Ugly politicking in a beautiful nation

Bharat Shah

Protests around discriminating constitution in the southern plains region of Nepal have been sweeping into the third month. The festival season has provided a brief lull to a flurry of events and a respite to the security forces in the region often busy tussling with the protestors. Nevertheless, the situation is now quickly transforming into India v. China affair than ethnic Nepali v. ethnic Tharuhat-Madheshi one it was with China having jumped with freebie gas supplies for the petro starved hills. Indifferent leadership in Kathmandu coupled with unwavering attitude of agitators in the southern plains has created disastrous sufferings to the peoples of both hills and plains. Schools shut down, offices hard to maintain operating, restaurants with empty tables, hotel rooms vacant on a peak season, hospitals with receding supplies, public buses jam-packed and laden with passengers on their tops, highways with fewer vehicles plying on them, etc has become a common story in Nepal for over three months now.

A decent time of everybody is now spent stocking gas cylinders, lining up for petrol, diesel or kerosene, or haggling with firewood sellers. Drivers of public vehicles possibly have their attentions diverted towards fuel, and as a consequence occurrences of fatal accidents have multiplied during the blockade episode of the protests.

The politicos have nonetheless been successful in inviting the two big neighbours into their domestic affairs to flex their muscles in keeping the subaltern groups at perish. Tharuhat-Madheshis disparaged through taunting remarks of the flamboyant Communist party leader Khadga Prasad Oli during the preceding weeks of the constitution’s promulgation were left with no other option than to vote for his counterpart’s candidature to the post of Prime Minister who at best stood a better chance among them being only less deriding to their concerns. Oli, now the Prime Minister, had earlier drummed out Rajendra Mahato, one among the three leaders of the south championing voices of the Tharuhat-Madheshi protestors, of being a “Bihari” trespasser in Kathmandu during high-level meetings aimed at drafting a consensual legislative document. Badmouthing people and especially the political leaders of Tharuhat-Madhesh is a commonplace in Kathmandu, and among most hilly circles today.

The constitution initially purported to be the best among the Asia’s, then downscaled to among South Asia’s, has went on to revert the rights of the minorities already implemented under the previous version of the statute.

For the Kathmandu based elites, who have held the political steering wheel tightly throughout the history, integration or mainstreaming natives of Terai has mostly meant their submission to the assimilatory tactics of the hill elites. Majority of the human rights groups, big house media and intelligentsia are dominated by the hill peoples and serve as party workers of the hill centric elites, who have a pre-conceived notion about Madheshis, having cocooned under a schooling of perceiving Tharuhat-Madheshis as “they” and themselves as “us”. They have remained quite formidable in keeping the outside world at bay about their vices in the past. As Frederick H. Gaige, a whistle-blower to the then Nepalese monarch in 1975 pointed out in his highly acclaimed book on Tharuhat-Madheshis – “The plains people of Terai have their own identity problems, similar to those of people who have emerged from colonial experiences. Neither Nepal’s history nor Nepal’s culture satisfy their identity needs, because they have not been associated with either.”

The relations of the hilly state has always been sour with the plains people, often suspected of being infiltrators by the hill centric paranoia of Indian cultural influx.

The resulting blockades of some major entry points, the causes of which the Nepali establishment has imputed on the Indian side, have diminished chiefly the supplies of petroleum products. Raxaul, where most gasoline earmarked for Nepal is stocked, remains completely blocked by the Tharuhat-Madheshi protestors for almost two months now. The protestors have squatted on a bridge that connects the town with Nepal, and firing to chase away the squatters on the bridge that lies on a “No man’s land” is being feared by the Nepali side to be interpreted as a cross border firing on part of Indians. The agitators have benefited from this tricky situation, often relying on festive performances to attract people from far away villages to participate in the daily Jana-Andolan or Mass Movement. They exercise yoga in the early morning, play & dance to Bhojpuri songs bringing in hordes of villagers on Tractors loaded with loudspeakers; perform dramas and impromptus, etc to keep people engaged.

Prior to this episode of entry blockade, the protests were gruesomely violent, involving over 48 deaths and hundreds injured. Several protestors, according to Human Rights Watch report, have been dragged out of their hidings and shot at from point blank range into their heads. The violence and its effects were pan-Tharuhat-Madhesh, across about 700 mile strip that practically has no regulated border crossing into India. And borders along many villages are delineated in such a way that verandahs and gardens of several homes lie across the border.

To help solve the crisis, International community, aside from its hoggish neighbours, has a major part to play in Nepal. International grants and donations form a major chunk of the investments in Nepal, but many pre-conditions of fair distribution are easily bypassed through basic laws that are themselves unfair. The politically dominant Khas ethnic group must be persuaded to come to terms with the opposing groups by power sharing with them and guaranteeing honestly to pave ways for their proportional inclusion across various state affairs through affirmative actions. They may even need to let go of their egos behind what constitutes the prime identity and the culture of their nation, for a just inclusion of Tharuhat-Madheshis might well change the identity stereotyped as Nepali. Concrete steps need to be taken by the government to mitigate the racial hatred and abuses against Tharuhat-Madheshis in particular, that have been ingrained so deeply that even young children of the hills could easily be found denigrating plains people.

The Khas people take pride in having secured the boundaries of the nation through bravery and craftiness during the most tumultuous times of ever expanding British Empire. But its deeds will now mostly be judged by its wits in saving the nation that’s on a brink of falling apart.
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A Sociologist and a Freelance writer based in Birgunj, Nepal.