Federal expression

As a country, Nepal seems condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to take to the streets to restore democracy every couple of  decades or so because democrats emulate the demagogues they replace as soon as they get to power. Revolutionaries take the country through a ruinous conflict saying the suffering is a necessary part of attaining utopia, but when they get to rule they behave like oligarchs.

The  Moaist used feudal injustices in Nepali society to fuel their revolution. The argument that the 1990 People’s Movement was unable to take the country forward was a persuasive one at a time when there was widespread disillusionment with the democratic parties. The oppressed had to rise up to overthrow the oppressors, they said, and used the grievances of downtrodden ethnic groups, women, and neglected areas of the country like the far-west to recruit fighters.

Later, they successfully used an overtly ethnic platform to garner votes in the 2008  election. The party’s manifesto carried the promise of autonomy and self-governance for neglected ethnic groups and this translated into the proposal for single-identity federal provinces in the last elections. This was patterned after the Stalin-Mao model of provinces named after ethnicities, but which didn’t really have any power in an over-centralised communist command structure. Today, Janajati leaders have all been disappointed by Maoist Chairman  puspa kamal dahal trying to play both sides and going progressively lukewarm on federalism.

Dahal resorted to usual doublespeak during his trip to Beijing last week where he assuaged Chinese concerns about the possible fragmentation of an ethno-federated Nepal by explaining that he was actually for ‘federal centralism’. His hosts must have been puzzled by this oxymoron and reminded of Mao’s own notion of ‘democratic centralism’.

Geo-strategically, there is concern both in China and some sections in India, that an untested experiment with 

federalism could seriously destabilise Nepal. The main reason we failed for four years to write a new constitution was because of the disagreement over the nature and extent of federalism. Even the compromise formula that the political parties had settled for in the afternoon of 28 May last year could have been disastrous because it would have left radicals on all sides dissatisfied. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai probably did Nepal a favour by dissolving the CA and announcing new elections.

Nearly a year later, we are still planning to have that election. And we are poised to repeat history because the new CA will probably get stuck on the same old issue of federalism. Nothing has really happened in the last 11 months to bridge the gap between the positions of those for and against single-identity federalism. From the statements of politicians and ethnic pressure groups it is clear that the elections will essentially be a referendum on federalism.

Year after year since the last elections,  surveys have shown that most Nepalis, including those from various ethnic groups, have misgivings about identity-based federalism. What they really want is development that is hastened by effective decentralisation and autonomy that redresses the historical lack of say of the marginalised in governance. The fear is probably that future provinces named after a single ethnic group may lead to internecine violence.

That needn’t be so. If we can ensure that the names of provinces are only symbolic and no ethnicity will have priority rights within that province, the election could be a way to finally finding a formula for federalism acceptable to all in the next constitution. But for that we need the political parties to abide by an electoral code of conduct not to fan communal flames during the campaign period.

It is because of the sins of our past rulers that we need to address the pent-up grievances of marginalised communities by recognising their identity while devolving political decision-making to the new provinces. It would have been best for development and the economy if the provinces had contiguous Mountain, Hill, and Tarai belts within them. But that may not be politically possible now.

However, we must remember that  federilasm in whatever form will guarantee development. We can only hope that history will not repeat itself and keep Nepal poor even after we carve up the country into those eight or so provinces.

Chalo Delhi

UCPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal left for New Delhi on Saturday afternoon. Before leaving for Delhi, Dahal stated that the visit would focus on seeking support from India to hold the Constituent Assembly polls in Nepal along with encouraging Indian investment in Nepal’s hydro power and tourism sector.

This is his third visit to India where he is scheduled to meet top Indian leaders and government officials. Dahal had visited India in November 2006 after signing the peace process and in September 2008 as prime minister. Dahal’s relationship with India hit an all time low after his government sacked the then Army Chief Rookmangud Katawal in April 2009.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal was in Beijing last week where he met with President Xi Jinping and other high ranking officials to discuss about Nepal’s economic prosperity and stability.

