American Chronicle: The Madhesi Movement In Nepal Is Lonely
Right after the king's coup, international support came pouring in for the democracy movement in Nepal. No notable political leader in Delhi, or Jakarta, Washington, London, or Beijing, no leader in Patna or Lucknow, no leader in South Africa has issued a statement of support to the Madhesi Movement in Nepal.
The Madhesi Movement has been demonized. It has been called the work of the royalists. Some Rana army general actually wanted to send in the army into the Terai to put the "unrest" down. The Madhesi Movement has been called the work of the Hindu supremacists in India. Not Vajpayee, not Advani, none of them have issued a statement of support to the Madhesi.
They say Upendra Yadav is a Yadav playing caste politics like in India. Neither Laloo Yadav of Bhiar, nor Mulayam Singh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh have issued statements of support.
A few days back I received a report from a Madhesi human rights activist in Nepalgunj like I received the video from Nepalgunj early in January, the video that many credit for the subsequent wildfire of the Madhesi Movement. The report did not make it sound like there had been a communal riot any more than there was during the last week of December. It was Pahadi on Madhesi violence. There were reports of numerous khukuri wounds.
A day later the local human rights community as a whole issued a report that condemned the communal nature of the MJF protests. Pahadi human rights activists are not neutral, it seems like. Pahadi media reported on the incident. The reports are routinely biased.
Madhesis get called Indians, but Indians are not aware the Madhesis exist. There is no outcry across the border.
It has been amazing for me to watch the Pahadi clutch on the global media. The Nepali representatives of the big global media houses are all Pahadi Bahuns. And they use their megaphones to demonize and ridicule the Madhesi Movement. It is amazing that in this day and age of instant communication the global media houses can so get taken for a ride when the counter viewpoints are only an email or phone call away.
Every democracy movement the Nepali Congress waged in Nepal was on the back of the Madhesi. After 1990 the Terai has been the primary base of the Nepali Congress, the largest party in Nepal. But the Congress leaders have taken the lead on trivializing, demonizing and disrespecting the Madhesi Movement.
The UML is for proportional elections to the constituent assembly, and it would benefit enormously by siding with the Madhesi Movement at this juncture, but the UML has not broken ranks with the parties in power, even when the Maoists and the Congress have actively sidelined the UML. You can't side with the Madhesi Movement. That is a big no no.
People complain of acts of vadalism during the Madhesi Movement. There have been a few, sure. But for the years and decades before the Madhesi Movement, there were no acts of vandalism at all in the name of any Madhesi Movement. Were you listening to the just demands of the Madhesi then?
People talk about loss of property, but they don't talk about the loss of lives.
The April Revolution lasted 19 days and produced 21 martyrs. The Madhesi Movement lasted 21 days and produced 38 martyrs. Those 38 have not yet been declared martyrs by the state.
People talk about the statues of the Pahadi notables that got destroyed in the Terai. They don't talk about the loss of lives.
19 days and 21 martyrs got rid of an entire regime. 21 days and 38 martyrs have not been worth the job of a Home Minister. The Pahadis in power intend to add salt to the Madhesi wounds.
Girija says he does not know who to talk to even if he were to want to talk to. He does not recognize the MJF, or its leader Upendra Yadav.
The Sadbhavana spent a decade badmouthing the Madhesi saying the Madhesi people vote for the oppressors but not for those who will liberate them, namely the Sadbhavana. Today that Sadbhavana has abandoned the Madhesi. The Sadbhavana (Anandi) does not want the Home Minister to resign. 38 deaths of the 21 glory days don't mean much to the Sadbhavana (Anandi) either.
The Pahadi parties in power have managed to mobilize some of their Madhesi henchmen in their sister organizations to try and sabotage the ongoing Madhesi Movement.
The Madhesi Movement reaches out to the great social justice revolutions in human history, it reaches out to the civil rights movement in America, it reaches out to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Both those movements were terribly lonely when they were being waged. Today the Madhesi Movement in Nepal is lonely. History is repeating itself.
The Madhesi Movement has been appealing to the global media, to the global power centers, to the US Congress, to Patna, to Delhi. The Madhesi Movement has been appealing to the Madhesis in power in Kathmandu, with few results so far.
The Madhesi Movement has the Madhesi people, and little else. And if history is any guide, that is enough. The Madhesi people are sufficient unto themselves.
The Home Minister will resign. A probe commission will be formed.
The Madhesis are going to get a Madhesh state in a federal Nepal.
Half of the constituent assembly is going to be Madhesi. Two thirds of it is going to be Madhesi and Janajati.
