Looking forward to Kathmandu Summit

By Mohan Lohani

After a delay of more than two years the eleventh SAARC Summit, which was to have been held in Kathmandu in November 1999, has been rescheduled for early next month, that is, in less than five weeks from now. All member states have confirmed their participation in the Summit. It is hoped that the SAARC process will be reactivated, as the prolonged postponement of the Summit had led even those closely associated with SAARC to react and comment in despair that the process that began at Dhaka sixteen years ago had drifted into darkness. The suspension of the SAARC process, to quote Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, former Secretary General of SAARC, was really a great loss, in particular to the smaller states of South Asia.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation or SAARC representing seven member states was launched in 1985 after more than five years of exhaustive spadework at the level of foreign secretaries and foreign ministries of the region. The Association, which will celebrate next week its 16th anniversary, was an expression of common desire, to quote the Late King Birendra, to bring about increased understanding and collaboration among member states in many fields of endeavour with the objective of securing for the peoples of the region economic advancement and social security. Considering the difficulties and problems confronting the region such as divergent security perceptions, bilateral disputes, ethnic and religious conflicts and diverse political regimes compounded by uneven levels of development, the launching of SAARC was admittedly an epoch-making event with far reaching implications and consequences.

It is true that for seven years (1985-1992) marking the first cycle of cooperation, SAARC focused mostly on non-controversial programmes of symbolic significance and refrained from embarking upon the core areas of cooperation such as trade, finance and investment. Nonetheless, the initial years of SAARC made some positive gains in regularising important meetings and consultations within an institutional framework. The SAARC Secretariat headed by the Secretary – General has been functioning since 1987 to monitor and coordinate the SAARC activities and carry out other mandates issued by the Summits. The group of Eminent Persons’ (GEP) Report has recommended that the status of the SAARC Secretary – General should be upgraded to the Ministerial level as has been the case with ASEAN, and that there is a strong need to professionalize the Secretariat as SAARC continues to move into core economic areas of cooperation and expand its activities in social and cultural fields as well. The GEP Report with its wide-ranging recommendations will most likely come up for discussion at the forthcoming Summit. Besides, the host country Nepal has also done its homework on the Summit’s agenda covering substantive issues of concern to the region.

SAARC Secretary-General Nihal Rodrigo addressing a press conference recently in Kathmandu, informed that the three-day eleventh Summit would focus on the entire gamut of regional concerns including an assessment of the developments after the 10th Summit in Colombo and the signing of the two conventions relating to protection of children and trafficking of women in South Asia. The issue of terrorism will certainly figure prominently on the agenda, and the Summit is expected to forcefully reaffirm its commitment to the 1987 SAARC Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism and the need for its expeditious implementation, as the Convention has not been effectively enforced owing to lack of enabling legislation in most member states of the region. At the same time, it will be difficult for South Asia not to join forces with the global coalition against terrorism. It may be recalled that all the States of South Asia have already condemned, in strongest terms, the horrendous terrorist attacks on the US last September. Host country Nepal, a victim of terrorist violence within its own territory, has been forced to declare a state of emergency to deal with the growing incidence of violence and terror resulting from Maoist insurgency, to maintain law and order and to provide security to the people.

Poverty alleviation in South Asia is an issue of no less significance and merits serious attention. South Asia, needless to point out, is inhabited by over one billion people representing one fifth of humanity. A majority of these people are steeped in abject poverty leading to inertia, backwardness, destitution and utter helplessness. While SAARC since its inception has emphasised the need for people –to-people contacts, the architects of South Asian destiny are its peoples who are both agents and beneficiaries of development and change. Experts are of the view that regional cooperation in core economic areas would be one of the most effective means of reducing the high incidence of poverty in the region. It is a pity that the SAARC Three – tier Mechanism on Poverty Alleviation which was set up by earlier Summits in response to the Report of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation has not been as effective as expected. The Kathmandu Summit is thus expected to take a decision to make the Mechanism operational and increase its effectiveness.

In the social sector, the Declaration of the tenth Summit in Colombo envisages a Social Charter for which Sri Lanka has already prepared a concept paper. Adoption of a Social Charter designed to achieve major objectives such as poverty alleviation, population control, women’s empowerment, youth mobilisation, the protection of children, human resources development, health, nutrition, sanitation and safe drinking water will certainly go a long way in facilitating social transformation and improvement in the region. The concept paper with necessary amendments is likely to be endorsed by the forthcoming Summit.

