tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-205168462024-03-26T14:34:46.709+05:30Deepak's DiaryJournal of a Nepali journalistDeepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-46118799282952577232010-11-15T08:04:00.002+05:302010-11-15T10:39:53.066+05:30Moving to a New WebsiteDear visitor,<br />
<br />
It's been fun using blogspot and interacting with you here. But now's the time to move. I've launched my new website <a href="http://www.deepakadhikari.net/">Deepak Adhikari</a>.<br />
<br />
Now on, I will post my blogs and other pieces there. So, please visit the site and do provide links to mine in your sites/blogs. I will try to reciprocate.<br />
<br />
Thanks a lot!Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-35314405211198939942010-10-20T21:54:00.000+05:302010-10-20T21:54:33.333+05:30Nepal's First President VS Last KingThis appeared in TIME:<br />
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Deepak Adhikari/Kathmandu<br />
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">It was during Indra Jatra, the festival that marks the end of monsoon and honors the rain god Indra, that Prithvinarayan Shah attacked a bowl-shaped valley and expanded his kingdom to form what would eventually become modern-day Nepal. That was 1768, and in keeping with the local custom of the now-famous Nepali institution of Kumari — the worshipping of young girls believed to be incarnations of the Hindu deity Taleju — the new king went on to get blessings from the living goddess.</div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The last king of Shah's dynasty, however, wasn't as lucky. Last month, the site of the yearly celebration of Indra Jatra in Kathmandu's ancient Durbar Square became the latest frontline in a battle being waged between Nepal's ousted king and the nation's young government. When former king Gyanendra Shah, who left his post after the government voted to become a republic on May 28, 2008, attempted to pay homage to nine former royal Kumaris in the square, government supporters gathered to protest the former king's visit, and he was physically prevented from his visit. The government cited security reasons for the interruption, but one local news commentator said that the tussle amounted to nothing less than a battle between the old and new Nepal.</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br />
Read more in <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2025718,00.html#ixzz12utcTGWD">TIME</a>. </span>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-6189595661981983592010-10-01T10:14:00.002+05:302010-10-05T07:27:15.258+05:30A Nepali Actress in Australia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMY6pbG8D_F4Ef6YVageYefV6zSqz7BnHKRnY5RDNW_AeD1MIjszCgzXE3ZOeU-9XDoPknGzb4-CF1vz2EQIvJAH7O6Eyhn2uO-kwUHoH-0J_aanlNJFIwCL9mZ6z94U9hig/s1600/suesha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMY6pbG8D_F4Ef6YVageYefV6zSqz7BnHKRnY5RDNW_AeD1MIjszCgzXE3ZOeU-9XDoPknGzb4-CF1vz2EQIvJAH7O6Eyhn2uO-kwUHoH-0J_aanlNJFIwCL9mZ6z94U9hig/s320/suesha.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Suesha Rana is a Nepali-origin Australia-based theater actress. In late August she responded to my questions about her life, career and what it means to be an Asian artist in Australia. A profile based on the interview was published in <i>Hello Shukrabar</i>, a <i>Kantipur Daily</i> supplement on youth and lifestyle.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Q: <i>Can you tell me about your childhood? Where were you born, what did your parents do for living etc.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">A: I had a pretty normal childhood growing up, I was born in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Kathmandu</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> and went to a few schools there. I also went to school in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Jaipur</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">, </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">India</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> during primary school. But, I settled in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Perth</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">, </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Western Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> when I was 9 years old. My father was Sahadev <span class="il">Rana</span>, he was the managing director of Hotel de'l </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Annapurna</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> and my mother was a full time mom. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>What drove you towards acting? </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Acting was something that came quite naturally to me and always really enjoyed. I've always been a bit of an entertainer, being a clown and loving the attention. I've always enjoyed exploring characters, I use it as an escape from the monotony of life every now and then.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>Which was your first play? Can you share your experiences of that moment?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">My first play was The King and I, and it was a school play. I loved being on stage, especially the adrenaline of being in front of so many people and being appreciated for what I was doing which was entertaining. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>When did you feel that you will be a full time actor?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">I'm hoping to fully launch into acting next year when I have finished my bachelors degree in commerce. Also, living in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Western Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> there is very little opportunity for work in terms of acting, therefore I have decided to go to L.A next year to study more acting and pursue a career there. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>What is it like acting in </i></span><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">? Can you give a sense of what it is like to be acting in that country? </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Acting in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Western Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> is a very good starting point. It's great in terms of gaining experience. There is definitely more work available in the eastern state of </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">, however I find there is very little jobs available for Asians.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>What is your biggest achievement so far? Any awards, recognitions for any role?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">My biggest achievement so far would be having the opportunity to work with Melanie Rodriga who is a very well known director in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Australia</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>What types of role do you do? When and how did you get your first break in Australian movie?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">I like many different roles. The more different the better, as this really expands your versatility as an actor. I like characters that need a lot of thought, it's exciting to delve into the minds of complex characters. I'm still waiting for a big break in Australian movie as I originally started as a theatre actress. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>Do you also do stereotypical roles that the non-white actors in a predominantly white country often do?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Definitely, especially when starting out its always the stereotypical characters.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">You have mentioned in you bio that you've acted in movies like My Past My Present, Music etc. What were your roles? What was your experience like?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">My past My present was a great experience, I got to understand the film world as I originally started as a theater actress. My role was a supporting role of a self fish young well established woman. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>What is your next goal/movie/theater act? Do you plan to enter </i></span><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Hollywood</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">I'm a pretty easy going person, I'm thankful for any role that comes my way. I'm keen to do more film and television rather than theater and next year I plan to do so in L.A if all goes according to plan</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br />
<i>Have you watched Nepali films? If yes, what are they? </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">I left </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Nepal</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> when I was really young and Nepali movies don't really make their way into the western world. The only one I remember is Prempind and that was a very very long time ago.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">What is your dream role? Who is your dream director? What is your most favorite movie? Actor/actress?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">My dream role would be a someone like Angelina Jolie's character in the movie Girl Interrupted and my dream director would be Tim Burton and Sophia Cappola. Favourite actor would be Johhny Depp and favorite actress would be Sandra Bullock</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Anything you would like to say (that I haven't asked)?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">I always tell people to dream big and go for it no matter what it takes. The universe always brings to you what you ask of it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Also check my interview with Nepali writers: <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/05/q-with-samrat-upadhyay.html">Samrat Upadhyay</a> and <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2006/03/doctors-debut-novel.html">Ravi Thapaliya</a>. <br />
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</div>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-80243869689170048172010-09-27T21:34:00.009+05:302010-09-27T22:00:00.181+05:30Sex Trafficking by Siddharth Kara<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpzXX2-wqIRo_qrlGGCPKs3EkIP0azjUDP3mcjN-twmUUiVrSfR_AdOZ6GK3lQuHmZl0N6Q7Cdw9_Nbc-vnOzKSGpkO3bo1Ky_tyUb3IdY7O0OtamiC6zuX5_SeVU8nfPVg/s1600/Sex+Trafficking+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpzXX2-wqIRo_qrlGGCPKs3EkIP0azjUDP3mcjN-twmUUiVrSfR_AdOZ6GK3lQuHmZl0N6Q7Cdw9_Nbc-vnOzKSGpkO3bo1Ky_tyUb3IdY7O0OtamiC6zuX5_SeVU8nfPVg/s320/Sex+Trafficking+book.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the autumn of 2008, I and a friend working with an NGO run by sex-trafficking victims embarked on a research of sex trade in Kathmandu. Having previously worked on the subject for a cover story at <i>Nepal Weekly</i> magazine in 2004, I had some understanding of the subject. But my second attempt at exploring the dark side of this gruesome trade would prove to be a difficult experience. I met a girl, barely 14, who was trafficked from Dang and was forced to work in a run-down Gongabu restaurant that doubled as a brothel.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">After listening to the girl’s harrowing story at a nearby shelter, my friend and I visited the restaurant where the waiters seemed laidback and the tea arrived after much delay. As we sipped our tea and scrutinised the place, the modus operandi started to unravel itself. A young woman who was applying lipstick and carelessly grooming herself seemed to eye us as prospective clients. Pin-ups of scantily clad models adorned the walls. Sitting there, I wondered about the misery the young girl had told us about.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">I was reminded of this while reading <i>Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery</i> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddharth_Kara">Siddharth Kara</a>, the first fellow on human trafficking at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Kara came face to face with the horrors of slavery in mid-1990s when he visited a refugee camp in Slovenia where he saw first hand the refugees living in limbo, and in utter despair. The Slovenian sojourn left an indelible impression on him.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Haunted by that, in 2000 he resolved to put aside his job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch and began his life’s mission: to unveil the workings of sex trafficking. He visited brothels, massage parlours, sex clubs and met all those involved in this trade. After traversing 18 countries and interviewing more than 500 victims, he has produced a very compelling book.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span"><i>Sex Trafficking</i> provides answer to one of the world’s most appalling (some would say the oldest) trades: selling sex. The book—which covers India, Nepal, Europe and Africa—analyses in detail the economic aspect of sex trafficking. “Sex slavery is primarily a crime of economic benefit,” he writes. According to Kara, the origin of sex trafficking can be traced to a few phenomena: collapse of the Soviet Union, spread of globalisation and capitalism. “The supply of slave erupted in 1990s concurrently with the havoc wreaked by economic globalisation,” he writes. He suggests: sex trafficking is the most profitable industry because the labour cost is very cheap.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">The book opens with the story of Maya, “a gaunt and distressed” 19-year-old from Sindhupalchowk, who spent “four years as sex slave in each of Mumbai’s two main red-light districts, Kamathipura and Falkland Road.” Maya was duped with the promise of a job at a carpet factory in Kathmandu. Once in the Indian brothel, she was raped, tortured, starved and even drugged. Finally, she fled, but only to discover that she was infected with HIV. Even returning home was fraught with stigma. “They (the rescuers) helped me contact my father, but he told me not to come home. He said I can never be married because I have HIV. I can only bring shame,” she tells the author. She had come out of the brothel in Kamathipura that was established in the 17th century for the service of British troops.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Globally, 500,000 to 600,000 women are trafficked every year. The reasons outlined by the author are poverty, bias against the gender or particular ethnicity, lawlessness, military conflict, social instability, and above all, disparities in economic opportunity. Along the shady edge of the huge movement of people and demand for sex and money, sex trafficking thrives.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Kara says factors such as corruption in law enforcement, border control and judicial system allow traffickers to conduct their business with minimal consequences. When he says “police take bribes in every country I visited to allow sex-slaves establishments to operate” it sounds like he is talking about Nepal. “Lack of coordination among origin and destination countries also hampers prosecution of trafficking crimes,” he writes, “…The absence of political will to enforce the law, as well as endemic corruption, allows trafficking…”</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">At one point, a victim’s mother laments: “So many bad men are hurting young girls. How can we stop them? Is there any end to the suffering of women?” Kara suggests a number of ways to control the trafficking. He urges the UN to create an international slavery and trafficking inspection force; targeted and proactive raids against establishments that have sex-slaves; forming fast-track courts to prosecute trafficking crimes; and imposing stringent laws with massive penalties for traffickers. </span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">As a work of narrative journalism, <i>Sex Trafficking</i> is gripping. It’s erudite, evocative and above a</span>ll an engaging read. No other work has dealt with the subject as comprehensively. The book deserves a wide readership.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First appeared at <i>The Kathmandu Post</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Also check my <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/05/sold-novel-by-patricia-mccormick.html">review of Sold</a>, a novel about a Nepali girl trafficked to India. </span></div>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-22609627711251887602010-09-18T12:39:00.004+05:302010-09-18T19:25:12.537+05:30Koirala's Legacy<i>With Nepali Congress, Nepal's Grand Old Party, engaged in the search of the leader who would fill the late GPK's shoes, below I've published an obit of the late leader, written just after his death</i>:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">With the death in March 20 of Girija Prasad Koirala, the five-time Prime Minister of Nepal who helped bring the underground Maoist rebels to mainstream politics and oversaw the end of Nepal’s 240-year-old monarchy, the Himalayan nation’s fragile peace process has suffered a severe blow. Koirala was at the helm until his death at 85.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">As an architect of the peace process, the octogenarian leader had died in the thick of the things, leaving behind several unfinished tasks, the key among them the drafting of constitution through 601–member Constituent Assembly (CA) elected in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"><st1:date day="10" month="4" w:st="on" year="2008">April 10, 2008</st1:date></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Though Koirala’s absence will be felt throughout the nation, it is nowhere more acute than within his party. When the three senior most leaders of Nepali Congress (NC), former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Acting Chairman Sushil Koirala and NC’s parliamentary leader, Ram Chandra Paudel, were seen waving to the crowd from the cortege in the funeral procession, it reminded many of the NC troika: Ganesh Man Singh, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Girija Prasad Koirala. The three leaders had led the grand old party till mid 1990s. But even before the late leader’s ashes are buried throughout the country, fissures among the top three have begun to surface. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Many believe this is Koirala’s own making, for he never nurtured the second generation leaders. Instead, in recent years, he was keen to promote his daughter, Sujata Koirala, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in current cabinet, as his successor. Criticized for promoting nepotism and forming a coterie around him, Koirala was Nepali Congress president for nearly 15 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A man of action and conviction, Koirala is largely credited for bringing the war-ravaged country back from the brink. Born in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bihar</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> in 1925 in a politically active family of Krishna Prasad Koirala who was in exile for defying the autocratic, hereditary Rana regime, he started his political career with a worker's strike in eastern town of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Biratnagar</st1:place></st1:city> in March 1947. