#475 6 - 12 November 2009 16 pages Rs 30 UPENDRA LAMICHANE “Stop the slaughter” inside ith only two weeks to At an ecumenical function on well as chickens, pigeons, ducks go before the mass Saturday in Bara, Bomjon and even rats are sacrificed. The W sacrifice of animals at (pictured, above) urged that the event is held every five years and Gadhimai in Bara, calls to stop ritual sacrifice be stopped. “The this year will take place over two the slaughter for once and for all animals are killed cruelly for the days on 23-24 November. Netbooks are growing. notion that wishes will be Indian animal rights activist in Nepal Adding his voice to the granted. I urge everyone to stop Maneka Gandhi has also spoken campaign is Ram Bahadur the slaughter,” he said. out strongly against the sacrifices, Bomjon, the ‘Boy Buddha of The Gadhimai sacrifices have writing a letter to Prime Minister p8-9 Bara’ who gained world renown been opposed by animal rights Madhav Kumar Nepal urging him after he meditated in the hollow groups in Nepal, but this year to ban the festival. But of a tree, ostensibly without food there has been unprecedented preparations are going ahead and water for six months in international attention on the regardless. 2006. He disappeared gruesome ritual in which half a Gadhimai is a transnational mysteriously then, and is now million buffalos and goats as festival, and most of the pilgrims living in the jungle near as well as the animals being Ratnapuri. sacrificed come from across the border in India. p13 More pictures at Mouse in the middle www.nepalitimes.com India-Nepal-China 2 EDITORIAL 6 - 12 NOVEMBER 2009 #475 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editor: Rabi Thapa CEO: Ashutosh Tiwari Design: Kiran Maharjan DGM Sales and Marketing: Sambhu Guragain [email protected] Marketing Manager: Subhash Kumar Asst. Manager: Arjun Karki Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur Fax: 5251013 [email protected] GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5250333/845 www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press 5250017-19 Plains prescience The late Gaige’s work on the Tarai is as ULTRA-VIOLENCE relevant as it ever was Whatever the slogans on the streets about ‘civilian supremacy’ it is now clear that the current phase of Maoist street protests are he fact that Frederick H later. Gaige travelled to villages Gaige’s study has limitations aimed at saving the party from itself. Gaige’s ‘Regionalism and across the Tarai in a Land Rover, because he was thinking of these The torch rallies, the dancing in front of municipality buildings T National Unity in Nepal’ armed with copies of the census issues in a monarchical set-up, and the ‘capture’ of Dhankuta are all showcase activities to (1975) remains the single most bureau district maps, sleeping and could not cross certain lines. say, “We’re here”. But much more sinister is the escalation of important work on the politics of on foldout canvas cots, and But reading these violent attacks against opposition figures, attacks that remind us the plains is a testament to both cooking on a pump-up kerosene recommendations, and their of the conflict years. The only difference is that guns are not its pioneering and prescient stove. His dissertation got striking relevance today, makes being used. nature, and the sorry state of published as a book. one wonder what would have But it is the time-tested Maoist method of enforcing obedience English language scholarship on Gaige runs through the happened if the regime had by terror tactics. A Maoist leader this week reminded everyone that the Tarai. entire gamut of issues that undertaken such transformations the party still had guns stashed away and could use them anytime. marked the Tarai’s troubled earlier. The kind explanation for all this is that the Maoists are just buying time for a face-saving way out of the corner they have relationship with the Nepali Soon enough, Gaige’s book PLAIN SPEAKING state: its intimate links across was out of print. Researchers and boxed themselves into. The unkind explanation is that they are Prashant Jha intent on state capture by escalating the protests into an urban the border; the perception of the journalists looking for a basic uprising, removing all those in opposition and instituting totalitarian plains people as ‘Indians’ and overview of the plains struggled rule, as Baburam Bhattarai candidly explained to the World Gaige first got interested in its implications in a polity that to get a photocopy from libraries. Peoples Resistance Movement last week (see p13). None of the Nepal after hearing the thrived on generating anti- Social Science Baha and Himal Maoist actions so far convince us that the second option is not formidable Nepal hand, Leo Rose. Indian sentiments; the