Oped»
Confirmation bias
AUG 04 -
Although I did not get to watch the episode personally as it was broadcast on the TV, there are many who remember Krishna Prasad Bhattarai being challenged by the Indian media on why the Nepal Army did not take in Madhesis (or, people from the Tarai, as that is how they are likely to have been described then). In a masterful rhetorical feint, Bhattarai is reported to have answered: Neither does your army.
That was during his 1990 visit to India as the prime minister in an interim government overseeing the transition from an autocratic monarchy to what we had all hoped even then would be a new Nepal. Depending on your predilection on the matter, you would either react with ‘Touché’, or vilify Bhattarai for believing that the 1990 movement had been no more than a transfer of power from the king to the political parties.
Two decades later, no politician or political party seriously considering national office can get away with what Bhattarai said. And, yet, there is this great obstacle when it comes to recruiting Madhesis into the Army. Even the promise of support in the prime ministerial stakes by the alliance of the four major Madhes-based parties failed to impress either the Maoists or the Congress. It is also significant that at the institutional level, until some time ago, opposition to the idea of wholesale recruitment of Madhesis was that of the Army alone; the three big parties seem to have come around to a similar position.
Granted that ‘group entry of Madhesis’ into the Nepal Army is in itself a rather vague proposition, is open to interpretation, and might even be a red herring for tactical use by our ever-calculative politicians. But that is hardly a reason to not even consider it a subject of national debate.
Although not many spell it out, the reason for this resistance is pretty clear—fear of a fifth column working for the southern neighbour within the Army. History is replete with examples of whole populations being suspected of disloyalty towards the country in which they live. Perhaps the most notorious was the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Suspect loyalty has also provided a cover for other nefarious purposes such as Stalin’s deportation in 1944 of nearly half a million Chechens to Central Asia in a bid to bring some calm to the ever-restive Caucasus.
But military service, and the inherent notion of ultimate sacrifice, has also been a means of proving one’s worth to the nation. Writing about the revolutionary movements in Europe that succeeded in democratising citizenship, Morris Janowitz, the revered theorist on civil-military relations, writes: ‘Military service emerged as the hallmark of citizenship and citizenship as the hallmark of a political democracy.’
We believe Nepal is a political democracy and also that all its citizens are equal. If that is indeed the case, there are any number of reasons to encourage greater numbers of all its citizens to take part in public life, including in the Army, for that can only serve to strengthen nationhood, not thwart it.
The response to the criticism that the Nepal Army has very few Madhesis is pretty standard, and generally follows the line that there are no restrictions to anyone applying; the Army will not go door-to-door inviting Madhesis to join up, etc. The Nepal Army website dealing with the ‘State of Inclusiveness in Nepalese Army’ even hazards that perhaps there is a ‘lack of interest on the part of Madhesi communities to join military services’. It even trots out the excuse that there is ‘almost no representation of Madhesis in the British or Indian Gurkhas’, conveniently forgetting that Madhesis are not citizens of the United Kingdom or India, and the governments of these countries are not answerable to Nepalis for their policies, howsoever erroneously conceived they may be.
The Army also claims that ‘Recruitment is voluntary and competitive’. While there would certainly be plenty to quibble about the ‘competitive’ part, there is no doubt that more Chhetris (comprising over 40 per cent of the Army’s strength) voluntarily enter the Nepal Army. That is partly the function of the sheer number of Chhetris applying, and can be traced to the tradition of Chhetris joining the Nepal Army just was it is for Gurungs and Magars with regard to the British Indian army.
But if it wanted to, the Army could easily carry out a campaign to induct more Madhesis (and Dalits). It probably has not even occurred to our military top brass that most Madhesis probably do not even know that Army service is open to them. If after every attempt has been made to make the Army more inclusive, and that will take years if not decades, and the proportions remains the same, and only then can anyone conclude whether interest is forthcoming or not.
Let’s also state it outright that the general view among Pahadis is that Madhesis do not make good fighters. Such a belief is common even among Indian Gorkhas, who would have come across units of the Bihar Regiment of the Indian Army sometime or the other in their career. Many Nepalis are perhaps not even aware that such a regiment exists, or that it was soldiers from Bihar and Avadh (cross-border cousins of Nepal’s Madhesis) whose actions instigated the 1857 uprising against the British in India.
There are similar fallacies with regard to other groups as well in Nepal. Take the case of Newars. Although we all read of the gallant resistance by Kirtipur or that for more than 60 years three Newars have been revered as martyrs who braved death for the cause of popular rule, hoary jokes about Newars and their supposed lack of courage still do the rounds. Bahuns are attributed a similar propensity to funking out of battle even though historically they formed a significant part of the soldiery, along with Chhetris, Gurungs and Magars, in the original Gorkhali army of Prithvi Narayan Shah. For one reason or the other, and this has partly to do with the pseudo-scientific theory of martial races propounded so powerfully by the British in India, that, despite every evidence to the contrary, among certain groups such as the aforementioned Chhetris, Gurungs and Magars there is a belief that it is innate in their character to be better suited to military service.
That is perhaps why you have observations like this on our Army’s website: ‘When asked to Sipahi Deependra Yadav currently working in Supply & Transport Battalion, Kathmandu about relatively less turnout of Madhesis in NA, he said it is primarily due to rugged training Madhesis prefer to join Police and other government sectors rather than in Nepalese Army.’ An army of the 21st century should know better than to give credence to statements that belong more to the Orientalist tradition of 19th-century British Indian army ‘handbooks’ that dwelt on the qualities of ‘martial groups’, among whom the Gurkhas figured most prominently. The Khas (Chhetri), Gurungs and Magars were identified as the Gurkhas in one those early handbooks. I wonder if the martialness of the British Gurkhas has diminished since as there a number of Newars and Bahuns as well among its ranks, not to speak of the many more numerous Rais and the Limbus. The sahibs think not, but what of their brown counterparts in Nepal?
Posted on: 2010-08-05 09:10
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