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He honed his political skills fighting autocratic regimes. First it was Rana regime that collapsed in 1951 after the joint struggle by King Tribhuvan and NC which was led by his elder brother BP Koirala. Till then, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> was a medieval kingdom, closed to the outside world. Parliamentary democracy was established and BP Koirala became <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s first elected Prime Minister in 1958. However, Tribhuvan’s son Mahendra usurped the executive power and imposed partyless Panchyat system that ruled <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> for three decades. Koirala remained in his elder brother’s shadow till the latter’s death in 1983.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Eventhough Koirala’s political career paralleled that of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s tryst with modernity, it was only after 1990 that he was at the forefront of the country’s politics. A stubborn person by nature, he was schooled in his brother’s socialist ideology, but he drifted away from it and became conservative. However, as a politician at the helm in democratic <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>, he was instrumental in ushering the country into an era of liberalization in post 1990s. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A tireless organizer, he was a man of few words but had a strong determination. He lacked his brother’s erudition; nevertheless he was</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> a</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> pragmatic person. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, he was entrusted with leading <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> to prosperity. But he could not institutionalize the democracy. In the decade that followed, he faced several corruption charges. His opponents have accused him of political deception. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Koirala was prime minister when the palace massacre occurred on <st1:date day="1" month="6" w:st="on" year="2001">June 1, 2001</st1:date>. According to the findings of the two-member investigation committee, Crown Prince Dipendra, upset by his mother’s refusal to let him marry his girlfriend, killed King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, his brother, a sister, an aunt, two uncles and two cousins; he later shot himself dead. Koirala was kept in dark for many hours about the massacre. With Gyanendra’s ascent to the throne, he grew disillusioned with the palace. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Over a year into his reign, Gyanedra, a former businessman who was never meant to be a king, started a gradual weakening of democracy. In October 2002, he sacked Prime Minister Deuba, who had succeeded Koirala, on the grounds of incompetence and failure to conduct mid-term polls. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Koirala had resigned from Prime Minister following his difference in July 2001 with Nepal Army, long a bastion of monarchy. Once out of power, Koirala started the secret negotiations with the Maoists whose ideologue Dr. Baburam Bhattarai had proposed a joint struggle against the king. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Former king Gyanendra Shah’s bloodless coup in early 2005 brought the best in Koirala. He unwaveringly stuck to his demand of reinstatement of the parliament, which was dissolved by the former king. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">In the meantime, the negotiations spearheaded by Koirala with the Maoists culminated in the 12-point agreement in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Delhi</st1:place></st1:city></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"> in November 2005 at the behest of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">. This paved the way for the peaceful pro-democracy protests in spring of 2006. He even midwifed the Maoist rebels’ transition from a guerilla force to the government office bearers in Singhadarbar, the seat of power in capital </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"><st1:place w:st="on">Kathmandu</st1:place></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Koirala died at a time when the peace process was at a crossroads. The Maoists are now in opposition and a disparate coalition of 22 parties is in the government. Issues like integration of former combatants and the restructuring of the state remain unresolved while the May 28 deadline to draft the constitution inches closer. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After Koirala’s death, every politician across the political spectrum, vowed to work for the realization of his dream of peaceful, democratic, federal and republican <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Indeed, the successful completion of peace process that he led would be a fitting tribute to him. But not many believe that politicians in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> will rise above their petty partisan interests. The prominence of the hardliners in the Maoist party who have renewed their threat to stage revolt and the rise of extreme right force that wants to undo the changes, have made things more precarious.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">With his death, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> has lost a leader who was deft in forming consensus and reaching out to leaders across the party lines. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s much of the future course hinges on the political leaders’ ability to handle his legacy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Related links:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My <a href="http://blog.com.np/2006/04/26/importance-of-being-girija/">blog</a> about his political career at <a href="http://blog.com.np/">UWB</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 290.5pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-52433200757384902592010-09-15T14:23:00.001+05:302010-09-15T14:57:37.611+05:30The Unsettling Resettlement of Bhutan’s RefugeesAs resettlement of refugees from Bhutan gains momentum and the UK becomes the eighth country to take them in, leaders in exile wonder if repatriation is now a lost cause, Deepak Adhikari writes for<a href="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn"> ISN Security Watch</a>.<br />
<br />
Swanky and snow-white buses emblazoned with blue IOM (International Organization for Migration) ferry a group of people who seem out of place in Kathmandu's crowd. Led by an IOM escort, the passengers – men, women children and the elderly - queue up in single file at Kathmandu's only international airport. <br />
<br />
They are Bhutanese refugees, who after languishing in the sprawling refugee camps in southeastern Nepal, are now heading to western countries, thanks to a 2006 offer floated by the US. In early October that year, Ellen Saurbrey, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, told the UNHCR's executive meeting in Geneva that the US would absorb up to 60,000 refugees over three or four years. <br />
<br />
The relocation of Bhutanese refugees (third country resettlement), which began in earnest in November 2007, is largest such project in the world. <a href="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=120793">Read more</a>:Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-11473500192251140382010-09-11T20:53:00.011+05:302010-09-14T13:39:22.111+05:30On the Road in Kathmandu<span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One afternoon a year ago, I received a call at my office in </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. The voice at the other end sounded familiar but I could not recognize it. Sensing my anxiety, my friend introduced himself: He was Saroj Thapa, my roommate in early 1990s when both of us were new to the capital city.</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like many young people of our generation, we had moved to </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> to further our studies. I was seventeen and he was a few years older than me. We lived in a dark one room basement apartment at Ghattekulo neighborhood, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a ten-minute walk from our college. I relied on a meager monthly stipend sent by my father who taught at a school in eastern hills. His father had left his family. Therefore, Saroj was on his own, studying and eking out a living as a helper in a printing press.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He had chanced upon my piece published in a magazine. I was happy to hear his voice after nearly ten years. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">"Let's meet some time and talk about these past years," he said. The idea fascinated me and without a second thought, I promised him I would manage time. He hung up.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The time never came. Or, so I thought until one recent day, he called me up and asked if I was free.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In fact, I wasn't. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was giving the final touch to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the weekend youth supplement I oversee. I had a tight deadline. The layout person was in the throes of designing the pages. But, I also thought I had lingered too long. I was tired. I badly needed a drink. I also wanted to take some rest. I thought: there's nothing wrong in sneaking away for an hour. A while later, I left for the intersection where my friend would be waiting in his car.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The dusk was falling. I negotiated the potholed road outside my office building. Upon crossing the road,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found myself in the crowd of people heading home or waiting for bus. My friend saw me from a distance and stopped his car.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We drove towards Sinamangal neighborhood near </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nepal</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'s only international airpot. I had suggested to him a new restaurant with a good menu and green lawn. The monsoon rain had washed the road clean. The evening felt incredibly lovely. The road had a light traffic.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We found out that the entrance to the restaurant was under construction. My friend, who's been driving for five years, decided to park the car on an empty space beside the road. I suggested him to rethink his decision but he was adamant.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We mostly talked about the time we spent and struggled together. We recalled how we managed to survive the saddest phase of our life. I reminisced how at college I would attend both the day and night classes, how watching a movie was a luxury.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I told him how I relished a plate of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">momo</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, a Nepali dumpling, which at the time was the most delicious food on earth. .</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He recalled his infatuation with a girl who stayed next door to his office. "We used to wax eloquent about our love affairs," he said. We laughed at our naivety. I felt sorry for our humble beginning.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A wave of nostalgia</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">engulfed us as we sipped beer. We concluded that our initial foray into the urban landscape had been pathetic. Past had been unkind to us.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At around eight, we left the restaurant and climbed up to the road. We were still talking, unable to detach ourselves from our terrible past.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A little tipsy, we boarded the car. He was turning it right in order to drop me at my office. Right at that moment, a motorcycle hit the car. All I could hear was a bang! Then, I saw a man thrown up in the air. We looked at each other, trying to figure out the problem. He said: "This is how things end up!" We got off the car and started to assess the damage.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The motorcycle was badly damaged. It's headlight was broken. The car's fender was hit hard, creating a niche. The pillion rider was writhing in pain. A gaggle of passersby gathered in the scene. People silhouetted against the evening's dim light, inquired, "Ke Bhayo? Ke Bhayo?" (What happened? What happened?). Their faces were unrecognizable, lending an eerie feeling. I felt as if I were looking at apparitions.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My friend and I rushed headlong on to take control of the situation. In </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'s accident prone roads, anything can happen. I recalled witnessing incidents in which drivers were beaten up immediately after the accident, without judging whose mistake it was.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A tall, thin, sad-faced</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">traffic police man arrived. He identified the drivers and took their licenses. The motorcycle driver turned out to be heavily injured. But he was very quiet. His friend, who was crying, sounded like he was badly hurt. But he wasn't. Blood was dribbling from the driver's shin. He had another injury in his chin. The helmet's glass might have torn it.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The pillion rider told me he was speaking on his cell phone when the bike hit the car. Later, someone brought back his cell phone which was already battered.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My friend offered to take them to the hospital and pay for their medical bills.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We drove in silence towards </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Medical</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">College</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. The driver in his early thirties was admitted to the emergency. I found myself queuing</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">up at the drug store. The injured were returning from a house party. They seemed more drunk than us.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The pillion rider had come to </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> on a business trip. The driver ran a small grocery on the outskirts of </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kathmandu</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. It turned out that all of us came from the same region in eastern </span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nepal</span></span><span style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. Even though there appeared a chasm between us--the two on an old bike and we on a four-wheel--an unlikely camaraderie formed inside the hospital.</span></span></div></span>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-91265545298703584532010-08-28T08:28:00.009+05:302010-08-31T21:09:02.060+05:30The Disappeared in Nepal: Living in the ShadowsThis piece appeared in <em>The Kathmandu Post</em> to mark the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_the_Disappeared">international day</a> for the disappeared (Aug 30).<br />
<br />
The missing<br />
DEEPAK ADHIKARI <br />
<br />
KATHMANDU, AUG 28 - A retired school teacher, Resham Bahadur Panta shouldn’t have to be doing this. From Gaikhur village in Gorkha, 70-year-old Panta should have been happily spending his twilight years, instead of looking for his son, Dipendra, who has been missing for the last seven years. Wearing a dhaka topi and daura suruwal, he sits in a corner, his knees drawn to his chest. <br />
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A student of Science at Amrit Science Campus, Dipendra was picked up by Nepal Army soldiers, according to eyewitnesses, from Kathmandu on Oct. 13, 2003. As soon as his father found out his son was arrested through the media, he left for Kathmandu where he learnt that his son had joined the student wing of the then-banned Maoists. “We had sent him to study,” Panta rues, “Not to be involved in political activities.” <br />
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According to Panta, eyewitnesses told him that army soldiers arrested his 25-year-old son and bundled him into a waiting van. Panta says his son was first taken to Bhairabnath Battalion in Maharajgunj and then shifted to Baireni Ranger Battalion in Dhading after that.<br />
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Dipendra seemed to be heading on the right track; before pursuing a Science degree, he wanted to study MBBS and become a doctor. Panta says his son was slightly frustrated when the family could not arrange for the Rs. 700,000 required to get admission to a MBBS course. At one point, according to Panta, his son even competed for the Second Lieutenant’s exam in the Nepal Army. <br />
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For years after his son disappeared, Panta traversed various army barracks such as Sundarijal, Bhairabnath and Baireni, but all he heard were rumours. Notwithstanding his quest to find his son, Panta finds it hard to believe that he may still be alive. Still, he hasn’t lost hope. “Every day I live in the hope that I will get some news about my son,” he says, “I hope he is safe; I hope nobody has killed him.” He wants the authorities to either bring his son alive or hand over his dead body for cremation, referring to the oft-repeated phrase “saas ki lash”. <br />
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Panta is one of those who have been left invisible by the larger number of casualties of the decade-long Maoist insurgency. It is true that nearly 13,000 people died. But in that same war, at least 1,000 people went missing. These numbers vary from institution to institution. According to the National Human Rights Commission, security forces are responsible for the disappearance of at least 970 persons, while 299 have gone missing at the hands of the Maoists. Similarly, INSEC has recorded that 828 people have been made to “disappear” after they were arrested by security forces and 105 by the Maoists. <br />
<br />
According to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), 1,385 people have disappeared between 1996 and 2006. The largest numbers of people have disappeared from Bardia, 212, a fact confirmed by the United Nations human rights body OHCHR, which released a report on the disappeared of Nepal in 2008. The report confirms that most of the disappeared were indigenous Tharus, “many of them civilians”.<br />
<br />
In Kathmandu, the Bhairabnath Battalion gained notoriety for a large number of disappearances under its command. In a 2006 report, OHCHR listed the names of 49 individuals who were removed from the barracks during the last weeks of December 2003 and were never seen again. Eighteen months later, OHCHR noted that an officer from the battalion told one former detainee that he should not think about his friends any longer, implying their deaths. The relatives of the missing claim that many of the disappearances followed arrests by security forces.<br />
