Sete’s Mother Sends a Letter to India

By Khagendra Sangroula

Excerpted from the novel Junkiriko Sangeet (Kathmandu: Bhudipuran Prakashan, 1999), this letter is dictated by a Damai woman to an NGO worker in her Parbat village. It is addressed to her husband, who is working in India.

Sacred master at my head,
I lower my head and bow down to you.

We’ve all been at ease till the day
of this letter’s writing. Each
evening and morning I plead to
Sri Baglung Devi that you may also remain in comfort. When your father found out that Bhinaju had brought a letter, he went to fetch the letter. I took the chance, when your mother and father were out of the house, to ask Sir to read it to me. Sete’s father, how my heart knotted when I read your letter! My eyes filled with tears. What kind of life do we have? We can’t even stay together though we’re husband and wife. Who knows where you are in that foreign country. I’m here, in the village. To stay together, to laugh together: they’ve become like words of jest. When I see what others have, I feel a longing.

Sete’s father, it put me at ease to hear you were staying with Uncle’s son. Otherwise who knows what it’s like in others’ lands: I hear it’s not the kind of place to stay or walk about alone. What else would I know? What’s your present job like? What kind of work must you do? You didn’t write anything about that. We womenfolk, no matter how much we’re told not to worry, we keep worrying. There’d be no worrying without love, it’s not possible to stay unworried if there’s love. You, you’re one of the menfolk, their hearts aren’t as tender as women’s. For us, the sacred master at our head is everything. After having to leave our father, our mother and our birthplace to come empty handed to our husband’s house, that husband is what becomes our all. And when even that’s not nearby, you must understand how this heart cries.

Sete’s father, the clothes you sent for Sete fit perfectly as though they’d been measured against him. Sete’s feet haven’t touched the ground since the day cloth was draped on his body. He walked all over the village showing off the cloth on his body saying my father sent this from the other country. I tell you, it fit so well. How could someone living there guess the build of someone living here! I was amazed just thinking this. When you sent a shawl for your mother you might have sent me one too. I didn’t have a shawl either. What’s the good in saying so, who’s there to think of me and love me? It’s only my own one-sided love. Sete’s father, the other day I got the sugar-candy and cigarettes you sneaked for me with Bhinaju. But I think Bhinaju’s told your mother and father about it. There’s some fear in me. But your mother and father haven’t said anything till now.

Sete’s father, why speak of our suffering to someone in the other country? These days they haven’t even let us sell firewood. They’ve been confiscating bundles of firewood. Maila Bista’s been dragging off stacks and stacks, though, by the edge of the Gandaki river. But our bundles, they’ve set a rule to confiscate. Who knows what they’re trying to do! There’s no one to speak out anyway, no matter what they do. They do exactly as they want. The middle house Bista came again to our house yesterday morning. He yelled a while at your father, then left. It upsets me to remember it. Yesterday too we brought flour from Phooli Phupu to eat. How many days can it go on like this? Time never works out for me to go to my parents for even two days so that I might put aside this suffering. I’d thought of going after taking the dung to the fields but then it was time to sow the corn. It’s like I neither have work nor free time. I’ve gotten word that my mother’s sick at home. That’s why I’m going either tomorrow or the day after, if only for one night.

Sete’s father, who is there to call your own at times of suffering? Poor Maila Dewar from across the lane has thankfully been helping me. He comes every day and gives me consolation and advice. At times of worry and difficulty it’s a help just to find people to talk to. But who knows what enters people’s minds? I don’t know why, these days your mother and father don’t like this Dewar to come to the house. Well what else is there to write about? These are our sorrows. These are our sayings. These complaints won’t end no matter how much I write. But you, you’re in the other country. You must have a little ease there. Sete’s father, you said in your letter that we should raise breeding hens. How can we raise breeding hens? I keep having to go all over the village. If hens are covered they don’t grow well. Who’ll mind them if we let them loose? Sete’s small, he can’t do it; others don’t have the time. That’s why I’ve decided not to raise breeding hens. A while back the Bista took our buffalo as soon as she birthed. He didn’t even let us eat all the fatty milk. We raised it and raised it and got nothing in the end. Now your father’s brought a half-dead lice-ridden calf on half claim from the Bahun village.

