of the fighting have found that more than 80 percent of the refugees felt depressed and had a number of psychological complaints despite good access to medical services. High levels of trauma and symptoms of mental disorder were reported despite a majority of the respondents having a sound social support system and good employment. These studies found that changes in the structure of society have led to a breakdown of the existing protective networks such as village chiefs and elders in rural communities, especially for women and children. Traditional healers (monks, mediums and traditional birth attendants), who played an important role in maintaining the mental health of communities in the past, have lost their designated positions following the conflict.

The Rwandan genocide took place in 1994. It was a mass slaughter where over the course of 100 days (April to mid-July), approximately 500,000 people in the East African state were killed. The physical and mental health problems of the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda have been well documented. In a recent community-based study examining 2,091 individuals, nearly one-third of the participants were found to be dealing with PTSD. The study suggests that without a successful reconciliation programme, it is almost impossible that the individuals dealing with PTSD will recover.

In Sri Lanka, the conflict between the majority Sinhala and the minority Tamil populations lasted for nearly 30 years. One of the first studies that looked into the psychological effects of the conflict on the civilian population reported that only 6 percent of the study population had not experienced any war stress. Mental disorders were seen in two-thirds of the population. Somatisation, PTSD, anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol and drug misuse and functional disability were the major disorders seen among the population. The breakdown in Tamil society led to women taking on more responsibilities, which in turn made them more vulnerable to stress. Children and adolescents had a higher level of mental health morbidity. Women have an increased vulnerability to psychological consequences of conflict. There is consistent evidence of higher rates of trauma-related psychological problems in children. The association between gender-based violence and common mental disorders is well known.

However, in the case of Nepal, these issues are severely undermined. There is lack of study. There is no knowledge. Taking the experience of these conflict-ruined countries as a reference, one can imagine the mental toll in Nepali society. However, it is important to note that all the above mentioned countries, except Afghanistan, have already started to perform socially and economically far better than Nepal. Sadly, hundreds of thousands of victims of the conflict era have been waiting for justice and mental peace, but there is no hope yet. The political class has inflicted terrible psychological damage on Nepali society. It is simply boiling to explode.

Before it gets worse, I suggest to the political class: Please change your narration. Rather than providing help, you have already done so much harm to our generation. Let’s acknowledge it. Do not make intimidating statements that Nepal is becoming another Rwanda or Cambodia. Let’s make the mental trauma, fear and torture suffered by the people, as a result of the 10-year long armed conflict and the political instability of the post-conflict period, a major political narration of the present time. If these issues do not get space in political narration and are not addressed, the mental state of Nepali society is likely to become worse. Then you leaders—Prachanda, Sushil, Jhalanath, Bijaya Kumar—are not only to be blamed but also

punished.  

Taken from  Ekantipur.com

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