NATIONAL12 [ (Spotlight Weelky)]

Law And Injustice

A prominent lawyer surveys Nepal's emergence from isolation to openness

By AKSHAY SHARMA

Kusum Shrestha, 65, is a prominent lawyer who has observed and participated in key moments in Nepal's modern history. He recently shared with SPOTLIGHT childhood experiences that shaped his outlook and his observations on the nation's emergence from isolation to openness.

"My father, a trader who visited Kathmandu occasionally, had been deprived of education. So he wanted his sons to be well educated. He wanted them to become doctors, lawyers, engineers." But dreaming such dreams was not easy then. "There were fundamental differences between the education system then and now, where every village has a school. There used to be a school funded by the Japanese, which was considered a model. But the Maoists have destroyed it today."

"In those days, education was for those who could afford it. Those who had the money could take the arduous seven- or eight-day journey to Kathmandu. The political scenario was quite different in those days. When a very important Rana visited the school, children had to stand up and sing praises. Now who cares? Then people didn't know, and now people just don't care. Maybe it's because of the empowerment of the people or maybe they have become conscious."

"I was in the 7th or 8th grade during the 1950 revolution and Bandipur was a hotbed of political activity. I had a mit buwa (godfather) from Gorkha who used to ask me, ëWhat's the news from Kathmandu?' He used to tell me that the Ranas would pulverize the Nepali Congress. Ironically, he became an active Congress member after the revolution."

"I vividly remember this person on a horse who had gathered the illiterate people of the neighborhood to talk about the Gandhian ideology of Satyagragha. All of a sudden, we heard shots fired. The man on the horse who had instigated the masses was running in full speed, while the illiterates died."

Shrestha was studying in India when parliamentary democracy was abolished in December 1960. "I was a law student in Calcutta when I read the news in the Statesman. There have been many interpretations about the event, but there is no doubt that India was involved. B.P. Koirala had been a headache for both India and the palace."

Shrestha soon returned to Kathmandu with his law degree. "The system I came into was very archaic. I was puzzled with the word ëIjlas', which I found meant ëthe bench'. My experience was very raw and my family's ambitions very high. I developed an inferiority complex of sorts. I was then introduced to Krishna Prasad Bhandari and we formed a team of lawyers. The first thing we found out was that we had no job."

"I was very interested in the unfolding political scenario. Then we decided to fight for the liberation of political prisoners. I remember this case of Mahendra Narayan Nidhi who had been locked up for handing out pamphlets against the Panchayat system. He was accused of tarnishing the image of the monarchy. The trial took place in the burning heat of the Janakpur summer. The judge who presided over the case, Damodar Shamsher, was dressed in the traditional Nepali daura-surwal, coat and a cap. I was with G.R. Sharma and Laxman Aryal."

"I could afford to be a bit aggressive in those days because I wasn't married. So all of a sudden from my tongue rolled off the lines of Tomas Paine's "Right's of Man". My final argument was, ëCan you persecute Tomas Paine? Can you persecute the American Library? And can you persecute the men who read it? The judge, though stunned by my remark, said, ëI know of that book but it's just theory. I am going to prosecute Mahendra Narayan Nidhi because the people in the villages' will read his pamphlets. He later offered us a ride in his car back to Kathmandu.

Shrestha's generation of lawyers came into a system that was mired in a big conflict. "There were laws like the Muluki Ain, but you needed judicial theory, principles of justice and principle of accountability." He says the Law Campus was creating good lawyers in the beginning. "You had to be a graduate of any subject to enrol. But when they started the policy of taking student after their SLC, it started preparing lawyers capable only of earning their bread. The policy makers could not keep up with the country's demand for good lawyers. Those who studied abroad got a better education.

He says this neglect is continuing because leaders and officials have not been able to take a wider view of things. "We have a good bureaucracy, but this, too, is being plagued by political influence. We have a talented pool of people, but they are not doing their jobs."