#300 2 - 8 June 2006 18 pages Rs 30 SECOND CLASS NO MORE: The citizenship proposal passed by Parliament on Tuesday honours women as equals but are rural women like these in Humla empowered enough to exercise their new rights? NARESH NEWAR Weekly Internet Poll # 300 Q... Do you agree with parliament’s decision to declare Nepal a secular state? Holding up half the sky Democracy is good for women’s rights but... Total votes: 8,394 he decision by the restored laws that are supposed to end reserving 33 percent of civil parliament this week to discrimination against women. service jobs for women, the Food for peace T allow Nepali mothers to Indeed, parliament has always decision won’t change the transfer citizenship to offspring been progressive when it comes to proportion of women working for The UN’s World Food Weekly Internet Poll # 301. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com has been hailed as a landmark, but gender equity. Before it was the state. Programme is now planning Q... Should the House revive the local there are doubts about dissolved in 2002, the house Just look at the composition of Nepal’s first emergency feeding bodies? implementation of these and other allowed daughters to inherit the government itself: there is scheme in response to the property, abortion was legalised only one woman among 17 men in drought in the west (#299, and divorce laws were amended. the interim cabinet and only four ‘Food for the Karnali’). But the However, some of these agency’s mandate does not decisions are still not properly Editorial p2 restrict it to reacting to implemented and there is a lack Theocracy to democracy shortages. WFP could also play a role on the road to of awareness among women Monsoon bloodletting p8-9 themselves about them. Activists peace, for example by feeding say there are more than 100 other of the 205 MPs are women. The decommissioned Maoist provisions still in the statutes peace negotiation teams of both fighters, says its new chief that date back to the Muluki Ain the Maoists and the government Richard Ragan in his first that are discriminatory. There is completely exclude women. The interview with the Nepali media. scepticism, therefore, that despite government also bargained away a Pg 5 the resolution passed on Tuesday woman speaker. z 2 EDITORIAL 2 - 8 JUNE 2006 #300 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editor: Marty Logan Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Vicepresident Corporate Affairs: Sneh Sayami Advertising: Sambhu Guragain [email protected] Subscription: [email protected] Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur [email protected], GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu Tel: 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 Loving to hate the NA www.nepalitimes.com Nepali soldiers are from Nepal, and (surprise) they are human THEOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY am not a military historian or (by adding police, necessary even peacetime trek for a group of four Some have always been more equal than others in this kingdom analyst. But since we have in peace time) and concluded in the hills requires a team of of the gods. This inequality was nurtured in the name of religion— I hysterical economists, poorly that Nepal has the biggest porters, mounting even a modest the treatment of women as lesser citizens, the marginalisation of read civil society leaders, security apparatus in proportion company-level offensive creates ‘low’ castes, the neglect of those who aren’t of the mainstream uneducated and educated to its area and population, he daunting logistical challenges. So faith. An unpopular king tried to gain legitimacy by promoting a journalists who pontificate freely was not comparing apples to a force of 90,000 may actually be kind of theocracy. By allowing sycophants to call him not just on military matters, I feel on safe apples. inadequate. Nepal’s Hindu king but the emperor of the world’s Hindus it was ground writing on topics ranging Unlike Bangladesh, Nepal has Security experts have argued clear there was a certain delusion at work here. His from the military to Marx. fought an insurgency since 1996 for force multiplication through fundamentalist advisers have used the Hindu Card to exploit politico-religious schisms in India and import that country’s and has improved from a largely the use of auxiliaries at the VDC- religious insecurity. GUEST COLUMN ceremonial force of 40,000 to its level linked to a rapid reaction Now that parliament has confined the monarchy to symbolism Pravin Rana current strength of 90,000 troops, force-suggesting a larger force for at par with the Living Goddess, there are those in the palace who many of whom have known Nepal. are trying to turn humiliation into fundamentalism. This is a combat. An entire Ranger Yes, Nepal has no business colossal blunder: they are