Tour de Nepal

For the past 14 years, Honorary Consul for Nepal in France, Didier Benard, has been promoting Nepal and encouraging the French people to visit the country he dearly loves. Nepali Times caught up with Benard in Kathmandu shortly after he returned from a trek to Rara.

DEVYANI SHIVAKOTI

Nepali Times: You have been a regular visitor to Nepal for the past three decades, what keeps you coming back ?

Didier Benard: I first came to Nepal in 1985. It was my maiden trip to Asia so I was fascinated by the people who are always so open and accommodating, the rich culture, and the mountains surrounding Kathmandu. There is so much to see and experience here. During my first visit I adopted a son and then five years later adopted a daughter. We made it a point to visit Nepal every few years because we wanted our children to learn about the country where they were born.

How has Nepal changed in all these years?

The country has made immense progress in the last 30 years despite the insurgency. I was in Mugu a few weeks ago and it was heartening to see so many girls in school. More than the high-rises in Kathmandu, it’s indicators like increased awareness about education, health, and sanitation that show how far Nepal has forged ahead. Nepalis are embracing modern lifestyles, but are still keeping their diverse culture alive and this is great.

How well do the French people know Nepal and what do they think of us?

The internet has opened up Nepal to a lot more French people. They can now get information not only from their countrymen (and women) but from travellers around the world who have visited Nepal. Most are lured by the snow capped peaks, but it is the people and diverse culture they fall in love with and that keeps them coming back again and again. Even during the conflict the number of French tourists was pretty high and they keep increasing.

Tell us about your work as a consul in France.

Although I am a doctor by profession, I have been working as an honorary consul of Nepal since 1999. We don’t just promote popular trekking routes and sightseeing destinations like Pokhara and Lumbini, but also lesser known places like the tea gardens of Ilam and the national park in Bardiya. We are always on the lookout for new travel locations. This year I travelled around Mugu and was spell bound by the rich culture and raw beauty of Rara Lake. I want to introduce this region to the French people.

The consul developed a website in French to reach out to a larger audience and I also travel a lot around France promoting the culture and traditions of Nepal.

How do you assess the efforts of the Nepali government and private entrepreneurs in promoting Nepal in France?

The private sector has been quite impressive. It has bought in many French tourists despite the messy politics. The government, however, has been largely disappointing. The Nepali embassy’s website in France is in English which obviously puts off many people. Nepali authorities have to be more dynamic in promoting their country. Even simple steps like developing websites in local languages instead of English would help.

So many French people want to visit Nepal, but they are deterred by long and complicated flights. The Nepali government needs to work with its counterparts in Europe to make the country more accessible by introducing direct flights to cities like Paris, London, Brussels. Tourism in Nepal also has to move beyond the Kathmandu-Pokhara-Chitwan circuit.

Social media magnification

Domestic violence and the victimisation of women is not new in our male-directed societies, what is new is the degree to which its magnification through social media can spread solidarity, and potentially trigger policy change

Women raise their voices against gender violence in Kathmandu. Photo: Bikram Rai

The street demonstrations in Kathmandu against recent rapes and murders of women would probably not have made it to the #2 news on BBC World on Saturday morning if it hadn’t been tagged to the anti-rape protests in Delhi. And that story wouldn’t have been the #1 item if the protests in India hadn’t snowballed due to outraged citizens on social media leading the charge. As the protests grew and continued in India, it fuelled print and TV coverage, and the chain reaction attained critical mass.

In Nepal, protests over the robbery and rape of a 20-year-old woman by immigration and police broke into the public consciousness last month because of the role of journalists and cyber-savvy activists.  Left to the traditional media, the story would probably have died quietly like many other rape stories before. It was a tipping point because the crime involved immigration officials who looted the young woman and a policeman who, instead of protecting her, turned predator.

Pending murders and disappearances of women in Kathmandu, and the cases of two young women who were burnt alive by family members in Banke and Bara at about the same time, added fuel to the fire. The protests in Kathmandu would possibly have happened anyway, but saturation coverage in the Indian media about the Delhi rape also helped sustain the public’s interest in Nepal.

