What can the government do for ex-Kamaiyas ?

By Dilli Bahadur Chaudhary

The government did the right thing last July by freeing up to 200,000 Kamaiyas (bonded Tharu agricultural labourers) from age-old vicious cycles of indentured servitude in Far Western Nepal. At the time, the government had promised to speedily take care of the resettlement and rehabilitation needs of the ex-Kamaiyas.

Seven months later, having stoically weathered the difficult rainy and winter seasons in squalid temporary camps under plastic and cardboard shelters, many ex-Kamaiyas – in Kanchanpur, Kailali, Banke, Bardiya and Dang districts — are starting faith in the government’s promises.

Reasons for the ex-Kamaiyas to start losing faith in the government are clear. To put pressure on the government to take the needs for immediate relief and resettlement seriously, the ex-Kamaiyas submitted a petition to the Prime Minister in early November. When no response came, they led peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins on the premises of the Chief District Offices and the District Development Offices in Kailali and Kanchanpur. The local authorities then chose to defuse tension by asking for some time to find out land to give out.

But the local authorities carried out no immediate work to look into the availability of land. More delays and uncertainties followed. Soon, the ex-Kamaiyas decided that they needed to find a more visible way to inject a sense of urgency and wake up their local and national Representatives. And in early December, they blocked major stops along far west sections of the East-West Highway for a day. Surprisingly, even then, the Kathmandu’s Singha Durbar, mired as it was in internal party politics, chose not to take the demands of thousands of free, poor and landless citizens seriously.

And so, on the morning of this past January 18, having exhausted all the usual options, the ex-Kamaiyas in Kailali and Kanchanpur chose to leave their makeshift camps and capture big, open spaces in nearby forest and state-owned land. While doing so, they were careful not to occupy private or otherwise contestable properties. They were also careful not to chop down trees.

Since the government was taking a far too long time identifying and distributing land, the ex-Kamaiyas, using their own knowledge as to where public land was available, decided to go ahead and start occupying land. Once in the new open spaces, they started mapping out 10 Kathhas (i.e 6.5 ropanis) of land per freed family, and started distributing it among themselves. As some have commented, this was arguably the first time in Nepal’s history that such a vulnerable group of Nepalis have issued a frontal challenge to the government that claims to be democratic to do something soon about their plight.

Against this background, what can the government still do for the ex-Kamaiyas?  It can achieve very little by burning down the huts of thousands of ex-Kamaiyas, as it recently did in Bardiya and Kailali! It can also do damage to itself by continue to use the Police to wield batons against the helpless ex-Kamaiyas! Instead, the government needs to muster confidence to exercise political and use its administrative machinery to really resolve this Kamaiya issue once and for all.

Since land for resettlement and money for rehabilitation work are available, the constraints are not of resources. That is why, even with the resources at its disposal, if the government fails to act decisively now, then it will have no choice but to shoulder the blame if thousands of ex-Kamaiyas end up being manipulated by the extremist elements that are unfortunately active in Far Western Nepal.

More specifically, though, the three major issues on which the government needs to take decisions are these: a) Immediately give out 10 katthas of land to each freed ex-Kamaiya family; b) issue clear signals to NGOs and INGOs that it needs serious help with immediate relief works to supply food, medicines and shelter materials; and, c) once the land issue is resolved, then lead the efforts of all the national, bilateral and multilateral agencies to start long-term rehabilitation programs.

Why 10 katthas of land? The ex-Kamaiyas have no other skills but agricultural. Giving each ex-kamaiya family a piece of land is a very crucial step to make the ex-Kamaiyas not slip back into debt bondage. Experts have calculated that 10 kattha of unirrigated land provides enough rice and wheat for a family of six for slightly over five months including a small hut. The same amount of irrigated land produces enough rice, mustard and wheat for food self-sufficiency for slightly less than one year.

Experts further say that experiences from other rehab settings show that at least 10 katthas of land is required for any resettlement program to be successful. Anything less is not viable for an extended family in subsistence agriculture. Besides, the main aim of any resettlement program is to help the target groups sustain themselves; otherwise there is a likelihood of a decline into further indebtedness and destitution.

The government need not worry about land not being available for the ex-Kamaiyas. In Kailali alone, for example, according to Assistant District Forest Officer Mr. Dirgha Narayan Koirala, 30,000 bighas (which, if available, could resettle up to 60,000 ex-Kamaiya families at the rate of 10 Katthas per family) of land have been illegally and quietly encroached upon by non-Kamaiyas in the last 25 years.

