Our fecklessness

That the Nepal-Bhutan official level talks were doomed from the very start was quite clear from the manner in which the Finance Minister, Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, and the Royal Nepalese Ambassador to Bhutan, Dr Bhek Bahadur Thapa, said publicly that the refugees verified at the Khudunabari camp would return home by the end of the year. Dr Mahat said this in August after the ministerial level talks in Thimpu and Dr Thapa said almost the same thing except for a delayed time frame at the Reporters Club just recently. Their optimism was too good to be true and we had said as much. The Bhutanese stand on the refugee issue has been rigid all along despite the pressure brought to bear on Thimpu by the Western powers to restart the delayed talks that finally go underway late last year. During the talks the verification process was agreed upon. But there is now no mistaking that all this was a mere gesture on Thimpu’s part to remain in the good books of West without really conceding anything. The verification process at the Khudunabari camp where almost 13,000 refugees have been languishing for the past decade is almost complete. But their return home to Bhutan is still a distant dream. The categorisation of the refugees will have to follow and despite their having been forced to sign signifying their "voluntary exit" from the Druk Kingdom, most of the refugees will not be allowed to return because of antiquated and inhumane laws. Such laws prevent the return of "voluntary" exiles back into Bhutan, no matter how subtly coerced such "voluntary" exits might have been. Then there is the "Bhutanese with criminal records" category. As long as they are Bhutanese, whatever their records, they should be Bhutan’s responsibility. It is not a responsibility that the Druk government can shirk by simply disowning its own bad boys, especially when such disowning means another country has to be saddled with them.

It is worth reiterating that Nepal should never have conceded to any categorization of the refugees other than Bhutanese and non-Bhutanese. Conceding to anything in between was only capitulating to Druk diplomacy which has deftly managed to fudge and obfuscate things to take full advantage of the fact that we are faced with a fait accompli and are not negotiating from any position of strength. Some observers are beginning to say that Nepal might be hinting at its willingness to live with some of the refugees after all. That would only mean Thimpu is succeeding in its designs. It also means that we have failed to take the whole problem with the seriousness it deserves. We never took the initial inflow of refugees seriously until the trickle became a flood. We never took the Bhutanese establishment seriously only to learn to our cost what formidable diplomatic adversaries they can be. Blaming Bhutanese intentions is one thing. But it should go hand in hand with the condemnation of our own fecklessness. We should now examine the options that face us and choose from them and act upon them with the requisite will power to make up for past failing.

Women’s property rights bill

By Bacchu Balami

The House of Representatives recently approved the controversial Women’s Property Rights Bill with a majority vote amidst boycott and shouting by the opposition parties. When the bill was presented for discussion, lawmakers from the main opposition UML walked out of the Chamber protesting the provision requiring a daughter to return her share of inheritance after marriage. They said this particular provision infringes upon the right to equality (between men and women) enshrined in the country’s constitution. The lawmakers belonging to small left parties shouted against the bill when it was put forward for approval. However, the Minister for Works and Physical Planning, speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, defended the bill known as the civil code (11th amendment) bill saying that it would abolish existing discriminations between son and daughter.

The ruling party legislators claim that the bill would establish the equal right of a daughter to paternal property and she will also be entitled to the property of her husband as soon as she gets married. The bill, under consideration for the last five years, has invited strong criticism from pro-property rights activists as well as those who want the existing legal provisions to continue.

Nepal’s cultural spectrum is wide and varied. It is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society and each of the ethnic communities relates somewhat differently to its women. Scholars classify the population of Nepal into two broad cultural groups, Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan. From a multi-dimensional status comparison of women in these two groups one can conclude that women in the Tibeto-Burman groups have greater freedom of choice in marriage and mobility, and larger decision-making roles within the household. However, women from both groups lag far behind men in respect of access to resources, education and knowledge, health facilities, modern avenues of employment and income as also in the political arena.

Women in general are discriminated against in many aspects of life. Particularly in the Indo-Aryan groups, they encounter gender discrimination in feeding and childcare practices, in education and access to health services. Girls are married off early and face life long discrimination in the affinal household in access to food, clothing, health facilities, etc. Their mobility is restricted by cultural practices. When poor, women in general have access to only low-paid and low status employment opportunities. Nepalese women are discriminated against in the laws on property rights in all communities, which deny them inheritance rights in the parental household after marriage, making their access to property conditional on marital status and sexual behaviour.

