Elephant boy

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

Pious Hindus have been trekking in their thousands to a remote village in the Nepali Himalaya, to catch sight of a baby with a rare malformation – a headless ‘parasitic twin’ fused to its abdomen. But they don’t come merely to ogle; they are on a pilgrimage to pay homage to an incarnation of Ganesh. The baby boy’s four arms and four legs chime with common representations of the elephant god with multiple arms; this ‘miracle’ is considered no coincidence. Word has got about: Since Risab was born in January, his family has had to welcome some 5, 000 visitors, many from far away districts, a few having walked the entire way. The village can be inundated by as much as a hundred in a day. The father, Rikhi Ghimire, is frequently addressed by pilgrims as the father of god.

But the attitude towards Risab has been somewhat cooler in the village itself. The mother, Januk, fears that many villagers believe the birth to be witchcraft; such superstitions are resilient in rural Nepal, and have been know to give way to violence. What is more, a village priest, Sher Bahadur Bodathorki, has openly accused to baby of being a curse on the village – the fruit of a sin from a past life – and the cause of the delayed monsoon. The late and lacklustre rains have been disastrous for agriculturally-dependent families – the majority of Nepal – and the subsequent anger could prove dangerous when coupled with delusions such as this.

Despite the fanfare, Ghimire family want nothing more than for their boy to have a ‘normal body’. Risab suffers from a condition that afflicts from one in 50,000 to one in 200,000 births. There is little awareness of such conditions in rural Nepal; hence the reaction, both positive and negative. Rikhi has already taken a trip to Kathmandu in search of a medical solution – a lengthy and costly measure from a village a full day’s walk from the nearest town. But, after examination, doctors said they would need to monitor Risab for six months. Rikhi could not afford to be out of work and live in Kathmandu that long. And the necessary surgery would in any case cost upwards of USD 50, 000. There was nothing for it but to return home with Risab.

The needs of the infant are barely met by the impoverished family; he is difficult to bathe, oil and put to sleep. A family of five living in a one-room house they share with goats and chickens, both mother and father toil in the fields through the day, leaving Risab to the care of his maternal grandmother. Yet, despite the burden, Januk is adamant that Risab will not be put up for adoption. A cynic may put this down to the material benefit the child generates for the family; the thousands of pilgrims invariably leave offerings of rupees, and sometimes food and clothes. But this is belied by the great efforts already taken by the father to seek medical help. And perseverance in the face of borderline social ostracism, in a society where the community is paramount, speaks of genuine commitment.

Widows for sale

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

What is traditionally the country’s most suppressed and passive community has become a loud member of Nepal’s dissenting chorus. Hundreds of widows rallied in Pokhara on July 16 to protest a cash incentive – announced in the government’s annual budget earlier that week – of 50,000 rupees for men who chose to marry widows. Widows, quite literally, are being put up for sale.

But Pokhara is merely the epicenter of an anger felt throughout Nepal. Widows in 52 out of Nepal's 75 districts have sent petitions to their local administrations. Lily Thapa, who founded the Women for Human Rights (WHR) group 15 years ago after her husband died in the Gulf War, spelt out the objection in moral terms: ‘The offer turns widows into commodities and paves the way for their further exploitation [most notably, domestic violence].’ WHR has documented dozens of cases of women, widowed during the 10-year Maoist insurgency, being duped into second marriages for their compensation money – a trend that can only increase with the new scheme.

Ten years of civil war has widowed hundreds of women across the county – not to mention the many more children who now depend on them alone. The announcement in the budget is a corner stone of the nascent government’s postwar reconstruction program; in this light, it looks all too much like deliberate avoidance of a comprehensive compensation scheme for families in need. Crude match-making is a penny-pinching ‘solution’ to the liability of the fatherless family. Dama Sharma, a Maoist MP whose husband was a victim of the insurgency – and whose party opposes the offer – called for the state to provide vocational training and jobs, to allow widows some measure of independence.

If the reward-scheme stays in place, a new breed of bounty hunter is set to emerge among the Nepali manhood – the widow catcher, scanning the streets for white saris. But said bounty hunter would have to remain aloof from the stigma attached to widows in Hindu communities throughout Southasia. Sati is only a freak phenomenon these days, but widows are often quite literally outcastes in their own villages – in some cases their own families. Achieving widowhood means an immediate loss of status; they are no longer allowed to take part in religious ceremonies, and are forbidden from wearing auspicious red clothing or jewelry – instead, they must wear only white. A widow in your home is bad omen – hence the maltreatment they often receive by their own families.

Ostracism is considered worse in India than in Nepal, although – perhaps as a consequence – it is entrenched in the Nepali Tarai that borders India. Yet Nepal has much to learn from India in the rehabilitation of widows into mainstream society. Indian state governments have special schemes for assisting widows, such as free rations of rice and free use of public transport. But the boundaries they face are largely found within the communities themselves; and this flashpoint is merely a chapter of a protracted story of emancipation among Southasia’s Hindu widows.

Displaced turbans

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

Open any Nepali newspaper, any day, and – you guessed it – another banda is, somewhere, in action (or rather, inaction). Few areas have been untouched, the Tarai hosting the worse disruptions, often enforced by YCL and other militant groups, whose thuggery continues to run unchecked. The budding Republic is slowly grinding to a halt, strike by strike. So much so that many have chosen to pack up and leave.