Land Reform officials say that such encroachments have also been occurring in other four districts too. Against this backdrop, it is time for the government to exercise its will to start giving out land to the ex-Kamaiyas, and if the availability becomes an problem later, then start confiscating its own land from those who are not the rightful owners in the first place. To make its work easier, it should look into the possibilities of legalising the forest and state land recently occupied by the ex-Kamaiyas.

The government claims that it is distributing up to 5 Katthas of land through the Ministry of Land Reforms. This claim is technically right but procedurally wrong. Our field visits show that some ex-kamaiyas have been given temporary ownership certificates of land which is presently being used by non-Kamaiyas. As such, even on those pieces of land, no ex-Kamaiya has built his hut or started farming, and it is likely that the ex-Kamaiyas will hold on to temporary certificates forever.

The government needs to be more serious than that. And that is why, what the Government can do is start the resettlement and rehabilitation programs is to immediately give out 10 katthas of land to each freed ex-Kamaiya family. With freedom and a secure piece of land, the ex-Kamaiyas can then participate fully in rehab programs.

(D.B. Chaudhary is president of Backward Society Education (BASE), and the convenor of  The Kamaiya Mukti Andolan Parichalan Samiti)

Kisunji’s Interview

By Ramesh Parajuli

How bland is it to read a book when one finds 15-20 typos on the first page itself? Yes. I’m talking about the book Karmayogi Rajnitigya Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. Moreover, as one flips through the pages, one finds more mistakes. Well, lots of them. Look at these, for example:

- Krishna Prasad Bhattarai was born on Poush Krishna Ekadashi of 1981 BS (page 1; para 1). Bhattarai says, "I was born on Poush Krishna Ashtami of 1981" (page 9, para 1).

- KP Bhattarai’s had three elder brothers: Badri Prasad, Narayan Prasad and Gopal Prasad (page 1, para 2, 3). Bhattarai tells us that his eldest brother’s name was Batuk Prasad (page 9; para 5).

- Bhattarai’s father died in 2001 BS (page 2; para 6). It is written on the same paragraph that Bhattarai’s father sold his two houses in 2004-5 BS!

- Bhattarai’s sister’s two sons (out of three) died on the same day (page 2, para 3). Bhattarai says that his sister had two sons and one of them died (page 17, para 1).

- Bhattarai became prime minister for the second time on Jestha of 2056 BS and was compelled to resign after 11 months (page 8, para 4). The consecutive paragraph reads: Krishna Prasad Bhattarai is the Prime Minister of the country at the moment.

One could go on. But the errors listed above are adequate to show how pathetic our publishing industry is. If there were an editor in the publishing house, most of these errors could have been avoided. In the absence of such an editor, the interviewer, Rajesh Gautam (who seldom writes in public without the "Dr." title in front of his name) should have carefully re-read what he had written to avoid such embarrassing mistakes in the introduction. My suggestion: skip the introduction!

However do read the rest of the book. Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, the septuagenarian former Prime Minister of Nepal, was interviewed some 17 years back by his party worker/ supporter Rajesh Gautam. The interviewee was then the head of the banned party – Nepali Congress which is now in power. Then it was in dire straits. Its charismatic leader BP Koirala was dead. Its leaders and workers were deserting the party following the result of the national referendum where the verdict had been won by the "revised Panchayati system" option. Even the present head of the party and government Girija Prasad Koirala, who was then the general secretary, was suspected of thinking about entering Panchayat politics. Though the Nepali Congress had decided to launch Satyagraha at that time just to show that the party existed, Bhattarai, the ‘incorrigible optimist’ did not expect much from that movement. Nor, for that matter, was he very hopeful at that moment about the future of his party. In addition, he didn’t seem to have any concrete ideas for the development of the country.

Some 5-6 years after the interview was done, KP Bhattarai and his party came into power following the end of the Panchayat system. During a decade of multiparty politics, the Nepali Congress has been in power most of the time. But its governments have not been able to live up to the expectations of the people or changed their stature in any significant way. Why? Is it because they didn’t have any idea or vision for the development of the country? One can argue that KP did his best during the transitional phase. Well. But, his performance was no better than his predecessors during his second term in office recently.