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For the family of the disappeared, the wait goes on. And they suffer silently. According to Bhava Poudyal, a clinical psychologist with the ICRC, the relatives of the disappeared are caught in an ambiguity of loss. He says the relatives find themselves in a situation where they can neither be sure of the person’s existence nor can they obtain the dead body whereby they can conduct the last rites. According to Poudyal, 90 percent of the missing are men and hence the bread-earner of the families. “The family loses its primary source of income,” he says, “Then the families spend more resources in search of the disappeared.” Indeed, Panta said he has stretched out his resources looking for his son. “I’ve already spent Rs. 200,000 on travel and hotel bills.”<br />
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Poudyal says that the wives of the disappeared suffer a double blow of loss. “There is the social stigma,” he says, “And they can be easy targets for sexual approaches.” According to him, in their husbands’ absence, they often complain that they are treated like slaves. Laure Schneeberger, ICRC’s deputy head of delegation in Nepal, says 35 percent of the relatives want an answer. “They want to know whether the person is dead or alive,” she says, “The demand for justice comes after that.” She points out that Nepal lacks the expertise and logistics for exhumation and forensics, a key area in the investigation of the missing (ICRC, according to her, is providing training in this regard). <br />
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After the groundbreaking June 1, 2007, decision by the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction has tabled the much-anticipated Disappearance Bill in the Constituent Assembly. But with the entire peace process hanging in the balance following the prolonged political crisis, this issue seems to be the last politicos will ponder over. Moreover, the bill has been criticised by human rights groups for focusing largely on amnesty and reconciliation and not complying with international standards.<br />
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According to ICRC’s Schneeberger, the very definition of the missing in the bill is inadequate. “As long as you don’t deal with the issue of the missing,” she says, “You can’t deal with the future.”<br />
<br />
Nepal's Disappreared, my piece at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/05/nepal-human-rights">The Guardian</a>.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-79137640476043700562010-08-07T12:50:00.004+05:302010-08-12T08:14:37.287+05:30Future of Bhutanese Refugee Movement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix3Qz6I72ho6rAfBlZCXxfDx3lCk1K8-rZ7b2PzpNQl9R0rR9mvxhIKtavVT6JjCAomSAN0Ff1Cc-xLtIPXxX5XhSvVS8M3bafg6VDqQ8v_8n_5Rn6p2eyUmYB9Eap9_ZTyw/s1600/a-bhutanese-refugee-in-timai-camp-jhapa-with-his-grand-son.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix3Qz6I72ho6rAfBlZCXxfDx3lCk1K8-rZ7b2PzpNQl9R0rR9mvxhIKtavVT6JjCAomSAN0Ff1Cc-xLtIPXxX5XhSvVS8M3bafg6VDqQ8v_8n_5Rn6p2eyUmYB9Eap9_ZTyw/s320/a-bhutanese-refugee-in-timai-camp-jhapa-with-his-grand-son.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Deepak Adhikari and Pranab Kharel<br />
Nearly two decades ago, the hitherto-tranquil kingdom of Bhutan hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Southern Bhutanese—Lhotsampas (literally, Nepali-speaking people of South)—rose against the establishment, demanding civil rights and democracy. The protests erupted as a response to state policies that aimed at disenfranchisement of the community. <br />
<br />
The root cause of the opposition was the 1985 Citizenship Act, an act with a retroactive effect that made it mandatory for Lhotsampas to produce documentary evidence of legal residence in Bhutan before 1958. Based on the Act, the government in 1986 conducted a census in the South of Bhutan, and those who failed to produce the evidence were declared non-citizens. Bhutanese rulers then forced the Lhotsampas to wear the <i>gho</i> and the <i>kira</i>, thick, robe-like national dresses unsuitable for the South’s climate. The state also required them to obtain a ‘No Objection Certificate’ in order to work, to get a license or to attend a school. Moreover, Dzongkha, an underdeveloped Tibetan language, was made the mode of education in schools and colleges, withdrawing the curriculum in Nepali. <br />
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By the mid-90’s, nearly 100,000 Lhotsampas were forced to leave the country. The refugees initially spilled into India but ultimately landed in south-eastern Nepal in the seven UNHCR-run camps. <br />
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From their camps in Jhapa and Morang, Bhutanese refugees have staged various attempts to go back to their homeland. But none of the attempts have succeeded so far. The closest that they came was in 2007, when the refugees, under the banner of a ‘long march’, tried to cross the Mechi Bridge and enter Bhutan through India—an act that resulted in clashes with Indian security forces, in a which a refugee died. <br />
<br />
Since then, not a single attempt has been made in that direction. Instead, Bhutanese refugees are increasingly opting for resettlement in Western countries, thanks to a 2006 offer floated by the international community. In a process described by UNHCR as world’s largest refugee resettlement programme that began in November 2007, European countries and the US have pledged to resettle over 80,000 refugees, with the US alone accepting 60,000. <br />
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With over 32,000 of the refugees already resettled, the issue has entered a new phase. A chasm has appeared between the older generation which favours repatriation and the younger generation that has grown up in the camps and is attracted to third-country resettlement. <br />
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Where does the Bhutanese refugee movement stand after two decades of failed attempts at repatriation? The first observation analysts make in this direction is the fact that the refugee leadership has not been able to forge a united front. “We have not been able to stay together,” agrees Tek Nath Rizal, a refugee leader. He attributes this disunity to the absence of democratic culture among the leadership, while pointing out that Bhutanese themselves were never exposed to a democratic set-up. “They were socialised in an environment where the king was the final authority and whatever he said was the law of the land,” says Rizal who himself was once a confidant of the king and a Royal Advisory Councillor. A similar sentiment is echoed by Balaram Paudel, President of Bhutan People’s Party, who says that the need to survive forced the leadership to disperse in different directions. <br />
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Journalist I.P. Adhikari, who is also a Bhutanese refugee, negates the argument that a united leadership would have enabled the movement to gain momentum. “The leaders lack vision for Bhutan and are unaware of what’s going on inside the country. They still rely on their outdated perceptions of the 90’s,” he says, “Those living inside the country don’t trust them.”<br />
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Bilateral talks between Bhutan and Nepal have yielded very little. The closest the Bhutanese side came to resolving the crisis was during the joint verification process in 2003. But the process came to a halt after a dispute occured in the Khudunabari refugee camp and the Bhutanese delegation abruptly left for home. With Nepal plunging into its own political crisis since then, bilateral talks have been pushed to the backburner.<br />
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“Our movement has not been able to yield results as expected as we don’t have a significant say in the dealings between the two governments,” agrees Rizal. Paudel argues that by projecting the Bhutanese refugee issue as an ethnic problem and not that of democracy, the media and the international community have not helped their cause. <br />
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One of the most important developments in the movement has been the third-country resettlement option that many refugees have chosen. Initial reports suggested leaders like Rizal opposed the move, but he clarifies, “The issue of third country settlement and repatriation to Bhutan should go together.” Adhikari believes resettlement will work in favour of the refugees in a more subtle way. Indeed, the growing activities of advocacy in Western countries in recent times—a shadow report presented in Geneva early this year at the UN’s Universal Periodic Review contradicted the Bhutanese government’s claim of a clean human rights record, while the Bhutanese government-sponsored Gross National Happiness conference in the US saw refugees offering a different narrative of ‘gross suffering’--seem to give credence to Adhikari’s views. <br />
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Opinions are currently divided on the issue of resettlement. Rizal says that those opting for the resettlement are younger people, and that it would be difficult for the movement to go on in their absence. But among the refugees themselves, there is little hope that repatriation will happen during their lifetime. Rizal says, “This (repatriation) would be a formidable challenge as the entire society is in exile.” Thinley Penjore, a former Secretary General of Bhutan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and now the head of the Druk National Congress (Democratic), says the Bhutanese movement will have to take a different tack from now. “A physical war is not possible,” he says, “We have to work for reconciliation through peaceful means.”<br />
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Despite the differing views on how the movement will shape up, the only thing certain for now is that more and more refugees are opting for resettlement. The Bhutanese government seems highly unkeen to resolve the issue, though Bhutan itself saw a wave of democracy with its first elections in 2008. Even then, those who have opted for resettlement believe their move will ultimately help the movement. Adhikari, for instance, moved to Australia on Wednesday, but still harbours the hope that his country will change. “The more we advocate internationally, the more people inside Bhutan will benefit. They can’t directly raise their voice for reform, so the onus is upon us to do that now.”<br />
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This appeared in today's <i>The Kathmandu Post.</i><br />
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Related links:<br />
My <a href="http://blogmandu.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/jasko-ghar-khosiyo/">piece in Nepali at Blogmandu</a> on World Refugee Day (with pics).<br />
Pieces on resettlement <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/12/bhutanese-refugees-starting-life-anew.html">here</a> and <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-i-covered-bhutanese-refugees.html">here</a>.<br />
On Tenzing Zangpo: <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/10/battle-for-bhutan.html">here</a> and <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2010/07/sarchop-in-bhutanese-jail.html">here</a>.<br />
<a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/11/other-side-of-bhutan.html">Review</a> of Tek Nath Rizal's book.<br />
My <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/11/bhutanese-refugees-repatriation-vs.html">report from camp</a> on KB Khadka's murder.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-85337209804276945632010-07-31T09:40:00.000+05:302010-07-31T09:40:03.376+05:30Postcard from NepalMy piece published at <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/postcard_from_nepal_2010">Foreign Policy in Focus</a>:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Garamond, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">Nepal is a tiny Himalayan nation sandwiched between two mighty Asian rivals: India and China. New Delhi and Beijing are using Nepal’s territory to wage a proxy war against each other. This interference in Nepal’s internal affairs has contributed to a political crisis that has already claimed one prime minister and threatens to undermine the peace process begun four years ago. Read <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/postcard_from_nepal_2010">more</a>:</span>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-81817026813189417102010-07-27T11:24:00.004+05:302010-07-27T16:40:50.377+05:30Adoption in Nepal: Paper Orphans<span class="apple-style-span">Lalitpur, NEPAL--Kishan Sarki's language and gestures suggest that he is a young boy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia">Catalonia</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain">Spain</a> where he is living now. His English has a Spanish accent. He uses</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">and helps his mother in arranging spoons and forks in the kitchen. Before this, he wanders by the seaside with his mother, Rosa Mestres. A while later; they enter into a dance party.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">But soon, there appears Humla,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Jumla</span><span class="apple-style-span">, and the rural <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnali_Zone">Karnali</a> of</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Nepal</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">where Bodoma Sarki, who lives in abject poverty, looks saddened for being separated from her eldest son. A decade ago, she handed her son to the director of Humla Red Cross, Nara Bahadur Rokaya, with ten thousand rupees (Approx 135 US$). Her heart cries now, not just because her son has gone abroad, but to hear him say "mom" to another woman.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">These scenes are from Paper</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Orphans</span><span class="apple-style-span">, a documentary film inaugurated at Patan Museum Hall</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">in an evening early March</span><span class="apple-style-span">. After the performance by <a href="http://www.kutumba.com.np/">Kutumba</a>, the program attended by several representativesof national and foreign organizations working on children sector, the film was shown. It transported the audience from villages in remote Karnali region to</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> the </span><span class="yshortcuts">European countries</span><span class="apple-style-span">.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Rosa, a Spain native, waited for three years for permission to adopt Kishan. She took the 6-years-old boy from Balmandir, a government-run child home in Kathmandu to</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Catalonia in Spain. All along came</span><span class="apple-style-span"> the responsibility of bringing him up. But, Rosa was surprised when she came to know that Kishan had parents in Nepal. With tears trickling down her eyes, she says: "We were told that he didn't have any parents and relatives." Bodoma Sarki, on other side, who is living a very difficult life in a stone house in the Himalayan foothills, repents: "It would be nice to have my son on my laps." She says Kishan was sent to </span><span class="yshortcuts">Kathmandu</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">for education. </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">The scenes like these are not only heart touching, but Paper Orphans, also has investigative journalism in it. The documentary directed by Marie-Ange Sylvain, is a joint production of Switzerland-based</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts"><a href="http://www.tdh.ch/">Terre des hommes</a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">and</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts"><a href="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nepal.html">UNICEF</a></span><span class="apple-style-span">. According to Joseph Aguettant, Nepal Delegate, Terre des hommes (Tdh), the purpose of making the documentary is to show that there are other ways to deal with children rather than making them paper orphans and supplying them to</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">European countries</span><span class="apple-style-span">. He says, "We are not against inter-country adoption per se."</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">The crew of Image Ark Pvt. Limited, the producer of the film, were able to capture the scenes as wide-ranging as from</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Spain</span><span class="apple-style-span">,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">France</span><span class="apple-style-span">, Humla and children homes in Kathmandu. For example, Dharma</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Raj Shrestha</span><span class="apple-style-span">, member of Central</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yshortcuts">Child Welfare Board,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">rudely remarks that the children are adopted to Europe because there are more facilities in Europe than in Nepal. Similarly, when Joseph Aguettant and his team reaches Helpless Children Protection Home to know about one child sent abroad, the manager of the center, Sabitri Basnet, says: "This is my organization, this is my home. Please don't be forceful."</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">According to the joint report released in 2008 by UNICEF and Terre des hommes, 60 per cent of children living in orphanage homes are not orphans. According to another report, 1500 children are missing from Humla district alone. Among them, boys had been taken to orphanage homes in Kathmandu and girls sold in India.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">In 2007, Nepal government banned inter-country adoption but it was re-opened in 2009. Organizations like Terre des hommes demand a suspension of inter-country adoption till Nepal follows Hague standards.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">The local people of Thehe, remote area in Humla, a 6 hours trek from Simikot, Humla</span><span class="apple-converted-space">'s headquarters,</span><span class="apple-style-span"> say that Chakra Shahi, member of parliament, took ten thousand rupees per child saying that the children will be placed in an institution for education. In the film, a young man says, "Bal Mandir is like a business organization. Children are selected for sale the way nice he-goats selected from the herd." In one part of the documentary, Joseph says that poverty is not the reason children are trafficked. He says, "Parents send their children for their bright future." The main problem is the lack of public awareness. The documentary is actually well-placed to sensitize the issue. Awareness can be raised in local people of remote areas through this documentary.</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">Published in <i>Kantipur Daily</i> on March 23, 2010</span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">(Translated by Bidhya Rai for Tdh and edited by myself)</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-style-span">Related article at <a href="http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2010/03/23/Oped/Paper-orphans/206483/">The Kathmandu Post</a>. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-style-span">My blog on<a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2007/03/adoption-racket-thriving-in-nepal.html"> child trafficking for adoption:</a> </span></span></div>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-2731058347245555692010-07-05T12:16:00.015+05:302010-07-05T21:41:23.629+05:30A Sarchop in Bhutanese Jail<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<div id="titles" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font: 1em/1.4 Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Where is Zangpo?</h2><ul style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; list-style-type: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></ul></div><div id="control-bar" style="background-color: #e8e8e8; border-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="auth-name" style="background-color: #006699; border-width: 0px; color: white; float: left; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 5px 15px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">DEEPAK ADHIKARI</div><div class="control-tools" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; float: right; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><ul class="news-control-tools" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="background-color: transparent; border-left: 1px solid rgb(205, 205, 205); border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; float: left; font-size: 13px; height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 5px 8px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="icon-zoom" href="http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/07/03/oped/where-is-zangpo/317730/" id="incFontSize" style="background-image: url("http://www.ekantipur.com/themes/core/images/text-maximize.gif"); background-position: 50% 50%; border-width: 0px; color: #006ea2; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a></li>
