Dasain starts October 13th and continues until Oct 27th. Kathmandu will seem deserted because so many people return to their village at that time, and the locals stay home to eat and gamble. The government issues clean new bills just before Dasain, to enhance the card games. Dasain can't come soon enough this year. The Nepalis working overseas will make an effort to return, and the uncertainty creates anxiety. "Once a year you should allow your feet to leave the ground"
Short version of events
The siege of Kathmandu continues, with only a trickle of cargo trucks crossing the border from India into Nepal. The Indian government denies any official "blockade" and the Nepalis of the plains continue to press their demands for changes in the new constitution. There is more open talk referring to the new constitution as a failure. The people in the hills are getting angry, channeling it against India. Negotiations between the Nepalis of the plains and those of the hills have begun, and the government has sent the Army (which was deployed after the murders of policemen August 24th) back to the barracks. The bandh in the Terai continues, and there is not a lot of trust that any agreement will be fulfilled.
Welcome to the post-petroleum apocalypse
Buses are running in Kathmandu, with petrol rationing. There is no guarantee of getting a seat. Last year, the police cracked down on roof-riding. so much for that idea. photo from Kantipur.
While this is happening, 800,000 Nepalis, half of them children, are at risk of "food insecurity." Nepal already has the
highest rate of underweight children of any country on earth. There is 4.8 billion USD pledged by foreign governments for earthquake reconstruction, unclaimed and unspent. Winter is coming, and in the hills the people will heat with wood (deforestation!) because there is no LP gas. The are hundreds of thousands of young Nepali men working abroad, mostly in the Gulf States, sending remittance home. Nepal is number one in the world for percentage of citizens pursuing foreign employment. The anti-India sentiment has spread. And the tourist industry is conducting a campaign titled
" I am in Nepal now."
People are trying to cope. Here's a lighthearted message. There's a lot more to it than simply biking to work.
And a friend of mine in Kathmandu wonders why the people in the plains are so unhappy.
There is hope - the government has designated a committee to negotiate with the protesters. There is an orange blob just below - maybe it's engine oil that dripped from a stalled truck..... click on "continue reading" and learn more......
Let's start with hope
Back from the Brink
from Republica
More is being done to take the agitating parties in Tarai-Madhesh into confidence. The Big Three, in keeping with the demands of the agitating parties, are now ready to delineate electoral constituencies on population basis and ensure proportional representation of marginalized communities at all state organs, it is learned. They have also hinted at redrawing provincial boundaries, again in line with the demands of the protesting parties. Although the nitty-gritty is yet to be worked out, the bill to amend the new constitution to incorporate these provisions is expected to be tabled in the legislature-parliament on October 2nd. Moreover, a three-member talks-team has been formed to initiate dialogue with the protesting parties. As a confidence-building measure, Nepal Army has also been called back to barracks in many places. These are all indications of a more accommodating attitude towards protestors. Now these must be reciprocated by Madheshi and Tharu outfits. They should at once come back to the negotiating table and end the crippling blockade in the supply of essential commodities from vital border points into Nepal. - See more at: http://myrepublica.com/editorial/story/28922/back-from-brink.html#sthash.IoJKjbwt.dpufttp://">http://myrepublica.com/...
from Kathmandu Post. The line of trucks extends well back from the border into India. I'll keep posting these but - by now I hope the readers get the picture of the effect of the dispute between Nepalis of the plains and Nepalis of the hills.
Emotions run high
There was a photo posted of four drivers who'd been beaten, heads partially shaved, and each given a "shoe necklace" for defying the bandh. It could have been worse for them. I'm not posting the actual photo because I don't want to take you by surprise. The caption to accompany was written in Nepali:
मोरङ्ममा बन्द गर्न आएका बिहारीहरुलाई आधा-मुन्डन गराएर जुत्ताको माला लगाइदेर सिमा कटाइयो....अब सबै बिहारिहरुको एही हालत हुनेछ
One thread of discussion in Kathmandu is "How to end the reliance on overland transport from India?" The only answer is - China. One problem? the Himalaya is in the way. And many roads were blocked by landslides. Still, they have redoubled the efforts to re-open.