None of the PMs of Nepal has been able to serve a full term in their office. Every PM, when ousted from the post, is found pointing towards the invisible foreign hand. The late Man Mohan Adhikari was most vocal among this. Should every our head of the government have to bow before the ‘foreign forces’ to retain his post? How true is this statement/charge? Perhaps only the future can provide us the answer. However, according to KP Bhattarai, it is India that has played the kingmaker’s role in Nepal.

Examples are aplenty. India interceded and put an end to the revolution of Sat Sal without prior knowledge of the revolutionaries (Bhattarai doesn’t take this act negatively as BP Koirala does in his Aatmabritanta). Kashi Prasad Srivastav was given a cabinet berth simply because India wanted its man in the office. BP Koirala had to resign from the home minister’s post because India wanted Matrika Koirala to head the government. And so on. Does India still hold that power?

Nepal became the first country in the region to recognize the existence of Israel. It shocked India and it reminded Nepal that it was against the 1950 treaty for Nepal to do so. In reply, Nepal asked India if it consulted Nepal before establishing diplomatic relationships with many countries. India also misinterpreted Nepal’s relationship with China and Pakistan. Moreover, BP Koirala made Jawaharlal Nehru retract his words regarding Nepal’s encompassment in India’s territorial security arrangements. These deeds were more than enough for India to support King Mahendra’s move in removing the Nepali Congress government from power in 1960. "The blunder was," Bhattarai relates, "to be unable to identify the enemy – the King." "Not only that, we virtually bestowed more power to our enemy," Bhattarai adds.

Historic events are intriguing. Read this interview to find out what Bhattarai thinks was King Mahendra’s role in land reforms and the nationalization of forests. There is interesting stuff here about K. I. Singh’s revolt, and the machinations of Khukuri Dal. But also be prepared to be put off by the interview as times. Bhattarai, as usual, is incoherent and speaks out of context many a time. The unedited text and additional errors add to the reader’s despair.

Despite these distractions, the book is still an important historic document. Had Gautam not shown the impatience that led him to try to publish this book while KP was still in office (Girija Koirala’s calculations spoiled those of Gautam), the text and the production quality could have been much better.

(Ramesh Parajuli has a deep interest in Nepali politics)

Reviewing a Asian Writers Meet Debating "Asian-ness"

By Sushma Joshi

It was a toss up between Derrida and Jumpha Lahiri, and I chose Jhumpa. It was the seventieth year for the Father of Deconstruction, and the philosopher sat patiently in a crumbling synagogue with Gayatri Spivak generating random, disconnected sentences on one side, and another woman, fashionably attired in bobby pins and rhinestone glitter on her hair, talking about her new book called Stupidity, on the other. It looked like the old man would not even get a word in edgewise, keeping with the best traditions of deconstruction. So I made a quick decision to jump on the subway and head uptown, where the New York Times was holding a panel on new Asian writers called Asian Voices. Jhumpa might be able to provide more insights on life, truth and reality than the panel on deconstruction could at this moment in history.

Jhumpa Lahiri, the celebrated author of The Interpreter of Maladies, which won the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1999, was present along with Chinese authors Ha Jin and Anchee Min, and Cambodian author Loung Ung. Ha Jin’s collection Ocean of Words won the PEN/Hemingway award in 1997, while Anchee Min’s memoir Red Azalea was an international bestseller with translations in twenty-seven languages. Somini Sengupta, a Calcutta born metro reporter working for the New York Times, moderated the panel.

Ms. Sengupta opened the panel by pointing out that the concept of "Asian" writing itself was a contested term, with some people choosing to embrace it while others rejected it. Jhumpa Lahiri said that this politics of identity was a recurring question. She could not get away from the many labels that people attached to her. Some people perceived her as Asian, while still others thought of her as American, Bengali or Indian. "If I proclaim myself as one thing, people will debate and say that I don’t have the authority. If I proclaim myself Indian, some people will say I am not. But people in the US immediately think I am Indian." She said. Ha Jin pointed out that the question implied a predicament. "We are on the margins." He said.

