Where are you guys?

Has the all knowing conceded? Isn't this the time for a solid discussion. Why are you guy(s) hiding your tail(s) these days?

Ashu, you give too much credit to King all the time. Even after doing all this, you don't find King to be a monstrous villain. If somebody had been a martyr in the movement from your family, you would have definitely thought differently about him. King didn't fled because he still thinks that he can rebounce and take over again. That's so simple. You mentioned he shut out local competition and I agree with that. There is no gambling here. How would he just forget about all the business that he ran with monopoly for all his life and go to Swiss alps? Even if he can afford it, he is not going to do it just because he wants to save his business and properties for his generations. However, what bothers me is you keep Moriatry's view in terms of Maoists. I agree with the fact that they are not trust worthy as a ruler but what's the solution to the crisis at this moment? Moriatry would bring US army to continue quash Maoists but the guriella warefare would have gone indefinitely that way. That's just a dictator policy.

Ashu,
I have been a silent admirer of your persuasive writing skill, however, this time around, I have to beg to differ with you, and this is with due respect to your views and freedom of expression.

1) You wrote:
=======
If the king really was a monstrous character, he could have killed more -- and be killed or fled the country like so many African dictators. The biggest question is: Why didn't he do that? Wouldn't it have been rational for him to collect money, pack up his bags, and spend the rest of his life skiing on the Swiss Alps?
======
I completely agree with you when you say that you are persuaded more by ideas and individual's actions, and NOT by ideologies and what political parties do. But I don't understand what made you justify Gyanendra Shah's action in individual basis.

I believe that Gyanendra does not have as much incentive for money as he has for the legacy of power that Shah kings have habitauted themselves on. More than money, I think the hunger for ruling has stopped Gyanendra for resorting to those seemingly lucrative options. Gyanendra was a businessman before being a King, so it was rational for him then, as a businessman, to pack up his bags and spend his life skiing in Swiss Alps. He had enough money already in his pocket to materialize those lucrative dreams. But, his ambitious dream to strengthen the vulnerable base of monarchy in Nepal has motivated him to step down. He is one extreme exponent of autocracy so he is here to stay and rule on people more than anything else.


2) You wrote:
=======
Now, the political parties have taken the task of "delivering" to people. In this, I am afraid, we are going back to the 1995 (pre-Maoist) situation.
=======
This is another losely based argument. The argument is flawed because it highly under-estimates the imapact of maoists and the "more elightened" civil society on the political base of Nepal. Right after 1990, the parties were not required to be as much responsible as they have to be now. Then, they had the luxury to be careless, yet be unnoticed, but now they are in constant monitoring from maoists and an enlightened civil society. So I think they MUST deliver now or else get ready to face JAN-ANDOLAN version III, and that time the people will impose questions on their existence.


3) You also wrote:
=========
We can have as many constitutions we want. But constitutions mean NOTHING. What matters is the enforcing mechanisms or instititions.
=======
I agree with you on this. As long as there is no system that can enforce the rule of law, the constitution may only just be another random book in the national library. However, the question of enforcing the law only comes into picture when we do actually have the law, which we don't have it in correct form at the moment. The 1990 constitution is flawed, by default, since it was not legally approved by the commoners, hence the need for the CA.



Lonely...

Ashu wrote:
>If the king really was a monstrous character, he could have killed more
> -- and be killed or fled the country like so many African dictators. The
>biggest question is: Why didn't he do that? Wouldn't it have been rational
>for him to collect money, pack up his bags, and spend the rest of his life
>skiing on the Swiss Alps?

Swiss Alps ? That's a quite ignorant assumption.

The Hague. That would be an informed assumption.

Even for those 21 killings, I am pretty sure he is not going to remain scot-free at least if he decided not to co-operate with a smooth transition of Nepal to republic. In case he decided to co-operate, people might want to let him go peacefully. Otherwise there are lots of people determined to put him behind the bar.

*** *** ***

As for failure of KG, this guy never had anything to offer to people. "Peace" was a bluff and the "order" was a fantasy.

There ain't "peace" without silencing Maoist's gun. KG did not have anything except khursani-yagya, musa-yagya and pancha-bali to do that.

Recently the Maoists reveled that the palace had offered them 20 years of sanyukta satta if they helped to finish off the political parties. Look at the level of the ignorance of KG. He is even oblivion of the fact that the Maoist's is an ideology-driven movement.

There were few people who bought KG's bluff. Most people of Kathmandu, that Ashu presumes otherwise, were like myself- pissed off with political parties' neglect to Maoist issue and Singh-Durbar aimed agitations, and waiting for the time that would sunshine their "ghainto".