These were not isolated crimes. Rape has always been endemic in Nepal, it’s just that women press charges more often now and the media reports it. It is also a cross-border phenomenon because we share similar patriarchal value-systems with northern India. At the time this story was breaking in Nepal, a piece by Satrudhan Shah and commissioned by the Centre for Investigative Journalism detailed many cases in the eastern Tarai of victims forced to marry their rapists by the community, police and even gender rights activists. The story was published in Annapurna Post in Nepali, and as ‘Rape for Ransom‘ in English in Nepali Times.

In July 2011, in a crime not very different than the Delhi case, a young nun was savagely raped by a group of men in a bus in Bhojpur in eastern Nepal. There was some media coverage during the time  but nothing on the scale of the nationwide outrage that is happening now. Why the discrepancy? Did the fact that this incident happened in a remote district have anything to do with it? Is Bhojpur less important than Kathmandu?

Could it be that activists weren’t yet using social media as effectively then to spread their outrage in the nun rape? Have the number of Twitter and Facebook users in Nepal crossed a critical mass in the last one-and-half years? Or is this a case of what Indian commentator Ajaz Ashraf, while analysing the protests in Delhi, called ‘the privilege of grief‘ and ‘the hierarchy of sorrow’?  Indeed, why did one rape provoke sustained protests outside Baluwatar and Singha Darbar, when thousands of rapes and murders in the past year didn’t?

Every crime cited in Satrudhan Shah’s investigative piece from Mahottari is a misogynist manifestation of male dominance, each of them could be described as ‘heinous’, ‘savage’, ‘brutal’. But the victims were Dalit or Muslim girls in the poorest districts in Nepal. Traditional media rules define ‘news’ as something that is out of the ordinary, absurd, negative, where a lot of people have to die suddenly and spectacularly, all in one place. When rape is an everyday occurrence, then it is not out of the ordinary anymore. If the victims are well-to-do, an accident is always more newsworthy, and it is even more so if there are interesting visuals.

Something that happens to lots of poor people, especially women and children, scattered across a remote and poor part of one of the poorest countries in the world doesn’t fit the news paradigm. And a mainstream media steeped in society’s patriarchal culture reacts to stories of rape much in the same way as the policeman in Mahottari who feels his role is not to detain suspects, but to mediate between powerful political protectors of the rapist and the violated woman’s community by arranging a marriage between the victim and perpetrator.

The culture of male domination pervades every sphere of Nepali life, exacting its toll mainly on girls and young women. It manifests itself in the slaughter of unborn daughters through the increasing prevalence of female foeticide.  Once they are born, brothers are sometimes fed before sisters, and more likely to be taken to hospital if they are sick, boys are mostly enrolled in private schools while girls go to cheaper government schools. Child marriage is still common, the female school dropout rate is double that for boys, dowry deaths, bride-burning, acid attacks, ‘honour killings’ by family members’, lack of citizenship in the mother’s name, women tortured for being ‘witches’, domestic violence, harassment at work, are all at epidemic proportions. Aggression against women, rape and murder are just extreme manifestations of this entrenched culture of domination, discrimination and violence.

By its very nature, the media industry is obsessed with the, rich, powerful and famous. Its short attention span, its reactive nature makes the mainstream press unable or unwilling to cover the structural socio-cultural roots of gender-based violence. We are trained to cover events not trends, incidents not processes, breaking news not analysis and interpretation. This is why after the feeding frenzy is over, the media will inevitably move on to another crisis. If the timing is not right and there is a political scandal at the same time, the story of another rape in a faraway district will break, flash briefly, and fade away.

The activists on the streets outside Baluwatar know this, which is why they are pacing themselves for sustained protests, maintaining the energy level and building up solidarity through social media.  Their demands are not just for fast-tracking the investigation and trial in the four iconic cases, but to drive the political will to amend laws and make the bureaucracy and police more accountable. As in India, there is a demand to look holistically at what can be done to reform the mindset of Nepali maledom so that laws are enforced to deter crimes against women.