Nepal is landlocked, between India and China. The Kodari road (pictured) was blocked during the 2015 earthquake. I hate to say this to my readers in Kathmandu - but - it doesn't look like it will ready any time soon, even though the article says one week. Even when it is, the supply chain- consisting of new vendors, new trucks, new routes - will need to be built from scratch. And when the time comes, the
Terai will still import it's stuff from India.
Here is the article to describe efforts to re-open the China roads.
Sep 29, 2015- In view of the ongoing undeclared blockade India has imposed on, efforts are made aggressively to reopen the Kodari Highway which has been obstructed repeatedly with dry landslides following the Arpil 25 Earthquake.
The Chinese Armed Force had reopened the highway for one-way traffic on the request of the Nepal government after the massive earthquake of April 25, which however was blocked with dry landslides.
Flying In to Tribhuvan International Airport?
The airport authority has informed all carriers that they do not have enough jet fuel to refuel any aircraft. Some airlines, such as China Southern, have suspended all flights for the next two weeks, saying they will re-evaluate later. Others, such as the flights from the Middle East, will now add a new stop in India or Bangladesh.
Schools is Kathmandu are now open again. This is not a paper-based society and the system of pedagogy is different from what an American would take for granted.
Schools have re-opened.
In the Terai, the "bandh" (general strike) has now been going on for 46 days.
Among the supplies held up at the border are medicines manufactured in India. the Government is taking steps to import pills from other sources and these will arrive via air.
Why isn't the International Community Speaking up?
The international community’s silence can only be explained by assuming that it has, for the moment, bought India’s argument that this is not a blockade but a mere trade disruption caused by law-and-order breakdown in Nepal. It is difficult to believe diplomats in Kathmandu aren’t aware that protests in our flatlands aren’t as disruptive or as violent as they were before Sept. 20 when the constitution was adopted and when Nepal-India trade was continuing smoothly. It is also difficult to believe they don’t know the protests are limited to just eight or ten districts. There are more than two dozen big and small trading points between Nepal and India in the 20 Terai districts stretching from Jhapa to Kanchanpur. - See more at: http://setopati.net/...
Businessmen speak up
KATHMANDU, Sept 30: Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) has demanded that the government resolve the current crisis in different Tarai district and create a favorable environment for resumption of closed factories. It has also urged the political parties to hold talks with the agitating parties at the earliest to resolve the crisis.Industries and business firms based in Tarai have been closed for the last 48 days due to banda imposed by the Madhesi parties. - See more at: http://myrepublica.com/...
Now - as to "why?"
I was a bit surprised to read a FaceBook posting from a friend who said he doesn't understand why the "Madhesi" people would do this. (for me, I have decided to refer to them as "Nepalis of the plains" as opposed to "Nepalis of the hills"). Um, hate to break this news, but the Nepalis of the plains have valid grievances that have been steamrollered. Today, in The Kathmandu Post, there was a very good editorial by Mr. Apoorva Lal about the outlook for Nepalis of the plains.
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/...
Cycle of exclusion
Laws that fail to break the poverty-alienation-statelessness trap are driving much of the anger in the Madhes
Sep 30, 2015- Last week, the Constituent Assembly promulgated the Constitution of Nepal (2072). Alongside the issues regarding secularism, federal delineation, proportional representation, and gender equity, the citizenship laws codified in the new constitution and its implications on poverty deserve detailed discussion.
Misogynistic law
The citizenship laws in Article 11 of the new constitution perpetuate the problem of statelessness and thus fail to address this fundamental hurdle to economic development that bars nearly four million Nepalis from engaging in necessary and everyday affairs such as buying and selling land, sitting for a higher-level examinations, accessing financial services, registering to vote, or even acquiring something as basic as mobile phone sim-card. These laws fail to break the poverty-alienation-statelessness trap that is driving much of the anger in the Southern plains........