That large swathes of the Tarai Sikh community - who seem to bring a measure of prosperity with them wherever they go - are leaving for India is both a dire testament of the state of Nepal and an omen for troubles to come. Gurudwara Guru Nanak Satsang, a religious organisation based in Birgunj, reported a 90% plus migration of Sikh families from the Nepali border town. The chief of Satsang, Nanak Singh, put the shift in grim perspective: ‘There were 452 Sikh families in Birgunj until six years back. Now, only 29 families remain.’ And Birgunj is only a bit-player in an exodus happening throughout Nepal.

The story of Sikh migration into Nepal is one of healthy pluck and enterprise. It began tentatively a little over forty years ago, with a few families settling in border town such as Birgunj and setting up businesses – most notably in transportation. Success stories crept back India, circulating largely among Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir. The flow increased, and Sikhs fanned across Nepal, initiating or entering myriad transportation companies. But now, with movement – on which the industry depends – capped with each new strike, Nepal has become a losing game.

Though many Nepalis have long resented Indian ownership of large sectors Nepali industry – amounting, in their eyes, to colonialism – this reverse migration belies an uncomfortable truth: opportunities, plentiful only a few decades ago, have since evaporated. Aside from the disintegration that will inevitably afflict Nepal’s transport sector, the knock on affect will be severe; virtually every industry relies on transportation in some form or another. But the true victims remain the de-populated communities themselves. Such migration could well prove contagious, but for those without escape routes, the future is bleak: with every marginalised group calling standstills at will, the already-shallow economy is fast diminishing into a pre-monsoon trickle.

Hacks in high places

Originally published in The Saint, October '09

This summer just past, I spent three sweaty months in Nepal – not teaching kids, building loos or saving snow leopards from certain extinction. Instead, I interned with a political/cultural monthly magazine, Himal Southasian, covering the South Asia region from Tibet to the Maldives. English-language, high-brow, subversive – Himal was a magazine that readily appealed to a Southasia-phile such as myself, and my internship afforded a privileged window into the uncertain world of Nepali journalism.

On arriving back in St Andrews in late September, we all get subjected – and gleefully subject others – to the same nauseating question: ‘So, how was your summer.’ To this I could give a petulantly smug answer: ‘Well, I practised journalism in the Himalayan foothills. Oh, so you worked for dad at home. How interesting.’ But, though I am loathe to admit it, it wasn’t all the India-Jones adventure you might expect. Much of the time I was working in an office – yes, with desks and computers and telephones and stuff. I’d turn up in the morning around ten, say hi to my Himal colleagues, make myself a rancid cup of instant coffee, sit before my computer, switch the thing on; and so the scrapes would begin. I didn’t interview politicians or brave arrest and torture to expose dastardly corporations; neither did I get a shiny card I could shove in people’s faces.

Yet, I was part of something exciting. Journalism is a noble cause in Nepal. As it is any country. But in Nepal it takes on a more heroic guise – a tights and cape profession. There, intimidation of journalists is something of an organised sport. They are considered fair game by much of the political class, particularly the Maoists who, after a decade of guerrilla warfare, were voted into office after the 2008 elections.

Last May, after nine months in power, the Maoists suddenly found themselves in opposition to a UML (United Marxist Leninist) -led coalition, due to the resignation of Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda (‘the fierce one’) over his ‘unconstitutional’ sacking of the conservative army chief. But they can still bring Nepal to a halt at a whisper – as they prove with the endless bandas (strikes), now more numerous than Hindu festivals. They may now have entered the ‘democratic process’, but they wear political office like a child stomping about in his daddy’s shoes. It’s all just a fun little game; and their sport is to stick it to the baddies. The baddies, of course, are anyone who happens to disagree with them. In this respect, journalists are not their friends.

This is a fairly typical news item: on 1 June, the day of another enforced strike in Kathmandu, cadres of the Newar Autonomous State routinely halted vehicles bearing press logos, smashed the windows, took the keys and beat up the journalists. All to stop them reporting the hardships endured by many ordinary citizens when the city was forced to a standstill by a political group most had little sympathy with. Rocking up to cover a banda – or any other kind of political incident; a rally, for instance – is dealt with as insubordination.

But, worst of all in these cases, no one is punished, the victims go uncompensated, and groups like the Youth Communist League – the militant arm of the Maoists – only grow in strength. More pressing than corruption in Nepal is impunity – Nepal is ranked 8th on CPJ’s Impunity Index, as a country ‘where journalists are murdered on a recurring basis and governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers’. In all this, the police are little more than smartly-dressed spectators. As the YCL beats up another of their ‘class enemies,’ they merely stand by, wagging their fingers like disapproving nannies.

It doesn’t help that few of the media laws that exist in Britain, defining the limits with which politicians and the press can attack each other, are in place in Nepal. Neither the politician or journalist knows how far they should go – in the absence of libel laws or anything similar – and so both play a dangerous game, striking where they can and crying foul at the slightest affront. The press itself is no angel: there is a lot ‘yellow’ journalism among the smaller, Nepali-language papers – namely, blackmailing businessmen for hefty ‘donations’ under the threat of smear campaigns. None of this is conducive to a healthy public life in Nepal – something it so badly needs in this transitional period, where the refusal of the elected Maoists to join the ruling coalition continues the bleed the government of legitimacy.

Himal Southasian itself has not been untouched by the state’s manhandling of the media. Just a couple of years ago, as protests against King Gyandra were reaching a fever pitch – and shortly before the monarchy was deposed – Himal’s editor Kanak Mani Dixit (now also an advisor to current prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal), was put in gaol for a brief period for his dissident, anti-monarchic views. He edited a whole edition of Himal while inside, on a clapped-out Dell laptop – the very laptop I was landed with in the Himal office. So, there I was: an heir to a rebel tradition.