Sete’s father, I’ve already written a lot in the letter. I myself don’t know how to write. I can’t even find time to have a letter written when I want. That’s why I feel like saying everything when I do get one written. There are lots of other things left inside me, but I can’t say them all in front of others. I could say everything if I could write myself. The day before yesterday boys who’d gone to the other country came back in the next village. They said they’d just finished some prayers. I asked them about you, but they said you weren’t in their area. I’d wanted to know when you’d come back and didn’t even get that answer. If my plea can be heard, you should come at once with some expenses. I’m feeling unbearable distress. You could go back after two or four days. If by any chance you can’t come, send some expenses in the hands of someone heading this way. In your next letter, write about when you’re coming. I’ve put down all my heart’s worries, read this without getting annoyed. Everyone’s fine in the village. Grandfather Indra’s illness is over. Nande Aunt had another daughter. Everything else is all right. Let me take leave from this letter now.

The sorrowful woman at your feet,
that same Sete’s mother.

Translated by
Manjushree Thapa

Village Nostalgia

By Ajit Baral

What would have been the fate of Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Milan Kundera et al. if their
literary works weren’t translated into English? Contemplate. Would their fame and recognition transcended their national boundaries? No they would not have! Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s recognition went beyond Nepal only because he has many works written in English (he could write in English with equal facility and his works have been translated into English by himself and others). In this scenario, we should demand for more and more Nepali literature in English, either translated or originally rendered in English. Not just to elicit recognition from English readers - extensive in number - but also to acquaint the same with Nepali literature.

Thus, we should be grateful that poems of our contemporary poet Manjul, have come out as Scenes from Village as one more addition to the growing corpus of Nepali literature translated into English, this time by Maya Watson. The original and translated versions are given side by side in this book. I begin to read. As the translator concedes "I have no doubt that those most apt to be critical of this version will be the native speaker of Nepali who may find this evocation less present in English" as regards to rhyme and rhythm so palpable in Nepali poems, my critic persona becomes fang-less!

Nostalgic village scenes ooze through 21 poems in poetic form. For example in the poem ‘Village Solitude’, the poet writes:

I am here, I’ll be here
I won’t go to the city
I have no part there.

Here the poet recounts the feeling of a nostalgic village migrant, and also the apprehension of the city full of deprivation, deviation and degradation. In the last stanza of the same poem, the poet fears the encroachment of perfidious and heartless city life over a village steeped in lucid hearts.

Welcome, whoever comes from there
but don’t lug the city with you
Or I’ll have no part,
not even in people’s heart.

And, in the poem ‘Farewell’, heart stricken over leaving behind the village, the poet speaks thus:

Going on ahead
you feel the village following
glancing back
you feel your self- left behind.
and continues on with a touching pathos of village life:
On the road to the new school site
more sheep than people walk,
...Even when the new school is finished
Probably there will still be more sheep than people here.
Resentment of dwindling village people can be found in
...white prayer flags with the wind,
symbols of the dead,
memories of the dead,

but where
are the living?
Piquant lines:
tara kasaile chorera lagejastai
bistarai bistarai
kina harauanchann
bihanipakha taraharu?

Somehow this pleasantness doesn’t come in the English version (remember the translator’s acknowledgment).

The poet sees the harmony of sun and cloud, light and shadow but he is baffled by bright and dark that quarrel inside him. And he writes:

I see the mountains
I see my heart,
I’m shocked by the difference.

This difference might be of the conflicting self - self torn between many possible but two opposing metaphors.

In addition to the poems from which extracts have been presented above, there are others that are good as well. For instance, ‘Bridge’ and ‘The Night Sky’. Manjul always writes in a language that is simple, and in a style that is decipherable by the ordinary reader. This collection of his poems contains his trademarks. He writes short and cogent poems. Maya Watson, to her credit, has also translated his poems in a simple, easy to read language. Though, doing a literal translation isn’t considered good, translation should not meander away from the literal meaning of the poem. But some of her translations have strayed in this sense. For instance, she writes,

I said "know that whoever walks in this beam,
my loving hand is with them"
instead of writing something like:
I said, "lit this in a darkness
and remember
which ever beam you step in that is my loving hand.
And, in ‘Dance’ Watson translates,
when you laugh
a breeze quivers
instead of
when you laugh
it seems like a breeze is quivering.

Translating from one language to another is a difficult task and when it comes to poems, it is even more difficult. Consider yourself the difficulty involved in translating poems from one language which isn’t one’s native language to another (English). Thus, despite some reservations, we should commend Watson for her difficult endeavor. As she has written that this collection of poems is intended for the English reader, I wish that the best of Manjul’s poems had been translated. While this collection contains some of his good peoms, they are not his best ones. But then, that translated collection would not have been this ‘Scenes from Village’.