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</ul></div></div><div id="news-detail-content" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div id="main-img-wrapper" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; float: right; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px 10px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 240px;"><a href="http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/07/03/oped/where-is-zangpo/317730/" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #006ea2; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="main-img" src="http://www.ekantipur.com/image.php?image=http://www.ekantipur.com/uploads/ekantipur/news/2010/gallery_07_03/zangpo_20100703082142.jpg&width=240&height=188" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; clear: both; float: right; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="240" /></a></div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Travelling north on the Mechi Highway, terraced rice fields give way to tea plantations that carpet the foot of the hills. From Happen Chowk, strangely named after the shorts, we head east, driving through a deeply-rutted road penetrating the Burne tea plantation in Jhapa towards the Timai refugee camp. </div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Timai camp, one of the seven UNHCR-overseen <a href="http://www.bhutannewsonline.com/refugees.html">Bhutanese refugee camps</a>, sits on the edge of the Timai River. About 100 km away from Bhutan, the area adjacent to the hills is as topographically close to the refugees’ homeland as it can get. But for now, home is a small bamboo hut where life is spent just waiting.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Amid the hundreds of huts, we drive towards the end of the sprawling camp. Past the stupas and the settlement of Sarchops, one of the three major ethnic groups of Bhutan and probably the original inhabitants of the country, we come to a hut with a solitary inhabitant. Fifty-year-old Karma Zangpo weaves a sweater while waiting for us. A mother of two, her eyes are rheumy and her words punctuated by sobs. Karma has earned a different epithet inside the camp; she is known as the wife of the most high-profile political prisoner in Bhutan—Tenzing Zangpo.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fifty five-year-old Zangpo, the general secretary of Druk National Congress-Democratic (DNC-D), a splinter group founded by the Sarchops, was deported to his country by the Indian state of Assam’s police in April last year. On Nov. 10, 2008, he was <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?239143">arrested in Guwahati along with Sabin Boro</a> of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, a separatist outfit active in northeast India. The Assam Police booked him under the Explosive Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But these charges turned out to be false, and after three months, Zangpo was released in April. Karma had deposited bail for her husband in two installments of IRs. 10,000. The court passed a release order on Apr. 3, 2009, but the day he was supposed to be released, he was arrested again. Later, it was confirmed that Zangpo had been handed over to Bhutanese authorities.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I first met Karma in April that year. She was still coming to terms with the fact that her trip to Assam, made in the hope of reuniting with her husband, was shattered in front of her eyes. Short and slender, she appeared to be a demure woman forced into dealing with the complex and often ruthless world of politics involving three countries: Nepal, India and Bhutan. </div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Zangpo’s case is an example of how India and Bhutan work hand in hand for their interests and how Nepal’s Bhutanese refugees—marked by factionalism and petty interests—are helpless in lobbying for one of its leaders’ release. Though he was a member of the DNC-D when he was arrested, Zangpo had been a member of two more parties earlier: the Bhutan National Democratic Party, and the Bhutan People’s Party. Karma bitterly complains about DNC-D’s failure to demand his release. Referring to the party president Thinley Penjore, she says, “Since he’s our leader, he should have called me. I was not expecting him to feed me.”</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Karma has made it a point to establish contacts with her husband and know his whereabouts. She has procured a form from the <a href="http://www.icrc.org/eng">International Red Cross Committee</a> (ICRC). After submitting it, ICRC will hand it over to Zangpo during one of its monitoring visits, if the jail where he is detained falls under its purview. Apart from legal recourse, Karma has also sought divine intervention through a Lama in Sikkim, who told her that her husband was fine, but it would take time to know all the details.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Still, Karma hasn’t lost hope. She lives mostly in a friend’s house in Birtamod, where she weaves woollen sweaters and shawls for living. She says her husband’s food rations have been slashed, forcing her to rely on the allowances of her two children, 15-year-old daughter Sangey and 10-year-old son Minjure. To add insult to the injury, she has been de-registered from the camp because she wasn’t there to collect her ration card. She is now waiting for the regular UNHCR census to register her case, which is why she is in the camps these days.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Little is known about her husband who is projected as a national threat to his country. Because of his arrest with a separatist leader, he was projected by the Indian media as someone having links with insurgents. In a picture taken immediately after his arrest, he wears a flower-embroidered shirt and looks much thinner than earlier. Bhutanese leaders who worked with him say that he frequently travelled to the North-East where he had good contacts. Zangpo was a rural credit officer in the Agriculture Department in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukha_District">Chukha district</a> before he left Bhutan in 1993. His colleagues describe him as a dedicated refugee leader who was very fluent in English. A vocal opponent of the monarchy and a relentless fighter for the refugees’ right to return, his friends say he was amicable and independent.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For those who think that the refugees consist of only the Lhotsampas (Nepali-speaking south Bhutanese), Zangpo will seem like an oddity. But the Sarchops, the largest ethnic group in Bhutan, has faced suppression and discrimination from the ruling elites of Thimpu dominated by the Ngalongs. As a result, several Sarchop dissidents have fled the kingdom to escape persecution. Rongthong Kunley Dorji, a prominent Sarchop businessman, fled the country in 1993 after being jailed for over a month. He sought asylum in Nepal where a year later he founded <a href="http://www.bhutandnc.com/dnc.htm">Druk National Congress</a>. In 1997, he was arrested in New Delhi and then <a href="http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/1997/2/">released a year later</a> with severe restrictions on his movement. In December last year, the Delhi High Court eased the restrictions: he can now travel abroad after obtaining permission from authorities. Thinley Penjore, another Sarchop, now heads DNC-D from Kathmandu. These three prominent Sarchop leaders are now scattered in the three countries. </div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Where could Zangpo be? Though the Bhutanese regime is extremely secretive about its political prisoners, rumours about his presence in a certain jail continue to float around in the camps. According to a refugee, a few months back, a police personnel saw Zangpo in a Bhutanese jail. Another refugee claims that he’s detained in Chemgang, which is notorious as a death camp. But Chemgang, which has the largest number of political prisoners, is frequently visited by ICRC, and new prisoners will be highlighted by the organisation—which seems unlikely in Zangpo’s case. Balaram Paudel, president of <a href="http://www.bhutanpeoplesparty.org/">Bhutan People’s Party</a>, says that Zangpo might have been taken to Dradulmakhang, an underground army prison—Bhutanese refugee leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tek_Nath_Rizal">Tek Nath Rizal</a> has described this jail as a place “whose very name evoked fear.” Paudel believes Zangpo was first shifted to Chukha jail after he was deported, where the Bhutanese government had filed a case accusing Zangpo of embezzling 200,000 ngultrum. In 1993, <i>Kuensel</i>, the government mouthpiece, had published a notice of death penalty for him.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In her spartan hut in Timai, Karma recalls the times she spent with her husband. She says he had already predicted his deportation. “He would often worry about the family in case he was arrested and handed over to Bhutan,” she says. Nevertheless, she is sure that Zangpo will return. “I’m waiting for that day,” she says, with a small smile. </div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Related Link: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/10/battle-for-bhutan.html">Battle for Bhutan</a></span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">First published at <i>The Kathmandu Post</i>.<br />
<br />
Pic courtesy <a href="http://bhimbrt.blogspot.com/">Bhim Ghimire</a>, a Biratnagar-based photojournalist. </div><div style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-22081175250813890092010-05-07T11:22:00.000+05:302010-05-07T11:22:41.582+05:30Nepal: Descent into Chaos<span>This piece, written a few days before the Maoist strike paralyzed the country, was published at the <a href="http://www.seattlepostglobe.org/2010/05/04/letter-from-nepal">Seattle Post Globe</a>.<br />
<br />
KATHMANDU, Nepal – On the afternoon of April 16, I was driving back from my 94-year-old grandma’s house on the outskirts of Kathmandu to my office in the downtown. Driving on the dusty road on the edge of Nepal’s only international airport, I came upon an unusually high number of vehicles. The hitherto empty road was busy with traffic.<br />
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My wife, Kabita, who was riding behind me, suspected that something was wrong, saying maybe there’s a strike (called <em>bandh</em> in the local dialect). I dismissed her comment. But as we entered the newly constructed six-lane highway, the situation began to get clearer. The road was a picture of chaos – a blockade had caused a huge back up of traffic. Several vehicles were turning around and many passengers were stranded. In a situation like this, no one can tell you what’s going on. Everyone seems in a hurry either to get beyond the barricade or return to safety.<br />
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My office was just a few blocks away. So, I decided to go ahead. Leaving behind other vehicles, I drove on. When I was about to reach the intersection at Koteshwar, a bustling neighborhood in this suburb, a middle aged man who was followed by a bevy of youngsters, stopped my motorcycle and snatched the keys. Within seconds, I grabbed the keys back and asked him why the traffic was stopped. He told me they were protesting the death of a child in a road accident a couple of days back. The dead baby boy's father had driven a motorcycle while his mother and baby on the back when a truck hit the motorcycle. The couple was seriously injured; the infant died on the spot.<br />
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I displayed my press ID and explained to him that it was media people like me who often risked their lives to support their cause. It was merely my trick to persuade him to let me go through, though I am always a supporter of peaceful protests against injustice. But I never approve such unruly acts that create disarray for hundreds of travelers. He did allow me to go forward, but, sensing that the unrest could get worse farther ahead, I asked my wife to get off the bike. <br />
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An intersection ahead looked like a battlefield, with stone carrying, and visibly angry protesters on the one side and baton wielding policemen on the other. I was sure from my previous experiences that if I could convince one of the protesters, I would be able to safely cross the tense area. But as I drove my bike, a group of protesters started to throw stones at me. Luckily, a police inspector came to rescue me from the attack and escorted me for a few minutes. I left the area unhurt. But the incident shook me in a way I had never experienced.<br />
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I’m narrating the incident in detail not only because impromptu protests like these have become common occurrences in Nepal, but also because it shows how angry and frustrated Nepalese are. Also, my hunch is that the fury was directed less at the law enforcement agency that was unable to punish the guilty (in this case the driver) and more at the way the country is (mal) functioning. Indeed, the country is gradually sliding towards anarchy and lawlessness.<br />
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Everyone agrees that it’s not easy being Nepal these days. It has a herculean task ahead. In less than a month, the deadline to draft a constitution ends. A 601 member constituent assembly that was elected two years ago is tasked with writing the constitution. A decade-long Maoist insurgency and government counterinsurgency has claimed 13,000 lives with thousands injured and hundreds disappeared. Not a single person (neither from the Army nor from the Maoists) has been punished for numerous wartime crimes. Transitional justice is still only in words not in deeds and a culture of impunity has and is likely to prevail. <br />
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Thus, Nepalese have paid a heavy price. And peace seems ever elusive with the former rebels threatening to carry out revolt and the political party leaders upon whom the people have placed high hopes have fallen back on their role of bickering and infighting. Corruption is rampant and unemployment is rising.<br />
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The largely mountainous country which is bordered in the north by China and elsewhere by India, both emerging Asian powers, has lagged far behind the rest of the world. It still is one of the poorest countries in the world. While the citizens of our neighboring countries are having what seems like a party (with double digit growth and rapid development), we feel like poor cousins who were uninvited.<br />
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But it’s our own making. In Nepal, the hereditary Rana family ruled the country with an iron fist for over a century while India’s infrastructure was laid by the British. Even the end of Rana rule in 1950 could not ensure freedom and democracy, a prerequisite for inclusive growth and overall development. King Mahendra snatched power from a democratically elected government and introduced a party less and autocratic Panchayat system that ruled Nepal for the next 30 years until 1990.<br />
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The ruling elite and the Kathmandu bourgeois were the ones who took maximum advantage of those three decades of tyranny. During this period, I grew up in the eastern hills of Nepal, on the margins, reading the regime’s propaganda in the name of text books.<br />
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With the reinstitution of democracy in the spring of 1990 came the promise of a new Nepal. But a ‘People’s War’ waged by Maoists in mid-1990s dashed those hopes. The hope was revived after the mass protests in the spring of 2006 that was instrumental in ending both the Maoist insurgency and the 240-year-old monarchy, thereby paving the way for the world’s youngest republic.<br />
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But like everything else in Nepal, uncertainty looms large vis-à-vis the dramatic decisions taken during the crucial and transitional period that have had far reaching consequences. The changes have taken place have occurred only as part of negotiations among the various political parties. Therefore, the likelihood of these transformations being retracted (due to lack of commitment and institutionalizing) cannot be fully ruled out. Also, some of the changes are seemingly cosmetic.<br />
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And it’s not like Nepal’s lack of social and economic growth can be blamed on a lack of resources. It is, in fact, endowed with immense resources – hydropower, tourism, the export business and agriculture are some of the many untapped sectors. But this is a country whose main exports are human beings. Two million of Nepal’s 28 million people are working on foreign shores. Nepalese migrant workers toil in often sub-human conditions in the Gulf countries and the country’s fragile economy hinges on the remittances they send.<br />
