360 3 - 9 August 2007 16 Pages Rs 30
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#360 3 - 9 August 2007 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 360 Q. In light of recent developments, what is your opinion of the Nepal Army? Total votes: 3,257 100 days to go But are they serious about polls? he Maoist leadership, Khanal: “Party unity is important of Maoists living in harsh serious as some make it out to be, under pressure from a for them.” conditions in camps: “The peace the Maoists may come out of their hardline faction, has Unable to withstand the process has achieved little, yet meeting next week with a hardline Weekly Internet Poll # 361. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com T Q. Which is the biggest obstacle to decided party unity is more pressure of hardliners and with our leadership is wallowing in approach. The irony is that an holding elections in November? important than the November just 100 days to go for polls, the luxury and comfort.” avowed republican party is elections and may opt for an Maoist meeting is preoccupied Sharma, Chand and radicals converging with the monarchy intensified pro-republic with the possibility of an election lead by Mohan Baidya feel the which doesn't want polls either. movement in the next months. defeat. A UML forecast, which peace process is flawed, it has Chairman Pushpa Kamal many find credible, shows the weakened the Maoists and the TARAI EYE Prashant Jha Dahal has been heavily censured Maoists may get just 10 percent of gains of the revolution Beyond Tokenism p12 at the fifth session of the Maoist the seats in the first-past-the-post squandered. The party leadership extended central committee this part of the election. is finding it hard to convince week in Kathmandu for failing to “There is growing frustration them to be patient at least till Barsha Man Pun (Ananta) who stand up to the NC and not taking within the party with the elections. belongs to the pragmatic section of a firmer stand on republic. Dahal democratic experiment,” admits “A large section of the Maoists the Maoist leadership says his has compromised with dissidents ex-guerrilla commander Janardan cadre believe that they have been party is totally committed to the by agreeing to insist on the Sharma (Prabhakar) who is in the betrayed by the other parties,” polls. “We want elections, that is declaration of republic as a dissident faction, “time has come explains analyst Shyam Shrestha, what we fought for. But we are precondition to elections. to develop a new policy.” “and both factions of the Maoists launching a movement for The Maoists have concluded Another central committee know their support base in the republic and proportional electoral they will not perform very member, Netra Bikram Chand population has been eroded.” system in our campaigning.” z well in elections, and may (Biplab) echoes the views Even if the rift is not as John Narayan Parajuli have decided their best bet is to put impossible preconditions for polls just to keep the party together. Says political science professor Krishna BILASH RAI 2 EDITORIAL 3 - 9 AUGUST 2007 #360 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit Design: Kiran Maharjan Director Sales and Marketing: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Circulation Manager: Samir Maharjan [email protected] Subscription: [email protected],5542525/535 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 [email protected] Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 www.nepalitimes.com Half revolution The debate about inclusiveness has excluded class he Constituent Assembly To be poor is to be unable to poverty, Kamis 68 percent, UNNATURAL DISASTERS Members Elections Act fulfil basic needs and to be Damais 67 percent, Sarkis Every year it is the same story: monsoon rains gushing down the T strives to make Nepal, or deprived of the right to 65 percent, Tamangs 59 percent, mountains create floods downstream in the plains. The government at least the constituent assembly, education and health. To be poor Magars 58 percent, Rais is blamed for not rushing relief fast enough. The Indians are blamed ‘inclusive’ based on a six-sector is to be marginalised from socio- 56 percent, and Chhetris for building embankments across the border. The Biharis blame divide. Through the 240 seats political processes and 50 percent). A quarter of the Nepal. And everyone blames god for unleashing a natural disaster. based on proportional resources, to be socially and members of the Newar Lost in this post-event flood of recrimination is the fact that representation the Nepali people politically incapacitated. The community, supposedly the there is nothing natural about the annual loss of life and damage to wealthiest in Nepal, live below crops and property. Granted, the Himalayan arc is a region prone to will be represented as madhesi latest statistics put about water-induced disasters: this geologically young and fragile (31.2 