Despite cynical remarks and critical comments, SAARC which has already witnessed ten Summits has taken important decisions of far reaching significance on major issues of regional concern. The SAARC spirit on a sustained and predictable basis is crucial to regional cooperation and must permeate all its activities. It is heartening to note that the SAARC spirit has been kept alive at Track Two level even when SAARC’s formal meetings including the Summit are stalled. There is a consensus that regional cooperation is the best possible means of realising the tremendous potential that exists in the region. Since there is a sense of shared destiny among the member states, the SAARC process must continue to consolidate the gains of cooperation already made during the last decade and a half. Let us hope that the Kathmandu Summit will prove to be a milestone in giving a new thrust to the SAARC process and revitalising the regional organisation to achieve its goals and objectives.

A social worker laments

By Ayushma Pandey

I am doing my Bachelor of Arts in Social Work, which is a three years’ programme like most of the bachelor level courses here in Nepal. And every year, we are placed in different agencies especially those involved in the delivery of social services as part of our curriculum. Last year, I was placed with one of the leading organisations working for the rehabilitation of trafficked girls. Whenever any guests used to visit the organisation I was always introduced as a volunteer. This, I found (and I still find) to be the most embarrassing thing in the world.

Not only me all my friends who are placed in other similar social welfare agencies have the same kind of complaint - "we are treated as volunteers". (And to tell you the truth, my friends were the ones who urged me to write this article voicing their heartfelt disagreement.) Yes, it definitely seems as if we have no status when we are called as volunteers. Not only this, we are also given works that are absolutely incompatible with our course of study like handling telephone calls, receiving guests, report translations to name a few. Thus, feeling greatly dissatisfied by the treatment of the various agencies, I find it absolutely necessary to assert that we are social workers and we have to be given due treatment.

I feel the reason for us being called volunteers was that we were very non-assertive of our status and never ever raised a voice against the ones who designated us. But the reason could also be that they did not know that social work now is not what it used to be in the past. For the ones who don’t know this, here is a piece of information - social work today has turned itself into a full-fledged profession and it no longer remains the same as it used to be some hundred years back. Social Work emerged as a kind of philanthropy when a person used to address other’s problems with his or her best efforts. Then as society became more advanced, new and complex problems came into being which could no longer be taken care by the primary institutions like family, religion and others. Thus, a new and modified version of social work grew with the same vision of helping others but in a different manner. It turned itself into a profession, which now tells all the social workers "to help others help themselves."

If it were only to handle telephone calls or receiving guests why would we be taking a social work course? We would have gladly taken secretarial course or so to suit the kind of work bestowed upon us in the agencies. Thus it is a very earnest request from a wannabe social worker to all of the agencies where we are placed to please consider our status and treat us likewise. We are placed in your respectful agencies to learn about the kind and manner of service you all are delivering to the society. Thus I ask of you on behalf of all my friends to give us the maximum opportunity to learn about your agencies and thus help us enrich our knowledge as well as experience.

Social work in Nepal is in its infancy today. Please give it a chance to nourish and attain its maximum growth. Let us not overlook its importance especially in this uncertain world of today where no one has even a second’s time for the other, where our nation is in a state of vulnerability and ambiguity. Thus, it is just a request from me to all the agencies not to take us for granted and help us make our presence felt in the sector of social services in Nepal.

Inside ‘the living martyr’

By Basanta Lohani

5PM, Saturday, December 1, 2001. I just got back home after attending the Chaurashi of a historic woman. Among those who felicitated her was Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. She is historic because her husband, whose 90th birth anniversary falls tomorrow, shared whatever he was with her saying ‘I am she and she is me.’ For anyone on whom the almighty has bestowed it, such an occasion as Chaurashi is indeed a great feast transcending what our Great Poet, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, described in his poem originally written in English forty two years ago while on his death bed in Santa Bhavan Hospital. The poem was "Life is the richest feast for man here born". Chaurashi is indeed the richest feast. It celebrated not just being born here but being able to see 1,000 full moons.

Chaurashi is the Vedic way of expressing gratefulness to the almighty for granting a long and purposeful life. Hindu religious belief goes that the moon spent considerable time in a great penance to please Lord Vishnu. So any one having seen 1,000 full moons owes to the divine godhead the prosperity of one’s family and the country where one belongs. Chaurashi is done in an elaborate religious arrangement where the moon together with Lord Vishnu is worshipped followed by a reception where relatives and friends are invited. My own father had this occasion three years ago. To do so, one should be able to complete 81 years and around six months so that one will have seen 1,000 full moons during his or her existence on this planet called earth. But the general practice is that it is done anytime after one completes 83 years and moves onwards even up to ninety. And, she has completed 85 years and a few months. Her name is Rewanta Kumari.