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For a country that prides itself in never being colonized when the entire Indian sub-continent was in the grip of the British, its dependence on the international community and the southern neighbor India is an unpleasant fact. So is the fact that one of world’s oldest nation states is grappling with issues like drafting a constitution, restructuring the state and ensuring their deserved place in the new state apparatus to the hitherto marginalized communities.<br />
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On that April afternoon, after I arrived at my company office which is the publisher of one of Nepal’s leading dailies, I sat at my desk and gave the incident a hard thought. After a while, I shared my experience – where else? – on my facebook page. Several comments soon popped up with my friends suggesting to me to be careful and play it safe.<br />
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Indeed, these are apt suggestions for our leaders and common people alike, in whose hands remain the future of the struggling nation.<br />
</span>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-23585319128452691612010-05-05T16:46:00.001+05:302010-05-05T18:56:43.837+05:30Kathmandu Dispatch: A Day in Maoist Strike<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtHl69MJLzzsBqHHDja-iQi5vwTyi4fI-rdtgLU1KzUilTDVBgtEl3HS7srSupdkTUqRshzZUeZn3yWkrerJRRNecpSzO0wxWoMxKccYVz7jkO3wRyXqxMMHaGW6TCSQl8A/s1600/Maoist+demo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtHl69MJLzzsBqHHDja-iQi5vwTyi4fI-rdtgLU1KzUilTDVBgtEl3HS7srSupdkTUqRshzZUeZn3yWkrerJRRNecpSzO0wxWoMxKccYVz7jkO3wRyXqxMMHaGW6TCSQl8A/s320/Maoist+demo.jpg" /></a></div><br />
On a balmy morning Monday, the Maoist protesters clogged the main intersection at Koteshwar, Kathmandu, singing and dancing in the ‘revolutionary songs’.<br />
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Helmeted battalions of policemen in riot gear were mere bystanders. Kirant Rajya Samiti of Maoists was responsible for overseeing the protests in Koteshwar area, one of 18 such points where <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0503/Nepal-s-Maoist-protests-stall-peace-process">Maoist staged protests.</a> Hence, most of the protesters here were from eastern hills of Nepal. Maoist supporters came from districts such as Ramechhap, Khotang, Solukhumbu, Okhaldhunga. Most of the supporters are brought from far flung areas while a few arrived from surrounding districts (but mostly from rural areas). Some were even forced to participate.<br />
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Meet Suresh Rai, a 30-year-old member of Kirant State Secretariat. He along with one hundred fifty Maoist supporters arrived in the capital five days back. “We came in 2-3 groups,” he says. “We’ll continue to protest as long as people will support us.” Hailing from a family of farmers, Suresh says it’s tough for them in the hills to feed the hungry bellies of 7 members of his family.<br />
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As we speak, music blares from the huge sound boxes–there’s a makeshift stage built on a truck. Incessant singing and dancing is going on. In between, there are poetry recitations. Flags with hammer and sickle are waved, YCL, the notorious youth outfit of Maoists has a distinct air about them: bandana in their heads, some covering the entire body with the flags.<br />
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They’ve been sheltered in several places in Kathmandu Valley ranging from the party palaces and under construction buildings to Nepal Law Campus, Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus, Rastriya Sabha Grisha in the city center.<br />
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This has turned out like rural Nepal meeting urban Nepal as most of the village folks have arrived in capital Kathmandu for the first time.<br />
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But it’s only natural because Maoists have drawn support largely from marginalized communities such as Dalits (so-called untouchables), janajatis (the ethnic people), Madhesis (the people from plains), among others.<br />
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Dil Bahadur Bika, a Dalit from Phulbari village of Okhaldhunga, has come to Kathmandu for the first time. In the village, he runs a grocery store (that also sells cosmetics). But as a sole breadwinner of the family, he had to close it because there’s no one to look after. The 35-year-old, a YCL member, is living with other Maoists in a party palace in Kaushaltar, two kilometer north from Koteshwar.<br />
<br />
The protesters’ routine goes thus: they leave for the strike at 6 pm. The lunch time will be from 9 am to 11 am. They observe strict discipline while attending the strike. They stay in the one of 18 points till 3 pm. At 3 pm, they participate in the rally. The evening is the time for torch rally. They finally return home after 6pm. Another cycle of strike and they repeat the routine.<br />
Back to the Koteshwar: A song that is tinged with revolutionary fervor blares from the speakers and Dil Bahadur Bika pirouettes in its music. The song goes:<br />
<br />
<i>Arun Tarera Nana Tamar Tarera<br />
Aayaun Hami Birata Ko Gatha Korera<br />
</i><br />
(After Crossing Arun River and Tamor River<br />
We Came Writing the Saga of Bravery)<br />
<br />
Similarly, another song evokes the war time nostalgia. It talks about Tyamke village in Khotang, where according to the song; the hills are painted red and are crying (for justice).<br />
<br />
The protests despite the initial apprehensions are peaceful. The May Day rally was a huge success but on Day 2, it seems like the protest is waning.<br />
<br />
First published at the <a href="http://blog.com.np/2010/05/03/maoist-strike-day-2-peaceful-till-now/">United We Blog!</a>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-38080284943683909492010-04-20T14:28:00.008+05:302010-04-22T14:18:54.886+05:30A Journey PostponedI was supposed to participate in a journalism conference in Geneva, Switzerland on April 22. But I didn't think it wise to go ahead as the news of thousands of stranded passengers from all over the world kept pouring in. I don't want to be the next victim of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/world/europe/21europe.html">crazy volcano</a>!<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.gijc2010.ch/">6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference</a> (April 22-25) was supposed to bring together nearly 600 journalists from around the world. But that number now must be dwindling. Three more Alfred Friendly Fellows were supposed to participate but it's not clear whether they will be able to do so. <br />
<br />
The keynote speaker of the opening ceremony is veteran Italian investigative journalist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Saviano">Roberto Saviano</a>. Other speakers include American investigative journalist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh">Seymour Hersh</a>. <br />
<br />
In the conference, I was supposed to talk about human trafficking along with three other journalists. I have a longstanding interest in investigative journalism (but I must say, I haven't done much in this regard in past year, except the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1936578,00.html">Time Magazine story </a>on the trafficking of Somali refugees to Nepal). But back in September 2004, I did a story on the trafficking of former Gurkhas and other blue collar workers into the US Army base in Iraq.<br />
<br />
Similarly, I have done stories on <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2007/09/nepals-kidney-racket.html">kidney trade </a>and got the opportunity to <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2007/12/facing-camera-experience.html">be featured in a documentary</a> by Italian film makers. I broke the story of sex trade in Thamel in the August 2004 issue of Nepal magazine following which the police raided the massage parlours (I don’t approve such police actions). Lately, I’ve been focusing on <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2010/02/jumli-carpet-seller-in-kathmandu.html">migrant workers issue</a>.<br />
<br />
The investigative journalism is an area quite lacking in Nepal’s media sector. There are a few reasons behind it: the big media houses are reluctant to invest on investigative reporting, there are very few journos who are well-trained and interested in this area; Nepal’s politicization of everything and the interdependency among various sectors (for example you can’t probe a company that gives you the advertisements), among others. <br />
<br />
Recently, as part of my preparation for the tour, I met a Belgian friend who has also lived in Netherlands in the 1980s for many years. When he knew about the conference, he remarked: “Investigative journalism is an area that’s very urgent in Nepal. You have to expose the wrongdoing, the corruption, the power abuse!” I totally agree with him. <br />
<br />
After visiting <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2008/03/off-to-america.html">US in 2008</a>, I was looking forward to the Europe tour and this conference seemed like a perfect opportunity. But owing to the sudden outbreak of the volcano, I am forced to cancel my travel plans.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-5181639835522963152010-03-20T15:34:00.002+05:302010-03-27T13:13:36.818+05:30Kumari of Patan, the Living Goddess<div id="titles"><h2>The Goddess’ exams</h2></div><div id="control-bar"><div class="auth-name">Deepak Adhikari <a class="icon-email" href="javascript:void(0);" id="email"></a></div><div class="control-tools"></div></div><div id="main-img-wrapper"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="window.open('http://www.ekantipur.com/news/show-image.php?news_id=310648&image_id=6292','', 'width=600, height=420, top=0, left=0, resizable=yes, scrollbars=yes'); return false;"> <img class="main-img" src="http://www.ekantipur.com/image.php?image=http://www.ekantipur.com/uploads/ekantipur/news/2010/gallery_03_20/kumari_20100320102113.jpg&width=240&height=188" width="240" /> </a> </div>Mar 20 - It’s not easy crossing the fabled Iron Gates of the SLC, even for a goddess. <br />
<br />
On a recent afternoon, Chanira Bajracharya, the Kumari of Patan, greeted her visitors with composure and patience very unlike her tender age. For nine years, she has been the Living Goddess of Patan, and now, very soon, she will appear for the School Leaving Certificate Examinations with nearly 400,000 students across Nepal. At that moment, the Goddess will become a mortal, much like any of us. <br />
<br />
Sitting on a long sofa, the Kumari answers in monosyllables, preferring English over Nepali. At times, she chuckles, but she is quiet mostly. In between our conversation, she peeks through the latticed window of the four-storey house at Hakhabahal to look at the passer-bys below.<br />
<br />
But beneath the veneer of the divine is a girl who has very little exposure of the world outside. Instead, her knowledge comes from books gifted by foreign visitors, books such as <i>Guide to Space</i>, <i>Kingfisher Book of Space</i>, and <i>Atlas of the World</i>. There is a keen sense of curiosity within her, and she says she has read all of them. <br />
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The spacious room where devotees pay her a visit today will double as an exam room from March 25. A solitary desk, and two guards—that is all the company she will have in this exam centre. <br />
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The Patan Kumari is a student at Bhassara Secondary School in Purnachandi, a ten-minute walk from her house. But she’s never been to the school. Instead, her teachers come home to teach her. Her birth parents have also hired private tutors for her. But it’s difficult knowing about the world, and learning about it from books alone. When her social studies teacher talked about the trafficking of Nepali girls to India, she could not understand what she was talking about. Similarly, when she was given an assignment to write about footpath vendors, she was dumbfounded, for, obviously, she had never seen one or eaten the street-side food that many sell, and many her age relish. <br />
<br />
The only friends Chanira has are her two brothers, aged nine and 12. She likes to sketch, a trait she might have inherited from her father, who is also a painter. But being a goddess can be “interesting”, she says. Ornately dressed in her bright-red gown, a very-conspicuous painted third eye in the middle of her forehead is accentuated by <i>kajal</i> on both her eyes.<br />
<br />
Chanira replaced Chandrashila Bajracharya, the Kumari of Patan on April 6, 2001. Chanira was only six; the eldest child of Netra Raj Bajracharya and Champa Bajracharya. Two months later, an enraged Crown Prince Dipendra killed his parents, and the downfall of the Shah dynasty had begun. Chanira’s mother recalls the Kumari hadn’t spoken for several days before the massacre—a portent of the misfortune that was to fall on the nation. <br />
<br />
The Kumari is believed to be an incarnation of the Goddess Taleju, and the tradition of a Living Goddess has its roots in the 17th century legends surrounding King Jaya Prakash Malla. According to them, Jaya Prakash Malla (in some version it’s Pratap Malla) was playing a game of dice with the Goddess Taleju when the king lusted after the goddess (in yet another version, the king’s wife heard her husband conversing with another woman and entered the room that was barred to all). A furious goddess was then placated by the king, and she vowed to reappear in the body of a virgin girl thereby sending him into a frenetic search of her mortal manifestation. <br />
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There are strict rules for the Kumari that have been well-documented in several books. The girl must be a Newar, prepubescent, and endowed with battis lakshan (32 ideal characteristics). These include “a neck like a conch shell, eyelashes like a cow, chest like a lion, voice soft and clear as a duck’s”. While the girl is a Kumari, she should not be seriously ill, and there should not be any loss of blood from her body such as the beginning of her menstrual cycles. This effectively marks the end of her tenure. <br />
<br />
The institution of the Kumari is emblematic of the syncretic Hindu-Buddhist culture prevalent in the Valley. While all the three cities of the Valley have a Kumari each, the Kumari of Kathmandu is considered the most important. Patan’s Kumari may not be as famous as her Kathmandu counterpart; nevertheless, she plays an equally important role during festivals such as Indra Jatra, Machchindranath Jatra, and Dashain. She’s allowed to venture out 19 times a year, mostly during festivals. In Kathmandu, the Kumari is chosen from the Shakya clan, whereas in Patan, they come from the Bajracharya clan, the Newar-Buddhist priests. <br />
<br />
In recent years, however, the practice has courted controversy, with 2005 lawsuit by Pun Devi Maharjan demanding an end to the tradition, claiming the practice violated child rights. A year later, Chunda Bajracharya, a professor of culture at Tribhuvan University, filed another petition demanding the continuation of the tradition. Though a 2007 committee declared that the tradition doesn’t violate human rights, it also ordered the Kumaris’ parents to educate them.<br />
<br />
That is how Chanira came to study. And that is how the Living Goddess is preparing for the toughest exams, studying her course books three hours every day and attending tuitions daily in the mornings and evenings. On one such tuition, Abha Awale, her social studies teacher, asks her to memorise the five development regions of Nepal and prepare a list of UN agencies and organisations. A while later, the Kumari picked up a Creative English Practice book and SLC model questions from a row of her books behind her kept in order. <br />
<br />
Leaving behind their past, many Kumaris have opted for a career. Though a few have remained single, many have married contrary to the common notion that marrying an ex-Kumari is fatal. Rashmila Shakya, 28, who was a Royal Kumari from 1984 to 1992, and also co-wrote the 2005 book <i>From Goddess to Mortal</i>, has completed her Bachelor’s degree in information technology and is now a computer software developer in a private IT firm.<br />
<br />
Back at the Patan Kumari’s house, I ask her what she plans to do after the SLC. Or, for that matter, her post-Kumari life? Chanira is not very sure what her life would be like when her divine role ends. She wants to study commerce and pursue a career in banking. So maybe, a career switch from being a Living Goddess, to an investment banker is not too far-fetched a dream.<br />
<br />
Originally published in <i>The Kathmandu Post</i>. Pic by Shruti ShresthaDeepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-83425578498411588122010-02-28T14:14:00.001+05:302010-02-28T14:21:07.908+05:30Memoir: A Tribute to My Grandfather<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigENq8OrmiCbv2yQVq9bnrOshE8J7tRojmcrB_v4SM8fGdNZ0A4YkDOUJWgWh4w6t3Jz9Kz86cb0lF_QdBuK83_7iqFBLQFfF9BPm5G4zqV7NqXPxNB37GUI6gS8eFZMyAA/s1600-h/Grandpa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigENq8OrmiCbv2yQVq9bnrOshE8J7tRojmcrB_v4SM8fGdNZ0A4YkDOUJWgWh4w6t3Jz9Kz86cb0lF_QdBuK83_7iqFBLQFfF9BPm5G4zqV7NqXPxNB37GUI6gS8eFZMyAA/s320/Grandpa.jpg" width="241" /></a>Shortly after I said goodbye to my colleagues at the <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a> and reached my apartment, a fifteen-minute-walk from the office in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh">Pittsburgh</a>—a city in the U.S. known both for its three rivers and its industrial past—my wife Kabita called me from Nepal to say that my paternal grandfather had passed away. I paused for a while as her voice became barely audible. It was early June and the sun was just about sinking into the horizon.<br />
<br />
I wasn’t shocked to hear the news because when I left Nepal in early March that year in 2008, my 93-year-old grandfather Dhanya Prasad Adhikari was literally on his deathbed. On a freezing January night, he fell down on the floor while on his way to the restroom. His back was badly bruised. When the doctors at a nearby hospital cited his frail health as hazardous for any sort of operation, we reluctantly brought him to my youngest uncle’s house in Jorpati, Kathmandu.<br />
<br />
I feel overwhelmingly sad thinking about his final days. He spent the last few evenings of his life in a one-floored concrete house of his youngest son whose family looked after both him and his wife, our grandmother. His youngest daughter, who lived nearby, often visited her ailing parents. He would have never imagined that his last days would be so dismal, so pathetic. Of late, he could not even recognise his offspring, let alone distant relatives. When he turned 93, I had sparked off a talk about celebrating his near-centenary. He was excited about the birthday bash. But I had then headed home in eastern Nepal to celebrate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasain">Dashain</a>, and now, I regret my poor planning.<br />
<br />