So why were all these Asian writers choosing to write in English? Ha Jin, who grew up in China, said that writing in Chinese would be suicidal for him in the US. Ha Jin immigrated to the US after the Tiananmen Square massacre and received a Ph.D in English from Brandies University. He couldn’t find a job after graduating and finally turned to writing for a English speaking market. What was the reaction to his work in China? Ha Jin’s book has characters with bound feet, which is a sign of the shameful, backward, feudal traditions that led to the Cultural Revolution under Mao. The book has no translations in mainland China. "Even my mother asked me: what did you put in your book. But a character with bound feet is very common in the countryside."

Anchee Min is a bubbling, energetic woman with a slight trace of an accent. The words fall out of her mouth as if she can barely wait to say all the things that she is feeling. Anchee Min came to the US at the age of twenty seven without knowing a word of English. Min’s first job was as a waitress in a restaurant. "‘May I take your order’ was my first English words. When I had to fill out the forms for immigration, I could not find the translation for "man" or "woman" in my communist Chinese-English dictionary," she says, laughing. Anchee Min worked in a labour collective under extremely harsh conditions for a number of years. A talent scout finally recruited her for the lead role of Madame Mao’s future propaganda films. With the help of a friend Joan Chen, Anchee Min came to the US. The anecdotes about this difficult time in her life come out of her with vivid force and the same unquenchable humour with which she talks about her move to the States.

Ung, who was five years old when Pol Pot’s genocidal regime overran Cambodia, and who eventually settled as a refugee in Vermont, said that English was her forth language, after Cambodian, Chinese and French. "The English language has exceptions, and then exceptions to the exceptions." She said, laughing. Ms. Sengupta asked Ung: "You are working full time as a human rights activist to tell people about a horrible inhuman moment in history. What happens after you tell them? What then?" "Then I get on the literary panel of the New York Times and scream some more." Ung answered. "I want to push people so they can’t say they didn’t hear about it. I want to put the Khmer Rouge in trial for crimes against humanity. Humanity starts with one person. I am writing to serve a bigger purpose than myself." Asked about whether she would have written her book without her family’s approval in Cambodia, Ung says: "No. My country has gone through genocide. If I didn’t think about my family, I could not write. My family goes about in fear of their lives. The fear might be psychological, but I would never write anything that would put them in danger."

Jhumpa Lahiri, who grew up in the US, also said that English was not her first language. "My parents were insistent about only speaking Bengali at home. I learnt English from Sesame Street, I learnt English when I went to school at the age of four." Asked about whether translating Bengali concepts in English was a challenge, Jhumpa Lahiri answered: "Writing anything is a challenge. Even when it’s an artificial way of making people speak, making a line of dialogue true is a challenge." Did she get any inspirations from Bengali writers? "I don’t really read in Bengali, only very slowly and painstakingly." Did she ever think of whether people would approve of her writing? "That would be a recipe for lifelong neurosis. For me, it’s not important what people’s reactions will be."

It is encouraging to see how the publishing industry in the US is beginning to publish authors beyond the conventional, Anglo-Saxon staple fare. But did these four authors manage to represent the totality of "Asian" writing, or was this Asian writing a very specific cross-section of a disrupted, globalized world which ends up representing a larger whole known as "Asia"? Migration, political upheavals, genocide and the refugee crisis are big parts of what the world is, at the end of one millennium, and the beginning of another. But there are other realities waiting to be discovered, smaller and more mundane, maybe, but nevertheless the sum total of lived experience. And these smaller Asian voices will not be discovered until the globalized apparatus of the publishing industry shifts to allow more localized voices to emerge, and be discovered in all the diversity of languages and cultures that make up Asia. We wait the day when the power of the market and the gods of small things will finally allow Asians to be published in numbers beyond the token.

(Sushma Joshi is a student at the New School of Social Research in New York)

South Asian Security Studies

By Pratyoush Onta

Two Delhi-based organizations, Indian Council for South Asian Cooperation (ICSAC) and India International Centre (IIC), routinely organize events related to South Asia. In mid-October 2000, they invited young participants from most of the other South Asian countries to a meet in New Delhi entitled "Role of Non-Governmental Agencies in Promoting Regional Cooperation in South Asia." The meeting consisted of two-day official exchanges followed by a sightseeing tour of Agra and Jaipur. I was then living in Delhi (doing research on cognate subjects) and when a friend from Kathmandu emailed me to say that he was coming for the meeting, I got in touch with the organizers and asked if I could join the meet. Along with the invitation came a tentative program. On the first day, the participants would visit the School of International Studies (SIS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), SAARC Desk in the South Block and ex-PM I. K. Gujral. The second day would consist of discussions.