region’s Books filled the gap earlier this their real end game. He subsequently enrolled in a geopolitics and economy; and year by bringing out a new By rejecting a post-Tihar semantic compromise on a PhD program, won a Fulbright the politics of citizenship and edition to inaugurate a series on parliamentary resolution that offered everyone an honourable scholarship, and flew into Nepal language. ‘Classics in Nepali Social escape clause, the Maoists proved that this is all about getting in 1966. A US embassy officer In the last and most Sciences’. back to power by hook or by crook. Indeed, to see it from their side, the Maoist leadership is afraid of greater attrition from the rank and suggested to him that at a time prophetic section ‘on the Before that, publisher Deepak file and perhaps even a split in the party if it doesn’t get into when other scholars were drawn problem of national Thapa, aided by US-based scholar government soon. to the mountain region, he could integration’, Gaige declares Mahendra Lawoti, had to launch The question is how. The UML-NC coalition is unlikely to focus on the Tarai. Gaige was dealing with the problem a massive hunt to find Gaige, agree to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal stepping down, and excited, and asked himself the ‘through the elimination of who had disappeared from the the Maoists will not settle for anything less than prime question we are still struggling minority groups’ is entirely Nepali academic radar. A Baha ministership. The street protests were necessary because the with today: “how Nepal, as a unrealistic. India would not representative, academic Bandita Maoists realised they don’t have the numbers in the house to oust young and struggling nation, allow it; and the economic Sijapati, met Gaige last year in the government, and their strategy of splitting parties to garner would pull together all the power of the plains would New York. He was retired and those numbers failed. disparate ethnic groups and prevent any such move. bedridden, had only visited The desperation has led the Maoists to play an even more regions into a stable national If the Nepali state could not Nepal once in all these years, and dangerous game by declaring autonomous ethnic federal councils this week. When nothing else works, the Maoists have always entity”. He felt that the Tarai integrate the Tarai into the had spent a major part of his life fallen back on stoking ethnic and caste tensions: not to liberate the “represented both a very national framework by force, the as an academic administrator at downtrodden, but as a political weapon. A Maoist leader’s important region of Nepal and ‘realistic alternative would be Penn State Berks. He readily gave explanation this the one most difficult to draw the plains people into the his consent for a new edition. week that the integrate into a national structure through Gaige passed away on August ethnic units are national participation in the nation’s 25 this year. He did get to see a just ‘symbolic’ framework”. political life’. He recommends copy of the new edition, though just doesn’t wash. He visited certain policy changes – removal he was very unwell by that time. The comrades Biratanagar, of discriminatory clauses in the The Tarai, and Nepal, owe must know that Janakpur, Birganj citizenship law and simplifying Gaige a huge debt for his mixing ethnicity and Nepalganj, citizenship procedures; outstanding work that with politics can only lead to the most ensuring that plains people are questioned existing assumptions. the fragmentation politically not denied sources of The fact that he got to see what of the country. If volatile cities livelihood; recognising Hindi as his work meant to generations of so, does it mean when the Madhes an associate language; and Nepali scholars, and that Nepal is they don’t care if rose in hiring plains people as slowly on the path to that happens? opposition to the government administrators, accommodating the people of the Nepali state police and army officers plains, is the best tribute we can thirty-two years through quotas. pay him. RSS oliticians don’t go to their Gopal, Tara Devi and Mira Rana dominated constituencies anymore. Mainstream the Nepali music scene for much of the parties have almost abdicated the Panchayat era. Unsurprisingly, the Pcountryside. From Marchabar to Manang, the What is your harmonium and flute were their main only political activists who can be seen in the accompaniments – there is nothing like a districts are the Maoists. More often than not, wind instrument to create an aura of calm it’s to gherao something. and completeness. The Maoists are usually decked out in song, comrade? The Maoist insurgency inspired two their new uniform: grey tracksuits and simultaneous changes in musical tastes.