And if the traditional media will not take up the issues, activists now have blogs, Twitter and the 1.7 million users of Facebook in Nepal to galvanise public opinion.

These crimes happen because of both class and gender-based power differentials. Those in positions of authority use opportunity, impunity and the pervading culture of corruption to prey on the vulnerable. That is why Kathmandu airport has become such a hotbed of crime, and even before the case of Sita Rai there were 3-5 cases every week of women migrant workers robbed or abused by immigration officials and police. The last place many Dalit or Muslim families go to when their daughters are raped in the Tarai is the police station, and often they can’t even expect a sympathetic hearing from male members of their own families and communities. Many Nepali girls trafficked to India from the districts around Kathmandu for sexual slavery are sold off by their uncles, brothers or fathers.

Under the doctrine of ‘state obligation’ it should be a sovereign nation’s responsibility to protect citizens and deliver justice. But we can’t hold out much hope given this administration’s track record on corruption and impunity. The outrage with which Nepal’s political parties reacted to the detention in the UK this week of army colonel Kumar Lama for torture committed during the conflict shows that justice is very low on the list of priorities for Nepal’s rulers. Justice is a mirage for war crimes, murders, disappearances, torture and rape committed between 1996 and 2006 because the warring sides are now both in the establishment. But what the rulers don’t realise is that when the state abdicates its role, perpetrators can be apprehended under the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’.

The only sliver of hope is that Nepali society is changing rapidly. Female literacy has doubled in the last 15 years, resulting in the average age of marriage going up, the fertility rate coming down dramatically. With 30 per cent of young Nepali men working outside the country, women are single-handedly managing households and taking leadership positions in forestry, irrigation, school and health post management committees.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons for the increase in violence against women: literate women are more assertive, while men even if they can read and write, are still steeped in patriarchal entitlement. What we are seeing in Nepal today is that gender collision.

For the traditional media, it is time for introspection and to ask whether it should remain a mute observer or take on an agenda-setting role. Media should complement social media and citizen journalism to be a force for social change. But are journalists prepared to make a paradigm shift in coverage by covering processes and not just events? How gender-sensitive are we, how inclusive are our newsrooms, are we going beyond the event to dig at the roots of violence, will our coverage lead to social reform, or will it be sensational, superficial and a brief pause before the spotlight moves elsewhere?

Live high, train low

The Bolivian football team is not going to win the World Cup. At an altitude of around 4,000m, there just is not enough oxygen in La Paz, the capital, to train to full capacity no matter how good a player is. Perhaps if the World Cup was held in La Paz, it might be a different story. On a similar note, some people hope that our high altitude marathon runners will one day win Olympic gold medals in marathon. However, the probability is very low because training at altitudes above 3,000m where there is a severe shortage of oxygen is not very helpful for contestants.

As we ascend, the barometric pressure falls and as a result the oxygen in the atmosphere decreases. The barometric pressure at 5,800m is half of 760 mmHg, the sea level pressure. The amount of oxygen is always 21 per cent of the barometric pressure whether at sea level or the peak of Mount Everest.

Since even a fraction of a second makes the difference between winning or losing, countries spend billions every year to find the ‘optimal’ altitude which would improve athletes’ chances of bringing home the gold. Recent research suggests that training at low altitude (sea level) while sleeping at high altitude (about 2,000m) is most effective in enhancing performance.

This method known as ‘live high train low’ is so popular among coaches and management that players are made to sleep in customised tents that simulate a high altitude environment and train at sea level because obtaining adequate oxygen during preparation is vital.

The reason athletes tend to do better when sleeping in these moderate altitudes is because the body senses the hypoxia (low oxygen) and triggers the production of more haemoglobin which carries the all-important nutrient, oxygen, to all the tissues of the body. This increase in haemoglobin is in fact a natural form of blood doping.

For winning competitions at high altitude, it may be good to train above 3,000m, but if you want to stand on the winner’s podium, high altitude training is worthless. The ‘live high train low’ approach may be the best answer to breaking Olympic records.