Over breakfast on the first day of the meet, the participants were privately informed that the trip to CPR – an organization that has played a key role in generating research and activities related to South Asian cooperation – was cancelled because the "organization was in internal trouble." In fact CPR had been in the news since security expert Brahma Chellaney was fired from his job in August 2000. He had in turn filed a legal petition against the Director Mr V A Pai Panandiker and the case was ongoing when the New Delhi meet took place. During the following month further news report about CPR appeared in the Indian media. In response several of its faculty members published a letter in which they stated that despite the legal battle, CPR’s "ability to continue to function effectively, independently and with distinction is not in any way impaired."

With CPR off their visiting list, the participants were first taken to meet faculty members and students of the South Asia Division at JNU’s SIS. After an hour of interactions where inevitably Nepali participants had to answer questions related to Nepal’s supposed generosity towards ISI activities in its soil, the visitors were then taken to IDSA where deputy director C Uday Bhaskar welcomed them. Established in 1965 with governmental support (recent annual volume of which has been about IRs 3.5 crore), IDSA is described as India’s premier think tank on matters related to defence and security. Bhaskar and one of his colleagues described their organization as being at "the cutting edge" research on these subjects and proceeded to give a lecture on the recent broadening of the notion of security. Once they were through, this writer asked how academically autonomous IDSA was given that its funding came from the Indian Ministry of Defence. After an unclear answer to that question, a Sri Lankan anthropologist wanted to know how many researchers at IDSA were looking at security issues from a gender perspective. When it was said that there were none, she cut to piece the hosts’ proclamations regarding "cutting edge research." We left the IDSA premises thinking something was amiss in the organization.

Exactly a month later, a two-page article appeared in Outlook (13 November 2000) which said IDSA is "in a self-destruct mode." It went on to report that "infighting, plain incompetence and an autocratic boss" were the reasons for the gradual death of the institution. When I read that article, I told myself that at this rate, ICSAC and IIC will run out of institutions where they can take invitees from the rest of South Asia for a dekko! More seriously I then thought that a thorough analysis of the malaise affecting institutions such as CPR and IDSA in India, and corresponding institutions in the rest of South Asia (both within and outside of universities) is necessary to understand the status of studies on subjects related to security, regional cooperation and other related issues.

With all the above happenings and thoughts in mind, I sat down to read Security Studies in South Asia: Change and Challenges edited by Dipankar Banerjee. This book is a compilation of selected papers presented in a seminar in July 1998 in Sri Lanka organized by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies. Many of the contributors approach security studies by highlighting shifting notions of security (in particular its broadening to include ‘human security’). Second, most lament the status of security studies in South Asia by focusing on one of the countries. Space limitations make it impossible to do full justice to the ideas contained in the various chapters. However it must be mentioned that the above expectation regarding a sustained analysis of the institutions which have engaged in security studies is not fulfilled by any of the contributors. Some do mention the names of such institutions but not much is given about the environment and the context in which they have failed to excel.

Nevertheless there are plenty of insights in this book. Those new to Jayadeva Uyangoda’s writings will find his chapter provocative. He argues that current social sciences including security studies in South Asia have "largely evolved as biographical sites of the nation state" and are hence complicit in its violence against various modes of internal marginalities. Shaukat Hassan writes about emerging environmental concerns. P.R. Chari, W. Lawrence S. Prabhakar, V. R. Raghavan write about various aspects of security studies in India and Zafar Iqbal Cheema, Rasul Bakhsh Rais, and Khalid Mahmud do the same for Pakistan. Dilara Choudhury and Sugeeswara P Senadhira have contributed a chapter each on security studies in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka respectively.

Dhruba Kumar, Nepal’s foremost expert on matters related to security in the region, bluntly states that there "are no centres of learning in Nepal where security studies are pursued with a full-blown programme." He then provides an insightful sociology of how the leadership in Nepal has historically upheld security as a way to preserve its political interests. After 1990, this rule was broken but the new leadership has itself become "a real threat to the security interests of people." Kumar’s chapter is comprehensively suggestive. It and the rest of the book is worth a read.

(P Onta is a convenor of Martin Chautari. While an undergraduate student at Brandeis University, he worked with the now-acclaimed Chinese writer Ha Jin in the University’s library)