The path is uncertain, the doubts remain, they keep mounting, victory is not at all guaranteed. But then if history is any guide, that has been the story of all liberation struggles.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia King had a mutually antagonistic relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), especially its director, J. Edgar Hoover. Under written directives from then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the FBI began tracking King and the SCLC in 1961. Its investigations were largely superficial until 1962, when it learned that one of King's most trusted advisers was New York City lawyer Stanley Levison. The Bureau of Investigation found that Levison had been involved with the Communist Party USA—to which another key King lieutenant, Hunter Pitts O'Dell, was also linked by sworn testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The Bureau placed wiretaps on Levison and King's home and office phones, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country. The Bureau also informed then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and then-President John F. Kennedy, both of whom unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from Levison. For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to Communism, stating in a 1965 Playboy interview[8] that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida"; to which Hoover responded by calling King "the most notorious liar in the country." The attempt to prove that King was a Communist was in keeping with the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were happy with their lot, but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators." Lawyer-advisor Stanley D. Levinson did have ties with the Communist Party in various business dealings, but the FBI refused to believe its own intelligence bureau reports that Levinson was no longer associated in that capacity. Movement leaders countered that voter disenfranchisement, lack of education and employment opportunities, discrimination and vigilante violence were the reasons for the strength of the Civil Rights Movement, and that blacks had the intelligence and motivation to organize on their own.
Article Sent To The Kathmandu Post
March 6, 2007
Engineering A Soft Landing To The Madhesi Janajati Movement
by Paramendra Bhagat
There are five broad groups in Nepal: Khas, Madhesi, Janajati, Dalit
and Mahila. Roughly speaking, the Khas, Madhesi and Janajati are 30%
each of the population, and the Dalit are 10%. Women are half in each
category. The fears the hitherto marginalized groups have is the
country might end up with a constituent assembly that will not have a
fair ethnic and gender representation, and so the marginalization will
be perpetuated.
I think by now there is broad agreement in the country on both
democracy and federalism. But there is much to question on the
sincerity of those in power on the details of the promised federalism.
The Khas in power talk in terms of geographic federalism. That makes
the Madhesi and the Janajati suspicious. Some Khas leaders when they
talk of federalism what they really mean is decentralization. That
makes the Madhesi and the Janajati very suspicious.
The final shape of the proposed federalism has to be decided upon by
the duly elected constituent assembly. But before that can happen, the
constituent assembly has to have a fair ethnic and gender composition.
How do we do that without ditching the basic premise of democracy,
which is one person one vote? If we are for democracy and federalism,
we
should produce our respective maps and go to the people, and let the
people decide. The Bahun establishment's refusal to produce maps has
made the Madhesi and the Janajati very suspicious, and rightly so.
The Janajati Movement's key demand is that there should be
proportional elections to the constituent assembly. The entire country
would be one constituency. Each party would go to the voters with
their lists of candidates. Curiously the UML has the same demand, but
it has refused to take a stand for the same. A smart political move on
their part would have been to threaten to walk out of the government
unless this key demand were met. But they have not done that, and that
is reflective of the Khas prejudice in the UML leadership circles.
The Madhesi Movement's two key demands are a direct result of the 21
days of the Maghe Kranti. The Home Minister not resigning has gone
against all grains of democratic logic. In a democracy, when there is
a major train accident, the railway minister resigns. That is so
basic. But the Girija Koirala, Krishna Sitaula duo have defied that
basic democratic gravity, and have shamelessly stayed on. Unless
Sitaula resigns, there will be no constituent assembly elections. If
not for the 38 martyrs of the Madhesi Movement, will Sitaula resign
for the sake of the constituent assembly? That is what it boils down
to. The second demands is the setting up of a commission to
investigate the atrocities committed during those 21 days. That demand
is less hard core than that of a tribunal.
I am firmly for ethnic federalism. As a Madhesi, I want a Madhesh
state from the Rapti river to the Mechi river. I speak in terms of a
Madhesh, a Tharuwan, a Kirat, a Tamang, a Newa, a Tamuwan, a Magarat,
and a Khasan, for a total of eight states. It is my reading of the
ground situation that any political party that does not go into the
Madhesh with the agenda of a Madhesh state is going to get wiped out.
The sentiment is so strong.
The Maghe Kranti produced substantially more martyrs than the April
Revolution. And it got demonized as an act of the royalists and the
Hindu supremacists. The facts did not matter. It did not matter that
the Madhesi Movement has asked for an immediate declaration of a
republic, that it has produced a disproportionate number of Muslim
martyrs, and that there never was a slogan for the monarchy or a Hindu
state anywhere during those 21 glory days.
Sitaula has to resign, and the state terror unleashed upon the Maghe
Kranti has to be investigated. And then all parties have to agree to
hold proportional representation elections to the constituent
assembly, the benchmark demand of the Janajati Movement. If these
three things can happen right away, it is possible the elections can
still be held in June. Otherwise November is going to crop up as a
possibility.
(Paramendra Bhagat is Convenor, Coordination Committee, Nepali
Organizations In New York City and blogs at Madhesi.net)