One need not have had much experience with the Nepali state apparatus to recognise that the demographics are heavily stacked against her, and this means that she may well be denied citizenship and thus be rendered stateless. This means that she is now barred from sitting for her 12th grade exams, open a bank account, purchase land for agriculture or even apply for tenant rights, apply for a passport, register to vote, or even get a sim-card. This closes the door to not only productive agriculture, but human capital accumulation (barred from exams), labour market access (no papers, cannot get a cellphone), access to capital for entrepreneurial activity (no financial access) to mention just a few. This severely stunts her developmental capabilities, and most likely relegates her to severe poverty and eking out a living doing menial jobs/illegal yet extant bonded labour.
The op-ed is simply devastating. He continues:
And this constitution, touted as one that would give them dignity and justice, perpetuates this horrific injustice, and fails to even acknowledge the problem.
Mr. Lal then wrote:
Even isolated to this single issue, one can see how this is a deeply repugnant state of affairs. Now put this into the broader social context of inequality, poverty, ethnic discrimination, and racism in Nepal. Imagine the pure unadulterated rage of somebody who was falsely promised that this monumental injustice would be corrected. Kathmandu, meanwhile, mutters incoherently about national unity, geopolitics, and that it is a necessary step to prevent ‘Fijikaran’ (‘Fiji-fication’, the progressive increase in political power of ethnic Indians in Fiji—?a fanciful, frankly pathetic notion that poorly masks deeply seated racism and Hill/Khas chauvinism). It further proceeds to send the Army at these protesters and characterises the deaths of nearly 40 people as ‘merely mangoes falling from a tree’.
This particular reason may or may not be the reason driving every Madhesi protester on the streets of Birgunj, Janakpur, Jaleshwor, Lahan, or Biratnagar, but either directly experiencing it or witnessing the poverty-alienation-statelessness trap it most certainly drives a large number of them. There is legitimate grievance borne of years of poverty and discrimination in addition to the experience of racism and alienation that drive many Madhesis on the streets today.
he concludes with:
To hear this, you must listen, rather than pontificate about how you personally have never harmed a Madhesi and/or that the whole protest movement is ‘an Indian ploy to tear Nepal apart’. To many of these protesters, their Nepal has never existed; it has merely stood for what they have been deprived of, both legally and emotionally. That they are angry is evidence that they want in, to leave an existence where they are stripped of dignity and relegated a pitiful menial state.
Lal is an economics researcher. He studied economics and political science at Williams College, the US
I should add: the USA just swore in their new ambassador to Nepal - a career diplomat. I think that person has their work cut out for them.
I write these diaries because there is not much coverage in USA otherwise. This is plenty long for today. Let me know what you think!
5:29 AM PT: UPDATE: AS of Thursday, the government will no longer distribute fuel to private vehicles. http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/...
"Sep 30, 2015- The government has decided not to distribute petroleum products to private vehicles starting from Thursday in view of deepening fuel crisis following ‘unofficial blockade’ imposed by India.
Representatives of Home Ministry, Supply Ministry and security agencies took the decision during a meeting held on Wednesday.
All private vehicles including school buses, tipper and truck will not be allowed to refill fuel three days from tomorrow, according to spokesperson at the Home Ministry Laxmi Prasad Dhakal. However, government and vehicles hauling edible products will be allowed to fuel.
“The government took the decision to ease the shortage,” said Dhakal “The duration may be prolonged if the situation persists.”
The government had earlier introduced quota system for fuel distribution."
8:00 AM PT: UPDATE:
the New York Times published an editorial today, I don't know how I missed it. the key paragraph is:
"There is a real risk now that a historic opportunity for national unity and healing has been squandered. Every effort should be made to address the grievances of these groups, including amending the new Constitution to ensure their equitable participation."
and the link is: http://www.nytimes.com/...