The movement was done NOT BY the people who had bought king's bluff but BY people like me who saw real prospect of peace and democracy in "12 points agreement" and the slogan of "Loktantrik Ganatntra". People who bought king's bluff were few, to begin with.

*******************************************
*******************************************

Sunnydev,

I thought "decastification of surnames" would be self-guiding if not self-explaining. Anyway, "decastification" was the purpose and "freedom to choose surnames" was the method, in my proposal. The idea was to let anybody to choose/change any surname any day of their life so that, as more people do that, a particular surname remains no longer limited to a particular caste. The idea is to confuse the caste. Of course a person who is proud of his/her caste and does not want any outsider to use that caste will not be happy with it. But who cares the caste chauvinism ?

It should be obvious, this method is primarily intended to free people from the stigmatized identity. The reason I chose "freedom" (as a matter of fact, I would like to make it "encouragement") "to choose any surnames/caste" was to avoid Mahatma Gandhi's error. Gandhi thought he liberated Dalits by just giving a respected class name of "Harijan". It did not liberate Harijans from their stigmatized identity.

I hope I made it clearer.

Nepe

Hope, everything goes as Nepe says. It makes me think is it really like that though? I think the bigger mess is coming soon. It will be while deciding on how to put both RNA and Maoists army under some international body. Maoists are not going to give up their guns that easy. RNA will take the same course of action. On this conflict, there could be bloody coup this time by RNA and rule after that could be just like in Burma. Hope, that doesn't happen but it is too early to count the chickens yet.

Mr. Lonely, Gyane still has incentive for money to maintain the status quo and consolidate his power. Otherwise, why would it take this long to hand over power? Isn't money required to continue his dynasty as they are accustomed to? How would Gyane be thinking when he knows he might not have access to state treasury any more? Would you want to loose everything what you already have for nothing? Or do you think he has given up and there is no doubt about it?

Arko,

Sure. Gyanendra Shah does have the incentive for money, but I believe, that is more to maintain his status quo and to consolidate his power as you mentioned than to fulfill the lucrative dreams in Swiss Alps as Ashu suggested. If it was ONLY for money, then probably he would settle with the status of a businessman which he already had before the takeover. Apart from money, I think the greed for power consolidation and continuation of the 200 yrs. old regime have motivated him more to take all the autocratic actions that he has taken till date.

Nepali people should not have short-term memory problem.
If Gyanendra killed 21 peoples, who killed the whole Birendra's family?

I am sure it is difficult to track back all those fading proofs and interpret manipulated interpretations, the government should honestly try to find out the culprits.

Shall we all be left behind to believe in a fairy tale in which a pampered prince goes berserk, selectively kills people (while maticulously protects others) in a party, judges the situation, and uses his mammoth weapon to kill himself!!

Nepe,

You made it clear how "decastification" ( this new word may go little further) would confuse people and lead toward elimination of racial stigma. But I am still unaware of your proposal. "Decastification" has been in practice for a long time. I don't know is it legal or not though. I have no problem lending my surname to anyone in this world. Current law doesn't allow anyone to own copyright of their surname so their is no legal problem on that issue too. So what's your proposal? Just a humble question.

Sunnydev,

1. The practice of changing surname is very rare and arbitrary. As far as I know, there is no law that deals particularly with this issue. However, arbitrary change of name/surname could be interpreted as fraudulence (किर्ते) by some existing laws, I suppose.

In any case, I think, a lot of people (from stigmatized castes) will go for changing their surnames (caste) if they know that is welcome. It is important to note that I am not talking about "mass conversion" to newly invented surnames. I am talking about individual and discreet conversions.

2. If you are asking for detail of my proposal, it is yet to be worked out.

However, the major ideas, some of which I already discussed, are something like this:

● Incorporate the freedom of surname (do not call it "caste" because that will be constitutionalizing the casteism ) in the article regarding basic rights in the constitution.

● Bring a law that allows a citizen to change his/her surname any time.

● Educate people (GOs, NGOs, POs can help with some kind of campaign).

That's all I have for now.

Nepe

Ashuko ra Girija line eutai jasto lagyo ni au!

Thanks a lot for the clarification.

I am not sure, how successful would that be in nepal. Darjeling is a good example. But success in Darjeling may be attributed to British invasion, Education, Christian influence, majority and economic status of stigmatized caste and many more. I don't see anything bad to give it a shot. I will support this.

Sunnydev,

Thank you for your understanding and support.

I think whatever tools and method we have using so far to get rid of casteism weren't sufficient. So my proposal was for doing something more. In that sense, it is going to be fully successful. I do not have a shred of doubt.