My grandfather had impressed many with his astrological expertise. He was educated in Sanskrit, and used to recite the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita">Bhagwad Gita </a>and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata">Mahabharata</a>. His life was interwoven with Hindu scriptures that invariably formed his paraphernalia. Even though he was a Hindu priest, my grandfather never complained when I often drifted away from strict Hindu norms—I neither wear the <i>janai</i>, the sacred thread that is worn after <i>bratabandha</i>, nor do I miss a chance to relish on buffalo meat. He knew about this ‘deviation’, but always kept mum.<br />
<br />
He had been a man of action, always on the move. He would leave<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbedin"> Thumbedin</a> (our ancestral home in the remote hills of north-eastern Nepal) and trek a few days to the southern plains and in turn to Kathmandu. In early 1980s, when we were living in Kuljhoda, an inner plains village near <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urlabari">Urlabari</a> in Morang, I accompanied him on one of his travels. Eschewing the east-west highway, we travelled through lush paddy fields along the dirt tracks. We waded though Ratuwa <i>khola </i>and reached <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauradaha">Gauradah</a>. It was his typical way of familiarising me with our distant relatives.<br />
<br />
He traversed the north-east of India to meet the other Adhikaris there and gather information for his book on the genealogy of Adhikaris, called <i>Adhikari Ko Vanshawali</i>. The book (in Nepali verse) was published in the old letterhead press in late 1980s. He used to carry several books along and distribute to bookstores in the small towns in eastern Nepal. But as he grew old and his health withered, the books remained in his house, undistributed and unused. I still have a tattered copy of the book.<br />
<br />
He undertook the excursions all alone, leaving the grandmother to fend for the kids. She had to bear the brunt of raising six sons and three daughters. In addition to that, she would also work in the farm. In his native village, my grandfather was a respected figure. He sent his children to school and they grew up to become teachers, businessmen, and government employees. He always took pride in the education of his children and encouraged village folks to follow the suit, an unorthodox notion at that time.<br />
<br />
I’m now worried about my grandmother who has been shoved into solitude, without the intimacy of the person she loved all her life. I wonder how she copes as she often wished that she would die earlier. They had been together through thick and thin for nearly 75 years of their lives.<br />
<br />
The most inspiring thing to me has been his unwavering support for my decision to pursue journalism. My family was skeptical when I chose journalism as my career. They did not think of it as a worthy profession (that is very true in terms of monetary gain). But my grandfather would be delighted to talk about my small accomplishments. He would encourage me when I was working hard to establish myself as a journalist. He would love to see my name printed in a newspaper or a magazine. Even in his twilight years, he would ask me whether I had brought a copy of <a href="http://www.ekantipur.com/about-us/">Nepal Weekly</a>, the Nepali language magazine I worked for. He would flip through the pages and ask me about the topics I had covered. With his big old eyes, his body leaning against a pillow, he would search for my name. He always loved words.<br />
<br />
Besides his book on the Adhikari lineage, he was in the process of publishing a second book on astronomical aspects of the consummation of marriage. He showed me the manuscript. It was fine but book publishing is still not profitable in Nepal. He somehow wanted it to be published. He had asked me to find a publisher, because he thought that since I worked at a news publication, I would be able to help him. Me, I kept on promising, albeit knowing that I could not be of any help. My job and life’s other obligations kept me busy from pursuing a publisher. I am sorry that he could not see the book being published in his lifetime. Now, the manuscript is gathering dust in Jorpati.<br />
<br />
This originally appeared in <i>The Kathmandu Post on Saturday</i>. Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-85290844043655354122010-02-21T12:53:00.002+05:302010-02-21T12:56:51.138+05:30Why Are Nepali Workers Dying Abroad?This appeared in <i>The Kathmandu Post on Saturday</i>.<br />
<br />
A Casket of Dreams<br />
<br />
Deepak Adhikari<br />
<br />
KATHMANDU—One drizzly afternoon in early 2008, Karuna Subba of Chandragadhi, Jhapa was listlessly squatting on her haunches outside the Tribhuvan International Airport’s Arrival terminal. Dozens of migrant workers, each of them rolling trolleys laden with heavy luggage, strode past her. Karuna steadfastly waited; she wasn’t there to greet a living relative.<br />
<br />
After the flow of passengers from Saudi Arabia died out, a casket was brought out--with the body of Karuna’s husband, Mani Kumar Subba, inside it. <br />
<br />
There were no tears to greet her husband. Mani Kumar had died in Saudi Arabia in September the previous year. Karuna had cried her heart out then, at what seemed like a cruel joke: The day before he died, Mani Kumar had called her to say from a friend’s birthday party to tell her that he would be coming home two weeks later.<br />
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In the four months since Mani Kumar’s death, Karuna ran from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the employment agency that had hired her husband. She was told that her husband was found dead in a swimming pool, and that it would take a while for the body to be brought back. No more questions were asked.<br />
<br />
Scenes such as these are played out daily at the international airport. On an average, each day, two dead Nepalis return in coffins from the much-vaunted destinations for economic migrations. In 2009 alone, at least 600 Nepalis died in the Gulf countries, and in Malaysia. Unfortunately, for the families left behind in Nepal, it is an agonizingly long wait. They run from pillar to post to bring the bodies of their loved ones back, a process which at times takes up to six months. <br />
<br />
Why are migrant workers, lauded as the bedrock of Nepal’s fragile, remittance-dependent economy, dying in such huge numbers? Pushpa Bhattarai, section officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tries to explain these deaths through several reasons: lack of “pre-departure orientation” (which leads to “road accidents”), lack of good accommodations, unhealthy lifestyles, work loads, depression, and the “unbearably hot temperature” which have extreme consequences on Nepalis, who are mostly from the hills.<br />
<br />
One of the leading causes of death among migrant workers is heart failure. In 2009, the death of 174 Nepalis working abroad was attributed to cardiac arrest. But there is a darker side to this attribution. Most of those who died seem to have died in their sleep (suteko sutai marne). According to Bhattarai, this is because most labourers work in extremely hot desert temperatures of 50 to 55 degree Celsius, and when their bodies cannot adjust to their air-conditioned rooms immediately; hence, the deaths.<br />
<br />
Many deaths are also attributed to road accidents. Bhattarai explains, “In the Middle East, normal highway speeds are around 140 km per hour. Most Nepalis are not used to such speeds and try crossing the road the same way they do back home.” A proper orientation to foreign country-bound workers can prevent this. Many migrant workers drive heavy vehicles and often die in collisions, Bhattarai says. “But these are not the only reasons,” he says, “There have been murders among Nepalis and some have committed suicides due to family tensions back home.” <br />
<br />
It may be accepted that death is a part of life too, but for the families of most migrant workers, it is after their loved one’s demise that the real struggles begin. In the Gulf, where labour rights are practically non-existent and the notions of accountability and transparency are still foreign, the process of sending the dead bodies and claiming dues and insurances fall under the duties of the Nepali Embassy in the country. But there is a long way to go for the Nepali bureaucrats in the Gulf to execute these processes.<br />
<br />
According to Bhattarai, language is the first barrier. Arabic is the sole medium of conversation. Hence, the Nepali embassy in Saudi Arabia has finally hired two Arabic-speaking non-natives who deal with the companies. According to him, in Saudi Arabia, there is evidence of discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims when it comes to compensation. “The Saudis are uncooperative with foreigners,” he says, “It also depends on how much power you can wield on those countries.” Bhattarai says most migrant workers in the Gulf are not insured, while a few companies that do insure workers are often laidback even in the event of a death. “It’s a constant process of negotiations with them,” he remarks. <br />
<br />
Back in Kathmandu, the relatives of the dead make rounds of manpower agencies and government offices hoping for a swift arrival of the body. Applications submitted to the Ministry’s legal section speak volumes of the tragedies that have befallen on the families of the migrants. A gloomy narrative emerges as you flip through the files: someone’s dead son, someone’s murdered husband. In most cases, the family often loses its sole earner. Even after the prolonged process of transportation of the bodies and its eventual cremation, the complicated process of procuring the insurance money and the due salary takes a toll on most families.<br />
<br />
One such person is 56-year-old Lila Subedi of Jhapa. Tears trickle down his wrinkled cheeks when he speaks about his tragedy; he lost two sons to foreign shores. In April 2008, Bhim Bahadur Subedi, who had been working with the Al Mojaji Company in Saudi Arabia, died in a road accident. Six months later, in October, Dharma Subedi died in Malaysia. “I lost two sons in six months,” he says.<br />
<br />
A subsistence farmer, Lila says he spent Rs. 150,000 to send two of his five sons abroad. Now, after their deaths, Lila has to take care of both families: Bhim left behind a four-year-old son and a 22-year-old wife, while Dharma had two daughters, aged 11 and five, and a 32-year-old wife. Ironically, Dharma, who had been in Malaysia for only three months, had spoken about coming back home for good. Lila had suggested otherwise, as “he hadn’t sent a single penny home.” Dharma was cremated in Kathmandu, but it took four months for Bhim’s body to arrive from Saudi Arabia. The family decided to cremate him in Jhapa, for which they paid Rs. 22,000.<br />
<br />
Lila’s youngest son, Pushpa Subedi, teaches at a school in Sundarijal. The 30-year-old now helps his father navigate Kathmandu’s bureaucratic maze: there is insurance to claim, dues to procure. The deaths of his brothers abroad have destroyed the family. “After seeing the death of my two elder brothers, my family will never allow me to go abroad,” he says.<br />
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Related post: <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2008/02/death-of-nepali-workers-abroad.html">Death </a>of Nepali workers abroadDeepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-74048824869631840792010-02-08T12:49:00.002+05:302010-02-08T13:08:16.890+05:30A Jumli Carpet Seller in Kathmandu<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3kAnb-AwOzX8RVL2YgyMr-B_YPj4EAtc1hAC2aEHBvuXiAxj08J0c0AAEmm3gruMMHVnzZXvnebYmZ6VWAxDdGnJ9yTYieaUeD7JbpWbZNqek-sZTrJGoc-mDv14LPYVSA/s1600-h/Dhan+Lal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3kAnb-AwOzX8RVL2YgyMr-B_YPj4EAtc1hAC2aEHBvuXiAxj08J0c0AAEmm3gruMMHVnzZXvnebYmZ6VWAxDdGnJ9yTYieaUeD7JbpWbZNqek-sZTrJGoc-mDv14LPYVSA/s320/Dhan+Lal.jpg" /></a></div>This appeared in <i>The Kathmandu Post on Saturday</i>.<br />
<br />
An Invisible Man<br />
<br />
DEEPAK ADHIKARI<br />
<br />
At the crack of dawn, a lean man with a week’s stubble navigates the byzantine lanes of Naradevi. He carries a white rug on his shoulder, and dons a maroon hooded-pullover and cargo pants to protect himself against Kathmandu’s wintry chill. At Ratnapark, he lifts the rug and places it on the roof of the bus that’s heading towards Bhaktapur. Disembarking at Ghaththaghar, he lugs the rug on his shoulder again and walks briskly towards the buildings that dot the erstwhile fertile farmland of the Valley. Then, he starts pitching in a salesman’s voice: “<i>Ayo Ayo! Galaincha Laijanus Sahuji! Ramro Chha, Nepali Galaincha</i>!” (Come , come. Nepali rugs. Very nice Nepali rugs, master!)<br />
<br />
For the past four years, 22-year-old Dhan Lal Chaulagai, originally from Narakot in Jumla—a remote district in the Mid-west—has been selling the export-rejected rugs to suburban residents of the Valley. Every winter, he leaves his home village and its abject poverty behind, and undertakes what seems like a seasonal entrepreneurship. But Chaulagai is also part of a category of migrant workers, people who travel all over Nepal looking for better opportunities, or creating them by selling carpets, Himalayan herbs, honey, and other ‘exotic’ items to their urban countrymen.<br />
<br />
<b>A Dickensian Tale</b><br />
<br />
A semi-literate, Chaulagai’s childhood was ruptured in 1998 by the sudden death of his father Devi Lal. Like most Jumlis and Kalikotes, Devi Lal had gone to Faizabad in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to sell shawls and <i>radi</i> (woollen Nepali carpets). A patient of asthma, the 40-year-old died in India that winter. “We heard about his death only two months later,” says Chaulagai—that too through a neighbour who had accompanied his father and had sent them a letter (because there were no telephone connections in his village). It was winter, and Narakot was blanketed with snow. His mother was five months pregnant with his sister (now 10 years old). Being the eldest son, Chaulagai quickly undertook the ritual of <i>bratabandha</i> (sacred thread wearing). Then, as soon as the ceremony was over, he was thrust into observing <i>barakhi</i> (the Hindu ritual of mourning).<br />
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“I was studying in the fourth grade but had to leave my school and help my mother,” he says. Two years after his father’s death, he went to Faizabad, he says “to complete the ritual because his body was not brought home”. Back in the village, he helped farm their 15 ropanis of land where they grew rice, wheat, maize and potatoes. But the harvest was only enough for six months for the family of four.<br />
<br />
<b>Kathmandu’s Allure</b><br />
<br />
Like many Nepalis from remote areas who travel to India in search of work, Chaulagai became familiar with the southern neighbour. Barely a teenager, he, following his father’s footsteps, began to travel to India in the winter. He either sold <i>radis</i> or worked as a labourer.<br />
<br />
Seven years ago, he became an apprentice to Lal Bahadur G.C., a village hand who sold rugs in Kathmandu. “I was afraid that I may get lost in Kathmandu,” recalls Chaulagai, “I might not be able to do business.” For two years, he cooked food for G.C.<br />
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His struggles in Kathmandu mirror the challenges faced by newcomers to the city. Language turned out to be a big problem. “I didn’t know how to communicate with people here,” he recalls. Even though Nepali evolved in Jumla (“People tell us that Prithvi Narayan Shah used to speak our language”), he was baffled by the hierarchy of modern Nepali language (tapai, timi, tan). “Back home, we call everyone timi,” he says, “But in Kathmandu, we are supposed to call everyone tapai.” Now, his Jumli tongue has adjusted to the capital’s formal ways: he addresses every man as sir, and every woman as aunty. <br />
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He lives with three others in a cramped, dank and dark room in Naradevi. A naked bulb on the ceiling illuminates the room where half the space is occupied by rugs. There is a gas stove, a sackful of rice, some shabby clothes hanging on a peg, and not much else. <br />
<br />
The factories that lie on Kathmandu’s northeastern edge are famous for exporting rugs to rich Westerners. The origin of the Nepali carpet can itself be traced to the arrival of another disadvantaged community: Tibetan refugees. After the 1959 Chinese occupation of Tibet, several Tibetans crossed the northern border and found sanctuary in Nepal. They also brought their skills with them. Soon, their traditional skills of weaving morphed into a big industry after attracting local entrepreneurs to export possibilities. And, for a while, carpets were the top export items from Nepal. Poorer entrepreneurs like Chaulagai end up buying the export-rejected pieces.<br />
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These rejected rugs are, nevertheless, expensive, and much-coveted among the nouveau-riche who build new houses on the peripheries of the Valley. Chaulagai boasts a clientele that includes, among others, a former migrant worker who lived in South Korea for eight years and built (what else?) a concrete house, and a real estate agent who has purchased a spacious one-storey house. “Only those who have plenty of money can afford a galaincha,” he says.<br />
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The profits are miniscule in this trade. His six-month sojourn in the Capital fetches him around Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 25,000. But living in Kathmandu is equally expensive—at Rs. 5,000 per month for Chaulagai. And unlike vegetables, rugs don’t sell everyday.<br />
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<b>The Long Way Home</b><br />
<br />
Being the sole earner for his family, Chaulagai makes sure that he buys gifts and basic necessities for his loved ones. “They are very happy when I go home,” he says, “My little sister comes to receive me on my way.”<br />
<br />
Chaulagai will shop in Nepalgunj, the border town, paying back the moneylender the sum that he borrowed to buy the carpets in Kathmandu (with a 3 percent interest rate). He will then board a bus to Khitkijyula in Dailekh, and from here, will walk for four days to reach his small village by the Sinja River, the river valley that was once the cradle of Khas civilisation and the summer capital of Khas kingdom that existed from the 12th to the 14th century.<br />
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Back in Kathmandu, some affluent clients demand to see a catalogue. Instead, he whips out his mobile phone, and jots down their numbers. Despite the ‘I hate cell phones’ message emblazoned across his pullover, Chaulagai evidently doesn’t.<br />
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A song blares on his phone as a ringtone:<br />
<br />
<i>Phone Aaunda Sangai Chhu Jhain Lagchha,<br />
<br />
Phone Naaaunda Runa Man Lagchha<br />
</i><br />
(When you call me, I feel I am with you,<br />
<br />
When you don’t call, I feel like crying)<br />
<br />
