E-Kantipur

JANAKPUR, MAR 20 - Everybody in Biratnagar, the political and business hub of Eastern Nepal, says how stable the district of Morang is, how minimal are the disruptions to daily life caused by extortion, murder or political mobilization. But stability is a state of mind: the mind adjusts and learns to accept prevailing circumstances. So the middle-class inhabitants of Biratnagar appear to feel largely at peace.

Even though on the very day they claimed that the district was in a situation of normality, all movement across the district was at a complete standstill. And it was not one, but two groups that had forcibly imposed a shutdown. The transport workers union had, first, declared a strike because a bus driver had been killed by his passengers for being asked to get off the roof of the bus. Then, the CPN-UML had declared a banda in protest of the attempted murder of a prominent activist of its affiliate organization, the Youth Force.

Anger and passion were of course natural for the friends of the murdered driver and the injured Youth Force activist. However, for many other inhabitants of the town—journalists, INGO workers and even members of other political parties—these incidents are matters to be spoken about with something like a skeptical detachment.

As one travels west, however, through the districts of Saptari, Siraha and Dhanusha, the tone begins to change. For here, though a semblance of societal equilibrium does exist, it does so at a much lower level than Morang. In Lahan and Janakpur the politically engaged—journalists and human rights activists, for example—speak of how entrenched criminality has become.

Phone calls, threatening retribution if massive sums of money aren't paid, aren't taken as seriously as a year or two ago. This has become a business, it is said.

Anybody with a mobile phone desiring a quick buck can make such calls. There has been such a bewildering proliferation of armed outfits claiming that they are fighting for the liberation of the Madhes, that even the most astute trackers of their movements have lost interest in following the precise nature of the splits and alliances among the various groups. Their political activity is minimal, after all. Two young men with a crude gun bought on the Bihari market can adopt a name that rings of violence and revolution and set up shop.

The young and idealistic in these towns speak in a tone alternating between resignation and outrage. Everyone, all claimants to authority, whether political or social, are complicit in feeding upon the social body that exists at a low level of stagnation. There is no growth, no employment opportunity, not everybody can migrate to the Gulf or get jobs with foreign aided NGOs, but money has to be made somehow.

The armed groups threaten and extort, the police may know who and where they are, but what is in it for them to apprehend the criminals? Better to collude with them, turn a blind eye to the extortion or the smuggling in return for a cut of the profits. In any case, if they do not take advantage, somebody else will. There are plenty of political leaders, including the large national parties, willing to use their influence to free those arrested. What they get in return is some money, but more importantly gratitude and political support, or to be more precise, the assurance that those they have freed will use muscle-power for the party that has freed them.

After all, one never knows when use of force to bring large groups onto the street or to subdue potential rivals will be necessary. Under such circumstances what is the young journalist or human rights activist to do?

 

Posted on: 2010-03-20 12:00

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