She is no ordinary name, even if many people do not know her now. An American professor, James Fisher, in his book Living Martyrs: Individuals and Revolution in Nepal says: "To tell Tanka Prasad’s story while ignoring hers (as Regmi 1950, Joshi and Rose 1966 and Kumar 1967, among others have done) is to describe the sound of one hand clapping". Dr Fisher chose to write of Nepal’s democratic struggle on a wide canvas with Tanka Prasad Acharya as a focal point because "Tanka Prasad occupied a symbolically unique position in Nepalese political life." It was like uniting the events of a forgotten past in a flow of time focusing on Tanka Prasad and Rewanta Kumari for hidden insights into Nepal’s democratic struggle. Rewanta Kumari is Tanka Prasad’s wife who struggled together with him, supporting her husband’s commitment. She was his communication channel to the world outside jail where the autocratic Rana rulers imprisoned him for over ten years because he had led an organized democratic struggle against Rana family oligarchy. I share Fisher’s view of Tanka Prasad as one of the first revolutionaries of Nepal. Being a Brahmin he was spared death, unlike four of his comrades who were executed. Since then, he has been called ‘The Living Martyr’.

At the age of 24, he founded the Praja Parishad in 1936, making it Nepal’s first political organisation. Its ideology became the foundation of Nepal’s democratic struggle culminating in the overthrow of the Rana regime in 1951. Tanka Prasad’s greatness lies on a different front. We all know he was not a charismatic leader, nor a scholar, nor a leader with many followers, nor even won an election. What front then? Yes, that front which has now become treacherously void in our country, political integrity. This is what Tanka Prasad had in plenty, surpassing all. And, because of this, he commanded a moral authority that remained unparalleled. He subordinated individual interests, his party’s interests to the broader sensibility of the nation.

This became the source of his strength, the source of his love for the country. Dry honest as he was, this found its perfect expression when he became the prime minister in 1956 at the age of forty three, for eighteen months. Here he proved his mettle in his unflinching commitment to the people and the country, in giving a clean government and laying the foundation, this time, not of political revolution but surely of an economic one in terms of infrastructure development. This is how Nepal’s first five-year plan was launched to give focus to our development efforts, a central bank opened for regulating the monetary system and a Public Service Commission established to build up a strong bureaucracy that can implement the policy initiatives of the government, staying free from the individual whims and fancies of those harbouring greed.

Experience shows that the political values that leaders unceasingly fight for while in the role of revolutionaries normally do not materialize when it comes to practicing those values in the new role of running the government. What could bear greater testimony to this than the developments we have been witnessing this past decade. And, is precisely here that I find in Tanka Prasad a towering figure. In his case, the two different roles did converge on his values. This is how he never harboured any political ambition or illusion and never allowed greed to devour finer sensibilities. Instead, he was reconciled to doing whatever he could in his life after 1961 for the people’s fundamental rights instead of making deceitful manoeuvres and compromises for political gain. After the royal takeover in 1961, his house indeed provided shelter for indigenous political deliberation and concern, keeping alive the hope that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

I remember sometime in 1980 putting a question to BP Koirala, Nepal’s another great son, whom I have described in my writings as one of the four great leaders of this country. The question was: why didn’t you ensure a political equation so that your comrades in arms in the struggle against the Rana regime, like Tanka Prasad and Dilli Raman Regmi, could have been in parliament after our first democratic general election in 1959? I had further said to him: to this end, may be you should have even arranged not to field any Nepali Congress candidate in constituencies where such leaders contested the election? I was not satisfied with his answer. This was duly published in Paristhiti, the paper I edited then. So when democracy went, the immediate scenario that emerged did so in a fashion to indicate that democracy belonged only to the Nepali Congress with self-centric operations.

The kind of relation that Tanka Prasad enjoyed with Rewanta Kumari transcended to a higher plane blending into a confluence of revolution and psychological dependence. This is best reflected in what he told James Fisher. I quote: "My wife is more than an angel to me. We are inseparable. There are only two people in the world: I and my wife. As Krishna said in Bhagwat referring to Radha, ‘she is me and I am she’. She is much braver than I ever was. She did all she did for me plus she bore me seven children. She is all in all to me" Tanka Prasad’s physical presence is no more since April 23,1993. He, as ‘The Living Martyr, has attained immortality. And, Rewanta Kumari, his better half, is in no haste because she is enjoying her ride with Death perhaps in the way the American poetess Emily Dickinson described in a poem published after her death in 1886:

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just
Ourselves—
And Immortality.