It’s his sister, calling from the village. In an instant, the carpet seller becomes a brother, a smile lighting up his face.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-18323866593664008792010-01-23T15:26:00.006+05:302010-07-25T08:50:13.851+05:30The Storyteller's Tale by Omair Ahmad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOJ36ft7ZAu-s_pwk5Ij45_obLxmjC-nbJ3XkrfLFmnPT6ibGV5Zd4QOCUexuKBF_zBVwr2Ko51o0Q2W8ur_LERRxshyWiCzVNdzLEnDlT2saBwfaPk0is0GSqjANEb0-xw/s1600-h/The+Storyteller%27s+Tale+Cover1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOJ36ft7ZAu-s_pwk5Ij45_obLxmjC-nbJ3XkrfLFmnPT6ibGV5Zd4QOCUexuKBF_zBVwr2Ko51o0Q2W8ur_LERRxshyWiCzVNdzLEnDlT2saBwfaPk0is0GSqjANEb0-xw/s320/The+Storyteller%27s+Tale+Cover1.jpg" /></a></div>Explaining the significance of storytelling, Anant Nath, the managing editor of <a href="http://www.caravanmagazine.in/">The Caravan</a>, a narrative journalism magazine from India, invokes the celebrated Iranian storyteller <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade">Scheherazade</a> in its recent re-launch issue. He writes: “The greatest storyteller of all was Scheherazade, legendary Persian queen and narrator of One Hundred and One Nights. The title refers to the thousand and one nights that Scheherazade kept telling stories to the Persian king Shahryar — who would marry a virgin every day only to have her beheaded the next — and thus kept death at bay.”<br />
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<a href="http://in.linkedin.com/in/omairahmad">Omair Ahmad</a>’s novella <a href="http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/Bookdetail.aspx?bookId=3395">The Storyteller’s Tale</a> clearly falls into this tradition of storytelling. Indeed, the author has acknowledged the influences of Indian, Quranic, Biblical, and other tales. Like many of us, he had heard several stories of the old as a child. It’s another story that this tradition now seems on the verge of extinction.<br />
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A former features correspondent of <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/">Outlook magazine</a> and now a freelance writer, Ahmad’s story unfolds in the backdrop of a war: it is 1700 and the forces of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Afghan ruler, have destroyed Delhi, the beloved city of the unnamed poet and storyteller. He is devastated by the ruins and violence. He laments the loss of lives and the destruction of culture and civilisation. While staying with some merchants in ‘the badlands of Rohillakhand’, he steals a horse and sidles away. But he carries with him a burning need to talk about the devastation he saw firsthand.<br />
<br />
On his way, he bumps into the haveli of a Begum whose husband is pillaging Delhi. At the haveli, he is given refuge and invited to tell a story. The Begum turns out to be a storytelling connoisseur. In a meta-fictional mould, the two take turn in telling stories, and retelling them with different angles and improvisations. Gradually, a slippery slope of stories emerges, adding new dimension to an already intricate plot.<br />
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Upon the Begum’s request, the storyteller first tells the story of two brothers, Taka and Wara. In a village by a forest lives the unwed daughter of the village headman. She gives birth to a child but refuses to disclose his father’s name. The entire village gathers to punish her. But her father saves her by sending her into the jungle, an act which costs him his life. In the desolation and wilderness of the forest, the child bonds with a wolf cub that was rescued by his mother. The cub is named Taka and the son Wara. They grow up together. The tale goes: “A year passed since the woman entered the forest, and it treated her well. She made a small home for herself by a lake filled with fish. She taught herself to make bows and arrows, and although her first experiments were failures, by the end of her first year, she managed to kill a deer.”<br />
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One evening when she is away from home, she has a hunch that her son is in danger. She rushes home. She hears the wolf’s howl and decides instinctively that Wara is under attack, possibly by Taka. She finds blood on his jaws. And, with a swing of an axe, she kills Taka. But it was Taka who saved Wara from two wild dogs. There’s a similar tale in Nepali folk lore- <i>Nyauri Mari Pachhuto</i>, which tells of the regret experienced by the family after killing their faithful mongoose.<br />
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The tale of betrayal, anguish, loyalty, friendship, and loss strikes a chord in Begum, who then replies with a tale of Aresh and Barab, the two friends whose faith for each other is boundless. The story goes thus: The queen of Thakir dies after giving birth to her son Aresh. The Amir of Thakir learns about the birth of a baby boy on his vicinity and summons the maid and her husband and tasks them with rearing his son along with theirs. Aresh and Barab grow up to become inseperable, until Aresh is sent to Yasurat at a magistrate's to further his education. As he learns the trick of the trade, Aresh’s reputation grows. But in a twist of events, the magistrate’s young and beautiful wife, who secretly loves him, accuses him of trying to rape after he rejects her advances. He is instantly arrested. In his solitary confinement, Aresh remembers his brother and friend Barab and the promise they made to meet each other again. Gradually, the magistrate comes upon the truth and Aresh is released and reunited with Barab.<br />
<br />
The storyteller is stunned by the Begum’s storytelling, and goes on to weave her story into his own. In the retelling of the story, a mélange of characters — Barab, Aresh , Wara, the magistrate’s wife, and Nisia, a girl who at age 15 had visited Thakir and fallen in love with Aresh come together.<br />
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Thus the characters in the novel meta-fictionally add to the characters in the stories they tell, creating a never-ending pattern that always leaves room for further exploration. Deeply evocative with exquisite prose, <i>The Storyteller’s Tale </i>is a testament to our belief in the stories that never fail to fascinate us.<br />
<br />
Originally published at <i>The Kathmandu Post</i>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-70474005928253364322009-12-27T11:48:00.003+05:302010-02-08T13:15:46.350+05:30Stranger to History by Aatish Taseer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK23-7H0xf9GCFREN9F6IeUA8Uy0O-unyh2rPEYmrT4StzF-3mw9zbgQ7djxPKvSygS_dBLk78pGLMkCS22BJy_mUa98DFiITD0Mo0LhGixN7uPbLDcyWApJsrPFI3SNyQw/s1600-h/Stranger+to+History.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK23-7H0xf9GCFREN9F6IeUA8Uy0O-unyh2rPEYmrT4StzF-3mw9zbgQ7djxPKvSygS_dBLk78pGLMkCS22BJy_mUa98DFiITD0Mo0LhGixN7uPbLDcyWApJsrPFI3SNyQw/s320/Stranger+to+History.jpg" /></a></div>This originally appeared at <i>The Kathmandu Post</i><br />
<br />
I had just finished reading <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2007/08/kapuscinski-polish-craftsman.html">Ryszard Kapuscinski</a>’s <i>Travels with Herodotus</i> when I started to leaf through <a href="http://www.aatishtaseer.com/">Aatish Taseer</a>’s non-fiction book, <i>Stranger to History</i>. In some ways, the books are strikingly similar. The legendary Polish journalist Kapuscinski’s posthumously-published book dwells upon his journeys during his time as a foreign correspondent for the Polish News Agency. As he travels to far away countries, <i>The Histories</i> by Herodotus, the Greek philosopher-historian, serves as his constant companion. But this was in the 60’s and 70’s, a volatile period in which Kapuscinski witnessed a staggering 27 revolutions and coups, mainly in third world countries.<br />
<br />
Cut to 2005. Taseer, a former <a href="http://www.time.com/time/">Time magazine</a> reporter, embarks on an exploration of Islamic lands (Iran is the only country both these writers travel to). And, Islamic faith is to Taseer what <i>The Histories </i>was to Kapuscinski. But there’s an important historical as well as personal element in Taseer’s journey. Upon the publication of a cover story about the disillusioned Pakistani-origin youth in Beeston, a small suburb in Leeds in the U.K., at <a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/">The Prospect magazine</a>, he sends a copy to Salman Taseer, his estranged Pakistani politician-father. To his dismay, his father writes a scathing letter in which he asks: “Do you think you’re doing the Taseer name a service by spreading this kind of invidious anti-Muslim propaganda?”<br />
<br />
This question, along with his long separation with his father who had an affair with Tavleen Singh, his Indian journalist mother, during Salman’s book promotion tour of India in 1980, and his meeting with radical Muslims such as Hassan Butt, a spokesman for an extremist Muslim group in the U.K., prompts the young journalist to search for answers. His father, who drank whiskey every evening, never fasted nor prayed, raises this question in Taseer who is torn between his secular upbringing in a Sikh household and an identity as a Muslim. “Caught between feeling provoked and needing to act, I thought of making an Islamic journey,” he writes.<br />
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In the first leg of his odyssey, he travels to secular Turkey, “to see how Islam has been banished from the public sphere since 1920.” Then, his itinerary takes him to nationalist Arab-country Syria, Islamic republic Iran, Saudi Arabia—the custodian of two holy mosques, and finally to Pakistan, his fatherland. What emerges is a portrait of Islamic countries steeped in age-old orthodox conventions coupled with vicious regimes. To read Taseer’s finely written book is to immerse oneself with civilisational fault lines. In Turkey, for instance, he runs into a Muslim neighbourhood called Fatih Carsamba, which he calls “a hilltop of radicalism.” He is baffled by the discovery of such a conservative settlement amid a secular Turkey.<br />
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In the first chapter titled The License-plate Game, his cousins discover that he’s been circumcised. This turns his small world topsy-turvy. He writes, “If there was a link between the missing foreskin and my missing father, it was too difficult to grasp.” Then, on another instance, when his mother takes him to his maternal grandmother, she bitterly remarks: “Yes, he is lovely but Muslim, nonetheless.” Incidents like these, in which he is treated like an oddity, cast a deep shadow and an aspect of melancholy in his life. But, on a positive note, this also triggers the exploration that culminates into this book. <br />
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Divided into two parts, the book (subtitled A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands) is part memoir and part travelogue. The language is evocative, the observations minute, and the narrative gripping. In between the description of his journeys, he goes back to his past, to his roots, and to his father. To enliven the story, he brings characters from his other meetings into context.<br />
<br />
Arriving immediately in Syria after the Danish cartoon controversy, he finds it “closed and depressed, with an autocratic ruler who allowed neither a free economic nor a free political life.” Then, the narrative is intercepted by his experience of visiting Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. “That’s Tehran,” is how he is introduced to Iranian capital where he runs into more trouble than he was prepared for. He meets his old family friend Muhammad who studied in India and took part in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution">1979 Islamic revolution</a> by capturing the Iranian Embassy in Delhi, just like many students of his generation who took part in the revolution that overthrew the Shah monarchy. But now, Muhammad is disillusioned with politics.<br />
<br />
In Iran, he runs into trouble with the omnipresent regime. The Discplinary (sic) Force of the Islamic Republic denies an extension to his visa, thereby putting his plans to visit the religious cities of Qom and Mashhad into disarray. He is interrogated by the regime’s dogged sleuths. The interrogation is so thorough that every detail of his life in Iran is extracted. In the evocative chapters dedicated to Iran, he paints a horrifying picture of a country where the entire population is taken hostage while the resentment against the regime runs high. Despite the regime keeping an eye on every aspect of its citizens’ lives, Iranians are undeterred: there are homosexuals, they follow Hare Krishna, a Hindu cult, clandestinely, and whenever time permits, the hip Iranians love to party. <br />
<br />
In Iran and Pakistan, he chooses to meet the ordinary people to get a sense of how the state’s policies are affecting them. The chapters that deal with Iran and Pakistan are rich in anecdotes. I particularly liked the one entitled Mango King about a landlord in Sindh, which evokes rural and feudal Pakistan superbly.<br />
<br />
Taseer has framed his intensely personal questions into the larger historical, political and religious enquiry. The book can provide an impetus for authors who want to see the political from the personal prism and explore it.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-64568375368238269352009-12-18T15:22:00.007+05:302009-12-21T15:12:35.000+05:30Bhutanese Refugees: Starting Life AnewA year ago, I contributed a story on Bhutanese refugees resettled in US for <a href="http://www.globalnepali.com.np/">Global Nepali</a>. Then, the number of refugees resettled in Western countries was just 5,000. Now, it <a href="http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/news-archive/2-political/2821-25000-refugees-from-bhutan-resettled-in-us-so-far.html">has swelled</a> to 25,000. Also, check this fine piece on Bhutanese refugees published at <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/religion/story/2389771.html">Sacramanto Bee</a>. My piece on the refugees at <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08121/877596-51.stm">the Post-Gazette</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Deepak Adhikari in Pittsburgh</b><br />
<br />
On a recent sunny afternoon, a group of 10 Bhutanese refugees walked through a winding road to <a href="http://www.whitehallboro.org/">Whitehall</a>, six miles from downtown Pittsburgh. They had boarded a colorful Port Authority bus, getting off few miles away from their apartments. On Sundays, the bus doesn’t run along the route to Prospect Park (also called White Hall) where they live. <br />
<br />
The group was a mix of middle-aged Bhutanese and young ones, newly arrived and old ones. Some of them had arrived over four months ago while some as recent as a week before. They had gone to a downtown market called Strip District known to Asians as Chinese Market, where shoppers look for cheaper fruits and vegetables. <br />
<br />
Carrying bags full of grocery; they walked for an hour from the nearest bus stop, talking about new life in America. Once they arrived at the apartment furnished with old television sets, they shared the day’s shopping experience. Some of them had already asked others to buy some green vegetables they were used to in Nepal. <br />
<br />
The ladies started to organize the grocery items on the refrigerator while the men sat on the couch. After a while, the sweet, milky tea was served followed by fried noodles. <br />
<br />
Noticeably, this is a far cry from the life the refugees lived in the camps in eastern Nepal. More than 1,07,000 refugees from Bhutan live on makeshift bamboo huts with thatched roofs in seven sprawling camps managed by <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/">UNHCR</a> in Jhapa and Morang districts . The dwellings lack basics such as running water, electricity, bathroom and kitchen. They depend on a fortnightly ration of rice, coal, vegetables, sugar, salt etc provided by <a href="http://www.wfp.org/countries/nepal">World Food Program</a> (WFP), another UN agency. <br />
<br />
In November 2005, core working group of countries—Australia, Canada, Denmark, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the US—proposed to resettle 80,000, US alone is resettling 60,000 of them over the next five years, in what United Nations describes as one of the largest resettlement efforts. <br />
<br />
Officials with UNHCR--the United Nations agency dealing with the refugees, said by September this year, over 5,000 Bhutanese refugees had been resettled in the 'core working group' countries. "Out of the total of 1,07,000 refugees from Bhutan who live in seven camps in eastern Nepal, 50,000 have expressed interest in resettlement," UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler told a news conference in Geneva. <br />
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Regular meetings have been held with the refugees to discuss resettlement and other durable solutions, as well as provide information for women at risk or people with disabilities, he sad.<br />
<br />
"Refugees are being offered English classes as well as additional vocational and skill-based training to prepare for a life in a new country," said Spindler. <br />
<br />
UNHCR officials say they expect another 2,000 to 3,000 refugees to leave Nepal for third countries by end of this year. The agency is, however, quick to point out that it hasn't completely given up the option of repatriation of the refugees to their home countries. "We continue to advocate for the option of voluntary return to Bhutan for those refugees who wish to do so, and hope that talks on repatriation can restart soon." said Spindler. <br />
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But those watching the stalemate closely over the last several years say it is easier said that done. <br />
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<b>'Ethnic Cleansing'</b><br />
A tiny Himalayan kingdom wedged between India and China, Bhutan evicted nearly 120000 Nepali speaking Southerners known as Lhotsampa in late 1980s and early ‘90s. Bhutan’s ruling elite identified them as a political and cultural threat. Like any other South Asian country, Bhutan is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. But the Druk regime imposed “One Nation, One People” policy, thereby suppressing the culture and language of their own citizens of Nepali-origin. <br />
<br />
As the state unleashed systematic suppression in southern Bhutan, described by rights groups as 'ethnic cleansing,' pro-democracy protests erupted. The Royal Bhutan Army employed the methods including threats, torture, detention and persecution, and confiscation of property. The crackdown led to the expulsion of one sixth of Bhutan’s population.<br />
<br />
The refugees left Bhutan, initially spilling over in India but ultimately landing in southeastern Nepal. Many refugees often recall of hardship and many deaths of refugees in the bank of Mai River in Jhapa. After languishing for seventeen years, the failure of talk between Nepal and Bhutan to resolve the issue and several unsuccessful attempts to return home has incurred a sense of resentment and desperation among refugees. <br />
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In such a situation, many see the third country resettlement as the only ray of hope. This also comes at a time when Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), has launched a “<a href="http://burning.typepad.com/burningman/2007/08/bhutan-red-army.html">People’s War</a>” in Bhutan. The Bhutani Maoists apparently are rallying against the third country resettlement. But with the numbers of refugees opting for third country growing in leaps and bounds, their slogans have been waning. <br />