playing with fire and the ensuing The intellectuals, activists and battalion, praised by fighting a war: we have many conflagration will first consume those who stoke it. media’s favorite anti-Nepali Army international observers, came of other pressing needs. Yet when Religious freedom is an integral part of the charter of liberties cri de couer is that it is a age during this period. The NA confronted with the Maoists already enshrined in the 1990 constitution. Even though the militarised, unprofessional force continues to be respected in its whose intent is on destroying kingdom was not designated a secular state, Nepal has never with an innate propensity for UN peacekeeping role, showed everything-an army or nation has been as Hindu as it was made out to be by the ancien regime. crimes against humanity and restraint (for the most part) little choice but to fight. Despite being a Hindu monarchy, the legislative, the executive and the judicial wings of the state are run strictly according to the despotism. No one, of course, during Janaandolan II and is NA soldiers have made constitution with no reference to any religious scriptures. At least explains ‘militarisation’ or a force that Nepal needs for substantial sacrifices during this in intent, Nepal was a secular kingdom long before it was formally ‘unprofessional’, because together disaster relief. insurgency. declared to be one two weeks ago. these words evoke images of the The military participation Without their work, the But privileges once acquired, howsoever illegal, are hard to Third Reich rather than a ratio (MPR) is a measure of Maoist vision might well have discard. Hardcore royalists benefited from the Hindu kingdom reasonable reaction to an militarisation and is the ratio of already come to pass. But what myth. And they are the ones behind the fundamentalist upsurge in insurgency whose goals are to the number of military to a has been the image of the NA in Birganj. This is a clear effort to create mischief, sow instability establish a communist nation’s population. the media? Its soldiers and stir religious discord. Nepal has never had impulsive totalitarian regime. Nepal’s MPR is about 0.3 don’t bleed when shot, their religious riots. The few instances of communal violence are now When a columnist in this percent. Even adding in the APF families don’t cry when they are known to have been planned to take advantage of the anarchy for paper recently compared the size (and leaving out the police) the injured or die, they don’t suffer short-term political advantage. The state must demonstrate zero tolerance towards these of the Nepali Army to the ratio is only 0.5 percent. The the trauma of losing body parts, intolerant fanatics of the Hindu right who have again deliberately Bangladesh military and inflated United States in World War II they don’t feel lonely when mixed up faith with the Nepali military forces count had an MPR of 12 percent. separated from home villages for state. The majority of Countries currently fighting years and they feel no financial Hindu Nepalis believe insurgencies show similar or pain when their wives and in the separation of greater MPRs to Nepal: Sri Lanka children are extorted and religion and politics, (0.7 percent) and Colombia (0.4 harassed. and non-Hindu Nepalis percent). Nepal’s military budget Our soldiers are not drawn whole-heartedly is $200 million while Sri Lanka’s from a recruitment pool with no support it. Those who is $500 million and Colombia connection to the land, a nation’s are against secularism spends $6.9 billion on its army is a reflection of its own are of course free to hold that belief but military a year. Both Sri Lanka culture. The NA has provided a there is no place in the and Colombia have weapons that living opportunity and new Nepal for fundos make the NA look like it stepped professionalism for the same advocating religious out of World stratum of young people recruited extremism. Nepal is War II movie set. by the Maoists. If the secular and it must Terrain has been cited by current talks fail, it will once remain safe for many as the reason why there is more be the Nepal Army that will Nepalis of every ‘no military solution’, another have to back up parliamentary religion, or for that term that has not been explained democracy. Think about that matter, of no particular clearly but used freely to prove a when you hear glib references to religion. spurious point: that there is no ‘militarisation’ and role for the military. When even a ‘unprofessional army’. MIN BAJRACHARYA LLL ETTERS WITCHHUNTING police and soldiers who were peaceful demonstrations that gave BRAND-BUILDING Today, most savvy ad agencies The only reason the general just following orders of the royal the movement the moral power Ashutosh Tiwari’s ‘Focus on understand this and focus on hand public supported the seven regime reeks of vendetta.