A fundamental disadvantage women face in the exercise of their legal and political rights, besides economic powerlessness, is the cultural perception about their sexuality and sexual vulnerability and the subsequent possibility of physical violence against them. Tolerance of domestic violence, public rape, and girl trafficking is a clear example of cultural attitudes which hinder women in the exercise of their political and legal rights.

As such, when we talk about legal provisions for the right of women to property the law is there but the practice is something else. A woman is entitled parental property at the age of 35, but in practice her brothers get separated by that time. What property will she get? Whatever remains is to take care of the parents. When we talk about people without issue, their property passes on to sons in the extended but family not to daughters. It is said that when a girl becomes a wife she is entitled to her husband’s property, but there is no provision that says she will get the property immediately after she gets married. In order to get any property either she should remain married for fifteen years or she should reach the age of thirty-five if unmarried. Or else she should be a victim of violence. A woman is entitled to her husband’s the property if he beats her, or if he takes another wife. In Nepal before the advent of the property bill there was virtually no law to guarantee women’s right to property.

The government took an about-turn from an earlier draft of the bill that would have allowed women to retain their share of parental property even after marriage. The opposition CPN-UML, accusing the ruling Nepali Congress of adopting double standards, threatened to step up protests in Parliament and outside until the government ensured that women are allowed to keep their share of parental property even after marriage.

Childhood fantasy ?

By Birodh Pandey

At 14 he is bold and outgoing like any urban teenager. He is not extravagant in his thoughts and deeds although he is well acquainted with friends in Kathmandu. Deepak Raj Dahal hails from the remote village of Okhaldhunga, and he has come to Kathmandu to work as domestic help for a well off family, which frequently visits America.

His is a typical example of the arduous life a child his age faces back in his remote village, yet he shows not a single trace of inferiority complex. He is full of life and, above all, he has determination rarely found in a village boy. His eyes glitter with passion and dreams. "I want to be the Prime Minister of this nation", he proudly declares to his friends. One should pay due attention to his aim especially at a time when everyone is mocking at successive prime ministers of this country.

"The country is in need of a leader with vision and dynamism", he says. Just look at his choice of words. Or has he just repeated the customary speeches, which he has heard innumerable times- on radio, TV or back in his own village?

The Maoists have to win the hearts of the people if they want their revolution to succeed, but they can't terrorise the people, he boldly comments. He is confused why there is so much difference between the value of the US dollar and the Nepalese rupee. If the world talks about equality, then US dollar and Nepalese rupee should be on par, he suggests.

Poverty alleviation would be another part of his agenda, if he were the PM. Until and unless we distribute the developmental opportunities
equally we cannot accomplish the task. He plans to shift city centred developmental activities to the remote villages.

Although he advocates austerity, he wishes to visit his village by plane after becoming the PM. Perhaps, the political bigwigs, who visited the villages in the wake of natural calamities, were his source of inspiration.

It is really astonishing to see a boyish dream of becoming Prime Minister, while other children his age think only of some lucrative profession. Or has he seen the premiership to be more lucrative? I wonder if our former prime ministers ever dreamt during their childhood of running the nation some day? Did they have the same traits as this boy?

Recently, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba's father narrated the fortune teller's predictions about his son. So why not Deepak’s father also consult one?

In search of logic

By Bikash Sagraula

There is too much to understand, too much to warn oneself against, and too many miles to cover before something akin to coherence appears in the vast and unfriendly collage of existence. There are no generous traffic signals to guide us in the perilous trip of life, and accident is as frequent as changes in the direction of unforgiving winds. Your only compass consists of your intuition, a muddled mind and the dubious advice of those who find pleasure soliciting wisdom that they could never implement themselves. But carry on you must. You look for some logic in the scriptures, in the acclaimed works of long-deceased philosophers and in the lopsided accounts of history.

It doesn’t work. There is no logic that is logical enough; no philosophy that can provide you with a complete set of answer. And the questions that occupied the great minds of the past are not relevant to your problem. After so much of tumultuous searching, you have arrived at your point of departure!

Such is the perspective that assails many youthful minds, if not the others. It is not as romantic a perspective as it might seem. On the contrary, it is a fatal disease that drains the vital sap of life. Some fortunately recover their cheerfulness in the oblivion of eventfulness, while others aren’t fortunate enough. The latter have to earn happiness through a personal struggle which remains a secret known only to themselves, for it has no tangible form and the victor has nothing material to show for announcing a grand celebration.