<br />
For Narad Mani Phuyal, a former school teacher, an opportunity to come to US meant a lot. “I always wanted to come here,” said Mr. Phuyal who arrived with his wife and a four year old daughter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in July 11. He joined the growing Bhutanese community in Whitehall, where the families of his elder and younger brothers live a few blocks away.<br />
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He frequents a nearby library to check email. He is well aware of the American system, and is confident that he will get a job very soon and lead a decent life in the new country. “Life was miserable in camps” he said, “But here, it’s like a heaven.” His brother Kuber Phuyal shakes his head in approval. Kuber got job two months ago and with a salary of 8 US $ an hour, he hopes to support his family of four. Catholic Charities, the resettlement agency in Pittsburgh helps them with food, bus fare and housing for three months. The refugees have to pay for their air fare from Nepal as they start earning money. <br />
<br />
At 55, Bhawani Prasad Odari is still eager start a job. Model Uniform, an apparel plant in Charleroi in suburban Pittsburgh, has hired him. A Nepali interpreter helped him navigate through the lengthy contract papers. Unlike his three young daughters and a son who assimilated to work place environment very easily, he is worried about the language. “I’ve asked the manager not to expect a work where I have to communicate a lot,” he said. For the elderly, language has been a barrier in communicating with non-Nepali speakers. <br />
<br />
Perhaps because of the shared history and a common cultural heritage, Nepali communities in all over the US have been instrumental in helping Bhutanese refugees cope with an alien environment. News welcome programs organized by local Nepali communities have been trickling in. On July, Atlanta based Nepalese America Political Action Committee organized a barbecue for about 60 Bhutanese relocated in Georgia. Similarly, <a href="http://www.sahayeta.org/">Sahayeta</a>, a Bay Area Nepalese Alliance hosted a welcome program for the refugees in July 27. <br />
<br />
As the Bhutanese are scattered around 33 states in America, finding them and helping them could well be an uphill task. Organizations like <a href="http://www.aba-usa.org/">Association of Bhutanese in America</a> (ABA) is also gearing up for assistance. Whether the refugee community will merge with Nepali Diaspora or it will be a distinct Nepali-speaking community--only time will tell.<br />
<br />
Originally published in <i>Global Nepali</i> magazine, Oct/Nov 2008.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-67735641800812783102009-11-22T16:47:00.010+05:302010-08-02T09:14:51.526+05:30The Other Side of Bhutan<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGdmM2pvVd1uL5MohPE7OxAUZTttVo20m3vYG566Kn1lxQsRQ2w1i_TOClRBlySJjQxeU2ulb2dzPfmvQazaZSzrMjkF2h-VXqElvIArxQoLrGa27Kqbq9HMpO3aOsxZjJvA/s1600/torturekillingmesofly.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406886891688191666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGdmM2pvVd1uL5MohPE7OxAUZTttVo20m3vYG566Kn1lxQsRQ2w1i_TOClRBlySJjQxeU2ulb2dzPfmvQazaZSzrMjkF2h-VXqElvIArxQoLrGa27Kqbq9HMpO3aOsxZjJvA/s320/torturekillingmesofly.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 170px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 119px;" /></a> Repressive regimes everywhere employ torture on political prisoners to both extract information and to weaken the dissent. From the notorious Abu Ghraib in Iraq to Guantanamo in Cuba, the contemporary politics is replete with torture chambers of many kinds. It’s ironic that a country, which conjures up an image of the Himalayan paradise in the Western psyche, can indulge in such bizarre yet brutal practices of punishment.<br />
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Yes, we are talking about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan">Bhutan</a>, and the person upon whom the horrendous torture was inflicted is none other than Bhutanese human rights leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tek_Nath_Rizal">Tek Nath Rizal</a>. Rizal, a refugee leader in exile for more than a decade, has chronicled a harrowing tale of his prison life in Bhutan in his new book <a href="http://www.apfanews.com/torture-killing-me-softly/">Torture Killing Me Softly</a>. In nearly two hundred pages, he narrates his predicament while he was stuck in Bhutanese jails for a decade. The most startling aspect of the book—apart from the routine torture the state metes out to its opponents—is the use of sophisticated mind control devices by the ruling elite of Bhutan. One finds hard to reconcile the image of a pastoral country with its employing cutting-edge torture tools bestowed by modern science.<br />
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Rizal claims in the book that his Bhutanese torturers applied light sensitivity, very high sound decibels, and microwaves on him in order to destabilize his mind, induce anomalous behavioral changes and create disassociation. Dr. Indrajit Rai, a security expert and member of Nepal's Constituent Assembly, in the foreword to the book, notes that mind control devices are used on prisoners-of-war. He writes, “Bhutanese government practiced mind-control techniques on Rizal as a means to inflict physical and mental pain in order to destroy his life. With a view to deviating him from his goal of fighting for democracy, the Bhutanese government used these devices on him and pumped out all his thoughts and feelings.”<br />
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The book begins with the description of Bhutan’s scenic beauty. But soon, a picture of exploitation emerges beneath the beauty: People who are forced to work en masse on a road construction are stamped on their faces as a proof of attendance. “Such dehumanizing practice reminded me of numbering animals in the heard by tattooing onto their body,” Rizal writes. Then, he goes on to explain the composition of Bhutanese population—Ngalongs (the ruling group mainly living in north), Sharchhokpas (Buddhist inhabitants of eastern and central region) and Lhotshampas (ethnic Nepalese living in southern Bhutan). He notes then existing communal harmony, as he comments, “For centuries, people belonging to these groups have lived in perfect communal, religious and ethnic harmony.”<br />
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But the harmony, in the hindsight, began to fall apart in the late 1970s when the newly enthroned king Jigme Singye Wangchuk enacted several laws aiming at the disenfranchisement of Lhotshampas who then represented one-third of the country’s population. The so-called “One Nation, One People” policy, an anachronistic campaign in a country marked by a mosaic of cultures, religion and ethnicity, stripped many ethnic Nepalese of Bhutanese citizenship and curtailed their basic rights. This spawned a series of protests in the late 1980s and early 1990s in southern Bhutan,eventually resulting in the mass exodus of the Lhotshampas. First, they arrived in West Bengal and Assam, in India, and stayed there for a couple of years. But the local governments in those Indian states, in an unabashed show of complicity with Bhutanese rulers, loaded the refugees in trucks and sent them to Kakarbhitta, an entry point in Indo-Nepal border. As the flocks of refugees started to spill over in Jhapa, some of them taking temporary refuge on the banks of Mai River, the Nepal government invited UNHCR to intervene. Since 1991, around one hundred thousand refugees, the victims of what British scholar Michael Hutt calls “one of the world’s least known ethnic conflicts”, now languish in seven refugee camps in southeast Nepal (Many have opted for <a href="http://deepakadk.blogspot.com/2009/12/bhutanese-refugees-starting-life-anew.html">third country resettlement</a> initiated by the US in 2008).<br />
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During this tumultuous period, Rizal was entrusted with several high-profile designations by the king: he was member of Royal Civil Service Commission, Royal Advisory Councilor, Member of the Cabinet and Coordinator of Nationwide Investigation Bureau. Under the last designation, he was tasked with investigating the corruption that was rampant in Bhutan during that time. But this job cost him very dear after he submitted his report in which he disclosed the involvement of royal members and influential officials in corruption. After a weeklong detention, he fled Bhutan in early 1989. But on November 16, 1989, he was arrested from his apartment in Birtamod, Jhapa, where he was spending his life in exile. He was arrested along with two Bhutanese youth leaders Jogen Gazmere and Sushil Pokharel and handed over to Bhutanese authorities. That happened under the auspices of Nepal’s autocratic Panchayat regime, which was about to collapse.<br />
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Torture takes us inside the poorly managed and decrepit Bhutanese prisons where Rizal undergoes inhuman persecution. “As I lay on the floor with my face covered with the blanket, it was as if I was in a comatose condition. I was not able to keep track of time, nor was I able to make any movement,” he recalls. The author quotes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru">Jawaharlal Nehru</a>, first Indian Prime Minister, who described the solitary confinement in Allahabad, India: “It is the killing of the spirit by the digress, the slow vivisection of the soul.” The book’s title seems to be derived from these lines.<br />
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At times, the book reads like a novel. The descriptions are vivid which made me wonder how the writer, without any note taking, was able to remember all the details. He even claims that 40 ethnic Nepalese from southern Bhutan were arrested after his interrogators were able to extract information from him using the mind control device. The well constructed narrative focuses on how the prisoners are treated in the kingdom’s jail. In Rabuna jail in Wangdi district, he writes, he had to struggle his hands through a small hole in the room to get hold of the food-platter on the otherside. And this he had to do, with his hands and legs cuffed in chains. He had to rely on other body organs: “Whenever I felt thirsty, I turned the water tap on and off with my teeth, the position of the tap next to the toilet made this an unenviable practice.”<br />
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The food was not only detrimental to health but was also adulterated with nails, pieces of glass, fish bones and dead insects. Here too, according to him, the mind control device that was applied on him in capital Thimpu, aggravated the harm. To further exacerbate the matter, he was positioned with the barrel of a gun pointed at him all the time. Once, he narrates, the prison authority allowed him to eat his food only after smoking 40 cigarettes. “This was the worst kind of torture I endured during my incarceration in Rabuna,” he writes.<br />
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Then, he was shifted to Dradulmakhang where on Bhutan’s National Day (December 17, 1997), he started his hunger strike. Following pressure from international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, he was released on December 17 1999.<br />
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But his ordeal did not cease. He claims that the effects of those torture techniques and devices persist in his life and continue to manifest in his health as he lives in Kathmandu or travels abroad.<br />
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There is no way to verify Rizal’s claims as the Bhutanese government that considers the refugees ‘illegal immigrants’ will surely brand it as another attempt to tarnish the kingdom. But we also can not call it entirely untrue when the account comes from a leader of Rizal’s stature. It’s evident from the annex under the heading of “suggested reading” that the author has researched a great deal about the use of electronic devices to control one’s mind. The epilogue reads: “The global agencies must verify the tall claims of the government of Bhutan independently whether it is ‘Gross National Happiness’ or the ‘Gross National Sufferings.” Indeed, the cases of gross human rights violations as documented by Rizal in Torture cast a shadow over the so-called Shangri-La.<br />
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This originally appeared in <a href="http://www.nepalmonitor.com/">Nepal Monitor</a>.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-20996216264497847212009-11-10T15:00:00.002+05:302009-11-10T15:03:24.279+05:30Somali Refugees in NepalThis appeared in Time.com<br /><br />Mahad Abdullahi Hassan had never heard of Nepal before the day he landed there. When the 28-year-old Somali boarded a flight from Dubai to Kathmandu on May 23, 2007, he was hoping he would finally reach his dream destination: Sweden. He had, after all, shelled out $4,000 to a human trafficker who promised to smuggle him to the Scandinavian country.<br /><br />Read <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1936578,00.html#ixzz0WV9Z9ULd">more:</a>Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20516846.post-42451427445371281512009-11-08T12:12:00.004+05:302009-11-08T17:08:16.348+05:30Bhutanese Refugees: Repatriation vs Resettlement<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVtI1Y3BbuaXTscih9AnE_2GjsvQYDWa3_5KGeROYoxH9tAnSrekeAmx67Ya-sOUbtRbFkSbNIFMR4PPfX5LSoZMiClKlIT6E3YYuRzWcN4NF-bR0VYZl4zv2iVnYUdTFSw/s1600-h/Bishnu+khadka.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFVtI1Y3BbuaXTscih9AnE_2GjsvQYDWa3_5KGeROYoxH9tAnSrekeAmx67Ya-sOUbtRbFkSbNIFMR4PPfX5LSoZMiClKlIT6E3YYuRzWcN4NF-bR0VYZl4zv2iVnYUdTFSw/s320/Bishnu+khadka.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401620017233127058" /></a> Beldangi Refugee camp, JHAPA–Here, in this sprawling refugee camp, Bishnu Kumari Khadka (see pic) exudes a calm that doesn’t beget one whose husband has recently been murdered. Karna Bahadur Khadka, Bishnu’s husband, was stabbed to death one evening while returning home. But his murder seems to be just the tip of the iceberg in this largest concentration of Bhutanese refugees, a group that is increasingly becoming divided over the issues of third-country resettlement and repatriation back to Bhutan.<br /><br />The seven camps scattered across Eastern Nepal were supposed to be a safe haven for the Lhotsampas (Nepali-speaking southern Bhutanese), who escaped the brutal repression of the Bhutanese government in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Now, death threats and criminal activities within the camps have made the refugees qualm, even as Karna Bahadur’s murder brought to the fore simmering tensions between the two groups.<br /><br />Karna Bahadur’s murder is not the first inside the camp. In April this year, Shanti Ram Nepal, a former camp secretary was murdered. Today, those who oppose repatriation in favour of third-country resettlement have begun receiving death threats by underground outfits. One such organisation is the Druk Leopard, which began pasting computer printouts warning eight prominent refugees of dire physical consequences if they didn’t leave the camps with their families. Their crime: they were accused of betraying the cause of repatriation back to Bhutan and instead compromising on third-country resettlement.<br /><br />Indeed, third-country resettlement seems to be a contentious issue among the refugees. At least 22,000 have been resettled in developed countries, mainly the U.S., as Bhutan vehemently refuses to negotiate and repatriate any of the 106,000 refugees (UNHCR 2005) from the seven camps. A 2007 Human Rights Watch report commented that refugees who have favoured resettlement have been threatened and intimidated by groups who see repatriation as the only solution.<br /><br />In fact, the report is quoted as saying, “They (those in favour of repatriation) accuse those refugees who speak out in favor of resettlement of betraying the cause of the refugees and of aiding and abetting the continued oppression of the remaining ethnic Nepalis in Bhutan.”<br /><br />The report also declared that resettlement simply meant that it allowed the Bhutanese government to get away with the expulsion of at least a 100,000 of its own citizens in violation of international law. The report quoted a camp secretary, Hari Adhikari Bangaley, as saying he had been physically threatened by pro-repatriation refugees. “They have damaged my motorbike. They have surrounded me and threatened to cut my throat.”<br /><br />The motorcycle is for many the only means to commute between the various refugee camps, and on the evening of Sept. 8, Karna Bahadur was riding one on his way back home from Damak when he was attacked and stabbed by two assailants. “One tried to insert a rod in the front tyre”, recalls his nephew Dambar Karki, who was with Karna at the time, “while the other pushed him to the ground.”<br /><br />Though Karna’s name wasn’t on the list of the eight refugees threatened by Druk Leopard, he seemed to have rankled someone else. On Oct. 2, the Armed Police Force, which is tasked with the security of the camps, arrested Yadav Gurung and Pahal Man Rai in connection with the murder.<br /><br />The two confessed that S.B. Subba, chairperson of the Human Rights Organisation of Bhutan, was involved in the murder. According to the Bhutan News Service, a website operated by refugee journalists, Gurung also disclosed that Subba operated the United Revolutionary Front of Bhutan, an underground outfit that claimed responsibility for a series of bomb blasts that rocked Bhutan in early 2008, and was responsible for the murder, along with Gurung’s sister-in-law. Both were at large at the time of writing, and though the motive behind the murder hasn’t been revealed, it increasingly looks like a conflict between two separate schools of thought within the camps.<br /><br />For Karna Bahadur was also a mediator, a go-between in several of the disputes that routinely cropped up in the camps. On the day he was murdered, he was returning from his nephew’s funeral. Now, people speak about Karna’s funeral—estimates say there were at least 10,000 participants.<br /><br />Karna, his relatives say, was an ardent supporter of repatriation, which deepens the mystery behind his murder. His younger brother has resettled in the U.S., something he had been opposing so far. But now, with him gone and with four children, Bishnu Kumari says she may favour resettlement.<br /><br />The police here say they have beefed up security following the murder, initiating foot patrols and installing several checkpoints with bamboo barriers on the road leading to the camp. The police are also taking an inventory of all the motorcycles owned by the refugees. “Refugee camps are by nature vulnerable places, but we’re doing our best to maintain safety,” says Inspector Gandhiv Raj Syangtan, in-charge of the Beldangi-based Armed Police Force.<br /><br />In the murky milieu of the Bhutanese refugee camps, internal tensions may finally be reaching a boiling point.<br /><br />Originally published in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Kathmandu Post on Saturday</span>.Deepak Adhikarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04208908536488752741noreply@blogger.com0