(Ajit Baral, based in Pokhara, is a budding writer in English)

Business and Cooperation

By M.P. Shrestha

Cooperative Management: A Philosophy for Business is a provocative work on the nature of
cooperative management. The authors Peter Davis and John Donaldson assert that the primary reason for writing the book is to stimulate argument on the seven principles of co-operation adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Centennial Congress in Manchester, U.K. in 1995, and to make a convincing case for devoting more attention to "co-operative management." Davis is Founder Director of the Unit of Membership Based Organizations in the Management Center, University of Leicester. Dolandson is a researcher on business ethics.

The premise of Cooperative Management is the need for a "relevant and coherent set of human-centered values at the core of management practice." As the business environment puts increasing demand on enterprises in terms of sustainability, distributive justice, ethical standard, health and welfare, "mainstream" management decision-making processes have difficulty responding adequately.

In theory, co-operatives should have an advantage over share-capital-based competitors because of their strong value base. However, cooperatives have not placed sufficient emphasis on value-based management, and they run the risk of being left behind as competitors take advantage of opportunities presented by the current business environment.

This book consists of six chapters. The first, "The Context of Management: Markets, Managers and Mission," notes that mainstream management decision-making processes find it difficult to respond to demands on business in terms of sustainability, distributive justice, ethical standards, health, safety and welfare. The second chapter, "The Development of Management Theory," begins with an assessment of the nature of management theory. The authors hold that management theory in its many variations covers an unduly narrow range of concerns. This chapter outlines three schools of thought, some key ideas of influential managers and theorists like Henri Fayol and Elton Mayo, and Frederick Taylor’s "scientific management." The authors also outline the development of the Human Relations Movement from the 1920s to the Contingency Theory of the 1940s.

Chapter three, "Labor and Management," begins by acknowledging that the treatment of work and labor is not the be-all-and-end-all of a constructive philosophy for management. Cooperation is an alternative to market domination, so that cooperative forms of ownership can continue to grow alongside others. In the fourth chapter, the authors note an inevitable gap in the fit between business theory and practice, and argue that this gap needs to be reviewed continuously. In chapters five and six the authors present "seven principles" and their applications for cooperative management. These principles-pluralism, mutuality, individual autonomy, distributive justice, ‘natural’ justice, people-centeredness, multiple role of work, and labor-are claimed by the authors to form the basis for a grounded philosophy of management; this claim, however, will not be to everyone’s liking. The authors also argue that cooperative management can lead or become a focus for collaboration in resolving pressing problems of pollution, employment, poverty and sustainable development. They place purpose and value above management function, and "people" form a more general and unifying category. In so far as the role of profit is concerned, the authors prefer a "people-centered" outlook to a "profit centered" one for the justification of business in general.

Chapter Six includes a case study of the British Cooperative Bank headed by Lord Terry Thomas, who was responsible for introducing the bank’s ethical policy program and overseeing the turnaround in the bank’s fortune from a marginal and loss-making trading operation. It later became the first high profile cooperative in the British Cooperative Movement’s post-war history.

The authors divide management development into "civil service" and a "culture-based" concept of cooperative management. Their emphasis is upon processes, the division of responsibility, policy development and immediate tasks of operation, and the provision of benefit to members. The approach to business strategy is formalistic. A cooperative value based management stresses a new role for leadership in executive managers. It emphasizes the need for a cooperative purpose or "mission," determining values that form the basis for a unified organization culture. This organization culture, along with membership involvement and development are integral to the process of cooperative management. The primary role of cooperative management is to use the cooperative purpose to determine appropriate strategic responses to demands of the business environment. In this culture-based approach, professional management is responsible for the overall leadership of the cooperative, including ensuring the functioning of membership democracy and governance.

In conclusion, the authors argue that cooperative management is a philosophy of management that can be applied irrespective of ownership structure. Thus, cooperatives need managers who recognize that their enterprises need to be managed as a whole, without false distinctions between "business sides" and "social sides." Management based on cooperative values are likely to be the management of the future. Cooperatives are well placed to take advantage of this, and provide a model for others to follow.

In the final analysis, few can disagree with the authors’ central theme about the need to link ethics with professional management techniques. Cooperative Management is probably the first book to offer a practical philosophical basis for business as a co-operative, principled activity. The authors offer a challenging new application and understanding of management theory. They propose an evolutionary development towards a new cooperative outlook. Cooperative Management can be a good reference book for cooperative managers, co-operators, students, academicians, business people and the general public interested in cooperative forms of business.

