Editorial»
Hundred rupees per rally
JAN 13 - Construction laborers are glad to have found a seasonal occupation. Instead of breaking their backs doing the dirty job of carrying bricks, preparing masala of sand and cement, and returning home with their nostrils lined with a fine layer of cement, they are increasingly preferring the decent and clean profession of participating in political demonstrations.
Political demonstrations, for them, are ways of socializing with humanity at large, and also an opportunity of building up on their poor network of acquaintances with people, who they think are ‘significant’. However, that is entirely an opinion. And opinions can be misleading. Whether small time builders are significant or people with big ideas, who gather masses to destroy the little that the country has managed to erect so far, could be an excellent subject for a research for a deserving student in a deserving university.
Santa Bahadur Magar, leader of a group of construction laborers, is in constant contact with rally engineers, who come from a variety of political backgrounds. With rising turmoil, political parties, it appears, have appointed their most reliable and brightest people as rally engineers with the express responsibility of making sure that rallies and demonstrations that are staged on the streets of Kathmandu match their definitions in the Oxford Dictionary. Parties have rightfully realized that in the 21st century, everything is manufactured, be it consent, dissent, happiness, unhappiness, ideology, development, demolition, democracy, autocracy, good governance, bad governance, and, not to miss it out, a political demonstration. Therefore, the laboratories of political parties are busy with new inventions. At present, the focus is, indeed, on manufacturing dissent and rallies.
The rally organizers offer Santa Bahadur’s sizeable team Rs. 100 per head for a rally. Agreed, that is less compared to the Rs. 170 they earn on daily wages. But Santa Bahadur’s men are wise. They know that rallies have a future in this country. If things continue at the present rate, Santa Bahadur and his men could soon be one of the busiest people in the country, with the brightest income prospects, as a peaceful Nepal is a faraway dream, and with dropping number of protestors, laborers could charge exorbitant sums for their services. After all, the process of change requires huge investment. That partly explains why revolutionaries indulge in unbelievable magnitudes of corruption as soon as they acquire power, so that they reach break-even as soon as possible.
Santa Bahadur’s men have rightfully realized that construction of any kind is in direct violation of the national spirit of these times. The rebels are busy destroying physical infrastructure, while the parties have so far managed to uproot the political infrastructure by letting the constitution go defunct. In their own unique ways, the biggest muscles and the brightest brains of the nation are busy staging grand demonstrations and spectacular demolitions vis a vis the system, bridges, houses and even social values. Even the most affluent country would be envious about how redundant infrastructure, of all sorts, have become in this country.
In a couple of years, when everything is demolished, the era of construction might reign once again (which is the most optimistic view we can have of things, given the present developments). When symptoms of the era of construction becomes visible, Santa Bahadur’s men will switch back to their original profession, to re-construct the flattened structures, so that they could later be destroyed again.
This unique way of providing perennial employment to the hitherto semi-employed mass deserves kudos. Compared to the monotony of jobs that take up huge quantities of energy, participating in rallies has proved to be a cocktail of outing, jeering, cheering, fighting, as well as a sense of worthiness in terms of having done something for the country.
Santa Bahadur, as head of his team of paid protestors, has also been cherishing a fairly plausible dream of becoming a venerable political figure one fine day. Deservedly, as new bruises adorn his body every day, he becomes more eligible for ministerial seats. After all, most of our leaders have claimed their rights to high offices merely on the ground that they were beaten up during demonstrations, or were jailed for political reasons.
Meanwhile, the indispensability of laborers for staging a sizeable political demonstration has made it clear that party supporters are on an eternal vacation. While students who have left their classes for good are barely managing to make their voices heard, the importance of down-to-earth laborers has skyrocketed as they know how to attract attention: burning tyres and enjoying the heat. As the cheapest form of heater, tyres are unmatched. You only need a matchbox, while the tyres are for free. Garages supply them in abundance to rioting masses and in exchange they revel in the thought that even a thing as useless as a used tyre can contribute something for the country.
Garage owners hope to continue experiencing that satisfaction for long.Posted on: 2004-01-13 02:25
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