Several methods are popular for escaping this gloomy perspective. Some opt for a vigorous life, allowing themselves very little solitude, because they know that solitude is precisely the uncharted terrain fertile in bleak vegetation. Others opt for a warmer solution in the form of a sympathetic confidante, preferably of the opposite sex. This is a widespread practice among the softer and more sensitive types. Still others pledge their whole lifestyle to some rigid religious practices and thereby bring a sense of order to their lives. This is generally practiced by those to whom freedom of thought has become intolerable. In the process, some may become superstitious, shamanistic talisman-hunters and some may even shun social life and become self-proclaimed saints. Still others may choose to lead a quiet life of silent contemplation.

There are still other methods of escaping gloom, which are less discussed due to their self-destructive and socially disruptive implications. Drugs and moral debauchery fall under this category. The hippies elevated much of this to the level of a culture in the 60s. This is the shortest route to self-harmony and the shortest-lived. It is pure escapism. Sadly, existence demands much more than just an escape from a perspective.

It is said that suffering is a prerequisite for self-actualization. Perhaps, but surely not if escapism becomes the chosen path. After all, can we escape ourselves - our experiences and our attitude? The roots of disillusionment lie deep in the physiological make-up of an individual. Much of it is engineered by our core beliefs.

The contention that human being is the centre of the universe is probably the most serious mental block that leads people to a thoroughly negative view of life. The logic that follows is that if we are the chosen species, then rest of the universe is there to make us happy. Sadly, reality doesn’t provide any ground whatsoever for such a contention. Do we have any conclusive evidence to believe that humankind is the purpose of evolution? Maybe we are only the vehicles for a set of genes. Maybe, in the next million years, we will evolve into a still more efficient species. After all, we cannot be absolutely sure about our supremacy in the universe. How much of the universe do we know about and how many of the innumerable planets have we really explored?

Some people complain that life doesn’t have any meaning. What! Why do you need a meaning for being happy? Why should human existence have a divine meaning? What about a frog’s existence? After all, frogs are our equals in the planetary ecosystem. And even if life has a meaning, why do we demand that we know it? Maybe, we don’t have sufficient sensory apparatus to discern the mysterious of existence? Science has proved beyond doubt that this is certainly the case.

Before deciding that existence is a misadventure and becoming an escapist, we should be adequately lucid to examine the roots of our standpoint. Unfortunately, many people find this too demanding and spend their lives in a cocoon of darkness, reluctant to change and absolutely certain that there is nothing more to learn. But we still have hope in the form of some courageous people who have stubbornly refused to live a life of resignation. These people have challenged the dark spectre of disillusionment and triumphantly constructed their happiness. Such heroism is a pressing need of this age.

We all live our own sets of puzzles, the solution to which we alone can furnish. Submitting ourselves to some ready-made remedies is not the solution. If one is to truly live an intense and dignified life, one must construct a personal religion - a solution based on the unique life situation that defines each of us. It might seem a tough ask. It is, but the rewards are dazzling. Victory is for those who dare the adventure. And there are numerous examples!

Though one cannot boast to know a universal solution to the problem, some practical tips may prove handy in developing a habit of constructive realization.

1. Look outwardly: Chronic occupation is oneself does not help. Be interested in others; think about them as much as you can. Take an active interest in life.

2. Forgive: An unforgiving attitude is usually the result of the inability to forgive oneself. Life is a long journey and mistakes are frequent stations. Learn to forgive others, and you’ll be able to forgive yourself.

3. Communicate: Don’t hide your follies. Discuss it with others and you’ll discover that they too aren’t perfect. Try to improve on yourself and always remember your aces.

4. Read: If you don’t have this habit, make friends who have. Beware, not all books profess a positive perspective.

5. Don’t compare: You are a unique human being with a unique talent. Discover your talent. Don’t try to be someone else.

6. Love work: Work might be boring in the beginning. But work you must. Learn to love it and half of your problem is solved.

7. Priorities work: You don’t have to do everything today. Meet the deadlines but don’t hate yourself if you can’t.

8. Enjoy small successes: There are many unnoticed successes bestowed upon you each day. Discover them and rejoice. Big successes will follow.