(Dr. MP Shrestha is an Associate Professor at Shankar Dev Campus, TU. He has been in the teaching profession for fifteen years.)

A Collage of Post-Jana Andolan Nepal

By Anil Bhattarai

A collection of seventeen articles written during 1989-95, Stephen Mikesell’s Class, State and
Struggle in Nepal is, in many ways, a collage of post-Jana Andolan (People’s Movement) Nepali reality. These articles deal with seemingly diverse and disconnected themes such as the problems of ‘culturalist’ social science research in Nepal; the role of intellectuals in the social transformation process; the problem of centralism and ‘charismatism’ in Nepali politics especially in left politics; the future of struggles; and the ideology of development. What connects them, however, as part of a whole is the methodology followed.

The three articles in part I of the book outline the Marxist methodology of historical materialism. They provide the tools of analysis for most of the articles that follow. They are also critiques of dominant social science approach to the study of Nepali reality, in which culture assumes fossilized existence, unchanging and amenable to interpretation in terms of the practice of ritual from the textual perspective. But in actuality, Mikesell argues, no culture is unchanging. Giving the example of Bandipur town in West-Central Nepal, where he had done his ethnographic study for his Ph.D., he says that the villages and cultures in Nepal have already been integrated into the process of the circulation of British capital, symbolized in the trade of cotton manufactured in Manchester, in the nineteenth century.

During the Jana Andolan of 1990, intellectuals such as engineers, lawyers, health professionals, writers, and teachers were at the forefront of the struggle. Many people, including the author believed during that time that the intellectuals had leadership role to play for social transformation process in the country. In "Health Workers and the Movement" (chapter 6), he has written about the significant involvement of doctors for the success of the movement. But that optimism gave way to gradual disillusionment. " If I were to rewrite this (the chapter 6) new," he writes in the ‘Introduction’, "I would discard the notion of the possibility of intellectuals serving as a vanguard for a long-term movement that could provide any sort of substantial alternative to the trajectory of development, a.k.a. (as known as), commercialization." He captures the irony of post-andolan Nepal when he says, "After the movement leaders became ministers, the lawyers advocated lucratively for the Nepali Congress party against the communists, the engineer headed a multi-billion dollar dam project, and the dead became ‘martyrs’."

He is also disillusioned with the concept of writing as a transformative act. He took up a editorial job for Everest Herald for a short period. "I learned a lot about the newspapers, but found the power of pen illusory," he writes, and adds "I felt the medium was ineffectual because the urban dwellers and foreign embassies who read the paper had too much to lose to effect substantial change, even on a personal level." He does not tell us that perhaps the reason that the ‘pen’ became ineffective is because the paper was published in English. Not just the writing, but more importantly the form, the language and the distribution all determine how much power the pen wields. Moreover, the role of writing is always supplementary and complementary in a social transformation process.

Even if written many years ago, his short piece on the need of democratizing Tribhuvan University, the only big university in Nepal with a nationwide reach is still relevant. That institution is as centralized now as it was then His proposal for empowering the faculty and students in making decisions regarding the university education is laudable.

This book is as much about the future as it is about the present and the past (history). In "The Next Step: Cultivating the Roots of Rebellion," he has also tried to outline a political action. Giving examples from some Latin American countries such as Nicaragua, Brazil, and Chile, he has argued for the grassroots organizing as the basis for radical social transformation in Nepal.

However, there are some points which show his confusion. Let’s take an example. In implicitly accepting the thesis claimed by the UML that the communists succeeded best in areas characterized by higher levels of education and consciousness, Mikesell wrongly equates formal education with critical consciousness. In many places in different articles, he criticizes the intellectuals for their role as a parasite class which ‘eats’ whatever comes in the form of foreign aid as well as the resources in the country. And this class forms the chunk of the educated, more of which supposedly voted for the communists!

The book abounds in serious factual errors also. I list some of them here. He puts the year when the Nepali Congress decided to launch the movement at Ganesh Man Singh’s Residence to be 1991! Similarly, he describes Madhav Kumar Nepal as Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister during the RPP-UML coalition government in 1997 headed by Lokendra Bahadur Chand. There are many other errors of this kind. They give an impression that either no serious review of the book was done prior to its publication, or the reviewers for the publisher were grossly uninformed.

However the book constitutes one serious attempt to reflect on post-Jana Andolan Nepal, and should be read for that reason.

(Anil Bhattarai works with Lokayan in Delhi)