I am anticipating a new era of creative thinking in Nepal. So I hopeful that this or similar approach will be well received in future.

Nepe

one for the throne and two for the legacy

Nepe,

Do you think just by legalising the right to change one's surname will mitigate the deeply rooted racism we have been facing for centuries?
I agree that imparting education to as many people as possible is a very important step towards addressing the problem of racism, however when we see in US, racism is still commonplace no matter how much the citizens are educated. I believe, to some extent, racism is inherent in blood of a normal human being. Do you really see it getting abolished completely?


Lonely.

Lonelyji,

As it should be clear, the scope of my proposal is limited to CASTEISM and the new approach I proposed is complementary to all the approaches that are already in practice.

So, I would rather love to hear opinions regarding usefulness, practicality and harm if there is any in the approach I suggested.

The larger question of racism you raised is definitely important and interesting. However, I am not there yet. Besides I prefer to think about the things we can do. My favorite mantra is this prayer of serenity:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Nepe

Nepeji,
I appreciate your honest intent towards rectifying the social disparity which, I believe, is the crux as far as the solution for the imepediments to the social development is concerned. Your idea of "decastification" certainly sounds promising to begin with, however, I have few queries to be answered.

You said:

The idea was to let anybody to choose/change any surname any day of their life so that, as more people do that, a particular surname remains no longer limited to a particular caste. The idea is to confuse the caste. Of course a person who is proud of his/her caste and does not want any outsider to use that caste will not be happy with it.
=================
and you also said:

the scope of my proposal is limited to CASTEISM
===============

Now, as far as I have understood, if the purpose of CASTEISM (in your own word) is to generalize the society in terms of surnames, would not it mean that the effort is to allow people of lower caste to be able to use the surnames of higher caste so that they don't have to live a derogatory life in an unjust society anymore?

So where are we heading towards?

The big picture is certainly heading towards anti-racism, isn't it? So, I guess the scope of your proposal in NOT just limited to CASTEISM only.

Secondly, I don't think the concept promises easy implications. You said that the idea is to confuse the caste. I am afraid, we may end up giving too much liberty to ill-minded people if we legalize the concept of "confusing the caste" within a society. What if a person asks to change the surname back and forth? How many times is he allowed to switch his surnames in his life?

A "pode" in our society may change his surname but he cannot change his occupation, because that is what he knows probably how to do. If he had more education, then probably he would have more options. Moreover, even if he changes his surname to let's say "Upadhyaya", our unjust society will never ever give him the respect which he deserves as a human being.

I believe, the most important thing is the mindset of the society. If a person from a lower caste is educated and capable enough to become the head of the state where he is born, then why can't he be? Until and unless the social mindset cannot justify a person by his deeds and not his caste, all efforts, I am afraid will remain in vain.


Lonely...

Lonelyji,

I appreciate your comments and questions very much.

Some quick notes.

> What if a person asks to change the surname back and forth?
>How many times is he allowed to switch his surnames in his life?

Why would anyone do that ? Changing surnames back and forth many times will be more inconvenient for the person him/herself than to the society, wouldn't it ?

So, I guess this kind of things will not happen much. If there is really chances for too much of this happening, we can limit it to only one time.

When I said any time, I was actually only emphasizing that it should not be limited to children when they are registered (in Gabisa or school). Adults too should have that chance. That's all I meant.

>A "pode" in our society may change his surname but he cannot
>change his occupation, because that is what he knows probably
>how to do. If he had more education, then probably he would
>have more options. Moreover, even if he changes his surname
>to let's say "Upadhyaya", our unjust society will never ever give
>him the respect which he deserves as a human being.

I agree that mostly educated and mobile people will benefit from this. Once again, I turn to my "prayer of serenity". Let's try to change what we can. For the rest, we will need serenity to accept them.

Nepe

Social discrimination is profound in villages where the people are familiar with each other not just by the name. People do not check their citizenship to discriminate. To the people unknown to each other one can pose to belong to be of any caste as long as ones physique doesn't lie. Discrimination at the level which can be avoided by changing surname should be and can be faught in a legal basis.
I am stilll thinking over it and can't convince myself. Isn't it like running away from the problem than solving it? Instead of allowing everyone in temple, why do we need to change people's surname first then allow? However, if this workaround is easier to implement and would not cause some other legal and social problem, we may get enough support for this proposal. Let's convince each other now.

don't people of high (sorry this is how it is termed) caste like bahun or chettri have a system of looking into gotras whicle marrying. just merely changing names will not solve the problem. well you might say who is talking about marriage.? wrong answer marriage has lot do do with socioeconomic strata. high caste are either rich or at least have access to prermium resources through relatives or contacts.

my view is Education up to 12th grade should be free and based on merit students will be awarded scholarships for college. still bahun chetri and newar will be among the ones who will get those coveted scholarships because they have more resources. so we need some kind of affirmative action to make sure the underpriviledged gets some piece of the pie.