percent), dalit (13 percent), 31 percent of Nepal’s population the poverty line. mountain range itself acts as a monsoon trap, setting off the highest janajati, (37.8 percent), from below the absolute poverty line, Sociologists hope that if all precipitation rates in the world in the most-densely populated backward areas (4 percent), and it could be as high as 40 percent. caste and linguistic groups can be mountain region in the world. others (30.2 percent). According to the 2001 maintained in a proportional Combined, the topography and climate make the Nepal Himalaya census, more than a million balance, Nepal can be a beautiful vulnerable to landslides and floods. But these are givens, and ‘mosaic’. But there is already a GUEST COLUMN Nepalis are landless. In generations of our forebears have learnt to live with the dangers. 19 districts, over 20 percent of mosaic, in fact there are two—of Himalayan habitations are mostly situated along ridgelines or Bishnu Rimal households have no land. About the rich and the poor in each protected river banks, in the plains traditional homes are built on 15 percent of households do not group. Without a mechanism to stilts and farmers depend on nutrients washed down in the silt to Nepalis, who have long lived own a piece of land on which to ensure proper representation of fertilise their fields. the large mass of the working What has changed, is that population pressure has forced with a loss of identity and been construct a hut and members are people to live on slopes exposed to slides and encroach along flood victimised, whether by solely dependent on land-based class people, attempts at caste-, plains. Lacking traditional community ties and a historical memory patriarchal, caste-based, wages. ethnicity- and region-based of coping with floods, they are helpless when the waters rise. Entire geopolitical, ethnicity-based or Without this large mass of inclusiveness will not help end cities have sprung up in the plains blocking natural drainage. Badly linguistic domination, now have people represented in the existing patterns of social designed road embankments and even flood protection levees act as a chance to put forward constituent assembly, it will not inequality. dams, impounding runoff instead of protecting people from floods. alternative agendas in debates quite be an assembly of all of Of course, given the Rivers will find their natural path to the sea no matter what, about state restructuring. Nepal’s historically oppressed multifaceted nature of and protecting one area from floods inevitably means submerging But this arrangement fails to and marginalised people. The oppression in Nepal, and its another. Usually it is the cities, rich farmlands, infrastructure that address another side of the worries that it will end up being many vectors of conflict, there is are protected and this means it is the poorest areas and the most multidimensional conflict in just another coterie of the elites not much sense to the traditional marginalised groups that suffer floods. A tally of flood victims this notion that an end to class year has direct correlation with social inequities. Reflected in the Nepali society: economic of various groups are genuine. flood waters every year is the manmade disaster of governance oppression. Progressive lyricist Manjul has struggle results in an equitable failure. written fittingly of a ‘Brahmin’s state. This hits home when you son deceiving a Brahmin’. see how states established after a Nepal’s inequity is alarming. socialist revolution failed to In fact it is the most inequitable address social oppression. country in South Asia, which The lesson from history is itself is one of the world’s most this: the struggle against class inequitable regions. The people exploitation and social are getting poor and their oppression should go hand in purchasing power is hand. Class is an ideological plummeting by the day. To buy issue and has a national focus one tablet of paracetamol, a unlike caste, regionalism, and Nepali worker has to spend five gender which are identity- and minutes’ worth of wages. A difference-based. If we are really shroud to wrap a dead body committed to the freedom and costs 33 hours and 33 minutes emancipation of the oppressed, of work. we have to look at injustice Poverty cuts across all groups that cuts across ethnic and caste and communities in Nepal’s lines. caste structure. Half or more the total population of most caste Bishnu Rimal is the vice chair of and ethnic groups is poor. General Federation of Nepali (Limbus have 71 percent Trade Unions. NEPAL PHOTO AGENCY The revolt of the aristocrats Why even privileged Yadavs are so very angry nfluential donors and lenders have long Hatlebakk has been studying the Almost as an aside, Hatlebakk finds that former panchas and the communists in the been involved in manufacturing economics of the eastern tarai for nearly a the Yadav’s landholding makes them one of leftist alliance.