Sunnydev and Balbhadra,

What I proposed, as I have emphasized, should be taken as complimentary to all other approaches in practice or available to do away with the casteism and discrimination. Education, laws against discrimination and affirmative actions must go together with this one.

Talking about the affirmative action, it is necessary that we should devise ways to avoid changed surname being problem to implement that. The mechanism needs to be worked out. In some situation, particularly where confidentiality is desired, this might be trickier. Thank you Balbhadraji for bringing up this issue.

Nepe

जातपात
कान्तिपुर पाठक मञ्च
मे १७, २००६
- http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnepalinews.php?&nid=73918

डेरा पाइएन

अस्थायी रूपमा भए पनि लोकतन्त्र स्थापना भएको छ । देश गणतन्त्रतर्फ उन्मुख हुँदैछ । राजनीतिक, आर्थिक, सामाजिक र सांस्कृतिक रूपमा पछाडि पारिएका जाति र वर्गमध्ये दलित समुदायका पीडामा लोकतान्त्रिक व्यवस्थाले कस्तो असर पार्छ ? स्वाभाविक उत्तर सुनिए— लोकतान्त्रिक राज्यव्यवस्थामा नागरिकको नैसर्गिक अधिकारको ग्यारेन्टी हुन्छ, न्यायपूर्णर् तवरले नागरिकले सामाजिक, आर्थिक, राजनीतिक लगायत अधिकार निर्वाद उपभोग गर्न पाउँछन् । यो व्यवस्थाले सामाजिक असमानता, विभेद तथा थिचोमिचो पूर्ण निषेध गर्छ । व्यवहारमा त्यस्तो देखिएन ।

दुई साता अघिको कुरा हो । डेरा खोज्ने क्रममा म गोंगबुमा गएँ । हास्य कलाकार मोहन मिश्रको घरमा पुगेँ । घर पनि हेरेँ । कोठा राम्रो लागेपछि हामीले डेरा सर्ने निधो गर्‍यौं । एडभान्स दिन जाँदा हाम्रो जात थाहा पाएपछि घरमा सल्लाह गर्नुपर्छ, पछि सम्पर्क गर्नु भनेर भनियो । हामीले संकीर्ण मानसिकता भएको मानिससँग सधैं बस्न गार्‍हो हुने महसुस गरी फेरि सम्पर्क गर्न आवश्यक ठानेनौं । पछि नेपाल टेलिभिजनको 'युरोपियन युनियनद्वारा प्रायोजित बार एसोसियसनको छुवाछूत विरुद्धको अधिकार' सम्बधी विज्ञापनमा उनलाई देख्दा अचम्म्ा लाग्यो ! आफूलाई शिक्षित र सभ्य भन्न रुचाउने तर अभिव्यक्ति र व्यवहारमा आकाश-जमिनको फरक गर्ने ढोँगीहरूको समाजमा कमी छैन भन्ने नमुना हो त्यो । यस्ता धेरै घटना यत्रतत्र देख्न पाइन्छ । यसलाई मनोवैज्ञानिक रूपमा गरिएको दुव्र्यवहार भन्न सकिन्छ ।

मनोवैज्ञानिक तवरमा दुव्र्यवहार गर्नेलाई हाम्रो कानुनले राम्रो व्याख्या गरेको पाइँदैन्ा । त्यसका आडमा दलितहरूले पाइलापिच्छे अपमानित र दुव्र्यवहार भोग्नुपरेको छ । कोठा दिनु-लिनु नितान्त व्यक्तिगतजस्तो देखिए पनि यसले सामाजिक संरचना र मानिसको चिन्तनमा अझै परिवर्तन्ा आएको छैन्ा भन्ने उजागर गर्छ ।

लोकतान्त्रिक र समानतामूलक समाजको निर्माण गर्ने भन्न्ो पार्टी, नागरिक समाज र सरकारले मनोवैज्ञानिक रूपमा कसैले कसैलाई शोषण गर्न नसक्ने नीतिनियम बनाउनेतर्फ समयमै ध्यान दिने हो कि ? म जस्ता पीडितहरू कानुनको अभावमा त्यत्तिकै मानसिक तनावमा बसिरहनुपर्ने बाध्यता कहिलेसम्म ?

- धनकुमारी सुनार

____